A study on english politeness strategies for declining invitations with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

iii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this thesis “A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR DECLINING INVITATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS is my

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

Secondly, I am deeply grateful to some foreign and Vienamese authors for their theoretical discussions and fundamental advice for the study, especially PH.D Duong Bach Nhat with the thesis on “ the use of politeness strategies in inviting and declining invitations in American English and Vietnamese (2008)” The thesis helped the author a lot in the study and without this, the data for the study would certainly not be analyzed and processed professionally

My sincere acknowledgement also go to all my lecturers and officers

of Faculty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University, who have facilitated me with the best possible conditions during my whole course of studying

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby declare that this thesis “A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR DECLINING INVITATIONS WITH

REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS is my own

piece of academic work and all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references This research has not been previously submitted for any degree at this or any other universities

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ABSTRACT

The present thesis has been carried out on the background of the achievement and deficiences in the existing studies on both English and Vietnamese declining invitation commonly employed in politeness strategies This study which focused on speech acts of declining invitations, was conducted in the hope of finding out the similarities and differences between how declining invitations are made in English and Vietnamese by the people who are speaking these two languages under the light of contrastive analysis and cross-cultural perspective Data used for analysis in this study were mainly collected through survey questionnaires, Through analysis of forms of declining invitations provided by two groups of participants, it was deduced that native speakers of English and Vietnamese are quite different in making declining invitations under three social variables: social distance, relative power, and threats to each other's A detailed analysis of declining invitation in the Vietnamese and English culture is presented Through a collection of examples, the properties for distinguishing declining invitations from genuine ones are identified Some categories used to indicate declining intentions are analyzed in detail with situations The statistics got from each of the strategies are also analyzed For a speech act to be appropriately performed, certain conditions must be satisfied Yet for declining invitation, these conditions are violated But, though defective, this speech act is successfully performed So it is analyzed how this speech act is successfully performed by violating the felicity conditions By using the questionnaires the author was interested in determining whether factors such as lack of resources such as learning material, under qualification in English as a subject, lack of training in the structure of English and other factors had any influence in the properties for distinguishing declining invitations As a kind of a speech act, the declining invitations has two expectable perlocutions The possible perlocutions are

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discussed in the study Then in the next part, the pragmatic functions are categorized into caring function, conversational function and making declining invitations function The present thesis is investigated from the perspective of addresser Further studies can take the perspective of the addressee as a complementary part to better comprehend the invitations

FRA : Face Respecting Act H: hearer

HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology MPQ: Metapragmatic Questionaires

PA: Age power PG: Gender power PPS : Positive Politeness Strategies

PS : Status power S: speaker

Si : similar

VN : Vietnamese

Italics type is used for terms and examples

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Speech act classification……… 19 Table 2.2 Information on the research participants………… 30 Table 3.1 Situation investigates in DCT questionare……….…

Table 3.2 Summary of distribution of the informants under

study……….…

Table 3.3 The total number & frequency of NPS in declining by the

VietNamese and English informants………

Table 3.4 NPS leading rates used in declining invitations by the

VietNamese and English seen from the informant’s

parameters………

Table 3.5 The total of number of PPS employed in declining invitations

by the Vietnamese and English………

Table 3.6 PPS leading rates used in declining invitations by the

VietNamese and English seen from the informant’s

parameters………

50

51

52

53

55

56

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ii

ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the research 2

1.3 Objectives of the research 2

1.4 Scope of the research 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the Study 3

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Review of previous studies 5

2.1.1General studies of politeness and cross-cultural pragmatics 9

2.1.2 Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness 10

2.1.3 John Langshaw Austins definition of communication 11

2.2 Review of theoretical background 12

2.2.1 Pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics 12

2.2.2 Generalization of Speech acts 14

2.2.2.1 Definitions of speech acts 14

2.2.2.2 Classification of speech acts 16

2.2.2.3 Direct and indirect speech acts 18

2.2.3 Theoretical background 19

2.2.3.1 Politeness strategies 19

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2.2.3.2 The politeness principle 19

2.2.3.3 Classification of politeness 21

2.2.3.4 Linguistic politeness strategies 22

2.2.3.5 The meaning of face 23

2.2.3.6 Types of threats to face 24

2.3 Summary 25

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Research-governing orientations 27

