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1. Introduction
Refusal speech act is a kind of speech act that is frequently used in daily communication. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary （2004， 6th edition）， refusal refers to an act of saying or showing that you will not do， give or accept something， such as the refusal of a request， an invitation， an offer. It shows speaker’s unwillingness to accept something offered by the hearer or a third party， or the resistance to doing something that the hearer or a third party asks to do. Chen et al. （1995：121） defined a refusal as a responding act in which the speaker denies to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. （Song Xiaoyan， 2010） It is the “non-cooperative” option which is directed towards the interlocutors’ request， invitation， suggestion or offer. （WeiYing， 2011）
Refusal speech acts are so widely used in social communication that many studies on them have been conducted from different perspectives. For example， from the pragmatic perspective， the most striking feature of the refusal speech act is face-threatening which calls for the application of politeness strategies. （Song Xiaoyan， 2010） From the sociolinguistics perspective， researches on gender differences in using refusal strategies are conducted. Besides， many comparative studies on refusal speech acts have been conducted from the cross-cultural perspective and second language acquisition perspective.
However， studies on refusal speech acts following the prototype theory approach have been relatively few. Prototype theory is a powerful instrument in explaining many linguistic phenomena such as syntax， the acquisition of vocabulary and tense， etc. As has been mentioned above， refusal speech acts are widely used in social communication， using the prototype theory to analyze them can shed new light on the understanding of refusal speech acts as well as extending the fields to which prototype theory can be applied.
This paper attempts to explain refusal speech acts from the point of view of prototype theory. It aims to reach the conclusion that refusal speech acts have distinct components and that these components are of different degrees of importance. That is to say， these components form a prototypical category with fuzzy boundaries and that they differ in prototypical status.
This paper is divided into four sections. Section 1 is a brief introduction of refusal speech act and the significance and purpose of analyzing refusal speech act following the prototype theory approach. Section 2 is mainly concerned with the theoretical basis of the paper， including prototype theory and speech act theory. Section 3 utilizes prototype theory to analyze the components of refusal speech acts and their different degrees of importance. Section 4 summarizes the discussion and draws the conclusion that the components of refusal speech act form a refusal speech act category and that their status differ in the category. That is to say， there are typical members of refusal speech act category and non-typical members in the category. 2. Theoretical Basis
2.1 Prototype Theory
In the past few decades， there has been considerable debate on the nature and structure of categories within cognitive psychology. Roughly speaking， there are mainly two approaches of the studying of categorization：the classical approach to categorization and the prototype approach to categorization. Prototype Theory remains one of the most important theories in the field of cognitive linguistics. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009） And in this paper， we will mainly use Prototype Theory to analyze refusal speech act. The development of the prototype theory has gone through 4 main steps， i.e. Wittgenstein’s work on family resemblance， Berlin and Kay’s studies on colors， Labov’s experiment and the work of Rosch. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） We are going to briefly introduce Rosch’s theory of prototype and the characteristics of the prototype category.
2.1.1 Rosch’s theory of prototype
The prototype is a mental representation and some sort of cognitive reference point. （Li Fuyin， 2008） It is described by Rosch as the most central instance of any given category and is the clearest case of category membership defined operationally by people’s judgments of goodness of membership in a category. The prototype effects indicate that the membership between category members is asymmetric， and most of the categories are formed in terms of prototypes， with different degrees of membership. People do not categorize things on the basis of necessary and sufficient attributes but according to the resemblance of things to the prototypical member of a category. The prototypical members， which possess the cognitive salience， are the most typical exemplars of a category. It takes relatively less cognitive effort to be stored in brain and is easy to be accessed to. So when a category is mentioned， it is the prototype members that people first think of. （Yang Qingqing， 2011）
2.1.2 The characteristics of the prototype category
The characteristics of the prototype category can be summarized as follows.
（1）Categories are not defined in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient features. Rather， category members are connected by a network of overlapping similarities （which is defined as “family resemblance” by Wittgenstein）
（2）The boundaries of cognitive categories are fuzzy， i.e. neighboring categories are not separated by rigid boundaries， but merge into each other.
（3）All members of a category do not share equal status. Cognitive categories are made up of prototypes and peripheries， of good examples and bad ones. Between prototypes and boundaries， cognitive categories contain members which can be rated on a typicality scale ranging from good to bad examples. （4）Prototypical members of cognitive categories have the largest number of attributes in common with other members of the category and the smallest number of attributes which also occur with other members of neighboring categories. This means that in terms of attributes， prototypical members are maximally distinct from the prototypical members of other categories. Bad examples （i.e. marginal category members） share only a small number of attributes with other members of their category， but have several attributes which belong to other categories as well.
