luận văn gender distinctions in refusal face saving strategies a case study at thu dau mot university

THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE VAN DUC GENDER DISTINCTIONS IN REFUSAL FACE-SAVING STRATEGIES: A CASE STUDY AT THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR

INTRODUCTION

Statement of the problem

Success in communication depends greatly on the ability to recognize speakers’ communicative intentions and pragmatic meaning of their utterances because human communication is a combination of cooperation and understanding Actually, those who may be regarded as fluent in a second language thanks to their phonetic, syntactic and semantic knowledge of that language are often still unable to produce language that is socially and culturally appropriate Larina (2008) indicates that numerous problems in communication occur because people not only speak different languages but use them in different ways according to specific social and linguistic norms, values, and social-cultural convention

Existing studies of speech acts can be divided into two aspects: on the one hand, the studies which examine native speakers’ speech acts realization, either focusing on one language (intra-language studies) or two languages; on the other hand, we have the studies which investigate characteristics of non-native speakers’ speech acts in comparison to native speakers’ (inter-language studies) Compared with certain speech acts which have received more attention than others such as requests and apologies, refusals are still one of the less researched areas The speech act of refusals (SARs) has been examined on interpersonal communication, cross-cultural and second language pragmatics, education, and psychology and from different perspectives, including the linguistic and non-linguistic realization of refusals in various settings, perceptions of refusals Félix-Brasdefer (2008:168) listed 51 studies on refusals and described them in light of the methods employed for collecting pragmatic data among native speakers of different languages American English has been so far the most co mmonly investigated language in native and non-native refusal studies, followed by Japanese, British English, and Italian Therefore, Janney and Arndt (1993) claim that it seems necessary to scrutinize it in other languages and cultures to have a better understanding of various concepts in other societies

To collect the data for analysis, a questionnaire was distributed to 120 students (60 males and 60 females) of different age groups at Thu Dau Mot University (TDMU) Then, the participants were divided into 4 age group categories (18-20; 21-23; 24-26 and over 26 years old) The questionnaire consists of 10 different situations of requests and invitations Accordingly, the participants are supposed to place themselves in the respondent’s position and write down exactly how they would verbally refuse the various situations Particularly, the gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies would be observed and identified Besides, the research investigated the common refusal utterances among five categories according to education backgrounds namely freshman, sophomore, junior, senior and part-time students It is remarkable that quantitative approach was employed for data analysis.

Aims and research questions of the study

Nguyen (1998) illustrated 12 factors in his view consisting of age, gender, residence, mood, occupation, personality, topic, place, communicative environment/setting, social distance, time pressure, and position that may affect the choice of refusal strategies in communication Notably, the current research mainly concentrated on the gender factor to determine the possible distinctions in face-saving strategies when English speakers perform SARs

The study aims to provide a detailed description of refusal face-saving strategies in order to find out possible gender distinctions and linguistic phenomena It also gives EFL learners and researchers applicable theoretical knowledge of such significant aspects This study may pave the way for further research in the field of Vietnamese language pragmatics Accordingly, this research is vital because it may reduce gender-based misunderstandings and conflicts Identifying gender distinctions may enable individuals to maintain the well-being of their relationships and reinforce cooperation and mutual trust (Gray, 1992:4)

This academic work is expected to create its own values Accordingly, it will help EFL learners gain further knowledge and have an excellent command of face-saving strategies for refusal cases while they are performing SARs Politeness plays a crucial role in achieving a harmonious relationship and it is also a good catalyst for forming a strong connection among society members as well Therefore, the results of the study will also help EFL students learn how to prevent refusal utterances from threatening the others’ face Moreover, this research also makes them recognize the importance of uttering words appropriately and wisely for a good face- saving speech act In terms of communication, the research will make a major contribution towards mastering workable face-saving strategies in general and possible gender distinctions in particular so as to acquire effective communication under any circumstances In the field of linguistics, this research will add another source as a useful reference for further research The readers will be able to comprehend the refusal principles through detailed explanations about a wide range of terms Besides, the research shows all linguists’ definitions related to them, as well as the types and theories that have been proposed in this field of linguistics, so this work may be of true value to researchers interested in this subject

The aim of this study is to identify the face-saving strategies implemented by students at TDMU while performing the speech acts of refusal Then, from the strategies identified in the data analysis process, the current research investigates the possible gender distinctions on the choice of face-saving strategies Therefore, this study specifically focuses on finding the answers for the following research questions:

1 Which face saving-strategies do students at TDMU employ to perform SARs?

2 To what extent do face-saving strategies in refusals of invitations and requests differ between male and female EFL learners at TDMU?

Significance of the study

Politeness is a social behavior common to all cultures It is a major element of everyday interaction The politeness concept can be studied linguistically (verbally) or non-linguistically (non-verbally) The focus of this study is linguistic politeness which is the way of being polite to others by the proper use of language in order to employ refusal face-saving strategies appropriately Understanding how people give polite utterances can be a great help to the communication gap among people in general and between women and men in particular

Many people devalue the importance of refusal face-saving strategies This is simply because they believe the right response is to agree on something even though they do not like to or want to do it However, it is complicated since misbehavior in this domain can result in the interlocutor’s feeling of being shocked, angry, or even seriously insulted It is because everybody expects the appreciation and respect from others In addition, Vietnam is a country with diversified cultures, so a wide range of social and linguistic norms for different communicative situations vary as well

As a result, this study is an attempt to provide a general comprehension of refusal face-saving strategies and a comparison of Gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies when producing SARs of students at TDMU

From a sociolinguistic perspective, refusals are pivotal because they are sensitive to social factors such as gender, age, level of education, power, social distance, and because an appropriate SAR varies from one culture to another

From a pragmatic perspective, refusals are also crucial because a refusal may engage with successive efforts at directness; indirectness or politeness that are appropriate to a specific setting The choice of indirectness in refusal and the appropriate degree of politeness emp loyed depend on the relationship between the participants, age, gender, and the situation

Refusals in Vietnamese contexts have not yet been widely investigated, and this research makes the contribution to an understanding of the structure and interactive nature of this speech act among Vietnamese students Although, the SARs can be used in response to requests, invitations, offers, and suggestions (Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss -Weltz, 1990), FelixBrasdefer (2008) examined refusal in three situations including requests, invitations, and suggestions Nevertheless, to have a comprehensive understanding of SARs, ten typical situations which refusals occur, are examined in this research The focus of this study is on the realization of gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies The SAR was selected for this study because it represents an interactive speech act in which the consideration of face may vary from speaker to speaker, verbal to non-verbal strategies, and informal to formal situations A SAR utt ered by participants is identified during the interaction, and calls for the participants’ efforts to take face-saving strategies into account when refusing requests, suggestions, invitations or offers

Since refusal is a speech act potentially including a level of rudeness and discourtesy, performing inappropriate refusal strategies may harm the relationship between interlocutors (Hassani, Mardani, & Hossein, 2011) Dealing with this subject to university students is regarded as a challenging task because they may not be aware of the significance of effective communication in general and face-saving strategies in particular It is obvious that politeness may be highly appreciated by a large number of individuals including students Overall, in the current study it is assumed that there may be some gender distinctions in face-saving strategies for refusal utterances because interlocutors may wish to soften the negative effects of refusal by pursuing a variety of strategies in an attempt to save face Therefore, this research mainly examined the strategies and the features of gender distinctions in refusal face-saving speech acts

Limitations of the study

There exist several limitations in the current research due to inevitable reasons and COVID-19 pandemic is one of the major challenges hindering the researcher from approaching the desirable number of participants as expected As a consequence, the study’s sample size is limited and it is apparent that one hundred respondents cannot represent Vietnamese communication style as a whole Additionally, the time constraint is also an obstacle to carry out the study and the researcher might not learn in depth about every aspect of the research problems.

Organization of the thesis

Chapter 1 begins with a statement of the aim of this investigation on which face-saving strategies are used by participants to perform SARs and the identification of possible gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies Then, the significance of the current research is stated in details Next, views of various researchers are discussed More different studies on a variety of refusal strategies are reviewed The research questions for the present study are simultaneously provided The chapter is concluded by presenting limitations of the research In chapter 2, the literature review discusses the major formulations of Speech Act Theory (SAT) The theoretical frameworks used for this study are also discussed including Grice’s (1975) and Goffman’s (1967) influential concepts and models especially the studies by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) This is followed by a critical overview of SAT and the notions of face-saving strategies with attention to the SARs Chapter 3 presents an outline of the research methodology employed in this study It begins with a description of the selection of participants, data collection instruments, a classific ation of the strategies used to analyze the data and procedure Then a framework of the data analysis is presented Chapter 4 reports, discusses and analyzes the results of the data obtained from the questionnaires Finally, chapter 5 presents the conclusion of the study with a discussion of the findings, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future investigations

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter presents a literature review in the area of pragmatics and it investigates all key theories related to the present study A broad examination of language is discussed in order to explore the topic-related concepts such as face, face-saving, face-threatening and refusal An overview of previous studies will be examined

In addition, chapter 2 is devoted to an overview and basic comparison of theoretical accounts of notions on face and face-threatening acts It concentrates on the main theoretical framework presentation of Brown and Levinson’s model of politeness and Grice’s Co-operative principles to identify students’ face-saving strategies in refusal.

