ĐÒI lại AI một cái gì đó một NGHIÊN cứu về TIẾNG ANH của NGƯỜI VIỆT học TIẾNG ANH và NGƯỜI bản NGỮ

Much research on pragmatic competence on the basis of diverse speech acts and speech act sets shows that pragmatic competence plays a decisive role in learners’ communicative competence

Chapter one: Introduction

1.1 Rationale of the study

In the past few decades we have witnessed a big change in language teaching and learning That is the appearance of ‘communicative approach’ to language teaching and learning, which puts a strong emphasis on master of language use That is to say, language is viewed as a means of communication and uses of language play a central part in language teaching and learning (Brumfit and Johnson 1979) Focus on learners’ language use also means that communicative approach takes priority over pragmatic competence, one of the four sectors of communicative competence (Hymes 1972 in Brumfit and Johnson 1979) Much research on pragmatic competence on the basis of diverse speech acts and speech act sets shows that pragmatic competence plays a decisive role in learners’ communicative competence development because it results in appropriateness and effectiveness in interactions, the goal in learning a second or foreign language Second or foreign language learners (L2 learners) can approximate native speakers only when they master rules of language use that underline the ability to use language in contextually appropriate and effective ways Given these facts, L2 learners in classroom setting should be pragmatically aware and pragmatically competent However, in the language learning setting in Vietnam learners’ pragmatic competence seems

to be given less consideration than other aspects of language teaching This can be manifested through the examination of some types of speech acts taught in some teaching materials in Vietnamese junior high schools Let’s take some examples In grade 7 English coursebook some speech acts such as requests, gratitude, invitations, refusals, complaints or compliments are introduced to learners, and they are taught along with other language items However, the matter lies in the fact that they are paid less attention to while they must have got much focus

on Furthermore, the teacher, when teaching these types of speech acts, only introduces the semantic formulas of these speech acts, then asks learners to try to make utterances basing on the formulas For example, in teaching invitations and responses in unit 6 on pages 66 and 67,

the teacher writes on the board the formulas such as Would you like to…? and Yes, I’d love to… for agreement and I’m sorry I can’t or Yes, I’d love to but… for refusal The learners are

then asked to make a similar dialogue to the previous one they have been taught This type of teaching leads to the result that learners use only one expression in all interactional contexts, and again this results in the learners’ sociopragmatic errors For instance, in the classroom learners were asked to work in pairs and in turn to practice giving invitations such as going to the movies or coming home for lunch and replying to the invitations However, when they

came to the teacher’s home for joy, the teacher offered them some candy, of course, in

Vietnamese One of the learners replied with an English utterance I’m sorry I can’t This

proves that learners with little L2 proficiency can perform a speech act communicatively, but they cannot do it in a native-like manner What is more, the status and power relationships holding between speaker and hearer are usually ignored or rarely referred to in the coursebook For instance, in unit 3 on page 30 the learners are asked to practice making

complaints through exclamations such as What an expensive dress! But they do not know

whom they make the utterance with and in which situations they should make an utterance like that This causes them to make both sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic errors when they interact in real life situations In other words, pragmatic awareness is not taken account in the coursebook

As mentioned above, learning a foreign language is not only simply to acquire the linguistic resources – phonological, lexical, and grammatical systems but also to learn how to understand and convey pragmatic meaning and achieve successful communication in the target language It is the fact that the later has been the focus of much research on learner language recently L2 learners usually acquire the developing system that is neither that of their native language nor that of the target language Learners’ different developing systems of the native language, of the target language, and of the learner language cause so much difficulty in learners’ L2 acquisition in general and the acquisition of the pragmatic ability in particular Furthermore, the cultural differences of learners’ native language and the target language are also the cause of pragmatic failure The study of learner language or interlanguage (ILP) can be useful in helping learners’ progress through the developmental stages Teachers, in particular, need to understand the domain of ILP to modify their teaching practices to facilitate pragmatic development In the present study learner language is investigated through the speech act of asking for something back

So far so many speech act sets such as requests, apologies, refusals, invitations, complaints, compliments, greetings, gratitude, etc have been studied on both cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics perspective but not the act of asking something back Hence, the speech act of asking for something back is chosen for this study for the reason that it has never been investigated before though it occurs regularly in everyday conversations Moreover, it differs from other types of speech acts in the sense that it seems to require the speakers to use many different communicative strategies to achieve the last goal, namely getting something back from the addresses Sometimes, the speech act has to be repeated many times and in each time a new strategy may have to be used, and then the goal can be achieved successfully

Saying these things is to see that an investigation on the speech act can be hopeful to discover interesting things What is more, it is also very useful to find how learners learn to perform the speech act, and to what extent and in what ways learners perform the speech act in the L2 differently from native speakers of the target language From the findings of these, teachers then can have appropriate approaches to the teaching of language functions

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to find out if Vietnamese learners and native speakers differ in realizing the speech act of asking for something back in the situations studied and if so, why they are different