（5）Prototypical members are cognitively more salient than non-prototypical members. The former tend to come to mind before the latter as prototypes are more accurately remembered in short-term memory and more easily activated from long-term memory. （Yang Qingqing， 2011）
2.2 Speech Act Theory
Since refusal speech act is a kind of speech act， we cannot avoid mentioning the Speech Act Theory. It was first proposed by the British philosopher John Austin in the late 1950s， and then it was further developed by American philosopher-linguist John Searle. The main proposition of the theory can be concluded as “saying is acting”， “to say something is to do something”. As long as a speaker utters a meaningful， accepted sentence， he has performed a speech act.（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.1 Austin’s Theory
According to Austin， a speaker， when speaking， is performing three acts simultaneously， i.e. locutionary act， illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference. The illocutionary act refers to the making of a statement， offer， promise， etc. in uttering a sentence， by virtue of the conventional force associated with it （or with its explicit performative paraphrase）. The perlocutionary act refers to the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence， such effects being special to the circumstances of utterance.（Pragmatics：236） To illustrate， let’s take an example.
（1）Shoot her！
In sentence （1）， the locutionary act is the act of saying ‘Shoot her’ and meaning “shoot” by ‘shoot’ and “her” by ‘her’. The illocutionary act is the act of urging， advising， ordering the addressee to shoot her. The perlocutionary act is the act of persuading， making the addressee shoot her. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.2 Searle’s Theory
The most important contribution made by Searle to Speech Act Theory is his proposal of the notion of indirect speech act. According to him， instances of indirect language are indirect speech acts， in which “one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another”. So in performing indirect speech acts， two speech acts instead of one are involved， i.e. primary illocutionary act and secondary illocutionary act. The secondary illocutionary act is literal and the primary illocutionary act is not literal， but it identifies with the real purpose of the utterance. For example， the utterance “It’s cold in here” literally tells us the condition with regard to temperature where the speaker is. If this is the sole purpose of the speaker in making the utterance， the language he uses is direct. But if apart from telling the hearer what he thinks the condition is like， he means to ask the hearer to do something to make the place warmer， then the use of language is indirect. The primary illocutionary act in this case is a directive， i.e. to get the hearer to do something， and the secondary illocutionary act is a representative， i.e. to say what he believes to be the case. （He Zhaoxiong， 2011） According to Searle， indirect speech acts can be divided into two subcategories， i.e. conventional and non-conventional indirect speech acts. The conventional has illocutionary force indicator. Conventional speech acts are usually those speech acts which have not only literal meaning but also non-literal meaning. Their illocutionary meaning cannot be figured out through the literal meaning， but can be easily got because they are conventionally used in our daily lives. That is to say， the illocutionary forces of conventional speech acts are taken for granted because of their frequent uses. The hearer deduces the illocutionary force or communicative force conventionally by literal meaning， such as “Can you pass me the salt？”
On the other hand， the non-conventional has no illocutionary force indicators. To understand the illocutionary force or communicative force correctly， the hearer must know the context， and the mutually shared knowledge of the speaker and the hearer. Consequently， non-conventional indirect speech acts are more difficult for hearer to understand than the conventional. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.3 Refusal Speech Act
According to Brown and Levinson， refusals function as a response to an initiating act and are considered as a speech act by which speaker fails to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. According to Kline and Floyd， the core component of a refusal is a denial or an expression of unwillingness to comply with a previous request， invitation or offer. They pointed out that refusal is an attempt to bring about behavioral change by encouraging the other to withdraw his/her request；they identify the core component as clearly indicating opposition to granting a request. Refusals involve the rejection of a request which the communicator feels is legitimate to make. By its nature refusal is a complex and flexible issue that can only be categorized according to different content. Yule attempts to classify this speech act into the “commissives”， equal with promises， threats， and pledges；and Hayashi describes it in an unfixable way and lists this speech act under the categories of directive， prohibitive， expressives， constative， assertive， retractive， or dissentive in different situations. （Wei Ying， 2011） The vague identification of the refusal speech act partially reflects the complexity of this speech act.
