Therefore, a desire to have a further insight into major similarities and differences in using disjuncts as hedges has inspired the writer to develop the research entitled “A contrastive
Trang 1VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
HOÀNG THỊ SÁU
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF MITIGATING CRITICISM:
THE USE OF DISJUNCTS AS MITIGATING HEDGES
IN VERBAL COMMUNICATION NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ SỰ GIẢM NHẸ Ý CHÊ BAI BẰNG VIỆC
SỬ DỤNG TRẠNG NGỮ TÌNH THÁI LÀM PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG GIAO TIẾP BẰNG LỜI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
M.A PROGRAMME 1 THESIS
Field: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 60.22.15
HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2012
Trang 2VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
HOÀNG THỊ SÁU
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF MITIGATING CRITICISM:
THE USE OF DISJUNCTS AS MITIGATING HEDGES
IN VERBAL COMMUNICATION NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ SỰ GIẢM NHẸ Ý CHÊ BAI BẰNG VIỆC
SỬ DỤNG TRẠNG NGỮ TÌNH THÁI LÀM PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG GIAO TIẾP BẰNG LỜI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT
M.A PROGRAMME 1 THESIS
Field: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 60.22.15
HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2012
Trang 3TABLE OF CONTENTS
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES v
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1 Rationale 1
2 Scope of the study 2
3 Aims of the study 3
4 Objectives of the study 3
5 Research questions 3
6 Methodology 3
7 Design of the study 4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5
1.1 SPEECH ACTS 5
1.1.1 Notion and classification of speech acts 5
1.2 SPEECH ACT OF CRITICIZING 6
1.3 FACE AND POLITENESS 7
1.3.1 What is FACE? 7
1.3.2 What is POLITENESS? 9
1.4 HEDGING DEFINED 12
1.4.1 Hedging from the point of view of pragmatics 13
1.4.2 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness 14
1.5 DISJUNCTS 19
1.5.1 Disjuncts defined 19
1.5.2 Types of disjuncts 20
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW: 23
PRE-CRITICIZING HEDGING 23
2.1 THE PREVIOUS STUDIES ON CRITICIZING 23
2.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON DISJUNCTS AS HEDGES FROM PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE 25
2.3 CONCLUDING REMARKS 26
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27
3 1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 27
3 2 RESEARCH APPROACH - CA 27
3 3 DATA COLLECTION METHOD: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 30
3 4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT 31
3 5 DATA COLLECTING PROCEDURES 31
3 6 DATA ANALYSIS UNITS/ PARAMETERS 31
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 34
4 1 USE OF DISJUNCTS SEEN FROM COMMUNICATING PARAMETERS 34
4.1.1 Data analysis 34
Trang 44.2 CONCLUDING REMARKS 39
4.2.1 Similarities 39
4.2.2 Differences 40
4 3 USE OF DISJUNCTS SEEN FROM INFORMANTS’ PARAMETERS 41
4.3.1 Data analysis 41
4.3.2 Concluding remarks 45
PART III: CONCLUSION 46
1 Review of the study 46
2 Implications of the study 47
3 Limitations of the study 48
4 Suggestions for further study 48
APPENDICES 52
Trang 5
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 69)………….12
Figure 2 Theoretical CAs and Applied CAs …… ……….27
Table 1: Classification of illocutionary acts……… 5
Table 2: Quality hedges …… ……….15
Table 3: Quantity hedges ……… 16
Table 4: Relevance hedges ………17
Table 5: Manner hedges …… ……… 17
Table 6: Types of disjuncts ……… 21
Table 7: Distribution on informants’ status parameters………33
APPENDIX A Survey questionnaire………53 - 58 APPENDIX B Examples of hedges……… 59 - 60 APPENDIX C1 Table 1: Use of disjuncts seen from communicating parameters……
………61- 63 APPENDIX C2 Table 2: Use of disjuncts seen from informants’parameters…………
……… ……… 64- 68
Trang 6PART I: INTRODUCTION
1 Rationale
It can not be denied that language plays an important part not only in recording and understanding culture but also in communication among people who share or do not share the same nationality, social or ethnic origin, gender, age, and occupation Furthermore,
“language not only has a great impact on our thinking and behaviors but also on others"
(Karmic, 1998:79) Hence, understanding social conventions and attention to such important concepts as politeness, and face –threatening act, will certainly enable us to better comprehend the different ways of speaking by people from different cultures, thus helping eliminate culture-shocks, misunderstandings and communication-breakdown
Despite good awareness of the ultimate objective of learning a foreign language toward successful communication, many Vietnamese learners of English must concede that
a good command of a foreign language or success in foreign language learning lies only in mastering grammar rules and accumulating as much vocabulary as possible The importance of vocabulary and grammar has been proved in Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), Putri (2010), Aquilina (1988) and in many other researches In spite of different approaches to the matter, these authors state one thing in common that both vocabulary and grammar are vital aspects in language However, it lies in the fact that even when language learners produce grammatically well-formed utterances, they may experience unwanted culture shock and communication breakdown when running into a real and particular context of situation This unexpected incidence occurs due to their insufficient knowledge and awareness of social norms and values, roles and relationships between individuals, especially those from the target culture
Of the universal human speech acts, criticism is considered a high face-threatening act, and a high- demanding politeness in communication, especially in intercultural communication In addition, criticisms are socially complex even for native speakers Furthermore, many local and foreign studies regarding the speech act of criticizing have been carried out in different languages and in interlanguage of English learners of different language backgrounds such as House and Kasper (1981), Tracy, Van Dusen, and Robison (1987), Tracy and Eisenberg (1990), Wajnryb (1993; 1995) and Toplak and Katz (2000), Minh (2005), Hoa (2007), and others The findings of the previous studies were mainly
Trang 7discussed in the light of cross-cultural perspective Yet, hedging in criticizing from pragmatic perspective is still an area available for more exploration This research, therefore, has chosen hedging as a potential subject The study is done not only to see the similarities and dissimilarities in the use of hedges to criticize between the two cultures Another goal of this research is to raise the awareness of both teachers and learners of English about the necessity of hedging in language, and to give teachers several suggestions in teaching this language phenomenon to their students
Nevertheless, hedging is a very broad area, and within the limit of the study, it is impossible to discuss all aspects of hedging in language As criticism is an act yielding high risk of making hearers lose face, it requires different supplementary steps to reduce the weightiness of the utterance This is where hedging can mostly be seen In daily life, no-one likes to be criticized, and no-one wants to criticize others directly because there still exists the relationship between people, which is considered most important in every society Hence, in forced situations, people still criticize but soften it by using such
disjuncts as “frankly, from my point of view, seriously,…” right before the criticism That
is the reason why the use of disjuncts as mitigating hedges in criticism is chosen for the project
Needless to say, disjuncts as hedging devices used in a certain context for specific communicative intents such as one strategy of politeness and mitigation have great effect
on minimizing shocks in communication Therefore, a desire to have a further insight into major similarities and differences in using disjuncts as hedges has inspired the writer to
develop the research entitled “A contrastive analysis of moderating criticism: The use
of disjuncts as mitigating hedges in verbal communication.”
