So sánh các chỉ tố lịch sự trong hành động ngỏ lời bằng tiếng anh và tiếng việt

To describe the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering performed by the native Australian speakers.. To describe the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering

Chapter 1

Introduction

This descriptive and comparative research into the Politeness markers including Strategies of language use (or Illocutionary Strategies) and Social Deixis (primarily consisting of Person-referring Forms and Formal Items) (Brown P and Levinson S [11], Nguyen Duc Hoat [36, p 325]) in the speech act of offering in

English and Vietnamese is carried out because of the following reasons:

1 There have been so far a lot of contrastive studies into certain speech acts

including Face- threatening Acts (FTAs) such as requests by Nguyen Duc Hoat

[36], Ha Cam Tam [83], Mulken M V [62], Sifianou M [79], Nguyen Van Do

[104], Ohashi J [66], Tran Lan Phuong [124], complaints by Eslami - Rasekh Z [22], refusals by Liao C C and Bresnahan M I [55], Phan Thi Van Quyen [68] etc.; and Face- enhancing Acts (FEAs) such as compliments by Nguyen Quang

[125], Nguyen Minh Nguyet [65] In spite of its frequent occurrences in various kinds of interpersonal communication there has been little research done on the

speech act of offering which may be either a FTA or a FEA

2 If any, there still remain limitations in the study of this speech act The studies by Rabinowitz J F [69], Hoang Thi Thu Lan [52] mainly focus on the

linguistic expressions of the offering They do not base on the face notion to explain the Politeness Markers used in the speech behavior of offering Chu Thi Bich [97] narrows down her study on the speech act of offering in Vietnamese Although

Nguyen Thi Hong Ha [32] has a more expanded cross-cultural research on the

speech acts of offering and responding in English and Vietnamese, her research centers round offering gifts, which is one part of the offering In fact, according to Wierzbicka A [91] and Rabinowitz J F [69], the offering involves offering a service or an item In other words, the offering to a full sense involves “the offerer’s showing or expressing the willingness or intention to do something for or to give something to the hearer” (Hornby A S [38, p 623]) In this sense, the speech act of

offering has not been thoroughly studied by Chu Thi Bich and Nguyen Thi Hong Hµ

either

Generally, the above-mentioned studies on the speech act of offering are

restricted to the linguistic expressions rather than based on the face assumption which may be radically influenced by the cultural features to explain the use of the

Politeness Markers in this speech act Nonetheless there exist in all languages these interrelated elements to express politeness in speech acts including the offering

1.2 aims and Scope of the research

Due to the time and resource constraints, this research is restricted to the

descriptive and comparative study on the Politeness Markers in the offering in Australian English and Vietnamese As a result, the research is intended:

1 To describe the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering

performed by the native Australian speakers

2 To describe the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering

performed by the native Vietnamese speakers

3 To compare their use of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering

along the directness/indirectness dimension in various social situational contexts studied

4 To explain the underlying reasons for the similarities and/or dissimilarities

in their use of these Politeness Markers

1.3 Theoretical and practical implications

This research could offer the following theoretical and practical implications:

1 The findings of this research could provide the knowledge of the speech act

of offering in Australian English and Vietnamese, which could be necessary for the

researchers of pragmatic field and for those who use it as a means of intercultural communication to avoid “culture shock”

2 This research based on the face assumption which may be impacted by the

cultural features to explain the use of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering in Australian English and Vietnamese could make a significant contribution

compared to the former researches restricted to the study of the linguistic

expressions of speech acts including the offering Truly a speech act is a basic

pragmatic unit of communication (Trosborg A [85]), whose semantic structure is closely associated with the ideology and cultural features of the community employing that speech act The ideology and cultural features of the community in their turns determine whether or not a speech act is of politeness in the on-going verbal interaction from the interlocutors’ perception of face In other words, there must be an entwined relationship between the semantic structure and pragmatic

sense of a speech act including the offering in association with linguistic politeness,

which may not have been intensively studied by the previous studies on the speech

act of offering

3 This research could help the pragmatists and the learners of English or Vietnamese as a foreign language have a deeper insight into speech acts including

the offering in Australian English as an Indo-European inflectional language and in

Vietnamese as a typical tonic and non-inflectional Austro-Asiatic language Especially the findings of this research is useful for Vietnamese learners of English and Australian learners of Vietnamese in that they could help these learners better learn English or Vietnamese as a foreign language in a scientific and systematic way and in this way could prevent them from committing unexpected pragmatic errors

1.4 research methods

The methods used in this research are descriptive and comparative

- Descriptive: the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering in Australian

English and Vietnamese are described in relation to the semantic structure and pragmatic properties

- Comparative: The coding system for the comparison of the strategies of

offering in Australian English and Vietnamese used in this thesis are modified from

the coding system of strategies developed by Blum-Kulka S et al [8] and Rabinowitz J F [69], which cover seven strategies within the three major Strategy Categories ranking in a decreasing level of directness

The comparative method is preferred to the contrastive method because of the following reasons The findings from the thesis based on this comparative method (to find out the similarities and differences) could offer not only the practical implications in a foreign language teaching method of a speech act (as the contrastive method [to find out the differences] could) but also the linguistically theoretical implications concerning the semantic, structural and pragmatic aspects

of a speech act including the offering in the two languages compared

1.5 structure of the thesis

From the above-mentioned issues, this thesis could be organized into the following chapters:

Chapter 1 introduces the background, the aims and scope, the theoretical and practical implications, the research methods and the structure of the thesis

Chapter 2 provides a review of different approaches to linguistic politeness study and discusses my viewpoint on the appropriate approach to study linguistic politeness in Vietnamese culture

Chapter 3 discusses the methodology issues including research questions, data approach and the research method, the data collection methods, the selection of subjects, the research procedure involving the procedure for the administration of the Pilot Questionnaires (PQs) and the Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs)

Chapter 4 describes and discusses the identification of the speech act of

offering in Australian English and Vietnamese to highlight its distinctive features A further analysis of the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering in

Australian English and Vietnamese is then carried out as a coding framework

Chapter 5 presents and discusses the findings on the use of the Politeness Markers in the offering in Australian English and Vietnamese in relation to such

social variables as the Relative Power (P), the Social Distance (D) and the Imposition Rank (R) in the situational contexts studied and the underlying reasons Chapter 6 presents the conclusion of the thesis including the summary of the major findings, the implications and the suggestions for further research

Chapter 2

speech act theory and linguistic politeness

This chapter provides an overview of different approaches to linguistic politeness study and presents my viewpoint on the appropriate approach to study linguistic politeness in the context of Vietnamese culture

2.1 speech acts and politeness

Speech acts have been studied and defined by different theorists such as Austin

J [1], Searle J R [73], Levinson S C [54] and others Their common point of view

is that a speech act is a unit of communication Each of these units performs a

certain function such as: complimenting, apologizing, offering etc

According to Austin J [1], stating is only one function of language He notes

that some ordinary declarative sentences are not just to say things or describe states

of affairs but also used to do things He distinguishes constatives - statements, assertions - from performatives which are used to perform actions According to

Austin, an utterance is perceived as having three basic senses and in performing a certain act, the speaker is said to perform simultaneously three kinds of acts:

- Locutionary act: the uttering of a certain sentence with certain sense and reference This again is roughly equivalent to “meaning” in the traditional sense;

- Illocutionary act: the making of a statement, an offering, etc in uttering a

sentence by the conventional force associated with it; and

- Perlocutionary act: the effect on the hearer achieved by saying something According to Austin, the term “speech act” is actually used exclusively to refer

to the illocutionary act He also suggests that different speech acts can be classified and compared basing on the classification of speech act verbs available in a language Yet, he fails to show systematically the relation between illocutionary force and the explicit and implicit performatives and their felicity conditions

Searle J R [73] further expands on Austin’s work and basing on the felicity conditions for different speech acts, Searle J R [74, 75] comes up with the taxonomy of speech act types:

- Representatives or assertives which commit the speaker to the truth of a

proposition, for example, asserting or stating;

- Directives, the point of which is to get the hearer to do something, for

example, ordering, requesting;

- Commissives, which commit the speaker to some future action, for example,

promising, offering;

- Expressives, which express certain feelings and attitudes of the speaker, for

example, thanking, apologizing; and

- Declaratives, acts of announcing the emergence of an event, for example,

declaring, christening

Searle’s taxonomy takes the illocutionary act as the starting point in identifying speech act types but not speech act verbs as proposed by Austin J [1] Searle J R [77] also makes a claim that “the basic unit of human communication is the illocutionary act” and that his taxonomy has universal application

