Comparing oral refusals of requests in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES # " TRỊNH BỘI NGỌC COMPARING ORAL REFUSALS OF REQUESTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL) Supervisor: LÊ THỊ THANH, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY - 2008 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: “COMPARING ORAL REFUSALS OF REQUESTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE” in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programmes issued by the Higher Degree Committee Ho Chi Minh City, 2008 TRỊNH BỘI NGỌC i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, TRỊNH BỘI NGỌC, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, 2008 TRỊNH BỘI NGỌC ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Lê Thị Thanh, for her guidance, suggestions, comments and support in the preparation and completion of this thesis I’m also grateful to all my teachers for their dedication and useful instruction during the course To my family, I offer sincere thanks for their great support, encouragement and assistance, especially to my younger sister living in the U.S.A for her collecting the data from her friends Last, but not least, I would like to send my thanks to all the participating subjects for completing the questionnaires which play an important part for this study iii ABSTRACT This thesis aims at: (1) investigating the similarities and differences in the use of refusal strategies of requests by native American English speakers (AESs) and native Vietnamese speakers (VSs), (2) finding the Vietnamese language transfers in using the oral refusal strategies of requests by Vietnamese learners of English (VLs) and (3) examining the influence of social status and age on the choice of refusal strategies of requests employed by AESs and VSs The results of this study are: (1) There were more differences than similarities in the frequency distribution of refusal strategies employed by AESs and VSs when they made refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request (2) In examining the refusal strategies occurring in sequences, it was found that AESs and VSs also indicated different sequences in different situations, especially VSs tended to employ sequences of more refusal strategies than AESs when making refusals to a manager’s request and a friend’s request (3) VLs usually employed the communicatve strategies in their mother tongue to transfer them into English when making refusals of requests Besides, they refused more in their mother tongue, so they had the tendency to refuse more in the target language than the native speakers of English (4) Social status and age didn’t have much effect on the choice of refusal strategies employed by AESs By contrast, these factors had a strong effect on the choice of refusal strategies used by VSs From the findings of this study, the thesis recommends that the teachers should provide the learners with the knowledge of speech act, give them useful model dialogues and suitable role-play activites to practise In addition, the iv teachers should encourage the learners to use the appropriate refusal strategies when they communicate with the native speakers of English and Vietnamese Besides, the learners should be well-equipped with enough facilities and various, authentic curricula v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Certificate of originality ……….i Retention and use of the thesis ………ii Acknowledgements ……iii Abstracts ……iv Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………………1 1.1 The rationale of the study 1.2 Aim of the study 1.3 The scope of the study .3 1.4 An overview of the thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………………………………………5 2.1 Speech act theory 2.1.1 Definitions of speech acts .6 2.1.2 Classifications of speech acts 2.2 The speech acts of request 11 2.3 Possible responses to a request 14 2.4 The speech act of refusal……………………………………………………………………………………………15 2.4.1 Possible refusal trajectories…………………………………………………………………………16 2.4.2 Classifications of refusal strategies……………………………………………………………18 2.5 Politeness theory .20 2.5.1 Face wants 21 2.5.2 Essential factors affecting the choice of politeness strategies………22 2.6 Language transfer…………………………………………………………………………………………………………24 vi Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE………………………………………………26 3.1 Research questions 26 3.2 Research design 26 3.2.1 Subjects …………………………27 3.2.2 Instruments 28 3.3 Data collection procedure 30 Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ……………………………………………………31 4.1 Similarities and differences between native American English speakers (AESs) and native Vietnamese speakers (VSs) in making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request…………………………31 4.1.1 AESs making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………………………………………………………………………………………………31 4.1.2 The priority order of refusal strategies employed by AESs when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request …………………………………………………………………………………………………34 4.1.3 VSs making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………………………………………………………………………………………………40 4.1.4 The priority order of refusal strategies employed by VSs when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request…………………………………………………………………………………………………44 4.1.5 The two groups’ data in comparison …………………………………………………………46 4.1.5.1 The frequency distribution of refusal strategies employed by AESs and VSs when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………………47 vii 4.1.5.2 Refusal sequences employed by AESs and VSs when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request …………………………………………………………………….50 4.2 Transfers in using oral refusal strategies of requests by Vietnamese learners of English (VLs) ………………………………………………………………………………………… 53 4.2.1 The frequency distribution of refusal strategies employed by the three subject groups when they made refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request…………………………………54 4.2.2 The priority order of refusal strategies employed by VLs when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request …………………………………………………………………………………………………61 4.2.3 Sequences of refusal strategies employed by the three subject groups