A cross-cultural study on pragmatic transfer in compliment responses by learners of English at Hung Vuong University

1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - NGUYỄN THỊ TỐ LOAN A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN COMPLIMENT RESPONSES BY LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY (Nghiên cứu giao văn hoá chuyển di ngữ dụng học cách đáp lại lời khen sinh viên học tiếng Anh trường Đại học Hùng Vương) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI – 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - NGUYỄN THỊ TỐ LOAN A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN COMPLIMENT RESPONSES BY LEARNERS OF ENGLISH AT HUNG VUONG UNIVERSITY (Nghiên cứu giao văn hoá chuyển di ngữ dụng học cách đáp lại lời khen sinh viên học tiếng Anh trường Đại học Hùng Vương) Field: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: ĐỖ THỊ MAI THANH, M.A HANOI – 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vi List of tables, figures and appendices…………… vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Background of the study Significance of the study Aim of the study Scope of the study Design of the study Summary PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Pragmatics and speech act 1.2 Theories of politeness 1.3 Interlanguage pragmatics and communicative competence 1.4 Pragmatic transfer 10 1.5 The speech acts of compliment and responding to compliments 10 1.5.1 The speech acts of compliment 10 1.5.2 Compliment responses 11 1.5.3 Previous studies of pragmatic transfer in responding to compliments…… 13 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 15 2.1 Subjects 15 2.2 Instruments and procedures 16 2.3 Administration of the questionnaires 18 2.4 Data collection procedures 18 2.5 Coding and data analysis 18 2.6 Summary 19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Pragmatic strategies used in responding to compliments 20 3.1.1 Strategies from acceptance to denial ……… …………………………… 21 3.1.2 Strategies along the avoidance continuum ………………………………… 22 3.1.3 Frequency of pragmatic strategies used in responding to compliments by all groups 24 3.2 A comparison of the pragmatic strategies used among the three groups 25 3.2.1 Similarities in the frequency of CR strategy use between the HVU learners of English and NV groups …………………………………………………………… 25 3.2.2 Differences in the frequency of CR strategy use between the HVU learners of English and NE groups 28 3.3 The occurrences of pragmatic transfer 30 3.4 Summary 34 PART C: CONCLUSION 35 Conclusions 35 Pedagogical implications 36 Limitations of the study 37 Suggestions for further research 38 References 39 Appendix I Appendix III LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Throughout this work, abbreviations and symbols are adopted for the description of recurrent concepts and speech features CRs = Compliment Responses DCTs = Discourse Completion Tests EFL = English as a Foreign Language FTA = Face-threatening Act HVU = Hung Vuong University IELTS = International English Language Testing System ILP = Interlanguage pragmatics L1 = First Language L2 = Second Language NE = English Native Speakers NV = Vietnamese Native Speakers NNs = Native Speakers NNs = Non - native Speakers Ss = Students TL = Target Language UQ = University of Queensland LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND APENDICES Tables Table 1.1 Compliment response strategies (Herbert, 1986) 12 Table 1.2 Summary of interlanguage pragmatics studies of CRs 13 Table 2.1 Compliment topic & content 17 Table 3.1 Frequency of pragmatic strategies used in responding to 24 compliments by all groups Table 3.2 Statistical comparison of frequency of CR strategy use between the 26 HVUE and NV groups (based on the number of students who used/did not use a specific CR strategy in each group) Table 3.3 Statistical comparison of frequency of CR strategy use between the 28 HVUE and NE groups (based on the number of students who used/did not use a specific CR strategy in each group) Figures Figure 1.1 Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987) Figure 3.1 Frequency of use of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial 26 continuum by the HVUE and NV groups (based on the number of students who used a specific CR strategy in each group) Figure 3.2 Frequency of use of CR strategies on the avoidance continuum by 27 the HVUE and NV groups (based on the number of students who used a specific CR strategy in each group) Figure 3.3 Frequency of use of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial 29 continuum by the HVUE and NE groups (based on the number of students who used a specific CR strategy in each group) Figure 3.4 Frequency of use of CR strategies on the avoidance continuum by 29 the HVUE and NV groups (based on the number of students who used a specific CR strategy in each group) Figure 3.5 Variation in the use of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial 31 continuum by the HVUE, NE and NV groups (based on the number of CRs containing each strategy in each group) Figure 3.6 Variation in the use of CR strategies on the avoidance continuum by 31 10 the HVUE, NE and NV groups (based on the number of CRs containing each strategy in each group) Appendices Appendix Discourse