3. Refusal Speech Act under Prototype Theory
On the basis of classifications of speech act， we divide refusal speech act into direct refusal speech act and indirect refusal speech act. Indirect refusal speech act can be further classified into conventional indirect refusal speech act and non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. We will go through the three components of refusal speech act one by one to see how they form a refusal speech act category and analyze their different status in the category under the framework of prototype theory. 3.1 Direct Refusal Speech Act
In direct refusal speech act， an action proposed by the interlocutor is denied through the literal meaning of the utterance. For example
（2）儿子：爸， 我要出去踢球啦。
父亲：不行。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（3）售货员：您试试这个吧， 这个挺适合您的。
顾客：不买。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（4） A：May I invite you for a dance？
B：I don’t want to dance. （Wei Ying， 2011）
（5） 為了公司的利益， 我不得不拒绝你的请求。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（6）I have to refuse/ reject/ decline you. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（7） A：May I invite you for a dance？
B：I refuse to dance with you. （Wei Ying， 2011）
In sentence （2）-（4） uttered by the second speaker， the speaker performs refusal speech act by the direct use of a denying lexical item while in sentence （5）-（7B）， the intention of refusing is conveyed through the direct use of performative verbs such as “refuse， reject， decline”， etc. That is to say， direct refusal speech act takes the form of a sentence with the direct use of a denying lexical item or an explicit performative. Such kind of refusal speech acts has the single pragmatic function of refusing. Their illocutionary meaning can be figured out through their literal meaning. It takes the least effort for hearers to identify the illocutionary force of such utterances. Therefore， such utterances are the most obvious forms of refusal and can be recognized easily. They are also the first to come into people’s mind when “refusal speech act” is talked about. According to Prototype Theory， the prototypical members， which possess the cognitive salience， are the most typical exemplars of a category. It takes relatively less cognitive effort to be stored in brain and is easy to be accessed to. So when a category is mentioned， it is the prototype members that people first think of. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） From the analysis above， direct refusal speech act meets these requirements. Therefore， it is the prototypical member of the refusal speech act category.
However， though direct refusal is the most easily to be recognized and a very efficient way to convey speaker’s intention， it is also the most impolite for it threatens the addressee’s face. So people do not always refuse others straightforwardly， but often adopt some indirect， implicit ways to express their refusal intensions. （Wei Ying， 2011） That is how indirect refusal plays a role in communication.
3.2 Conventional indirect refusal speech act
In performing conventional indirect refusal speech act， two speech acts are involved， i.e. primary illocutionary act and secondary illocutionary act. However， this kind of refusal speech act has been entrenched to such an extent that the secondary illocutionary act is considered to help strengthen the primary illocutionary act. And the primary illocutionary act can be easily identified as a refusal. Their illocutionary meaning cannot be figured out through the literal meaning， but can be easily got because they are conventionally used in our daily lives. For example （7）A：Can you lend me some money？
B：I’m sorry.
（8）對不起， 我不能借给你钱， 我没钱。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（9）I am honored by your proposal， but I regret that I must decline it.
（10） No， thanks. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（11） Thank you， but…（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（12） I’d love/ like to. But…（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（13） I can’t/ won’t do that. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
The secondary illocutionary act of sentence （7B） and （8） is making an apology， but it has been widely accepted that apologizing can be used to convey the intention of refusal. Compared with direct refusal， apologizing is more polite while achieving the purpose of refusing. Sentence （9）-（11） literally express speaker’s gratitude and appreciation， the primary illocutionary act， i.e. refusal is conveyed through the denying lexical item “no” or the word “but”. Actually， such kind of utterance has some fixed forms and by convention， these utterances are seen as mainly having the pragmatic function of refusal even though they also perform the act of “expressing gratitude or appreciation”. That is to say， one pragmatic function is more salient than the other. As to sentence （12） and （13）， their secondary illocutionary act is to express negative ability or willingness. Their real meaning is not that the speaker does not have the ability to do something but that he/she does not want to do it. So the primary illocutionary act is a refusal.
From the above analysis， we can draw the conclusion that though these utterances have two pragmatic functions， one pragmatic function is more salient than the other. Literally， they express gratitude， make an apology， or show negative ability， but when used as responses to request， invitation， etc. they are generally identified as refusal. Such uses have been established through social practice. Therefore， when speaker expresses refusal in such a manner， the hearer can infer the speaker’s intension without too much effort and it is not likely that the utterance will be misunderstood. This kind of refusal speech act is conventional refusal speech act. It shares the same illocutionary point with direct refusal speech act， i.e. refusing to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. But it deviates from direct refusal speech act in that it is a more subtle way to refuse and needs the addressee to make some efforts in identifying the purpose of the speaker.
Compared with conventional refusal speech act， there is still another more subtle way of expressing refusal， that is， non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. 3.3 Non-conventional indirect refusal speech act
In understanding the illocutionary meaning of non-conventional indirect refusal speech act， context and mutually shared knowledge of the speaker and hearer plays a vital role. The illocutionary force of refusal is performed by way of performing another speech act. For instance
（14）A：Do you want to play tennis？
B：I have a terrible headache. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（15）A：Let’s go to the movies tonight.