Concepts of speech acts

People use a certain language to interact with others in daily conversations They are making utterances to express their feeling or thought and employing a wide range of speech acts Speech act is also the utterance which shows the action of the speaker According to Yule (1996:47), people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions through those utterances to express themselves Moreover, Yule defines speech acts in English, are commonly given specific cases, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request From that explanation, it can apparently come to the conclusion that language is not only used to exchange thoughts or express ideas, but also it is used to perform a variety o f speech acts

Austin (1962) proposed that the speech act conveys information through an utterance followed by a particular action In order to actualize communication purposes, people tend to perform intended speech acts while giving a talk Levinson (1983:236) defined that a speech act is doing things by uttering something, so people are using certain words to perform communicative speech acts in real contextual cases In other words, a speech act is an utterance that infers a performative function in la nguage and

8 communication process In addition, Austin (1962) also claimed that there is a close connection between speech acts and language functions Communicative actions acquired in everyday life requires using essential words under appropriate circumstances In other words, when people say something, they are simultaneously accomplishing a communicative action in real contexts According to Rosdiana (2018), communication is proved to be successful if it covers two aspects The speaker conveys the ideas by making speech acts and the listener responds to that information

Austin (1962) proposed that a speech act is a unit of speaking and performs different functions in communication This researcher believed that a single speech act actually consists of three separate but related speech acts: locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts

Whenever speakers create an utterance, they perform a locutionary act which is regarded as the act of producing a linguistically appropriate expression Moreover, people usually utter a speech act with a variety of purposes Take an example “Could you please give me a pen?” The speaker both utter and ask the listener to give him/ her a pen This kind of act which is produced with a communicative purpose in mind is linguistically known as illocutionary act The illocutionary act is the function of the utterance that the speaker has in mind to show the intended communicative purpose and to obtain that purpose through an utterance It can be further identifie d with another example for the statement “It's cold in here” This sentence contains the illocutionary force of a statement, an offer, an explanation, or a request It might be uttered by someone who is experiencing such a cold weather condition It can also be uttered by a person who intends to turn off the air-conditioner so that he/ she feels better

Perlocutionary acts occur when a speech act has an impact on a certain statement When the question is raised “Could you please give me a pen?”, the questioner expects the act of giving the pen to be implemented which is considered as its perlocutionary force The perlocutionary act refers to the conversational partner’s recognition of and response to the illocutionary act

Among the aforementioned three speech acts, the perlocutionary act is proved the most important mainly because it is actually what the speaker desires to obtain through the action of uttering the sentence Searle (1969) suggested a five-way classification of illocutionary acts as follows: a Representatives: These speech acts constitute assertions carrying true or false values (e.g statements) b Directives: In these speech acts, there is an effort on the part of the speaker to have the hearer do something (e.g requests, advice) c Commissives: This kind of speech acts creates an obligation on the part of the speaker; which specifically means they commit the speaker to doing something (e.g promises) d Expressives: These speech acts express an attitude or an inner state of the speaker (e.g apologies, congratulations, compliments) e Declaratives: These are speech acts in which declarative statements are successfully performed and no psychological state is expressed (e.g ex - communications)

The aforesaid concepts have made a substantial contribution to the understanding of refusals of requests and invitations which would be thoroughly gone into details and investigated in this research Those notions would undoubtedly play a pivotal role in creating the central and main theories for the analysis of refusal strategies to place too much reliance on in this research.

Concepts of refusal

Refusal is a type of speech act that is projected as a response to another individual’s request, invitation, offer or suggestion which means it is not speaker-initiative (Hassani, Mardani, & Hossein, 2011) Based on Ramos (1991), a refusal is to respond negatively to an offer, request, and invitation Notably, refusals are face-threatening acts (Brown and Levinson, 1987) and belong to the category of commissives because they commit the refuser to (not) performing an action (Searle, 1977) Refusals function as a response to an initiating act and are considered a speech act by which a

10 speaker “fails to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor” (Chen et al., 1995:121)

From a sociolinguistic perspective, refusals are important because they are sensitive to social variables such as gender, age, level of education, power, and social distance (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Fraser, 1990; Smith, 1998) Overall, refusals are complicated speech acts that require not only long sequences of negotiation and cooperative achievements, but also “face- saving maneuvers to accommodate the noncompliant nature of the act” (Gass and Houck, 1999:2)

According to Al-Eryani (2007), a refusal is a negative response to an offer, request, and invitation Refusals occur in all languages as all the other speech acts However, not all languages refuse in the same way nor do people feel comfortable when refusing the same invitation or suggestion In many societies, uttering and receiving a message of “no” require special skills The interlocutor must be well aware of how to use the appropriate forms and functions

Refusals are considered to be a face-threatening act among the speech acts “Face” means the public self-image of a person which refers to emotional and social sense of oneself that people have and expect others to recognize Refusals threaten the inviter’s face because they contradict his/her expectations and restrict the inviter’s freedom to perform an act Notably, refusals may threaten the addressee’s public image to maintain approval from others

Because a failure to refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal relations of the speakers, refusals usually consist of various strategies to avoid offending conversational partners However, it requires a high level of pragmatic competence and the choice of these strategies may vary through languages and cultures For example, in refusing invitations, offers and suggestions, gratitude was regularly expressed by American English speakers, but rarely shown by Egyptian Arabic speakers (Nelson, Al-batal, and Echols, 1996)

A major study carried out by Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss -Weltz (1990) compared the refusals produced by native speakers of Japanese and native speakers of English, using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) The participants of the study were 20 Japanese speaking Japanese and 20 Americans speaking English with the aim of investigating pr agmatic knowledge in refusals to a higher-, equal-, and lower-status interlocutors Findings showed that, Japanese speakers of English and native speakers differ in three areas: the order of the semantic formula, the frequency of the formula, and the content of the utterances The results also verified the importance of status in selecting the refusal strategies Status was also an important factor to be considered when performing SARs

Genc & Tekyildiz (2009) explored the ways in which Turkish learners of English use the SARs and find out if regional variety affects the kind of refusal strategies used Data of the Turkish EFL participants residing in both rural and urban areas were collected through a DCT in order to investigate the similarities and differences between the use of refusal strategies by Turkish learners of English in urban areas and rural areas as well as native speakers of English in urban areas and rural areas One hundred and one Turkish EFL learners and 50 native speakers of English participated in this study Results showed that subjects in all groups used the refusal strategies in a similar way In addition, the status of interlocutor was observed as an important factor in the choice of strategies for participants All the subjects refused similarly in using direct and indirect strategies in their responses to the interlocutors with different social status

Wannaruk (2008) investigated similarities and distinctions in refusals between American native speakers and Thai speaking English and observed if there was any pragmatic transfer from the first to the second language by Thai EFL learners while making refusals in English All participants are graduate students The data were collected by DCT EFL data for refusals were compared with similar data gathered from American native speakers and Thai Results revealed that generally all groups employed most of the

12 refusal strategies; however, the pragmatic transfer existed in the choice of refusal strategies

Numerous related studies have been carried out in this pragmatic field

In the study by Al-Kahtani (2005), the researcher explored the distinctions in the ways people from different cultural backgrounds performed refusals while using the same linguistic forms in English In addition, Hong (2011) did an empirical study of refusal strategies in Chinese to find out similarities and distinctions in perception and production of refusals by native speakers and nonnative Chinese learners While the study conducted by Felix-Brasdefer (2008) compared refusals in situational variation between the Mexicans and the Dominicans showing that the Mexicans used mostly indirect refusal strategies and mitigation acts whereas the Dominicans applied more direct and unmitigated SARs.

Notions of face

“Face” is not something necessarily shown on someone’s face, nor is it a reference to facial expressions (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Ting -Toomey

& Kurogi, 1998) However, face is the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself/ herself by the line others assume he/ she has taken during a particular contact (Goffman, 1967:5) Face can be lost, maintained, saved, and protected Fundamentally, the importance of face has been found in almost every culture, yet its meaning and its use differ substantially (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Ting-Toomey, 1988)

“Face” is defined as an individual’s self-esteem It has two aspects, namely the negative and positive face Negative face is “the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions” and positive face is “the desire to be approved in some respects” (Brown and Levinson, 1987:13) In daily communication especially in a social relationship, it is necessary to keep away from threatening other’s face or in other words to save their face; therefore we employ felicitous strategies in conversations Brown and Levinson pinpointed that politeness is regarded as a face-saving strategy effectively

13 meeting both the positive and the negative face needs of the interlocutor (Usami, 2002).

Concepts of face-saving and face-threatening

A face-saving act that emphasizes a person’s negative face will show concern about imposition and a person’s positive face will show solidarity and draw attention to a common goal (Brown & Levinson, 1987) Therefore, Yule (2006) indicated that understanding how successful communication is actually a process of interpreting not just what speakers say, but what they

“intend to mean” When somebody says ‘Well! I’m really busy’ to refuse an invitation directly, the hearer may feel hurt However, if someone says ‘I really appreciate it but I have another plan already’ or ‘I’d love to, but I am supposed to finish my report on time’–surely, there is less impact on the hearer and his self-esteem, or “face” is saved b Face-threatening act

In daily communication, people may give a threat to another individual’s self-image, or create a “face-threatening act” (FTA) These acts impede the freedom of actions (negative face), and the wish that one’s wants be desired by others (positive face) – by either the speaker, or the addressee, or both The researchers identified three sociological factors that contribute to face threatening acts: the difference in power between speaker and hearer, the social distance between these two parties, and ranking of the obligation in doing face threatening acts (FTA) Yule (2006) argued that if you say something representing a threat to another person’s self-image, it is called a face-threatening act Whenever people say something that lessens the possible threat to another’s face, it can be described as a face-saving act Thus, Yule (1996) discovered that everybody has face wants which are defined as the expectations a person has that his public self-image will be respected

Requests potentially threaten the addressee’s face because they may restrict the addressee’s freedom to act according to his/ her will (Holtgraves,

2002:40) Refusals, on the one hand, may threaten the addressee’s positive face because they may imply that what he/ she says is not favored by the speaker On the other hand, interlocutors attempt to avoid FTAs by using specific strategies to minimize the threat of face to participants

The following figure shows strategies that are chosen when a spe aker does an FTA to a listener The terms invented by Brown and Levinson are

“on record” which is when you decide to give utterances directly, and “off record” which is when you choose to use indirect expressions Positive politeness can be defined as what occurs when the speaker tries to protect the hearer’s positive face by decreasing the distance between them Negative politeness is where the speaker tries to preserve the hearer’s negative face by respecting the hearer’s personal zone (Brown and Levinson, 1987:68-71) The relationship between Grice’s cooperative principle and Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory reveals that face plays a pivotal role when it comes to expressing SARSs In order to keep either positive or negative face on FTA, politeness or indirectness strategies may be employed.

