Rationale
Learning a language means more than knowing linguistic features such as the rules of grammar or the vocabulary system We must also know how to use a language in its social and communicative contexts; however, EFL teachers do not often stress pragmatic knowledge in their classrooms, focusing instead on linguistic knowledge As a result, even with a high level of language proficiency and goodwill, learners still have great difficulty making themselves understood or interpreting properly what is said to them They even find it extremely difficult to produce or sometimes understand a speech act such as a compliment, an apology, a request or a refusal The mistaken messages they send or receive lead not only to breakdowns in communication, but also to bad effects within social relationships
This common problem can also be seen in Vietnamese learners of English Although they may have spent a long time studying English and done very well on exams, they can not communicate effectively with native speakers The barrier here is cultural awareness They are from different cultures, thus have different frames of reference Failure in communication can cause what we call “culture shock” We do things with words as Austin (1962) states In our mother tongue and our culture, we face little or no difficulty in employing words appropriately in order to achieve our aim because we unconsciously follow the norms and conventions of our speech community
The speech act of complimenting has been chosen as the topic of the present study because this speech act is highly representative of face-threatening acts and the realization of this speech act is largely culture-specific (Gass, 1995; Liao, 1996) People from different cultures share the same communicative purpose in complimenting each other However, they tend to use different patterns and strategies and compliment different attributes When people compliment each other in a foreign language, the intended purpose may not be achieved, but the reverse may occur In other words, miscommunication or misinterpretation happens when a user of a foreign language inappropriately compliments others
In Vietnam, in recent years, much research work has been done into various speech acts; however, so far very little research has been carried out in Thai Nguyen University where millions of non-English major students and thousands of English major students are learning and speaking English With an effort to fill the gap, we carried out this study as an investigation into the speech act of complimenting by English-major students at Thai Nguyen
Aims of the Study
This study aims to find out the preferred strategies by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University when complimenting in English and to identify the interferences from
Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of strategies.
Research Questions
The study is intended to address the following questions:
[i] What are the preferred strategies by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University when complimenting in English?
[ii] Is there any interference from Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of strategies when complimenting in English?
Significance of the Study
The researcher hopes that this study will be significant theoretically, practically and pedagogically
Theoretically, the study may contribute to the theoretical literature by examining the interferences from Vietnamese culture to the choice of strategies when complimenting in
English by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University
Practically, the study may reinforce these students‟ awareness of the interferences from their culture to their choice of strategies when complimenting in English by investigating what they have already known and what they have not and what proves to be difficult when they are confronted with the complimenting situations, which may help them achieve a better performance in cross-cultural communication
Pedagogically, research in cross-cultural communication including this paper may help teachers and educators understand the students‟ problems in order to evaluate textbooks and other teaching materials as well as assessment procedures of language proficiency, to assess the value of communicative language teaching practices, and to help learners develop strategies to handle misunderstandings and other communication problems.
Scope of the Study
Due to limited time and experience, this study just focuses on verbal communication
Other factors such as non-linguistic factors (facial expression, gestures, eye contact, etc.), paralinguistic factors (intonation, pause, speed of speech, etc.) will not be taken into account.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Cross - Cultural Communication
Today, definitions of culture are multiple and diverse; however, in this paper, culture is defined and classified for the purpose of the study related to communication Therefore, out of the many possible definitions examined, the following definition guides this study: “culture is a set of shared and enduring meaning, values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and orient their behavior” (Mulholland 1991)
Communication can be defined as “the exchange and negotiation of information between at least two individuals through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, oral and written/visual modes, and production and comprehension processes” (Canale, 1983, p 4) It is a form of social interaction and involves a high degree of unpredictability and creativity in form and message
2.1.3 Definition of Cross - Cultural Communication
According to Clarke and Sanchez, the term ¨cross-cultural¨ implies interaction with persons of different cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, sexual orientation, religious, age and class backgrounds ¨Cross-cultural communication¨ is a process of exchanging, negotiating, and mediating one's cultural differences through language, non-verbal gestures, and space relationships It is also the process by which people express their openness to an intercultural experience (Clarke and Sanchez, 2001)
Kramsch defined cross - culture as “the meeting of two cultures or languages across the political boundaries of nation states.” (Kramsch, 1998, p 81) Thus, cross - cultural communication is the exchange and negotiation between individuals who come from different cultural background
Normally, people know how to behave appropriately within their own culture and society, but when they move from country to country, this social etiquette changes For instance, it is quite usual for Vietnamese people to greet each other by saying “where are you going?” Such utterance may be perceived as annoying curiosity by native English speakers because for most Western cultures the individuals and personal privacy come first For Asian cultures, nevertheless the emphasis is on promoting group harmony.
Speech Act Theory
The concept of speech acts was first defined by Austin (1975) He did not use the term speech act, but “performative sentence” or “performative utterance,” which indicated that “the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action” (p 6) The term itself was first used by
Searle (1969) who claimed that “talking is performing acts according to rules” (p 22), and that
“speech acts […] are the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication” (p.16)
However, Back and Harnish (1979) believed that there is more to a speech act than this
In their view, speech acts are a complex combination between utterances, locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts Thus, the speech act schema, or SAS, is as follows, where e is an expression, S the speaker, and H the hearer: “In uttering e [utterance act], S says something to H [locutionary act]; in saying something to H, S does something [illocutionary act]; and by doing something, S affects H [perlocutionary act]” (Bach & Harnish, 1979, p 3)
Wierzbicka (1991) claimed that most of the early definitions of speech acts are ethnocentric, and that thus they fail to take into consideration what she believed is one of the most important characteristics of speech acts, namely cultural specificity She says that, cultural values and characteristics such as indirectness, objectivism, courtesy, and cordiality are reflected in the way speakers produce speech acts
This multitude of definitions also leads to a multitude of taxonomies This study deals with the most important classifications of speech acts in the following section
2.2.2 Types of Speech Acts 2.2.2.1 Austin’s Classification
Austin (1975, p 151) first classified speech acts into five categories:
- Verdictives provide us with findings and results
- Exercitives are characterized by the description of powers, rights, and influences
- Commissives commit the speakers themselves to some future action
- Behabitives are actions that have to do with „social behaviors‟
- Expositives develop views, conduct arguments and to clarify the use of references
Communicative approaches to speech act theory mostly categorize speech acts according to what they communicate to the hearer Thus, Searle (1976) proposed five types of speech acts:
- Declarations change the world via their utterance
- Representatives tell people how and what things are
- Expressive express feelings and attitudes
- Directives get someone to do something
- Commissives commit the speakers themselves to some future action
Following this classification, Leech (1983) distinguished speech acts by the verbs that express them Thus, speech act verbs can be divided into the following categories: assertive verbs, directive verbs, commisive verbs, rogative verbs, and expressing verbs
Bach and Harnish (1979) classified speech acts in terms of the illocutionary act entailed into four major types: constatives (assertives, predictives, retrodictives, descriptives, ascriptives, informatives, confirmatives, concessives, retractives, assentives, disentives, disputatives, responsives, suggestives, supportives), directives (requestsives, questions, requirements, prohibitives, permissives, advisories), commissives (promises, offers), and acknowledgements (apologize, condole, congratulate, greet, thank, bid, accept, reject)
2.2.2.5 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
The most important problem with these early taxonomies is that, again, they are too closely linked to the verb that expresses the respective illocutionary act However, speech acts can be expressed by other means as well, not only by illocutionary verbs Therefore, another approach to distinguish types of speech act can be based on the relationship between the structure and functions This approach classifies speech acts into direct and indirect ones
On one side, direct speech acts are found in utterances that have a homogeneous relationship between structural forms and communicative functions According to Yule (1996, p 54-55), “Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act”
E.g “I order you to revise your lessons!” [Direct order]
On the other side, Searle (1975, p 61) points out:
In indirect speech acts, the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer
E.g “It is very cold in here” [Indirect request to close the windows]
As this section has shown, there are many ways of classifying speech acts by making use of different criteria
Speech acts like greeting, complimenting, requesting, thanking or giving advice and so on are present in almost all cultures In principle, these speech acts can be fulfilled in any language, but they are performed in different manners and by different means Sharing the same point of view, Hymes (1964) and Saville-Troike (1982) state that there is a close connection between language, society and culture and that all speech acts and speech behaviors are governed by social norms That explains why Wierzbicka (1985, p 146) observes,
“Cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to another, but also from one regional and social variety to another.” What is more,
“Every culture has its own repertoire of characteristic speech acts and speech genres.”
