Nghiên cứu về cách đưa ra lời khuyên bằng tiếng anh trong sự liên hệ với tương đương tiếng việt

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A STUDY ON ADVICE-GIVING IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2015 Luu Thanh Huyen Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Professor Le Van Thanh Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc.Professor Le Van Thanh, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher A special word of thanks goes to Ms Le Thi Luyen and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT Giving advice to someone is not as simple as just telling them what to do, especially in an intercultural situation where more sensitivity needs to be applied The problem is that if the advice you give is too direct it can come across as a command What if you haven’t understood the situation correctly or completely, and your advice is no good? The person seeking your advice needs ‘an out’ – a way that they can reject your advice, or reformulate their request for advice without losing face – or causing you to lose face.Moreover, few decisions are made without seeking advice, advice can challenge the autonomy of its recipient As a result, it is viewed as potentially intrusive and is enacted cautiously In part, these findings may reflect European American culture, which fosters respect for personal autonomy Cultural models of social relationships can affect advice-giving Because advice can promote the exchange of practical information, it is viewed as helpful and is enacted freely According to Wierzbicka in “A different cultures, different languages, different speech act” cultural norms reflected in speech acts differs not only from one language to another Like the other speech acts, advising may be different from language to language, culture to culture and community to community It is our essential component in most aspects of human life Thanks to advising, human beings seem to be closer, women look prettier, children behave nicer, men are more perfect and home are more civilized Together with other speech activities, advising does a function of identifying a specific culture of people and speech behavior in politeness, which makes the communication light, bright and workable iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Convent In: Conventionally indirect EFL: English as foreign language FTAs: Face threatening acts H: Hearer L1: Source language L2: Target language NSs: Native speakers NNSs: Non-native speakers 9.SAT: Speech Act Theory 10 S: Speaker 11 SLA: Second Language Acquisition iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Summary of direct and indirect strategies used in giving 42 advice Table Degrees of directness of advice 46 Table Native and Vietnamese students’ advice strategy types 52 Figure 1: Native and Vietnamese students’ production of advice acts 49 Figure 2: University students’ production of realization strategies 50 Figure 3: Native and Vietnamese university students’ use of peripheral 55 modification devices v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aims of the research 1.3 Objectives of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Significance of the research 1.6 Structural organization of the thesis Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.1.1 Previous studies overseas 2.1.2 Previous studies in Vietnam vi 2.2 Review of theoretical background 10 2.2.1 Theoretical framework 10 2.2.2 Theoretical background 12 2.3 Summary 27 Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 29 3.1.1 Research questions 29 3.1.2 Research setting 29 3.1.3 Research approach 30 3.1.4 Principles/criteria for intended data collection and data analysis 30 3.2 Research methods 31 3.2.1 Major methods and supporting methods 31 3.2.2 Data collection techniques 31 3.2.3 Data analysis techniques 31 3.3 Summary 32 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34 4.1 Direct and indirect strategies used by English native and Vietnamese students in giving advice 34 vii 4.2 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in the way of giving advice 37 4.3 Implications for Vietnamese teachers in teaching giving advice: 63 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 67 5.1 Recapitulation 67 5.2 Concluding remarks 68 5.3 Limitations of the current research 69 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for future research 70 REFERENCES APPENDIX viii Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research Advice is an important act in people’s daily life More and more people view advice as a panel from where they can improve their performance or how to things better Getting feedback from others would give anyone an opportunity to learn more about themselves or the people they are employing for Based on the definition provided by Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary, advice refers to the act of offering an opinion by someone about what you should or how you should act in a particular situation Giving an advice can be difficult since no one