a cross cultural study on expressing satisfaction in american english and vietnamese = nghiên cứu giao thoa văn hóa việt- mỹ trong cách thức diễn tả sự hài lòng

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON EXPRESSING SATISFA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON EXPRESSING SATISFACTION IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE

(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT- MỸ TRONG CÁCH THỨC DIỄN TẢ SỰ HÀI LÕNG)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDY

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON EXPRESSING SATISFACTION IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND

VIETNAMESE

TRONG CÁCH THỨC DIỄN TẢ SỰ HÀI LÕNG)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD

Hanoi, 2013

i

DECLARATION

I certify that this thesis entitled: “A cross- cultural study on expressing satisfaction

in American English and Vietnamese”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, is the result of my own work I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other formal course of study

Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh

Hanoi, 2013

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr Huynh Anh Tuan, PhD, my supervisor, for his valuable guidance, his instructive comments and his dutiful supervision, without which this thesis would be far from completed

I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to all of the lecturers at HULIS- VNU, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm in their lectures During the process of implementing the research, they have created the favorable conditions for me, not only in terms of accessing to essential materials but also by the heart-warming encouragement

I also take this opportunity to express my immense thankfulness to my friends and classmates, who have always stayed by my side, given me constructive comments and perked me up every time I need Particularly I want to say a special thanks to two friends of mine, who are all living and studying in the U.S for their invaluable help in distributing the survey questionnaire They are Le Huong Ly and Nguyen Thi Lien Huong

I cannot forget to acknowledge the important contributions of both Vietnamese and American informants, whose names cannot be mentioned in the thesis

Finally, I would like to express my enormous debt to my parents for their continual encouragement and immeasurable support

iii

ABSTRACT

Based on the theoretical background of cross- cultural communication, this study aims at investigating the similarities and differences in expressing satisfaction towards different co- interactants in the Vietnamese and American language and culture It focuses primarily on:

 The popularity of strategies of expressing satisfaction employed

 The use of directness and indirectness in expressing satisfaction

To succeed in doing such a research, the author of the study takes informants’ social parameters such as age, sex, marital status, living area, and knowledge of foreign language(s) into consideration Besides, their survey responses are carefully analyzed to build a frame, a common set of strategies in the field

The conclusion is drawn from data analysis and findings are presented and compared in a brief and concise way Some common expressing satisfaction patterns in both Vietnamese and American cultures from the data are also presented and illustrated with the hope of partially helping avoid cultural conflicts or communicating breakdowns

iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1:The five general functions of speech acts (Yule)

Table 2: Number of informants with their status parameters

Table 3:D-ID in the situations under study (in Vietnamese)

Table 4: Use of D-ID as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟ parameters Table 5:D-ID in the situations under study (in American)

Table 6:Use of D-ID as seen from American communicating partners‟ parameters Table 7:Use of D-ID as seen from Vietnamese informants‟ parameters

Table 8:Use of D-ID as seen from American informants‟ parameters

Table 9:Use of strategies as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟

parameters Table 10:Use of strategies as seen from American communicating partners‟

parameters Figure 1: Ferrando‟s diagram of culture

Figure 2: Nguyen Quang‟s diagram of components of communication

Figure 3: Areas of language knowledge (Bachman and Palmer, 1996:68)

Figure 4:: Bach and Harnish‟s classification of speech acts (1979)

