A contrastive analysis of moderating criticism the use of disjuncts as mitigating hedges in verbal communication

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES  HOÀNG THỊ SÁU A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF MITIGATING CRITICISM: THE USE OF DISJUNCTS AS MITIGATING HEDGES IN VERBAL COMMUNICATION NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ SỰ GIẢM NHẸ Ý CHÊ BAI BẰNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRẠNG NGỮ TÌNH THÁI LÀM PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐĨN TRONG GIAO TIẾP BẰNG LỜI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT M.A PROGRAMME THESIS Field: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 60.22.15 HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES  HOÀNG THỊ SÁU A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF MITIGATING CRITICISM: THE USE OF DISJUNCTS AS MITIGATING HEDGES IN VERBAL COMMUNICATION NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VỀ SỰ GIẢM NHẸ Ý CHÊ BAI BẰNG VIỆC SỬ DỤNG TRẠNG NGỮ TÌNH THÁI LÀM PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG GIAO TIẾP BẰNG LỜI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT M.A PROGRAMME THESIS Field: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 60.22.15 HÀ NỘI - NĂM 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES v PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Scope of the study Aims of the study Objectives of the study Research questions Methodology Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .5 1.1 SPEECH ACTS 1.1.1 Notion and classification of speech acts .5 1.2 SPEECH ACT OF CRITICIZING 1.3 FACE AND POLITENESS 1.3.1 What is FACE? 1.3.2 What is POLITENESS? 1.4 HEDGING DEFINED 12 1.4.1 Hedging from the point of view of pragmatics 13 1.4.2 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness 14 1.5 DISJUNCTS 19 1.5.1 Disjuncts defined 19 1.5.2 Types of disjuncts 20 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW: 23 PRE-CRITICIZING HEDGING 23 2.1 THE PREVIOUS STUDIES ON CRITICIZING 23 2.2 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON DISJUNCTS AS HEDGES FROM PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE 25 2.3 CONCLUDING REMARKS 26 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 27 RESEARCH APPROACH - CA 27 3 DATA COLLECTION METHOD: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 30 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT 31 DATA COLLECTING PROCEDURES 31 DATA ANALYSIS UNITS/ PARAMETERS 31 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 34 USE OF DISJUNCTS SEEN FROM COMMUNICATING PARAMETERS 34 4.1.1 Data analysis 34 4.2 CONCLUDING REMARKS 39 4.2.1 Similarities 39 4.2.2 Differences 40 USE OF DISJUNCTS SEEN FROM INFORMANTS’ PARAMETERS 41 4.3.1 Data analysis 41 4.3.2 Concluding remarks 45 PART III: CONCLUSION 46 Review of the study 46 Implications of the study 47 Limitations of the study 48 Suggestions for further study 48 APPENDICES 52 LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 69)………….12 Figure Theoretical CAs and Applied CAs …… …………………………………….27 Table 1: Classification of illocutionary acts…………………………………………… Table 2: Quality hedges …… ………………………………………………………….15 Table 3: Quantity hedges ……………………………………………………………… 16 Table 4: Relevance hedges ………………………………………………………………17 Table 5: Manner hedges …… ………………………………………………………… 17 Table 6: Types of disjuncts …………………………………………………………… 21 Table 7: Distribution on informants’ status parameters………………………………33 APPENDIX A Survey questionnaire………………………………………………53 - 58 APPENDIX B Examples of hedges……………………………………………… 59 - 60 APPENDIX C1 Table 1: Use of disjuncts seen from communicating parameters…… …………………………………………………………………………………………61- 63 APPENDIX C2 Table 2: Use of disjuncts seen from informants’parameters………… ………………………………………………………………… …………………… 64- 68 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale It can not be denied that language plays an important part not only in recording and understanding culture but also in communication among people who share or not share the same nationality, social or ethnic origin, gender, age, and occupation Furthermore, “language not only has a great impact on our thinking and behaviors but also on others" (Karmic, 1998:79) Hence, understanding social conventions and attention to such important concepts as politeness, and face –threatening act, will certainly enable us to better comprehend the different ways of speaking by people from different cultures, thus helping eliminate culture-shocks, misunderstandings and communication-breakdown Despite good awareness of the ultimate objective of learning a foreign language toward successful communication, many Vietnamese learners of English must concede that a good command of a foreign language or success in foreign language learning lies only in mastering grammar rules and accumulating as much vocabulary as possible The importance of vocabulary and grammar has been proved in Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), Putri (2010), Aquilina (1988) and in many other researches In spite of different approaches to the matter, these authors state one thing in common that both vocabulary and grammar are vital aspects in language However, it lies in the fact that even when language learners produce grammatically well-formed utterances, they