A cross cultural study politeness in indirect requests in vietnamese and american culture

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSIY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES ……………… ^ \……………… POLITENESS IN INDIRECT REQUESTS IN VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN CULTURE Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of TESOL Supervised by : NGUYӈN HOÀNG TUҨN, Ph.D Submitted by : ĈINH THӎ KIM DUNG Ho Chi Minh City, 2008 Chapter INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the background to the study and the rationale of the study The research questions, research aims, hypotheses and the overview of thesis chapters are also included in this chapter 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY Language plays an important role in communication in human society Thanks to language, people can interact and exchange their words, ideas and feelings as well Nowadays, there is an increasing interest and continuing development of the study of language of human interactions in social contexts In the process of teaching and learning language in general and English in particular, most of Vietnamese learners tend to pay much more attention to learning forms of language, that is, grammatical, lexical and phonological components of the foreign language and ignore to acquire the expressions used in relation to cultures Many Vietnamese teachers of English are found to highly value and prefer the correctness of utterances to the appropriateness of utterances in a variety of very complicated situations That is to say, the emphasis has normally been on form-based instructions and pure linguistic competences in the achievement of successful communication rather than the knowledge of social norms and values They seem not to be able to and have not skilled at reading between the lines They find it difficult to communicate appropriately in speeches and in situations which require more elaborate speech acts such as requesting, apologizing, refusing, or etc For example, I myself have had an interesting experience in my life that I not think I can forget After having graduated from the University, I worked as a salesclerk for a fashion shop for foreigners on Dong Khoi street The opening time of the shop was at 8a.m On that Sunday morning, I received a phone call from my boss He asked me: “What time is it now?” I looked at my watch and answered him without any hesitation: “Dear Sir, it is o’clock now” He said: “Why have not you turned the light on yet?” My first response to his question showed that I really did not know his implication To tell the truth, at that time I did not understand what he asked me about the time for After having twice thought, I understood that my boss reminded me of turning the light on because it was time to open the shop This was a valuable experience which made me perceive the complicatedness of dealing with the speaker’s implication From that day, I always keep in my mind the underlied meanings which are not easy to be found in interactions I become more and more conscious of what others really want to tell me This is one of the reasons which motivate, urge and attract me to take a more careful acquisition of language on the bases of the language forms and cultural characteristics as well To say this, I would like to refer to the communicative competence which plays a great important role in obtaining successful communication and which requires the knowledge of social norms and values, roles and relations among individuals In most of the cases, language conveys meanings which are, according to semantics terms, called locutionary and illocutionary acts That understanding of the actual meanings of utterances or sentences makes a great contribution to establishing the relationships in human’s activities And the social linguistic competence meets the need of the above understanding The indirect utterances, concretely, assist to assure the conversations going smoothly at the same time maintain human’s relations because they are mostly implied as the principles of politeness known as the way to choose appropriate words or structures of sentences involving in the so-called “saving face” of the hearer in communication It means that the speaker has to be aware of the role of enhancing the both psychological and social communicative competence The lack of ability to communicate appropriately will result in inappropriate communications or even rude behaviors Moreover, it has been witnessed the industrialization, technological advancement and the increasing development of multi-faceted fields such as economy, politics, culture, society, the integration and cross-culture of a variety of countries; especially, American one with the Vietnamese-American agreement This is marked with an important event that Vietnam joined World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 11th 2007 This signals a respectable development of a variety of fields As a result, the ties between Vietnam and America are growing in many areas and at all levels It is found that there are greater trades and investments growing official contacts between Vietnam’s and American’s respective executive and legislative branches, and quickly diversifying exchanges among our cultural and scientific communities In response to this great event, the need for communication in English becomes more crucial Most of us learn English because of the working in general and the desire for language acquisition