The study of positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in wuthering heights = các chiến lược lịch sự dương tính được biểu hiện trong lời hội thoại trong tiểu thuyết đồi gió hú

1 vinh university foreign language department ======== Ngun ThÞ hun Trang the study of positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in "wuthering heights" (Các chiến lợc lịch dơng tính đợc thể qua lời hội thoại tiểu thuyết "§åi giã hó") graduation thesis Field: Linguistics ====Vinh, May 2006=== vinh university foreign language department ======== the study of positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in "wuthering heights" graduation thesis Field: Linguistics Supervisor: M.A Lê Thị Thuý Hà Student: Ngun ThÞ Hun Trang Class: 43A2 - English ====Vinh, May 2006=== Acknowledgements This study would not have been in form without the valuable and constructive comments from many people First of all, I would like to express my deep thanks to all teachers of the Foreign Languages Department for giving me an opportunity to carry out this thesis Especially, I would like to express my special thanks to M.A Le Thi Thuy Ha- my supervisor who gave me great support and academic guidance during the preparation and the writing of this graduation paper The success of my paper would be almost impossible without her great help and advice My sincere thanks are also given to my dear parents for their support and encouragement, to my close friends for their knowledge and help My great thanks also goes to the writers of a great deal of references that I used to consult To everyone, I am honestly grateful Vinh, May_2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABBREVIATIONS CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Speech acts 1.1.1 Definition of speech acts .6 1.1.2 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts .7 1.1.3 Classification of speech acts 1.2 Politeness .10 1.2.1 What is politeness? 10 1.2.2 Approaches to politeness .11 1.2.2.1 The conversational-maxim view on politeness 12 1.2.2.1.1 Politeness rules 12 1.2.2.1.2 Politeness maxims .14 1.2.2.2 The face saving-view on politeness .17 1.2.2.2.1 Face .17 1.2.2.2.2 Face-threatening-acts 18 1.2.2.2.3 Politeness strategies .19 1.2.2.2.3.1 Positive politeness strategies .20 1.2.2.2.4 Social factors affecting politeness .22 CHAPTER 2: POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES MANIFESTED IN CONVERSATIONS IN “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”WUTHERING HEIGHTS” 2.1Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” 24 2.1.1 Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H .25 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6 2.1.7 2.1.8 2.1.9 Strategy 2: Exaggerate 25 Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H 26 Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers 27 Strategy 5: Seek agreement 28 Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement 28 Strategy 7: Presuppose/raise/assert common ground 29 Strategy 8: Joke .30 Strategy 9: Assert/presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for H’s want 31 2.1.10 Strategy 10: Offer, promise 31 2.1.11 Strategy 11: Be optimistic 31 2.1.12 Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity 32 2.1.13 Strategy 13: Give (or ask) reasons 32 2.1.14 Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity .32 2.1.15 Strategy 15: Give gifts to H 33 2.1.16 Strategy 16: Encourage, condole 33 2.1.17 Strategy 17 : Asking personal questions 33 2.2 Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” seen from S-H relationships 34 2.2.1 Master/mastress/servant 35 2.2.2 Lovers 36 2.2.3 Husband/wife 36 2.2.4 Acquaintances .36 2.2.5 Strangers 36 2.2.6 Friends 37 CHAPTER 3: THE POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY USED MOST FREQUENTLY AND ITS REASONS BENEFITS OF THE STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGY, IN GENERAL, POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES, IN PARTICULAR, IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH 3.1 The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and its reasons 38 3.2 Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positive politeness strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English .40 PART III: CONCLUSION Review the major findings 44 Suggestions for further study .45 REFERENCES 46 ABBREVIATIONS C.P : Cooperative Principle E.g : For example FTA : Facing Threatening Act H : Hearer P.P : Politeness Principle S : Speaker part a: INTRODUCTION Rationale Human beings are inherently social beings and language is social phenomenon, the primary means through which they act in the world to communicate with each other (Halliday,1978) People use language to represent thoughts and more importantly to communicate attitudes, feelings and wants to others-in other words, to create a social world-translates into the use of language to act in and on the social world However, not always we communicate effectively and naturally because sometimes we must tell another something that the other does not want to hear or we must refuse one's request or we must end a conversation before the other is quite willing to go In such cases, consequently there is the danger of insult and the break down of communication, in other words, we hurt one's feelings If there is no way to smooth over moments of conflict and confrontation, social relationship would be difficult to establish and continue A big question