ẢNH HƯỞNG của một vài yếu tố văn hóa VIỆT NAM đến NHẬN xét CHÉO TRONG môn VIẾT của SINH VIÊN năm NHẤT TRƯỜNG đại học NGOẠI NGỮ ĐHQGHN

English is nowadays spoken and learnt by people of all ages, classes, nationalities, etc with different purposes and of course, English writing is part of their learning. However, previous studies by Nguyen and Helen (2010) found out that nonnative speakers’ (NNS) criticisms were influenced by their own cultures and Nguyen (2006) even statistically proved that less competent learners were more heavily influenced by their cultures than higher competent ones. This is because higher competent learners of English paid more attention to the cultural differences and they were taught as well. Thanks to the development of technology and changes in the attitudes towards teaching and learning method, communicative language teaching (CLT) is now widely used in teaching English in general and writing in particular and CLT includes giving peer comments (or constructive criticisms). Giving peer comments in writing is quite similar to giving advice on personal objects which is not friendly welcome in most Englishspeaking cultures (Houck, 2010 as cited in Nguyen et al, 2010). This signifies that NNS may encounter difficulties in giving peer comments because the way of giving comments in this culture (especially Asia) is not always appropriate in others and even peer comments are often tricky with native speakers (NS) (Houck, 2010 as cited in Nguyen et al, 2010). Nevertheless, it seems that some teachers ask their students to mainly find out the errors of their peers and then suggest improvements rather than teach the students ways to give comments like what native speakers do, which will possibly cause cultural shocks for natives in societies of Englishspeaking countries. Therefore, a nearlyStandard English style in giving comments (or constructive criticisms) should be the model for learners to avoid possible offences in communications. It should be noticed that a Standard English style is very hard to be found. The above analysis of the relationship between native culture and giving comments in English has inspired the researcher to spend time and efforts to observe the peer comments in writing skill of freshmen at ULISVNU. It can be said that freshmen’s peer comments are still influenced by native culture and to some extent peer comments are not appropriate in the Englishspeaking cultures. In this thesis, the researcher will discuss the influence of some Vietnamese cultural factors on peer comments of freshmen and basing on this, the pedagogical implications in teaching students to give comments will be suggested to help teachers raise their students’ awareness.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

English is nowadays spoken and learnt by people of all ages, classes, nationalities,etc with different purposes and of course, English writing is part of their learning.However, previous studies by Nguyen and Helen (2010) found out that non-nativespeakers’ (NNS) criticisms were influenced by their own cultures and Nguyen (2006)even statistically proved that less competent learners were more heavily influenced bytheir cultures than higher competent ones This is because higher competent learners ofEnglish paid more attention to the cultural differences and they were taught as well Thanks to the development of technology and changes in the attitudes towardsteaching and learning method, communicative language teaching (CLT) is now widelyused in teaching English in general and writing in particular and CLT includes givingpeer comments (or constructive criticisms) Giving peer comments in writing is quitesimilar to giving advice on personal objects which is not friendly welcome in most

English-speaking cultures (Houck, 2010 as cited in Nguyen et al, 2010) This signifies

that NNS may encounter difficulties in giving peer comments because the way ofgiving comments in this culture (especially Asia) is not always appropriate in othersand even peer comments are often tricky with native speakers (NS) (Houck, 2010 as

cited in Nguyen et al, 2010) Nevertheless, it seems that some teachers ask their

students to mainly find out the errors of their peers and then suggest improvementsrather than teach the students ways to give comments like what native speakers do,which will possibly cause cultural shocks for natives in societies of English-speakingcountries Therefore, a nearly-Standard English style in giving comments (orconstructive criticisms) should be the model for learners to avoid possible offences incommunications It should be noticed that a Standard English style is very hard to befound

