(Luận văn thạc sĩ) the use of politeness in making suggestion in english and vietnamese

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI THE USE OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN MAKING SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Sử dựng chiến lược lịch đưa lời gợi ý tiếng Anh tiếng Việt M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI –2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI THE USE OF POLITENESS IN MAKING SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Sử dụng chiến lược lịch đưa lời gợi ý tiếng Anh tiếng Việt M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Đỗ THị Mai Thanh, M.A HANOI – 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS i ii Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv Abstract List of figures, tables, and charts PART I: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………… I Rationale………………………………………………………………… ……… II Aims………………………………………………………………………………… III Scope…………………………………………………………………………… … IV Research questions ………………………………………………………………… V Research methodology……………………………………………………… …… VI Design of the study ………………………………………………………………… PARTII:.DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………… Chapter 1: Literature review ……………………… ………………………………… Culture…………………………………………………………………………… 1.2.Cross culture communication………………………………………………… 1.3 Politeness and face…………………………………………………………… 1.4 Politeness in cross cultural communication………………………………… 1.5 Positive politeness strategies………………………………………………… 10 1.6 Negative politeness strategies………………………………………………… 10 1.7 Speech act……………………………………………………………………… 11 1.8 Suggesting as a speech act…………………………………………………… 12 Chapter 2: Data analysis and findings……………………………………………… 2.1 Comments on survey questionnaires and informants……………………… 13 13 2.2 The sequence of importance of some factors affectings S‟s choice of suggesting……………………………………………………………………………… iv 15 2.3 Politeness in suggesting as seen from informants‟ parameter…………… 17 2.4 Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting………………… 19 2.5 Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting………………… 21 2.6 The utterances which are commonly used to suggest among the informants……………………………………………………………………………… 22 2.7 Politeness in making suggestion as seen from communicating partner‟s parameter……………………………………………………………………………… 23 Chapter 3:Some applications of politeness in suggesting in English teaching and learning………………………………………………………………………………… 28 Part III: Conclusion 28 3.1 Summary of major findings…………………………………………………… 38 3.2 Suggest for further study 38 Reference 39 Appendix I v TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS NPS: Negative politeness strategies PPS: Positive politeness strategies FTAS: Face of threatening acts List of tables Table 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs ( Brown and Levinson, 1987) Table 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Nguyen Quang, 1999:130) Table 3: The in formants‟ status parameters Table 4: The sequence of importance of some factors affecting S‟ ss choice of suggesting Table 5: Politeness in suggesting as seen from English informants „parameter Table 6: Politeness in suggesting as seen from Vietnamese informants ‟parameter Table 7: Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting Table 8: Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting Table 9: the utterances are used in making suggestion among informants vi PART I: INTRODUCTION I Rationale To our understanding, language is a great heaven prize and treasure for human in order to fulfill our vital needs as the social beings: communication Language appeared, remains and flourishes along with human history With the seen development of language and language studies at the moment, there is no need in proving the crucial and irreplaceable position of language in human life Language is not only for communication but also for cultural exchange among nations It is difficult to imagine what our lives would be like without language Cross – cultural communication is an interesting and attractive field for us to find out the similar and different language when studying speech acts such as: greeting, advising, promising, and suggesting… among countries in the world There are many ways to make suggestion in Vietnamese and English But to make suggestion in an effective way is by no mean easy People often have difficulties in making appropriate suggesting in another language This leads the author to the research into “ The use of politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese” to find out the similarities and differences in making suggestion in Vietnamese and English II Aims of the study The aims of the study are: - To investigate ways of suggesting in Vietnamese and English - To compare and contrast the use of politeness strategies in suggesting in given Vietnamese and English suggesting situations - To contribute to raising language teachers‟ and students‟ awareness of cross – cultural differences in the speech act of suggesting III Scope of the study In all aspects of politeness, the study only deals with verbal aspects, in the light of the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson The paper is aimed to investigate the English – Vietnamese cross – cultural interaction in making suggestion in both languages English and Vietnamese The data analysis is mainly taken in to account of interviews with informants to examine politeness strategies based on collected