B：I have to study for an exam. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（16）甲：身上带有多的钱吗？
乙：嘿， 那里面还没进去， 进去看看吧。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（17）甲：把昨天阅读课的笔记借我一下。
乙：明天还上政治课吗， 上次老师没讲呢。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（18）甲：走， 一起去老師那里拿下周的讲义。
乙：你叫班长跟你一起去吧。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（19）甲：老师， 期末考试的复习范围是什么？
乙：上周不是告诉大家了吗？（Ran Yongping， 2006）
The utterance （14B） and （15B） perform refusal speech act through performing the secondary illocutionary act of explaining the reason. The utterance （15A） constitutes a proposal in virtue of its meaning and the utterance （15B） in the context would normally constitute a rejection of the proposal， but not in virtue of its meaning. In virtue of the meaning， it is a simple statement. Statements of this form do not， in general， constitute rejections of proposals， even in cases in which they are made in response to a proposal. Only according to literal meaning and rules of speech acts， can a reader or listener deduce the true meaning or illocutionary force of sentence （15B）. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009） So we can see non-conventional refusal speech acts are more difficult for hearer to understand than the conventional. Sentence （16） and （17） uttered by the second speaker express the speaker’s refusal by way of shifting the topic. Seen separately， sentence （16） uttered by the second speaker can also perform the illocutionary speech act of making a proposal. So context plays a very important role in inferring the illocutionary force of such kind of sentences. In sentence （18） uttered by the second speaker， refusal is indirectly conveyed by offering a suggestion. As to sentence （19） uttered by the second speaker， the speech act of questioning the interlocutor’s request is performed to make a refusal. What these sentences have in common is that their illocutionary meaning has to be inferred according to the context. Once the context changes， the illocutionary meaning will also change. For instance， what B says in （15） may be seen as a complaint in a different context. Consequently， the hearer has to make more efforts and take context into consideration to infer the intension of the speaker. Besides， misunderstanding is more likely to occur in non-conventional refusal speech act. From what has been discussed above， it can be concluded that the illocutionary force of refusal of non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is the least obviously expressed than the previous two. But it is also the most polite for it minimizes the unpleasant effect of threatening the refusee’s face.
Having analyzed the three components of refusal speech act， it is clear to us that from direct refusal speech act to non-conventional indirect refusal speech act in the category of refusal speech act， the force of refusal is gradually decreasing and that the degree of typicality becomes lower and lower. On the other hand， more and more effort is involved to make inference and the degree of politeness is also increasing.
The conclusion to be drawn is that illocutionary meaning of direct refusal speech act is the same with its literal meaning. Direct refusal speech act has the single pragmatic function of refusal and it will not cause ambiguity. Thus it is the prototypical member of the category with more attributes of the category. Conventional indirect refusal speech act has many attributes in common with the prototypical member of the category， but it also deviates from direct refusal speech act in that it has double pragmatic functions with one being more salient than the other. So it is in the middle of the hierarchy. Non-conventional indirect refusal speech act has the least attributes in common with the prototypical member of the category， and it even shares some attributes with prototypical members of other categories such as the category of complaining. Consequently， it is the marginal member of the category.
The different prototypical status of the three members of refusal speech act category proves that family resemblance is the basis of categorization， and that the boundaries of categories are fuzzy.
4. Conclusion
Refusal speech act is a very important pragmatic category in linguistic study. It has been pointed out that refusal speech act is widely used in daily communication and that many researches has been done from various perspectives. This paper has made a prototype study of the refusal speech act from cognitive perspective. In the previous sections， we have briefly introduced the significance and purpose of the study， reviewed relevant literatures and analyzed the three components of refusal speech act under the framework of prototype theory.
Through the analysis， we draw the conclusion that refusal speech act has three components， i.e. direct refusal speech act， conventional indirect refusal speech act and non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. Besides， it is concluded that these three components form the refusal speech act category and that they are of different degrees of importance. Direct refusal speech act is the prototypical member of the category with more attributes of the category， the other two components with less attributes comparatively are the non-typical members in the refusal speech act category. Accordingly， we can safely conclude that there exists the degree of membership in a category. Some exemplars of the category are more typical than others， and come to mind more easily. Not every member is equally representative for the category. There are good and bad members and even marginal examples whose category membership is doubtful. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） In the refusal speech act category， the direct refusal speech act is the most representative of the category while the non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is the least representative of the category. Therefore， direct refusal speech act occupies the most important position in the category and conventional indirect refusal speech act is also important since its illocutionary meaning is relatively easy to identify. But non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is in the peripheral position in the category in that the inference of its illocutionary meaning is the most complicated and misunderstanding is also more likely to occur. To sum up， the study of refusal speech act following the prototype approach helps us better understand this important pragmatic category.