3.1.1 Research questions 27

3.1.2 Research participants 27

3.2Research methods 29

3.2.1 Research procedure 29

3 2.2 Data collection instruments 31

3.2.4 Data analysis techniques 33

3.3 Summary……….34

Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 35

4.1 Findings 35

4.2 Discussions 49

4.2.2 The use of NPS in declining invitations as seen from informants: 52

4.2.3.1 The use of PPS in declining invitations as seen from informants’ parameters: 55

4.3 Summary 56

Chapter 5 RECAPITULATION : 58

5.2 Conclusions on the objectives 59

5.2.1 Conclusion on objective 1: 59

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5.2.2 Conclusion on objective 2: 59

5.3 Implications of the study 60

5.3.1 Implication for foreign language teaching and learning 61

5.4 Limitations of the study 62

5.5 Suggestions for further studies 62

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A

APPENIX B QUESTIONAIRE

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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

It is often said that to master a foreign language is difficult Because enormous vocabulary and profound understanding in grammar are not enough, having certain understandings of the culture where that language is spoken is a must Let take English and Vietnamese as an example There are differences in the use of language between English and Vietnamese To immerse into the culture and daily life of the target language is necessary in order to comprehend wholly that language In other words, learning a language means learning the culture of the country where that language is spoken Acquiring a second language demands more than learning new words and another system of grammar (Levine and Adelman, 1982) The goal of learning a language, these days, is to be able to carry out effective communication Communication, however, may fail to achieve as there is lack of certain understandings of the country where that language is spoken There are “unwritten rules” being potentially confusing and creating misunderstandings even for native speakers (Levine & Adelman, 1982) A deep understanding of culture may benefit students in terms of interacting with people in the native country where their target language is widely spoken.Language and culture can not be separated from each other Each country has its own traditions, customs, rituals reflected by the language Understanding social conventions and attention therefore, learners will truly succeed in using English when they must be aware of the relationship between language and culture, especially using politeness strategies in daily social interaction

Declining invitations, one of the communicative acts widely used in social interaction, has exposed itself as an interesting topic for many researchers Goffman (1971) Brown’s and Levinson’s (1987), Yule (1997)

For those reasons, I would like to carry out a small study on investing English politeness for declining invitations with reference to the Vietnamese with a view to establishing a cross-linguistic analysis of declining invitations in English to Vietnamese I hope that this study would help learners achieve their communicative goals in social interaction as well as avoid making mistakes, and to some extent, it will be a contribution to the study of cross-cultural pragmatic understanding and effective communication

1.2 Aims of the research

The thesis is aim at helping Vietnamese learners of Enghlish as a foreign language to gain a better understanding of these strategies commonly employed for declining invitation in English and with the knowledge gained they will be able to use them effectively in daily communication

1.3 Objectives of the research

In order to achieve mentioned above aims, the following objectives are put forward:

 To point out the English politeness strategies commonly employed

for declining invitations

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 To point out the similarities and differences between the English

politeness strategies for declining invitations and those in Vietnamese

 To suggest the possible implication for Vietnamese learners of

Enghlish as a foreign language to gain a better understanding of these strategies and be able to use them effectively in daily communication

1.4 Scope of the research

This research concentrates on studying the English politeness strategies for declining invitation However, within the framework of a master graduate paper, only speech acts of declining performed by native speakers of English and then compare them to those performed by Vietnamese native speakers will be focused on all the expressions are taken from questionare, reference book etc.Applied for perfoming the English politeness strategies for declining invitations are mainly collected and analysed

1.5 Significance of the study

(1) Theoretical significance: An insight can be obtained via this thesis into politeness strategies employed in declining invitations

(2) Practical significance: The amount of knowledge provided in the thesis is likely to facilitate cross-cultural communication in English and Vietnamese

1.6 Organization of the Study

This thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 is the “Introduction”, which presents the background to the

study, aims of the study, research questions, methods of study, scope of the study, significance of the study

Chapter 2 is the “Literature review” which provides the readers with the

literature review of the research, attempting to present the theoretical background including general understanding about language learning

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process, and overview of ostensible invitations in English and Vietnamese: major linguistic features and commonly employed politeness strategies

Chapter 3: is the “Methodology” this chapter focuses on presenting

research questions, research participants, research procedure, data

collection, as well as methods of analysis

Chapter 4: is the “Finding and discussion” this chapter presents the results

gained in survey questionnaires and observation and discusses the similarities and differences in how declining invitations speech acts are made in English and then compare them to those performed by Vietnamese

as well as the influence of three variables to the choice of declining invitation forms of two groups of participants