According to Searle J R [76], in everyday interactions, it is often found that the speaker may utter a sentence and mean what s/he says and also mean another illocution with a different illocutionary content For example, the utterance (2.1)

‚May I help you?‛ can be meant not as a question with the inversion of the Modal Auxiliary Verb (MAV) May and the First Personal Subject I but as an offering to

help somebody Utterances of this type fall under what Searle J R [76] calls “indirect speech acts” or the cases in which “… one illocutionary act is performed indirectly by performing another” The distinction between what is meant and what is said shows that a polite utterance reveals the speaker’s true intentions only indirectly The speaker seeks ways to modify what s/he is planning to say, thus s/he could express his/her intention indirectly enough to avoid a social conflict

Indirectness has been associated with the levels of politeness by many Western

researchers These researchers assert indirectness is the chief motivation for politeness and indirectness and the closely associated notion of politeness operate under universal principles (Searl J R [75], Brown P and Levinson S [10], Leech G

N [53]) Utterances of offering in English using Interrogative forms, e g (2.2)

‚Can I offer some help?‛ [DCT 5] are called Conventionally Indirect offering and

are considered polite in that the form seems to give the hearer the option of refusal since the “yes” or “no” alternative question allows “no” as a possible answer Within the framework of pragmatics, it is primarily the speech act theory which has succeeded in accounting for the linguistic aspects of politeness Since the mid-1970s, Eastern and Western speech act theorists in their different

approaches have more or less converged views on the notion of politeness

2.2 notions of politeness and definitions

In the Vietnamese language, the closest equivalent to the English word

“politeness” is lÞch sù which is defined by Hoang Phe et al as “…having elegant

manners and observing propriety in conformity with social rules and expectations in interaction” [122] However, from a traditional point of view, the modern concept of

politeness lÞch sù also encompasses the concept of LÔ (The Sino-Vietnamese word for Li “rites”) As a result of extensive contacts with, and influence from Chinese culture, the concept of Li was introduced and assimilated into Vietnamese culture

through nearly a thousand years of Chinese domination and adoption of Confucianism as an official political doctrine and a source of moral codes by successful feudal states and Confucian scholars in ancient Vietnam (Tran §inh

Huou [111]) LÔ is a set of norms or social etiquettes which prescribes appropriate

behavior in dyadic relationships mainly of the vertical nature between the king and his subjects, between the teacher and the student, parent and his child, husband and his wife, between friends etc Social juniors are expected to show deference to their seniors while social super-ordinates are supposed to protect and take care of social subordinates

In over the last two decades, various Western researchers working on linguistic politeness have proposed different models on linguistic interaction and its associated notions of politeness Lakoff R [49-51] defines politeness as those forms of behavior which have been “developed in society in order to reduce friction in interpersonal interaction” Leech G N [53] defines politeness as “strategic conflict avoidance” and the ability of participants to engage in interaction with an atmosphere of

relative harmony Brown P and Levinson S [12] do not take politeness to result from pragmatic principles but rather from a more underlying need to minimize potential imposition on the addressee as a result of the verbal act

In the long run, the above researchers believe that “what politeness essentially consists of is a special way of treating people, saying and doing things in such a way

as to take into account of the other person’s feelings” In other words, politeness in their viewpoint is volition-oriented conflict avoidance behavior They may have disregarded the social-norm role in regulating a community’s members’ appropriate behavior to show politeness As far as I’m concerned, the term politeness should cover both conventional and volitional politeness Conventional (discernment/normative) politeness is compared to a system of traffic rules, which are socially imposed on every member of the society and strategic (volitional/tact)

politeness to one’s individual driving styles Conventional politeness and volitional politeness are intricately linked to each other Conventional politeness provides a set

of constraints on the creative and manipulative use of the verbal behavior by the speaker to achieve his or her communicative goal/intention

The common theme underlying these varying definitions is the idea of appropriate language use associated with smooth communication Concerning this

matter, Watts R J has suggested the term politic behavior-“that behavior, linguistic

or nonlinguistic, which the participants construct as being appropriate to the ongoing social interaction” [88, p 257] Watts R J assumes that this type of social interaction has become institutionalized and is subject to some kind of interaction

order and conventions Politic behavior is distinguished from polite behavior by Watts R J [88, p 169] and Nguyen Van Do [105, p 2], who claim that politic behavior is not equivalent to polite behavior Truly, there could leave open the

possibility that there are certain circumstances where interlocutors could hold the verbal interaction within the framework of the politic behavior may not be perceived

by others as being polite In fact, the offerer’s formulaic offering like (2.3)‚Can I help?‛ may not always be polite and welcomed by a strange offeree who may not expect the offerer’s offering assistance and assume it an unnecessarily intruding

action into the offeree’s individual freedom though this format has become institutionalized I assume that this could bring into light the invevitable role of the situational context (encompassing the interlocutors’ belief, intention, their social relationship and the spacial/temporal parameters of communication etc.) in determining whether a politic behavior is perceived as a polite behavior

In the field of cross-cultural politeness research, many authors have attempted

to construct various models with the aims of establishing universal research frameworks Frazer B [26] outlines the four major views of politeness: the

Conversational-Maxim view, the Face-Saving view (Brown P and Levinson S [12]), the Fraser’s own Conversational-Contract view and the Social Norm view

Following is the review of these major views on politeness and the argument that calls for the extension of the existing views in order to fully account for politeness phenomenon

2.3 An overview of the theoretical perspectives on politeness

2.3.1 STRATEGIC viewpoints on politeness

2.3.1.1 The conversational-maxim view

a Grice’s Conversational Principles

Grice P [30] proposes the Cooperative Principles (CP) In Grice’s viewpoint,

the speaking agent is rational and his/her talk exchange is purposive so that the CP

(which consists of four main maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner) is

normally observed Given this cooperative nature of talk, any violation of a maxim

is thought to signal some conversational implicature(s) When regarding the

politeness maxim as one of the other possible maxims of the CP besides the

above-mentioned four maxims, Grice argues that the observance of the politeness maxim may, in many cases, produce certain non-conventional implicatures [30, p 46] For

instance, if A wants to offer to help B, the production of an Imperative offering such as: (2.4) ‚Let me help you!‛ is quite relevant to the main maxims of the CP Yet, this direct offering is not relevant to the politeness maxim because it is more imposing than an indirect offering such as (2.5) “Can I help you?” [DCT 29] Thus, if A uses an Interrogative instead of an Imperative offering, the use of the Interrogative form is

constrained mainly by the politeness maxim rather than by the other maxims of the CP

Under the constraint of the politeness maxim, the Interrogative acquires another

conversational implicature (a force of offering) besides its primary force of questioning

Grice’s ideas of rational speaking agents and purposeful talk, of the Cooperative Principle, and of the relationship between implicatures and politeness are important points of departure for politeness theorists within the strategic perspective

b Lakoff ’s Rules of Pragmatic Competence

Grice’s ideas are first developed by Lakoff R [49] into a theory of politeness Lakoff R assumes politeness to be a means to avoid conflict She formulates two rules of pragmatic competence: 1) Be clear, and 2) Be polite She takes these two rules to be in opposition to each other In addition, she points out the following sub-rules:

Rule 1: Don’t impose (used when formal / impersonal politeness is required) Rule 2: Give options (used when informal politeness is required)

Rule 3: Make A feel good (used when intimate politeness is required)

Lakoff R [49, p 301] suggests that “all polite action is such because it is in accordance with the dictates of one or more of Rules 1, 2, 3, as a polite utterance” The speaker, in choosing a level of politeness, has to assess the situations and adopt the appropriate rules However, Lakoff’s rules are to a certain extent, arbitrary and non- discrete The three rules above can be said to have the overall function of

“making A feel good” When one is trying to “give option”, it is synonymous with

“don’t impose” In general, these rules mainly reflect the rules of politeness in typical Anglo-Saxon culture which emphasizes non- interference and freedom of actions of individual speakers and cannot be considered universally pragmatic rules

c Leech’s Maxims of Politeness

Leech’s theory builds on the speech act theory of Austin and Searle and Grice’s theory of conversational implicature, but at the same time incorporates other

socio-pragmatic principles of language use, with Politeness Principle (PP) being the

most important factor regulating human interaction

Leech G N makes a distinction between the speaker’s illocutionary goals (what speech act the speaker intends to convey through the utterance) and the

speaker’s social goals (what position the speaker is taking on being truthful, polite, ironic etc.) Similar to Lakoff R., Leech G N argues that his Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle often create a tension for the speaker who must make a compromise between what message to convey and how to convey it

