A study on refusing an invitation in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY NINH THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON REFUSING AN INVITATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2015 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY NINH THỊ THU HÀ A STUDY ON REFUSING AN INVITATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Đăng Sửu Hanoi, 2015 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON REFUSING INVITATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2015 Ninh Thi Thu Ha Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Dr Nguyen Dang Suu Date:…………………… Page | i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my professor, Dr Nguyen Dang Suu From the point of a teacher, an advisor and a mentor, you introduced and inspired me to this research My professional development has been growing increasingly with your precious guidance and continuous motivation My special thanks go to all my lectures in Post-graduate Department of Ha Noi Open University for their precious assistance, knowledge and enthusiasm I own my parents for their constant source of love, support and encouragement I am immensely grateful to them for standing behind me whenever I needed them especially in times of difficulties I would also want to extend a special shout-out to all the research participants Without your valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaire, the project would not have been accomplished Finally, my special thanks go to all my dear friends for their understanding and assistance during the process of preparing this research I count each of you as my special blessings While I am greatly indebted to all of these people for their tireless help to my completion of this thesis, I myself remain responsible for any inadequacies that are found in this work Ninh Thi Thu Ha Page | ii ABSTRACT It’s really difficult to refuse someone when he or she offers you something or to something, especially when you’re busy or you don’t want to You want to refuse but you don’t know how to say let your friends or your listeners feel satisfied and contented Or when your boss offers you a promotion but you feel you have no ability, how can you refuse? I hope this paper will help students understand the differences of refusing an offer in Vietnamese and English to become more proficient in their studying of English Based on literary works either published or uploaded on the Internet and English speaking materials written by native speakers, this paper studies refusals of invitation to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and learning of this speech act in English and Vietnamese, create the tactfulness and flexibility in language use for both Vietnamese learners of English and English-speaking learners of Vietnamese with the maxim declared in a Vietnamese proverb: “You don’t have to buy words, so don’t let them hurt the feeling of others.” Moreover, investigating the politeness strategies of refusals and finding the similarities and differences in two languages can help the Vietnamese learners overcome the difficulties caused the interfere of two cultures when they face the sticky cases of refusing offers It also helps to enhance and improve language communicative competence of Vietnamese learners of English Page | iii LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS Lists of abbreviations G: Group E: English V: Vietnamese DCT: Discourse Completion Test Lists of tables Table 1: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations Refuser status = lower Table 2: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations Refuser status = equal Table 3: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations Refuser status = higher Page | iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality…………………………………………………….i Acknowledgement………………………………………… ………….….ii Abstract………………………………………………………………… iii List of tables and abbreviations ………… ………… ……… …… iv Table of contents ……………………………………………………….….v CHAPTER : INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rational………………………………………………… ……… … 1.2 Aims of the study …2 1.3 Objectives of the study 1.4 Scope of the study .2 1.5 Significance of the study …3 1.6 Structure of the study CHAPTER : LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review the previous study 2.1.1 Review of previous studies overseas………….……………… … 2.1.2 Review of previous studies in Vietnam………………………………7 2.2 Review the theoretical background 2.2.1 Speech acts Page | v 2.2.2 Classification of speech acts…………………………………… 12 2.2.3 What is invitation? 16 2.2.4 Refusing an invitation……………………………………… … 17 2.2.5 Directness and Indirectness 18 2.2.6 Politeness strategies 20 2.2.7 Politeness in Vietnamese culture………………………………….24 2.3 Summary…………………………………………………………… 26 CHAPTER 3:METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research-governing orientations .27 3.2 Research questions 27 3.3Method of the study 28 3.3.1Data collection 28 3.3.2 Data Analysis 30 3.4 Summary……………………………………………………….