VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************************ LƯU THI ̣PHƯƠNG THUÝ A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK “NEW HEADWAY” -INTERMEDIATE AS SEEN BY TEACHERS OF UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC-TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình giao tiếp NEW HEADWAY trình độ intermediate dưới cái nhìn của giáo viên trường Đại học Kinh tế -Kỹ thuật Công nghiệp M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 60220201 HANOI – 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ************************ LƯU THI ̣PHƯƠNG THUÝ A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK “NEW HEADWAY” -INTERMEDIATE AS SEEN BY TEACHERS OF UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC-TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình giao tiếp NEW HEADWAY trình độ intermediate dưới cái nhìn của giáo viên trường Đại học Kinh tế -Kỹ thuật Công nghiệp M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code : 60220201 Supervisor : Prof. Nguyễn Quang HANOI - 2016 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that this thesis is my own work.
I confirm that this work is for the requirement of the M.A, and this thesis has not been submitted for elsewhere in any other form for the fulfilment of any other degree or tertiary institution. Hanoi, November 2016 Luu Thi Phuong Thuy i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At the completion of this thesis, I would like to show my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to a number of people for their encouragement and support. To begin with, I would like to express my greatest and deepest thankfulness to Prof. Nguyen Quang, my supervisor, for his valuable guidance, and advice during the procedure of my thesis.
Without his supervision, this M.A thesis could not have been accomplished In addition, I would like to give my thanks to Mrs. Le Ngoc Hanh, dean of English Faculty as well as all UNETI teachers who participated in my study, for their wholehearted facilitation. Without their ideas, their support and their contribution, I cannot complete my thesis. Last but not least, I wish to send my special thanks to my family particularly my mother, my father and my husband for their help on the completion of this thesis.
They have always supplied the best conditions form me to fulfil the thesis. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This paper is carried out at endeavour of exploring UNETI teachers‟ perception in the linguistics politeness strategies under the influence of role relationships in the conversational activities in New Headway. On the basis of quantitative method, survey questionnaire with multiple choice questions and discourse completion task are employed to collect data from fifteen UNETI teachers of English. The research shows that the frequencies of politeness strategy occurrence in conversational activities of the material are not always the same.
The result reveals that positive politeness strategies are preferred more than negative politeness strategies in almost all kinds of conversational activities. Moreover, the role relationships relating to relative power, social distance and ranking of impositions make considerable impact on the choice of politeness strategies. The study reveals that all the UNETI consume politeness in both utterances in NHW and the significant role relationships in the selection of the types of politeness strategies. In addition, they classified them into positive and negative politeness strategies.
iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABBREVIATIONS NHW : New Headway (Intermediate- The Third Edition) E. : For example FTA : Face Threatening Act H : The hearer S : The speaker NPS : Negative politeness strategies PPS : Positive politeness strategies P : Relative Power D : Social Distance R : Rate of imposition UNETI : University of Economic and Technical Industries iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1: Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown /Levinson, 1987: 60) Figure 2: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the conversations. Figure 3: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the conversations. Figure 4: Frequency of negative politeness strategies used in the conversations.
Table 1: The statistics of the appearance of positive and negative politeness strategies based on the roles of participants Table 2: The statistics of the choice of the appearance of positive or negative politeness strategies based on the roles relationships under UNETI teachers‟ perception v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. vii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study.6 Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .Theory of Speech Acts .Theory of politeness and politeness strategies .Theory of politeness .Role relationships affecting politeness strategies .16 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY .19 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Multiple choice questionnaires. Discourse completion task.
Data collection procedure. Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW. Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW as seen by UNETI teachers of English. Data analysis method .21 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Positive and negative politeness in conversational activities in the course book “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE”. Overview of politeness strategies in “New Headway” intermediate (NHW) .Frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book “New Headway, Intermediate”.Negative Politeness strategies in conversational activities .Politeness Strategies in terms of role- relationship .Politeness in terms of role - relationship in NHW as seen by UNETI teachers of English. Summary of main findings. Suggestions for further study.
I vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Language has always been an indispensable part not only in communication among people who share or do not share the same nationality, social or ethnic background but also in recording and understanding culture. Among languages all over the world, English is considered the most powerful language. The number of people learning English has sharply increased and a variety of learning and teaching materials are available to meet their learning demands.
In Vietnam, English has developed with an unprecedented speed and become a compulsory subject in schools, colleges and universities. Although a lot of Vietnamese learners of English master grammar rules and accumulate as much vocabulary as possible, they often experience communication breakdown when participating in a real daily conversations. In order to communicate successfully across cultures, learners need to be provided with cultural knowledge and the relationship between language and culture. Additionally, learners must be aware of the hidden parts of culture including politeness strategies in daily social interaction.
In communication, people use the politeness strategies to save hearers‟ face and avoid making other people feel uncomfortable. This research paper entitled “A study of politeness strategies and role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-Technical Industries” is motivated by the above reasons. Hopefully, the research would supply teachers with an insight into the politeness strategies under the influential role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate). Aims of the study The study is carried out to achieve the following objectives: - To identify and classify positive and negative politeness employed in the 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com conversations of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate).
- To investigate how positive and negative politeness strategies are realized with reference to role relationships in the conversations. - To find out how UNETI teachers identify politeness under the influence of role relationships in conversations in NHW. Scope of the study The study focuses on analyzing politeness strategies used under the inference of role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic- Technical Industries 4. Significance of the study The study deals with giving a theoretical background on politeness strategies in verbal communication.
As stated in the study, politeness strategies play an integral role in daily communication. Hence, the study is carried out to show the readers how the politeness strategies utilized in cross-cultural communication to avoid cultural conflicts. In addition, this study is expected to make contributions to raising the awareness of the importance of politeness strategies in real life situations for learners. Practically, the study also supplies the readers with the analysis of the politeness strategies in conversations of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-Technical Industries.
Research questions The thesis aims to address the following research questions: - What are positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversational activities in NHW? - How do role relationships influence the use of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversations of the course book “New Headway” 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com (intermediate)? - How do UNETI teachers realize positive and negative politeness strategies under the influence of role relationships? 5. Research method This paper applies qualitative method and quantitative method because these methods are supposed to describe the way politeness strategies are used, provides the answers to the questions of what types of something happened and seeks to how teachers realize politeness under the influence of role relationships in the course book. All the considerations, remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in this study will be based largely on the analysis of statistic data. Furthermore, survey research is the method of gathering data from respondents.
In a survey, the researcher selects a population. Since population can be quite large, the author directly questions only a number of samples of the population. That is why survey research is a suitable choice for a cross-cultural study. All the considerable comments are based on the author‟s description and analysis of the data and questionnaires.
Instrument The instrument used in this thesis is questionnaires which consists of 8 real-life situations, which are aimed at eliciting positive and negative strategies that are recognized in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (the third edition) (intermediate). In these situations, various variables are reflected such as role relationships and positive/negative strategies. Data analysis Types of data Data used in this thesis are collected from the course book “New Headway” (the third edition) (intermediate). The book was designed to develop the communicative ability in daily interaction for learners.
The thesis is only to focus on one course book. All units in these textbooks are divided into four teaching sections such as: reading, listening, speaking and writing. Furthermore, in order to answer the third 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com research question, the researcher employs questionnaire. Data collection The data of the study are all utterances in conversations in every unit in the textbook, mainly in listening sections.
In order to collect the data, the author observed all conversational activities in the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) to find out all utterances including politeness strategies. Additionally, the author gives and collects questionnaires for UNETI teachers. Data analysis Step 1: All the data in this thesis are intended to be analyzed according the following steps: - The researcher would study the course book carefully. All utterances appearing in the units would be picked up.
- The researcher would find out and discuss with colleagues and supervisor to identify which utterances consist of politeness strategies. - The researcher would classify the politeness strategies in these utterances. - The researcher would consult with supervisor and colleagues. - The researcher would interpret the data.
Step 2: - The researcher would deliver and gather questionnaires - The researcher would analyze questionnaires. Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion.