Gender differences between Vietnamese and Australian speakers in making apologies = Sự khác biệt về giới giữa người Việt và người Úc trong cách xin lỗi. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 602202

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐOÀN THỊ PHƯƠNG GENDER DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VIETNAMESE AND AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS IN MAKING APOLOGIES SỰ KHÁC BIỆT VỀ GIỚI GIỮA NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGƯỜI ÚC TRONG CÁCH XIN LỖI M.A Minor Thesis Field: English linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 HANOI - 2018 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐOÀN THỊ PHƯƠNG GENDER DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VIETNAMESE AND AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS IN MAKING APOLOGIES SỰ KHÁC BIỆT VỀ GIỚI GIỮA NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGƯỜI ÚC TRONG CÁCH XIN LỖI M.A Minor Thesis Field: English linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm HANOI - 2018 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research, and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution Hanoi, September 2018 Signature Đoàn Thị Phương i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Ha Cam Tam I am blessed to have known you and to have been accepted as your student in this MA coursework program My professional development has been growing increasingly with your precious guidance and continuous motivation My special thanks also go to Prof Gary Carkin for his suggestions, and comments, which all helped to make this thesis I wish to thank Ms Hien for releasing the burden of data collection in Australia I would also like to express my gratitude and appreciation to all the Australian and Vienamese respondents for their willingness to have their apology expressions and complete the questionnaires for the data of the present study I would like to express my thanks to my mother and father for their whole hearted encouragement without which I would not be able to accomplish this study Hanoi, September 2018 Đoàn Thị Phương ii ABSTRACT The present study investigates gender differences in the use of apologies between Vietnamese and Australian speakers via a Discourse Completion Task questionnaire The questionnaire consists of four situations Forty informants were divided into groups, Australian and Vietnamese and each group consists of ten males and ten females Data were analysed based on Holmes' (1990) model Findings reveal no fix or noticeable gender disparity between males and females within languages, however, there are differences in gender between the two languages, which may result in disparities between the cultures The results of this study contribute to the current theoretical debate on gender topics Keywords: Apology, Apology Strategies, Vietnamese, Australian English, gender iii TABLE OF CONTENS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Problem statement and background Aims of the study 3 Scope of the study .3 Research questions Significance of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .5 1.1 Theory of speech acts 1.2 Apology as a speech act 1.3 Apology strategies 1.4 Politeness 1.4.1 Politeness theory 10 1.4.2 Social variables affecting politeness in interaction .10 1.4.3 Politeness and gender 11 1.4.4 Politeness and culture 11 1.5 Previous studies on apologizing 12 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Data collection instrument .15 2.2 Subjects 15 2.3 Discourse completion task (DCT) 16 2.4 Data collection procedure 17 iv 2.5 Analytical framework 18 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Main strategies and sub-strategies by Vietnamese and Australian males and females .20 3.1.1 Main strategies by Vietnamese and Australian males and females 20 3.1.2 Sub-strategies by Vietnamese and Australian males and females 23 3.2 Main apology strategies and sub-strategies distribution across situations by Vietnamese and Australian males and females 29 3.2.1 Main apology strategies across situations by VS and AS 30 3.2.2 Sub-strategies across situations by VS and AS 36 PART C: CONCLUSION .41 Recapitulation 41 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research: 42 REFERENCES 44 APPENDIX A I APPENDIX B II v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DCT Discourse Completion Task Ex.Apo Explicit expression of apology Exp An explanation or account Ack An acknowledgement of responsibility Pro.For A promise of forbearance Apo An offer of apology Reg An expression of regret For A request for forgiveness Sym A