References：
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Refusal speech act is a kind of speech act that is frequently used in daily communication. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary （2004， 6th edition）， refusal refers to an act of saying or showing that you will not do， give or accept something， such as the refusal of a request， an invitation， an offer. It shows speaker’s unwillingness to accept something offered by the hearer or a third party， or the resistance to doing something that the hearer or a third party asks to do. Chen et al. （1995：121） defined a refusal as a responding act in which the speaker denies to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. （Song Xiaoyan， 2010） It is the “non-cooperative” option which is directed towards the interlocutors’ request， invitation， suggestion or offer. （WeiYing， 2011）
Refusal speech acts are so widely used in social communication that many studies on them have been conducted from different perspectives. For example， from the pragmatic perspective， the most striking feature of the refusal speech act is face-threatening which calls for the application of politeness strategies. （Song Xiaoyan， 2010） From the sociolinguistics perspective， researches on gender differences in using refusal strategies are conducted. Besides， many comparative studies on refusal speech acts have been conducted from the cross-cultural perspective and second language acquisition perspective.
However， studies on refusal speech acts following the prototype theory approach have been relatively few. Prototype theory is a powerful instrument in explaining many linguistic phenomena such as syntax， the acquisition of vocabulary and tense， etc. As has been mentioned above， refusal speech acts are widely used in social communication， using the prototype theory to analyze them can shed new light on the understanding of refusal speech acts as well as extending the fields to which prototype theory can be applied.
This paper attempts to explain refusal speech acts from the point of view of prototype theory. It aims to reach the conclusion that refusal speech acts have distinct components and that these components are of different degrees of importance. That is to say， these components form a prototypical category with fuzzy boundaries and that they differ in prototypical status.
This paper is divided into four sections. Section 1 is a brief introduction of refusal speech act and the significance and purpose of analyzing refusal speech act following the prototype theory approach. Section 2 is mainly concerned with the theoretical basis of the paper， including prototype theory and speech act theory. Section 3 utilizes prototype theory to analyze the components of refusal speech acts and their different degrees of importance. Section 4 summarizes the discussion and draws the conclusion that the components of refusal speech act form a refusal speech act category and that their status differ in the category. That is to say， there are typical members of refusal speech act category and non-typical members in the category. 2. Theoretical Basis
2.1 Prototype Theory
In the past few decades， there has been considerable debate on the nature and structure of categories within cognitive psychology. Roughly speaking， there are mainly two approaches of the studying of categorization：the classical approach to categorization and the prototype approach to categorization. Prototype Theory remains one of the most important theories in the field of cognitive linguistics. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009） And in this paper， we will mainly use Prototype Theory to analyze refusal speech act. The development of the prototype theory has gone through 4 main steps， i.e. Wittgenstein’s work on family resemblance， Berlin and Kay’s studies on colors， Labov’s experiment and the work of Rosch. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） We are going to briefly introduce Rosch’s theory of prototype and the characteristics of the prototype category.
2.1.1 Rosch’s theory of prototype
The prototype is a mental representation and some sort of cognitive reference point. （Li Fuyin， 2008） It is described by Rosch as the most central instance of any given category and is the clearest case of category membership defined operationally by people’s judgments of goodness of membership in a category. The prototype effects indicate that the membership between category members is asymmetric， and most of the categories are formed in terms of prototypes， with different degrees of membership. People do not categorize things on the basis of necessary and sufficient attributes but according to the resemblance of things to the prototypical member of a category. The prototypical members， which possess the cognitive salience， are the most typical exemplars of a category. It takes relatively less cognitive effort to be stored in brain and is easy to be accessed to. So when a category is mentioned， it is the prototype members that people first think of. （Yang Qingqing， 2011）
2.1.2 The characteristics of the prototype category
The characteristics of the prototype category can be summarized as follows.
（1）Categories are not defined in terms of a set of necessary and sufficient features. Rather， category members are connected by a network of overlapping similarities （which is defined as “family resemblance” by Wittgenstein）
（2）The boundaries of cognitive categories are fuzzy， i.e. neighboring categories are not separated by rigid boundaries， but merge into each other.
（3）All members of a category do not share equal status. Cognitive categories are made up of prototypes and peripheries， of good examples and bad ones. Between prototypes and boundaries， cognitive categories contain members which can be rated on a typicality scale ranging from good to bad examples. （4）Prototypical members of cognitive categories have the largest number of attributes in common with other members of the category and the smallest number of attributes which also occur with other members of neighboring categories. This means that in terms of attributes， prototypical members are maximally distinct from the prototypical members of other categories. Bad examples （i.e. marginal category members） share only a small number of attributes with other members of their category， but have several attributes which belong to other categories as well.
