CHAPTER 1

1.1 Introduction and Background of the Study Malays, Chinese, Indians and many other ethnic groups have lived together in Malaysia for generations. All these diverse ethnics lived together and have influenced each others culture, as a result it has created a truly Malaysian culture. The Malays, Chinese and Indians and other indigenous ethnic groups in Sabah and Sarawak are maintaining the understanding and politeness with each ethnic group in order to keep the peace and harmony in this country. Lustig (2006) has mentioned that Malaysia is the country that does not prefer to avoid uncertainties. Lustig comes with proof from a survey of Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind which shows that Malaysia has a large negative score (129) of Uncertainties Avoidance Dimension. From this fact in other words, what it means is that Malaysian prefer to be indirect. There are numerous research which had proven that society of high context culture such as Malaysian prefer to save face and to maintain relationship with others. Consequently, the tendency to save face and maintain relationship with other people had caused them to have difficulty in refusing. Kuang Ching Hei (2009) states that, although many Malaysians prefer to be assertive they are unable to do so because of the culture they live in. What it means by Kuang Ching Hei is that because of living in a culture where every people prefer to say things indirectly it is not easy for Malaysian to express their feelings directly. Considering the problems that might occur regarding misunderstanding and perceptions between two people in an organization because of inability to be assertive in refusal and understand refusal it would be interesting to investigate and explore this area of speech act.

1.2 Statement of the problem Communication is an important process of sending and receiving messages. To be a good communicator, people need to be assertive so they will be able to understand each other because they are able to express their feelings and thoughts. As a result, mutual understanding will be achieved and communication breakdown can be avoided. However, it is not easy to be assertive when it comes to refusing a request and rejecting an invitation. Refusing other peoples request or rejecting their invitation will always occur in an individuals life. However, failure to make people understand why we are rejecting or refusing can lead to many problems. It can be a burden to both parties (the speaker and hearer) and it may lead to stress finally, this may effect job quality and ruin a healthy working environment. Misunderstanding of peoples intended meaning regularly happened in an organization. However, this is not the reason for the organization not to maintain a good working environment. Consideration on why people refuse and the strategies used in refusing are the keys to mutual understanding in order to create and maintain a good working environment. Hence, it is important to look at communication in the workplace such as refusal in order to help both superiors and subordinates to have the excellence working environment.

1.3 Purpose of the study The purpose of this study is to explore how the Malaysian employees express refusal. This study will be focusing on how the Malaysian employees turn down a request and decline an invitation.

1.4 Objectives of the study The objectives of the study are: i) To investigate how the employees express their refusal on instruction given by their superior. ii) To identify ways of refusing on request of the same level or hierarchy or colleague. iii) To explore the politeness strategies used in declining invitations. iv) To explore the choice of words used in refusal.

1.5 Research questions The research question of this study is: i) What are the politeness strategies used by Malaysian employees in the work place in refusing their superior instruction? ii) What are the politeness strategies used by Malaysian employees in the work place in refusing their colleagues instruction? iii) What are the politeness strategies used by Malaysian employees in the work place in rejecting to any invitation from the superior? iv) What are the politeness strategies used by Malaysian employees in the work place in rejecting to any invitation from the colleagues?

1.6 Significance of the study In high context culture people tend to say things indirectly. As mentioned before, Malaysian did not prefer to avoid uncertainties. Malaysian culture is familiar with the indirectness as the high context culture. Because Malaysian favour Refusal may cause misunderstanding of the intention of the individual who refused and this may lead to stress in the work place. As a result, it is not easy for Malaysian to refuse directly to a request or an invitation.

It is necessary to carry out this study and to investigate how the Malaysian employees say no so, from this study there might be some solutions pertaining to this issue. It would be beneficial if this research is conducted in order to help the organization to have better understanding on ways of people to react to any request and invitation.

1.7 Limitations and Scope of the Study This study focuses on one speech act that is refusal. There two areas of refusal that will be looked at in this study are: i) Rejecting a request

ii) Declining an invitation This study will be conducted in a private company with at least three different races of employees namely, Malay, Chinese and Indian which suggest Malaysians. The observation for data collection will be focusing on refusal of Malaysian Employee thus the length of collecting data will be merely during working hour. This study will involve about 5-10 the

people in the company which are the superiors and the subordinates. This study will utilize the observation technique only.

