Essay --

This paper aims to answer 2 research questions. For the first question: With the measure of role plays, what refusal strategies would the oversea students adopt more frequently in different interlocutory status? From the data analysis, we can see that the oversea student in the study adopted many different refusal strategies in different interlocutor statuses. The 6 scenarios have similar imposition, which is to refusal an invitation to a party. The changing variables are the distance and power. In this complex contextual situation, the student was able to change her refusal strategies in different situations. She adopted more strategies when she refused a person of a higher social status or distant relations, in order to save the listener’s face. On the other hand, when she refused a person of lower social status or close relations, she would change the refusal strategies and make the conversations more relaxing and casual. One important reason might be that the oversea stude nts are more aware of the social communication skills because they can learn more about the cultural difference and communicative differences in the process of their oversea studies. They must communicate with many foreign teachers and students, and experience culture shock at the same time. As a result, they can be more familiar with the pragmatic features of different strategies. The second question is that: Is there any difference in the refusal strategies between oversea students and other EFL learners in China? There are many researches related to the different refusal strategies between NS and NNS. The previous findings showed that: many NNS preferred to use â€Å"a direct strategy and less differentiated supportive moves†; at the same time, â€Å"40% of NNS prov... ...in comparing with Chinese EFL learners’ refusal strategies, we borrowed findings from other researches because of time limitation, and this may cause the results being different from what it should be. Here are some suggestions for the future study: first, in order to make sure the data are effective, we should invite more oversea students with difference learning experience and language proficiency; second, in a precise study, more social and contextual variables should be taken into consideration, in order to test students’ different reaction and strategies; finally, if we want to compare the oversea students with Chinese EFL students, we should invite both to participate in the research, rather than depending on other studies and research findings. In conclusion, in order to prove or modify the research findings, further researches are still needed in the future.