To sum up, it is hoped that this study can provide the increase of some cultural knowledge and awareness of the importance of hedges before criticizing among both teachers and learners of English in order to avoid hurting their partners in every day communication This also helps enhance better cross-cultural communication and foreign language learning and teaching in Vietnam
socio-2 Scope of the study
- The study is confined to the verbal aspects of the act of criticism with the use of politeness and hedging In addition, adjacency pairs are beyond the scope of this paper
Trang 8- The study strictly pertains to the perspective of pragmatics though the author realizes that syntactic theory and semantics apparently do explain the meaning of the verbal work
- Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers are chosen for contrastive analysis
- The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires to examine the ways the Northern Vietnamese and Southern English native speakers use disjuncts as mitigating hedges (30 informants each)
- Hedges under investigation are limited to a single utterance
3 Aims of the study
- To find out the similarities and differences in the way the Northern Vietnamese learners
of English and Southern English native speakers criticize using disjuncts as a politeness strategy in mitigating criticism
- To raise both teacher‟s and learner‟s awareness of the importance of hedges before criticizing in order to avoid hurting their partners
4 Objectives of the study
In order to achieve the targeted aims, two objectives are put forward:
- The data will be collected by conducting survey questionnaires for the chosen informants
in Northern Vietnam and in Southern England (Hedges under investigation are limited to a single utterance)
- The data will be processed and analyzed quantitatively to see how the two groups use disjuncts as hedges in criticizing situations and to see if there are any distinct features that characterize the way Northern Vietnamese learners use hedges as compared to that of Southern native speakers, through which implications will be drawn out
5 Research questions
What are the major similarities and differences in the ways Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers use disjuncts as hedges in mitigating criticism?
Trang 9differences in the ways Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers perform the act of criticizing using hedges as a politeness strategy
- The questionnaires are delivered directly to 30 Northern Vietnamese learners of English and to 30 English people via e-mails Based on both Vietnamese and English informants‟ status parameters, the researcher looks for the Vietnamese subjects of similar parameters in order to have a symmetrical distribution of informants and data for the study
7 Design of the study
The study is composed of three parts:
Part I: Introduction: presents the rationale, scope, aims, research question, and
methodology of the study
Part II: Development: This part consists of four chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical background and Literature review :
- Theoretical background: discusses the notions of speech act theory, face, politeness,
politeness strategies, hedges and disjuncts
Chapter 2:: Hedging before criticizing: This chapter explores previous works of criticizing,
hedging, hedging strategies and disjuncts from pragmatic perspective
Chapter 3: Methodology: This chapter states the chosen methods to carry out the study and
to analyze the collected data such as contrastive analysis (CA), and survey questionnaires
It also deals with informants and procedures of the data collection
Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings: This chapter analyses collected data to find out
major similarities and differences in the choice of hedging strategies in given situations by Vietnamese learners of English and native speakers of English
Part III: Conclusion: This part summarizes the main findings of the study, provides some
implications for TEFL, and offers suggestions for further research
Trang 10PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter reviews the theories relevant to the topic under investigation in the present study, namely speech acts, speech act of criticizing, face, politeness, politeness strategies, hedges and disjuncts
1.1 SPEECH ACTS
According to Levinson (1983), speech act theory is one of the central issues in language use In this section, the works by such pioneers in the field as Austin (1962), Searle (1974; 1979), and Bach and Harnish (1979) are briefly reviewed in order to provide
theoretical frameworks for the study
1.1.1 Notion and classification of speech acts
The notion of speech acts originates from the British philosopher of language John
Austin (1962) In his very influential work “How to do things with words” (1975), Austin
defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something or actions performed using language In fact, when speaking, we perform certain linguistic actions such as giving reports, making statements, asking questions, giving warnings, making promises and so on In other words, speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking – all the things we do when we speak Austin (1962) distinguishes between the three kinds of
acts: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary A locutionary act is the act of saying something in the full sense of “say” An illocutionary act is the one of using the utterance
to perform a particular function; and a perlocutionary act is the one producing some kinds
of effects that are produced by means of saying something Among the above three kinds
of acts, illocutionary act is the core interest of Austin as well as of other pragmatists (Levinson, 1983)
Following is how illocutionary acts are classified by different authors:
Table 1: Classification of illocutionary acts
Austin (1962) Searle (1979) Bach and Harnish (1979)
Trang 11Exercitives Directives Directives
Effectives
In the present study, criticizing refers to an illocutionary act whose illocutionary point is to give negative evaluation on hearers‟ (H‟s) actions, choice, words, and products for which he or she may be held responsible This act is performed in hope of influencing H‟s future actions for the better for his or her own benefit as viewed by speakers (S), or to communicate S‟s dissatisfaction/ discontent with or dislike regarding what H has done but without implying that what H has done has undesirable consequences for S Therefore, criticizing speech act is defined as a verbalized reaction to a given criticism
1.2 SPEECH ACT OF CRITICIZING
The speech act of criticizing has been studied by different researchers such as House and Kasper (1981), Tracy, van Dusen, and Robison (1987), Tracy and Eisenberg (1990), Wajnryb (1993, 1995) and Toplak and Katz (2000) and others
Tracy, et al (1987) investigate the characteristics of criticisms by people from different
cultural backgrounds and distinguished “good” from “bad” criticisms According to him, a
good criticism is one that displays a positive language and manner; suggests specific changes and possible critic; states justified and explicit reasons for criticizing and does not violate the relationship between interlocutions and is accurate Supporting that point of view, Wajnrub (1993) holds an effective criticism must be kept simple specific, well-grounded, linked to strategies for improvement and delivered as an attempt to share experience It also needs to be softened by means of a number of strategies These include
“measuring words” (to avoid being too negative), “soft-pedaling” (i.e using internal and external modifications to lessen the harshness of the criticism), “using affirmative
language” such as comforting messages, “distancing and neutralizing” (to depersonalize
the criticism) and “using negotiating language” (to avoid imposing on the addressee.)
