An investigation into some types of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversation

An investigation into some types of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversation

Part A: IntroductionI Rationale

In order to become competent in a foreign language, it is important for languagelearners not only to acquire new vocabularies and a new set of phonological and syntacticrules but also to learn what Wilson (1986) calls the rules of speaking: the patterns ofsociolinguistic behavior of the target language The rules of speaking involve us in knowingwhen and how it is suitable to open a conversation, what topics are appropriate to particularspeech events, how speech acts are to be given and interpreted In many cases, thisinterpretation goes beyond what the language learners might intend to convey and includes

assessments such as “polite” and “impolite”

In Vietnam, as the economy grows and international business develops, Englishproficiency becomes a master tool for young people to get a job They encounter foreignersin everyday settings where communication is necessary In the modern society, the need forcommunication is increasing, especially in the process of globalization, when communicationspreads beyond the boundary of a country During the last decades, linguistic researchershave broadened their focus of their interests from the development of grammaticalcompetence to other areas of target language development, such as discourse and pragmaticcompetence, common speech routines, for example, requests, apologies, complaints,compliments, refusals, and the like have been most frequently studied in cross-cultural andinterlanguage pragmatics According to Tsui (1994), there seems to be little empiricalresearch that has been conducted in responses to questions For a long time, question-response has been considered one of the most basic structures of conversation (Schegloff,

1974) but as Tsui (1994; p 160) points out: “responses have been given little attention in thespeech acts literature Most of the acts characterized and listed in the various taxonomiesare illocutionary acts which are often done by making the function of utterance in discourse,and as many responding acts do not have a corresponding responding performative verb,this kind of analysis inevitably neglects responses”

A characterization of utterances (based on observation of real-life discourse) is notlikely to neglect the importance of responses Let’s consider an example illustrated by Tsui(1994)

A: What’s the time?B: (a) Eleven

(b) Time for coffee

(c) I haven t got a watch, sorry’

(d) How hold I know(e) Ask Jack

(f) You know bloody well what time it is(g) Why do you ask?

(h) What did you say?(i) What do you mean?

Various possible responses from (a) to (i) shows us the complicated relationshipbetween question and a proper answer For the same question, the speaker A may be replied

in different ways with different intentions by the addressee Obviously, a response can be aproper answer, an indirect or implicit reply, an evasive answer, a refusal or denial, an outrightlie or even a challenge to the speaker’s questioning act Moreover, the question-answerexchange cannot always be a simple relationship in the actual communicative process It isthe addressee’s response that may establish, deepen and maintain the conversation, developthe intimacy among interlocutors, or interrupt the interactional process and even badlychange the participants’ role, for example, from friends to enemies There is no doubt that theaddressee’s responses depend on so many social factors: the speaker’s intent; the hearer’sperception of that intent, the various fits between actual and perceived intents, concurrentgestures, facial expressions, movements and some decisions as to how the two parties are todeal with this complex mix of factors (Wardhaugh,1997) A question which is now posed tous is how we can precisely understand and interpret the speaker’s intents to a question; whattypes of question responses are; what strategies the speaker uses to respond to questions; andwhat factors affect speaker’s responding behavior This is the reason that motivated ourchoice of the research to present a contrastive analysis of responses to questions in Englishand Vietnamese conversation Through the study, we hope to gain some insights whichhighlight both the similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese responsetypes, strategies used to respond to question by Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese.The study will also try to present difficulties as well as some practical recommendations forthe process of teaching and learning English.

II Aims of the study

In order to distinguish the different ways of replies and responses to questions as wellas different responding strategies in English and Vietnamese, this research aims at:

- describing and analyzing different types of responses to questions in English andVietnamese conversation

- investigating how verbal responses to question express cultural values by examiningthe relationship between gender, closeness of relationship and status of the interlocutors andthe kinds of responses to questions.

- putting forward some implications for teaching and learning the functions ofresponses to questions in everyday conversation

III Scope of the study

In this research, we mainly concentrate on some types of responses to

seeking-information questions The term, “question”, whose illocutionary focus is to elicit

information and knowledge, is defined as a functional or speech act label A question isasked when the questioner does not really know the answer and wants the addressee to

supply a piece of information (Tsui, 1994) As we mentioned the name of the study “Aninvestigation on some types of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnameseconversation” above, non-verbal responses such as silence, gestures, movements and the like

will be outside the scope of the study.

IV Research questions

1 What are the various types of verbal responses to questions in English andVietnamese conversations?

2 What are the differences and similarities in the choice of response patterns toquestions between native speakers of English and Vietnamese?

V Organization of the study

The study contains three parts Part A: Introduction establishes the rationale of thestudy, the aims, and the scope of the study; the research questions and organization of thestudy Part B: Contents consists of four chapters Chapter one points out comprehensiblereview of theoretical background on speech acts, discourse and conversation analysis, and itis concerned with literature review in which attention is paid to the classification of questionsand responses in the theoretical framework by Tsui (1994) Chapter two gives the method tocollect and analyze data The next is chapter three, in which we compare and contrast varioustypes of responses to questions and their pragmatic functions in English and Vietnameseconversations This chapter also analyses the data collected from linguistic books, articles,novels, tape records, find out some similarities and differences in verbal responses toquestions in English and Vietnamese conversation In the chapter four, we investigatesociolinguistic variables affecting to some typical types and strategies of responses toquestions in English and Vietnamese conversation Part C is the conclusion and someimplications for English learning and teaching.

