Phân tích chiến lược chào hỏi của người nước ngoài sử dụng tiếng anh nghiên cứu trên đối tượng sinh viên việt nam đang học tập tại trường đại học hải phòng)

Therefore, people need a greeting to smoothen the interrelationship.Based on the theory of politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson 1987, this study is designed to investigate greetings b

Part One: Introduction

I Rationale:

Many studies in recent years (Bouton, 1996; Kulka-Blum, 1989, etc.) haveshown that the practice and development of communication skills, particularlyspeaking and listening, must come with advanced knowledge of social language ifthe learner wants to enhance the ability to acquire these skills According to theresearch done by Blum-Kulka et al (1989), Kasper (1995) and some other scholars,

in daily communication, the indirect illocutionary act, is done more often than thedirect illocutionary act Therefore, in addition to the difficulties of grammar,structure, or pronunciation, foreign language learners also get difficulty in usinglanguage appropriately related to the idioms and cultural differences, or to expressindirectness According to Gumperz (1982, cited by Tam, 2005) “People indifferent cultures may communicate in different ways Differences in culture cancause problems leading to failure in communication” According to a study ongreeting of the American group by Eisenstein and colleagues conducted in 1996,foreigners often apply some salutations not be suitable for native speakers, and this,

in some cases, causes people to be vulnerable, and may lead to congestion incommunication One of the reasons is due to the influences or transfers fromVietnamese

When people approach the other party, they are entering his personal space.Hence, this action causes a face-threatening action, which is proposed by BrownLevinson Therefore, people need a greeting to smoothen the interrelationship.Based on the theory of politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987), this study

is designed to investigate greetings by Vietnamese learners of English

II Aims of the study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategies of greeting used bythe 3rd year students of Foreign Language Department in Haiphong University inorder to answer three questions below:

1 How do Vietnamese students use English greeting in the studied

III Scope of the study

This study focuses on the greeting strategies in both English and Vietnamese

by Vietnamese learners of English, which just relate to verbal communication

In his research, Eisenstein found that humans in general often use eightstrategies to greet different people in different cases and each strategy they use depends

on the interaction of power (P), distance (D), and ranking of imposition (R)

However, this case study involving the students of Hai Phong University, P,

D and R are assumed to be very small

VI Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts:

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Development (contains 3 chapters)

Chapter I: Literature review

Chapter II: Methodology

Chapter III Data Analysis

Part Three: Conclusion

Part two: development

Chapter I: Literature review 1.1 Definition of communication and communication competence

1.1.1 Definition of communication

Communication is the process of transferring information from one source toanother Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange ofthoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs" Communicationcan be perceived as a two-way process in which there is an exchange andprogression of thoughts, feelings or ideas towards a mutually accepted goal ordirection

1.1.2 Communication competence

Communicative competence is a linguistic term which refers, in this study, to

a learner's L2 ability It not only refers to a learner's ability to apply and usegrammatical rules, but also to form correct utterances, and know how to use theseutterances appropriately The term underlies the view of language learning implicit

in the communicative approach to language teaching

The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived

inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and performance Hymes' ideas about communicative competence were originally

research-based rather than pedagogical Specifically, to address Chomsky's abstractnotion of competence, Hymes (1972; 1977; 1994) discussed the ethnographic-oriented exploration of communicative competence that included 'communicativeform and function in integral relation to each other His research-oriented ideas haveundergone an epistemic transformation: from empirically oriented questions to anidealized pedagogic doctrine' (Leung, 2005)

Chomsky's view of linguistic competence, however, was not intended to

inform pedagogy, but serve as part of developing a theory of the linguistic systemitself, idealized as the abstract language knowledge of the monolingual adult native

speaker, and distinct from how they happen to use and experience language Hymes,rather than Chomsky,0 developed a theory of education and learning.

Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicative competence in terms offour components:

1 Grammatical competence: words and rules

2 Sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness

3 Discourse competence: cohesion and coherence

4 Strategic competence: appropriate use of communication strategies

Canale and Swain's definition has become canonical in applied linguistics

A more recent survey of communicative competence by Bachman (1990)divides it into the broad headings of "organizational competence," which includesboth grammatical and discourse (or textual) competence, and "pragmaticcompetence," which includes both sociolinguistic and "illocutionary" competence

Through the influence of communicative language teaching, it has becomewidely accepted that communicative competence should be the goal of languageeducation, central to good classroom practice (e.g Savignon 1998) This is incontrast to previous views in which grammatical competence was commonly giventop priority The understanding of communicative competence has been influenced

by the field of pragmatics and the philosophy of language concerning speech acts asdescribed in large part by John Searle and J.L Austin

1.2 Speech Act Theory

According to Searle (1969, p.24) language is part of theory of action, andspeech acts are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and greeting thatone performs in speaking On this view, minimal unit of human communication arenot linguistic expression, but rather the performance of certain kinds of acts, such asmaking statements, asking questions, giving directions, apologizing, thankinggreeting and so on These acts are called illocutionary acts (Searle, 1969)

The notions of illocutionary acts, illocutionary force, direct and indirectspeech acts are central to speech act theory Searle (1969,p.23) claims that the term

“ illocutionary act refers to an utterance with a communicative force” For instance,when one says, “I promise I won’t do it again” this is an act of promising Similarly,when one say “hi! Jim” or “Hello, Peter! How have you been these days?” these areacts of greeting Thus, a speaker performs illocutionary acts by expressing his/herintention to promise something, to greet some body, to start the conversation, etc.,

in such a way that the listener can recognize the speaker’s intention

Related to the notion of illocutionary act is the concept of illocutionary point.The concept of the illocutionary point refers to the point or purpose of illocution(Searle, 1990a, p351) Based on the purposes of acts Searle (1990a, p351) identifiesfive illocutionary points namely assertive, comissive, directive, declarative, andexpressive Thus, requests such as “Hi, there!”, “Hello!” or “Good morning sir!” allhave directive illocutionary point However, they are different in illocutionaryforces While the first and second examples are considered as less formal greeting,the third is a formal one A distinction is made between the illocutionary point andillocutionary forces of an act which claims that “while the illocutionary point ofinformal/less formal/ formal greeting: all are attempts to get hearers to know thespeaker is greeting, their illocutionary forces are different” (Searle, 1990a, p.351)

In his terminology, force is equal to strength For instance, in comparing “I suggest

we go to the movies” with “I insist that we go to the movies”, Searle argues thatthey have the same illocutionary point, i.e an attempt to get the interlocutor to go tothe movies, but the same illocutionary point, i.e an attempt to get the interlocutor to

go to the movies, but the same illocutionary point is presented with differentstrength or force The force of an utterance is related to the status or position of theSpeaker and Hearer Also it reflects the assumption or the presupposition about theSpeaker’s relative power over the Hearer in the communicative context

Searle argues that each type of illocutionary act requires certain conditionsfor the successful and effective performance of that act and these he calls felicity

conditions Searle identifies four different kind of felicity conditions Theseconditions relate, on the one hand, to the beliefs and attitudes of the speaker and thehearer, and, on the other, to their mutual understanding of the use of the linguisticdevices for communication

All things considered, the Speaker has to choose among his repertoire oflinguistic forms the form which s/he could successfully use to get the Hearer toknow his/her action Thus, s/he has to decide whether to say it using the on-record

or off-record strategy and/or what kind of redress would best serve his purpose etc

In speech act theory, direct speech acts and indirect speech acts aredistinguished from each other Indirectness is defined as “those cases in which oneillocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another” Searle(1975, p.60) Thus, in direct speech acts the speaker says what s/he means, while inindirect speech acts the speaker means more than s/he says (Searle, 1980, p.viii),i.e., speakers perform one illocutionary act implicitly by way of performing anotherillocutionary act explicitly For instance, instead of saying “hello, how have youbeen” the speaker may say “Son, Where have you been? ” In this case the direct act

is asking for the hearer’s information, but the indirect act is that of greeting thehearer Thus, the act of asking about the hearer’s information is performedexplicitly while the act of greeting the hearer is performed implicitly

