VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN ISSUING ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN INVITATIONS A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Supervisor ÑAËNG THÒ HÖÔÛNG, EdD Submitted by LEÂ BÍCH THUÛY Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality………………………………………………………………………………………………… i Retention and use of the thesis…………………………………………………………………………………. ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………… iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. iv Abbreviations and symbols.…… v List of charts………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vi List of figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vii List of tables………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study ………………………………………………………………………………………….2 The aims of the study…………………………………………………………………………………………………….3 The organization of the study………………………………………………………………………………………5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Written and spoken language…………………………………………………………………………………….1 Distinction between spoken and written language………………………….
English and Vietnamese spoken language……………………………………………………………. Sociolinguistics and the learning of English as a foreign language……………12 2. Direct and indirect speech acts ………………………………………………………………………. Indirectness in requests………………………………………………………………….
The most direct strategies (Bald-on-record strategies)…………………… ……. Conventionally indirect strategies ………………………………………………………………. Non-conventionally indirect strategies ………………………………………………………. Theories of politeness……………………………………………………………………………………………….
Politeness and indirectness…………………………………………………………………………. Social variables affecting politeness………………………………………………………………. The nature of invitations……………………………………………………………………. Written and spoken invitations…………………………………………………….
Reasons for making invitations ………………………………………………. Problems with invitations………………………………………………………………………. The structure of English and Vietnamese spoken invitations………………. The structure of English spoken invitations………………………………….
The structure of Vietnamese spoken invitations………………………………………. The characteristics of the subjects……………………………………………………………. The first group of subjects………………………………………………………. The second group of subjects……………………………………………………….
Description of the questionnaires…………………………………………………………………. Data collection procedure………………………………………………. Assumptions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………47 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 4. The preference of strategy use between groups: Overall results……………….
Preference for and use of politeness strategies in relation to social status, age and gender …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 50 4. Social status and age……………………………………………………………………………………. Social status and gender……………………………………………………………………………………… 59 4. Age and gender……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 66 4.
Discussion of the findings………………………………………………………………………………………… 74 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5. 86 Appendix 1 Questionnaire to English native speakers………………………….97 Appendix 2 Questionnaire to Vietnamese native speakers…………………………………….100 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Masters’ Thesis submitted today entitled: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN ISSUING ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN INVITATIONS In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Masters’ Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Department of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007 LE BICH THUY RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, LE BICH THUY, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accepted the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’ Thesis deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Masters’ Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan and reproduction for theses.
Ho Chi Minh City, August, 2007 Signature ……………………………………… LE BICH THUY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Ms. Dang Thi Huong, EdD, for her enthusiastic guidance, her thoughtful comments, her valuable support as well as her precious encouragement. Without Ms Dang Thi Huong, my whole-hearted thesis supervisor, I would not have finished my thesis. I am also grateful to Professor Nguyen Van Luan, PhD, Dean of The Faculty of Economics, Vietnam National University- HCM City, who has created favorable conditions and eased my workload so that I am able to attend the master program and finish my thesis.
I am greatly indebted to the lecturers, teaching staff and students at The Faculty of Economics and The National Institution of Politics, HCM City for completing the survey questionnaires. I also wish to thank Jack Bayfield, Sandra Jaye Smale, Charle Harmouy and their families who gave me great assistance in distributing and collecting the questionnaires for English native speakers. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother for her love and support, without which I would hardly have been able to overcome difficulties to complete it. ABSTRACT The awareness of the interactional similarities and differences in issuing or declining invitations in cross-cultural contexts can contribute significantly to better competence of performing this speech act.
This study has tried to investigate politeness in issuing English and Vietnamese spoken invitations under the effect of social status, age and gender. Two questionnaires were delivered to both English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers as an instrument for the research. Forty English native speakers and forty Vietnamese native speakes participated in answering the questionnaires. The results of the study showed that there were both similarities and differences in the selection of politeness strategies employed by English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers in issuing spoken invitations.
