MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY KHANXAY MUENSOPHA PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF THE CONVERSATIONS IN NEW INTERCHANGE 3 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Supervisor: Assoc. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BINH DINH – 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY KHANXAY MUENSOPHA PRAGMATIC ASPECTS OF THE CONVERSATIONS IN NEW INTERCHANGE 3 FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 8. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BINH DINH – BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN KHANXAY MUENSOPHA CÁC KHÍA CẠNH NGỮ DỤNG TRONG HỘI THOẠI CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH NEW INTERCHANGE 3 CHUYÊN NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH MÃ SỐ: 8.01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS. NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BÌNH ĐỊNH – STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I declare that this thesis is my own and original.
No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in the thesis, which has not been submitted for any degree at any institution. Binh Dinh, 2018 Signature Khanxay Muensopha i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyen Quang Ngoan for his support and guidance in my completion of the thesis. I am also thankful to all the lecturers at Quy Nhon University for their profound knowledge and endless support during my study at Quy Nhon University.
I would also like to thank my educational leaders in Laos who gave me the chance to study for my Master’s Degree at Quy Nhon University as well as my classmates who were always willing to help me and give me their best suggestions and encouragement during my process of conducting the study. Finally, I owe the completion of this research paper to my wife and children, who have always been cheering me up and standing by me on my road to success. ii ABSTRACT This study is to identify and analyze types and frequencies of occurrence of presuppositions, types of hedges, and types of politeness constraints in the conversations in New Interchange 3. The quantitative approach and qualitative approach are combined and the statistic, analytic, synthetic, descriptive, and comparative methods are used to examine 530 linguistic items collected from 32 conversations in the text book and analyzed on the basis of the theories by Yule (1996), Vartalla (2001), Grice (1975), and Leech (2005).
The results show that in terms of presuppositions, six types of presuppositions including existential, factive, lexical, structural, non- factive, and counter-factual presuppositions are used, with existential presuppositions being the most frequently used. As regards hedges, six out of seven types of hedges are realized, including: modal auxiliary, verb, adjective, adverb, phrase, and clause hedges, with adverb hedges being the most popular. When it comes to politeness constraints, all the ten politeness constraints suggested by Leech (2005) are found at different frequencies, of which the opinion-reticence constraint proves to be employed the most. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP….
ii ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………… iv ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ………………………. viii LIST OF TABLES.ix LIST OF FIGURES. Aim and Objectives. Scope of the Study.
Significance of the Study. Structure of the Thesis. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Pragmatics and Pragmatic Competence.
Definitions of Presupposition. Types of Presuppositions. Definitions of Hedge. Types of Hedges.
Definitions of Politeness. An Overview of the Previous Studies. Previous Studies on Presuppositions. Previous Studies on Hedges.
Previous Studies on Linguistic Politeness. Previous Studies on the data of the New Interchange Series.31 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Data Source and Samples. Validity and Reliability.37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Presuppositions in the conversations in New Interchange 3. Non-factive Presuppositions. Counter-factual Presuppositions. Hedges in the conversations in New Interchange 3.
Modal Auxiliary Hedges. Politeness Constraints in the Conversations in New Interchange 3. Obligation of S to O Constraint. Obligation of O to S Constraint.
Opinion-Reticence Constraint. Feeling-Reticence Constraint. Limitations of the Study. Suggestions for Further Studies.
79 vi ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS [C] constraint [H] hedge H the hearer [P] presupposition S the speaker O the other/ the hearer Italic used for terms, direct quotations, and examples Italic, bold used for triggers in the examples (2.1) … used for numbers of examples in the main text vi LIST OF TABLES Table Titles Page numbers numbers Table 3.1 Conversations in New Interchange 3 33 Table 3.2 Framework for presupposition analysis 35 Table 3.3 Framework for hedge analysis 36 Table 3.4 Framework for politeness constraint analysis 36 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Titles Page numbers numbers Figure 4.1 Distribution of presuppositions, hedges, and 38 politeness constraints in the conversations in New Interchange 3 Figure 4.2 Distribution of types of presuppositions in the 39 conversations in New Interchange 3 Figure 4.3 Distribution of types of hedges in the conversations 48 in New Interchange 3 Figure 4.4 Distribution of types of politeness constraints in the 58 conversations in New Interchange 3 x xi xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTIO N 1. RATIONALE Speaking is widely believed to be the most important of the four skills: reading, writing, speaking, and reading. Teaching people to speak English is to teach them how to communicate in English. Thus, only teaching them the language as a system (grammatical structures, lexical items, and phonetic rules) is simply not enough.
They also need the pragmatic aspects (i., language in use) to achieve the communicative competence, thus being successful in communication in English. Let us examine the conversation in example (1.1) Conversation 2 - Book 3, Unit 1, p. 5: That’s what friends are for! Dave: Hello? Jim: Hi. My name’s Jim Hunt.
I’m calling about the ad for a roommate. Dave: Oh, right. Jim: Are you still looking for someone? Dave: Yes, we are. Jim: Oh, good.
