HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC RÀO ĐÓN VÀ CÁCH THỨC THỰC HIỆN CHÚNG TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH TUYẾT Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY o0o M.A THESIS HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC RÀO ĐÓN VÀ CÁCH THỨC THỰC HIỆN CHÚNG TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH TUYẾT Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr PHAN VAN QUE Hanoi, 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled (HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2017 Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que (Signature and full name) Date: i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que, who has given me the golden knowledge and skill to complete this wonderful thesis on the topic hedging before giving bad news in Vietnamese Secondly, I am also indebted to many teachers of postgraduates Studies Department who have supported and given the knowledge to my M.A Course through their lectures Thirdly, many thanks to Le Quy Don High School for the gifted in Lai Chau Province to give me a chance to find out the actual status on learning English in this school for me to fulfill my thesis with the situation here Last but not least, I would also like to thank my family and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this thesis within the limited time frame ii ABSTRACT This thesis is to show the hedging before giving bad news in English and Vietnamese to express the similarities and the differences between using hedging before bad news in English and Vietnamese Moreover, the thesis gives the system of literature review of speech acts, directness and indirectness, the definition and features of the face, politeness and politeness strategies Furthermore, this thesis provide the definition of hedging, giving the framework of hedging before giving bad news, then analysis the similarities and the difference in English and Vietnamese on this issue Next, the thesis also makes the application on the situation in using this on the actual status in some context Last but not least, the thesis also mentions some suggestions for teachers and learners to import the language The thesis also provides the suggestion for further study iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS V: Verb S: Subject EN: English VN: Vietnamese iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1:Quality hedges with not talking the full responsibility for his utterance’s truth 28 Table 2: The speaker’s commitment is stressed to the truth of his utterance .28 Table 3: The point of the speaker’s assertion is to inform the listener…………… 29 Table 4: The degrees of probability expressed in increasingdoubt .29 Table : The quality through auxiliary .30 Table 6: The quantity hedges that not as much or precise information as might be expected 31 Table 7: Clauses whose use is to modify the performative verb by giving the reason why the sender made that utterance .32 Table 8:Direct function as violations’ notices of face wants which may be derived from Maxim hedges…………………………………………………………… 34 Table 9: The expressions query if the speaker’s discourse is adequate or not 35 Table 10:The Communicative illocutionary acts 37 Table 11:expressions which are separated intosections of quality, quantity, relevance, manner, and politeness 41 Table 12: The adverbs of modal 42 Table 13:The achievement of student in Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chau .51 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study 1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study .3 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Design of the study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Speech Acts .5 2.2.2 Directness and indirectness in speech .7 2.3.3 Face, politeness, and politeness strategies 12 2.2.4 Hedging 20 2.3 Theoretical framework 25 2.3.1 For semantics 25 2.3.2 For pragmatics 26 2.3.3 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness 26 2.3 Hedging before giving bad news 34 2.3.5 Hedging as a device 35 2.4 Summary 37 vi Chapter 3: ANALYSIS OF HEDING STRATEGIES 38 3.1 Needs of hedging before giving bad news 38 3.2 Vietnamese equivalents for the English hedges in using hedging before giving bad news 39 3.2.1 Vietnamese equivalents for the English hedges in using hedging before giving bad news 39 Table 12: The adverbs of modal 41 3.2.2 Differences between English and Vietnamese Equivalents in using hedging before giving bad news 41 3.3 Hedging strategies in giving bad news 43 3.4 Summary 48 Chapter 4: APPLICATION OF HEDGING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING 49 4.1 The actual status of teaching English in Le Quy Don high school for the gifted in Lai Chau Province 49 4.2 Suggestions 57 4.2.1 Suggestion for teachers 57 4.2.2 Suggestions for students 57 4.3 Answering for the Research question 58 4.4 Summary 58 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 59 5.1 Concluding remarks 59 5.1.1 Main similarities 59 5.1.2 Main differences 59 5.2 Limitation of the study 60 5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study 60 REFERENCES 61 vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study Sharing bad news is part of everyday life