Hence, governed and conditioned by our culture and though the contact with other members in our cultural environment, everyone sets own “cultural schemata” that helps him/her interpret what is wrong and what is right These standards are appropriate in our community, but when coming into contact with a new culture, if we interpret other‟s behavior according to these standards, there may be arise some cross-cultural problems in our own communication that potentially lead to cultural conflict
Therefore, the study on speech acts across cultures is believed to be essential or vital for not only a person who expects to survive in a new environment, but also for a learner of a foreign language who expects to succeed in communication.
Politeness
The notion of politeness has been largely discussed Lakoff sees politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange” (Eden 2001, p 2) Leech (1983) defines it as “strategic conflict avoidance, which can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation, the establishment and the maintenance of comity” Yule specially lists the characteristics of politeness, including “being tactful, generous, modest and sympathetic toward others” (1997, p 60) Brown and Levinson (1987) emphasize politeness as strategies employed by a speaker to obtain a variety of objectives such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relations In interaction, there is a narrower type of politeness at work, which serves as a crucial concept for people to conduct their communicative behavior
Leech‟s (1983) conversational maxim approach and Brown & Levinson‟s (1987) face- management model are the two most influential approaches in politeness literature
Nevertheless, one perspective has often been pitted against the other in terms of its effectiveness for explaining certain phenomena (Mao, 1994) Thus, these two approaches have been selectively chosen and will be analyzed in depth
The maxim approach relies heavily on Gricean pragmatics in trying to answer the question how people mean more than they say The main adherents to this view are Lakoff
(1973) and Leech (1983) a) Grice’s Cooperative Principle
Paul Grice (1967) proposes that in ordinary conversation, speakers and hearers share a cooperative principle, the content of which is to “make your conversational contribution such as required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” Grice has proposed what has been known as the
Cooperative Principle (hereafter, CP) From this CP, Grice advances four sub-maxims:
“quality, quantity, relevance, and manner” and articulates that violation of one or more of these conversational maxim(s) may implicate certain speaker intentions
Quantity: 1 Make your contribution as informative as required
2 Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
Quality: 1 Do not say what you believe to be false
2 Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
3 Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
4 Be orderly b) Lakoff’s Politeness Rule
Grice‟s cooperative principle served as the starting point of Lakoff‟s “Politeness Rule”
The more you seek to communicate your message directly to achieve full clarity, the more you move away from an expression of politeness; hence, clarity and politeness were seen as opposites in her rule Lakoff introduces the interpersonal rule “be polite” to supplement CP
Her interpersonal politeness rule consists of three sub-rules: (1) do not impose, (2) give options, and (3) make the addressee feel good c) Leech’s Politeness Principle (PP)
Leech chooses to discuss politeness within the framework of “Interpersonal Rhetoric”
Interpersonal Rhetoric is related to a speaker‟s social goals (what social position a speaker takes) rather than illocutionary goals (what a speaker tries to convey through a speech act)
Within this domain, Leech (1983) establishes six -paired- maxims associated with the
Tact maxim: Minimize cost to other Maximize benefit to other
Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self Maximize cost to self
Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other Maximize dispraise of self
Modesty maxim: Minimize praise of self Maximize praise of other
Agreement maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and other Maximize agreement between self and other
Sympathy maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other Maximize sympathy between self and other
Despite its very detailed elaboration, Leech‟s model remains abstract for some researchers
Politeness as a linguistic theory was first systematized by the face saving view that has been proposed by Brown and Levinson in their book Politeness: Some Universals in Language
Usage However, their theory springs from Goffman‟s conceptualization of face a) Goffman’s Conceptualization of Face
Goffman (1959) considered “face” as the “positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”
Goffman (1967) repetitively lays emphasis on the fact that there is a two-way face orientation in interaction A person is not only concerned with his/her own face but is also expected to show concern for others‟ feelings to uphold their face for emotional identification with others‟ feelings
Goffman also posited the ideas of negative face and positive face, where negative face means the speaker wants to be free and independent from society This speaker would be less likely to follow rules of politeness because he doesn‟t care about society‟s perception of his face Positive face, in turn, means the speaker wants to be seen and accepted positively in society, and would be more likely to participate in the rules of politeness b) Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory
Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) define a threat to a person's face as a Face Threatening Act (FTA), and argue that such threats generally require redress: a mitigating statement or some verbal repair (politeness), or breakdown of communication will ensue They propose four kinds of FTAs:
(i) Acts threatening to the hearer‟s negative face by indicating (potentially) that the speaker does not intend to avoid impeding hearer‟s freedom of action (e.g ordering, suggesting, threatening, warning, offering, promising, complimenting)
(ii) Acts threatening to the hearer‟s positive face by indicating (potentially) that the speaker does not care about the addressee‟s feeling, wants, etc – that in some important respect, he does not want hearer‟s wants (e.g disapproving, contempting, complaining, criticizing, disagreeing, accusing and raising taboo topics)
(iii) Acts threatening to the speaker‟s negative face (e.g accepting an offer, accepting thanks, excusing, promising unwillingly)
(iv) Acts threatening to the speaker‟s positive face (e.g apologizing, accepting complimenting, and confessing)
Brown and Levinson (1987) also present five super-strategies of politeness illustrating different levels of politeness in connection to the FTA and redress (attempts to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA) made, if any This is explained visually below:
Figure 1 Choices of politeness strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
Another important key concept for their theory that needs to be introduced is
“weightiness” which is related to three sociological variables Assessing the seriousness of certain illocutionary acts that can damage a persons face, FTAs, involves making an assessment of the social parameters related to:
(i) Social distance (D) of S and H; the degree of familiarity and solidarity they share
(ii) Relative power (P) of S and H; the degree to which the speaker can impose will on the hearer (Leech‟s “authority”)
(iii) Ranking of imposition (R) attached to the speech act in the culture; the degree of expenditure of goods and services by the hearer; the right of the speaker to perform the act; and the degree to which the hearer welcomes the imposition (Leech‟s “costliness”)
The Speech Act of Complimenting
A dictionary definition of compliment describes compliment with three kinds of meanings: they are remarks that express admiration of someone or something; they are remarks that show
GreaterLesser that we trust someone else and have a good opinion of them; they are remarks that express praise, or good wishes (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2004)
Some researchers have made some definitions about compliments, among which the most famous and standard one is Holmes‟ version Holmes (1986, p 485) identifies the compliment as a positively affective speech act, where the speaker “explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some “good” (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer.” Olshtain and
Cohen added “the speech act of complimenting is intrinsically courteous and enables the speaker to make use of available opportunities to express and interest in the hearer” (1991, p
E.g That is a nice suit you have on
The functions of compliments are varied In this study, the author summarizes the functions of the compliment in other researchers‟‟ works and divides them into six types:
To express admiration or approval of someone‟s work/appearance/taste (Herbert,
To establish/confirm/maintain solidarity (Wolfson, 1989)
To replace greetings/gratitude/apologies/congratulations (Wolfson, 1983)
To soften face-threatening acts such as apologies, requests and criticism (Wolfson,
1989) If the speaker makes some offence to the hearer, he could use a compliment to change the topic and soften the tense atmosphere
To open or sustain conversation (Wolfson, 1983)
To reinforce desired behavior (Manes, 1983)
The speech act of complimenting appears in Austin‟s classification under the class of
„behabitives‟ Austin describes this class as reactions “to other people's behaviour and fortunes,” embodying "expression of attitudes to someone else's” conduct or qualities (1962, p
159) More specifically, he views compliments as a means of expressing sympathy along with congratulations, condolences and felicitations
Later descriptions in Speech Act Theory follow the same line Bach and Harnish, for example, group complimenting as a subcategory of congratulations along with condolences and felicitations (1979, p 52) They thus fall under their class of acknowledgements, which express some positive or negative attitude towards others (see Figure 1)
According to Bach & Harnish‟s classification, the communicative illocutionary act of complimenting is categorized as follows:
Figure 2 Bach & Harnish‟s categorization of the speech act of complimenting Even though Searle (1976) does not mention complimenting in his categories of illocutionary acts, they would probably be grouped under „expressives‟, which communicate the speaker‟s attitude to a certain state of affairs While compliments have been grouped with congratulations, little comparison has been made between the two acts Searle (1969, p 67) describes congratulations as expressing the speaker‟s pleasure regarding some event related to the hearer (cf also Bach and Harnish 1979) While the same positive reaction is also relevant in compliments, compliments present personal assessments of a situation Searle‟s (1976) criteria for classification of speech acts would also bring them into the class of