（5）Prototypical members are cognitively more salient than non-prototypical members. The former tend to come to mind before the latter as prototypes are more accurately remembered in short-term memory and more easily activated from long-term memory. （Yang Qingqing， 2011）
2.2 Speech Act Theory
Since refusal speech act is a kind of speech act， we cannot avoid mentioning the Speech Act Theory. It was first proposed by the British philosopher John Austin in the late 1950s， and then it was further developed by American philosopher-linguist John Searle. The main proposition of the theory can be concluded as “saying is acting”， “to say something is to do something”. As long as a speaker utters a meaningful， accepted sentence， he has performed a speech act.（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.1 Austin’s Theory
According to Austin， a speaker， when speaking， is performing three acts simultaneously， i.e. locutionary act， illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference. The illocutionary act refers to the making of a statement， offer， promise， etc. in uttering a sentence， by virtue of the conventional force associated with it （or with its explicit performative paraphrase）. The perlocutionary act refers to the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence， such effects being special to the circumstances of utterance.（Pragmatics：236） To illustrate， let’s take an example.
（1）Shoot her！
In sentence （1）， the locutionary act is the act of saying ‘Shoot her’ and meaning “shoot” by ‘shoot’ and “her” by ‘her’. The illocutionary act is the act of urging， advising， ordering the addressee to shoot her. The perlocutionary act is the act of persuading， making the addressee shoot her. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.2 Searle’s Theory
The most important contribution made by Searle to Speech Act Theory is his proposal of the notion of indirect speech act. According to him， instances of indirect language are indirect speech acts， in which “one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another”. So in performing indirect speech acts， two speech acts instead of one are involved， i.e. primary illocutionary act and secondary illocutionary act. The secondary illocutionary act is literal and the primary illocutionary act is not literal， but it identifies with the real purpose of the utterance. For example， the utterance “It’s cold in here” literally tells us the condition with regard to temperature where the speaker is. If this is the sole purpose of the speaker in making the utterance， the language he uses is direct. But if apart from telling the hearer what he thinks the condition is like， he means to ask the hearer to do something to make the place warmer， then the use of language is indirect. The primary illocutionary act in this case is a directive， i.e. to get the hearer to do something， and the secondary illocutionary act is a representative， i.e. to say what he believes to be the case. （He Zhaoxiong， 2011） According to Searle， indirect speech acts can be divided into two subcategories， i.e. conventional and non-conventional indirect speech acts. The conventional has illocutionary force indicator. Conventional speech acts are usually those speech acts which have not only literal meaning but also non-literal meaning. Their illocutionary meaning cannot be figured out through the literal meaning， but can be easily got because they are conventionally used in our daily lives. That is to say， the illocutionary forces of conventional speech acts are taken for granted because of their frequent uses. The hearer deduces the illocutionary force or communicative force conventionally by literal meaning， such as “Can you pass me the salt？”
On the other hand， the non-conventional has no illocutionary force indicators. To understand the illocutionary force or communicative force correctly， the hearer must know the context， and the mutually shared knowledge of the speaker and the hearer. Consequently， non-conventional indirect speech acts are more difficult for hearer to understand than the conventional. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
2.2.3 Refusal Speech Act
According to Brown and Levinson， refusals function as a response to an initiating act and are considered as a speech act by which speaker fails to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. According to Kline and Floyd， the core component of a refusal is a denial or an expression of unwillingness to comply with a previous request， invitation or offer. They pointed out that refusal is an attempt to bring about behavioral change by encouraging the other to withdraw his/her request；they identify the core component as clearly indicating opposition to granting a request. Refusals involve the rejection of a request which the communicator feels is legitimate to make. By its nature refusal is a complex and flexible issue that can only be categorized according to different content. Yule attempts to classify this speech act into the “commissives”， equal with promises， threats， and pledges；and Hayashi describes it in an unfixable way and lists this speech act under the categories of directive， prohibitive， expressives， constative， assertive， retractive， or dissentive in different situations. （Wei Ying， 2011） The vague identification of the refusal speech act partially reflects the complexity of this speech act.
