How to say “no” in a foreign language: the role of L2 proficiency, power relations, and eliciting acts

Most studies on second language (L2) learners’ refusal strategies focus on the frequency and content of individual strategy use. However, research also reveals the fact that learners tend to use multiple strategies in a single refusal. How these strategy combinations are quantitatively distributed is a question that is under-researched. To address this gap, this study investigates individual strategies and their combinatorial patterns in the refusals of 237 Chinese EFL learners across three L2 proficiency levels. It further explores how power relations and eliciting acts (requests, offers, invitations, and suggestions) influence the frequency of strategies. Data were collected through written discourse completion tasks and coded with Beebe et al.’s (1990) scheme. Results indicated a positive relationship between the repertoire of refusal strategies and L2 proficiency. Power relations exerted a mixed effect on strategy use, while eliciting acts particularly influenced the use of gratitude/appreciation and let interlocutor off the hook strategies. Combinatorial analyses identified an L2 proficiency-related progression: lower-proficiency learners predominantly employed regret + reason/excuse/explanation sequences, whereas advanced learners favored gratitude/appreciation + reason/excuse/explanation combinations. These findings provide pedagogical implications for teaching refusals in Chinese EFL settings.