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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NOVELS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa phương tiện rào đón thể khoảng cách quyền lực tiểu thuyết Anh Việt đương đại) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NOVELS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa phương tiện rào đón thể khoảng cách quyền lực tiểu thuyết Anh Việt đương đại) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D HANOI – 2017 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the work presented in this study report has been implemented on my own I confirm that this paper is submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the M.A Degree in English Linguistics and has not been submitted in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification Besides the mentioned references, no other person’s work has been used in this thesis without due acknowledgement Hanoi, 2017 Trần Thị Kim Anh Approved by SUPERVISOR Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D Date: ………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have given me valuable guidance, great support and encouragement during my research and thesis writing I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for their contribution First and foremost, I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, who helped me in many ways, from the selection of the topic for this research to academic thesis writing Thanks to his invaluably constructive suggestions and comments during my research, the thesis has been successfully completed I am greatly grateful to his expertise, enthusiasm, kindness, encouragement and support Special thanks also go to my friend Nguyen Thi Sinh, who aided me to send the two English novels from the UK Without her help, the data collection procedure could not be finished I would like to take this opportunity to thank Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, who provided me with adequate support throughout the duration of my study Last but not least, I would like to say thanks to my colleagues in the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology, who took on my work when I was absent from the office to attend the lessons and gave me time to complete the course ii ABSTRACT This study is conducted to investigate power distance manifestation through the use of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels from the perspective of crosscultural communication The analysis is carried out on the basis of the research data on hedges identified in the four selected novels: “Clever girl” by Tessa Hadley, “Into the darkest corner” by Elizabeth Haynes, “Bến không chồng” by Duong Huong and “Nhắm mắt thấy Paris” by Duong Thuy This study is implemented by the combination of descriptive, comparative and contrastive methods The findings indicate that both low and high power distance are manifested in the use of the four hedge categories, including modal, performative, pragmatic-marker and quantificational hedges In the English novels, all the groups of age, gender and social status share low power distance by using hedges which mitigate the imposition on interlocutors, utterance propositions expressing an epistemic judgment and strengthen the solidarity between interlocutors In contrast, in the Vietnamese novels, the power distance is very high in terms of age and social status; the gender power distance stands at equal or low level For the younger and lower subgroups, the hedges are often used to show modesty or humble attitude and respect for the interlocutors or to make uncertain statements For the older and higher subgroups, the hedges are used to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions made by the speaker iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research 1.2 Aim of the research and research questions 1.3 Significance of the research 1.4 Scope of the research 1.5 Research methodology 1.6 Design of the research CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Hedges and hedging 2.1.1.1 Development of the concept of hedges and hedging 2.1.1.2 Taxonomy of hedges 2.1.2 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions - Power distance 2.1.3 Cross-cultural communication 2.1.4 Politeness theory and hedging 2.1.5 Contemporary novels 2.2 Related studies on hedges 2.3 Chapter summary CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research questions 3.2 Research approach 3.3 Research method 3.4 Research data 3.5 Data collection iv 3.6 Data analysis method 3.7 Analytical framework CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 The hedges showing power distance identified in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of age, gender and social status 4.1.1 Modal hedges 4.1.2 Performative hedges 4.1.3 Pragmatic-marker hedges 4.1.4 Quantificational hedges 4.2 The similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of age, gende social status 4.2.1 The similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing p distance in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of age 4.2.1.1 Similarities 4.2.1.2 Differences 4.2.2 The similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing p distance in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of gend 4.2.2.1 Similarities 4.2.2.2 Differences 4.2.3 The similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing p distance in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of soci status 4.2.3.1 Similarities 4.2.3.2 Differences 