A study on politeness strategies in negotiating conversations in market leader

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES - NGUYỄN THỊ THANH VÂN A STUDY ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN NEGOTIATING CONVERSATIONS IN MARKET LEADER “NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI ĐÀM PHÁN CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH MARKET LEADER” (PRE INTERMEDIATE BUSINESS ENGLISH – NEW EDITION) M.A THESIS (COURSE WORK) Field : English Linguistics Code : 60 22 15 HA NOI – 2009 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES - NGUYỄN THỊ THANH VÂN M.A THESIS (COURSE WORK) A STUDY ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN NEGOTIATING CONVERSATIONS IN “MARKET LEADER” “NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI ĐÀM PHÁN CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH MARKET LEADER” (PRE INTERMEDIATE BUSINESS ENGLISH – NEW EDITION) Field : English Linguistics Code : 60 22 15 Course : 15D Supervisor: Assoc Prof NGUYỄN QUANG (PH.D) HA NOI – 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page  Astract  Acknowledgements  Abbreviations Part 1: Introduction Rationale ………………………………………………… …………………………… Aims of the study……………………………………………………………………… 3.Scope of the study……………………………………………………………………… Methodology…………………………………………………………………………… Design of the study……………………………………………………………………… Part 2: Development Chapter1: Theoretical background……………………………………………………… 1.1 Speech Acts …………………………………………………………………………… 1.1.1 What speech acts? …………………………………………………………………… 1.1.2 Direct speech acts……………………………………………………………………… 1.1.3 Indirect speech acts…………………………………………………………………… 1.2 What politeness? …………………………………………………………………….… 1.2.1 Face and politeness………………………………………… ………………………… 1.2.2 Positive politeness…………………………………………………………………… 11 1.2.2.1 What positive politeness? 11 1.2.2.2 Positive politeness strategies……………………………………………………… 11 1.2.3 Negative politeness………………………………………………………………… 15 1.2.3.1 What negative politeness? 15 1.2.3.2 Negative politeness strategies…………………………………………………… 15 Chapter 2: Politeness strategies in negotiating conversations in Market Leader (new edition) – Pre Intermediate Business English 2.1 Negotiating conversations in the coursebook……………………………………… 19 2.2 Politeness strategies in negotiating conversations ………………………………… 19 2.2.1 The frequency of negative politeness and positive politeness strategies used in the negotiating conversations…………………………………………… ………………… 20 2.2.1.1 Sampling process ……………………………………………….……………… 20 2.2.1.2 Balance of positive and negative politeness strategies used in negotiating conversations……………………………………………………………………………… 21 2.2.1 Positive politeness strategies in negotiating conversations ………………….…… 22 2.2.2 Negative politeness strategies in negotiating conversations …………………….… 26 Chapter 3: Implications for teaching politeness strategies to HUBT second-year students 3.1 Preparation for training politeness strategies………………………………………… 32 3.1.1 Preparation for students………………………………………………………… … 32 3.1.2 Making plans……………………………………………………………………… 32 3.2 Training politeness strategies for the HUBT second - year students…………….…… 36 3.2.1 Politeness strategy-awareness training……………………………………………… 36 3.2.2 One-time politeness strategy training…………………………………………… 37 3.2.3 Long-term politeness strategy training………………………………………….… 37 Part 3: Conclusion 39 Summary……………………………………………………………………….……… Limitations…………………………………………………………………………… … 40 3.Suggestions for futher study…………………………………………………………… References 40 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale: It has been convincingly proved and widely accepted nowadays that an emphasis on language as a communication system is really necessary in the age of globalization Not only does it help to uncover principles underlying social interactions, but it also enables us to gain an access to ways of thinking, belief systems, and world views of people from various cultural backgrounds Investigating issues concerning cross-cultural communication is especially momentous at present when national boundaries are becoming less visible, more and more people are engaged in intercultural communication Understanding social conventions and paying attention to such concepts as politeness and face will certainly enable us to better comprehend the different ways of speaking by people from different cultures, thus helping to eliminate ethnic stereotypes and misunderstandings Knowledge of Anglophone cultures is obviously an important key for Vietnamese students to succeed in learning English because second language learning is second culture learning In order to acquire the second language - English, it is necessary to learn not only linguistic knowledge and interaction skills but also knowledge of the target culture Cultural factors are included in the course designs in universities and schools today When understanding the cultural factors, students have chances to expose themselves more comfortably and confidently to native speaking environments Normally, Vietnamese students tend to employ English based on their own cultural experience and thus, causing misinterpretations in communication Hence, to communicate well across cultures the students are well advised to be aware of their source culture as well as the target culture, especially hidden parts of the latter including preferences in behaviour in everyday conversations Politeness really plays an important part in all social interactions The author of this study takes it as her goal to investigate positive and negative politeness strategies in negotiating conversations of the course book “Market Leader – Pre intermediate” by David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent so as to