MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------------ TON NU HOANG MINH TAM PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN MAKING APOLOGY IN ENGLISH BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS AT HUE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY -------------- TON NU HOANG MINH TAM PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN MAKING APOLOGY IN ENGLISH BY VIETNAMESE LEARNERS AT HUE UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: TRUONG VIEN, Assoc. HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------------- TÔN NỮ HOÀNG MINH TÂM CHUYỂN DI NGỮ DỤNG TRONG LỜI XIN LỖI BẰNG TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN VIỆT NAM TẠI ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PHÓ GIÁO SƯ, TIẾN SĨ TRƯƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2020 Statement of Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Signed: Tôn Nữ Hoàng Minh Tâm Date: 09/11/2020 i Abstract This study aims to investigate pragmatic transfer among Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign language.
This study examines the speech act of apologizing in American English and Vietnamese focusing on pragmatic transfer. A discourse completion task (DCT) was used to elicit apology responses from four groups of participants: 18 native speakers of American English, 20 native speakers of Vietnamese, 20 Vietnamese learners of English (Elementary) and 20 Vietnamese learners of English (Advanced). Pragmatic transfer was operative in the performance of Vietnamese learners. The advanced learners employed more positive pragmatic transfer than the elementary learners, especially in Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs) and Explanation strategies, while elementary learners exhibited more negative pragmatic transfer, particularly in Concern and Forbearance strategies.
Language proficiency is found to affect the operation of pragmatic transfer of Vietnamese learners, i. the increase in the proficiency level resulted in decrease in pragmalinguistic transfer. ii Acknowledgement I am deeply grateful to University of Foreign Languages, Hue University Associate Professor Truong Vien, for invaluable comments and suggestions on my thesis. All errors that remain are my own.
iii Tables of Contents Statement of Authorship. iii Tables of Contents. iv List of Tables. vii List of Figures.
viii List of Abbreviations. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Context of the problem .3 A statement of the problem to be investigated .5 The scope of the study .6 Organization of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .2 Theories of speech acts .3 Theories of politeness .1 The social-norm view .2 The conversational contract theory .3 The conversational maxim .4 The face-saving view .5 Criticism of politeness theories .5 The speech act of apology .1 Apologies in speech act theory .2 Apologies in politeness theory.4 Apologies in ILP research .5 IL studies on Vietnamese apologies .6 Summary of the main features in ILP research on apologies. 35 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD .1 Rationale for using DCT .2 Description of the DCT questionnaire .4 Data collection procedure .5 The coding manual.43 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .2 The overall use of apology strategies .3 The overall use of apology sub-strategies .4 Pragmatic transfer in content of apology strategies and sub-strategies produced by the Vietnamese EFL learners .1 Summary of the findings .4 Suggestions for further research.
58 APPENDIX A: DCT Questionnaire (English Version). 66 APPENDIX B: DCT Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version). 69 APPENDIX C: DCT Questionnaire (VEE & VEA Version). 72 vi List of Tables Table 2.1 IL studies on the speech act of apology .1 Overview of four groups of participants .2 The variables underlying the construction of situations .1 Average number of strategies per situation used by groups .2 Overall use of apology strategies.3 Overall use of IFIDs sub-strategies .4 Overall use of responsibility sub-strategies.
48 vii List of Figures Figure 2.1 Subareas of general pragmatics .2 Possible strategies for doing FTAs.1 Average number of strategies used by group. 44 viii List of Abbreviations A Act AEN American English native CC Conversational contact theory CCSARP Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Patterns CEFR Common European framework of reference COPT Cartoon oral production task CP Cooperative principle DCT Discourse completion test E American English native speakers EFL English as a foreign language ESL English as a second language FTA Face-threatening act H Hearer IFID Illocutionary force indicating device IL Interlanguage ILP Interlanguage pragmatics KFL Korean as a foreign language KN Korean native L1 First language L2 Second language NL Native language NNS Nonnative speaker NS Native speaker NS-D Native speakers of Danish NS-E Native speakers of English P-2 Primary school students from level Primary Two P-4 Primary school students from level Primary Four ix P-6 Primary school students from level Primary Six PP Politeness principle S Speaker SIT Situation TL Target language V Vietnamese-speaking university students VEA Vietnamese advanced learners of English VEE Vietnamese elementary learners of English WDCT Written discourse completion test x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This first chapter provides the background of the research, describes the context that raises the research problem, and states the problem to be investigated. In addition, this chapter also addresses the research aims, limits the scope of the study, and outlines the structure of the thesis.1 Background Many learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), particularly Asian EFL learners, have experienced communication breakdowns with the interlocutors who are from different first language (L1) backgrounds. The problem is often caused by EFL learners’ lack of pragmatic competence in the target language, resulting in what Thomas (1983) called ‘pragmatic failure’.
