Speech acts in email communication for international relations at thu dau mot university

BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY NGUYEN HOANG MAI PHUONG SPEECH ACTS IN EMAIL COMMUNICATION FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AT THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY MAJOR:

BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE

THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN HOANG MAI PHUONG

SPEECH ACTS IN EMAIL COMMUNICATION FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AT THU DAU MOT

UNIVERSITY

MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

BINH DUONG PROVINCE – 2021

ỦY BAN NHÂN DÂN TỈNH BÌNH DƯƠNG TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THỦ DẦU MỘT

-

NGUYỄN HOÀNG MAI PHƯƠNG

HÀNH ĐỘNG NGÔN TỪ TRONG GIAO TIẾP EMAIL QUỐC TẾ TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THỦ DẦU MỘT

CHUYÊN NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH

MÃ SỐ: 8220201

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ

NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC

TS NGUYỄN THỊ THANH TÂM

BINH DUONG – 2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude and appreciation

to Ph.D Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, my research supervisor, for her patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement, deep knowledge, and useful advice for this thesis

Secondly, I gratefully acknowledge Thu Dau Mot University in generally, Faculty of English Language and Office of International Affairs in particular for offering me the most favorable conditions to complete this thesis

Furthermore, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my Leaders and colleagues at TDMU for their support and assistance in keeping my progress on schedule

Finally, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to my beloved family for their support, sharing, and encouragement throughout my study Without their enthusiastic support and endless love, I would never have completed this thesis

Author

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Speech Acts in Email Communication for international relations at Thu Dau Mot University” is my original work for the Master Degree of Faculty of English Language, Thu Dau Mot University This thesis does not contain published materials or written by other people except those cited in the references I further certify that this thesis has not been submitted for other degrees or publication in any other education institutions

Binh Duong, November 2021

Author

NGUYEN HOANG MAI PHUONG

RETENTION AND USE OF THESIS

I hereby state that I, NGUYEN HOANG MAI PHUONG, being a candidate for the degree of Master of English Language accept the requirements

of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In this regard, I agree that the original of my Master’s thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research

Binh Duong, November 2021

NGUYEN HOANG MAI PHUONG

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY iv

RETENTION OF USE v

TABLE OF CONTENT vi

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS xi

LIST OF APPENDICES xii

ABSTRACT xiii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 4

1.3 Research objectives and questions 4

1.3.1 Research objectives 4

1.3.2 Research questions 5

1.4 Significance of the study 5

1.4.1 Practical Significance 5

1.4.2 Theoretical Significance 5

1.5 Scope of the study 6

1.6 Limitations of the study 6

1.7 Organization of the study 6

1.8 Summary 7

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Pragmatics and Speech Acts in Pragmatics 8

2.1.1 Definition of Pragmatics 8

2.1.2 Speech Acts 9

2.1.2.1 Definition of Speech Acts 9

2.1.2.2 Types of Speech Acts 10

2.2 Previous Studies of Speech Acts 15

2.3 Email Communication 17

2.3.1 Parts of Emails 18

2.3.2 Language use in writing emails 19

2.3.3 Types of Emails 25

2.4 Speech Act in Email Communication 26

2.5 Context 27

2.6 Conceptual framework of the study 27

2.7 Summary 29

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 30

3.1 Research Design 30

3.2 Research Questions 31

3.3 Setting 32

3.4 Data source and samples 32

3.4.1 Data sources 32

3.4.2 Samples 32

3.5 Instruments of the Research 32

3.6 Data Collection Method 34

3.7 Data Analysis Method 34

3.8 Data Trustworthiness 35

3.9 Summary 36

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 38

4.1 Results 38

4.2 Discussion 45

4.3 Summary 78

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 80

5.1 Conclusion 80

5.2 Implications of the research 81

5.2.1 For OIA’s staff and others who work in the field of international relations: 81

5.2.2 For students of English Language 82

5.2.3 For lecturers of English Language 82

5.2.4 For other researchers 82

5.3 Recommendations for further study 82

5.4 Summary 83

REFERENCES 84

APPENDICES 90

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TDMU Thu Dau Mot University

OIA Office of International Affairs

MOU Memorandum of understanding

EAIM East Asia Institute of Management

SUT Suranaree University of Technology

UNISMA University of Islam Malang

HNU Hannam University

TAU Tarlac Agricultural University

RSU Rangsit University

CJCU Chang Jung Christian University

GUFL Guangxi University of Foreign Languages CNU Chungnam National University

NMIT Nelson Malborough Institite of Technology

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Data sheet of Speech Acts found in OIA’s emails 33

Table 4.1 Data of Representatives and their functions found in OIA’s emails 39

Table 4.2 Data of Directives and their functions found in OIA’s emails 39

Table 4.3 Data of Commissives and their functions found in OIA’s emails 40

Table 4.4 Data of Expressives and their functions found in OIA’s emails 40

Table 4.5 Data of Declaratives and their functions found in OIA’s emails 41

Table 4.6 The total types of Illocutionary Acts and their functions found in OIA’s emails 41