Chapter 5: is the “Conclusion” this part provides conclusions on each of

the objectives, implications for using ostensible declining invitations in

conversation and suggestions for further research

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter begins with an overview of pragmatics, moves on to discuss studies related to theory of speech acts and ends by sketching out the politeness and interaction The first part tries to provide an understanding of what pragmatics is and including those in cross- cultural pragmatics; and studies specific to the Vietnam and English context The second part gives

an overview of theory of speech acts This part is divided into two sections: speech acts and classification of speech acts The last part is general studies

of politeness and interaction with the definition of politeness, politeness strategies, the meaning of face and types of threats to face Other approaches to politeness and criticism of this theory are also discussed

2.1 Review of previous studies

In this section, studies of politeness can be roughly grouped into two types of data collection: experimental and natural setting Studies with experimental methods mostly make use of data collection in the form of discourse completion test and role play Natural method studies gather data by observing natural interaction My data are collected by employing role play and discourse completion test which are classified as experimental methods and natural although the goal is to obtain responses that approximate real interaction

I will discuss the main issues addressed in each study and attempt

to find common points of interest with my study

Social status plays a role in language usage Olshtain and Weinbach (1987) explore the speech act of complaining among native and non-native speakers of Hebrew and find that both groups tend to cluster around the three central strategies: disapproval, complaints and warning When the speaker is of lower status than the hearer, he/she tends to choose less

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confrontational strategies (disapproval and complaint); when the interlocutors are equals or the speaker has higher social status, they tend to use complaint and warning strategies This finding would seem to have a psychological basis and therefore more general validity People who are in

a higher position or have more power feel more confident and thus dare

to complain to or warn subordinates, whereas those of lower status do not want to take a risk by expressing strong complaints, fearing for their job or the relationship

Complaining styles can differ according to gender and between native and non-native speakers Geluykens and Kraft (2007) studied gender variation in native (English) and interlanguage (German-English - English produced by native speakers of German) complaints The study used discourse completion tests to explore how complaints are realized in language It found that FTA realization (Brown and Levinson, 1987) by non-native speakers was longer and more verbose than native speakers In terms of using downgrading or mitigating strategies (e.g ‘please’, ‘I’m sorry’) and upgrading strategies or negative terms of address and the use

of swear words (e.g ‘You beast’, ‘Bloody Hell’), L2 speakers used significantly more downgrading than mother tongue respondents Upgrading was far less frequent than downgrading in both L1 and L2 Male speakers used more upgrading than females, but female speakers used more mitigating strategies than male speakers The respondents may perceive written complaint as a formal medium and therefore avoid using expressions that could cause offence

Several researchers have compared how native and non-native speakers express disagreement Kreutel (2007) studies how native speakers of English and non-native speakers who are ESL students do

so Non-native speakers used desirable, mitigating features significantly less frequently than native speakers and displayed a higher frequency of

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undesirable rude and impolite features Non- native speakers tend to lack mitigating devices and use impolite expressions instead It is unsurprising that native speakers are able to use language to negotiate conflict situations

in a mitigating manner, although the level of skill varies with the individual Interestingly, no relationship between pragmatic skills and proficiency level among the non-native speakers could be found in her study According to her, this confirms the assumption that pragmatic competence is not automatically linked to proficiency in the grammatical and lexical spheres It may also be understood as an argument for the importance of explicit pragmatic instruction

Another type of experimental study compared politeness behaviour among speakers of several different languages In their study on “Cross-cultural and situational variation in requesting behavior”, Blum-Kulka and House (1989) compared the ways five different groups of subjects, native speakers of Hebrew, Canadian French, Argentinian Spanish, Australian English and German, realized requests in their L1 They interpreted the results as showing that the

“cultural” factor interacts with situational factors All languages vary their requests by situation, but differ in specific choices within each situation The choices between the more direct and less direct strategies are culture-specific (patterns of speech or interactional styles) The findings show interesting cross-cultural differences in directness levels: from among the five languages examined, Argentinian Spanish speakers were found to

be the most direct, followed by speakers of Hebrew The least direct were the Australian English speakers Speakers of French Canadian and German were found to be at the mid-point of directness

Even though we can go by cultural stereotypes to try to predict the strategies people use when dealing with some acts, this is often misleading The concrete situation often is more important in determining