„representatives‟ (assertives) since compliments express the speaker‟s belief in a proposition
For example, a compliment such as 'What a beautiful picture!‟ expresses both a positive reaction and an assessment of the object, and may be responded to with, say, „Yeah‟ or „Do you really think so?‟ In other words, one can agree or disagree with the proposition in the compliment Since expressives are mainly reactions to a situation, it should not be possible to utter an agreement or disagreement In response to a congratulation on having received a prize in a contest, for example, it is possible to deny the worth of the achievement, but it is not possible to deny having received the prize This brief excursion into the semantics of compliments is not to deny their social function but to reveal the source of the latitude recipients of compliments have in formulating their responses: The complimentee may respond to either the assertive or the expressive illocutionary force of the utterance
A topic may properly serve as the focus of a compliment In spite of the broad range of topics found in some research, the majority of compliments are restricted to only a few general topics Based on the U.S data, Manes and Wolfson (1981) and Wolfson (1983) observed that compliments seem to fall naturally into two general categories - those which focus on appearance and/or possessions, and those which have to do with ability and/or accomplishments "Appearance", in this sense, refers to one's looks, including clothing, haircuts, ornaments, and so on "Possessions" refers to material possessions such as furniture, automobiles "Ability" refers to the "quality of something produced through the addressee's skill or effort: a well-done job, a skillfully played game, a good meal (Manes, 1983, p 101)"
"Accomplishments" refers to one's acquired skill
2.4.5 Complimenting Strategies 2.4.5.1 Basic Complimenting Strategies
(i) Admiration expression is an expression containing a positive evaluation either explicitly (e.g You are beautiful) or implicitly (e.g You have to tell me the secret of your new look)
(ii) Appreciation expression is an expression which shows the gratitude towards the others (e.g Oh Thank you I really appreciate it)
(iii) Feeling expression is an expression of feelings towards the others such as happiness, prayer, kindness, wishing to keep in touch and being proud (e.g I‟m proud of you)
2.4.5.2 Modifications of Basic Complimenting Strategies
(i) Intensity of a compliment or compliment response is realized by intensifiers such as very, by combinations and by repetition of the same strategy
(ii) Expansion is realized by proverb, promise, invitation, comments, assurance by swearing, negation or imperatives
(iii) Emotional is realized by interjections (e.g., Oh!) or invocations (e.g., God!), exclamation (e.g., Wow) or endearment such as Dear!
2.4.5.3 Direct and Indirect Strategies in Complimenting
Direct compliments are expresses to the person being complimented
E.g Mm, you‟ve got a new jumper It‟s beautiful!
Indirect compliments are “overtly addressed to one person but actually compliment another party who is present.”
E.g Your friend seems very nice, dear (Holmes, 1988, p 486)
2.4.5.4 Complimenting Strategies in Terms of Personal Focus
According to Herbert (1990), compliments can be analyzed in terms of types of personal focus There are three types of compliments in terms of personal focus:
(i.) 1 st person focus: e.g I like your hair that way
(ii.) 2 nd person focus: e.g Your hair looks good short
(iii.) 3 rd person focus (impersonal): e.g Nice haircut!
Yan (2008) classified politeness strategies used in English compliments and by Han, Kazak, and Uygur EFL Learners in terms of personal reference as follows:
(iii.) Topic-oriented: “it, our view, your cell phone, his suit”
Previous Research on Compliments
Compliments have been recently studied by many researchers Most studies have focused on spoken discourse (Wolfson & Manes 1980; Wolfson 1981, 1983; Manes 1983s; Holmes
1988; Herbert 1990) in which data were mainly obtained through fieldwork and questionnaires Some others focused on written discourse These studies have looked at compliment formulae, lexical distribution, cultural values, gender differences, and the status of complimenters and recipients
Wolfson & Manes (1980) focused on the way in which compliments were used in different social situations The analysis was based on 950 compliments gathered in everyday interactions The hypothesis was that the basic function of compliments was to create and maintain solidarity, and that was why people tended to use formulae to express their compliments
E.g Thanks for the card We really like it (Wolfson, 1983, p 88) Lexical distribution has been investigated by Manes and Wolfson (1980) It was reported that 80% of all compliments were the adjectival type in which the two most frequently used adjectives were nice and good, accounting for 42% The other three most frequent adjectives were beautiful, pretty, and great Two verbs, like and love, accounted for 90% of the compliments where a verb was used In Holmes‟s New Zealand data (1987), the five most frequently used adjectives were nice, good, beautiful, lovely, and wonderful; and the verbs like, love, enjoy, admire and be impressed by accounting for 80 % of the data
More recent research has looked at gender differences Wolfson (1983, p 92) mentioned
“women appear both to give and receive compliments much more frequently than men do”
Holmes (1988) examined compliments given by New Zealand people The research focused on gender differences in complimenting Data consisted of 488 compliments and compliment responses which were collected from naturally occurring exchanges The hypothesis was that there were differences in the way women and men gave compliments Holmes also pointed out that women gave and received more compliments than men did, and both women and men complimented women more than they did men With respect to topics of compliments, Holmes showed that women tended to compliment each other on appearance whereas men tended to compliment on possession
Regarding status of compliment givers and compliment receiver, research results have shown that most compliments occur between status equals As Wolfson (1983, p 91) puts it,
“the overwhelming majority of all compliments are given to people of the same age and status as the speaker” Many researchers have reported the same pattern (Knapp, Hopper and Bell
1984; Holmes 1988; Herbert 1990) However, in New Zealand data, Holmes (1986) found that higher status females were twice as likely to receive compliments as higher status men, and that men were even more likely to compliment women of higher status than women were This is further support for the view that it is more acceptable to compliment high status women than high status men This interpretation of the patterns observed is consistent with the suggestion that higher status women are perceived as more receptive to compliments than their male counterparts are, because in society as a whole, women are generally regarded as socially subordinate and less powerful and influential than men (Holmes 1988) Alternatively, women are seen as more approachable because they value solidarity more highly than status, and tend to reduce rather than emphasize status differences Based on the results, Holmes (1988) concluded that in New Zealand, women tend to use compliments as solidarity signals, but men are more likely to experience them as FTAs
Social researchers have looked at how culture may influence compliments Wolfson
(1981) provided a description of semantic and syntactic structure of compliments in American
English, and comparisons were made with compliments given by non-native speakers of
English Wolfson supported the idea that speech acts differ from community to community in their realization patterns and in functions; therefore, sociolinguistic descriptions of language in use are very important and necessary Manes (1983, p 98) discussed how cultural values were expressed in compliments, mentioning that “if we wish to be approved of and complimented, we must conform to the extent of doing things which others will recognize as worthy of compliments” Newness was also mentioned as the most important of cultural values reflected n compliments People tended to compliment on the results of work achieved and on appearance, especially on women‟s but not on natural attractiveness
Discussing on compliments in Asian countries, as stated by Kartomihardjo (1987), a speaker needs to be careful in expressing compliments to another person because for Asian people, compliments are not quite common According to his perspective, a close relationship between the speaker and the recipient is an important condition before compliments are expressed The closer the relationship both of them possess, the more openness they have in stating their compliments to one and another
A study of complimenting speech act in Australian English and Vietnamese was done by Suu (1990) The findings showed that similar syntactic patterns of compliments were used in
English and Vietnamese, but the topics of compliments were different from one language to the other
Thai Thi Ngoc Lien (1993) carried out the research: “Complimenting in English and Vietnamese” The study investigates how compliments are expressed in English and
Vietnamese, and at the same time examines the influence of students‟ mother tongue and culture on the target language speech act performance Its aim is to provide Vietnamese learners of English with sociolinguistic information which will enable them to compliment in the target language Data were collected through questionnaire and role play The population from the subjects are drawn include Australian native speakers of English, Vietnamese informants of English in Vietnam and Vietnamese students in Canberra
Le Phuong Binh (2008) in “A Vietnamese-English Cross-Cultural Study of Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness in Complimenting” points out the use of Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness strategies in complimenting by English native speakers and
The most famous in-depth research was carried out by Nguyen Van Quang (1999) under the title “Some Cross Cultural Differences in Vietnamese and American Ways of
Complimenting and Responding to Compliments” The research investigated some major differences in giving and responding to compliments in intercultural Vietnamese-American communication with the main focus on compliment topics, responding strategies, addressing forms, directness vs indirectness, and modality
From the above literature review, we can see that although there have been many studies investigating the speech act of complimenting in Vietnam, none of them has focused on cultural interference and especially, none of them was carried out in Thai Nguyen It is hoped that this study will make a contribution to this area of inquiry based on insights derived from the literature and the data obtained from the questionnaires.
