Politeness strategies in giving and responding to compliments in the voice of vietnam 2015 and the voice of US 2015

Strategies in responding to compliments Table 4.3: Positive politeness strategy in delivering compliment responses... LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: communication process Figure 2.2: Brown

a paraphrase And the data used for analysis in the thesis is clearly derived

This master thesis has not been previously published And if it is subsequently proved that I cheat, I am ready to take the responsibility,

includingthe withdrawal of my academic degree.”

Author’s Signature

Vũ Thị Hà

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D

Date:

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude towards Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D my thesis supervisor- the one who has been very supportive and patient with me for the whole process

Secondly, I want to convey great thanks to the teacher in the Department of English, the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences for their help, suggestions and support during this essay writing process

Last but not least, I am thankful for all my family: my parents, elder brother and daughter who have encouraged and helped me a lot in terms of time and spirit to complete this thesis

Without any of those above, this thesis will not be possible

After all, I have tried to do my best in writing this thesis, but I realize that it is still far for being perfect Therefore, I regard any criticism and recommendation fromreaders

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION BY AUTHOR i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT v

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF FIGURES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1.Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Research methods 4

1.7 Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Previous Studies 6

2.2 Theoretical background 8

2.2.1 Communication and inter-cultural communication 8

2.2.2 Politeness and politeness strategies 17

2.2.3 Compliments and compliment responses 25

2.2.4 The voice show 30

2.3 Summary 33

CHAPTER 3: POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN TWO TV PROGRAMS 34

3.1 Introduction 34

3.2 Analysis 35

3.2.1 The voice of Vietnam 35

3.2.2 The voice of US 51

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CHAPTER 4: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCESBETWEEN TWO

CULTURESIN GIVING AND RESPONDING TO COMPLIMENTS 65

4.1 Similarities and differences in giving compliment in the Voice Vietnam and the Voice US 65

4.1.1 Similarities in employing positive politeness strategies to give compliment 70

4.1.2 Differences in using positive politeness strategies to give compliments 70

4.1.3 Applying the positive politeness strategy in giving compliment 73

4.2 Similarities and differences in responding to compliments in the voice Viet Nam and the voice US 78

4.2.1 Similarities in applying positive politeness strategies in responding to compliments 81

4.2.2 Differences in using strategies to respond to compliments 81

4.3 Summary 82

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 83

5.1 Recapitulation 83

5.2 Concluding Remarks 83

5.3 Implications 84

5.4 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies 85

REFERENCES 86

Based on theoretical frameworks and practical linguistic data, the author has decided to focus on verbal compliments and complement responses

of the participants

After analyzing the data, the author will identify politeness strategies conducted by the Vietnamese and American in the show as well as point out the similarities and differences between them

In conclusion, the author found out the connection between culture and communication Accordingly, some suggestions are made with the aim of helping learners improve their language skills and communication efficiency

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment

Table 4.2 Strategies in responding to compliments

Table 4.3: Positive politeness strategy in delivering compliment responses

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: communication process

Figure 2.2: Brown and Levinson’s (1987) strategies for performing FTAs Figure 4.1: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment in the Voice of Vietnam

Figure 4.2: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment in the Voice of US

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1.Rationale

Many studies have demonstrated the important role of language in the development of modern society People use language as a main tool to communicate or interact with the society Communication is not only a process of sending and receiving information among people but also the foundation of all human relationship It is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbol, sign, or behavior (Alwasilah, 1986) Playing a very important part in our daily life, whether in work or in life, communication is a bridge between people and helps us understand each other During interaction process with another person, we can determine their levels of needs, thoughts, emotions, experience etc , in order to timely and conformably meet the goals and missions communication Through communication, people enter the social and cultural relationships, ethics and social norms Therefore, language, communication and culture cannot be separated in a society The difference between Oriental and Western culture creates the difference in social norms in communication, especially the politeness in communication In fact people in each society have their own rule to make the politeness in communication Being polite means being aware of and respecting the feelings of other people Politeness can and will improve your relationships with others, help to build respect and rapport, boost your self-esteem and confidence, and improve your communication skills

One of the best expressions of politeness in communication is through compliments and compliment responses In the process of communicating with people, if you know how to use dexterity compliment and compliment

responses, the relationship becomes much better Honest compliments will help your relationship with another grow better Those who feel honored and respectful of the effort will be motivated more than those who think their efforts are not paid attention They will be more eager to believe that they are making a real difference In addition, polite compliments and compliments reflect not only the dexterity of communication, but also the cultural identity

of each society, country

There were some previous studies of compliments and compliment responses in a film, books, but no research was carried out with any television programs, so the author thought that this study will open a new look in giving and responding to compliment of Vietnamese and American cultures This study focused on analyzing compliments and compliment responses in two