Table 4.7 List of each functions of the types of Illoctionary Acts 43

Table 4.8 Combinations of Illocutionary Acts’ types and their functions found in OIA’s emails 44

Table 4.9 Structures/Expressions and Sentences of Representatives’ Functions 74 Table 4.10 Structures/Expressions and Sentences of Commissives’ Functions 75 Table 4.11 Structures/Expressions and Sentences of Directives’ Functions 76

Table 4.12 Structures/Expressions and Sentences of Expressives’ Functions 77

Table 4.13 Sentences of the functions of four Illocutionary Acts’ types 94

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS

Figure 2.1 Framework of the study 29

Figure 4.1 Distribution of types of Illocutionary Acts found in OIA’s emails 41 Figure 4.2 Functions of four Illocutionary Acts’ types found in OIA’s emails 42

ABSTRACT

This present research focuses on Speech Acts, especially aims at identifying types of Illocutionary Acts and their functions employed in emails of the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at Thu Dau Mot University (TDMU)

The research data consists of 35 English outgoing emails from January

2018 to October 2021 of OIA, TDMU Both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in this study The descriptive, qualitative method is mainly employed

to analyze the data by classifying and interpreting data descriptively based on Searle’s theory (1976) of Illocutionary Acts and emails’ context Meanwhile, the quantitative method is used by giving the percentages of the findings The results

of this study show that there are four types of Illocutionary Acts and 28 functions

in OIA’s emails Based on the results, it is figured out that OIA’s staff uses expressive type with the main functions such as greeting, farewell, and thanking most The study can be a reference for OIA’s staff, students and lecturers of English Language, and other researchers to get additional knowledge about Speech Acts, especially Illocutionary Actc’ types and their functions in certain contexts

Keywords: Speech Acts, Illocutionary Acts’ types and functions, English

outgoing emails, Office of International Affairs, Thu Dau Mot University

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter deals with the background of the study,

aim(s) of the study, research objectives and questions of the study, significance,

scope of the study, and the summary

1.1 Background to the study

The trend of globalization and the explosion of science and technology have been promoting each country's higher education for continuous innovation, especially in international integration in order to quickly update new trends and knowledge Therefore, higher education in each country in general and at universities in particular needs international integration to exchange, learn, and innovate in accordance with the general trend of the world In response to the development of the new era, Office of International Affairs (OIA) is established

by Thu Dau Mot University (TDMU) - one of the public universities in southern Vietnam to coordinate and manage international cooperation activities between TDMU and foreign universities in order to improve the quality of education for TDMU

Located in Thu Dau Mot city, Binh Duong province, TDMU founded on June 24th, 2009 is a prestigious public university The forerunner of TDMU is Binh Duong Pedagogical College - a prestigious pedagogical training institution

of Binh Duong province, providing a team of teachers having expertise and knowledge in teaching, and enthusiasm for the young generation The missions

of TDMU are training high-quality human resources to serve the socio-economic development, international integration of Binh Duong Province, Southeast region

- the key economic zones of Southern region and become the Science Research Center in the area TDMU always places a great emphasis on training, scientific research and especially in international cooperation TDMU’s structure includes the University Council, the Board of Directors, the Science and Training Council,

13 faculties - institutes, 14 functional departments, and 11 centers The total

number of students is about 16,000 full-time students and 1000 graduate students1 With the continuous development, TDMU has attracted more and more international experts and volunteers to work, support training and carry out scientific research at the University

Over 10 years of construction and growth, TDMU has constantly risen to successfully complete its educational and scientific missions In 2015, TDMU is honored to be a member of CDIO organization It becomes an associate member

of the Association of Southeast Asian Universities and achieves the National Education Accreditation Standard in 2017 TDMU also has 4 majors that meet AUN - QA standards in December, 2019 (TDMU., 2019)

Contributing to the development of the university over the past 10 years is the contribution of external activities and international cooperation The predecessor of the Office of International Affairs is the Office of Science and International Relations, which is established under Decision No 108/QĐ-ĐHTDM of the President of Thu Dau Mot University In 2010, the Office of International Affairs is re-established from the separation of the Office of Science and International Relations The Office has the functions of advising the President, and directly implementing communication activities to improve the position of the University, establishing and maintaining cooperative relationships with domestic and foreign partners to promote the development of the University

in all strategic activities2

The Office of International Affairs has achieved some significant results

in expanding relations with many international partners and organizations in the world According to the report about international cooperation in 2021 of OIA, until now, TDMU has signed 38 Memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the educational institutions from countries: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Singapore… and welcomed more than 100 international visitors from all over the

1 Thu Dau Mot University (2021) Gioi thieu Retrieved from https://tdmu.edu.vn/Gioi-thieu

world The collaboration with foreign partners has brought TDMU many students and lecturers exchange programs, collaborative training programs, scientific conferences, and the improvement of university facilities TDMU has also signed cooperation agreements to supply high-quality labor for foreign enterprises located in Binh Duong province In addition, since 2010, TDMU has supported training for students of the Lao People's Democratic Republic under the cooperation agreement between Binh Duong province and Champasak province