RESEARCH METHODS
Subjects of the Study
Data were collected from three groups of subjects:
Group 1: 30 Vietnamese learners of English who are learning at TNU in their fourth year
Their age ranges from 22 to 23 Their English is of advanced level The researcher chose these subjects on the assumption that these students have acquired proficiency of English that ensures familiarity with various speech acts and is good enough to make them understand and respond to various situations
Group 2: 16 American native speakers of English who are studying at St John‟s University, New York Their age ranges from 22 to 23
Group 3: 30 native Vietnamese speakers They are studying different majors other than English in their fourth year at TNU Their age ranges from 22 to 23 The reason why I choose these subjects is that I wish to get rid of the reverse transfer from the foreign language
(English) to their first language (Vietnamese) which might happen if they know English fairly well
In all groups, the numbers of males and females were evenly distributed.
Data Collection Instrument
Having reviewed the relevant literature, the researcher has found that there were two different ways to collect data: audio-visual instruments and discourse completion test (DCT)
However, the researcher chose the DCT because this instrument has some characteristics that make it most suitable for eliciting the data required It is a controlled elicitation procedure for collecting the data necessary to represent socially differentiated situations Lorenzo-Dus
(2001) states that DCT enables the researcher to obtain sufficient data in a relatively short period of time
In this study, the DCT consists of 4 situations which are formulated in relation to five characterizations:
(i) Due to limited time and experience, this study just focuses on communication taking place within the university scope; therefore, the interlocutors are students and teachers only
(ii) Compliment topics: appearance, possession, ability and accomplishment
(iii) Social status: equal status between classmates; different status between students and teachers
(iv) Social Distance: in all the situations the interlocutors are familiar with each other, i.e they know each other very well
(v) Interlocutors‟ gender: male and female
These characterizations are necessary to provide useful information for analyzing and comparing the data for the purposes of this study.
Data Gathering Procedure
The procedure of gathering data for this study follow three steps:
First, the DCT in English is pilot-tested with a group of ten native English speakers at St, John‟s University (Pilot Group) The goal of the pilot test was to establish the contextual appropriateness of the items in eliciting the speech acts under study, i.e to check whether the completion items indeed elicit requests and apologies Dialogues that do not prove to be sufficiently delimited contextually are slightly changed The resulting DCT questionnaires will be then ready for the data collection
Secondly, the resulting version is administered to another 15 American native speakers of English who are studying at St John‟s University, New York (Group 2) Then, the DCT is administered to 30 Vietnamese learners of English at TNU (Group 1)
Thirdly, the DCT is translated into Vietnamese, and then delivered to 30 native Vietnamese speakers (Group 3) to fill in with compliments in Vietnamese.
Data Analysis
In analyzing complimenting strategies in English and Vietnamese, the researcher computes the frequency of use of these strategies
The major discussion focused on the preferred strategies by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University when complimenting in English and the interferences from
Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of the strategies.
Research Methods
The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the data
Qualitative method involves the referring of relevant materials such as books, articles, website, and the review of previous studies Quantitative method refers to the statics of the data collection and analysis basing on certain situations with participants of the study.
REALIZATIONS OF COMPLIMENTING STRATEGIES
Overall Response Patterns
As has been noted by Wolfson and Manes (1980), most of the responses often consist of three components:
- Expression following compliment (Post.C) E.g Congratulation! Your presentation is very interesting Keep it up
Pre.C C Post.C The core component is the compliment A response may have all these three components, the compliment and either of the others, or just the compliment only They can be one of these following types:
E.g I noticed you for a new haircut! I think that it looks really nice and it suits you really well Where did you get it done?
(ii.) Pre.C + C E.g Did you just get a new hair cut? It looks good!
(iii.) C + Post.C E.g I really like your new haircut Where did you get it done?
(iv.) The C-only E.g Great…haircut!
From the Vietnamese, Vietnamese English and American English corpus, types of the expressions preceding the compliment can be listed with examples for each type as shown in
American English Vietnamese Vietnamese English Exclamating Oh My God!
Oh my God, Oh, Wow, Well, Woa!
Using Alerter Hey! Hey girl!
Nè, Cô ơi, Thầy ơi, Này
Congratulating Congratulations! Chúc mừng nhé Congratulation!
Thanking Thank you for your presentation
Em cảm ơn bài thuyết trình của thầy
Thanks you for your presentation
Commenting None Hôm nay nhìn bà khác thế
I have never seen this watch before
Inquiring Where did you get it done?
Mới cắt tóc à? Đồng hồ mới à?
Have you had your hair cut?
Table 1 Types of expressions preceding the compliment
Expressions following the compliment can be classified as shown in Table 2
American English Vietnamese Vietnamese English Commenting It was so easy to follow and understand
Bài thuyết trình của bạn phản ánh rất đúng thực tế
You must have prepared carefully for your presentation
Thanking Thank you for the presentation
Bọn em cảm ơn thầy ạ
Thank you for your presentation
Encouraging Have you ever thought about trying out for a singing competition?
Lần sau cứ phát huy nhé bạn
I wish I could do that to mine
Tớ muốn mua một cái như của bạn
I wish I had a watch like yours
Requesting None Lần sau bạn hát nữa nhé
Inquiring Where did you get it done?
Mua ở đâu vậy? Where did you buy the watch?
Table 2 Types of expressions following the compliment
Category of Complimenting Strategies
There are many ways to categorize the complimenting strategies as mentioned in previous literature, however, in this study, the author chose the personal reference dimension in order to get a clear set of complimenting strategies as follows:
- Speaker-oriented strategies (S) tend to focus on the feelings of the speaker The compliments which utilize this type of strategy often begin with the first personal pronoun such as I and we (in English) and tôi, tớ, tao, chúng tôi… (in Vietnamese)
- Hearer-oriented strategies (H) are those which focus on the hearer as someone who possesses the desired quality or who performed an activity well The compliments which utilize this type of strategy often begin with the second personal pronoun such as You (in
English) and bạn, mày, cô… (in Vietnamese)
- Topic-oriented strategies (T) are those which make direct reference to the object, quality or activity being complimented The compliments that utilize this type of strategy often begin with it, your watch…
Table 3 gives some examples for each strategy among the three groups
American English Vietnamese Vietnamese English
Professor, you look nice today
You look more beautiful with this new hairstyle
You are more charming with this new watch
Your new hair looks very nice
Bài thuyết trình của bạn rất thuyết phục
Table 3 Categories of complimenting strategies
It is interesting to note that in some cases, the informants used the same strategy twice and thrice in the same response For instance, H is repeated 12 times in the Vietnamese corpus and T is repeated 2 times in the Vietnamese corpus However, the frequency of repetition is very low; therefore, for convenience, H+H is counted as H and T+T is counted as T The repetition of S is not found among all groups
3.2.2 Combinations of Basic Complimenting Strategies
Informants also combined the three different complimenting strategies as a means to intensify their compliment Table 4 listed the different combinations of complimenting strategies
American English Vietnamese Vietnamese English
Hey girl! I love your hair! It makes you look so mature
Cậu thuyết trình hay lắm Tớ rất tự hào về cậu
You had a good presentation I like it very much
Ms X, I really like your new hair It looks good
Sit 2a Đồng hồ đẹp quá Tớ rất thích nó
Your watch is very nice I like it
Your presentation was excellent; I think you did a wonderful job!
