The speech act of apology made by Vietnamese EFL Learners: An interlanguage pragmatic study Nguyễn Hương Lý Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm Năm bảo vệ: 2012 Abstract. Part A is the introduction of the study including the identification of the problem, the aims, the objectives, the scope of the study, the significance, the research method as well as the organization of the study. Part B contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the study including pragmatics, speech act theory and some previous studies on interlanguage apologies. Chapter 2 discusses issues of methodology and outlines the study design, data collection instruments, reliability and validity test of the data collection instruments, procedure of data collection, selection of subjects and analytical framework. Chapter 3 presents the data analysis and discusses the findings on the choice of apology strategies used by EN speakers, EFL learners and VN speakers in relation to the variables of Power (P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied. Some pragmatic transfer on interlanguage apology is also mentioned in this chapter. Part C provides an overview of major findings and interpretations, implications, limitations and suggestions for further research. Keywords. Tiếng Anh; Giao tiếp; Liên ngôn ngữ; Người Việt Nam Content 1. Identification of the problem To become effective communicators nowadays, it is essential for English foreign language (EFL) Learners to gain communicative competence. Communicative competence, according to Ellis, “entails both linguistic competence and pragmatic competence” (Ellis, 1994:696). Linguistic competence is the ability to use the linguistic rules of a given language. Pragmatic competence, on the other hand, is “the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context” (Thomas, 1983:94). Likewise, Bialystok (1993) claimed that pragmatic competence is the ability to make use of different language functions, the ability to understand the speakers’ underlying intention; and the ability to modify the speech according to contexts. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to pragmatic competence due to the fact that foreign language learners who have good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary but lack sociolinguistic awareness may encounter communicating problems with native speakers because of their incompetence to use sociolinguistic rules properly or interpret those words correctly. Moreover, in accordance with Thomas (1983), native speakers often forgive the phonological, syntactic and lexical errors made by L2 speakers but usually interpret pragmatic errors negatively as rudeness, impoliteness or unfriendliness. Thus foreign language speakers need to have more than pure linguistic competence in order to be able to communicate effectively in a language and know how a language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes (Hymes:1972). In other words, it can be justifiably suggested that foreign language speakers need to use the target language in both linguistically and socially appropriate ways. Over the past few decades, language teaching in the world has witnessed a shift from the focus on the development of learners’ linguistic competence to the development of learners’ communicative competence. Many empirical studies on learners’ pragmatic competence on the basis of diverse speech acts have been conducted in variety of cultures and languages to gather information on what appropriate use of linguistic forms in different sociocultural contexts actually comprises (e.g., Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1991; Ellis, 1992; Trosborg, 1987, 1995; Yu, 1999a, 1999b, 2005; Shardakova, 2005; Bataineh, 2006, 2008). Those studies have contributed greatly to a better understanding of the use of linguistic forms in different languages and cultures and further to avoiding cross-cultural miscommunication. On response to this trend, some Vietnamese researchers investigated similarities and differences in the realization of speech acts such as requesting, inviting, disagreeing, greeting, giving and receiving compliments, apologizing, promising made by speakers of English and Vietnamese. Among these speech acts, apology is considered a highly-recurrent and routinized act. Kasper (1996) stated that in any speech community, participants need to engage in remedial verbal action upon committing an offense, that is to apologize. However, this kind of speech act is still under-researched in Vietnam. Van (2000), Phuong (2000) and Trang (2010) are some of Vietnamese researchers working on this topic up to now. However, their studies mainly compared and contrasted the realization of apology between two groups of language, English and Vietnamese. N ative Vietnamese speakers’ speech act behavior which can influence Learners’ performance of the target language was understudied. Thus, gaps are still there to fill in pragmatics, especially in the interlanguage speech act of apology. In this study the aim is to compare the speech act of apologies among EN speakers, English EFL learners and VN speakers. 2. Aims of the study This study aims at identifying Vietnamese EFL learners’ deviations linguistically in the production of apology in relation to English native speakers in the contexts studied. In particular, the study attempts to find out how much Vietnamese learners of English can approximate native speakers in the apology strategy use as well as responding to contextual factors involved in the contexts. 3. Objectives of the study The study will uncover the deviations in using apology strategies by Vietnamese EFL learners in some contexts studied. Particularly, it uncovers: 1) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and Vietnamese EFL Learners. 2) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and VN Speakers. 4. Scope of the study Due to limited time, it is impossible to cover all interlanguage pragmatic matters. This study just focus on the language used by Vietnamese learners of English in formulating in the speech act of apology in relation to the three social parameters (P, D and R) in the contexts studied. In other words, the survey concentrates on verbal communication. Moreover, the survey mainly considers the acceptance of apologies and ignores all the cases where apologies are refused. As a result, the theoretical frameworks applied to this study are pragmatics and the speech act theory. 5. Significance of the study This study will be an attempt to fill in a gap in the area of interlanguage pragmatics where learners’ production of linguistic acts has not taken into consideration enough. Thus, the study will be a reference material for not only English language learners to improve their knowledge on the interlanguage pragmatics but also their communicative competence. 6. Method of the study Quantitative is mainly used in this study. In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are based on the analysis of the empirical studies and statistics processed Chi-square test. In addition, such methods as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive are also utilized to describe and analyze, to compare and contrast the database so as to bring out differences in using apology strategy by English and Vietnamese speakers. 7. Organization of the study This study is divided into three parts as follows: Part A is the introduction of the study including the identification of the problem, the aims, the objectives, the scope of the study, the significance, the research method as well as the organization of the study. Part B contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the study including pragmatics, speech act theory and some previous studies on interlanguage apologies. Chapter 2 discusses issues of methodology and outlines the study design, data collection instruments, reliability and validity test of the data collection instruments, procedure of data collection, selection of subjects and analytical framework. Chapter 3 presents the data analysis and discusses the findings on the choice of apology strategies used by EN speakers, EFL learners and VN speakers in relation to the variables of Power (P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied. Some pragmatic transfer on interlanguage apology is also mentioned in this chapter. Part C provides an overview of major findings and interpretations, implications, limitations and suggestions for further research. References 1. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. 2. Bataineh, R. F. & Bataineh, R. F. (2006). Apology strategies of Jordanian EFL university students, Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1901-1927. 3. 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