1.3 Scope of the study

The study focuses on the speech act of asking for something back performed by Vietnamese learners of English and then compares it with that performed by English native speakers to see the similarities and differences between the two groups The term ‘speech act’ here is used to refer to the illocutionary act, that is, the study concentrates on illocutionary meaning In addition, the study pays attention to learner production rather than learner perception or comprehension What is more, because of the size of the study, the matter of learners’ pragmatic competence development also lies outside the scope of the study Since we did not collect data by recording or interview, the verbal features such as intonation, stress were not discussed in the thesis either

1.4 Organization of the study

The present study consists of six chapters Chapter 1 concerns with the rationale of the study, that is, why the subject matter is chosen to be studied It also includes the aims, scope, and organization of the study Chapter 2 refers to some fundamental theories and concepts of speech acts, politeness, pragmatics, and interlanguage pragmatics Chapter 3 deals with methods of data collection and data analysis Chapter 4 reports the results of the study, basing

on the collected data and discusses some issues on learners’ language use, basing on the results reported Chapter 5 provides some concluding remarks drawn from the results of the study, some implications for teaching language functions, and limitations of the study

Chapter two: Literature review

2.1 Speech act theory

2.1.1 Austin and Searle’s theory of speech acts

For a long time, the studying object of linguistics was mainly affirmative sentences, or sometimes called statements, assertions This was because, semantically, these sentences

could be all tested for their truth or falsity Other sentences such as Could you tell me what time it is?, I promise I’ll be more careful next time, or I bet you Barcelona will win the Champions’ League, which could not be logically concluded to be true or false, were

considered meaningless (Levinson, 1983) Only when Austin’s (1962) theory of speech acts was launched, did the changes occur According to Austin, these above sentences when uttered are not used to just say things or describe states of affairs but rather actively do things such as raising a question, promising, or betting He called these peculiar sentences

‘performative’ in order to differentiate them from the affirmative sentences, which he called

‘constatives’ However, after making a distinction between explicit performatives and implicit performatives, Austin claims that there is no longer the contrast between performatives and constatives This is because constatives are also created by an illocutionary act (see below)

For example, the utterance It is raining is realized a statement, but it can also be used with the first person singular I and a performative verb in the present tense to become an explicit performative Then, we have I state that it is raining Yule (1996) formulates this deep

structure as follows:

I (hereby) Vp you (that) U

The formula is generalized by the Performative Hypothesis, which proposes that every sentence has a deep structure of an explicit performative In other words, all the implicit performatives occurring in everyday conversations are originated from the deep structure of explicit performatives Nevertheless, as Do (2003) points out, the Performative Hypothesis is collapsed for two reasons: first, in many cases, an implicit performative cannot be transformed into an explicit one because one cannot find a performative verb which can be used to describe it; second, when an implicit performative is made explicit by a performative verb, the meaning

of the utterance recognized by it can be changed For example, a mother wants her son to turn

off the TV as he is always watching it She says Turn off the TV but her son does not do that, and she utters again I ask you to turn off the TV right now In this case, one can see how the

mother’s attitude has changed when she makes an explicit performative

From Austin’s discussion, we can see that when we say something, we also do something And “actions performed via utterances are generally called ‘speech acts’” (Yule, 1996:47) Austin argues that there are three types of acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act

Locutionary act is the one, in terms of form and content, that uses linguistic elements such as words, sounds of words, sentence combination to make a meaningful and well-formed utterance

Perlocutionary act is the one that brings about effects on listeners by means of utterances, and

is specific to the circumstances For example, the utterance Turn off the TV spoken to the

addressee may make him/her turn off the TV, or it may also make him/her angry or uncomfortable The acts of turning off the TV, anger, or discomfort are all related to the perlocutionary effects The perlocutionary effects, though intended or unintended, are non-conventional and are caused by some particular utterance in a particular situation

Illocutionary act is the one performed via the conventional force in uttering a sentence with

some communicative purpose The utterance Turn off the TV can be interpreted as a request,

an order, an advice, or a threat, depending on certain situations of communication And this called the ‘illocutionary force’ of the utterance The illocutionary force is directly achieved via speaker’s intention and a conventional procedure, whose operational rules, though not represented in the utterance, are understood and followed by all the people in a certain linguistic community So it must be said that to master a language is not just simply to master its syntax, phonetics, or lexicon, but to master the operational rules of the illocutionary act in that language That is to say, one must know how to make appropriately and effectively a request, a promise, an invitation, a question, etc in the target language

Among the three types of acts, the illocutionary act is the main focus of linguistic pragmatics And the term ‘speech act’ (Searle’s 1969 term) is exclusively used to refer to the illocutionary act

