Linguistic politeness in Mexico: Refusal strategies among male speakers of Mexican Spanish

This study investigates the linguistic strategies employed by monolingual native speakers (NSs) of Mexican Spanish of one community in Mexico in refusal interactions in formal/informal situations. The study focuses on three aspects of politeness: (1) degree of formality; (2) politeness systems and strategy use; and (3) politeness and the notion of face in Mexico. Twenty Mexican male university students participated in four role-play interactions; each participant interacted with two NSs of Spanish, with one NS in formal situations and with a different interlocutor in informal situations. The production data were supplemented by verbal reports to examine speakers’ perceptions of refusals. The findings show that in this community politeness is realized by means of formulaic/semi-formulaic expressions employed to negotiate face (Watts, 2003). An analysis of the refusal interactions indicates that among these speakers, the negotiation of face is accomplished largely by various indirect attempts at (re)negotiating a successful resolution. Also, face needs are oriented towards the group, emphasizing involvement over independence (Scollon and Scollon, 2001). Finally, the notion of negative face, as proposed in Brown and Levinson (1987), is re-examined in light of the data.