The above analysis of the relationship between native culture and givingcomments in English has inspired the researcher to spend time and efforts to observe

the peer comments in writing skill of freshmen at ULIS-VNU It can be said thatfreshmen’s peer comments are still influenced by native culture and to some extentpeer comments are not appropriate in the English-speaking cultures In this thesis, theresearcher will discuss the influence of some Vietnamese cultural factors on peercomments of freshmen and basing on this, the pedagogical implications in teachingstudents to give comments will be suggested to help teachers raise their students’awareness

1.2 Aims of the study

The study was undertaken in order to evaluate the influence of Vietnamese culture

on the peer comments of freshmen The specific objectives of the study are:

- to evaluate the influence of Vietnamese culture on peer comments of freshmen

- to suggest some ways that lecturers can use to help their students deal with thislanguage transference

In addition, the aims of the study are also specified in the research questions

1.3 The research questions

The research questions that the study addressed are:

Research question 1: What are typical ways of giving peer comments of freshmen at

VNU-ULIS?

Research question 2: What are typical ways of giving comments of English native

speakers?

Research question 3: What are similarities and differences of commenting between

freshmen and English native speakers?

Research question 4: What are the Vietnamese cultural factors which have influence

on peer comments of freshmen at VNU-ULIS?

1.4 Significance of the study

The significance of the study is evaluated by its practicality because the studycontributes partial help for both lecturers and students at Division 1, the FELTE, ULIS-VNU

As for students, they may adapt their ways of giving comments on their peers’assignments, which helps their comments sound more polite, avoid potential offenceand encourage their peers to better their assignments In addition, after graduating fromuniversity, if students have the chance to work with English native speakers, thesuggested ways of giving comments may be useful for them in their workingenvironment

As for lecturers, they may reconsider the degree of the influence of someVietnamese cultural factors on peer comments of their students The researcher hopesthat the lecturers will pay attention to teach their students to give comments like whatnative speakers actually do in writing In fact, freshmen are not taught the detailed way

to give comments with appropriate choice of words and expressions, which may maketheir comments less effective

1.5 Scope of the study

Due to limitation of time, knowledge and materials, the researcher only focused onsome Vietnamese cultural factors having influence on peer comments by freshmen andsuggesting some ways to help lecturers deal with this negative language transfer Theresearcher will analyze comments by freshmen on their peers’ essays and exploitinterviews with both students and lecturers

1.6 Organization of the study

As can be seen, apart from chapter 1 which gives readers an overview of the study,

there are four other main parts

Chapter 2 is the theoretical background which reviews some concepts used in thepresent study: culture and language and their relation, peer comments and some keycategorical dimensions having influence on freshmen’s comments

The methodology exploited will be presented in chapter 3 and information aboutsubjects, procedure of data collection and analysis will be given clearly as well

Chapter 4 shows findings of the study by answering research questions Moreover,the researcher will also discuss the pedagogical implications which can help lecturersteach their students how to give comments

The summary and limitation of the study will be shown in chapter 5, the last part ofthe study

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter sheds light on some background concepts such as “language”,

“culture”, “peer comments” and the relationship between language and culture, andthen some Anglo-American and Vietnamese Cross-cultural key categorical dimensionsthat had influence on freshmen’s comments

2.1 Language and Culture

“Language” comes from Latin Lingua tongue meaning an utterance or expression,

or a dialect, idioms or mode of speech As being defined in the Oxford Advanced

Learner’s Dictionary (2005:862), “language is the system of communication in speechand writing that is used by people of a particular country or area” Sharing this point of

view, Crystal (1992:212) suggested that language is the “the systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs, or written symbols in a human society for communication and self-expression” This signifies that language is only used by human beings and this

can serve to distinguish between animals (or any other creatures) and humans

Culture is derived from Latin “cultura” which means growing or cultivation It

seems that in the past, most people were farmers and the systems of beliefs and valueswere strongly related to farming Possibly, culture has a close relation with farming (It

can be seen that the word “agriculture” means farming) In fact, it is extremely hard to

say for sure how many definitions of culture there are because each researcher sets his/her own definition to orient or guide to the target of his/her research Among thesedefinitions of culture, Nguyen Quang’s definition of culture separate between the

