Abstract:
Requests and refusals are the most frequent speech acts in communication and is the reason why so much study has been focused on them in different contexts. In interlanguage pragmatics study, requests and refusals remain a great focus of attention as they have a bearing on the success or failure in cross-cultural communicative processes. The present study sought to analyse the strategies utilised by the students when formulating requests and refusals as they engaged with their lecturers at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) using the interlanguage pragmatics theoretical framework. Of utmost importance, the study sought to dig deeper and accentuate adverse conditions for interlanguage pragmatics competence. Two Written Discourse Completion Tests (WDCTs) were administered to a study sample of 63 second year students from the Department of Informatics at NUST to elicit for data relating to strategies utilised by the students in the production of requests and refusals. A comprehensive questionnaire was also administered to the 63 second year students to collect data on the adverse conditions to interlanguage pragmatics competence. The study sample of 63 second year students was obtained by utilizing the Systematic Random Selection to a study population of 75 students. The elicited data revealed that interlanguage pragmatics’ failure or miscommunication is happening in the Department of Informatics at NUST due to the utilisation of direct requests. Students also apply blunt and negation of proposal to refusals when they engage with their supervisors. Moreover, the questionnaire establishes that the transfer concept and limitation to effective input environment could be contributing to interlanguage pragmatic competence problems to the students. Cultural concerns could also be linked to the limitations in pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic knowledge in the students.