is exposed that how to rescue' the danger' in such cases? The same utterance can be understood differently from culture to culture Thus, a successful communication requires not only a good linguistic knowledge but also interactional skills and cultural knowledge Respected president Ho Chi Minh has ever said that a genuine writer had to know what to write to whom and how to write That means our language choice must be done depending on cultural and social contexts Nowadays, teaching and learning language focus on communicative goal The aspect of language choice makes a good contribution to achieve that goal And politeness is the one of the most important factors determining the language choice Thus, teaching and learning will be more successful if we study politeness more deeply Now, we are living in a civilized society People tend to employ politeness strategies to make their communication effective Thus, politeness manifests more frequently in everyday conversations We know that literature is one of artistic forms created to reflect any aspects of real life Inevitably, politeness also manifests in characters’ utterances in those literary works Literature is one of our favour subjects, especially we spend much free time reading novels of which content as well as conversational language attract our souls One of them is “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, retold by Clare West, which is considered as a masterpiece of English literature Although this novel was born before politeness theory has been developed perfectly, it’s clear that characters employ politeness strategies in making utterances As we know, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose ways of redressing an FTA: bald-on-record, off-record, negative politeness and positive politeness Positive politeness strategies are used more frequently than negative ones by oriental people, particularly Vietnamese people The manifestations of both these types in literary work have been studied deeply already We are only interested in positive politeness strategies not negative ones or both because we recognize that Vietnamese people really want to use these strategies more frequently so that it is easier to understand them clearly For all of the mentioned reasons above, we’ve decided to choose positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” to be the topic of this thesis Aims of the study Politeness has a strong influence on the effect of communication, especially cross-cultural communication Therefore, the most important aim of our study is to emphasize the importance of politeness strategies, in general, positive politeness strategies, in particular, in communication and to study the utilities of positive politeness strategies in conversations between characters of “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” Scope of the study Due to the limitation of a graduation paper, time, it is impossible for us to cover all types of politeness strategies Therefore, our thesis only focuses on positive politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theoretical framework The study only deals with verbal aspects of politeness We use utterances taken from the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” of Emily Bronte retold by Clare West as our data analysis We also select useful information related to the topic taken from other sources The data analysis is based on utterances in conversations between characters in the novel “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” by the English novelist Emily Bronte “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” is the wild, passionate story of intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by her father After Mr Earnshaw’s death, Catherine’s brother Hindley behaves Heathcliff very badly and considers him as a servant Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine but he wrongly believes that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated He leaves “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”, only returns 10 years later as a wealthy and polished man He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure Conversations among characters of this novel reflect truthfully their deeper feelings so that they are reliable enough to serve effectively for our topic Methods of the study In order to carry out this research, we have collected different kinds of books which contain politeness part as well as found information from website Google.com We use analysis method to analyse the collected data and quantitative method to measure positive politeness strategies used in the novel Design of the study The thesis comprises of parts: Part A: Introduction This part discusses the reasons for choosing the topic, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part B: Development This part is divided into chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background Chapter 2: Positive politeness strategies manifested in conversations in “WUTHERING HEIGHTS”Wuthering Heights” Chapter 3: The positive politeness strategy used most frequently and its reasons Benefits of the study of politeness strategy, in general, positive politeness strategies, in particular, in teaching and learning English Part C: Conclusion This part reviews major findings of the study and suggests some directions for further study REFERENCES APPENDIX ... 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