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AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PRAGMATIC 
COMPETENCE OF THE FRONT-OFFICE TRAINEES OF 

VALOMBOLA VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRE 

Fredrick MacGyver Nghilinganye1* & Haileleul Zeleke Woldemariam2 

1,2Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia 

*fredgyv@gmail.com 

ABSTRACT 

This study aimed to analyze the front-office trainees' pragmatic competence at Valombola 
VTC. The trainees were tested on their ability to formulate and implement strategies for 
requests, their politeness principles in the speech acts of refusal and apologetic 
responses, and the factors that impact their pragmatic competence. Fifteen out of thirty 
(2022) front-office trainees enrolled in the Hospitality Department's program were 
chosen for the study using a systematic random sampling method. A Written Discourse 
Completion Task (WDCT) and a questionnaire were utilized as data collection devices. 
Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted on the data about the students' 
pragmatic abilities. According to the study's results, the trainees' pragmatic competence 
was a dismal 30% when it came to the verbal act of refusing. It can be concluded that the 
trainees at the front desk lacked the pragmatic competence necessary to effectively 
respond to requests, offer apologies, and employ a refusal approach. Taking into account 
the outcomes of the three speech acts of asking, apologizing, and refusing, their pragmatic 
competence was found to be fairly low. This is in line with their preference for using their 
vernacular language when interacting with others, as shown even in the questionnaire. 
Furthermore, the results show that trainees employ various aggressive apologetic 
methods and reaction styles when asked to apologize. Finally, the results show that 
pragmatic competence is affected by several underlying issues, such as a lack of 
education, a low level of everyday activities involving English, and the misunderstanding 
of pragmatic implicature. Finally, the TVET sector as a whole and front-desk trainees in 
particular were advised to take English for Specific Purposes with an emphasis on 
pragmatic skills.  

Keywords:  Pragmatic Competence, Pragmatic Reference, Pragmatic Inference, Speech 
Act of Politeness. 

 

INTRODUCTION  

Pragmatics is the focus of this study since it is one of the overarching goals of higher 
education for all students to be able to communicate effectively and appropriately in a 
variety of contexts. Pragmatics is the study of how meaning is shaped by context (Hence, 
2000 Taguchi, 2009). Hence "Pragmatic competence" is defined by Taguchi as "the 
capacity to use language effectively in a social setting," a claim that Searle (1969) 
supports. It has been presumed that front office trainees at vocational institutions, and 
specifically Valombola VTCs, struggle with pragmatic competence. This is because they 

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are seen to understand instructions only on a semantic level, rather than the pragmatic 
branch of language that is necessary for effective communication. Issues with social 
pragmatic communication disorder, pragmatic language impairment, and pragmatic 
failure were major concerns in the hospitality training division's assessment of students' 
communicative competence. Because of the aforementioned concerns about the alleged 
lack of pragmatic competence among TVET students at Valombola Vocational Training 
Centre and elsewhere, the current research aims to shed light on the potential reasons 
for these issues.  

It is generally believed that the front desk trainees at Valombola VTC have weak 
inferring and referring skills, so this study set out to assess the extent to which this 
presumption is true. It has also been noted that there has been an issue with rudeness 
when interacting socially on campus and in class with both their front-office trainers and 
other trainees. These front-desk trainees frequently exhibited a lack of pragmatic 
competence in their day-to-day interactions, spoke informally or in less professional 
ways, and generally failed to impress. Pragmatic language use is already difficult for 
native speakers of a language, and it gets much more so for non-native speakers (Cohen, 
2008).  

It would indicate that pupils lack knowledge of various speech actions and 
politeness norms when it pertains to pragmatic competence (Cohen, 2008). The major 
issue in this study is pragmatic failure, which is seen to be a contributing factor to the 
prevalence of rudeness, arrogance, condescending, insincerity, and other undesirable 
behaviours among front desk employees in most hospitality organizations.  

 
Research on English as a Second Language (ESL) in multicultural and multilingual 

Namibia is expected to supplement what is currently known. Therefore, it follows that 
this type of project is essential for shedding light on the issues related to English usage, 
particularly among hospitality industry front-office trainees undergoing vocational 
training.  

