Compliment speech act in english and vietnamese a case of vietnamese speakers of english

HA TINH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYỄN THỊ THU TRANG (11131302022) GRADUATION MINOR THESIS COMPLIMENT SPEECH ACT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CASE OF VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH Ha Tinh, 2017 HA TINH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES COMPLIMENT SPEECH ACT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CASE OF VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH SUPERVISOR : MA Hoang Thi Hoan PARTICIPANT RESEARCHER : Nguyen Thi Thu Trang CLASS : K6 English Language PARTICIPANT NUMBER : 11131302022 Ha Tinh, 2017 ii Table of contents Acknowledgement v Abstract vi Chapter one: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Research purposes 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Contributions of the research 1.5 Thesis Outline Chapter two: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature review 2.1.1 Definition of compliments 2.1.2 Functions of compliments 2.1.3 How people pay a compliment 2.1.4 Compliments and politeness 10 2.2 Methodology 13 2.2.1 Participants 13 2.2.2 Data collection 13 2.2.3 Data analysis 14 2.2.4 Ethical issues 14 2.3 Findings and discussion 14 3.3.1 The age and compliments 15 3.3.2 The gender and compliments 18 3.3.3 The social distance and compliments 23 3.3.4 The closeness and compliments 23 3.3.5 Functions of compliments 27 3.3.6 Linguistic characteristics of compliments 31 iii Chapter three: CONCLUSION 34 3.1 Summary of the study 34 3.2 Implications 35 3.3 Suggestions for further research 35 References 36 Appendix 36 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The completion of this undertaking could not have been possible without the participations and assistance of so many people whose names may not be enumerated Their contributions are sincerely appreciated and gratefully acknowledged To all teachers, relatives, friends and others who in one way or another shared their support, either morally, financially and physically, thank you Above all, I would like to express my deep appreciation and indebtedness to Mrs Hoang Thi Hoan who helped me to accomplish this study Her exemplary guidance, constant encouragement, and careful monitoring throughout the internship are so great that, even my most profound gratitude is not enough Thank you so much Nguyễn Thị Thu Trang v ABSTRACT: The compliment is an expression of respect, approval and admiration, used to congratulate, encourage or praise and make the addressee feel good The compliment can be described of a positive politeness strategy as it shows the speaker’s notice and respect to the hearer’s interests, wants and “goods” We carried out a survey with the participation of 18 female participants at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ha Tinh University The data were collected from questionnaires, interviews and DCT method English and Vietnamese belong to two different types of languages Each language has the different social and cultural contexts which might lead to distinctions in communicating in general, and paying compliments in particular Therefore, we decided to research the compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese by Vietnamese speakers of English in order to investigate differences of participants’ compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese, then may provide several suggestions to solve restrictions in complimenting by Ha Tinh students Key words: Compliment, Vietnamese speakers, influences, functions vi Chapter one: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Communicating is not only the process of giving and receiving the information, it also expresses the attitudes to the hearer Language reflects the social interaction between partners and what we say is determined by various factors, such as the social distance Actually, we not exchange similar words with different people in different situations and should appropriately communicate with different addressees The compliment speech act occurs popularly in daily conversations, and it is important and necessary to give suitable comments on the others In general, the compliment is an expression of esteem, respect, and admiration, especially an admiring remark; congratulating, encouraging or praising someone for something and compliments are used to make the addressee feel good about himself/herself The compliment speech acts could be considered as a kind of politeness strategies By paying compliments, the speaker shows that she/he notices, in contrast, she/he might threaten to the partner‟s face by ignoring them In communications, it is important to show polite behaviors toward others, and the awareness of your partner‟s face When a person says something that represents a threat to another‟s self-image, it serves as a face threatening act On the contrary, if you try to respect the “face wants” of the partner, that will be called a face saving act English and Vietnamese belong to two different types of languages Each language has the different