“being” and “human” part which associate with “nature” and “culture” respectively.This can be exemplified as follow:

Figure 1: Culture and Nature However, Levine and Adelman (1993) had different point of view They supposedculture was similar to an iceberg, which means that people can only see some visibleparts of culture This is adopted from their book:

… Culture is like an iceberg, much of the influence of culture on an individual can hardly be seen but strongly be felt The visible part of culture does not always create cross-cultural difficulties The hidden aspects of culture exercise a strong influence on behaviour and interactions with others.

Culture is illustrated as follow:

Figure 2: Levine and Adelma’s iceberg of culture Another definition of culture was given by UNESCO in 1996 which emphasizedthat culture involved both the materials and spirituals of human beings That can beexemplified as follow:

Figure 3: UNESCO’s definition of culture

In terms of the relationship between language and culture, Kramsch (1983)

supposed that language is “the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives”.

As can be seen, language is now the mirror reflecting the culture Saville-Troike (1982;

35) also shared this viewpoint in their book titled “The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction”: “there is a correlation between the norm and content of a language and the beliefs, values and needs present in the culture of its speaker”.

In addition, two terms “language” and “culture” are used interchangeably Whensaying about one culture, people will immediately say about its language and viceversa Language was once used to indicate the social status involving culture of thespeaker In ancient Greece, language was used to distinguish between civilized peopleand “barbatos” those who spoke unintelligible languages Even, in modern England,dialect (a subcomponent of language) is still used to indicate the social classes of thespeaker

somebody or something” Actually, giving peer comments is also considered as part of

the process approach to writing In this part, a student will give his/her opinion abouthis friend’s writing One question arisen is whether two terms “peer comments” and

“criticisms” are similar Criticizing as supposed by Nguyen (2008) is an act of givingnegative evaluation of one’s work and then stimulating hears/recipients to change Peercommenting is often understood by learners of English as evaluating writings of theirpeers on the basis of ideas, grammar and word choice

In the present study, the researcher supposes that giving peer comments is an act ofgiving one’s opinion about one’s work, i.e writing of one’s classmate It should benoted that peer commenting is used to influence those who are given comments by firstgiving negative (and even positive) evaluation of their work and then suggesting waysfor improvements Hence, “criticism” and “peer comments” are similar in terms ofgiving negative evaluation, a face threatening act Actually, it will be proved in thisstudy that giving negative evaluation is the link between “criticism” and “peercomments”

2.3 Overview of some Anglo-American and Vietnamese Cross-cultural key categorical dimensions

Nguyen Quang (1998) supposes that there are fourteen Anglo-American and

Vietnamese Cross-cultural categories as follows:

10 Deduction - Induction

11 Group Orientation - Individual Orientation

12 High context - Low context

13 Redundancy - Economically

14 Statically - Dynamically

Actually, these categories exist in every language However, it is not true to saythat one culture only uses this category and refuses the other There is a preference inone culture to each category For example, English native speakers prefer direct style

of speaking whereas Asian people, i.e Chinese, Vietnamese or Japanese prefer indirectstyle

While giving comments, students will evaluate the work of one’s of their peers, as

a result, it can be predicted that subjectivity will be used most of the time, which makes

it nonsense to overview Subjectivity-Objectivity

After analyzing data from subjects of the study, the researcher found that therewere two categories which had influence on peer comments They are: Directness-Indirectness and Positive politeness - Negative politeness

2.3.1 Directness - Indirectness

Kaplan (1972) observed hundreds of essays of students studying in the UnitedStates and concluded that there were differences in expressing ideas among people ofdifferent cultures He found out what he called “cultural thought patterns” illustrated asfollow:

Figure 4: Kaplan “cultural thought patterns”