TV shows: The Voice of Vietnam and The of Voice in 2015, in the light of politeness strategies Accordingly we can see the differences and similarities

in the communication culture of the Vietnam and America in the context of globalization The study also attempts to suggest some useful implications in order to help language learners improve their language skill to gain their purpose of social communication as well as to make the process of using foreign language better

1.2 Aims of the study

- To discover the way people give compliments and respond to these compliments in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US in 2015

- To describe and analyze the politeness strategies employed by the participants in The Voice of Vietnam and the Voice of US Whereby the readers can see the differences and similarities in the American and

Vietnamese culture in modern society and improve the using language to gain purpose of social communication

1.3 Research questions

Based on the background of study, the writer formulates the research

questions of this study:

- What kinds of politeness strategies were used to compliment in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US in 2015?

- What kinds of politeness strategies were used to respond to the compliments in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US 2015?

- What are the similarities and differences in the way people giving and responding to compliment between the Vietnamese and American cultures?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study takes only the dialogues containing compliments and compliment responses in ten programs of The Voice of Vietnam season 3 and ten programs of The Voice of US season 8 in 2015 as the data Moreover, the author only focused on selecting and analyzing verbal data delivered by the participants in these programs

This thesis concentrated on analyzing the politeness strategies: especially positive politeness in delivering the compliments and their responses expressed by the interlocutors

1.5 Significance of the study

This thesis is expected not only to provide the readers an overview of giving and responding to compliments in Vietnam and US’s culture but also

to increase the knowledge of politeness strategies in cultural communication The author hopes that this study will be a reference document for further

research in the same field and provide enough information about related

Contrastive method is used to find out the similarities and differences

in giving compliments and responding to compliments of the participants in

these programs

1.7 Structure of the study

The research structure is as the bellows:

Chapter 1: Introduction

It consists of Rationale, Aim(s) of the Study, Research Questions, and Scope of the Study, Significance of the Study, Research Methods, and Structure of the Study

Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter provides readers with the Review of previous studies, Theoretical background on Culture; Communication; Politeness and Politeness strategies; Compliments and compliment responses; The Voice show

Chapter 3: Politeness strategies of compliments and compliment

responses in two TV shows

It is concentrated on finding and collecting data of politeness strategies:

Bald- on record, Positive politeness in two TV shows

Chapter 4: Similarities and differencesbetween two cultures in giving and responding compliments

In this chapter, we focus on analyzing data to find the similarities and differences, so we divide it into two main parts: Similarities between compliments and compliment responses in the Voice of Vietnam and the Voice of US in 2015, Differences between compliments and compliment responses in these programes

Chapter 5: Conclusion and suggestion

This part states Recapitulation, Concluding Remarks, Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous Studies

There is a large number of research studies, focusing on giving and responding to the complements that were conducted by both foreign and Vietnamese researchers Following are some related articles and studies:

In the MA thesis namely “politeness strategies in giving and

responding to compliments: a sociopragmatics study of compliments in “The devil wears prada” Rahayu (2009) discovered the way the characters gave and respondedcomplimentsas well as the politeness strategies employed by thecharacters in the movie entitled “The Devil Wears Prada” This research focused on analyzing the compliments delivered by characters with combination of non-verbal acts and the addressees respond to complements

in various ways

In the research on “Replying to compliments in English and Vietnamese”, Trần Quỳnh Giao (2010) show the differences between CRs in Australian English and Vietnamese in terms of strategy use as well as strategycombination, using the Naturalized Role-play (Tran, 2004d, 2006a, 2006b) to solve the hotly debated methodological issue in cross-cultural pragmatics research

There is another study of politeness strategy named “An analysis of politeness strategy in Barack Obama’s Victory speech” by Sari (2016) In this thesis work, the author found out and analyzed the typesof politeness strategies that used by Barack Obama in his victory speech, based on Brown and Levinson theory He also showed that Barack Obama performed positive politeness strategy by joking, intensify interesting, exaggerating, complimenting including Sand H in the activity, be optimistic, promising, offering and assuming or asserting reciprocity in his utterance during his

victory speech

In a study by Nguyễn Quang (1999) about some differences in compliments and compliment responses in Vietnamese - American speech communication He not only pointed out the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and American speech in giving and responding to compliment but also gave some note in Vietnamese - American intercultural communication in order to avoid culture shock and cultural conflicts