Figure 5 : Possible strategies for doing FTAs

Figure 6: Nguyen Quang‟s schema of possible strategies for doing FTAs

Figure 7: Kaplan‟s diagram

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Methods of the study 3

5 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review 5

I Theoretical background 5

1 Culture and communication 5

1.1 Culture 5

1.2 Communication 9

1.3 Culture- communication correlation 12

1.4 Cross- cultural communication 13

1.5 Communicative competence 16

2 Cross- cultural pragmatics 19

3 Speech acts 21

3.1 The notion of speech acts 21

3.2 Classification of speech acts 22

3.3 Expressing satisfaction as a speech acts 25

4 Politeness 26

4.1 Face and politeness 26

4.1.1 Face 26

4.1.2 Politeness 28

4.2 Positive politeness strategies 30

4.3 Negative politeness strategies 33

vi

5 Directness and indirectness 35

5.1 Directness and indirectness defined 35

5.2 Levels of indirectness 37

5.3 Directness and indirectness in correlation with politeness 39

5.4 Social factors influencing the use of directness and indirectness in human interaction 41

Chapter 2: Methodology 44

1 Research questions 44

2 Data collection instruments 44

2.1 The questionnaire 44

2.2 The informants 46

3 Data collection and analysis method 47

Chapter 3: Data analysis: Findings and discussion 48

1 Data analysis of D- ID in expressing satisfaction 48

1.1 D-ID strategies in expressing satisfaction 48

1.2 Use of D- ID as seen from communicating partners’ parameters 50

1.2.1 Vietnamese findings 50

1.2.2 American findings 51

1.2.3 Similarities and differences 53

1.3 Use of D-ID as seen from informants’ parameters 55

1.3.1 Vietnamese findings 55

1.3.2 American findings 56

1.3.3 Similarities and differences 57

2 Data analysis of strategies in expressing satisfaction (SES) 59

2.1 Strategies in expressing satisfaction 59

2.2 Realization of SESs in Vietnamese 60

2.2.1 Realization of SESs in Vietnamese as seen from co- interactants’

parameters 60

2.2.2 Realization of SESs in Vietnamese as seen from informants’ parameters 71

2.3 Realization of SESs in English 76

vii

2.3.1 Realization of SESs in English as seen from co- interactants’ parameter 76

2.3.2 Realization of SESs in English as seen from informants’ parameters 85

2.4 Similarities and differences 90

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study 93

2 Limitations of the study 95

3 Suggestions for further study 96

REFERENCES 97 APPENDICES I

In the Vietnamese context, as a result of the open policies and a lot of encouragement and support from society, the needs of learning English have also been magnified However, for the sake of examination, the real purpose of learning English has been somehow distorted A long time ago, the method of English teaching at school was Grammar- Translation Method with the stress on grammatical points Up till now, thanks to the attentive researches from language teachers and educators, the pendulum of English language teaching has swung to communicative approach Acquiring a new language means a lot more than the manipulation of syntax and lexicon Language is not just a system of sounds, words and grammatical structures in isolation, yet it is seen as a system of communication existing in a community The goal of language teaching is, therefore assumed to be learners’ ability to communicate in the target language

As a matter of fact, to attain the good command of communication, culture learning

apparently becomes indispensable Brembeck (1977) noted that, “To know another‟s language and not his culture is a way to make a fluent fool of oneself” It is the

same in the case of teaching and learning English In order to help learners achieve communicative competence, we have to pay close attention to culture awareness and acquisition That dialectical connection has always been a concern of researchers and from time to time it has received more and more agreement Thomas (1983) states that the lack of socio linguistic competence results in rudeness, miscommunication or even communication breakdown because non - native speakers’ inappropriate use of cultural norms and conventions are considered

2

as manifestation of “impoliteness or unfriendliness” due to “boorishness or ill will” rather than lack of pragmatic knowledge Accordingly, culture learning no longer remains humble and unnecessary in the syllabus In contrast, it needs to be taken in great consideration and concentration Succeeding this point of view, Nguyen

Quang (1998) came to the conclusion that, “One cannot master a language without profound awareness of its cultural background and in both verbal and non-verbal communication, culture makes itself strongly felt.” A learner can truly master

English only when he is able to hold a good understanding of the intertwined relationship between culture and language

Recognizing the intertwined relationship between culture and language, the

researcher would like to carry out a small-scale study on Expressing satisfaction as

a speech act, which is viewed in the light of Politeness (Positive politeness- negative politeness) in English and Vietnamese Due to the limit of the paper, she would not be able to deal with all aspects but draw some differences and similarities

in expressing satisfaction in the two languages It is hoped that the study may contribute some help to learners to avoid culture shock and failures in expressing satisfaction as well as in inter-cultural communication

2 Aims of the study

The study focuses to achieve the following aims:

- To have a thorough examination in the similarities and differences in directness and indirectness strategies of expressing satisfaction by Vietnamese and English informants, whereby to find out some similarities and differences in politeness strategies of expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese

- to find out factors that affects the choice of politeness strategies when expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese

- to raise awareness of cross-cultural factors in expressing satisfaction and help learners of English avoid cultural shock in -cultural communication

3

3 Scope of the study

The paper investigates expressing satisfaction as a speech act in English and Vietnamese Expressing satisfaction will be analyzed in accordance with verbal cues And the study focuses on the dimension of Politeness (Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness), as well as Directness- Indirectness

Due to the limitation of time and material, the study only concentrates on investigating strategies of expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese in some certain situations together with some typical socio- cultural factors among various ones governing the choice of politeness strategies

Besides, the number of informants is limited: 30 informants from the U.S and 30 informants from Vietnam (Northern Vietnam)