The international cooperation activities of OIA are mainly implemented through email exchange with the partners After achieving a successful exchange, OIA will arrange face-to-face meetings to carry out the work For this reason, email exchange is one of important parts to establish a good relationship with the partners

In the current digital age, a series of scientific and technological inventions are applied in life In the old days, to send a letter, people have to spend a lot of time going from home to the post office and put it in the mailbox Moreover, it takes much time to move mail from one place to another There are some problems during the sending process in the traditional way such as lost mail and many other unexpected problems To overcome that situation, Electronic Mail (Email or E-mail) is invented Email has begun to play an important role in communication purposes with the growing in using the Internet According to Joseph Johnson (2021), there are over 306.4 billion emails sent and received per day worldwide in 2021, this figure is forecast to grow to over 376.4 billion by year-end 2025 The contact and exchange with foreign partners of OIA are also mostly via emails To communicate with partners from all over the world, OIA uses some languages such as Chinese, Korean and especially English Consequently, the way to write emails in English effectively is important, which requires the master of Speech Act Theory

Using Speech Acts in emails when contacting and exchanging with foreign partners of OIA is extremely critical to achieve the effect of

communication If people who work in the field of international relations do not know clearly about Speech Acts or the knowledge of Speech Acts, particularly how Speech Acts perform and how to use Speech Acts, they may misunderstanding the partners’ intended meanings through sentences and cannot use Speech Acts effectively to convey their intentions to the partners as well That will lead to not being able to build a good relationship with partners Moreover, misunderstanding is one of the main reasons for disruption in relationships In TDMU, until now, the study on Speech Acts in emails, especially with foreign partners in international relations has not been conducted yet In consequence, the researcher decides to conduct a study on Speech Acts employed in email messages of OIA in TDMU

Based on the background above, the researcher chooses to conduct a study

in the form of a thesis entitled “Speech Acts in Email Communication for international relations at Thu Dau Mot University”

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate the types of Illocutionary Acts and point out the functions of Illocutionary Acts applied in OIA’s emails in TDMU After finishing the study successfully, the researcher expects it is beneficial for people who work/study in the field of international relations and Linguistics in general and OIA’s staff in particular for using Speech Acts to communicate effectively

1.3 Research objectives and questions

1.3.1 Research objectives

The present study has been designed to reach the following objectives:

• To identify the types of Illocutionary Acts employed in Office of International Affairs’ emails in TDMU

• To describe the functions of each type of Illocutionary Acts employed in Office of International Affairs’ emails in TDMU

1.3.2 Research questions

As a consequence, the study is aimed at seeking the answers to 2 oriented questions as follows:

Question 1: What are the types of Illocutionary Acts employed in Office

of International Affairs’ emails in Thu Dau Mot University?

Question 2: What are the functions of each type of Illocutionary Acts employed in Office of International Affairs’ emails in Thu Dau Mot University?

1.4 Significance of the study

The results of the study are expected to give contributions as follows:

1.4.1 Practical Significance

 Office of International Affairs

The study results are expected to provide more knowledge and information about Speech Acts for OIA’s staff By doing this research, the researcher expects

it will help OIA’s staff to use Speech Acts easier and more effective to contact and exchange with international partnerships and be able to interpret the partners’

intentions correctly via their sentences

 People work/study related to international relations and

Linguistics

The study also can be used as a reference for people who work and study in the field of international relations and Linguistics

 English teaching/ learning

The result of this study is a helpful material for English teaching/ learning to use Speech Acts appropriately to achieve the effective communication

1.4.2 Theoretical Significance

The findings of the study first are expected to enrich the comprehension and understanding of Speech Acts In other words, it is expected to enrich for the

corpus of Linguistics, especially Speech Acts Moreover, this research can be used as a reference for the researchers who conduct related research in the future

Finally, it also is expected to inspire other researchers to open more deeper researches about Speech Acts

1.5 Scope of the study

This study focuses on analyzing the categories of the Illocutionary Acts and their functions found in OIA’s emails in TDMU The study data is obtained from emails of OIA during the time period of January 2018 until October 2021 since the researcher only receives permission to get the emails during that time period In this study, the researcher tries to find the types of Illocutionary Acts

and their functions expressed in OIA’s emails based on the classification of

Searle (1976)

1.6 Limitations of the study

This research only focuses on the categorization of Speech Acts mainly

the types of the Illocutionary Acts and their functions proposed by Searle expressed in OIA’s emails in TDMU from January 2018 to October 2021

1.7 Organization of the study

This thesis consists of 5 chapters They are Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results and Discussion and Conclusions

Chapter 1: Introduction

In the chapter, the background of the study is provided Then come the aims, research questions and objectives The significance, limitation and scope of the study, organization of the study, and the summary are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This chapter covers the literature review that involves the theories related

to the study, the definition of Pragmatics, Speech Acts, Emails and context

Moreover, some previous studies are reviewed This chapter also provides the conceptual framework of the study and the summary of this chapter

