VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI THE USE OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN MAKING SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Sử dựng chiến lược lịch sự khi đưa ra lời gợi ý trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60.15 HANOI –2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI THE USE OF POLITENESS IN MAKING SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Sử dụng chiến lược lịch sự khi đưa ra lời gợi ý trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Supervisor: Đỗ THị Mai Thanh, M.A HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv Abstract List of figures, tables, and charts PART I: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………. Design of the study ………………………………………………………………… 2 PARTII:.DEVELOPMENT ……………………………………………… 4 Chapter 1: Literature review ……………………….Cross culture communication………………………………………………… 5 1. Politeness and face…………………………………………………………… 6 1. Politeness in cross cultural communication………………………………….
Positive politeness strategies…………………………………………………. Negative politeness strategies…………………………………………………. Suggesting as a speech act……………………………………………………. 12 Chapter 2: Data analysis and findings……………………………………………….
Comments on survey questionnaires and informants……………………… 13 2. The sequence of importance of some factors affectings S‟s choice of suggesting……………………………………………………………………………… 15 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Politeness in suggesting as seen from informants‟ parameter…………… 17 2. Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting………………… 19 2.
Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting………………… 21 2. The utterances which are commonly used to suggest among the informants………………………………………………………………………………. Politeness in making suggestion as seen from communicating partner‟s parameter………………………………………………………………………………. 23 Chapter 3:Some applications of politeness in suggesting in English teaching and learning………………………………………………………………………………….
28 Part III: Conclusion 28 3. Summary of major findings……………………………………………………. Suggest for further study 38 Reference 39 Appendix I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS NPS: Negative politeness strategies PPS: Positive politeness strategies FTAS: Face of threatening acts List of tables Table 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs ( Brown and Levinson, 1987) Table 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Nguyen Quang, 1999:130) Table 3: The in formants‟ status parameters. Table 4: The sequence of importance of some factors affecting S‟ ss choice of suggesting Table 5: Politeness in suggesting as seen from English informants „parameter Table 6: Politeness in suggesting as seen from Vietnamese informants ‟parameter Table 7: Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting Table 8: Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting Table 9: the utterances are used in making suggestion among informants vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION I.
Rationale To our understanding, language is a great heaven prize and treasure for human in order to fulfill our vital needs as the social beings: communication. Language appeared, remains and flourishes along with human history. With the seen development of language and language studies at the moment, there is no need in proving the crucial and irreplaceable position of language in human life. Language is not only for communication but also for cultural exchange among nations.
It is difficult to imagine what our lives would be like without language. Cross – cultural communication is an interesting and attractive field for us to find out the similar and different language when studying speech acts such as: greeting, advising, promising, and suggesting… among countries in the world. There are many ways to make suggestion in Vietnamese and English. But to make suggestion in an effective way is by no mean easy.
People often have difficulties in making appropriate suggesting in another language. This leads the author to the research into “ The use of politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese” to find out the similarities and differences in making suggestion in Vietnamese and English II. Aims of the study. The aims of the study are: 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - To investigate ways of suggesting in Vietnamese and English - To compare and contrast the use of politeness strategies in suggesting in given Vietnamese and English suggesting situations.
- To contribute to raising language teachers‟ and students‟ awareness of cross – cultural differences in the speech act of suggesting. Scope of the study In all aspects of politeness, the study only deals with verbal aspects, in the light of the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson. The paper is aimed to investigate the English – Vietnamese cross – cultural interaction in making suggestion in both languages English and Vietnamese. The data analysis is mainly taken in to account of interviews with informants to examine politeness strategies based on collected situations of the act of suggestions.
The data were collected by conducting surveys with questionnaires. In addition, the data from the informants are also utilized in the study. How are politeness strategies manifested in suggestion in English and Vietnamese? 2. What are the implications for teaching and applying the speech act suggesting in cross cultural communication in Hai Phong private university.
Method of the study The following methods are resorted to: 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection instrument) - Consulting the supervisor - Reading relevant publications - Conducting personal observations VI. Organization of the study The study will be organized into the following structure:: Part I: INTRODUCTION outlines the rationale, the methodology, the aims, the scope, the significance and the organization of the study. Part II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW reviews the theoretical issues. It briefly present and discusses the theory of cross – cultural communication and summaries of politeness strategies, summaries of works on suggestion.