would like to be told what to and how to act Advice can serve as an illuminating source of information on the socio-cultural values of a speech community and provide important insights into the social norms that are embedded in cultures For this study, the speech act of advice is selected as a unit of analysis It aims to look at some examples of advice pragmatic production and evaluate them according to their appropriateness in English with reference to Vietnamese equivalence Accordingly, it provides a valuable insight into the English culture 1.2 Aims of the research This research is conducted to aim at pointing out direct and indirect strategies used by English university students and Vietnamese university students in daily advice, thus enabling Vietnamese learners of English to give advice properly when taking part in English conversations 1.3 Objectives of the research To achieve the above aims, the three specific objectives have been put forward as follows: (i) Finding direct and indirect strategies used by English university students and Vietnamese university students in giving advice (ii) Pointing out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in the way of giving advice (iii) Suggesting some possible implications for Vietnamese teachers in teaching advice giving 1.4 Scope of the research It is found that there has been little research done when it comes to the performance of non-native speakers of English in giving advice In other words, when comparing the extensive research conducted on other speech acts such as requests by speakers of other languages, it is clear that research on non-native speakers of English in giving advice failed to fill the gap in pragmatic research By including pragmatic aspects in English language teaching as well as in teaching other languages, teachers can raise students' consciousness in giving advice as a linguistic elements crucial for avoiding being rude In the Vietnamese English language teaching tradition, "advisability" is commonly taught as an aspect of the meanings of modal verbs such as "should”, "ought to," and "must, "the pragmatic aspect of the use of these situations becomes as much a matter of intuition as rule learning Rather than trying to prescribe rules of interaction, teachers can stimulate learners to infer culturally appropriate advice-giving strategies by presenting learners with authentic conversational texts for analysis Authentic texts for analysis could be taken from transcripts or tapes of real conversations, from movie clips, or from professionally produced teaching materials where available Class discussion and analysis would likely reveal variables of intimacy, power and urgency that either give rise to or obviate the need for giving advice among speakers of English General guidelines can then be inferred from the class discussion to provide students with some guidelines, such as use indirect strategies when giving advice, avoid giving advice without being asked, and avoid imposition when giving advice, to help learners make decisions in crosscultural interaction with native speakers of English Once students have analyzed performance of language functions in native language use settings, they can further develop their sense of appropriateness for advice-giving in authentic communicative events through role plays, simulations and socio-dramatic techniques as well as being well documented in literature on the effects of psychodrama and socio-drama in language teaching using dramatic techniques can develop learners' empathy, spontaneity and self-esteem The spontaneous, creative state induced by enacting dramatic roles that require language functions can facilitate acquisition of an intuitive understanding of the parameters according to which those functions operate Through analysis and acting out different social roles in various communicative settings, learners develop a sense of what kind of advice they can offer, or should refrain from offering to people of various social relationships to them 64 Situations could range from low power differential and low intimacy relationships, such as a student asking advice of the principal of his school One important aspect of developing learners' empathy and understanding of advice- giving as a reciprocal activity is creating situations in which students themselves learn to ask for advice in a pragmatically appropriate fashion Helping students practice asking for advice is one way to encourage their empathy for interaction in the foreign culture Phrases such as the following for asking for advice can be given for use during simulations and other enactments of the communicative encounters In order for the learner to become competent in the pragmatics of the language culture, attention must be brought to the social contexts in which language structures operate This can be done both in the course of teaching grammar and in the course of teaching communication Of course, in the case of a lingua-franca such as English, there is a genuine likelihood that learners will use