Offer Refusals in L2 French

Abstract

This study examines the production of offer refusals in native and non-native French. Data were obtained through written discourse completion tasks by a group of Canadian learners of French as a second language, a group of L1 French speakers, and a group of English native speakers. The aim was to compare offer refusal strategies in French L1, French L2, and English L1 and to locate traces of pragmatic transfer in L2 French refusal behavior. Significant differences were found between the French L1 speakers and the French L2 learners with respect to the use of direct refusals, indirect refusals, and adjuncts to refusals. For instance, it was found that the French L2 learners use a very limited repertoire of linguistic realizations to express the inability to accept offers. At the level of indirect refusals, the results reveal some similarities between the L2 French learners, the L1 French speakers, and the L1 English speakers: the three groups use reasons more often than any other strategy in their refusal utterances. Differences emerge, however, in the linguistic realization of this pragmatic category. Implications of the findings for L2 French pedagogy were also discussed.