improve the teaching of communication in English to the second year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) -1- Aims of the study The study aims at - Identifying and analyzing positive and negative politeness strategies in the negotiating conversations of “Market Leader – Pre intermediate" - Offering implications for teaching positive and negative politeness strategies in a more effective way with cross - cultural activities and exercises Scope of the study This study focuses on the positive and negative politeness strategies found in conversational negotiating activities of "Market Leader – Pre intermediate” It is only intended for HUBT second year students Methodology The major method employed is quantitative with due reference to qualitative method as this study is mainly about the practical aspects of cross-cultural communication All the considerations and conclusions are based largely on analysis and reference The main approaches include: - Reference to publications - Discussion with supervisor - Discussion with colleagues - Discussion with students - Personal observations Design of the study The study is divided into three parts: Part 1: Introduction presents the rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology and design of the study Part II: Development consists of three chapters Chapter provides the theoretical background on speech acts and politeness strategies Chapter analyzes positive and negative politeness strategies found in the negotiating activities of "Market Leader – Pre intermediate" in terms of the frequency of occurrences Chapter offers some implications for learning and teaching politeness strategies to HUBT second year students Part III: Conclusion summarizes the main findings, pointing out the limitations of the research and giving suggestions for further study -2- PART II: DEVELPOMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 1.1 Speech acts 1.1.1 What speech acts (SA)? According to Searle (1975), speaking a language is performing speech acts, such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions or making promises Searle states that “all linguistic communication involves linguistic (speech) acts In other words, speech acts are the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication” (1976, 16) They are not mere artificial linguistic constructs as it may seem, their understanding together with the acquaintance of context in which they are performed are often essential for decoding the whole utterance and its proper meaning The term “speech act” was first introduced by Austin (1962) He also comes up with a new category of utterances – the performatives Performatives are historically the first to be examined within the theory of speech acts Austin (1962) defines a performative as an utterance which contains a special type of verb (a performative verb) by force of which it performs an action In other words, in using a performative, a person is not just saying something but is actually doing something (Wardhaugh, 1992: 283) Austin (1962) further states that a performative, unlike a constative, cannot be true or false (it can only be felicitous or infelicitous) and that it does not describe, report or constate anything According to Austin (1962), a speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication He points out that in uttering a sentence we can things as well as say things In other words, the peculiar thing about the sentences is that “they are not used just to say things, i.e describe states of affairs, but rather actively to things.” For instance, the sentence “You have a wonderful smile” is more than mere description and statement; it does things on its own This means that it can function depending on contexts as praise, or even asking for money in a certain situation It is clear that speaking a language is performing speech acts Thus, “all utterances, in addition to meaning whatever they mean, perform specific action (or things) through having specific forces” (Levinson, Stephen C 1983) Levinson (1983:236) believes that three kinds of acts are simultaneously performed in making an utterance: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts -3- First, every utterance is represented by a sentence with a grammatical structure and a linguistic meaning, this is called locution Second, the speaker has some intention in making an utterance, and what they intend to accomplish is called illocution A third component of a speech act is the effect of the act on the hearer, which is called perlocutionary act * Locution: the actual form of the utterance To perform a locutionary act is to produce an utterance with a particular form and more or less determine the meaning according to the rules of a given language Locutionary acts are divided into three sub-types, and these acts are simultaneous: Phonic act: Producing an utterance in the phonic medium of sound Phatic act: constructing a particular sentence in a particular language Rhetic act: contextualizing a sentence * Illocution: the communicative force of the utterance, or the intended message of the speaker Illocutionary act is some kind of intended message that the speaker assigns to his utterance There are different kinds of illocutionary force, because we use language for a variety of purposes: to make promises, to threaten, to demand, etc What matters in performing an act is whether the act meets certain conditions, known as felicity and appropriateness Four types of felicity conditions are: * + Propositional content condition: expresses the content of the act + act Preparatory condition: expresses the contextual background required for the + Sincerity condition: requires the speaker to be sincere + Essential condition: the speaker intends the utterance to have a certain force Perlocution: The communicative effect of the utterance or the hearer's interpretation of what the speaker says Perlocutionary act is the communicative effect of the utterance Sharing with Levinson's opinion on SA classification, Searl (1979:240) brings classificatory order to illocutionary acts SA can be grouped into five broad classes of illocutionary points: + Declaratives - the speaker brings about some state of affairs by virtue of the utterance -4- itself The performance of the act brings about a change in the world This class includes endorse, resign, nominate, appoint etc + Assertives- the speaker believes that the proposition expressed represents actual states of affair and has grounds for so doing This class includes accuse, complain, assert, etc +Expressives - the speaker expresses some psychological state, feelings or attitudes about a given state of affairs This class includes apologize, compliment, deplore, praise, etc + Directives - the speaker attempts to get the hearer to carry out a future course of action This class includes request, question, order, command, etc + Commissives - the speaker becomes committed to doing something at some point in the future This class includes promise, vow, pledge, guarantee, etc 1.1.2 Direct speech acts The classification of speech acts into direct and indirect speech acts can be made on the basis of structure Direct speech acts perform their function in a direct and literal manner, or when intended meaning is the same as its literal meaning, we have direct speech acts A direct speech act can be performed by using sentences literally or using performative verb Considering these examples: (a) “I warn you not to that” (b) “I hereby advise you to read the test carefully” The example (a) is a direct warning and the example (b) is a direct advice According to Yule, when there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act (1996: 55) There are basic types of direct speech acts correspond a special syntax Speech Act Assertion Question Order and Request Considering the following example in case the speaker wants the addressee not to stand in front of television -5- (a) Move out of the way! (b) Do you have to stand in front of the TV? (c) You are standing in front of the TV (d) You‟d make a better door than a window As seen in the example, the basic function of all utterances is a command or request, but only the imperative structure in (a) represents a direct speech act In contrast, the interrogative structure in (b) is being used only as a question, so it is not a direct speech act The declarative structure in (c) and (d) are also not direct speech acts Thus, different structures can be used to accomplish the same basic function, but only when there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act To sum up, the direct-direct exchanges are quite brief, with no implicature involved, with no additional level of meaning The hearer does not have to look for what the speaker might have meant by uttering such and such sentences, everything in their interaction is expressed explicitly Misunderstandings hardly occur 1.1.3 Indirect speech acts Indirect speech acts are characterized by the use of language to perform a speech act without actually using a form appropriate for that speech act According to Wikipedia, “in indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer” However, the meaning of linguistic means used may also be different from the content intended to be communicated It may, in appropriate circumstances, be a request or a promise One common way of performing speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed to perform this act, but additionally to perform a further speech act, which is not indicated by the expression uttered For instance, to request someone to open the window, the speaker can say “Will you be able to open the window?” thereby asking someone whether he or she will be able to open the window, but at the same time the speaker is requesting him to so if he can Since the request is performed indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question, it counts as an indirect speech act -6- therefore, depends very much on the purpose of the utterance or the relationships among people The description in this chapter has investigated some aspects of this, and as the figures point out, sometimes people choose negative politeness strategies, sometimes positive ones That means people should increase awareness of using “appropriate” strategies in certain cases, and then chooses what they think the most acceptable strategies for the cases Therefore, in this chapter, we have looked at how positive and negative politeness strategies are employed in negotiating conversations in Market Leader- Pre Intermediate -31- Chapter 3: Implications for teaching English politeness strategies to HUBT second - year students In cross - cultural communication, politeness strategies have aroused much more attention People often fail to achieve the communicative goal due to misunderstanding with people from other cultures Therefore, having good knowledge of politeness strategies is essential because politeness strategies help to keep the conversations going in a smooth, natural and effective way 3.1 Preparation for training politeness strategies 3.1.1 Preparation for students Clearly, any training programs should be well prepared beforehand In order to prepare students for politeness strategy training, the following suggested techniques should be taken into consideration by the teachers: Firstly, it is necessary that the students be fully informed of the intention of the training program before politeness strategy training is implemented