In this conversation, Mrs. Taylor asks Mrs. Watson a yes-no question about Jewish tradition in which ‘yes’ is the expected response of the question. As
the response of Mrs. Taylor’s question, Mrs. Watson gives her challenge by saying that her families are not Jewish. In this context, the challenge appears to
defend the speaker’s self-argument about the topic which is being performed. Furthermore, it is clear that there is a misunderstanding in interpreting the
question meaning. In the second part of dialogue, Mrs. Watson interprets Mrs. Taylor’s question as an assessment to her family. Thus, she performs a challenge
as her disagreement. Whereas, Mrs. Taylor performs the question about Jewish’s wedding tradition to illustrate that jumping the broom is a cultural necessity. For
those reason, Mrs. Taylor obliges Jason and Sabrina to jump the broom in their wedding.
h. To Show Unwillingness or Inability to Perform an Action
Several characters in Jumping the Broom movie perform dispreferred social acts to show their unwillingness or inability to perform preferred actions.
As presented in the following datum, Sabrina refuses Mr. Watson’s request to express her unwillingness to perform the requested act.
Mr. Watson : We should discuss this in private
Sabrina : No, Dad. There’s no more private here.
Datum no. 48 Mr. Watson asks Sabrina to discuss their family problem in a private
place. As the preferred response, he expects that the request will be responded by an acceptance. Unfortunately, Sabrina directly refuses the request by saying “No,
Dad. There’s no more private here”. From her statement, it can be concluded that she is unwilling to discuss the problem in private.
The family conflict cannot be avoided after Mrs. Taylor reveals Watson’s secret that Sabrina is their adopted daughter. Sabrina who feels upset about this
fact tries to clarify this by asking for an explanation to Mrs. Watson. As there are many people who listen to the conversation, Mr. Watson asks Sabrina to discuss
this problem in a private place. Yet, she refuses the request and let everybody know about the truth.
i. To Dissuade the First Speaker to Do an Action
In this movie, some dispreferred social acts are identified as a strategy to dissuade the first speaker to do a certain action. This function appears as the
speaker tries to restrain the speaker to perform an action by performing a statement of prevention. The following example describes this function.
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 Jason asks for permission to Sabrina to pick up his family with an
expectation that Sabrina will allow him. Nonetheless, Sabrina performs a dispreferred response by restraining Jason to pick them up. It is clearly stated
when Sabrina says “No, no, no You’re not going anywhere” in her response. The implied meaning of the statement is that Sabrina prevents Jason to pick up her
mom. Therefore, it can be concluded that this dispreferred social act is performed to dissuade the first speaker to do an action.
