한국 대학생들의 거절 화행 전략에 관한 연구

A Study on Refusal Strategies of Korean University Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Korean EFL speakers refuse offers in social situations. This study was compared between Korean speakers and American speakers to see what difference exists between the two groups. Participants of this study included Korean university students as well as students attending a university in the Southern United States. DCT (Discourse Completion Test) was also used to elicit refusal strategies from participants. The results showed both similarities and differences between the two groups when declining an offer. Both groups tended to directly decline an offer giving reason as to why they declined. As a direct strategy for refusal, most participants in both groups used the strategy of direct refusal (“No”). However, when refusing to close friend's request, although the Korean group used the strategy of direct refusal (“no”), the American group never used the strategy. When students refuse to a professor's request to have coffee outside, Korean group used the strategy of regret 26% while American group never used the strategy. This shows that Korean learners are more sensitive to the interlocutor's relative status. So Koreans used the strategy such as “I'm sorry” or “Sorry.” Therefore, language teachers need to develop more effective teaching methods to teach the speech act of refusal by means of multi media such as videos and CDs in the EFL classroom.