situations of the act of suggestions The data were collected by conducting surveys with questionnaires In addition, the data from the informants are also utilized in the study IV Research question How are politeness strategies manifested in suggestion in English and Vietnamese? What are the implications for teaching and applying the speech act suggesting in cross cultural communication in Hai Phong private university V Method of the study The following methods are resorted to: - Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection instrument) - Consulting the supervisor - Reading relevant publications - Conducting personal observations VI Organization of the study The study will be organized into the following structure:: Part I: INTRODUCTION outlines the rationale, the methodology, the aims, the scope, the significance and the organization of the study Part II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW reviews the theoretical issues It briefly present and discusses the theory of cross – cultural communication and summaries of politeness strategies, summaries of works on suggestion Chapter DATA ANALYSIS presents and discusses similarities and differences in using politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese Chapter Some applications politeness strategies in teaching English Part III: CONCLUSION Summary of major findings and suggestion for further study Suggestion for further study PART II : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW I.1 CULTURE According to H Triandis (1994:23), “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in a ecological niche, and this became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place.” Hoopes (1979:3) defines that: “ culture is the sum of ways of living, including valuable ness, beliefs, esthetic, standards, linguistic, expression, patterns of thinking, behave norms, and styles of communication which a group of people to assume its survival in a particular physical and human environment Culture and the people who are part of it interact So culture is not static Culture is the response of a group of human being to valid and particular needs of its members It , therefore, has an inherent logic and an essential balance between positive and negative dimension” Levine and Alelman (1993) consider culture as “ a shared background ( for example national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, art, music and all the other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time It also refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of human interactions, expressions and view points that people in one culture share” Culture is always changing because culture consists of learned patterns of behavior and belief, cultural traits can be unlearned and learned a new as human need change Obviously, language cannot occur alone and is never separated from social activities and its culture I.2.Cross – cultural communication Cross – culture can be understood as “ the meeting of two cultures or languages across the political boundaries of nation-state ”s ( Kram, 1998: 81) The relationship between culture and communication is often compared with the bond between the voice and the echo According to Richard (1985:92) “ cross – cultural communication is an exchange of ideas, information, etc… between persons from different backgrounds There are more problems in cross – cultural communication than in communication between people of the same cultural background each participant may interpret the other‟s speech according to his or her own cultural conventions and expectations If the cultural conventions and misunderstandings can easily arise, even resulting in a total break down of communication This has been shown by research into real life situations, such as job interview, doctor -patient encounters and legal communication” Thus cross – cultural communication is a field of study that deals with these questions, concerning with the communication between/among interlocutors of different cultural background in an attempt to avoid misunderstanding, cultural shock and even conflicts In other words, cross Practice #2 Offer four situations for the students, and ask them to choose one and act it out in groups Situation A: Two of your classmates are quarrelling in the classroom during the break time If they go on quarrelling, they may have a big fight Give them some suggestions and make them stop quarrelling It would be nice for you to help them become friends again Situation B: Your cousin John is a single man who is 35 years old this year He wants to get married He is a good man but lack of confidence Tonight he is going to have a blind date with a girl He is very nervous at the moment Give him some suggestions Situation C: Your classmate Mary is an excellent student In her class, she always got NO of all exams when she was in primary school She is a middle school student now However, she has never got No in her class So she is under great pressure, which makes her feel unhappy every day and even think of committing suicide sometimes Give her some suggestion Situation D: Connie is a lovely and kind-hearted girl She is also a hard-working student You are her good friends Suppose Connie tells you that Michael gave her a letter and asked her to be his girl friend Connie feels upset because she 38 doesn‟t want to be anybody‟s girlfriend and also doesn‟t want to hurt Michael Give her some suggestions Writing Practice Go back to the E-mail, have them