As can be seen, in Anglicist direct expressions are preferred and there are somefamous expressions to illustrate this such as “Don’t go round the bush”, or “Get to the

point” However, Oriental languages prefer indirect style of expressions, which can beclearly seen in the following letter of refusal

…Unfortunately, much as I’d like to be at the wedding, especially a Dutch wedding (!), it simply isn’t possible for me to take that weekend off; I have to work fairly late on Friday night, and friends are coming down to stay from Saturday lunchtime so there would be no way in which I could squeeze a wedding in Holland in between…

(As cited from Vu et al, 2006:48)

Do et al (2006) analyzed the following Vietnamese dialogue to prove that

Vietnamese people prefer indirect style in communication This is taken from theirwork

Let’s see the dialogue:

- Host: Chả mấy khi bác đến nhà chơi, mời bác ở lại dung bữa với chúng em

(You rarely come to visit us, we invite you to stay and have dinner with us.)

- Guest: Ô, thôi, cám ơn cô chú Tôi chỉ ghé thăm cô chú và gia đình chút thôi

(Oh, no, thank you I only pay a short visit to you and your family.)

- Host: Bác cứ nói thế, chả mấy khi…

(You say so, rarely…)

- Guest: Phiền cô chú quá, cứ mỗi lần đến chơi cô chú lại bày vẽ…

(I trouble you, whenever I visit you; you go to unnecessary lengths to …)

(Finally, the guest agreed to stay and have dinner with the host

refusing more inviting

inviting accepting expressing that

they feel making troubles

Figure 5: An indirect pattern in communication

However, an English conversation has different style of expressing Here is anexample

- Host: Would you like to have more dessert?

- Guest: No, thanks It’s delicious but I’ve really had enough

- Host: OK Why don’t we leave in the table and sit in the living room?

(cited in Do et al)

In this example, it can be seen that the host only offers once and when the guestrefuses for the very first time, he/she no longer asks more but suggests going to theliving room The pattern of the conversation can be illustrated as follow:

Inviting (Host)

Refusing (Guest)

Going to the living room (Host & Guest)Figure 6: A direct pattern in communication

In addition, one more thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the location

of information It can be said that Vietnamese people will give “small talk” first andthen lead to “the main purpose” because of their being indirect but NSs do theopposite, which can be exemplified as follow:

- In Vietnamese:

- In English

Main purpose

However, as in this study the students give written comments on their peer’s work so it isessential to judge which evaluation belongs to direct style or indirect style according to thewords used by students This is adapted from Blum-Kulka (1987:133)

actions/ work/ products, etc

Usually expressed viaevaluative adjectives withnegative meaning or evaluativeadjective with positivemeaning plus negation

Describing S’s attitude towardswriter’s choice, etc

Usually realized by means ofnegation word ‘‘No’’ orperformative ‘‘I don’t agree’’

or ‘‘I disagree’’ (with orwithout modal) or viaarguments against writer

Stating errors or problemsfound with writer’s choice, etc

- ‘‘I think it’s not a good way to support to one’s idea (L), ‘‘That’s not really

‘‘I don’t really agree with you as you put it here’’ (NS).

- ‘‘And there are some incorrect words, for example ‘‘nowadays’’ (L),‘‘You had a few spelling mistakes’’ (NS).

e Statement of

difficulty

f Consequences

Usually expressed by means of

such structures as “I find it difficult to understand…”,

“It’s difficult to understand…”

Warning about negativeconsequences or negativeeffects of writer’s choice, etcfor writer himself or herself orfor the public

- “I can’t understand” (L),

“I find it difficult to understand your idea” (L)”

- “Someone who doesn’t agree with you would straight away read that and turn off” (NS)

inappropriateness of writer’schoice

Including all utterances whichhave the purposes of fixing

- “safer” not “safe”, comparison (L), and you

Using stated sentences as acollective obligation ratherthan an obligation for writerpersonally or as a rule whichcommentator thinks commonlyagreed upon and applied to all.