4 Methods of the study

Within the length of this study, quantitative method will be primarily deployed Qualitative remarks, assumptions and conclusions of the study will be mainly based

on the quantitative contrastive analysis of data

With a view to the data collection methods, the one and only tool that helps the researcher get hold of the statistics and responses is questionnaires Specifically, there are two questionnaires delivered to Vietnamese and American informants, one

is Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ) and another is Discourse Completion Task (DCT) One one hand, MPQ is designed to test the validity and reliability of 12 situations in 3 activity areas: at home, at work and in public places On the other hand, DCT which was logically and emperically valiadated before it is used as a data collection instrument is employed as the tool to analyze negative and positive strategies as well as the use of directness/ indirectness in some certain situations

5 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts:

4

Part A: Introduction

The rationale, aims, scope of the study, methods are presented in this part

Part B: Development

This is the main part of the study which is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

Chapter 2: Literature review

Chapter 3: Methodology

Chapter 4: Data analysis: Findings and Discussions

In the first chapter, in order to lay the basis for the study, some definitions and theories about culture, communication and speech acts will be covered Following is the methodology of the research in which the author has in-depth discussions about the questionnaires and the informants After that, the second chapter follows the thread with the contrastive analysis of data

Part 3: Conclusion

In this part, the major findings are summarized, conclusions drawn and suggestions for further study made

5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review

I Theoretical background

1 Culture and communication

1.1 Culture

The term “culture” has been defined by many scholars from time to time It may

not be an exaggeration to say that there are nearly as many definitions of culture as there are fields of inquiry into human beings

In its simplest meaning, culture is thought to be something non-natural or ordinary-

it is the everyday life, something people think, wear, eat or speak, etc However, the definition of culture is wider than those above, as seen from the scientific view

Richards (1993: 94) defines culture as “the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behaviors, social habits, etc of the members of a particular society.” Culture in its

broad sense covers all aspects of human life It includes both material culture- physical artifacts or objects like “ao dai”, vases, pagodas and nonmaterial culture- abstract creation like symbols, norms, customs or values

However, it must be noted that “the essence of culture is not its artifacts, tools or other tangible culture elements but how the members of the group interpret, use and perceive them.” (Banks, 1999) Therefore, Ferraro (1995:16) (cited in lecture notes

by Nguyen Quang) gives the definition: “Culture is everything that people have, think or do as a member of a society.”

6

Figure 1: Ferrando‟s diagram of culture

Thus, culture refers to the patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts and behaviors in the same ways In other words, culture provides the fabric that enables human beings to interpret their experiences, and guides their actions Culture gives them a common framework of meaning and, hence, allows them to know what they can expect of others and what others can expect of them For example, in the Vietnamese culture, when a compliment is given, a denial is expected Meanwhile,

in America, a “thank you” is expected

Within the limitation of the paper, the definition offered by Levine and Adelman (1993) is chosen to be the most appropriate one

Culture is a shared background (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes and values

As condensed and precise it turns out, this definition emphasizes the importance of language in the way that it is the chief vehicle by which people communicate ideas among each other and the principal means by which human beings have created culture and transmit it from generation to generation

2 Culture is transmissible

In all cultures, symbols act as the physical existence of cultural elements and they are the means by which culture is passed along from generation to generation Symbols include objects, words and acts which have come to be socially accepted

as standing for something else; people use symbols to spread culture, and thanks to this, culture is learned Through day-to-day interaction, people learn and transmit culture The more people acquire knowledge of culture, the more widely and deeply culture is transmitted Herein, it is observable that the first characteristic of culture leads to the second one

From this point of view, O’ Neilstates: “All culture knowledge does not perpetually accumulate At the same time that new cultural traits are added, some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful”

8

(http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_2.htm, Retrieved 31 December, 2012) That is, processes leading to change include invention and cultural loss Invention brings new items while cultural loss seems to be an inevitable result of old patterns being replaced by the other new ones

It is noted that new cultural traits are added not only due to the invention or discovery of absolutely new tools, practices or concepts but also due to the diffusion

of traits Diffusion occurs when the influence of one culture is spread to one another

4 Culture is selective

According to Clinfford Geertz (1973), culture is a set of standardized orientation to recurrent problems and a mechanism for the normative of behavior That is, each culture selects a configuration of dos and don’ts, rights and wrongs It defines the limit of behavior patterns and, therefore, distinguishes one human group from another based on the typical features of each For example, American people appreciate individualism while Vietnamese people are group- oriented Obviously, the selectivity of culture makes up the uniqueness in each one

Actually, the selectivity is carried out every time, everyday and throughout the whole history of culture whenever a certain thing or perception is created, accepted, changed or left behind

5 Facets of culture are interrelated

As culture is a complex whole, cultural elements do not exist separately They are integrated and interdependent Within a culture, when one thing is touched, everything else is affected For instance, when women in some Muslim countries are allowed to go out with no veil, they have more chances to contact the outside world and improve their knowledge They can take part in social activities, thus, their status in society is improved

