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

This research was implimented with the theoretical fundament of contrastive analysis, conversation analysis and viewpoints on language-culture relationship as frameworks so as to conside

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS

STRATEGIES FOR REFUSALS WITH REFERENCE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS

STRATEGIES FOR REFUSALS WITH REFERENCE

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR

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:………

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

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

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 1 and situation 2 47 Figure 2: Politeness strategies for refusals used by the English and

Vietnamese speakers in situation 3 and situation 4 51 Figure 3: Politeness strategy used by the English and Vietnamese speakers

in situation 5 and situation 6 55

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

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Objectives of the study 3

1.4 Scope of study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Review of previous studies 6

2.1.1 Review of related studies on refusals worldwide 6

2.1.2 Review of related studies on refusals in Vietnam 6

2.2 Review of theoretical background 7

2.2.1 Speech acts 7

2.2.2 Politeness 14

2.2.3 Refusal as a speech act 26

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

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

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Language is considered to be the best and the most surprising achievement of human It is applied everyday and has become an important part of our lives It is not only a mental phenomenon but also a social one When we learn foreign languages, we should be able to implement effective communication In other words, learning a language is learning the culture

of its native country Therefore, deep knowledge of culture is beneficial to learners in terms of communicating with foreigners

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 As a result, Larina (2008) shows that numerous problems in communication occur because people do not only speak different languages but use them in different ways according to specific social and linguistic norms, values, and social-cultural convention

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 rejecting as the latter is a face-threatening act However, there are situations in which invitations cannot avoid refusals English and Vietnamese are languages of two different cultural backgrounds, the potential for intercultural miscommunication through speech act performance in general and the speech act of refusal to requests in particular is also growing As we all know, refusals may also

be understood as dispreferred messages They threat the addressee’s

negative face, therefore, they are often realized through indirect strategies, which require a high level of pragmatic competence If refusals are challenging for native speakers as they may involve lengthy negotiation moves, the situation becomes even more complex in interacting between native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNs) Taking into 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”

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 learner of English and English-speaking learners of Vietnam with the maxim declared in a Vietnamese proverb: “You don’t have to buy words, so don’t let them hurt the feelings of others.” Understanding social etiquette and paying attention to politeness and face which are important to each person in a culture

Based mainly on the speech act theory of Austin (1962) and Searle (1969), the politeness theory put forward by Brown and Levinson (1987) and some other supporting theories, this study will investigate the realization of refusal strategies by English speakers and Vietnamese speakers By modifying a discourse comprehension test developed by Bebee et al (1990), this study will provide a more broad understanding of the discrepancies that can exist in performing the refusal strategies between English speakers and Vietnamese speakers, helping, to some extent, resolve and simplify cross-cultural misunderstanding

Many people devalue the importance of invitation's refusal strategies

misbehavior in this domain can result in the interlocutor's feeling of being shocked, angry, or even seriously insulted It is because every body, as a human being, expects the appreciation and respect from others America and Vietnam are two countries with different culture 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: polite refusals

1.2 Aims of the study

The major aim of the study is to identify and explain the choice of politeness strategies for refusals in English and Vietnamese in terms of cross cultural interactions

In addition, the second aim is to contribute some suggestions in teaching and learning English as the second language

1.3 Objectives of the study

- To explore the way the English and Vietnamese speakers make

This study particularly discusses speech acts of polite refusals across English and Vietnamese languages and cultures to find out some similarities and differences between them

1.5 Significance of the study

The need for the scientific study of cross-cultural communication has been regarded as a main issue in the field of applied linguistics not only for the purposes of language learning and teaching, but also for enhancing cross-cultural understanding It is most expected that the findings of this study will contribute to the field of pragmatics study especially studies concerning the speech act of refusals and also in the development of communicative competence

Refusals are important because of their communicatively central place

in every day communication It is often difficult to reject requests It is even harder to reject them in a foreign language without the risk of offending the interlocutor This involves not only linguistic knowledge, but also pragmatic knowledge One can have a wide range of vocabulary and a sound knowledge of grammar, but misunderstandings can still arise if they can not apply their pragmatic competence appropriately

