Abstract
This study examined refusing patterns of university students learning Japanese as a foreign language in comparison to native speakers' by using a discourse completion test adapted from Takahashi and Beebe (1987). The conversational data obtained were analyzed in terms of the order, frequency, content, and tone of the semantic formulas included. The results indicated that (1) status of the interlocutor influenced the way the subjects refused in Japanese, (2) the semantic formula of "excuse" was used most frequently, (3) nonnative speakers used direct refusals more frequently than native speakers, (4) native speakers were more sensitive to the status of the interlocutor than nonnative speakers, and (5) nonnative speakers were more specific in their content than native speakers in some of the situations.