The study could also give valuable information to those who build TVET curricula 
on the pros and cons of using English in professional settings for pedagogical purposes, 
specifically regarding the success or failure of trainer-trainee communication. It is also 
believed that the study will help break down barriers in communication on pragmatic 
competence and discourse analysis, which might lead to the establishment of a good 
atmosphere where the training department's instructors and students can work together 
to reach their objectives.  

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 

Pragmatics and the Concept of Communication 

While communicating effectively necessitates grasping the intended meaning, 
pragmatics delves into how context plays a role in doing just that. Getting a handle on 
effective communication requires deciphering not only what others say, but also their 
intended meaning (Yule, 2006). Yule argues that the capacity to comprehend a speaker's 
meaning beyond the words they have spoken is just as crucial to effective communication 
as the ability to understand what they have spoken. Being fluent in a language is only one 
aspect of learning that language, as Hymes (1972) points out. Even though a sentence is 

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grammatically correct, it may have no place in another setting. Misunderstandings or 
even emotional distress can arise from inappropriate language use or when words are 
misused in general. Therefore, being competent in both language and pragmatics is 
necessary for fluency. "Pragmatics" refers to the study of speaker meaning (Yule, 2006). 
It is clear from Yule's definition of pragmatics that understanding meaning is not enough 
to ensure effective communication. It is important to grasp the speaker's intended 
meaning as well. Everyone needs to be able to deduce what the speaker means for there 
to be an agreement. So, it's best to stay away from pragmatic failure, which is defined as 
misinterpreting someone's words (Thomas, 1983).  

Pragmatic implicature 

Not only do people express themselves verbally in regular conversation, but their 
deliberate word choices also reveal their intentions. This means that the majority of the 
time when conversing, people will employ indirect speech acts. According to Rose and 
Casper (2001), Paul Herbert Grice first proposed the idea of implicatures in 1975. 
According to Grice, "what is meant" in a discussion is typically more substantial than 
"what is stated," and this supplementary meaning is both implied and foreseeable. The 
verb "to suggest" is the root of the noun "implicature" (Rose & Casper, 2001). "Implicate" 
means "to imply by expressing something else," and "implicature" is the noun form of the 
verb "implicature" (Grice, 1975).  

Implicit reasoning is a component of pragmatics, a branch of language study (Davis, 
2016). In pragmatics, an indirect or implicit speech act is what a speaker means by their 
utterance that is not part of what is openly expressed; this is called conversational 
implicature. In contrast to explicature, which conveys an assumption directly, the 
expression is often referred to as implicature (Grice, 1975 as cited in Davis, 2016). 
"Implicature" can indicate two things: either the meaning or object of someone 
expressing one thing while implying another. The four conversational maxims proposed 
by Grice (1975)—the maxims of quantity, quality, relation, and manner—are applied to 
conversational implicatures.  

Pragmatic reference and inference 

A pragmatic inference strategy is necessary for comprehending a full utterance 
when the speaker's message transcends the logical or literal interpretation of the 
sentences utilized. The concept of scalar implicature, a kind of pragmatic inference, is 
relevant here (Yule, 1997). Inference, as defined by Yule (1997), is when the listener 
makes use of background knowledge to conclude the speaker's intended meaning. Words, 
in Yule's view, do not denote anything other than personal preference. Saying something 
like "It is on the shelf" is one example. This would imply a book rather than a specific 
individual (Yule, 1997). It is important to understand that when one person expresses 
their thoughts concerning something or someone, the listener deduces those intentions. 
On occasion, it's not enough for the process to function between a single speaker and 
listener; it must also function in terms of social interactions amongst the entire 
community that shares a shared language and culture. "Where is the green salad sitting?" 
is an example of a question that one server might ask another in a restaurant. "He is 
seated by the door," the second person says... Words do not denote anything in this 

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context; what they do refer to are individuals. Another scenario is a student at NUST 
asking another, "Could you let me borrow your Sifiso Nyati?" "Sure, please look on the 
very first front shelf," the second trainee interjects. The fact that we may use names of 
things (salad) to refer to individuals and names of persons (Sifiso Nyati) to refer to novels 
is demonstrated by these examples.  

