VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES --------o0o-------- PHẠM THÙY GIANG STUDENTS’ PRAGMATIC AWARENESS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGLISH CLASSROOM TEACHING AT VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE (Nhận thức ngữ dụng học của sinh viên và các gợi ý cho việc giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại học Thương mại) Summary of M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 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 --------o0o-------- PHẠM THÙY GIANG STUDENTS’ PRAGMATIC AWARENESS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGLISH CLASSROOM TEACHING AT VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE (Nhận thức ngữ dụng học của sinh viên và các gợi ý cho việc giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại học Thương mại) Summary of M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: Nguyen Bach Thao, M.A HANOI – 2012 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration of originality.iii Table of contents.iv Lists of abbreviations.vii List of tables.viii PART I: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Design of the study. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Aspects of Pragmatics. Categories of speech acts.
Definitions and aspects of pragmalinguistics. Aspects of sociopragmatics. 8 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Difference between awareness of pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics.
Methods of the study. Sample and sampling. 17 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Awareness of greeting.
Awareness of addressing. Awareness of introducing. Awareness of requesting and responding. Awareness of inviting and responding.
Awareness of parting. Awareness of thanking and responding. Awareness of conversation topics. Summary of the findings.
Raising students’ pragmalinguistic awareness. Raising students’ awareness of politeness. Raising students’ awareness of cultural norms. Integrating culture into language teaching.
Enforcing the teaching of British and American cultural background. Creating culture-rich learning environment. Designing a cultural syllabus.37 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Providing more authentic teaching materials.
Improving the pragmatic teaching in the way of holding tests and exams. Developing teachers’ competence. Summary of the study. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further studies. 43 APPENDICES vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VUC Vietnam University of Commerce ESL English as a second language EFL English as a foreign language vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Average percentage of appropriate responses by speech acts Table 3.2: Students‘ awareness of greeting Table 3.3: Students‘ awareness of addressing Table 3.4: Students‘ awareness of introducing Table 3.5: Students‘ awareness of requests and responses Table 3.6: Students‘ awareness of inviting Table 3.7: Students‘ awareness of parting Table 3.8: Students‘ awareness of thanks and responses Table 3.9: Students‘ awareness of conversation topics viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale English, as an international communication tool, is the most widely used all over the world. As a result, it is absolutely vital for many Vietnamese learners to have a good command of English so that they can communicate effectively with foreigners.
However, many Vietnamese learners even those who are good at reading and writing with sufficient knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary still fail in communicating with foreigners. Although they may have little difficulty in understanding the literal meaning of the target language in authentic communication situations, they cannot interpret the utterances correctly, or express themselves appropriately. One of the reasons is that they lack necessary pragmatic knowledge; that is, they are not aware of the social, cultural, and discourse conventions that have to be followed in various situations like many other proficient speakers of English (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999). This is understandable because according to Bachman (1990), in order to be successful in communication, it is essential for foreign language learners like Vietnamese students to know not just grammar and text organization but also pragmatic aspects of the target language.
Once they are not aware of English pragmatic aspects, they may be incapable of using the target language effectively in intercultural communication. In other words, low pragmatic awareness results in many communication breakdowns. As a teacher of English at Vietnam University of Commerce, from her own observations and experience, the researcher has noticed that VUC students often get difficulties in communicating in English when involving in different communication situations in classrooms as well as in real-life encounters. Many of them do not employ appropriate strategies and do not use relevant linguistic forms to perform a speech act.
They engage in communication activities without paying attention to factors that influence the communication such as the relationship with the other interlocutor. The situation is worse when they interact with native speakers. As they are not exposed much to real-life situations, they often feel stuck. They may not understand what native speakers mean or are unable to make appropriate utterances in different situations.
Especially, they often violate politeness or cultural norms, thus leading to their difficulty or even failure in intercultural communication. This maybe due to the fact that they are not really aware of pragmatic aspects or do not put great emphasis on them. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Such a situation has inspired the author to carry out a research paper into “ Students’ pragmatic awareness and implications for English classroom teaching at Vietnam University of Commerce.” with a focus on VUC 1st year non-English major students‘ pragmatic awareness. Some pedagogical implications are also given to help raise the students‘ pragmatic awareness and increase English teaching effectiveness.