Hôm nay nhìn bạn xinh quá Kiểu tóc này rất hợp với khuôn mặt của bạn
Your new haircut is really nice You look very beautiful
Wow! You are an amazing singer! That song was beautiful I really enjoyed it
You look very beautiful Your new haircut is really nice
Table 4 Combinations of basic complimenting strategies
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS
Overall Analysis of the Response Patterns
4.1.1 Components of the Response Patterns
The first analysis concerns overall response patterns As explained above, each response in the DCT data was classified into one of the four response patterns based on the components
(Pre.C, C, Post.C) that it contained
Figure 3 Components of the response patterns
As can be seen from the figure, the most common response pattern among all groups is the C-only Almost half of the informants gave compliments without any preceding or following expressions It is interesting to note that the frequency of the C-only responses among the Vietnamese, Vietnamese English and American English groups are analogous at around 49%, 52% and 47%, respectively Among the three groups, the Vietnamese English employed the C-only the most
Another feature which stands out from the data include the fact that the frequency of Pre.C+C combinations increase gradually across the three groups whereas the frequency of
C+Post.C combinations decrease at nearly the same rate Regarding these two types of combination, the Vietnamese English group stands between the other two groups
Coming to the last type of combination, Pre.C+C+Post.C, the American English group ranks the first with 11.3%, followed by the Vietnamese group with 7.7% Only 6.5% of
Vietnamese English compliments are both preceded and followed by expressions
In short, the most popular response pattern among all groups is the C-only, which is employed by nearly half of the informants Another half is distributed in the other three patterns with significant variations among the groups
These data reveal a contrast to the results of another study carried out by Thai Thi Ngoc Lien (1993) Her study found out that Australian English compliments are usually preceded or followed by expressions more often than those produced by Vietnamese informants and
Vietnamese learners of English She indicated that the compliments which are preceded or/and followed by expressions was 46,3% for Australian English, 21% for Vietnamese and 21.1% for
4.1.2 Comments on the Expressions Preceding and Following the Compliment
As mentioned earlier, nearly half of the compliments are preceded or/and followed by expressions, which are listed and classified in the previous chapter In this section, we do not take all the types of expressions into consideration; only distinguished features are mentioned and analyzed for the purpose of the study
The first types of expressions which need discussing in detail are Inquiring and Comments concerning the cost of the object being complimented, as illustrated in the following examples:
E.g Đồng hồ mới à? Tớ rất thích Bao nhiêu vậy? (group V) Đồng hồ mới à? Đẹp đấy Có vẻ đắt đấy nhỉ (group V) Mua đồng hồ ở đâu đấy? Đẹp thế Có đắt không mày? (group V) What a nice watch! It must be very expensive I wish I had one like yours (group VE)
Oh You have got a new watch How much is it? I think that it fits you (group VE) These types of expressions are found among Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English, but not any among American informants This difference can be explained by comparing the Vietnamese and American cultures as the money issue highlights the cultural differences between American and Vietnamese societies Americans generally have a strong sense of privacy A person‟s age, income, marital status and the price of one‟s possession are private matters, and social custom requires that permission to ask be requested first (e.g May I ask a personal question?) Wolfson (1981) comments that for speakers of American English it is difficult to accept the idea that it is considered complimentary to suggest another's attractiveness depends on having money
In Vietnam, there is no social taboo against asking directly how much something cost
This is cultural standard Every time one goes out with a new bag/haircut/motorbike, people will ask how much it cost Vietnamese people do this frequently because asking about these private matters is regarded as friendliness, concern, admiration or interest, and would not be considered as probing into one‟s private affairs
For this type of error, Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) Politeness Model may provide a good explanation Brown and Levinson distinguish two kinds of politeness Negative politeness refers to the concern that the hearer does not want to be imposed upon, while positive politeness refers to the concern that the hearer wants to be liked or admired As compliments are “acts that predicate some desire of S toward H or H‟s goods” (Brown and
Levinson 1987, p 66), they basically attend to the hearer‟s need for positive face For positive politeness, in our study, the American informants tended to employ what Brown and Levinson called “claim common ground” as a strategy to express positive politeness – i.e notice and attend to the hearer‟s appearance or possessions On the other hand, the Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English seemed to express more variation In addition to attending to the hearer‟s appearance or possessions, they employed other strategies such as assertion or presupposition of the speaker‟s knowledge (E.g It must be very expensive.) By using these strategies, the speaker hoped to maximize the complimentary force of their utterances These strategies are used to interpret interpersonal relationship in Vietnamese culture, but they were not perceived as polite and even considered rude in American culture
Vietnamese learners of English also used this type of question frequently; therefore, we can infer that they are influenced by Vietnamese culture when they give compliments in
English It is acceptable when they communicate with Vietnamese people or people from a similar culture; however, if they ask this type of question when communicating with
Americans, they may be considered rude
Another type of expression to be mentioned here is Request which may cause misunderstanding or even sounds like imposition from an American perspective, as in the following example: Đồng hồ đẹp quá Cho tớ mượn vài hôm đi (V)
Oh, pretty watch Can I borrow it? (VE) For Vietnamese cultural norms, it is quite suitable and even advisable to make such a request; however, it is unacceptable for American communicating partners Americans may take the words literally They may misunderstand that the speaker really wants to borrow the watch, while in fact, Vietnamese people do not have the intention of borrowing it This misunderstanding may lead to the hearer‟s feeling of being imposed by the speaker In this case, the speaker may be accused of violating the interpersonal politeness rules introduced by
These types of expressions appeared with high frequency in the Vietnamese corpus, especially when the topic of compliment is possession The frequency of this expression become lower in the Vietnamese corpus and, of course, zero in the American corpus It can be inferred that Vietnamese learners of English tend to adopt the Vietnamese cultural norms when they give compliments in English
In addition, Vietnamese informants also used the expression “Khao đi” or “Rửa đi” (Let‟s have a feast), which never appear in the American English corpus Fortunately, Vietnamese learners of English do not use these expressions Perhaps, they are aware of the fact that these expressions are not acceptable in American culture
Finally, many of the expressions that precede or follow the compliments in the Vietnamese corpus involve much modesty For instance, a Vietnamese informant said:
Bạn thuyết trình hay thật Tớ phải học hỏi bạn nhiều lắm
(You presented really well I must learn a lot from you.) Cậu thuyết trình hay lắm Tớ còn lâu mới theo kịp cậu
(You presented really well I far from catching up with you.) American English corpus do not involve modesty The difference lies in self-image To American English speakers, self-denigration or modesty, which is close to self-humiliation
(Brown & Levinson, 1987, p 68), always does damage to his/her own face Thus, when giving or receiving a compliment, they rarely humble themselves In Vietnamese culture, on the other hand, modesty is one of the most important components of politeness Therefore, modesty is highly valued and deeply rooted in the Vietnamese people's mentality This does not mean that the Vietnamese do not think positively of themselves All they need to do is to appear humble in order to maintain and enhance their face and image The Vietnamese speakers, consequently, choose to lower themselves when giving compliments, believing that doing so will by no means damage their self-esteem If a Vietnamese speaker is elevating himself, he will be thought arrogant or boasting In this case, Vietnamese people adopt one of the maxims associated with the Politeness Principle established by Leech (1983) It is Modesty Maxim: minimize praise of self; maximize praise of other
Use of Complimenting Strategies with Respect to the Informants
The informants in this study are male (M) and female (F) students; therefore, this analysis looks into complimenting strategies from the aspect of gender Gender plays a large role in compliment behavior in many language varieties It is especially important to consider Gender differences can have a major impact on the choice of strategies when the informants give compliments
Two important studies that focused on gender differences in American English compliments were those by Wolfson (1984) and Herbert (1990)
As far as the forms of the compliments are concerned, previous research shows that, in general terms, women use more elaborate and personalized compliment forms (Speaker-
Oriented and Hearer-Oriented), while men prefer neutral and impersonal forms (Topic-
Oriented) Herbert (1998) noted that in his data, 60% of the compliments given by men were impersonal statements and the 83% of female interaction utilized personal patterns It can be inferred that 60% of the compliments given by men employed topic-oriented strategies and
83% of female interaction utilized speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented strategies
Herbert (1998) notes that women tend to employ more personal focus than men in their conversations and compliments are no exception to this tendency First person compliments predominate among female speakers regardless of the sex of the addressee (cf “I like your hair” predominantly used by women as opposed to “Nice haircut” mostly preferred by men)
For these phenomena, many linguistics also give some reasons: (1) From the character aspect, women seek connections and involvement in conversations, while men seek independence and hierarchy (2) From the socialization aspect, women and men have different experience from their childhood Women tend to be more cooperative and relatively close in interactions, while men tend to be more competitive and control-oriented (3) From the power and society status aspect, men are usually the dominant in the society, and they are the centre in public, wherever they are in the economy, region, politics and so on Men are considered to be more powerful, so they show more competitiveness than women (Holmes, 1966, p 7);
This study reveals nearly the same tendency as in the previous research As can be seen in Figure 5, the topic-oriented strategy (T) is utilized more frequently by male American informants than females ones when they give compliments In fact, 50.4% of compliments given by male informants employed the topic-oriented strategy while 45.3% of compliments given by female informants employed this strategy However, the deviation between the two groups is very small – only 5.1% In addition, While Herbert (1998) noted that in his data 83% of female interaction utilized personal patterns (Speaker-Oriented and Hearer-Oriented), this study yield only 54,7% of the compliments