Dave: Well, there are four of us, and it’s a fairly small house, so we want someone who easy to get along with. Jim: I’m pretty easygoing. Dave: Great! So can I ask you a few fairly straightforward questions about yourself? Jim: No problem. I like it when people are direct.
From the pragmatic perspective, as the conversation in (1.1) shows, a variety of pragmatic features are realized. For instance, there are Existential presuppositions (“my name” >> I have a name, “Jim Hunt” >> Jim Hun exists), lexical presupposition (“still” >> You have looked for 1 someone up to now), modal verb hedge (“can”), and adverb hedges 2 (“really”, “fairly”, “pretty” to show the speaker’s awareness of the quality maxim). Politeness constraints (place a high value on O’s opinions, e. I like it when people are direct.” and place a low value on S’s feelings, e., greeting-greeting”, “question-answer”, and “request-acceptance”), and speech acts (e., “directive”, “expressive”, and “representatives” are all realized.
If a teacher teaches her students with all those pragmatic aspects with the speaker’s intended meaning in context, the lesson will be remarkably interesting and useful for the students. Good textbooks are crucial in teaching and learning a foreign language, and the New Interchange textbooks are good ones for teaching English. Research should be done on the pragmatic features of the conversations in the textbooks to facilitate teaching. So far, certain studies have been conducted with the data collected from the conversations in the New Interchange series, including the ones by Moradi (2008) for the purpose of evaluation of language functions, by Nguyễn Thị Phương Loan (2010) with New Interchange Intro to make it usable for her teaching, by Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Dung (2014) on speech acts in New Interchange 1, 2 and 3 as well as by Inthavong (2018) on the adjacency pairs and verbal strategies for doing a dispreferred second part in New Interchange 1 and 2.
However, no studies have examined other pragmatic features such as presuppositions, hedges, and politeness constraints, leaving the gaps for my choice of the research topic: “Pragmatic Aspects of the Conversations in New Interchange 3” for my MA thesis. AIM AND OBJECTIVES 1. Aim of the Study 3 - To study the unexplored pragmatic aspects of the conversations in New Interchange 3. Objectives of the Study This research is intended to deal with the following objectives: - To identify and analyze the types of presuppositions used in the conversations in New Interchange 3; - To identify and analyze the types of hedges used in the conversations in New Interchange 3; - To identify and analyze the types of politeness constraints used in conversations in New Interchange 3.
REREARCH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the aim and objectives, the researcher tries to find the answers to the 3 following questions: 1. What are the types of presuppositions used in the conversations in New Interchange 3 and how frequently are they used? 2. What are the types of hedges used in the conversations in New Interchange 3 and how frequently are they used? 3. What are the types of politeness constraints used in the conversations in New Interchange 3 and how frequently are they used? 1.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY - Pragmatic aspects consist of presuppositions, hedges, and politeness constraints which are considered major issues of pragmatics; - Samples are collected from the conversations in New Interchange 3; 4 - The focus is on types and frequency of occurrence of presuppositions (theoretically supported by Yule, 1996), hedges (theoretically supported by Vattala, 200), and politeness constraints (theoretically supported by Leech, 2005). SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Theoretically, the present study helps to enrich the pragmatic theories which are essential for the studies of language in use. Practically, it provides English teachers and learners of sufficient examples of pragmatic features such as presuppositions, hedges, and politeness constraints to facilitate language users and learners of the language 1. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS The study consists of 5 chapters, each of which is for a particular function.
Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter reveals the overview of the study including the statement of the problem, research aim and objectives, research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study, and structure of the thesis. Chapter 2: Literature review In this chapter, all the terms as well as the key theoretical concepts including pragmatics, presuppositions, hedges, and politeness constraints are revisited. Also, previous studies on relevant issues are reviewed. Chapter 3: Research methodology This chapter describes the research methods used in the study.
Additionally, the data source and samples, data-analyzing methods and frameworks for data analysis are also mentioned. Chapter 4: Findings and discussion 5 This chapter depicts the results of the study that the researcher finds out from the collected data based on the three research questions and a detailed discussion of the research findings concerning presuppositions, hedges, and politeness constraints. Chapter 5: Conclusion A summary of the study, major findings, implications, limitations as well as suggestions for further studies are all mentioned in this final chapter. 6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
PRAGMATICS AND PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE 2. Pragmatics Several linguists have defined what pragmatics is. According to Levinson (1983: 1) and Mey (2001: 3), pragmatics is the study of language in use. Levinson refers to pragmatics as “the study of those relations between language and context that are grammaticalized or encoded in the structure of a language” (1983: 9) and "ability of language users to pair sentences in the contexts in which they would be appropriate.
Crystal, (1992: 310) states that “[p]ragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of the users-especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants in an act of communication”. According to Richards et al. (1992: 248), pragmatics includes the study of: “(1) how the interpretation and use of utterances depends on knowledge of real world; (2) how the relationship between the speaker and the hearer influences the structure of sentences; and (3) how speech acts are used and understood by speakers”. As I understand it, pragmatics is the study of language in use, or to be more specific, the study of the speaker’s meaning in specific contexts.
Pragmatic competence Together with linguistic competence, pragmatic competence is also a fundamental aspect that forms communicative competence.