1.8 Definition of terms High context culture According to Lustig and Koester, (2006) as mentioned by Edward T. Hall, high context culture people have a preference to use high-context messages in which most of the meaning is either implied by the physical setting or presumed to be part of the individuals internalized beliefs, values, norms, and social practices. In other words, in this study high context culture means Malaysians who prefer to use nonverbal communication strategy such as body language and facial expression to express their feelings instead of saying it is understood according to the context of the speaker and the hearer. 4

Speech act This study will look at how rejecting and refusing technique is used by the employees and how these two speech acts will perform an action. According to Yule (1996) speech act is an action performed by the use of an utterance to communicate.

Face According to Yule (1996) face is a persons public self-image. It means that face is not only focusing on the look of a person, how the person dress up, how they look like but also considering the personality and attitude of the individual which is not seen but being evaluated by other people.

Assertive Cambridge Advanced Dictionary 2nd Edition defines assertive as describing someone who behaves confidently and is not frightened to say what they want or believe. This is to mean that people who are able to be assertive will be able to express their feelings. They are not afraid of saying what they feel and confident of themselves.

CHAPTER 2
2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW Speech act Communication is an important process to connect people with each other. People communicate using language either spoken or written. Hall in Pan Wen Hong (2008) describes people used language differently according to which culture and context they are in. In addition Yule (1996), has stated that people sometimes use expression or words in a language that sound like a compliment, but that might not be their actual intention, for instance their intention was to complain. This is like when people say something which is like a compliment but it is actually not. This situation often occurs in our everyday life as we communicate with each other and because of this kind of situation people tend to be indirect not be assertive and hope that other people will understand them. This is where some people prefer to think about certain aspects like face saving when communicating. In relations, Yule (1996) defines speech acts as an utterance that can be used to perform or complete an act. The language used while uttering contain action. It is when a speaker makes an utterance using language to achieve something that is the intention. In this study, the speech act that will be looked into is refusal. There are some research that have been conducted on refusal. A research on how Malaysians refuse was also carried out by Kuang Ching Hei (2009). However, in her research Kuang focuses on general aspect of refusing technique used by Malaysians. She also states in her research that in todays society, it is crucial to say what we want and what we feel. People are just putting themselves in dilemma if they fail to express their feelings especially the feeling of dont want to do something. She adds in her research that, most Malaysian find it difficult to refuse to a request especially one that comes from family members, friends, colleagues, employer and people with authority (Kuang Ching Hei, 2009).

High context culture According to anthropologist Hall in Jianeng Wang (2008) and Pan Wen Hong (2008) people in high context culture only put minimal information in the transmitted messages. The communication is meandering, uncertain and maintaining of harmony reserved and discreet. People in high context culture were lived in the culture that causing them not being direct to other people, misunderstanding the meaning of the interaction are always occur. As what is said by Dascal, stated by Thomas, (1995): Indirectness is costly and risky. It is costly in the sense that an indirect utterance takes longer for the speaker to produce and longer for the hearer to process (a fact which has frequently been confirmed in the psycholinguistic experiments). It is risky in the sense that the hearer may not understand what the speaker is getting at. (p. 120)

Politeness Strategies To be polite in a conversation is to behave appropriately according to the situation, place and to whom the conversation is occurred to avoid misunderstanding, misinterpretation and communication breakdown between interactants (Yule, 1996). The decision to be polite or impolite in an interaction is depended on the contextual factors relating to the interactants which are the speaker and hearer. There are three factors that affected speakers behaviour in a conversation that are power, distance and ranked extremity (Thomas, 1995, Abdelaziz Bouchara, 2002). The three aspects that caused people to be indirect are important in an interaction because it makes the speaker to decide the intensity of politeness that the speaker has to be. First, power refers to authority. A speaker may use a greater degree of indirectness with hearer who has higher authority over him. Second is the social distance. It refers to a

