The International Journal of Language Society and Culture URL: www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/ ISSN 1327-774X © LSC-2010 Issue 30 Page 81 A Study on Strategies Used in Iraqi Arabic to Refuse Suggestions Hiba Qusay Abdul Sattar, Salasiah Che Lah and Raja Rozina Raja Suleiman Universiti Sains Malaysia Abstract In the last two decades, many studies have been conducted to investigate speech act performance in general, and the speech act of refusal to suggestion in particular. This genus of research has focused on western languages (Beebe et al,1990), (Chen,1996), (Fe´lix-Brasdefer,2006). However, more re- cently a number of studies have been carried out in eastern languages (Geyang, 2007), with only a few in Arabic language and its varieties (Nelson, 2002), (Al-Issa, 2003), (Al-Kahtani, 2005). This study is an attempt to outline the preferred semantic formulas used in refusing suggestions in Iraqi Arabic. The corpus consists of responses to a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) that consisted of three dif- ferent situations. The informants were 30 Iraqi Arabic native speakers studying at Universiti Sains Ma- laysia, Malaysia. The survey was written in Arabic language to elicit responses that approximate ver- bal refusals to suggestion that might be given in these situations. The corpus was analyzed and cate- gorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al (1990) to determine the strategies used and the frequencies of their use. Results showed variation in the frequency and the content of semantic formulas used by the group in relation to the contextual variables, which include the status of interlo- cutors (higher, equal, or lower status). Key words: Refusals, semantic formula, direct & indirect strategies Introduction One of the main functions of language is to establish and maintain human relationships. In interaction, the participants’ assumptions and expectations about people, events, places, etc., play a significant role in the performance and interpretation of linguistic utterances. The choice of linguistic expressions to convey certain communicative purposes is governed by social conventions and the individual’s as- sessment of situations. (Nureddeen, 2008). According to Tanck (2003) speakers employ a variety of speech acts, to achieve their communicative goals, including Searle’s seminal broad categories – classification, commissives, declarations, direc- tives, expressives, and representatives – as well as more specific acts such as apologies, requests, complaints, and refusals (Kasper and Rose,2001). A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication (e.g., apology, request or greeting). In this study the performance of refusals is in- vestigated in Iraqi Arabic. A refusal is to respond negatively to an offer, request, invitation and suggestion. Searle and Vanderv- ken (1985, p. 195) define the speech act of refusal as follows: “the negative counterparts to accep- tances and consentings are rejections and refusals. Just as one can accept offers, applications, and invitations, so each of these can be refused or rejected". Refusals are face-threatening acts (Brown and Levinson, 1987) and belong to the category of commissives because they commit the refuser to (not) performing an action which calls for considerable cultural and linguistic expertise on the part of the refuser. (Searle,1977). Refusals function as a response to an initiating act and are considered a speech act by which a speaker ‘‘[fails] to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor’’ (Chen et al., 1995, p. 121). Moreover, refusals differ cross culturally and linguistically in that they require a high level of appropriateness for their successful completion; very often, they are realized by means of clearly identifiable formulae. Differences like these might cause misunderstanding or pragmatic failure when people from different cultures need to interact with each other.