NAVIGATING POLITENESS: AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVES IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

This study aims to identify refusal strategies used by Russian speakers and compare them with the performance of refusals by native American English speakers. The data analyzed were obtained via the use of a discourse completion test (DCT) with the participation of 30 students. The study qualitatively analyses refusal in the SA of invitations, in 3 situations. The revealed some cultural differences as Russians are straight forward, Americans are verbose. The three situations revealed the different strategies are employed by different context and stresses the need for further research in cross-cultural/intercultural variations, especially in the field of language as an L2 classroom.