A cross – cultural study on the economicality and redundancy in requesting in english and vietnamese

This thesis was carried out to provide a cross –cultural comparison of speech behavior in English and Vietnamese in the act of requesting, with the focus on the popularity of redundancy

vietnamese Hoàng Thi Mỵ

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: Linguistics; Mã Số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: Do Thi Mai Thanh, M.A

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Abstract: When people from different linguistic and cultural background come into contact,

misunderstandings are inevitable, as a result of clashing rules of interaction and language habits This thesis was carried out to provide a cross –cultural comparison of speech behavior in English

and Vietnamese in the act of requesting, with the focus on the popularity of redundancy and

economicality in requesting; and the link between the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age and the use of lexico modal makers seen as redundancy – creating factors A questionnaire was designed consisting of 3 situations to collect data from 100 students (50 from Vietnam and 50 from English –speaking countries) with the evenly distributed number of males and females The collected data were categorized into 4 groups of communicative partner: same sex but younger, same sex but older, opposite sex but younger and opposite sex but older; and analyzed according to 14 types of lexico modal markers suggested by N.Quang and Blum-kulka The findings of the study provide that addressee’s gender and relative status exert considerable influence on the ways people make request Particularly, in Vietnamese what type of lexico modal markers can be employed for each communicative partner depends largely on the level of politeness of such markers, whereas in English, there seems to be no clear-cut distinction The results also revealed that in both cultures, no significant difference in language behavior can be found in both male and female The findings of the study also enable the researcher to advance some suggestions for avoidance of communication breakdown and potential culture shock and some implications for ELT

Keywords: Giao văn hóa; Ngôn từ; Tiếng Anh

Content:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of tables v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale and the statement of the problem 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Significance of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 4

5 Method of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Speech acts and classification of speech acts 5

1.2 Requesting as a speech act 7

1.3 Redundancy and classification of redundancy 9

1.3.1 Redundancy 9

1.3.2 Classification of redundancy 10

1.3.2.1 Modality redundancy 10

1.3.2.2 Habitual redundancy 11

1.3.2.3 Insufficient redundancy 11

1.4 Economicality and classification of economicality 11

1.4.1 Economicality 11

1.4.2 Classification of economicality 11

1.4.2.1 Modality economicality 11

1.4.2.2 Habitual economicaltiy 12

1.4.2.3 Insufficient economicality 12

1.5 Lexico modal markers 12

1.6 Previous studies on lexico modal markers, addresser’s/addressee’s gender and relative

age when making requests 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research design 18

2.2 Participants 18

2.3 Data collection instrument 19

2.4 Data collection procedures 20

2.5 Data analysis methods and procedures 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1 The popularity of economicality and redundancy in requesting 22

3.2 The link between the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age and the use of lexico modal makers seen as redundancy – creating factors 24

3.2.1 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of same sex and younger 25

3.2.2 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of same sex and older 29

3.2.3 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of opposite sex and younger 33

3.2.4 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of opposite sex and older 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 40

1 Conclusions 40

2 Pedagogical implications 41

3 Suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale and the statement of the problem

The emergence of English as a global language has presented a solution to language barrier and brought people closer together and its contribution towards such fields as economy, culture, education, science, technology etc, is undeniable Mastering a good competence of English not only brings benefits in business, cultural exchanges, education and development to nation-states but can benefit individuals as they will have greater career opportunities In the contemporary context of international integration and economic globalization, the role of using English in communication has never been so important to people worldwide, including the Vietnamese The open door policy has brought the contrasting effects (both threats and opportunities) to national economic climate with the strong performance of foreign companies and the significant changes in employment market, which is accompanied by the increasing demand of skilled and English –fluent speaking workforce In order to meet such requirements, English teaching programs in Vietnam have shifted from a focus on the linguistic competence to the communicative competence

According to Hymes (1976), the communicative competence includes not only knowledge

of the linguistic forms of a language but the knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms as well In another word, when communicating, people do not only attempt to produce grammatically correct sentences, but also try to apply them in the right combination of context What is more, language is also intimately bound up with culture There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in our brain, which could affect our thoughts and perceptions The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community It is observed that many people from different cultures, when communicating using one common language often impose their culture on that language