9

6 Culture is ethnocentric

Ethnocentrism is the viewpoint that one’s ethnic group is the centre of everything, against which all other groups are judged More specifically, one group sees it as superior and rates others based on its own measures Ethnocentrism leads people to reject alien ideas or things as addressed unnatural It is normal that a group considers its way of life the only right one and somehow unleash scorn for the others’ ways Take the following case as an example Asian people find it unacceptable for Western ones to leave their parents in old- aged institutions In contrast, Western people regard children upbringing in Asian countries as spoiled and negative because it does not give children much independence to grow Ethnocentrism therefore is a factor of resistance to change It maintains ethnic lines despite transculturation To some extent, this characteristic seems to be on the contrary to the third one However, conflict propels life and it is their co-existence that ensures the equilibrium of the development of culture

To sum it up, human life and culture are inextricably connected Our ways of life form culture and culture affords use a kind of map for finding our way about life

1.2 Communication

From the dawn of human civilization till now, communication has been playing the primary role in our lives It takes places in almost every human action and accounts for most of our lifetime Recognizing that phenomenal function of communication and how broad the term denotes, a lot of researchers have attempted to reason the definition of it

At the first glance, there is the definition from S Hybels and Weaver (1992), which

proposes: “Communication is any process in which people share information, ideas, and feelings that involve not only the spoken and written words but also body language, personal mannerism and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message.”

10

It is understood that communication refers to the process of exchanging information During that process, information is enclosed in a package and is channeled and imparted by a sender to a receiver via a medium Herein, “medium” covers not only verbal means such as speech, song, tone of voice, etc but also nonverbal means such as body language, sign language, touch, eye contact and even writing Going further, Williams (1989: 10) defines communication in more details:

“Communication refers to:

(1) The exchange of symbols, common messages, information

(2) The process of exchange between individuals through a common system of symbols

(3) The art of expressing ideas

(4) The science of transmitting information”

Generally, communication can be viewed as “the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behavior” (Levine and Adelman, 1993) To attain a

closer look at communication and its system, the diagram designed byNguyen Quang (2002) as stated following may serve a great help

- Vocal inferences

- silence

Extralanguage Paralanguage

Objective language (artifacts)

Body language (action language,

kinesics)

- Setting

- Conversational distance/ proxemics

“You’re really smart” Later, we interact with our friends, teachers, colleagues who communicate their views of us Their messages help us form and enhance our sense

of self Also, the Social being’s need to be connected is met by communication

because “Communication is a key foundation of relationships We build connections with others by revealing our private identities, asking questions and listening to answers, working out problems, remembering shared history, and planning a future.” (Wood, 1998) Hence, no one can live as a human being without

communication This has been proved by the case of a child brought up by wolves

in the jungle who lived and behaved as real wolves and hardly had any concept of themselves as a human In brief, communication is a vital part of human life Without communication, people would stagnate and our society would not exist anymore

1.3 Culture- communication correlation

As culture and communication - the two terms has been cracked thoroughly, another issue that comes to light is the relationship between them Needless to say, culture is implicitly and inextricably related to communication As Samovar and Jain (1981) insightfully remarks:

“Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various massages may or may not to

be sent, noticed or interpreted Culture is the foundation of communication.”

13

Decoding from this comment, culture is meant to determine the way people communicate For instance, when an American sees a bus coming, he always uses the present progressive (“The bus is coming”) while his Japanese fellow chooses the present perfect tense to express (“The bus has come”) Another example is, western people tend to start their conversation with the topic of the weather while eastern people, especially the Vietnamese prefer to talk about personal life such as marriage, family and so on Thus, the principles of communication are culturally affected or communication practices are largely created, shaped and transmitted by culture

However, the relationship between culture and communication is not just one-sided The reverse is also the case; that is, culture is created through communication Communication, in this light, is the means of human interaction through which cultural characteristics- whether customs, roles, rules, rituals, laws, or other patterns- are created and shared It is not so much that individuals set out to create a culture when they interact in relationships, groups, organizations, or societies, but rather that culture is a natural by- product of social interaction In a sense, culture is the “residue” of social communication For example, from early ages, children are told to say “thank you” by parents when being given present That is a way children learn about politeness through communication

Overall, culture and communication cannot be separated “for as soon as we start to talk about one, we are almost inevitably talking about the other” (Condon and

Yousef, 1975) They interact and assist each other in any circumstances It is true that, communication shapes culture and conversely culture shapes communication

1.4 Cross - cultural communication

As seen from the previous parts, culture shapes communication and ways of interpreting communication Thus, there is high likelihood that problems arise when people from different cultures communicate with each other That is the reason for the terms “cross- cultural communication” comes to life

