A study on english politeness strategies for refusals with reference to vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR REFUSALS WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐỐI VỚI LỜI TỪ CHỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI CHIẾU VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) PHẠM THU TRANG Hanoi, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR REFUSALS WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS (NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐỐI VỚI LỜI TỪ CHỐI TRONG TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI CHIẾU VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT) PHẠM THU TRANG Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lê Văn Thanh Hanoi, 2016 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR REFUSALS WITH REFERENCE TO VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 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, 2016 Pham Thu Trang Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Le Van Thanh Date:…………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Lê Văn Thanh for the continuous support of my M.A study and research, for his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my M.A study A special word of thanks goes to all my lecturers in Postgraduate Department of Hanoi Open University and my classmates, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished Last but not least, I would like to thank my family: my parents, for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work ii ABSTRACT One of the speech acts commonly applied in English and Vietnamese conversations is refusal Getting politeness strategies for refusals makes language learners use languages more accurately, flexibly and efficiently Nevertheless, politeness strategies for refusals have not been paid much attention to in teaching and learning English This research was implimented with the theoretical fundament of contrastive analysis, conversation analysis and viewpoints on language-culture relationship as frameworks so as to consider the similarities and differences between the English and Vietnamese politeness strategies for refusals through everyday conversations, to improve the effectiveness of the teaching and learning of this speech act in English and Vietnamese Furthermore, finding out the politeness strategies for refusals and investigating the similarities and differences in two languages can make the Vietnamese learners overcome the difficulties causing the interfere of two cultures when they deal with the confused cases of refusing iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A: American D: Distance FTA: face-threatening act H: hearer L2: The second language NSs: Native speakers S: speaker (S): Situation V: Vietnamese Italic type is used for terms and examples iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: The frequency of refusals used by English and Vietnamese speakers 38 Table 2: The frequency of politeness strategies for refusals used by English and Vietnamese speakers 46 Figure 1: Politeness strategy used by the English and Vietnamese speakers in situation and situation 47 Figure 2: Politeness strategies for refusals used by the English and Vietnamese speakers in situation and situation 51 Figure 3: Politeness strategy used by the English and Vietnamese speakers in situation and situation 55 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES……………………………………… v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Objectives of the study 1.4 Scope of study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies 2.1.1 Review of related studies on refusals worldwide 2.1.2 Review of related studies on refusals in Vietnam 2.2 Review of theoretical background 2.2.1 Speech acts 2.2.2 Politeness 14 2.2.3 Refusal as a speech act 26 2.2.4 Speech acts and politeness 28 2.2.5 Some viewpoints on politeness in Vietnamese language 28 vi 2.2.6 Factors affecting directness and indirectness in human interaction 29 2.2.7 Social distance, social status and gender 30 2.2.8 Summary 32 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 33 3.1 Research questions 33 3.2 Research participants 33 3.3 Research procedure 34 3.4 Data collection instruments 34 3.5 Research method 36 3.6 Reliability and validity 37 3.7 Summary 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 38 4.1 Result overview 38 4.2 Data analysis results 46 4.2.1: The choice of politeness strategies to refuse in high power settings 46 4.2.2 The choice of politeness strategies to refuse in equal power settings 51 4.2.3 The choice of politeness strategies to refuse in low power settings 55 4.3 Discussion 59 4.3.1: The similarities and differences between the politeness strategies in refusals of English speakers and Vietnamese speakers 59 4.3.2 The influence of relative power and social distance to the selection of politeness strategies by native speakers of English and Vietnamese 62 4.4 Summary 62 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 64 vii 5.1 Summary, major findings and implications on teaching 64 5.1.1 Summary 64 5.1.2 Major findings 65 5.1.3 Implications on teaching 66 5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 68 5.2.1 Limitations of the study 68 5.2.2 Suggestions for further studies………………………………… 68 REFERENCES 70 viii CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION Finally, chapter of the thesis is to consider what are analyzed in the study as well as give extra information related to the topic It includes two smaller parts: (1) Summary, Major findings, Implications on teaching and (2) Limitations of the study and Suggestions for further studies 5.1 Summary, major findings and implications on teaching 5.1.1 Summary The study’s aim is to find out the similarities and differences between the politeness strategies that the English and Vietnamese speakers use make refusals As a result, three research questions are given: (1) How English speakers and Vietnamese speakers form polite refusals? (2) What are the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese politeness strategies for refusals? (3) What