Beyond Strategy: Toward an Integrative Cultural Evaluation Framework for Impoliteness Interpretation in Refusal Speech Acts

Abstract

Refusal is a pragmatically sensitive speech act that carries significant relational risk. Nevertheless, research in second language pragmatics has largely focused on identifying the linguistic strategies speakers use to refuse, leaving comparatively underexplored the evaluation processes through which recipients interpret these acts. Critically, the relationship between refusal strategies and the social evaluation of impoliteness has not been systematically explained within a single conceptual model. Strategy-oriented studies describe how speakers refuse, but they do not fully account for why structurally similar refusals are interpreted so differently across cultural contexts. This variation points to the role of the recipient’s cultural orientation in shaping the evaluative process. This gap points to the need for a framework that positions cultural orientation not merely as background context, but as an active evaluation mechanism in the interpretation process. This article addresses this gap by proposing a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between pragmatic strategies, evaluations of impoliteness, and cultural orientations in interpreting refusals. The proposed framework is called the Cultural Evaluation Framework (CEF). This framework explains that interpretations of impoliteness are formed through a five-stage evaluative process: (1) pragmatic strategy, (2) relational expectations, (3) perceived relational violation, (4) cultural evaluation, and (5) interpretation of impoliteness. Within this sequence, cultural evaluation functions as the central mediating mechanism through which perceived violations of relational expectations are processed before producing a social judgment. This positioning of culture as an evaluative filter, rather than a mere backdrop, constitutes the key theoretical contribution of the framework. This article makes a theoretical contribution to the study of second language pragmatics by providing a structured integrative model that connects three previously separate lines of inquiry: refusal strategy research (Beebe et al., 1990), impoliteness theory (Culpeper, 2011), and rapport management (Spencer-Oatey, 2005) into a coherent explanatory sequence. Unlike previous approaches that treat these domains independently, the CEF traces the interpretive pathway from linguistic form to social judgment in a systematic, empirically testable manner. The proposed framework can serve as a basis for empirical research examining how speakers from different cultural backgrounds assess and respond to perceived acts of impoliteness in cross-cultural interactions.