1.3 Politeness Principle

Politeness has been discussed and well developed by several scholars such asLakoff, Leech and Brown & Levinson etc In the following section, a briefdiscussion on different views of politeness will be presented It then will befollowed by a discussion on the social factors affecting the choice of linguisticpoliteness strategies in communication with special reference on greeting

In reference to politeness Lakoff (1973, cited in Green, 1989) asked why it isthat it is considered polite for an English speaking hostess to greet a guest with (a)

“Hello, what do you need?”, that if she used (b) “Good morning sir, How can I help

you?” it would be counted as familiar, for the same purpose would be considereddownright rude.

Green comments that participants in a conversation can choose to be politeavoid being rude, or they can choose to do as they please conversationallyregardless of others’ feeling and wishes They can exploit their knowledge of theprinciples of politeness to be intentionally rude Thus, Lakoff describes threedifferent rules a speaker might follow in choosing to be polite: (1) Don’t impose;(2) Offer options; (3) Encourage feelings of camaraderie

The first one, don’t impose, is the most formal politeness rule, which is

appropriate to situations in which there is an acknowledged difference in power andstatus between participants For instance an employee and a boss, a worker and themanager are considered as having different power and status Imposing on someonemeans impeding one’s desire to act as s/he pleases, refraining from imposing onsomeone means not to impede these desires Therefore, a speaker who wishes to bepolite according to this rule will avoid imposition, but mitigate, or ask permission orapologize for making the addressee do anything, which s/he does not want to do.Not imposing means not giving or seeking personal problems, habits, and the like.More particularly, not imposing means avoiding earthly, slangy, emotionallanguage, and also topics which are taboo, considered too personal to discuss inpublic Thus, love, sex, politics, religion, economic difficulties, the human body etc.are inappropriate to discuss in public

The second rule, offer options, is a more formal politeness one which is

appropriate to situations in which the participants have approximately equal statusand power, but are not socially close, for example, the relationship between abusinessperson and a new client, two strangers sharing a compartment on a train

It is believed that utterances in English are phrased in a pragmaticallyambiguous way so as to give H a graceful out if s/he prefers not to do the actcomply with this rule of politeness

The third rule, encourage feeling of camaraderie, for friendly or intimate

politeness, is appropriate to intimates or close friends In intimate politeness, almostany topic of conversation is fair game, assuming that with a close friend; one should

be able to discuss anything Concerning this rule, Green explains very clearly that tospeak indirectly means that interlocutors do not know each other well enough,implying that intimate politeness is not appropriate because they do not have closerelationship On the contrary, informal politeness not only shows S’s interest in theother by asking personal questions and making personal remarks but also trusts andregard by being open about one’s own experiences and feelings

Regarding politeness issue, Grice’s concept of CP (Cooperative Principle)has also been amply documented in literature However, this position has beenclaimed to be insufficient as an explanation of the relation between sense and force

In an attempt to supplement Grice’s CP, Leech (1983) proposes Principle ofPoliteness (PP) According to Leech, the PP might be formulated in a general way

as ‘minimize (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs’ Differentkinds and degrees of politeness are called for in different situations Leech claimedthat politeness is essentially asymmetrical, which means that what is polite withrespect to H or to some third party will be impolite with respect to S, and vice versa.Base on this position he suggests the most important kind of politeness in English –speaking society is covered by the operation of the Tact Maxim The Tact Maxim issaid to be applicable to Searle’s directive and commissive categories of functions,which refer, in their propositional content X, to some action to be performed,respectively, by the hearer or the speaker This action is called A, and may beevaluated in terms of what S assumes to be its cost or benefit to S or H On thisbasic, X’s utterance such as (‘you will find me the document’, etc.) may be placed

more and more indirect kind of illocution Indirect illocutions tent to be more politebecause they because they increase the degree of optionality, and as his states, themore indirect an illocution the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be.