PART B: development

CHAPTER 1: THEORITICAL BACKGROUND1 Conversational theory

1.1 Conversation

First and foremost, it is necessary to clarify the term “conversation” Conversation is

the primary means for human communication Many linguists have given different

definitions of what a conversation is, as follow: “conversation is the exchange of languagethrough language” (Hornby et al, 1963), or “conversation is a friendly, natural talk inwhich people exchange information, ideas, and emotion to one another” (Collins, 1987).Levinson (1983: 284) sees conversation as “familiar predominant kind of talk in which twoor more participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specificinstitutional settings like religious services, law courts, classroom, and the like” However,the definition of Finegan et.al (1994: 316) about the conversation may help us understand

“a conversation can be viewed as a series of speech acts- greetings,enquiries, congratulations, comment, invitations, requests…to accomplish the work of theseto accomplish the work of thesespeech acts, some organization is essential: we take turns to speak, answer questions, markthe beginning and end of conversation, and make corrections when they are needed ”

1.2 Conversation structure

When we are talking to each other we are not just pronouncing words By saying

something we are also doing something An utterance such as “Could you close the door?”

can function as a request for information or a warning depends on the circumstances Whenwe say something, we also expect the addressee to respond in one way or another, byanswering a question, by agreeing or disagreeing to a proposal, by acknowledging receipt of

information, and so on, in other words by being an active partner This is what interaction is

about The term “interaction” could actually apply to a very large number of quite different

social encounters For example, a teacher talking to a student in a classroom is one kind ofinteraction Others include a boss talking to his assistant at the workplace, a doctor to patientin a clinic The basic pattern “I speak – you speak – I speak – you speak” is whatlinguists call the structure of conversation The study of question responding acts inconversation is necessary There are two approaches to examine the conversation structure:conversation analysis and discourse analysis

everyday competencies that make the social interaction possible It examines oral dialogue todetermine the social and pragmatic principle whereby speakers and hearers negotiate,structure and interpret conversation The general strategy in conversation analysis is toexamine actual verbal interactions in order to bring the structural properties of talk Thedescriptive units that the conversation analysis has been using in describing the structure ofconversation are Turn, Adjacency pair and Sequence

 Turn

Conversation is a collaborative process A speaker does not say everything he or shewants to say in a single utterance Conversation progresses as a series of turns Turn is seenas everything one speaker says before another begins to speak Turn might be short or long.Some short turns consist of a single word like turn (1) and (4) in the following telephone

(36: 4)  Adjacency Pair

Schegloff (1974) observe that a conversation is a string of at least two turns which areproduced by different speakers and are related to each other in such a way they form a pairtype They call them an adjacency pair The adjacency pair always consists of a first part anda second part The utterance of a first part immediately creates an expectation of theutterance of a second part of the same pair There is a class of first pair parts which include

Questions, Greetings, Offers, Requests, etc For some first pair parts, the second pair part isreciprocal (Greeting – Greeting); for some there is only one appropriate second (Question– Answer), for some more than one (Complaint – Apology/Justification) For examples:

<2> First past Second Part

A: Hello B: Hi

A: What time is it? B: About eighty-thirty

A: Morning, Bob! Late again! B: I’m ever sorry I promise it won’t happen again In a second part pair, there is often a choice of two likely responses A request is mostlikely to be followed by either an acceptance of refusal An assessment is responded by anagreement or disagreement In such cases, one of the responses is termed the preferredresponse and the other the dispreferred response The preferred is the structurally expectednext act and the dispreferred is the structurally unexpected next act The following generalpatterns are presented by Levinson (1983, p 336)

Question Expected answer Unexpected answer or non-answer

Table 1 Correlation of content and format in adjacency pair

 Sequence

The structure of adjacency pair described so far has been linear: The first pair partfollowed by the second pair part However, there are also cases of embedding: one pairoccurring inside another Sometimes, either because the listener does not understand orbecause he does not want to commit himself until he knows more or because he is simplystalling, a next speaker produces not a second part but another first pair part Thisconversational fragment is referred to as insertion sequence Tapes of sequence are illustratedin <3> and <4>:

<3> Agent: Do you want the early flight? (=Q1) Client: What time does it arrive? (=Q2) Agent: Five-fifty (=A2) Client: Yeah – that’s great (=A1)

In this conversation, there is pair which consists of making an assessmentdisagreement with an insertion sequence of question answer pair which seems to function asa condition on the disagreement being provided.

1.2.2 Discourse analysis

Coulthard (1985) proposed a descriptive framework for analyzing conversation Theydiscovered a typical classroom exchange that is made up of three moves: an initiating move,a responding move, a follow-up move, as the following example:

<5> T: What does the next one mean?