Based on the concepts discussed, the study on hand will put its emphasis on selected variables that control the way people deal with the act

of refusing in their daily conversations These include social distance (intimate, acquaintance, stranger); social status (low, high, equal); and gender (same gender, opposite gender) We begin working based on the literature on conversation and speech acts that these variables play main roles

in the choice of strategies used by English speakers and Vietnamese speakers

Chapter 1: Introduction, this part gives us the overview of the thesis including rationale, aims and objectives, significance, scope andesign of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review, this chapter provides the theoretical background including speech act theory, politeness strategies

Chapter 3: Methodology, this chapter focuses on presenting research participants, research procedure, data collection, as well as methods of analysis

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion, this chapter presents the results gained

in survey questionnaires and observation and discusses the similarities and differences in how to refuse politely in English and Vietnamese

Chapter 5: Conclusion, this chapter summarizes the main points discussed throughout the study, provides the limitations of the study and suggests further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Review of previous studies

2.1.1 Review of related studies on refusals worldwide

A great deal of research has been done on the speech acts of refusing

in comparison to the mother tongue and the second Austin devided speech acts into five types and he explained that the exercitives are the exercising of powers, rights, or influence Searl made effort to devide illocutionary acts into six types and gave the definition of directives clear Another key contributions are: Takahashi and Beebe (1987); Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz (1990); other refusal studies, researched by Tickle (1991); A recent study by Al-Eryani (2007) on refusal strategies of Yemeni EFL learners

2.1.2 Review of related studies on refusals in Vietnam

Luu Quy Khuong and Tran Thi Phuong Thao researched the ways of refusing a request for help in English and Vietname Especially, Luu Quy Khuong investigated the similarities and differences of responses to invitations in English Diep Quang Ban explored the means of showing directives’ propositions as specialized words (chớ, hãy, đừng), modal verbs (cần, nên, phải), adverb (cứ), and performative verbs (xin, mong, đề nghị, yêu cầu, ra lệnh, cấm, mời, khuyên ) and he also concerned with directives’ intonation Ton Nu My Nhat showed cultural features of English and Vietnamese directive conversations Nguyen Thi To Nga investigated syntactic and pragmatic features of directives in English and Vietnamese The research showed that there is still a gap in the field for this study “A

2.2 Review of theoretical background

2.2.1 Speech acts

2.2.1.1 Definition of speech acts

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, give thanks, offer 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 intention: 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

The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory

It must systematically classify types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique For example, the sentence “This is a pig sty” might be used nonliterally to state that a certain room is messy and filthy and, further, to demand indirectly that it be straightened out and cleaned up Even when this sentence is used literally and directly, say to describe a certain area of a barnyard

Speech acts have been studied and defined by different theorists such

as Austin (1962), Hymes (1964), Searle (1969), Levinson (1983), Brown and Yule (1983), and others Their common theme is that a speech act is a unit of speaking These units each perform certain functions such as inviting, thanking, apologizing or advising Indeed, when trying to express themselves, people produre utterences containing grammatical structures and words and at the same time perform actions via those utterances

In the 1950s and 60s two philosophers of language, John Austin and John Searle, developed speech act theory from their observation that language is used to do things other 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 published 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 physical acts, 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

Austin (1962) took the pioneering role in formularizing the theory of speech acts According to him, all utterances should be viewed as actions of the speakers, stating of descrbing is only one function of language He pointed out that declarative sentences are not only used to say things or describe state of affairs but also used to do things

Also, in 1962, he defined speech acts as the actions performed in saying something When people produre utterances, they often perform actions via those utterances These actions are called speech acts, such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request A speech act is a part of a speech event The speech act performed by producing an

utterance consists of three related acts including locutionary act,

illocutionary act and perlocutionary act They are listed as follows:

Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, detering perlocutionary acts are performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended

Among the three acts, illocutionary act is in fact the most informative because as saying, we not only make our utternces understandable to hearer but also covey our certain implication In order to make illocutionary acts comprehensible in conversation, both speaker and hearer must follow a so-

called cooperative priciple As in H.Jason and P.Stockwell, 1996: 140: “The

assumption in communucation that speakers intend to mean things and that hearer accept tihis in trying to work out intended meanings” Whithout cooperative principle, speakers and hearers can’t understan each other, and thus illocutionary act is non-sense

Locutionary act is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic

expression (According to G.Yule) The locutionary act is performed with some purposes oer functions in mind For instance, if we make a simple

sentence “I will stay at home’ we are likely to produce a locutionary act

because of its meaningfulness In linguistics, locutionary act is the subject of semantics

Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something It is closely connected with the speaker’s intention such as stating, questioning, promising, giving commands, threatening and many others Illocutionary acts are considred the core of the theory of speech acts Basically, illocutionary act indicateshow the whole utterance is to be taken into the conversation Sometimes it is not easy to determine what kind of illocutinary act the speaker performs, therefore, it is also neccessary for the hearer to be acquainted with the context the speech act occurs in

Let’s analyze the example: “The door is here” This simple

declarative sentence can be interepreted in at leat two ways It can be either understood literally a reply to the question “Where is the way out?” or possible “Where is the door?” or it can be taken as an indirect request to ask somebody to leave The sentence has thus got two illocutionary forces: direct speech act and indirect speech act

Green (1975) emphasizes that speech acts are viewed and performed

differently in different cultures In fact, it has been proved that people in different cultures chooses alternative ways to express speech acts These differences in many cases proved, lead to misunderstading and miscommunication in cross-culture interaction

The theory of speech acts studies the relations between language symbols and their use for communication purposes

There are many ways of expressing themselves, “people do not only produce utterances containing grammartical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances” (Yule, 1996: 47) If you work in a situation where a boss has a great deal of power, then his utterance of

actions performed by utterances do not have to be as unpleasant as in the one above Actions can be quite pleasant, as in the acknowledgement of thanks: “You’re welcome”, or the expression of surprise: “Who’d have thought it?”, or in Vietnamese “Ai mà nghĩ thế?” Paltridge (2000) provided

us the definition of 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 (p 15)

2.2.1.2 Classification of speech acts

2.2.1.2.1 Yule’ Classification

Five types of general functions performed by speech acts are classified, including expressives, directives, commissives, declarations and representatives, according to the speech act at theory of Searle, J and Yule,

G (Pragmatic, 1996):

- Expressives are speech acts that speaker feel They point out psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, and sorrow: They can be led by something the speaker does or the hearer does, but they are about the speaker’s experience For example, “I’m really sorry”, “Congratulation”, “Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ahhh!” [p.53]

- Directives are speech acts that speaker use to get someone else to do

something They express what speaker wants They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions For example, “Give me a cup of coffee Make it black.”, “Could you lend me a pen, please?”, “Don’t touch that” [p.54]

- Commissives are speech acts that speaker use to commit themselves

to some future action They express what the speaker intends They

are promises, threats, refusals, pledges For example, “I’ll be back’,

“I’m going to get it right next times”, “We will not do that”. [p.54]

- Declarations are speech acts that make the world change via the

utterance In illustration, the speaker needs to have a special institutional role, in a particular context, so as to perform a

declaration appropriately For instance, “Priest: I now pronoun you

husband and wife”, “Referee: you’are out”, “Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty” [p.53]

- Representatives are speech acts that state what speaker believes to be

the case or not Statement of facts, assertion, conclusions, are

descriptions are representatives For example, “The earth is flat”,

“Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts”, and “It was a warm sunny day”[p.53]

It is highly advisable for us to be involved in making politeness in speech acts like: requesting, thanking, inviting, etc It is undeniable that politeness plays an essential role that is a communicative need in all cultures In brief, politeness can be treated as both comminucative and cultural concept

2.2.1.2.2 Austin’s classification

Austin (1962) claims that the declarative sentences are not only used

to say things or describing the states of affairs but also used to do things He takes the initial role in formulating the theory of speech acts In accordance

to his study, all utterances should be considered as actions of spearkers,

stating or descrbing is only one function of language 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 diea by saying

it throught out the dame purposes, topic and participants

Dr Ho Ngoc Trung shows that Austin catergorised illocutionary acts into five classes in Lecture on Discourse Analysis (2013: 82)

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: determine to, purpose to, intend, agree, bet…

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

behavior and fortune and of attitudes to someone slse’s past conduct or imminent conduct, example are: aoplogize, thank, compliment, condole, complain…

Expositive: indentify how utterances fit into on going dicourse, or

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

Verdictive: typified by giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire, arbitrator such as acquit, grade, esstimate, diagnose, rare, analyse, put is as, reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure

Excercituve: 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 the decision that something is to be distinct from a judgement It is a very wide class; example are: appoint, dismiss, degrade, order, sentence, warn…