Completion Tests (English version) Appendix Discourse Completion Tests (Vietnamese version) I III 11 PART A: INTRODUCTION This initial part outlines the research problem and background of the study as well as its scope and significance More importantly, the aims and objectives are highlighted with two research questions to provide guidelines for the whole research Background of the study In the Gulf war, two ladies, an American and a Kuwaiti, met The American expressed her admiration of the Kuwaiti‟s necklace, and being polite, the Kuwaiti lady responded to this admiration with a common response, “It is yours” The American took this response literally and accepted the necklace as a gift She believed that the Kuwaiti lady was sincere in her offer and did not understand that this was only a customary response and should not be taken literally What the Kuwaiti lady said was only a sign of politeness, generosity and hospitality The appropriate response would have been to say, “Thank you”; not to take the jewelry, of course This misinterpretation happened because these ladies belonged to different cultures with different traditions, thus have different frames of reference Communicating with speakers of other languages is a complex behavior that requires both linguistic and pragmatic competence Whether we speak in a first or second language, we are influenced by socio-cultural norms and constraints that affect the way we communicate In practice, many language learners have experienced the loss of how to in actual intercultural communication though they know perfectly well the phonological, morphological, syntactic rules, and the semantic meaning of every word and sentence Looking back on the history of English teaching in Hung Vuong University (HVU), Phu Tho, Vietnam, teachers‟ attention tends to focus on linguistic knowledge, while pragmatic information is not usually stressed Therefore, most students here are good at reading and writing with sufficient knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary and able to score high in tests, but they fail in communicating with foreigners In these cases, the mistakes they commit are not verbal or grammatical; instead, these mistakes occur because certain social conventions or rules of interpersonal relationship have been violated These kinds of mistakes are defined as pragmatic failure Pragmatic failure may cause misunderstanding, and thus sets up barriers to successful cross-cultural communication Some of the foreign volunteer teachers at HVU said to me that sometimes they might consider the way the students respond to compliments offending or bizarre, because they 12 understood only the words without the cultural rules that govern them The problem here is that HVU learners of English not produce target-like compliment responses Hence, this study aims at finding out how HVU learners of English produce compliment responses in English and whether pragmatic transfer can occur My interest in the issue of responses to compliments derives mainly from my teaching and supervising experiences To my knowledge, so far, there has been no systematic research carried out on the pragmatic failures made by HVU students in the process of English learning and cross-cultural communication Hence, an elaborate study should be implemented in order to develop students‟ pragmatic competence as well as teachers‟ capability in cultivating students‟ communicative competence Significance of the study It is hoped that this study might be of theoretical and pedagogical importance Theoretically, it might shed light on the communicative strategies inherent in compliment responses among HVU EFL learners Most of previous studies focused their research on compliments and compliment-responses in general but rarely on EFL students‟ complimenting behaviors What is more, this study might be included within the body of literature that has shown the extension of research of pragmatic competence and its relationship to foreign language learning and teaching It might support the assumption that ignorance of cross-cultural differences might cause potential breakdown in communication Such research might enable teachers to show points of similarity and difference to students in order to use positive but avoid negative transfer which might lead to pragmatic failure On the practical side, this study might provide practical insights into whether there is need for further pedagogical training of learners of English so that they may acquire pragmatic competence in responding to compliments in English If the results of the study indicate such a need, learners might be given specific instructions to help them respond to compliments appropriately The findings of this study could be of great help in the teaching and learning of foreign languages in relation to culture, like teaching Vietnamese to speakers of other languages or teaching English to Vietnamese at HVU as well as in developing a syllabus for courses 13 To sum up, gaining knowledge of native Vietnamese and English speakers‟ response strategies to compliments may enhance our ability to communicate effectively in a crosscultural setting without facing any communication breakdowns Aims of the study The present research is an effort: 1) to investigate