A Contrastive Study of Gender Differences of Refusals in Taiwan: Declining an Invitation

• Main Authors: Chen, Yi-Chen, 陳怡臻
• Other Authors: Heeren, Kimberly Dawn
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52904079811149189765

碩士 === 國立屏東教育大學 === 英語學系碩士班 === 102 === This study aimed to examine whether females use gratitude as a politeness marker more than males when refusing a friend’s invitation. Additionally, this study aimed to investigate whether males and females (refusers) refusal practices were performed differently or similarly according to gender (refusees’ gender). Finally, the researcher questioned whether or not the Chinese traditional concepts (women are generally regarded as inferior to men) still influences males’ and females’ language use, specifically, in regards to the choices of refusal strategies. The two hypotheses contended that females use gratitude as mitigator more than when they refuse an friend’s invitation to show their politeness and that different refusee’s gender influences the refuser’s choice of refusal strategies. The questionnaire in this study was designed based on the results of the researcher’s pilot study and it followed the mitigating strategies by Blum- Kulka et al. (1989). The participants (refusers) of this study were 100 Taiwanese who ranged from 20 to 35 years old. Data was collected from the questionnaire that was posted on an online networking service, Facebook. The researcher adopted a quantitative data analysis and the results were calculated according to the Independent-Samples T-test and the Pearson Chi-Squared test. Data were calculated based on the Independent-Samples T-test to provide the answer for the first research question of this study. Data was also calculated according to the Pearson Chi-Squared test to answer the second and third research questions of this study. The findings showed that there was no significant difference between the way that females and males use gratitude as a mitigator when they refuse a friend’s invitation. In addition, there were only two situations when females would offer gratitude in addition to a reason in declining a friend’s invitation. In this instance, the findings were significantly higher than males. Based on the two major findings, the researcher contended that the Chinese traditional concepts concerning gender could currently be having less of an effect on Taiwanese society. In addition, it was found that the refusee’s gender partly influenced the refuser’s choice of the refusal strategies in rejecting a friend’s invitation.