EFL Politeness in Refusals by Students of Different Culture and Interlanguage Stages

This study deals with the EFL politeness in refusals by students of different culture and interlanguage stages. The objectives of this research are to analyze the way how the subjects of different culture and interlanguage stages form politeness in refusals and the underlying reasons why subjects of different culture and interlanguage stages do it as the way they do. This study was a qualitative research. The data were taken from refusal expressions made by EFL Malay and Batak students with initial stage and free variation stage. The data of this study were collected by using elicitation techniques by using Discourse Completion Task (DCT), pictures and Interview. The results of this study showed that the politeness in refusal among the Batak and Malay culture are both realized by direct and indirect strategy. The difference between the two realization of politeness in refusal is that the direct strategies are used more in Batak culture than those used in Malay culture. Semantic formula are used less in Batak culture than those in Malay culture. The underlying reasons of EFL politeness in refusals are caused by the culture and interlanguage stages effect.