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter describes the methodology applied in carrying the study It includes research design, setting, data sources and samples, and instruments of the study It also comprises the approach of data collection and data analysis, the data trustworthiness of the study, and the summary of this chapter

Chapter 4: Results and Discussion

Chapter 4 presents the results of the study and the discussion of the results from collected data The summary of this chapter is also provided

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter covers the theories related to the study by giving the definitions of terms including Pragmatics, Speech Act and its types, context, and Emails The previous study findings are also reviewed by providing the findings

of the same research category that have been conducted by other researchers to show the similarities and differences comparing to this study The conceptual framework of the study is also provided in this chapter It explains the concepts following the research’s problem and purpose and provides the conceptual model

2.1 Pragmatics and Speech Acts in Pragmatics

2.1.1 Definition of Pragmatics

It is important for people to understand how language is used in communication in order to interpret the meanings of language The same sentence may have different interpretations in different contexts As a result, context is very significant in interpreting the intentions of people in communication

One of the branches of Linguistic which studies the sentences’ meanings

by involving the context is Pragmatics In this part, some definitions of Pragmatics are provided

According to Yule (1996), Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning

In this type of study, Pragmatics concerns the interpretation of people’s meaning

in a particular context and how the context influences what it said or written Leech (1983) also says that Pragmatics can be defined as the study of meaning which is related to the situations Being more detail, Yule (1996) argues that Pragmatics should have a consideration of context’s aspects that will determine the way people say or write

Stating the same idea, Paltridge (2006) states that Pragmatics studies the meaning in relation to the context in which a person is speaking or writing

Regarding the definitions of linguists about Pragmatics, Pragmatics studies the meaning of people in relation to their context It is necessary for the hearers/readers to consider the particular context of what is said or written to understand and interpret the true meaning of the sentence

2.1.2 Speech Acts

2.1.2.1 Definition of Speech Acts

As for Chailka (1994:153), Speech Acts as “the ways people use language

to manage the social interaction.” This definition indicates clearly the function of Speech Acts in interpersonal communication It means words not only represent their literal meaning, but also various things in various situations based on people’s communication purposes

Speech Act is a subdivision of Pragmatics Speech Act Theory is first introduced by the British philosopher of languages, J.L Austin in his well-known book in 1962 "How to Do Things with Words" and later on it is developed by the American philosopher J.R Searle According to Austin (1962), Speech Act is the action performed when people produce sentences Moreover, Austin also shows that in addition to conveying meaning, language can be used to perform

actions in his lectures (Stubbs, 1983) People use language to apologize, to thank,

to complain, to invite… in communication In other words, people do not only produce sentences with words and phrases but also perform some actions via their sentences to transmit their communicative intentions to others For example,

“TDMU would like to invite you to participate RICE conference”, is one of the

sentences in OIA’s emails OIA writes the sentence to invite the partner to join TDMU’s conference, so OIA performs an act of inviting via their sentence That action is a Speech Act

Stating the same idea, Allan (1998) proposes that when a speaker/writer produces a sentence to hearer/reader in certain context, he/she creates a Speech Act The study of Speech Acts is crucial in communication It helps a

hearer/reader comprehend a speaker/writer’s meanings in every sentence since people do not say/write anything without purposes There are always some

intentions behind the sentences For example, “Can you please send us your passport photo” This sentence is in OIA’s email sent to the partner The

sentence has the function of requesting since by using this sentence, OIA requests partner to send OIA the passport photo and also expects the partner to recognize OIA’s intention by sending OIA the passport photo

Searle (1969) argues that a Speech Act is a sentence that has a certain function in communication such as apologizing, promising, warning, inviting, or expressing the speakers/writers intentions Especially, in Email Communication,

it is very significant for both sender and recipient to have knowledge about Speech Acts; in which sender has the ability to use Speech Acts effectively in sentences to convey his/her purpose to recipient and the recipient has to understand the use of Speech Acts in order to be able to comprehend the sender’s intention so that the communication can be successful

Based on the experts’ opinion above, it can be concluded that Speech Act

is not only describing about something but also doing something or performing the actions Speech Acts are the actions performed while people produce their sentences to convey their particular purposes in certain context Speech Acts serve human communication activities and help people achieve the communication intentions in each specific situation

2.1.2.2 Types of Speech Acts

According to Austin (1962) in his Speech Acts Theory, when producing a sentence, three types of Speech Acts including Locutionary, Illocutionary, And Perlocutionary Acts are performed simultaneously

a The Locutionary Acts

The Locutionary Act refers to the particular sense and reference of a sentence, having the meaning in traditional sense (Austin, 1962) Alternatively,

Yule (1996) writes that the act of making a meaningful linguistic expression is Locutionary Act In addition, Peccei (1999) in his book “Pragmatics” defines that Locutionary Act is the actual form of words and the semantic meaning A Locutionary Act uses elements of words such as words, sentence structures basing on the grammatical rules to create a statement with full of meaning