when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………………………………………………………………………66 4.2.4 The total number of tokens employed by the subject groups when making refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………………………………………………………………………………………………….67 4.3 The effect of social status and age on the choice of refusal strategies of requests employed by AESs and VSs…………………………………………………………………….68 4.3.1 Social status………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 69 4.3.2 Age……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………72 4.4 Findings………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………77 4.4.1 The similarities and differences of oral refusal strategies of requests employed by AESs and VSs when they made refusals to a manager’s request, a sister’s request and a friend’s request………… 77 viii 4.4.2 The Vietnamese language transfers in using oral refusal strategies of requests by Vietnamese learners of English (VLs)……………………….79 4.4.3 The effect of social status and age on the choice of refusal strategies employed by AESs and VSs…………………………………………………………………………80 4.5 Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….82 5.1 Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 84 Conclusions ………………84 5.2 Recommendations ……………………85 5.3 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further research…………88 Bibliography .90 Appendix A (Questionnaire for AESs and VLs – in English version) ………………….95 Appendix B (Questionnaire for VSs – in Vietnamese version) ……………………………….97 ix pronunciation the learners need to acquire pragmatic competence The speech act of refusals of requests is a part of pragmatics This means that the learners of English not only need to recognize the linguistic forms which are necessary to perform a refusal but also need to know the socio-cultural values of the target language involving culture, age, social status, education of the interlocutors so that they can use appropriate strategies in different contexts to avoid hurting the requesters’ feelings, misunderstanding and cultural shocks We can see that the differences in the use of refusal strategies between the native American English speakers and the native Vietnamese speakers caused by the differences between the two cultures This study also suggests that the learners’ higher levels of grammatical competence don’t always mean that they can obtain the socio-cultural abilities effectively 5.2 Recommendations From the findings and the conclusions of this study, I would like to present some recommendations for teaching and learning the speech act of refusals of requests in the Vietnamese context When teaching English, apart from giving Vietnamese learners the grammatical structures, vocabulary, the way of pronunciation the teachers should provide them with the knowledge of the speech act In the early stage of teaching the speech act of refusals of requests, the teachers need to give the learners the situation concerning request and the possible answers of strategy categories for this situation so that the learners can think and discuss with their friends to find out the appropriate refusal strategies for the given situation Then the teachers give them the explanation for the choice of the strategies employed by the native speakers of English When making refusals of requests, the native speakers of English had the tendency to use a variety of refusal strategies These strategies were employed in appropriate sequences of refusal strategies In order to encourage the Vietnamese learners of English to refuse the requests like the native speakers of English, the teachers should help them be aware of what kinds of politeness strategies are necessary and suitable in a given situation Besides, making refusals of requests is a face-threatening act, so Vietnamese learners should avoid using direct refusal strategies in both their mother tongue and in English to avoid hurting the requesters’ feelings Also, this study has shown that social status and age has influenced the choice of refusal strategies It is necessary that the teachers make the learners aware that people of different social status and age use different refusal strategies so that they know how to use appropriate strategies for particular requesters or interlocutors Giving model dialogues is a useful way to present the learners with examples of speech acts in use However, the teachers should choose the dialogues which are short, simple, natural, familiar to those in their real life so that the learners can identify the kind of speech act concerned easily Role-play activities are particularly suitable for practicing the use of speech acts in general and the speech act of request refusal in particular The teachers should get the learners to act out the conversations concerning the given situation and the appropriate politeness strategies for this situation The curricula for teaching English must be various, authentic with their daily activities These curricula not only focus on grammar, vocabulary but also on cultural and social knowledge of the country where English is spoken and the knowledge of the speech as well The teachers should apply the theory of speech acts in teaching speaking, especially in teaching everyday conversations to develop students’ communicative skill For example, the teachers can use some situations concerning requests suggested in the textbooks and ask them to make the conversations in pairs by employing the refusal strategies Then the teachers let them compare their refusal strategies to those employed by the native speakers of English Feedback and discussions are useful activities because the learners need to talk about their perception, expectations and awareness of the refusal strategies used to find out the similarities and differences between two different languages in two different cultures Also, the teachers can create some situations which are familiar to the learners’ real life and ask them to give the appropriate strategies for the given situations During the process of teaching English to Vietnamese learners, the teachers should help them recognize and correct the negative transfers from their mother tongue such as grammatical structures, word order, word choices… Also, the teacher should encourage