VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAN THỊ NGỌC BÍCH POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONS IN THE LISTENING SECTIONS OF THE COURSEBOOK “INNOVATIONS PRE-INTERMEDIATE” CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG CÁC ĐOẠN HỘI THOẠI Ở PHẦN NGHE CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH “INNOVATIONS - PRE-INTERMEDIATE” M. Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 HÀ NỘI – 2013 1 z VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT PHAN THỊ NGỌC BÍCH POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONS IN THE LISTENING SECTIONS OF THE COURSEBOOK “INNOVATIONS PRE-INTERMEDIATE” CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG TRONG CÁC ĐOẠN HỘI THOẠI Ở PHẦN NGHE CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH “INNOVATIONS - PRE-INTERMEDIATE” M. Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60. Tran Thi Thu Hien HÀ NỘI – 2013 2 z ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This paper would not have been possible without the guidance and the help of several individuals who in one way or another contributed and extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this study.
First and foremost, my utmost gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Tran Thi Thu Hien, whose sincerity and encouragement has been my inspiration as I hurdle all the obstacles in the completion this research work. Moreover, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and my friends for both their encouragement and supports during the time undertook my study. Without them my thesis would not be able to complete.
3 z ABSTRACT This study examines 55 conversations in listening sections of the book ―Innovations – Pre-Intermediate‖ – a course book of natural English to indicate the ways speakers apply politeness strategies in everyday conversations. The length of conversations ranges from 18 seconds to 2 minutes 40 seconds and all of them deal with familiar topics such as everyday problems, studying, fixing objects, buying and selling things in the shop, life style, job and money. The theory of politeness has been reviewed by many scholars Brown & Levinson (1987), Kasper (1994), Fraser (1990), Eelen (2001), Watts (2003), and House and Kasper (1981). This study mainly focuses on the theory of Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) as theoretical background to investigate positive and negative politeness strategies used by speakers in the conversations of the book.
Majority of the tactics found to be utilized in this book belong to positive politeness strategy while the most frequently used tactic is that of negative politeness strategy. 4 z TABLE OF CONTENT Acknowledgment Abstract List of tables List of abbreviations 1 INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………. Aims of the study…………………………………………………. Scope of the study………………………………………………….
Significant of the study ……………………………………………. Design of the study ………………………………………………. 5 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND………………………. Face threatening acts……………………………………….
Bald on-record strategy …………………………. Off record strategy ………………………………. Positive politeness strategy ………………………. Negative politeness strategy ……………………… 16 1.
21 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ……………………… 22 3. Positive politeness strategies ……………………………………… 32 3. Negative politeness strategies ……………………………………. 6 z 7 z List of tables Table 1: Frequency of positive politeness strategies Table 2: Frequency of negative politeness strategies 8 z List of abbreviations FTA: Face Threatening Act e.g: for example 9 z INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale Language plays an integral role in social life, which is not only a tool for people to communicate but also to identify with a particular cultural group. Language can reflect the way people live and think as well as the culture of a country, an ethnic. Among languages all over the world, English is considered the most widely used language because it is becoming the common language on the Internet and in the world. English not only is the effective means of communication but also shows its progressive effects in many aspects of life.
English, for many people, is especially useful because it can broaden their employment opportunities, since it is used so commonly and widely in business. Employers of multilateral institutions and agencies recruit employees with professional skills also expect the candidates to have good English-speaking skills. In today‟s world, English serves as a medium for communication for not only people in English speaking country but also learners of English as second and foreign language. As a result, there is an increasing demand of studying English in many countries all over the world including Vietnam.
In the past ten years, English has developed with an unprecedented speed in Vietnam. Though not yet fully documented, around 90% of foreign language learners have been studying English. Various language centers, both public and private, have been established with different courses, programs and types of training to serve the different learning needs of different types of learners. In daily life, people communicate to each other using language and through conversations.
In order to avoid embarrassing other people or making people feel uncomfortable, it is advisable for participants in the conversations to be aware of politeness strategies. The development of politeness strategies is mainly for the purpose of saving hearers‟ face (Brown, P. People use politeness when 10 z they try to minimize the potential threat in the interaction and to avoid making other people feel embarrassing or uncomfortable. Moreover, it is writer‟s personal interest toward the book ―Innovations – Pre- intermediate‖, an interesting book in teaching natural English.
The language used in this book is useful for improving communicative skills. The writer of this study strongly believe that there would be a wide range of politeness strategies utilized in conversations in the book ―Innovations – Pre-intermediate‖ to investigate. For the rationales given above, the writer of this paper decided to carry out a study namely: ―Politeness strategies in the Conversations in the Listening Sections of the Course book Innovations Pre-Intermediate‖ with the expectation to reveal the linguistic politeness strategies in conversations in listening sections in the course book ―Innovations – Pre-intermediate‖. Above and beyond, the author expects that this study, to some extent, is able to be helpful for the further research relating to politeness strategies as well as it could facilitate acquiring language, along with acknowledging the culture.
