UKRAINIAN REFUSAL SPEECH ACT IN NATIONAL CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Jiang Qingchuan, qingchuanjiang6@gmail.com

Postgraduate Student, 

 Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/StudLing2024.24.111-127

PDF (ENGLISH)

ABSTRACT

A Refusal Speech Act (RSA) is a speech act in which a refusal is made to cooperate with a specific request (invite, suggestion, offer, etc.). Such a speech act threatens to save the face of the communicators, putting both communicators in an uncomfortable situation and even destroying harmonious interpersonal relations between the speakers. In carrying out such acts, it is necessary to adopt some strategies and tactics of refusal to reduce the threat of loss of face and ensure the maintenance of harmonious interpersonal relations. Each lingual culture has its own peculiarities in implementing speech acts of refusal. Within the framework of this article, we studied the peculiarities of implementing RSAs in Ukrainian linguoculture.

The refusal strategy has two primary levels of implementation: deep and surface. The surface level contains lexical sub-strategy and syntactic sub-strategy, which are provided by 17 verbalizations and communicative tactics. Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, it was shown that the choice of specific tactics in the Ukrainian RSA is determined by cultural factors, in particular, the peculiarities of the Ukrainian mentality, the formation of which was primarily influenced both by the Cossack cultural and spiritual heritage and religious beliefs of Ukrainians.

Studying RSA is essential to understanding a nation’s character and cultural peculiarities.

Keywords: refusal speech act, face threat, strategy of refusal, sub-strategies of refusal, verbalizations and tactics of refusal, Ukrainian lingual culture, national mentality.

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