Figure 5 Complimenting strategies by male and female American informants
In short, male American informants preferred topic-oriented strategies when giving compliments, while female American informants tended to employ speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented strategies more than the topic-oriented strategy However, this difference is not as significant as in the previous research
4.2.2 Vietnamese Informants and Vietnamese Learners of English
As can be seen in Figure 6 and Figure 7, the tendency among the American informants is reverse among the Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English More compliments employing the topic-oriented strategy are found in the female corpus than in the male corpus
Actually, 54% of the Vietnamese compliments and 53.7% of the Vietnamese English compliments utilized the topic-oriented strategy Accordingly, 46% of the Vietnamese compliments and 46.3% of the Vietnamese English compliments utilized the speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented strategies
Figure 6 Complimenting strategies by male and female Vietnamese informants
Figure 7 Complimenting strategies by male and female Vietnamese learners of English
In summary, contrary to the tendency among American informants, female Vietnamese informants preferred to employ the topic-oriented strategy when giving compliments in
English while male Vietnamese informants opted for compliments which utilized the hearer- oriented and speaker-oriented strategies This tendency is also found among Vietnamese learners of English; therefore, it can be inferred that Vietnamese learners of English still adopt the Vietnamese cultural norms in complimenting.
Use of Complimenting Strategies with Respect to the Communicating Partners
There are four groups of communicating partners in this study: male classmates, female classmates, male teachers and female teachers Therefore, this section is intended to be broken into four parts concerning complimenting strategies employed by the informants with respect to their communicating partners
4.3.1 When the Communicating Partners are Male Classmates
Figure 8 shows the frequency of complimenting strategies by Vietnamese informants, American informants and Vietnamese learners of English when their communicating partners are male classmates
Figure 8 Strategies employed to compliment male classmates
It is interesting to find out that the tendency of choosing complimenting strategies among Vietnamese learners of English is similar to that among American informants Both groups have a strong tendency of employing the topic-oriented strategy when they gave compliments to their male classmates with a high frequency of 59.7% among Vietnamese learners of
English and 57.7% among American informants There is only a slight difference of 2% between the two groups in the choice of this strategy On the contrary, coming first in the choice of Vietnamese informants is the hearer-oriented strategy with a frequency of 50% The topic-oriented strategy only accounts for 44.4% among this group Both Vietnamese learners of English and American informants took the hearer-oriented strategy as their second choice
Coming last in their choice is the speaker-oriented strategy Like the general tendency discussed in the previous sections, Vietnamese learners of English employed the hearer- oriented strategy more than American informants while American informants employed the speaker-oriented strategy more than Vietnamese learners of English
From these data, we can infer that when giving compliments to their male classmates, Vietnamese learners of English get nearer to American culture because they have similar tendency in choosing complimenting strategies as American informants
4.3.2 When the Communicating Partners are Female Classmates
Figure 9 Strategies employed to compliment female classmates
Figure 9 shows the frequency of complimenting strategies by the three groups of informants when their communicating partners are female classmates We can easily find that the tendency of choosing complimenting strategies among Vietnamese learners of English is, in this case, similar to that among Vietnamese informants, not American informants as shown in Figure 8 Both Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English employed the topic-oriented strategy the most with frequency of 53.7% and 54.5%, respectively Coming second in their choice is the hearer-oriented strategy with frequency of 44.4% and 32.1%, respectively, and coming last is the speaker-oriented strategy with low frequency of 5.6% and
American informants also employed the topic-oriented strategy the most frequently; however, the frequency of this strategy is lower than that among the Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English The most obvious difference from the other groups lies in the fact that the American group had a stronger tendency to use the speaker-oriented strategy than the hearer-oriented strategy Actually, as much as 33.8% of their compliments to their classmates employed the speaker-oriented strategy and only 22.1% employed the hearer- oriented strategy
To sum up, when the communicating partners are female classmates, Vietnamese learners of English tended to adopt the Vietnamese cultural norms in giving compliments
4.3.3 When the Communicating Partners are Male Teachers
Figure 10 shows the frequency of complimenting strategies by the three groups of informants when their communicating partners are male teachers In this case, the frequency of complimenting strategies among Vietnamese learners of English is similar to neither
Vietnamese informants nor American informants They employed the hearer-oriented strategy the most with frequency of 46.6% Coming second in their choice is the topic-oriented strategy with frequency of 40.6%, and coming last is the speaker-oriented strategy with frequency of
4.3.4 When the Communicating Partners are Female Teachers
As shown in Figure 11, which shows the frequency of complimenting strategies by the three groups of informants when their communicating partners are male teachers, Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English have the same tendency in choosing complimenting strategies However, it is the frequencies of each type of strategy that make the two groups not quite similar For example, although both groups took the topic-oriented strategy as their second choice, the frequency of this strategy among Vietnamese learners of
English is 35.7% while it is 47.8% among Vietnamese informants The difference is as much as 12.1% The frequency of the speaker-oriented strategy employed by Vietnamese informants is also much lower than Vietnamese learners of English, 2.2% compared with 11.6%
Regarding the hearer-oriented strategy, both groups tended to use this strategy the most with almost similar frequency: 50% among Vietnamese informants and 52.7% among Vietnamese learners of English
Figure 10 Strategies employed to compliment male teachers
Figure 11 Strategies employed to compliment female teachers
As for American informants, the tendency in choosing complimenting strategies when their communicating partners are male teachers remains similar as when their communicating partners are female teachers, male students or female students This is not true for the
Vietnamese and Vietnamese English group
It has been argued that the relationship between addresser and addressee is an important factor affecting compliment behavior because “who” and “whom” elements often constitute the most valuable components of any sociolinguistic or speech act study (Wolfson, 1989) A hearer‟s social status is one crucial variable in language variation This applies to compliments without exception, for it seems obvious that people of different social status vary in their strategies, topics, and frequency of complimenting In this study, the relationship between addresser and addressee is classmate-classmate and student-teacher
In the Vietnamese society, teachers enjoy much respect and prestige For thousand years, teachers have been considered as fathers and mothers of students Their responsibility is not only confined to the mission of knowledge transmitters but also moral guiders Students often regard teachers as authorities who embody knowledge, and with such high social status This can explain why the way Vietnamese informants compliment their classmates is different from the way they give compliments to their teachers
In some other countries such as the United States, teachers have the same social status as their students and as other teachers, even those of richer knowledge and more titles In other words, in those countries, teachers are only facilitators of students, assisting students in establishing their own way of learning They are inclined to come down from their authoritative position to communicate with their students Therefore, student-teacher relationship is not restricted to respect and admiration but gradually turns to friendliness and accessibility That is why the tendency in choosing complimenting strategies among American informants did not vary whether their communicating partners are teachers or students
Vietnamese learners of English are generally similar to Vietnamese informants in the tendency of choosing complimenting strategies; therefore, it seems that they still hold the
Use of Complimenting Strategies across Topics
Both English and Vietnamese speakers tended to start a friendly conversation by giving compliments on any change in their appearance, such as a thinner appearance, loss of weight or a new hairstyle Belongings such as cars, dresses, bags, or houses, etc are also a suitable subject for compliment This provides more support to Wolfson's (1989, p 114) argument that when the quality of newness is highly valued in a society, then a compliment is appropriate whenever an acquaintance is seen with something new A compliment indicates that the addresser has noticed a change, thereby proving that he/she considers the addressee worthy of attention As a result, the compliment receiver might be pleased by the compliment on his/her appearance or possession However, topics for compliments reflect culture-specificity Figure
13 show the different strategies employed by Vietnamese, Vietnamese English and American
English speakers when they compliment on appearance
Figure 13 shows the frequency of complimenting strategies by the three groups of informants when they gave compliments on appearance/possessions
Figure 12 Strategies employed to compliment on appearance or possessions The most distinguished feature from the figure is that all the informant groups prefer the topic-oriented strategy when they give compliments on appearance or possession with a frequency of 58.4%, 54.4% and 51.7% among the Vietnamese, Vietnamese English and
American informants, respectively In other words, more than half of the informants gave compliments with direct reference to the compliment object The finding that topic-oriented compliments were most frequently used by the American informants may happen because
Americans tend to speak freely and directly However, this finding among the Vietnamese informants seems surprising as indirectness in communication is generally considered a feature of the Vietnamese culture A study involving greater numbers of respondents and other speech acts which are often performed with varying degrees of indirectness could establish more conclusively how significant this finding is and how this difference should be explained
Another interesting finding revealed in the data is that when complimenting on appearance or possession, American informants employed the hearer-oriented strategy with a frequency of only 7.4%, compared with 36.8% among Vietnamese informants and 34.8% among Vietnamese learners of English Actually, such compliments as:
Bạn mới thay đổi kiểu tóc à? Trông bạn trẻ trung hơn đấy Đồng hồ của thầy rất đẹp Nhìn thầy càng phong độ hơn
Today you look more beautiful Have you had your hair cut?