….….30 CHAPTER : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 The ways English and Vietnamese people refuse an invitation 32 4.1.1 When the invitee is at a lower status .32 4.1.2 When the invitee is at an equal status 35 4.1.2 When the invitee is at a higher status………………………… 38 Page | vi 4.2 The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in refusing an invitation .41 4.2.1 The similarities……………………………………………………41 4.2.3 The differences…………………………………………… ……43 4.3 The cultural influences on the strategies of English and Vietnamese refusals 45 4.4 Implication 47 4.5 Summary……………………………………………………………49 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation 50 5.2 Concluding remarks 51 5.3 Limitation of the research .52 5.4Suggestions for further studies 53 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………54 APPENDIX: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES Page | vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Human communication is a combination of cooperation and understanding Success in communication depends greatly on the ability to recognize speakers’ communicative intentions and pragmatic meaning of their utterances Actually, those who may be regarded as fluent in a second language owing to their phonetic, syntactic and semantic knowledge of that language may still be unable to produce language that is socially and culturally appropriate In everyday social life, people are sometimes invited to go somewhere or to something Accepting an invitation is a delicate matter although it is much easier than refusing as the latter is a face-threatening act Many people devalue the importance of refusal strategies for invitations because normally, it is a person right to say something he/she doesnot like or doesnot want to However, it is not as simple as it is thought to be since misbehavior in this domain can result in the interlocutor’s feeling of being shocked, angry, or even seriously insulted It is because everybody, as a human being, expects the appreciation and respect from others England and Vietnam are the two countries with different cultures so their social and linguistic norms are different as well This paper is an attempt to provide a cross-culture comparison of ways English and Vietnamese deal with a tactful-required kind of speech act: refusing an invitation I have decided to choose the subject “Refusing an invitation in English and Vietnamese “to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and Page | own and then adapt whenever necessary Besides, the study is hoped to raise more awareness of second language sociocultural constraints on speech acts in order to be pragmatically competent for language learners In Vietnam, there are more and more learners having good commands of English, however, they are still lack of pragmatic competence Thus, when second language learners engage in conversation with native speakers, difficulties may arise due to their lack of mastery of conversational norms involved in the production of speech acts Such conversational difficulties may turn in cause breakdowns in communication In order to effectively communicate in the second language, the learner needs to acquire the socialcultural strategies used most frequently by native speakers, and the rules for their appropriate implementation We can therefore make the following pedagogical recommendations for second language instruction: First, the help foreign language learners produce a conversation in second language that is socially and culturally appropriate in general, both socio-cultural and sociolinguistic information should be incorporated into the language curriculum and language textbooks Second, language instructors play an important role in the foreign language classroom To develop learners’ pragmatic abilities, teacher’s instruction on pragmatic knowledge should be explicit in order to help students have a full and deep understanding of effect of pragmatic transfer in learning second language Besides, language instructors had better design activities which expose learners to different types of pragmatic input and prompt learners to produce appropriate output for example contextualized, task-based activities Page | 48 Finally, to improve the learners’ sociolinguistic ability in a second language, teachers should teach language forms and functions contextually in communicative oral activities in both formal and informal situations The more chances they access a variety of different situations, the more success they have in daily communication Misunderstanding, prejudices and breakdowns will be reduced considerably in interethnic communication 4.5 Summary In summary, this chapter has described in detail how English and Vietnamese refuse an invitation with three situations relating to refusals of invitations from the inviters, who are higher, lower and equal to the invitees, then has figured out the similarities and differences in refusing between English and Vietnamese, what the cultural influences in refusal strategies of