Bad news is not involved to death only Bad news might be news from a doctor telling someone about their terminal disease, from companies, business or corporation informing the person about a layoff which is coming Or bad news might come from a child’s failure at school, or news about an accident Therefore, bad news means things affect your mood drastically No one enjoys delivering bad news, but soon or late, people will have to deliver bad news as well as face its unpleasant feelings Besides, people who send these badnews messages must deliver them in a careful way, which make the person whom these messages direct to feel acceptable Different cultures have different values, especially in communication Each culture has its own rules in communication, so learners of a foreign language should master these rules so that they can avoid communication breakdowns or cultural shocks Delivering bad news is such a sensitive task How to deliver bad news naturally requires learners much knowledge of the language Even though understanding that successful communication is the ultimate objective of learning a foreign language, many Vietnamese learners hold a view that being successful in foreign language is to master all the grammar rules and accumulate as much as possible new words Therefore, even having grammatically well-formed ability, students might get some unexpected experience in culture shock as well as communication breakdown when they get into a real and specific situation This unwanted incidence happens because of their insufficient knowledge and the lack of social values, relationships between people in the new culture that students are not used to It is noticed that every language or culture has its own different expressions of behavior and ways of speech acts by the language’s users This lead to a great number of researchers ,including local and foreign ones, to conduct their studies on crosscultural pragmatics as well as common communication such as thanking, requesting, complementing, etc However, people seem to pay little attention to the speech act like giving bad news using hedges In everyday life, no one wants to tell their family, relatives or friends bad news because they find it hard to reduce their beloved people’s essentially background by Brown and Levinson’s (1987) paradigm of politeness strategies 3.4 Summary To sum up, chapter shows the ten strategies of hedging in giving bad news including Passing the ball to the third party, Keeping silent, Mentioning/ Giving conditions, Being vague, Offering/suggesting options, Showing tentativeness and mitigation Talking up Self-abasing/ Self-blaming, Showing concern (to H) Apologizing with the examples in English and some examples in Vietnamese Chapter also shows that there are ten hedging strategies including strategy of Showing tentativeness and mitigation, strategy of Talking up, strategy of Self-abasing/ Self-blaming, strategy of Showing concern (to H),strategy of Apologizing, strategy of Offering/suggesting options, strategy of Being vague, strategy of Mentioning/ Giving conditions, strategy of Keeping silent and strategy 10 of Passing the ball to the third party In the next part, it will be applied these strategies on Le Quy Don high school for the gifted in Lai Chau province Moreover, chapter also shows the implication of hedging strategies before giving bad news in English and Vietnamese Vietnamese equivalents for the English hedges in using hedging before giving bad news, The Vietnamese equivalents of the hedges exist as a word, a phrase, and a clause in English, Differences between English and Vietnamese Equivalents in using hedging before giving bad news, In using hedging before giving bad news in a phrase, In using hedging before giving bad news in a clause, In using hedging before giving bad news in behavior style, In using hedging before giving bad news in purposes of using hedging 48 Chapter 4: APPLICATION OF HEDGING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING 4.1 The actual status of teaching English in Le Quy Don high school for the gifted in Lai Chau Province This application of this thesis on students and teachers in Le Quy Don High school to improve English speaking skill when using hedges before bad news According to the English club in Le Quy Don for students, there are some situations established as below Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chai was established in 1967 with the name in the first time as Phong Tho Secondary and high school In 4th September 2006, it was named as Le Quy Don high school and until 4th September 2008, it was named as Le Quy Don High School The Gifted This school is the largest and the most school in Lai Chau with modern and beautiful scene During 40 years of establishment and development, Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chau has a lot of precious achievements with many awards and talented students in competence contest The application of the research finding in Le Quy Don High School The Gifted In Lai Chau to support students have good skills in English with using hedging before giving the bad news There are some activities of English Class in Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chau in using hedging before giving