Like Grice’s, Leech’s global statement is “Minimize the expression of impolite beliefs [53, p 81] Leech G N claims that PP is a complement to CP and it is good for both verbal and non-verbal communication He also claims that his model could

be applied universally across cultures However Leech’s model can best be applied

to English culture, where indirectness may be interpreted as keeping a “distance” which is given higher value and accordingly not suitable for all situations or societies where social intimacy is highly valued, hence indirectness may mean insincerity and lack of consideration

2.3.1.2 Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory

a Politeness in Brown and Levinson’s Viewpoint

Brown and Levinson’s work [10, 12] is one of the most comprehensive theories on politeness phenomenon For Brown P and Levinson S., a strong motivation for not talking strictly according to conversational maxims is to ensure politeness except for the case of sarcasm, and irony

In contrast to Leech G N., Brown P and Levinson S maintain that observed linguistic behavior often deviates from models such as Grice’s theory of conversation, in which the main purpose of conversation is assumed to be the maximally efficient exchange of information (Grice P [30, p 47]) Brown P and Levinson S [10, 12] found that such deviations from “model” situations had a motivation - politeness - which could be explained largely in rational terms, and they proposed a detailed and comprehensive theory of politeness which they assume

to be universal [10, p 61] In their theory, they postulate the principles of politeness, and from those principles derive specific politeness strategies grouped into five categories, of which the two described at most length in their study are the by now widely known redressive strategies of positive politeness and negative politeness Moreover, they suggest that the failure to communicate the intention to be polite

through these redressive strategies may be taken as absence of the required polite attitude Conversely, using “redressive strategies properly the speaker could reveal the intention to be polite and hence could express politeness towards the others

Let’s take the case of the speech act of offering The speaker of (2.6) ‚Would you like some help?‛ [DCT 19], for example, implicates not only an offering (the

speaker only states what (s)/he would like to do something for the hearer), but also

implicates the intention to be polite On the other hand, the uttering (2.7) ‚Let me help you.‛ under the same situational context of non-intimate and upward speech

may be heard as conveying the lack of polite intentions and therefore impolite

b Brown and Levinson’s Notion of Face

Basic to their theory is the concept of “face” which is defined by Brown P and Levinson S [12, p 61] as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim

for him/herself” which consists of negatice face: the basic claim to the rights of distraction, i.e the freedom of action and freedom from imposition; and positive face: the positive consistent self-image claimed by the interlocutors

non-In their viewpoint, face is something that can be lost, maintained or enhanced and any threat to face must be constantly monitored during an interaction A person will always have two points of view towards face-saving: defensive orientation toward saving one’s own face and a protective orientation towards saving others’ face It is this tension that regulates verbal and non- verbal behavior according to social and contextual situations as mutually recognized by the interlocutors in the speech event These two aspects are also treated as two basic “face-wants”:

- Negative face-want: the want of every “competent adult member” that his/her

actions be unimpeded by others; and

- Positive face-want: the want of every member that his/her wants be desirable

to at least some others

Some speech acts, according to Brown P and Levinson S., are considered

potentially face-threatening and are called Face-threatening acts (FTAs); for instance, requesting, offering, which may interfere with the addressee’s freedom of action and are believed to threaten his/her negative face Acts, such as apologizing,

which approve of the hearer’s want, threaten speaker’s positive face Some acts threaten

both speaker’s and hearer’s positive and negative face, for example, complaining

In verbal interaction, speakers try to avoid or minimize the threat to face either

of the speaker, or the hearer or both; therefore, people resort to “politeness” or “tact” strategies Brown P and Levinson S have formulated five possible sets of strategies depending on the degrees of face-risk The higher (level) the risk may be, the more polite the strategies are to be selected The degree of threat or risk posed by a FTA

is calculated by such “rational” members of a culture as the additive Weighting (W)

of the three dependent variables: 1) Social Distance between speaker and hearer (D); 2) their Relative Power (P); and 3) the absolute Imposition Rank (R) in a particular culture

These FTAs according to Brown P and Levinson S can be realized using one

of the following strategies (in the order of increased politeness levels): 1) bald on- record without redress; 2) on- record with positive politeness redress, i.e bringing positive face by expressing solidarity with the addressee; 3) on- record with negative politeness redress, i.e using mechanisms which make the addressee feel s/he is not imposed upon; 4) off - record, i.e doing the act so that it is possible to refuse the responsibility; and 5) not doing the act in case the face threat is too great [12, p 60] Politeness is thus reduced to a cover term “indirectness” which is related to the illocutionary opacity of the utterance The more indirect and elaborate a speech act utterance is the more polite it becomes Like Leech G N., Brown P and Levinson S

also claim the universality of their theory though allowing for exceptions (“in many

or perhaps all cultures” [10, p 79]) Brown P and Levinson S believe that their

model can offer a framework for cross-cultural comparison in politeness, according

to the different weights assigned to the factors (P), (D) and (R) in different societies and cultures Moreover Brown P and Levinson S claim that specific types of polite

activities in different languages and cultures are motivated by the desire to maintain face The tendency to defend one’s own positive and negative face, and the

protection of others’ positive and negative face, is assumed to be the important functions of politeness in virtually all languages and cultures They also claim that

politeness is essentially based on rational principles which are systematically related to human intentions in all languages and cultures

2.3.1.3 The conversational-contract view

Politeness, in the Conversational-Contract (CC) view by Fraser B [26] converges in many ways with the “Face-Saving view” in that rational participants are aware that they are to act within the negotiated constraints and generally do so to

be polite and politeness still a focus in interaction When they do not, however they are then perceived as being impolite It could be seen that this approach may differ

in one way from that of Brown P and Levinson S In this approach, politeness is a state that one expects to exist in every conversation not only in cases of such FTAs

as requesting, ordering, and offering In addition, being polite does not involve

making the hearer “feel good” as in Lakoff or Leech’s viewpoint Politeness simply involves speakers who are polite and then only if their utterances reflect an

adherence to the obligations they carry in that particular conversation

2 3 1 4 Comments on strategic viewpoints on face and politeness

As mentioned above, one of the problematic issues of the strategic viewpoint

on politeness is the link between face and politeness According to this viewpoint, human communication is seen as a dangerous effort which may threaten either the hearer’s or the speaker’s negative or positive face, therefore “face-work” is called for to redress the Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) for the sake of politeness Brown P and Levinson S believe that virtually all polite behavior can be attributed to the

outcome of rational choices of individuals motivated by face want [10, p 64] In

other words, in carrying out a FTA, the interlocutors try to satisfy either a protective

or defensive face want, which they claim to be universally valid social needs

Brown and Levinson’s theoretical assumptions, especially the concept of face, have been contested by scholars researching politeness in non- Western languages and cultures In their study of politeness phenomenon in the Japanese language, from the viewpoint of social cognition, Ide S [42] and Matsumoto Y [61] claim that the concept of face as posited by Brown P and Levinson S does not have any counterpart in Japan, and perhaps, in other Asiatic countries They assert that Brown

and Levinson’s approach reflects the highly individualistic mentality in the conceptualization of face and the approach is merely appropriate for the individually-oriented cultures where equality in human relationship is highly valued Ide S [42] explains that politeness in Japanese culture like in many other Asian cultures including Vietnamese culture does not solely revolve around this type of

face but is closely linked to the notion of relative place and interpersonal

relationships are characterized by inequality in status Speakers are socially obligated to acknowledge their relative roles and positions in the group due to the

community/collectivism orientation to have linguistic politeness behavior

2.3.2 normative viewpoints on politeness

2.3.2.1 The social-norm view

According to the Social-Norm view, politeness is considered a form of behavior which conforms to

a particular set of social norms consisting of more or less explicit rules that prescribe a certain behavior, a state of affairs, or ways of thinking in

a context A positive evaluation (politeness) arises when an action is in congruence with the norm, a negative evaluation (impoliteness = rudeness) when an action is to the contrary [26, p 220]

Polite behavior in this sense is dictated by the dominant social group in relation

to specific social events and some forms of behavior are highly ritualized Failure to observe these socially imposed norms could bring the loss of face to the interlocutors The use of speech levels in honorific languages like Japanese, Person Referring Terms especially the use of Kin Terms (KTs), Honorific Pragmatic Particle (HP), Formal Semantic Items (FSIs) and many other politeness formulae in Vietnamese are typical examples of ritualized linguistic behavior in upward speech

