The Pragmatics of Refusing Food Invitations by Jordanians

Abstract

This study aims to find politeness strategies in refusing food invitations among Jordanians. Brown and Levenson’s politeness theory (1987) is adopted to analyze the Jordanian refusals. The data was collected from English language students at Jerash University. Interviews were prepared to find out the different strategies for refusing invitations. This study revealed that the invitees used indirect strategies to be more polite with the inviters. The most preferred strategies were rejecting by employing religious terms, justified reasons, prayers, promising, ask for forgiveness. This study helps researchers to know the politest strategies used by Jordanians once they refuse invitations. Moreover, it assists them in making comparative research on refusal between Jordanian society and other societies to cover the cultural differences between them clearly.