in particular Accordingly, a new wave of interest has been focused on communicative competence with the ultimate goal of communication As there is a great difference between knowledge about language forms and knowledge that enables a person to communicate functionally and interactively, learners need to know that many different forms can be used to perform a function and also that a single form can often serve a variety of functions They must be able to choose from among these the most appropriate form for communication and manage the process of meaning negotiation with whom they are interacting And most of us are able to learn vocabulary, grammar but unfortunately, some of us are lack of ability of sociolinguistic relations which involve in cultural issues This is also expressed in the “Fact and Public Opinion” column (Youth Newspaper dated October 2007:7): “It is shown from the reality that English taught in high school is applied for exams only, in communication with foreigners, it is enough for them to understand that we also learn English… This is an unbalance in teaching and learning English in high school for a long time The amount of grammar in course books is too vast for teachers and students to have time for communicating with one another… Learning a foreign language is not only to know one more language but also to understand one more culture of the nation” When learning any language, therefore, we have to know the social principles based on not only vocabularies or structures but also implied meanings which consist of a combination of a wide variety of social cultural factors to apply to and carry out the speech acts accurately and timely In addition, the first impression of a person can affect the whole attitude towards that person and for this reason it is vital to have right and appropriate behaviors Therefore, I would like to point out in my study the features of American and Vietnamese politeness with relation to requests in which much emphasis is on requests for action, chosen due to their intrinsic reflection of the expressions of politeness, their everyday natural applicability to a variety of complicated situations and their sensitivity to some factors such as the status, intimacy, the content of the request, and etc that result in the application of the degrees of indirectness Concretely, the way to use the indirectness to make requests to express the politeness is one of the typical examples of speech acts And a comparative study of manifestation of politeness on making requests in different cultures must therefore be regarded as vital in a period of growing internationalization because its importance in cross-cultural communication Due to these above-captioned thoughts, the topic: “Politeness in Indirect Requests in Vietnamese and American culture” is chosen with my deep interest 1.2 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY According to Searle (1975) (quoted in Davis, 1991), when uttering a sentence, the speaker does not, in most of cases, mean exactly and literally what he says, it means that the utterance meaning and the sentence meaning come apart in various ways Take an utterance “Can you pass the salt?” as a popular and classic example With this kind of question, at least there are two ways in which the hearer could respond to the question One potential answer is “Yes, I am able to pass the salt” The other is that after getting the question, the hearer would come to the action of passing the salt The interpretation of this question is not to ask the hearer’s ability to pass the salt because the obvious fact is that the salt is not too heavy for anyone to take or to pass (Cao, 2003) In fact, it is meant as a request even though no request at all has been shown, meant, or understood Therefore, the speaker wants the hearer to recognize his intention in virtue of his knowledge of the rules that govern the utterances However, it does not mean that all questions about the ability are requests The hearer needs some ways to find out strategies and devices to acknowledge the various cultural characteristics together with his ability to make inferences to come to the intended meanings to have right actions and responses Moreover, in day-to-day conversations, it is found that people occasionally say metaphorically, use irony or sarcasm What they say is different from what they think and vice-versa Therefore, the speaker must possess a communicative competence that involves in, according to McKay and Hornberger (1997), the social and cultural knowledge, the background that the speaker is presumed to have to use and interpret linguistic forms In other words, communicative competence extends to both knowledge and expectation of who may or may not speak in some contexts, when to speak and when to remain silent, whom one may speak to, how one may talk to those with different social statuses and distances, what kind of non-verbal behaviors, gestures or expressions is suitable in various contexts and for particular purposes, how to request and the like In case the speaker lacks this so-called “social interaction skills”, their communication may violate the social expectations and this, in some aspects, results in impolite or odd behaviors or even leads to severe communicative conflicts As a result, the speaker has to understand and bring their knowledge and skills into situations which also relate to culture that is, as defined by Geertz (1973) and Douglas (1970) (cited in McKay and Hornberger, 