Asking for Permission in English and Vietnamese

1. Rationale for the research We are now living in the time of unstoppable development of the world in which international cooperation in general and cultural, educational exchanges in particular are vigorously promoted. In fact, learning foreign languages, especially English, has played an increasingly important role. The international language of English has been described as an effective tool to supportably proceed those activities much more easily. Traditional language learning, however, is becoming outdated in modern times because only vocabulary and grammar are focused on. In fact, today English is learnt for communicative goal, so only vocabulary and grammar is not enough. Another important aspect is culture. The communicative goal may definitely fail to achieve if this aspect is ignored. It is believed that each country has its own distinctive features which learners should be paid much attention to. If they do not eagerly get themselves prepared for knowledge about one culture in which they are newly involved, lots of misunderstandings and embarrassments will follow when there are communications and interaction as well. Good preparation for cultural knowledge will be useful to help the speakers or anyone involved to avoid them. Maybe a good basis of culture is an advantage over others in social interactions. Therefore, language and culture havea mutual relationship. In communicative contexts, their engagement as well as involvement is easily spotted off. When communication among people who come from different cultures or even from the same one occurs, misinterpretations possibly lead to misunderstandings because each represents his or her own culture including customs, rituals and etiquettes. In cross culture communication, a person usually imposes his individual judgments on others’ actions just based on what he has known earlier. As a result, the communicative target is impossible to obtain. Obviously cultural understandings benefit the interlocutors to become successful in communication, perceive certain ways of speaking more deeply so that they can have suitable reactions. Asking for permissions which are observed in English and Vietnamese is a good example. It is common and important in daily interaction. Asking for permissions shows the fact that a language is not just a simple utterance at all. Many problems will certainly follow if culture and politeness factors are neglected. The two cultures have their own politeness standards, so an utterance in general and asking for permissions as well in particular may be acceptable in Vietnamese, but unacceptable in English and viceversa or the ways people ask are different. In some cases, people make direct requests while others make indirect requests. Obviously, it is very important to get ourselves well prepared for those matters. No matter how different they are, politeness strategy is always a desirous goal to reach. On a small scale of crossculture communication, the study tries to make clear the contrast between the two speech acts of asking for permissions in English and Vietnamese. Asking for permissions in English and Vietnamese shares some certain similarities, but has differences, too. Vietnamese and English speakers do not have the same conceptions of what makes a polite way of asking for permissions based on their habits and cultures. For those reasons, the study of speech act of asking for permission in Englishand Vietnamese ismade.Itwillprovidegoodreferenceandsuggestionto well asking for permission and avoiding unwanted misinterpretations so that people have more opportunitiestobecomesuccessfulcommunicators

Title: Asking for Permission in English and Vietnamese

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor

Hanoi, 1 May 2015

Student Supervisor

(signature) ( signature)

Full name Full name

Nguyen Thi Anh Linh M.A Vo Thanh Trung

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Vo Thanh Trung for his enthusiastic and useful guidance, insightful comments, and encouragement without which my thesis would not have been completed

My special thanks go to all my lecturers in Hanoi Open University for their precious assistance, scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm

I am grateful to all the participants for their enthusiastic participation in the thesis

Last but not least, I would like to express my indebtedness to my family, especially my parents and my sister who have given me constant support and love during the completion of the thesis

Nguyen Thi Anh Linh

TABLE OF CONTENT

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the research

We are now living in the time of unstoppable development of the world

in which international cooperation in general and cultural, educational exchanges in particular are vigorously promoted In fact, learning foreign languages, especially English, has played an increasingly important role The international language of English has been described as an effective tool to supportably proceed those activities much more easily Traditional language learning, however, is becoming outdated in modern times because only vocabulary and grammar are focused on In fact, today English is learnt for communicative goal, so only vocabulary and grammar is not enough

Another important aspect is culture The communicative goal may definitely fail to achieve if this aspect is ignored It is believed that each country has its own distinctive features which learners should be paid much attention to If they do not eagerly get themselves prepared for knowledge about one culture in which they are newly involved, lots of misunderstandings and embarrassments will follow when there are communications and interaction as well Good preparation for cultural knowledge will be useful to help the speakers or anyone involved to avoid them Maybe a good basis of culture is an advantage over others in social interactions Therefore, language and culture have a mutual relationship In communicative contexts, their engagement as well as involvement is easily spotted off