social and cultural context which might lead to distinctions in communicating in general, and paying compliments in particular Therefore, we decided to research the compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese by Vietnamese speakers of English Compliments is a large field to study, there are a variety of aspects in complimenting, such as giving and receiving compliments, however, we just concentrate on how Ha Tinh participants pay compliments in a foreign language, English, and in their mother tongue, Vietnamese In this study, all what I presented surely has many shortcomings due to lack of experience, limitation of time and knowledge Nonetheless, I hope that, to some extent, this study will help participants have a more comprehensive viewpoint on the compliment speech act 1.2 Research purposes The aim of this study is to investigate the complimenting behavior of a group of Vietnamese participants of English in English and Vietnamese In the study, we would like to find out how a group of English-major participants pay compliments in English and Vietnamese, what functions the participants pay compliments for in English and Vietnamese 1.3 Research questions The research was carried out to solve these questions: How does the group of Vietnamese speakers of English pay compliments in Vietnamese and English in different settings? What functions the participants pay compliments for in English and Vietnamese? 1.4 Contributions of the research - In terms of science: providing a new viewpoint on compliment in English and Vietnamese as well - In terms of reality: providing the methods to help Ha Tinh students pay a compliment appropriately, raising the perception in complimenting 1.5 Thesis Outline After reading and finding out the document related to the topic of this study, it is summarized as well as designed in parts: Chapter One: “Introduction” of the thesis, including parts: rationale, research purposes, research questions, contributions and design of the study This part mainly shows the basic theories and contents related to the topic that we are researching to help readers understand comprehensively about the situation on topic Chapter Two: “Development” includes three parts: 2.1 “Literature review” mentions to theoretical background which are introduced in definitions, functions of compliments, and how people in other cultures pay a compliment, and the relation between compliments and politeness 2.2.“Methodology” presents the methodology conducted in this study; at the same time, this chapter will deal with collecting and analyzing data from the questionnaire system 2.3.“Findings and discussion” shows responses from sources, and analyze them in order to find the factors which influence on the compliment speech act, the differences in compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese and the politeness in compliments Chapter Three: “Conclusion” summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and gives some suggestions for further studies Chapter two: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature review 2.1.1 Definition of compliments The compliment is one of the most popular topics in linguistics Holmes (1986) defined the compliment as “a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, regularly the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (p.485) Newton and Burgoon (1990) believed that compliments are “statements that are intended to make the other feel good about himself/herself” (p.509), as KerbratOrecchioni (1987) supposed that they are “verbal presents” (p.10) Kodama (1996) concurred with Wierzbicka‟s statement (1987) that compliments are an intricate combination of positive evaluation, displayed good feelings, implicit friendliness, and half-admitted desire to please When one pays a compliment, in some cases, she or he covertly underestimates herself/himself than the addressee, wishes for having the value which is mentioned Hence, the compliment could be the face-saving act or the facethreatening act, so that the speaker should investigate the person addressed well and use the compliment appropriately Compliments, according to Jaworki (1995), can be described as “both direct and indirect utterances expressing the speaker‟s positive opinion about the addressee‟s outward appearance, work, personality traits, possessed, and about the third parties closely related to the addressee (e.g Children)” (p.64) (1) That‟s so amazing, John (direct) (2) Linda said you‟ve just completed an amazing project (indirect) Normally, participants directly comment on the addressee in Vietnamese and English in order that the hearer could know the speaker‟s high appreciation for the qualities of the hearer, however, there are distinctions in expressing the emotion for different-closeness people It seems that the participants behave more politely as showing their pleasure in compliment in case the addressee is a stranger The friend‟s mother cooked a huge number of dishes which she puts a lot of efforts into, they highly appreciate her attempts and kindness (29) "It tastes great, this dish must be served in 5-star restaurant." (30) "I really love this dish! Can you give me the recipe? I really want to know how to cook it?" (31) "It is the best dish I've ever tasted!" (32) “Cô nấu ăn tuyệt quá!” (33) “Ngon quá!” In fact, people pay compliments in order to make others feel good, and for a not-too-close addressee, the speaker overwhelmingly praises him/her When the speaker and the hearer are close enough, they not need to compliment as a politeness strategy, to reinforce the social relationship or satisfy others by praises In case they do, it means that the compliment recipient must have something which the speaker admires, or feel good about Nonetheless, if the addressee was a person who is really close to you, such as your aunt, ordinarily, the compliment speech act would express the real feelings rather than exaggerate them (34) Your aunt cooked a huge number of dishes “Cô, ngon quá! “Ngon tuyệt, cô ạ!” 26 Generally, participants seem to be more polite in giving compliments, they exaggerate in English, apply the structures that they rarely use in Vietnamese, such as the superlative Whereas, in Vietnamese, they normally use simple adjectives to describe the good feelings 90 83.3 80 70 60 50 44.4 38.9 40 30 16.7 20 10 Social distance Closeness Age Gender Figure 3.3: Influences on the complimenting behavior (%) We found that the relationship between the communication‟s contributor play an important role in paying compliments, 83.3% of participants think that the closeness would shape their speaking manner If communication partners have a close relationship, compliments would not be tied significantly by other impacts, even the compliment recipient is older, more powerful If the relationship of conversation participants is close, other factors insignificantly affect to the speech acts, the speaker is not forced by the politeness principles, and independent to speak 3.3.5 Functions of compliments Studies have shown that complimenting involves a variety of linguistic functions In communication, compliments apply in many situations with 27 different purposes and a person usually pays compliments when she/he believes the person addressed has a good quality that the speaker admires, for instance, “I love your hair, it‟s beautiful!” Compliments can be described as a positive politeness device which conveys good feelings of the speaker to the partner, according to Herbert, serve as praises, admirations, then the relationship between the communicators can be boosted It is also considered as an effective method of teachers, leaders in order to encourage people Since no one wants to be criticized, and they might be frustrated when others not recognize their attempts, teachers regularly say something good for children, they would have more motivations in order to fulfil tasks, improve the skills Beside the positive aims, speakers use compliments to state sarcastic speeches and play jokes on the hearers They argued that, there might be misunderstandings because of jokes, especially when they are speaking in English Even though it happens, they can explain more easily in their mother tongue rather than a foreign language It is admitted that participants are more conscious of their words in English Functions Percentage (%) Express the admiration, praises 72.2 Start the conversation smoothly 38.9 Reply a previous compliment 22.2 Sarcasm Apologize 5.6 Encourage 55.6 Table 3.5: Functions of compliments (%) We carried on the survey to find out which functions of compliments that participants use in their daily conversation As the table shows, 72.2% 28 participants use compliments to show their admiration to the hearer, they believe that the hearer has good qualities, achievements or the beauty that they highly appreciate 10 of 18 volunteers claimed that they often encourage others by paying compliments There are other functions of the compliment that Ha Tinh participants apply on their daily conversations, such as starting the conversation smoothly, replying a precious compliment and appeasing the negative emotion of the hearer, however, the compliments, which are used for these purposes, appear in communicating with a lower frequency None of them uses compliments as sarcastic comments, in other words, they not want to play jokes on others, and they find it impolite and inappropriate Compliment givers use compliments to express the good feelings, the good evaluation the compliment receivers, moreover, they want the addressee know their admiration A compliment would make the receiver happy, maintain and reinforce the solidarity between communicators It can be used tostart a conversation more easily (35) Participants come to a class in the first time “Bạn trông dễ thương thật đấy!” “Này, màu tóc bạn nhìn sáng da thật đấy!” “How a nice dress!” To break the ice at the beginning of the conversation, the speaker pays a compliment on her friend‟s hair or clothes instead of introducing herself, and then the hearer may find a few similar concerns in fashion The talking would happen more smoothly and easily Besides, the speaker may pay a compliment back when they want to politely reply a previous