1997), a system of symbols because all aspects of culture such as values and attitudes towards language use contribute to the effectiveness of communication within a speech community where there is a variety of affecting variables such as genders, statuses, occupations, social classes, culture-specific beliefs, practices, and etc and because of the fact that members of one culture often assume that their way of behaviors, understanding and perceiving the world around them, thus their forms and meanings are always correct Hence when another culture uses other forms or meanings, it is assumed to be wrong For example: “When foreign visitors from areas where coffee is served very black and very strong taste American coffee, they not say that it is different; they say that American coffee is bad Likewise, when Americans go abroad to countries where coffee is black and strong, they taste the coffee and not say that it is different; they, too, say that it is bad” (Lado, 1957 : 119) Therefore, failure to speak appropriately in accordance with the requirements of society and strategies used by native speakers or the inability to understand what is meant by what is said will result in communicative or pragmatic failure If the speaker is sensitive to others’ feelings, he will not intentionally use language that offends them Sensitizing people to international similarities and differences in cross-cultural contexts may, consequently, contribute to the elimination of misunderstandings and negative responses In addition, the issue of socio-cultural appropriateness in inter-language pragmatics needs to be examined; especially, in the speech act of requests In our normal lives, there is a great deal of issues involving in making requests which requires appropriateness and the speaker’s and the hearer’s competence to recognize and identify the situations or the contexts of discourse that include, in Robinson’s idea (1997), culture-bound linguistic signs determined by the communicative situations in which they serve to convey a message so that they can choose the appropriate language on making requests In most cases of requests, it is important that the speaker has to know whom and under what circumstances he is requesting to express the politeness Politeness is a prevalent and noteworthy phenomenon in human communication and expresses our deep knowledge of “social behaviors” Human speeches and behaviors are always guided by the principles of politeness in our daily life In the process of a person’s socialization, a polite person learns how to act properly according to the social expectations of politeness norms and to smooth the internal and external conflicts Furthermore, the fact is that the more polite we are in making a request, the more we give the hearer a chance to refuse As a result, the indirect requests and the politeness are often closely related to each other and this is a reason why it is necessary for any language learner to approach indirect speech acts and learn how to use indirect forms in various contexts (Tô, 2002) It is noted that people usually express themselves in a natural and polite way, conforming to social expectations including those of the hearer If an utterance does not satisfy the hearer’s expectations, then this deviation gives rise to judgments concerning the speaker’s politeness of the utterance This usually happens when the participants have different socio-cultural backgrounds and thus different expectations Through the above analyses, we find the great importance of politeness and indirect requests in maintaining social fabrics of our daily lives and the interactions between them As a result, cross-cultural variation is considerable in the organization of polite behaviors in conversation Thus, for the improvement of communication and the elimination of misunderstandings among individuals and nations, a more precise understanding of the principles is needed Consequently, the study is conducted to identify the relationship between the politeness and indirect requests, and the similarities and differences of request strategies in Vietnamese and American It is an essential requirement because of its strong influence on improving learners of English’s communicative competence From this point of view and in the light of sociolinguistic study comparing and contrasting the principles of politeness in making indirect requests in Vietnamese and American culture, an investigation to seek for strategy uses selected by Vietnamese and American to help Vietnamese learners of English and/or American learners of Vietnamese improve their communicative competence on the basis of developing a clever sense of socio-linguistic knowledge is a must and may be really useful to both teachers and learners of language by which they can achieve their communicative goals, to avoid communication breakdown and to create a collaborative relationship or cooperative environment 1.3 RESEARCH AIMS Keeping the idea of searching for some typical examples of request strategy use by VNSs and ANSs to express politeness is my main purpose Therefore, the objectives of the study are: The first objective of the paper is to study some common cultural problems leading to the similarities and differences by using various strategies of requests to express politeness in Vietnamese and American The second objective is to examine whether social variables affect the selection of strategy use of requests From these, I would like to make some recommendations