are the implications on teaching and learning English as the second language? The literature review of the study is based on the theoretical background of speech acts, politeness strategies, the existing theory on pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics, categories of refusals in English and Vietnamese through earlier research as well as documents on linguistics and English learning Two groups of speakers contributed the data for analysis: thirty English native participants and thirty Vietnamese native participants The research was implemented with survey questionnaires including six situations Analytic, synthetic, descriptive, statistic and contrastive methods are used for Data analysis in this study After the results were pointed out, the discussion to answer three research questions were prepared, and some implications on teaching was given 64 5.1.2 Major findings In the study, politeness strategies in refusals have been viewed in the light of pragmatics After collecting data, six main politeness strategies have been discussed, including Postponing, Feeling sorry and apology, Giving excuses/ explanation/ reason, Showing respect, Giving another solutions and Combining various ways Such aspects as power distance of the inviters and the invitees and the formality of the events have been researched to point out the similarities and differences in the use of politeness strategies to refuse an invitation between Vietnamese and American speakers The survey results indicate that almost English participants and Vietnamese participants using politeness strategies when refusing invitations (94.6% and 96.8% respectively) Furthermore, when refusing an invitation, gender decides the use of politeness strategies 99.6% of the Vietnamese and 97.9% of the English women speakers use politeness strategies mostly The number of Vietnamese man applying politeness strategies frequently is 97.4% while that of the American is just 96.9% The favorite strategy employed by both Vietnamese and English people is Combining various ways, while the least favored tactic is Postponing Giving excuse/explanation/reason is a strategy favored by Vietnamese people They have the tendency to give very detailed excuses in every refusal It is at times seen as long and unimportant in conversations with the English It has been considered that the Vietnamese not have the habit of not saying sorry and thank you very regularly, in particular, in socialized situations, or when it exists intimacy between the speaker and the listener Saying sorry and thank you to someone close will be noticed artificial in 65 Vietnamese culture This habit is a weakness when Vietnamese speakers have to refuse an invitation from English partners, since English people have a tendency to say sorry and thank you very frequently, even to those who are intimate as a sign of respect 5.1.3 Implications on teaching The research’s results show that rejecting is a complicated mission for the reason that it needs the acquisition of the social–cultural values of the target culture So as to successfully communicate, it is necessary for the learners of English to obtain the social-cultural strategies applied most regularly by native speakers, and the rules for their suitable implementation Under some characteristics of contrastive view into making refusals both in English and Vietnamese, the study is on the point of discussing some implications for Vietnamese learners of English According to Rianes (1999), language is the most distinctive, the most representative and the most essential factor in any culture Language and culture are basically not separable; one cannot entirely recognize the nature of either language or culture unless they are seen as in inseparable It shows that second languge learning is regularly second culture learning (Brown, 1989) First of all, in order to improve pragmatic ability in the English classes, language teachers ought to design contextualized, task-based activities which expose learners to diverse types of pragmatic input and make learners produce proper output In particular, students ought to be taught how to apply various speech acts in various situations of social distance, social status, and with regards to the gender relation between the speakers and interlocutors Both socio-cultural and sociolinguistic information should be combined into the language curriculum and language textbooks Our globe is shrinking and the possibility of our students 66 working abroad, or even in domestic workplace with foreigners is much greater than before Our students are very likeky to communicate with both native and non-native speakers of English FitzGerald (1999) thinks that teachers ought not to forget that we are preparing our students not only for the national workplace and society Secondly, teachers ought to offer their students any input that is essential to improve their understanding in the way of refusals made in both languages as well as to develop students’ language and communicative skills The input can be offered in a variety of ways For instance, modern technology in language teaching nowadays provides a great help for teachers to supply students with many sources of refusals such as internet, television, videos, and many others From that teachers can offer students a lot of choices for selecting appropriate politeness strategies that are related to real life situations Those are fairly different to what are shown in the textbooks in order to bring reliable documents into the class Thirdly, it is vital for teachers to make students aware of cultural similarities and differences of making refusals in Vietnamese culture and the cultures where the target language is spoken In other words, teachers ought to distinguish and emphasize which politeness strategies we should use, when they are applied in informal situations as well as formal ones Through that, students are able to understand obviously the fuctions of this speech act in order to apply it efficiently in daily communication It helps the students to be more self-confident when they make and keep the talks with