A Heritage Local Language in Women’s Refusal Acts: A Social Change in Verbal Expression From Ethnography Communication Perspective at Central Sulawesi

Female undergraduates’ refusal speech is regarded as an independent perspective in the study of speech acts as a unit of communication. From the gender perspective and ethnography of communication, women language is included as a classic study on the variety of language that has different characteristic and specification as a gender marker. The local accent and dialect used by women in Central Sulawesi have unique trait when they are used in a conversation with local language as a heritage. This study aims to identify the form, strategy, and context for expressing refusal towards an instruction, invitation, request, and the others with a qualitative approach a sociopragmatics especially ethnography communication in the analyzing process. Substantively, the result shows that the form, strategy, and context for expressing refusal can be realized by using negation and requirement marker as well as by certain mode of refusal either it is direct or indirect. Topic and participant, as a part of the context, influence the women’s choice of expression. As a verbal expression, refusal speech by women in the spoken academic discourse in Central Sulawesi is also influenced by the level of intimacy, socio-cultural aspect, and multi-ethnical context, and social change