2.3.2.2 COMMENTS ON normative VIEWPOINTS ON POLITENESS

However, the Normative view has its weakness as theoretical concepts in establishing universally valid principles in politeness research The sets of prescriptive rules fail to capture the dynamic, contextually negotiated nature of polite behavior They are often culture or even group specific and cannot form a

viable theory capable of accounting for the interactive nature of polite behavior Brown P and Levinson S [12, p 86] argue against the norm-based approach to politeness research stating that since norm-based approaches are specific to particular social populations or cultures, they have limited explanatory role in human interactive verbal behavior Therefore, the norm-based approach has few adherents among Western researchers (Fraser B [26, p 221])

According to this Social-Norm view, the concept of face in Vietnamese culture

is closely associated with one’s own achievement and behavior in accordance with the community’s moral standards The behavior and achievement of one individual

is expected to bring about not only self-respect but also respect and honor to his/her family, village, community and even the whole country Yet, an improper behavior

of a family member or his/her failure to live up to the family’s expectation is said to bring a loss of face not only to himself/herself as an individual but also to his/her whole family, even his ancestors in relation to other people in the community This

has been reflected in the Vietnamese sayings “not having any face to see other people” (“mất mặt với thiên hạ”), or ‚having no face to see the ancestors‛ (‚không còn mặt mũi nào nhìn lại tổ tiên‛) The individual’s endeavor to maintain face in the Vietnamese context is thus mainly interpersonally motivated while in Western context, face want in Brown and Levinson’s term is basically intrapersonally

motivated (Gu Y [31], Jia W [44], Yu M C [94, p 1704])

From the Social-Norm view, the notion of politeness in the strategic viewpoint

is also of problem to Vietnamese culture In his book titled ‚Những vấn đề văn hoá Việt Nam đương đại‛ (‚The contemporary Vietnamese cultural matters‛), Huynh

Khai Vinh [136] comments that Confucianism - a doctrine which takes the family as the basic social unit and uses the family’s united structure as the micro model for building an ideal society - has exercised its strong influence on the Vietnamese people’s behavior Confucian ethics emphasizes the principle of the “three principal social ties” - King and subjects, husband and wife, father and son A person is as a result regarded as a member of a community rather than as a distinct individual in Vietnamese culture In other words, what is of paramount concern to the

Vietnamese is not much their own territory, but their position in relation to the others in the group and their acceptance by the others as norms In this way being polite is taken to be abiding by the social norms and vice versa This kind of

politeness is termed as normative / discernment/ positive politeness (Nguyen Duc Hoat [36], Vu Thi Nga [117]), which is different from strategic/volitional/ negative politeness which highlights the rational use of language to avoid intrusion into

others’ private freedom as stated in Brown and Levinson’s viewpoint

2.3.3 A hybrid approach to the study of politeness

We have so far considered the four perspectives on how to account for politeness: the Conversational-Maxim view, the Face-Saving view, the Conversational-Contract view and the Social Norm view I observe that according to these views politeness is a socially-oriented speech behavior that each member of a community has to conduct to be favorably accepted by other in-group members and politeness in this sense is mainly appropriate for Non-Western or Eastern culture In addition, politeness is an individually intended behavior conducted by rational agents towards others and politeness in this sense is mainly suitable for the Western culture

But is it really true that negative face and strategic politeness is entirely negligible in Vietnamese culture? Is it really true that positive face and normative politeness is quite disregarded in Australian culture? Researchers such as Hill B et

al [35], Ide S [42], Matsumoto Y [61], Gu Y [31], Huynh Khai Vinh [136], Yu M

C [94] assume that the two concepts of face, i.e, positive or interpersonal face (related to normative politeness) and negative or intrapersonal face (related to strategic politeness) are not exclusive but they could co-exist at different degrees in

different cultures I quite agree with these researchers’ viewpoint on this hybrid approach to the study of politeness One situational context I could think of to

illustrate this argument is when offering to help their new younger teacher in doing

something that requires much skill and knowledge of technology like fixing the video in class the Vietnamese students could display high sensitivity to the offeree’s

negative face in this non-intimate context They could start their indirect offering

with the Formulaic Entreaty ‚Xin lỗi‛ (‚Excuse me‛) as a Preparator (PR) and could use the Modal Auxiliary Verb có thể and the Interrogative softening Pragmatic Particle (Int SOP) đ-ợc không? in the Head offering to avoid imposition

on the offeree in case they are not sure if their offering should be accepted by the

offeree

(2.8)‚Xin lỗi, tôi có thể giúp cô sửa máy vi-đê-ô này đ-ợc không?” (DCT 17)

PR Head Offering

“Excuse me, can I help you fix this video?”

Obviously the expression like this is usually used to soften the following

verbal offering that is felt to be a potential threat to the addressee’s negative face

Also with the same situation as above but in a different context where the teacher is elder and close in relationship with the student, native Australian offerers

could express their sensitivity to positive face by using the Direct Strategy of the

Imperative (DIM):

(2.9) ‚Let me have a look.‛ (DCT 52)

or using the Direct strategy showing the offerer’s Willingness (expressed with I’ll)

to help the offeree without investigating into the offeree’s Wish or Desire:

(2.10) ‚I ’ll give you a hand.‛ (DCT 49)

As shown from my research the frequency of using Direct Strategy Category

(DC) to show their sensitivity to positive face by native Australian speakers is higher

(16 %) in the same situation as (2.8) but in a different context in which the offerer is elder than the offeree as his/her teacher and has a close relationship with the teacher This Direct Strategy Category has been used under various strategies such as Direct Strategy of the Imperative (DIM: 10%) as shown in (2.11), Direct Strategy showing the offerer’s Willingness to help (DWL: 5%) as illustrated in (2.12), Direct Strategy showing the offerer’s Ability to help (DAB: 1%) as shown in (2.13)

(2.11) ‚Let me have a look at it.‛ (DCT 30)

(2.12) ‚I ’ll help you fix it.‛ (DCT 31)

(2.13) ‚I can have a look at it.‛ (DCT 54)

It is this co-existence and preference of positive face and negative face at

different degrees in Australian and Vietnamese cultures that may underlie the

similarities or/and dissimilarities in the use of the Politeness Markers in the

speech act of offering in Australian English and Vietnamese

In Vietnam, politeness has also been studied by such other researchers as Nguyen Dinh Hoa [108], Nguyen Kim Than [130], Nguyen Duc Hoat [36], Vu Thi Thanh Huong [110] etc Among them, Nguyen Duc Hoat and Vu Thi Thanh Huong have paid their special attention to the study of linguistic politeness in Vietnamese communication Nguyen Duc Hoat and Vu Thi Thanh Huong assume that

Vietnamese linguistic politeness covers both aspects of politeness: strategic politeness of the Westerners and normative politeness of the Chinese and the

Japanese In general, normative politeness in Nguyen Duc Hoat and Vu Thi Thanh

Huong’s viewpoint is the basic linguistic behavior in accordance with the social

norms in terms of the interlocutor’s social role, status, age, etc., expressed through

such speech acts as addressing, greetings, etc that every member has to adopt Strategic politeness is the tactful linguistic behavior in order to avoid offence, expressed through such speech acts as hints, indirect requests, refusals, etc

In his research on “Politeness Markers in Requests in Vietnamese”, Nguyen

Duc Hoat [36] focuses on the two elements of politeness: lễ độ (deferent behavior) and tế nhị (tactful behavior) With the former sense, social juniors are expected to show deference to their seniors For the latter sense, interlocutors have to show elegant and refined manners with each other to maintain harmony Expanding

Nguyen Duc Hoat’s notion on politeness, Vu Thi Thanh Huong [110] assumes that

politeness consists of four factors: lễ phép (deferent behavior), đúng mực (proper behavior), khéo léo (elegant behavior) and tế nhị (tactful behavior) which integrate with each other In my viewpoint, politeness is composed of two elements: đúng mực (proper behavior) and tế nhị (tactful behavior) In the first sense, everyone is

expected to behave properly according to their social role, status and age

conforming to the social norm: ‚showing deference to the superordinate and yield

to the subordinate‛ In this sense đúng mực (proper behavior) has covered the sense

of lÔ phÐp (deference behavior) suggested in Vu Thi Thanh Huong’s viewpoint TÕ nhÞ (tactful behavior) means having elegant and refined manners to other people to avoid conflicts Thus, tÕ nhÞ (tactful behavior) has itself covered the sense of khÐo lÐo (elegant behavior) Sharing the same viewpoint with Nguyen Duc Hoat and Vu