You don’t often see that one round here, Miri Initiating move

However, Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) also pointed out that when a move consists of

more than one act, then one of the acts is the main act called head act which carries thediscourse function of the entire move It is obligation The rest are subsidiary acts called pre-head act if they precede the head act, or post-head act if they follow the head act They are

optional Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) illustrated the following conversation:<6> A: Why are you standing? Do sit down (1)

B: Thanks (Sit down) (2)

In this conversation, (1) consists of two acts: a question “Why are you standing?” andan invitation “Do sit down” Obviously, the main discourse function of move (1) is aninvitation (not a question) B’s response to the invitation is obligatory B’s response “Thanks”

can be understood as accepting the invitation A cannot challenge B for not responding to his

question If B says “Well, I ve been sitting all day’ ”, B’s response is not only an answer to thequestion, but rather a declination of the invitation A will not challenge B for having onlyresponded to the question but also not the invitation

However, the fact that an initiating move sets up the expectation of a respondingmove does not mean that the former will always be followed by the latter After theproduction of an initiation, the next speaker makes a systemic choice of whether, to supportor reject it The following is an illustration of how the system works in conversation form

(Tsui, 1994) Tsui supposes a tourist in Birmingham City Centre asks a passer-by “Can youtell me where New Street station is?” The followings are examples of the choices that are

available to the passer-by:

<7> Tourist: Can you tell me where New Street station is? Passer-by: (a) It’s just round the corner

(b) Do you know where the shopping centre is? (c) Sorry, I’m a stranger here.

(66: 20)

The illustration shows the passer-by the choice of supporting the utterance orrejecting it altogether If he chooses the former, then he has the choice of producing aresponse, which supplies the information (7a) Or he may produce another elicitation beforesupplying the information (7b) If the choice is to reject the utterance, he may reject theassumption that he is able to supply the requested information (7c).

1.3 Conversational principle

1.3.1 Co-operation and implicature

It has become clear from the studies of conversation that conversation proceeds on

the basis that participants are “reasonable” people who can be expected to deal decently with

one another In considering the suitability of participants’ moves in conversation, Grice(1975, p 45) formulates a rough general principle which participants will be expected to

observe as follows: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the state“

at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which youare engaged One might label this the cooperative principle ”

Grice has described four categories of special cases of this principle which he called“Maxims” These maxims can briefly be characterized in modified form below:

1) Maxim of Quantity: Be brief Make your contribution as informative as isrequired and no more.

2) Maxim of Quality: Be true Do not say what you believe to be false and do not saythat for which you lack adequate evidence.

3) Maxim of Relation: Be relevant.

4) Maxim of Manner: Be clear Avoid obscurity and ambiguity.

Grice points out that speaker do not always follow these maxims They may violate,exploit the maxims That is to say, they do not give as much of the relevant information as hecould, or he may offer utterances ambiguously, etc In such instances, the conversationmaxims provide a basis for the hearer to construct a sequence of inferences which make it

relevant or at least cooperative Grice called this process “implicature”.

Let us consider this example:

<8> A: What do you think of our new boss? B: Not very nice

A: Not nice? I think he’s great

This conversation is constructed on the basis of the observation that when aspeaker questions a proposition stated by the previous speaker, he is often signalingdisagreement by questioning is not relevant unless the speaker is implying disagreement withthat statement In brief, conversation is a cooperative activity Conversation makes use of thecooperative principle Speakers and hearers are guided by considerations of quantity, quantityrelation, manner and the process of implicature which allow them to figure out relationshipsbetween the said and the unsaid According to Thomas (1998) a speaker can say one thingand manage to mean something else or something more by exploiting the fact that he may bepresumed to be cooperative, in particular, to be speaking truthfully, informatively, relevantly,and otherwise, appropriately The listener relies on this presumption to make a contextuallydriven inference from what the speaker says to what the speaker means In other words, thehearer has to work out from what is said by appealing to the rules governing successfulconversational interaction Sometimes the speaker’s reply is untrue and uncooperative but infact this is the sort of sarcastic reply we encounter everyday and have no problem at all in

interpreting How do we interpret it? There are two ways of inferring the meaning by the

speaker: Observation to maxims and Non-observation to maxims

 Observation to maxims: observing maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation and

trade in commodity called face Face is defined as consisting of the freedom to act

unimpeded (Negative Face) and the satisfaction of having one’s value approved of (PositiveFace) To maintain face requires the cooperation of others’ actions and value systems, so

interactants trade face, paying face whenever they must perform a face-threatening act in

the course of accomplishing their goals Brown and Levinson (1987) argues that whenspeaker does an act, which he believes may threaten addressee’s face, speaker must calculatehow much he is risking in performing the face – threatening act Therefore, there are somefactors affecting to this calculation: speaker’s estimates of the social distance assumed toseparate speaker and hearer, the relative social power of speaker and hearer, and the extent towhich the act contemplated is considered to be an imposition in the culture of which speakerand hearer are members

2 Speech act theory

The theory of speech act was first discussed in Austin’s book entitled How to do thingswith words (1962) In this book, Austin assumes that language not only functions as stating

and describing things but also as performing acts He examples that an apology or a promiseconveys psychological or social practice and takes place at the right time when someoneapologizes or promises, not before the actual action He also modifies that many declarativesentences are defined as the doing or part of, the doing of a certain action although they donot only make any description, report, or statement.

Based on Austin’s work, Searle (1976; p.16) pointed out that “the unit of linguisticcommunication is not, as has generally been supposed, the symbol, word or sentence, butrather the production or issuance of the symbol or word or sentence in the performance ofthe speech act” This is only expresses information through words but also performs certain

functions such as promising, inviting, questing, wishing, etc, in everyday communication Inaddition, in everyday use of language, the act may occur either before or after the utterance isproduced An apology or an expression of congratulation belongs to the type of speech acts

taking place after the propositional act For example, in the utterance “I am sorry, I lost yourwatch”, the speaker expresses regret for a past act On the contrary, a promise or a request isuttered before the act actually occurs, as in “I ll lend you some money’ ” The action of lendingmoney is done after the speaker produces the utterance.