Aims of the study The purpose of this research is to explore 1st year non-English major students‘ pragmatic awareness at the university where the researcher is serving. Basing on the research results, the researcher then goes further to figure out teaching techniques to raise the students‘ pragmatic awareness. It is specifically important because these freshmen should be properly primed for directing their own learning process, setting as a good foothold for the next coming school years and in the long run for their life-long study. When they are aware of pragmatic aspects and put much emphasis on these right from their initial time studying at university, they will have a right orientation in studying English, thus increasing the effectiveness of their English study.
It is also hoped that the study will be a contribution to improve the teaching quality at this university. Research questions The study is aimed at answering two research questions: 1. How much are VUC 1st year non-English major students aware of English pragmatic aspects? 2. What should be done to improve the students‘ pragmatic awareness? 4.
Scope of the study The study focuses on investigating pragmatic awareness of VUC 1st year non- English major students who are not taught pragmatics explicitly. That of English major students or 2nd, 3rd or 4th year students, therefore, is left for future research. Also, due to the time constraints, this study involves a small number of students. Moreover, the participants targeted in the survey questionnaire for native speakers are all American; therefore, only American social and cultural norms are used to form a data basis for analysing and evaluating the appropriateness of the students‘ responses.
Significance of the study The study is hoped to be valuable to not only VUC teachers and students but Vietnamese education policy makers as well. First, the study should be able to help 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com teachers at VUC improve their theoretical understanding of pragmatics and its importance in language learning and teaching. From this, they can find more suitable and effective teaching strategies and put more emphasis on teaching pragmatic aspects to help their students highly aware of pragmatics, thus they can use English more fruitfully in their professional and academic life. Second, it is hoped that the research will enhance VUC students‘ pragmatic awareness so as to help them become more engaged in classroom activities.
Third, by presenting a wealth of relevant literature, the study is expected to propose some ideas to help educators and policy makers take steps along the path toward building pragmatically authentic materials and introducing pragmatic-oriented examinations into the curriculum. Another significance of the study is to contribute obviously to the knowledge of pragmatic awareness which is still an alien linguistic area in Vietnam. On the other hand, it suggests new aspects for further studies. Design of the study The study consists of three main parts as follows: Part A: Introduction: This part presents the rationale, aims, methods, scope, significance and design of the study.
Part B: Development: There are four chapters to this part. Chapter I: Literature Review: This chapter reviews the literature to provide a basic theoretical background on pragmatic awareness and a justification for conducting the study on the grounds of finding a gap left by previous studies on pragmatic awareness. Chapter II: Methodology: This chapter deals with the overall picture of how the research was carried out from the first step of determining the study structure to the last one of collecting and analyzing data. Chapter III: Data Analysis and Findings: This chapter interprets the answer to the posed research questions: How much are VUC 1st year non-English major students aware of English pragmatic aspects? What should be done to improve the students‘ pragmatic awareness? The findings end with conclusions and comments.
Chapter IV: Implications: This chapter recommends possible improvements for both teachers and students with an aim to raise the students‘ pragmatic awareness. Part C: Conclusion: This part summarises the main contents and findings of the study, limitations of the present study and some suggestions for further studies. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter serves as the theoretical background for the study. The definitions and aspects of pragmatics and pragmatic awareness were given to clarify the subject matters investigated and the significance of the matters.
Definitions Pragmatics, a subfield of Linguistics, developed in the late 1970s and was initially introduced by Charles Morris in 1938. 6-7) introduced this term when he proposed his theory of signs, known as semiotics, consisting of syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics. Since its introduction by Morris up to the present time, pragmatics has been defined in various ways by many scholars (Leech, 1983; Levinson, 1983; Mey, 1993; Rose & Kasper; 2001; Stalnaker, 1972; and Yule, 2006). Though these scholars define pragmatics differently, they all address their attention to what the speakers or writers mean.
For this reason, pragmatics can be defined as ―the study of meaning‖ (Griffith, 2006, p. 1) or ―the study of the use of context to make inferences about meaning‖ (Fasold 1990, p. Out of numerous definitions of pragmatics, one of interest in second language pedagogy has been proposed by Crystal (in Kasper, 2001, p. 2) as ―the study of language from the point of view of 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 other participants in the act of communication.‖ In other words, pragmatics is defined as the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context.
2) indicates that communicative actions includes not only using speech acts (such as apologizing, complaining, complimenting, and requesting) but also engaging in different types of discourse and participating in speech events of varying length and complexity. Aspects of Pragmatics Pragmatics offers various areas of study.112-119) discusses such different areas as invisible meaning, context, deixis, reference, inference, anaphora, presupposition, speech acts, direct and indirect speech acts, negative and positive face and politeness.