Although it is impossible to test whether an illocutionary act is logically true or false, it is possible to examine whether it is appropriate or inappropriate when uttered Searle (1969), basing on the felicity conditions advanced by Austin (1962), proposes a set of conditions, which an illocutionary act has to meet to be appropriate when uttered This set includes

propositional content, preparatory preconditions, conditions on sincerity, and the essential condition Content conditions indicate the content nature of an illocutionary act A content condition for a promise must be about a future event and the future event will be a future act

of the speaker Preparatory preconditions include all what relates to the necessity so that an illocutionary act can be performed A promise needs to be performed by an agent and there must be a beneficial effect brought about by it Sincerity conditions concern with the interlocutors’ psychological state When making a promise, the speaker must have a true intention to perform it, and the listener truly wants it to be performed Essential condition relates to an obligation the speaker or listener must follow when an illocutionary act is performed When one makes a promise, one is, right at the moment of speaking, obliged to keep and perform it in the future Each of these above conditions is the necessary condition; and the whole set of them is the sufficient condition A specific speech act needs to meet all these conditions to be performed appropriately

Another issue of speech acts is to classify them Austin (1962) tries to do that work According to him, there are five categories: verditives, exercitives, commisives, expositives, and behabitives However, this classification is not satisfactory to Searle (1969) Searle claims that Austin’s classification is based on taxonomy of performative verbs and so the overlap between categories and within a category is unavoidable He argues that classifying speech acts needs basing on taxonomy of illocutionary acts, but not on performative verbs, and on a system of criteria which is suitable to speech acts From this point of view, he proposes five basic kinds of illocutionary acts: representatives, which make the speaker’s words fit his own belief or the world (e.g., assertion, conclusion); directives, which the speaker uses to get someone to do something (e.g., requests, commands, orders); commissives, which the speaker uses to commit himself/herself to do a future action (e.g., promises, refusals, threats); expressives, which express the speaker’s psychological state (e.g., gratitude, apologies); and declaratives, which the speaker, who has a special institutional role, uses to change the state of affairs through his/her own utterance (e.g., war declaration, christening) That is Searle’s classification of speech acts that is used widely to study a specific speech act or a set of speech acts

2.1.2 Indirect speech acts

LoCastro (2003) and Yule (1996) state that an indirect speech act occurs when there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function The definition is built basing on the relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and the

three general communicative functions (statement, question, command/request) Do (2003) makes it clearer by saying that an indirect speech act is an act in which the speaker performs

an illocutionary act and the hearer is to base on his/her own linguistic knowledge and linguistic knowledge to infer the illocutionary force of another act That is to say, an indirect speech act is established from both speech production and speech comprehension

non-However, the problem of indirect speech acts is how to use and recognize them (Searle 1969) LoCastro also discusses indirect strategies and states that an indirect speech act can be

realized by sentence form such as It’s cold outside, modality such as Would you mind lending

me a couple of dollars for lunch?, or by conversational implicature such as Do you have any homework? – I’ve already finished it He also raises another question that why people use

indirectness so often though it requires much cognitive processing and is risky to be misunderstood He claims that there may be six reasons First, interlocutors may want to avoid

a direct statement because directness may seem not to be tactful and sensitive to the feelings

of the hearer Second, when indirectness is used in the past tense, it implies that no change can

be made and so communicative goal can be achieved Third, indirectness is a good way of denying perceived intentions, avoiding conflict, and escaping from responsibility for an utterance Fourth, indirectness is closely related to politeness and used to save face Fifth, indirectness can be creative and playful Finally, indirectness is used as a strategy to gain or maintain power over others

2.1.3 The speech act of asking for something back

Like all the other speech acts, asking for something back occurs in all languages But not all languages perform the act in the same way The speech act of asking for something back is basically a speech act which is intended to provide some support for the speaker and some cost for the hearer Hence, it is a face-threatening act to the hearer as it contradicts his/her expectations Asking for something back occurs when the speaker actually or potentially wants the hearer to give him/her back something that the hearer borrowed from him/her, and believes that the hearer is to be responsible for giving the thing back As a face-threatening act, it requires a high level of pragmatic competence and a sensitive pragmatic task The speaker, thus, must be tactful and sensitive to produce language that is socially and culturally appropriate He/she has to behave so well that he/she both achieves his/her intended goal and maintains the interpersonal relations

It is now necessary to make a distinction between the speech act of asking for something back and that of requesting as the two acts are similar in some of the illocutionary aspects They are both directives, that is, they are attempts by the speaker to get someone to do something, and impose on the hearer rather than on the speaker They are thus realized via three level of directness Furthermore, they are also subject to modifications and can be encoded both from the speaker’s perspective and from the hearer’s perspective However, the act of asking for something back differs from that of requesting in that, as mentioned earlier, it requires the hearer to have responsibility for giving the object back to its owner; so the act can be still performed in the absence of asking for the thing back In addition, it can also imply some kind

of complaint to the hearer Also, the variations of the act of asking for something back are much greater and more context oriented than that of requests

The similarity between the act of asking for something back and that of requesting allows the act of asking for something back to be realized in the similar way as that of requesting is Hence, Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper’s (1989) three levels of directness for requests (direct, conventionally indirect, non-conventionally indirect) and coding manual for analysis of speech acts provide a highly suitable framework for the present study From the framework, the collected data for the study are first identified in terms of the level of directness: direct,

e.g., You give me back the book; conventionally indirect, e.g., Could you give me back the book?; and non-conventionally indirect, e.g., I’m doing my assignment and need some material The data will then be coded as follows:

Lan, could you give me back the book? I need it for my assignment

Head act: Could you give me back the book?