When communication among people who come from different cultures or even from the same one occurs, misinterpretations possibly lead to misunderstandings because each represents his or her own culture including customs, rituals and etiquettes In cross- culture communication, a person

usually imposes his individual judgments on others’ actions just based on what he has known earlier As a result, the communicative target is impossible

to obtain Obviously cultural understandings benefit the interlocutors to become successful in communication, perceive certain ways of speaking more deeply so that they can have suitable reactions Asking for permissions which are observed in English and Vietnamese is a good example It is common and important in daily interaction Asking for permissions shows the fact that a language is not just a simple utterance at all Many problems will certainly follow if culture and politeness factors are neglected The two cultures have their own politeness standards, so an utterance in general and asking for permissions as well in particular may be acceptable in Vietnamese, but unacceptable in English and vice-versa or the ways people ask are different

In some cases, people make direct requests while others make indirect requests Obviously, it is very important to get ourselves well prepared for those matters No matter how different they are, politeness strategy is always

a desirous goal to reach On a small scale of cross-culture communication, the study tries to make clear the contrast between the two speech acts of asking for permissions in English and Vietnamese Asking for permissions in English and Vietnamese shares some certain similarities, but has differences, too Vietnamese and English speakers do not have the same conceptions of what makes a polite way of asking for permissions based on their habits and cultures

For those reasons, the study of speech act of asking for permission in English and Vietnamese is made It will provide good reference and suggestion to well asking for permission and avoiding unwanted misinterpretations so that people have more opportunities to become successful communicators

2. Aims of the research

This graduation thesis is conducted in an attempt to make a comparison between asking for permission in English and Vietnamese so as to help Vietnamese learners have a better knowledge on how to ask for permission politely in English , thus being able to use them effectively in the real-life communication and to avoid communication breakdown.

3. Objectives of the research

This graduation thesis is designed to pursue these following specific objectives:

(i)Pointing out the similarities between asking for permission in English and Vietnamese

(ii) Pointing out the differences between asking permission in English and Vietnamese

(iii) Suggesting some possible implications for asking permission in English, thus helping Vietnamese learners able to use them effectively in the real-life communication and to avoid communication breakdown

4. Scope of the research

This thesis focuses on the act of asking for permission performed by native speakers of English and then make comparison between them and those performed by Vietnamese native speakers in order to find out the similarities and differences of the two countries I also use definitions and statements of some authors who conduct research on pragmatics and speech act theories

5. Research questions

* What are the popular ways of asking permission in English and Vietnamese

* What are the similarities between the ways to ask for permission in English and Vietnamese

* What are the differences between the ways to ask for permission in English and Vietnamese

6.Methods of the study

In carrying out the research I have adopted such methods of study as collecting data, contrastive analysis, statistics techniques and observation

7 Design of the study

Part A: Introduction: this part deals with Rationale, Aims, Scope, Research Questions, Methods and Design of this study

Part B: Development consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1: Literature review: this chapter provides the theoretical

background including speech act theory, politeness strategies, definition of

permission, asking for permission as Speech Acts

Chapter 2: Asking for permission in English and Vietnamese: this

chapter will discuss written and verbal asking permission; direct and indirect way of asking permission; formal and informal way of asking permission

Chapter 3: Findings and discussions : this chapter presents the

results gained in survey questionnaires and observation and discusses the similarities and differences in asking for permission as speech acts made in English and Vietnamese

Part C: Conclusion : this part summaries the major findings recorded

during the making of the thesis, presents the limitations of the study, provides some suggestions for further research and gives some suggestions on learning

English for Vietnamese learners.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Speech Act Theory

1.1.1Definition

Developed by many famous philosophers, speech acts have been central to linguistic works for a long time and have been further developed by others and held a great concern of any research paper

There are some definitions of speech acts of linguists in the world To

begin with, usually when we want to express something we often do not only create utterances containing grammatical structures and words, but also perform actions through these utterances, according to George Yule (1996)

It is noticeable that human beings use language in order to perform actions, to create obligations and new social relations and to do such things as reassuring, promising, or apologizing, etc According to J.L Austin, a

philosopher of language, “contended that truth or falsehood and the logical

relationships between words were inadequate to account for language use”

[An Introduction to Pragmatics, .: 164] and “the more we consider a

statement not as a sentence (or proposition) but as an act of speech the more we are studying the whole thing as an act” [J Austin, How to Do

Things with Words, 1962: 20] Under the insights of Austin, there is growth of perspective that is one of the well-recognized attempts to account for pragmatic meaning

The two other famous linguistic researchers are Schmidt and Richards who define speech act theory as one that has to do with the functions of languages, so in the broader sense we might say that speech acts are all the acts we perform via speaking, all things we do when we utter The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory It must systematically identifies types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail

It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique.