bad news as below The activity is that English teacher in Le Quy Don high school The Gifted in Lai Chau give students in individuals some situation and ask the students to think,discuss or search on the internet, book, newspapers to give the answers in using hedging before giving bad news Some students who volunteer to answer quickly in speaking immediately, the mentor will show them some gifts to encourage the spirit Other students need to write down the situation and search and answer the sentence that they need to say suitably hedging before giving bads news for the situation and they need to write down as a paragraph with 15 sentences relating to the situation and the answer with various subject and more sentences, but keeping the core of situation Then, submitting to the teachers in the next day of English class for get grades - Subject: 40 students of Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chau 49 - Questionaire: How could you use hedging strategies before giving bad news in 15 situations as below - Proceduce: After English class about the activity of teacher on hedging strategies before giving bad news, the author deliver the questionaire with some individual of respondents about gender, age, average score in English subject, the hobbies of learning English The second part is to ask ” How could students use heading strategies before giving bad news in 15 situations No Situation Number of respondents (Total 40 students) Percentage of using hedging before giving bad news Using hedging Not using hedging Lan needs to talk to Hoa that Hoa’s boy friends does not love her 11/40 29/40 27.5% Let’s talk to Mai that she is sacked 14 26 35.0% 26 14 65% You have to tell your best friend you can not come to her wedding 23 17 57.5% You have to tell your friend at work that he did not get the promotion 13 27 32.5% 29 11 72.5% 25 15 62.5% Let inform to Tuan Anh that he is fail the exam You have to tell your family that you can not attend the family reunion this summer You have to tell your customer that you can not fix 50 hix computer, the document will be lost You have to tell your team that you can not meet your deadline You have to tell your boss that you failed the project 16 24 40.0% 11 29 27.5% 10 You have to tell your friend that her mom is lung cancer 32 80% 11 You have to tell your father that you have failed the university examination 15 25 37.5% 28 12 70% 15 25 37.5% 27 13 67.5% 34 85% 12 28 30% 23 17 57.5% 12 13 You have to tell your uncle that his son’s arm is broken You have to tell your father that you have lost million VND for tuition fee You have to tell your friend 14 15 16 that you will move to another province Let Imagine that you have to tell your lover that you will study abroad in USA years from next month Let talk up Nam that he is fail in the abroad program of company in head office in Korea 17 Let talk to Hoa that her dog lost and Hoa is in far distance Use strategy 10 to pass the 51 ball to the third party Talk to Minh about you lost 18 his bicycle in English and 22 18 55% Vietnamese Table 4.1 The statistics of respondents on using hedging and hedging strategies before giving bad news According to table 4.1, It could be seen that the percetage of people using hedging before giving bad news ranging from 27.5% (Situation 1: Lan needs to talk to Hoa that Hoa’s boy friends does not love her) and (Situation 9:You have to tell your boss that you failed the project) , 30% (Situation 16: Let talk up Nam that he is fail in the abroad program of company in head office in Korea), 32.5% (Situation 5: You have to tell your friend at work that he did not get the promotion), 35 % (Situation 2: Let’s talk to Mai that she is sacked), 37.5% (Situation 11: You have to tell your father that you have failed the university examination) and (Situation 13: You have to tell your father that you have lost million VND for tuition fee), 40% (Situation 8:You have to tell your team that you can not meet your deadline), 57.5 %( Situation 4: You have to tell your best friend you can not come to her wedding) and (Situation 17:Let talk to Hoa that her dog lost and Hoa is in far distance Use strategy 10 to pass the ball to the third party), 62.5% (Situation 7:You have to tell your customer that you can not fix hix computer, the document will be lost), to 85.0% (Situation 15: Let Imagine that you have to tell your lover that you will study abroad in USA years from next month) The detailed analysis in each situation is as below: Situation 1: Lan needs to talk to Hoa that Hoa’s boy friends does not love her There are about 11 students in the class of 40 people of Le Quy Don high school using the hedging in both English and Viet Nam with following sentences: Answer 1: Mình tiếc, thấy anh không yêu bạn đâu Answer 2: Dù nào, bạn tin lời tớ nói, cậu không yêu cậu đâu Answer 3: Mặc dù có vài điểm khơng tương đồng, nghe nói, bạn khơng u bạn Answer 4: Bạn đừng buồn nhé! Nhưng cậu không yêu bạn Answer 5: There is plenty of fish in the sea, she does not love you No problem Answer 6: You are always beautiful for me, not for him” 52 Answer 7: Oh dear, bad luck He does not love you any more Answer 8: I think perhaps she does not love you Let’s go for a drink Answer 9: It is difficult to say but I think