Concepts of politeness

In everyday interaction, many expressions have been used for speaking with friends, relatives, officials, and others A different range of expressions was identified with each of them; some with formal tones, some with more formal tones and others with less formal tones People have a talk with politeness and/ or with less politeness Marina Terkourafi (2015) explained that since the speech act of refusal is the most dangerous act to threaten directly the face of those involved in the communication, it is necessary to employ polite refusal semantic formula to reduce and avoid the face threatening to the participants in verbal communication activities to achieve the successful communication

Politeness is the awareness of another person’s face or the public self- image of a person It is a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interactions and transactions (Lakoff,

1990:34) We can think of politeness in general terms as having to do with ideas like being tactful, modest and to be nice to other people (Yule, 2006)

Goffman (1967:77) described politeness as “the appreciation an individual shows to another through avoidance or presentatio n of rituals” Lakoff (1973) suggested that if one desires to succeed in communication, the message must be conveyed in a clear manner Fraser and Nolan (1981) defined politeness as a set of constraints of verbal behavior while Leech (1983) regarded it as forms of behavior aimed at creating and maintaining harmonious interaction He also considers the Politeness Principle as part of the principles for interpersonal rhetoric

In the study of linguistic politeness, the most relevant concept is

“face” which is the public self-image in pragmatics This is the emotional and social sense of oneself that everyone has and expects others to recognize According to an investigation by Yule (2006), politeness can be defined as showing awareness of and consideration for another person’s face

It is remarkably challenging to come to a clear definition of politeness Several theorists have tried to offer definitions of politeness The researcher put forward some definitions which had been written by theorists in the linguistic field Arndt and Janney (1985:282) noted that politeness is

“interpersonal supportiveness” In another study, Hill et al (1986:349) pointed that politeness is “one of the constraints on human interaction, whose purpose is to consider others’ feelings, establish levels of mutual comfort and promote rapport” Ide (1989:22) presented that politeness is

“language associated with smooth communication” Leech (1980:19) showed that politeness is “strategic conflict avoidance” which “can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation” Particularly, Brown and Levinson (1978) argued that politeness

“as a complex system for softening face-threats” Similarly, Mills (2003:6) pointed out that politeness is the expression of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another

Lakoff (1990) proposes that there are two rules of politeness, which aim at minimizing conflict in an interaction Notably, Brown and Levinson developed a theory of politeness that drew on Goffman’s idea of face and expanded upon Lakoff’s rules of politeness According to Brown and Levinson there are two kinds of face including “negative face” (desire to express one’s ideas without resistance) and “positive face” (desire to have one’s contributions approved of), which reflect two different desires in every interaction (Johnstone, 2008)

Brown and Levinson theorize that “face” must be continually monitored during a conversation because it is vulnerable During a conversation face can be lost, maintained or enhanced It is important to not only maintain one’s own face but also the face of others (Fraser, 1990) Interlocutors must be able to “save face” when they are confronted with FTAs, which threaten the faces of the addressees (Johnstone, 2008)

Brown and Levinson then proposed possible strategies that interlocutors can use to deal with face threatening acts “Politeness Theory” (2011) outlines them as follows a)Bald On-record politeness: This strategy is used in situations where people know each other well or in a situation of urgency In these instances maintaining face is not the first priority or main goal of a conversation b) Off-record: This strategy is more indirect The speaker does not impose on the hearer As a result, face is not directly threatened This strategy often requires the hearer to interpret what the speaker is saying c)Positive Politeness: This strategy tries to minimize the threat to the audience’s positive face This can be done by attending to the audience’s needs, invoking equality and feelings of belonging to the group, hedging or indirectness, avoiding disagreement, using humor and optimism and making offers and promises d) Negative Politeness: This strategy tries to minimize threats to the audience’s negative face This can be done by being indirect, using hedges or questions, minimizing imposition and apologizing

Vietnam is greatly influenced by Chinese culture, French civilization, Buddhist philosophy, Christianity and Communism, as well as the ong oing globalization process (Dao, 2000; Tran, 1998; Jamieson, 1991) However, traditional Vietnamese culture is still preserved while accumulating and localizing foreign cultural influences (Ngo, 2001; Tran, 1998) In modern times, politeness has been well maintained by Vietnamese people They have gained knowledge of additional politeness strategies through interaction with foreign friends In social interaction, the Vietnamese value

“tinh” (Tran, 1998; Tran, 2001; Le, 2001; Ngo, 2001; Truong, 2001), which is literally translated into English as “love” It implies that people should act on the ground of morality than reasonability Everyday lifestyle and interpersonal skills should be based on this value In former times, politeness was considered more important than education Students were taught tien hoc le, hau hoc van, or “behave oneself before studying” (tien: first, hoc: study, le: good manners, hau: later, hoc: study, van: knowledge)

Vietnamese society is no longer as agriculturally dominated as it once was (Do, 2002) It has become industrialized and is subject to increasing globalization A large percentage of the population has to conform to the norms and patterns of industrial life, with changing lifestyles and ways of thinking However, there are many innate characteristics that Vietnamese people still observe in their daily life One of those unchanged manner is indirectness The Vietnamese seldom use a direct approach in their expressions Obviously, directness is appreciated in the Western world, but not in Vietnam (Crawford, 1966) With regard to politeness strategies in refusals, Vietnamese have some social norms that require language users to be able to refuse in a polite manner When resorting to different ways of refusing, they tend to be indirect for face-saving strategies This study aims to discuss this phenomenon in Vietnamese context

Concepts of indirectness and indirectness for refusals

Searle (1975) proposed the notion of “indirect speech acts” This notion is applied to speech acts in which the speaker communicates to the conversational partner more than transferring an own message by relying on their common cultural background such as requesting, refusing, and apologizing

According to Cohen (1996:265), a semantic formula refers to “a word, phrase, or sentence that meets a particular semantic criterion or strategy; any one or more of these can be used to perform the act in question” For instance, in the situation in which the respondents had to refuse a request from a classmate asking to borrow the note of a missed class, the participants gave responses such as “Sorry, I need to read it tonight” which were coded as an SAR showing regret and excuse In another situation in which the respondents were offered a piece of cake by a friend, the participants gave responses such as “Thank you so much, I have eaten like a pig” which were coded as an SAR expressing gratitude and joke

Thomas (1995:119) claimed that indirectness refers to a speech act in which the expressed meaning of an utterance does not match the speaker’s implied or intended meaning An indirect SAR requires the speaker’s and the listener’s shared background information and the ability to make inferences on the listener’s part Additionally, Brown and Levinson (1987) defined indirectness as a set of politeness strategies which can be used to minimize imposition on the hearer and to foster harmony between the speaker and the conversational partner All in all, politeness and indirectness are of the close relationship in supporting effective communication Similarly, Blum-Kulka (1987:140) also claimed there is a relationship between politeness and indirectness in general, irrespective of language As a communication style, indirectness is identified in everyday interaction In some situations, it is employed as a more effective way of communication For instance, it can be used to perform different expressions such as giving hints, avoiding confrontation, joking, being ironic, or

19 particularly showing politeness by saving the face of either speaker In many cultures, especially in Asian cultures, indirectness is valued because saving face and harmony in social relationships are highly valued (Lakoff, 1973)

In our daily communication, people always want to establish close rapports with others, avoid embarrassment, misunderstanding, and maintain interpersonal and social harmony So, appropriate expressions and behaviors in all communicative situations are supposed to be the most significant rule in interpersonal communication For this concern, communicators always draw on various communicative skills that the use of indirectness is greatly appreciated People tend to use some indirect strategies to mitigate the force of their unpleasant speech acts in order to avoid embarrassment, or conflict so as to make the conversation go on smoothly, and also maintain a harmonious relationship (Fachun Zhang & Hua You, 2009)

As a strategy in communication to achieve a certain goal, indirectness is not only commonly employed in oral communication, but also in non- verbal communication Indirectness is a broad term, which can have a variety of facets and can underlie phenomena such as irony, metaphor, and understatement Notably, Tannen (1986) pointed out numerous benefits of indirectness namely establishing rapport, self-defense, avoiding confrontation, and gleaning aesthetic pleasure through the use of joking, irony, and figures of speech She claimed that indirectness is beneficial because it maintains a balance between the need between the speaker and the hearer In addition, Thomas (1995:143) listed a variety of reasons “for the universal use of indirectness” namely the desire to make one’s language more or less interesting; the desire to increase the force of one’s message; competing goals; and politeness or regard for face

“Face” is a sacred thing for every human being, it is an essential factor that communicators all have to pay close attention If one wants his/ her face cared for, he/ she should care for other people’s face (Goffman, 1959) So, people try to protect the face of others, and at the same time save their own

If one does not want to lose his/ her face, the safest way is not to damage the

20 face of others Indirectness is a way to show politeness to others and it is used in various speech acts, such as request, invitation, etc in the event the possible refusals or conflicts occur

By being indirect, the speaker is making it less obvious that he/ she expects the hearer to comply This provides greater freedom for the hearer to refuse Even if the hearer refuses, he/ she will use polite language in order not to cause embarrassment to the requester However, if the requester asks in a direct manner with the imperative form, it then seems to be an order from the speaker It sounds to be a face-threatening act Then, it may cause antipathy in the requested person towards the speaker As a result, the requester will certainly get embarrassed and feel his/ her face lost on hearing this

When refusing other people’s requests, it should be very careful about expressions, avoiding using direct forms of refusal In this case, one common strategy of language use is not to give out any explicit expressions of refusal but to show the reasons for it This is an indirect way to express meaning in order to save the face of both sides, and avoid embarrassment.

SARs realization

“Refusal” means the speech act of saying “no” (Wierzbicka, 1987:94), it expresses the addressee’s non-acceptance, declines of or disagrees with a request, invitation, suggestion or offer In other words, refusing means saying “No, I will not do it” in response to someone else’s utterance, in which he/ she shows that he/ she wants us to do something and that he/ she expects us to do it The FTA leads to a tendency that the speakers attempt to make use of certain strategies such as indirectness and polite expressions in order to avoid conflict (Brown and Levinson, 1987) Thus, the SAR realization is “a major cross-cultural sticking point for many non-native speakers” (Beebe et al., 1990:56)

In terms of pragmatics, requests and refusals are automatic sequences in the structure of the conversation which are called “adjacency pairs”

“Adjacency pairs” is the term used for certain consecutive speech turns that

21 are closely related (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973) They can be described as automatic sequences consisting of a first part and a second part produced by two successive speakers so that the second utterance is identified as related to the first as an expected follow-up The most common adjacency pairs are greeting-greeting, thanking-response, request-refusal/acceptance, apology- acceptance, and question-answer Managing adjacency pairs successfully is part of conversational competence

The present research focuses here on the adjacency pairs of invitation- refusal, and request-refusal They are important adjacency pairs and therefore demand special attention from the speakers so that the message can be conveyed in a socially acceptable manner In everyday life, it is not easy to refuse If you give a flat refusal, it may be interpreted as more than just the refusal itself In contrast, it can create a feeling of discomfort in both the speaker and conversational partner

There have also been studies of refusals in intercultural and non- native contexts In the study of the indigenous population and the non-native (Korean, Malaysian, Chinese, Arabic, Thai, Japanese, and Spanish) rejections from academic advising sessions, Hartford and Bardovi-Harlig (1992) found that explanation was used most commonly for rejections by both native and non-native students However, non-native speakers tend to use more avoidance strategies than natives Ikoma and Shimura (1994) carried out a study with English as L1 and Japanese as L2 They attempted to investigate pragmatic transfers in the speech act of refusal by American learners of Japanese as a second language They found that there were not any distinctions between American and Japanese subjects in terms of specificity in excuses Moreover, Japanese subjects were found not to use more formal-sounding expressions than American subjects On the other hand, Beckers (1999) found that Americans varied their refusal strategies according to social status (high, low, equal) rather than social distance (stranger, acquaintance, and intimate), while Germans varied their refusal strategies according to social distance, rather than social status Germans