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the language choices

people make Olshtain and Weinbach (1993, pp.111-113) compare L1

complaining in different cultural groups and find that respondents from

all three cultures (British, American and Hebrew) behaved in similar

ways when confronting the same situation About two-thirds of the

respondents in each group chose to realize the speech act of censure, while

only one-third opted out, or in other words preferred to say nothing

They expected that the findings would confirm the previous studies

finding that Israeli society appeared to be more direct and positive

politeness oriented, British more indirect and negative politeness

oriented, and American falling somewhere in between On the

contrary, the results show that the differences among the three groups

were not significant This is because the chosen situations had a much

stronger impact on strategy choice and this impact was similar in all three

cultures Generally these results suggest that one must take into account

situational factors before generalizing about cultural characteristics

Sociological factors can be used to understand the way disagreement is

expressed Rees-Miller (2000) observed seminar classes and academic

talks at a large American research university to examine the choice of

linguistic markers used to soften or strengthen disagreement She found

that Brown and Levinson’s (1987) factors of power and severity do affect

the choice of strategies for disagreeing, but in complex ways through the

particularities of context These general factors in her judgement are not

sufficient to account for all means for expressing disagreements In this

study, professors tended to use more humour, positive comments, and

inclusive pronouns when disagreeing with students than did interlocutors of

equal power or students disagreeing with professors Of course, the

pedagogical context is important as well Neither power nor severity

accounts for how professors may use disagreement as a teaching device

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Indeed, a seminar discussion is often only successful when differing points of view are argued for, so disagreement as a natural part of this process may not threaten face as it might in general conversation In addition, efficiency of communication and getting on with the lesson may takeprecedence over lengthy face-saving expressions In this study, observation of natural discourse shows how the seminar room may become a place where different politeness strategies are appropriate, perhaps to be set by the professor or discussion leader This would create real-life variation that conditions the ideal model of Brown and Levinson However, it is generally true that power and the degree of imposition affect strategies used in interaction Natural methods have also been applied to studying the relationship between language use and cultural stereotypes Edstrom (2004) cites studies that attribute a high level of frankness and directness to native Spanish speakers Observing the conversations of Venezualans, she found more direct expressions of disagreement than indirect ones Her findings thus confirm those of previous studies that Venezuelans are confrontational when disagreeing She would explain this

as the nature of the culture This brings to mind various books written on cross-cultural communication for people who will do business or move to live in another country, so that they will be equipped to understand the culture and prepare themselves in advance

One disadvantage of the natural method is that it is often hard to collect data on different groups (L1/L2 speakers) or across cultures, so comparison

is not systematic

2.1.1General studies of politeness and cross-cultural pragmatics

In the studies discussed here, experimental studies involve cultural comparison of speech acts between native and non-native speakers, or between speakers of different languages Studies employing natural methods seem to deal mainly with L1 We will see how speakers

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with different levels of language proficiency make choices about language use, and how situational factors can have a large influence on the strategies chosen

2.1.2 Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness

The theory of politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) is

widely recognized and remains relevant to contemporary research as the basis for further elaboration (e.g Harris 2001: 452, Pérez de Ayala 2001: 144-5) It is also (together with Leech’s model) the most common model presented in textbooks for students of pragmatics, e.g Yule (1989), Thomas (1995), Mey (2000), and Cameron (2005)

The general frame for this model (Brown and Levinson 1987: 4) is the assumption about essentially rational and efficient nature of communication lying also at the heart of Grice’s Co-operative principle (CP) In this conception, the CP is understood as the default principle governing verbal interaction, which is not deviated from without a reason Politeness, then, is interpreted as a principle motivating such deviations from the most efficient way of communication, in other words, a major underlying motivation for flouting the maxims of CP The word major does justice to the fact that there are, as Brown and Levinson admit (1987: 95), other motives for not following the maxim, such as to avoid responsibility However, unlike CP, politeness does not have an irrevocable status as a principle It cannot be interpreted as the background presumption with which interlocutors enter interaction In this respect, Brown and Levinson disagree with Leech, who argues that both principles, i.e CP and PP (Politeness Principle) are basically coordinated (Leech 1995: 80) They point out (1987: 5) that politeness must be expressed in a clear way, i.e openly manifested

To substantiate this claim, they invoke Goffman’s notion of a ‘virtual offence’ (1987: 33) which is supposed to predict that “the non-

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communication of the polite attitude will be read not merely as the absence

of that attitude, but as the inverse, the holding of an aggressive attitude.”

