A study on refusing an invitation in english and vietnamese

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 part

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)

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:………

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 do 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

It’s really difficult to refuse someone when he or she offers you something or to do something, especially when you’re busy or you don’t want to do 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

LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality……….i

Acknowledgement……… ………….….ii

Abstract……… iii

List of tables and abbreviations ………… ………… ……… …… iv

Table of contents ……….….v

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rational……… ……… … 1

1.2 Aims of the study …2

1.3 Objectives of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study …3

1.6 Structure of the study 3

CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review the previous study 5

2.1.1 Review of previous studies overseas………….……… … 5

2.1.2 Review of previous studies in Vietnam………7

2.2 Review the theoretical background 8

2.2.1 Speech acts 8

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 4 : 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

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

CHAPTER 1 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 do 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

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 Vietnam with the idea reflected in a Vietnamese proverb: “You don’t have to buy words, so don’t let them hurt the feelings of others.”

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

Initially, the study carried out to discover the way people 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:

- 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 and Vietnamese will be discussed under three circumstances, which

are:

a, When the invitee is at a lower status

b, when the invitee is at an equal status

c, when the invitee is at a higher status

- This study discusses some ways of refusing invitation in English and Vietnamese to find out some similarities and differences on theory

- In this research, the writer interviews 25 foreigners and conducts survey questionnaire to 25 Vietnamese people to find out how English and Vietnamese people refuse invitations and gives some recommendations

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

With some objectives above, the study primarily contributes to understand the English and Vietnamese communicating styles from cross-cultural points of view The paper shows how people receive the invitation and which ways they should choose to decline it The paper can to some extent, help learners of English understand the cultures of the two nations and the polite ways to refuse invitation in certain contexts

1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The thesis consists of five main chapters

Chapter 1 includes six small parts: rationale, aims, objectives, scope, significance and structure of the study

Chapter 2 reviews previous studies on the speech act and the theoretical background of speech act, classification of speech acts, refusal as a speech acts, directness, indirectness and politeness

Chapter 3 describes the methodology used in the study, including the aims, the research questions of the study, the data collection method, the data collection instrument, data collecting procedures and the subjects of the study The coding framework and data analysis are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 4 is the Findings and Discussions This part discusses three circumstances: When the invitee is at a lower status, when the invitees is at

an equal status; and when the invitee is at a higher status, then the similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese refusals will be shown

Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings of the study, point out the limitations of the study and suggests areas for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES

2.1 Review of previous studies overseas

Refusal is characterized as a response to one of the speech acts, request, invitation, offer and suggestion, rather than as an initiating act It is

a speech by which a speaker denies to engage in an action proposed by the interlocutor (Chen, Ye and Zhang, 1995)

The speech act of refusal occurs when a speaker directly or indirectly say no to a request or invitation Refusal is a face-threatening act

to listener/requestor, inviter, because it contradicts his or her expectations, and it’s often realized through indirect strategies Thus it requires a high level of pragmatic competence (Chen, 1996)

Beebe ad Takahashi (1990), focusing on the effect of status on the performance of face-threatening acts of refusals by the Japanese learners of English, have found that Japanese informants tends to shift their styles more according to interlocutors status than speakers of American English Japanese tend to express regrets or apologies more frequently to people with higher status but less frequently to those with lower social status They start refusal with an apology or statement of regret, followed by an excuse, while American almost always start with an expression of positive opinion such as

“I would like to:, and followed by expressing regret and giving excuse Moreover, Japanese excuses are often, much less specific than American ones and in general, the Japanese refusals often sound more formal

There have also been studies of refusals 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 gender

In 2004, Li Jiayu analyzed the similarities and differences of refusal strategies between English and Chinese in shopping activities She jumped into conclusion that although the customers tended to make refusals, they preferred to adopt some refusal strategies to “soften” this potentially face-threatening act so as to keep a friendly business relationship between dealers Therefore, Chinese and Americans were willing to abide by the cooperation principle and the politeness principle by means of insertion sequences and hinting words However, on the whole, the finding drew from interpersonal communication indicated that Chinese tended to use the politeness refusal strategy of “marginally touching the point” because they were more economical in their choices of the number of the token of the refusal strategies so that they could restore relationship with people The Chinese often used to mode “prefaces + phony approval + reasons” while the Americans tend to use the mode “prefaces/no thanks/reasons” They employed different refusal strategies in refusing and even did not hestitate to give a peer a lesson if they were right, which suggested a hypothesis of