4.3 The answers to the research questions CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Concluding remarks 5.2 Implications of the findings 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research REFERENCES APPENDICES v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PDI HPD LPD Power Distance Index High Power Distance N/A Not Applicable Epistemic Modal Verbs EMVs EMAdjs Low Power Distance Epistemic Modal Adjectives EMAdvs Epistemic Modal Adverbs EMNs MSVs Epistemic Modal Nouns Deontic Modal Verbs (shifting the responsibility away from the speaker to the necessity or obligation) Mental State Verbs PVs Performative Verbs PM Pragmatic-marker IPMs Interpersonal Pragmatic-Markers PPMs Propositional Pragmatic-Markers QAs Quantity Approximators FAs Frequency Approximators DAs F Degree Approximators Female M Male Y Younger O Older E Equal L Lower H Higher DMVs vi Table Taxonomy of hedge Table Taxonomy of hedge Table Taxonomy of hedge Table Table Categories of hedge gender and social st Modal hedges ident Table Modal hedges ident Table Comparing modal h Table Performative hedge Table Performative hedge Table 10 Comparing perform Table 11 Pragmatic-marker h Table 12 Pragmatic-marker h Table 13 Comparing pragmat Table 14 Quantificational hed Table 15 Quantificational hed Table 16 Comparing quantifi vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Hyland’s classification of scientific hedges Figure PDI in England and Vietnam viii analysis indicates that in the English novels, all the groups of age, gender and social status share the low power distance while in the Vietnamese novels, the power distance is very high in the groups of age and social status For the gender group, the power distance stands at equal or low level Regarding the last question, the findings indicate that in the Vietnamese novels, in which high power distance exists, the groups of age and social status tend to use the following subcategories: deontic modal verbs shifting the responsibility from the speaker to the necessity or obligation, or asking for the permission; performative verbs; propositional pragmatic-markers; quantity approximators, frequency approximators and degree approximators For the younger and lower subgroups, they are used to show modest or humble attitude and respect for the interlocutors and to make uncertain statements For the older and higher subgroups, those subcategories are used to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions made by the speaker For example, the form performs two opposite functions: to show modest or humble attitude by the lower and younger, to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions by the older and higher In contrast, in the English novels, in which low power distance exists, the groups of age, gender and social status tend to use more epistemic modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns; mental state verbs; interpersonal and propositional pragmaticmarkers; approximators of quantity, frequency and degree All of the groups use those hedges to mitigate the imposition on the interlocutors, to mitigate the utterance propositions expressing an epistemic judgment, and to bring about a sense of sharing, gesturing friendliness or strengthening solidarity between the interlocutors In terms of politeness strategies, both positive and negative politeness strategies are identified in the groups of age, gender and social status in the English and Vietnamese novels 59 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION This chapter briefly presents the concluding points of the research, which gives several implications for teaching and learning English The limitations of the study are also indicated in this chapter to offer useful suggestions for future studies 5.1 Concluding remarks The findings indicate that both the low and high power distance are manifested in the use of the four hedge categories identified in the English and Vietnamese novels, including modal hedges, performative hedges, pragmatic-marker hedges and quantificational hedges The result analysis reveals that in the English novels, all the groups of age, gender and social status share the low power distance while in the Vietnamese novels, the power distance is very high in terms of age and social status For the gender group, the power distance stands at equal or low level The findings also point out that in the Vietnamese novels, the groups of age and social status tend to use the following subcategories: deontic modal verbs shifting the responsibility from the speaker to the necessity or obligation, or asking for the permission; performative verbs; propositional pragmatic-markers; quantity approximators; frequency approximators and degree approximators For the younger and lower subgroups, they are used to show modest or humble attitude and respect for the interlocutors and to make uncertain statements For the older and higher subgroups, those subcategories are used to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions made by the speaker For example, the form performs two opposite functions: to show modest or humble attitude by the lower and younger, to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions by the older and higher 60 On the contrary, in the English novels, the groups of age, gender and social status tend to use more epistemic modal verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns; mental state verbs; interpersonal and propositional pragmatic-markers; approximators of quantity, frequency