In the study “Compliment and positive strategies”, Al-Azzawi (2011) investigated the complimenting behavior of English speakers, as a strategy to express positive politeness In his study, he focused on describing the linguistic structures of complement, functions of compliments, types of compliment responses and the differences between men and women in paying compliments

There is another study on compliments and responses to compliments

by Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh, Phan Thị Vân Quyên (2011) This is a study of the transfer in behavioral communication of compliments and compliment received in English by Vietnamese students of English in the faculty of English teacher education, Vietnam national university, Hanoi – university of languages and international In this research, the authors discovered ways of giving compliments and responding compliments in English by these students

in order to find intersection and transition from source language and culture (L1 - Vietnamese) to target language and culture (L2 - American English) Since then, the authors provided suggestions for improving the language usage to help students succeed in intercultural communication Vietnam - United States in complements and complement responses

Additionally, Fauzi (2010), who carried out the study named “A politeness strategy analysis on the main characters’ dialogues of the movie

pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”, analyzed and described data form 18 expressions of three main character dialogue by using Brown and Levinson’s theory particularly Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) and politeness strategies This research concluded that it has four politeness strategies utilized with positive politeness as the most used strategies, bald on record and followed by negative politeness, and off-record as the last and the rarest strategies with on expression

The above researches were the studies of compliments and compliment responses; politeness strategies used in behavioral communication and compliments The study of Rahayu (2009) focused on analyzing the compliments delivered by characters with combination of non-verbal acts and the addressees respond to complements in various ways Several other studies found differences in the way they offered compliments and complliment responses between the genders However, the previous studies had not included any studies on positive politeness strategies employed in delivering compliments and compliment responses in the Voice Vietnam and the Voice US The authors argued that focusing on positive politeness strategies in employing compliments and compliment responses would point to similarities and differences in utilizing language between Vietnamese and Americans These would help foreign language learners avoid cultural conflicts in communication

communication is language Different scholars defined communication in different ways Some of their definition of communication will be considered for the study as follows:

Schramm (1954) saw communication as a two-way process with both the speaker and the listener providing and receiving verbal or non-verbal feedback Both the speaker and the listener take turns to speak and listen to each other Other characteristics of messages that impact communication between two individuals are intonation and pitch patterns, accents, facial expressions, quality of voice and gestures This model also indicates that the speaker and listener communicate better if they have had the same experiences However, this may mean that both the receiver and sender are limited by their experience Nevertheless, there must be some experience common to both in order for the communication to be useful and for the intended message to be conveyed For example, if you were asking someone who did not speak the same language as you if they wanted sugar in their coffee, you would most probably point to the sugar and then the cup of coffee, hoping that the other individual has had some common experience of putting sugar in their coffee However, if the receiver comes from a culture where sugar is not used, then your communication will be ineffective Two people from completely different cultures who speak different languages and who have no common experiences may find that communication becomes nearly impossible without help from a third party such as a translator or an interpreter Common ground or mutual understanding is important in communication and essential for interpersonal communication

Berelson and Steiner (1964) defined communication as the transmission of information, ideas, emotions and skills through the use of words, figures, symbols, graphs, and pictures These researchers focused on

the functions of communication and means of pursuing these functions to give their definition

Nguyễn Quang (1998) gives the definition of communication concisely and briefly “Communication is the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behavior.” Obviously, he claims that communicationis executed and perceived by both senders and receivers through their verbal and nonverbal behavior In other words, it is possible to say that communication includes the transmitting information verbally and non verbally This definition is clearer than these above ones because it presents not only the functions of communication but also the important channels through which communication can be transmitted: verbal andnonverbal communication

Communication is a process of transmitting messages from one to another person through a channel Kreitner and Carlene (2010) defined “The communication process is a chain made up of identifiable links Links in this process include sender, encoding, medium, decoding, receiver and feedback”

In order to communication to process effectively, there are five elements: sender, message, channel/medium, receiver and feedback In the process, there are eight steps starting from the idea of the sender and ending with feedbacks of the receiver For the first step, the sender will develop an idea to

be sent This is also known as the planning step, where the sender plans the topic for communication Next step is encoding, which means converting the idea into a perceivable form, for example report form, letter form etc After finishing encoding, the message can be presented in various ways, like oral, written or nonverbal Then, the sender will choose a medium or channel to transmit the message to the receiver The following step is transmitting the message and the sender’s duty also ends with this step Next, the receiver will receive the message and start decoding it At this level, for the communication

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to be effective, it is very important for both sender and receiver to have a common understanding or interest In addition, the final step is feedback This step is essential for a communication as it ensures that the receiver has understood the message correctly