For example: It is very hot in Vietnam now

The sentence is in OIA’s email, OIA describes the actual condition, particular the temperature of Vietnam to partner

b The Illocutionary Acts

Sari’s statement (1988) points out that Illocutionary Act is what the speaker/writer intends to do by saying/writing something Stating the same idea with Sari, Huang (2007) notes that Illocutionary Act presents the communicative functions that the speaker/writer intends to perform by producing sentences For

example: When OIA writes, “The meeting will be on June 25 th ” which means

OIA makes an act of informing to the partner via their sentence The communicative function of this sentence is used for informing, which shows the writer’s purpose The function of the sentence is also referred to as the illocutionary force of sentence

Yule (1996) also says that the term “Illocutionary Acts” is often closely related to the term Speech Acts People try to find a way to convey their meanings rather than what they say/write For that reason, Illocutionary Act is most discussed Talking about Speech Acts is talking about the Illocutionary Acts

Searle (1976) presents one of the most widely-accepted classifications of Illocutionary Speech Acts He classifies Illocutionary Acts into five categories They are Representatives, Directives, Commisives, Expressives, and Declaratives The classification by Searle is valuable to identify the purpose or the function of the speaker/writer’s sentence to the hearer/reader Besides the classification of

Illocutionary Acts, Searle (1976) also introduces the communicative functions of Illocutionary Acts Searle’s Illocutionary Act types and their functions are elaborated by giving brief descriptions as follows:

* Representatives

Representatives are the acts that used to tell the world what people know

or believe via their sentences In other words, it presents the belief of the speaker/writer about something although it is true or not It is also an Illocutionary Act that tells about a statement of fact This type performs actions

including Stating, Informing, Agreeing, Explaining, Complaining, Concluding, Deducing, Hypothesizing, Insisting, and so on Moreover, Asserting and Describing also belongs to Representative Acts (Yule, 1996) In addition, Cutting (2003) adds Claiming and Predicting into this type

For example:

(a) The time should be at 9:00 am on March 21 st ;

(b) The draft of Memorandum Of Understanding is simple in Vietnam

The sentence (a) and (b) are in OIA’s emails In the sentence (a), the writer suggests the time and date for the meeting to partner It belongs to Representatives with the function of Suggesting In the sentence (b), the writer states his/her opinion that the Memorandum Of Understanding’s draft is simple

in Vietnam based on his/her belief although it may not be simple Therefore, its function is as Stating the writer’s opinion and it contains Representative Act

* Directives

Searle (1976) proposes this type of Illocutionary Acts performs the attempt of the speaker/writer “to get the hearer/reader to do something” In Email Communication, Directives are usually performed by the request of the sender to

the recipient Typical functions of this type are Requesting, Commanding, Suggesting, Ordering, Begging and so on

The example of Directives:

Could you please send us some information about your programs and universities or any student exchange programs

The sentence is in OIA’s email OIA performs a request to the partner to send OIA the information about partner’s university, programs and student exchange programs Consequently, the sentence can be classified into Directives whose function is as Requesting

* Commisives

This third category means that the hearer/writer commits his/herself for some future action via sentences In Email Communication, the writer or sender often uses Commisives to commit to doing something Commisives perform

Committing, Promising, Planning, Offering, Threatening, Refusing, Vowing, Volunteering and so on For example, OIA writes “We will discuss with our chairman about your visit” By writing this, OIA does an act of committing that

OIA will discuss with the chairman about partner’s visit So the function of the

sentence is as Committing and it belongs to Commissives

Congratulating, Thanking, Apologizing, Condoling, Deploring , Welcoming and

so on Moreover, Praising and Regretting are added by Cutting (2003) into Expressive Acts In Email Communication, two functions of Expressive that used

most are Greeting and Farewell functions since they are integral parts of an email

In addition, Thanking Function of Expressive is also used a lot in Email Communication

The sentences are examples of Expressives:

(a) “Dear Assoc Prof Chalard Chantarasombat”

(b) Sincerely

(c) Thanks so much for your time visiting us

The sentence (a), (b) and (c) are in OIA’s email In sentence (a), OIA expresses their greeting to Assoc Prof Chalard Chantarasombat Therefore, the function of this sentence is as Greeting By writing sentence (b), OIA expresses their farewell to partner so this sentence has the function of Farewell Meantime,

in sentence (c), OIA thanks the partner for visiting TDMU, so the function of this

sentence is as Thanking

* Declaratives

Declaratives are a form of Illocutionary Acts that used to change the world via the sentence In this type, the speaker/writer has to have a special institutional role in a specific context to make a declaration correctly Declaratives present

actions including Appointing, Nominating, Sentencing, Firing, Naming, etc

For example: I now pronounce you husband and wife

The sentence is said by a priest in a Christian wedding ceremony It declares a man and a woman become husband and wife It changes the status of two singles If this sentence is produced by someone else (not the priest) and the place is inappropriate for a wedding ceremony (just a casual gathering), the declaration must be null and void So, it depends on the special institutional role

of the speaker/writer and the specific context as well

In this study, the researcher uses Searle’s classification of Illocutionary Acts (1976) to analyze the types of Illocutionary Acts employed in Email Communication for international relations in TDMU Besides, based on the classification by Searle and the emails’ context, the researcher determines the functions of those Illocutionary Acts in emails

c The Perlocutionary Acts

Austin (1962) identifies the Perlocutionary Acts as an act performed by producing something that causes certain effects or reactions on the hearer/reader