Aims of the study - To provide readers with a general idea of politeness strategies and point out the significant of politeness strategies in communication. - Classify politeness strategies employed in conversations in listening sections of the book ―Innovations – Pre-Intermediate‖ basing on Brown, P. - To supply some implications of teaching politeness strategies in communicative English. To fulfill those purposes, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 11 z - How are positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversations in listening sections in the course book “Innovations – Pre- intermediate”? - What politeness strategy is most frequently used by the speakers in the investigated conversations? 3.
Scope of the study This study aims at analyzing politeness strategies in conversations in listening sections of the course-book ―Innovations – Pre-Intermediate‖ under the light of Brown, P. All the attempts to analyze politeness in different sections of the book or other books in the series are out of scope of the study. Significant of the study In terms of theory, this study reviews a theoretical background on politeness strategies used in conversations as well as shows the readers how politeness strategies utilized in their daily life even when they are unaware of them. The author also has the ambition of supplying one of the references for other studies on politeness strategies in different kinds of work such as films, stories, novels or even research on linguistics.
The findings of this study are expected to be of value to teachers of English in teaching communicative English as well as linguistics aspects. Design of the study This study is divided into three main parts: 12 z Part 1: Introduction. In this part, the rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, significant of the study, design of the study are introduced briefly so that reader can have an overall view of what is going to be presented in the paper. Part 2: Development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background This chapter deals with key issues related to the paper and take them as the foundation theory for this paper.
By exploring books and research, the “Face theories‖ is mentioned through the terms “Face‖, ―Face threatening acts‖ and ―politeness strategies‖. The chapter also gives an overview of ―Conversation‖ that is going to be addressed in the finding of this thesis. Chapter 2: Methodology In the methodology, readers are provided with detail of data collection, participants, research method, procedure employed in the paper. Chapter 3: Findings and discussion In this chapter, all conversations in the listening sections are collected before classified and analyzed the frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies used in the course-book “Innovation – Pre-intermediate” basing on Brown, P.
Part 3: Conclusion 13 z CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. Face theories Brown, P.‟s theory rests on three basic notions, that is to say, Face, Face Threatening Acts (henceforth FTAs) and Politeness Strategies. When taking another‟s feeling into consideration, people speak or put things into such a way to minimize potential threat in the interaction. In other words, they use politeness strategies.
(1959) annotates that people perform of themselves to other people in social interactions. Between both participants of the conversation, there exists a mutual understanding that both of them acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously: the vulnerability of face. Therefore, speakers attempt to maintain each other‟s face accordingly. (1987: 61) define “face‖ as a “the public self-image that every member of society wants to claim for himself‖ in which an individual‟s emotions is involved.
In communication, this “self-image” is maintained, protected or lost. A desire in communication is maintaining each other‟s ―face‖. This is done by recognizing the wants of other interaction and understanding their desires. Also mentioning definition of ―face‖, Yule, G.
(1996:60) shares the idea that it is “a technical term‖ which means ―the public self-image of a person‖ that every individual has and wants others to notice. The notion of ―face‖, according to Goffman, E. (1967) particularly associates with the emotions such as being embarrassed or humiliated, or ―losing face‖. As being explained by Brown, P.
(1987), people can understand face as something that is sentimentally invested and that is possible to lose, maintain, or enhance, and always 14 z contribute to interaction. Generally, the cooperation that people cooperate in order to maintain face in interaction is based on the mutual sensitivity of face. In human interaction, Brown, P. (1987) consider the two following principles are most important: - Negative face, which is the ―avoidance of imposition‖ (1987: 61) on the hearer, can be said to be the desire of not being obstructed by others.
- Positive face, which is “the desire to gain approval of other person‖ (1987:61), can be characterized as the want of expressing personal identity on particular occasion. Positive face relates to the image we create and we want other people to consider, respect and admire. While positive face appears to be similar to our character transported through language, negative face reveals what is commonly related to politeness. Either or both these face aspects can be threatened by certain inherently face threatening acts, which are defined both in terms of whose face.
Speaker or hearer‟s is at stake and which face want is threatened. The concept of ―face‖ is assumed universal by many researchers. Not only being considered to have global feature, positive and negative face also gain the cultural feature in any nations (Brown, P. (1985: 293) also add to the favor of the universality of positive and negative face by stating that ―the desire to maintain face, and the fear of losing it are interpersonal universals transcending all sociocultural, ethnic, sexual, educational, economic, geographical and historical boundaries.
Face threatening acts Another dimension mentioned by Brown, P. (1987) is the fact that the face needs of the speaker, addresses or both may be threatened by speech acts. During an 15 z interaction, such act as apology, request or complement may cause the participants of the conversation not to feel comfortable.