request for sympathy Bla Accepting the blame Self-def Expressing self-deficiency Lac.Int Expressing lack of intent Rep An offer of repair/redress M Male F Female A Australian AE Australian English V Vietnamese VS Vietnamese speakers AS Australian speakers AM Australian males AF Australian females VM Vietnamese males VF Vietnamese females Str Strategy Sit Situation vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Apology strategy framework 19 Table 3.1 Main apology strategies by Vietnamese speakers (VS) 20 Table 3.2.Main apology strategies by Australian speakers (AS) 21 Table 3.3 Comparison of main apology strategies by VS and AS 22 Table 3.4 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo by VS 23 Table 3.5 Sub-strategies of Ack by VS 24 Table 3.6 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo by AS 25 Table 3.7 Sub-strategies of Ack by AS 26 Table 3.8 Sub-strategies in Explicit expression of apology by Vietnamese and Australian males and females 27 Table 3.9 Sub-strategy distribution of Ack by VS and AS .28 Table 3.10 Apology strategies across situations by VS 30 Table 3.11 Main apology strategies across situations by AS 32 Table 3.12.Main apology strategies across situations by VS and AS .34 Table 3.13 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by VS 36 Table 3.14 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by AS 37 Table 3.15 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by VS and AS 38 Table 3.16 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by VS 39 Table 3.17 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by AS 39 Table 3.18 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by VS and AS 40 vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Problem statement and background Relations between Vietnam and Australia have grown rapidly and effectively in recent years, especially since the establishment of the bilateral comprehensive partnership in 2009 and the signing of the declaration on enhancing the VietnamAustralia comprehensive partnership in March 2015 The two countries have strong cooperation in investment, education, labor, tourism, and science and technology According to Foreign Investment Department (2017) investors from Australia invested 396 projects in Vietnam, with a total registered capital of $ 1.82 billion, ranked 19/116 countries and territories invested in Vietnam Australians born in Vietnam represent the sixth largest migrant community in Australia whereas around 28,000 Vietnamese students enroll in education institutions in Australia each year, which gives Australia as one of the most destination for Vietnamese students‟ studying abroad The context is an important reason for the need to gain deeper understanding of the aspects of the two languages and cultures since Geertz (1973), Trice and Beyer (1992) pointed that: “Communication across cultures is, by definition, problematic, for cultures are systems of symbolic meanings shared by one group yet foreign to another” Speech acts have been shown to vary in conceptualization and verbalization across languages and cultures According to Wierzbicka (1994), people from different cultural backgrounds often realize speech acts differently, using different linguistic forms, social norms or conventions, and speech styles The variations have often accounted for undesired social consequences, and caused communication breakdown and misunderstanding in societies It is for such reasons, that the majority of speech act and pragmatics studies are comparative in nature and often conducted cross-culturally The speech act of apology, in particular, has gained a great deal more attention and interest among sociolinguistics and pragmatics scholars compared In situation 1, table 3.12 displays two significant phenomena First, both males and females in the two communities tend to show a remarkably high tendency in using the same apology strategies for being absent at a boyfriend's birthday party They all employed the highest rates of Ex.Apo, the second rank of Exp , the third of Ack and no Pro.For in the situation Nevertheless, both communities tend to show a markedly different rate in Exp strategy It is noticeable that Vietnamese males and females seem to use the similar rate of Exp whereas Australian men tend to dominate much more than women Another interesting phenomenon can be seen in the above table is that the languages show similarities and differences in using apology strategies in situation Both males and females, either within language or between languages employed Ex.Apo, Ack at similar rates, however, beside these strategies, Vietnamese