Alerter: Lan

Supportive move: I need it for my assignment

2.2 Politeness

This section will review some main points in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory

Brown and Levinson built their theory of politeness on the basis of the concept ‘face’ According to them, “face is the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” (1987: 61) This definition is explained more by Yule (1996: 60) as “face means the public self-image of a person It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize.”

Face includes two types: negative face and positive face Negative face is the wish and need to

be independent and free to do things and not to be interfered and imposed by others Positive face is the wish and need to be shared, respected, appreciated, accepted, liked, and treated as a member of the same group These two types of face are two mutual sides, but not separate That is to say, a violation of negative face can lead to the loss of positive face and vice-versa

On the basis of the concept ‘face’, Yule (1996: 60) claims that “Politeness, in an interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face” Politeness also consists of negative politeness and positive one Negative politeness avoids using face-threatening acts (FTAs) (Brown and Levinson’s (1987) term) or at least compensates, mitigates the illocutionary force of FTAs Positive politeness, by contrast, flatters the hearer’s face and increases the speaker’s face as well

Brown and Levinson claim that the majority of speech acts are potentially possible to threaten interlocutors’ face And so to lessen FTAs, interactants need to make a calculation of the degree of face-threat that is to be compensated for by appropriate politeness strategies These strategies should be based on three factors: power, distance, and imposition, and they can be described in the following diagram

Baldly, without redress

On Record Negative politeness

Do FTA With Redress

Off Record

Don’t do FTA Positive politeness

Figure 1: Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 69) politeness model

Looking at the diagram, we can see that there are totally five macro strategies, which are ranged from the most polite to the least polite: selecting not to perform FTA, selecting type of off-record, selecting type of on-record with redress in respect of negative politeness, selecting type of on-record with redress in respect of positive politeness, and selecting to perform FTA without redress Each macro strategy consists of a set of micro strategies There are 15 micro strategies for positive politeness strategy, 10 for negative one, and 15 for off-record strategy

Politeness is a universal phenomenon in every society However, the realizations of the universals differ from cultures to cultures

2.3 Pragmatics

Many pragmaticists (e.g., Kasper, 1997; LoCastro, 2003; Verschueren, 1999; Wierzbicka, 2003; Yule, 1996) give out their own definitions of pragmatics However, the present study will accept Levinson’s (1983) point of view of defining pragmatics, which says “The most promising are the definitions that equate pragmatics with ‘meaning minus semantics’, or with

a theory of language understanding that takes context into account, in order to complement the contributions that semantics makes to meaning” (1983: 32) That is to say, semantics is understood and studied in a narrow sense that concerns with the statement of truth conditions alone; and pragmatics deals with a large residue of meaning which includes other elements of communication content of an utterance (conventional implicatures, presupposition, felicity conditions, conversational implicatures, and inferences) From the above viewpoint, the present study adopts Yule’s (1996) definition of pragmatics, which says “Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning the study of contextual meaning the study of how more gets communicated than is said the study of the expression of relative distance” (1996: 3)

2.3.1 Interlanguage pragmatics (ILP)

Interlanguage pragmatics is defined as “The study of nonnative speakers’ use and acquisition

of linguistic action patterns in a second language” (Kasper and Blum-Kulka, 1993: 3) The term ‘interlanguage’ is used here to refer to the developing system of learners which is neither that of their first language (L1) nor that of the second language (L2) Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993) specify five research areas of ILP: pragmatic comprehension, which concentrates on the factors leading to less successful comprehension of pragmatic meaning; production of linguistic action, which tries to identify the obstacles to learners’ contextually appropriate production of pragmatic meaning; development of pragmatic competence, which examines the development of L2 learners’ pragmatic ability; pragmatic transfer, which investigates whether

or where L1 transfer occurs and looks for the sources and factors resulting in the occurrence

of L1 transfer; and communicative effect, which puts an emphasis on the effectiveness of learners’ language use The present study will focus on the second area

2.3.2 Pragmatic competence

The present study adopts Ellis’s (1994) point of view that “Pragmatic competence consists of the knowledge that speaker-hearers use in order to engage in communication, including how speech acts are successfully performed” (1994: 719) Pragmatic knowledge here should be

distinguished with linguistic knowledge Whereas the former is the speaker’s ability to use language to achieve their communicative goals, the latter is the mental representation of linguistic rules for correct language behaviours (Hymes 1972, cited in LoCastro 2003) Ellis explains further that because both of them are related to ‘knowledge’, they should be also distinct from actual performance

