THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DAM THI QUYNH AN ANALYSIS ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Phân tích các chiến lược lịch sự được giảng viên và sinh viên sử dụng trong lớp tiếng Anh tại khoa Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Thái Nguyên) M. THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DAM THI QUYNH AN ANALYSIS ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS IN ENGLISH CLASSES AT SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Phân tích các chiến lược lịch sự được giảng viên và sinh viên sử dụng trong lớp tiếng Anh tại khoa Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Thái Nguyên) M. THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Bui Thi Huong Giang, Ph. THAI NGUYEN – 2019 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this minor thesis entitled “An analysis on politeness strategies used by teachers and students in English classes at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University” is my own work and effort has not been submitted anywhere for any purpose.
In addition, the contributions of my colleagues and students are involved. Other sources of information have been used and acknowledged. I also certify that any help for my research work, preparation of the thesis itself, sources and literature used for the thesis have been fully and properly cited. Thai Nguyen, June 2019 Approved by Submitted by, Supervisor, Bui Thi Huong Giang, Ph.
Dam Thi Quynh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of the assignment I would like to express my deepest gratitude to a number of people for helping me to make this M. First and foremost, my deepest gratitude goes to Bui Thi Huong Giang, Ph., my supervisor, who supported and encouraged me generously throughout this study. Without her excellent academic guidance and support, my thesis would not have been completed. My appreciation is also extended to a number of staff members of English Department, School of Foreign Languages, especially Dr.
Le Hong Thang, Ms.A Duong Thi Ha and her first year students in English pedagogy class, Ms. Nguyen Hong Ha and her first year students in English bachelor class No.1 for their support in my collecting data for completing the thesis. I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to all the lectures provided by all my teachers at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University who have helped me to fulfill this research. My sincere thanks go to my colleagues, friends, especially my family who has constantly assisted me in completing the research.
While I am deeply indebted to all these people for their help to the completion of this thesis, I myself remain responsible for any inadequacies that are found in this work. ii ABSTRACT This research was conducted to analyze the politeness strategies used by teachers and students in English classes at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. The research describes what types of politeness strategy used by teachers and what types of politeness strategy used by students in English classes. This research was descriptive qualitative research.
The subject of the study was two English teachers and forty-six students of two English classes at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. To collect the data, researcher did observation by recording video and interview through several steps to analyze the data, namely data reduction, data display, conclusion drawing and verification. Researcher used Brown & Levinson‟s and Q. Nguyen‟s theory of politeness strategies.
The result of this research showed that there are four main strategies employed by the teachers and students in English classes at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. They are bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record strategy, in which, positive politeness strategy dominated the use of politeness strategy by teachers as well as students during teaching process. Key words: politeness strategy, bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off record, teachers, students. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LISTS OF FIGURES, TABLES. vii PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the study. Objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Design of the study.2 PART II: DEVELOPMENT .4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Definitions of politeness .2 Approaches to politeness.1 Grice‟s approach to politeness .2 Lakoff‟s approach to politeness .3 Leech‟s approach to politeness .4 Brown & Levinson‟s approach to politeness. Nguyen‟ s approach to politeness. Previous studies in the scope of politeness strategies .13 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. The research design.
Context of the study. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure .1 Observation by video recording. Data analysis procedure .1 Observation by video recording .3 Conclusion drawing and verification .20 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Video recording findings.1 The politeness strategies used by teachers during teaching process in English classes .2 The explanation of politeness strategies used by students during learning process in English classes.1 Interview the teachers .2 Interview the students .40 PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION.
Limitation of the study. For the teachers. For the students. For the other researchers.
I APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. II APPENDIX 2: SCRIPT OF CLASSROOM OBSERVATION .III APPENDIX 3: ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS TRATEGIES USED BY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. XIX APPENDIX 4: INTEVIEW TRANSCRIPTION OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS .XXVI v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. SFL-TNU : School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University 2.
CP : Cooperative Principle 3. PP : Positive politeness 4. NP : Negative politeness 5. BOR : Bald on record 6.