22 also employed fewer semantic formulae than Americans did in all 18 situations (which are the combinations of the three variables of social distance, social status, and gender) Felix-Brasdefer (2003) investigated the speech act performance of native speakers of Mexican Spanish, native speakers of American English, and advanced learners of Spanish as a foreign language in refusals The author provided six different situations (two invitations, two requests, and two suggestions) of equal and high status using role plays and verbal reports Findings show that learners differed from the native groups in the frequency, content, and perceptions of refusal strategies

A study of socio-cultural transfer and its motivating factors within the realization patterns of the SARs generated by Jordanian EFL learners was carried out by Al-Issa (2003) The data were collected using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) It was then followed by semi-structured interviews Using semantic formulae as the major analysis approach Refusal responses were compared with similar data acquired from native speakers of English responding in English and native speakers of Arabic responding in Arabic The results indicated that socio-cultural transfer made a profound impact on the EFL learners’ selection of semantic formulae, the length of their responses, and the content of the semantic formulae

Research on the Vietnamese SARs includes a study on some cross- cultural distinctions in refusing a request in English and in Vietnamese Phan (2001) stated that both English and Vietnamese tend to use more indirect SARs than direct ones Comparing the degree of directness and indirectness of refusals expressed by English and Vietnamese subjects, all the English-speaking respondents are more direct than the Vietnamese ones.

Classification of refusal strategies

This study follows the theories of Beebe et al (1990)’s through the adaptation of his classification on refusal responses The following is a modified version of the classification used by Beebe et al (1990) Strategies

23 which are not identified in the collected data were omitted from Beebe et al.’s classification scheme

2 Negative willingness/ ability (e.g., “I can’t”; “I won’t be able to join you”)

4 Explanation (e.g., “I want to leave now because of some personal problems”)

5 Future acceptance (e.g., “I will help you tomorrow after the final exam”)

6 Principle (e.g., “I don’t like lazy students who rarely prepare the lessons”)

7 Philosophy (e.g., “Excuse is worse than sin”)

8 Self-defense (e.g., “You should have attended classes”)

11 Positive Opinion (e.g., “Congratulations on your promotion I am very glad!”)

12 Gratitude (e.g., “Thanks for the invitation”)

Although the literature on refusals is abundant, most aforementioned studies were conducted to compare refusals on situational variation; find out similarities and differences in perception and production of refusals; explore the differences in the ways people from different cultural backgrounds perform refusals; investigate if there is any pragmatic transfer from the first to the second language while making refusals; identify if regional variety

24 affects the kind of refusal strategies used Moreover, investigations i nto the SARs have been limited Some significant studies have been conducted on western and eastern languages such as Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliss -Weltz (1990), Chen (1996), (Fe´lix-Brasdefer, 2006) and (Geyang, 2007) but the aim of these studies was to find evidence of pragmatic transfer in the order, frequency, and content of semantic formulas used in refusals only

In addition, there are a variety of studies conducted by numerous researchers in term of speech acts in general and SARs in particular namely Blum-Kulka and House (1989); House and Kasper (1987); Ellis, R (1992); Garcia, C (1993); Hassall, T J (2001); Jeremy F Jones and Adrefiza (2017); and Lana Kreishan (2018) that focused on the polite speech acts of apology and request whereas the other scholars, such as Murphy & Neu (1996); Tanck, Sharyl (2004) investigated between the complaints and refusals One study carried out by Allami, et al (2017) which examined the different levels of employing the strategies related to request, apology, and refusal In recent years, many researchers have thought about identifying the refusal strategies in their own languages, cultures and English learning process Nhat, D B (2018) explored strategies of positive politeness in inviting and declining invitations in Vietnamese context Hatime ầiftỗ (2016) implemented a contrastive analysis on the use of politeness strategies in making SARs between Turkish and English native speakers Paraskevi - Lukeriya L Iliadi and Tatiana V Larina (2017) explored SARs and the employment of refusal strategies in English and Russian Tuncer, Hülya (2016) and Tuncer, et al (2019) found in their research that the refusal strategies used in social activities are influenced by gender distinctions and the social status in Turkey

Furthermore, there are still a large number of researchers in the world expressing their interest in the speech acts and refusals Pei Lixia (2010) investigated difference of the refusal strategies between English majors, non-English majors and native English speakers Guo Yinling (2012) made a contrastive analysis on the similarities and differences in the use of

25 strategies in English and Chinese refusal speech acts from the perspective of pragmatics Her research shows that the participants in communicative activities with different social status will adopt different refusal strategies Wang (2018) analyzed the polite strategies in the media to avoid the face threatening based on Goffman’s face work (Goffman, 1955) and Brown & Levinson’s face saving theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987)

The previous studies demonstrated the fact that EFL learners have found it challenging to master authentic English owing to the lack of real English environment for learning and applying to actual communication contexts Even though students with good English skills are capable of communicating with people who use English as their native language, there exist various communication obstacles, which is not mainly due to the students’ poor spoken English performance The speech act employment is related to the weak pragmatic competence of EFL learners, so it is very important to improve students’ pragmatic communicative competence

More importantly, it is obvious that no systematic study has been done to find out face-saving strategies in SARs of Vietnamese EFL learners and distinctions related to gender in their refusal strategy choices for the purpose of saving conversational partners’ face has not been thoroughly discovered in Vietnamese contexts And it is supposed to be a research gap in term of pragmatics which should be further investigated Therefore, this current research is intended to fill this gap in the literature

In order to address the limitations of previous studies, this research examines the specific face-saving strategies while performing SARs and finds out if there may be possible gender distinctions in refusal strategy choices of Vietnamese EFL learners Within the framework based on semantic formula and categorized according to the classification of refusal strategies by Beebe et al (1990), the researcher looks forward to identifying the important findings

The aforementioned research has provided some preliminary background and framework, in descriptive and methodological senses for the study of refusal face-saving strategies in the present study However, two particular gaps in the study of pragmatics on face-saving strategies are important to be noted because this research contributes and compliments them While the study of pragmatics in foreign and second language learners has been productive in recent years which can be clearly witnessed from the research reported above, yet none has focused on refusal face-saving strategies employed by Vietnamese EFL learners in general and gender distinctions in face-saving strategies choices in particular in terms of pragmatics in Vietnamese contexts

METHODOLOGY

Introduction

As Chapter 2 clearly indicates there is a gap in understanding of how students apply the use of refusal patterns and how face-saving strategies affect their use of refusal speech acts in contact with other speakers of English The research investigates the face-saving strategies possibly employed for refusal utterances by both gender groups In addition, the current study determines the extent of gender distinctions in face-saving strategies for SARs made by EFL students at TDMU

The literature review shows numerous studies and articles that deal with face-saving strategies and refusal acts in a variety of aspects Chapter 2 shows that more in-depth investigation of refusal face-saving strategies is needed, as there were very few research projects conducted on Vietnamese students The research also enriches the literature and provides respondents’ insight on this particular issue Therefore, the study looks at TDMU students’ attitudes and awareness on this issue in order to investigate students’ perceptions from their practice

This chapter presents an overview of the methodology used in this study With the purpose of answering the research questions posed at the end of Chapter 1, data were collected from participants on their production of refusal acts Beginning with a description of the subjects used in the study, the chapter then presents the data collection instruments used and the reasons why those instruments were chosen over others The procedures for collecting each type of data, a description of the transcription procedures or methods along with ethical issues are detailed Then, a framework for data analysis is introduced with a coding classification for refusal acts, followed by the discussion of a framework for assessing reliability The information is the foundation of the study in order to compare the gender distinctions in face-saving strategies for refusal acts with accuracy The researcher used Discourse Completion Task (DCT) as the main data collection method This study employed the quantitative approach

Research design and data gathering instruments

Research without a theoretical framework is a description and does not qualify as academic research or as a contribution to knowledge (Boden, Kenway, & Epstein, 2005) As the research plans to examine in depth TDMU students’ perceptions and refusal strategies choices, so the researcher chose to carry out a quantitative study under the assumption that this approach will help to yield considerable data and reliable findings The results are going to be presented in quantitative form to record the frequency of occurrence of SARs This analysis process hopefully serves the research best and allows the researcher to gain in-depth insights into the investigated aspects and to measure the SAR frequencies more thoroughly and gather a large amount of information about the topic.

The research site and the population for the present study

The research took place at TDMU The university is located in Binh Duong province and it is a public university under the management of the People’s Committee of Binh Duong province It offers training programs in multiple disciplines including 28 university degree programs and nine postgraduate programs TDMU is the only pedagogical university in Binh Duong Province

The questionnaire was constructed and distributed to 120 students (60 males and 60 females) from different backgrounds at TDMU including freshman, sophomore, junior, senior and part-time students All participants are English majors They all learn English for various purposes such as work, study, and promotion Some students live in the city or towns nearby and others come from other parts of the country Ages of the par ticipants range from 18 to 26 years old and older.

Data collection procedures

The data collection took the researcher approximately four months to conduct the survey The researcher started looking for participants in TDMU and visiting different classes Then, participants were provided with details about the current study, including its purposes and aims, and asked if they

29 would be interested in participating in this project Moreover, participants were made aware that their participation was voluntary and they had the right to quit at any time without any pressure

In order to collect data, the data collection instrument used in the present study was the Discourse Completion Task (DCT) The questionnaire was designed in DCT, a form of questionnaire depicting some actual situations to which the respondents are expected to react and perform SARs in details on their own as spontaneously as possible The DCT was chosen in this study as it is easily modified in order to focus on specific variables such as the types of scenarios Moreover, the DCT using written questionnaire is appropriate for the purpose of this study because it has some specific advantages Wolfson, Marmor and Jones (1989) described the use of the DCT as an effective means of gathering a large number of data in a relatively short period A large number of participants can be surveyed with the DCT more easily than role plays, thus making statistical analysis more feasible Within the time constraints of the present study, this methodology worked well

The questionnaire was distributed to 120 participants (60 males and 60 females), they were asked to fill out the items in the questionnaire and their responses were used in further analysis The questionnaire includes 10 different refusal situations in daily life in which a person poses a question (invitation or request) to another person Participants are supposed to place themselves in the respondent’s position and imagine what they would say in each situation In the space provided they would then write down exactly the way they would refuse such typical situations They should include pauses or hesitating expressions if that is the way they would respond to the question

The invitations or requests in the questionnaire are not to be accepted but refused in all situations because the researcher mainly concentrated on how EFL learners perform SARs Participants are asked to answer every situation which consists of five invitations (situations 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) and

30 five other requests (situations 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10) All groups of situations consist of three different variables: age (18-20, 21-23, 24-26, over 26), gender (male, female), and education background (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior or part-time student) Participant’s responses were collected for data analysis and analyzed to determine specific face-saving strategies and to consider the extent of gender distinctions in their strategies choices.

