Lying: Strategies to Manage Undesirable Communicative Situations in Japan and New Zealand
type: CreativeWork
description: This study explores how Japanese and New Zealand people manage undesirable communicative situations by applying lying strategies, specifically, how they manage refusal situations by using untruthful excuses. Lying is a communicative strategy that people sometimes adopt to manage undesirable situations in everyday conversation. However, previous studies have not focused on what types of lies are employed or how lies are delivered in such situations. In addition, the use of lies is likely to differ among different cultures and this could lead to miscommunication. Thus, it is worthwhile to conduct a cross-cultural study on this topic. The study aims to find out, by focusing on specific situations involving refusals, what types of lies—or untruthful excuses—people use, how lies are employed between different cultural groups, and how culture influences the use of lies in conversation. For this purpose, lies used in refusal conversations—one request-refusal and two invitation-refusal conversations—were analysed within an interactional sociolinguistic framework and by drawing on interpersonal communication theory. The data consisted of role-play conversations performed by 64 pairs of friends (32 Japanese and 32 New Zealanders pairs) in Japanese and English respectively. The following key findings emerged. First, the choice of type of lies differed between the two data sets. The Japanese participants chose lies to demonstrate an unequivocal refusal message, for example, showing strong rejection with a surfeit of reasoning in their excuses. Such lies preclude negotiation and, therefore, the likelihood of further uncertainty or conflict. In this way harmony was maintained. The New Zealand participants followed social protocols to lie, for instance, lying about a prior arrangement with a simple explanation. Negotiation subsequently took place based on the information provided in conversation. Second, the emergent data suggested that culture influenced how lies were perceived. …
abstract: This study explores how Japanese and New Zealand people manage undesirable communicative situations by applying lying strategies, specifically, how they manage refusal situations by using untruthful excuses. Lying is a communicative strategy that people sometimes adopt to manage undesirable situations in everyday conversation. However, previous studies have not focused on what types of lies are employed or how lies are delivered in such situations. In addition, the use of lies is likely to differ among different cultures and this could lead to miscommunication. Thus, it is worthwhile to conduct a cross-cultural study on this topic. The study aims to find out, by focusing on specific situations involving refusals, what types of lies—or untruthful excuses—people use, how lies are employed between different cultural groups, and how culture influences the use of lies in conversation. For this purpose, lies used in refusal conversations—one request-refusal and two invitation-refusal conversations—were analysed within an interactional sociolinguistic framework and by drawing on interpersonal communication theory. The data consisted of role-play conversations performed by 64 pairs of friends (32 Japanese and 32 New Zealanders pairs) in Japanese and English respectively. The following key findings emerged. First, the choice of type of lies differed between the two data sets. The Japanese participants chose lies to demonstrate an unequivocal refusal message, for example, showing strong rejection with a surfeit of reasoning in their excuses. Such lies preclude negotiation and, therefore, the likelihood of further uncertainty or conflict. In this way harmony was maintained. The New Zealand participants followed social protocols to lie, for instance, lying about a prior arrangement with a simple explanation. Negotiation subsequently took place based on the information provided in conversation. Second, the emergent data suggested that culture influenced how lies were perceived. …
author: Nishimura, Fumiko
keywords: untruthful excuses, refusals, role-play conversation, politeness, cross-cultural studies
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/871d62c8-f1f2-4168-b8d8-1cf761d52e3b/download
date published: 2011
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:24Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Waikato