Teacher, this watch makes you more gentle appeared with high frequency among Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English On the contrary, these types of compliments are often avoided by Americans It would be a somewhat insulting compliment, as it would be taken to imply something disparaging about the hearer's appearance previous to having new haircut or getting a new watch In American culture does exist what is called backhanded compliment or left-handed compliment A backhanded compliment is nothing you necessarily want to get: it is a compliment that also insults at the same time or saying it the other way around: an insult that masquerades as a compliment A backhanded compliment might first fool you into thinking you received a real compliment but it is a deliberate and rather subtle way to disguise an insult For instance, the compliment “I love your new haircut, it slims your face a lot” immediately gets negated by an implied criticism, namely that her face is too wide Sometimes backhanded compliments are not intentional but generally the term applies to the intentional use of a disguised insult Consequently, it is advisable for Americans to avoid using the hearer- oriented strategy when complimenting on appearance or possession Instead, 'What a nice haircut!' or “Nice watch!” is an appropriate compliment in this case
It seemed that Vietnamese learners of English were not aware of this aspect in American culture They stilled held the Vietnamese culture strictly when they gave compliments which may be interpreted as backhanded compliments by American partners
Finally, the data also indicates a sharp contrast in the use of the speaker-oriented strategy among the three groups when the topic of compliment concerns appearance or possession
While as much as 40.8% of the American English compliments employed the speaker-oriented strategy, only 4.8% of the Vietnamese compliments and 10.7% of the Vietnamese English compliments employed this strategy As have been discussed in the section 4.2., Vietnamese learners of English , more or less, seemed to be influenced by the Vietnamese culture that they seldom gave speaker-oriented compliments to avoid the compliment being interpreted as an invasion of personal privacy or as a request for the object complimented
Regarding this common topic, difference still exists among the three groups of informants Both Vietnamese informants and Vietnamese learners of English employed the hearer-oriented strategy the most with a frequency of 56.9% and 47.7%, respectively whereas
American informants preferred the topic-oriented strategy (see Figure 12) In other words,
American English native speakers have a tendency to give credits directly to the result, the product achieved through hard work, whereas Vietnamese and Vietnamese English speakers focus more on talent and ability For example, when a classmate has finished his presentation, an American student will say “Your presentation was excellent” In the same situation, a
Vietnamese student will say “Cậu thuyết trình tốt lắm” and an English-major student will say
Figure 13 Strategies employed to compliment on ability or accomplishment Vietnamese learners of English are generally similar to Vietnamese informants in the tendency of choosing strategies to compliment on ability or accomplishment; therefore, it seems that they still hold the Vietnamese cultural norms strictly
In the previous part, the data collected from the DCT have been carefully analyzed The final part of the study presents a brief summary of the objectives of the study and the major research findings The implications of the study for English language teaching are also discussed Next, the limitations of the study are mentioned Finally, some suggestions are provided for future research.
Summary of Major Findings
The study sought to answer the following questions:
[i.] What are the preferred strategies by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University when complimenting in English?
[ii.] Are there any interferences from Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of strategies when complimenting in English?
With the careful analysis of the data, the study reveals the following major findings:
First, regarding the overall response patterns, a high percentage of all groups of informants preferred to gave compliments without any preceding or following expressions
Second, concerning the expressions preceding or following the compliment, there are some expressions found among Vietnamese students, which could not be found among
American students Many of these expressions are also found among English -major students; therefore, it can be inferred that English-major students tend to adopt the
Vietnamese cultural norms when complimenting
Third, regarding the complimenting strategies, the most frequently used strategies among all groups is the topic-oriented strategy with a frequency of nearly 50% The hearer-oriented strategy comes second in the choice of Vietnamese and Vietnamese English students and comes third in the choice of American students The speaker-oriented strategy is the least frequently used among Vietnamese and Vietnamese English students but it is the second choice of American students Vietnamese culture does insert influence on English-major students‟ choice of complimenting strategies
Fourth, with respect to the gender of the compliment givers, male American students prefer topic-oriented strategies when giving compliments, while female American students tend to employ speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented strategies more than the topic-oriented strategy Contrary to the tendency among American students, female Vietnamese students preferred to employ the topic-oriented strategy when giving compliments in English while male Vietnamese students opted for compliments which utilize the hearer-oriented and speaker-oriented strategies This tendency is also seen among English-major students; therefore, it can be inferred that English-major students at Thai Nguyen University still adopt the Vietnamese cultural values in complimenting
Fifth, regarding the communicating partners, the tendency in choosing complimenting strategies among American students does not vary whether their communicating partners are teachers or students On the contrary, the tendency in choosing strategies when giving compliments to different communicating partners varies significantly among Vietnamese students and Vietnamese English students Especially, Vietnamese English students are generally similar to Vietnamese students in the tendency of choosing complimenting strategies; therefore, it seems that they still hold the Vietnamese cultural values strictly
Lastly, regarding the compliment topics, all the groups of students prefer the topic- oriented strategy when they gave compliments on appearance or possession with a high frequency of more than 50% Americans tended to avoid using the hearer-oriented strategy when complimenting on appearance or possession because these compliments may be interpreted as insulting or backhanded compliments However, Vietnamese English students, like Vietnamese students, took these types of complimenting strategy as their second choice
Vietnamese English students are also similar to Vietnamese students in the tendency of choosing strategies to compliment on ability or accomplishment Both groups employed the hearer-oriented strategy the most whereas American English students preferred the topic- oriented strategy Therefore, we can conclude that they are still influenced by the Vietnamese culture.