Usually expressed via suchstructures as “you have to”,

“you must”, “it is obligatorythat” or “you are required”,

“you need”, “it’s necessarythat”, etc

Usually expressed via theperformative “I advise you …”

or structures with “should”

with or without modality

Usually expressed viastructures such as “you can”,

“you could”, “it would bebetter if”, “why don’t you?”,etc

put “their” I think t-h-e-r-e.

- “Theoretically, a conclusion needs to be some sort of summary”.(L)

- “You must pay attention

to grammar” (L), “You have to talk about your opinion in your summary.” (L)

- “You should change it a little bit” (L)

- “I think if you make a full stop in here, this sentence is clearer.”

Rhetorical questions to raisewriter’s awareness of theinappropriateness of writer’schoice, etc

Including other kinds of hintsthat did not belong to (h) and(i) May include sarcasm

- “I am not sure if you wrote three paragraphs as they looked.” (L)

- “Did you read your writing again after you finish it?” (L)

- “I prefer a writing style which is not too personal.” (L)

2.3.2 Positive politeness - Negative politeness

As written above, after analyzing peer comments by freshmen, the researcher found

that they exploited both positive politeness and negative politeness In fact, NguyenQuang (2005:25) supposed that there were 17 positive politeness strategies and 11negative politeness strategies used by users of the English language However, therewere only 3 positive politeness strategies and 3 negative politeness strategies used byfreshmen at ULIS-VNU, which was found by the researcher

In this part, the researcher will review the theories of both positive politeness andnegative politeness, which will shed light on the analysis of freshmen’s comments inthe finding section There will be examples written by freshmen in the strategiesexploited by them

It is first and foremost to understand what is meant by “politeness”? In terms of

cultural aspect, Yule (1996) defined politeness as ““a fixed concept, as in the idea of

‘polite social behavior’, or etiquette, within a culture” Another definition of politeness was given by Richards in 1985 which emphasized “the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversation” As can be seen politeness is used to

save the face of the H

2.3.2.1 Positive politeness

According to Brown and Levinson (1990:70), positive politeness “is oriented

toward the positive face of H, the positive self-image that he claims for himself”.

Another way to understand suggested by Nguyen Quang (2005:25) based on “the

concern of the solidarity” is that positive politeness is “any communicative act (verbal and/ or nonverbal) which is appropriately intended to show the speaker’s concern to the addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity between them” Here are 15

positive politeness strategies, which are adapted from Nguyen Quang (2004), used byparticipants in communication and comments as follow:

Strategy 1: Notice, attend to writer (his interests, wants, needs, goods)

Student’s comment: I think your essay also has advantages

Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

My God! Your work? It’s absolutely incredible!

Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H ( by (i) ‘making a good story’, (ii) involving

switching back and forth between past and present tenses, (iii) using directly quotedspeech rather than indirect reported speech, (iv) using tag question, expressions ofcajolers, appealers or (v) exaggerating facts)

Black I like I used to wear it more than I do now; I very rarely wear it now I wore a black jumper, and when I wear it my Mum says ‘Ah, she said But Len likes it,

he thinks it looks ever so nice and quite a few people do But when my Mum sees it she said, ‘Oh, it’s not your color, you’re more for pinks and blues.’

Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers (usages (i) of address forms, (ii) of language

or dialect, (iii) of jargon or slang, and (iv) of ellipsis.)

Come over here, honey.

Strategy 5: Seek for agreement (by the safe topics, repetition or minimal encouragers)

A: Này, Lan nó lấy chồng rồi đấy.(Hey! Lan’s got married.)

B: Úi giời ơi! Cái Lan nó đã lấy chồng rồi cơ đấy (Oh my God! Lan’s got married.)

Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement (instances of ‘token agreement’, of

‘pseudo-agreement’, of ‘white lies’, of ‘hedging opinions’)

A: Em ghét anh lắm phải không?(You hate me so much?)

B: Thỉnh thoảng (Sometimes)

Student’s comment: The sentence underlined is rather short, not long certainly

Strategy 7: Presuppose/ raise/ assert common ground (with (i) gossip, small talk; (ii)

point-of-view operations of personal-centre switch, of time switch, of place switch; (iii)presupposition manipulations.)

A: Oh it’s too hot.

B: Honey, it’s terribly hot, I know.

Strategy 8: Joke

How about lending me this old heap of junk? (H’s new Cadillac)

Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for H’s wants

I know you can’t bear parties, but this one will really be good- do come!

Strategy 10: Offer, promise

Này, hôm nào ra Hải Xồm lai rai đi (We will have a drink at Hai Xom

someday.)

Strategy 11: Be optimistic

I’m borrowing your bike for a sec, OK?

Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

Let’s stop for dinner?

Strategy 13: Give (or ask for) reasons

Why don’t we go to the sea-shore?

Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity

I’ve done the cooking; you make the table, OK?

Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

Nguyen Quang (2003: 78-85), adds two more strategies, namely:

Strategy 16: Comfort and encourage

It’ll all turn out OK.

Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

Anh chị được mấy cháu rồi ạ? (How many children do you have?)

2.3.2.2 Negative politeness

Brown and Levinson (1990: 70) suppose that “Negative politeness, is oriented

mainly toward partially satisfying (redressing) H’s negative face, his basic want to maintain claims of territory and self-determination Negative politeness, thus, is essentially avoidance-based, and realizations of negative-politeness strategies consist

in assurances that the speaker recognizes and respects the addressee’s negative- face wants and will not (or will only minimally) interfere with the addressee’s freedom of action”

Nguyen Quang considers negative politeness as “any communicative act (verbal or nonverbal) which is appropriately intended to show that speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus enhancing the sense of distance between them.” (2005:30) Generally speaking, negative politeness avoids imposing on the addressees and remains the distance between interlocutors Here are 10 negative

politeness strategies presented by Brown and Levinson, and the 11th strategy ispresented by Nguyen Quang

Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

I wonder if you could lend me the book.

Student’s comment: A logical order in time would help your essay clearer and

easy to make out

Strategy 2: Question/ Hedge

I’d like to borrow your car, if you don’t mind

Student’s comment: “

Strategy 3: Be pessimistic

It might be an idea to stay out of the game.

Strategy 4: Minimize the imposition

I just want to ask you if I could borrow some reference books.

Student’s comments: I just think you had some grammar mistakes

Strategy 5: Give deference

I must be stupid I should have asked you.

Strategy 6: Apologize

I’m sorry for the late delivery

I beg your indulgence

Strategy 7: Impersonalize S and H

Student’s comment: It is worth noting that the essay contains some errors

Strategy 8: State the Face Threatening Act (FTA) as a general rule (S doesn’t want to

impinge but is merely forced to by circumstances, is to state the FTA as an instance ofsome general social rule, regulation, or obligation)

You are requested to fasten your seat belts while seated.

Strategy 9: Nominalize (the facts of syntax suggest a ‘continuum’ from verb

through adjective to noun (Ross, 1972) Degrees of negative politeness run hand inhand with degrees of nounness.)

Sự có mặt của anh trong bữa tiệc làm chúng tôi thấy rất vinh dự.

(Your appearance at the party gives us a sense of pride.)

Strategy 10: Say explicitly as if S is thankful to H or H is not thankful to S

I’d very grateful if you put it in a good word for me.

Strategy 11: Avoid asking personal questions

This strategy proves to be effective in the positive politeness strategy- orientedcommunities, because it shows concern to H However, it also interferes with H’s

privacy to some extent Therefore, avoiding asking such private questions as: “How much do you earn a month?”, etc is another negative politeness strategy.