Thi Thanh Huong, Tran Lan Phuong [124, p 18] assume that normative politeness and strategic politeness in Vietnamese interweave with each other Normative politeness is related to the social sanctioned rules and fixed while strategic politeness is related to specific circumstances of communication and flexible

2.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

It has been seen so far that strategic politeness and normative politeness could

be found to co-exist at different degrees in different cultures to avoid any social conflicts and enhance social harmony Politeness researchers like Lakoff R [49], Brown P and Levinson S [10] and Leech G N [53] and many other Western researchers mainly conceptualize politeness as a redressive strategic conflict avoidance (tact) for Negative-face Threatening Acts, thus giving undue attention to the normative aspect of polite language use which is closely linked to a specific culture or subculture On the contrary, Fraser B [26] and many other normative politeness researchers view politeness as a socially dictated appropriate behavior that social members have to observe to be perceived polite by other in-group members As a result, these researchers have bypassed the flexible contextually negotiated nature of linguistic politeness Nonetheless it is the co-existence of normative/discernment politeness and strategic/volitional politeness at different

degrees which regulates the use of the Politeness Markers in speech acts including the offering in Australian and Vietnamese cultures

chapter 3

Methodology

This chapter discusses methodology issues including research questions, data approach and methodology, data collection methods, selection of subjects, research procedure involving the procedure for the administration of the Pilot Questionnaires (PQs) and the Discourse Completion Test (DCT)

variables given under the situational contexts studied?

2 How are the Politeness Markers used in expressing politeness in the speech act of offering performed by native Vietnamese speakers with regard to the social

variables given under the situational contexts studied?

3 How are the native Vietnamese speakers different from or similar to the

native Australian speakers in their use of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering under the situational contexts studied?

4 What are the possible underlying reasons for the similarities or/and

dissimilarities in the use of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering

performed by native Australian and Vietnamese speakers?

3.2 data approach and methodology

Two major methods which have been used in this thesis are:

- Descriptive: The Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering in English

and Vietnamese are described in relation to the semantic, syntactic structure and pragmatic properties

This description is based on various data sources:

+ Primary data sources:

„ Questionnaire, Discourse Completion Test (DCT) on the offering

completed by:

* The native Australian speakers aged between 27 and 35, who are

in different job conditions in Australia; e.g teachers, shop-assistants, post-office clerks, doctors, factory workers and occasional bystanders who happen to be drawn into the DCT by chance

* Their native Vietnamese counterparts in different places in Hanoi, Vietnam

„ Authentic Speech Observation (ASO): The data on the offering have

been collected through the observation and processed also by the author of this thesis

+ Secondary data sources: Tokens of offering withdrawn from films,

plays, short stories, textbooks in English and Vietnamese and from the former pragmatic researches on the Social Deixis and Pragmatic Particles in Vietnamese by Nguyen Anh Que [128], Nguyen Duc Hoat [36], Nguyen Thi Luong [114], Nguyen Van Chinh [101] etc could be used as a reliable samples of spoken language; especially data from plays and films could be a reliable source since the language used is in the spoken mode, i.e written to be spoken In addition, from the play and film situations, background information can be deduced as regards the actors’ relative social relations, sex, feelings and interaction settings

- Comparative: In order to bring into focus the similarities and differences in

the Politeness Markers used in the offering performed by the native Australian and

Vietnamese speakers, a comparison is made of in situated contexts in Australian English and Vietnamese This comparison is based on the coding system in Australian English and Vietnamese modified from the coding system developed by Blum-Kulka S et al [8] and Rabinowitz J F [69], which cover seven Strategies within the three major Strategy Categories ranking in a decreasing level of directness

3.3 Data collection methods

3.3.1 a review of data collection methods

Various methods have been used in the studies on speech acts Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages

Ethnographic method or Authentic Speech Observation (ASO) method has been used to collect naturally occurring speech acts which are observed or recorded This method is defined as “the process of providing scientific descriptions within a particular context and based mainly on observation” (Wiersma W [89]) It provides the real, spontaneous and unscripted data People are being themselves, saying what they actually say rather than what they think they would say (Clyne M [17]) However, this method costs time and effort to collect the necessary data Therefore,

it is restrictedly used in this thesis to collect the example tokens of offering for

descriptive purpose

Role-play method used by Rintell E M [70], Kasper G [46] is a method, in which a situation is described to the subject orally by the researcher who later asks the subject what s/he would say in the situation under the conditions controlled Nonetheless, this method requires the researcher’s time and effort as the ethnographic method does

In Multiple Choice method used by Carrell P L and Konneker B H [14], a series of questions are prepared with answers and then subjects are asked to choose the answer they think is the most appropriate It helps the researcher get information from a large population within a short time Nonetheless, the subject cannot give much information since the responses depend on the number of possibilities given in the questionnaire Furthermore, the information obtained may not be authentic enough in case the questions and answers are prepared by a non-native researcher who may not have good knowledge of sociolinguistics and pragmatics of the language under study

The Interviews used by Barnlund D C and Araki S [3] and Knapp M L et al [47] could avoid a written bias and motivate spoken discourse but have their own problems It is not always easy for the researchers to record the precise wording

(Knapp M L et al [47, p 16]) Besides, to obtain a large amount of data, a lot of trained students are needed (fifteen for the first and forty-three for the second study

of Knapp M L et al [47]) Also, much effort has to go into transcription

Discourse Completion Test (DCT) method used by Blum-Kulka S et al [8] is the one in which the test consists of scripted dialogues that represent socially differentiated situations Each dialogue is preceded by a short description of the situation, followed by an incomplete dialogue which subjects are asked to complete

by filling in the missing part, thereby providing the required speech act

3.3.2 Data collection methods in the research

For the above reasons, I concur with Rose K and Ono R [71, p 207], who argue that “We should not expect a single data source to provide all the necessary insights into speech act usage as each data type will provide different information,

so as many sources of data should be employed as possible” In this research; to collect sufficient and reliable data within the time and resource constraints, I have collected the data using Questionnaire, Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and Ethnography or Authentic Speech Observation in combination

Among these methods, DCT has been mainly used for the following reasons Firstly, it allows elicitation of data from a large sample of subjects in a short time Also, the DCT is an effective means to gain insight into social and psychological factors that are likely to affect speech performance (Beebe L [4]) In addition, Varghese M and Billmyer K [86] acknowledge that when more information in the situational context is provided, the subjects appear to modify the discourse more closely to the words of natural conversation Cohen A [18] concludes that

“Discourse Completion Test is an effective means of gathering a large amount of data quickly, creating an initial classification of semantic formulae, and ascertaining the structure of speech act(s) under consideration” By contrast, Ethnographic method requires a lot of time and effort though due to observation the researcher could jot down the vivid speech acts under study

The following subsections debate the precise contents of the Pilot Questionnaires and the Discourse Completion Tests

3.3.2.1 Pilot Questionnaire (PQ)

Based on the work of Brown and Levinson [12], the PQ is designed and

composed of 6 situations covering 16 contexts, which reflect the constructs of

variables namely: the Relative Power of the offerer over the offeree (P), the Social

Distance between the interlocutors (D) and the Imposition Rank of the offering (R)

As (R) is kept within a low range in this thesis, the constellations of the variables

which are assumed to underlie the contexts are presented as follows:

(+P, +D): Much higher Power, non-intimate; (+P, -D): Much higher Power, intimate

(=P, +D): Equal Power, non-intimate; (=P, -D): Equal Power, intimate

(-P, +D): Powerless, non-intimate; (-P, -D): Powerless, intimate

As far as the variable (P) is concerned; Brown P and Levinson S [12] argue

that (P) pertains to the status relationship between the participants, which is

specified either by the authority of the speaker over the hearer, or by the lack of

authority In this study, (P) is assumed to be legitimate Power (Spencer- Oatey H

[81]), which refers to the right a person has when making an offering by virtue of

role, age or status depending on a particular context In this way, the factors taken

into account in the assessment of Power include age, role and status The (P) values

investigated in this study are (+P), (=P) and (-P), in which (+P) refers to situational

contexts where the offerer has much higher Power than the offeree, (=P) refers to

contexts where the two interlocutors are equal in Power and (-P) refers to those

contexts where the offerer has no Power over the offeree

In this research, Social Distance (D) refers to the feature of

intimacy/familiarity between participants The interlocutors in this study either

know each other well (-D) or they are people who have never met each other before

or who only know each other for the first time (+D)