there is a problem: she does not love you Answer 10 : Bà có nhiều người để lựa chọn, anh khơng thích bà đâu Answer 11: Tình yêu cần đến từ hai phía, từ phía ơng khơng đủ đâu There is little student not use the heding before bad news as Answer 1: Anh khơng thích bà đâu Answer 2: Mày ơi, bỏ thằng đi, khơng u mày thật lòng đâu Teacher’s tips: Anh nên xem lại tình cảm dành cho anh Therefore, other students not have the answer immediately need to the homework and submit for next day with writing paragraph including the complete situation and also had the sayings for the bad news of that situation Situation 2: Let’s talk to Mai that she is sacked There are 14 students using hedging before giving bad news as below: Answer 1: Có vẻ tốt có lẽ cơng việc không phù hợp với anh đâu Answer 2: Thua keo ta bày keo khác bà ạ! Answer 3: It looks good, but maybe, this job does not suit you Answer 4: Công việc không phù hợp với bạn, bạn tìm cơng việc tốt Others not used hedging before giving bad news Teacher’s tips: Tôi nghĩ sếp không đánh giá lực anh Situation 3:Let inform to Tuan Anh that he is fail the exam There are 26 students using hedging before giving bad news as below: Answer 1: Tình hình điểm năm căng anh Answer 2: Ơng thiếu ¼ điểm thơi Answer 3: Tuấn Anh à, bạn thi trượt lần rồi, đừng buồn nhé, cố gắng lên lần sau thành công Answer 4: Anh thi trượt Answer 5: Thua keo ta bày keo khác cho kỳ thi đợt sau Answer 6: I regret to inform that you don’t pass the exam Teacher’s tips: Còn nhiều hội tốt kết kỳ thi Others not used hedging before giving bad news 53 Most of students are shy in expressing their answer in each situation in Vietnamese, but in the English saying, students express some emotion in their answers Almost students of Le Quy Don high school using the hedging in both English and Viet Nam Situation 4:Let Imagine that you have to tell your best friend you can not come to her wedding There are 23 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tips: Mình buồn khơng đến dự lễ đám cưới được, ngày hơm phải bảo vệ tốt nghiệp Situation 5:Let Imagine that you have to tell your friend at work that he did not get the promotion There are 13 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tips: Tình hình kinh tế dạo khó khăn ơng ạ, sếp phải cân nhắc vào quý sau Situation 6:Let Imagine that you have to tell your family that you can not attend the family reunion this summer There are 29 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tips: Đợt nghỉ mát lần không được, tuần sau chơi với bố mẹ nhé! Situation 7:Let Imagine that you have to tell your customer that you can not fix hix computer, the document will be lost There are 25 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Tơi lấy làm tiếc khơng cứu liệu, sau chị nhớ lưu thêm vào icloud nhé! Situation 8:Let Imagine that you have to tell your team that you can not meet your deadline There are 16 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Tôi đáp ứng thời gian tốt dự án tới 54 Situation 9:Let Imagine that you have to tell your boss that you failed the project There are 11 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Có thể chủ đầu tư khơng đánh giá lực doanh nghiệp dự án sếp ạ! Situation 10:Let Imagine that you have to tell your friend that her mom is lung cancer There are 32 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Tôi tin y học ngày phát triển, bạn tin điều tốt lành đến với mẹ bạn Situation 11:Let Imagine that you have to tell your father that you have failed the university examination There are 15 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Con muốn ôn lại năm để điểm đầu vào đại học tốt Situation 12:Let Imagine that you have to tell your uncle that his son’s arm is broken There are 28 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Chú đừng lo lắng nhé! Bác sĩ bảo tuần tay hồi phục lại Situation 13:Let Imagine that you have to tell your father that you have lost million VND for tuition fee There are 15 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Con xin lỗi bị móc túi, cố gắng học thật giỏi để sau tự trang trải lo cho bố mẹ Situation 14:Let Imagine that you have to tell your friend that you will move to another province There are 27 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Từ dịp hè dịp tết thăm nhà, ghé thăm bạn Situation 15:Let Imagine that you have to tell your lover that you will study abroad in USA years from next month 55 There are 34 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Anh buồn phải du học xa em thời gian tới, gọi điện nhắn tin qua facebook thường xuyên em nhé! Situation 16: Applying strategy in English Let talk up Nam that he is fail in the abroad program of company in headoffice in Korea, and use strategy to talk to him There are 12 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Nếu chị mà em, chị không Hàn Quốc đâu, bên căng thẳng trị quốc gia, nhà cho an tồn em ạ! Situation 17: Applying strategy 10 in English Let talk to Hoa that her dog lost and Hoa is in far distance Use strategy 10 to pass the ball to the third party There are 23 students using heding before giving bad news for this situation Others not use heding before giving bad news Teacher’s tip: Hoa à! Tớ nghĩ, tớ cậu chăm sóc Milu, Hoa nhé! Milu Situation 18:Talk to