Genuine Refusals in Chinese Social Media

Refusal has been attached importance in pragmatics. However, there is a dearth of research on the realization of this face-threatening speech act in the context of social media.The present study examined genuine refusals in Chinese social media by analyzing 40 posts from the Douban group. Results show that in the particular domain of communication examined (everydaysituations online), genuine refusals are realized most frequently through indirect refusals especially stating reason and alternative, followed by direct refusal of expressing negative willingness and negative ability. It is hoped that the paper will shed light on the refusal practice for people who find it difficult to say no to othersandalso the research of online refusals in Chinese.