Within this study, the Imposition Rank (R) of the offering made by the offerer

on the offeree is ranging within a low range throughout the situational contexts

studied

The results of the PQ provide reliable data on how the native Australian subjects have assessed the validity of the contexts studied This questionnaire is then translated into Vietnamese to be assessed by native Vietnamese subjects This assessment result helps the researcher eliminate the invalid contexts from the PQ

3.3.2.2 Discourse Completion Test (DCT)

Only those contexts which are assessed valid in the PQ by both native Australian and Vietnamese subjects are chosen for designing the DCT The DCT is intended to seek the native Australian and Vietnamese speakers’ assessment of such variables as (P), (D), and especially (R) in order to choose the reliable contexts (with the Imposition Rank kept rather low: R> 1, R ≤ 3) and also to know if there’s

any influence of (P), (D) on the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering and, if any, how these variables affect these Politeness Markers Subjects

are firstly asked to assign the value of (P), (D), (R) in each situational context by

circling the appropriate number They are then asked to make an offering if they think the situational context is valid by making their verbal offering after the

elicitation words “You say ” This DCT in English consists of 4 situations with 11 valid and reliable situational contexts In our version the offeree’s response is not given as it may provide clues, both explicit and implicit, that may prejudice the

elicited form of offering

This DCT in English is then translated into Vietnamese to be completed by native Vietnamese subjects A full version of the PQs and the DCTs in Australian English and Vietnamese are given in Appendices 2, 3 (214 - 238)

3.4 selection of subjects

The data in this thesis have been collected from two groups of subjects:

- The first group is the native Australian speakers, aged between 27 and 35, who are in different job conditions in Australia, e g teachers, shop-assistants, post-office clerks, doctors, factory workers and occasional bystanders who happen to be drawn into the DCT by chance

- The second group is their native Vietnamese counterparts, who are in different job conditions in Hanoi, Vietnam

In this way, the sampling of participants and settings has been deliberately kept

as diverse as possible This is done in order to enable access to as broad a range of data as possible For the facilitated cross-linguistic compatibility, native Australian and Vietnamese speakers who come from very rural areas are excluded Moreover,

the number of males and females in both groups are evenly distributed

3.5 Research procedure

In this section, the procedure for the administration of the PQs and DCTs is described

3.5.1 Pilot questionnaire administration

As mentioned above, the purpose of the PQ is to ensure that the situational

contexts used to collect data on offering are valid The PQ is firstly administered to

12 native Australian speakers as described in 3.4 to get their assessment of the situational contexts’ validity This questionnaire is then translated into Vietnamese and distributed to 12 native Vietnamese speakers as described in 3.4 for their assessment Only those situational contexts which have been evaluated valid by native Australian and Vietnamese speakers are chosen to design the DCT This DCT helps the researcher get the assessment on such variables as (P), (D), (R) and elicit

the Politeness Markers used in the offering from the subjects

3.5.2 Reliability test on the DCT

3.5.2.1 Theoretical background to the test

According to Brown P and Levinson S [12] although a number of factors have been assumed to have affected the choice of appropriate form of speech acts

including offering; the three social factors such as the Social Distance between

participants (D), their Relative Power (P) and the Imposition Rank (R) are said to be the main factors to subsume all others In addition, they point out that these factors are context-dependent and culture-specific This means that the same context could

be seen as different in terms of (P), (D) or (R) in different cultures, which could lead

to different choices of linguistic forms considered to be pragmatically appropriate Brown P and Levinson S [12] also claim that certain speech acts may threaten face or they are the FTAs In order to carry them out, the speaker has to consider the

social variables in order to be able to choose the linguistic form which can help decrease the threat As these variables are thought to be dependent, it seems that

“where (P) and (R) are constant and have small values or where the Relative Power

of the speaker and the hearer is more or less equal and the Imposition is not great then (D) is the only variable which provides the motive for linguistic coding for the FTA” [12, p.80] This means that when (P) and (R) remain constantly small, (D) is the only variable that needs consideration This point is used to argue for the choice

of items in the DCT in which (R) is kept small and only variation with respect to (P) and (D) is considered Thus the aim of the reliability test is to:

- Remove the situational contexts with high Imposition Rank and merely accept those with low Imposition rank (R > 1 and R ≤ 3)

- Realize the potential effect of such variables as (P), (D) on offering via the

Australian and Vietnamese assessment of these variables

One of the purposes of this study is to find out how native Australian and

Vietnamese speakers make their offerings in relation to the social variables under

study In order to help us understand this relationship, subjects of both groups are asked to give response to questions regarding to (P), (D) and (R) in the DCT covering 11 contexts (after the irrelevant contexts have been eliminated from the Pilot Questionnaire) The following three questions are asked after the description of each situational context:

1 How would you rate the Relative Power (P) of the offerer in this context?

2 How would you rate the Familiarity (D) between the offerer and the offeree?

3 How do you think the offeree would respond to the offering?

The first question is to seek for the subjects’ assessment of the Relative Power (P)

of the offerer over the offeree in the situational context described The second question is for the assessment of the Social Distance (D) between the offerer and the offeree The

third question is to evaluate the Imposition Rank (R) of the offering on the offeree Low level of Imposition is measured by the most likely accepted offering and vice versa

300 native Australian speakers as described in 3.4 have assessed such social factors as (P), (D) and (R) The respondents respond on a five-point Likert type scale according to how they rate these social variables The response categories are treated as intervals; e g for the value of (P): 1 means none, 2 means something between none and same and 3 means same, 4 means something between same and much higher and 5 means much higher

The Vietnamese version of the same content is distributed to 300 native Vietnamese speakers as mentioned in 3.4 to be assessed of the (P), (D), (R) The DCTs completed by 240 native Australian speakers and 240 native Vietnamese speakers are then chosen for data analysis These DCTs are divided into 60 groups, each of which consists of 4 DCTs (Fisher R A [25]) 1 DCT is later randomly chosen out of these 4 DCTs in each group In this way, 60 DCTs completed by 60 native Australian speakers and by 60 native Vietnamese speakers happen to be selected [25] The analysis of these DCTs reveals that there are 11 valid and reliable situational contexts according to the native Australian and Vietnamese speakers’ assessment with R >1 and R ≤ 3 Their evaluation of (P), (D) helps explain the

underlying reason for the similarities or/and dissimilarities in the Politeness Markers used in the speech act of offering in Australian English and Vietnamese

3.5.2.2 Interpretation of the scores

Questionnaire 1: How would you rate the Relative Power (P) of the offerer over the offeree in this situational context?

For this question, the Power value (P) is evaluated in terms of age, role and social status A score of 1 is equivalent to (-P), meaning the offerer has no Power over the offeree A score of 3 is equivalent to =P, meaning the offerer has equal Power to the offeree A score of 5 is equivalent to +P meaning the offerer has much higher Power than the offeree In this study if the mean score is less than 3, P is interpreted as -P; if the mean score is 3, P is interpreted as =P; and if the mean score

is over 3, P is interpreted as +P

Question 2: How would you rate the Familiarity (D) between the offerer and the offeree?

A score less than 3 is equivalent to +D, meaning the offerer does not know the offeree or they are strangers A score of 3 or more than 3 is equivalent to -D, meaning the offerer knows the offeree or they are close friends or family members

In this research, if the mean score is less than 3, D is interpreted as +D; and if the mean score is more than 3, D is interpreted as -D

Question 3: How do you think the offeree would respond to the offering?

