Most Common Refusal Strategies Used by Students of English Teaching as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This article explores the most common refusal strategies used by a group of English Teaching students from the Pacific Regional Center of the Uni- versity of Costa Rica. Such analysis was carried out through a modified version of a Discourse Completion Test composed of six communicative situations: three requests and three offers. The investigation concluded that indirect strategies were preferred in all situations, and strategies of postponement (in which the speaker proposes the interlocutor to reschedule what has been offered or requested) and giving excuses or reasons, are the most frequently refusal strategies used in the situations under study.