14

Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied linguistics gives the

definition of cross-cultural communication simply as “an exchange of ideas, information, etc between people from different background”(1992:92)

In a broader sense, Cross- cultural communication is “communication (verbal and non-verbal) between people from different cultures; communication that is influenced by cultural values, attitudes and behavior; the influence of culture on people‟s reactions and responses to each other” (Levine and Adelman, 1993)

It is understandable that when cross- cultural communication occurs, many difficulties, misunderstandings or communication failures may happen because people of different backgrounds have different communicating styles They often interpret others’ speech according to their own cultural convention and they tend to use their own culture to value others If the cultural values of the speakers are widely different, misinterpretations and misunderstandings can arise and even result

in a total breakdown of communication This can also lead to confusion, anger, disappointment and culture shock as an inevitable consequence

An interesting example is, in a party where there are a lot of guests from different countries in the world A Vietnamese lady wearing such an attractive dress enters the room An American man immediately notices her and as a pretext to approach the girl, he comments, “Wow! You look so sexy in that dress “To his surprise, her face flushes tomato red and she tries to shun him during the party This is a typical example of communication breakdown due to lack of cultural knowledge In American culture, especially among the young, saying that someone is sexy is merely a compliment However, in Vietnamese culture, it is still a taboo to say so and people find it hard to accept a compliment relating to sex

Undoubtedly, cultural differences are the source of difficulties and failures in cultural communication Only with awareness of cultural differences can people keep their communication smooth and easy In other words, knowledge is the key to effective cross- cultural communication First, it is essential that people understand

cross-15

the potential problems of cross- cultural communication, and make a conscious effort to overcome those problems Second, it is also important to assume that one’s efforts will not always successful; hence, they need to adjust behaviors appropriately

Very often, there are a lot of cases in which people misuse the two terms

“intercultural communication” and “cross- cultural communication” Thus, it is essential to distinguish and draw a clear line between them

Everyone in this world is one way or another influenced or affected by culture We all have different interpretation of one’s culture due to diversification, racial or even physical location We can come up with various views, perception or image regarding one’s culture just by having a glimpse of that particular person This in turn will affect the communication between each other creating a positive or negative image of a particular person One without the knowledge of intercultural and cross- cultural communication is like an “irregular-shaped ball”- hard to handle and understand while playing with it and thus it will lead to barriers to effective communication According to Samoar and Porter (1991:10), “intercultural communication occurs whenever a message is produced by a member of one culture for consumption by a member of another culture, a message must be understood”

As a separate notion, it studies situations where people from different cultural background interact While on the other hand, cross- cultural communication “is a process of exchanging, negotiating, and mediating one’s cultural differences through language, non- verbal gestures, and space relationships” (Clarke and Sanchez, 2001) Having culture as a common shared word, both terms still stands with a different meaning Whereby, in a nutshell, “intercultural communication involves face-to-face communication between people from different cultures while cross- cultural communication involves comparison of face-to-face communication” (Gudykunst and Mody, 2002)

16

To sum it up, in order to communicate with people from different countries successfully, people should enrich their own knowledge of other cultures and have a receptive attitude towards cultural differences Only then, cross- cultural communication will be a joyful experience which provides opportunity for people to broaden their mind to the world

1.5 Communicative competence

For most people communication is simply talk It is a natural event and happens almost every single minute all over the world Nevertheless, it is important to note that communication does not mean to be a merely simple action, for lying beneath every transaction of communication, a goal is attached together When we communicate, we transmit (as by speech, signals, writing or behavior) information (thoughts and emotions) so that it is satisfactorily understood Human beings do not exchange data- we understand information Communication, therefore, refers to the

process as “sharing meaning” and to some extent; communication is defined as “the management of messages for the purpose of creating meaning”

In other words, the goal of communication is shared meaning which leads to effective decision making and problem- solving But how does one determine the effectiveness and appropriateness of any given interaction? And even more important, how do we know if communication is competent?