complex of psychologically real factors which determine the overall degree of respectfulness within a given speech situation. Examples of psychologically real factors are status, age, sex and degree of intimacy (Thomas, 1995). Finally is the status limit which refers to the particular scenery of the imposition being made and will form an important limitation that is the greater the imposition, the greater the use of politeness (Abdelaziz Bouchara, 2002). In the Brown and Levinsons theory of politeness as stated by Thomas 1995 and Abdelaziz Bouchara 2002, the first important aspect that should be considered is the face of the speaker and hearer and it is something that can be lost, maintained and enhanced. While Yule 1996, defines face as the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself. It is the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself according to what others perception on him. Interactants of a conversation will have interest in maintaining each other face is as the result of the rule of self-respect and considerateness on others. There are two characteristics of face which are positive face and negative face. Positive face is related to the feelings of being accepted by other people and the desired of wanting others to appreciate and approve the positive image of an individual. Negative face in contrast, is the need to be self-determining, to have liberty in his act and to be unconstrained by others. Next is the Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs). In our everyday conversation, such as inviting, promising, requesting, criticizing, refusing, and declining and so on. will carry the risk to have the FTA. It is when the speaker threatens the face (The public self-image that every member of a society wants to claim for himself). FTA is the certain illocutionary acts or speech acts that are likely to harm or intimidate persons face. Finally Brown and Levinson discuss about the decision that can be made to lessen possibilities of harming persons face. This is called the superstrategies. There are five superstrategies that have been presented by Brown and Levinson. The first strategy is baldon-record. FTA performed bald-on-record, in a direct and concise way without redress action. 8

In Bald-on-record the speaker speaks directly and precise followed the maxims (quantity, quality, relation and manner). Second strategy is positive politeness. Positive politeness is the strategies oriented towards positive face needs of the hearer. Under this positive politeness strategy there are another 15 sub-strategies, see table below: POSITIVE POLITENESS SUB STRATEGIES 1. Notice admirable qualities, possessions, etc. 2. Exaggerate sympathy, approval, etc. 3. Intensify the interest of the hearer in the speakers contribution. Speaker may convey that some of the hearers goal or desired objects are admirable or interesting to the speaker too. 4. Use in-group identity markers in speech. Stress on common membership in a group. 5. Seek agreement in safe topics. 6. Avoid possible disagreement by hedging your statements. 7. Assert common ground. 8. Joke to put hearer at ease. 9. Assert knowledge of the hearers wants and indicate you are taking account of them. Speaker claim a common perspective with the hearer without necessarily referring to in-group membership. Speaker indicating their knowledge and sensitivity to the hearers want 10.Offer, promise 11. Be positive that the hearer wants what the speaker wants, that the FTA is slight. 9 Claiming some reflexivity to the hearers wants. Derives from the want to convey that the speaker and the hearer are cooperatively involved in the relevant activity. Speakers claim of common ground with the hearer. TYPES MAJOR CLASS

12.Use an inclusive form to include both speaker and hearer in the activity. 13. Give reasons why speaker wants what he or she does so that it will seem reasonable to the hearer. 14. Assert reciprocal exchange, tit for tat. Convey their cooperation with the hearers by indicating the importance of reciprocity and mutual helping. 15. Give something desired. Gifts, position, sympathy, understanding. Fulfilling some of the hearers wants of giftgiving etc. The wants to be liked, admired, cared about, understood, listen to etc.
Table 1: Sub strategies of positive politeness. Source: Abdelaziz Bouchara (2002).

Convey their cooperation with the hearers by indicating the importance of reciprocity and mutual helping. Satisfy the hearers positive face

The third strategy is the negative politeness which is FTA performed with redress action. This strategy oriented towards negative face of the hearer such as indirect formulation. The negative politeness strategy is usually in the form of question. There are ten sub-strategies under this negative politeness which are: NEGATIVE POLITENESS SUB STRATEGIES 1. Be conventionally indirect. 2. Do not assume willingness to comply. Question, hedge. Carefully avoiding presuming or assuming that anything involved in the FTA is desired or believed by the 10 Being indirect Involves the speaker avoidance to coerce the hearers response. TYPES MAJOR CLASS

hearer. 3. Be pessimistic about ability or willingness to comply. 4. Minimize the imposition. Avoidance of coerciveness can be further expressed by minimising the threat. 5. Give deference Making explicit of power, distance, and ranked extremity. 6. Apologize. Admit the impingement, express reluctance, ask forgiveness 7. Impersonalize the speaker and hearer. Use the passive without agent. 8. State the FTA as an instance of a general rule to soften the offense. 9. Nominalise to distance the actor and add formality. 10. Go on record as incurring a debt. Communicate the FTA by explicitly claiming indebtedness to the hearer. Communicate the FTA by explicitly claiming indebtedness to the hearer. Communicate his intention not to offend the hearer by apologising for the infringement. Dissociating himself from particular FTA through the use of mechanisms that distance the speaker from the hearer. With regard to the second type. By assuming that the hearer is not likely to do the act.