of some possible ways for teaching oral communication including the provision of social knowledge to understand the actual meanings of sentences with particular reference to teaching and learning the function of requests in daily conversation As a result, Vietnamese learners of English and/or American learners of Vietnamese have both the appropriate uses of those principles in various situations and the right interpretations of the speakers’ meanings in making directives 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to obtain the overall objectives that have been stated above, two guiding questions which help the study go are posed: Does the frequency of direct and indirect strategy use of requests to express politeness differ between a group of American and that of Vietnamese because of differences in culture? Do the specific variables such as power, familiarity, and the imposition of the requests affect the selection of strategy use by American and Vietnamese? 1.5 HYPOTHESES Vietnamese native learners of English often show deviations from the native speaker’s way of expressing requests Such deviations can easily cause pragmatic failures which most likely occur among the speakers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds This leads to negative consequences because the speaker could be viewed as “too direct”, “abrupt” or “rude” It is widely said that there are marked cross-cultural differences in the dimensions of requestive directness between VNSs’ and ANSs’ production as far as their request strategies are concerned This is partly resulted from differences between two cultures: Western and Eastern as Chiappini et al (1997) assume that there are preferred styles of communication in some contexts in which Western is often considered more direct than Eastern is, being resulted in fundamental contrasts in early Western and Eastern thought However, my first hypothesis is that there is a slight change in the choice of strategies in accordance with the levels of directness That is to say, maybe VNSs tend to use more direct strategies than indirect ones because of the industrialization and integration in Vietnam today Secondly, it is also hypothesized that members of different cultures have also been found to differ in their perception of social situations as well as in the relative importance they attribute to the social variables involved in these situations The speaker may, for instance, have different values assigned to the existing social power, the familiarity differences between the speaker and the hearer and the degree of imposition of the requested act 1.6 THE OVERVIEW OF THESIS CHAPTERS The thesis is organized in five chapters Chapter introduces the background of the study, the rationale of the study as well as states the research aims, research questions, hypotheses and the overview of thesis chapters Chapter mainly reviews a brief discussion of politeness and indirectness theory and their influence on the performance of speech acts in general and the speech act of requests in particular, and the politeness in indirect requests Chapter presents the research design, the subjects, the method, the description of the questionnaire and the instruments and procedures Chapter displays the data analyses and the main Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Nancy ÿӕi vӟi bҥn Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Nancy bҥn Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Nancy Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn bҥn cӫa Nancy Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi bҥn mình? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Bài tұp) Phѭѫng (gia sѭ) dҥy kèm mơn tốn cho mӝt hӑc sinh 15 tuәi rҩt lѭӡi biӃng Phѭѫng yêu cҫu cұu ҩy phҧi hoàn tҩt tұp ÿѭӧc giao Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Phѭѫng ÿӕi vӟi cұu hӑc trị cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Phѭѫng cұu hӑc trị cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Phѭѫng Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Phѭѫng Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi hӑc viên cӫa bҥn? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Sách tham khҧo) Mike (cұu hӑc sinh) sҳp thuyӃt trình vӅ ĈiӅu Ѭӟc vӅ Luұt Thѭѫng Mҥi Quӕc TӃ Tuy nhiên, cұu ҩy không ÿӫ thông tin kiӃn thӭc lƭnh vӵc nên muӕn mѭӧn sách tham khҧo cӫa giáo viên 105 Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Mike ÿӕi vӟi giáo viên cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Mike giáo viên cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Mike Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Mike Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi giҧng viên cӫa bҥn? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Nҩu ăn) Mai and Thanh (cơ bҥn chung phịng) ӣ chung phòng ký túc xá ĈӃn lѭӧt Mai phҧi nҩu ăn nhѭng cô ҩy hiӋn ÿang bұn phҧi hӑc thi nên muӕn nhӡ Thanh nҩu cѫm giúp Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Mai ÿӕi vӟi Thanh Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Mai Thanh Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Mai Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Mai Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi bҥn phịng cӫa bҥn? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Hӗ sѫ) Peter (ÿӗng nghiӋp) bҳt ÿҫu khóa thӵc tұp ngành thѭѫng mҥi 03 tháng tҥi mӝt công ty quҧng cáo Cұu ҩy muӕn nhӡ ÿӗng nghiӋp giúp lұp mӝt sӕ hӗ sѫ 106 Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Peter ÿӕi vӟi ÿӗng nghiӋp cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Peter ÿӗng nghiӋp cӫa Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Peter Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Peter Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi ÿӗng nghiӋp cӫa bҥn? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Cuӝc hӝi thҧo) Trѭӡng ÿҥi hӑc tә chӭc mӝt cuӝc hӝi thҧo vӅ biӋn pháp ÿiӅu chӍnh hoҥt ÿӝng thѭѫng mҥi giӟi hҥn sӕ lѭӧng sinh viên tham gia Vy (cô sinh viên) muӕn hӓi xin cô thѭ ký ÿӇ ÿѭӧc tham gia vào cuӝc hӝi thҧo Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Vy ÿӕi vӟi cô thѭ ký Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Vy cô thѭ ký Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Vy Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Vy Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi cô thѭ ký ? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng (Tӯ thiӋn) Vào dӏp hè, Mary (nhân viên quyên góp) muӕn tә chӭc mӝt chѭѫng trình nhân ÿҥo cho nhӳng ngѭӡi khuyӃt tұt Cơ ҩy muӕn qun góp tiӅn tӯ thiӋn tӯ mӝt sӕ tә chӭc thѭѫng mҥi 107 Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa Mary ÿӕi vӟi tә chӭc thѭѫng mҥi Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa Mary tә chӭc thѭѫng mҥi Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa Mary Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn Mary Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi tә chӭc thѭѫng mҥi này? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Tình huӕng 10 (Bài tұp) Vӏ giҧng viên tұp cho lӟp yêu cҫu hӑ nӝp thӡi hҥn mӝt tuҫn Phҫn 1: Theo bҥn, Mӭc ÿӝ vӅ quyӅn lӵc cӫa vӏ giҧng viên ÿӕi vӟi lӟp hӑc Mӭc ÿӝ thân quen giӳa vӏ giҧng viên lӟp hӑc Mӭc ÿӝ áp ÿһt lӡi yêu cҫu cӫa vӏ giҧng viên Phҫn 2: Giҧ sӱ bҥn vӏ giҧng viên Bҥn sӁ yêu cҫu nhѭ thӃ ÿӕi vӟi lӟp hӑc cӫa bҥn? Bҥn nói : …………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… R̭t cám ˯n v͉ s͹ giúp ÿͩ hͫp tác cͯa b̩n 108 TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP -v ABSTRACT vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS -viii LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES -x LIST OF GRAPHS -xi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.2 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY 1.3 RESEARCH AIMS 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.5 HYPOTHESES -8 1.6 THE OVERVIEW OF THESIS CHAPTERS -9 CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW - 11 2.1 THE THEORY OF POLITENESS 11 2.1.1 The Cooperative Principles - 11 2.1.1.1 Maxim of Quantity 12 2.1.1.2 Maxim of Quality - 12 i 2.1.1.3 Maxim of Relevance 13 2.1.1.4 Maxim of Manner - 13 2.1.2 The Concepts of Politeness 15 2.1.2.1 The Principles of Politeness - 16 2.1.3 Different Aspects of Politeness - 18 2.1.3.1 The Concepts of “Face” 18 2.1.3.1.1 Positive Face 19 2.1.3.1.2 Negative Face - 19 2.1.4 Face-Threatening Acts (FTAs) - 20 2.1.5 Strategies to FTAs 20 2.1.5.1 Bald-on-record 20 2.1.5.2 Positive Politeness 21 2.1.6 Negative Politeness - 22 2.1.6.1 Off-record 23 2.2 THE THEORY OF INDIRECTNESS - 24 2.2.1 The Concepts of Indirectness - 24 2.2.2 Some Typical Expressions of Indirectness 26 2.3 THE SPEECH ACT OF REQUESTS - 28 2.3.1 Speech Acts (SPAs) 28 2.3.2 The Notion of Request - 29 2.3.3 Social Variables Affecting the Choice of Request Strategies 30 2.3.4 Politeness in Indirect Requests - 33 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY - 35 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 35 3.2 SUBJECTS 35 3.3 METHOD - 35 ii 3.4 QUESTIONNAIRE DESCRIPTION 36 3.5 INSTRUMENTS AND PROCEDURES 38 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION - 41 4.1 DATA ANALYSIS - 41 4.1.1 Analytical Framework - 41 4.1.1.1 The Levels of Directness - 41 4.1.1.2 Modification - 42 4.1.2 The Selection of Strategy and Application of External Modifications 43 4.1.3 VNSs’ Preference to DI as compared with That of ANSs in Situation (Customer manual), Situation (Gift), Situation (Seminar) and Situation (Charity) 44 4.1.4 The Similar Choice of Strategies by VNSs’ and ANSs in Situation (Computer), Situation (Homework), Situation 10 (Assignments), Situation (Cooking) and Situation (Reference Books) 58 4.1.5 ANSs’ Slight Preference to DI as compared with That of VNSs in Situation (Documents) - 75 4.2 FINDINGS 79 4.2.1 General - 79 4.2.2 VNSs’ Slight Preference of DI due to the Differences in Cultures 79 4.2.3 Differences in VNSs’ and ANSs’ Perception of Social Variables - 80 4.2.4 VNSs’ and ANSs’ Preference of External Modifications - 81 CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION - 83 5.1 CONCLUSION - 83 5.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING 84 5.2.1 For Interpreting Meanings and Behaviors - 84 iii 5.2.2 For Teaching and Learning 85 5.3 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH - 88 5.4 LIMITATION 89 REFERENCES - 92 APPENDIX A - 95 APPENDIX B 96 APPENDIX C - 97 APPENDIX D 103 iv STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: POLITENESS IN INDIRECT REQUESTS IN VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN CULTURE in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programmes issued by the Higher Degree Committee Ho Chi Minh City 2008 ĈINH THӎ KIM DUNG v ABSTRACT Face-threatening speech acts such as requests show particular problems for participants to pay attention to in communication These problems become more serious when participants not get acquainted with, not understand thoroughly or cannot “do as Romans do” with the culture in