“questionnaire attentiveness”

2.1.2 Review of previous 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 degree of indirectness Informants who did not know any foreign language are less direct and more indirect than those with knowledge of some foreign languages There are some differences between Anglophone and Vietnamese when refusing Comparing the degree of directness and indirectness of refusals extended by two groups of informants, all the Anglophone informants were more direct than Vietnamese ones

In general, as all the other speech acts, refusal occurs in all languages However, people coming from different cultures speaking different language refuse in different ways Among all the studies on refusals, in terms of language examined, English have been by far the most commonly investigated languages of comparison for studies on native and non-native refusals, followed by Japanese as a first or second language Other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Mexican, German are also examined Vietnamese studies on speech acts of refusal are still limited Moreover, compared among studies of Vietnam speech acts by far, refusals

of requests or apologies received more attention than refusals of invitations

Until now, there have been some works studying refusals Nguyen Phuong Chi studied some ways of refusals: nonverbal like shaking head, brushing something aside, having a dirty look… and verbal Pham Thi Van

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” …in Vietnamese

In this thesis, I will give some examples of the English and Vietnamese refusals of invitation in different situations The refusals of invitation are of two types: directly and indirectly Then some similarities, differences as well as some tips for refusing an invitation in English and Vietnamese will be presented

2.2 REVIEW THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Speech acts

Following the logical positive of language, a sentence is always used

to describe some facts or affairs, unless it could be tested for truth or falsity,

is basically meaningless There are many sentences which the listener not only have their literal meanings, but also meet beyond their literal meaning Language is not only used to show the truth or falseness of particular statements In the 1950s and 1960s, two philosophers of language, John Austin and John Searle, developed speech act theory from their observation that language is used to do things others than just refer to the truth or

falseness of particular statements Austin’s book How to Do Things with

Words (1962) is the next to a series of lectures he gave at Harvard University on this topic John Searle, a student of Austin, further developed

Austin’s work in his book Speech Acts, which was publishes in 1969

Austin’s and Searle’s work appeared at a time when logical positivism was the prevailing view in the philosophy of language They launched a strong and influential attack on this work The logical positive view of language argued that a sentence is always used to describe some fact, or state of affairs and, unless it could be tested for truth or falsity, is 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, to give orders, to make requests, to give warnings, or to give advice They called these speech acts Thus people do things with words in much the same way as they perform physical actions

Paltridge (2000) defined a speech act:

A Speech Act is an utterance that serves a function in communication Some examples are an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal A speech act might contain just one word such as

‘No’ to perform a refusal or several words or sentences such as: “I’m sorry,

I can’t, I have a prior engagement” It is important to mention that speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational setting influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness strategies used to realize directive speech acts such as requests

In many ways of expressing themselves, “people do not only

produce utterance containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances.” (Yule, 1996:47) If you work in this situation where a boss has a great deal of power, then his utterances of

expression, “Youare fired”, is more than just a statement This utterance can

be used to perform the act of ending your employment However, the actions performed by utterances do not have to be as unpleasant as in the one above Actions can be quiet pleasant, as in the acknowledment of

thanks: “You’re welcome”, or in the espression of surprise: “Who’d have

thought it?”, or in Vietnamese “Ai mà nghĩ thế?”

Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, offer thanks, give apologies, and so on Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker’s attention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one’s audience

In general, speech acts are acts of communication To communicate

is to express a certain attitude being expressed For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker’s intention, the attitude being expressed

These descriptive terms for different kinds of speech acts apply

to the speaker’s communicative intention in producing an utterance The speaker normally expects that his or her communicative intention will be

recognized by the hearer Both the speaker and the hearer are helped in this process by the circumstances surrounding the utterance These circumstances are called the speech event

In many ways, it is nature of the speech event that determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech act For example, in the wintry day the speaker takes a cup of coffee but it is too iced, and produces the utterance which is likely to be interpreted as a

complaint: “This coffee is really cold! Changing the circumstance to a

really hot summer day and the speaker, being given a glass of iced coffee

and producing the utterance, it is likely to be interpreted as a praise “It

means that there is more to the interpretation of speech act than can be found in the utterance alone.” (Yule, 1996:48)

Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:

Greeting: "Hi, Eric How are things going?"

Request: "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?"

Complaint: "I’ve already been waiting three weeks for the computer, and I

was told it would be delivered within a week."

Invitation: "We’re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted

to know if you’d like to join us."

Compliment: "Hey, I really like your tie!"

Refusal: "Oh, I’d love to see that movie with you but this Friday just isn’t

going to work."

Speech acts are difficult to perform in a second language because learners may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in the

second language or they may transfer their first language rules and conventions into the second language, assuming that such rules are universal Because the natural tendency for language learners is to fall back

on what they know to be appropriate in their first language, it is important that these learners understand exactly what they do in that first language in order to be able to recognize what is transferable to other languages Something that works in English might not transfer in meaning when translated into the second language

For example, the following remark as uttered by a native English speaker could easily be misinterpreted by a native Chinese hearer:

Sarah: "I couldn’t agree with you more "

Cheng: "Hmmm…." (Thinking: "She couldn’t agree with me? I thought she

liked my idea!")

2.2.2 Classification of speech acts

Austin (1962) introduces a classifications of acts performed when a person speaks The first is a locutionary act producing a meaningful expression For example, if we make a simple sentence like “I want a cup of coffee”, we are likely to produce a locutionary act Moreover, if we do not only simply say that sentence but also attend to require the listener to bring us a cup of coffee, this kind of acts via utterances we produce with purposes in mind is generally known as illocutionary acts These acts are performed for communicative function

“In communicating, we do not simply create an utterance without intending to have an effect” (G.Yule,1996:48) For the sentence above,

we all want the act of bringing us a cup of coffee to be done or the

perlocutionary force is performed That is the third related act, perlocutionary acts

Pretheoretically, we think of an act of communication, a linguistic communication, or otherwise, an act of expressing oneself This rather vague idea can be made more precise if we get more specific about what is being expressed The perlocutionary act is a matter of trying to get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and in some cases to act

in a certain way For example, a statement expresses a belief and normally has the further purpose of getting addressee form the same belief A request expresses a desire for the addressee to do a certain thing and normally aims at the addressee to intend and, actually do that thing A promise expresses the speaker's firm intention to do something, together with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it, and normally aims further at the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to expect, the speaker to do it

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 throughout the same purposes, topic and

participants

In Lectures on Discourse Analysis (2013-82), Dr Ho Ngoc Trung

shows that Austin categorized illocuitionary acts into five classes:

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

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

reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure

+ Exercitives: is 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 form a

judgement that is so It is a very wide class; example 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 an

announcement of intention For example: am determined to, purpose 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 inti ongoing discourse, or how

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

According to the speech act theory of Searle,J and Yule,G (Pragmatic, 1996) classifies five types of general functions performed by speech acts including: Declarations, Representatives, Expressives, Directives, Commissives

+ Declarations: change states of affair, comprising naming, firing,

appointment, etc

+ Representatives: state what the speaker believes to be the casemor not,

including assertion, description, report, statement, etc

+ Expressives: state what the speaker feels; express psychological states

orattitude They can be apologizing, compliment, greeting, thanking, accepting, condoling and congratulating

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

speaker wants They are advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing, excusing, forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting , requiring, suggesting, urging and warning

+ Commissives: commit the speaker to a course of action, expressing

his/her intention such as agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising, swearing and volunteering

These five types of speech acts are also presented by G.Yule (1996:55) as in the table below:

Speech act type Direction of fit

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (following G.Yule

1996) 2.2.3 What is invitation?

Inviting is mostly a social habit It is one of the most sensitive and communicative acts to strengthen the relation or intimacy

Inviting, like thanking, complementing, requesting, etc., is regarded

as one of the most sensitive illocutionary acts in communication (Tank 2002) According to Nguyen Van Lap (1989,3): “Inviting Act is one of the

politerequest forms The situation, participants, relationship and objective ofcommunication greatly influence the structure of invitation formulae Thearticle has researched deep into the structure forms of invitation in theVietnamese language.”

Like another request forms (request, command, asking), invitation can express different polite levels of the speaker Inviting means polite, hurry somebody to act that this action is to make both of the speaker and the hearer satisfied On the other hand, implementing invitation is suitable for dialog person’s interest

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary [6:685]:

“Invitationis request someone to take part in a social event” or “request

someone to goto somewhere or to do something politely”:

Eg: “Would you like to see a tennis march with me on Sunday?” The same, Vietnamese Dictionary 1 definesthat “Invitation” is

“haverequiring someone to come”

Eg: “Mời anh đến chơi.”