In fact, the point of strategy of indirectness is to phrase the impositives more andmore towards the negative choice, so that it provides more ways out and becomeseasier for H to say no In particular, the more options out given to H the moreappropriate the illocution tends to be As such, the cost – benefit scale brings with

an implicit balance sheet of S’s and H’s relative standing, and there also seems to be

an assumption that a maintenance of equilibrium is desirable (Leech, 1983)

One important point Leech makes clear about the maxims is that they areobserved up to a certain point, rather than absolute rules Thus, knowing how far wecan go with each maxim is very important and very language and culture specific.For instance, he goes on explaining that in making a greeting for a second hearer inEnglish, it is slightly more polite if H’s role as potential benefactory is suppressed,thus “Good morning sir, how can I help you?” is more polite than “Hello, what doyou need?” In this instance, the Generosity maxim appears to be effective and issupported by the observation that an impositive can be softened, and thereby made

it more polite, by omission of reference to the cost to H

The following section will discuss the social factors that most influence thechoice of politeness strategies in speech

As has been discussed earlier, politeness strategies are viewed as ways toperform FTAs to appropriately attend to H’s face through the assessment of thesefactors The choice of appropriate polite expressions in a given context depends on

a number of factors, which Brown & Levinson (1987) have subsumed into a simpleformula They postulate three independent variables that have a systematic effect onthe choice of polite strategies: the relative power (P) between the Speaker and theHearer, the social distance (D) between them and the absolute ranking (R) of theimposition in the particular culture Each of these has an independent effect on thestrategic choice of polite expressions The weightiness of an FTA is related to these

variables While they are not the only factors affecting speech act formulation,Brown & Levinson claim that they subsume all others (egg status, authority,occupation, ethnic identity, friendship, situational factors, etc.)

The power (P) variable in Brown & Levinson’s (1987, p.77) terms is anasymmetrical social dimension of relative power The relative power (P) that thespeaker has over the hearer is defined as the degree to which the speaker can imposehis or her own plans and his self-evaluation (face) at the expense of the hearer’splans and self-evaluation These are two sources of P, either of which may be

authorized or unauthorized: material control (over economic distribution and physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of

metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others) Searle (1990a, p 354) arguesthat “some acts require extra-linguistic institutions for their performance and some

do not” For instance, an employee may request the manager to allow some moneyfor buying some equipment for the office, but the manager may not request this ofthe employee, because the manager is in authorized control of material, in this case,money Or an armed robber in his possession of a gun may order, as opposed torequest, a victim to raise their hands The robber’s power in this case is not anunauthorized one because it derives from his possession of a weapon (Searle,1990a, p.355) In England, for instance, the naming of a new ship is only performed

by the Queen of England Obviously, in most cases an individual power is drawnfrom either of these sources, which may overlap

Unfortunately, in cross-linguistic and interlanguage research in speech actbehavior the notion of P has not always been defined precisely enough (Spencer-Oatey, 1996) While Brown & Levinson (1987) and Brown & Gilman (1972) viewpower as control of another person’s behavior, Cansler and Stiles (1981, pp 459-460) focus on social rank Leichty and Applegate (1991) interpret power in yetanother way: the legitimate right to exert influence Along with ‘power’, the mostpopular name used for this dimension, the terms ‘social power’, ‘status’,

‘dominance’ and ‘authority’ are also used, although ‘dominance’ and ‘authority’

and only used occasionally The problems with these terms as pointed out bySpencer-Oatey are that while several terms are used by different authors, only a few

of them give explicit definitions of the terms they use

According to Brown and Gilman (1972, p.225), one person may be said tohave power over another in the degree that he is able to control the behavior of theother Power is a relationship between at least two persons, and it is nonreciprocal

in the sense that both cannot have power in the same area of behavior There aremany bases of power-physical strength, wealth, age, sex, and institutionalized role

in the church, the state, the army or within the family

However, Cansler and Sstile (1981, pp 459-460) see P as follows:

A person’s status, or social rank, may be construed both absolutely in a stable socialhierarchy (e.g an academic department, a business organization, an army, a streetgang, or a neighborhood) and in relation to another member with whom he/she iscurrently interacting Thus one’s relative status is high in a conversation with asubordinate and low in a conversation with a superior, but one’s absolute status isthe same in both conversations.”