It is the effect produced by the sentence on the hearer/reader’s feeling, thoughts

or actions after the speaker/writer produces the sentence

For example:

“You’ve passed the exam” that sentence would give the feeling of

happiness to the hearer;

“I heard a strange noise here at night" that sentence would give the fear

to the hearer

2.2 Previous Studies of Speech Acts

The study on Speech Acts has been interested for many decades Internationally, there are some studies on this field such as “Illocutionary Acts used by Indonesia this morning presenters on Metro TV” by Indriawati Mukti Peni (2008); “Speech Act in Doraemon “Stand by me” Movie” by Tira Nur Fitria

(2015); “Speech Acts Analysis Of Bon Appétite Food Advertisements” by Lutfiyaningsih Naufalina (2017); “An analysis of Speech Act in Hillary

Clinton’s Speech “This madness has to stop”” by Novia Cindy Gultom (2017);

“A pragmatic analysis of Speech Acts of the main character in State of Play” by

Atika Krusdian Sari (2014), and so on In Vietnam, there are some researchers

studying on Speech Acts such as Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh (2007) focuses on Speech Acts in business letters in the thesis of “Language used in Business response letters in terms of Speech Acts and Politeness Strategies” She points out the importance of Speech Acts in business letters and provides the benefits of Speech Act types in particular kinds of business letters; Tran Thi Ngoc Du (2012) discovers the similarities and differences of conditional Speech Acts between English and Vietnamese in the thesis of “Conditional Speech Acts in English and Vietnamese”; Nguyen Huong Ly (2012) compares the use of apology Speech Acts by English native speakers and Vietnamese English foreign language/Vietnamese native speakers in “The speech act of apology made by Vietnamese EFL Learners: An interlanguage pragmatic study”, and so on

However, there have been very few studies that focus on Speech Acts in emails

in Vietnam

In this section, the research reviews two of them First is “A Speech Acts Analysis Of Bon Appétite Food Advertisements” This is a study conducted by Lutfiyaningsih Naufalina (2017) The research analyzes Speech Acts in Bon Appetite food advertisements The aims of this research are to identify the types

of Speech Acts and to figure out the Speech Act patterns in advertisements The descriptive, qualitative method is used in the research Based on the research, statements are the highest type of locutionary acts with the purpose of providing the products’ information to the readers; commisives are the highest type of illocutionary acts with the purpose of offering the products’ benefits to the consumers and the highest type of perlocutionary acts are to get the readers to expect something with the purpose of giving impact on the readers Another finding of the research is that the most frequent pattern used by the copywriters was Statements-Commisives-Expect

The second study is conducted by Atika Krusdian Sari (2014) under the title “A pragmatic analysis of Speech Acts of the main character in State of Play” The research investigates types of Speech Acts in terms of Locutionary Acts, Illocutionary Acts, and Perlocutionary Acts employed by the character in the movie entitled “State of Play” The descriptive, qualitative method is used in the research The result of the research concludes that there are three types of Locutionary Acts performed by the main character in State of Play They are Declarative, Interrogative, and Imperative in which Declarative form is used most Regarding Illocutionary Acts, there are four types are employed by the main character including Representative, Directive, Commissive, and Expressive Representative type is the most dominant used by the main character among other types of Illocutionary Acts Another result is that there are twelve types of Perlocutionary Acts produced by the main character in State of Play

Based on the previous researches, there are some similarities and differences with this research The first similarity is that the researchers analyzes Speech Acts Another similarity is the methods used by the researchers All three researchers use the descriptive, qualitative method The differences between this research and the previous researches are the focus analysis and the object of the research In this study, the researcher focuses on analyzing Speech Acts in terms

of Illocutionary Acts, especially types of Illocutionary Acts and their functions employed in OIA’s emails in TDMU Whereas Lutfiyaningsih Naufalina (2017) focuses on analyzing Speech Acts in the types of Speech Acts (Locutionary, Illocutionary, Perlocutionary) and the Speech Act patterns in Bon Appétite Food Advertisements, Atika Krusdian Sari (2014) focuses on analyzing all the types of Speech Acts employed in the main character in the movie entitled “State of Play”

2.3 Email Communication

With the growing interest in using the Internet for communication purposes and numerous advantages, Email Communication has started to play a significant role in human interaction at the present time In academic circumstances, Electronic Mail seems to be well established and be sometimes more effective and popular than other means (Chang and Hsu, 1998) Whittaker, Bellotti, and Moody (2005) suppose that Email is very important in the development of collaborative work and social communication In OIA, international activities are mainly discussed and exchanged via Emails Email Communication is important for making a successful relationship with the partner

