A cross-cultural analysis of refusal responses in British English and Ga (A language spoken in Ghana)

Abstract

There are cultural differences between Ghana and Britain. Researchers like; Dzameshi (2001), Scollon (2000), Anderson (2009), Keleve (1995) and others argue that Ghana is a country with a collectivistic culture and Britain an individualistic culture. Therefore, cultural differences between Ghanaians and the British may be reflected in speech acts; (suggestion, request, invitations and offers) that elicited refusal responses. The study aimed to shed light on; how British and uneducated Ga differ from one another in their direct and indirect incomparable social situations; which sociolinguistic transfers affected educated Ga refusal responses; which politeness strategy did the British and uneducated Ga use and which factors influenced the choice of semantic formulae used by the British and the uneducated Ga. The present study employed ethnographic research methodology and complemented it with the Discourse Completion Test (DCT). One hundred and twenty-five respondents (125) participated in the study; fifty educated Ga respondents, twenty-five British respondents, twenty five uneducated Ga respondents, fifteen Ga respondents in the focus group discussion and ten British respondents in the focus group discussion. The findings indicated that both British and uneducated Ga used less direct refusals, although different cultural values influenced their decisions. Educated Ga imported the norms of speaking in English and Ga into their responses, and this resulted in the negative pragmatic transfer and backward pragmatic transfer. Both Ga and British perceived the face threats inherent in the initiative act to refuse, but the British did not attend to ‘face’ in certain situations, but the uneducated Ga attended to ‘face’ in all the situations. The semantic formulae of the respondents were influenced by context internal and context external factors. The findings concluded that different understanding of social situations and cultural dimensions by British and uneducated Ga led to the cross-cultural variation in direct and indirectness strategies. It was evident that cross-cultural differences were not the only cause of communication conflict, but that pragmatic transfers could lead to miscommunication (educated Ga responses). Brown and Lenvinson’s (1987) claim that language is universal was made evident when both uneducated Ga and British used negative politeness strategy to mitigate the illocutionary force of their refusal responses. However, Wierzbicka (1991) counterclaim was revealed when the British attended to ‘face’ through direct ‘on record’ strategies and the uneducated Ga did theirs through indirect ‘on record’ strategies. Finally, context external factors and context internal factors led to cross-situational variations of the choice of semantic formulae used by uneducated Ga and British. The study recommends that refusal responses should be used appropriately for discourse suitability.