speakers added Exp and Pro.For (females only) Though the proportion of Exp and Pro.For are low, the findings support the past research (Van, 2000) that Vietnamese speakers explain more often than English speakers The data shows that Vietnamese and Australian speakers, both males and females, exhibited the similar trend towards their preference for Ex.Apo and Ack in situation 3, although the Australians were prone to opt for more Ack than the Vietnamese In addition, the two language groups show their agreement on using the least Pro.For in this situation Whereas no evidence of Pro.For is found in the Australians' data, only one occurrence in females' data is found in Vietnamese The difference that exists between the two language communities is clearly shown in using Exp While Vietnamese men and women employed similar rate of Exp (men: 20%, women: 30%), Australian speakers did not use the strategy at all in the situation The finding again is in agreement with Van's (2000) A non-asymmetric gender apology strategy distribution pattern is observed in situation Regardless of language, both males and females used Ex.Apo and Ack to the exclusion of the other strategies In the situation, Vietnamese and Australian men employed similar rates of the strategies whereas Vietnamese women used the 35 strategies more often than their Australian counterparts The difference may arise from the disparity between the two cultures, in which Vietnamese women belong to high context and are advised that they should be gentle and obedient whereas Australian women belong to low context and are suggested being equal to men 3.2.2 Sub-strategies across situations by VS and AS Table 3.13 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by VS Sit.1 Str Apo Reg For Sym Notes: Sit.2 Sit.3 Sit.4 M F M F M F M F (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N % N % N % N % N % N % 70 90 10 100 10 100 80 10 100 90 90 0 20 0 0 0 10 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 10 10 20 60 20 20 30 10 10 10 20 Apo = An offer of apology Reg = An expression of regret For = A request for forgiveness Sym = A request for sympathy Ex Apo = Explicit expression of apology From Table 3.13, it is easily found that both male and female Vietnamese speakers have highest preference for offering apologies in all situations and women used the sub-strategy slightly more often than men Males and females share exactly the same rates in Offer of apology in situation and situation whereas females show a slightly higher rate of use than males in the other situations Nevertheless, Vietnamese men and women used different and unstable rates of Request for sympathy and Request for forgiveness across situations, and the rates are much lower than those in Offer of apology, only from 10% to 60 % The Vietnamese speakers used Expression of regret at least when making apologies The data shows a very limited amount of Expression of regret used by Vietnamese women in only situation and situation while no evidence of this sub-strategy was made by Vietnamese men in all the situations In general, Vietnamese males and females used similar rate of sub-strategies in Explicit expression of apology in the given 36 situations, however, Vietnamese females employed more strategies than their male counterparts in situation Table 3.14 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by AS Sit.1 Sit.2 Sit.3 M F (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N % N % N % N % N % N % Apo 0 0 0 40 0 40 10 0 Reg 10 100 10 100 90 60 70 50 90 80 For 0 0 0 0 10 10 0 0 Sym 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Notes: Apo = An offer of apology Reg = An expression of regret For = A request for forgiveness Sym = A request for sympathy Ex Apo = Explicit expression of apology Str M F M Sit.4 F M F Table 3.14 shows how Australian males and females provide subformulae of EX.Apo in the four situations The data reveal that both males and females used Reg to the exclusion of the other sub-strategies The highest proportion of this substrategy reaches 100% in situation for both males and females, notwithstanding, males expressed regret greater than their female counterparts in the other situations Surprisingly, only females offered apologies up to 40% in situation and situation and males did the subformula only once (10%) in situation Australians seldom implemented For in the situations, only one instance of each group was found in situation It is appearance that no gender differences in the use of sub-strategies in Ex.Apo in situation and situation 4, nevertheless, wide gender disparities are found in situation and situation 