Politeness theory is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the

affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees First formulated in 1987 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson, politeness theory has since 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 So it is phenomenal, instrumental and normative by nature In social interaction, people always try to make their speech as polite

as possible In most of studies, the politeness has beeb 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’face” and as

“the idea of social polite behavior or equitette, within a culture involves certain general principles as being tactful, generous, modest, sympathetic towards others” (G.Yule.1996: 60)

Refering to requests in particular, a native speaker of the language uses certain strategies in order to main norms and principles that form part

of social interaction As Bonn (2000:32) exposes:

“Speaking in a polite maner involves being aware of the effect a particular illocutionary force has on one’addressee, and aggravating or mitigating this force by applying a suitable degree of modification”

One of these degrees of modification is Politeness Every time a spaeker ferforms 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 ass social power, role and status And everey speaker has the necessity

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

Fraser (1990) summarised that there have been 4 major approaches to politeness:

(i) In the pre-pragmatic studies, many scholars had mentioned

politeness and considered it as a social norm

(ii) Lakoff (1973, 1989) and Leech (1983) approach politeness and

perpecstive of conversational maxims, connecting their study with Grice’s conversational maxims

(iii) Brown and Levinson (1987) study politeness as straregies

employed by the speakers to obtain or to save “face” Fraser (1990) sees politeness from the aspect of conveersational contract

Of all those views, the conversational maxims view of Leech & Lakoff and the face – management view of Brown and Levinson (1987) are most appreciated and popularly discussed

2.2.2.2 Politeness principles

When people perform face saving acts, they have to resort politeness

or strategies when With the view of politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”, Lakoff (Cited

in Green, 1989:142) approached three different rules that a speaker might

follow in making polite actions:

Rule 1: Be friendly (Encourage Feelings of Camaraderie)

It is appropriated to intimates or close friends In intimate politeness Almost any topic of conversation is fair game, assuming that with a close friend, one should be able to discuss anything In contrast to informal politeness, the gorvening principle here is not only to show an active interest

in the other, but asking personal questions and making personal remarks, but also show regard and trust by being open about the details of one’s own life,

experiences, feeling and the like Yule (1997: 60) believes that: “It is

possible to treat politeness as a fixed concept as in the idea of polite social behavior, or equitette, within a culture It is also possible to specify a number of different general principles for being polite in social interaction within a particular culture Some of these might include being tactful, generous, modest and sympathetic toward others Let us assume that participants in interaction are generally aware that such norms and principles exist in the society at large Within an interaction, howerver, therre are more narrowly specific types of politeness at work In order to describe it, we need the concept of face”

Rule 2: Don’t impose

It is the most important formal politeness rule and is appropriated to

rule will avoid, mitigate or ask permission or apologize for making the addressee do anything which one does not want to do This rule requires reference to family, personal problem, habits and the like

Rule 3: Give options (Deference)

This is a more formal politeness rule and is approciated (appropriation) to situations in which the participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not socially close, for example, the relationship between a business person nad a new client in a business, or between two strangers sharing a semi-private room in a hospital Giving option means expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opinion or request can be ignored without being contradicted or rejected

2.2.2.3 Politeness strategies

Politeness strategies are used to formulate messages in order to save the hearer’s positive face when face-threatening acts are inevitable or desired Brown and Levinson outline four main types of politeness strategies: bald on-record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record (indirect) According to Brown and Levinson (as cited in

"Politeness", 1997), 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 "self-esteem" 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/her self esteem, and be respected Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTA's

Positive politeness

Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer’s positive face They are used to make the hearer feel good about

himself, his interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments, and the following examples from Brown and Levinson:

• Attend to H’s interests, needs, wants

You look sad Can I do anything?

• Use solidarity in-group identity markers

Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?

• Be optimistic

I’ll just come along, if you don’t mind.

• Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity

If we help each other, I guess, we’ll both sink or swim in this course.

• Offer or promise

If you wash the dishes, I’ll vacuum the floor.

• Exaggerate interest in H and his interests

That’s a nice haircut you got; where did you get it?

strategies presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for awkwardness or embarrassment than in bald

on record strategies and positive politeness strategies Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous so the speaker is more apt to include an out for the listener, through distancing styles like apologies Examples from Brown and Levinson include:

• Be indirect

Would you know where Oxford Street is?