3. Refusal Speech Act under Prototype Theory
On the basis of classifications of speech act， we divide refusal speech act into direct refusal speech act and indirect refusal speech act. Indirect refusal speech act can be further classified into conventional indirect refusal speech act and non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. We will go through the three components of refusal speech act one by one to see how they form a refusal speech act category and analyze their different status in the category under the framework of prototype theory. 3.1 Direct Refusal Speech Act
In direct refusal speech act， an action proposed by the interlocutor is denied through the literal meaning of the utterance. For example
（2）儿子：爸， 我要出去踢球啦。
父亲：不行。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（3）售货员：您试试这个吧， 这个挺适合您的。
顾客：不买。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（4） A：May I invite you for a dance？
B：I don’t want to dance. （Wei Ying， 2011）
（5） 為了公司的利益， 我不得不拒绝你的请求。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（6）I have to refuse/ reject/ decline you. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（7） A：May I invite you for a dance？
B：I refuse to dance with you. （Wei Ying， 2011）
In sentence （2）-（4） uttered by the second speaker， the speaker performs refusal speech act by the direct use of a denying lexical item while in sentence （5）-（7B）， the intention of refusing is conveyed through the direct use of performative verbs such as “refuse， reject， decline”， etc. That is to say， direct refusal speech act takes the form of a sentence with the direct use of a denying lexical item or an explicit performative. Such kind of refusal speech acts has the single pragmatic function of refusing. Their illocutionary meaning can be figured out through their literal meaning. It takes the least effort for hearers to identify the illocutionary force of such utterances. Therefore， such utterances are the most obvious forms of refusal and can be recognized easily. They are also the first to come into people’s mind when “refusal speech act” is talked about. According to Prototype Theory， the prototypical members， which possess the cognitive salience， are the most typical exemplars of a category. It takes relatively less cognitive effort to be stored in brain and is easy to be accessed to. So when a category is mentioned， it is the prototype members that people first think of. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） From the analysis above， direct refusal speech act meets these requirements. Therefore， it is the prototypical member of the refusal speech act category.
However， though direct refusal is the most easily to be recognized and a very efficient way to convey speaker’s intention， it is also the most impolite for it threatens the addressee’s face. So people do not always refuse others straightforwardly， but often adopt some indirect， implicit ways to express their refusal intensions. （Wei Ying， 2011） That is how indirect refusal plays a role in communication.
3.2 Conventional indirect refusal speech act
In performing conventional indirect refusal speech act， two speech acts are involved， i.e. primary illocutionary act and secondary illocutionary act. However， this kind of refusal speech act has been entrenched to such an extent that the secondary illocutionary act is considered to help strengthen the primary illocutionary act. And the primary illocutionary act can be easily identified as a refusal. Their illocutionary meaning cannot be figured out through the literal meaning， but can be easily got because they are conventionally used in our daily lives. For example （7）A：Can you lend me some money？
B：I’m sorry.
（8）對不起， 我不能借给你钱， 我没钱。（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（9）I am honored by your proposal， but I regret that I must decline it.
（10） No， thanks. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（11） Thank you， but…（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（12） I’d love/ like to. But…（Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（13） I can’t/ won’t do that. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
The secondary illocutionary act of sentence （7B） and （8） is making an apology， but it has been widely accepted that apologizing can be used to convey the intention of refusal. Compared with direct refusal， apologizing is more polite while achieving the purpose of refusing. Sentence （9）-（11） literally express speaker’s gratitude and appreciation， the primary illocutionary act， i.e. refusal is conveyed through the denying lexical item “no” or the word “but”. Actually， such kind of utterance has some fixed forms and by convention， these utterances are seen as mainly having the pragmatic function of refusal even though they also perform the act of “expressing gratitude or appreciation”. That is to say， one pragmatic function is more salient than the other. As to sentence （12） and （13）， their secondary illocutionary act is to express negative ability or willingness. Their real meaning is not that the speaker does not have the ability to do something but that he/she does not want to do it. So the primary illocutionary act is a refusal.
From the above analysis， we can draw the conclusion that though these utterances have two pragmatic functions， one pragmatic function is more salient than the other. Literally， they express gratitude， make an apology， or show negative ability， but when used as responses to request， invitation， etc. they are generally identified as refusal. Such uses have been established through social practice. Therefore， when speaker expresses refusal in such a manner， the hearer can infer the speaker’s intension without too much effort and it is not likely that the utterance will be misunderstood. This kind of refusal speech act is conventional refusal speech act. It shares the same illocutionary point with direct refusal speech act， i.e. refusing to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor. But it deviates from direct refusal speech act in that it is a more subtle way to refuse and needs the addressee to make some efforts in identifying the purpose of the speaker.
Compared with conventional refusal speech act， there is still another more subtle way of expressing refusal， that is， non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. 3.3 Non-conventional indirect refusal speech act
In understanding the illocutionary meaning of non-conventional indirect refusal speech act， context and mutually shared knowledge of the speaker and hearer plays a vital role. The illocutionary force of refusal is performed by way of performing another speech act. For instance
（14）A：Do you want to play tennis？
B：I have a terrible headache. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（15）A：Let’s go to the movies tonight.