and degree All of the groups use those hedges to mitigate the imposition on the interlocutors, to mitigate the utterance propositions expressing an epistemic judgment, and to bring about a sense of sharing, gesturing friendliness or strengthening solidarity between the interlocutors One thing should be noted that the four novels in this study describe stories of women and the psychology of people in love and in other relationships set in current time, dealing with the concerns of modern day life without elements of fantasy, yet there still exists a high power distance in the Vietnamese novels The results of this study seem to reflect partially the status of English and Vietnamese cultures 5.2 Implications of the findings The analysis of pragmatic functions of the hedges in the present study reveals the importance of politeness and the manifestation of power distance in the success of any communication It can be seen that politeness realization is appreciated in both English and Vietnamese cultures though there exist different standards of politeness across cultures Leaners of English are thus supposed to satisfy the need of not only linguistic competence but also cultural awareness It is suggested that teachers of English can create specific situations in which different politeness strategies are employed to explain the manifestation of power distance through the use of hedges Students then need to make necessary comparisons to find out the similarities and differences in the use of hedges To put theory into practice, learners should catch opportunities to get involvement in communication with native speakers, enabling them to make gradual improvement in their learning process In addition, being aware of how power distance is manifested in the use of hedges helps us have a better understanding of the speaker’s intentions because the speaker is 61 at one end of hedging strategy and at the other end is the listener Thanks to the listener’s receptions of those intentions, misunderstanding, culture shocks and breakdown in communication will be minimized and avoided With the above-mentioned information, it is believed that learners are able to improve their pragmatic competence and then to adopt appropriate strategies in different communication situations 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research Although the present study is taken into careful consideration, it has several limitations on the scope of the research, the data and the author’s bias They are indicated in this part to offer reasonable suggestions for future studies Firstly, the description of hedge system cannot be easily complete In this study, the exploration finds that the majority of hedges identified are lexical To get a complete picture of hedges showing power distance, further studies need to investigate prosodic and syntactic hedges In addition, hedging and intensification are two dimensions in the modification of discourse and speech acts The study of one without the other makes the study far from completion This study just concentrates on hedging; future research is needed for intensification Secondly, the lack of data is a big problem This study is conducted based the collection of the data from four novels (i.e., two English novels and two Vietnamese ones) That quantity seems inadequate for the findings to be generalized to any larger number of English and Vietnamese novels Besides the limited number of novels, among the four novels, there are much more female than male writers (i.e., three females and one male) That imbalanced distribution may or may not have effects on the use of hedges Therefore, later studies try to be implemented on a larger scale of the data and keep balance on writer gender 62 Thirdly, due to the lack of studies conducted with a general view on hedges to be used as the references in Vietnam, the present research does not have enough sources to base itself on and to provide analysis as well as discussion about hedging devices in Vietnamese Future studies should provide hedge categories in Vietnamese Regarding the codification of the data, since much of the hedge identification is pragmatically-driven and context-based, coding cannot be done automatically by computer software It is done manually through case-for-case hedge recognition, which can result in some errors in coding Although the data has been double-checked, coding errors are unavoidable Finally, the author’s bias needs to be taken into account when selecting the aspects of power distance to be analyzed Though a great deal of literature reviewed shows that the three aspects investigated in the study (age, gender and social status) are prominent aspects to be considered, there is quite limited number of research or/and no prominent studies on the manifestation of power distance in the use of hedges Hence, the present study does not have enough sources to base itself on or support the view as well as the research methodology Moreover, power distance is only one of the six cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede (2010), it is suggested that future research should investigate the manifestation of the rest of dimensions with more valid methodologies 63 REFERENCES English Adams-Smith, D (1984) Medical discourse: Aspects of author's comment English for Special Purposes, 3, 25-36 Brown, G., & Levinson, S (1978) Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena In E N Goody (Ed.), Questions and politeness: Strategies in social interaction (pp 