If the students not know the aims as well as the contents of the training program, they mi think that they are wasting their time Being informed beforehand, they will have positive attitudes and participate in the training more actively As can be seen, the book Market Leader- Pre Intermediate is a course book which focuses on culture, especially business culture In order to take full advantage of this book, the teacher ought to help the students understand more about the cultural values and be aware of cross- cultural differences It should be pointed out to the students whether positive or negative politeness strategies are accepted or preferred in English or in Vietnamese in specific communicative events They should be aware that some linguistic expressions which are appropriate in English can not be converted into Vietnamese and vice versa 3.1.2 Making plans After preparing the students for the training program, teacher also need make plans The materials for training should be taken into consideration Materials may include the course book and supplementary materials -32- The following exercises and activities can be taken as supplementary materials for teaching and studying English in general and the course book Market Leader- Pre Intermediate at Hanoi University of Business and Technology in particular Along with the conversational activities of "Business Basics", this supplementary materials help to improve the students' ability to use positive/ negative politeness strategies Thus, by using these exercises and activities, the teacher will be able to assist the HUBT second - year students in understanding and explaining culture shock as well as avoiding communication breakdown Exercise1: Greeting I Study these dialogues and answer the following questions Which dialogue is the most polite? Why? Which dialogue is the most informal? Why? In which situation is each dialogue used? Dialogue 1: A: Hello, Bob How are you? B: Fine, thank you And you? A: Not bad, thanks Dialogue 2: A: Good morning, Peter B: Good morning, Anna How is everything? A: That's OK Thanks Dialogue 3: A: Hi! I haven't seen you for so long How are you getting on? B: Not too bad Please to meet you again Dialogue 4: A: How you do? My name is Barbara Cooper -33- B: How you do? My name is John Murphy Nice to meet you! Exercise 2: Making Arrangement I How can you arrange the meeting based on the following situations? A Make arrangement to play a sport B The time is no good for A Ask for another time C Say that is not possible and offer another time D Accept and say good – bye II What can you say in the following situation You want to go to the dentist Wall on Saturday, so now phone the dentist's receptionist to make an appointment You phone your friend for a meeting in a pub this evening Your friend wants you to go to the theatre with him/her tomorrow but you reject because you are busy writing a report III Discuss and see if you say in the same way in Vietnamese in these situations Exercise 4: Safe or unsafe topics I Work in groups to discuss if the following questions are considered to be safe (S) or unsafe (U) when you meet someone for the first time in an English speaking country Explain your answers Then, compare them with the ones in Vietnamese culture What does your husband/wife do? How much money you earn every month? How many children have you got? Are you married? Why aren't you married? -34- Why don't you have any children? Do you like sports? How old are you? Are you a Democrat or a Republican? 10 How much was your watch? 11 Do you like politics? 12 Where are you from? 13 Do you work down town? 14 Why don't you work/ why you still stay at home? 15 Are you from Britain? II Discuss if the following statements are true (T) or false (F) Then, find out the difference in choosing topics to start conversation in English and in Vietnamese When meeting each other the British often talk about the weather Politics is a common topic in Britain It is no problem when the Vietnamese ask English people about their age for the first time meeting In English speaking countries to show politeness means "Don't put your nose in my affairs" In English speaking countries the question "How are you?" is only used when speakers really want to know about listeners' health Exercise 5: Appropriateness I How you say in the following situations? You are fifteen minutes late for class The teacher is explaining something to the class when you arrive You are ringing your doctor to make an appointment for Friday evening -35- You are calling the post office to send 20 roses to your friend in another city so that they arrive in time for her/his birthday You've got a question about something the teacher has just said in class You are ringing the local railway station to get known about the earliest train to the capital You want to try a nice T-shirt in a clothes shop You are in the city centre Someone asks you the way to the nearest bank You are calling the cinema to find out if there are any tickets left for the last show of the day You are a travel agent You've just met a foreign visitor at the airport You want to make the visitor feel welcome 10 You are ringing to the travel agency to know how to book a holiday abroad II Discuss in groups to find out if what is said in the situations above is the same as in Vietnamese 3.2 Training politeness strategies for the HUBT second - year students Once good preparation has been done, teachers are ready for carrying out the training There are three degrees of training politeness strategies for students: politeness strategyawareness training, one-time politeness strategy training and long-term politeness strategy training 3.2.1 Politeness strategy-awareness training Politeness