(Wajnryb, 1993; cited in Minh, 2005) That point of view seems to be supported by
Wajnryb (1995) who prefers a direct and “economical” criticism rather than indirect,
wordy, and time-wasting one
Following Yule‟s classification (1997), like all the other speech acts, criticizing can
be either a direct speech act or an indirect speech act That means a criticism can be
Trang 12realized by either direct or indirect strategies When mentioning to the directness level of a criticism, Blum-Kulka (1987) states that the directness level of a criticism in this study was determined by the degree of illocutionary transparency, and thus the amount of effort needed to interpret the illocutionary point of this criticism
The speech act of criticism is coded according to their: (i) realization strategies, (ii) semantic formulas, and (iii) modifiers, as follows:
(i): Criticism realization strategies are defined as the pragmalinguistic conventions
of usage by which criticisms are realized (Adapted from Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper‟s, 1989; and Takahashi‟s definition, 1996)
(ii): Criticism semantic formulas are semantic structures that have acquired an illocutionary force representing criticisms (Adapted from Clark, 1979)
(iii): Modifiers are linguistic devices employed to help reduce the offence of a threatening act
face-In this study, criticisms are investigated as an illocutionary act in which the factors related to H and S, namely the relationship, gender, age, occupation have a great impact on the way they criticize And the author just focuses on one of the modifiers which are used
as hedges to make “good” criticisms and to save H‟s face That is disjuncts
1.3 FACE AND POLITENESS
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness and anything related to this theory is considered a fundamental requirement in human social life specified by social order and human cooperation at pre-condition level Therefore, face and politeness are interrelated and mutually affected in human interaction
1.3.1 What is FACE?
Since “face, understood as every individual’s feelings of self-image” (Thomas,
1995: 169), can be damaged, maintained or enhanced through interactions and transactions with others, a person often claims face for him/herself in conversations According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 61-62), face is the respect that an individual has for him or herself Once face is damaged or threatened, there seems to be a risk of communication breakdown That is why in everyday interactions we usually avoid embarrassing other people, making them feel uncomfortable because we bear in mind that everybody has some basic face needs or wants Therefore, maintaining or partially satisfying each other‟s face seems to be the major and apparently the only motivation to be polite in communication
Trang 13(Watts, 2003; Holmes, 1995) To many scholars, face consists of two opposing face wants: positive and negative face
1.3.1.1 Positive face
Normally, people are typically caught between the wants to achieve their own goals and the desire to avoid threatening their partners‟ face (both positive and negative face)
Positive face, as Brown and Levinson (1987: 61) observe, is “the positive consistent
self-image or personality (crucially including the desire that this self-self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants” In other words, positive face is seen as the desire
that others like, admire, value, or approve of one‟s wants (material or non-material) or the need to be accepted and liked by others, treated as a member of the group, and to know one‟s wants are shared by others
1.3.1.2 Negative face
Negative face, according to Brown and Levinson is the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction, i.e to freedom of action and freedom of
imposition In other words, “negative face is reflected in the desire not to be impeded or
put upon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses” (Thomas, 1995: 169), or “the wants that one’s action be unimpeded by others” (Eelen, 2001: 3), and “the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others” (Yule, 1996:
61)
In general, the remarkable difference between the positive face and the negative face is that the former refers to the people‟s wants or desires of making others pleased and satisfied by their own actions, whereas the latter implies the required freedom and independence of the people who want to act Therefore, positive face is relevant to the study in the extent that using hedges before criticizing helps make the least offence and keep face among S and their communicating partners
1.3.1.3 Face threatening acts (FTAs)
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), certain illocutionary acts are liable to
damage or threaten another person‟s face; such acts are known as “face threatening acts”
(FTAs) by, for instance, representing a threat to or damaging the H‟s positive face (insulting the addressee or expressing disapproval of what the H holds valuable or does something) or his/ her negative face (impinging upon H‟s freedom of action in the case
when H likes gossiping) They define FTAs as “those acts that by their nature run
Trang 14contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/ or of the speaker” (Brown and Levinson,
1987: 65) Along the same line, Yule (1996) observes that an FTA occurs when a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual‟s expectation regarding self-image
1.3.2 What is POLITENESS?
1.3.2.1 Politeness defined
Politeness has received various amounts of attention and controversy from all areas
of linguistics, especially sociolinguistics and pragmatics, throughout the 20th century There have been so far two main approaches to politeness: politeness as social norms (normative politeness) or conversational principle and maxims or do‟s and don‟ts (Lakoff
1973, 1989; Leech, 1983) and face-saving acts or politeness strategies (strategic politeness) (Brown and Levinson 1978; 1987) (cf Dan, 1998; Quang, 2003)
In her cross-cultural study on politeness, Blum-Kulka (1987: 131) suggests that
politeness is “(i) a function of redressive actions with redressive having correlative
relationship with indirectness, (ii) an interaction achieved between two needs, the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness and (iii) a social distance and role relationship” By giving such a definition, Blum-Kulka implies the tendency that the more
indirect we go, the more polite we become More correctly, she places politeness on the same part with negative politeness by challenging the claim that there is a direct relationship between indirectness and politeness Intuitively speaking, it seems workable as seen in Anglophone cultures However, it is, too, intuitively untenable because it does not
necessarily means that going direct is less polite, hence “indirectness does not necessarily/
always imply politeness” (Blum-Kulka, 1987: 131) For example:
(1) Indirect: The house looks like a barn! (Nhà cửa gì trông như chuồng lợn thế này!) (Implying „tidy up the room‟)
Direct: Tidy up the room, son (Dọn dẹp phòng đi con.)