We assume that people implicitly weigh many personal and social factors toestimate their own and others’ status Different hierarchies probably use differentweights For example, among the students and faculty of an academic department,

we would expect age, academic rank (egg freshman, advanced graduate students,full professor), academic degree, and knowledge and expertise in that field to beimportant determinants, whereas physical size and ancestry might be less importantthan in some other settings.”

Clearly, Cansler and Stiles’ (1981) interpretation of power is different fromthe other two pairs of authors While Cansler and Stiles focus on social rank, othersemphasize control of another person’s behavior

The dimension “distance” or “ social distance” has been referred todifferently by different authors For instance, Brown & Gilman (1972) use

solidarity, Brown Levinson (1978) use distance to refer to the dimension, while Slugoski &Turnbull (1988) and Trosborg (1987) use the term intimacy to refer to

the same dimension Different researchers conceptualize the ‘horizontal’ dimension

of interlocutor’s relations in slightly different ways Similar to power, researchershave been criticized for not giving explicit interpretation of the term they use.Wierzbicka (1991, p.70) makers the following point: “… researchers in cross-cultural pragmatics try to explain differences in the ways of speaking in terms ofvalues such as ‘directness’ or ‘indirectness’, ‘solidarity’… ‘intimacy’, ‘self-expression’, and so on, without explaining what they mean by these terms, andusing them as if they were self-explanatory But if one compares the ways in whichdifferent writers use these terms, it becomes obvious that they don’t mean the samething for everyone.” In her review of the term ‘distance’ used in various research,Spencer-Oatey (p.3) concludes that “in fact, only two of them discuss it incomparative detail: the classic studies of Brown and Gilman (1972[1960]) andBrown & Levinson (1987 [1978]) These two sets of authors use different terms forthe dimension (solidarity and distance respectively), but both emphasize socialsimilarity/difference as a key determinant of levels of distance”

In reference to the ranking of imposition (R), unlike the other twodimensions, this one does not seem to so much debate over the nature of thedimension This variable relates to how troublesome or how difficult an act is in aparticular context in a particular culture Brown &Levinson (1987, p.78) argue thatfor face threatening acts, the rank of imposition of an act involves an assessment ofthe amount of pain given to H’s face, based on the discrepancy between the hearer’sown desired self-image and that presented in the FTA

In conclusion, the notions of power, social distance and rank of impositionare used widely in linguistics, and much research within sociolinguistics,pragmatics has examined their effect on the production and interpretation oflanguage A large number of empirical studies have provided evidence for anassociation between language and the variables of power, social distance and rank

of imposition It is these factors that determine the degree of politeness andindirectness needed to communicated in particular interaction.

1.4 Politeness and Indirectness

In reference to indirectness/ directness, Brown & Levinson (1987) proposethe politeness strategy built on the basis of the illocutionary transparency, which theface – threatening act (FTA) is carried out Their proposed strategic acts ofpoliteness are classified as bald-on-record, on record with redress, and off-record,encompassing a range of different degrees of politeness On this view, two kinds ofredress, negative and positive are distinguished While positive redress is related to

‘give face’ by indicating in some way solidarity with the hearer (‘positivepoliteness’), negative redress is related to the use of mechanisms which leave thehearer an ‘out’ and permit him or her to feel non-coerced and respected (‘negativepoliteness’) thereby more polite than the positive redress

Directness or indirectness is calculated on the basis of the assessment of thethree parameters: P, D, R This means that the amount of ‘face-work’, or in this casethe degree of indirectness needed to be achieved in the production of any face-threatening act, depends on the Speaker’s assessment of the three parametersdiscussed in the previous section viz.: power differential between speaker andinterlocutor; social distance between speaker and interlocutor; and the degree ofimposition represented by the face-threatening act including obligations and degree

of compliance on the part of the hearer And the choice of redress is madeaccordingly

However, Leech’s (1983, p.108) argues that one can increase the degree ofpoliteness by increasing the degree of indirectness of the illocution while keepingthe same propositional content He claims “indirect illocutions tend to be morepolite (a) because they increase the degree of optionality, and (b) because the moreindirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be”

Thus, in Leech’s (1983) view the more optionality that the Speaker allows for theHearer the more polite the Speaker sounds.