17 positive politeness strategies and 11 negative politeness strategies, which aremainly used in communication, have been mentioned However, it should be noted thatmaking a clear distinction in use between them is very difficult In fact, in real-lifecommunication, one can see both strategies being used at the same time For example:

Honey, wait for me for just a second? (‘positive politeness’: in group identity

marker- honey- and ‘negative politeness’: minimizing the imposition- just a second-)

CHAPTER 03: METHODOLOGY

After the theoretical background was presented, the researcher continuesmentioning the methodology used in the study In this chapter, the participants,research instruments, data collection procedures and analysis will be clearly presented

3.1 Selection of subjects

As mentioned in the title of the study, the subjects of the study are first-yearstudents at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, the University ofLanguages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi In fact,freshmen are those who have just graduated from high school and their Englishespecially their writing may still be influenced by Vietnamese language It should benoted that up to 90% of the students at ULIS are female so it is difficult to balancebetween male and female subjects in the study Students from class 11E2-3-4-5-19-20were randomly chosen to ensure the reliability and the validity of the study In fact,course books that freshmen are studying are “Market Leader” and “Inside Out” writtenfor learners of pre-intermediate proficiency level Hence, it can be said that theproficiency level of freshmen is A2 (4.0 - 4.5 IELTS) according to the EuropeanCouncil

3.2 Research instruments

Peer comments for writing were used to analyze and based on this, the researcher

found out the Vietnamese cultural factors having influence on them In addition, inorder to answer the first research question, interview with students and teachers isessential to confirm the findings from analysis of freshmen’s comments Ten studentsand three lecturers were invited to have interviews and moreover, fifty writings with

comments were collected to analyze the cultural factors having influence on them (See Appendix 5 for more details in questions used for interview)

3.3 Procedures of data collection

Firstly, the researcher prepared an essay containing errors about its organization,ideas, grammar and vocabulary Freshmen were asked to give their comments on theessay and thirteen questions about peer commenting were given to them to facilitate the

process (See Appendix 4)

In addition, 50 commented essays were collected from different class andfortunately, students of different majors also gave comments on the essay Moreover,the interview with teachers and students was also carried out to answer the firstresearch question just after the researcher collected commented essays

3.4 Procedures of data analysis

The study has to answer four research questions In terms of the first question, theinterview with students and teachers at Division 1 and comments analysis wereexploited to answer and the cultural differences will be analyzed deeply in the thirdresearch question

Furthermore, all comments from students were analyzed to find out the Vietnamesecultural factors having influence on them In addition, basing on the results of thestudy, the researcher will suggest some ways that teachers can teach their students togive comments on their peers’ essays like what English native speakers use

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 FINDINGS

4.1.1 The first research question

As written in the previous chapter, in order to answer the first research questionthe researcher analyzed written comments of freshmen and carried out interviews withstudents and lecturers to make sure of the reliability of the finding Basing on theinformation by those subjects, it could be concluded that freshmen knew to give

comments signifying that they identified the problem(s) in the first step and then gave

advice about some “don’t” and “do” in the second step

However, in the researcher’s opinion it is words and sentence structures exploitedthat counted the most It was calculated that up to 48% of students only focused onfinding errors of their peers (N=50, the total number of subjects) They did not give anyexternal modification, i.e compliments, and bald sentence structure, i.e structureswithout subject, and strong modal verbs such as “should” were exploited On beingasked if English native speakers used “should”, one female student said:

“…Có lẽ là không Tại vì em có nghe, em không hiểu nghe ai nói là should người

ta thông thường dùng như kiểu must…”

(English: Perhaps they don’t I heard one said that with native speakers, should meant