what typical response strategies to compliments are used; and 2) to compare the response strategies to compliments as used by English native speakers (NE), Vietnamese native speakers (NV), and HVU English learners (HVUE) in terms of the frequency of use of the pragmatic strategies The possibilities of pragmatic transfer effecting of the cross-cultural competency in the responses of HVU EFL learners to baseline responses by English and Vietnamese natives are also examined More specifically, the study is designed to answer the following two questions: Are there any similarities and differences in strategy use of compliment responses among those groups? Is there pragmatic transfer in the communicative act of responding to compliments in English by HVU learners of English? If there is a transfer, what is transferred? The research questions are answered through the investigation of the following two assumptions: There are significant differences and similarities in strategy use in responding to compliments by HVU learners of English as a foreign language and NE and NV speakers There is pragmatic transfer in the communicative act of responding to compliments in English by HVU learners of English What is transferred can be explained by finding out the similarities in strategy use in responding to compliments by HVU learners of English as a foreign language and native Vietnamese speakers and the differences between HVU learners of English as a foreign language and native English speakers‟ response choices Scope of the study The present thesis study focuses on HVU EFL learners who are taking IELTS class to prepare for a post-graduate course in an English-speaking country Due to the limited numbers of students, the limited range of speakers and speech situations, we cannot claim 41 To make clear the answer to the first research question, the CRs strategy use by all three groups were put together in the following figures 3.5 and 3.6 Figure 3.5 shows the variation in the use of the CR strategy on the acceptance to denial continuum among the three groups and Figure 3.6 describes the three groups‟ use of CR strategies on the 10 HVUE NE NV Disagreement Compliment downgrade Return Appreciation token Agreement Compliment upgrade Numbers of CRs containing the strategy avoidance continuum Strategy Figure 3.5: Variation in the use of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial continuum by the HVUE, NE and NV groups (based on the number of CRs Numbers of CRs containing the strategy containing each strategy in each group) HVUE NE NV Expressing gladness Follow-up question (Doubting) question Opting out Strategy Figure 3.6: Variation in the use of CR strategies on the avoidance continuum by the HVUE, NE and NV groups (based on the number of CRs containing each strategy in each group) 42 As can be seen in Figure 3.5, the line which depicts the HVUE and NV groups‟ frequency of use of CR strategy use rises towards opposite ends of the continuum The line represents the NE group‟s CR strategy use skews towards the acceptance end but falls towards the denial end of the continuum By contrast, the line which illustrates the NV group‟s use of CR strategies ascends towards the denial end but descends towards the acceptance end of the continuum The line showing the use of CR strategies by the HVUE group apparently falls in between these two opposite directions though it bears close resemblance to the line representing the NV group‟s strategy use, illustrating evidence of pragmatic transfer Figure 3.6 portrays the NE and NV groups‟ frequency of use of CR strategies on the avoidance continuum as lines that rise and fall in opposite directions The highest point of the line illustrating the NE group‟s CR strategy use is at “Expressing gladness” and “Follow-up questions” The lowest point of this line is at “Opting out” which is at the right end of the avoidance continuum On the contrary, the highest point of the line depicting the NV group‟s use of CR strategies is at “Opting out” and the lowest points of this line is at “Expressing gladness” and “Follow-up questions” This line representing the HVUE group‟s strategy use strongly resembles the line symbolizing the NV one, also manifesting evidence of pragmatic transfer With reference to the second research question of what is transferred, as discussed above, the compliment response strategies that are pragmatically transferred are “Compliment upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation token”, “Compliment downgrade”, “Disagreement”, “Expressing gladness”, “Follow-up questions”, and “Opting out” All of the strategies that displayed the close resemblance between the HVUE and NV group were also the ones that exhibited significant differences between HVUE and NE groups and were strategies that were transferred As it can be seen in Table 3.2, in both the NV and the HVUE groups, no student used “Compliment upgrade” That explains why the difference in the frequency use of this strategy among HVUE and NE groups was statistically significant (Table 3.3) This strategy did not occur in CRs in English by HVUE students because it also did not occur in CRs in Vietnamese Moreover, in the NV group, no student used “Agreement” in their responses; therefore, HVUE group used this