2.1 Classification of speech acts

In attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce utterance containinggrammatical structures and words, they perform action via those utterances For example, the

utterance (1) “You are so gentle” can be used to perform the act of complement, (2) “You arewelcome” serves as the acknowledgement of thanks, (3) “I am sorry for breaking yourglasses” is the act of apology Actions performed via these utterances are called speech acts.

According to Austin (1962), a speaker can perform three acts:

 Locutionary act: the act of saying something in the full sense of “say”

 Illocutionary act: the act performed in saying something

 Perlocutionary act: the act performed by or as a result of saying

For instance, in a response to A’s statement “That new James Bond is the best one”, Butters “Are you kidding?” to make a question This is known as illocutionary act However,

this utterance conveys the assumption that the hearer A will recognize it as a signal ofdisagreement This is generally known as perlocutionary act.

According to Searle (1976), speech acts are categorized into five types:

 Representatives (Assertives): commit the speaker to something being the casesuch as assertions, reports, conclusions, descriptions, etc

<8> I assert that Nicole’s a mole

 Directives: the speaker gets the hearer to do something This class includes order,request, challenge, invite, etc

<9> I beg you to convey the respectful compliments of myself and Mrs Veal. Commisieves: commit the speaker himself to some future action such as promise,

refusal, threat, swear, etc

<10>They are not rented less gloomy, I promise you

 Expressives: express feelings and attitudes about a state of affairs such asapology, compliment, thanks, etc

<11> I thank you for paying me the money

 Declaratives: change the world via utterance This includes many of those whichAustin first considered as performatives

<12> I now pronounce you husband and wife.

2.2 Felicity conditions

Felicity conditions are conditions to count an act as having the illocutionary act of onesort or another Austin (1962) distinguishes between three main categories on theconventional procedure and its effect with the appropriate speaker and circumstance, thecompletion and correctness of the procedure performance and the speaker’s desires in givingdirectives Accordingly, in Austin’s view, performatives can be assessed as felicityconditions are met.

Searle (1976) proposes the taxonomy of four kinds of conditions For a speech act to besuccessful (effective, acceptable) it must meet certain criteria (known as felicity conditions):

- Preparatory conditions: The right person and the right situation - Sincerity condition: You should mean what you say

- Essential conditions: What you say must be consistent with certain beliefs andbehaviors.

For example to offer a guest a drink at a party, you need to be the host (or otherwise havethe right to make the offer) and there needs to be some drink, you must really mean to givethe person a drink if they accept your offer, and if they accept you must get them a drink.Searle’s conditions on requests (H is the hearer and S in the speaker)

a) Propositional content: Future act A of H

b) Preparatory conditions: H is able to do A S be lives H is able to do A.

It is not obvious to both S and H that H will do A in the normal course of events ofhis own accord.

c) Sincerity: S wants H to do A

d) Essential condition: counts as an attempt to get H to do A

2.3 Direct and indirect speech acts

A different approach to distinguish types of speech acts can be made on the basis ofstructure and a function; we have a direct speech act When the syntactic form of anutterance does not match its apparent illocutionary force, we have an indirect speech act Forexample:

<13> It’s raining.

How nice you are!

A declarative <13> used to make a reprentative and an exclamatory used to make anexpressive are direct speech acts However, there are cases where speech acts are performedindirectly through the performance of another speech act as in <14> and <15>

<14> You’re standing in front of the TV.<15> A: I think George is a real nut case B: What do you mean a real nut case?

Utterance B in <15> has the form of an interrogative It is not typically used to ask aquestion, but to indicate an indirect disagreement

In fact, communicative problems involving the nontranslatability of the illocutionaryforce of an utterance are particularly noticeable in the use of indirect speech acts Accordingto Yule (1996), indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in

English than direct speech acts Hence, interlocutors should note that in order to be effectivein communication, they have to look at a bigger picture than just a single utteranceperforming a single speech act.

3 Literature Review of Questions and Responses

Quirk, R & Greenbeam, S (1987) propose that there are three major classes ofquestions according to the answer they expect They are: Yes-No question, Tag-question,Question Words Besides these, Lyons (1977) characterizes question as utterance withparticular illocutionary force The difference between a question and a statement is that theformer contains a feature of doubt; the speaker should not know the answer to his questions

Robert, D & Collins, C (1984) see questions as requests and directives They suggest

that the logic form of questions should be “I request that you tell me”, instead of “I ask you”.

Butt (2000) considers questions as a kind of directives on the grounds that a directive is aninstruction to perform something and questions are instructions to make verbal perform Forexample “Tell me the time.” is a directive to make a verbal performance.

However, Tsui (1994) and Lyons (1977) assert that questions are not kind of request.

They also support some examples to illustrate, such as “No” in response to Yes-No

questions:

<16> A: Is the door open?

B: No  answer to the question whereas “No” to <17> A: Open the door, please?

B: No  refusal to do what is requested (66: 80)

In the M.A thesis of linguistic: Comparison of structures of Vietnamese and EnglishQuestions, Tran Chi Mai (2000) propose two main kinds of Vietnamese questions They arealternative questions and non-alternative questions according to the purposes in the relationof responses According to Hoang Trong Phien (1980), questions are classified into sub-typesbasing on the features of questions and responses He asserts that the speaker mainly makes

questions because of “unobvious” things This also decides the responses.

