Chapter 4 Data Analysis
4.3 Children’s Refusal Strategies by Speakers’ and Interlocutors’ Gender
4.3 Children’s Refusal Strategies by Speakers’ and Interlocutors’ Gender
After examining the children’s refusal strategies produced by boys and girls, we found that girls used more direct strategies than boys did. However, we still do not know if they performed differently when refusing people of different gender.
Therefore, the influence of interlocutors’ gender is investigated by examining the frequency of refusal strategies children chose to refuse interlocutors of different gender. Table 9 illustrates the frequency of children’s refusal strategies by both speakers’ and interlocutors’ gender.
Table 9. Frequency of Children’s Refusal Strategies by Speakers’ and Interlocutors’
Gender Conditional acceptance 0 0.00
1.82
The results indicate that children tend to apply different refusal strategies when refusing interlocutors of different gender. The frequency of the use of strategies
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suggests that children took interlocutors’ gender into account when choosing refusal strategies. In terms of girls’ refusal strategies, girls mainly relied on two kinds of strategies which are simple negation (34.55%) and reason (34.55%) most of the time when refusing girls. However, they became more direct when refusing boys. They applied simple negation (48.28%) as their major refusal strategy. Reasons were less used when refusing boys than refusing girls. They stated their refusal directly and clearly. When the refusal was not taken seriously by their interlocutor, they even got angry, as shown in example 18.
Example 18
1. JUN: 我要闖進去喔.
‘I am going to break into (the house).’
2. ZHI: 不行.
‘No.’
%sit: 男生闖進蓋的積木房子
JUN breaks into the house built by blocks.
3. ZHI: /ei/你是有神經病喔?
‘/ei/ Are you having a mental problem?’
In example 18, the boy JUN wanted to break into the house built by blocks. The girl ZHI refused his request directly by using a simple negation. However, JUN did not listen to her refusal and still insisted to do what he wanted. Therefore, ZHI got angry and scolded JUN directly.
Different from girls who mainly relied on two strategies, boys used various refusal strategies such as reason (24.32%), simple negation (22.97%), alternatives
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these frequently used strategies, alternatives are especially more frequently used by boys when refusing other boys than refusing girls. The percentage of alternatives used by boys to refuse other boys is also much higher than by girls to refuse both boys and girls. through the door won. JUN asked CAI to go first because he needed more time to aim.CAI did not want to accept the request but proposed an alternative that they could throw the blocks at the same time. In this refusal, we can see that CAI paid attention to JUN’s needs and tried to accomplish his need in the way that both of them won’t lose too much what they desired. CAI’s respect and consideration was understood by JUN and therefore CAI’s refusal was accepted. The final agreement was also achieved.
In mixed-gender situations, the strategy which boys applied the most frequently is nonverbal avoidance (29.41%), namely, they just remained silent. They also chose
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simple negation (25%) and reason (22.06%) as their refusal strategies quite frequently.
The use of nonverbal avoidance by boys when refusing girls stands out in our data since girls seldom chose it as their refusal strategy and even boys used much less nonverbal avoidance when facing other boys. Example 20 demonstrates how boys used nonverbal avoidance to refuse girls.
Example 20
1. LIN: 趕快來接車.
‘Hurry up, come to connect the car.’
2. NIN: 0 [= ignore].
3. LIN: 趕快繼續接.
‘Hurry up, continue connecting.’
4. NIN: 0 [= ignore].
%sit: they played separately for a while
5. LIN: 趕快接這個啦!
‘Hurry up, connect this one!’
6. LIN: 你不是說要一起接?
‘Don’t you say that we will connect (this) together?’
7. NIN: 0 [= ignore].
In example 20, the children were playing with blocks separately. They had an agreement that they would build the railroad with blocks together few minutes ago.
However, NIN, the boy, concentrated on building his own car. Therefore, LIN asked NIN to build the railroad with her. LIN’s request was loud and clear enough that NIN must have heard the request. However, NIN remained silent and ignored the request.