• Use hedges or questions

Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe.

Could you please pass the rice?

• Be pessimistic

You couldn’t find your way to lending me a thousand dollars, could you?

So I suppose some help is out of the question, then?

• Minimize the imposition

It’s not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks.

• Use obviating structures, like nominalizations, passives, or statements

of general rules

I hope offense will not be taken.

Visitors sign the ledger.

Spitting will not be tolerated.

• Apologizes

I’m sorry; it’s a lot to ask, but can you lend me a thousand dollars?

• Use plural pronouns

We regret to inform you.

Favor seeking, or a speaker asking the hearer for a favor, is a common example of negative politeness strategies in use Held observes three main stages in favor-seeking: the preparatory phase, the focal phase, and the final phase:

1. The preparatory phase is when the favor-seeking is preceded by elaborate precautions against loss of face to both sides It often involves signals of openings and markers to be used to clarify the situation (e.g “You see’’, or ‘’so’’) The request is often softened, made less direct, and imposing (e.g past continuous “I was wondering’’; informal tag “What would you reckon?”) The speaker must also reduce his own self-importance in the matter and exaggerate the hearer’s (down-scaling compliments)

2. The focal stage is subdivided into elements such as asker’s reasons or constraints (e.g “I’ve tried everywhere but can’t get one”), the other’s face (e.g “You’re the only person I can turn to”), and more

3. The third stage is the final stage which consists of anticipatory thanks, promises, and compliments (e.g “I knew you would say yes You’re

Clarrie: Well, what she doesn't know won't hurt her Of course, I'll be keeping my eye on things, and (SIGNAL OF OPENING) that brings

me to my next problem (EXPLAIN PROBLEM) You see, these young people, they don't want an old codger like me poking my nose

in, so I'll make myself scarce, but I still need to be closer to hand, you see So, (ASK FAVOR) I was wondering, would it be all right if I came over here on the night? What would you reckon?

Helen: Oh, Clarrie, I

Clarrie: Oh (MINIMIZATION) I'd be no bother (REINFORCE EXPLANATION) It'd mean a heck of a lot to those kids

Helen: All right

Clarrie: (THANK WITH BOOST) I knew you'd say yes You're an angel, Helen

Helen: Ha! (laughs)

All of this is done in attempt to avoid a great deal of imposition on the hearer and is concerned with proceeding towards a goal in the smoothest way and with sensitivity to one’s interlocutors In English, deference (“Excuse me, sir, could you please close the window”) is associated with the avoidance or downplaying of an imposition; the more we feel we might be imposing, the more deferential we might be It is clearly a strategy for negative politeness and the redressing of a threat to negative face, through things like favor-seeking

Bald on-record

Bald on-record strategies usually do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer’s face, although there are ways that bald on-record politeness can be used in trying to minimize face-threatening acts implicitly

Often using such a strategy will shock or embarrass the addresser, and so this strategy is most often utilized in situations where the speaker has a close relationship with the audience, such as family or close friends Brown and Levinson outline various cases in which one might use the bald on-record strategy, including:

• Instances in which threat minimizing does not occur

• Great urgency or desperation

Watch out!

• Speaking as if great efficiency is necessary

Hear me out!

• Task-oriented

Pass me the hammer.

• Little or no desire to maintain someone's face

Don't forget to clean the blinds!

• Doing the face-threatening act is in the interest of the hearer

Your headlights are on!

• Instances in which the threat is minimized implicitly

Off-record (indirect)

The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect strategy This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to be imposing For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so

For example:

What would you do if you saw a cup of pens on your teacher's desk, and you wanted to use one, would you:

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

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

say, "I'm sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask you if I could use one

of those pens?"

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 Off-Record-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

1.2.2.4 Aspects influencing social politeness

Politeness is universal in many ways 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 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

- 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 thank you

- 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"

2.2.3 Refusal as a speech act

2.2.3.1 Definition of refusal

According to Wierzbicka (1987, 94), “declining means, essentially, saying no, I will not do it” in response to someone else’s utterance, in which

he has conveyed to us that he wants us to do something that he expects us to

do it” So, by nature, refusal is very different from forbidding

Many speech acts theorists like Autin (1962), Bach and Harnish (1979), Searle (1969), only place great emphasis on initiating acts like requesting Trying to give a reason, Tsui (1995, 1960) states:

This is because the characterization of illocutionaly acts is often done

by making a semantic analysis of performative verbs rather than examining the function of utterance in discourse; and as many responding ats do not have a corresponding performative verb, this kind of analysis inevitably neglects responses”

And she gave the following example for illustration:

A: - Could I stay at your place for a bit, Rob?

