The study was carried out in order to find the differences between Americans and Chinese when they make refusals in di-versified social distances and social power. The major findings from this study are as follows:There are both similarities and differ-ences in the performance of refusal speech acts between Chinese and Americans. The similarities lie in the selection of refusal strate-gies. Chinese and Americans opt to use more indirect strategies than direct ones; among the indirect ones, the use of the “reason and excuse” is the highest. The preference of the strategy choices seems to be the same. In terms of differences, the use of direct strategies by the Americans is higher than that by the Chinese. There are differences in the use of direct strategies between Chinese people in four different social distances, but it is not the case with the Americans. In the context of low power, there is a marked difference in the use of direct strategies between Americans and Chinese.%对中美在不同社会距离和社会权势下使用拒绝语用策略进行调查，研究发现：中国人和美国人在拒绝语用策略使用上有共性也有差异。共性表现在两者使用间接拒绝策略的比例都比较高，其中找借口、原因解释的策略的使用率都是最高的，策略偏好选择上呈现大体的一致性。但是，总体上美国人使用直接拒绝策略的比例要远远高于中国人，在个别辅助语策略使用偏好上也呈现出一定的差异。中国人在四种社会距离下使用直接策略有差异，而美国组没有，在低权势语境下美国人和中国人使用直接策略差异显著。
展开▼