A main component of pragmatic competence is learners’ ability to use an appropriate speech act in a given event and to use appropriate linguistic forms to realize this speech act (Bachman

1989, cited in LoCastro 2003) This plays a decisive role in successfully communicating with native speakers of the TL because L2 learners may have to encounter universal speech acts and thus have the same realization strategies as native speakers do, but their choice of strategies may greatly depend on their own cultures and languages L2 learners, therefore, must be aware of sociocultural constraints on speech acts in order to be pragmatically competent

2.3.3 Pragmatic transfer

Based on Ellis (1994), the present study adopts the following definition of transfer:

Transfer is to be seen as a general cover term for a number of different

kinds of influence from languages rather than the L2 The study of

transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer), facilitation

(positive transfer), avoidance of target language forms, and their over use

(Ellis 1994: 341)

From Ellis’s definition, we can see that transfer has a much broader scope than it used to do Not only habit formation but also phenomena such as avoidance caused by L1 transfer and languages rather than L1 can be account for L1 transfer Furthermore, the comprehensive definition also takes into account of cases of L1 loss and incorporation of L2 features into the native language This sort of L2 influence on to the L1 also pertains to interlanguage studies (e.g., Kasper and Blum-Kulka 1993; Sharwood and Kellerman 1986, cited in Bou Franch 1998; Takahashi 1996)

Following the above definition of transfer, Kasper’s (1992, cited in Bou Franch 1998) definition of pragmatic transfer is adopted in the present study:

Pragmatic transfer in interlanguage pragmatics shall refer to the influence

exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of languages and cultures other than L2 on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic information

(Kasper 1992: 207)

As Bou Franch (1998) claims, Kasper’s definition is acceptable for three reasons: it is process-oriented; it allows the study of transfer in learning and in communication; and it is comprehensive However, the study of transfer is not only to identify what is transferred but also to determine under what circumstances transfer takes place The conditions that promote

or inhibit transfer are called transferability constraints Ellis (1994) reviews six ones that are investigated to see what is transferred and what is not, and when transfer takes place and when

it does not They are language level, sociolinguistic factors, markedness, prototypicality, language distance, psychotypology, and developmental factors Among these constraints, sociolinguistic factors have been put more emphasis by ILP researchers So the present study takes into account sociolinguistic factors, which consist of the context-external factors (e.g., interlocutors’ familiarity, relative status), and context-internal factors (e.g., degree of imposition) This is because, as Kasper (1992, cited in Bou Franch 1998) states, learners often perform speech acts in respect of sociolinguistic norms of their native language though they have been talked to be sensitive to sociolinguistic factors

When pragmatic transfer is concerned with, it is also very important to talk about types of pragmatic transfer Kasper (1992, cited in Takahashi 1996) specifies two types: pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic transfer This distinction is based on Leech’s (1983) discussion of general pragmatics and on Thomas’s (1983) study of cross-cultural pragmatic failure According to Kasper, pragmalinguistic transfer is the “process whereby the illocutionary force or politeness value assigned to particular linguistic materials in L1 influences learners’ perception and production of form-function mappings in L2” (1992:209)

As to sociopragmatic transfer, Kasper states “Sociopragmatic transfer, then, is operative when the social perceptions underlying language users’ interpretation and performance of linguistic action in L2 are influenced by their assessment of subjectively equivalent L1 context” (1992: 209) Sociopragmatic transfer is evidenced in L1 politeness orientation and L1 communicative style

Hence, in the present study sociopragmatic transfer is regarded as learners’ use of strategies of directness levels caused by L1 and whether or not and how often they use modifiers, and

pragmalinguistic transfer is learners’ use of actual wording induced by L1, underlied realization strategies and modifiers Pragmatic transfer can be also divided into positive and negative one Positive transfer occurs when there is a similarity between IL, L1, and L2 in using a particular pragmatic feature Negative transfer occurs when there is a similarity between IL and L1, but a difference between IL and L2 and between L1 and L2 In the present study, only instances where pragmatic transfer occurs are reported

Chapter three: Methodology

3.1 Research questions

Basing on the aims set in chapter one, the present study will address three research questions

as below:

1 How do Vietnamese learners of English and English native speakers realize the

speech act of asking for something back in the contexts studied?

2 Do Vietnamese learners of English differ from English native speakers when they

perform the speech act in the contexts studied? If so, how?

3 Why are Vietnamese learners' performances different from native speakers'

performances?

