Delving into refusal speech act: A case of Vietnamese students seeking English Bachelor degrees

TranThiThanhSang TV pdf Delving into refusal speech act A case of Vietnamese students seeking English Bachelor degrees Student Tran Thi Thanh Sang Supervisor Professor Clare Furneaux Dissertation subm[.]

Delving into refusal speech act: A case of Vietnamese students seeking English Bachelor degrees Student: Tran Thi Thanh Sang Supervisor: Professor Clare Furneaux Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in TESOL School of Literature and Languages, University of Reading Word count: 14,658 September, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Interlanguage pragmatic competence 2.2.1 Pragmatic knowledge 2.2.2 Pragmatic competence 2.3 Speech act theory 2.4 Politeness theory 10 2.5 Refusal speech act 13 2.6 Research on refusals 15 2.6.1 Studies outside Vietnamese context 15 2.6.2 Studies inside Vietnamese context 18 2.7 Challenges of making refusals in English for Vietnamese/Asian students 20 2.8 Proposed research questions 21 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 22 3.1 Introduction 22 3.2 The research setting 22 3.3 The participants 22 3.4 Research instrument 23 3.5 Data collection procedures 26 3.6 Ethical consideration 26 CHAPTER 4: ANALYZING COLLECTED DATA 27 4.1 Introduction 27 4.2 Analyzing student participant’s refusal strategies 27 4.2.1 Summarizing frequency distribution of refusal strategies 27 4.2.2 Findings regarding refusals made to requests 29 4.2.5 Findings regarding refusals made to suggestions 33 4.3 Textbooks evaluation 35 4.4 Teacher’s opinion of integration of pragmatic approach into their classroom 38 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 41 5.1 Introduction 41 5.2 Research question 1: 41 5.3 Research question 2: 44 5.4 Research question 46 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION .49 6.1 Conclusion 49 6.2 Limitations 50 6.3 Further study 50 BIBLIOGRAPHY 52 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Taxonomy of refusal strategies (Beebe et al., 1990, p.37) 62 APPENDIX 2: ETHIC FORM 65 APPENDIX 3: STUDENTS’ QUESTIONNAIRES 69 APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRES 73 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES A-TABLE Table 1: Pragmatic knowledge components (Adapted from Purpura, 2004, p.91) Table 2: Classification of Speech acts (Cohen, 1996) 10 Table 3: Variable distribution in twelve situations 25 Table 4: An example of a typical scenario 26 Table 5: Frequency distribution of refusal speech act in the Solutions series 35 Table 6: Frequency distribution of refusal strategies in the Solutions series 38 B-FIGURE Figure 1: Language knowledge in Bachman and Palmer’s model (1996, p.68) Figure 2: Leech’s distinction between pragmalinguistics and sociopramatics Figure 3: Three levels of a speech act (Austin, 1962) Figure 4: Sociological variables influences FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.313) 12 Figure 5: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.316) 12 Figure 6: Overall frequency distributions of refusal strategies 28 Figure 7: Overall frequency distribution of each refusal strategy 29 Figure 8: Frequency distributions of refusal strategies made to requests 29 Figure 9: Frequency distributions of refusal strategies made to invitations 31 Figure 10: Frequency distributions of refusal strategies made to offers 32 Figure 11: Frequency distributions of refusal strategies made to suggestions 33 ABSTRACT This study set out to recast the issue of making refusal by Vietnamese university senior level English students through their responses in a Written Discourse Complete Task/Test (henceforth WDCT) which comprises of twelve situations (3 requests, invitations, offers and suggestions) Additionally, the treatment of refusal speech act in the Solutions series (Falla & Davies, 2008) is critically examined to determine if they enable FL learners to achieve their pragmatic competence in the target language Both the students’ responses and the presentation of refusal speech act in the Solutions series are evaluated following the two theoretical frameworks, i.e Refusal Speech Act and Politeness Theory of Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990) and Brown and Levinson (1987) respectively Interviews with English teachers who have taught these students and employed the textbooks were conducted to further investigate their approach of incorporating refusal strategies into their classroom The study found that Vietnamese students in the study could make refusals appropriately in English by using different strategies to soften the refusals Native language influenced on their choice of language The Solutions series not overlook refusal speech act regarding frequency, the presentation and introduction of refusal strategies The teacher participants have a good understanding of pragmatic knowledge Their approach of teaching pragmatics is appropriate to some certain circumstances However, it was investigated that they did not have great impact on these students’ choice of refusal strategies i