In order to provide an answer to those questions, “communicative competence” was coined and gradually becomes a common term

The idea of communicative competence is originally derived from Chomsky (1965)

’s distinction between competence and performance By competence, Chomsky means the shared knowledge of the ideal speaker- learner set in a completely homogenous speech community Performance, on the other hand, is concerned with the process of applying the underlying knowledge to the actual language use, commonly stated as encoding and decoding (Hymes,1972)

17

Hymes finds Chomsky’s distinction of competence and performance too narrow to describe language behavior as a whole Hymes believes that Chomsky’s view of competence is too idealized to describe actual language behavior, and therefore his view of performance is an incomplete reflection of competence For Hymes, Chomsky’s linguistic theory represents a “Garden of Eden” viewpoint that dismisses central questions of use in the area of performance

He believes that we should be concerned with performance, which he defines as the actual use of language in a concrete situation Hymes deems it necessary to distinguish between two kinds of competence: linguistic competence that deals with producing and understanding grammatically correct sentences, and communicative competence that deals with producing and understanding sentences that are appropriate and acceptable to a particular situation Thus Hymes coins a term

“communicative competence” and defines it as “a knowledge of the rules for understanding and producing both the referential and social meaning of language”

Without a doubt, Hymes’ viewpoint in communicative competence theory resonates

so well with the need of cross- cultural communication knowledge A good command of English grammar, lexis and phonology is helpful but this along is not enough People should bear in mind that things such as “the place of silence, appropriate topics of conversation, forms of address and expression of speech acts” are different across cultures and for some time, these primarily decide the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication and inter-cultural communication

Some years later, Bachman (1990) suggested using the term “communicative language ability” instead, claiming that this term combines in itself the meaning of both language proficiency and communicative competence Leaning especially on Hymes, Widdowson and Candlin, Bachman defined communicative language ability as a concept comprised of knowledge or competence and capacity for appropriate use of knowledge in a contextual communicative language use

18

Inside the indication of communicate competence, there are many components enclosed In Richard’s opinion, they namely are:

Knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the language

Knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g knowing how to begin and end conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types of speech events, knowing which address forms should be used with different people one speaks to and in different situations

Knowing how to use and respond to different types of speech acts, such as requests, apologies, thanks and invitations

Knowing how to use language appropriately

In a brief and clear- cut form, Saville- Troike (1915:22) proposes three major components of communicative competence as following:

According to Canale and Swain (1983:4), communicative competence consists of four elements:

figure:

Figure 3: Areas of language knowledge (Bachman and Palmer, 1996:68)

In conclusion, communicative competence should be a final goal in foreign

language teaching and learning To be a successful cross- cultural communicator one should pay due attention to both correctness and appropriateness

2 Cross- cultural pragmatics

As a field of language study, pragmatics is fairly new compared to other subjects Its origins lie in philosophy of language and the American philosophical school of pragmatism As a discipline within language science, its roots lie in the work of

20

(Herbert) Paul Grice on conversational implicature and the cooperative principle, and on the work of Stephen Levinson, Penelope Brown and Geoff Leech on politeness In a simple sense, pragmatics is a systematic way of explaining language

in context It seeks to explain aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain

sense of words or structures, as explained by semantics

Yule (1985:3) claimed that, “Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, of contextual meaning, of how more gets communicated than is said, and finally, of the expression of relative distance.” As for Yule, in pragmatics, meaning is strongly believed to be in focus, and it is the very linguistic comprehension employed in communication that makes pragmatics appealing Meanwhile, Semantics stresses on how words literally connect to things and whether the relationship between verbal descriptions and states of affairs in the word is true or not, regardless of understanding in the process of communication

Sharing the same viewpoint, Kasper (cf Crystal, 1996:309) defined pragmatics as

“…the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects the use of language has on other participants in the act of communication.”

This way of definition is also clarified in Richard’s study (1992:284):

Pragmatics includes the study of:

1 How the interpretation and use of utterances depend on knowledge of the real world

2 How speakers use and understand speech acts

3 How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the hearer

Speech acts is not the whole of pragmatics but perhaps, is recently the most important established part of the subject As can be seen from the above scope of

21

pragmatics, the study of speech acts greatly plays cause to the success in language use and the relationship between communicating partners poses somewhat impact

on the overall comprehension during the conversation

More importantly, as Wierzbicka (1991:25) states, “every culture has its own repertoire of characteristic speech acts and speech genre” and “different cultures find expression in different systems of speech acts and different speech acts become entrenched, and to some extent, codified in different languages” The study of speech acts and the interrelationship among speech acts, language, culture and the study of how various speech acts are employed by different communities across different cultures contribute to a major field in pragmatic analysis, i.e cross- cultural pragmatics Cross- cultural pragmatics has attracted great concern from researchers since culturally coloured interaction styles create culturally determined expectations in interpretative strategies, and can also lead to breakdown in interethnic and cross- cultural communication

3 Speech acts

First mentioned by John Austin in 1962, the term “Speech acts” has become a topic

of sustained investigation in almost every field of English- speaking world Blum-

Kulka and Kasper (1989:2) emphasize, “The study of speech acts is to remain a central concern of pragmatics, especially cross- cultural pragmatics”