Chapter 2 DATA ANALYSIS presents and discusses similarities and differences in using politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese. Chapter 3 Some applications politeness strategies in teaching English Part III: CONCLUSION Summary of major findings and suggestion for further study Suggestion for further study 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART II : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW I. CULTURE According to H. Triandis (1994:23), “Culture is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in a ecological niche, and this became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place.” Hoopes (1979:3) defines that: “ culture is the sum of ways of living, including valuable ness, beliefs, esthetic, standards, linguistic, expression, patterns of thinking, behave norms, and styles of communication which a group of people to assume its survival in a particular physical and human environment.
Culture and the people who are part of it interact. So culture is not static. Culture is the response of a group of human being to valid and particular needs of its members. It , therefore, has an inherent logic and an essential balance between positive and negative dimension”.
Levine and Alelman (1993) consider culture as “ a shared background ( for example national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, art, music and all the other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time. It also refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com human interactions, expressions and view points that people in one culture share”. Culture is always changing because culture consists of learned patterns of behavior and belief, cultural traits can be unlearned and learned a new as human need change. Obviously, language cannot occur alone and is never separated from social activities and its culture.Cross – cultural communication Cross – culture can be understood as “ the meeting of two cultures or languages across the political boundaries of nation-state ”s ( Kram, 1998: 81) The relationship between culture and communication is often compared with the bond between the voice and the echo.
According to Richard (1985:92). “ cross – cultural communication is an exchange of ideas, information, etc… between persons from different backgrounds. There are more problems in cross – cultural communication than in communication between people of the same cultural background. each participant may interpret the other‟s speech according to his or her own cultural conventions and expectations.
If the cultural conventions and misunderstandings can easily arise, even resulting in a total break down of communication. This has been shown by research into real life situations, such as job interview, doctor -patient encounters and legal communication”. Thus cross – cultural communication is a field of study that deals with these questions, concerning with the communication between/among interlocutors of different cultural background in an attempt to avoid misunderstanding, cultural shock and even conflicts. In other words, cross 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com cultural communication studies are cultivating cultural fluency, the awareness of the ways cultures operate in communication, and the abilities to respond effectively to cultural differences ( Lebaron, 2003) I.Politeness and face Many linguists share their understanding and their concern on the concept of politeness.
Brown and Levison (1990: 2), in their introduction to “Politeness- Some Universals in Language Usage”, emphasize that “the issues of politeness raise sociological speculations of this scale, they also touch on many other interests and many other fields.” Cutting (2002: 44-45) views that “in pragmatics, when we talk of politeness, we do not refer to the social rules of behavior, we refer to the choices that are made in language use, the linguistic expressions that give people space and show a friendly attitude to them”. It is true to say that politeness is a pragmatic phenomenon. Politeness lies not in the form and the words themselves, but in their function and intended social meaning. Politeness, in terms of cultural aspect, is defined as “a fixed concept, as in the idea of „polite social behavior‟, or etiquette, within a culture” (Yule, 1996: 60).
Richards (1985:281) identifies politeness as “the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversation”. Brown and Levinson (199) analyze politeness and say that in order to enter into social relationships, we have to acknowledge and show an awareness of the face. 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com „Face’, the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself, consisting in two related aspects: Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction- i. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition.
Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or „personality‟ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants. We should be aware of the fact that it is a universal characteristic across cultures that speakers should respect each other‟s expectations regarding self- image, take account of their feelings, and avoid face threatening acts. Cutting (2002: 45) analyzes the view of Brown and Levinson (1990) of politeness and face: “ When face threatening acts (FTAs) are unavoidable, speakers can redress the threat with negative politeness (which does not mean being impolite) that respects the hearer‟s negative face, the need to be independent, have freedom of action, and not be imposed on by others. Or they can redress the FTA with positive politeness, that attends the positive face, the need to be accepted and liked by others, treated as a member of the group, and to know one‟s wants are shared by others”.
Brown and Levinson (1990: 69) suggest five possible strategies for avoiding face threatening acts (FTAs) or for mitigating the face threat, which are illustrated in the table 1 below.without redressive on record 2.positive politeness Do the FTA with redressive action 4.Don‟t do the FTA 7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Greater Table 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs ( Brown and Levinson, 1987) For example, in term of suggesting speech acts: 1.