strategy at a statistically lower level of frequency compared to the NE group When looking at the data collected, I found no incidence of “Agreement” in NV students‟ answers, whereas some of the HVUE and larger number of NE students used this 43 For example, in situation (Hair style), when being complimented on the new hairdo, most NE Ss and some HVUE Ss tended to accept this compliment while NV Ss rejected it A: This hairstyle makes you look great It makes you look younger! HVUE Ss: Thanks, some of my friends also told me that NE Ss: Thanks, it needed doing The differences as well as the similarities in the use of “Compliment upgrade” and “Agreement” among those groups provided evidence of pragmatic transfer in CRs by HVUE students‟ responses Table 3.2 also showed that “Appreciation token” is rarely used by the NV group (n=2) That may explain for why this strategy was used less frequently in the HVUE group than in the NE group Six HVUE used this strategy and nine NE did it It could be inferred that the HVUE students had adopted the L2 routine of saying “Thank you” to compliments in English This reduced the amount of pragmatic transfer with reference to this strategy A possible reason for limited transfer in the use of this strategy is because the routine is short and relatively easy to pick up compared to other target language pragmatic norms In addition, from the above tables and figures, it can be seen the evidence of pragmatic transfer in the use of “Compliment downgrade” and “Disagreement” While there were significant differences between the HVUE and NE groups in terms of the use (Table 3.3), there were also remarkable similarities in the use of these strategies between the HVUE and NV groups Because these strategies are frequently used in Vietnamese, the HVU speakers of English transferred them into their CRs in English, resulting in a remarkably high frequency of use of these Some incidences of “Compliment downgrade” and “Disagreement” are shown in the following examples Situation (Brand new cell phone) A: Wow, it is so smashing and its color also looks very splendid You have a good taste in choosing cell phones NE Ss: Yes, it's not bad is it NV Ss: Ối, điện thoại rẻ tiền mà (Well, it is such a cheap phone.) HVUE: Thanks, I got it from so-and-so 44 Disagreement: Situation (Interpersonal skill) A: Had it not been for your help, our activity would not have been successfully accomplished It is your nice personality that helps avoid possible disagreements with others NE Ss: That's ok No problem NV Ss: Gớm, cậu nói chứ, tớ có làm đâu (Well, you exaggerated me a lot! I did nothing) HVUE Ss: Really? I don’t think so As shown in the Figure 3.2 and 3.4 about the strategies on the avoidance continuum, the HVUE group considerably differed from the NE group with reference to the use of “Opting out” whereas they behaved very similarly to the NV group No NE student opted out in their responses, whereas six NV students and four HVUE students did Most NV and HVUE Ss just smiled or kept silent when being complimented whereas their NE friends accepted this and added something to their compliments Because of the resemblances between the two groups NV and HVUE, HVUE students transferred this strategy into their CRs in English Situation (Sports) A: You are so excellent You successfully and easily pass all the tests NV Ss: (Smile) HVUE Ss: Thanks (Smile) As regards “Expressing Gladness” and “Follow-up Question”, although the statistical difference between the HVU learner of English and native English groups was not significant, they offered noticeable, though not strong evidence of pragmatic transfer because as opposed to the NE students, none of the HUVE and NV used these strategies 3.4 Summary To summarize, this chapter presented the findings from the analyses of the pragmatic strategies used by the three different groups as well as the occurrences of pragmatic transfer in the strategies used by the HVU EFL learners in each situation The next part which is the last part of this thesis summarizes the research findings in response to the research questions raised in Chapter 1, the implications of the findings for the teaching as well as the learning of pragmatics in the EFL classroom and then finally it makes suggestions for further research 45 PART C: CONCLUSION This chapter first provides a summary of the major findings of the present study, which are presented in relation to the research questions Following this is a discussion of the pedagogical implications of the study The limitations of the present study are described next, followed by a number of suggestions for future research Conclusions The present study investigated and compared the occurrences of pragmatic strategies and pragmatic transfer in elicited responses to compliments The study examined the crosscultural competency in the responses of HVU EFL learners and to compare them to baseline responses by English and Vietnamese native speakers In this study, two continua strategies were proposed to account for the CR data collected The first is the acceptance to denial continuum which consists of “Compliment upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation token”, “Return”, “Compliment downgrade” and “Disagreement” The second continuum is the