3.1 The notion of speech acts

In producing utterances, people do not only intend to offer linguistic expressions but also to perform actions through these utterances An utterance like “I am hungry”, for example, could probably be interpreted under appropriate contexts as a remark

on the speaker’s appetite, as a request for money, or, as a request for attention from

a young child This phenomenon inspired the British philosopher John Austin to initiate the speech act theory, which has later been inherited, refined and developed

by a number of philosophers and linguists like Hymes (1964), Searle (1969), Leech

cited from Levinson, 1983) categorizes them as:

Of the three dimensions, in Yule’s opinion, “the most essential act that counts is illocutionary force because the same utterance can potentially have quite different illocutionary forces” and that partly explains why Yule states, “The term „speech act‟ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of

an utterance”

3.2 Classification of Speech Acts

Different philosophers and linguists have classified speech acts in different ways

Based on performative verbs, Austin (1962) presents taxonomy consisting of five categories of speech act verbs: verdictives (e.g.: grade, estimate, diagnose…), exercitives (e.g.: order, advise, warn…), commissives (e.g.: promise, guarantee, bet…), behabitives (e.g.: apologize, criticize, bless…) and expositives (e.g.: argue, affirm, concede…)

Raising his criticism against Austin’s taxonomy’s weaknesses, the most serious of which lies in the lack of consistent principles of classification, Searle (1979:12) proposes one of the most influential and widely- used classification of speech act with the focus on the functions performed by speech acts:

1 Locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and references

2 Illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc in uttering a

sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it (or with its explicit performative paraphrase)

3 Perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of

uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances of utterance

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (following Searle 1979)

Bach and Harnish (1979:39) suggest a systematic, comprehensive and explicit classification with six general categories of illocutionary acts, two of which effectives and verdictives – are conventionally not communicative The other four major classes, namely constatives, directives, commissives, and acknowledgement are communicative speech acts

Declarations: change states of affairs, comprising pronouncement at

court, naming, firings, appointments, resignations…

Representatives: state what the speaker believes to be the case or not,

including assertions, descriptions, reports, statements…

Expressive: denote a speaker’s psychological state or attitude They can be

complaining, apologies, compliments, greetings…

Directives: attempt to get the hearer to do something and express what

the speaker wants They are requests, suggestions, orders…

Commissives: commit a speaker to a course of action, expressing his/ her

intention such as promises, pledges, threats, refusals…

24

Figure 4:: Bach and Harnish‟s classification of speech acts (1979)

The four main communicative classes accords with those of Austin’s expositives,

exercitives, commissives and behabitives respectively and are somehow closely

associated to Searle’s representatives, directives, commissives and expressives

Another way to classify speech acts is the one based on the relationship between the

structure and the function Yule (1996:4) claims that the three structural forms are

declarative, interrogative, imperative and the three general communicative functions

are statement, question and command/ request There is always an interrelationship

between a form and a function In other words, the relationship can be either direct

or indirect “Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a

function, we have a direct speech act, wherever there is an indirect relationship

between a form and a function, we have an indirect speech act.” (Yule, 1996:55)

Therefore, if a declarative is used not to make a statement but to make a request,

this is an indirect speech act For example, if someone wants the others to close the

door but instead of saying “I hereby request of you that you close the door”, he says

“It’s cold outside”, he performs an indirect speech act

In short, an indirect speech act is one performed by “means of another” (Searle,

1979:60) In an indirect speech act, the speaker actually means more than what he

25

3.3 Expressing satisfaction as a speech act

In accordance with the classification of Speech acts from Searle, expressing satisfaction belongs to the type of expressives, i.e “those kinds of speech act that

state what the speaker feels … And in using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world (of feelings)” (Yule, 1996:53) To be more precise, they are based on

psychological states and relate to the expression of feelings or emotions to the receiver

In a straightforward way, “satisfaction” found in Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary (7th edition) is the good feeling that you have when you achieved something or when something you wanted to happen does happen It is often mistaken among those good feelings as happiness, joy, content or fulfillment However, when taking a close look, there are some slight distinctions among them

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, joy, etc It often depicts the good feelings of a person

in general, therefore, “satisfaction” is meant beyond the shade of

27

others’ assumptions that he has taken during a particular interaction It is an image

of self-described in terms of approved social attributed

However, the best-known definition of face is that by Brown and Levinson (1978:61), which is derived from Goffman’s and based on the assumptions that every competent adult member of a society has (and know each other to have) face

In their words, face is “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself”, consisting in two related aspects:

Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to distraction, and

non-Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or “personality” claimed by interactants”

Negative face in Yule’s terms is “the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others”, and positive face, “the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others” (Yule, 1996:60, 61) In other

words, the former is the desire to be independent, whereas, the latter is the desire to

be concerned

He also argues that in actual social interactions, people generally behave in such a way that their expectations concerning their public self-image will be respected