(2) Indirect: What‟s a wife expected to do at this time? (Implying “It‟s time you prepared dinner”)
Direct : Time to cook, honey
Despite the fact that all utterances are FTAs to various degree, the direct ones seem more comfortably accepted, thus more polite However, this confirms the idea proposed by Dascal (1983, cf Thomas,1995) that indirectness is costly and risky because an indirect
Trang 15utterance takes longer for the speaker to produce and longer for the hearer to process and the hearer may not understand what the speaker is getting at risk
In this study, the adopted model of politeness, or “polite way of talking” which is seen as deviations from Grice maxims (for politeness reasons) is that of Brown and Levinson‟s due to the following reasons:
First, the distinction between normative and strategic politeness is rather loose and relative in that almost all illocutionary acts should operate within the framework of interpersonal relationships
Second, it is the author‟s opinion that normative politeness based on social norms is the departure or foundation of strategic politeness What require normative politeness to be realized are interpersonal relationships where interlocutors should follow some certain politeness norms to save or preserve the other‟s face
Third, in interpersonal verbal interaction, no matter whether a criticism is constructive or not, every criticizing utterance carries in itself potential damage or threat to the addressee‟s positive and negative face
Fourth, politeness strategies, both positive and negative, when used, can (i) support and enhance the addressee‟s positive face (positive politeness) and (ii) help avoid transgressing the addressee‟s freedom of action and freedom from imposition (negative face)
Finally, Brown and Levinson‟s model is adequate for the interpretation of ongoing verbal interaction in which participants are reciprocally attending to one another‟s face needs (Watts, 2003)
1.3.2.2 Politeness principles
Lakoff (1973) argues that the majority of conversation is governed by what is termed as politeness principles Similar to Grice (but earlier), she claimed that there are three maxims or rules that speakers should follow in conversation to maintain politeness: (i): Don‟t impose – This is similar to the theory of negative politeness – trying not to impose on people or to disrupt them in any way It can be seen through such expressions as:
Trang 16(ii): Give options – It is avoiding forcing the other participant into a corner with the use of such expressions as:
- I won‟t be offended if you don‟t want to …
(iii): Make the hearer feel good – We say things that flatter the other participant and make him/ her feel good; rather in the same way we pander to positive face This can be seen through the use of such expressions as:
- I‟d really appreciate your advice on this
According to Leech (1983), politeness principle (PP) consists of 6 maxims (Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy), which are related to the notion of cost and benefit and much related to offering favorableness to the hearer Leech sees PP as being of the same status as Grice‟s Cooperative Principle (CP), which it
“rescues” by explaining why speakers do not always observe the Gricean maxims (Thomas, 1995)
Brown and Levinson (1987) do not set a rule of politeness principles as Lakoff and Leech did, but drop a hint by providing the following schema, termed “possible strategies for doing FTAs”, available to speakers to encounter unavoidable face-threatening acts, to make appropriate communicative choices and to reduce the possibility of damage and threat to hearer‟s face or to the speaker‟s own face Once a decision has been made, they argue, the speaker selects the appropriate linguistic means to accomplish the chosen strategy Their schema proposes five components of communicative choices: (1) without redressive action badly, (2) positive politeness, (3) negative politeness, (4) off record and (5) don‟t do the FTA (or refrain from doing the FTA) Each strategy on the schema is numbered 1-5, the general principle being that the higher the number the more polite the
Trang 171 Without redressive action, badly
Do the FTA With redressive action
4.Off record 3 Negative politeness
5 Don‟t do the FTA
Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 69)
Finally, they can choose not to do any FTAs, seen as the least face-threatening acts (just to be safe)
To conclude, in doing an FTA, the speaker needs to balance three wants:
The want to communicate content of the FTA
The want to be efficient (or urgent)
The want to maintain H‟s face to any degree
In this study, the author investigates how disjuncts are used as a positive politeness strategy to mitigate FTA in verbal communication
1.4 HEDGING DEFINED
When people talk, is it just information that is being exchanged? A traditional view
on language saw the exchange of information as the sole purpose of human
communication Nowadays, however, it is widely recognized that spoken language
performs a variety of other tasks, too These tasks can be divided into two broad
categories, one covering the exchange of information and the other interpersonal aspects of communication In other words, when we speak, our words do not only convey meaning but carry interpersonal messages as well
One way of conveying interpersonal messages in spoken interaction is hedging The designation “hedge/ hedging” itself is introduced first by Lakoff (1972) in his article:
“Hedges: A study in meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts” In his
synchronic, non-contrastive study of the oral and written standard English, Lakoff defines hedges as the tool to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy
Brown and Levinson (1987:145) define “hedge” as “ a particle, word or phrase
that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set, it says of that membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects or that it is more true and
Trang 18complete than perhaps might be expected” This definition reveals a fact that hedges are
“strengtheners” as well as “weakeners”
For domestic researches, the subject matter still requires more attention Vietnamese linguists such as Giap (1976), Phe (2002), Quang (2003) also view hedging as
a pragmatic phenomenon Phe (2002) in his Vietnamese Dictionary states that hedges are expressions which prevent communicating partners from unexpected misunderstanding and reaction/responses to what is said According to Quang (2003), hedging is a strategy used simply to hedge the propositional content Referring the so-called quán ngữ, a possible
equivalent to gambit in his work “Từ và nhận diện từ trong tiếng Việt”, Nguyễn Thiện
Giáp (1976) argues:
“Gambits are repeatedly-used expression in discourses for coherence, cohesion,
communication, emphasis on ideas”
(English version by Hoang, 2003:7)
(Quán ngữ là những cụm từ cố định lặp đi lặp lại trong các văn bản để liên kết, đưa đẩy,
rào đón hoặc nhấn mạnh nội dung cần diễn đạt nào đó) (1976:176)
In this thesis, hedging is studied as a politeness strategy in interpersonal
communication The author adopts a similar approach to that of Brown and Levison which means that hedges can either strengthen or weaken the S‟s ideas in interactions
1.4.1 Hedging from the point of view of pragmatics
Hedging has more recently been recognized as a pragmatic rather than a purely semantic phenomenon In much of the more recent work relating to hedging, it is the interpersonal aspect of the strategy that has been given emphasis Hedging has been analyzed in view of the communication situation, particularly the effect of the strategy on the relationship between sender and addressee in face-to-face communication Generally speaking, the more pragmatics-oriented descriptions of hedging phenomena presented in literature are often rather circumspect notions for the purposes of a particular research project rather than thorough deliberations of the phenomenon Addressing hedging, it can
be defined plainly as the process whereby the author reduces the strength of what he is
writing Markkanen and Schroder (1985) define hedging as a strategy of “saying less than
one means”, the function of strategy being to modify the writer‟s responsibility for the
truthfulness of an utterance, to modify the attitude of the author to the propositions and information put forth in a text or even to hide this attitude