strategy-awareness training involves firstly helping students become aware of such concepts as face, politeness, and politeness strategy and identify the ones they have already used Then teachers will sensitize students to choose appropriate politeness strategies in different situations and tasks Teachers also need to explain the advantages and disadvantages of using each politeness strategy to individual students or to the whole class Additionally, teachers should introduce politeness strategies with the usage in particular tasks -36- Secondly, teaching a language with its functions, or speech acts rather than structures should be emphasized by teachers In fact, many students with good knowledge of structures can only make something grammatically correct but culturally inappropriate or impolite In real life communication, to be polite or is more important than to put words together Thus, the teacher is suggested to instruct the students about what to say and how to say politely in English in a given situation Polite or appropriate utterances should be subtly introduced in such a way that language functions as well as forms are focused Since awareness of politeness strategy training is the initial step of the training, it should be interesting and motivating so that students will be willing to expand their knowledge of politeness strategies and to pay more attention to appropriate strategy choices in actual situations, especially in negotiating situations 3.2.2 One-time politeness strategy training This training is for politeness strategies to be introduced and practiced just once Students are encouraged to choose appropriate strategies to tackle situations given by the teacher After finishing the task, the effectiveness of their strategy use is evaluated It is ideal if the students work well with chosen strategies However, if it is not effective, the students are encouraged to try other ones until they find the right strategies for them Furthermore, occasions will arise in which students use an inappropriate or mothertongue construction to apologize, compliment, offer, negotiate, etc or perhaps omit such verbal behavior altogether in a context in which it is required The teacher should pick up and exploit all these instances, but of course with discretion and sensitivity Such an opportunity may prove rare, but provide means for natural exchanges which can not be left unexploited Class discussions can also be motivated by available teaching materials The teacher can pick out all sorts of points which may differ from native culture By doing that, more general aspects of cultural assumptions and knowledge of the world can be also brought up 3.2.3 Long-term politeness strategy training Long-term politeness strategy training, like one-time training, involves making students conscious of the intended politeness strategies and practice them with actual conversations -37- They need continuous repetition practice and assessment in a certain period until students can use them effectively Moreover, this training is also necessary to reinforce the politeness strategies which have been employed effectively in the first time so that students can apply their politeness strategy automatically and fluently Lastly, when teaching Market Leader- Pre Intermediate the teachers are advised to create chances of social interactions for students because one of the best ways to teach social English is through social situations Under the teacher's instruction the students are given situations and encouraged to join the conversations Through the daily conversations the teacher may help them recognize which utterances are acceptable or polite in English Obviously, English is quite different from Vietnamese cross – linguistically and cross culturally Therefore, when teaching politeness or politeness strategies used in communication, teachers must have a deep understanding of English speaking cultures which tend to consider negative politeness as a polite and formal way of communicating Meanwhile, Vietnamese people seem more comfortable with positive politeness in social interactions That is why when teaching politeness strategies used in conversational activities of Market Leader- Pre Intermediate the teacher should be aware of this difference to help avoid miscommunication -38- PART III: CONCLUSION I Summary Human beings are assumed to have basic universal needs which partly motivate communication The success or failure of communication itself greatly depends on the understanding and use of the appropriate politeness principles It is undeniable that politeness plays an important part in communication, especially in cross - cultural communication The concept of politeness has been widely mentioned, discussed, and analyzed Linguistic research on politeness is closely associated with the names of Leech (1983), and Brown & Levinson (1987), Watt (2003) Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of Brown and Levinson which was first published in 1978 and then reissued in 1987 In the framework that they develop, "politeness is interpreted as redressive action taken to counter-balance the disruptive effect of face threatening acts" (Brown & Levinson 1987:4) The study aims at identifying the importance of politeness in communication It investigates positive and negative politeness strategies and examines their frequency of occurrence in negotiating conversational activities in the course book Market Leader- Pre Intermediate on the theoretical background of politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987) and Nguyen Quang (2003) The study shows that most positive and negative politeness strategies are used in the negotiating conversations of Market Leader- Pre Intermediate