may experience unwanted culture shock and communication breakdown when running into a real and particular context of situation This unexpected incidence occurs due to their insufficient knowledge and awareness of social norms and values, roles and relationships between individuals, especially those from the target culture Of the universal human speech acts, criticism is considered a high face-threatening act, and a high- demanding politeness in communication, especially in intercultural communication In addition, criticisms are socially complex even for native speakers Furthermore, many local and foreign studies regarding the speech act of criticizing have been carried out in different languages and in interlanguage of English learners of different language backgrounds such as House and Kasper (1981), Tracy, Van Dusen, and Robison (1987), Tracy and Eisenberg (1990), Wajnryb (1993; 1995) and Toplak and Katz (2000), Minh (2005), Hoa (2007), and others The findings of the previous studies were mainly discussed in the light of cross-cultural perspective Yet, hedging in criticizing from pragmatic perspective is still an area available for more exploration This research, therefore, has chosen hedging as a potential subject The study is done not only to see the similarities and dissimilarities in the use of hedges to criticize between the two cultures Another goal of this research is to raise the awareness of both teachers and learners of English about the necessity of hedging in language, and to give teachers several suggestions in teaching this language phenomenon to their students Nevertheless, hedging is a very broad area, and within the limit of the study, it is impossible to discuss all aspects of hedging in language As criticism is an act yielding high risk of making hearers lose face, it requires different supplementary steps to reduce the weightiness of the utterance This is where hedging can mostly be seen In daily life, no-one likes to be criticized, and no-one wants to criticize others directly because there still exists the relationship between people, which is considered most important in every society Hence, in forced situations, people still criticize but soften it by using such disjuncts as “frankly, from my point of view, seriously,…” right before the criticism That is the reason why the use of disjuncts as mitigating hedges in criticism is chosen for the project Needless to say, disjuncts as hedging devices used in a certain context for specific communicative intents such as one strategy of politeness and mitigation have great effect on minimizing shocks in communication Therefore, a desire to have a further insight into major similarities and differences in using disjuncts as hedges has inspired the writer to develop the research entitled “A contrastive analysis of moderating criticism: The use of disjuncts as mitigating hedges in verbal communication.” To sum up, it is hoped that this study can provide the increase of some sociocultural knowledge and awareness of the importance of hedges before criticizing among both teachers and learners of English in order to avoid hurting their partners in every day communication This also helps enhance better cross-cultural communication and foreign language learning and teaching in Vietnam Scope of the study - The study is confined to the verbal aspects of the act of criticism with the use of politeness and hedging In addition, adjacency pairs are beyond the scope of this paper - The study strictly pertains to the perspective of pragmatics though the author realizes that syntactic theory and semantics apparently explain the meaning of the verbal work - Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers are chosen for contrastive analysis - The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires to examine the ways the Northern Vietnamese and Southern English native speakers use disjuncts as mitigating hedges (30 informants each) - Hedges under investigation are limited to a single utterance Aims of the study - To find out the similarities and differences in the way the Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers criticize using disjuncts as a politeness strategy in mitigating criticism - To raise both teacher‟s and learner‟s awareness of the importance of hedges before criticizing in order to avoid hurting their partners Objectives of the study In order to achieve the targeted aims, two objectives are put forward: - The data will be collected by conducting survey questionnaires for the chosen informants in Northern Vietnam and in Southern England (Hedges under investigation are limited to a single utterance) - The data will be processed and analyzed quantitatively to see how the two groups use disjuncts as hedges in criticizing situations and to see if there are any distinct features that characterize the way Northern Vietnamese learners use hedges as compared to that of Southern native speakers, through which implications will be drawn out Research questions What are the major similarities and differences in the ways Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers use disjuncts as hedges in mitigating criticism? Methodology - Quantitative method in the form of survey questionnaires is much resorted to To collect data for