English and Vietnamese are, and suggested some applications Page | 49 CHAPTER CONCLUSION The present research is aimed at exploring similarities and differences in refusal strategies to an invitation between English and Vietnamese This study also identifies cultural influences on refusal patterns of two groups In the previous chapters, the introduction, the literature, the implementation, and the results of the research have been thoroughly elaborated This concluding chapter is supposed id briefly and critically evaluate the outcomes and the contribution of the whole research Also the research’s limitations will be cited and several suggestions for further studies will be proposed 5.1 Recapitulation In conclusion, this research paper performs as a fairly comprehensive study on the speech acts of refusal in Vietnamese and English language Significant findings concerning the research questions have been revealed through a process of filling out the survey questionnaire Firstly, the findings show that both participants share the similarities in employing many combined strategies to refuse an invitation instead of using single one Secondly, most of refusals are indirect Direct refusals as “No” are not a common strategy for any of the subjects, regardless of their language and culture background Last, refusers tend to add different reasons to decline the invitation in order to save inviter’s faces as well as to maintain relationships among conversationalists Page | 50 As a failure a refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal relations of the speakers, refusals usually include various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutors However, the choice of these strategies may vary across languages and cultures For English, they are said to be direct than Asian people, thus, their refusal tend to be precise, brief and straightforward Nevertheless, their directness are shown by producing direct reason and regret, instead of refusing directly by saying “No” or “ I can’t” for Vietnamese counterparts, they are rooted in high context culture where people have close connections over a long period of time Therefore, they wish to live in harmony with surrounding people Also, Vietnamese tend to live optimistically and look forward to the future As a result, their refusals often offer a promise for acceptance in the future In case they have to refuse an invitation, they give a variety of reasons including both objective and subjective Normally, they rarely make use of the straightforward refusals in order to avoiding face threatening acts The typically indirect characteristics of Vietnamese are revealed by such reasons Also, the refusals of Vietnamese seems to be softer than English’s one Vietnamese prefers a range of adjuncts to refusals for instance: gratitude, sympathy and add more addressing terms, therefore, their refusals are accepted easily 5.2 Concluding remarks The research is believed to offer far-reaching implications follows: In the first place, it contributes to the scare study on speech acts of refusals to invitations in two target nations Page | 51 Moreover, the study also sheds light on the major similarities and differences in language and cultures between English and Vietnamese in employing refusal strategies Thus, it provides an insight into Vietnamese and English culture, contributing to the mutual understanding between two groups Last but not least, the study give some pedagogical implications to raise foreign language teachers and learners’ awareness in sociocultural knowledge and pay more attention to pragmatic transfer in learning second language Also, recommendations are hoped to be useful guideline for teachers and students in practice 5.3 Limitation of the study Although this research has been conducted to be the best of the research’s efforts, time constraint and other unexpected objective factors have led to certain unavoidable limitations involving the collection the data and scope as well as methodology of this study First, the total number of participants is only 50 from both countries, thus the reliability of samples might not be ensured The fact that participants for this study were all volunteers may have some effects in the data collection and analysis Schumacher and McMillan (1993) noted that volunteers tend to be better educated, of higher social class, more intelligent, more sociable, more unconventional, less authoritarian, less conforming, more altruistic, and more extroverted than non-volunteers (p.160) Secondly, this study concentrates on social status as the focal variable Other potentially relevant factors involving to refusal strategies such as social distance and genders are not specifically mentioned in this Page | 52 research because of lack of researcher’s time Therefore, the study is not completely comprehensive Finally, due to the methodology of written data elicitation, other factors such as prosody (intonation, tone, stress) non-verbal gestures and facial expressions were not observed There is also a limitation