B：I have to study for an exam. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009）
（16）甲：身上带有多的钱吗？
乙：嘿， 那里面还没进去， 进去看看吧。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（17）甲：把昨天阅读课的笔记借我一下。
乙：明天还上政治课吗， 上次老师没讲呢。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（18）甲：走， 一起去老師那里拿下周的讲义。
乙：你叫班长跟你一起去吧。（Ran Yongping， 2006）
（19）甲：老师， 期末考试的复习范围是什么？
乙：上周不是告诉大家了吗？（Ran Yongping， 2006）
The utterance （14B） and （15B） perform refusal speech act through performing the secondary illocutionary act of explaining the reason. The utterance （15A） constitutes a proposal in virtue of its meaning and the utterance （15B） in the context would normally constitute a rejection of the proposal， but not in virtue of its meaning. In virtue of the meaning， it is a simple statement. Statements of this form do not， in general， constitute rejections of proposals， even in cases in which they are made in response to a proposal. Only according to literal meaning and rules of speech acts， can a reader or listener deduce the true meaning or illocutionary force of sentence （15B）. （Tian Qiuyue， 2009） So we can see non-conventional refusal speech acts are more difficult for hearer to understand than the conventional. Sentence （16） and （17） uttered by the second speaker express the speaker’s refusal by way of shifting the topic. Seen separately， sentence （16） uttered by the second speaker can also perform the illocutionary speech act of making a proposal. So context plays a very important role in inferring the illocutionary force of such kind of sentences. In sentence （18） uttered by the second speaker， refusal is indirectly conveyed by offering a suggestion. As to sentence （19） uttered by the second speaker， the speech act of questioning the interlocutor’s request is performed to make a refusal. What these sentences have in common is that their illocutionary meaning has to be inferred according to the context. Once the context changes， the illocutionary meaning will also change. For instance， what B says in （15） may be seen as a complaint in a different context. Consequently， the hearer has to make more efforts and take context into consideration to infer the intension of the speaker. Besides， misunderstanding is more likely to occur in non-conventional refusal speech act. From what has been discussed above， it can be concluded that the illocutionary force of refusal of non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is the least obviously expressed than the previous two. But it is also the most polite for it minimizes the unpleasant effect of threatening the refusee’s face.
Having analyzed the three components of refusal speech act， it is clear to us that from direct refusal speech act to non-conventional indirect refusal speech act in the category of refusal speech act， the force of refusal is gradually decreasing and that the degree of typicality becomes lower and lower. On the other hand， more and more effort is involved to make inference and the degree of politeness is also increasing.
The conclusion to be drawn is that illocutionary meaning of direct refusal speech act is the same with its literal meaning. Direct refusal speech act has the single pragmatic function of refusal and it will not cause ambiguity. Thus it is the prototypical member of the category with more attributes of the category. Conventional indirect refusal speech act has many attributes in common with the prototypical member of the category， but it also deviates from direct refusal speech act in that it has double pragmatic functions with one being more salient than the other. So it is in the middle of the hierarchy. Non-conventional indirect refusal speech act has the least attributes in common with the prototypical member of the category， and it even shares some attributes with prototypical members of other categories such as the category of complaining. Consequently， it is the marginal member of the category.
The different prototypical status of the three members of refusal speech act category proves that family resemblance is the basis of categorization， and that the boundaries of categories are fuzzy.
4. Conclusion
Refusal speech act is a very important pragmatic category in linguistic study. It has been pointed out that refusal speech act is widely used in daily communication and that many researches has been done from various perspectives. This paper has made a prototype study of the refusal speech act from cognitive perspective. In the previous sections， we have briefly introduced the significance and purpose of the study， reviewed relevant literatures and analyzed the three components of refusal speech act under the framework of prototype theory.
Through the analysis， we draw the conclusion that refusal speech act has three components， i.e. direct refusal speech act， conventional indirect refusal speech act and non-conventional indirect refusal speech act. Besides， it is concluded that these three components form the refusal speech act category and that they are of different degrees of importance. Direct refusal speech act is the prototypical member of the category with more attributes of the category， the other two components with less attributes comparatively are the non-typical members in the refusal speech act category. Accordingly， we can safely conclude that there exists the degree of membership in a category. Some exemplars of the category are more typical than others， and come to mind more easily. Not every member is equally representative for the category. There are good and bad members and even marginal examples whose category membership is doubtful. （Yang Qingqing， 2011） In the refusal speech act category， the direct refusal speech act is the most representative of the category while the non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is the least representative of the category. Therefore， direct refusal speech act occupies the most important position in the category and conventional indirect refusal speech act is also important since its illocutionary meaning is relatively easy to identify. But non-conventional indirect refusal speech act is in the peripheral position in the category in that the inference of its illocutionary meaning is the most complicated and misunderstanding is also more likely to occur. To sum up， the study of refusal speech act following the prototype approach helps us better understand this important pragmatic category.
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