Ethical considerations

To protect the participants in this study, prior to the survey, the researcher had acquired consent from them, and all detailed information related to this research had been thoroughly explained, so subjects could be aware of their voluntary participation in this research project on a full understanding of the possible risks involved The research made sure that information that would embarrass subjects or endanger their social lives are not revealed The researcher worked with numerous participants from different backgrounds but luckily it was easy to establish rapport with participants since they were young, active, energetic and dynamic The researcher approached the participants by impressing them with fluent English speaking skill To encourage the participants’ proactive involvement in the current study, the researcher presented a wide range of benefits the participants might obtain from participating in the study, the researcher promised to help some of the participants improve English skills by sharing experience of learning English effectively In order to maintain the rapport with the participants, the researcher carried out a variety of activities such as hanging out with the participants after class to enjoy some street food and take photos, singing karaoke with them on the weekend, organizing the English speaking club as requested, making friends with them via social networks (Facebook, Zalo, and Instagram) The researcher has been keeping in touch with the participants, sharing important lessons in English, recommending reliable English material sources and suggesting the good websites for the participants to learn and improve English

Theoretical framework and explanations for coding semantic formulae

The collected data were classified according to the refusal strategies The respondents’ refusal strategies were analyzed by matching word(s), phrase(s), or sentence(s) that met a particular semantic criterion or strategy Data analysis of this study was mainly relied on the framework set by Beebe et al (1990) with a few modifications For example, if a respondent refuses a request for lending a friend some money by saying “I’m sorry, dear I don’t have much left I’ll lend you next time when you are in need” This will be analyzed as [regret] + [excuse] + [alternative] Beebe et al.’s (1990) classification of refusal strategies, which has been one of the most widely used taxonomies for refusals in the studies of pragmatics and speech acts This classification system includes the main semantic formulas that can be used in refusals to different speech acts, such as requests, invitations, offers or suggestions However, it should be pointed out that not all of these strategies may necessarily be used in response to each of the eliciting speech acts As mentioned by Beebe et al (1990: 56), “the form, sequence, and content of these suggested strategies may vary depending on the type of speech act that elicits them” They also vary depending on the contextual factors leading to intra-lingual variation (Barron, 2005) Additionally, due to macro-social variation (Barron, 2005), an appropriate or preferred range of strategies could be manifested differently depending on the interlocutor’s individual personalities and social background

In the coding process, the researcher purposefully attempted to find out a variety of face-saving strategies for SARs to cope with the first research question In addition, the research also examined various aspects in order to investigate the extent of gender distinctions in face-saving strategy employment Some semantic formulae were added because they appeared in the data many times However, there were a few semantic formulae which were removed from the list as they were not found in the data

3.6.1 Classification of refusal strategies by Beebe & Takahashi (1990, 72-73)

2 Why don’t you do X instead of Y

E Set condition for future or past acceptance

1 Threat/ statement of negative consequences to the requester

3 Criticize the request/ requester, etc

4 Request for help, empathy, and assistance by dropping or holding the request

5 Let interlocutor off the hook

J Acceptance that functions as a refusal

2 Verbal a Topic switch b Joke c Repetition of part of request, etc d Postponement e Hedging f Ellipsis g Hint III Adjuncts to Refusals

1 Statement of positive opinion/ feeling or agreement

As the focus of the study is SARs, the semantic formulae obtained in the questionnaires were classified into different SARs Each SAR was then assigned a code to simplify the analyzing process The following is the number of SARs that were found in the data All of these SARs were statistically coded for data analysis

3.6.2 List of SARs identified in the data

E Set condition for future or past acceptance (IIE)

F Promise of future acceptance (IIF)

I Threat/ statement of negative consequences (II I)

A Statement of positive opinion/ feeling or agreement (IIIA)

The indirect SARs in letters H and J are not in the list of refusal strategies from Beebe and Takahashi (1990), and have been added for the investigation purposes in the current research to deal with different aspects arising out of the data Then, the frequency of SARs for each situation was calculated in order to compare the gender distinctions in employing face- saving strategies

3.6.3 Explanations for coding semantic formulae

According to Leech (1983:215), performatives are “self-naming utterances, in which the performative verb usually refers to the act in which the speaker is involved at the moment of speech”

For example: I refuse to cancel the class

In this strategy, refusals are performed by a flat “No” with no internal modification The word “No” is a direct way of refusal Saying “No” to someone is an FTA It is usually followed by language softeners, except in a few cases, when people are extremely direct

For example: No, I don’t want to

This category includes some expressions which contain negations Negation can be expressed by the negative particle “Not”, or by using any word that semantically negates a proposition

For example: I can’t lend you my car

Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988:100) stated that the indirect verbal style “refers to verbal messages that camouflage and conceal speakers’ true intentions in terms of their wants, needs, and goals in the discourse situation” The indirect continuum consists of the following strategies:

The words “sorry”, “regret” mean that someone has made a mistake, and feels bad about that Statements that contain these words are classified as regret/ apology

For example: I’m sorry that I don’t have enough money to lend you

In this category, the respondent indirectly refuses the request by indicating a wish

For example: I wish I could do it for you

The respondent indirectly refuses the request by indicating some reasons, which may be general or specific

For example: I have an important meeting tonight

While the respondent cannot adhere to the request, he/ she suggests an alternative in which the request can be fulfilled Chen, Ye, and Zhang (1995:133) observed that alternatives are used to “soften the threatening power of refusals”

For example: What about asking Belinda to do it for you?

E Set condition for future or past acceptance

By using a hypothetical condition as a reason for refusing, the speaker aims to direct the refusal to a situation when it is better if the requeste r has asked in advance

For example: I would be happy to change it for you, if I were not too busy this weekend

In some situations, the refusal may contain a promise that the requests will be accomplished at later time, when there are favorable conditions for its completion

For example: I’ll buy it for you on your next birthday

In this category, the respondent indicates a statement which he/ she has followed for a long time Thus if they comply with the request at that time, they might violate the principle

For example: I never lend money to strangers

Some people want to express what they think about a request by asking a rhetorical question

For example: Why do you want to spend that much when you don’t have it?

I Threat/ statement of negative consequences

The respondent attempts to dissuade the interlocutor by making some threats that may have a negative impact on the speakers if the respondent agrees to perform the task

For example: If you don’t see me then, you will miss out

The person requested is unwilling to comply with the request, and he/ she shows this unwillingness by a statement illustrated in the example below

For example: I don’t have that kind of money

The hearer wishes to postpone what is requested to a later time, but without giving a specific time This can be considered as a phatic refusal For example: Not today

These strategies include adjuncts which function as extra modifications to protect the speaker’s positive face

A Statement of positive opinion/ feeling or agreement

For example: I’d love to help

For example: I realize you are in a difficult situation.

Data coding and analysis

The analysis process was carried out by going through the data collected from the survey questionnaire, looking for occurrences of refusal utterances, and then marking them down To find out certain face-saving strategies pursued by the respondents, the responses collected through the questionnaire were coded and analyzed by relying upon the taxonomy of refusal strategies proposed by Beebe et al (1990) The subjects’ refusal strategies were classified by matching word(s), phrase(s), or sentence(s) that met a particular semantic criterion or specific strategy relying on the SARs in each situation

Later on, the collected data were entered in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS - version 16) software in the form of frequency count of refusal strategies and then participants’ responses to situations in the questionnaire were added to undergo the relevant statistical analysis The frequency of participants’ responses in refusal acts was calculated and presented by percentage to see different face-saving strategies they preferred to use In order to investigate the extent of gender distinctions in term of face-saving strategies in the described situations, the score means of both gender groups were compared through independent sample t -test From that point, it was supporting for finding gender distinctions in face -saving strategies among male and female participants more reliably For all analyses, the alpha level was set at 0.05

In this chapter, the researcher discussed the important processes related to the methodology in the current study One of the most important

38 items discussed in Chapter 3 is the classification system of refusal strategies proposed by Beebe et al (1990) which was used in coding participants’ responses for optimal comparison Participant information, sample instrument, methods, task administration, procedures and data analy sis were examined in Chapter 3

In the next chapter (Chapter 4), the researcher analyzed and presented the collected data of this research The data and their interpretation were examined and discussed in depth

RESULTS

Face-saving strategies employed by males and females for refusal

Research question 1, which was intended to identify face-saving strategies for refusal utterances employed by EFL learners at TDMU

4.1.1 Face-saving strategies employed by males for SARs

Table 4.1 Strategies for SARs employed by males

Direct non-performative: NO IB1 64

Direct non-performative: Negative willingness ability IB2 53

Indirect-Statement of regret IIA 152

Indirect-Statement of wish IIB 4

Indirect-Excuse/reason/explanation IIC 198

Indirect-Statement of alternative IID 35

Indirect-Set condition for future/past acceptance IIE 3

Indirect-Promise of future acceptance IIF 23

Indirect- Statement of principle IIG 32

Indirect-Threat/statement of negative consequences III 2

Adjuncts to refusals-Statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement IIIA 0

Adjuncts to refusals-Statement of empathy IIIB 0

The collected data in Table 4.1 show that overall male participants utilized a variety of SARs in their refusals In nearly all categories of semantic refusals, in fact in eight out of 16, males had high numbers of SARs Specifically, the two categories of SARs in which males have the highest frequency of use are IIA and IIC, which are statement of regret and excuse/reason/explanation Males used 152 SARs of statement of regret

The second SAR where males outnumbered in terms of the frequency of use is excuse/reason/explanation In this category, males utilized 198 SARs

A distinguishing feature of the above table is that there are three distinct groups of SARs The first group is IIA (statement of regret) and IIC (excuse/explanation/reason), with the average responses between 150 and

200 in each type of SAR for each cluster of participants Table 1 also shows the overall refusals of males in terms of SARs The most striking feature of the table is the number of statement of regret (152 SARs from males) and the number of excuse/reason/explanation (198 SARs from males) These two SARs played a crucial role in refusal structures of males, though there are some distinctions in the relative percentages of use of the two structures