56-310) Brown, G., & Levinson, S (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage Channel, J (1990) Precise and vague expression in writing on economics In W Nash (Ed.), The Writing Scholar: Studies in Academic Discourse Channel, J (1994) Vague language Contemporary novels retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/novel Crystal, D., & Davy, D (1975) Advanced Conversational English Fraser, B (1988) Types of English discourse markers Acta Linguistica Hungarica, 38, 19-33 Gudykunst, W B (2001) Asian American ethnicity and communication 10 Gudykunst, W.B (2003) Intercultural communication; Introduction In W.B Gudykunst (Ed.), Cross-cultural and intercultural communication,163-166 11 Hadley, T (2013) Clever girl 12 Hau, D T (2014) Hedges showing power distance in American and Vietnamese contemporary novels from the perspective of cross-cultural communication 13 Haynes, E (2010) Into the darkest corner 14 Heymer, F (2008) Successful promotion of consumer goods in Vietnam: An exploratory investigation of Vietnamese consumers and culture 15 Hofstede, G H (1984) Culture’s consequences, international differences in work-related values (Abridges ed.) 64 16 Hofstede, G H (2001) Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, nd behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2 17 ed.) 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Hedging in science research articles Applied Linguistics, 17 (4), 433-454 23 Hyland, K (1996b) Talking to the academy: Forms of hedging in science research articles Written Communication, 13, 251-281 24 Keller, E., & Warner, S T (1976) Gambits 1: Openers 25 Lakoff, G (1972) Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts Chicago Linguistic Society Papers, 8, 183-228 26 Levine, D R., & Adelman, M B (1993) Beyond Language: Cross- cultural Communication 27 Markkanen, R., & Schröder, H (1997) Hedging: A challenge for pragmatics and discourse analysis In Markkanen, R., & Schröder, H (Eds.) 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The ESPecialist, 14(1), 1-15 39 Salager-Meyer, F (1994) Hedges and Textual Communicative Function in Medical English Written Discourse English for Specific Purposes, 13, 149-170 40 Schifffrin, D (1987) Discourse markers 41 Scollon, R & Scollon, S W (2001) Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach, (2nd ed.) 66 42 Truong, Q & Nguyen, T V (2002) Management Styles and Organisational Effectiveness in Vietnam Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 10 (2), 36-55 43 Wilamová S., (2005) On Expressing Negative Politeness in English Fictional Discourse 44 Yu, S (2009) The pragmatic development of hedging in EFL Learners Retrieved from http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk/handle/2031/5731 45 Zuck, J G., & Zuck, L V (1986) Hedging in news writing In A.-M Cornu, J Van Parjis, M Delahaye & L Baten (Eds.), Beads or bracelets? How we approach LSP, Selected papers from the fifth European symposium on LSP (172-180) Vietnamese Nguyễn Thiện Giáp, (2000) Dụng học Việt ngữ Dương Tuyết Hạnh, (2007) Hành vi nhờ kiện lời nói nhờ tiếng Việt Vũ Thị Thanh Hương, (2002) Khái niệm thể diện ý nghĩa việc nghiên cứu ứng xử ngơn ngữ Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ, 1, 8-14 Dương Hướng, (1991) Bến không chồng Vũ Thị Nga, (2002) Rào đón hội thoại Việt ngữ Việt Vũ Thị Nga, (2010) Khảo sát hành vi rào đón giao tiếp tiếng Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn, (2007) Một số chiến lược phản bác thường dùng tiếng Việt, Tạp chí Ngơn ngữ (7), 39-45 Nguyễn Quang, (2004) Một số vấn đề giao tiếp nội văn hóa giao văn hóa Dương Thụy, (2010) Nhắm mắt thấy Paris 67 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Analytical framework for categories of hedges showing power distance used by groups of age, gender and social status in the English and Vietnamese novels Appendix 2: Analytical framework for the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in groups of age, gender and social status in the English and Vietnamese novels 68 APPENDIX Analytical framework for categories of hedges showing power distance used by groups of age, gender and social status in the English and Vietnamese novels Power distance A Hedge categories Younger EMVs EMAdjs Modal EMAdvs EMNs DMVs MSVs Performative PVs IPMs Pragmaticmarker PPMs QAs Quantificational FAs DAs Note: EMVs = Epistemic Modal Verbs, EMAdjs = Epistemic Modal Adjectives, EMAdvs = Epistemic Modal Adverbs, EMNs = Epistemic Modal Nouns, DMVs = Deontic Modal Verbs (shifting responsibility to necessity or obligation); MSVs = Mental State Verbs, PVs = Performative Verbs; IPMs = Interpersonal Pragmatic-Markers, PPMs = Propositional PragmaticMarkers; QAs = Quantity Approximators, FAs = Frequency Approximators, DAs = Degree Approximators 69 APPENDIX Analytical framework for the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in groups of age, gender and social status in the English and Vietnamese novels Hedge categories Modal Performative Pragmatic-marker Quantificational 70 ... distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels (i) Which hedges showing power distance are used in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels? (ii) What are the similarities and differences in. .. information about research data, criteria and guidelines for data collection, and data analysis method The chapter ends with an analytical framework which can be considered as an outline of data analysis...VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DISTANCE IN CONTEMPORARY