A score of 1 is equivalent to -N, meaning the offeree is very likely to accept

the offering in the situational context This means the offering bears a low level of

Imposition because the offeree may want/like or need service, assistance from the offerer A score of 3 is equivalent to =N meaning the offeree is likely to refuse the

offering in the situational context or the offering may likely cause an Imposition on

the offeree A score of 5 is equivalent to + N, meaning the offeree is very likely to

refuse the offering or the offering is very likely a FTA and the Imposition Rank is

great In this research, if the mean score is less than 3, N is interpreted as -N or -R, and if the mean score is more than 3, N is interpreted as +N or + R The Imposition

Rank (R) of the offering is kept within a low range in this thesis: R >1 and R ≤ 3

The SPSS statistical package is used to calculate the Mean Score of (P), (D), (R) and their Standard Deviation (St D.), which could reveal how homogeneous the native Australian and Vietnamese assessment of these variables is The smaller the

St D the more homogeneous the assessment is or the value of (P), (D), (R) assessed

by native Australian and Vietnamese speakers is then reliable and representative

3.5.2.3 Reliable situational contexts according to native Australian and Vietnamese subjects’ assessment

Table 4.1 (Appendix 4, p 239) presents 11 out of 12 contexts, which are reliable according to native Australian and Vietnamese subjects’ assessment All these contexts are chosen as they satisfy the criteria: the mean score of the Imposition Rank mR >1 and mR ≤ 3, except for situational context C5e with

mR=3.217 > 3 The Australian speakers of English may think that the offerer’s

offering in this case is too imposing for the offeree

3.5.3 Analytical procedure

Firstly, the output is scanned for non-reliable situational contexts As mentioned above, the Imposition Rank (R) is constantly kept within a rather small range throughout the situational contexts in the study and (P), (D) vary systematically Thus, the contexts with the mean scores of (R) (mR) too big (mR> 3) are rejected and the contexts with the mean scores of (R) rather low (mR> 1 and

mR ≤ 3) are accepted The mean score of (P), (D) of the valid and reliable contexts

is then retained for later discussion of the findings in order to find out how the assessment of the native Australian and Vietnamese subjects of these variables

influences their use of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering In this

way the underlying reasons for the similarities or/and dissimilarities in the use of the

Politeness Markers in the offering performed by native Australian and Vietnamese

speakers could be brought into light

All tokens of the offering withdrawn from the valid and reliable situational contexts of the DCTs are after that computed and coded Various Politeness Markers used in the offering in English and Vietnamese are analyzed in this thesis: Strategy of offering, Internal Modification, External Modification, Social Deixis and

Pragmatic Particles SPSS statistical package is used to obtain the usage frequency

of each of the above items by the two groups of subjects The significance levels have been set at p ≤ 0.05 using the Z- tests to make the comparison of the column proportion

of the Politeness Markers used in the offering The research results of the Politeness Markers used in the offering in Australian English and Vietnamese are reported in

Chapter Five

Chapter 4 the identification of the speech act of offering

and its politeness markers in English and Vietnamese

In this chapter, some ways to identify the speech act of offering in English and

Vietnamese are firstly described and discussed to highlight its distinctive features A

further analysis of the Politeness Markers used in the offering in English and

Vietnamese is then carried out, which is the basis for the comparative analysis of the

Politeness Markers in the offering in English and Vietnamese in Chapter 5

4.1 distinguishing the speech act of offering in English and Vietnamese

Two ways could be used to identify the speech act of offering: examination of

the verb alone and exploration of pragmatic implication and context The first way

focuses essentially on the verb used in the offering, particularly in terms of its

illocutionary force The second way stresses the relationship between the

participants who are involved in the speech act of offering It could be emphasized

that these two ways are not entirely mutually exclusive

4.1.1 Focusing upon the verb

When speech act theory first evolved, the verb was regarded as the focal point from which each speech act is analyzed and labeled This began with the work of Austin J., who based his classification simply on the postulating and exemplifying

an exercitive verb (Ballmer T and Brennenstuhl W [2, p 4]) Austin J [1, p 54] defined an exercitive as “the exercising of powers”, that is, the “giving of a decision

in favor of or against a certain course of action (Austin J [1, p.150]) In his

viewpoint, offering is an exercitive

When Searle J R later elaborated upon Austin’s theory, he reclassified the

speech act of offering as exercitives and commissives (Searle J R [75, p.11]) The

focus of speech act classification in Searle’s taxonomy, however, still remains upon the verb

Using Searle’s classification, Brown P and Levinson S [10] regard the speech

act of offering as a threat to a hearer’s/offeree’s negative face in those cases where

the hearer/offeree feels constrained to accept it

Hancher M [33] goes a further step in saying that the speech act of offering

has a double nature: being a “commissive” like promising and a “directive” like

requesting When offering the offeree wine the offerer is trying to get the offeree to

drink wine and also committing himself/herself to provide the offeree with wine to

drink

However, according to Wierzbicka A [91], offering is often combined with

attempts to influence the offeree’s behavior, yet it doesn’t have to be Offering has

nothing to do with any actions by the offeree but by the offerer For instance, if the

offerer offers to bring the offeree some books from the library, the offerer does not

want the offeree to do anything Offering is hence not a FTA for the offeree

Searle J R [77] sharing the same viewpoint with Wierzbicka A argues that

offering has a double illocutionary purpose: to let the offeree know the offerer’s

willingness to do something for him/her and to cause the offeree to say “yes” or

“no” to enable the offerer to act accordingly Thus, the offerer leaves the offeree the

freedom to decide whether or not the proposed action should occur As regards this

aspect, offering can be more or less tentative and usually embodies a degree of uncertainty -

“The offerer does not know if the offeree wants him/her to do it” Consequently, a

prototypical offering in English is often expressed via an Interrogative with such Modal

Lexical Verbs as like, want, need accompanied by the Second Personal Subject you

with(out) the Auxiliary Verb or the Modal Auxiliary Verb (MAV) in the Past

(4.1) ‚You want cheese on this…?‛ [AP2, p.35]

(4.2) ‚Do you need some help?‛ [69, p 110]

(4.3) ‚Would anyone care for coffee?‛ [69, p 95]

Offering in Vietnamese could also be expressed through:

- The conventional Interrogative form with Modal Lexical Verbs of desire such

as thÝch (like), muèn (want), cÇn (need) used together with the Second Personal

Subject normally the Kin Term (KT) and the Interrogative Softening Pragmatic Particle (Int SOP) cã … kh«ng? with (out) the Honorific Pragmatic Particle (HP) ¹:

(4.4) ‚Con cã muèn ¨n b¸nh kh«ng?‛ [119, p 183]

“Do you want to have some cakes?”

(4.5) Employee to his boss at the office, who is busy preparing many things for the next business meeting:

“Do you need some help?”

- The Modal Lexical Verb of desire muèn (want) used in the Declarative with the First Personal Subject normally KT with the Intensifier with (out) the HP ¹

(4.6) Host to his close female guest after the dinner party when this guest is afraid of leaving alone:

‚Em rÊt muèn ®-a chÞ vÒ nhµ ¹!‛ [VF 2]

“I really want to take you back home!”

An idiosyncratic pattern of offering can sometimes be expressed by

Declaratives with (out) the Hearer-oriented Conditional Clause (H-oriented CnCl) or Imperatives with (out) an Alerter (Alert.) as a Preparator to attract the attention of

the offeree before the Head offering expressed with the verbs such as help, try, have, let in English

(4.7) ‚If you want, I’ll help you with the notes.” [DCT 33]

(4.8) ‚Come on, have/try some more potatoes.‛ [79, p 169]

In Vietnamese, such verbs as gióp (help), dïng/x¬i/¨n (have) could be used in the speech act of offering with(out) a SP (e.g ®i) and with (out) a Strengthening Pragmatic Particle of Purpose (e g cho) to strengthen the offering

(4.9) Servant offers some soup to her hostess, who’s sick in bed:

‚C« ¨n ®i cho mau khoÎ.‛ [VF 2]

“Have some soup and you’ll soon feel better.”

Offering in these cases can be expressed and identified explicitly resorting to the

verb Nevertheless, merely resorting to the sense of verbs and syntactic structures cannot work well in case there exist certain utterances which bear no typical structures

of offering could still be identified as an offering (a non-prototypical offering) under

certain contexts

4.1.2 Focusing upon implication and context

Another way for labeling speech acts derives from the principles of implication: “The notion of implication rests upon a distinction between what is actually said and what is implied in saying what is said” (Lyons J [58, p 592])

These principles of implication are what help distinguish offering from other related speech acts such as: proposing, inviting, etc It is true that in spite of such linguistic and syntactic similarity of offering with these speech acts as what about ? (nhÐ?), why don’t we ?(nhÐ?), do you want ?(anh cã muèn, b¹n cã muèn, …?); offering

is distinguished from these speech acts based on the situational contexts When

offering, the offerer offers to do something for the offeree or offers something to the offeree arises from the offerer’s perception of the offeree’s necessity or desire Let’s consider the following contexts of offering in Australian and Vietnamese cultures as shown in (4.10) and (4.11) respectively with the Interrogative word what about and the Pragmatic Particle nhÐ?:

(4.10) A offers to take his girlfriend out to the movies as he notices that she looks tired and wants/needs to go out to be relaxed after a hard-working day:

‚What about going to the movies?‛ [93, p 40]

(4.11) ‚Em ®i xem phim víi anh nhÐ?‛ [VF 4]

“What about/How about going to the movies with me?”