37 Table 3.15 Sub-strategies of Ex.Apo across situations by VS and AS Sit.1 Reg For Sym Notes: Sit.3 F F M (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N N N % N % (V) 70 90 (AE) 0 (V) 0 % M Sit.4 M Str Apo Sit.2 % F M N % N 10 100 10 100 80 10 100 90 90 0 40 0 40 10 0 20 0 0 0 10 0 0 (AE) 10 100 10 100 90 60 70 50 90 80 (V) 10 0 0 0 0 10 10 20 (AE) 0 0 0 0 10 10 0 0 (V) 60 20 20 30 10 10 10 20 (AE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Apo = An offer of apology Reg = An expression of regret For = A request for forgiveness Sym = A request for sympathy Ex Apo = Explicit expression of apology % F Table 3.15 provides the gender differences in detail between the two languages in Explicit expressions of apology strategy The two language communities are clearly different in terms of micro strategy, while Vietnamese groups, both males and females, gave priority to Apo, Australian groups preferred Reg Moreover, Sym is found in all the given situations in V, whereas no equivalence of Sym is in AE The sub-strategy For was at least used by the two language communities with the similar proportion between males and females, however, the micro strategy is found in more situations in V than in AE The findings show differences in cultural politeness norms between the two language communities 38 Table 3.16 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by VS Sit.1 Sit.2 Sit.3 Sit.4 M F M F M F M F (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N % N % N % N % N % N % Str Bla Self-def Lac.Int Rep Notes: 0 0 40 0 0 20 Bla = Self-def = Lac.Int = Rep = Ack = Table 3.16 provides 80 20 0 10 100 0 60 30 70 10 30 70 7 70 10 70 30 50 70 Accepting the blame Expressing self-deficiency Expressing lack of intent An offer of repair/redress An acknowledgement of responsibility the picture of gender differences in Ack by VS in all the situations Both genders of participants gave the most preference to Rep and Self-def, however, there are unstable dissimilarities between males and females in using the substrategies across the situations The most clearly unstable dissimilarities between VM and VF are shown in Sit 4, where VM expressed Self-def considerably higher than VF (70%: 30%), VF prominently provided Lac.Int more than VM (50%: 10%) Besides, VF significantly exploited Rep more than VM The results may be explained by the affection of situation to gender speech behavior (Crystal, 1992) Table 3.17 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by AS Sit.1 Str Bla Self-def Lac.Int Rep Notes: Sit.2 Sit.3 Sit.4 M F M F M F M F (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N % N % N % N % N % N % 0 0 40 Bla Self-def Lac.Int Rep Ack 0 0 40 = = = = = 0 60 0 10 100 10 90 40 60 90 20 40 70 Accepting the blame Expressing self-deficiency Expressing lack of intent An offer of repair/redress An acknowledgement of responsibility 39 0 20 10 10 100 30 70 Data in Table 3.17 shows that Ack is characterized with the use of Rep and Self-def by Australian males and females in the four situations Australian males offered repair more often than Australian females in all most situations and the sharpest difference between the genders in using Rep occurs in situation (AM: 100%, AF: 40%) Moreover, there are unstable differences between males and females in expressing Self-def across situations Table 3.18 Sub-strategies of Ack across situations by VS and AS Str Bla Sit.1 Sit.2 Sit.3 M F M F M F (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) (N=40) N % N % N % N % N % N % (V) (AE) 0 Self-def (V) (AE) 0 Lac.Int (V) (AE) Rep (V) (AE) Notes: Bla Self-def Lac.Int Rep Ack The data 0 0 0 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 40 0 0 0 10 80 10 100 60 90 0 0 0 0 20 60 10 100 40 0 0 0 30 60 0 70 90 0 7 10 20 30 40 0 70 70 Sit.4 M F (N=40) (N=40) N % N % 0 1 10 0 70 20 10 10 70 100 0 3 7 = Accepting the blame = Expressing self-deficiency = Expressing lack of intent = An offer of repair/redress = An acknowledgement of responsibility shows that regardless of language and gender, Ack are mainly expressed through Rep and Self-def across situations Nevertheless, Australian males employed Rep more often than their Vietnamese counterparts meanwhile the dissimilarities in using Self-def across situations between the two groups of languages are unstable The sharpest difference between VM and AM exists in using Rep in Sit (20%: 100%) whereas VF and AF are specially dissimilar in exploiting Lac.Int in Sit (50%: 0%) Bla was at least employed and only used by females in situation and and Australian used the sub-strategy insignificantly more often than their Vietnamese