Cultural orientations in interaction: Ayıp, Hatır, and Gönül alma in Turkish EFL learners’ English refusals

When speakers refuse in a second language, they reveal far more than a grammar choice. For Turkish English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, saying no in English carries the weight of deeply internalized cultural values that classroom instruction rarely reaches. This study examines three such values woven into Turkish everyday life: Ayıp , a sensitivity to what is morally and socially appropriate; Hatır , the felt duty to honor relational bonds; and Gönül alma , the impulse to mend emotional tension after a difficult exchange. Drawing on ethnopragmatics and Cultural Script Theory, the study treats these not as rigid cultural rules but as flexible and living resources through which Turkish speakers express and negotiate their interactional identities in a foreign language. 60 second-year education faculty students at a public university in Türkiye participated, contributing 812 refusal moves collected through written discourse completion tests, oral role-plays, retrospective reports, and semi-structured interviews. Learners consistently favored indirect refusals with mitigation growing more elaborate as power distance increased. Ayıp surfaced most strongly in hierarchical encounters, Hatır shaped refusals toward close interlocutors, and Gönül alma appeared in post-refusal moves aimed at softening relational impact. What the data ultimately reveal is a group of learners who are neither passive cultural transferers nor blank pragmatic slates but agentive speakers who selectively draw on their first language orientations in response to each situation. The study contributes to broader conversations about how cultural value systems cross linguistic borders and what that means for intercultural communication today.