the learners to indicate the refusal strategies which are frequently employed in the target language when they communicate with the native English speakers to be successful in communication However, the teachers should advise the Vietnamese learners of English to use the refusal strategies which are usually occurred in their mother tongue when they communicate with the native Vietnamese speakers in Vietnamese to show their friendliness and regard to the requesters This means that the Vietnamese learners of English always keep their traditional custom and culture when they communicate in Vietnamese In order to facilitate for teaching and learning English better, the learners should be well-equipped with good conditions such as books, videos, pictures, cassette players, cassette tapes, films, newspapers, overhead projectors In fact, the learners of English especially living in provinces don’t have a lot of chances to contact foreigners, so the teachers can let them listen to the tapes spoken by the native speakers of English or choose some good English films for them to watch in order to practice their English Also, the classrooms should be wide, cool, bright enough to help the learners work and discuss in pairs or in groups effectively Those things above make the atmosphere of the class more exciting and the learners are encouraged in learning 5.3 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further research From the conclusions of the study, I will show the limitations and give some suggestions for further research 5.3.1 Limitations of the study As presented in chapter 3, the only data used in this study was the written questionnaire Therefore, the main disadvantage is that the subjects’ written responses are not always the same as what they really say in real situations Besides, because of the limitation of time, distance of the researcher and the subjects, reference material, the small samples and the lack of researcher’s experience, this study may not offer perfect conclusions as expected The conclusions of this study are withdrawn by basing on the sample subjects living in Travinh province and in Connecticut (the U.S.A) 5.3.2 Recommendations for further research Up to the present, almost no similar research has done to compare the oral refusal of requests in English and Vietnamese Therefore, satisfactory conclusions can be withdrawn if a variety of research methods is used to investigate this kind of speech acts in further research The questionnaires should be the combination of using audio and video recordings, face-to-face interviews or telephoning subjects to observe naturally occurring data From the findings and the conclusions investigated in this study, we think that further research should mention other aspects of the speech act of refusals of requests Here are some suggestions for further research: (1) What are the similarities and differences between linguistic structures employed by native speakers of English and Vietnamese when they refuse requests? (2) What are the main factors influencing the choice of refusal strategies of requests employed by native speakers of English and Vietnamese? (3) What should the teachers to help the Vietnamese learners of English avoid negative transfers from their first language when making refusals of requests in English? (4) What are the similarities and differences of the data collected from the written questionnaires and those from the face-to-face interviews or audio-video recordings? (5) How does “gender” influence the choice of refusal strategies of requests employed by both native speakers of English and Vietnamese? 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contribute to the success of the study The data collected will be used for the research purposes only, not for other purposes Information about you: Nationality: Gender: male female Occupation: First language or mother tongue: Vietnamese other languages English Situation 1: Your manager asks you to finish the report today What you say to refuse his request? Situation 2: Your elder sister is going on holiday this weekend, so she asks you to look after her son What you say to refuse her request? Situation 3: Your friend is going to move to another house next Sunday, so he/she asks you to help him/her carry the furniture What will you say to refuse his/ her request? _ Situation 4: Your friend is going to get married next month, so he/ she asks you to help him/ her clean and decorate his/ her house What will you say to refuse if the requester is: a A person who has the same age as you? b A person who is younger than you? c A person who is older than you? Situation 5: You work for a company The working time is over and you are leaving for home but a person in this company asks you to work extra hours What will you say to refuse if the requester is: a A colleague of equal position to you? b Your boss? _ c Your employee? Thank you very much for your help! APPENDIX B BẢNG CÂU HỎI SO SÁNH CÁCH NÓI TỪ CHỐI LỜI YÊU CẦU TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT Bảng câu hỏi nhằm thu thập liệu cho đề tài nghiên cứu tơi “So sánh cách nói từ chối lời yêu cầu tiếng Anh tiếng Việt” Câu trả lời cuả anh/ chị đóng góp lớn cho thành công đề tài Dữ liệu thu thập qua bảng câu hỏi sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên khơng dùng cho mục đích khác Thông tin bạn: Quốc tịch: Giới tính: nam nữ Nghề nghiệp: Tiếng mẹ đẻ: tiếng Việt tiếng Anh ngơn ngữ khác Tình 1: Ông giám đốc bạn yêu cầu bạn phải hồn thành bảng báo cáo hơm Bạn nói để từ chối lời yêu cầu ông ấy? _ Tình 2: Chị gái bạn định chơi cuối tuần này, chị nhờ bạn trơng dùm đứa trai chị Bạn nói để từ chối lời yêu cầu chị bạn? Tình 3: Bạn bạn định dời nhà vào chủ nhật tới, bạn nhờ bạn phụ khiêng đồ Bạn nói để từ chối lời yêu cầu bạn ấy? _ Tình 4: Bạn bạn sắêp kết vào tháng tới thếâ bạn u cầu bạn giúp bạn dọn dẹp trang trí nhà cửa Bạn nói để từ chối lời yêu cầu người yêu cầu là: a.một người bạn tuổi với bạn? b người bạn nhỏ tuổi bạn? c người bạn lớn tuổi bạn? Tình 5: Bạn làm việc cho công ty Giờ làm việc hết bạn định nhà có người cơng ty u cầu bạn lại làm thêm Bạn nói để từ chói người u cầu là: a đồng nghiệp chức vụ với bạn? b ông chủ bạn? _ c nhân viên bạn? Xin cám ơn bạn!