Thus, actions which are performed via utterances are generally called

speech acts, and they are often given some specific labels such as promise,

complaint, apology, compliment, request and invitation

For example:

You are fired! [Pragmatics, George Yule, 1996:47]

In this sentence, the speaker gives the utterance at the same time with the action of sacking the listener It means that the utterance used to perform the act of ending the job of the hearer

What is more, studying an utterance we focus on two parts: surface (including grammatical structures and words) and the meaning, the meaning

of the utterance is the core of communication Speech act performs different

functions in communication, and it is a unit of speaking J Austin (1962) affirmed that there is a close connection between speech acts and language functions

In Austin’s theory of Speech act, he claimed that “actions are

performed via utterances only with verbs he called performatives, the

prototype speech act” This can be verbs or verbal phrases, typically

formulaic, explicitly indicating the act the speaker actually wants to express

as it is uttered However, there is a basic argument that some utterances are not statement or questions, but rather actions Austin generalized the notion of expressing actions with language, arguing that all utterances had the underlying performative structure

In accordance to Austin’s view, Yule (1996) also restressed the

definition of speech act Speech acts are actions performed via utterances, in

English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request He added that these

descriptive terms for different kinds of speech acts apply to the communicative intention of speakers in producing an utterance.

In the final analysis, it is believed that speech act is an act that a speaker performs when making an utterance

1.1.2 Three components of a speech act

According to Austin (1962) and Yule (1996), a single speech act obviously contains three separate components but related to speech acts:

locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts.

Locutionary act is the first component which is “the basic act of utterance

or producing a meaningful linguistic expression” (Yule, 1996) Actually, we usually do not make utterance without having any purposes, so whenever a speaker gives an utterance, he performs a locutionary act A locutionary act includes three related acts: phonetic act, linguistic act and referring act

The second component is Illocutionary act, a kind of act, performed

via “the communicative force of an utterance”, which we create communicative purpose in mind

The last component of speech acts is perlocutionary act; it occurs

when we make an effective statement, it means that we want a speech act to have an effect The perlocutionary act is regarded as the most important act of speech acts, because it is obviously what speaker wants to achieve through the action of uttering the sentence (Yule, 1996)

In the book How to Do Things with Words, Austin indicates that to perform a locutionary act we shall perform such an act as: ''asking or

answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning, announcing a verdict or an intention, pronouncing sentence, making an appointment or an appeal or a criticism, making an identification or giving a description, and the numerous like.'[How to Do Things with Words, 1962:99]

Act (A) or Locution

He said to me ‘Shoot her!’ meaning by ‘shoot’ shoot and referring by

‘her’ to her Act (B) or Illocution He urged me to shoot her Act (C) or Perlocution He persuaded me to shoot her He got me to shoot her [How to

Do Things with Words, 1962:102]

It has been proved that illocutionary force is the most discussed of the three acts, and the term speech act is generally interpreted as the illocutionary

force of an utterance The same locutionary act can count as a prediction, a

promise, or a warning as follow:

e.g.: I will see you later (=A)

[I predict that] A : a prediction [I promise you that] A : a promise [I warn you that] A : a warning

Basically, an illocutionary act is a linguistic act performed in uttering certain words in a given context, a perlocutionary act is a non-linguistic act performed as a consequence of the locutionary and iliocutionary

In short, Locutionary act is the basic act of making a meaningful

linguistic expression There are some purposes or functions in mind when the

locutionary acts are uttered Illocutionary act is an act performed via the

communicative force of an utterance Generally, we also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, etc in engaging

in locutionary By dint of controversial force associated with it in uttering a

sentence Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying

something, such as convincing, persuading, or deterring Perlocutionary acts are performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognise the effect the speaker intended

1.1.3 Classification of speech acts.

1.1.3.1 Austin’s Classification

Austin (1962) takes the initial role in formulating the theory of speech acts In accordance to his study, all utterances should be considered as actions

of speakers, stating or describing is only one function of language He claims that the declarative sentences are not only used to say things or describe states

of affairs but also used to do things

In How to Do Things with Words, Austin identifies three distinct levels

of action beyond the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it through out the same purposes, topic and

participants.