 Non-alternative questions

This kind of questions is created in the hope that the hearer gives the responses In

Vietnamese, we often use interrogative pronouns, such as: ai (who), thế nào (How), đi đâu(where), bao giờ (when)…to accomplish the work of these

<18> - Ai đang ngoài vờn đấy? (Who is in the garden?) - Cháu đây, bà ạ (It’s me.)

<19> - Sao chị biết anh ấy không có tiền? (How do you know that he has money?) - Vì anh ấy trúng vé số (He has just won lottery.)

 Alternative questions

This kind of questions often appears some words, such as: có phải, hay…to accomplish the work of these the.

addressee often gives the response on the basis of the purposes of questions

<20> Ai đa nó đi học bây giờ, tôi hay cô?

<21> Anh ta là ngời tử tế hay không phải là ngời tử tế?

Through the literature, there are many linguists pay much attention to initiating acts:requesting, complimenting, complaining however, the studies of responses are lessmentioned Although we meet much difficult to find references to do our research, we try ourbest to give some types of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnameseconversations The followings are various patterns of responses to questions definedlinguistic researchers in English and Vietnamese.

Lakoff (1973) mentions two kinds of responses to questions: answers and replies.

According to Lakoff, a question like What s the time, please?“ ’ ” has the underlying structure,

“I request that you supply the information necessary for us to know what time it is” Let’s

consider the following example:<22>A: What’s the time?

(b) Time for coffee

(c) I haven t got a watch, sorry ’ responses (d) How hold I know

(e) Ask Jack

(f) You know bloody well what time it isreplies (g) Why do you ask?

(h) What did you say?

(i) What do you mean? (66: 160)

Utterance like those in (a) and (b) respond to the question and are considered to be“answer”, whereas utterances like those in (c) to (i) respond to the verb of questioning itselfand are considered to be “replies” Lakoff (1973) sees them as all appropriate responses,although some of them do not satisfy the speaker It is clear that every question is followedby a set of responses, but the responses are not the answers to the question For example:<23> A: Where’s Peter’s office?

B: (a) I don t know.’

(b) I can t tell you.’

(c) That s none of your business.’

(d) It s on the second floor.’

(e) It s over there.’ (37: 60)

Supporting Tsui’s ideas, Dik also illustrates the example above <25> He sees that allutterances (a) to (e) are responses, but the utterances (d) and (e) are answers

In the book “An Introduction to Discourse Analysis”, Coulthard (1985) proposes

every time a speaker asks a question, there is a set of underlying assumptions, all of whichmust be true if he is to receive the answer he seeks However, some of assumptionssometimes may not hold while the responses may consist of a challenge or a denial to theassumption Coulthard gives his examination about questions and responses in the novel“Othello”, and sees that there are eight assumptions of questioning and the eight

corresponding challenges and denials to the assumptions that: addressee is listening,

addressee hears the question, speaker questions at an appropriate time, addressee understands

the question, addressee accepts speaker and empowered to ask the question, addressee thinksthe speaker does not know the answer, address is willing to answer, addressee knows theanswer In Vietnamese, Le Anh Xuan (2000) studies positive and negative responding acts in

form of questions His studies are on the different types of indirect responses to seeking

information questions These indirect responses can be in form of a statement, a question, an

exclamation and a special pattern, such as, proverbs, idioms Le Anh Xuan (2000; p 127)also gives the results of the study as follow:

Table 2 Forms of indirect responses to questions

In an article entitled “Câu trả lời và câu đáp cho câu hỏi chính danh”, Le Dong

(1985) proposes different patterns of responding to question They are: direct and indirectresponses, refusals to answer, challenges to the presupposition of question, responses toimplicit meaning of the question and some special responses: misunderstandings or evasiveresponses

Classification of questions and responses in Tsui s model’

Tsui (1994) argues that it is the communicative choice or function, which seeks notonly information but also confirmation, agreement, repetition or classification Unlike Quirkand Greenbaum’s (1987) classification of questions which seeks affirmative, negative orinformation, Tsui gives some examples to illustrate as follow:

- Has the boat left already?  seeking confirmation

- Are you still here? (the addressee is working in the office)  seeking information notyes or no confirmation

- It’s lovely day, isn’t it?  seeking agreement not a confirmation

- What did you say?  seeking the repetition

- What do you mean?  seeking the clarification (66: 63)

According to Tsui (1994), questions are different from requests The utterances referred

to as Questions elicit or prospect a very different response from requests “A question elicitsan obligatory verbal response (or nonverbal surrogate) and the interaction between thespeaker and the addressee is completed entirely at the verbal level” Besides, Tsui also

suggests that a request elicit an obligatory non-verbal response with an accompanying verbalresponse, and the interaction is complete at the non-verbal level.

Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) introduce the term “elicitation” to describe utterances

in the classroom, which elicit verbal responses “An elicitation is an act the function of whichis to request a linguistic response- linguistic, although the response may be a non-verbalsurrogate such as a nod or raised hand” Tsui (1994) characterizes questions as

“elicitations” to avoid the confusion ambiguity with requests or directives Tsui (1994) also

gives six subclasses of elicitation: Initiating  Elicitations information/ confirmation/agreement/ commitment/ repetition/ clarification

In characterizing responding acts, Tsui (1994) asserts that not any move following aninitiating move is a responding move An initiation can be followed by a move, which istotally unrelated The question is how do we decide whether a related move is a respondingmove? Let’s consider the examples below:

<1> A: What’s the time?B: (a) Eleven

(b) Time for coffee

(c) I haven t got a watch, sorry’

(d) How hold I know(e) Ask Jack

(f) You know bloody well what time it is(g) Why do you ask?

(h) What did you say?

(i) What do you mean? (66: 80)

<2> A: Where’s Peter’s office?

B: (a) I don t know.’

(b) I can t tell you.’

(c) That s none of your business.’

(d) It s on the second floor.’

(e) It s over there’ (37: 60)

We can see that B’s utterances are all related to A’s initiating move However, allthese utterances are responding moves? To know the answer of the question, we shouldconsider the illocutionary intent and pragmatic presuppositions (refer to the backgroundbelief of the speaker; propositions that the speaker takes for granted to be true in making theutterance) of A’s elicitation.

The illocutionary intent for A’s elicitation in the examples above is to get B toprovide a piece of information (a) and (b) in <1> and (d) and (e) in <2> fulfill theillocutionary intent of A’s elicitation They provide the information that A is seeking.Although (b) in <1> is given indirectly, A can know the answer on the basis of his commonknowledge about the world (The time for coffee is often around eleven o’clock in themorning) According to Tsui (1994), (a) and (b) in <1> and (d) and (e) in <2> are

responding moves, the other utterances are challenging moves because they do not provide

the information that A is seeking and do not fulfill the illocutionary intent of A’s elicitation.Tsui (1994) argues that any move, which maintain the framework set up by precedinginitiating move is a supporting move A supporting move facilitates the progress of the topicpresented in the preceding utterance Any more breaks up the discourse framework and holds

up the progress of the topic is a challenging move Take the consideration of the following

example:

A: What’s the time?

B: (c) I haven t got a watch, sorry’

(d) How hold I know

(e) Ask Jack

(f) Why do you ask?(g) What did you say?(h) What do you mean?

B makes the utterance like (c) in order to politely provide a reason for not giving theinformation, while (d) does it in an aggressive way The utterance (e) challenges thepresupposition that the addressee has information or the addressee is willing to supply theinformation In (f) the presupposition that the addressee has the need to ask for theinformation is challenged, whereas utterances (g) and (h) challenge the presupposition thatthe speaker can hear and understand what has been said.

We have mentioned the literature review of questions and responses in English andVietnamese In the study, we try to bring the light of different responses in different contextsin English and Vietnamese In this chapter, we provide theoretical background, that is thecriteria for classification of responses to questions in English and Vietnamese, that is reallypractical for making an in-depth study in the next chapters.

2 Data collection Instruments

As stated in the previous sections, our purpose is to examine the types of verbalresponses to questions in English and Vietnamese, how Vietnamese speakers differ fromEnglish native speakers in their choice of response types to questions

In this study, data collection instruments will include two main questionnaires First,The Discourse Completion Task (DCT) was designed to elicit some types of questionresponses from the set of English Native Speakers in English Second, the Vietnamesetranslated version of the DCT questionnaire was used to collect some types of questionresponses from the set of Vietnamese Speakers in Vietnamese.

 Some issues in choosing methods to collect data

In an attempt to answer these questions, a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) wasused Arguments for the choice of this data collection will be discussed in the followingsection

Several methods have been used in researching speech acts Ethnographic methodshave been used to collect naturally occurring question responses (or whatever types of speechevents in being studied), which are observed or recorded, along with information about thesex, age, status, situation, culture, relationship of the interactants The advantage of thismethod is that it can reveal the linguistic strategies used in many contexts in a givenlanguage and culture However, this method seems to be infeasible in Vietnam becauseVietnamese people do not want to be recorded for any reasons This method also wastes timeand money in recording and transcription of taped interactions Multiple choice methods, inwhich a series of questions is prepared with answers, subjects are asked to choose the answerthey think is most appropriate A possible advantage of this method is that it makes the job ofthe subjects easier and enables the researchers to get information from a large number of thesubjects in a short time However, it does not allow the subjects to provide as manypossibilities as in the case of open-ended questions, as the responses given depend on thenumber of possibilities anticipated in the design of the questionnaire In a study of linguisticforms of a speech act, therefore, this method would limit the variety of the informationprovided

One method that seems to overcome some of the disadvantage of the methodsmentioned above is the Discourse Completion Task (DCT) (Cohen 1996 – quoted in Tam,2005, p.55) In the DCT, which is used in this study, the discourse is structured so that part ofit is left open and part closed A space is provides for the subjects to supply the speech actsunder investigation, but the response is provided in order to cue the respondent as to theappropriate nature of the speech act realization The DCT allows to elicitation of data from alarge sample of subjects relatively easily, using the same situations where contextualvariables can be controlled It is a good way to gain insight into social factors that are likelyto affect speech and performance Cohen (1995, p.25) concedes that “Discourse CompletionTest are effective means of gathering a large amount of data quickly, creating an initialclassification of semantic formulas and ascertaining the structures of speech acts underconsideration.” However, a major difficulty in using a DCT for research of this kind is thatthe researcher designing the questionnaire and the subjects providing responses to thesituations may perceive the social factors of the context differently Moreover, a difficultywhen using a written task for collection of spoken language is that some certain kinds ofinformation such as, non-verbal features of oral –interaction cannot be recorded