Table 1: Sub strategies of negative politeness. Source: Abdelaziz Bouchara (2002).

The fourth strategy is the off-record politeness that might allow the act to have more than one interpretation. Speaker does the off-record when the utterance he uttered is indirect and when speaker uses language that the meaning has to be interpreted. Off-record may

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lead to the violation of the maxims. The example of off-record strategies consist of all types of hints and metaphors. The final strategy is do not perform the FTA. It is when a person says nothing because the person knows it will cause face-threatening. There are two types of say nothing or opting out choice (OOC) that are OOC-genuine and OOC-strategic. OOC-genuine is when the speech act is not performed by the speaker because the speaker wants the matter remain close. However, the OOC-strategic is when the speaker does not say anything but the speaker look forward that someone in the speech act to understand his wish to achieve perlocutionary effect. The OOC is best applied in an argument. Conclusion In conclusion, communication is not an easy process. There are some important aspects that should be taken into consideration. Speech act is the utterance that will have an impact to the speaker and hearer. To maintain relationship within Malaysian organization, people should bear in mind the culture of Malaysian for example their communication styles which prefer to be indirect and not assertive. Should be considered is the politeness strategies that they used to maintain relationship with other people in the organization.

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CHAPTER 3
3.1 RESEARCH METHODS

OBSERVATION

TRANSCRIBE THE SPEECH ACTS

TRANSFER THE DATA AND MAKE ANY CORRECTION IF NEEDED (SPELLING ETC.)
Data collection procedures There are some data collection procedures that might apply when conducting a research. However, it is important to decide which procedure that is suitable for the research. Observation is seen as the suitable data collection procedures for this research because this research requires spontaneous action from the participants. Data from the observation will be recorded manually into a journal using pen and paper technique. Videotaping or voice recording is seen as more efficient for observation, but in order to keep the natural of the participants speech act the use of pen and paper considered as the suitable method for this research. The observation will only occur during office hours which around 9am to 6pm for about three months. For the duration of time researcher need to be alert at all time. After the everyday observation, the data collected will be typed properly. At this stage, correction of error such as spelling and grammar mistake will be done. 13

The language used by the respondents can be in English and Bahasa Malaysia. Any utterances uttered in Bahasa Malaysia will be translated into English and will be italicized and indicated as BM.

Selection of samples As this research is focusing on refusal, only utterances which involve refusing a request or order and rejecting invitation will be recorded. This study will entail about 5-10 the people in the company who are the superiors and the subordinates from both genders. These participants are from at least three different races in Malaysia which are Malay, Chinese and Indian. As this research is focusing on refusal of the working environment the age of the participant will be around 18-60years old.

Data analysis This research will be focusing on how the Malaysian employee from at least three different races saying no to a request or order and invitation. There are some politeness strategies that will be identified in this research such as, off record or indirect strategies, bald on record or direct strategies, and the use of hedging.

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References Abdelaziz Bouchara. (2002). Politeness in shakespear. Retrieve on October 9, 2009. From http://archir.ub.uniheidelberg.de/vdltextserver/volltext/2002/2419/pdf/politenessInShakespear.pdf.

Cambridge advanced dictionary (2nd ed.).(2005). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jianeng Wang (October 2008). A cross cultural study of daily communication between Chinese and American from the perspective of high context and low context, Asian Social Science, 4(10). Retrieved on October 9, 2009, from

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal.html

Kuang Ching Hei (2009). Moves in refusal: how Malaysians say no. China Media Research, 5(3). Retrieved on September 6, 2009, from http://www.chinamediaresearch.net

Lustig, M. W. & Koester J. (2006). Intercultural competence. Interpersonal communication across cultures. United States of America: Pearson Education, Inc.

Pan Wen Hong (September 2008). Thinking culturally: a study of culture and politeness, 6(9). Retrieved October 9, 2009, from http://www.linguist.org.

Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in interaction: an introduction to pragmatics. London: Pearson Education

Yule, G. (1996). Oxford introductions to language studies: pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

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