in the fact that written data not have time constraints: participants can correct their answer As a result the answer may differ from what participants really say in real-life situations This naturalistic data collection, from role-plays or recordings made in natural settings, would be desirable as both a complements and as a self-standing methodology in more extensive studies Despite the aforementioned shortcomings, the researcher’s flexibility and serious work is expected to have well retained the validity and reliability of the result However, it is not worth noting that these above shortcomings should always be taken into consideration when further studies are conducted in the future 5.4 Suggestions for further studies Since there have been so far few English - Vietnamese cross-cultural studies on speech acts of refusals to invitations, so it offers other researchers large room to conduct further studies From the researcher’s point of view, further studies should be conducted in areas as: - An English – Vietnamese cross-cultural study on accepting an invitation - An English – Vietnamese cross-cultural study on the effects of nonverbal communication in responding an invitation - An English – Vietnamese cross-culture in hedging in invitation declining Page | 53 REFERENCES English Al-Eryani, A.A (2007) Refusal strategies by Yemeni EFL learners In The Asian EFL Journal Quarterly, (2), 19-34 Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz Beebe, L.M., Takahashi, T., & UlissWeltz, R (1990) Developing communication Competence in second Language NY: Routledge Bonn, A (2000) Acquiring “different strokes”: A longitudinal study of the development of L2 pragmatic competence (Online) Restrieved June, 2005 from the World Wide Web: www.glf-journal.com Brown, P and S C Levinson (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brown, P; Levinson, S (1987) Polite: Some universals in language usage UL:CUP Chen, Ye and Yang (1995) Pragmatics of Chinese as a native and target language Manoa, HI: University of Hawai’s Press 119-193 Fraser, B (1990), Prespectives on politeness Journal of Pragmatics 14(2): 219-36 Goffman, E (1967) Interaction ritual: Essays on face to face behaviour Garden City, New York Page | 54 Goffman, E (1976), Repplies and Responses Language in Society, 5, 257-313 10 Grice, P (1967) Logic and Conversation William James Lectures: Harvard University 11 Ho Ngoc Trung (2013) Lectures on Discourse Analysis NXB Giáo dục 12 Leech, G (1983) Principles of Pragmatics London: Longman 13 Levinson c.S (1996), Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 14 Li Honglin.( 2007), Canadian social science: A Comparative Study of Refusal Speech Acts in Chinese and American English 15 Liao, C.C & Bresnahan, M.F (1996) A contrastive pragmatic study on American English and Mandrin refusal strategies Language Sciences 18, 703-727 16 Mills, Sara (2011) Discursive approaches to politeness and impoliteness In Linguistic Politeness Research Group (Eds), Discursive approaches to politeness (pp.19-56) Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyer 17 Nelson, G.L, Al-Batal, M.& Echols, E (1996) Arabic and English compliment responses: Potential for pragmatic failure Applied Linguistics, 17 (4), 411-432 18 Nguyen, T.M.P (2006) Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Refusals of Requests by Australian Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese learners of English, 13 Retrieved December 20, 2010 Page | 55 19 Paltridge, B (2000) Making sense of Discourse Analysis Queenland: Gold Coast 20 Perrault, c R., Allen, J F., & Cohen, p R (1978), Speech acts as a basis of understanding dialoge coherence In D L Waltz (Ed), Theoretical issues in natural language processing-2 New York: Association for Computing Machinery Pp 125-132 21 Pham Thi Van Quyen (2001) Some English – Vietnamese cross-cultural Differences in Refusing a Request, M.A Thesis, VNU-CFL 22 Renkema, J (1999) Introducción a los estudios sobre al discurso Espana:Gedisa 23 Searle, John R., (1969) Speech Acts: An essay in the Philosophy of language Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1969 24 Searle J L (1975)a Indirect speech acts In Cole P, Morgan J (Eds) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, Academic, New York 25 Searle, J L (1975)b A classification of illocutionary acts Language in Society 26 Searle, J.R (1975), "Indirect Speech Acts," in J Searle, Expression and Meaning (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1979) 27 Searle, J R.,(1969),Speech Acts UK: Cambridge University Press , 28 Srichampa, Sophana (2003) Politeness strategies in Hanoi Vietnamese speech Mon-Khmer Studies, 34, 137-157 Retrieved October, 28, 2010 29 Sydney London Everyman’s Library Leech, G.W (1983), Principles of Pragmatics, London and New York: Longman Page | 56 30 Trosborg, A (1995) Interlanguage pragmatics: Request, Complaints, and Apoligies New York: Mouton de Gryer 31 Yule G (1996), Pragmatics, Oxford University Press, Oxford 32 Zhu Yue Li Jiayu (2004) A contrastive study