Trang 191.4.2 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness
Much of previous work on hedging is based on Brown and Levinson‟s treatment of hedges (1978; 1987) where it is reasoned that hedges can be used to avoid “assuming or presuming that anything involved in the FTA is desired or delivered by H” This is meant that hedging can be used to indicate that S does not want to impose upon H‟s desires or beliefs Brown and Levinson thus discuss hedges as a greater length as one of ten strategies linked to negative face protection Hubler (1983) picks up the idea of hedging phenomena
as indications of negative politeness and contends that hedges are primarily used in
negative face work, hedging devices are “detensifying” elements which sender can employ
to maximize the emotional acceptability of the propositional content presented to the H for approval On the other hand, hedges can also be interpreted as simultaneously serving the sender‟s negative face
1.4.2.1 Hedging as a negative politeness strategy
Hedges/ hedging in general belong to negative politeness Brown and Levinson (1987) appoint that hedge including particle, word or phrase modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set
According to the two authors, conversational principles are the sources of strong background assumptions about cooperation, in formativeness, truthfulness, relevance, and clarity which on many occasions need to be softened for reasons of face Here to, hedges are the most immediate tool for the job and the authors discuss such hedges on Grice‟s Maxims
The four maxims of Grice recognized are quality, quantity, relation, and manner
- The quality states:
+ Make yourself as informative as required (for the current purpose of exchange) + Don‟t make our contribution more informative than it is required
-The quantity maxim says:
+ Don‟t say what you believe to be false and
+ Don‟t say that for which you lack adequate evidence
-The relevance maxim says:
+ be relevant
-Grice‟s specific maxims of manner are:
+ Be perspicacious
Trang 20+ Avoid obscurity of expression
+ Avoid ambiguity
*Hedges addressed to Grice’s maxims (see the examples in Appendix B, p.59-60)
- Table 2: Quality hedges
(i) Quality hedges may suggest that S does not take full responsibility for the truth of his utterance
There is some evidence to the effect that
As far as I know
I may be mistaken but
I think
I‟m not sure if it‟s right but
I guess
I believe
I assume
Có một số dẫn chứng cho thấy là……
Theo chỗ tôi biết………
Tôi không chắc lắm ………
Tôi nghĩ rằng ………
Tôi cho là ………
Nghe đâu là ………
Tôi tin là ………
(ii) Or alternately they stress S‟s commitment to the truth of his utterance English Vietnamese With completely honesty I can say I absolutely deny that I absolutely believe that Thú thực là ………
Tôi thực sự tin rằng ………
Tôi hoàn toàn tin là ………
(iii) Or they may disclaim the assumption that the point of S‟s assertion is to inform H English Vietnamese As you know As you probably/ may know As you and I both know Như các bạn đã biết………
Mọi người biết đấy ………
Có người nói rằng ………
Có người cho rằng ………
Người ta cho rằng………
(iv) As quality hedges, we have degrees of probability expressed in increasing doubt
Definitely
Probably
Có thể là
Trang 21Cũng phải nói ngay rằng
- Table 3: Quantity hedges
Áng chừng là Xấp xỉ là Hình như là Tưởng như là, đâu như là Hàng chục là, hàng năm là Kiểu như là
À, kiểu như nó cũng
Ở một khía cạnh nào đó
Về cơ bản là Biết đấy là đâu, biết đâu được chuyện đấy Một chút nữa, một tí nữa
Trang 22This may sound like dumb question but…
Not to change the subject ………
Now is probably the time to say …………
I might mention at this point ………
Since I‟ve been wondering ………
Since it‟s been on my mind ………
Sorry, I‟ve just thought ………
All right now
Không biết có nên nói không Không dám cảm phiền ông Của đáng tội
Chết một cái là Quả có thế ạ Nói bỏ ngoài ngoài tai
Dù sao đi chăng nữa Tiện thể là
Nhân tiện đây
À nhân tiện Nói trộm bóng vía Nói anh bỏ quá cho
_ Table 5: Manner hedges
If you see what I‟m getting at
If you see what I‟m driving at
To put it more simply, …
Now to be absolutely clear, I want
I‟m not sure if it makes sense …
I don‟t know if this is clear at all
Tôi xin đi thẳng vào vấn đề
Ý tôi là……… Nói đơn giản là………… Nói nôm na là …………
Để cho rõ ràng hơn ……
Trang 23Such maxim hedges as those we have been discussing are used with great frequency in ordinary talks According to Brown/ Levinson, they have in many cases straightforward politeness applications Quality hedges that weaken S‟s commitment may
redress advice or criticisms: “I think, perhaps, you should” Quantity hedges may be used
to redress complaints or requests: “Could you make this copy more or less final?” Relevance hedges are useful ways of redressing offers or suggestions: “This may be
misplaced but would you consider…?” And manner hedges can be used to redress all kinds
of FTAs: “You are not exactly thrifty, if you see what you meant” In addition to the
hedges on the maxims with their FTA uses there are some which, while they may be derived from Maxim hedges, function directly as notices of violations of FTA wants For
example: “Frankly, to be honest, I hate to have to say this but ……, I don’t want to hurt
you but (which preface criticisms and bad news)”
1.4.2.2 Hedging as a positive politeness strategy
In much of previous work, hedging has been viewed as a negative politeness strategy, but it may also at times be seen to have a positive politeness dimension Brown and Levinson (1978; 1987) are of the opinion that one way to express positive politeness
toward one‟s addressee; to communicate “that one’s own wants … are in some respects
similar to the addressee’s wants” (1987: 101) is to avoid disagreement One avoidance
strategy is rending one‟s opinion safely vague, seeking agreement with the addressee when the latter has not made his or her position clear Sometimes, S may choose to be vague about his own opinions, so as not to get seen to disagree For this reason, one characteristic device in positive politeness is to hedge these extremes in order to make one‟s own opinion safely vague Some hedges can have positive politeness functions as well, notably: sort of, kind of, like, in a way
E.g I really sort of hope that your presentation will be good
It is beautiful, in a way
From those points of view, the pragmatic functions of hedges are drawn out as follows:
1 Express fuzziness, inexactitude (the following word is not the exact or best word)
2 Express uncertainty (lack of/decreased commitment to a proposition)
3 Softening a stance or opinion (further qualifies/modifies the statement)
4 Mitigating a criticism or request
Trang 245 Preceding sophisticated vocabulary or jargon words
6 Preceding metaphors
7 Filled pauses
In conclusion, hedging is considered to be a strategy used to hedge the
propositional content (the propositional accuracy- Quang, 2003) and illocutionary force of
the utterance Along the line, the thesis author would add that (i) hedges are expressions
which do not add any false or truth values to the content of an utterance, (ii) hedges are
attitude markers that can be taken as an indication of speakers‟ sensitivity towards the
hearer The present study will focus on a part of quality hedges in which disjunctive
adverbials are used as a negative politeness strategy with the function of redressing H‟face
by softening criticisms
1.5 DISJUNCTS
1.5.1 Disjuncts defined
In terms of syntactic features, disjuncts are adverbials which “have a superior role
as compared to the sentence elements; they are syntactically more detached and in some
respects “superordinate”, in that they seem to have a scope that extends over the sentence
as a whole” (Quirk et al., 1985:613) They are not considered essential to the sentence, but
which are considered to be the speaker‟s or writer‟s attitude or descriptive statements
They are generally used to refer to the sentence that is not fully described in the previous
conversation Thus, disjuncts commonly appear at the beginning or at the end of sentence
In terms of semantic features, Quirk (1985:440) identifies disjuncts with the speaker's
authority for, or comment on, the accompanying clause:
“Semantically, DISJUNCTS express an evaluation of what is being said either with respect to the form of the communication or to its meaning.”