counterparts The differences between Vietnamese and Australian males and females may stem from the disparities between the two cultures 40 0 30 30 50 70 70 PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation Little difference is seen between Vietnamese men and women When difference occurred, Vietnamese women used more strategies as well as substrategies of apology than Vietnamese men No overall differences between Australian men and women is observed, however, when differences existed, Australian males apologised more often than their female counterparts, and Australian males exploited Expression of regret and Offer of repair/redress more than Australian females whereas Australian females employed more Offer of apology than their male counterparts There are significant gender differences between Vietnamese and Australian speakers a Vietnamese groups (both males and females) explained more often than Australian groups b Vietnamese groups expressed Explicit expression of apology through Offer of apology and Request for sympathy whereas Australian groups demonstrated Explicit expression of apology through Expression of regret c Both Vietnamese and Australian speakers mainly expressed Acknowledgement of responsibility through Offer of repair/redress and Expressing self-deficiency, nevertheless, Vietnamese males less used Offer of repair/redress than their Australian counterparts while Vietnamese males exploited Expressing self-deficiency more often than Australian males d Vietnamese females used more strategies than their Australian counterparts It is evident that gender patterns relating to speech strategy use are not particularly evidence within languages but are apparently proof between languages in the present study The data shows that there is no fixed pattern or noticeable gender variation within languages, however, there are significant differences in gender between languages, which may result in disparities between cultures The 41 findings closely support Deutschmann (2003), who claimed that no overall gender differences within a language, and also are in line with Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984), who found that respondents pursued similar strategies in their apologies, but still exhibited culturally different tendencies in their use Nevertheless, the findings seem to challenge the prior studies such as those by Holmes (1989, 1990), Tannen (1991) that women apologise more than men and women are more polite than men The findings further enhance Mills‟ (2003) claim that gender speech differences are highly sensitive, culturally specific, unstable, and may change over time This is probably because men and women are now tending to share the same participation in public spheres, social power, and responsibility in most society However, it is important to point out here that the patterns of gender variations in the study are specific to young adult speakers, whose age ranges from 20 to 30 years The use of language by men and women depends on various socio-pragmatic and cultural variables such as the context and aims of the conversation The results of the study thus contribute to the body of research on male and female language behaviour that shows convergence rather than divergence Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research: It must be acknowledged that the present study has some limitations and recognition of these limitations forms the basis of recommendations made for further research First, the sample (N = 40) is rather limited and therefore the results may not be generalised to all native speakers of Vietnamese and Australian English Thus, further research should be taken with a bigger sample size Second, the study is limited in terms of authenticity of the data Although DCTs have been widely employed as a means of speech act or pragmatics study data collection technique, they are still not able to capture the full naturalness of the interaction between apologizers and victims Thus, in this project, respondents were asked to write down their apologies according to the given situations as naturally as possible, but the use of interactional features such as facial expressions, body language or gestures, and perhaps intonation patterns could not be captured Such 42 features may well have offered more insight into the complex apologies It is therefore recommended that future studies employ naturally occurring interactions and role-play for a comparison of apologies Finally, the present study is limited in terms of its scope and the number and type of variables It focuses mainly on gender differences in four