A pragmatic study of refusal to invitations by english and persian native speakers

This study is an attempt to investigate English and Persian university students’ behaviors in refusing the invitation. To this end, 60 participants (30 English and 30 Persian speakers) took part in the study. They were administered an open ended questionnaire in the form of discourse completion task (DCT) in which they had to refuse the invitation of interlocutor. The findings were then analyzed according to taxonomy of refusal strategies proposed by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz'S (1990). The findings showed that the participants of the two groups tended to employ indirect strategies more than direct ones in refusing the invitation of interlocutors. Moreover, reason, regret and appreciation were the most frequently used strategies by both English and Persian native speakers. Overall, the results of the study revealed that cross-cultural communication between English and Persian native speakers in refusal to invitations is not problematic as there are more similarities than differences between these two groups in using the refusal strategies. It is hoped that this study could add to the body of knowledge about pragmatic behaviors in general and refusal to invitation in particular.