English in cultural contexts other than in Englishspeaking cultures Accordingly, incorporating pragmatic aspects of cross-cultural contact into foreign language classes can help learners to develop the sensitivity they need in order to temper interference of their native language culture when speaking foreign languages Giving advice is also one of necessary soft skills that need for real life communication, hence, students who have deep knowledge on advice giving can be take advantage in many situations when they can please other people like their friends, family members, colleagues with their advice 65 4.4 Summary The way of giving advice of English and Vietnamese informants is relatively different Vietnamese tend to advise more frequently than the English In other words, the advising frequency of the Vietnamese is higher than of the English NSs of English and NSs may view the appropriateness of giving advice differently and use it with different communicative goals NSs and NSs similarly recognized the social distance between the social superior and the peer Nevertheless, NSs opted for substantially more direct and hedged advice to the superior than did NSs In many cultures, the notion of giving advice may be viewed as an expression of friendliness and interest, i.e a conversational routine and/or a rapport-building activity, which is, however, considered inappropriate in some English-speaking cultures Therefore, it appears that, in L2 speech acts of friendliness, NSs rely on their Ll judgments of conversational appropriateness and politeness and need to be taught the topics and formulae pragmatically appropriate in L2 66 Chapter CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation To ensure of appropriateness when giving advice, the first thing people should notice is that they must adjust the degrees of directness in their advice to make it abides the Cooperative principle People should use directness at an appropriate level to ensure that they are informative enough (maxim of quantity), truthful enough (maxim of quality), relevant enough (maxim of relation), and brief and orderly enough (maxim of manner) If not, they will threaten hearer’s face Moreover, it is very important to recognize the four maxims as unstated assumptions people have in conversations However, there are some certain kinds of expressions speakers use to mark that “they may be in danger of not fully adhering to the principles” They are indirect expressions including hedges Therefore, directness and indirectness usage abiding the Cooperative principle is very important The second thing people should pay attention to is the culture, especially the distinction between high-context culture and low-context one Fathi (1978) says that some misunderstandings could arise when people from high-context cultures interact with people from low-context cultures It is because low-context communication is direct and high-context communication is not as indirect It is why people should consider the degree of directness and indirectness when they communicate in lowcontext cultures or high-context cultures to decrease misunderstandings as much as possible 67 People should recognize the importance, functions, as well as purposes of directness and indirectness in American English and Vietnamese Once they know them clearly, they can identify direct and indirect utterances in conversations easily, explain the meaning of the utterances, communicate in an appropriate degree of directness, and vary their expressions 5.2 Concluding remarks It is the very significant requirement that teachers are aware of directness, indirectness in advice giving, as well as its related theories Only when they are conscious of directness and indirectness usage in advice giving, they can use them effectively Moreover, teachers play the role of model in the language for students to follow Therefore, it is really a danger if they cannot use directness and indirectness in advice giving in an appropriate way They must master their knowledge of this item to make sure that they can be good models and wonderful instructors who can train good students and communicators The teacher’s introductory to directness and indirectness in advice giving makes a great contribution the students’ knowledge of directness and indirectness in advice giving The instruction can be given directly through lessons on the topic of directness such as hedges, euphemisms, slang, etc or indirectness in the daily conversations between the teachers and students with many ways of giving advice Other noticeable thing is that teachers had better cause the student attention to directness and indirectness in advice giving They will be motivated to apply direct and indirect advice when they face with situations need giving advice such as : a friend in needs and want to ask you for advice… 68 Directness and indirectness in giving advice are very crucial aspects of culture and life To use directness and indirectness in giving advice suitably, teachers must have a deep knowledge of the target