VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES LẠI THỊ THANH VÂN A VIETNAMESE – AMERICAN CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF ENCOURAGING NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HĨA VIỆT – MỸ VỀ HÀNH ĐỘNG KHÍCH LỆ MA COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES LẠI THỊ THANH VÂN A VIETNAMESE – AMERICAN CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF ENCOURAGING NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HĨA VIỆT – MỸ VỀ HÀNH ĐỘNG KHÍCH LỆ MA COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Prof Nguyễn Quang, Ph.D HANOI – 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF PROJECT REPORT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS vii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Organisation of the study DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics 1.2 Speech acts 1.2.1 Definition of speech acts 1.2.2 Classifications of speech acts 1.2.3 Encouraging as a speech act 1.2.4 Encouraging and comforting 10 v 1.3 Politeness in Cross-cultural pragmatics 10 1.3.1 Politeness defined 10 1.3.2 Conversational-maxim view on politeness 12 1.3.3 Face-management view on politeness 13 1.3.4 Social variables affecting politeness 18 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Research questions 20 2.2 Research design 20 2.2.1 Data collection instruments 20 2.2.2 Variables manipulated in data collection instruments 21 2.2.3 Contents of the questionnaires 22 2.2.4 Informants 24 2.2.5 Data collection procedure 24 2.3 Results of the MPQ 25 2.4 Realisation of politeness strategies in encouraging 29 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 38 3.1 Overall number of strategies 38 3.2 Overall use of strategies 42 3.3 Use of strategies by social variables 44 3.4 Use of strategies by situations 48 3.4.1 Choice of encouraging strategies in high-power settings (+P) 50 3.4.2 Choice of encouraging strategies in equal-power settings (=P) 54 3.4.3 Choice of encouraging strategies in low-power settings (–P) 59 vi CONCLUSION 65 Review of the main findings 65 Implications 68 Limitations 68 Suggestions for further study 69 REFERENCES 71 APPENDICES I Appendix A: Metapragmatic Questionnaires (MPQ) I Appendix B: Discourse Completion Task (DCT) XVII Appendix C: Frequency Analysis for VNS and ANS XXI Appendix D: Independent-Sampes t-Test Analysis for VNS and ANS XXV