3.2 Data collection method

Section 3.1 gives the advocacy of the discourse completion task (DCT) as the data collection method for the present study Section 3.2 discusses the design of the discourse completion questionnaire

3.2.1 The advocacy of the discourse completion task

So far several methods have been used to collect data serving cross-cultural and interlanguage studies First, it is ethnographic method In this method data are collected through observation and then recorded by researcher The most advantageous point of this method is that it can help gather natural or authentic data in everyday conversations But the difficulty lies in the fact that this method cannot help control contextual variables which can occur in the same situational and interpersonal context Furthermore, it also takes much time to transcript the tape recorded Second, role- play method should be taken into consideration, too In this method the subjects are asked to make face-to-face conversations, which are similar to natural interactions The conversations are then tape or video recorded to be used as data for study This method allows the control over the contextual variables, but the great amount of time must be spent on transcription of recorded conversations, too In addition, tape recorder or video recorder is not always available to researcher One method which can solve the problems occurring with the above methods is discourse completion task

Discourse Completion Task (DCT) is a tool of data collection used widely in the studies of speech acts It consists of two different types: Oral Completion Task and Written Completion Task The first one is operated in the model of a closed role-play where the researcher describes verbally a situation to the subject and asks him/her what exactly the person he/she is role-playing would say in the situation The second one includes written interaction situations, each of which is briefly described and then followed by a short dialogue with an empty slot The subjects are then asked to fill in the slot by writing down what exactly they would say in the situation In a written completion task, a response may be provided as a cue or may not be provided The present study uses a written completion task without response as an instrument

of data collection The reason for this choice is that although some difficulties such as authentic collected data or the absence of prosodic and nonverbal features still remain, a DCT brings us some important advantages First, it can help us control the variables of internal contexts such as social power or social distance, which Brown and Levinson (1987) argue to have a strong influence to the choice of the linguistic forms in interaction, and of external contexts such as age, sex, or level of proficiency Second, a DCT also provides information about the kinds of semantic formulas that learners use to realize different illocutionary acts This seems to be suitable for the study whose aim is to find out learners’ realization strategies and specific features of a particular speech act Third, a DCT can be an effective means of collecting a large amount of data quickly and easily This is also appropriate to the study in which the time to carry out is calculated by months

non-3.2.2 Data collection instruments

In the present study there are two questionnaires designed to serve the collection of necessary data: a multiple-choice questionnaire and a discourse completion task The MPQ is designed to find out how often ESs and VSs ask for 6 things back in 6 different situations The subjects are asked to rate each situation on the basis of their own life experience on a 5-point scale, ranging from never to always In addition, there are also some empty slots in the end of the MCQ where the subjects can write down other situations in which they often ask for something back Because there are two groups of subjects participating in this task, there will be two versions of the MPQ: the English version used for ESs and the translated-into-Vietnamese version used for VSs In both versions, the situations in which the highest levels of frequency, namely usually and always, are rated with the largest percentage are used to design the DCT A sample item of the MPQ can be given as follows:

Multiple-choice questionnaire How often do the following situations happen in your daily life?

never sometimes often usually always

1 Your classmate borrows your book,

and HASN'T YET RETURNED IT

Now you NEED IT and ASK FOR it

The result of the data collected from the MPQ is calculated in percentage (%) and shown in

the following table

Table 1: The frequency of 6 situations by ESs and VSs

Looking at the table we can see that 3 situations (1 Book, 3 Laptop, 6 Car) are rated with

largest percentage by both ESs and VSs So these situations are used to design the DCT

However, these three situations are rebuilt in order to reflect the variables of social factors of

the contexts studied such as social power and social distance The first situation involves one

staff in a multinational company lending his/her boss his/her car, and now he/she asks for it

back The second one concerns with a person lending his/her important book to his/her close

classmate and then asks for it back The last one relates to two brothers in a family; the

younger borrows the older’s laptop and says to give it back in two days, but three days goes by

and he hasn’t returned it The older asks for it back As an example, the first situation is

illustrated as follows:

DCT Could you please read the following situation carefully then write your response in the space

provided? You can say as much or little as you wish

Situation 1

You are one of the staff in a multinational company Your boss borrowed your car a few days

ago and hasn’t returned it You ask for it back by saying:

Similar to the MPQ, there are also two versions of the DCT: English version used for ESs and

VLs, and translated-into-Vietnamese version used for VSs The data collected from ESs is

used to see how VLs perform the speech act of asking for something back differently from ESs, and that collected from VSs is used as a baseline to see whether or not VLs’ language use

is affected by L1 Vietnamese

In both questionnaires: MPQ and DCT, clear instructions are given at the beginning of the questionnaires so that the subjects can have a clear idea of the content and be able to decide how to respond in an appropriate way Besides, additional information of the subjects’ nationality, age, highest education level, and occupation is also included in the questionnaires

A full version of each questionnaire is provided in the appendices

3.3 Subjects of the study

The subjects used in the study consist of three groups: English native speakers (ESs), Vietnamese learners of English (VLs), and Vietnamese native speakers (VSs) The subjects taking part in the MCQ are 29 ESs, 21 of whom are EFL teachers at British Councils and Apollo Language Center in Ha Noi and 8 are tourists, and 30 VSs, all of whom are teachers at Truc Hung junior high school, Truc Ninh District, Nam Dinh Province Two weeks later, the DCT is done with the participation of 33 ESs, 23 of whom are ELT teachers at the two above language centers and 10 are tourists, 32 VLs, all of whom are grade 12 students of English major at Le Hong Phong specialized high school, Nam Dinh Province, and 35 VSs, all of whom are teachers at Truc Hung junior high school, Truc Ninh District, Nam Dinh Province One thing which should be noted here is that VLs in this study are determined to be high beginners, and all the analysis and discussion would be based on this level of proficiency