language’s culture, particularly English and Vietnamese in this research In other words, they can what advice is appropriate or what is not Directness and indirectness in giving advice are also very helpful in educational environment Teachers have to deal with such many students problems Therefore, when lecturing, criticizing, giving ideas etc., teachers need suitable degrees of directness and indirectness If teachers can adjust the degree to different situations, it helps students to comprehend the knowledge, inspires students to study better, and improve the relationship between teachers and students Otherwise, unqualified teachers will make their students confused, erode their students’ will, and break the relationship Directness and indirectness in giving advice are practical knowledge for both teachers and learners In addition, as teachers of English, they may teach English to Vietnamese learners and teach Vietnamese to English learners Therefore, they partly can understand the two cultures They can help English learners understand more about Vietnamese culture and indirect communicating style Like English learners, Vietnamese learners are provided knowledge of English culture and direct quality Teachers are the ones who take this responsibility 5.3 Limitations of the current research Based on data gathered from respondents of native and non-native 69 speakers, it is important to include an even broader spectrum of respondents and include a more random sampling of native speakers and non-native speakers, both ESL and proficient, in order to ensure that the data are truly representative of the different groups It would also be valuable to study gender differences in responses, which requires ensuring a more balanced representation of male and female respondents than in the present study Ideally, a study such as this will be replicated and will employ different methods of data collection to gain a broader understanding of how advice is given in American English and in varieties of English worldwide Incorporating data obtained from role plays or simulations, for example, would provide researchers with additional data and insights Another option would be to conduct follow-up interviews with respondents in order to learn more about the socio-cultural variables governing the enactment of advice, both from an individual perspective, and within different cultural contexts Natural data would, of course, provide the most valuable in-sights into advice giving Gathering natural data, however, has its own limitations, including limitations in being in the right place at the right time with the right participants in enough situations, and the ethical and legal issues involved in videotaping or tape recording unwitting participants 5.4 Recommendations and suggestions for future research The standard for directness and indirectness should be set up appropriately with the student group’s level Students at elementary level should be introduced directness and indirectness in conversations and made to contact with them Intermediate students should be required 70 higher a little bit They should apply directness and indirectness in class environment in combination with others There are many problems which need further research in the future: - An investigation into strategies used by English and Vietnamese in responding to advice - To apply this result for further studies, researchers are highly advised that informant’s Parameters such as age, gender, marital status and living area should be taken into consideration 71 REFERENCES In English: Al-Momani, H S (2009) Caught Between Two Cultures: The Realization of Requests by Jordanian EFL learners.Unpublished doctoral dissertation Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA Y Al-Shboul, N Zarei - International Journal of Language Learning and …, 2013, Gender differences in the appropriateness of advice-giving among Iranian EFL learners Bachman, L.F (1990) Fundamental consideration in language testing Oxford University Press, Oxford Brown, P., & Levinson, S C (1987) Politeness: Some universals in language usage Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press Deborah, T (2007) That’s Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships Oxford University Press DeCapua, Andrea and Lisa Huber 1995 ‘‘If I were you ’’ Advice in American English Multilingua 14(2): 117–132 DeCapua, Andrea and Joan Findlay Dunham 1993 Strategies in the discourse of advice Journal of Pragmatics 20(4): 519–530 Deena, R L & Mara, B A (1982) Beyond Language Intercultural Communication for English as a Second Language Prentice Hall Regents, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Feng, B (2009) Testing an integrated model of advice giving in supportive interactions Human Communication Research, 35(1), 115- 129 10 Haugh, M (2006a) ‘Emic perspectives on the positive–negative politeness distinction’ Culture, Language and Representation, 3, 17– 26 11 Haugh, M (2006b) ‘Review of “Discourse politeness in Japanese conversation”’ Journal of Politeness