compliment 29 (36) Phuong replied to a compliment of her dress “Thank you You look nice too.” “Dạ, cháu cảm ơn Hôm nhìn cô đẹp lắm.” In case that one does something wrong, make slightly a mistake, she/he use compliments to apologize, partly relieve the negative feelings of the hearer, however, the condition is that the relationship between two partners is extremely close (37) “I‟m sorry, my beauty Don‟t be mad at me Please, forgive me.” (38) “Này, tớ xin lỗi, đừng giận nhé, người đẹp Tha lỗi cho tớ đi.” A compliment also can be considered as an encouragement to others, shows the recognition of the addressee‟s achievement, and then ties the union between the speaker and the hearer (39) “Cậu hôm tuyệt lắm!” (40) “You‟re doing a great job!” The compliment in Vietnamese functions similarly Normally, compliments are used to show admiration, make the hearer feel good about himself/herself, encourage the addressee and tie the solidarity They are the popular aims when one commends on the other, nevertheless, there are functions that Ha Tinh participants not usually apply in their English conversations (41) Nhung‟s friend got a low mark “Học giỏi nhỉ!” Participants, additionally, use compliments as sarcastic remarks As we mentioned, sarcastic remarks are used for completely close people, usually 30 who have the equal status, similar age, such as friends, since the irony are described as impolite speech act, may damage the hearer‟s face, and the relationship between communicators This does not happens in English complimenting behavior of participants, because they are not willing to be misunderstood and even in Vietnamese, they rarely tease, make fun of another, and also find the sarcasm a rude, disrespectful speech act In conclusion, the compliment speech acts in Vietnamese of Ha Tinh participants serve more functions than in English and they are given more freedom of choosing words, grammar in their mother tongue to express the compliments In fact, Vietnamese participants occasionally praise the others and generally, they express true feelings, what they appropriate highly in the address, the behavior seems to be conserved when they speak English 3.3.6 Linguistic characteristics of compliments We found out that these participants are used to a few structures in English The most favorite formulas are - I (really) like/love + noun - S + look + adjective - What a/an + adjective + noun! Those structures are used frequently in most of the situations We interviewed participants and discovered their speaking behaviors in Vietnamese and English are notably different One explored that she does not speak complicatedly, as she will try to simplify the vocabulary and grammar as much as possible She is afraid of being wrong, others may not understand what she is saying, including complimenting, therefore, she normally just says “I like your dress” or “It looks cute” when she needs to compliment In 31 addition, others rarely use unfamiliar structures, even they have learned about a lot of them, and know well the usage They use some identical adjectives as well, such as cute, beautiful, nice, great, and good The findings are similar to Wolfson and Holmes (1995) These are the most popular adjectives in English and can be stand alone or combine with other types of words to create sentences Moreover, these adjectives can be applied to any situations (42) You‟re looking nice today (43) What a great man! (44) I like your style When complimenting, one positively tries to show the emotion, the admiration for the addressee In Vietnamese, since there is not the fomular “What a/an + adjective + noun!”, participants pay compliments in main following formulas - You V (NP) (a) really ADJ NP + “quá”! (E.g: “Bạn mặc váy xinh quá!”) - I (really) {like, love} NP + “quá”! (E.g: “Cháu thích vườn nhà bác quá!”) - ADJ (NP) + “quá”! (E.g: "Dễ thương quá!”) Generally, participants use the word “quá” (really, very) to enthusiastically express their praises the addressee and want him/her feel their sincerity in words “Quá”, frequently, is placed at the last position of the sentences and seems to be an essential, vital element in complimenting by Vietnamese people, beside the indispensable part, adjective, in addition, “thế”, “rứa” and “nhỉ” may be replaced in case that the speaker does not use “quá” Since Ha Tinh people speak in the dialect, “rứa” is frequently used in 32 verbal communication On the other hand, we observed that Ha Tinh participants widely use “xinh”, “đẹp”, “dễ thương” and “tuyệt” (45) “Nhìn xinh rứa!” (46) “Hôm trông bạn tuyệt quá!” (47) “Có đôi giày đẹp nhỉ!” 33 Chapter three: CONCLUSION 3.1 Summary of the study In summary, the compliment is an expression of respect, approval and admiration, used to congratulate, encourage or praise and make the addressee feel good In fact, people will change the compliment speech act when they communicate with different addressees, whereas, the closeness would be the most influential element in compliment, since the relationship between the speaker and the hearer is extremely close, other distances are not important, and not affect notably Vietnamese