As a result, it could be seen that although freshmen knew what to give comments

on, they had problems with word choices and sentence structures The researcher asked

if their lecturers taught them how to give comments at the very beginning of thewriting course, all of them said they they were only given a sheet of paper containingsymbols of errors and they could use it in peer commenting One lecturer supposed thatpeer commenting was not really important so little attention was paid to it Theresearcher supposes that it is necessary to teach freshmen how to give commentsbecause as written in the theoretical background, peer commenting threatens the face ofthe recipient and words and sentence structures should be used carefully Thesuggested schedule of peer comments teaching will be presented in the discussion part

in chapter 4

4.1.2 The second research question

Nguyen and Basturkmen (2010) suppose that English natives exploit two strategies

or two steps in giving comments, which are (1) problem(s) identifying and (2) giving

advice on resolving it Students or commentators can use words, phrases or sentences

to indicate that there are problems in their peers’ writings For example, one can write

“I thought you had two conclusions” to imply that writer should have written only one

conclusion In terms of giving advice, one can use a sentence to suggest some hints forimprovement of the current or future performance of his/her peers For instance, a

student can ask his/her peer “Why don’t you decide on just one conclusion?” to

emphasize that his/her peer should use only one conclusion

4.1.3 The third research question

As can be seen in the answer to the first and second research question, there is one

similarity of ways of giving comments by Vietnamese freshmen and native speakers.That is they exploit two strategies (or two steps) in peer commenting In the first step,they identify the problem(s) and then in the second step, they suggest ways of solving

it (them) It can be concluded that Vietnamese freshmen and natives have the same way

of peer commenting

However, word choice and sentence structure exploitation make comments byVietnamese freshmen and natives different Researches by Nguyen show that natives

tend to use much mitigation devices to minimize “potential offence” Those mitigationdevices are softeners (modal verbs, external and internal modification) or linguisticdevices such as past tense or conditional Some strong modal verbs such as “should”,

“must” or “have to” are avoided and negative adjectives like “bad” are not either used.Especially, natives do not use bald sentence structures, i.e sentence without subject.Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that compliments are oftenexploited by natives although writers do not put much effort on writing What is used

by Vietnamese freshmen will be shown clearly in the following answer to the fourthresearch question The answer to this question can be found in the following table

Vietnamese freshmen’s comments English natives’ comments

Similarities There are 2 strategies used:

- Use bad sentence structure, i.e

sentence without subject E.g.: Don’t use “for two days” manytimes

- Rarely use mitigating devices tominimize “potential offence”

- Use compliment sometimes (in thepresent study, it is found that only 26students gave compliments on theirpeers’ essay, the total number of

- Avoid using these negativeadjectives, strong modalverbs

- Avoid using bald sentencestructure, tend to use longsentence

- Use mitigating devices(softeners) to avoid

“potential offence”

- Often use compliments

subjects is 50)Table 1: Comparing and contrasting Vietnamese freshmen and English natives’ comments

4.1.4 The fourth research question

In the theoretical background, two crosscultural categories: directness indirectness and positive politeness - negative politeness were reviewed and it waspredicted that in this case study, the Vietnamese cultural factors would be found inboth categories clearly In fact, after analyzing the comments by freshmen, the researchconcluded that the influence of Vietnamese cultural factors was found in one category:directness-indirectness and in the other category, the students tended to use the stylelike Westerners However, this does not necessarily mean that freshmen at ULIS-VNUgive comments like what English native speakers do

-4.1.2.1 Directness-Indirectness

Fifty essays with comments were collected and it was calculated that freshmentended to use indirectness rather than directness, which shared the same result withother quantitative researches Figure 7 presents the percentage of directness andindirectness in the comments of freshmen:

f: 110/196

%: 56.12

Figure 7: The percentage of direct comments and indirect comments

As can be seen, indirect comments outnumber direct ones or in other words, indirectstrategies were used more than direct ones However, the gap was not significant(56.12% and 43.88%) Generally, Vietnamese speakers tend to use indirect ways ofexpressing their ideas so the gap is understandable and it should be noted that givingpeer comments is somehow like giving criticism which is a face threatening act so