Making a Non-Personal Reason

Sabrina : I wanna go and they dont. Jason : Im not really ready to leave either. Datum no. 38 The first pair part of conversation shows that Sabrina asks Jason to go home with her because her friends do not want to leave the party. Since Jason still wants to spend his time in the party, he refuses Sabrina’s request by saying “Im not really ready to leave either”. In his statement, the word “really” is a mitigator used to make the dispreferred response less challenging to the hearer. In other words, Jason wants to give a weak refusal to Sabrina’s request as a way to minimize the effect of the dispreferred act. Furthermore, Jason also performs his dispreferred social act by using a mitigator “kind of”. In this case, the use of mitigator “kind of” is similar to the mitigator “really” in the datum 40. Sabrina : But I wanna go home. We have a big day tomorrow. Jason : Babe, Im in the middle of a conversation right now. For you to ask me to just walk out on it, its kind of rude. Datum no. 39 Although her first request is already refused by Jason, Sabrina keeps asking Jason to go home with her in order to make the second pair part which is an acceptance. Unfortunately, the request is still responded by a refusal. In this datum, Jason uses the mitigator “kind of” instead of “really” to express his dispreferred response. However, the use of those mitigators is similar; that is to make a dispreferred social act sounds less challenging. Both conversations happen in a Bachelor’s party conducted by Jason and Sabrina. Sabrina asks Jason to go home with her as they have a big day tomorrow. Yet, Jason refuses Sabrina’s request twice because he thinks that it is impolite or rude manner to ask people to walk out when they are in the middle of a conversation with someone else. Thus, to make it less challenging, he uses the mitigator to minimize the effect of dispreferred response.

10. Performing a Direct Declination or an Unmitigated Response

In this movie, there are several dispreferred social acts performed directly or un-mitigated . They are generally performed by a direct declination such as “no” or “cannot”. Jason : It’s almost noon. I gotta go pick up my mom, all right? Sabrina : No, no, no You’re not going anywhere. Datum no. 15 This datum shows an occurrence of dispreferred social act performed by performing direct declination or unmitigated response. In the first pair part of dialogue, Jason requests for permission to Sabrina to pick up his mother. However, the request is directly refused by Sabrina by saying “No, no, no You’re not going anywhere”. It means that she does not allow Jason to pick up her mother. The conversation in datum 15 takes place in the beach when Jason and Sabrina walk together to her house. Since it is almost noon, Jason asks Sabrina for a permission to pick her mother up at the dock. Yet, Sabrina dissuades Jason to do it because she has sent a car for her. However, it makes Jason feels worry. He is afraid that his mother gets mad at him since it is impolite to pick important guests only by sending a driver. Performing a direct declination or unmitigated dispreferred social act is considered less polite than mitigated or marked dispreferred social acts. In some