avoidance continuum which comprises “Expressing gladness”, “Follow-up question”, “Doubting question” and “Opting out” Along these continua, evidence of pragmatic transfer was found in the frequency of use of the following CR strategies by HVU EFL learners: “Compliment upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation token”, “Compliment downgrade”, “Disagreement”, “Expressing gladness”, “Follow-up question”, and “Opting out” So out of ten strategies that account for data in this study, eight were transferred Findings about pragmatic transfer were grounded on the statistically significant differences in terms of CR strategy use between the HVUE and NE students and on the close resemblance between the HVUE and NV students‟ CRs Although there was a significant difference between the NV and HVUE groups in terms of the use of “Appreciation Token”, the difference between the NV and NE groups concerning the use of this strategy was even greater than the difference between the HVUE and NE groups as regards this strategy An interpretation of this result is that the HVU speakers of English have adopted the English routine of saying “Thank you” to compliments, so they used this strategy more than the non-major English students However, the fact that they still used this strategy at a significantly lower frequency compared to Australian English students exemplifies pragmatic transfer 46 Pedagogical implications for L2 learners and teachers This study has important implications for the teaching and learning of English, especially in an EFL context concerning cross-cultural pragmatics which is as follows: Although the essential role of pedagogical instruction in such L2 linguistic components as grammar, vocabulary, phonology, and so on has long been established, the need for L2 pragmatic teaching has not yet been as widely recognized Because teaching methodologies have a significant influence on pragmatic knowledge, there is a growing need for teaching pragmatic It is thus highly recommend that L2 teachers provide pedagogical instruction in pragmatic in their teaching methodologies Specifically, pragmatics should be integrated into the English curricular in HVU Teaching pragmatics is not conducted to force learners to act in accordance with the norms of another culture (Thomas, 1983) but to help learners to develop awareness and sensitivity for their own second/ foreign language use (Kasper, 1997; Rose, 1997) Therefore, the responsibility of language teachers who teach the language is to help learners to communicate effectively and successfully in a second/ foreign language In order to this, acquiring grammatical knowledge alone is not sufficient, but learners may also have to acquire and practice a different set of sociolinguistic rules by studying and paying attention to what is considered to be generally appropriate in the target culture The L2 media is a useful source of L2 pragmatic input for both L2 learners in their home country and those in the target language country As Rose (2001) found that “film data corresponds fairly closely to authentic data, particularly for major pragmatic categories” (p.321) Hence, to raise pragmatic awareness of the language in the English classroom, language teachers should introduce to learners the clips of feature films or videotaped television programs such as talk shows which illustrate various responses to compliments in the daily life or any other speech act behaviors between native speakers of English (Rose, 1997;) Using audiovisual media is especially useful in an EFL environment like Vietnamese land where the authentic target language is easily available from native speakers of the target language Teachers should encourage the pragmatic awareness of learners by discussing the status of relationships between the interlocutors, and by comparing the differences, as well as the similarities between the ways English speakers in the clips perform any given speech act and the way learners would so in Vietnamese This kind of activity will help learners 47 realize that speakers from different cultures may not always share the same sociolinguistic rules of performing speech acts as their own It has been admitted that when EFL learners encounter a familiar social context in the target language, they are likely to transfer socio-cultural rules from their first language to the L2 and this practice inevitably brings about stereotypes or pragmatic failure (Olshtain & Cohen, 1991) If we accept the assumption that the most commonly and frequently used patterns should be given the first priority for teaching, then language teachers should take data with the highest frequency in authentic material as an important teaching source Specifically, some patterns in responses to compliments in the obvious strategy which are produced by native speakers but are rarely used by the EFL learners should be practiced and stimulated for use in the teaching of English in the classroom Also, language teachers should be aware of these patterns when creating materials concerning the pragmatic strategies in responses to compliments in the daily life as well as in other speech acts It is recommended that not only NNSs but also NSs should be aware of cross-cultural differences in order to avoid misinterpretation