Austin’s categorization of illocutionary acts can be broken down into five classes:

Verdictives: typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire,

arbitrator such as acquit, grade, estimate, diagnose, rare, analyse, put it as,

reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure.

Exercitives: which are the exercising of powers, rights, or influence

An exercitive is the giving of a decision in favor of or against a certain course

of action It is a decision that something is to be so, as distinct from a judgment that is so

It is a very wide class; examples are: appoint, dismiss, degrade, order,

sentence, warn

Commissive: the whole point of a commissive is to commit the speaker

to a certain course of action They may include a declaration or

announcements of intention For example: am determined to, propose to,

intend, agree, bet

Behabitives: consist of the notion of reaction to other people’s

behavior and fortunes and of attitudes to someone else’s past conduct or

imminent conduct, examples are: apologize, thank, compliment, condole,

complain

Expositives: identify how utterances fit into ongoing discourse, or how

they are being used like: affirm, deny, inform, tell, explain

1.1.3.2 Yule’s Classification

Under the speech act theory of Searle, Yule (Pragmatics, 1996) classifies five types of general functions performed by speech acts including declarations, representatives, expressive, directives, and commissives

Declarations are speech acts that make the world change via their

utterance In illustration, the speaker needs to have a special institutional role,

in a particular context, so as to perform a declaration appropriately For

instance, “Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife ”, “Referee: you

’re out!”, “Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty” [p.53]

Representatives are speech acts that state what the speaker believes to

be the case or not Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions are representatives For example, “The earth is flat”, “Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts”, and “It was a warm sunny day”.[p.53]

Expressives are speech acts that state what the speaker feels They point

out psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, and sorrow They can be led by something the speaker does or the hearer

does, but they are about the speaker’s experience For example, “I’m really

sorry”, “Congratulations”, “Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahhh!” [p.53]

Directives are speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do

something They express what the speaker wants They are commands, orders,

requests, suggestions For example, “Gimme a cup of coffee Make it black ”,

“Could you lend me a pen, please? ”, “Don’t touch that ” [p.54]

Commissives are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves

to some future action They express what the speaker intends They are

promises, threats, refusals, pledges For example, ‘77/ be back”, “I’m going

to get it right next time”, “We will not do that”, [p.54]

Yule (1996) also presents a table showing key features of these five general functions of speech acts as follows:

words change the world

makes words fits the world

makes words fits the world

make the world fits words

take the world fits words

Of these types, the characteristic of invitations can be easily recognised

in commissives and directives In our daily communications, inviting is one kind of speech act that is commonly used with high frequency

1.1.3.3 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

In Pragmatics (1996), Yule points out that there is an easily recognised relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question, command/request)

e.g.:

You open the door, (declarative)

Do you open the door? (interrogative)

Open the door! (imperative)

[p.54]

Yule (1996) shows that whenever there is a direct relationship between

a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act Whenever an indirect

speech act happens there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a

as in the below example are often used:

" It is very hot in here"

In this example, the speaker explains or even excuses the reason why

he makes a request (open the window!) Ardissono debates that the speakers

often prefer indirect speech acts so that they do not infringe the hearer’s face, which might be the case here too Moreover, when using direct speech acts, it

may result in some impolite situations For instance, ‘Would you lend me your

book?’ and ‘Lend me your book!’, of course the latter variant would be

definitely unacceptable in some contexts

Yule (1996) claims that a statement which is often made by using a declarative ’is a direct speech act, but a declarative which is used to make a request is an indirect speech act

e.g.: a It’s cold outside

b I hereby tell you about the weather

c I hereby request of you that you close the door [p.55]

In the form of a statement, the declarative sentence ‘The door is there.’

can be changed in at least two ways It can be either easily understood as an

answer to the question ‘Where is the way out?’ or maybe ‘Where is the door?