One very useful definition of communication is that proposed by Rogers (1994) “Communication is the process of transmitting information, ideas, and attitudes from sender to receiver for the purpose of influencing with intent”.This definition sees communication as a process through which senders and receivers of messages interact Besides, by this way of defining, Rogers also mentions the purpose of communication The most important underlying assumption presupposed by this definition of communication refers to the components of communication which are sender, receiver and message as illustrated in the following figure:

All of these above definitions have their own meaning and are useful for different research fields However, within the scope of this research paper, the researcher suggests adopting the definition of Rogers (1994) which helps people achieve the basic knowledge of communication

Figure 2.1: communication process

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Figur

e 2.1:

Thre

2.2.1.2 Intercultural communication (IC)

Basically, IC means communication across different cultural boundaries This means that, when two or more people with different cultural backgrounds interact and communicate with each other or one another, IC is said to have taken place IC can thus be defined as, “the sharing of information on different levels of awareness and control between people with different cultural backgrounds, where different cultural backgrounds include both national cultural differences and differences which are connected with participation in the different activities that exist within a national unit” (Allwood, 1985, p.3) “Intercultural communication takes place when individuals influenced by different cultural communities negotiate shared meaning in interactions”(Ting-Toomey, 1999) What counts as IC depends, in part, to what one considers a culture Some authorities like Gudykunst, “limit the term intercultural communication to refer only to communication among individuals from different nationalities” (Gudykunst, 2003) Other authorities, such as Judith and Nakayama, in contrast, expand the notion of IC to encompass inter-ethnic, inter-religious and even inter-regional communication, as well as communication among individuals of different sexual orientations

Knapp and Knapp-potthoff (1987, p.8) view “intercultural communication as taking place whenever participants introduce different knowledge into the interaction which is specific to their respective socio cultural group” In other words, interactantsin intercultural encounters are thought to implicitly share the same ground rules of communication and meaning of signals (O’Keeffe, 2004) whereas interactants in intercultural encounters are likely to experience a degree of uncertainty and ambiguity concerning the ground rules by which communication will occur and the

meaning of signals (Gudykunst & Nishida, 2001; Gudykunt, Nishida & Chua, 1986; Gudykuntst, Yang & Nishida, 1985) In oral/aural exchanges, the meanings of utterances are negotiated jointly by speaker and listener; thus it is always necessary for the receiver to draw inferences about intentions of sender (Scollon & Scollon, 1995) In this way, it is easy to imagine the potential for misunderstandings and miscommunication in IC, it is necessary

to examine what is meant by intercultural communicative competence

Lustig and Koester (2006, p 46) defined “intercultural communication

is a symbolic, interpretive, transactional, contextual process in which people from different cultures create shared meanings” However, each culture has its way of interpreting message or information The way of communicating is also different from one culture to another The differences in communication between cultures are mostly related to cultural patterns, verbal and nonverbal codes, relationships standards and roles, and social perceptions When the degree of differences between cultures becomes relatively large, it would lead

to misinterpretation and dissimilar expectations abo79ut how to communicate competently Therefore, the information exchanging process is much more difficult in intercultural communication In other words, IC is a process in which people from different cultural background try to interact and create a shared understanding so as to achieve their personal goals as well as creating relationship with others

Above definitions have described the central terms intercultural communication Within the aims of this research paper, the researcher follows the definition of Lustig and Koester which helps people achieve the basic knowledge of intercultural communication

2.2.1.3 Components of Communication

There are several forms of communication that the individuals use to give some pattern or expression to their messages such that it is easily understood by all The most common types of communication are:

Verbal Communication, wherein you speak your subject matter, and others

listen to it carefully and try to associate meaning with it

Nonverbal Communication, wherein the others observe you and try to confer

a meaning to it

Written Communication wherein you write your message and others read it to derive meaning out of it

a Verbal communication

The Verbal Communication is a type of oral communication wherein

the message is transmitted through the spoken words Here the sender gives words to his feelings, thoughts, ideas and opinions and expresses them in the form of speeches, discussions, presentations, and conversations The effectiveness of the verbal communication depends on the tone of the speaker, clarity of speech, volume, speed, body language and the quality of words used

in the conversation In the case of the verbal communication, the feedback is immediate since there are a simultaneous transmission and receipt of the message by the sender and receiver respectively

The sender must keep his speech tone high and clearly audible to all and must design the subject matter keeping the target audience in mind The sender should always cross check with the receiver to ensure that the message

is understood in absolutely the same way as it was intended Such communication is more prone to errors as sometimes the words are not sufficient to express the feelings and emotions of a person

The success of the verbal communication depends not only on the speaking ability of an individual but also on the listening skills How effectively an individual listen to the subject matter decides the effectiveness

of the communication The verbal communication is applicable in both the formal and informal kind of situations

