VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ==== ==== TRẦN THỊ LONG APOLOGIES IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH (LỜI XIN LỖI TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT VÀ TIẾNG ANH) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS VINH, 2010 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ==== ==== APOLOGIES IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH (LỜI XIN LỖI TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT VÀ TIẾNG ANH) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS Student: TRẦN THỊ LONG Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ TƯỜNG, M.A VINH, 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the completion of this work, I have been fortunate to receive many invaluable contributions from many people First of all, I should like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A, Nguyen Thi Tuong for her detailed instructions and valuable critical comments, without which the work would not have been completed In addition, I am greatly indebted to my lecturers at the Department of Foreign Languages for their constant support and encouragement My sincere thanks are due to my friends for their various kinds of helps and encouragement, especially to Thao who helped me find useful books I also would like to give my warmest thanks to my loving parents who have comforted and taken great care of me to help me finish my study Finally, due to the limited time to complete this work, it is unavoidable to have mistakes; therefore I am solely responsible for them and would like to have comments from others who concern to my study Vinh, May 10th 2009 Tran Thi Long i ABSTRACT This paper investigates the apology strategies of Vietnamese speakers (English major students at Vinh university) based on the framework of Crosscultural Speech Act Realization project (Bulum-Kulka, S., House, J & Kasper, G., 1989) It attempts to discover some of the most distinctive features of apology behavior in Vietnamese in terms of strategies and the socio-pragmatic variables that influence the selection of apology strategies Based on the findings of the investigation and the research made by the group of scholars involved in the Cross-cultural Speech Act Realization Project, the paper also compares the apology behavior of Vietnamese native speakers and English native speakers Some similarities also distinctive differences were found The author tries to account for the differences from the perspective of social norm, culture values and culture context In addition, the author also tries to give some suggested activities to help students of English improve pragmatic awareness in making English apologies ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iii ABBREVIATIONS .v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Justification of the study Aims of the study Scope of the study .2 Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Functions of Language 1.2 Conversation 1.2.1 Context 1.2.2 Adjacency Pairs and Exchanges 1.2.3 Turn – taking .7 1.3 Speech Acts 1.4 Politeness and Strategies of Politeness 1.4.1 Politeness and Face .9 1.4.2 Strategies of Politeness .10 CHAPTER 2: THE SPEECH ACT OF APOLOGIZING .13 2.1 The Speech Act of Apologizing 13 2.1.1 Definitions of Apologies 14 iii 2.1.2 The Speech Act of Apologizing 15 2.1.3 Apology Strategies 16 2.2 Factors Affecting the Choice of Apology Strategies 20 CHAPTER 3: THE SURVEY, RESULTS, FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS .21 3.1 The Objectives of the study .21 3.2 The Hypothesis of the study 21 3.3 The Data collection instruments 21 3.4 The Participants of the study .22 3.5 The Measurement 23 3.6 The Cross-cultural Speech Act realization Project 24 3.7 Data Analysis, Findings, Discussion and Implications .24 3.7.1 Data Analysis, Findings and discussion 24 3.7.1.1 Apology in Vietnamese .24 3.7.1.2 Comparison of Apology Strategy Preferences of Vietnamese and English speakers 33 3.7.1.2.1 Similarities .34 3.7.1.2.2 Differences .34 3.7.2 General Remarks .38 3.7.3 Implications 41 3.7.3.1 To the English – major Students .41 3.7.3.2 Suggested Pragmatic Awareness – raising Activities 41 PART C: CONCLUSION 45 Recapitulation .45 Suggestions for Further Research 47 REFERENCES APPENDIXES iv ABBREVIATIONS CCSARP :Cross – cultural Speech Act Realization Project DCT : Discourse Completion Test e.g : for example et al : and others explan : explanation forb : forbearance FTA : face – threatening act H : hearer i.e : that is to say IFID : Illocutionary Force Indicating Device intensif : intensification minim : minimization resp : responsibility S : speaker v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Page Table 1: Percentage of participants choosing strategies by situations in Vietnamese Table 2: Percentage of strategy selection from the total number of possibilities in Vietnamese Table 3: Percentage of the use of IFID in the subgroups of student respondents Table 4: Socio – pragmatic factors by situations Table 5: Percentage of the use of IFID and social distance indicator in each situation Table 6: Percentage of the use of intensification and the severity indicator in each situation Table 7: Frequency of apology in terms of social relationships Table 8: Percentage of strategy selection from total number of possibilities in Vietnamese and English Table 9: The distribution of the strategy of IFID response percentage in Vietnamese and English Table 10: The distribution of the strategy of responsibility response percentage in Vietnamese and English Figure 1: The use of IFID in Vietnamese and English Figure 2: The use of expression of responsibility in Vietnamese and English vi ...2 VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ==== ==== APOLOGIES IN VIETNAMESE AND ENGLISH (LỜI XIN LỖI TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT VÀ TIẾNG ANH) GRADUATION THESIS FIELD: LINGUISTICS Student:... difficulties and misunderstanding in the target language Finding the similarities and differences in making apology between Vietnamese and English will help Vietnamese learners more success in communication... gaining insight into social and psychological factors that are likely to affect speech and performance; and (5) ascertaining the canonical shape of refusals, apologies, partings, etc in the minds