To draw a contrastive parallel with CP, it means that one does not set out to look for a possible interpretation of an utterance as polite, contrary to what

it communicates at face value This contrasts with the way the mechanism

of looking for an alternative interpretation works in the case of conversational implicatures, interpreted as cooperative contributions at a deeper level despite superficial flouting of the CP Brown and Levinson’s example of ‘Shut your mouth’ demonstrates this clearly – there is hardly any possibility to read it as an expression of polite attitude

To get straight to the core of Brown and Levinson’s theory,

understanding their notion of face is essential

2.1.3 John Langshaw Austins definition of communication

According to J L Austin (1962), communication is a series of communicative acts or speech acts These speech acts are used systematically to accomplish particular communicative purposes

Austin had prepared a series of lectures to be delivered at Oxford and Harvard A posthumous reworking of these notes is the seminal book

entitled How to Do Things with Words In his book, Austin (1962:11)

explores performative utterances Consider the following utterances:

“I do (sc take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)” – As uttered

in the course of the marriage ceremony

“I name this ship The Queen Elizabeth” – as uttered when smashing the bottle against the stem

Austin argues that the nature of these utterances is in fact performative rather than contractive The meanings of these utterances are to be identified with the performance of an action In saying "I do," Austin realized that expression “I do” is not used it remain in the text as it is philosophically unimportant that is a mistake; in saying "I name this ship

present tense, a first person subject, and the possibility of adding the adverb hereby Austin's investigation of performatives led him to the conclusion that all utterances partake of the nature of actions

According to Austin, the same utterance could at the same time constitute three kinds of acts:

(1) a locutionary act (or locution): The particular sense and reference of an utterance;

(2) an illocutionary act (or illocution): The act performed in, or by virtue of, the performance of the illocution; and

(3) a perlocutionary act (or perlocution): The act performed by means

of what is said

Austin focused on the second of these acts The locution belongs to the traditional territory of truth-based semantics The perlocution belongs strictly beyond the investigation of language and meaning since it deals with the results or effects of an utterance The illocution occupies the middle ground between them This ground is now considered the territory of pragmatics, of meaning in context Austin emphasizes his claim that only

the verbs used to describe illocutions can be used as performative verbs 2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics

As the study is centered on the speech act of invitations in terms of cross - cultural perspective It is, therefore, necessary to look at some basic information on what is called pragmatics and cross - cultural pragmatics

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Pragmatics, since its appearance, has excited great attention from many leading linguists Enormous efforts have gone into reaching a satisfactory definition of this linguistic phenomenon

The notion of pragmatics is clarified by Richards, Platt, & Webber (1992, p.284) as follows:

Pragmatics includes the study of:

How the interpretation and use of utterances depend on knowledge of the real world;

How speakers use and understand speech acts;

How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the hearer

Of the above issues, the study of speech acts is considered to be of high importance to pragmatics

Yule (1996, p.3) defines pragmatics as follows:

Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning

Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning

Pragmatics is the study of how more get communicated than is said

Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance

As "every culture has its own repertoire of characteristic speech acts" and "different cultures find expression in different system of speech acts and different speech acts become entrenched, and to some extent, codified

in different languages" (Wierzbicka (1991, p.25) Nguyen Thien Giap (2007) states that in different cultures, speech acts are performed in different ways through different languages

Linguists, these days, has studied, contrasted how language is used in different cultures, which is called contrastive pragmatics Nguyen Thien Giap (2007) adds

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that in order to master a language successfully, to carry out effective intercultural communication, having the knowledge of the language is by all means insufficient, but the knowledge of pragmatics is a must

Through what has been discussed so far, the speech act of invitations in English and Vietnamese is not exception It is about discussed in the study under contrastive analysis Cross-cultural perspective, certainly, is a great concern during the data collection and analysis

2.2.2 Generalization of Speech acts

2.2.2.1 Definitions of speech acts

J Austin (1962) takes the pioneering role in formulating the theory

of speech acts According to him, all utterances should be viewed as actions

of the speakers, stating or describing is only one function of language He points out that the declarative sentences are not only used to say things or describe states of affairs but also used to do things

Also, in 1962, he defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something When people produce utterances, they often perform actions via those utterances These actions are called speech acts: such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request A speech act is part

of a speech event The speech act performed by producing an utterance, consists of three related acts including locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act They are listed as follows:

Locutionary act is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic

expression The locutionary act is performed with some purposes or functions in mind

Illocutionary act is an act performed via the communicative force of an

utterance In engaging in locutionary acts we generally also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, etc In uttering a sentence by virtue of conversational force associated with it

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Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying

something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring perlocutionary acts are performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended

Speech acts, since then, developed by many famous philosophers and have been central to the works and further developed by many other philosophers and a great concern of any research paper in terms of doing researches on linguistic fields

