Hedging strategies manifested in conversations in film sweet home alabama = chiến lược rào đón thể hiện qua lời hội thoại trong phim ngôi nhà hạnh phúc ở alabama

Part A. Introduction 1. Rationale It is difficult to see adequately the functions of language, because it is so deeply rooted in the whole of human behaviour. Language is not only communicative mean, but also an efficient mean for exchanging culture and promoting the development of human society in many fields. Kramsch ( 1998:3) states that language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives. Moreover, from the view of personal aspect, language of an individual person reflects his or her knowledge and characteristic. Thus, communicative competence [skills of using and choosing language] plays an important part in daily life conversation and it involves 3 different aspects: linguistic knowledge, interactional skill and cultural knowledge as Saville - Troike (1986:25) proposed ( cited in Le Thi Thuy Ha 2003- M.A thesis). "Communication is only successful when a speaker is aware of what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately" (Nguyen Quoc Sinh 2004 - M.A Thesis). Since language expresses, embodies, and symbolizes cultural reality, therefore, learning a language is closely related to the acquisition of cultural knowledge. In other words, "language and culture are inseparable or inter-dependent" (Nguyen Quoc Sinh, ibid.). However, many Vietnamese learners of English (6even they are teachers) suppose that a good command of a foreign language or success in foreign language learning bases on mastering grammar rules and accumulating as much vocabulary as possible. As a result, they definitely fail in real communication using English. Hence, Vietnamese learners of English must know how to use English under the norms of English-speaking culture. Hedges (or hedging use), considered to be the devices of politeness, is an important factor that determines the success in choosing language from the point of view of culture or society as well as from the point of view of linguistics. According to Janet Homes (1995:75), "Hedges attenuate or reduce the strength of the utterance. They damp down its force or intensity or directness". Since, it is at least a device used to avoid being conflicts in conversation, therefore studying hedges in more detail will be useful for English teaching and learning. What is more, to some extent, English and Vietnamese have some similarities of using hedges, and there are also have some differences of culture and languages, of course. It is easy to recognize that hedges are manifested in all kinds of convrsations with many relationships of participants since hedges are devices of politeness. The manifestation of hedges in the everyday conversation is quite common, and it has been largely discussed so far by many linguists, and methodologists, etc. Yet, there is, to my knowledge, no one has studied this aspect from films which are regarded as being the vehicles used to reflect the society and culture. Language in films is not only similar, but also familiar with conversation in real life. Thus, studying hedges via films is factual and useful to all users of English. For all above reasons, we choose "Hedging Strategies Manifested in Conversations in Film "Sweet Home Alabama". 2. Aims of the study The aims of this thesis are: - To give an overview understanding on Hedges, and its uses - hedging. Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 2 - To raise the importance of Hedges in human communication. - To study how Hedges are manifested in conversation in film "Sweet Home". - To provide language teachers and learners of English with an insight into Hedges for teaching and learning. 3. Scope of the study - Politeness and hedges are affected and controlled by many factors including paralinguistic ( such as tone, loudness, pitch, intonation, etc.) and non-verbal factors ( facial expression, eye-contact, gestures, etc.). However, this study only deals with verbal aspects with the use of hedges via spoken words. - The data analysis is based on utterances in conversation between characters in the film "Sweet Home Alabama" - a modern film of Touchstone Picture, directed by George Lance. It tells the story of a girl whose name is Melonie, leaving her husband to come to a big city with the wish that she will be more successful in her career as a fashion designer. In New York, she meet Andrew, whose mother is the Mayer of the city , and they fall in love with each other. In order to get married to Andrew, Melonie comes back home in a small town-Alabama- to divorce her husband. She does not know that her husband now is famous and successful. After persuading her husband to sign in the bill of divorce paper, she comes back to New York to hold the wedding. When the wedding is going on, the lawyer enters to notice that the divorce paper is not legal, because Melonie has not signed. Then, Melonie decides to come back Alabama, where her husband is waiting. 4. Methods of the study - Revision of local and foreign relevant theoretical works. - Quantitative combined with qualitative method. Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 3 5. Design of the study The thesis is divided into 3 main parts: Part A: Introduction This part refers to the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study. Part B: Development This part is divided into 3 chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background Chapter 2: Hedging strategies manifested in conversations in the film " Sweet Home Alabama". Part C: Conclusion This part summarizes the main results of the study. It also offers some implications to teaching English communicatively as well as some suggestions for further works. Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 4 Part B: Development Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1. Communicative competence Communicative competence is a concept introduced by Dell Hymes and discussed and redefined by many authors. Hymes' original idea was that speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able to communicate effectively in a language using, they also need to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes. Hymes (1972) also proposes that a speaker's communicative competence should be the object of linguistic inquiry (cited in Carl James 1980:100). A person needs to know when to speak, when to not, what to talk about with whom, where and in what manner (Hymes, ibid.). After Hymes, many others works related to this sub- field. According to a 1980 paper by Canale and Swain "which has become canonical in applied linguistics", communicative competence consists of 4 components: Linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competence. They can be summarized as follows: 1. Linguistic competence is knowing how to use the grammar [words and rules], syntax and vocabulary of a language. This competence requires the users know what words they use? How they put them into phrases and sentences? Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 5 2. Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately, give the setting, the topic and the relationships among people communicating. This competence asks: which words and phrases fit this setting and this topic? How can the speakers express a specific attitude (courtesy, authority, friendliness, respect, etc.) when they need to? How do they know what attitude another person is expressing? 3. Discourse competence is knowing how to interpret the larger context and how to construct longer stretches of language so that the parts make up a coherent whole [cohesion and coherent]. This competence asks: How are words, phrases and sentences put together to create conversations, speeches, email, messages, newspaper articles? Strategic competence is knowing how to recognize and repair communication breakdowns, how to work around gaps in one's knowledge of the language, and how to learn more about the language and in the context. Strategic competence asks : How do speakers know when they have misunderstood or when someone misunderstood them? What do they say then? How can they express their ideas if they do not know the name of something or the right verb form to use? Richards et al. (1985:49, in Nguyen Quoc Sinh, ibid.) propose a definition of communicative competence as "the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also know when and where to use these sentences and to whom." Gumperz (1972:205, cf. Wardhaugh 1986:248) give the understanding of communicative competence as " . describes his ability to select, from the totality of grammatically correct expressions available to him, forms which appropriately reflect the social norms governing behaviour in specific encounters." In conclusion, communicative competence is a linguistic term for the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language to form correct utterances, Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 6 but also to know when to use these utterances appropriately. Therefore, it is, as "something multi-faceted and hidden in that it provides repertoires of knowledge and skills necessary to successful communication and avoid communication breakdowns in different situations or culture-specific context", very important to any learners of language, especially foreign learners when making conversation with native speakers. 1.2. Speech acts J. L. Austin was the originator of the term "Speech Acts", and in his William James Lectures at Havard University in 1955, subsequently published as How to Do Things with Words, he developed the first systematic theory of utterances as human action. In this famous paper, Austin studied what kinds of things people do when they speak, how they do them and how their acts will be successful or failed. He considered that when people speak, they do something, and therefore, words are regarded as actions. According to him, most utterances have no truth-condition and they are neither statements nor questions but they are only actions. One can apologize by saying "I apologize," promise by saying "I promise," and thank someone by saying "Thank you." These are examples of explicit performative utterances, statements in form but not in fact. Or so thought Austin (1962) when he contrasted them with constatives. Performatives are utterances whereby we make explicit what we are doing. Austin challenged the common philosophical assumption (or at least pretense) that indicative sentences are necessarily devices for making statements. He maintained that, for example, an explicit promise is not, and does not involve, the statement that one is promising. It is an act of a distinctive sort, the very sort (promising) named by the performative verb. Of course one can promise without doing so explicitly, without using the performative verb 'promise', but if one does use it, one is, according to Austin, making explicit Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 7 what one is doing but not stating that one is doing it. Austin eventually realized that explicit constatives function in essentially the same way. After all, a statement can be made by uttering "I assert ." or "I predict .", just as a promise or a request can be made with "I promise ." or "I request .". So Austin let the distinction between constative and