Research, 2, 313–317 12 Haugh, M (2007a) ‘The discursive challenge to politeness theory: an interactional alternative’ Journal of Politeness Research, 3, 295–317 13 Haugh, M (2007b) ‘Emic conceptualizations of (im)politeness and face in Japanese: implications for the discursive negotiation of second language learner identities’ Journal of Pragmatics,39, 657–680 14 Hinkel, E (1997) Appropriateness ofadvice: DCT and multiple choice data Applied linguistics, 18 (1), 1-25 15 Holmes, J (2001) An introduction to sociolinguistics (2nd Ed.).Harlow, England: Pearson Education 16 Marcyliena, M (1998) More than a Mood or an Attitude: Discourse and Verbal Genres in African and American Culture In African American English: Structure, History, and Use (Eds Salikoko, S M., John, R R., Guy, B., & John, B.) Routledge, New York, USA 17 Martínez Flor, A (2005) A theoretical review of the speech act of suggesting: Towards a taxonomy for its use in FLT Revista Alicantina De Estudios Ingleses, 18, 167-187 18 Matsumura, S (2001) Learning the rules for offering advice: A quantitative approach to second language socialization Language Learning, 51(4), 635-679 19 Olshtain, E (1983) Sociocultural competence and linguistic transfer In Gas,S and Selinker L (eds) Language transfer in language learning (p 232-49).Rowley, MA: Newbury House 20 Searle, J.R (1976) The classification of illocutionary acts Language in Society, 5, 1- 24 21 Tannen, D (1984) The pragmatics of the cross-cultural communication Applied linguistic,5(3), 189-195 22 Thai, T (2007) Indirectness in Vietnamese Newspaper Commentaries: A Pilot Study Dissertation submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA 23 Wierzbicka, A (2003) Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction (2nd Ed.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 24 Wright, A (1987), How to communicate successfully, CUP, Cambridge 25 Yule, G (1997), Pragmatics, Oxford University Press In Vietnamese: Phan Kế Bính (1990), Việt Nam phong tục, Nxb Đồng Tháp Đỗ Hữu Châu (1992), “Ngữ pháp chức ánh sáng dụng học nay”, Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ, 1, Nguyễn Văn Chiến (1992), Ngôn ngữ học đối chiếu đối chiếu ngôn ngữ Đông Nam Á, Viện Khoa học xã hội Việt Nam, Viện Đông Nam Á 74 Nguyễn Đức Dân (1998), Ngd) Ngôn ngữ học, Nxb GD Nguyễn Đức Dân (1996), Lơgíc tiếng Việt, Nxb GD Nguyễn Văn Độ (1995), “Về nghiên cứu lịch giao tiếp”, Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ, Nguyễn Chí Hồ (1993), Một vài suy nghĩ xung quanh nội dung ngôn ngữ học(trong Tiếng Việt dạy Tiếng Việt cho người nước ngoài) Vũ Thị Thanh Hương (1995), “Lịch phương tiện biểu tính lịch lời cầu khiến tiếng Việt”, Ngôn ngữ học đời sống xã hội Nguyễn Quang (2002), Giao tiếp giao tiếp giao văn hoá, Nxb ĐHQG APPENDIX I'm doing a MA course at Hanoi Open University, majoring in English I'm asking English university students as well as Vietnamese university students to fill out this survey in order to prepare my term-paper The result obtained from the survey will not be used for anything but my own research, and your identification will not be exposed, so please feel free to answer the survey Thank you very much Gender: Male Female Age: Are you a native speaker of English: Yes No If you speak another variety of English, what language is it? If not, what is your native language? And how long have you been in the UK?:………………………………………… Please read each of the following 10 situations Then write a letter responding to each person who has asked you for helping in solving the problem, for a total of letters In your letter, address the person directly In other words, don’t write, ‘‘I would say XYZ’’ but write, ‘‘Dear X,…’’ If you don’t feel you can respond to a particular situation, say so If you know the reason why you don’t feel comfortable responding, please explain it Situation My boy/girlfriend is a student and has asked me for some help studying for an upcoming exam, but some friends and I have tickets to a concert that night Situation My married son and daughter recently moved into my home They go out every Friday and Saturday night, come home from a.m to a.m and then sleep all day without doing anything Situation The boss at my job is unpleasant He is always criticizing me and making me feel stupid I cannot quit because I need the money and the hours are convenient for my classes Situation My boy/girlfriend and our parents want us to get married soon, but I want to wait until I have had a chance to experience life more Situation A person stands in front of your neighbor’s house and shout loudly What will you say to that person Situation Your friend’s bike has been stolen She is very afraid and wants to hide her parents the truth from her parents Situation Your friend joined in gambling and now in debt What advice you give him? Situation Your neighbors throw their rubbish in front of your house Situation Your friend tries on new dress in the store but it is not really suits her Situation 10 Your younger brother/ sister does not work hard for his upcoming examination