Verbal communication refers to the use of sounds and language to relay

a message It serves as a vehicle for expressing desires, ideas and concepts and is vital to the processes of learning and teaching In combination with nonverbal forms of communication, verbal communication acts as the primary tool for expression between two or more people

Interpersonal communication and public speaking are the two basic types of verbal communication Whereas public speaking involves one or more people delivering a message to a group, interpersonal communication generally refers to a two-way exchange that involves both talking and listening

According to Krauss (1999), professor of psychology at Columbia University, signs and symbols are the major signals that make up verbal communication Words act as symbols, and signs are secondary products of the underlying message and include things like tone of voice, blushing and facial expressions

Generally speaking, verbal communication is communication using language and speech to share or exchange information Without them, people would not be able to express the full range of human emotions Verbal communication, as defined by Alder (1998, p.158) is “spoken communication including the use of words and intonation to convey meaning.” This definition gives the point that verbal communication, in the initial place, is the spoken language, and people can convey their ideas, messages by using words,

sentences According to the American Jewish University only about 10 percent of communication is verbal While it is the smaller portion of

communication, verbal components are vital

b Non-verbal communication

Nonverbal communication is the process of sending and receiving messages without using words, either spoken or written, it also called manual language Similar to the way that italicizing emphasizes written language, nonverbal behavior may emphasize parts of a verbal message

The term nonverbal communication was introduced in 1956 by psychiatrist Ruesch and author Kees in the book Nonverbal Communication: Notes on the Visual Perception of Human Relations

However, nonverbal messages have been recognized for centuries as a critical aspect of communication For instance, in The Advancement of Learning (1605), Bacon observed that "the lineaments of the body do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general; but the motions

of the countenance and parts do, further disclose the present humorand state

of the mind and will.”

2.2.1.4 Language in intercultural communication interaction

“Language is a set of symbols shared by a community to communicate meaning and experience” (Jandt, 2013, p.161) For people with the same cultural background, same native language, they can understand the meanings better because their ways of thinking are similar However, in intercultural communication, people from different cultural groups tend to misinterpret each other’s meanings Therefore, language is always an attractive field of study not only for language researchers but also for intercultural communication researchers

Language is the basic tool for the society function According to Gudykunst (2004), we use language for three reasons: informative, expressive and directive “Language is the primary means of preserving the culture and

is the medium of transmitting culture to new generations” (McDaniel, Porter

&Samovar, 2007, p.166) It reflects their own culture, as well as their own personality Language allows us to develop “human” qualities by learning from experiences; it helps us formulate thoughts and convey them to someone else (Fantini, 1997) In other words; language serves in culture development Culture and language are highly interrelated Culture influences the language

we use and how we use our language influences our culture (Gudykunst, 2004)

2.2.2 Politeness and politeness strategies

2.2.2.1 Politeness

Politeness is a necessary need in society, especially in modern society It affects the communication process and communication efficiency

So linguists consider it an attribute of discourse

There are many studies by foreign linguists on politeness, from different perspectives: Bobin, Lakoff, Leech, Goffman, Levinson - Brown, etc In each study, the linguists based on their own point of view to give different concepts of politeness The author will present a number of notable concepts:

According to Lakoff (1973), politeness was defined as a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange Fraser (1981, p.96) presents the notion of politeness as a conversational contract He stated that upon entering into a given conversation, each party brings an understanding of some initial set of rights and obligations that will

determine, at least for the preliminary stages, what the participants can expect from others Cruse (2006) defines politeness as “a matter of what is said, and not a matter of what is thought or believed.” He further specifies the purpose

of politeness in saying: the purpose of politeness is the maintenance of harmonious and smooth social relations in the face of the necessity to convey belittling messages Of course, the nature of reality, social, psychological, and physical constraints the scope for politeness: if our world is to ‘work’, we must respect this reality

Grice (1988) hypothesized that in communication, the participants behaved in a cooperative way that he called the principle of cooperation This principle consists of four conversational rules or ‘Maxims’: Maxim of quality; Maxim of quantity; Maxim of relation and Maxim of manner According to Grice, generally these rules have no value and the ultimate goal of communication is maximum effectiveness in information exchange Grice argues that communication models should not mention of emotional and

social issues

Leech defines politeness as a type of behaviour that allows the participants to engage in a social interaction in an atmosphere of relative harmony In stating his maxims Leech uses his own terms for two kinds of

illocutionary acts He calls representatives “assertives”, and calls directives

“impositives”