For example: Frankly, he is slow in the uptake
Most disjuncts can only be found with an adverb or a prepositional phrase which
are usually positioned initially
For example: From my point of view, he is not a good eloquent speaker
Seriously, girls aren’t as good at sports as boys
In terms of pragmatics, one of the foreign authors who studies about disjuncts is
Hyland (1998) According to his polypragmatic paradigm, disjuncts are used as hedges to
show speaker-oriented, hearer-oriented, and content-oriented Second, disjuncts are under
Trang 25investigation in House and Kaspers‟s(1981) typology of politely linguistic tools and Homes‟notion of hedges realized in the light of polite language Finally, it is essentially backgrounded by Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) paradigm of politeness strategies Of all
10 strategies, only two ways suggest the use of disjuncts as hedges
Strategy 5: Offering or suggesting options
Since criticizing is highly face threatening, S can use this strategy as a way out In this case, S does not infringe on H‟s freedom by proposing an option which he thinks could
be possible for H to take
- Có lẽ bộ này hợp với đi chơi hơn đi làm
Perhaps your clothes are more suitable for going out rather than for going to work
Strategy 6: Showing concern (to H)
By hedging, S wants to show that he notices or attends to H‟s face
Meanwhile, what he wants to communicate is that his attitude towards H is sincere, and that what he wishes is always beneficial to H
- Bảo thật nhé (Thực lòng mà nói), anh nói thế không đúng đâu
Frankly (speaking), what you said is not right
In sum, disjuncts are modifying devices which can strengthen or weaken S‟ideas in interaction In this study, the author explores disjuncts as politely pragmatic tools in speech act of criticizing as stated by Hylland (1998)
1.5.2 Types of disjuncts
Quirk et al (1985) divides disjuncts into two main semantic types:
+ Style disjuncts: convey the speaker‟s comment on the form of what he is saying,
including: briefly, confidently, frankly, generally, personally, seriously,…
For example: Personally, I don’t approve of her
+ Content (Attitudinal) disjunct: convey the speaker‟s comment on the content of what he
is saying, including indeed, surely, undoubtedly, perhaps, supposedly, obviously,…
For example: Obviously, nobody expected us to be here
Sharing the same point of view, Richard (2006) still divides disjuncts into 2 types but each type seems to be divided and analyzed more explicitly and thoroughly as follows:
Trang 26Table 6: Types of disjuncts
Types of disjuncts
content Value judgment of content Truthfully, candidly,
1, Direct claim or an appeal:
Admittedly, assuredly, certainly, decidedly, definitely, indeed, surely, unarguably, undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably, clearly, evidently, obviously,
2, Degree of doubt: allegedly, arguably, apparently, doubtless, likely, maybe, most likely, perhaps, possibly, presumably, quite likely, reportedly, reputedly, seemingly, supposedly, very likely
Also realized by:
Finite clause: if I may
be frank, if I can speak
Realized by longer phrases or by clauses
Comments are frequently hedged:
Realized by concessive, conditional,
reason, and adverbial clauses: by any
chance, I wonder, would you (happen to) know…
- mainly used to reduce the impact and urgency of questions and conditions politely
Trang 27frankly, if I can put it
Personally, I find the
music too arid
Strictly speaking, she is
him, I wonder?
Despite a little bit difference, the two authors have a common view to divide disjuncts into two types as style and content In the present study, the author just adopts Quirk‟s theory to design the questionnaires because it will be clearer and easier for the informants to give the feedbacks
Trang 28CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW:
PRE-CRITICIZING HEDGING
This chapter explores previous works of criticizing, hedging, hedging strategies and disjuncts as hedges from pragmatic perspective
2.1 THE PREVIOUS STUDIES ON CRITICIZING
The speech act of criticizing has been studied by different researchers in both foreign countries and in Vietnam Some foreign authors are well-known in this subject matter such as House and Kasper (1981), Tracy, van Dusen, and Robison (1987), Tracy and Eisenberg (1990), Wajnryb (1993, 1995) and Toplak and Katz (2000) and others
Along these perceptions, Toplak and Katz (2000) focus on the difference between the speaker and the addressee when giving their judgments of the criticism given that the addressee tends to view sarcasm as a more severe act than the speaker does However, they also discover that sarcasm is not perceived by the recipient as having as negative an impact
on the relationship between the interlocutors as direct criticisms
Tracy and Eissenberg (1990) in their investigation into the preferences for message clarity and politeness in giving criticism find that among people from different races and gender The superiors tend to give more weight to message clarity that do subordinates and that this preference also varies according to gender and race
Despite the fewer domestic studies, significant findings are found out from Sinh‟s project (2004), Minh‟s (2005) and Hoa‟s (2007) In the research entiled “A Vietnamese – English cross cultural study on the use of hedging in dispraising”, Sinh (2004) studies and contrasts the use of 10 hedging strategies in dispraising in every day verbal interaction between Vietnamese and English In this study, the author designs the survey questionnaires including 4 groups of situations, namely appearance, character, social interaction, and work relationship The informants are requested to verbally dispraise the following people: close friend, a person they dislike, colleague (opposite sex), colleague (same sex), acquaintance, brother/sister, aunt/uncle, boss (younger), boss (older) The findings of the survey reveal that both groups of informants show their dominant
preference to “showing tentativeness and mitigation” and “keeping silent” And the
Trang 29Vietnamese informants are more sensitive than the Anglicist ones to “keeping silent” but less so sensitive to “showing tentativeness and mitigation” The present research benefits a
lot from this study in the way to carry out the survey, to collect the data and to analyze the data
In the study entitled “Criticizing and responding to criticism in a foreign language:
A study of Vietnamese learners of English”, Minh (2005) examines pragmatic development in the use of criticizing and responding to criticism by a group of Vietnamese EFL learners with a view to shedding light on the pragmatic properties of these speech acts She discusses how pragmatic transfer has a great impact on EFL learners and she finds out that the learners of English criticize and respond to criticism very differently from the native speakers This is because of the effect of pragmatic transfer in the learners‟production Obviously, the learners‟perception of their first languages affects their foreign language learning
Whereas, Hoa (2007) investigates criticism in cross-cultural perspective She studies
on the similarities and differences in criticizing behaviors by the Vietnamese and American people focusing on three aspects: the topics of critics, factors affecting criticizing behavior, and the frequency of criticism She finds out the most striking difference between two groups
of people that American criticize considerably less than their Vietnamese counterparts, on all topics, to people of all relationships This consolidates the fact that Americans highly value
individualism, the central characteristics of which being “non-interference”,“privacy”, and