He kept building his own blocks. Receiving no response, LIN requested again. NIN
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still used the same strategy to show his refusal and said nothing. This time, LIN understood his refusal and stopped her request. It seemed that LIN had given up the request but in fact she still wanted NIN to follow her request. Therefore, after they played and talked about something else for a while, she proposed her request again.
LIN brought the topic back to her original request and even reminded NIN of his previous promise. However, NIN applied the same strategy which is keeping silent to refuse LIN. The reason that boys applied nonverbal avoidance could be that they want to avoid the possible conflict caused by a clear refusal. They may use their silence or their leaving to pretend that they didn’t hear the request. And hope that the hearer will give up their requests then. This refusal strategy, however, sometimes fail to let the interlocutor give up the request especially when the interlocutors are girls. Girls seemed to be persistent in making their requests fulfilled. When they did not receive a clear refusal, they just kept brought out their request again and again as example 20 shown. Therefore, in our data, quite a few nonverbal avoidances made by boys were aimed to refuse the same requests brought by girls again and again.
The influence of gender is also found in children’s application of combined strategies. Table 10 demonstrates the frequency of the use of combined strategies by speakers’ and interlocutors’ gender.
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Table 10. Frequency of the number of refusal strategies in one response by speakers’
and interlocutos’ gender
FF FM MM MF
Number of refusal strategies
Tokens % Tokens % Tokens % Tokens %
One 38 82.61 34 73.91 56 90.32 62 91.18
Two 7 15.22 12 26.09 6 9.68 6 8.82
Three 1 2.17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 46 100 46 100 62 100 68 100
(FF= females refuse females, FM= females refuse males, MM= males refuse males, MF= males refuse females)
As we have mentioned in the previous section, girls used combined refusal strategies more often than boys did. When comparing boys’ and girls’ refusal to interlocutors’ of different gender, it is found that girls used more than one strategy to refuse boys (26.09%) than to girls (17.39%). Boys, on the other hand, seldom used combined refusal strategies when refusing both boys and girls. However, when they did apply more than one strategy, the combination of strategies was different when the interlocutor’s gender was different as shown in table 11.
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Table 11. Frequency of the different combination of strategies by speakers’ and interlocutors’ gender MF= males refuse females; ALT= alternative, DIS= dissuade interlocutor, REA=
reason, COU= counterclaim, SIM=simple negation, AVO= verbal avoidance)
Boys combined direct and indirect strategies in their refusal, for example, they combined simple negation with reason when refusing other boys. They attempted to diminish the force of direct refusal toward interlocutor’s face by adding an indirect strategy. When they were refusing girls, they applied the same strategy; however, they were even more indirect. They combined two indirect strategies in one refusal more frequently, for example, alternative with dissuade interlocutor or reason, and verbal avoidance with reason. As we mentioned before, girls applied combined refusal strategies more frequently than boys, especially when refusing boys. From table 11, we can see that there is no significant difference in girl’s choice of combined strategies when the interlocutors’ genders are different. The most frequently used
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combination of strategy is simple negation plus reason when they refused both boys and girls. Girls used a lot more simple negation when refusing others than boys did as we pointed out previously; however, it seemed that they sometimes wanted to decrease the threat of simple negation to interlocutor’s face by providing reasons to explain why they said no.
After comparing the refusal strategies produced by boys and girls when facing interlocutors of different genders, we found that both speakers’ and interlocutors’
gender are the important factors that influence children’s choice. If we only take speaker’s gender into consideration, some important phenomena may be neglected.
By examining same-gender and cross-gender interaction, we discovered that children performed differently according to their interlocutors’ gender. The difference not only lies in the directness of refusal but also in the strategies they chose. Girls adopted more direct refusals than boys did in same-gender interactions. In the cross-gender interactions, girls became even more direct. About half of their refusals were performed by using simple negation. Boys, on the other hand, preferred using nonverbal avoidance when making refusals. In addition, girls used more combined refusal strategies than boys, especially when refusing boys. In sum, although there is a tendency that children choose indirect refusal strategies when refusing their peers, when we examined the factor of gender, boys were found to be even more indirect