situations of moderate severity with the same power relation Further studies, having wider scope and more variables, could be used to gain more representative findings from which generalizations could be made This study focuses only on apologies of moderate severity of offence, employed by native speakers of Australian English and Vietnamese whose age group ranges from 20 to 30 years old, and have equal power status, and are friends Further studies could investigate apologies but look at how the respondents express the act with varying degrees of offence, and different situations, age groups, social status, and relationships between interlocutors 43 REFERENCES Aijmer, k (1995) Do women apologise more than men? In G Melchers & B Warren (Eds.), Studies in Anglistics Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International Austin, J L (1962) How to things with words New York: Oxford University Press Bataineh, R F., & Bataineh, R F (2005) Apology strategies of American university students Journal of Intercultural Communication, Retrieved March 21, 2017 from http://www.immi.se/intercultural Bataineh, R F., & Bataineh, R F (2008) A cross-cultural comparison of apologies by native speakers of American English and Jordanian Arabic Journal of Pragmatics, 40(4), 792-821 http://doi.org/10.1016/j pragma.2008.01.003 Beebe, L M., & Cummings, M C (1985) Speech act performance: A function of the data collection procedure? TESOL Convention, New York Bergman, M L., & Kasper, G (1993) Perception and performance in native and nonnative apology In G Kasper & S Blum-Kulka(Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics (p 82-107) New York: Oxford University Press Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E (1984) Requests and apologies: A crosscultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP) Applied Linguistics, 5(3), 196-213 http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/5.3.196 Brown, P., & Levinson, S (1987) Politeness: Some universals in language usage New York: Cambridge University Press Cordella-Masini, Marisa Isabel (1989) Apologizing: A Cross-Cultural Study in Chilean Spanish and Australian English Unpublished MA Thesis Canberra: TESOL Canberra College of Advanced Education 10 Coulmas, Florian (2005) Sociolinguistics: The Study of Speakers’ Choices New York: Cambridge University Press 44 11 Deutschmann, M (2003) Apologising in British English (Doctoral dissertation) UmeåUniversity, Umeå, Sweden Retrieved from www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:143441/FULLTEXT01.pdf 12 Geertz, C (1973) The interpretation of cultures In W.B Gudykunst & S TingToomey (1988), Culture and interpersonal communication, p 27 -30, Sage, The U.S 13 Golato, A (2003) Studying compliment responses: A comparison of DCTs and recordings of naturally occurring talk Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 90-121 14 Hall, E (1976) Beyond culture, New York: Doubleday 15 Holmes, J (1989) Sex differences and apologies: One aspect of communicative competence Applied Linguistics, 10(2), 194-213 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.2.194 16 Holmes, J (1990) Apologies in New Zealand English Language in Society, 19(02), 155-199 http://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500014366 17 Hofstede, G (1980) Culture’s consequences: International differences in workrelated value, Sage, CA 18 Lakoff, R.T (2001) Nine Ways of Looking at Apologies: The Necessity for Interdisciplinary Theory and Method in Discourse Analysis, in Schiffin, D., Tannen, D, and Hamilton, H.E (Eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis London: Blackwell, (199-213) 19 Mattson Bean, J., & Johnstone, B (1994) Workplace reasons for saying you‟re sorry: Discourse task management and apology in telephone interviews Discourse Processes, 17, 59-81 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01638539409544859 20 Nureddeen, F A (2007) Cross-cultural pragmatics: Apology strategies in Sudanese Arabic Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 279-306 21 Olshtain, E., & Cohen, A D (1983) Apology: A speech-act set In N Wolfson & E Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition (pp 18-35) Rowley, MA: Newbury House 45 22 Olshtain, E., & Weinbbach, L (1987) Complaints: A study of speech act behavior among native and non-native speakers of Hebrew In E Olshtain (1989), Apologies across languages 23 Olshtain, E (1989) Apologies across languages In S Blum-Kulka, J, House & G Kasper, (Eds,), Cross-cultural pragmatics: Request and apologies (p 155173) Norwood, NJ: Ablex 24 Paltridge, Brian (2004) Making Sense of