brainstorm to give some suggestions to my friends Then write them down using the expressions of suggestion If time permitted, teach the students to write an E-mail, and correct their mistakes Closure: Briefly review some information in this class III.3.Application of politeness in suggesting in the teaching grammar Level: Pre intermediate Goal: understand the different usages of the making suggestions grammar point Exercise Jane is having trouble making suggestions Most of them have mistakes Correct the ones - let‟s I go to the movie with - why don‟t you meet me at you the library to study? - let‟s visit the art museum this - why not we go to the weekend concert? - let „s not camping at this - why don‟t us take a park vacation? - Let us going to dinner tonight Exercise 39 Cross out the terms that are not suggestions - you have to - let‟s not - we must - let‟s - we must not - you cant - why don‟t we - why don‟t I - we have to 40 Exercise 3.Use the circled terms to complete the following conversation: Peter: Hi Sue I was wondering if you can help me with my homework tomorrow Sue: Sue (1)…………………………….meet at Anna‟ s bakery at 9:00 pm? Peter: oh, no (2)………………………………meet so late I have to get up early the next day Sue: ok If we can‟t meet at nine, (3)………………………try to get together in the morning Peter: but I have an English class in the morning Sue: well, it seems like we aren‟t going to be able to meet at all (4)………………… Peter: but that would be cheating! 41 CHAPTER III: CONCLUSION III.1 Summary of major findings The data analysis reveals that the Vietnamese and English informants resort to similar and different suggesting strategies in given situations.(as clearly pointed out in chapter 2) In particular, it is discovered that the Vietnamese informants prefer combining both NP and PP when making suggestion The Vietnamese informants tend to employ more PPO than the English ones According to the data analysis, no utterances in the designed situations refer to the same politeness strategies Apparently negative politeness strategy “question, hedge” is interested at high percentage in the survey Apart from that, it is surprising to see that not only English people but also Vietnamese ones appear to be interested in using “impersonalize S and H” negative politeness strategy” Notice, attend to hearer” politeness strategy is not highly appreciated in designed situations in Vietnamese however English mostly prefer it at the high rank Politeness strategies are also depended on the informants‟ parameter, such as age, gender It means that the distribution of NPS and PPS varies according to different parameter of the informants In English speaking countries, the younger more negative politeness oriented than the older Furthermore, the higher proportion of NPS usage is seen in the female‟s utterances than the male in Vietnamese there is hardly any difference in the use of NPS in term of age 42 Similarly, the proportion of NPS used by the male and female is appropriately the same It is obvious that the data and classification about politeness strategies highlight the importance of applying positive and negative politeness in communication as well as in cross cultural communication for teacher and students of English In order to teach and study English efficiently it is advise to employ politeness strategy appropriately in certain purpose situations Some samples, exercises and activities that are introduced in conclusion part may help teachers and students to practice effectively politeness strategies To sum up, politeness is really vital in teacher and learning English in general In order to use politeness successfully to study English well both teachers and learners must have knowledge about the English speaking cultures In comparison with this Vietnamese students can understand more deeply about their native Eastern culture and avoid the possible miscommunication III.2 Suggestion for further study This study is only a partial investigation into the politeness strategies in suggesting in English and Vietnamese so there are still some important issues that remained unanswered such as “ non – verbal in suggesting” etc… Particularly it would be useful for English teaching and learning if the future research investigate on “ the use of positive and negative politeness strategies of English and Vietnamese people in daily communication” 43 References In English Austin,J.L (1962) How to things with words New York: Oxford University Press Bach, K and Harnish, R (1984) Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts England: The MIT Press Berko R M et al, (1989) Communicating, Houghton Mifflin Comapany, Boston Blum-Kulka, S (1987) Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or Different? Journal of Pragmatics, ii, 131-14-6 Blum-Kulka, J House, & G Kasper (Eds.) (1989) Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corperation Brown, P and Levinson, S (1990) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage Cambridge University Press Crystal, D (1992) An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages England: Blackwell Crystal, D (1996) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language USA: Cambridge University Press Delahunty, G P and Garvey, J J (1994) Language, Grammar, and Communication McGraw-Hill Ini Ellis, C (1997) Culture Shock! Vietnam Times Editions PTE Ltd Green, G M (1989) Pragmatics and natural language understanding some English –Vietnamese Cross-cultural 44 Gillham, B (2000) Developing a