Pragmatics Rescues Semantic Failures 

According to Horn (2006), pragmatics is the study of contextual meanings beyond 
semantic literal meanings. Researchers like Levinson (1983) offer pragmatics definitions 
that are relevant to pragmatic stylistics, but few of these scholars highlight the need to 
understand the semantic meanings behind pragmatic competence and pragmatics. Here 
is an example from Cutting (2002) that illustrates this:  

Envision yourself calling your go-to eatery and asking, "Hi, do you happen to have 
any tables available this Saturday?"  

"Yes, we do," the restaurant manager says before hanging up the phone.  

You inquired about the availability of tables, and their literal response was "yes"—
which is also accurate—from a semantic perspective. But if we apply pragmatics, we can 
assume that you were hoping to book a table for that specific Saturday. Given this 
background, it's easy to see how pragmatics arose from the need for a solution to the 
problem of semantics' inability to transmit the speaker's intended meaning within the 
given context. Thinking about how semantics relates to pragmatics analysis, Cutting 
(2008) argues that pragmatics became its academic discipline mainly due to semantics' 
inadequacy in explaining meaning. The study of pragmatics, as seen in the previous 
example, allows us to focus on the construction of meaning within context rather than on 
the literal meaning of words and sentences. Considerations such as irony, metaphors, and 
intended meanings are part of pragmatics, which examines the gap between the literal 
and socially intended meanings of words (Cutting, 2008). For instance, when a boss asks, 
"What time do you call this?" while an employee is running late for work. Based on the 
context and the boss's vocal intonation, it seems like he or she is more interested in the 
rationale behind an employee's tardiness to work than in the exact time. That pragmatics 
saves semantics from its shortcomings is stressed for this very reason.  

Speech Acts in Pragmatics 

In pragmatics, speech acts play a crucial role in determining whether or not there 
are hidden meanings behind a speaker's words and phrases. According to Yule (1996), 
the study of speech actions involves observing how both speakers and listeners utilize 
language. The phrase "speech act" is used by Yule (1996, p. 47) to describe the activities 
that are carried out through speech. When a manager commands, "Follow COVID-19 
protocols!" he is effectively endorsing the regulations and policies of the COVID-19 
pandemic. The manager is executing an action here by way of speech. Words have the 
power to alter a person's demeanour. Language, as Yule explains further, is rife with 
implicit meanings as well. When someone says anything, it's not always clear what they 
mean. Sometimes, there's more to their words than meets the eye.  

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Speech Act Distinction 

The difference between the locution, illocution, and perlocution of a speech act is an 
important one, says Smit (2012). In addition, Searle (1969) considered the idea that every 
speech act comprises three distinct phases: locution, illocution, and affective processing 
by the listener (perlocution). Locutionary is the process of describing what a speaker says 
by just reciting a sentence from a language. For example, the pronoun "my watch" is used 
as a noun in the sentence "my watch is broken," which is a predicative expression. The 
speaker's intended action when they utter a sentence is called an illocutionary act. Words 
like "state," "promise," "apologize," "threaten," "predict," "order," and "request" fall 
within this category. An illocutionary act is an act of ordering, according to Searle, when 
a mother says to her child, "Take your feet off the table" (1969). Additionally, the impact 
of a speaker's words on an audience is known as a perlocutionary act. The listener may 
be inspired, embarrassed, intimidated, bored, or persuaded by these effects. The 
perlocutionary conduct is likely to be annoying if, for instance, a husband says to his wife 
ten times in five minutes, "Hurry up, sweetheart, we're going to be late for the party" 
(Parker, 1986).  

Mey (1994) states that it is possible to engage in three speech acts—the locutionary 
act, the illocutionary act, and the perlocutionary act—at the same time. Keep in mind that 
the act of elocution is related to the pronouncing of a phrase that establishes its reference 
and sense. The literal meaning of words lies at the heart of the literal deed. This area is 
particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The literal interpretation serves as a 
timely reminder of the high prevalence of COVID-19 in the region. What an illocutionary 
act is all about, according to Mey (1994), is the speaker's intended meaning. By way of 
illustration, the previous statement was meant to convey the idea that the hearer should 
take precautions against the spread of the COVID-19 virus, such as covering their face 
when they are in public places.  