The two other famous linguistic researchers are Schmidt and Richards who reaffirm that: speech act theory has to do with the functions of languages, so in the broader sense we might say that speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking, all things we do when we speak The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory It must systematically classify types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique Paltridge (2000) defines that a speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication Some examples are an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal A speech act might

contain just one word such as "No" to perform a refusal or several words or

sentences such as: "I' m sorry, I can't, I have a prior engagement" It is important to mention that speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational setting influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness strategies used to realize directive speech acts

such as requests (p.15)

Yule (1996, p.47), another famous linguist, defines that "in

attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce utterances

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containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via

those utterances." According to him, actions performed via utterances are

speech acts

In daily communication, people perform speech acts when they offer

an apology, greeting, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal Since people often do more things with words than merely convey what words encode, speech acts have to be seen from real-life interactions For example, in a classroom situation, when a teacher says:

(1) May I have your attention?

(1) is a request more than a question In the same way, when a student talks to his friend,

(2) We’re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted to know if you’d like to join us

(2) is an invitation more than a question Moreover, speech acts require not only knowledge of any languages but also the culture of the country where this language is use For examples in Vietnamese when we utter: (3) Where are you going?

(3) means we are greeting the people we meet

2.2.2.2 Classification of speech acts

According to Searles (1975), there is one general classification system that lists five types of general functions performed by speech acts including declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives

Declarations are speech acts that change the world via their utterance

The speaker has to have a special institutional role, in a specific context, in order to perform a declaration appropriately For example, "Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife."

Representatives are speech acts that state what the speaker believes to

be the case or not Statement of fact, assertions, conclusions and

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descriptions are examples of the speaker representing the world as he or she believes it is For example, “The Moon goes round the Earth." or "It is windy today."

Expressives are speech acts that state what the speaker feels They

express psychological states and can be statement of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy and sorrow For example, "What a great party!"

Directives are speech acts that the speakers use to get the Hearer to do

something They express what the speaker wants For instance, "Stand up, please!" or "Could you open the door?"

Commissives are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to

some future action They express what the speaker intends For example:

"I’ll give one hand." or "I’ll be back."

Yule (1996) also presents a table showing speech acts classification as

Table 2.1 : Speech acts classification

The usefulness of speech acts analysis is illustrating the kinds of things

we can do with words and identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we use to perform specific actions However, we need to look at more extended interaction to understand how those actions are carried out and interpreted within speech events

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However, to compare selected speech acts from two languages, the topic is still vast and could not be treated exhaustively in any one work The cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to another, but also from one regional and social variety to another So, different cultures find expression in different system of speech acts, and that different speech acts become entrenched, and, to some extent, codified

in different languages

Of these types, the characteristics of invitations can be easily recognised

in commissives and directives In our daily interactions, inviting is one kind

of speech act that is commonly used with high frequency

2.2.2.3 Direct and indirect speech acts

In the former part, classification of speech acts have been made clear in terms of the speaker's intention of Yule (1996) This part take a look at another way of classifying speech acts

Another approach to distinguish different types of speech acts is based

on the relationship between the structure and the function Yule (1996) claims that three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and three general communicative function (statement, question, command/request) can be combined to create two other types of speech acts: direct and indirect speech acts The following example illustrates this: Yule (1996) defines that whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an direct speech act as in the

following examples

(4) Do join me for a coffee? (Le Huy Lam, 2000)

Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act as in the following examples

(5) Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow? (Tillitt &

Bruder, 1999)

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It is not only used as a question but also a request, hence it is considered

to be an indirect speech act He adds that indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech acts

Linguistically, politeness is defined as “the interactional balance achieved between two needs : the needs for pragmatic clarity and the need

to avoid coerciveness” ( Blum-Kulla, 1987 ) Meanwhile, in terms of

cultural aspect, politeness is viewed as “ a fixed concept, as in the idea of “ polite social behavior” or “ etiquette, within a culture” ( Yule,1996 ) In another way, it is also possibleto specify a number of different general principles for being polite in social interaction within a particular culture

Cross-culturally, politeness in communication is seen as “ a system of interpersonal relation designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”

As all linguistic actions involve a potential face threat of some kind, it particularly requires the speaker to choose a proper politeness means so that the other’s face is respected As there are negative face and positive face, there are negative politeness and positive politeness, respectively

2.2.3.2 The politeness principle

Politeness has been defined as the features of language which serve to mediate norms of social behavior, in terms of such notions as courtesy, rapport, deference, and distance The politeness principle may be

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formulated as a series of maxims which people assume are being followed

in the utterances of others These maxims include:

1 do not impose;

2 give options;

3 make your receiver feel good

(cf Lakeoff, 1973: 199) Clearly the politeness principle and the cooperative principle are often

in conflict with each other There is mutual incompatibility between politeness and truth as well as politeness and brevity People are usually conscious of such collisions between the two principles The term "white lie" has been desperately coined in an attempt to manifest the surrender of truth to politeness

The observation of politeness often results in the speaker's use of

indirect speech acts These are, according to Searle (1979), cases in which one illocutionary act is performed indirectly, by way of another Sadock

(1974) has coined the terms "whimperatives" and "quaclaratives" to indicate the apparent hybrid status or the indirectness of imperatives and declarations respectively

It is important to note, however, that not all writers are using the term politeness in the same way Grice and Searle (and Brown and Levinson (1987)) are principally concerned with politeness as an underlying motivation for indirectness Leech (1983), however, is concerned with politeness as a surface-level adherence to social norms Politeness, according to Leech (1983), does not need to have anything to

do with any genuine desire to be pleasant to one's interactants

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), the degree of mitigation required depends on three factors:

1 Social distance (i.e a composite of psychologically real factors such as age, sex, intimacy, etc.);

or the actions/ acquisitions’ values resulting from them) should be thought

of as desirable Redress consists in partially satisfying that desire by communicating that one’s own wants ( or some of them) are in some respects similar to the addressee’s wants”

N.Quang (2004) give another definition : “ Positive politeness is any kind of communicative act ( verbal or nonverbal or both ) which is intentionally and appropriately meant to show S’s concern to h, thus increasing the sense of solidarity between S and H.”

In sum, positive politeness are addressed to H’s face wants and described

as expressions of solidarity, intinmacy,informality and familiarity

 Negative politeness

Brown and Levison (1987) defines : “ Negative politeness is redressed to the addressee’s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded”

N.Quang (2004) gives a definition : “ Negative politeness is a any kind

of communicative act ( verbal or nonverbal or both ) which is intentionally

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and appropriately meant to show S does not want to impinge on H’s privacy, thus, increasing the sense of distance between S and H.”

2.2.3.4 Linguistic politeness strategies

Brown and Levinson (ibid., p.102, 131, 214) link the FTA strategies

to the verbal expressions which they give a list of positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record linguistic strategies as shown below for doing FTAs However, some acts may need no verbalization (e.g gift-giving) Brown and Levinson observe regarding the output of these linguistic strategies that the more effort the speaker puts into face-maintaining linguistic behaviour, the more the speaker communicates his/her sincere desire that the hearer’s face wants be satisfied

Realizations of politeness strategies in language

 Positive politeness strategies :

12 Include both S and H in the activity

13 Give (or ask for) reasons

14.Assume/assert reciprocity

 Negative politeness strategies:

9 Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H

10 Avoid personal questions

2.2.3.5 The meaning of face

People who participate in interaction cannot ignore the need to maintain each others’ face Interaction, especially in business and professional contexts (as in this study) can promote or damage business interests, one factor being how the customers’ or guests’ face has been treated Face is universal and each culture values the importance of face In the cultural relativist view, the concept of face, although a universal, can vary from culture to culture Often this is presented in terms of differences between “Eastern” and “Western” culture, yet differences also exist between individual cases within this grand dichotomy In the Vietnamese case, the treatment of face is not identical to either the Chinese or the Japanese one, nor does “the West” possess a homogenous understanding of face There may be potential in a framework of cultures as a tool to shed light on politeness phenomena

It is necessary to clarify the notion of “culture” that this entails

“Culture” is used in different ways in different studies Watts (2003) explains that “the term ‘culture’ in politeness literature has not been defined exactly and can cover various issues: “…‘culture’ ranges from national groupings, through languages, gender-specific differences, social classes,

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subcultures determined by interest groups, age groups, in-groups, etc and back to broad, sweeping notions such as ‘western European and North American culture’, ‘Asian culture’” (p.101) Culture used to explain the concept of face in this section refers to national culture, as reflected in the norms of behaviour that are accepted as “polite” Yet there are other dimensions of “culture” at work in the study, as in the interactions or situations existing in the home or workplace which can be considered “ small cultures”

Individual face is important and damaging somebody’s face should be avoided At the same time, losing face can affect the group, especially people in the family, but depending on the situation and seriousness of action