people find it hard to compliment the others who have higher age, social status, since they could be misunderstood as flattering the addressee and take advantage from her/him in both English and Vietnamese Participants commonly notice and positively comment on women and the most popular topics are women‟s appearance and men‟s ability Furthermore, Ha Tinh participants tend to use favorite adjectives like cute, beautiful, nice, great, and good in giving compliment in English; and also use several familiar formulas - I (really) like/love + noun - S + look + adjective - What a/an + adjective + noun! In Vietnamese, adjectives, “dễ thương”, “đẹp”, “xinh” and “tuyệt”, are used frequently; and participants tend to pay a compliment in - You V (NP) (a) really ADJ NP + “quá”! - I (really) {like, love} NP + “quá”! - ADJ (NP) + “quá”! The most popular fuctions of complimenting by the group of Vietnamese speakers of English are to express the admiration, praise and encourage the 34 addressees In addition, they compliment directly to the addressee in both languages and show the good feelings in compliments 3.2 Implications Participants seem to commend considerably in Vietnamese, since English is a foreign language and participants are limited by the social, cultural differences and the language use The Vietnamese participants in this study express a high level of willingness to give compliments whenever they thought it was necessary, consequently, participants should improve the perception and attitude in studying English Moreover, depending on the age, gender, social distance and closeness, the speaker should accommodate complimenting behaviors, otherwise talking with a stranger and a friend will share different speech styles and politeness levels The compliment-giving behaviors of Vietnamese speakers, and maybe the compliment-receiving behaviors, should be concerned greatly 3.3 Suggestions for further research The compliment could be the face threatening act in case that the speaker does not know the compliment recipient well and gives inappropriate comments, consequently, the speaker should investigate the addressee and concern about the influences on the compliment speech act in order to communicate effectively Because the Eastern cultures share differences from English-speaking cultures, Vietnamese people rarely express the praises to the others in Vietmanese, especially to addressees who have higher age, status and are not close, they are affected by the mother tongue, then still limited in compliment in English There should have other studies to find out the farreaching reasons of this problem, and then provide effective solutions for Vietnamese participants in giving compliments appropriately and politely 35 References Ban Biên soạn từ điển New Era (2005) Từ điển tiếng Việt Nhà xuất Hà Nội, 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If yes, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? In case the addressee is your teacher, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? Imagine your aunt gave you a very delicious snack Do you compliment her? If yes, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? In case the addressee is your friend‟s mother in the first met, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? Imagine a girl was helping a dog Do you compliment her? If yes, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? 39 - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? In case the addressee is a boy, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? Imagine you were visiting an old man‟s house, he had an expressive garden Do you compliment him? How would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? In case the addressee is a child, how would you say in English? What is your emotion? - How would you say in Vietnamese? What is your emotion? - What are the reasons for your response? Are there any differences when you give compliments on a woman and a man 10 In your opinion, which factors influence on our complimenting behavior? 11 The purposes of your compliment speech acts in English? Why? 12 The purposes of your compliment speech acts in Vietnamese? Why? 13 If the addressee is a woman, what topics you usually pay compliments for? 14 If the addressee is a man, what topics you usually pay compliments for? 15 List compliments which you use frequently in English? 16 List compliments which you use frequently in Vietnamese? 40 ...HA TINH UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES COMPLIMENT SPEECH ACT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE: A CASE OF VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH SUPERVISOR : MA Hoang Thi Hoan PARTICIPANT RESEARCHER... research the compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese by Vietnamese speakers of English in order to investigate differences of participants’ compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese, ... communicating in general, and paying compliments in particular Therefore, we decided to research the compliment behaviors in English and Vietnamese by Vietnamese speakers of English Compliments is a