or misunderstanding and to excel effectiveness of cross-cultural interaction As modern societies have become multilingual and multicultural, cross-cultural pragmatic is advantageous to speakers of various languages In order to enhance that awareness, one can learn by noticing cross-cultural differences in such a source of input as public education, the media or interaction with speakers from other linguistic and cultural backgrounds Limitations of the study The present study is subject to a few limitations First of all, the data was elicited through a DCT rather than naturally occurring data Despite the advantages of the DCT, such as allowing for control of situational and social variables and gathering a large amount of data from several groups within a fairly short time, and the efforts that the researcher made to make the procedure of email writing as real as possible, the participants had to imagine the situations provided to them and write down what they thought they would write It is not known how closely the responses that they made approximate the real ones that they would make when they come across such situations in actual life The second limitation lies in that the present study only looked at pragmatic transfer in one speech act, i.e., compliments It is not known whether the conclusion would be the same if other speech acts, such as refusals, apologies had also been included 48 Another limitation concerns the type of pragmatic transfer Pragmatic transfer comprises negative and positive transfer This study only examined negative pragmatic transfer It would be more informative if positive pragmatic transfer had been examined as well In conclusion, the findings of the present study should be interpreted and generalized only when all these limitations are taken into consideration Suggestions for further research In order to gain a better insight into the norms and patterns of semantic formulas in responses to compliments, the following may serve as guidelines for further research This study mainly examined the relationships between target language and pragmatic transfer in responses to compliments To enhance our understanding of pragmatic transfer and pragmatic development, future researches should focus on identifying other factors (e.g linguistic proficiency, gender, social status and teaching methodology) that may influence the occurrences of pragmatic transfer among learners at various developmental stages The present study concentrated on the negative transfer of the EFL learners which may cause the breakdown in communication Future studies should investigate the positive transfer which may result in successful communication outcomes This is because the pragmatic strategies employed by the EFL learners in positive transfer may be used as the patterns for teaching and learning pragmatics in particular speech communities Since the written DCTs were the sole investigative tool employed in the present study due to the time constraints, future research should include measures such as role-plays, self-reports and field notes to examine the learner‟s pragmatic knowledge It is important to keep in mind that the subjects in the present study not, by any means, represent Vietnamese speakers as a whole since social variables were controlled Future research should replicate all aspects of social variables with a great variety of subjects In conclusion, the researcher believes that the present study will help nonnative speakers of Vietnamese; especially HVU students understand the “sociolinguistic rules of speaking” for Vietnamese or English pragmatic formulas in responses to compliments It is my hope that the present study has made a small but significant contribution to research in the field of sociolinguistic analyses of speech acts in a Vietnamese context 49 REFERENCES Austin, J.L (1962) How to things with words London: Oxford University Press Beebe, L.M., & Cummings, M.C (1996) Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method 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Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech acts (pp 59-82) New York: Academic Press 26 Takahashi, T & Beebe, L (1987) The development of pragmatic competence by Japanese learners of English JALT Journal 8: 131-155 27 Thomas, J (1983) Cross-cultural pragmatic failure Applied Linguistics 4, 91-112 28 Yu, M (1999) Cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics: Developing communicative competence in a second language PhD dissertation Harvard University 29 Yuan, Y (1996) Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of the English pragmatics of advanced Chinese speakers of English In A Stringfellow, D CahanaAmitay, E Hughes & A Zukowski (Eds.), The 20th annual Boston University conference on language development (Vol 2, pp 861-872) Boston: Cascadilla Press 51 52 APPENDIX DISCOURSE COMPLETION TESTS (DCTs) (ENGLISH VERSION) First of all, thank you very much for spending your valuable time filling out this questionnaire There are totally ten questions in this questionnaire and all questions include several different situations in which you are likely to meet in your daily life When you respond to each of the question, please imagine you are talking with a “real” person, and thus