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Multimodal Im/politeness: Signed, spoken, written
Edited by Andreas H. Jucker, Iris Hübscher and Lucien Brown
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 333] 2023
► pp. 101–129

Chapter 4
Multimodality in refusals in English as a lingua franca

ORCID logo | Monash University

This study investigates how multimodal cues are used for rapport management in refusals in the context of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Ten Chinese and ten Indonesian speakers were put in pairs and conducted role-plays in relation to requests and refusals. After the role-plays, they had immediate interviews to reflect on their own and their partners’ performance. The results suggest that body positions (standing/sitting), smiling voices and smiling facial expressions, and the long gaze aversion are used by ELF refusers to maintain rapport: controlling power relationships, mitigating the force of refusals, and conveying a non-engagement stance. The results show that mitigation in the ELF context is a multimodal achievement which can be intentionally realized through various multimodal cues.

Keywords: refusals, English as a lingua franca (ELF), multimodal conversation analysis, rapport management, gaze aversion, smiles, body positions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Approach to politeness
    • 2.2Empirical studies on refusals
    • 2.3Refusals and English as a lingua franca (ELF)
    • 2.4Multimodal politeness
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Instruments
      • Scenario 1
      • Scenario 2
    • 3.3Research procedures
    • 3.4Data analysis method
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Body position
    • 4.2Smiling voices/smiling facial expressions
    • 4.3Long gaze aversion
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Multimodal politeness in refusals
    • 5.2Refusals and English as a lingua franca
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 21 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.333.04fan
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