which these speech acts are performed; or not have the communicative or linguistic competence to fully express and understand their meanings because they are culture-specific This study takes a look at the speech act of requests as facility as performed by two groups: Vietnamese native speakers (hereinafter referred to as VNSs) and American native speakers (ANSs) In the light of politeness perspectives, this study discusses request strategies in situations with which VNSs and ANSs hypothetically encounter The aims of this study are therefore to examine the similarities and differences in the degree of requestive directness between VNSs and ANSs in their native languages because of differences in culture and VNSs’ and ANSs’ different perception on the same situations in terms of three social variables of power, familiarity between the speaker and the hearer, and the imposition of the requested act To accomplish these, the study was carried out with the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with the aim at gaining validity in the study by collecting data through a survey questionnaire of 30 VNSs and 30 ANSs, and some informal talks with VNSs and ANSs The findings of the study show that both VNSs and ANSs opted for indirect request strategies in most of situations investigated However, to some extent, VNSs tended to use more direct strategy than ANSs did Moreover, the selection of strategy was also influenced by the pressure of social variables listed above in combination with some other factors As a result, the study suggests that Vietnamese learners/teachers of English should improve the way of teaching and learning communication with the notions of indirectness and politeness in making requests vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I, first of all, would like to express my deepest gratitude and special thanks to my supervisor – NguyӉn Hoàng Tuҩn, Ph.D - for taking his precious time and every effort and for his enthusiastic, invaluable and unceasing guidance and encouragement with the prompt correct behaviors so that I could complete my study Without his assistance and support, the paper could not have been written My greatest thanks go to survey respondents who answer my questionnaires and my interviews with their whole-hearted help to contribute to the data of the research I also take this opportunity to say thanks to all my relatives, close friends and colleagues at home and abroad who have helped me distribute the questionnaires by saving time to come to American colleges to wait for and persuade American subjects to respond to the questionnaires, and then revised the paper after being completed Finally, I am indebted to my family for their support during the period I worked on this study and all those who have assisted my research work in some way or other vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ANSs : American Native Speakers CID : Conventionally Indirect Strategy D : Distance DI : Direct Strategy DCT : Discourse Completion Test F : Familiarity FTAs : Face – Threatening Acts NCID : Non-conventionally Indirect Strategy P : Power R : Ranking of Imposition SPAs : Speech Acts VNSs : Vietnamese Native Speakers WTO : World Trade Organization viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Discourse Completion Questionnaire – Situation (Customer manual) Figure 2: Situational Assessment Questionnaire – Situation ix LIST OF TABLES Table The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 44 Table The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 47 Table The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 51 Table The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 54 Table The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 59 Table The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 63 Table The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 10 66 Table The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 69 Table The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 72 Table 10 The percentage of ANSs’ slight preference to DI as compared with that of VNSs in situation .75 x LIST OF GRAPHS Graph The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 45 Graph The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 48 Graph The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 52 Graph The percentage of VNSs’ preference to DI as compared with that of ANSs in situation 55 Graph The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 60 Graph The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 64 Graph The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 10 67 Graph The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 70 Graph The percentage of the similar choice of strategies by VNSs and ANSs in situation 73 Graph 10 The percentage of ANSs’ slight preference to DI as compared with that of VNSs in situation .76 ix ... American and Vietnamese, and giving some questions to some American and Vietnamese speakers and having informal talks to them in order to gain some insights into the subjects’ view, beliefs and. .. contrasting the principles of politeness in making indirect requests in Vietnamese and American culture, an investigation to seek for strategy uses selected by Vietnamese and American to help Vietnamese. .. potential face-loss and avoid misunderstandings that may potentially occur in a cross- cultural communicative event involving VNSs and ANSs in making requests at the same time to give some recommendations