Conclusion
Having finished the analysis, the researcher is then able to draw a conclusion that American students, Vietnamese students and English-major students at TNU, in this study, employed all complimenting strategies: the speaker-oriented, the hearer-oriented and the topic- oriented strategies In other words, each group of students used all types of complimenting strategies; however, we have to remember that the frequency of use of each complimenting strategy depends on their status, gender, compliment topics and cultural background The
American students and the Vietnamese students have different cultural backgrounds which sometimes make their ways of giving compliments different from each other Particularly, it should be noted that the English-major students at TNU, who stand between the two cultures, seem to be influenced by both of them On one hand, they are deeply rooted in the Vietnamese culture; therefore, in some cases, they still hold the Vietnamese culture strictly when giving compliments in English On the other hand, they learn about the American English language and American culture; consequently, they gradually adopt the American cultural values That
Pedagogical Recommendations
Based on the results of the investigation into the use of complimenting strategies in American English, Vietnamese English and Vietnamese from the cross-cultural communication perspective, the researcher would like to offer some recommendations for
English language teaching in our country
First, teachers in the foreign language classroom should focus explicitly on the communicative not only on the grammatical rules Thomas (1983) proposes that teachers should develop the students‟ ability to analyze language use in a conscious manner and to alert students to possible cross-cultural differences In addition, scales of politeness and appropriateness should be taught explicitly to enable the learner to make the right decision
Recognizing the pragmalinguistic/ sociopragmatic distinction also helps learners to be sensitive and to work according to the norms and conventions of the speech community of the target language
Second, this study reveals the importance of the cultural dimension of communication in the target language context To help students realize maximum pragmatic success, teachers need to make their students fully aware of the specific speech act sets and the accompanying linguistic features to produce appropriate and acceptable compliments and other important speech acts (Tanck, 2002) Umar, (2004) claims that this awareness could only be enhanced through a variety of classroom drills and exercises that involve realization of the target speech act in different situations Learners should be given ample time to practice these drills of pragmatic competence “until they become part of their linguistic repertoire” (p 24) Morrow,
(1996) proposes that specific speech act instruction could improve pragmatic competence of nonnative speakers, and Hudson, (2001) suggests the use of DCT in the classroom to focus on the social distance between speakers Therefore, in classroom, teachers should create natural contexts in which students can apply their linguistic knowledge into reality Teachers can choose authentic materials such as books, newspapers, or videos to show students how native speakers give and respond to compliments, draw students‟ attention to the differences and similarities presented above Then, involve students in role – play activities In these activities, teachers should vary the roles and switch student‟s role so that they can have many interaction opportunities with different people of different age and social status in different situation
Third, the conventional patterns of compliments should be taught in the classroom If participants used wrong complimenting patterns, their compliments would be awkward or ambiguous Such as conventional expressions as congratulations on should be taught
Moreover, Vietnamese complimenting style should be avoided when using English Instead, nice, good, beautiful, pretty and great and the two verbs: like and love In addition, it is important to teach English learners how to express their wonder by using what and how and when they can use each one
Fourth, it is necessary for a teacher of English to raise students' awareness of cultural similarities and differences between compliment patterns in Vietnamese culture and English culture The different patterns may require an explanation
Last but not least, notoriously known as a compliment-saving culture, Vietnamese learners should be aware that compliment is a polite speech act which is widely used in everyday conversation to build up relationship American people welcome compliments and feel positive to those who give a good one in a sincere way Understanding the role of compliment in social interaction can help learners achieve successful communication
Moreover, learners must be sufficiently cultural awareness to be able to make informed choices, to have a natural conversations with the native speakers of English.
Limitation of the Study
This study was limited in four ways:
First, the findings came only from a small number of respondents (16 American English,
30 Vietnamese, and 30 Vietnamese English speakers) Therefore, the generalizations made on the basis of these findings can be applied only to a small group of people
Second, it looked at utterances in stimulated situations by using a discourse completion test (DCT) This method of eliciting stimulated responses has been criticized because it does not reflect natural speech In addition, it was difficult to interpret the Discourse Completion
Test (DCT) because of the absence of facial expressions and tone, which help avoid misinterpretation of intention of the compliment, particularly in the ironic upgrades Hence, a researcher is sometimes obliged to analyze her data subjectively This provides additional support to the claim that DCT is not a proper instrument to collect the data for examining one of the speech acts However, this method was necessary because it helps us to focus on the forms and realizations of compliments and compliment responses in different situations with different speakers (Olshtain, 1991) as cited in Ismail, 1999 Moreover, it allows learners to exhibit their conversational knowledge without the cognitive pressures of face-to-face interaction (Bergman and Kasper, 1993) as cited in Ismail, 1999
Third, in this study, participants were asked to interact with the members of their own community Therefore, it is expected that they should follow the Vietnamese norms even when they use English
Finally, due to the limit of time, the research used DCT to collect data, and thus, it cannot include the paralinguistic and non-linguistic aspects of the speech act This certainly limited the authenticity of the data and then the pragmatic effect of the expected results.
Suggestions for Further Research
Based on the limitations mentioned above, the researcher recommends the following for future studies:
First, it is necessary for other researchers to conduct studies with larger samples and more situations to yield more valid results
Second, further studies should examine recorded spontaneous spoken data to provide an overall insight of this speech act
Third, not only the utterances of the subjects but the hearer‟s responses to compliments should be taken into consideration It is necessary to consider the hearer‟s reactions in order to conduct a more accurate investigation of the interactive aspects of compliments and compliment responses
Fourth, further studies should be launched to tackle the different variables that may affect the production of this speech act such as age, social distance, ranking of imposition, and language competency
Finally, more comparative research should be carried out on other speech acts e.g., advising, complaining, offering etc in order to enrich the literature of speech act theory
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This questionnaire format is designed for the study “ The speech act of complimenting by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University ” with the hope of finding out the interferences from Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of strategies when complimenting in English The questionnaire has two parts: the first part asks you for personal information and the second asks you to give compliments IN ENGLISH to 4 situations Please put yourself in the following situations and write down what you would say in English in the space provided as honestly as possible to both parts You might find more than one appropriate response I would appreciate your responses to all the situations in the questionnaire as the information you provide will be extremely valuable to me However, if you feel that you do not want to answer a particular question, I will gladly accept your decision I can assure that your responses will be completely anonymous and will not be used for any other purposes
Part B: Pay compliments to the following situations
1 You come across a person on campus and you have noticed that he/she has a new haircut that you think is really nice After exchanging greetings, what would you say to compliment him/her on the new hairstyle?
If that person is your male classmate:
If that person is your female classmate:
If that person is your male teacher:
If that person is your female teacher:
2 You come across a person on campus and you have noticed that he/she is wearing a new watch, and you like it very much What would you say to compliment him/her on the new watch?
If that person is your male classmate:
If that person is your female classmate:
If that person is your male teacher:
If that person is your female teacher:
3 At a class party, you find a person sing very well What would you say to compliment him/her?
If that person is your male classmate:
If that person is your female classmate:
If that person is your male teacher:
If that person is your female teacher:
4 In a seminar class, a person gives a presentation, and you think he/she do an excellent job What would you say to compliment him/her?
If that person is your male classmate:
If that person is your female classmate:
If that person is your male teacher:
If that person is your female teacher:
Thank you for your help!
APPENDIX B PHIẾU CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA
Phiếu câu hỏi này được thiết kế cho việc nghiên cứu "Hành động lời nói khen ngợi của sinh viên chuyên ngành Tiếng Anh tại Đại học Thái Nguyên" Phiếu câu hỏi có hai phần: phần thứ nhất xin bạn vui lòng cho biết thông tin cá nhân và phần thứ hai xin bạn đưa ra lời khen ngợi bằng tiếng Việt cho 4 tình huống mà chúng tôi đưa ra Bạn có thể đưa ra nhiều hơn một lời khen cho mỗi tình huống Những thông tin trong phiếu câu hỏi sẽ được giữ kín và sẽ không được sử dụng vào bất kỳ mục đích nào khác
Phần A: Thông tin cá nhân
Tuổi:……… Giới tính (Nam/Nữ):
1 Bạn tình cờ gặp một người trong khuôn viên trường và bạn nhận thấy rằng người đó có một mái tóc mới mà bạn nghĩ là thực sự rất đẹp Sau khi hai người chào hỏi nhau, bạn sẽ nói gì để khen ngợi về kiểu tóc mới của người đó?
Nếu người đó là bạn nữ cùng lớp với bạn:
Nếu người đó là bạn nam cùng lớp với bạn:
Nếu người đó là cô giáo của bạn:
Nếu người đó là thầy giáo của bạn:
2 Bạn tình cờ gặp một người trong khuôn viên trường và bạn nhận thấy rằng người đó đang đeo một chiếc đồng hồ mới, và bạn thích rất nó Bạn sẽ nói gì để khen người đó về chiếc đồng hồ mới?
Nếu người đó là bạn nữ cùng lớp với bạn:
Nếu người đó là bạn nam cùng lớp với bạn: