Ways of refusing invitations in English among members of a college of education community in Ghana

Abstract

Refusing an invitation from another person is potentially face-threatening and therefore with knowledge of such potential danger, interlocutors employ different ways of minimising such threats. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the maintenance of face in the performance of face threatening acts such as refusals. By means of ethnography of communication and theories of face and politeness, the paper analyses and discusses some ways of refusing invitations among members of the Berekum College of Education. The paper identifies two main ways of saying no to invitations, direct and indirect, and tries to find out how these ways are influenced by sex differences as well as age and social status. The study concludes that the different ways of refusing invitations are largely influenced by the above mentioned variables. The paper has implications for social relations and cross-cultural understanding