except for positive politeness strategies 3, 8, 15 and negative politeness strategy It also reveals that positive politeness strategies are preferred to negative politeness strategies in negotiating conversational activities of the material Market Leader- Pre Intermediate According to the data analysis, every negotiating conversational activity in the book Market Leader- Pre Intermediate does not refer equally to all the politeness strategies Among 17 positive politeness strategies, the most favourite positive politeness strategies in almost all of the negotiating conversations are 4, and 12 Among 11 negative politeness strategies, strategy is the most resorted to In order to teach and study English efficiently it is essential to employ politeness -39- strategies appropriately in certain situations in accordance with the purpose of communication The study also contains some implications for teaching politeness strategies, that may help teachers and students deal with negotiating conversations in “Market Leader- Pre Intermediate” more effectively II Limitation of the study In spite of the author‟s all-out efforts, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable Firstly, due to time and space constraints cannot cover all aspects of positive and negative politeness strategies in daily communication Moreover the sample collection is taken from only one course book Therefore it is not large enough to assure a complete generalization III Suggestions for further study It is expected that further investigation into politeness strategies in other course books currently in use be done and more research on the improvement in understanding and applying politeness strategies in daily communication of targeted students be carried out in the future project Such is the author‟s hope that her thesis would be subject to constructively critical comments from examiners and interested readers -40- References English Austin, J.L (1962) How to things with words, Oxford University Press: Oxford, England Brown, P & Levinson, S.C (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usages CUP Cottrill, L (1991) Face, politeness and Directness University of Canberra Leech, G (1983) Principles of Pragmatics London and New York, Longman Levinson, Stephen C 1983.Pragmatics Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Searle, J R (1975) Speech Acts CUP Gies, M.L (1995) Speech Acts and Conversational Interactions CUP Thomas, J (1995) Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics Longman, London and New York Yule, G (1996) Pragmatics, Oxford University Press 10 Watt, R (2003) Politeness CUP Vietnamese 11 Nguyen Quang, (1996) Một số phạm trù giao tiếp văn hoá Việt - Mỹ hoạt động giao tiếp Tập san Ngoại Ngữ số 12 Nguyen Quang, (1996) Vài suy nghĩ hình thức x-ng hô ngôn ngữ Nội san Ngoại Ngữ số 13 Nguyen Quang, (1998) Trực tiếp gián tiếp dụng học giao văn hoá Việt - Mỹ Tập san Ngoại Ngữ số 14 Nguyen Quang, (1999) Các t-ơng tác trực tiếp, gián tiếp lịch sử dụng học giao thoa văn hoá Tập san Ngoại Ngữ số 15 Nguyen Quang, (2001) Sắc thái quyền lực giao tiếp ngôn ngữ Tập san Ngoại Ngữ số 16 Nguyen Quang, (2002) Các chiến l-ợc lịch sử d-ơng tính giao tiếp Tạp Chí Ngôn ngữ số 13 17 Nguyen Quang, (2002) Giao tiếp giao tiếp văn hoá Nhà xuất Đại häc Quèc gia Hµ Néi 18 Press Nguyen Quang (2003) Intracultural and Cross-culture Communication VNU Internet 19 http://logos.uoregon.edu/explore/socioling/strat.html 20 http://www.slideworld.com/slideshows.aspx/Positive-and-negative- politeness-ppt-810001 21 Ardissono L., G Boella and L Lesmo “Politeness and Speech Acts” 10 January 2006 < http://www.di.unito.it/~guido/um-workshop/> Acknowledgements On the completion of the assignment I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Quang for his valuable comments, kind guidance and correction I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to all the lectures provided by all my teachers at Hanoi National University, who have helped me to fulfill this research My sincere thanks go to my colleagues and friends at Hanoi Pharmacy University and Hanoi University Business and Technology, who have constantly assisted me in completing the research I would not have been able to complete this work without the whole-hearted support and encouragement from my family and my husband ABBREVIATIONS HUBT: Hanoi University Business and Technology FTA: Face Threatening Act H: The hearer S: The speaker SA: Speech Act i.e.: That is to say E.g: For example LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60) Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001) Figure 3: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the negotiating conversations Figure 4: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the negotiating conversations Figure 5: Frequency of negative politeness strategies used in the negotiating conversations Table 1: The statistics of positive and negative politeness strategies Table 2: Frequency of positive politeness strategies Table 3: The statistics of the frequency of negative politeness strategies which come from the study will be converted into Figure as follows: ... politeness strategies in negotiating conversational activities of the material Market Leader- Pre Intermediate According to the data analysis, every negotiating conversational activity in the book Market. .. communications have been applied in the activities and conversations At this point, politeness strategies are indispensable in negotiating conversations of Market Leader – Pre Intermediate Business... status is unavoidable, for instance, between manager and staff or among staff However, we are referring to negotiation or only negotiating conversations are taken into consideration As mentioned