3.4 Analytical framework

There are three social factors: social power, social distance, and imposition that relate to the data analysis procedure But only the first two are focused on in the present study, since the last one is hard to be examined via the DCT instrument Hence, imposition is only referred to when possible

As mentioned in section 2.1.3, the speech act of asking for something back is similar to the speech act of requesting in some respect Hence, this study adopts the coding system for requests utilized by Blum-Kulka et at (1989) and Ha (1998), but some changes can be made when necessary A speech act of asking for something back consists of a head act, which conveys the illocutionary force, and with or without additional elements, which can include

alerters, internal or external modifiers Here is an example Excuse me sir May I have my car back please? In this example excuse me sir functions as alerters; May I have my car back? is the head act; and please is an internal modifier The following section discusses different

categories of the coding system But one thing which should be noted here is that all the examples used in this section are extracted from my own collected data

3.4.1 Alerters

An alerter is used to attract the hearer’s attention There are three types of alerters:

Title or role: Sir, Boss, Mr Smith, etc

First name: Jim, Kien, etc

Attention getter: Hey, excuse me, hi, etc

3.4.2 Realization strategies of the speech act of asking for something back

The head act of asking for something back can be realized by the means of the levels of directness, which consists of three levels: direct, conventionally indirect, and non-conventionally indirect And each level may include several strategies

3.4.2.1 Direct strategies

This study employs two direct strategies They are imperatives and demand statements Among them, imperatives are considered to be more direct because it expresses the propositional content explicitly Demand statements are determined as a direct strategy when they are used to realize the head act But when they are used to modify the head act, they are one of external modifiers and called demanders Here are some examples of imperatives and demand statements:

Imperatives: Oi, you! Give me my laptop back

Give it back to me right now

Demand statements: I need my book now, really

I urgently need it back to continue the work I’m doing

3.4.2.2 Conventionally indirect strategies

Conventionally indirect strategies are indicated by linguistic items which conventionally link the form and prepositional content with the illocutionary force of a speech act (Yule 1996) This study makes use of only one conventionally indirect strategy, namely query preparatory strategy, but this strategy is divided into three sub-strategies: hearer’s ability, which refers to hearer’s capacity to perform the desired act, hearer’s willingness, which asks for hearer’s

willingness to perform the desired act, and speaker’s permission, which the speaker uses to ask for permission to carry out the desired act Here are some examples

Hearer’s ability: Could you give it back to me?

Could you return my car as soon as you have finished?

Hearer’s willingness: Would you mind giving back my car?

Would you give it back to me?

Speaker’s permission: I was hoping to use my car again if I could take it back please

Can I have my book back?

As can be seen from the examples, query preparatory strategy in this study is not always used

in the form of questions, but in the form of statements, too

3.4.2.3 Non-conventionally indirect strategies

Non-conventionally indirect strategies are realized when the link between prepositional content, linguistic form and illocutionary force is open ended (Do 2003) There are two non-conventionally indirect strategies used in this study They are strong hints and mild hints Strong hints are used when the speaker does not express the speech act of asking for something explicitly or directly, but refers to the name of the object he/she has lent in his/her utterance while mild hints are used when the speaker makes an utterance that excludes the name of the object he/she has lent Here are some examples:

Strong hints: Sir, is my car OK?

Have you finished the book?

Mild hints: I know a good restaurant in the suburb Let’s come there, shan’t we?

Are you getting on well with your study?

3.4.3 Internal modifiers

Internal modifiers occur in the scope of the head act, but they can be optional The use of them can affect the illocutionary force made in the head act They can mitigate or intensify the illocutionary force When the first case happens, they are called downgraders When the second occurs, they are called upgraders In this study downgraders are divided into syntactic downgraders, which mitigate the illocutionary force by means of syntactic choices, and lexical downgraders, which soften the illocutionary force by means of lexical choices Syntactic downgraders include past tense with present time reference, conditional clause, which is used

to distance the speaker’s asking for something back from reality, embedded clause, which is used to express tentativeness, and modals, which is also used to convey tentativeness Here are some examples of them

Past tense: I was wondering if you have finished using my car

Conditional clause: Would it be good if I picked it up soon?

Embedded clause: I wonder if you would be able to return my car

Modal: Can I get that laptop back off you?