The second group includes IB1 (direct non-performative “NO”), IB2 (negative willingness ability), IID (statement of alternative), IIG (statement of principle), IIF (Promise of future acceptance), and IIK (postponement) in which there were totally 226 responses of refusals respectively for all types of SAR in every cluster of participants The last group of SARs where the participants utilized no more than 10 SARs for each cluster of participants including IA (direct performative), IIB (statement of wish), IIE (set condition for future/past acceptance), IIH (rhetorical question), III (threat

41 or statement of negative consequences), IIJ (unwillingness), IIIA (statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement), and IIIB (statement of empathy)

The two most striking features with the highest frequencies involved in SARs for each group are direct non-performative “No” and negative willingness ability In direct non-performative “No”, males utilized 64

SARs In negative willingness ability, males made use of 53 SARs in terms of frequency

Furthermore, the use of statement of alternative and statement of principle are of pivotal features in males’ refusal strategies Males utilized

35 SARs containing the word of expressing alternative statements and employed 32 SARs for making statements of principle

Additionally, the other two indirect strategies were produced by males with quite high frequencies including promise of future acceptance and postponement In promise of future acceptance, males used 23 SARs of this category out of nearly 600 total responses from the questionnaires while they made use of 19 SARs expressing postponement

The numbers in the other categories including direct performative; statement of wish; set condition for future/past acceptance; rhetorical question; threat or statement of negative consequences; unwillingness; statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement; and statement of empathy are too small for confident analysis, and due to the fact that they are so low in contrast to other SARs

4.1.2 Face-saving strategies employed by females for SARs

Table 4.2 Strategies for SARs employed by females

Direct non-performative: NO IB1 0

Direct non-performative: Negative willingness ability IB2 2

Indirect-Statement of regret IIA 167

Indirect-Statement of wish IIB 46

Indirect-Excuse/reason/explanation IIC 223

Indirect-Statement of alternative IID 40

Indirect-Set condition for future/past acceptance IIE 2

Indirect-Promise of future acceptance IIF 54

Indirect- Statement of principle IIG 0

Indirect-Threat/statement of negative consequences III 3

Adjuncts to refusals-Statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement IIIA 7

Adjuncts to refusals-Statement of empathy IIIB 5

The results in Table 4.2 illustrate a wide range of SARs that female participants made in their refusals There are some variations in the number of the following SARs involved in females’ strategies Specifically, there were 600 strategies used by female participants in their refusals

By far, the greatest number of strategies was identified as providing excuse/reason/explanation for the refusals with 223 SARs The second rank was statement of regret It was recorded with 167 phrases of expressing regret

The strategy coded as promise of future acceptance was the third most-used strategy with 54 SARs There was a great distance in number between the second and the third by 113 SARs The two face-saving indirect strategies namely statement of wish and statement of alternative were ranked fourth and fifth with 46 SARs and 40 SARs respectively in frequencies

Standing the sixth commonly-used strategy in number was the statement of postponement Specifically, females employed 27 SARs expressing postponement Furthermore, with regard to the category of unwillingness, females utilized 22 SARs in terms of frequency of use showing unwillingness as a face-saving strategy to the inviter or the requester

More importantly, direct performative and direct non-performative

“No” were the two strategies that were not recorded any SARs from females The rest of the other SARs became the least common used strategies with no more than 10 SARs for each cluster of female participants including negative willingness ability, set condition for future/past acceptance, statement of principle, rhetorical question, threat or statement of negative consequences, statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement and statement of empathy Females performed refusals with a few SARs for each above-mentioned strategy, so the recorded frequency numbers were extremely small and low in comparison with the other groups to carry out an analysis

From the findings in each situation, the research revealed that there was the co-existence of the similarities and distinctions in the use of refusal strategies between males and females They seemed to employ the same kind of refusal strategies at the top rates including statement of regret and excuse/explanation/reason

However, males and females differed greatly in using the other direct and indirect strategies There was a significant difference in using direct strategies between males and females Males utilized 64 SARs of negative willingness ability Additionally, direct non-performative “No” occupied 53 phrases by males while there were only two SARs of direct strategies in total employed by females Notably, males were not as indirect as female Females used more indirect refusal strategies than males and their preferred sequences were generally longer

Importantly, males tended to be more direct than females Females avoided using direct strategies whereas males used them carefully It can be interpreted that males seemed to be direct in the interpersonal communication with their peers

The total number of refusal strategies employed by males and females

The findings show that there were 600 strategies used in the males’ refusals By far, the greatest number of strategies was identified as providing excuse/reason/explanation for the SARs with 198 SARs The second rank was the statement of regret It was used 152 times The strategy coded as direct non-performative: “NO” was the third most-used strategy with 64 SARs There was a great distance in number between the second and the third by 48 SARs Negative willingness ability was ranked fourth with

53 SARs Standing the fifth in number was statement of alternative with 35 SARs Four strategies used least were direct performative, statement of wish, set condition for future/past acceptance, rhetorical question and threat/statement of negative consequences with only a few SARs for each Particularly, two strategies namely statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement and statement of empathy were not utilized at all by males

There were 600 strategies used by female participants in their SARs The most common strategies used were excuse/reason or explanation with

223 SARs Statement of regret was recorded as the second with 167 SARs Following statement of regret was promise of future acceptance with 54 SARs The strategy of statement of wish stood at the fourth in frequency with 46 SARs The fifth most common strategy was statement of alternative with 40 SARs Negative willingness ability, set condition for future acceptance, and rhetorical question became the least common used strategies with only 2 SARs More importantly, none of the three strategies namely direct performative, direct non-performative, and statement of principle was recorded in females’ refusals

The findings highlighted the impact of gender on the use of face- saving strategies for refusal acts First, although males and females tended to make similar choice in using the most preferred strategies, they created two opposing trends in using the number of strategies to perfo rm refusals

Secondly, it is demonstrated that males were likely to be more direct than females Finally, the distinction in the degree of employing indirectness strategies between males and females was not as great as the degree of directness strategies utilized by males and females (Figure 4.1)

Figure 4.1 The percentage of refusal strategies employed by males and females Figure 4.1 depicts that the participants in this study preferred to use conventional indirect strategies (70.04%) The second most frequently used strategy observed in the participants’ data is direct strategies from males (24.88%), and the least frequently used strategy is non-conventional indirect strategies (5.08%) In summary, the participants in this study leaned towards indirect strategies like Statement of regret (IIA) and Excuse/Reason/Explanation (IIC) with high recorded percentages respectively (74.40% and 69.05%)

Comparisons on the frequencies of refusal strategies in each situation

Figure 4.2 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 1

The bar chart (Figure 4.2) shows that there was a distinction in refusal strategies between males and females in situation 1 Males utilized 35 SARs for nine indirect strategies whereas females utilized 45 SARs for nine indirect strategies The strategies IIA and IIC were of the highest frequencies among 15 utilized strategies Also, the direct strategies IA and IB1 were just utilized by males while the strategies IIIA and IIIB we re produced by females only The strategy IB2 recorded by males (10 SARs) was much higher than females (1 SAR) On the contrary, the strategies IIB (7 SARs) and IIF (7 SARs) identified by females were higher than males (1 SAR and 2 SARs respectively) The other strategies did not indicate great distinctions between males and females in term of frequencies

Figure 4.3 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 2

The chart (Figure 4.3) depicts that refusal strategies were differently employed by males and females in situation 2 Males utilized 37 SARs for nine indirect strategies whereas females utilized 50 SARs for eight indirect strategies The strategies IIA and IIC were commonly used with the highest frequencies However, the frequencies of strategies IIA and IIC between males and females were completely different particularly the usage of IIC strategy (12 SARs by males but 22 SARs by females) Moreover, it is noticeable that the direct strategies IB1, IB2 and III were utilized by males only whereas the strategy IIB was just identified in females’ refusal speech acts Also, the strategies IID and IIJ produced by females were higher than males The other strategies were not considerably different between males and females in term of frequencies

Figure 4.4 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 3

The bar chart (Figure 4.4) illustrates that there was a distinction in refusal strategies between males and females in situation 3 Males utilized

38 SARs for seven indirect strategies whereas females utilized 49 SARs for seven indirect strategies The strategies IIA and IIC were of the highest frequencies among 12 identified strategies A distinguishing feature of the table is the same number of SARs for the strategy IIC between males and females (15 SARs each) In addition, males remained using the direct strategies for their refusals including IA, IB1 and IB2 while these categories were not recorded by females Another distinction between the two groups is the use of the strategy IIB The number of frequency was recorded 7 SARs by females whereas males did not produce any SARs of IIB Finally, the rest of other strategies employed by females were higher than males in terms of frequency

Figure 4.5 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 4

The chart (Figure 4.5) describes the number of SARs that males and females employed categorized according to the situation 4 Males utilized 40 SARs for eight indirect strategies whereas females utilized 49 SARs for eight indirect strategies There are some variations in the number of the SARs The indirect strategies recorded by males for situation 4 were 40 SARs while the number of this category employed by females was 50 SARs The direct strategies were utilized by males only with 10 SARs

Figure 4.6 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 5

The chart (Figure 4.6) describes the number of SARs found in SARs used by males and females There was a distinction in using refusal strategies by males and females for situation 5 Males utilized 39 SARs for five indirect strategies whereas females utilized 48 SARs for five indirect strategies The three indirect strategies commonly used by females were IIA (25 SARs), IIC (11 SARs) and IIF (9 SARs) Males utilized two indirect strategies IIA and IIC with the highest frequencies (14 and 17 SARs respectively) Direct strategies were still recorded in males’ refusals for this situation The number of frequency for the strategy IB1 was 9 SARs

Figure 4.7 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 6

The chart (Figure 4.7) shows the number of SARs used by males and females for their refusal strategies in situation 6 Males utilized 40 SARs for six indirect strategies whereas females utilized 47 SARs for eight indirect strategies Notably, males and females utilized the highest numbers of SARs in their refusals for the two common used strategies IIA and IIC The groups of indirect strategies that show different patterns of SARs are IIB, IID and IIF Another distinction in this situation was direct strategies IB1 and IB2 produced by males

Figure 4.8 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 7

This chart (Figure 4.8) illustrates the number of SARs for each category used by males and females when they refused their conversation partners in term of the requesting situation Males utilized 40 SARs for six indirect strategies while the number of SARs expressed by females occupied 50 phrases for seven indirect strategies Two indirect strategies employed with the highest number of frequencies by both males and females were IIA and IIC On the whole, the number of frequencies in terms of indirect refusal strategies was outnumbered by females in this situation

Figure 4.9 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 8

A distinguishing feature of the chart (Figure 4.9) is the high number of indirect strategies employed by males and females Males utilized 38 SARs for