Social status, age and gender also affected differently to the choice of strategies used by both groups of subjects. Some pedagogical implications were suggested for the teachers of English on teaching spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English. ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS CID Conventional indirectness ENS English native speakers F-T-F Female-to-female F-T-M Female-to-male HCMC Ho Chi Minh City NCID Non-conventional indirectness M-T-F Male-to-female M-T-M Male-to-male VNS Vietnamese native speakers VNU Vietnam National University LISTS OF CHARTS 4.1 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of lower social status in situation 5…………………………………………………….2 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of equal social status in situation 5…………………………………………………….3 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of higher social status in situation 5………………………………………………….4 The proportion of total politeness strategies used by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situations 1 and 3…………………………………60 4.5 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situation 1 and 3…………….6 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4……………………………………………………………………………….7 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the different gender in situations 2 and 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………………71 LISTS OF FIGURES 2.1 Components of communicative language ability in communicative language use…………………………………………………………………………………………………….2 Possible strategies for doing FTAs………………………………………………………….3 Wolfson’s “bulge” model……………………………………………………………………………25 LIST OF TABLES 3.1 The first group of subjects…………………………………. The second group of subjects………………………………….1 The frequency of politeness strategies used by two groups of subjects ……………………………………………………………………….2 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of lower social status in situation 5…………….3 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of equal social status in situation 5……………….4 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of higher social status in situation 5……………………………………………57 4.5 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situation 1 and 3……………………………………61 4.6 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situation 1 and 3…………………………………….7 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4………………………………….8 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4…………………………….
Background to the study At present, English is the main language of the world communication. It is used as a means to acquire access to the world’s intellectual and technical resources. It is also used as a medium of politics, science, technology and international trade and chiefly as an international language among nations. In Vietnam, since the “open-door policy” was implemented in 1986 and the international relationship between Vietnam and other countries was developed, English has become increasingly important.
Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese people want to study English so that they can use it not only to access information and knowledge but also to communicate effectively in social interations. However, many Vietnamese learners of English, in spite of having developed good linguistic competence, still face communication difficulties arising from the lack of sociolinguistic and communicative competence. They are not well aware of the fact that different languages express feelings, construct messages in different ways and each community has its own rules constraining speech behavior. Therefore, they usually let their native language transfer inappropriately into the target language.
One of the typical examples is the act of greeting. Due to the influence of the culture, a Vietnamese learner tends to say “Where are you going?” or “What are you doing here?’ as a sign of greeting in stead of saying”How are you?”, “How have you been?” or just ”Hello”, “Hi” “Good morning”, etc. Furthermore, the hospitality and friendliness of the Vietnamese sometimes influence them to issue utterances: “You must go to our party. We really want you to come” or the like as invitations which are quite inappropriate in English speaking cultures.
As a matter of fact, the lack of knowledge on how to say, what to say and when to say can result in misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication or lead to wrong judgment such as: Vietnamese are curious and impolite people who just want to know other’s personal matter and to impose their minds on others. Therefore, obviously the ability of using a foreign language fluently, effectively and socially requires more than knowing its grammatical, semantic rules or getting native-like pronunciation but also requires the learners’ certain knowledge of socio-cultural factors in the use of language. It is undeniable that whether the learners of English can gain communicative proficiency or not depends not only on their own efforts but also largely on their teachers. According to Thomas (1983, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31), it is the language teachers who should take the responsibility of facilitating, guiding language learners to interpret values and patterns which they would have difficulty in interpreting as well as help them to “express themselves in exactly the way they choose to do – rudely, tactfully or in an elaborately polite manner”.
It is also the teachers who should endeavor to make their students aware of and sensitive to the sociolinguistic variables that play a role in different types of situational frames (Yorio, 1980, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31). In Vietnam, the teaching of English has shifted from the focus on vocabulary, grammatical rules and pronunciation to the emphasis on communicative competence lately. More and more course books which pay attention to the impact of socio-cultural factors on the issuing of English have been used in many educational institutions. In addition, the number of foreign language centres which claim to apply the communicative approach with the focus on social and communicative competence together with the provision of good teaching conditions has also mushroomed these days.
Moreover, there is a positive growing awareness of the need for socio-cultural knowledge in teaching and learning English from Vietnamese teachers of English. However, in order to help the Vietnamese learners of English gain communicative proficiency, further investigations on why, when, what, how and where to use various patterns of speech behavior is still in need and should receive more concern from the teachers. Hopefully with the help of qualified Vietnamese teachers of English who can provide feedback to learners concerning the appropriate or inappropriate use of English, the Vietnamese learners will be in a position to communicate effectively with people of English speaking community. In social communication, politeness is one of the aspects of culture which clearly influences the use of language.
It is of great value to not only scholars with particular interests but also to foreign language teachers who aim at enabling their non-native learners to use target language in the most appropriate way. Politeness in its relation to speech acts in general and to directive speech acts in particular has long been a great concern of many linguistics and educators all over the world. Invitation, which is a kind of directive speech act, has also been taken into consideration recently. Edmondson and House (1881: 132) states that an invitation is a social activity and has a particular significance in social life.
It may happen daily in all communities, all cultures.