VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES *** NGÔ THỊ PHƯƠNG LÊ Face-Saving Strategies in Teachers’ Oral Feedback in the English Classrooms: A Vietnamese- American cross-cultural study Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Combined Program Supervisor: Prof. Nguyen Quang, Ph.D HANOI, 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv Table of Contents Acknowledgement …………………………………………………………….ii Table of Contents .iii List of Abbreviations ………………….v List of Tables .vii List of Figures and Charts ……………….ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Method of the study. Organization of the study .3 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW. The Notion of Politeness. The Notion of Face.
Face-saving Strategies. Positive Politeness Strategies. Negative Politeness Strategies .29 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY. Aims of the study .31 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Populations and Sampling: Participants. The Discourse Completion Tasks. Data Collection Instruments. The Administration of the Questionnaires .36 CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Results and Discussions of the MPQ. Result of HaF. Result of HoF. Results and Discussions of the DCT.
FSSs Used in Teachers’ Oral Feedback to Students. Realization of FSSs in Teachers’ Oral Feedback. Give advice, suggestions. Include both S and H in the activity.
Be conventionally indirect. Impersonalize the S and the H. State the FTA as a general rule. 56 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi II.
Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting. Use of Strategies as Seen from Types of Feedback. Choice of face saving strategy for types of feedback. Choice of FSSs in terms of feedback receiver.
Implications for English language teachers. Suggestions for further study. 76 REFERENCES APPENDICES TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS Adv Advisable ATs American teachers CF Corrective Feedback D Social Distance DCT Discourse Completion Task EF Evaluative Feedback FTA Face-threatening Act FSA Face-saving Act FSS Face-saving Strategy H The hearer HaF Hit-all Feedback HoF Hit-one Feedback HAdv Highly Advisable InAdv Inadvisable MPQ Metapragmatic Questionnaire N Number NPS Negative Politeness Strategy p Probability level P Relative power PPS Positive Politeness Strategy TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com viii R Relation S The speaker SInAdv Strongly Inadvisable SF Strategic Feedback SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences Sig. Significance level Sit.
Situation Str1 On-record strategy Str2 Give advice and suggestions Str3 Make joke Str4 Include both S and H in the activity Str5 Encourage Str6 Be conventionally indirect Str7 Apologize Str8 Impersonalize Str9 State the FTA as a general rule Str10 Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting Str11 Off-record strategy VTs Vietnamese Teachers Y/N Yes or No TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Informants’ status parameters 37 Table 2 Group statistics 38 Table 3 Independent Sample t test 39 Table 4 Categories of Feedback 40 Assessment on Advisability of Situations for HaF by Vietnamese and American Table 5 41 Teachers Table 6 Assessment on Advisability of Situations for HoF by Vietnamese and 44 American Teachers Table 7 Summary of leading choices by VTs and ATs 51 Table 8 Summary of strategies used by VTs and ATs when giving oral feedbacks 52 Table 9 VT group Statistic for Strategies Used in CF Category 58 Table 10 59 AT group statistics for strategies used in CF Category Table 11 AT & VT group statistics for strategies used for HaF in CF Category 61 Table 12 VT and AT group statistics for strategies used for HoF in CF 62 Table 13 Group statistics for Strategies used by VTs for EF 63 Table 14 Group statistics for Strategies used by ATs for EF 65 Table 15 Group statistics for Strategies used by VTs and ATs for HaF in EF Category 66 Table 16 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs and ATs for HoF in EF Category 68 Table 17 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs for HaF in SF Category 69 Table 18 Group statistics for strategies used by ATs for HaF in SF Category 70 Table 19 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs & ATs for HaF in SF Category 70 Table 20 Group statistics for strategies used by VTs & ATs for HoF in SF Category 72 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com x LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS Figure 1 10 Selection of a strategy following an FTA, (Brown and Levinson, 1987) Figure 2 10 Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 1999:30) Figure 3 Brown and Levinson’s (1987) mechanisms for the realization of PPSs 21 Figure 4 29 Brown and Levinson’s (1987) mechanisms for the realization of NPSs Chart 1 61 Choice of FSSs for HaF in CF Category by VTs and ATs Chart 2 63 Choice of FSSs for HoF in CF Category by VTs and ATs Chart 3 67 Choice of FSSs by VTs and ATs for HaF in EF Category Chart 4 Choice of FSSs by VTs and ATs for HoF in EF Category 68 Chart 5 Choice of FSSs by VTs and ATs for HaF in SF Category 71 Chart 6 Choice of FSSs by VTs and ATs for HoF in SF Category 72 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale It has long been realized that the forms and uses of a given language reflect the cultural values of the society in which the language is spoken. Linguistic competence alone is not enough for learners of a language to be competent in that language (Krasner, 1999). Therefore, together with learning and using a foreign language, language users should deepen their understanding of its culture in order to communicate successfully and appropriately.
