Nargol Mokhtari - Department of foreign languages, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Professionalism in communication is a matter of concern for speakers of all languages. Obtaining this goal, pragmatic competence will be of paramount importance. Alongside satisfying different linguistic purposes using different speech acts, being concerned about some features such as face threatening property of refusal speech acts leads language users to apply some specific linguistic forms. Considering the significance of cultural and social variations in performing refusal speech acts and the level of importance of preserving face”, this study tried to find differences between native Persian and English speakers in this regard. To collect the data, 60 native Persian and English speakers were asked to complete a two-phase questionnaire, DCT and self-report, including four different situations and Beebe classification of refusals was applied to code data, then through analyzing the coded data, great tendency toward using indirect forms between both Persian and English participants was taken as an indicator of noticeable consideration of face-preserving in refusals, although Persian speakers seemed more concerned about it. The differences between two groups of participants were inferred as cultural variations’ reflection. Finally, some implications for language teaching were discussed.

pragmatic competence, speech act, refusal, cultural variation