Politeness in Pragmatics 

According to O'Keeffe et al. (2011), politeness is a combination of verbal and 
nonverbal actions that show consideration for other people's feelings regarding 
appropriate behaviour. According to Gleason and Ratner (1998, p. 286), encouraging 
civility in speech acts is being considerate of other people's sentiments and engaging in 
behaviours related to positive face (the want to be approved of) and negative face (the 
wish to be free from the imposition, unimpeded, or left alone). An effort to minimize the 
potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange is the goal of 
civility, according to Lakoff (1990, p. 34). Politeness, according to Yule (2010, p. 135), is 
being mindful of and considerate of another person's face. When people act in a way that 
they think is polite in a particular situation, they are trying to demonstrate shared values 
with others, which leads to positive emotions, according to O'Keeffe et al. Politeness helps 
people build and maintain relationships, and it operates through evaluative moments 
that involve assessing someone's behaviour and interpersonal altitudes (Yule, 2010).  

Politeness and Cultures (Semantics Vs Pragmatic Competence) 

Many studies have adapted the concept of politeness to multiple languages (Saeed, 
2009). Saeed goes on to say that cross-cultural diversity is a major factor to think about 

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when assessing the usefulness of the politeness concept for analyzing indirect speech 
acts. According to Yule (2010, pp. 134–136), other people don't always appreciate when 
you use indirect communication. Take this hypothetical conversation between a tourist 
who appears bewildered as he lugs around his bags and a random passer-by as an 
example.  

Visitor: Excuse me. Do you know where the Ambassador Hotel is?  
Passer-by: Oh sure, I know where it is. (And walks away)  

Here, the tourist makes a request using an indirect speech act—an interrogative 
structure—but the bystander responds as though it were a direct speech act (Yule, 2010). 
Cultures have different views on what words and phrases are most appropriate for 
expressing politeness, according to Yule. Someone whose culture values indirectness and 
avoiding direct imposition would find it rude if someone from a culture that values 
directness as a means of solidarity used direct speech acts (such as "Give me that chair!"). 
Since it is not immediately apparent if the speaker wants the chair or is only inquiring 
about it, a misunderstanding of an utterance like (Are you using this chair?).  

Pragmatic failure 

The way people talk varies greatly among cultures and communities. These 
linguistic variations indicate distinct cultural ideals or, at the very least, distinct value 
systems, and they are well-considered and structured. When people, particularly those 
speaking a different language, have difficulty using the language appropriately, it can lead 
to a breakdown in communication known as pragmatic failure (Thomas, 1983). Ziran 
(1988) sees it as the failure to attain the desired communicative consequences in 
communication, while Thomas thinks it's the failure to comprehend an utterance. 
Problems with communication can be worsened by pragmatic failure rather than by 
grammatical failure. Pragmatic failure in cross-cultural contexts can lead to a major 
"communication collapse" (Thomas 1983, p. 97). The belief goes like this: when the 
listener doesn't get the speaker's meaning, that's a pragmatic failure.  

The importance of being able to decipher the underlying meanings of spoken 
language was highlighted in this section. The reason is, that if one isn't careful, their 
words or speech could be misunderstood and made to sound unpleasant. Additionally, 
the chapter notes that one can gain a better grasp of the utterances by learning about 
speech acts and pragmatics. To avoid cross-cultural pragmatic failures, it is important to 
keep in mind certain expressions when communicating with people from different 
cultural backgrounds. Additionally, some linguistic components and expressions 
necessitate socio-pragmatic competence to be understood better. For instance, not all of 
Namibia's vernacular languages use the same humorous or idiomatic terms as English.  

Hence, it is crucial to take into account pragmatic knowledge or competency and 
respect for cultural integrity when communicating. Idiomatic expressions are obstacles 
that could make it harder for someone to understand the true meaning of what someone 
is saying. Front desk trainees are one group who could benefit from socializing speech 
acts in a workshop setting to bring attention to the identified obstacles. In addition, it was 
noted that to grasp the intended meanings, one must carefully examine statements and 
make pragmatics a central point of conversation. Users can easily decipher the meaning 
of utterances by familiarizing themselves with the conventions and idiomatic expressions 

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of both their native and target languages. This could lead to an expansion of their 
linguistic knowledge, which in turn could allow them to perform speech acts, which are 
fundamental to the field of pragmatics.  

