Face saving strategies in teachers oral feedback in english classrooms a vietnamese american cross cultural study m a thesis linguistics 60 22 15

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES *** NGÔ THỊ PHƯƠNG LÊ Face-Saving Strategies in Teachers’ Oral Feedback in the English Classrooms: A Vietnamese- American cross-cultural study Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Combined Program Supervisor: Prof Nguyen Quang, Ph.D HANOI, 2010 iv Table of Contents Acknowledgement …………………………………………………………… ………… ……… i Declaration …………………………………………………………… … .ii Table of Contents ………………………….…………………………………………………… iii List of Abbreviations ………………… ………………………………………………………… v List of Tables …………………………………………… .vii List of Figures and Charts ……………… ………………………………………………………viii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………….ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I Rationale II Aims of the study III Scope of the study IV Method of the study V Organization of the study CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW VI Speech Acts VII Politeness Theory II.1 The Notion of Politeness II.2 The Notion of Face II.3 Politeness Principles II.3 Face-saving Strategies 12 II.3.1 Positive Politeness Strategies .12 II.3.1 Negative Politeness Strategies 22 VIII.Oral Feedback 29 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 31 I Aims of the study 31 II Research questions 31 v III Populations and Sampling: Participants 31 IV Data Collection 32 IV.1 The Discourse Completion Tasks 32 IV.2 Data Collection Instruments 33 IV.3 The Administration of the Questionnaires 35 IV.4 Participants 35 IV.5 Data Analysis 36 CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 39 I Results and Discussions of the MPQ 39 I.1 Result of HaF 39 I.2 Result of HoF 43 I.3 Remarks 46 I.3.1 HaF 48 I.3.2 HoF 47 I.3.3 HaF vs HoF 48 II Results and Discussions of the DCT 51 II.1 FSSs Used in Teachers’ Oral Feedback to Students 51 II.2 Realization of FSSs in Teachers’ Oral Feedback .52 II.2.1 On- record 52 II.2.2 Give advice, suggestions 53 II.2.3 Make joke 53 II.2.4 Include both S and H in the activity 54 II.2.5 Encourage 54 II.2.6 Be conventionally indirect 55 II.2.7 Apologize 55 II.2.8 Impersonalize the S and the H 55 II.2.9 State the FTA as a general rule 56 vi II.2.10 Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting 56 II.2.11 Off - record 56 II.3 Use of Strategies as Seen from Types of Feedback 57 II.3.1 Corrective Feedback 58 II.3.2 Evaluative Feedback 63 II.3.3 Strategic Feedback 68 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION 74 I Major findings 74 II Choice of face saving strategy for types of feedback 74 III Choice of FSSs in terms of feedback receiver 74 IV Implications for English language teachers 75 V Suggestions for further study 76 REFERENCES APPENDICES vii LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS Adv Advisable ATs American teachers CF Corrective Feedback D Social Distance DCT Discourse Completion Task EF Evaluative Feedback FTA Face-threatening Act FSA Face-saving Act FSS Face-saving Strategy H The hearer HaF Hit-all Feedback HoF Hit-one Feedback HAdv Highly Advisable InAdv Inadvisable MPQ Metapragmatic Questionnaire N Number NPS Negative Politeness Strategy p Probability level P Relative power PPS Positive Politeness Strategy viii R Relation S The speaker SInAdv Strongly Inadvisable SF Strategic Feedback SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences Sig Significance level Sit Situation Str1 On-record strategy Str2 Give advice and suggestions Str3 Make joke Str4 Include both S and H in the activity Str5 Encourage Str6 Be conventionally indirect Str7 Apologize Str8 Impersonalize Str9 State the FTA as a general rule Str10 Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting Str11 Off-record strategy VTs Vietnamese Teachers Y/N Yes or No ix LIST OF TABLES Table Informants’ status parameters 37 Table Group statistics 38 Table Independent Sample t test 39 Table Categories of Feedback 40 Table Table Assessment on Advisability of Situations for HaF by Vietnamese and American Teachers Assessment on Advisability of Situations for HoF by Vietnamese and 41 44 American Teachers Table Summary of leading choices by VTs and A Table Summary of strategies used by VTs and A Table Table 10 Table 11 VT group Statistic for Strategies Used AT group statistics for strategies used AT & VT group statistics for strategies us Table 12VT and AT group statistics for strategies used for HoF in CF Table 13 Group statistics for Strategies used by VT Table 14 Group statistics for Strategies used by AT Table 15Group statistics for Strategies used by VTs and ATs for HaF in EF Category Table 16Group statistics for strategies used by VTs and ATs for HoF in EF Category Table 17Group statistics for strategies used by VTs for HaF in SF Category Table 18Group statistics for strategies used by ATs for HaF in SF Category Table 19 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs Table 20 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs x LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS Figure Figure 10 10 21 Figure 29 Figure 61 Chart Chart Chart 63 67 68 71 Chart Chart Chart 72 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I Rationale It has long been realized that the forms and uses of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language is spoken Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language (Krasner, 1999) Therefore, together with learning and using a foreign language, language users should deepen their understanding of its culture in order to communicate successfully and appropriately It can be said that “politeness” communication and pragmatics is one of the most important study, especially in categories in cross-cultural communication/pragmatics Politeness strategies are applied consciously and unconsciously in communication in everyday social interaction These strategies help to make participants feel satisfied because their “face” is respected This fact is much truer in such high context culture as Vietnam Towards successful communication in the real world, some cross-cultural studies such as requesting, refusing, thanking, apologizing have been conducted so far to help Vietnamese students of English avoid confusion when expressing themselves As a teacher of English, the author has to a lot of interactions with her students in the class setting and thus, realizes some of the problems in communication between teachers and students, among which is the uncomfortable