“self-face concern” The results of the survey reveal certain differences between the two
cultures in criticizing behavior To the Vietnamese, the goal of criticizing, the age of the H, and the severity of offence are the most important factors, whereas to the Americans the setting of the criticism, the distance between themselves and the H, and effect of criticism on the relationship between themselves and the H rank above all other factors The differences may stem from the influence of the Confucian ideology on the traditional Vietnamese society
which emphasizes “hierarchical respect, seniority, age, rank and title” The investigation
into the criticism areas also reveals some similarities and differences between the Vietnamese and American informants Although there is a slight difference in the order, the list of seven most frequently criticized topics by the Vietnamese almost match with that of the Americans However, statistically significant differences are found with four topics: Important Choices in Life, Choice of Life Partner, Behavior at Home and Religious Beliefs
Trang 30Despite different approaches to the field, the researchers share the same viewpoint that speech act of criticizing is a highly demanding and face –threatening act in human interaction specified obviously the relationship between H and S Thanks to their great contribution, we have a deeper understanding of the field However, the sensitive speech act still requires a lot of approaching reseachers‟ efforts Therefore, the listed studies set foundations for future reseaches.
2.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON DISJUNCTS AS HEDGES FROM PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE
Not many authors carry out researches on disjuncts separately Disjuncts are often viewed as one part in hedging studies by some foreign authors There still requires the attention of Vietnamese authors in this subject matter
One foreign author whose findings are very significant and benifical for other researchers in the field is Nikula (1997) He studies about disjuncts as hedges to soften criticisms In this research, the author finds out one of the ways to lessen criticisms is using disjuncts in order to make the criticisms more acceptable to the interlocutor Criticisms are often hedged because in an unhedged form they might sound threatening to the hearer and therefore be likely to be rejected This becomes clear when considering the following examples of criticism:
You are mistaken
Frankly, you are mistaken
The second example contains the disjunct “frankly” used as a hedge This
helps to mitigate the content of the utterance thus making it less threatening to the hearer
As can be seen, hedging is closely related to politeness When we hedge our utterances in order not to sound too direct or rude, we are performing “facework”
From pragmatic perspective, Salager-Mayer (1994,1997), Chan Swee Heng and Helen Tan (2002) state that disjuncts can be assumed as adverbial hedging:
For example: Generally, girls are more eloquent speakers compared to boys In these
studies, the authors find out one thing in common that disjuncts can be used as a po liteness strategy to reduce the force of the utterances so that FTAs can be lessened or avoided
Despite different approaches on disjuncts, the use of disjuncts as hedges can be seen as a positive politeness strategy If we assume that hedging is conditioned by the
Trang 31speaker‟s wish to tone down his criticism or dispraise, it can verify a view that hedging can
be taken as a token of politeness And hedges are used as positive politeness makers to blur the speaker‟s intent in mitigating and reducing the FTAs of criticizing or dispraising
2.3 CONCLUDING REMARKS
All the authors share the same view that in real-life communication, the speech act
of criticizing has proven to be composed of different speech acts and of great risk of causing FTA That how to avoid or mitigate the criticisms in order to save H‟s face and maintain the conversation is still a demanding matter Therefore, criticism and its interrelation with hedges are still under- investigated from different perspectives
As the result, a comparison between criticizing performance by the Vietnamese and the English is necessary not only because of its implications for language teaching and learning but also for cross-cultural understanding which constitutes an important condition for successful cross-cultural communication between peoples of the two cultures
Trang 32CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
This chapter deals with all the matters related to methodology applied to get the
final findings of the study, namely research question, research approach (Contrastive Analysis - CA), data collection method (survey questionnaire), data collection procedure, and data analytical units/parameters
CA is a linguistic enterprise aimed at producing inverted (i.e contrastive, not comparative) two-valued typologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on the assumption that languages can be compared
CA is defined, according to him, as a form of interlanguage study and a central concern of applied linguistics As a matter of fact, CA has had much to offer not only to practical language teaching, but also to translation theory, the description of particular languages, language typology and the study of language universals In relation to bilingualism, CA is concerned with how a monolingual becomes bilingual; in other words,
it is concerned with the effects exerted by the first language (L1) on the foreign language being learnt (L2) Thus, CA has been a preferable method used by Vietnamese linguists in recent years as it enables them to contrast Vietnamese with other languages not only of the same typologies, but also of different ones It also helps bring out many interesting differences and similarities between languages, which make a great contribution to lightening the language teaching and learning burden
It has been suggested that there are two kinds of CA.: theoretical and applied ones
According to James (1980:142, theoretical CA.s “do not investigate how a given category
present in language A is presented in language B Instead they look for the realization of a universal category X in both A and B.” Meanwhile, applied CAs are “preoccupied with the problem of how a universal category X, realized in language A as Y, is rendered in
Trang 33language B.” That means applied CAs are unindirectional whereas theoretical CAs are
static, because they do not need to reflect any directionality of learning, which is illustrated
in the following diagram:
Figure 2 Theoretical CAs and Applied CAs
In this study, applied CA.will be considered a means of measuring the similarities and differences in the choice of hedging strategies between the Northern Vietnamese learners of English and the Southern English native speakers Because according to James (1980), applied CAs are interpretations of theoretical CAs rather than independent executions, since an applied CA executed independently is liable to lose its objectivity; that is, its predictions will tend to be based on teachers‟ experience of learners‟ difficulties rather than derived from linguistic analysis
Furthermore, mentioning to learning theory, particularly the theory of “transfer”- a term used by psychologists in their account of the way in which present learning is affected
by past learning, Lado (1957:2)states,
“ individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of
forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture – both productively when attempting to speak the language and to act
in the culture, and receptively when attempting to grasp and to understand the language and culture as practiced by natives.”