performative utterances be superseded by one between locutionary and illocutionary acts. He included assertions, predictions, etc. (he retained the term 'constative' for them) along with promises, requests, etc., among illocutionary acts. His later nomenclature recognized that illocutionary acts need not be performed explicitly -- you don't have to use "I suggest ." to make a suggestion or "I apologize ." to apologize. Even so, it might seem that because of their distinctive self-referential character, the force of explicit performatives requires special explanation. Indeed, Austin supposed that illocutionary acts in general should be understood on the model of explicit performatives, as when he made the notoriously mysterious remark that the use of a sentence with a certain illocutionary force is "conventional in the sense that at least it could be made explicit by the performative formula" (1962, p. 91). Presumably he thought that explicit performative utterances are conventional in some more straightforward sense. Since it is not part of the meaning of the word "apologize" that an utterance of "I apologize ." count as an apology rather than a statement, perhaps there is some convention to that effect. If there is, presumably it is part of a general convention that covers all performative verbs. P. F. Strawson (1964) argued that Austin was overly impressed with institution-bound cases. In these cases there do seem to be conventions that utterances of certain forms (an umpire's "Out!", a legislator's "Nay!", or a judge's "Overruled!") count as the performance of acts of certain sorts. Likewise with certain explicit performatives, as when under suitable circumstances a judge or clergyman says, "I pronounce you husband and wife," which counts as joining a Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 8 couple in marriage. In such cases there are specific, socially recognized circumstances in which a person with specific, socially recognized authority may perform an act of a certain sort by uttering words of a certain form. Strawson argued, though, that most illocutionary acts involve not an intention to conform to an institutional convention but an intention to communicate something to an audience. Indeed, as he pointed out, there is no sense of the word 'conventional' in which the use of a given sentence with a certain illocutionary force is necessarily conventional, much less a sense having to do with the fact that this force can be "made explicit by the performative formula." In the relevant sense, an act is conventional just in case it counts as an act of a certain sort because, and only because, of a special kind of institutional rule to that effect. However, unlike the special cases Austin focused on, utterances can count as requests, apologies, or predictions, as the case may be, without the benefit of such a rule. It is perfectly possible to apologize, for example, without doing so explicitly, without using the performative phrase "I apologize .". That is the trouble with Austin's view of speech acts - and for that matter John Searle's (1969), which attempts to explain illocutionary forces by means of "constitutive rules" for using "force-indicating devices," such as performatives. These theories can't explain the fact that, e.g., an apology can be made without using such a device.There is a superficial difference between apologizing explicitly (by saying, "I apologize") and doing it inexplicitly, but there is no theoretically important difference. Except for institution-bound cases like those illustrated above, performativity requires no special explanation, much less a special sort of convention. 1.2.1. Definition of Speech Acts According to Yule (1996:47) " in attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 9 they perform action via those utterances", thus " actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts." ( Cited in Nguyen Quoc Sinh, ibid.).Yule also gives the notion of Speech Event which has the same functions as "total situation" in following Austin's statement, that is " We must consider the total situation in which the utterance is issued - the total speech-act - if we are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterances." (1962:52) 1.2.2. Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts Austin (1962) identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterance itself. He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it, and dubs these the locutionary, the illocutionary, and the perlocutionary act, respectively. Suppose, for example, that a bartender utters the words, "The bar will be closed in five minutes," reportable with direct quotation. He is thereby performing the locutionary act of saying that the bar (i.e., the one he is tending) will be closed in five minutes (from the time of utterance), where what is said is reported by indirect quotation . In saying this, the bartender is performing the illocutionary act of informing the patrons of the bar's imminent closing and perhaps also the act of urging them to order a last drink. Whereas the upshot of these illocutionary acts is understanding on the part of the audience, perlocutionary acts are performed with the intention of producing a further effect. The bartender intends to be performing the perlocutionary acts of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to close and of getting them to order one last drink. He is performing all these speech acts, at all three levels, just by uttering certain words. From what are discussed above, we can give the general view of three dimensions of speech act as follows: Hedging strategies manifested in film “Sweet home alabama” 10