Declining an Invitation: The Pragmatics of Italian and Colombian Spanish

In this chapter we compare Italian and Colombian Spanish cross-culturally with a focus on the speech act of declining an invitation. The study originates from the observation that there are differences in the refusal behaviors of Italians and Colombians. Such differences may easily lend themselves to stereotyping if not adequately interpreted in the frame of cross-cultural pragmatics. Data were collected through a questionnaire which combined open and multiple-choice Discourse Completion Task (DCT) items, and assessment questions. The questionnaire was filled out by 63 Italians from the urban area of Rome and 63 Colombians from the urban area of Bogot . The findings suggest that the Colombians in our study perceived the expected behavior in the ritualized act of refusing an invitation in a slightly different way from the Italians. In particular, our Colombian informants showed a higher preference for the use of a mitigated refusal, whilst our Italian informants preferred to postpone their response, using demurral as a strategy. As for the inviter’s expectancy that an invitee actually takes part in the event after accepting the invitation, the Colombians in our study more frequently expected that the invitee would not show up, whereas the Italians expected a last-minute cancellation. Some pedagogical implications are discussed based on these findings.