But this definition just gives a feature of meaning According to

Vietnamese Dictionary 2 says that: “invitation is have requirement

someoneto go somewhere or do something” Although this definition is more sufficient meaning, it hasn’t distinguished among inviting act with another act such as: request, order, ask, etc Invitation is the speech which expresses 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

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 itself, therefore, sending and receiving a message of “no” is a task that needs special skills The interlocutor must know when to use the appropriate from its function The speech act and its social elements depend on each group and their cultural-linguistic values

Refusals are considered to be a face-threatening act among the speech acts “Face” means the public self-image of a person It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize Refusals threaten the inviter’s face because they contradict his/her expectations and restrict the inviter’s freedom to act

according to his/her will On the other hand, refusals may threaten the addressee’s public image to maintain approval from others

Because a failure to refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal relations of the speakers, refusals usually include various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutors However, it requires a high level of pragmatic competence and the choice of these strategies may vary across languages and cultures For example, in refusing invitations, offers and suggestions, gratitude was regularly expressed by American English speakers, but rarely

by Egyptian Arabic speakers (Nelson, Al-Batal, and Echols, 1996) When Mandarin Chinese speakers wanted to refuse requests, they expressed positive opinion (e.g: I would like to…) much less frequently than American English since Chinese informants were concerned that if they ever expressed positive opinions, they would be forced to comply (Liao and Bressnahan, 1996)

2.2.5 Directness and Indirectness

Directness and indirectness are basic form of expression, which are universal in all languages and culture.Directness is a style of communication

in which speaker want to get the straight forward to the points The speech interprets exactly and literally what the speaker said The power of directness is the hearer does not have to look for what the speaker might have mean by uttering such and such sentence Everything in their interaction is expressed explicitly Misunderstanding hardly occurs

Indirectness is any communicative behavior, verbal or nonverbal that conveys something which is quite different from its literal meaning In order to protect privacy, to minimize the imposition on the hearer and to

avoid the risk of losing face, there is a preference for indirectness on the part

of the speaker to smooth the conversational interaction

For example when conveying the pragmatic meaning I want you to

do it, the English make special effort to diminish and soften their imposition and show their respect for other people’s privacy An illustration of this is when someone says “can you pass the salt?”

Here, they are not asking about your ability to pass the salt - the literal meaning of the sentence - but requesting you to pass the salt This is very common in service encounters where “can” is often used to refer to something other than ability or permission

There are many socio-cultural factors affecting the directness or indirectness of utterances Nguyen (2006) (as cited in Nguyen, T M P, p.13) proposes 12 factors that, in his view, may affect the choice of directness and indirectness in communication:

1 Age: the old tend to be more indirect than the young

2 Sex: females prefer indirect expression

3 Residence: the rural population tends to use more indirectness than the

urban

4 Mood: while angry, people tend to use more indirectness

5 Occupation: those who study social sciences tend to use more

indirectness than those who study natural sciences

6 Personality: the extroverted tend to use more directness than the

introverted

7 Topic: while referring to a sensitive topic, a taboo, people usually opt for

indirectness

8 Place: when at home, people tend to use more directness than when they

are elsewhere

9 Communication environment/setting: when in an informal climate,

people tend to express themselves in a direct way

10 Social distance: those who have closer relations tend to talk in a more

These factors help to determine the strategies as well as the number

of semantic formulae used when speakers perform the act of refusing

2.2.6 Politeness strategies

In social interaction, people always try to make their speech as polite

as possible In most of the study, the politeness has been conceptualized especially as strategic conflict-avoidance or as strategic construction of cooperative human communication

Yule (1996) generalized politeness as “the means employed to show

awareness of another person’s face…” and as “the idea of polite social

behavior or etiquette, within a culture involves certain general principles as being tactful, generous, modest, sympathetic towards others” (G.Yule 1996:60)

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 degree of modification.”