In brief, every method has its advantages and disadvantages In this study, in order tocollect sufficient data within the time and resource constrain available, and as discussed inthe previous sections, our purpose is to understand some types of verbal responses toquestions in English and Vietnamese conversations, not non-verbal responses, we will useDCT to collect data

 The content of the questionnaire

The situations in the questionnaire were designed to reflect real life situations.Additional information about the subjects’ personal backgrounds was obtained by a sectionat the front page of each questionnaire The questionnaires are in English and in Vietnamese.The English Native Speakers were asked to answer the questions in English and theVietnamese Speakers were asked to answer the questions in Vietnamese The questionnairewas intended to elicit response forms from subjects It consists of eight situations

To obtain the data for the study, observation was employed in order to bolster theresults from the questionnaire, as well as to clarify and test the validity of the obtainedinformation Observation was paid on some types of English and Vietnamese questionresponses in daily-life situations, books, articles, novels, stories, authentic listeningmaterials.

3 The selection of subjects

The process of collecting data lasted for nearly five months with the help of myfriends who works in offices and in universities where there occur native and non nativespeaker interactions Data was collected from two groups of participants: one group of theEnglish participants who come from Australia, America, and England; another group consistof Vietnamese people All of them are working in RMIT University and AmericanInternational College (AIC), World Bank Office of Road Project Management Unit 2(RPMU2) The subjects in both groups are from 25 plus to below 50 years old; have had highlevels of education All subjects of the study are classified into two groups: Native Speakersof English (NSE) and Native Speakers of Vietnamese (NSV)

The characteristics of each group are listed in the following table:

Nationality English, American, Australian Vietnamese

Language English as native language English as a foreign language

14 (50%) (7 males and 7females)

14 (50%) (7 males and 7 females)

Occupation Teachers: 7 (25%)Staff: 4 (14.3%)Manager: 1 (3.6%)Assistant: 2 (7.1%)

Teachers: 9 (32.1%)Staff: 3 (10.7%)Manager: 1 (3.6%)Assistant: 1 (3.6%)

Table 3 Summary of characteristics of subjects

4 Data collection procedure

The two questionnaires were conducted on 63 Vietnamese subjects and on 47 Englishones Two groups of subjects were asked to write what they would say in such a situation.After 3 months, 39 Vietnamese questionnaires and 21 English questionnaires were returned.However, only 14 English questionnaires and 16 Vietnamese questionnaires satisfactorilycomply with the purpose of the study

The purpose of the questionnaire was to elicit how the English and the Vietnamesesubjects express their responses to questions and how the two groups of subject differ inchoosing question response forms

The data collected was considered as a source to gain some significant insights inpragmatic strategies of responding acts, the situations are designed to investigate socio-

cultural factors including the decision of using different types of question responses inEnglish and Vietnamese

5 Data analysis

As mentioned in the previous parts, we collected various kinds of question responsesin English and Vietnamese, bilingual samples, on the basis of their communicative meaning;the data was classified into groups on the basis of the presented forms for the realization ofresponses to questions in each language Contrastive analysis was employed so that thesimilarities and the differences in responses to questions in English and Vietnamese werefound out on the foundations of the findings in each language The number of overlaps byboth native speakers and non native speakers was codified, counted and compared

The data was also analyzed according to the pragmatic function of questionresponses It followed the discourse frame work proposed by Tsui (1994) The instrumentsfor an analysis of the study are adopted in Tsui’s Model: Responding Move; ChallengingMove; Responses and Challenges According to Tsui (1994), the use of some terms“question”, “answer” (response) and “challenge” (reaction) is understood as follows:

Question (Q): any eliciting of a response regardless of grammatical form Answer (A): any response that fulfills the expectation of the question.

Challenge(C): any response that modifies (clarifies; expands) or rates (negatively) a

previous statement (question; answer; or another reaction)

Fussell & Krauss (2002; p.41) gives an example of a information-seeking question andits response as follows:

A: Who is president of the United States? (Q)

In this study, we try to isolate some types of responses to questions which havethe illocutionary forces of information and agreement seeking, clarification or confirmationchecking.

CHAPTER 3: SOME TYPES OF VERBAL RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS INENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONS

This chapter is going to present, compare and analyze some various patterns fromboth English and Vietnamese conversations After contrasting samples from English andVietnamese textbooks, course books, novels, stories, daily conversations, newspapers Wetry to find out some different types of question responses in English and Vietnamese

Tsui (1994), Searl (1976), Lakoff (1973) assert that any utterances which director indirect, fulfill the illocutionary intent of question’s elicitations are replies On the otherhand, those which do not provide information, disconfirm the speaker’s assumption, disagreewith the speaker’s goal; fail to repeat or clarify what being said before are realized aschallenges

In this chapter, we classify some types of question responses according to Tsui’sModel (1994) Tsui (1994; p.162) proposes different patterns of responses to questions:responses can be realized directly or indirectly as answers or replies to questions Thesekinds of responses patterns fulfill the speaker’s goal directly or indirectly The other

responses are called challenges that do not provide what the speaker seeks; the challengescan be a refusal or an evasion They do not fulfill the illocutionary intent of speaker’selicitation

1 Replies to questions

As mentioned above, responses can be realized directly or indirectly as answersor replies to questions In this section, we draw out two types of responses: direct and indirectresponses This type of response fulfills the speaker’s goal directly In verbal interaction, anyspeaker who poses a question is assumed to be answered in a cooperative, sincere way Thespeaker hopes the addressee to provide the expected information without misleading orconfusing

1.1 Direct responses

We randomly choose 117 samples of English responses and 117 samples ofVietnamese responses, of which 68.3% in English and 49% in Vietnamese are direct replies.Based on the samples collected, we realized some types of direct responses as follows:

1.1.1 Supplying the missing information

<1> Q: Is there a gym here?