other people, particularly those who come from English speaking countries It is important for the reason that teachers themselves are making every attempt to qualify our students for using English for communication To successfully perform a speech act, language instructors should teach language forms and functions contextually in communicative oral activities 67 in both formal and informal cases in order to develop the learners’ sociolinguistic ability Last but not least, teachers should also offer their students as many as communicative chances as possible Teachers should renovate the class into a small society, or a neighborhood or an office where students can practise some activities as role play or mapped dialogue These activities can encourage students’ enthusiasm, creativity in refusing invitations in English 5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 5.2.1 Limitations of the study 5.2.1.1 Participants In fact, participants in this study were all volunteers Therefore, it may have several effects on the data collection and analysis Schumacher and McMillan (1993: 160) pointed out that…volunteers have the tendency to be better educated, of higher social class, cleverer, more outgoing, more unconventional, less strict, less conforming, more altruistic, and more extroverted than non-volunteers 5.2.1.2 Methodology There is a limitation in the fact that written data not have time restrictions; participants could be able to correct their answers Consequently, the answers might be different from what participants actually say in real-life situations Due to the written data methodology, other factors such as prosody (intonation, tone and stress), non-verbal gesture and facial expressions were not examined As a result, naturalistic data collection, from role-plays or recordings made in natural settings, would be required as both a complement and as a self-standing methodology in more extensive studies 68 5.2.2 Suggestions for Further Studies Even though similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese refusals have been considered up to now in the thesis, it cannot cover all the features related to such wide-range cultural and linguistic convention like refusals and its related issues Therefore, further research can find out more about this topic Here are some suggestions: A contrastive study on using politeness strategies between English and Vietnamese before giving bad news A contrastive study on hedges in refusing requests between English and Vietnamese The thesis has been completed with the immense attempts Nonetheless, during the making process of the thesis, limitations and faults are certainly unadvoidable Thus, sympathetic comments and suggestions are highly appreciated 69 REFERENCES ENGLISH MATERIALS Austin, J.L (1962) How to Do Things with Words Oxford University Press Branks, J.A (1988) Multiethniceducation U.S.: Allyn & Bacon Beckers, A.M (1999) How to say “no”: A study of the refusal strategies of Americans and Germans PhD diss, University of Mississipi New York: Plenum Press Bach, K., and Harnish, R (1997) Linguistic Communication and speech Acts The MIT Press Beebe, L.M., & Cummings, M.C (1996) Natural speech act date versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method effects speech act performance In S.M Grass & J Neu (Ed.) Speech act cross culture: Challenges to communication in a second language (pp.65 – 68) New York: Mouton de Gruyter Beebe, L.M., T Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz.R (1985) Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals Paper presented at the Second Research Forum UCLA To appear in On the development of the communicative competence in a secand language, eds.R.C Scarcella E Andeersen, and S C Krashen Rowley MA: Newbury House Beebe, L.M., T Takahashi, and Uliss-Weltz.R (1990) Pragmatic transfer in ESL refusals In R.C Scarcella, E.S Andersen, and S.D Krashen (Eds) Developing communicative competence in a second language (pp.55 – 94) New York: Newbury House 70 Blum-Kulka, S (1982) Learning to say what you mean in a second language: a study of Hebrew as a second language Applied Linguistics 3.29-59 Blum-Kulka, S (1987) Indirecteness and Politeness in Requests: Same or Different? – Journal of Pragmatics II North Holland 10 Brown, P& Levinson.S (1987) Politeness: Some Universal in Language usage Cambride University Press 11 Brown, G, and Yule, G (1983) Discourse analysis Cambridge: Cambride University Press 12 Collins Cobuild (1988) English Language Dictionary Collins Publishers 13 Cook, G (1990) Discourse Oxford University Press 14 Cobuild, C (2001) English grammar (T.Y Nguyen, Trans.) 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Report of the seventh round table meeting on linguistics and language study Washington D.C: Georgetown University Press 23 Graddol, D,; Cheshire, J, and Swan J(1994) Describing Language Open University Press, Buckingham 24 Green, G.M (1989) Pragmatic and natural Language Understanding LEA 25 Holmes, J (1995) Women, men and politeness London: Longman 26 Hornby (2003) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Oxfors University Press 27 Hymes, D (1964) Language in Culture and Society Harper International Edition 28 Jackson, H, and Stockwell, P (1996) Investigating English Language – Nature and Function of Language, Stanley Thornes Publishers Ltd 29 Kaplan, R.B (1972) Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education In H.B.Allen, & R.N Campell (Ed.) Teaching English as a second language (2nd ed.) (pp.294 – 309) New York: Me Graw Hill 30 Kasper, G Linguistics Etiquette In the Handbook of Sociolinguistics, edited by Florian Coulmas, Blackwell Publishers, p.374-385 1997 72 31 Lakoff, R (1973) The logic of politeness; or minding your p’s and q’s Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (pp.292 – 205) 32 Leech, G.N (1983) Principles of Pragmatics New York: Longman London 33 Le Thi Mai Huong (2008) Politeness strategies in request and invitations: A comparative study between English and Vietnamese Pragmatics essay Dalarna: Hogskolan Dalarna University Press 34 Levine, D.R & Adelman M.B (1982) Beyond Language – Intercultural Communication for English as a Second Language New Jersey: Prentice Hall 35 Linell, D (1999) Doing culture: Cross-cultural communication in action Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press 36 Luu Quy Khuong (2007) An investigation into spoken direct invitation in English and Vietnamese Retrieved April, 11 2012 37 McAthur, T.and McAthur, R (1996) The Oxford Companion to the English Language Oxford University Press 38 Nguyen Quang (1998) Vietnamese - American Cross Cultural Differences in Extending and Encoutering Compliments As seen From Communicative Activities - Ph.D Thesis 39 Nguyen Quang (1998) Intercultural Communication VNU-CFL 40 Nguyen Phuong Suu (1990) A Cross – Cultural Study of Greeting and Address Terms in English and Vietnamese M.A Thesis University of Canberra 41 Nguyen Thanh Loan (2010) Declining an invitation M.A Thesis Hanoi 73 42 Nguyen Thi Kim Quy (2004) A Cross - Cultural Study on Inviting and Responding to Invitations in Vietnamese and English M.A Thesis Hanoi 43 Phan, T.V.Q (2001) Some English – Vietnamese cross-cultural differences in declining a request MA Thesis Hanoi 44 Richards, J.Platt,J Webber H (1990) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Oxford: Longman 45 Richard, J.C (1985) Cross-Cultural Aspects of Convarsation Competence In Richards (ed) The Context of Language teaching CPU 46 Rubin, J (1983) How to tell when someone is saying “No” revisited In N.Wolfson and E.Judd (eds.) Sociolinguistics and language acquisition 10 -17 Cambridge Mass: New burry House 47 Saville Troike, M (1982) The Ethnography of communication: An Introduction Basil Blackwell 48 Searle, J.R (1969) Speech acts – An essay in the philosophy of language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 49 Searle, J.R (1975) A Taxomony of illocutionary Acts – In K Gunderson (ed.) Language Mind and knowledge Minepolis: University of Minnesota Press 50 Searle, J.R (1975) Indirect speech act In P Cole & J Morgan (Ed) Syntax and Semantics: Speech acts (pp.59 – 82) New York: Academic Press 51 Tanck, Sharly, (2002) Speech Acts Sets of Refusal and Complaint: A Comparison of Native and non-Native English Speakers’s production Retrieved from the web Apr 10th, 2010 74 52 Tylor E.B (1958) Primitive culture New York: Harper 53 Tillitt B., & Bruder, N.B (1999) Speaking naturally USA: Cambridge University Press 54 Tran Yen Bao Tran (2009) Direct Invitations and Indirect Acceptance Structures in English and Vietnamese Retrieved April 20th 2012 55 Tsui, A.B.M (1985) English Conversation Oxford University Press 56 Vo Dai Quang (2006) Lectures on pragmatics VNU Hanoi 57 Vo Dai Quang (2009) Cross Cultural Communication VNU Hanoi 58 Wall A.P (1987) Say it naturally New York: Harcount Brace College Publishers Wierzbicka A (1991) Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter 59 Wardhaugh R (1992) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Basil Blacwell 60 Wierzbicka, A (1987) English Speech Acts Verbs Academic Press Australia 61 Wolfson, N (1998) The Bulge: A theory of speech behavior and social distance In J Fine (Ed.) Second language discourse: A textbook of current research Norwood: NJ: Ablex 62 Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press 75 VIETNAMESE MATERIALS 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 dụng học Hà Nội Nhà xuất Giáo dục Việt Nam Lê Huy Lâm (2000) Đàm thoại tiếng Anh tình Nhà xuất Cà Mau Nguyễn Phương Chi (1997) Từ chối, hành vi ngơn ngữ tế nhị Tạp chí “Ngơn 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 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2007) Dụng học Việt ngữ Hà Nội: Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 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) Viện ngôn ngữ (1994) Từ điển tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nhà xuất Giáo dục 76 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE Part 1: Please fill in your personal information Your date of birth: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Your nationality: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Gender: Male Female: Your job: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Level of education: Part II:………….…………………………………………………………………………………………………… Could you please read the situation below? After each situation Please write down exactly what you would say in the normal conversation Situation 1: Suppose today is your first day at college This is breaktime A classmate (sitting next to you) invites you some milk You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Situation 2: Suppose you are an employee in a company Your manager wants to invite you to his/her birthday party this Sunday You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Situation 3: You are in your classmate’s house You are going to leave, it is near dinner time now His parents invite you to stay and have lunch with them You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Situation 4: Suppose you are a manager of a company Your staff invites you to his/her wedding this Saturday.You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Situation 5: Suppose you are walking pass a fashion shop A shop-keeper wants to invite you to stop by and choose a dress You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Situation 6: Your colleague wants to invite you to his/her birthday party this Sunday You decline this invitation by saying ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for your co-operation! ... and Vietnamese The research showed that there is still a gap in the field for this study A study on English politeness strategies for refusals with reference to Vietnamese equivalents to be conducted... expanded academia’s perception of politeness Politeness can be at once be understood as a social phenomenon, a means to achieve good interpersonal relationships, and a norm imposed by social conventions... consideration the importance of refusals in everyday communication, I have decided to choose the subject: A study on English politeness strategies for refusals with reference to Vietnamese equivalents