’ or it can be taken as an indirect request to ask someone to leave The former case is called direct speech act, and the latter an indirect speech act They all depend on the speakers’ communicating context

When making a statement, as seen in example (b), the utterance is functioning as a direct speech act When it is used to make a command/request, as shown in example (c), the utterance is functioning as an indirect speech act

According to Yule (1996), one of the most common types of indirect speech act in English, as indicated in the following example, has the form of

an interrogative, but is not typically used to ask a question The examples are normally understood as requests

Could you pass the salt?

Or: Would you open this?

Indeed, Yule (1996) added that there is a typical pattern in English

whereby asking a question about the hearer’s assumed ability (can, could) or future likelihood with regard to doing something (will, would) The pattern

normally counts as a request to actually do that something

1.2 Politeness theory

1.2.1 Definition of politeness

Politeness is something that is very abstract, but it plays an important role in interaction and has a great effect on the use of speech acts in human communication Politeness has been suggested that the principle of politeness governs all of the communication behave

It is generally believed that, in everyday social interactions, people act

in such a way as to show respect for the face wants or needs of their conversational partners It is a story, simply of “you respect my public self-image and I’ll respect yours” The use of language to carry out social actions where mutual face wants are respected, can be labeled linguistic politeness According to Yule (1996), “politeness in an interaction, can be then defined as the means employed to show awareness of another’s face” Culturally, politeness is seen as “the idea of polite social behave or etiquette within a culture”

Brown and Levinson (1978) view politeness as “a complex system for softening face-threatening acts”

Hill et al (1986: 349) define politeness as “one of the constraints on human interaction, whose purpose is to consider other’s feelings establish levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport” Lakoff (1975: 64), one

of the pioneers in politeness research sees politeness as consisting of forms of behave which have been “developed in societies in order to reduce friction in

personal interaction” This view is supported by many other researchers in the field He defines politeness as: “A system of interpersonal relations designed to faliciate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”

Leech (1983: 104) interprets politeness as forms of behavior aimed at creating and maintaining harmonious interactions

According to Nguyen Quang (2005: 185), “Politeness refers to any communicative act (verbal and/ or non-verbal) which is intentionally and appropriately meant to make others feel better or less bad”

When we make a promise to somebody, we are showing our politeness

by expressing our awareness of another person’s face In this sense, politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance and closeness To the former, showing awareness for another person’s face is described in terms of respect or deference To the latter, it would be friendliness, camaraderie or solidarity

Politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance or closeness Showing awareness for another person’s face when that other seems socially distant is often described in terms of friendliness, camaraderie,

or solidarity

1.2.2 Politeness strategy

In language studies, politeness implies the following: "(a) how languages express the social distance between speakers and their different role relationships, (b) "how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversation, is carried out in a speech community" (Richards et al 1985, p.281)

Languages differ in how they express politeness In English, phrases

like It’s hot here I wonder if I could open the window? can be used to make a request more polite In other languages, the same effect can be expressed by a word or particle.

Politeness markers and the use of address forms convey differences between formal speech and colloquial speech.Human communication serves

to establish and maintain not only a comfortable relationship between people but also a social harmony Therefore, in interpersonal communication, in terms of politeness, every participant notes social factors such as age, gender, power and distance among the interlocutors Moreover, politeness maybe described as a form of behaviour which is exercised in order to consolidate and promote relationship between individuals or, at least, to keep it undamaged

According to Leech (1983), politeness means to minimize the effect of impolite statement or expression (negative politeness) and maximize the effects of polite illocutions (positive politeness) (Leech, 1983) However, the best-known theory is developed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Their universalistic formulation of politeness theory is problematic in some aspects

The main issue of politeness is the notion of face Face is defined as

“the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” (Brown and Levinson 1987, p.61) "Face" associates with the English idiom to lose face which means “to do something which makes other people stop respecting you; to not maintain your reputation and the respect of others” Brown and Levinson treats the aspects of face as “basic wants”, and distinguishes between positive face and negative face Positive face is interpreted as the want of every member to be desirable to, at least, some others, whereas negative face is the want of every “competent adult member” for his actions

to be unimpeded by others (1987, p.62)

Moreover, Yule (1996) argues that in most English speaking contexts,