analysis, Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ) is designed The collected data will be analyzed using comparing and contrasting techniques to find out the similarities and differences in the ways Northern Vietnamese learners of English and Southern English native speakers perform the act of criticizing using hedges as a politeness strategy - The questionnaires are delivered directly to 30 Northern Vietnamese learners of English and to 30 English people via e-mails Based on both Vietnamese and English informants‟ status parameters, the researcher looks for the Vietnamese subjects of similar parameters in order to have a symmetrical distribution of informants and data for the study Design of the study The study is composed of three parts: Part I: Introduction: presents the rationale, scope, aims, research question, and methodology of the study Part II: Development: This part consists of four chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background and Literature review : - Theoretical background: discusses the notions of speech act theory, face, politeness, politeness strategies, hedges and disjuncts Chapter 2:: Hedging before criticizing: This chapter explores previous works of criticizing, hedging, hedging strategies and disjuncts from pragmatic perspective Chapter 3: Methodology: This chapter states the chosen methods to carry out the study and to analyze the collected data such as contrastive analysis (CA), and survey questionnaires It also deals with informants and procedures of the data collection Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings: This chapter analyses collected data to find out major similarities and differences in the choice of hedging strategies in given situations by Vietnamese learners of English and native speakers of English Part III: Conclusion: This part summarizes the main findings of the study, provides some implications for TEFL, and offers suggestions for further research PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter reviews the theories relevant to the topic under investigation in the present study, namely speech acts, speech act of criticizing, face, politeness, politeness strategies, hedges and disjuncts 1.1 SPEECH ACTS According to Levinson (1983), speech act theory is one of the central issues in language use In this section, the works by such pioneers in the field as Austin (1962), Searle (1974; 1979), and Bach and Harnish (1979) are briefly reviewed in order to provide theoretical frameworks for the study 1.1.1 Notion and classification of speech acts The notion of speech acts originates from the British philosopher of language John Austin (1962) In his very influential work “How to things with words” (1975), Austin defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something or actions performed using language In fact, when speaking, we perform certain linguistic actions such as giving reports, making statements, asking questions, giving warnings, making promises and so on In other words, speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking – all the things we when we speak Austin (1962) distinguishes between the three kinds of acts: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary A locutionary act is the act of saying something in the full sense of “say” An illocutionary act is the one of using the utterance to perform a particular function; and a perlocutionary act is the one producing some kinds of effects that are produced by means of saying something Among the above three kinds of acts, illocutionary act is the core interest of Austin as well as of other pragmatists (Levinson, 1983) Following is how illocutionary acts are classified by different authors: Table 1: Classification of illocutionary acts Austin (1962) Exposives Commisives Behabities honestly, flatly, seriously, strictly, truly, confidentially, privately, approximately, bluntly, briefly, broadly, crudely, frankly, generally, roughly, simply, personally, strictly Adverbial clauses: to be frank, to speak frankly, to put it frankly, frankly speaking, putting it frankly, put frankly, if I may be frank, if I can speak frankly, if I can put it frankly, from my point of view, in my opinion S/he is your close friend? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is someone you dislike? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your acquaintance? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your sister/brother? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your aunt/uncle? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your colleague (same sex)? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your colleague (opposite sex)? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your boss (younger than you)? ………………………………………………………………………………………… S/he is your boss (older than you)? ……………………………………………………………………………………… APPENDIX B EXAMPLES OF HEDGES * Quality hedges (i): Quality hedges may suggest that S does not take full responsibility for the truth of his utterance E.g Don‟t be so sad I believe he is still alive Có thể em sai em muốn biết nhân vội vàng anh có hạnh phúc không? (Báo Thế giới Phụ nữ số 39/ 2002) (ii): Alternately they stress S‟s commitment to the truth of his utterance Eg: I absolutely believe that he doesn‟t any harm to anyone Tôi thực tin khơng làm điều khuất tất (iii): Or they may disclaim the assumption that the point of S‟s assertion is to inform H E.g “I am not sure and let me tell you why I am not sure It seems to me ………I want to be as accurate as I can be Seems to me the last time she was there to see Barry before Christmas we were joking (… ) and so I said would qualify or something like that I don’t/ I don’t think we ever had more of a conversation than that about it” (Bill Clinton – By Nguyen Hoa – An introduction to semantics, p.168) “Rồi anh vừa nói đấy, em băn khoăn …… liệu có quay lại với nữa, em có giữ gìn tình yêu hay không? (An interview on VOV 12/ 2003) (iv): As quality hedges, we have degrees of probability expressed in increasing doubt E.g He will probably coming Có thể anh khơng đến đâu Em khơng thể nói, khơng thể diễn tả đau đớn chia tay có nhiều kỷ niệm đẹp bên (v): These are also quality performed by auxiliary, emphasizing adverbs on explicit and deleted performatives E.g To put frankly, black color doesn‟t fit you well Thành thật mà nói tơi khơng thích cách anh tranh luận gay gắt * Quantity hedges Eg: I can’t tell you than that it is he has been telling you a lie Tơi khơng biết (hình là) giấu giếm điều * Relevance hedges Eg: Sorry, I’ve just thought that your decision of getting maried is quite a mistake Khơng biết có nên nói khơng thấy chị cư xử trẻ * Manner hedges Eg: To put it more simply, I don‟t like your criticizing others so aggressively Đơn giản khơng đồng tình với kiểu lấp lửng anh APPENDIX C: TABLES APPENDIX C1: Table 1: Use of disjuncts seen from communicating parameters ENGLISH Close friend Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Someone you dislike Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Acquaintance Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Brother/sister Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Aunt/uncle Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Colleague (same sex) Attitudinal Style VIETNAMESE Close friend Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Someone you dislike Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Acquaintance Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Brother/sister Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Aunt/uncle Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Colleague (same sex) Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Colleague (opposite Colleague (opposite Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Younger boss Younger boss Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Boss (older) Boss (older) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing ENGLISH Young Attitudinal 15 10 2 9 62 38.3 VIETNAMESE Young Attitudinal Style 13 10 16 14 14 17 15 13 10 62 88 38.3 54.3 APPENDIX C2: Table 2: Use of disjuncts seen from informants’ parameters ENGLISH VIETNAMESE Close friend Close friend Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Someone you dislike Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Acquaintance Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Someone you dislike Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Acquaintance Attitudinal Style Saying nothing Brother/sister Brother/sister Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Aunt/uncle Aunt/uncle Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Colleague (same sex) Colleague (same sex) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Colleague (opposite Colleague (opposite sex) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Younger boss Younger boss Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Boss (older) Boss (older) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing ENGLISH Male : 12 Attitudinal Style 8 11 56 45 51.9 41.7 VIETNAMESE Male Attitudinal Style 12 10 7 11 5 55 68 43.7 54.0 ENGLISH VIETNAMESE Close friend Close friend Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Someone you dislike Someone you dislike Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Acquaintance Acquaintance Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Brother/sister Brother/sister Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Aunt/uncle Aunt/uncle Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Colleague (same sex) Colleague (same sex) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Colleague (opposite sex) Colleague (opposite sex) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Younger boss Younger boss Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing Boss (older) Boss (older) Attitudinal Attitudinal Style Style Saying nothing Saying nothing ENGLISH Students/learners: 20 Attitudinal 14 8 14 16 12 14 90 71.4 VIETNAMESE Students/learners: 20 Attitudinal Style 12 12 17 14 10 15 12 97 24 75.8 18.8 ... collected data such as contrastive analysis (CA), and survey questionnaires It also deals with informants and procedures of the data collection Chapter 4: Data analysis and findings: This chapter analyses... the assumption that languages can be compared CA is defined, according to him, as a form of interlanguage study and a central concern of applied linguistics As a matter of fact, CA has had much... that a good command of a foreign language or success in foreign language learning lies only in mastering grammar rules and accumulating as much vocabulary as possible The importance of vocabulary