As a result, it may be difficult for the communication process, including verbal and non-verbal communication with its influential socio-cultural factors Thus, communicative competence involves the understanding of culture, social knowledge and other skills of

interaction According to J.Richard et al (1985, p.49), “when someone wishes to

communicate with others, they must recognize the social setting, their relationship to the

other person(s), and the types of language that can be used for a particular occasion They must also interpret written or spoken sentences within the total context in which they are used”

However, in Vietnam, there is a fact that English though has been taught for many years, little attention of learners has been paid to the rules of speaking and oral practice, and even less attention to culture-specific verbal and non-verbal behavior Vietnamese learners tend

to translate whatever ideas they want to express into the target language with and effort of making their utterances grammatically correct without awareness of cross-cultural differences Consequently, failure in applying what they have learnt to actual communication is inevitable despite their fairly good knowledge of grammar and a considerable amount of vocabulary An invisible communication barrier may occur and culture shock may happen due to their insufficient knowledge of social norms and values, roles and relations between individuals There have been many cases where the inappropriateness of utterances has produced unwanted communication breakdown in socio-cultural interaction

With the aim to achieve successful communication in the real world, numerous cross-cultural studies have been carried out so far to help the Vietnamese speakers of English avoid confusion when expressing themselves, especially in situations which require sensitive speech acts such as requesting, apologizing, etc Requesting – one of the most sensitive illocutionary acts in English and Vietnamese – has been the topic of so many researches whose major findings mainly point out the basic differences between Vietnamese and English when using politeness, directness or indirectness strategies in requesting However, little is known about request segments which can be seen as redundancy and whether the redundant language elements constituting a request such as

“just a tiny bit” in English or “một chút xíu” in Vietnamese should be considered as a

politeness strategy or just a language marker by people from different cultures More

importantly, how these redundant elements or terminologically known as “ lexico modal

marker’ or “modality markers” are linked to the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and

relative age in both cultures requires a further clarification All the reasons above motivate

me to conduct a research on economicality and redundancy in requesting in English and

Vietnamese culture with the hope of discovering answers to the uncertainty and promoting

awareness of cross-cultural differences in English and Vietnamese culture

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are;

- To explore the popularity of redundant and economical factors in making requests

in the specific situations, under certain variables such as age, the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age in English and Vietnamese

- To compare and contrast the range of lexico modal markers or modality markers constituting the redundancy and economicality in requesting in order to clarify the similarities and differences in the way Vietnamese and English – speaking people request in their own language and culture

- To contribute to promoting cross-cultural awareness among foreign language teachers and learners was well as other potential interactants in cross-cultural communication

In brief, this paper aimed to address three following research questions:

1 Is economicality or redundancy preferred by the Vietnamese and English people when making requests?

2 Is the use of these economicality/redundancy factors linked to the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age?

3 Significance of the study

Although the study was carried out on a small scale, within a minor thesis of 40 pages, it is expected to be a contributing factor to rising awareness of both Vietnamese teachers and learners of English on the cultural similarities and differences between the two languages when using redundancy and economicality factors in requesting More importantly, from the major findings of the study, Vietnamese speakers of English may get to know to use appropriately modality markers in requesting in different situations when communicating with English -speaking foreigners In addition, the study is expected to be useful and accessible to all teachers, learners and researchers as a material and reference of cross-cultural communication

4 Scope of the study

This study follows the speech act approach It focuses mainly on verbal communication and analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaire The questionnaire designed to elicit the informant’s request forms in the proposed situations

It is observed that redundancy factors are more popular to people when making request than economicality ones The study especially centers on the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese students in using modality markers as redundancy factors

to make requests to people of different ages and genders in some given situations The Vietnamese Northern dialect and the English language spoken in the United State, Great Britain and Australia (whose cultures are referred to as Anglicist cultures) are chosen for contrastive analysis The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires, which enables the researcher to get information from a large population in a short period of time Recorded and videotaped face –to-face conversations are impossible due to limitations of time, geographical distance and financial difficulties

5 Method of the study

The research method used in the study is the survey research – a kind of quantitative one All the considerations, remarks, comments and assumptions given in the thesis are based largely on the analysis of statistic data with due reference to publication

The practical approaches are

- Studying relevant publications

- Conducting survey questionnaires

- Analyzing the collected data

- Resorting to personal observations and experience

- Consulting the supervisor

- Discussing with Vietnamese and foreign colleagues

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