OR : Off record 7. FTAs : Face Threatening Acts 8. St : Student vi LISTS OF FIGURES, TABLES Table 1: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by teacher .23 Table 2: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by teacher .25 Table 3: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by teacher in the third conversation .28 Table 4: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by teacher in the fourth conversation .30 Table 5: Frequency of the use of politeness strategy by teachers in uttering politeness strategies during teaching process.31 Table 6: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by students in the first conversation .33 Table 8: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by students in the third conversation .35 Table 9: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by students in the fourth conversation .36 Table 10: The frequency of the use of politeness strategy by students in uttering politeness strategy during learning process was ongoing .37 vii PART I: INTRODUCTION This part is divided into five sections: rationale of the study, objectives of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study and design of the study. Rationale of the study Over the last four decades, together with many other aspects of pragmatics, politeness is one of the most popular areas.
It has been traditionally studied on the basis of ordinary conversation. Studies on politeness have been recently conducted worldwide especially in the area of sociolinguistics and anthropolinguistics. First illuminated by Brown & Levinson (1987) with the idea of “face-saving view”, politeness issues have been further explored in many different languages and contexts. According to Yule (1996), politeness strategies are very important to investigate as it is used by people in their social interactions and in the specific contexts, knowing what to say, how to say, when to say, and to be with other people.
Politeness issues do not merely attract attentions of scholars in the field of sociolinguistics and anthropolinguistics as explained above. Other settings of communication, such as education and classroom setting, also highlight the important roles of politeness. Maintaining politeness in the class is a good strategy to reach effective classroom interaction. A study by Ayu (2018) on politeness just focused on lecturer in speaking class but did not specifically explore the potential strategies employed by the students in the class.
In addition, Murni (2019) had explored the English students‟ perspectives on politeness; however, the focus was not on teachers‟ perspectives on politeness. It focused only on the English students‟ perception of how to be polite in the class. In Vietnam, there are some works of Vietnamese scholars and writers on the politeness and language such as T. Politeness studies which explore deeply about the teachers and students‟ politeness strategies are still limited, especially politeness strategies used by teachers and students in university.
Therefore, a desire to have a further insight into major problem the writer develops the research entitled “An analysis on politeness strategies used by 1 teachers and students in English classes at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University” (SFL-TNU) to investigate and emphasize the vital role of politeness strategies in education in general and the use of politeness strategies by English university teachers and students in the classroom context in particular. Objectives of the study - To identify and analyze politeness strategies used by teachers and students in English classes at SFL-TNU. - To offer suggestions for teachers and students in using politeness strategies in a more effective way. Scope of the study As many concepts in pragmatics, analysis discourse and linguistics, the concept of politeness is not easy to define.
Due to its complexity, limited material resource as well as the writer‟s knowledge, this thesis only focuses on the politeness strategies used by teachers and students in SFL-TNU after the relating concepts are made clearly. It is only intended for the first year students in SFL-TNU. Significance of the study This study is expected to have theoretical and practical benefits in using politeness strategies during English teaching and learning process. First, hopefully, it is not only a source for other researchers in their paper but also a provision of knowledge for the teachers and students in teaching and learning process by applying the research findings.
For the teachers, the results of this research can be used as reference in English teaching, especially on the using of politeness strategies. For the students, they will understand more about the applications and types of politeness strategies. Second, the research findings can be a practical choice for other researchers and the author. For other researchers, the results of this research can support them to get needed information relating to the use of politeness strategies.
The author can get in-depth knowledge and experience about usage of politeness strategies. Design of the study The study is composed of three parts: Part I: Introduction: presents the rationale, objectives, scope, significant, and the design of the study. 2 Part II: Development: This part consists of three chapters: + Chapter 1: Literature review This chapter discusses the notions of politeness theory, face, politeness strategies and explores previous works of politeness strategies from pragmatic perspective. + Chapter 2: Research methodology This chapter states the chosen methods to carry out the study and to analyze the collected data.
It also deals with informants and procedures of the data collection. + Chapter 3: Research findings and discussion This chapter analyses collected data to find out major politeness strategies used by teachers and students. After having the findings, the discussion will be done by researcher. Part III: Conclusion and suggestion This part summarizes the main findings of the study, and offers some suggestions for further research.
3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This section includes two main parts. Part 1 reviews theoretical framework. Part 2 reviews some previous studies.1 Definitions of politeness Politeness is one of the most important aspects of human communication. Recently politeness has been considered as a pragmatic phenomenon, requiring a great deal of research to improve human‟s interaction and therefore reinforced the study of language in its social context.
Although the essence of politeness is popular in all cultures, it is expressed differently in different cultures.