In fact, there are two types of transfer, namely “positive transfer” (or “facilitation”) and “negative transfer” (or “interference”), which may occur during the process of
learning language by learners who have already attained considerable degrees of competence in their first language:
- “Positive transfer” (or “facilitation”): the transfer makes learning easier and may
occur when both the first language and second language have similar features
- “Negative transfer” (or “interference”): the constraint of L1 or the borrowing
of a first language pattern or rule leads to an error or appropriate form in the foreign language
Trang 34Therefore, to gain the effective teaching and learning of the L2, it is necessary for teachers to recognize the potential transfer problem areas and integrate strategies that would help the learner to overcome difficulties and to avoid errors attributed to these transfer problem areas
Considering that learning difficulty and differences between L1 and L2 are directly
and proportionally related, Lado (1957:1-2) suggests, “the student who comes in contact
with a foreign language will find some features of it quite easy and others extremely difficult Those elements that are similar to his native language will be simple for him and those elements that are different will be difficult.”
However, James (1980) argues that learners will have more difficulties in learning the language when the source and the target languages are relatively similar rather than
when they are different Moreover, he concludes that “different” or “exotic” languages may
not be difficult to learn, for L1 and L2 are so far apart that there is a very little or no L1 interference Supporting that point of view, Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis claimed that the principal barrier to second language acquisition is the interference of the first language systems with the second language system and that a scientific, structural analysis of the two languages in question will yield a taxonomy of linguistic contrasts between them which in turn would enable linguists to predict the difficulties a learner would encounter
Apart from that, human learning theories highlighted interfering elements of learning, concluding that where no interference could be predicted, no difficulty would be experienced since one could transfer positively all other items in a language Lado (1957:
vii) in the preface to his book “Linguistics Across Culture” says: “The Plan of the book
rests on the assumption that we can predict and describe the patterns that will cause difficulties in learning, and those that will not cause difficulty by comparing systematically the language and the culture to be learned with the native language and culture of the students.” Then in Chapter One of the book, he continues: “ in the comparison between native and foreign languages lies in the key to ease or difficulty in foreign language learning.”
Dunnet et al suggest six aspects of culture that learners and teachers should be familiar with:
(i) Languages cannot be translated word-for-word … (ii) The tone of a speaker's voice (the intonation pattern) carries meaning… (iii) Each language-culture employs gestures and
Trang 35body movements which convey meaning… (iv)…languages use different grammatical elements for describing all parts of the physical world (v) All cultures have taboo topics… (vi) In personal relationships, the terms for addressing people vary considerably among languages (1986, 148-149)
As the matter of fact, Vietnamese learners of English are affected by culture transfer which is the cultural interference caused by cultural difference, according to Yan Zhou (2008) Generally speaking, it means that in culture communication, people use their own culture rules and values to guide their words and deeds, even thoughts Therefore, there surely exists the differences
in criticizing between the Vietnamese learners of English and the native ones This study aims at clarifying how similarly and differently the targeted informants treat in the same situations of criticism
3.3 DATA COLLECTION METHOD: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
Data is collected from survey questionnaires because of some advantages over the
some other types of survey in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the
questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized answers that make
it simple to compile data
The author designs only one version of survey questionnaire The survey is
conducted with 30 chosen Vietnamese learners of English and 30 Southern English
speakers who are asked to give their specific utterances when they have to criticize in
specific situations and under certain variables To collect data for analysis, Metapragmatic
Questionnaire (MPQ) is designed MPQ consists of two parts in which part 1 is getting
general information about the informants and part 2 is getting to know how native English
and Vietnamese learners of English use disjuncts as hedges in mitigating criticism in each
situation While part 1 helps provide the author with the data related to
informants‟parameters, part 2 provides the author with statistical data of using disjuncts in
terms of comminucating parameters in each situation of criticizing In the second part, 5
situations with open- ended questions are designed to elicit the use of disjuncts as hedges
and the linguistic form of criticisms
The questionnaires are delivered directly to 30 Northern Vietnamese learners of English and to 30 English people through e-mails Data analysis methods are both quantitative and qualitative The collected data of informants using attitudinal or style disjuncts or making no criticism will be converted into correlative percentage and analyzed
Trang 36quantitatively in comparing and contrasting techniques to find out the similarities and differences in the ways the Northern Vietnamese learners of English and the Southern English native speakers perform the act of criticizing using hedges as a politeness strategy Moreover, sharings and explanations in informants‟ responses to the open-ended questions
in the questionnaires are qualitatively stated
The targeted populations are Vietnamese and English native speakers who are living in their own cultures In order to draw conclusions about the similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and English express criticism in their own language, the author has to examine samples
Sampling is the crucial methodological issue in survey research because it affects
the result which can be drawn from the study The author is fully aware of the importance
of a sample which is adequately representative the population the researcher aims at Therefore, the author uses probability sampling for its reliable result Probability sampling involves selecting a sample that we know the probability that each element has been selected Simple random sampling is used in this study to ensure that the essential characteristics of the sample are like those of the population Informants‟ parameters and communicating partners‟ parameters are considered to give a good sample Informants‟ parameters are supposed to affect the strategies they use However, the degree of influence will be proved after analyzing the data
3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT
Data is collected by meeting Vietnamese people directly and sending the English people emails Finally, 60 survey questionnaires including 30 in Vietnamese and 30 in English have been selected for analysis
3.5 DATA COLLECTING PROCEDURES
The research sites are Hoa Binh province in Vietnam and the Southern England, in which places 30 Vietnamese and 30 other English informants are living, studying and working Data is collected by meeting Vietnamese people directly and sending the English people emails Finally, 60 survey questionnaires including 30 in Vietnamese and 30 in English have been selected for analysis
3.6 DATA ANALYSIS UNITS/ PARAMETERS
This research is to investigate some major Vietnamese – English differences and similarities in using disjuncts as hedges to mitigate criticisms In order to collect sufficient