FINDINGS 

Formulation and Realisation of Request and Refusal Strategies 

The formulation and realisation of request strategies was the first target objective 
of the current enquiry and as such, the research sought to investigate whether the front-
office trainees possessed the requisite pragmatic knowledge as evidenced through their 
formulations of requests and refusals.  The Written Discourse Completion Tests proved 
effective in collecting data to respond to the objective. The front-office trainees were 
presented with a variety of requests that they potentially were likely to encounter 
occasionally in their engagement with either their trainers or their fellow trainees. The 
entire nine requests presented to the trainees required their formulation and production 
of requests in response to trainers' and other fellow trainees’ requests. 

The results showed that a lot of people (trainees) utilized rudeness signals and were 
very frank while refusing to do things. Additionally, the straight denial method of 
negation of proposition strategy got the second highest proportion. Also, the ability 
strategy had a lower response rate, which is important to note (Could you). This was 
critical because it highlighted a scenario where the trainers' and trainees' pragmatic 
communication engagements could be badly affected. In addition, the results showed that 
some of the participants possessed the moral fibre necessary for effective cross-cultural 
dialogue. The strategies relied on the speaker, which greatly increased the likelihood of 
discomfort and misunderstanding for the listener or recipient of the request. 'You must' 
and 'I need you to' were frequently used in the trainees' requests. In pragmatics-based 
communication, using these terms when requesting training from instructors conveys an 
undesirable quality. There needs to be pragmatic pedagogical intervention because it 
sounds like the trainees were demanding that the trainer do anything instead of just 
asking. Because of these gaps in cross-cultural communication, participants' requests 
were misunderstood as being unpleasant or nasty, and front-desk trainees require 
immediate training in pragmatic competence, perhaps in a program similar to English for 
Specific Purpose. According to Yazdanfar and Bonyati (2016, p. 8), people should not be 
considered rude just because they choose to utilize direct tactics in their language use. 
Examining cultural scripts' discretion was thus central to the study of directness and 
indirectness. Thomas (1983) and Blum-Kulka (1991) state that impolite or nasty 
requests might lead to a failure in communication, pragmatics, or even socio-pragmatics.  

Trainees’ Responses on the Speech Acts of Refusals 

According to Yuan (2012), when someone says "no" to a request or invitation, 
whether directly or indirectly, it is seen as a speech act of denial. Additionally, according 
to Yuan, the requestor may view them as acts of face-threatening behaviour since the 
response goes against what the speakers had hoped for. Smit (2012) adds weight to this 
claim by noting that "face-threatening activities" are speech acts that endanger one's 
good or poor reputation. According to Chen (1996), as referenced in Tanck (2002), there 
are three possible speech acts when someone refuses: 1) an expression of regret, “I’m 

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sorry”, followed by 2) a direct refusal, “I cannot come to your birthday party, followed by 
3) an excuse, “I will be on business in the US”. Tanck suggests these three components 
based on a study done by Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990), observing that in case 
of an invitation, the formulaic sequence would comprise of 1) an expression of regret, 
followed by 2) an excuse, and ending with 3) an offer of an alternative. The current study 
also made use of the same components to analyse the front-office trainees’ refusal 
responses. The speech act of refusal data collection section of the WDCT consisted of nine 
situations.  

In evaluating their pragmatic competence, the trainees were expected to refuse the 
requests made, and in doing this, considering politeness and apologetic approaches 
where necessary was important. The following are some of the nine situations which 
were presented: 

Table 1. Speech Act Situations for Refusal 

Speech Acts of Refusals: Situations (see Appendix B) 

Refusal A 
Refuse your trainer’s request to mark fellow trainees’ papers for 
him. 

Refusal B Refuse a fellow trainee’s appeal to do a class assignment for her. 

Refusal C Refuse your trainer’s request to submit your tasks three days before 
the given deadline. 

 

Refusal D 
Refuse your classmate’s request to lend her your summary books. 

Refusal E Refuse your trainers’ request to present the computer lab rules to 
fellow trainees. 

Refusal F Refuse your trainer’s instruction to remain behind to redo tasks he 
claims we inadequately attended to. 

Refusal G Refuse your fellow trainee’s appeal to show her how to upload some 
activities on the Moodle E-learning platform. 