As stated by Lightbown and Spada (1999) and Gass and Selinker (2001), pragmatic competence is the ability to use language forms in a wide range of environments factoring in the relationships between the speakers and the social and cultural context of the situation. As a result, speakers who may be considered ‘fluent’ in a second language (L2) may still lack pragmatic competence. While native speakers (NS) tend to forgive nonnative speakers’ (NNS) phonological or grammatical errors, they may negatively interpret pragmatic errors as arrogance or rudeness. Hence, pragmatic competence plays a very crucial role in the success of communication in which the target language is used.
In terms of communication in the target language, the use of speech acts is a vital factor, and it has become a prime area of pragmatic studies as different cultures have different ways of doing things with words. Asians, for instance, have their own ways of saying and meaning things in English. 257) pointed out an interesting observation in which a General Motors manager expressed his annoyance: “I don’t understand you Asians. You say ‘no’ when you are supposed to say ‘yes’, and you say ‘yes’ when you are supposed to say ‘no’.
From this example, we may infer that lack of consistence on speech performance across eastern and western cultures has resulted in many serious difficulties for Asian EFL learners in terms of speech act realization due to their lack of pragmatic competence. Recognizing such problems, Patil (2006) suggested that We need to develop a pragmatics of Indian English, Japanese English, Filipino English, Vietnamese English, and so on. Then we can compare 1 how, for example, politeness strategies, speech acts, and the maxims of conversational cooperation operate in the different varieties. These are tall orders.
These are long journeys.2 Context of the problem Vietnam is an Asian country where intercultural contacts are rapidly increasing after the introduction of the ‘renovation policy’. Furthermore, the Vietnamese government has recently allowed more foreign companies to invest in most industries of the country to help boost the economy. This process has resulted in the arduous tasks for Vietnamese EFL learners to communicate with people from foreign countries, particularly with those coming from English speaking communities. As intercultural exchanges flourish, the potential for intercultural miscommunication caused by misinterpreted utterances also grows.
Thus, Vietnamese EFL learners are required to have qualified communicative competence. On the contrary, when the English learning environment in Vietnam is taken into account, it seems that Vietnamese EFL learners may face the challenge to use English both accurately and appropriately. The first obstacle is that most Vietnamese learners do not have an obvious communicative need (Le, 2000). A number of university students view English as a tool for seeking well-paid jobs after graduation.
Likewise, many high school students see English as a compulsory subject they must learn to pass the school final examination and the university entrance examination. As a consequence, most high school and undergraduate students need is adequate knowledge of grammar and vocabulary of English to pass what is called ‘grammar-based examinations’ at school or to obtain certain English certificates to have good jobs. The second obstacle is that it seems very hard for Vietnamese learners to attain communicative competence due to their limited exposure to the target language. In Vietnam, for most learners, classrooms appear to be the sole environment in which they receive the target language (TL) input.
However, because of the pressure of the examinations, most Vietnamese EFL teachers concentrate more on language knowledge than on language use. Consequently, target sociolinguistic conventions are rarely mentioned or even unknown to the majority of Vietnamese EFL learners.3 A statement of the problem to be investigated As mentioned earlier, the English learning environment in Vietnam seems not to provide Vietnamese EFL learners with opportunities to use English accurately and appropriately. In order to facilitate the learners’ 2 communicative competence, Bouton (1996) proposed three major directions that can be considered as further contribution to the theory of communicative competence including (1) the refinement of the study of speech acts as they occur in different cultures, (2) an investigation into the effect of explicit instruction on pragmatic competence, and (3) the presentation of different functions of a language in textbooks. This study will make contribution to the first area, namely the study of interlanguage speech acts.
The speech act of apologizing is chosen as the subject of the present study for three reasons. Firstly, apologies have long been considered as a face-threatening act, so it is hard to employ apologies to establish harmony between interlocutors. Secondly, differences between English and Vietnamese culture may cause misunderstanding once Vietnamese EFL learners perform the speech act of apologizing inappropriately. In addition, whilst much research on interlanguage speech act of apologies has been carried out in a variety of cultures and languages, little attention has been paid to interlanguage apologies made by Vietnamese EFL learners.
Hence, this thesis will contribute to the interlanguage studies on the speech act of apologies produced by Vietnamese EFL learners.4 Research aims This study aims to investigate the differences and similarities of apology strategies employed by Vietnamese EFL learners, NSs of Vietnamese and American NSs of English to find out whether Vietnamese EFL learners transfer from L1 apology patterns when making apologies in the TL. Moreover, the research also aims to find out whether the English proficiency of the Vietnamese EFL learners affects their pragmatic transfer.5 The scope of the study This study focuses on the speech act of apologizing occurring in settings familiar to the subjects under observation. Moreover, the main goal of this study is to investigate what the subjects would say to make apologies instead of examining how people would apologize and respond to apologies as it could be an arduous task to gather all interlocutors’ apologies and responses at the same time. Furthermore, a discussion of the effects of contextual factors (i.