Discourse Analysis Brisbane: Harding Colour 25 Pejman Fard M (2004) Politeness principles: Requests and Apologies in Spoken Persian MA dissertation Tehran: Allame Tabatabi University 26 Phuong, D.T (1999) A cross-cultural study of apologizing and responding to apologies in Vietnamese and English Unpublished M.A Thesis, CFL, VNU, Hanoi 27 Searle, J R (1969) Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language London: Cambridge University Press 28 Searle, J.R (1976) The Classification of Illocutionary Acts Language in Society, (p 1- 24) 29 Tannen, D (1990) You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation New York: Ballantine 30 Tannen, D (1994) Talking from to 5: Women and Men at Work, Language, Sex and Power London: Virago Press 31 Them, T.N (1998).Co so van hoa Viet nam Hanoi: Nha xuat ban giao duc 32 Trang, N.T.T (2010) Apologizing strategies by American speakers of English and Vietnamese speakers of English Unpublished M.A Thesis, CFL, VNU, Hanoi 33 Trice, H., & Beyer, J (1992) The cultures of work organizations New York, Prentice-Hall 34 Trosborg, A 1995 Interlanguage pragmatics: apologies Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 46 Requests, complaints and 35 Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press 36 Van, K.T.H (2000) Apologies in English and Vietnamese Unpublished M.A Thesis, CFL, VNU, Hanoi 37 Watts, R J (2003) Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres 38 Wierzbicka, A (1985) Different cultures, different languages, different speech acts Journal of Pragmatics, 9,145-178 47 APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE (For Australian subjects) This questionnaire is intended to collect apologies by speakers in the given situations The information collected will be used for the analysis of the MA thesis on “Gender differences between Vietnamese and Australian speakers in making apologies” You are kindly requested to provide responses as natural as possible to the situations given below The information will be only used for the aims of the thesis I General information: Sex: □ Male □ Female Age: ……………………………………………… Highest level of education: □ High school □ University Nationality: ……………………………………………… II Please, kindly read the following situations and give your responses as naturally as possible Situation 1: You were invited to a boyfriend‟s birthday party, however, before his birthday party you had some unexpected business and could not afford to come What would you say to him when you met him? You say: Situation 2: A girlfriend asked you to buy her some things at the supermarket but you forgot What would you say to her when you met her? You say: Situation 3: You borrowed a notebook from a boyfriend and promised to return it the same day, but you failed to that What would you say to him when you met him? You say: Situation 4: You were at a girlfriend‟s house and accidently broke a cup What would you say to her? You say: I APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE (For Vietnamese subjects) CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT Bảng khảo sát thiết kế nhằm thu thập lời xin lỗi tình cho sẵn Thơng tin thu thập sử dụng để phân tích luận văn "Sự khác biệt giới cách xin lỗi người Việt người Úc” Chúng biết ơn quý vị bớt chút thời gian trả lời câu hỏi tình Chúng cam kết thông tin thu thập sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu luận văn I Thơng tin chung: Giới tính: Nam/Nữ Tuổi: Trình độ học vấn: □ Phổ thông □ Cao đẳng/Đại học Quốc tịch: II Xin quý vị đọc tình sau trả lời cách tự nhiên Tình 1: Bạn mời tới dự bữa tiệc sinh nhật bạn nam, nhiên, trước bữa tiệc ấy, bạn có việc đơt xuất nên khơng thể đến Bạn nói gặp bạn ấy? Bạn nói: Tình 2: Một bạn nữ nhờ bạn mua giúp cô vài đồ siêu thị bạn qn khơng mua cho Bạn nói gặp ấy? Bạn nói: Tình 3: Bạn mượn bạn nam hứa trả lại ngày bạn khơng thực lời hứa Khi gặp bạn bạn nói nào? Bạn nói: Tình 4: Bạn đến nhà bạn nữ chơi vơ tình làm vỡ cốc bàn bạn Bạn nói với bạn ấy? Bạn nói: II ... LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐOÀN THỊ PHƯƠNG GENDER DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VIETNAMESE AND AUSTRALIAN SPEAKERS IN MAKING APOLOGIES SỰ KHÁC BIỆT VỀ GIỚI GIỮA NGƯỜI VIỆT... differences between Vietnamese and Australian speakers in making apologies 2 Aims of the study This study aims to investigate the differences between Vietnamese and Australians in expressing their apologies. .. of Vietnamese and Australian English apologies with focusing on gender are still uncovered The present study emphasizes gender differences between Vietnamese and Australian speakers in making apologies