Minh about you lost his bicycle in English and Vietnamese In English Vietnamese I know that you will be sad for this news Em biết, anh nghe tin buồn lắm! that I have lost your bicycle Chiếc xe đạp anh, em vừa làm It seems that your bicycle has been lost Hình như, xe đạp anh bị Moreover, there are a group of teacher including Ms.Tran Thi Thu Hang, Ms.Nguyen Thi Hoa, Ms.Nguyen Thi Huong, Mr.Dong Tien Giang, Ms Vu Thi Nga has some equivalent’s tip for students in this class to be better For example: In the Situation 1: Lan needs to talk to Hoa that Hoa’s boy friends does not love her The tips of this teacher group: Anh nên xem lại tình cảm dành cho anh In the Situation 2: Let’s talk to Mai that she is sacked The tips of this teacher group: Tôi nghĩ sếp không đánh giá lực anh In the Situation 3: Let inform to Tuan Anh that he is fail the exam 56 The tips of this teacher group: Còn nhiều hội tốt kết kỳ thi 4.2 Suggestions 4.2.1 Suggestion for teachers Teachers should help their students be aware of differences in cross-cultural conversation so that learners can use language in general and hedging strategies in particular appropriately However, some teachers have not focused much on this awareness Rivers (1968) appoints that Any authentic use of the language, any reading from original texts (as opposed to those fabricated for classroom use), any listening to the utterances of native speakers, will introduce cultural concomitants into the classroom whether the teacher is conscious of them or not By not acknowledging their presence and not making them explicit, the teacher allows misconceptions of the culturally-determined bases for the reactions and behavior of the foreign people can develop in the students’ concept for and hostility towards the S of the language they are learning In other word, we should include cultural knowledge in teachers’ teaching goals Politzer (1959) expresses as language teachers, we must be interested in the study of culture…If we teach language without teaching at the same time the culture in which it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which students attaches the wrong meaning Therefore, cultural knowledge should be added in teaching foreign language There are some suggestions as following: Access the culture of the new language when learning it Consider cultural behavior’s study as an essential part of every lesson Support learners the needed socio-cultural ability Acquiring knowledge of cross-cultural differences and similarities at language acquisition’s levels 4.2.2 Suggestions for students It’s is said that our culture influences our way of thinking and acting To learn another language, we need to learn to appreciate the culture of which the language is a part We can’t really learn a second language or more precisely, learn the use of that language unless we learn about culture because many of the meanings constructed in the language are culture specific Pollock (1990) 57 Thus, learners are advised to: Study with authentic materials Make comparison and contrast of expressions in the cultures of both source and target languages as much as possible Get experience in speaking to native speakers of target language whenever and wherever they have chance Try to act as native speakers, that is, keep silent in certain contexts after studying the ways Vietnamese and English use hedges when informing bad news 4.3 4.4 Summary According to the application using hedging in English and Vietnamese in speaking in English club of Le Quy Don high school for the gifted in Lai Chau, it could show that some situations for students to practice and most of situation, the answers of students including hedging before informing bad news to other both English and Vietnamese Moreover, the application of teachers is to guide students in club use more hedging and emotion of the face, the gesture or the body language in using the hedging in bad news in their dialogues in the English club 58 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Concluding remarks 5.1.1 Main similarities In conclusion, in studying English as a second language, it is necessary to get language skills as well as professional knowledge Besides, cross-cultural awareness also plays a vital role in learning English for all the learners Therefore, this study has been conducted to discuss hedges’ major characteristics in general and hedging strategies used for delivering bad news in particular have been discussed At first, several major similarities are discussed Firstly, Hedges are used to reduce the level of directness when the speaker would like to give bad unpleasant and shocking feeling of the bad news to the hearer, that is, to minimize the face threatening acts by both Vietnamese and English In addition, the sender also wants to lessen the After that, bad news was chosen to be given advisably in situation where a relative just had a terrible accident and another one where a person cannot find her things when he/she needs It is noticeable that there is parameter in communicating (consisting of gender, distance, age, and power) which influences greatly on hedging strategies’ choice of both English and Vietnamese Regarding social distance, they prefer to inform bad news directly to the person