It can be said that “politeness” is one of the most important categories in communication and pragmatics study, especially in cross-cultural communication/pragmatics. Politeness strategies are applied consciously and unconsciously in communication in everyday social interaction. These strategies help to make participants feel satisfied because their “face” is respected. This fact is much truer in such high context culture as Vietnam.
Towards successful communication in the real world, some cross-cultural studies such as requesting, refusing, thanking, apologizing have been conducted so far to help Vietnamese students of English avoid confusion when expressing themselves. As a teacher of English, the author has to do a lot of interactions with her students in the class setting and thus, realizes some of the problems in communication between teachers and students, among which is the uncomfortable and stressful feeling of students when interacting. When the author attended some classes of American teachers, she found it interesting when she realized that there are many differences between the feedback that American and Vietnamese teachers give to their students. For the above-mentioned reasons, the author conducts the study entitled “Face-saving Strategies in Teachers’ Oral Feedback in English classrooms: A Vietnamese – American cross-cultural study”.
Such is her hope that her study will be a contribution to the understanding of the nature of this activity across cultures. Aims of the study The aims of the study are: TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 To investigate the face-saving strategies used by American and Vietnamese teachers when giving oral feedback to students in English classrooms. To clarify major similarities and differences between American and Vietnamese teachers when giving different types of feedback. To provide implications in English Language Teaching and contribute to increasing cross-cultural awareness among English language teachers and learners.
Scope of the study The study deals with verbal aspects of the act of giving feedback. The Paralinguistic and non-verbal factors in communication are beyond the scope of this study. Feedback itself can be given in the oral or written form. As it is a study on face-to-face communication, the study focuses on oral form only.
Besides, feedback can be seen in the light of linguistics or teaching methodology; however, in this study, only linguistics aspects are taken into account. Another point to be noticed is that a feedback can be a positive or a negative evaluation on students‟ performance. Yet, in this study, only feedbacks for negative performance, seen as obvious FTA, are targeted. Last but not the least, only oral feedbacks produced by teachers in speaking and writing sessions are examined in this study as they are considered as productive skills while reading and listening are perceptive, thus, there are not many chances for the diversification of feedback.
In short, the study especially focuses on face-saving strategies used by teachers in giving oral feedback across Vietnamese and American languages and cultures. Methodology The research is conducted via quantitative and qualitative, descriptive and comparative methods. The data was collected via questionnaires termed Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT), which was logically and empirically validated before it is used as a data collection instrument. The instrument used to construct validation of the situations designed for the DCT is Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ).
Then data will be analyzed using Independent Samples t-test and other functions of SPSS 15. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Organization of the study The study will consist of the following parts: Chapter I. Introduction This chapter will introduce the rationale, aims, scope, and organization of the study.
Chapter II: Literature Review Theoretical background relevant to the topic and critical survey of related articles, books and other resources will be presented. Chapter II: Methodology This chapter presents the detailed procedure of the study: the methodology, population selection, data collection and analysis. Chapter III: Findings and Discussion This chapter deals with the findings drawn out from the analysis of data. The findings and discussion are based on describing and contrasting face-saving strategies used by American and Vietnamese teachers.
Conclusion Main points and contents of the study are summarized based on the results of the study. Implications of the study and recommendations for further research are presented. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 4 CHAPTER II. Speech Acts We perform speech acts when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or refusal.
A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication. A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to perform an apology, or several words or sentences: "I‟m sorry I forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind." Speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture. After Austin‟s initiation of speech acts theory in “How to do things with words” (1962), it has attracted the interest of so many linguists such as Hymes (1964), Searle (1969), Leech (1983), Schmidt and Richards (1983), Yule (1996).
Austin‟s main contribution to speech acts theory is the axiom that by saying something, we often perform an act or do something. Thus, a speech act is a unit of speaking and performs different functions in communication. Austin (1962) believes that a speech act involves three kinds of separate but related act, which are locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary. When a person produces an utterance with a particular form and a more or less determinate meaning, he performs a locutionary act.
It is considered as “the basic act of utterance” or simply the act of “producing a meaningful linguistic expression”, (Yule, 1996:48). However, we hardly produce any utterances with no purpose. Suppose, for example, that a bartender utters the words, 'The bar will be closed in five minutes.‟ In saying this, the bartender is performing an act of informing the patrons of the bar's imminent closing and perhaps also the act of urging them to finish their drink. This kind of act via utterances we produce with communicative purposes is known as illocutionary act.
The illocutionary act is the function of the utterance that the speaker has in mind, the communicative purpose that is intended or achieved by the utterance.