Brown and Levinson (1987) defined politeness as a complex system for

softening face-threatening acts (FTAs) In their theory, communication is

seen as potentially dangerous and antagonistic The basic notion of their model is “face” This is defined as “the public self-image that every member

of society wants to claim for himself” In their framework, face consists of

two related aspects One is negative face, or the rights to territories, freedom

of action and freedom from imposition - wanting your actions not to be

constrained or inhibited by others The other is positive face, the positive

consistent self-image that people have and their desire to be appreciated and approved of by at least some other people The rational actions people take to preserve both kinds of face, for themselves and the people they interact with, add up to politeness Brown and Levinson also argue that in human communication, either spoken or written, people tend to maintain one another's face continuously Face-threatening acts (FTAs) 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 FTAs Brown and Levinson sum up human politeness behaviour in four

strategies: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and record-indirect strategy In compliment, the politeness strategies are one of

off-the important things that off-they should use to deliver off-their compliments to other Complimentary behavior is that behavior, linguistic, and non-linguistic, which participants construct asbeing appropriate to the on-going social interaction.The awareness includes the relative power relationship between speaker and hearer, the social distance between speaker and hearer, and the individual ranking of the particular imposition in the social context in which it

is used

As discussed above, there were many theories and definitions of politeness, but in order to fit into this study, the author chose the theory of politeness and the politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson to be the framework

2.2.2.2 Politeness strategies

Following Brown and Levinson’s theory above, there are five

strategies in politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson’s Those are bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record-indirect

strategy

a Bald on Record

The bald on-record strategy does nothing to minimize threats to the hearer's "face" (directly without regard to the "face" of listener-usually in a subordinate-supervisorrelationship)

e.g close the window!

b Positive politeness

Positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee’s positive face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/ acquisitions/ values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable Redress consists in partially satisfying that desire by communicating that one’s own wants (or some them) are in some respects similar to the addressee’s wants There are

15 strategies of positive politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson, those are

Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (his interests, wants, needs, goods)

This output suggests that speaker should take notice of aspects of speaker’s condition (noticeable changes, remarkable possessions, anything which looks as though hearer would want S to notice and approve of it)

Figure 2.2: Brown and Levinson’s (1987) strategies for performing FTAs

e.g “You must be hungry

It is a long time since breakfast How about some lunch?” Another aspect of the notice output is that when hearer makes an FTA against himself (a breakdown of body control, or any faux pas), S should ‘notice’ it and indicate that he is not embarrassed by it (By contrast, in negative politeness S should always ignore hearer’s faux pas) He can do this by a joke,

or teasing hearer about his penchant for faux pas:

e.g “God you are farty tonight!”

Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

This is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects

of prosodic, as well as with intensifying modifiers

e g.“What a fantastic house you have!”

Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H

S wants to share his interest to H as a form of S’s contribution into the conversation Therefore, Sexaggerates facts as well as he makes good story to draw H as a participant into the conversation, and H also usually uses tag questions like ‘uhuh’, ‘what do you think?’, etc Sometimes, this can involve switching back between past and present tenses

e g “I never imagined that there were thousands beautiful girls in Tim’s party last night!”

Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers

By using any of the innumerable ways to convey in-group membership,

S can implicitly claim the common ground with H that is carried by that definition of the group These include in-group usages of address forms, of language or dialect, of jargon or slang, and of ellipsis

e.g “Here mate, I was keeping that seat for a friend of mine”

Strategy 5: Seek Agreement

e g: “There was flood in my hometown.”

“Oh my God Flood!”

Strategy 6: Avoid Disagreement

Speaker may go in twisting their utterances so as to appear to agree or

to hide disagreement-to respond to a preceding utterance with ‘yes, but 'in effect, rather than a blatant ‘No’

e g H: “How the woman looked like, beautiful?”

S: “Yes, I think she is quite, but not really beautiful, she is certainly not really ugly.”

Strategy 7: Presuppose/ raise/ assert common ground

S is talking about unrelated topics to show that S is interested in H as the mark of friendship and does not come only to impose him

e g Oh, this is lovely!

Strategy 8: Jokes

Jokes can be used to stress the fact that there must be some mutual background knowledge and values that S and H share That is why, the strategy of joking may be useful in diminishing the social distance between

S and H

e g “How about lending me this old heap of junk?”

Strategy 9: Assert or Presuppose S’s knowledge of and concerns for H’s wants

It is the way to indicate that S and H are co-operators, and thus potentially

to put pressure on H to cooperate with S S wants to assert and imply knowledge

of H’s wants and willingness to fit one’s own wants in with them

e g I know you can't bear parties, but this one will really be good – do come!