10 indirect strategies whereas 49 SARs were performed by females for seven indirect strategies It is noticeable that females gained a higher number of SARs in term of the strategy IIB in comparison with males’ frequencies Another distinction is the usage of direct strategies by males Direct strategies seemed to be utilized by males only On the contrary, the frequencies in the categories of IIF, IIJ and IIK from females were higher than males

Figure 4.10 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 9

The chart (Figure 4.10) shows the number of SARs that males and females employed according to situation 9 There are a few distinctions in the ways males and females utilized SARs in their refusal conversations Males employed 36 SARs for seven indirect strategies while the number recorded by females was higher than males with 49 SARs for eight indirect strategies The strategies IIB and IIJ were utilized by females with four SARs and five SARs respectively whereas males did not express any SARs of these categories Also, the direct strategies (IB1 and IB2) employed by males were 14 SARs in terms of frequency Two indirect strategies IIG and IIH were not utilized by females whereas the strategies IIB, III and IIJ wer e not produced at all by males

Figure 4.11 The frequencies on refusal strategies for situation 10

The chart (Figure 4.11) describes the number of SARs used by the two groups in situation 10 Females utilized 50 SARs for ten indirect strategies in their refusals While males employed less SARs of these kinds with 36 phrases expressing seven indirect strategies Furthermore, 14 SARs of direct strategies were identified in males’ refusals The strategies of IIB, IIC, IIF, and IIK produced by females were of the higher frequencies than males’ On the contrary, males made use of the strategies IIA and IIC with the highest frequencies in their refusals (8 SARs and 14 SARs respectively)

In summary, it is apparently seen from the findings in each situation that there was a distinction in the way males and females performed their SARs to an invitation or a request In addition, females tended to be more indirect than males Females always used more indirect refusal strategies than males did in any cases This result should be discussed in two ways Firstly, females were governed by the preference to indirectness because they were likely to enhance politeness and mitigate imposition on the requesters or the inviters Secondly, this feature might be ex plained by their behavior Normally, females are inclined to indirectness owing to their

54 circularity preference while males tend to employ directness due to their linearity preference This may be the reason for making different use of refusal strategies.

Gender distinctions in face-saving strategies yielded by analyzing independent

Levene's Test for Equality of

Variances t-test for Equality of Means

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Table 4.3 The independent sample t-test on the refusal strategies employed by males and females

Research Question 2, which was intended to answer whether there are any significant gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies

The independent-sample t-test was conducted to assess if distinctions exist on refusal strategies in terms of gender The independent sample t-test showed a significant distinction in the scores of face saving strategies between males and females (M= -2.06; SD= 68; t = -3.024) More importantly, the results also demonstrated gender distinctions in refusal strategies based on p-value (with p=.003) which was less than 05 Therefore, the test revealed a statistically significant difference on the use of refusal strategies (Table 4.3)

It is obvious that the findings obtained from the frequencies of each situation and the results gained from independent sample t-test in terms of

55 gender provided a strong evidence for the co-existence of the similarities and distinctions in the use of refusal strategies made by males and females

It is clear from the findings of the ten situations in term of frequencies that the two most popular strategies used by both males and females were statement of regret and excuse/reason/explanation They shared nearly the same high number of refusal strategy excuse/reason/explanation with 198 SARs for males and 223 SARs for females Statement of regret was used with 152 SARs by males and 167 SARs by females This would account for the highly structured and traditional society in Vietnam Etiquette and harmony make very significant contributions to “saving face” Therefore, males and females tend to employ indirect SARs as the most preferred strategies to save face

The research data demonstrated a broad tendency that males and females employed the expressions of regrets to show their unwillingness to say “No” This can be interpreted that Vietnam belongs to Asian culture, where value of face-saving acts should be carefully observed Females used the greater number of indirect strategies in making their refusals to invitations or requests with 586 indirect strategies compared to 479 strategies from males, a difference of 107 strategies The number of almost all indirect strategies used by females was dominant compared with the number by males

On the contrary, males employed both direct and indirect strategies with high frequencies Particularly, males utilized 121 SARs of direct strategies The category of direct non-performative “No” was of the highest frequency with 64 SARs The second rank of direct strategy produced by males was negative willingness ability with 53 SARs and the least common direct strategy was direct performative with 4 SARs

Furthermore, there are two distinguishing features in terms of frequencies between males and females that flat “No” was the third popular

56 strategy employed by males with 64 SARs while none was recorded by females Another distinguishing feature was that negative willingness ability was the fourth strategy utilized by males with high frequency (53 SARs) in comparison with only two SARs by females This sharp distinction shows that males are much more direct than females

With regard to statement of principle, this strategy did not appear in females’ SARs whereas 32 SARs were identified in males’ refusals Interestingly, none of the male respondents used the strategy of statement of positive opinion/feeling/agreement, and statement of empathy while the female respondents utilized 7 SARs and 5 SARs respectively

Besides the most frequently used strategies, males and females differed in using other strategies For instance, females preferred to employ promise of future acceptance (54 SARs vs 23 SARs), statement of wish (46 SARs vs 8 SARs), postponement (27 SARs vs 19 SARs) and unwillingness (22 SARs vs 4 SARs) while males preferred statement of alternative (35 SARs vs 40 SARs) (See Figure 4.1.1 and Figure 4.1.2)

The interpreted data show that the degree of threatening inviters’ face or requesters’ face seemed to affect the respondents’ choice of refusal strategies Apparently, males performed their refusals on the basic of social principles, in contrast, females tended to perform SARs on the basic of social harmony and personality

The findings in this section indicate that two groups still have certain coincidences in using face-saving strategies for refusal speech acts, however; females are inclined to be affected by the para meters of facts in the investigated situations at a higher frequency than males This result seems to reflect the community-oriented culture in Vietnam where the value of face-saving acts should be carefully observed and highly appreciated Therefore, both males and females tended to be more indirect in the way they made their refusals All the findings above demonstrate that Vietnam is a hierarchical society where interpersonal relationship is greatly appreciated This results from the fact that Vietnam has been strongly influenced by Confucianism from China owing to geographical

57 proximity and political, cultural and economic contacts with this country over centuries (Hoat 1995:55) It is no wonder tha t males and females employed the large number of refusal strategies when they made their refusals in daily communication They also used more regret and reason or explanation to show high respect regarded as face-saving strategies for expressing SARs In fact, although males used the larger direct strategies in their refusals, they often softened their directness by using statement of alternative (35 SARs), statement of principle (32 SARs), promise of future acceptance (23 SARs) and postponement (19 SARs) to save face

DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

Discussion on refusal face-saving strategies

This chapter is to draw the different patterns of refusal behaviors from the point of view of gender variable and the SARs codes The findings in Chapter 4 provide a strong evidence for the co -existence of the similarities and distinctions in the use of refusal strategies made by males and females

Not all refusal strategies in the category are explored by males and females There were 14 and 13 out of 16 refusal strategies found by males and females with different proportions and manifestations respectively Although males used less indirect refusal strategies than females did, a certain number of refusal strategies were preferred by both groups Bot h males and females tended to employ more excuse/reason/explanation and more regret than the others This confirms that two groups still find certain coincidences in their refusal strategies in the speech acts

It is noticeable that although indirect strat egies were dominant in the refusals in two groups, females still tended to be more indirect than males As illustrated in the fact that not any Direct “No” was used by females It can be interpreted that females with “circularity” are inclined to indirectness For this reason, females may find it d ifficult to use direct refusals and they seem not to be capable of acquiring expressions or language functions in English in which they have to be direct

The categories of direct non-performative “No”; negative willingness ability and direct performative used by males outnumbered those by females while promise of future acceptance; statement of wish and statement of alternative were used more than by females Apparently, males performed their refusals on the basic of social principles like law and order, in contrast, females tended to act on the basic of social harmony

It is obvious that several broad tendencies emerge from the a nalysis of Chapter 4 First, males and females employed indirect refusal strategies

59 with high SARs in terms of frequencies Therefore, it can be said that males and females are apt to express refusals with care They took time to express their indirectness or politeness when they refused to show that they were unwilling to say “No” Vietnam belongs to Asian culture, where the value of face-saving speech acts should be carefully taken into consideration This suggests that males and females felt sorry when they had to refuse an invitation or a request They definitely did not want their conversation partners to feel humiliated Some phrases that can be listed to the category of statement of regret are “I’m sorry…”, “I’m afraid that…”,

“I’m not certain that…”, “I don’t think that I can…”

With regard to excuse/reason/explanation, males and females employed higher SARs than statement of regret This is further proof of what has been claimed as the value of face in Vietnamese culture Refusal speech acts performed by males and females reflected traditional Vietnamese culture, in which people tend to be more careful about the way they refuse In other words, to avoid disappointing their interlocutors they gave a variety of reasons in order to provide a rationale for the refusal

A closer consideration of the data suggests that the excuse/reason/explanation used by males and females reflect their actual disinclinations to perform the refusals The reasons are employed to refuse their conversation partners include: “I don’t think I can because ” “Sorry,

I can’t now that I …”, or “Unfortunately I have no time to ” All of the above expressions for excuse/reason/explanation are regarded as indirect ways but polite refusal speech acts in Vietnamese culture Therefore, both males and females wisely care for such strategic speech acts of refusal

In addition, according to Crawford (1966), directness is appreciated in the Western world, but not common in Vietnam However, the direct refusal strategies played a major role in males’ face-saving strategies Male participants claimed that directness might be the right strategy for saving face in refusals

Adjuncts to refusal-statement of empathy are also relevant While males did not utilize any SARs in statements of empathy, females employed 5 SARs The most popular phrases are “What a pity”, and “I feel really sorry to …” As Vietnamese culture values “love” and “sympathy”, females tend to use more SARs of empathy to perform their refusals

Importantly, a category in which there exists a distinction between males and females is adjuncts to refusal-statement of positive opinion/ feeling/ agreement While females employed 7 phrases of this category, none of the SARs of this category was identified by males This emphasizes once again that females greatly appreciated affection in the way they refused in comparison with males When females refused, they used numerous statements of expressing positive opinion or feeling or agreement like “that’s a good idea, but ”, “It sounds interesting but ”,

“Great! However, ”, “that sounds good, but ” One aim of statements of positive opinion/ feeling/ agreement is to show that females care for face- saving strategies A common practice in Vietnam reveals that one truly expresses respect towards the conversational partners only if the speaker really feels for and cares for the interlocutors

Additionally, apart from the two indirect strategies with the highest frequencies, males also tend to be rather direct in their refusals For the SARs of direct strategies, the total number is much higher for males (121 SARs) than for females (2 SARs) Males employed a higher number of