Ho (1976) makes an interesting point: “Face is distinctively human Anyone who does not wish to declare his social bankruptcy must show a regard for face: he must claim for himself, and must extend to others, some degree of compliance, respect, and deference in order to maintain a minimum level of effective social functioning” (p.881) Each culture has their own conceptions of face, which are semantically related but not identical The variation is in concordance with the values of each culture

In this study, face is the concern of the individual

2.2.3.6 Types of threats to face

Brown and Levinson (1987, pp.65-68) propose that certain kinds

of acts threaten face or run contrary to face wants The following acts are face-threatening to the speaker and/or the hearer

Acts that threaten the hearer’s negative face indicate that the

speaker does not intend to avoid impeding the hearer’s freedom of action They include orders, requests, suggests, advice, reminding, threats, warnings, dares, offers, promises,compliments, expressions of envy or admiration and expressions of strong negative emotions towards the hearer

Acts that threaten the hearer’s positive face indicate that the

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speaker does not care about the hearer’s feelings or wants These

include expressions of disapproval, criticism, contempt or ridicule, complaints and reprimands, accusations, insults, contradictions or disagreements, challenges, expressions of violent emotion, irreverence, mention of taboo topics, bringing of bad news about hearer or good news (boasting) about speaker, raising of dangerously emotional or divisive topics, blatant non-cooperation in an activity and use of address terms and other status-marked identifications in initial encounters

Acts that threaten or offend the speaker’s negative face are

expressing thanks, acceptance of hearer’s thanks or apology, excuses,

acceptance of offers, responses to hearer’s faux pas and unwilling promises

and offers

Acts that damage the speaker’s positive face are apologies,

acceptance of a compliment, breakdown of physical control over body, bodily leakage, stumbling or falling down, etc, self-humiliation, shuffling or cowering, acting stupid, self- contradicting, confessions, admissions of guilt

or responsibility and emotion leakage, non-control of laughter or tears

2.3 Summary

Through the theoretical background of declining invitations in English with reference to Vietnamese, it can be asserted that they are different in

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the number of categories, both have specific forms Basing on that, in the later part of the thesis, the data collected will be analyzed to see what the choice of two groups of participants is for each of the three situations The review of literature dealt with so far holds an significant importance in terms of providing the solid theoretical background for as well as setting up the analytical framework for the data collection

procedure in the following part of thesis

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Chapter 3

METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research-governing orientations

3 What are the possible suggestions for Vietnamese learners of Enghlish

as a foreign language to gain a better understanding of these strategies and

be able to use them effectively in daily communication?

3.1.2 Research participants

The thesis employed the similarities and differences between the English politeness strategies for declining invitations and those in Vietnamese, the participants in the thesis were native speakers of English and native speakers of Vietnamese All participants were asked to provide their nationalities, age, occupations, gender, levels of education which were essential to find out the factors leading similarities and differences of declining invitations In order that the data was reliable, prior to delivering the survey questionnaires, the participants were at first asked to give their permissions to join the survey

The number of native English speakers was forty in all: twenty males and twenty females who are now living and working in Ha Noi City, aged from nineteen to thirty nine at the time of the survey Their jobs were various: professors, teachers, students, businessmen, managers, accountants Their nationalities were diverse in terms of English speaking countries; in other

The following table presented information on the research participants:

Table 2.2 Information on the research participants

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3.2 Research methods

Descriptive and quantitative methods: The descriptive is used to describe, interpret and analyze their content The quantitative is employed to count and analyze the data collected with statistical analysis techniques Both methods used in combination enable the author to reach efficiency in the study

Analytic and synthetic methods: Analytic method is used throughout the study to facilitate the understanding of the theoretical background and to analyze the data collected from survey The synthetic is pointed to examine the data as unit of language behavior, and then arrive at generalizations about the use of politeness strategies for declining invitations in English and Vietnamese

Comparison and contrast: These strategic methods of cross-cultural research are chosen to investigate English-Vietnamese cross-cultural interaction in the use of politeness strategies for declining invitations These methods enable the author to compare the two sources of data ( English and Vietnamese ) and arrive at concluding remarks on not only similarities but also differnces in the use of politeness strategies for declining invitations between English and Vietnamese at the end of each section

3.2.1 Research procedure

With the aim at pointing out the English politeness strategies commonly employed for declining invitations with reference to the Vietnamese equivalents, the questionaire were sent two groups : English and Vietnamese in 2016 Forty copies of metapragmatic questionaires ( MPQ) were exchanged to English by email and forty delieved to Vietnamese both

by email and directly by hand After one month collecting and analyzing MPQ to test the validity of the situations under study, the results from data