Strategy 10: Offer or promises

S and H are good co-operators that they share some goals or S is willing to help to achieve those goals Promise or offer demonstrates S’s good attention in satisfying H’s positive-face wants, even if they are false

e g “I'll drop by sometimes next week”

Strategy 11: Be optimistic

S assumes that H wants S’s wants for S (or for S and H) and will help

to obtain them This usually happens among people with close relationship

e g “Wait a minute, you haven't brushed your hair!”

Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

Here, S manipulates the subject of an activity is done together S uses

an inclusive ‘we’ from when S actually means ‘you’ or ‘me’ Inclusive form

‘we’ is usually used in the construction ‘let’s’

e g “Let's have a cookie, then”

Strategy 13: Give (or ask for) reasons

S uses hearer as the reason why S wants something so that it will seem reasonable to the H S assumes (via optimism) that there are no good reasons why H should not or cannot cooperate

e g “Why don't we go to the seashore?”

Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity

S asks H to cooperate with him by giving evidence of reciprocal rights

or obligations between S and H Thus, S may say, in effect, “I’ll do x for you

if you can do y for me”

e.g “I’ll tell you what it looks like if you tell me where she is now.”

Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

S satisfies H’s Positive Face want by giving gift, not only tangible gifts, but human relation wants which are the wants to be liked, admired, cared

about, understood, listened to, etc in other words, this strategy is usually used for the benefit of H

e g “I’m sorry to hear that”

Regarding to ‘face’ theory, possible politeness strategies which can be used in the conversation is based on the estimation of risk of face lost

c Negative politeness strategies

Another kind of politeness strategies is negative politeness This strategy used when speaker wants to show that he cares and respects hearer’s Negative Face If S did or will do an FTA, he will minimize the threat by using apology, deference, hedges and other strategies Negative Politeness strategies consist in assurances that the speaker recognizes and respects the addressee’s negative-Face wants and will not (or will only minimally) interfere with the addressee Freedom of Action This strategy assumes that there might be some social distance or awkwardness between speaker and hearer and it is likely to be used whenever a speaker wants to put a social brake on his interaction (Brown and Levinson, 1987, p.129) Moreover, they introduce some strategies that included in negative politeness, they are:

Be direct

In the formal situation, sometimes the directness is needed to minimize the imposition by saying the point and avoiding the further imposition of prolixity and ambiguity as mentioned by Lakoff (in Goody, 1996) Fortunately, this strategy is rarely used in negative politeness because it is more relevant to be used in bald on-record strategy For example, “Help me to pick up these boxes!” In this strategy, S chooses to come rapidly to the point directly when she or he wants something She does not care about maintaining face of the H but still respects and assure not to disturb the freedom of action

Don’t assume about H’s wants

This type tries to avoid assuming that anything in FTA is desired or believed by H It is stressed by hedging such assumptions in the form of word and phrase that modify the degree of predicate membership For example, “A swing is sort of a toy’, or “You are quite right”

- Communicate S want not to impinge on H indicate that S is aware and

he takes account in his decision to communicate the FTA is one of the ways

to satisfy H’s negative face

This is the higher strategy of negative politeness that consists of offering partial compensation for the face threat in FTA It shows that negative politeness attends to other wants can be derived (H’s desire for territorial integrity and self-determination)

d Off-record

Off-record indirect strategies the main purpose is to take some of the pressure off of you You are trying to avoid the direct Face Threatening Act

of asking something (Do indirect FTA-satire / questions)

e.g This day is very hot, is not it?

Used to tell someone standing / sitting near the window to open it

2.2.3 Compliments and compliment responses

2.2.3.1 Speech act

Speech act theory is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy

of language The contemporary use of the term goes back to J L Austin's

doctrine of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts It is developed

by the great philosopher Austin (1962), he believed that many philosophical problems had arisen because of a desire to treat all utterances as verifiable statements These were subsequently developed as How to Do Things with

Words He founded the modern study of speech acts

The approach has been greatly developed since by the philosopher Searle (Austin's pupil) The central insight of the speech act theory which is attributed to Austin, Searle and other philosophers is that speech is action and language is used to perform things not only to describe a state of affairs Moreover, Austin pointed out that many utterances do not communicate information, but are equivalent to actions When someone says, "I apologize",

"I promise", or "I name this ship." the utterance immediately conveys a new psychological or social reality

Many scholars identify 'speech acts' with illocutionary acts, rather than locutionary or perlocutionary acts As with the notion of illocutionary acts, there are different opinions on the nature of speech acts The extension of speech acts is commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting someone and congratulating

According to Spenader(2004), speech act theory is a theory where the effect of an utterance is analyzed in relationship to the speaker and listener's behavior Speech act theory can also help us examine utterances from the perspective of their function, rather than their form