Electronic Mail (Email or E-mail) is a means of exchanging messages

("mail") between two or more people by telecommunication People use email

for several purposes such as contacting family, friends, colleagues and bosses, exchanging for work, communicating with lecturers and professors, applying for jobs and so on Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, an American computer programmer, is believed as the inventor of email (BBC, 2016) Email is first

created in the 70s but has only very limited use As the internet grows, the demand for emails also increases Until now, Email has become a very popular means of online communication with people The users can send not only text but also non-text files such as images and sound files or other attachments via emails Email can be used every time and everywhere as long as the users have

an internet connection

2.3.1 Parts of Emails

* Parts of an Email Address

According to Shailynn Krow, there are three main parts of an Email Address including includes the user’s name, the '@' character and the domain name

For example: oie@gmail.com

The '@' sign is in the middle of the user’s name and the domain name, in which The user’s name “oie” is on the left and the domain name “gmail.com” is

on the right

The domain name consists of the mail server and top-level domain The mail server is the name of the email service provider, for example Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, the organization’s name… The top-level domain refers to what type of organization the users are sending emails, for example com – company, edu – educational institution, gov – government institution, org – organization…)

* Parts of an Email Message:

According to Jennifer Gunner, there are eight elements of an Email Message as follow:

- Subject Line: Subject Line is a title of the message It describes briefly

what message is about;

- Sender (From): This is the sender’s Internet Email Address;

- Recipient (To:): This is the recipients’ Internet Email Addresses There

is no limit to the number of people who receive messages in To mode Besides,

CC and BB are also included in Message Recipient:

+ Carbon Copy (CC) is a mode used to send emails to many people at

the same time and the list of recipients of the mail is also publicly displayed to all recipients of the mail People who receive the email in CC field just to get information, follow the progress of the work and do not need to respond;

+ Blind Carbon Copy (BBC) is a mode used to send emails to many

recipients at the same time, but they cannot know the list of people who receive the same message with them In other words, the BCC section is utilized by the senders if they do not want recipients to know who else has received the email When the recipient in Bcc clicks reply and communicates with the sender, the email conversation of those two people is also independent and other recipients cannot see it

- Salutation: This is the greeting to the recipient;

- Email body: This is the content of message;

- Closing: This is the farewell to the recipient;

- Signature: It is text added at the end of every Email Messages as a

footer It may include sender’s name and some contact information;

- Attachment: is simply a file such as an image, document, scanned file,

video… that is sent along with email

2.3.2 Language use in writing emails

Krulatz (2012) says that Email is a new medium of communication that does not have any well-specific linguistic conventions Some researchers, such as Herring (2002) and Barron (2003) state that the language used on email is informal while other researchers explore evidence of higher formality (Davis & Brewer, 1997) In Email Communication, depending on the recipient and the

purpose of communication, the writer can choose the appropriate style Because the message sender cannot receive the profit of body language or any expressions

of the recipient, language should be appropriately used in Email Communication Some basic language expressions in writing emails as follow:

a Greeting expressions:

Greeting expressions are employed in the salutation part of Email to express the greetings in formal or informal way to the receiver According to Indeed Editorial Team (2021), the common greeting expressions are:

- Good morning/afternoon/ evening

Besides, the Greetings for email replies expression also given by Indeed Editorial Team (2021):

- Great to hear from you!;

- Thanks for the update!;

- I appreciate your quick response;

- Thanks for getting back to me;

- Thanks for getting in touch!;

- Thank you for your help;

- Thanks for the fast response;

- It's great to hear from you

b Common expressions of language function in emails:

Luis (2019) proposes some structures and expressions of language functions such as inviting, requesting, asking, apologizing,… that used

commonly as follow:

* Inviting

- Would you like to …?;

- Do you want to…?;

- I’d like to invite you…;

- You’re invited to attend…

* Requesting

- Could you (possibly)…?;

- Could you please let me know if …?;

- Would you mind sending me/ …ing…?;

- I’d really appreciate (some help with)…

* Asking for information

- Could you tell me…?;

- (First of all) I’d like to know…;

- My (first/ second/ third/ next/ last/ final) question is about…;

- I (also) have a question about…;

- (If possible) I (also) need to know…;

- Do you know (if…) …?

* Asking for advice

- What could I do (about/with…)?;

- Do you think I should…?;

- What would you do?

* Apologizing

- We would like to apologize for…;

- Please accept our (sincerest) apologies for the inconvenience caused/ for any inconvenience caused/ for…;

- Can I help you with…?;

- I’ll … , if you want.;

- Let me know if you need any help with…

* Expressing preference/ desire

- I would prefer/like to…;

- I’d rather…;

- I like … better;

- What I’d like/love is to…

* Refusing

- I’m sorry, but I can’t…;

- (Thanks, but ) I’m afraid I can’t…;

- Sorry, but it’s impossible for us to…;

- We’d like to, but we can’t…

* Accepting

- Of course I’ll go (to…);

- I’m more than happy to…;

- We’re glad to…;

- Great! I’d really like to…

* Wishing good things

- Good luck (with…)!;

- All the best (with…)!;

- Hope you enjoy …!;

- Have a good time (at/in…)!