please use the most natural way to write down your responses, even using the facial expression to combine with your response (For each situation, you might find more than one response socially appropriate In that case, please write all of them on the lines provided.)Finally, please answer all the questions and provide enough and relevant response to every question Thanks for your cooperation again Personal Information Gender: Male Female Age: Faculty: _ School: _ Class: Situation (Hair style) You recently changed a new hairstyle On your way home, you meet a friend of yours, and he/she says, “This hairstyle makes you look great It makes you look younger!” _ _ _ Situation (Smart clothing) When you take part in your friend‟s birthday party, one of your friends says to you, “Your clothing is much more beautiful than others How much this clothing suits you!” _ _ _ Situation (Beautiful eyes) One of your friends tells you, “Wow, your eyes are so charming.” _ _ _ Situation (Figure) During the interval of classes, you and your classmates are talking about the topic concerning “lose weight” In the course of discussion, one of your classmates tells you, “How can you maintain such a standard figure? If I could have the same figure as you, how wonderful it would be.” _ _ _ 53 Situation (Interpersonal skill) Recently you have finished an extracurricular activity in your class One of your classmates, who also cooperated to finish this activity, says to you: “Had it not been for your help, our activity would not have been successfully accomplished It is your nice personality that helps avoid possible disagreements with others.” _ _ _ Situation (Brand new cell phone) You recently bought a brand-new cell phone Your friend, who also wants to change a new one, talks to you, “Wow, it is so smashing and its color also looks very splendid You have a good taste in choosing cell phones.” _ _ _ Situation (MP3 Player) You recently bought a new MP3 player During the lunchtime, when you want to take it out to listen to some music, one of your classmates says, “Wow, your MP3 player is the latest style Its style and functions are much better than others You have an excellent appreciation of electronic products.” _ _ _ Situation (Computer ability) After asking for advice about computer, your friend (or classmate) says, “You are a computer talent Your computer ability is much better than others.” _ _ _ Situation (Sports) Today, you had several tests in the physical education After all the tests, your classmate says, “You are so excellent You successfully and easily pass all the tests.” _ _ _ Situation 10 (English ability) After English classes, your English teacher tells you, “Recently your English has made great progress and always has some outstanding performance You should keep on doing so.” _ _ _ Thank you again for your cooperation! 54 APPENDIX DISCOURSE COMPLETION TESTS (DCTs)(VIETNAMESE VERSION) Lời đầu tiên, xin cảm ơn bạn bớt chút thời gian quý giá để trả lời câu hỏi Có tất 10 câu hỏi tất câu hỏi thuộc tình khác mà bạn gặp đời sống hàng ngày Khi bạn trả lời câu hỏi này, tưởng tượng nói chuyện với người thực, sử dụng cách tự nhiên để đáp lại, chí vẽ nét mặt kết hợp với câu trả lời (Đối với tình huống, bạn đưa nhiều câu trả lời thích hợp Trong trường hợp đó, viết tất vào chỗ trống cho sẵn.) Cuối mong bạn trả lời đầy đủ tất câu hỏi đưa câu trả lời đầy đủ câu hỏi Một lần cảm ơn hợp tác bạn! Thơng tin cá nhân Giới tính: Nam Nữ Tuổi: _ Trường: _ Khoa: _ Lớp: _ Tình (Kiểu tóc) Gần bạn thay đổi kiểu tóc Trên đường nhà, bạn gặp người bạn bạn, anh ấy/cơ nói rằng: “Kiểu tóc hợp với bạn Nó làm bạn trơng trẻ nhiều!” _ _ _ Tình (Trang phục) Khi bạn tham gia vào bữa tiệc sinh nhật bạn, số người bạn bạn nói với bạn, “Bộ váy / Bộ quần áo đẹp nhiều so với khác Nó hợp với bạn lắm!” _ _ _ Tình (Mắt đẹp) Một số người bạn bạn nói với bạn: “ Mắt bạn đẹp thật đấy!” _ _ _ Tình (Vóc dáng) Trong chơi, bạn bạn lớp nói chuyện chủ đề “giảm cân” Trong nói chuyện đó, người bạn lớp nói với bạn là: “Làm bạn trì vóc dáng cân đối nhỉ? Nếu tớ có vóc dáng bạn tốt q!” _ _ _ 55 Tình (Interpersonal skill) Gần đây, bạn kết thúc lớp học ngoại khóa Một người bạn lớp nói với bạn rằng: “Nếu khơng có giúp đỡ bạn, hoạt động ngoại khóa lớp khơng thể kết thúc thành cơng đâu Bạn thật giỏi giúp lớp tránh xung đột mâu thuẫn lớp.” _ _ _ Tình (Điện thoại di động mới) Gần đây, bạn mua điện thoại di động Bạn bạn, người có ý định thay điện thoại mới, nói với bạn là: “Ơi, điện thoại bạn đẹp thật màu sắc hấp dẫn Bạn người có mắt thẩm mĩ chọn điện thoại chứ!” _ _ _ Tình (Máy nghe nhạc MP3) Gần đây, bạn mua máy nghe nhạc MP3 Trong chơi, bạn lấy để nghe nhạc, người bạn lớp bạn nói: “Ồ, máy nghe nhạc bạn loại Kiểu dáng chức tốt nhiều so với loại khác Bạn chọn đồ điện tử khéo thật đấy!” _ _ _ Tình (Khả sử dụng vi tính) Sau xin lời khuyên bạn sử dụng máy tính, bạn bạn (bạn lớp) nói: “Bạn giỏi tin học thật Khả sử dụng máy tính bạn siêu nhiều người khác.” _ _ _ Tình (Thể thao) Hơm nay, bạn có kiểm tra môn giáo dục thể chất Sau kiểm tra, bạn lớp với bạn nói: “Bạn giỏi thật Bạn vượt qua kiểm tra dễ dàng.” _ _ _ Tình 10 (Khả học Tiếng Anh) Sau buổi học môn Tiếng Anh, giáo viên Tiếng Anh bạn nói: “Gần đây, trình độ tiếng Anh em tiến đạt kết tốt Em nên phát huy nhé!” _ _ _ Một lần cảm ơn hợp tác bạn!