Revelation of the Speech Acts of Apologies  

Murphy (2015) states that the act of apologising can take one of two basic forms or 
a combination of both; one is that a speaker may use an explicit ‘illocutionary force 
indicating device’ and the other is that the speaker may refer to one of the factors which 
precipitated the need for an apology and the speaker’s responsibility for the offence. 
Human beings are prone to making mistakes, they may do wrong to one another – 
intentionally or accidentally, whatever the case may be – and an apology has to be made 
at some point to maintain peace. According to Murphy performative verbs such as sorry, 
excuse, apologise, forgive, regret and pardon are used to carry out the speech act of 
apologising. Apologies are face-threatening acts (Brown & Levinson, 1987, as cited in 
Yuan, 2012), as there is a need for the speaker to admit having done wrong when 
performing an apology and this undermines his/her face. Should the speaker fail to 
apologise, it becomes a threat to the hearer’s face (Wouk, 2006, as cited in Yuan, 2012) . 
In this regard, Bataineh and Bataineh (2006) as cited in Yuan (2012) observe that when 
one offers an apology, one demonstrates the willingness to humiliate oneself, which 

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makes an apology a face-saving act for the hearer but a face-threatening act for the 
speaker. In analysing the speech act of apology, Brown and Attardo (2000) propose the 
five components of an apology and these are a) an expression of apology, through which 
the wrongdoer repeats the feeling of regret; b) an explanation of the situation, in which 
the wrongdoer tries to reconstruct the incident to see whether he/she deserves 
forgiveness; c) an acknowledgement of responsibility, in which the wrongdoer states 
his/her responsibility for what has happened as a part of the apology; d) an offer of repair, 
through which the wrongdoer tries to offer a way to compensate for the harm; and e) a 
promise of non-recurrence, in which the wrongdoer promises not to repeat the offence. 
Divorced from these five components of an apology, Yuan (2012) suggests the 
employment of three R’s: Regret, Responsibility and Remedy.  

The current study adopted the three R’s approach to analyse the apologies provided 
by front-office trainees under study. The WDCTs used for this study comprised nine 
situational analyses designed to examine the front-office trainees’ pragmatic competence 
in making apologies and apologetic refusals. However, the most notable finding of this 
study demonstrates that the targeted participants lacked an apologetic approach, 
evidenced by their failure to communicate competently. Their linguistic behaviours 
demonstrate pragmatic impairment. It was also observed that bluntness and negation of 
proposition – as part of direct refusal strategies – accounted for the larger percentage of 
responses when compared to apologetic responses as demonstrated in the situations 
detailed above and below. 

Application of Politeness in Speech Act of Refusal and Apologetic Responses 

The participants were presented with a Discourse Completion Test. The study 
presented the front-office trainees with sensitive and tricky situations that they may or 
might not have experienced in their daily engagements with their both trainers and 
fellow trainees in a pedagogical environment. As a way to check the pragmatics 
knowledge and awareness of the participants, the Discourse Completion Test included 
situations that required them to formulate refusals to suggestions or requests by 
participants of equal power or lesser power to them (fellow trainees) and there were 5 
situations. Meanwhile, 4 of the situations required refusal strategy responses and were 
directly linked to the refusal of their trainers’ requests. 

Table 2. Students’ Refusal Speech Act 

Polite 
expression of 
refusal  used 

Situation Number (S#) - frequency of utilization (Often / Rarely) 

S#1 S#2 S#3 S#4 S#5 S#6 S#7 S#8 S#9 

No, please… Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely 

Couldn’t… Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely 

Wouldn’t… Often Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Often Rarely Rarely 

No, I am sorry Often Often Rarely Often Often Often Often Rarely Rarely 

Excuse me… Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Often Rarely Rarely 

Thank you 

for… 
Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely 

I am afraid… Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely Often Rarely Rarely Rarely Rarely 

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This study attempted to assess the frequency of the usage of the polite refusal 
strategy in responding to certain given situations. The analysis of responses for all nine 
refusal situations was made and it was established that most trainees lacked the polite 
refusal strategies approaches as evidenced in the table above. According to Jucker (2008, 
p. 120), politeness has become a cover term for both norms of behaviour and linguistic 
choices made concerning the need to preserve one’s face in general, that is, one’s public 
self-image. The data reveals that the respondents did not use different types of politeness 
strategies but rather used bluntness more often. It was observed that expressions such 
as ‘please no..’., ‘please not’, ‘excuse me’, ‘pardon’ and ‘sorry’ were not frequently used in 
most refusal responses.  