on the Chinese and English Speech Act of refusal in shopping activities (J); Foreign Language Education; 2004-01 Vietnamese Dũng P.V, (1996).Văn hoá giao tiếp , Hà Nội: NXB Văn hoá Thông tin Cao Xuân Hạo (1991) Tiếng Việt sơ khảo ngữ pháp chức Hà Nội: Nhà xuất Xã Hội Đỗ Hữu Châu (2010) Đại cương ngôn ngữ học Tập hai Ngữ học dụng Hà Nội Nhà xuất Giáo dục Việt Nam Giáp, Nguyễn Thiện (2007) Dụng học Việt ngữ Hà Nội: Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội Lạc D.T., Hoà N.T., (1993) Phong cách tiếng Việt.Ha Noi:NXB Giao duc Luu.,Q.K (2007) Nghiên cứu cách chấp nhận lời mời gián tiếp Tiếng Việt Tiếng Anh từ hành vi lời nói Restrieved Dêcmber,4,2009 Lê Huy Lâm (2000) Đàm thoại tiếng Anh tình Nhà xuất Cà Mau Page | 57 Nguyễn Phương Chi (1997) Từ chối, hành vi ngôn ngữ tế nhị Tạp chí “Ngôn ngữ Đời sống” Số 11/97 Nguyễn Quang (2000) Thành tố văn hóa dạy – học ngoại ngữ Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 10 Nguyễn Văn Lập (2005) Nghi thức lời nói tiếng Việt sở lý thuyết hành vi ngôn ngữ (so sánh với tiếng Anh) Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh : Đại học Khoa học Xã hội Nhân văn Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Internet http://www.lrc.ctu.edu.vn http://www.modlinguistics.com/PAPERS 3.http://www.lc.mahidol.ac.th/Documents/Publication/MKS/34/sophana200 4politeess.pdf www.kh-sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so22/23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act http://www.scribd.com/doc/32025822/An-American-and-Vietnamese- cross-cultural-study-on-refusing-an-invitation-Nguy%E1%BB%85n-ThanhLoan-QHF1E2006 http://www.scribd.com/doc/38058949/thesis-Phuong 8.https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:zB_ZBNoXpMIJ:khoaanh net/_upload/CA2010/4A07_Dang_Thi_To_Nhu_a_contrastive_analysis_of_ invitation_s_refusal_strategies_in_American_and_Vietnamese.pdf Page | 58 APPENDIX: SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE (For English Informants) This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into “Refusing an invitation in English and Vietnamese’ It is for research purpose only; therefore, you can be confident that you will not be identified in any case Your help in completing the following items is highly appriciate Please tick (√) where appropriate: • Your nationality: American Other British …………… … Australian • Sex: Male Female • Age: Above 20 Above 40 Above 30 Above 50 • Your first language:…………………………………… Question: Do not spend a lot of time thinking about what answer you think you should provide; instead, please refuse as naturally as possible and try to write your response as you feel you would say in this situation.) 1.You go to the professor’s home to ask for his comment for your dissertation When you arrive, his family is having lunch He invites you to join his family However, you are too full to eat anymore You refuse him by saying: Answer:………………………………………………………………… … …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… A classmate asks if he can borrow your notes as he could not come to the lecture last week However, you are going to have an exam tomorrow You refuse him by saying: Answer:……………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… You are the female director of a bank One day, your staff invites you to a luxurious spa This staff, together with other people will be nominees for the manager in your bank next month You not want to receive her invitation to avoid misunderstanding You refuse her by saying: Answer:……………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Your boss offers you a promotion, however, you have to change your current work and move to other branch, which is far from home now You not want to change your job You refuse his offer by saying: Answer:……………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… A friend of yours in the university invites you to visit her hometown However, you have another appointment at this time and you cannot change the schedule You refuse her by saying: Answer:……………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Thank you kindly! SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE (For Vietnamese Informants) Tôi làm khảo sát nhằm phục vụ cho đề tài :”Nghiên cứu từ chối lời mời Tiếng Anh Tiếng Việt” Bài khảo sát phục vụ cho mục đích nghiên cứu, xin bảo đảm không tiết lộ danh tính quý vị hoàn cảnh nảo Xin quý vị bớt chút thời gian trả lời giúp câu hỏi Xin quý vị đánh dấu (√) vào chỗ phù hợp • Giới tính Nam Nữ • Độ tuổi: Trên 20 Trên 40 Trên 30 Trên 50 Câu hỏi: Quý vị tưởng tượng gặp phải tình trả lời cách tự nhiên theo nghĩ Quý vị đến nhà vị giáo sư hướng dẫn khóa luận Khi đến nơi, gia đình giáo sư ăn tối, ông mời bạn ăn cơm gia đình ông, quý vị no không muốn ăn them nữa, quý vị từ chối lời mời giáo sư cách trả lời Trả lời: …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Một người bạn học lớp muốn mượn quý vị ghi chép học mà tuần trước anh vắng mặt Nhưng ngày mai quý vị có kiểm tra môn học cho mượn Quý vị từ chối lời đề nghị anh cách trả lời là: Trả lời: …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Quý vị giám đốc ngân hàng Một ngày, nhân viên cấp mời quý vị đến spa chăm sóc sắc đẹp Nhân viên với bốn nhân viên khác ứng viên cho chức trưởng phòng tháng tới ngân hàng bạn Quý vị không muốn gây hiểu nhầm cho nhân viên khác Quý vị từ chối lời mời nhân viên cách trả lời là: Trả lời: …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Sếp quý vị đề nghị thăng chức cho quý vị với điều kiện phải thay đổi vị trí làm việc tới chi nhánh khác Quý vị không muốn chuyển công tác chỗ làm xa nhà bạn, Quý vị từ chối lời đề nghị sếp cách trả lời là: Trả lời: …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Một người bạn trường đại học quý vị mời bạn thăm quê Tuy nhiên, quý vị lại có hẹn vào hôm đó, quý vị thay đổi lịch trình Quý vị từ chối lời mời cách trả lời là: Trả lời: …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………… Xin chân thành cảm ơn! [...]... basically meaningless Austin and Searle observed that there are many sentences that cannot meet such truth conditions but that are, nevertheless, valid sentences and do things that go beyond their literal meaning Searle and Austin argued that in the same way that we perform physicalacts, such as having a meal or closing a door, we can also perform acts by using language We can use language, for example,... in intercultural and non native contexts Beckers (1999) also found that Americans still employed their refusal strategies according to social status whereas Germans varied their strategies according to social distance (stranger acquaintance and intimate) Germans also employed fewer semantic formulate than did Americans, which are the combination of three variables of social distance, social status and. .. Pointing outthe ways people refuse an invitation in English and Vietnamese - Finding outthe similarities and differences of the ways that English and Vietnamese people refuse an invitation - Suggesting some implications for teaching and learning the ways that English people refuse an invitation 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY - In this paper, the similarities and differences in refusal strategies between English. .. 1996:60) Page | 20 Referring to requests in particular, a native speaker of the language uses certain strategies in order to maintain norms and principles that form part of social interaction As Bonn (2000:32) exposes: “Speaking in a polite manner involves being aware of the effect a particular illocuitionary force has on someone’s addressee, and aggravating or mitigating this force by applying a suitable... 2.2.4 Refusing an invitation According to Al-Eryani (2007), a refusal is a respond negatively to an offer, request, invitation, etc Refusals, as all the other speech acts, occur in all languages However, not all languages/cultures refuse in the same way nor do they feel comfortable refusing the same invitation or suggestion In many societies, how one says “no” may be more important than the answer... refuse an invitation in Vietnam and English In the next step, the study aims to find out the cross-cultural differences between English and Vietnamese in refusing an invitation, then suggesting some implications for teaching and learning the ways that English people refuse an invitation 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY In line with the aims of the research, the specific objectives can be described as follows:... friendly attitude, polite attitude, respect and hospitality of the speaker and starts from the interest of both of the speaker and the hearer Invitation is also a very popular speech act used in daily communication Invitation is language reality in every culture Invitation expresses the concern to share with others, helps consolidate the relationship and makes the life more and more diversified and copious... nonverbal like shaking head, brushing something aside, having a dirty look… and verbal Pham Thi Van Page | 7 Quyen studied the refusals of requesting in Vietnamese in comparison with English basing on some available situations Nguyen Thi Hai studied the refusals in conversations with such speech acts as“requesting”, “asking, “begging”, “advising”, “inviting”, “ thanking”, “ complimenting”, “ congratulating”... studies in Viet Nam Research on Viet Nam speech acts of refusal restricted to indirectnessand directness includes a study on some cross-cultural differences in refusing arequest in English and Vietnamese (Phan, 2001) She found that both Angolophone and Vietnamese informants tended to use more direct refusals than directs ones Moreover, both Anglophone and Vietnamese always exceeded the urbanies in the... concerns for others, with no motive other than facilitating and making the distance between communicators closer and friendlier, thus enhancing solidarity These questions, on the other hand, are considered intrusive to privacy in non-Confusian societies Marital status, age, income, and religion are matters that people usually refrain from discussing when they are engaged in everyday social conversation,