- Um, I don’t know

She claimed that:

“B’s response to A’s request for permission to stay at his place can’t be described by any of the performative verbs Its illocutionary force can only be captured by expression like B declines to commit himself either way”

Thus, in this study, we are inclined to examine refusal as a communicative act, or more specifically, a responding act, because it is indeed produced in reply to an initiating speech act Tsui (1995, 57) characterized a response as “an utterance which fulfils the interactional expectation set up by the preceding initiating act”

Within the discourse framwork, refusal can be seen as a challenging move that challenges the pragmatic presuppositions of the preceding utterance For example, when making a request, the speaker expresses his will: I want you to do it, and ha essumed that: You can and will do it This is opposite to your own will: I don’t want to do it and your assumption that I don’t have to do it and I won’t do it You have the need to express a negation of request Hence, Verschuerence (1985 in Wierzbicka 1987, 96) claims: “declining is a negative response to directives (e.g request)

2.2.3.2 Characteristics of refusals

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 Moreover, how one says "no" may be more important in many societies 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 form and 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 toast”) 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)

2.2.4 Speech acts and politeness

Indirectness has been associated with the levels of politeness by many Western researchers These researchers assert that indirectness is the chief motivation for politenessand indirectness and the closely associated notion of politeness operate under universal principles (Searle, 1975; Brown & Levinson, 1978; Leech, 1983) Brown & Levinson (1987) argues that “indirect speech acts are universal and for most part are probably constructed in essentially similar ways in all languages”

Leech (1983) also claims that “indirect illocutions tend to be more polite because: (a) they increase the degrees of option and (b) the indirect an illocution is, the more minimized and tentative its force tends to be”

Vietnam culture has been strongly influenced by Confucianism from China owing to geographical proximity and political, cultural and economic contacts over centuries (Hoat, 1995) As Crawford, A.C (1996) comments, like many other Asian nations, the concept of face is extremely important to the Vietnamese Individual is seen as secondary

to the group - whether the family, school or company Another Vietnamese scholar Vinh (2000) comments that in Vietnam respect for authority, tradition and social hierarchy is the norm regulating Vietnamese linguistic polite behaviour

In Vietnam, politeness has also been studied by such researchers as Hoạt (1995), Hương (2002), etc Hoạt and Hương assume that Vietnamese politeness covers both aspects of politeness: strategic politeness of the Westerners and normative politeness of the Chinese and the Japanese Tran (2001) mentioned the Vietnamese value “tinh” In social interaction, Vietnamese people should act on the grounds of morality than reasonability

2.2.6 Factors affecting directness and indirectness in human interaction

There are many socio-cultural factors affecting the indirectness of utterances Nguyen (1998) proposes 12 factors that, in his view, may affect the choice of directness and indirectness in communication: age, sex, residence, mood, occupation, personality, topic, place, communication environment, social distance, time pressure and position

directness-1 Occupation: those who study social sciences tend to use more indirectness than those who study natural sciences

2 Personality: the extroverted tend to use more directness than the introverted

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

4 Sex: females prefer indirect expression

5 Residence: the rural population tends to use more indirectness than the urban

6 Time pressure: when in a hurry, people are likely to use direct expressions

7 Position: when in a superior position, people tend to use more directness

to their inferiors These factors help to determine the strategies used when speakers perform the act of refusing

8 Topic: while referring to a sensitive topic, a taboo, people usually prefer indirectness 8 Place: when at home, people tend to use more directness than when they are elsewhere

9 Communicative 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 direct way

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

2.2.7 Social distance, social status and gender

The role of social status in communication involves the ability to recognize each other’s social position (Leech 1983; Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes 1995)

Gender and speech behaviour are also seen as two interwoven, interrelated variables (Lakoff 1975; Holmes 1995) In other words, speech behaviours depend on the gender relationship between interlocutors

Social distance is one of the parameters that affect politeness