It was further learnt that the trainees did not use clauses that are also used as 
softeners or a perlocutionary effect of an utterance on the addressee, exemplified by 
expressions such as 'if you don't mind', 'if you wouldn't', etc.  As demonstrated in the above 
table, the usage of ‘please’ as in the example ‘Please not this time of exams…’ was rarely 
used.  In the first situation (Situation A) for example, ‘would’ in combination with ‘please’ 
was supposed to be used often for a polite approach like in the example: No please, I would 
rather not give you some notes this time of examinations. However, it was found that the 
polite expression ‘would not’ was rarely used. This was indicative of the fact that 
politeness is rarely used in vocational education in general, and by front-office trainees 
in particular. According to Jucker (2008) the politeness indicator ‘please’ or no please is 
not only used at the beginning, it is also used in the middle or at the end of the phrases or 
the sentences.  

Ishihara and Cohen (2007) gave the following clues on how one would say sorry to 
someone exemplified by the following expressions: • Sorry, I didn’t mean to… • I am sorry 
but… • I apologize for… • I hope you will forgive me but… • I seem to have made a mistake. 
I’m sorry… • I am sorry for misunderstanding… • I hope you will understand…” (p. 62).  

Similarly, to say ‘no’ or refuse requests, the following expressions are recommended 
with no meta-pragmatic explanation provided. ‘I would rather not… If you don’t mind, I’ll 
say ‘no’ to that. I don’t want… if you don’t mind. I’m sorry, but I’ve said ‘no’ and I’m not going 
to change my mind. I’d prefer to…/ I’d rather… Why don’t we… instead?’ (Ishihara and 
Cohen, 2007, p.103).  

This section provided a logical presentation of the study's results in light of the 
acknowledged research objectives from Chapter 1. The third goal, which involved 
assessing the use of politeness principles in request-refusal methods through speech acts, 
was associated with the most important findings. The participants were shown nine 
distinct scenarios and asked to demonstrate how to respond to each one in everyday life. 
They then assessed the responses based on the scenarios they had seen. The ability of the 
respondents to express and carry out refusals was examined and evaluated in the second 
objective. To prepare the participants for interactions with their trainers and other 
trainees, we simulated real-life scenarios. They had to come up with reasons not to 
comply with requests and then actually do it. It was crucial to provide a glimpse into the 
study's analysis of refusal situations and appropriate solutions when examining the 
provided refusal scenarios. The two most common direct techniques for refusing were 
being blunt (20.50 per cent) and denying the notion (19.20%), whereas the most common 
indirect strategies were being plain forthright, giving a reason, or explaining something. 

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In addition to lacking politeness approach tactics, respondents exhibited a lack of regret 
or apologetic attitude in reacting to many presented situations. The following column 
chart illustrates clearly how respondents demonstrated the use of direct refusal strategy 
e.g.… ‘no’ and negation of proposition on high rate. 

 

Figure 1. Total percentages of Refusal: Finding analysis of Situation A–I 

DISCUSSIONS 

Because some parts of Trosborg's (1995) taxonomy of request realisation were 
irrelevant to the present study, its full format was not used. As a result, none of the five 
main kinds of request strategies—conventionally indirect (speaker-based), direct, 
internally modified, and externally modified—were employed. Firstly, it could be said 
that the participants' responses conformed to most of the broad request-type techniques, 
despite their vast and different display. The indirect conventional method, which is 
focused on the listeners, was the most effective in implementing the request tactics.  

Also worth noting is that, in contrast to the direct method, the indirect conventional 
strategy managed to gather a disproportionately high number of answers.  This is 
contrary to the assertion by Iragui (1996, p. 58) who points out that, “the native speakers’ 
use of alerts and intensifiers confirms most studies on interactional pragmatics that have 
reported that many trainees used impoliteness markers and used direct refusal strategies 
(bluntness) at high rate”. Additionally, the straight denial method of negation of 
proposition strategy got the second highest proportion. Furthermore, it must be 
mentioned that a substantial amount of answers were also documented regarding the 
ability technique (Could you). This was critical because it highlighted a scenario where 
the trainers' and trainees' pragmatic communication engagements could be badly 
affected.  