whom they dislike or they choose to keep silent and ignore them Moreover, the choice of giving bad news is also affected by gender and the age of the listener In these cases, the speaker usually informs bad news in an indirect way and not dare to give advice or options to the older All in all, integrating face to face with people who are more powerful, the speaker always feels ambiguous and unconfident Nevertheless, the speaker prefers to deliver bad news in a more direct way to the inferior with little or no hedging 5.1.2 Main differences However, many contradictory trends are revealed between Vietnamese and English in the study On the one hand, English consider many situation home affair, social life, etc as too personal and vulnerable, so news in these situations should not be given On the other hand, the same above contexts are seen to be acceptable and Vietnamese agree to bear bad news The opposite choice of giving bad news is evidence expressing 59 the culture difference when informing bad news which might help the speaker different culture and mind about giving such bad information which helps informant avoid communication breakdown and culture shock Moreover, aspects like age, marital status, career, gender of the sender seem to have effect on how Vietnamese use hedges to inform bad news By contrast, these factors seem not to interfere in hedging strategies of English Besides, regarding individuality and privacy’s respect, it is noticeable that most of the speakers choose to keep silent, except for informing bad news to closed people Hence, Learner must prepare themselves basic background information of the target culture as well as cross-cultural difference in order to become successful communicators 5.2 Limitation of the study Although the research has reached its aim, there were some unavoidable limitations Firstly, because of the limitation of time for this research, the research was conducted only on a small size as Le Quy Don high school in Lai Chau in teaching and learning in English through giving hedges before giving bad news Therefore, to get the better result and conclusion, it is needed to organize on more participants and different levels Secondly, the thesis just used the method of contrastive analysis of give the similarities and differences and application in Le Quy Don high school, but no survey with the detailed number as quantitative research, there have some limitation in the results, analysis, and conclusion 5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions In order to use hedges in a more effective way and broaden understanding before delivering bad news, it is advised that - Extra-linguistic and paralinguistic, address form and modality should be analyzed more deeply - Drawing more convincing conclusions is suggested because they can bring more light to the investigation through detailed data analyzed The writer has completed this thesis with a great effort and the best knowledge and understanding Nevertheless, it is unavoidable to have faults and inadequacies Hence, the writer hopes to get useful and constructive comments from the readers Thank you a lot 60 REFERENCES In English Austin (1962), “Speech Act Theory and the Speech Situation”, Etsuko Oishi Esercizi Filosofici 1, 2006, pp 1-14 ISSN 1970-0164 Austin (1998),“How to Do Things with Words”, Cambridge, Mass, United States Adamu Musa(2014), “Hedging In Academic Writing: A Pragmatic Analysis Of English And Chemistry Masters’ Theses In A Ghanaian University”, English for Specific Purposes World, ISSN 1682-3257, www.esp-world.info, Issue 42, Vol 15, 2014 Adamu Musa(2014), “Hedging Strategies in English and Chemistry Masters’ Theses in the University of Cape Coast, 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Education”,Linguistics Department, Monash University 14 Leech (1998),“Corpus l Corpus Linguistics: Method, Theory and Practice”, Cambridge, Mass, United States 15 Stenius (1998), “speech acts”, Cambridge, Mass, United States 16 Searle (1993), “Metonymy and Language: A New Theory of Linguistic Processing” 17 Yule (1996),“The Study of Language” , Linguistics Department, Monash University 18 Vassileva (2001), “Ideas and Options in English for specific Purposes” In Vietnamese 19 Nguyen Hoa (2000), “An Introduction To Discourse Analysis” 20 Nguyen Thanh Huy and Truong Thi Hong Nhung (2015), “Using hedges in English and Vietnamese conversations: The similarities and differences” 21 Tran Thi My Linh (2010), “A vietnamese – english cross – cultural study of the use of hedging before giving bad new 22 Nguyen Quang (1998),“A Vietnamese - American cross-cultural study on disparaging” From the internet 23 link:http://www.univ.trieste.it/~eserfilo/art106/oishi106.pdf 62 ... - To implicate for teaching speaking English skill for Vietnamese learners of English effectively Objectives - To find out hedging strategies in English - To find out the way to realize them in. ..MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY o0o M.A THESIS HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC RÀO... within the limited time frame ii ABSTRACT This thesis is to show the hedging before giving bad news in English and Vietnamese to express the similarities and the differences between using hedging