This is known as their face wants A polite speaker is expected to preserve face and

avoid the loss of face, and to do so, he makes a consistent attempt at reducing the possible threat presented by himself to another individual’s expectations regarding self- image The act of saying something interpreted as a threat to another’s face is

called face threatening act (FTA), and the act to lessen this potential face threat is called face saving act (FSA)

28

4.1.2 Politeness

Politeness has recently emerged as one of the favorite issues for linguistic scholars

to study on Therefore, concerning the concept of politeness, there have been many definitions surrounding Following are several widely known ones

Linguistically, politeness is defined as “the interactional balance achieved between two needs: the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness”(Blum- Kulla, 1987:131) In this sense, tipping the balance in the

favor of either of the needs may lead to impoliteness

Culturally, politeness is viewed as “a fixed concept, as in the idea of “polite social behavior” or “etiquette, within a culture” (Yule, 1996:60) Yule further states that

such different general principles for being polite in social interaction within a particular culture as being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic towards others can be specified (ibid:60) And as polite behaviors may be different from one culture to another, what is considered to be “politeness” varies in different cultures

Cross- culturally, politeness in communication is seen as “a system of interpersonal relation designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”

As all linguistic actions involve a potential face threat of some kind, it particularly requires the speaker to choose a proper politeness means so that the other’s face is

respected As there are negative face and positive face, there are Negative Politeness (NP) and Positive Politeness (PP), respectively

According to Nguyen Quang, NP is any kind of communicative act which is appropriately intended to show the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus, enhancing the sense of distance between them It includes face saving acts oriented to the hearer’s negative face and tends to show deference

NP can be best summed up as “a concern not to impose on others or restrict their freedom, but to maintain distance” (Bentahila & Davies, 1989)

29

Similarly, PP includes face saving acts concerned with the hearer’s positive face and

“tends to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing and

that they have a common goal” (Yule, 1996) Nguyen Quang defines PP as “any

kind of communicative act which is appropriately intended to show the speaker‟s

concern to the addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity”

In short, NP is to respect others’ privacy while PP is to show your concern to others

To deal with face threatening acts (FTA), Brown and Levinson (1987:60) suggest

five strategies:

Lesser risk

Greater risk

Figure 5 : possible strategies for doing FTAs

The diagram shows that when encountering a FTA, the speaker (S) can choose one

of the five possibilities:

1 Without redressive action, baldly

5 Don’t do the FTA

3 Negative politeness

1 S goes on record: baldly performs the act without apology or mitigation For

example, S may use imperative such as “Pass me the salt”

2 S goes on

3 record, performing the act with redresses in terms of positive politeness i.e

choosing a positive strategy of making A feel good and feel that A’s value is

shared

4 S goes on record, performing the act with redresses in terms of negative

politeness i.e choosing a negative strategy of hedging, apologizing, offering or

asserting a desire to avoid interfering with A’s freedom of action

5 S goes off record, performing the act by implicature: producing statements that

are indirectly addressed to A

6 S might decide not to do FTA in case the face-threat is great

30

Brown and Levinson implicitly consider negative politeness to be “more polite” than positive politeness This can be seen in the diagram when they number the former and the latter 2 and 3, respectively Nguyen Quang remarks this is the point

of view of Brown and Levinson that more or less decreases their diagram’s universal value; hence, he proposes another one:

Figure 6: Nguyen Quang‟s schema of possible strategies for doing FTAs

On record

Do the FTA

Negative politeness

Positive politeness

Off record

4 Do not do the FTA

FTA encounter

31

that they share the same goal In short, positive politeness shows concerns for others

Nguyen Quang, well aware of the sense of solidarity between interactants, sees

positive politeness as “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” (2005)

In order for a speaker to minimize the face- threatening aspects of an act, Brown and Levinson specify the super- strategy of going on record with positive politeness into 15 positive politeness strategies employed in communication What follows is a sketch of these strategies, each illustrated with example(s)

Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (his interest, wants, needs, goods)

The teacher highly appreciated your last essay May I have through it?

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

You count faster than a computer!

Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H

I jump on my bike and off I ride out of the gate, into the road, straight

to school Do you know what happens next? When I nearly reach the T- junction, a large dog runs across the road so suddenly that I respond no reactions I crash right into it and land on the ground three meters from the bike Thank God, I am alright but the rim of the front wheel is warped… Can you give me a lift home?

Strategy 4: Use in- group identify markers

Where have you been, darling?

Strategy 5: Seek agreement

A: I’m so tired of staying day and night!