19.50%
20.50%

16%

18.30%

3%

9.50%

1.50%

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Negation of
proposition

Bluntness Regret/ Reason/
Explaining

Plain strategy Alternative
refusal

Willing-ness
strategy

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Some participants' use of direct imperative and performative methods suggests a 
potentially complicated communication scenario within TVET and the Hospitality 
training division at Valombola VTC. Participants' lack of pragmatic knowledge, 
particularly regarding the use of language in diverse settings, is implied by their use of 
these tactics. The use of imperatives and direct performatives as requests revealed a lack 
of understanding of pragma-linguistics and socio-pragmatics, which is especially 
problematic in pragmatics. Because of these gaps in cross-cultural communication, 
participants' requests were misunderstood as being unpleasant or nasty, and front-desk 
trainees require immediate training in pragmatic competence, perhaps in a program 
similar to English for Specific Purpose. According to Yazdanfar and Bonyati (2016, p. 8), 
people should not be considered rude just because they choose to utilize direct tactics in 
their language use. Examining cultural scripts' discretion was thus central to the study of 
directness and indirectness. Thomas (1983) and Blum-Kulka (1991) state that impolite 
or nasty requests might lead to a failure in communication, pragmatics, or even socio-
pragmatics.  

The results also showed that participants used the least tactics for internal and 
external modification, which could mean that the trainees had trouble coming up with 
good requests by not using the right language tools. According to the findings, non-native 
English speakers can be better prepared for cross-cultural communication processes by 
paying close attention to their immediate surroundings. Important ideas on internal 
syntactic and lexical downgraders were also the subject of the research. If you want to 
come up with request tactics that non-native English speakers can accept and use, you 
need to make sure you internalize these abilities and awareness. There is a difference 
between this study and the one by Blum-Kulka (1991) in terms of the setting; for example, 
the majority of the present study's participants reported never having interacted with 
native English speakers.  

"Can you" and "Could you" are indicators of participants' limited pragma-linguistic 
expertise, according to the study. What the participants have experienced in the 
classroom about grammatical instruction may be directly related to this. Requests 
categorized as indirect conventional strategy and external modification showed this 
pattern (supportive reasons). One sign of a problem with request formulation diversity 
was the employment of the same approach and language formulations (House & Kasper, 
1987; Trosborg, 1995). Research has also shown that people whose first language is not 
English do not often change their requests because of their lack of competence in the 
language.  

Findings analysis shows that many responses were in line with direct techniques. 
The two most important direct rejection techniques were being blunt and negating the 
proposition. The most common indirect strategies were being simply direct, explaining 
or providing a reason, apologizing, or offering an alternative. Disagreement, statements 
of principle, and avoidance had little bearing on the results of this investigation. The 
research shows that direct rejection techniques were more common among the front-
office trainees who participated, which is surprising given the number of alternatives to 
indirect strategies.  

Research also shows that when participants felt psychological pressure, they were 
more likely to use a direct, frank approach with their trainers. This runs counter to the 
previous finding since, in these cases, the participants lacked an essential understanding 

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of socio-pragmatic issues and variables. Refusing a recommendation or request from a 
superior in a conversation may not have deviated from the anticipated realization of 
socio-pragmatic elements such as the power dynamic, the context, and the distance 
between the two parties involved. This goes against the grain of other research that has 
found that bilingualism should lead to a heightened understanding of pragmatics.  

CONCLUSIONS 

The pragmatic competence of the front desk trainees was examined in this study by 
looking at how well they could formulate and implement strategies for handling requests. 
The test also looked at how well they used etiquette rules while saying no or apologizing. 
In addition, the study has looked at what makes a difference to trainees' pragmatic 
competence when working across cultures. Researchers used two WDCTs in the study: 
one to measure participants' ability to formulate and complete requests, and another to 
measure participants' ability to formulate and complete plans for refusing or apologizing. 
Extra information was gathered through the use of a questionnaire as well.  

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