* Informing

- I am writing to inquire about …;

- You might also find it useful to know that…;

- I wish to provide you with…;

- It might be interesting for you to know that…

* Suggesting/ Recommending

- How/what about + gerund/noun ?;

- Have you considered /thought about…?;

- You could/can….;

- Why don't you + V…?

- Let's + V

* Explaining

- Because/Since I have to… ;

- Because of + noun/ noun phrase ….;

- Due to the fact that……

* Concluding

- Clause 1, so + Clause 2;

- Clause 1; therefore + Clause 2;

- For that reason,……;

- You have made a great contribution to….;

- The …… you did was outstanding

* Expressing Expectation

- I look forward to meeting you ;

- I look forward to hearing from you soon

c Farewell expressions

Crystal clarifies that there are two important functions of an Email’s Farewell, the first function is Farewell “acts as a boundary marker, indicating that further scrolling down is unnecessary” (2001: 105) Moreover, Emails’ Farewells has “an extended identity function, it identifies the sender to the immediate recipient” (2001: 105) Crystal (2001) states that Farewells usually include two components: a pre-closing formula (the Best wishes type) and the identification (ID) of the sender An Email’s Farewell may include one of two components or both components According to Alex Case (2016), some common Farewell expressions may include:

b Business Email

Email Account with business domains is called Business Email It is managed by the business and is made available for use by employees When working with customers or partners, people should use Business Email to show professionalism

In short, Email is one of the most indispensable and popular means of communication today This method of communication over the internet brings a lot of practical benefits to users, especially in working Emails allow the user to interact with other within and beyond the national boundaries This helps to develop the relationship between the organizations in different countries all over the world The world seems to be smaller through emails However, communication via emails is not easy comparing to talking because the misunderstanding might happen In consequence, the sender has to write the email carefully and reread it before sending The sender and the recipient have to

pay attention to word usage, spelling, grammar and especially the Speech Act aspect to minimize the misunderstandings during the process of using emails

2.4 Speech Acts in Email Communication

According to Hård (2002: 38), “the distinction between speech and

writing is becoming blurred as a consequence of modern technology” Collot and

Belmore (1996) focus on investigate the electronic messages They states that

electronic messages is closer to the spoken type than the written type

Moreover, many studies of the characteristics of Email Language in the scope of linguistic and stylistic features (Baron, 2003; Crystal, 2001; Herring,

1996, 2002) show that Email looks more like speech than writing; in which Baron (2003) points out the linguistic features of various emails including the informality of the style, the psychological assumption that the means is unstable, and a high degree of candor that are like the speech Furthermore, after considering aspects such as paralinguistic features in emails, the level of lexis including lexical density, frequency of words and vocabulary in his study, Kateřina Pardubová (2006) believes that although Email has the similar form of letter or any forms of correspondence that can be considered written discourse, Email is more like a face-to-face conversation which closer to the spoken language than written language Stating the same idea, after following the work

of Cohen (2004), Goldstein and Sabin (2006) conclude that Email is most closely resembles speech than writing They state that “an email might be considered to

be a sequence of one or more utterances and thus a sequence of Speech Acts” (2006:2) Email Message consists of phrases, clauses, or sentences that carry particular Speech Acts

In recent years, the researches on Speech Act identification in emails have received attention with some studies such as Cohen et al (2004); Leuski (2005); Goldstein and Sabin (2006), Lampert et al (2010) in which Cohen et al (2004) focus on classify Emails into “Speech Acts” They use text classification methods to find the Speech Acst in Emails and based on theories of Speech Acts

They define group of verbs and nouns categories for Email Acts and apply supervised learning to recognize them In addition, the writers often focus on a specific kind or are too general as in the case of Leuski (2005) who investigates various categories of requests, and Lampert et al (2010) who just focuses on identifying requests and having no classification for other types of Speech Acts Goldstein and Sabin (2006) also categorizies Speech Acts in emails employing a message-level annotation scheme that consist of 23 Speech Act types

Moreover, several writers as in Khosravi and Wilks (1999); Cohen, Carvalho and Mitchell (2004); Leuski (2004); Goldstein and Sabin (2006) identify categories for the entire email messages rather than individual sentences

In other words, they focus on annotating Speech Acts at the message level

According to Carvalho and Cohen (2005), Email is non-synchronous, so

numerous acts with their functions are often embedded in a single email to show the writer’s communicative purposes

2.5 Context

Context plays an important role in the interpretation of sentences Different contexts lead to different meanings of a sentence in communication Context functions help people in delivering and interpreting in communication Consequently, it is essential to know clearly the context to understand the speaker/writer’s intended meaning in the communication Carvalho and Cohen (2005) state that the context of an email message is informative

In this thesis, to analyze correctly the Illocutionary Acts and their function

in OIA’s emails, the researcher provides a brief description of the context of each email including the name of recipients (if any) and their universities, date of the email message, and the reasons for writing the email

2.6 Conceptual framework of the study

This study focuses on analyzing Speech Acts in Office of International Affairs’ emails in Thu Dau Mot University This study employs Pragmatic