“NO” phrases in their responses to requests and invitations The distinction between the two groups is apparent as mentioned While females utilized only 2 negative phrases in their SARs, the number for males is many times higher (121 SARs) Again, this sharp difference unveils that males are much more direct than females Vietnam is a highly structured and traditional society in which etiquette and harmony play crucial roles Therefore, “saving face” is a key concept towards the social relationship in general and everyday communication in particular

In brief, the Vietnamese are fully conscious of keeping away from unpleasantness and confrontation They try to avoid saying “NO” Instead, they tend to manifest in an indirect way like “this could be very difficult for me to ” to allow conversation partners to save face Those males refusing by directly saying “NO” display a tendency to offer more statements of alternatives

The extent of gender distinctions in SAR performance

Both males and females preferred to use statements of regret and excuse/reason/explanation when they refused people of the opposite gender This suggests that both males and females are more likely to be sensitive to the opposite gender for their SARs, and so they perform more statements of regret and excuse/reason/explanation to their conversational partners as favorite face-saving strategies

In addition, males utilized more “NO” phrases, more statements of negative willingness ability and more statements of principle in their refusals than females While males employed more SARs of these kinds when they refused people, females show a reverse fact, which means they refused people with many more promises of future acceptance, more statements of wish, more statements of alternative, more postponement and more unwillingness than males This is closely connected with the common reality that males are more direct than females in their refusals And females tend to offer more indirect SARs

With the regard as the number of refusal strategies in terms of gender, firstly, the research indicated that males and females were the same

62 in employing statement of regret and excuse/reason/explanation as their most common used strategies regardless of the invitations or requests In addition, it is admitted that their refusal strategies are differently implemented Females differed from males in using the total number of indirect refusal strategies

As regards the degree of directness, males used more direct strategies than females In other words, males were more direct than females One possible explanation that males use direct expressions and patterns while females seem to prefer indirect patterns

Last but not least, although males used the negative willingness ability in their refusals, they often softened their directness by using positive, postponement or alternatives to save the partners’ face

In conclusion, these findings can be interpreted that Vietnam is established by the hierarchy Therefore social communication is considerably influenced by different factors consisting of gender People should be respectful to the one who prefers leading to a closer communication The refusals include more semantic formulas and mitigation devices in hopes that they can achieve face-saving act in social interaction Thus, it is no wonder that participants in the present research employed the largest number of refusal strategies and also used more regret and reason to demonstrate great respect when they made refusals to their conversational partners

In conclusion, refusals of males based on questionnaire data are different from those of females, though they do share some similarities Males and females gained the same highest refusal strategies including statements of regret and excuse/reason/explanation As regards the similarities in face-saving strategies for SARs, males and females also differ in the ways they say “NO” Females are apt to express refusals with caution and care

Besides the two most common indirect refusal strategies utilized by males and females which had been mentioned above, the category of

63 indirect refusal strategies namely excuse/reason/explanation; statement of regret; promise of future acceptance; statement of wish; statement of alternative; postponement; and unwillingness was frequently employed by females in their SARs On the contrary, males are really direct in the ways they refuse Males tended to prefer utilizing more direct refusal strategies More “NO” phrases were employed by males The three direct strategies given by males are direct performative; direct non-performative “NO”; and negative willingness ability Obviously, these strategies reveal their disinclinations to comply in contrast to females Moreover, males and females show the same number of SARs when they communicate with people, but females are more sensitive to the face-saving acts towards the requesters or the inviters

Students learning English should be aware that direct refusals are generally acceptable among native speakers Thus they should not feel hurt when facing this situation Without explicit knowledge about other cultures of an L2, communicators are prone to misinterpret the intentions of the interlocutors with different cultural backgrounds

Knowledge of diversity in sociolinguistic behaviors helps learners regard the gender distinctions in face-saving strategies for SARs as certain differences A lack of understanding of sociolinguistic diversity in an L2 can lead to serious cross-cultural misunderstanding.

Implication

According to Raines (1999), language and culture are simply not separable; one cannot fully understand the nature of either language or culture unless they are seen as inseparable The results of the present study demonstrate that refusing in an L2 is a complex task because it requires the acquisition of pragmatics In order to effectively communicate in the L2, the learner needs to gain a high level of competence in pragmatics in general and fully master a wide range of face-saving strategies used most frequently by native speakers in particular

In addition, the results also shed light on the necessity of providing Vietnamese learners with the awareness of various kinds of factors such as social distance, age, sex, social status, and setting, etc which may make an impact on language competence when they learn, practice and communicate in EFL classrooms Thus, gender is also one of the crucial elements that should be thoroughly perceived and highly regarded Moreover, the impact of these contributing factors on the efficiency in communication plays a vital role to help learners raise communicative and pragmatic competence Recognition of similarities and d istinctions in the way males and females performing SARs will provide mutual understanding, lead to appreciation of the others, and lessen the effects of discrimination and prejudice Then, learners will certainly find it more confident to cope with real-life interaction

As a result, some pedagogical recommendations were made for L2 instruction First, language instructors should design contextualized, task- based activities which expose learners to different types of pragmatic input and prompt learners to produce appropriate output so that learners may be capable of developing pragmatic ability in the FL classrooms Second, language instructors should teach language forms and functions contextually in communicative oral activities in both formal and informal situations in order to develop the learners’ sociolinguistic ability in an L2 and probably help learners perform a speech act both appropriately and wisely Last but not least, it is necessary to prepare learners how to apply the target language to a variety of contexts Additionally, the interactive classroom activities should be organized in the light of communicative approach The pragmatic insights should be incorporated into the language curriculum and language textbooks Specifically, learners should be trained how to properly perform different types of speech acts in an L2 in the actual situations between the speakers and interlocutors, so teachers can help learners develop awareness of L2 pragmatic norms in performing SARs by making visible how speech acts are performed in the L2

65 community of speakers while giving learners opportunities to engage in role-playing, pair-working or real interactions involving the accomplishment of selected speech acts Moreover, teachers can provide learners with conversation starters such as “I’d love to, but …”, “I am afraid that I can’t …”, “That sounds interesting but …”, etc., to practice during conversations in the classroom Notably, it is highly advisable to offer learners such insightful materials about how appropriate refusals should be performed.

Limitations

It is understood that there are problems in the use of a DCT because eliciting DCT may differ from naturally-occurring data There is the possibility that respondents will give answers that they may not use in re al life situations This study is restricted to verbal language, other factors such as prosody (intonation, tone, stress), non-verbal gestures and facial expressions were not observed

Due to the methodology of written data elicitation , there is also a limitation in the fact that written data do not have time constraints, so participants can correct their answers As a result the responses may vary in what participants really say in actual situations Thus naturalistic data collection process, namely role-plays or recordings made in natural settings, would be desirable in more extensive studies Furthermore, the results of the present study cannot be generalized to all Vietnamese learners

In addition, the suitability of the face-saving strategies in SARs performance to Vietnamese students particularly in term of cultures and the ways in order to encourage students to implement the strategies for better communication have not been investigated in the current study

And finally, this research mainly examined and concentrated on gender as the major variable while other potentially relevant factors such as socio-cultural norms, social status, age, and education backgrounds were not notably investigated and left for future research

Recommendations for further research

The present research is explicitly restricted in scope due to the fact that the study only focused on SARs for requests and invitations There remain a variety of interesting aspects which merit further research

With the scope limited to one variable including gender, further research should investigate other possible variables such as age, social status, social distance, socio-cultural norms and level of formality This study confines itself to the verbal aspect of refusal behavior, the extension to the effects of other factors in SARs such as facial expressions, eye movements, tone of voice and gestures should be investigated

In addition, the present study used DCT as a research tool which might have yielded data different from naturally occurring reality Future studies may exploit data from a corpus of spoken language in natural settings

It is notable that the suitability of the refusal face-saving strategies in SARs performance to Vietnamese students particularly in term of cultures and the ways that can motivate EFL learners to employ those strategies for better communication should be brought to the attention of the researchers in future studies

Last but not least, further research on the teaching materials for stimulating learners’ interest in cross-cultural communication should be seriously taken into consideration

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This questionnaire is specially designed for research purposes It is intended to investigate “ Gender distinctions in refusal face-saving strategies” Any information you provide will be highly appreciated and confidentially treated in such a way that you will not be identified

Please provide us with the following important information

Junior  Senior  Part-time Student 

Please read the following situations and imagine what you would say in each situation Please write your exact words as detailed as possible on the lines provided This should include pauses or hesitating expressions “ ”, “well” etc., if that is the way you would respond to the question

Given below are 10 different situations in which a person poses a question (invitation or request) to another person Please place yourself in the respondent’s position In the space provided you would then write down exactly the way you would refuse such typical situations

Situation 1: Two of your good friends invite you to go to the movies to watch a blockbuster film

Your friends: Would you like to see a movie with us tonight?

Situation 2: Some of students in your class are planning to go out for drinks after class to relax They invite you to come with them

Your friends: We just finished a challenging subject We would like to invite you to go out and have a party with us

Situation 3: Some of your classmates go to the cafeteria to take a break They invite you to drink coffee and eat breakfast

Your classmates: By the way, let us go to the canteen and look for something to drink

Situation 4: There is a music show at your university and your classmates will perform a song Your friends invite you to come along and cheer with them

Your friends: We would be delighted if you could join us

Situation 5: One of your close friends meets you and says that he is going to have a birthday party at home on the weekend

Your close friend: I am having a birthday party on the weekend I would like to invite you to my house for the party?

Situation 6: Your monitor requests the whole class to go for a picnic on the weekend because everyone is getting stressed over lessons

Your monitor: We are overstressed due to studying hard for the final exam We will have a picnic to relax

Situation 7: Your classmates are going to join “Green Summer Campaign” launched by your university One of your friends requests you to participate

Your friend: As an excellent student, I request you to join “Green Summer

Campaign” to contribute to the public services

Situation 8: Your classmates intend to enroll in an English course at a foreign language center They are supposed to achieve an international certificate to meet the university’s requirement for graduation

Your classmates: We are planning to register an English course at a foreign language center Do you want to join us?

Situation 9: You are the group leader of 5 members for discussing and preparing for a group presentation One of your group member has some important personal work He requests you to postpone until next week

Your group member: I have some important work Could we get together sometime next week?

Situation 10: You are from a family with many resources You always have enough money to buy what you want One classmate comes and asks you to lend him some money to pay the boarding house expenses

Your classmate: It is time for me to pay the boarding house expenses but I am waiting for my parents’ money Could you lend me one million dong for 10 days?