One of these degrees of modifications is Politeness Every time a speaker performs a request, he/she is acquainted with the fact that conversations follow particular conventions and organizational principles Strategies to perform requests vary according to context and along factors such as social power, role and status And every speaker has the necessity to

be appreciated by others and to feel that nobody is interfering with him (Renkema, 1999:27)

Politeness can be at once understood as a social phenomenon, a means to achieve good interpersonal relationships, and a norm imposed by social conventions So it is phenomenal, instrumental and normative by nature According to Brown and Levinson (as cited in “Politeness”, 2010), politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "selfesteem" in public or in private situations Usually you try to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable Face Threatening Acts (FTA's) are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to maintain his/herself esteem, and be respected Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTA's What would you do if you saw a cup of pens on your teacher's desk, and you wanted to use one, would you:

a say, "Ooh, I want to use one of those!"

b say, "So, is it O.K if I use one of those pens?"

c say, "I'm sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask you if I could use one of those pens?"

d Indirectly say, "Hmm, I sure could use a blue pen right now." There are four types of politeness strategies, described by Brown and Levinson (as cited in “Politeness,” 1997), that sum up human

"politeness" behavior: Bald On Record, Negative Politeness, Positive Politeness, and OffRecord-indirect strategy

If you answered A, you used what is called the Bald On-Record strategy which provides no effort to minimize threats to your teachers'

"face."

If you answered B, you used the Positive Politeness strategy In this situation you recognize that your teacher has a desire to be respected It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity

If you answered C, you used the Negative Politeness strategy which similar to Positive Politeness in that you recognize that they want to be respected However, you also assume that you are in some way imposing on them Some other examples would be to say, "I don't want to bother you but "or "I was wondering if "

If you answered D, you used Off-Record indirect strategies The main purpose is to take some of the pressure off of you You are trying not

to directly impose by asking for a pen Instead you would rather it be offered to you once the teacher realizes you need one, and you are looking

to find one

In many ways, politeness is universal It is resorted to by speakers of different languages as a means to an end and it is recognized as a norm in all societies Despite its universality, the actual manifestations of politeness, the ways to realize politeness and the standards of judgment differ in different cultures On her thesis, Nguyen, T L (2010) points out some aspects we should consider in order to achieve the goal of politeness as following:

- The social background of the communicator Generally, the more educated a man is, the more he tends to show his politeness to other people The more he knows about the suitable ways to show politeness, the better he uses them to be polite to others Besides, the personality of the communicator is also very important here Good -tempered person prefers to use “face saving act” while bad-tempered person prefers “face-threatening act” when they come across the “face-losing condition”

- The communicative circumstances Communication is a very complicated process In formal occasions, people tend to use formal expressions to show politeness, esp between the new acquaintances While

in informal states, people tend to be casual to show intimacy even if it is in the very moment they meet And that doesn’t mean impoliteness Look at the following example:

Ex 1: A man came into a bar and said to the waiter: “Hi! Buddy! Gimme

some whisky, would ya?” Although they’ve never met before, the man used very casual phrases to enclose their relationship This is a usual way to show friendliness to strangers in similar entertaining places

- The social distance The social distance between speaker and hearer is one of the factors that determine politeness behaviors The notion

of social distance refers to the consideration of the roles people are taking in

relation to one another in a particular situation as well as how well they know each other, which means the degree of intimacy between interlocutors However, there are still some exceptions For example, people often use family names to call their close friends, and when these people speak to each other, they will use direct offer or request But sometimes they use very formal expressions in their speech Look at the following example

Ex 2: Husband to his wife: “Would you be so kind as to hand the bread over

+Ways to greet each others and farewells

+ Ways to address terms

+ Ways to praise others

+ Ways to express thanks

2.2.7 Politeness in Vietnamese culture

In Vietnam, politeness is highly considered Everyday courses of action and life style should be based on the grounds of morality than reasonability In former time, politeness was considered more important

than education itself Students of Confucian culture were taught “Tiên học

l ễ, hậu học văn” or “behave oneself before studying” (tiên: first; học:

study; l ễ: good manners, hậu: later, học: study; văn: knowledge) (Luu

Directness is appreciate in the Western world, but not in Vietnam (Crawford 1966) Moreover, in the Vietnamese culture, when asking such questions as “Where are you going?”, “What are you doing?”, “Are you married?”, “How old are you?”, “How much do you earn a month?”, people simply want to show their 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, especially with someone that they do not know well enough

With regard to politeness strategies in refusing, the Vietnamese has some social norms that require conversant to be able to refuse in a polite manner This fact has modified the thinking and behaviors of the

Vietnamese Some have successfully become very fluent in English Nonetheless, when resorting to different ways of refusing; they tend to be more indirect than their English-speaking counterparts This study aims to discuss this phenomenon in English language learning and teaching in Vietnamese context