and stressful feeling of students when interacting When the author attended some classes of American teachers, she found it interesting when she realized that there are many differences between the feedback that American and Vietnamese teachers give to their students For the above-mentioned reasons, the author conducts the study entitled “Face-saving Strategies in Teachers’ Oral Feedback in English classrooms: A Vietnamese – American cross-cultural study” Such is her hope that her study will be a contribution to the understanding of the nature of this activity across cultures II Aims of the study The aims of the study are:  To investigate the face-saving strategies used by American and Vietnamese teachers when giving oral feedback to students in English classrooms  To clarify major similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese teachers when giving different types of feedback  To provide implications in English Language Teaching and contribute to increasing cross-cultural awareness among English language teachers and learners III Scope of the study The study deals with verbal aspects of the act of giving feedback The Paralinguistic and non-verbal factors in communication are beyond the scope of this study Feedback itself can be given in the oral or written form As it is a study on face-toface communication, the study focuses on oral form only Besides, feedback can be seen in the light of linguistics or teaching methodology; however, in this study, only linguistics aspects are taken into account Another point to be noticed is that a feedback can be a positive or a negative evaluation on students‟ performance Yet, in this study, only feedbacks for negative performance, seen as obvious FTA, are targeted Last but not the least, only oral feedbacks produced by teachers in speaking and writing sessions are examined in this study as they are considered as productive skills while reading and listening are perceptive, thus, there are not many chances for the diversification of feedback In short, the study especially focuses on face-saving strategies used by teachers in giving oral feedback across Vietnamese and American languages and cultures IV Methodology The research is conducted via quantitative and qualitative, descriptive and comparative methods The data was collected via questionnaires termed Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT), which was logically and empirically validated before it is used as a data collection instrument The instrument used to construct validation of the situations designed for the DCT is Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ) Then data will be analyzed using Independent Samples t-test and other functions of SPSS 15.0 (Methodology will be further detailed in Chapter III) Str9_HaF V A Independent Samples Test Str1_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str2_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str3_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str4_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str6_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str7_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str8_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str9_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for FSSs used by VT and AT group for EF_HoF Group Statistics Str1_HoF Str2_HoF Str3_HoF Str4_HoF Str6_HoF Str7_HoF Str8_HoF Str9_HoF a t cannot be computed because the standard deviations of both groups are Independent Samples Test Str1_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str2_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str3_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str6_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str7_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str8_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str9_HoF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for PPSs used by VT and AT group for EF_HaF Group Statistics Group Str_HaF VT AT Independent Samples Test Str_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for PPSs used by VT and AT group for EF_HoF Group Statistics Group Str_HoF VT AT Independent Samples Test Str_HoF T-Test Output for NPSs used by VT and AT group for EF_HaF Group Statistics Strategy_NPS_HaF Independent Samples Test Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Str_NPS_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for NPSs used by VT and AT for EF_HoF Group Statistics Strategy_NPS_HoF Independent Samples Test Str_NPS_HoFEqual variance assumed Equal variance not assu T-Test Output for FSSs used by VT and AT group for SF_HaF Group Statistics Group Str1_HaF VT AT Str2_HaF VT Str3_HaF AT VT AT Str4_HaF VT AT Str5_HaF VT AT Str8_HaF VT AT Str9_HaF VT AT Independent Samples T-Test Str1_HaF Str2_HaF Str3_HaF Str4_HaF Str5_HaF Str8_HaF Str9_HaF Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for PPSs used by VT and AT group for SF_HaF Group Statistics Str_PPS_HaF G V AT Independent Samples Test Str_PPS_HaFEqual varianc assume Equal varianc assume T-Test Output for PPSs used by VT and AT group for SF_HoF Group Statistics G Str_PPS_HoF V A Independent Samples Test Str_PPS_HoF Equal va assumed Equal va not assu T-Test Output for NPSs used by VT and AT group for SF_HaF Group Statistics Strategy_NPS_HaF Independent Samples Test Str_NPS_Equal HaF variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for NPS used by VT and AT group for SF_HoF Group Statistics Str_NPS_HoF Independent Samples Test Str_NPS_HoFEqual variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for NPSs used by VT and AT group for SF_HaF Group Statistics Strategy_NPS_HaF Independent Samples Test Str_NPS_Equal HaF variances assumed Equal variances not assumed T-Test Output for NPS used by VT and AT group for SF_HoF Group Statistics Str_NPS_HoF Independent Samples Test Str_NPS_HoFEqual variances assumed Equal variances not assumed ... Evaluative Feedback FTA Face- threatening Act FSA Face- saving Act FSS Face- saving Strategy H The hearer HaF Hit-all Feedback HoF Hit-one Feedback HAdv Highly Advisable InAdv Inadvisable MPQ Metapragmatic... status parameter: Informants‟ Status Parameters Number of Participants Age Gender Marital Status Table Informants‟ status parameters IV.5 Data analysis After receiving the completed MPQ from teachers, ... used by American and Vietnamese teachers when giving oral feedback to students in English classrooms  To clarify major similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese teachers when