questionnaire Continuum London and New York Holliday, A et al (2004), Intercultural Communication, Routledge Hybels, S et al , (1992), Communicating Effectively, McGraw-ill, Inc Jackson, H and Stockwell, P (1996) An Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language UK: Stanley Thrones (Publisher), Ltd Kramsch, C 1998), Language and Culture, Oxford: OUP Lado, R, (1957) Linguistics across cultures The University of Michigan Press Lustig, M W., et al., (1996) Intercultural Competence HarperCollins College Publishers Yule,G (1996) Pragmatics Oxford OUP In Vietnamese Nguyễn Hoà (2003) Phân tích diễn ngôn- Một số vấn đề lý luận ph-ơng pháp NXB Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội Nguyn Vn (2004) Tìm hiểu mối liên hệ Ngôn ngữ-Văn hoá., Nhà xut bn i hc Quc gia Hà Ni Nguyễn (Văn) Quang (1999) Một số kh¸c biƯt giao tiÕp lêi nãi ViƯt- Mü c¸ch thức khen tiếp nhận lời khen Luận án Tiến sĩ ĐHKH-XHNV ĐHQG Hà Nội Nguyn Quang (2002) Giao tip giao tip giao hoá, Nhà xut bn i học Quốc gia Hµ Nội Nguyễn Quang (2004) Một số giao tip ni hoá văn giao hoá Nhµ xuất Đại học quốc gia Hµ Nội 45 Nguyễn Quang (2004) Có ®iĨn dơng häc Anh - ViƯt Nhà xut bn Từ Điển Bách Khoa Hà Ni Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2002) Dụng học Việt ngữ Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội 46 Survey Questionnaires This survey questionnaire is designed for my thesis on “ The use of politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese” Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated You can be confident that you will not be identified under any circumstances Thank you very much General information: put a tick where appropriate: a) Your age: a) Below 20 b) 35 – 50 c) 20 – 35 d) Above 50 2.Your gender: a Male b Female Your occupation: I PART List the following factors affecting you choice of making suggestions ( directness/ indirectness/ formality/ informality) in the sequence of importance from (most) to ( least) : - The position of the addressee ( superior/ inferior to you) - The relationship between you and addressee - The topic ( sensitive matters, a taboo…) - The addressee‟s personality ( extroverted/introverted…) - Your psychological mood - Other factor(s)……………………………………………… PART Your close friend wants to buy a new cell phone What would you say to suggest her/ him to buy a product of a particular brand, e.g Apple, Samsung, Sony etc ( please write down your specific utterances, for example, If I were you, I would….) …………………………………………………………………………… … …………………………………………………………………………… II Your boss wants to go on a holiday, but doesn‟t know where to go What would you say to suggest her/ him to go China, or Italy ( please write down your specific utterances, for example, If I were you, I would…) ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… Your business partner wants to hold a party at a restaurant, but doesn‟t know a good restaurant What would you say to suggest her/ him to hold at Benare restaurant, Shushi – hiro restaurant or Fat Duck restaurant ( Please write down your specific utterantces, for example, If I were you, I would…) ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… Your brother is ill, he wants to go to a good doctor What would you say to suggest her/ him ( Please write down your specific utterances, for example, If I were you, I would…) Your nodding acquaintance wants to buy an English book to study What would you say to suggest her/him ( please write down your specific utterances, for example, If I were you, I would…) ………………………………………………………………………………… Thank you very much for your co - operations III Phiếu điều tra Phiếu dùng để phục vụ cho việc nghiên cứu đề tài “ sử dụng chiến lược lich đưa lời gợi ý tiếng Anh tiếng Việt” kết qủa phiếu điều tra sử dụng phần phân tích luận văn Q vị tin tưởng chúng tơi khơng nêu danh tính q vị trường hợp Xin cảm ơn Thông tin cá nhân: quý vị đánh dấu (3) vào câu trả lời quý vị 1.Tuổi: a Dưới 20 b 35 – 50 c 20 – 35 d Trên 50 2.Giới tính: a Nam b Nữ Nghề nghiệp: IV Phần Quý vị xếp yếu tố ảnh hưởng đên lựa chọn cách gợi ý quý vị ( trực tiếp / gián tiếp/ khách sáo/ thân mật) theo thứ tự từ đến theo mức độ quan trọng : - Địa vị người nghe so với quý vị - Quan hệ người nghe quý vị - Vấn đề gợi ý - Tính cách người nghe - Trạng thái tâm lý quý vị - Yếu tố khác Phần Quý vị nói để gợi ý cho người nghe trường hợp sau: Một người bạn thân quý vị muốn mua điện thoại di động ………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………… 2.Cấp quý vị muốn du lịch, chưa biết đâu ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… V Đối tác kinh doanh quý vị muốn tổ chức bữa tiệc nhà hàng nhà hàng tốt ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… Em trai quý vị bị ốm muốn khám bác sĩ giỏi, bác sĩ Một người quý vị quen muốn mua sách tiếng Anh để học ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………… Xin chân thành cảm ơn VI ... People often have difficulties in making appropriate suggesting in another language This leads the author to the research into “ The use of politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and. .. and Vietnamese? ?? to find out the similarities and differences in making suggestion in Vietnamese and English II Aims of the study The aims of the study are: - To investigate ways of suggesting in. .. light of the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson The paper is aimed to investigate the English – Vietnamese cross – cultural interaction in making suggestion in both languages English and Vietnamese