Austin (1962) pointed out that when people use language, they are performing a kind of action He called these actions speech acts Traditionally, philosophers have distinguished between actions and speaking

on the basis that speaking about something is quite dissimilar from doing it

Austin challenged this by demonstrating that utterances can be regarded as events in a similar way to other actions

2.2.3.2 Compliments as a speech act

People give compliments in order to start a conversation, smooth an interaction, strengthen an emotional exchange and enhance the mutual understanding and friendship of the people who are involved in the conversation Compliments are speech acts that are primarily aimed at maintaining, improving, or supporting the addressee’s face

Newton and Burgoon (1990, p.509) defined compliments as "statements that were intended to make the other feel good about himself/herself" Holmes (1986b, p.485) defined a compliment as a "a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which was positively valued by the speaker and the hearer"

Generally, a compliment means that you are giving a positive evaluation about the addressee’s appearance, behavior, manner, skill, etc

E.g You’re looking good Is that a new suit?

Compliments maybe considered as a type of speech acts through which

a speaker expressed positive attitudes towards another speaker Within the same culture, compliments had different types according to the ways of using them and their roles in context The main target of using a compliment was not to lose one's face which was likely to be lost if a compliment was misused

in context Performing a successful compliment required the following conditions: a-Hearer (complimentee) had a certain quality, b- Speaker (complimenter) believed that the quality was admirable, c- Speaker wanted Hearer to know/believe that Speaker admired the quality

2.2.3.3 Compliment responses

Compliment response have also been widedly studied among different cultures Pomearantz (1978) investigated compliment responses and stated that two conditions need to be achieved, which are agreement and acceptance

To accomplish this, compliment receivers are required to produce modest responses by using rejections and disagreements in order to avoid self praise such as saying ‘thank you’ Pomerantz (1978, p.88) explains: ‘if self-praise is performed by a speaker, that is, if a speaker does not enforce upon himself self praise avoidance, a recipient may in the next turn make notice of the violation and enforce the constraints’

Herbert(1998, p.53) states that compliment has the structure of an adjacency pair operation or action chain event; therefore compliment and its response cannot be separated

Herbert (1986) categoriezed compliment responses by Pomerantz (1978) into three groups: agreement, nonagreement, other interpretations And they (1998, p.60) were distinguishes 12 types of compliment responses Appreciation Token

Verbal or nonverbal acceptance of the compliment The acceptance is not

being tied to the specific semantics of the stimulus

e.g Thanks

Nod (nonverbal acceptance)

Comment Acceptance-single

Addressee accepts the complimentary force and offers a relevant

comment on the appreciated topic

e.g Yeah, it’s my favorite too

e.g I bought it for the trip to Arizona

Reassignment

Addressee agrees with the compliment assertion, but the

complimentary force is transferred to some third person or to the object itself

e.g My brother gave it to me It really knitted itself

a compliment

e.g You wanna borrow this one too?

2.2.4 The voice show

2.2.4.1 The TV show

A TV Show and TV Program mean the same thing They both refer to

an individual program or episode that you view This can be an episode of a series, or a movie, or basically anything that is broadcast that takes up a time slot

A TV show is any content produced for broadcast via air, satellite, cable, or internet and typically viewed on a television set,

over-the-between shows Television shows are most often scheduled well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings

A television show might also be called a television program, especially

if it lacks a narrative structure Television shows can be viewed as they are broadcast in real-time (live), be recorded on home video or a digital video recorder for later viewing, or be viewed on demand via a set-top box or streamed over the internet

2.2.4.2 The Voice of Vietnam 2015 season 3

The Voice of Vietnam season 3 began on May 10, 2015 on VTV3 Phan Anh and Linh Sunny were MCs (Masters of Ceremonies) of this season The coaching panel of this season were Đàm Vĩnh Hưng, Mỹ Tâm, Thu Phương and Tuấn Hưng

In this program, examinees experienced three rounds: blind audition (5 episodes), battle (4 episodes) and live shows (10 episodes) Like the blind audition in the Voice US, in blind audition, examinees choose a song to perform on the stage, while the coaches are sitting back to the stage While an examinee is performing his performance, if the coaches see his impressive and good voice, they have to press the "I want" button to rotate the seat Pressing the button means that the coach has chosen and wanted the examinee

to be on his team

The battle rounds determine which contestant from each team is qualified for the Live Shows Two (or three) contestants within a team are paired together to sing one song, but only one contestant is chosen for the live shows In this battle, each coach is allowed to "steal" two losing contestants from another coach's team After the Battles, each team will have seven artists for the lives