Although these utterances sound like invitations or proposals they could be offering in English and Vietnamese in this context since they satisfy the three conditions of an offering Firstly, the offerer perceives the offeree’s wish or need -

the need for being relaxed after a straining working day Secondly, the offerer

assumes that the offering will benefit the offeree - the relaxation after the stress

Thirdly, the offerer has willingness and capacity to help the offeree - the offerer is willing to pay for the offeree’s movie ticket if the offeree wants to see the movies

By contrast, such speech acts as proposing, inviting comes from the wish or desire of the proposer or invitor rather than from that of the hearer Let’s consider a slight difference in the following context of inviting in English and Vietnamese

though there is no change in the strategy used compared to that in (4.10) and (4.11) (4.12) A has just finished his stressing working day at the office and wants to

go to the movies for relaxation but does not want to go alone A invites his girlfriend

to go with him:

‚What about going to the movies?‛ [93, p 40]

(4.13) ‚Em ®i xem phim víi anh nhÐ?‛ [VF 8]

“What about going to the movie?”

In these cases, whatever linguistic features may appear in an utterance, the context of the situation can always override them in identifying the utterance as an

offering It could be seen that context plays an essential role in determining whether

a speech act is an offering Brown and Levinson point out: “The term context is

understood to cover the identities of participants, the temporal and spatial parameters of the speech event, and the …beliefs, knowledge, and intentions of the participants in that speech event” [12, p.5] Hoang Dan [102], Tran Lan Phuong [124], Doan Thi Hong Lan [113] share the same viewpoint that the context of situation involves not only the temporal and spatial elements but also all other parameters beyond language such as the psychological, social, customary, religious, historical knowledge and the interlocutors’ relationship Situational contexts, in these researchers’ viewpoints, do not cover the intention of the participants However, it is the intention of the participant that plays a vital role in communication Thus I agree with Brown and Levinson’s comprehensive viewpoint that context may consist of three components when considering speech acts in

general and the offering in particular: the first concerns the relationship between the offerer and the offeree The second involves the situation in which the offering

occurs The third is concerned with the beliefs, knowledge, and intentions of the participants

Quite a few other utterances while performing other interactive functions could

be the offering when they satisfy the specific necessary conditions to be understood

as an offering Let’s consider the following example of offering:

(4.14) Host (to visitor, who is unsure where she should take a waiting coming phone-call that is directed to her):

“Anywhere you want!” [69, p.119]

The same is true for Vietnamese Let’s consider the following context where a

Declarative expressing an advising could be understood as an offering

(4.15) A supermarket assistant A to a customer B, who looks confused and does not know where to do his check-out:

‚Anh thanh to¸n ë quÇy nµo còng ®-îc¹!‛ [ASO]

“Any counter you want!”

These are examples where the offeree is advised to perform a particular action

in order to obtain the benefit of the offering {which in these cases consists of

hospitality in the home of the host as in (4.14) or the service at the supermarket as

shown in (4.15)} The offering in these contexts could be understood as a reply to a question at first hearing if such appropriate conditions of offering as the offeree’s

Necessity, the offerer’s Willingness and Ability are not taken into consideration

Also, context could help identify a reply to a request (4.16) or a farewell (4.17) under an Imperative as an offering in English

(4.16) Woman (to her husband’s visiting graduate student, who is new

to the city and in need of advice about the local matters):

“Feel free to call me.” [69, p.120]

(4.17) Host (showing his over-night intimate visitor to the guest room):

“Sleep late!” [69, p.185]

Token (4.16), while seems like the response to a permission request could be

interpreted as an offering, while (4.17) which deems to be a soothing parting statement may be interpreted in some contexts as an offering because when taken

literally both extend services These services extend to the offeree certain rights: in (4.16), the chance to get the offerer’s information, in (4.17) the opportunity of sleeping late

The same could be found in Vietnamese as indicated in the following

examples However, the offering could be expressed in the form of:

- A Suggestory utterance with Second Personal Subject + Suggestory

Strengthening Pragmatic Particle (cø/h·y) + Head Verb + …

(4 18) Host to his close friend as a visitor, who wants to stay at his house overnight:

‚ CËu cø nghØ ng¬i tho¶i m¸i!‛ [VF 4]

“You just make yourself at home!”

- An Imperative without subject:

(4.19) Host to his overnight visitor as his close friend at the guest room:

‚Ngñ ngon nhÐ!‛ [VF 4]

“Good night!”

What is more, Wunderlich D [93, p.43] has termed offering as a conditional

promise because he regards as a condition the fact that the offeree does want the

proposed action to occur Rabinowitz J F [69, p 106] labels this offering which

follows the requesting from the offeree an initiated or elicited offering Let’s

consider the following dialogue between A and his/her close classmate, who has

missed the previous lecture notes:

(4.20) A ‚I’ve missed the previous lecture notes I ’m very worried about that

Can you lend me your notes?‛

B “Sure No problem.” [DCT 2]

Head offering

In this dialogue, B promises to lend A his / her notes with the Emphasizing

Adjunct or Intensifier sure in the Head offering because A has requested B to lend

him/her the notes that A needs

This initiated or elicited offering is different from the spontaneous offering in that the

latter is not preceded by the mention of offeree’s need (Rabinowitz J F., [69, p.108])

We could consider the following spontaneous offering from a father to his daughter:

(4.21) Man (to his daughter, who is carrying her toddler home after an outing

at the local play- ground):

‚You want me to carry him?‛ [69, p 95]

In Vietnamese, we could find the initiated and spontaneous offering in the

same way:

(4.22) A to H-ng, his brother-in- arm, who asks for A’s assistance to hand the

letter over to Hưng’s family:

- H-ng:‚Anh chuyển giúp th- này đến gia đình tôi.‛

“Please hand this letter over to my family.”

- A: ‚Nhất định rồi!‛ [VF 6]

Head offering

“Certainly, I will!”

(4 23) Hải offers some money to his poor aunt, whose daughter is in hospital:

‚ Cô cầm để lo viện phí cho em!‛ [VF 3]

“Here is some money for her hospital fees!”

Offering sometimes also plays a part in apologizing The offering can then be

identified as one of the optional components in the sequence of apologizing

Referring to Goffman E [29], Owen M [67, p.15] defines offering as a situation

“whereby a participant, typically the offender, is given a chance to correct for the

offence ” This type of offering is the offering of repair for damage or physical

injury that the offender has caused Offering of repair in this case often follows

apologizing and an expression of concern as illustrated below:

(4.24) ‚Oh, I’m so sorry! Are you all right? Let me help you with your

Head offering

things ‛ [60, p 1053]

This is also true for the offering in Vietnamese

(4.25) Waiter to his customer, whose new coat has been unexpectedly spoiled

with the waiter’s spilled coffee:

“ồ, em thành thật xin lỗi chị! Chị không sao chứ ạ? Để em mang đi giặt tẩy

Head offering

giúp chị ‛ [VF 5]

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry for that Are you ok? Let me have it dry-cleaned.‛

4.2 Categorization of the speech act of offering

4.2.1 Categorization of the speech act of offering in

English

4.2.1.1 Offering in relation to the Offerer’s Negative and Positive face

Rabinowitz J F states that the elicited and spontaneous offerings could

enhance the offerer’s negative and positive face in that the offerer may want to do something that the offeree may want, which is favored by the offeree Nonetheless, results from Rabinowitz’s study [69, p.130] with the majority of the offerees’

refusals (57%) compared to the minority of their acceptance (43%) to the offering reveal that the offeree may not always as frequently accept the offerer’s offering as they refuse them In this way, the offerer’s offering could also embody a low degree

of certainty to be accepted by the offeree The offerer’s offering could be a FTA

against the offerer’s negative face in that the offerer may not expect to receive the

offeree’s refusal when offering help to the offeree Also the offerer’s positive face may be threatened because the offerer’s offering may not be favored by the offeree

in this individualism-oriented culture where non-interference is highly appreciated

4.2.1.2 Offering in relation to the Offeree’s Negative and Positive face

Rabinowitz J F [69] also claims that the offerer’s offering may not harm the

offeree’s negative face if it is accepted by the offeree since it is expected by the

offeree Also if approved of by the offeree, the offerer’s offering could enhance the

offeree’s positive face in that it is in line with the offeree’s desire and wish

However, the above results from Rabinowitz’s study [69] on offering reveals that if refused by the offeree, the offerer’s offering could threaten the offeree’s negative face: the offerer’s offering may run into the risk of intruding into the

offeree’s personal freedom In addition, when turned down by the offeree the

offerer’s offering could harm the offeree’s positive face as the offerer’s offering

could not meet the demand of the offeree