For instance in asking about the time, one can say:

(1) “Tell me the time!”

(1) “ Can you tell me the time?”

In Brown and Levinson’s terminology (1) is a bald on record strategy and (2) is termed on record with redress In Leech’s terms, in saying (1) the Speaker

does not allow that the Hearer has any choice in the matter, no options for thehearer According to Brown and Levinson, (2) is on-record with redress because itasks the Hearer to do A, but in an indirect way, by asking superficially about theHearer’s ability to do A According to Leech, (2) provides more optionality because

by asking about the Hearer’s ability to do A it gives the Hearer and ‘out’ Whichmeans that the Hearer can refuse “to do A on the grounds of being unable to do so”(Leech, 1983) In other words, it gives the Hearer a way to justify himself bysaying, “ unless I am able to do A, I cannot be responsible for failing to bring itabout” (Leech, 1983, p.120) Thus in the view of Brown & Levinson and Leech,indirectness is closely related to politeness in speech acts The more tentative theact, the more politeness is communicated

However, the parallel relationship between politeness and indirectnesssuggested by the arguments of politeness theory by Searle (1975), Leech (1983) andBrown & Levinson (1987) has been challenged Researchers such as Ervin-Tripp(1976), Ide (1989), Blum-Kulka (1987) Wiersbicka (1985), and Xhang (1995) arguethat indirectness does not always imply politeness Ervin-Tripp (1976) and Blum-Kullka (1987) find that the most indirect requesitive strategy is not perceived bylanguage users as the most polite one House (1986) finds that native speakers ofBritish English and German perceived the most indirect strategy (Non-conventionally Indirect) to be less polite than Conventionally Indirect Strategy.Nevertheless, Yeung (1997), Fraser (1990a), Kasper (1990) and Ide (1989) affirm

that indirectness is important for politeness in other languages, especially western ones, is questionable.

non-Concerning the structures underlying politeness in requests, , Lakoff (1977,p.100) provides a basic order of imperative /declarative/interrogative mood In herexplanation, in making requests, imperatives are less polite than declaratives, whichare in turn less polite than questions The scale is based on the claim that increasingfreedom of the addressee to refuse the request correlates with increasing politeness(Lakoff, 973, p.56-57)

We have seen throughout the discussion in this section that politeness andmeans to achieve politeness communication as set out by Brown & Levinson’s andLeech’s theories It is, therefore, useful to understand how these means in Englishare manipulated in speech act formulation including greeting

1.5 Deixis and Politeness

Related to the issue of indirectness and politeness is the notion of deixis.Levinson (1983, p.54) argues that deixis “concerns the ways in which languagesencode or grammatical features of the context of utterance, or speech event” Koike(1992) argues that the “framing” of the utterance to reflect the addressee’s versusthe speaker’s perspective is one of several ways in which the deictic system is used

to convey politeness Further, Koike (1992, p.71) maintains that in English “theshift in focus from the deictic center in time frame and person reference arestrategies commonly used to convey degrees of politeness”

1.6 Eisenstein’s research

In their research, Eisenstein and colleagues have found the communicators

do not always use the greeting formulas Results of the study showed that greetingmay be divided into some kinds of strategy as follows:

1 Greetings on the run

2 Speedy greeting

3 The chat

4 The long greeting

5 The intimate greeting

6 The all-business greeting

7 The introductory greeting

8 The re-greeting

As can be seen in table below:

A: Hà, đâu đấyB: Ừ chào Tớ đi đằngnày có chút việc Gặp sau nhé

2 Speedy greeting A: Hi, how’ve you

B: Bye Take care

A: Này, đâu đấy? Dạonày thế nào rồi?B: Không tệ lắm Cậu thì sao?

A: Cũng vậy thôiB: Chết Nhỡ hẹn rồi

Đi đây Gặp sau nhé

B: Ổn khá tốt À, tìm