A: Yes, Madam, it’s on the third floor (60: 51)<2> Q: The Ham sandwich How much is that?

<3> Q: And how long have you been married?

A: Oh, for twenty-two years now (48: 234)<4> Q: Who was your first girl friend?

A: Well, that’s easy It was Emma (60: 122)Similarly, in Vietnamese, the direct responses also give a proper answer.

<5> Q: Ch¸u mÊy tuæi råi?

English conversation <8> Q: Did he go to the concert?

<9> Q: Did she feel lonely?

Vietnamese conversation:

1.1.3 Confirming the assumption of Q s question’

According to Brazil (1995) & Quick et all (1987), illocutionary intent of elicit

confirmation is that the speaker believes the expressed proposition is true, but some certainthings in the context lead him to doubt his belief The addressee is able to confirm thespeaker’s assumption is true.

English conversation:

<13> Q: Don’t you think Marian looks better that she’s ever looked? A: That’s exactly what I am thinking (67: 227) <14> Q: What? Your wife is Emma?

<15> Q: That’s the eleventh, isn’t it?

1.1.4 Repeating or clarifying Q s assumption ’ <19> A: I’d like anything to drink.

Q: Anything to drink? What is “anything to drink”?

<20> Q: How do you stay so slim?

A: I follow the food combining rules Q: Food combining? What’s that?

A: Well, for example, I never eat protein and carbohydrate together (50: 120) <21> Q: Cô lên cầu Đá Xanh có việc gì?

A: Em về trên đơn vị có chút việc.

Q: Việc gì? Hay là cô lên thăm chồng hay thăm ngời yêu?

<22> Q: Anh Tánh hả? Thiệt anh Tánh hả?A: Tánh đây Tao đây.

Q: Mình diệt nó hết rôì hả anh?

A: ờ diệt hết rồi, trận đánh xong rồi (25: 116)

The above samples collected reveal the significant similarities of direct responsepatterns to questions in English and Vietnamese conversations In English, the expressions,

such as “Right”; “That s right’ ”; Sure“ ”; “Yes, sure”; “Exactly”, “Me too” are regularly usedin direct responses while in Vietnamese, we often use some direct response patterns as:

“V©ng”; §óng“ ”; “ChÝnh x¸c”; “Ph¶i”; “õ”; “Ch¾c ch¾n” and so on

In any verbal English and Vietnamese conversations, a speaker who poses aquestion is assumed to be answered in a cooperative, sincere and information way Normalconversation proceeds so smoothly because we cooperate in them According to Grice(1975), we are able to converse with one another because we recognize common goals inconversation and specific ways of achieve these goals Grice (1975) also states the overridingprinciple in conversation is the cooperative principle that is developed by maxims (Quantity;Quality; Relation; Manner) However, the speakers do not always follow these maxims.When a speaker gives responses to questions, (s)/he can make the observance of the maximsor non-observance of the maxims as the following examples:

<23> Husband: Where are the car keys?

Wife: They’re on the table in the hall (61: 64)

The wife has answered clearly (Manner), truthfully (Quality), has just given theright amount of information (Quantity), has directly addressed her husband’s goal in askingthe question (Relation) She has said precisely what she meant, no more or no less and hasgenerated no implicature (i.e there is no distinction to be made here between what she saysand what she means; there is no additional level of meaning)

Grice (1975) acknowledges that people may fail to observe a maxim because theyare incapable for speaking clearly or because they deliberately choose to lie In addition, wemay sometimes either violate or ignore these maxims on certain occasions, either to misleador to be uncooperative We may use no or more maxims so as to implicate something

In this study, we present some types of indirect responses to questions in English

and Vietnamese conversations based on “implicature” that accounts for what a speaker can

imply, suggest, or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says.

1.2 Indirect responses

As Thomas (1998) proposes, in stead of repetitively saying “Yes”/ “No” or

supply the information blatantly, a variety of reasons has been put forward for the universaluse of indirectness An utterance with indirect acts always has multiple meanings withinterpretation of the indirect acts based on the direct act and the context They require certainextent of mutual knowledge between participants Most of the indirect acts are used

purposefully, but mostly for politeness/ regard of “face” Grice (1975) states that in direct

speech act the speakers say what s/he means, while in indirect speech acts the speaker meansmore than s/he says, i.e the speaker performs one illocutionary act implicitly by wayperforming another illocutionary act explicitly As discussed above, in this section, we

present some indirect response patterns to questions on the basis of “implcature” When a

speaker blatantly fails to observe a maxim, not with any intention of deceiving or misleading,but because the speaker wishes to prompt the hearer to look for a meaning which is different