Lexical downgraders consist of politeness markers, consultative device, downtoners,

understaters, and hedges Politeness markers are words such as please, kindly used to increase the degree of politeness Consultative device are some expressions such as Do you think, Do you mind, Is it all right used to ask for the hearer’s consent Downtoners are some adverbials such as just, possibly, perhaps used to downtone the illocutionary force Understaters are some phrases such as any chance, by the way used to understate some aspects of the desired act And hedges are words or phrases such as kind of, somehow used to convey the vagueness

intentionally made by the speaker about certain aspects of the desired act Some examples are:

Politeness marker: Please give the laptop back to me

Consultative device: Do you think you’ll be able to let me have my car back?

Downtoner: I was just wondering if I could possibly have my car back?

Understater: Oh by the way, I need the book I lent you

Hedge: I kind of need my car back

Upgraders are divided into intensifiers, which are some adverbials such as really, urgently used to intensify the illocutionary force, commitment, which are adverbials such as certainly, surely used to increase the speaker’s commitment to the prepositional content, and time intensifiers, which are noun phrases or adverbials such as now, right now, immediately used to

intensify the illocutionary force Here are some examples of them:

Intensifier: I really need it this week

Commitment: I certainly need it back this afternoon

Time intensifier: I need my laptop back now

3.4.4 External modifiers

Unlike internal modifiers, external modifiers are outside the scope of the head act They can occur before or after it External modifiers include mitigators, which mitigate the illocutionary force of asking for something back, and aggravators, which aggravate the illocutionary force

of asking for something back Mitigators are also divided into preparator, which is used to make a preparation for asking for something back, grounder, which is reasons or explanations for asking for something back, disarmers, which says that asking for the thing back is not

wanted but forced by circumstance, and promiser, which conveys a future promise by the speaker Here are some examples:

Preparator: You borrowed my car a few days ago but now I need it

Grounder: Hey, we’re learning English tomorrow morning Remember to bring my book,

please

Disarmer: I’m sorry, but I really need my car back

Promiser: If you haven’t finished it yet, I could let you borrow it again when I am done

Aggravators are divided into demander, which is used to increase the imposition of the illocutionary force by means of a need, and warner, which is also used to increase the imposition of the illocutionary force but by means of warning or threatening Here are some examples, too:

Demander: Hey, give me my book I need it

Warner: Return it now or I’ll never lend you again

Chapter four: Results and discussion

In this chapter, the results of the investigation are presented First, VLs' use of strategies and

modifiers through 3 situations is reported Then, ESs' use is reported, too Next, comparisons

between VLs and ESs are made with regard to the levels of directness and modifiers The aim

of these comparisons is to find out in what ways VLs perform the speech act of asking for

something back differently from ESs At the same time the discussion is made when the

similarities and differences in performing the speech act between VLs and ESs occur In the

discussion, the collected data from VSs can be used as a baseline to see whether or not the

differences between VLs and ESs in performing the speech act come from L1 influence

As mentioned in previous chapter, there are 4 categories: alerters, realization strategies,

internal modifiers, and external modifiers used as analytical framework, and each category

consists of many individual items In the present study the results are calculated between the

number of each item and the total number of the category used by each group of subjects in

each situation that the item belongs to This percentage rate is symbolized F

4.1 VLs' use of strategies and modifiers

One noting point here is that there are totally 32 VLs taking part in the DCT, but one of them

refuses to complete situation 1 Therefore, the calculation in this situation is done with 31

Strong hints

Mild hints

F % F % F % F % F % F % F %

1 Car 2/31 6.5 0/31 0 6/31 19.4 5/31 16.0 6/31 19.4 10/31 32.2 2/31 6.5

2 Book 10/32 31.2 5/32 15.6 8/32 25 0/31 0 2/32 6.2 4/32 12.6 3/32 9.4 3.Laptop 19/32 59.4 0/32 0 0/32 0 0/32 0 1/32 3.1 11/32 34.4 1/32 3.1

Table 2: Strategies by VLs across 3 situations

As can be seen from table 2, VLs’ use of strategies changes according to different situations

In situation 1, where the speaker has less power over the addressee, they rely heavily on conventionally indirect strategies and strong hints to make up the speech act of asking for something back By contrast, in the two last situations, in which the speaker has equal or more power over the addressee, VLs show their great preference to imperatives That is to say, they seem to be more direct in situations 2 and 3 This can be seen more clearly when their use of imperatives increases through 3 situations, but that of conventionally indirect strategies through 3 situations shows a decrease or even ignorance But one noticeable point here is that

in situation 3 while VLs prefer to use imperatives (59.4%), they also employ 34.4% of strong hints of the total This makes their use of non-conventionally indirect strategies in situation 3 different from that in situations 1 and 2, in which strong hints are expected to be used more In addition, their refusal to use demand statements in situations 1 and 3 should be taken into account here, too

4.1.2 Modifiers

4.1.2.1 Internal modifiers

The use of internal modifiers in 3 situations by VLs is illustrated in table 3 below

Table 3: Downgraders and upgraders across 3 situations by VLs

1 Car 2 Book 3 Laptop

F % F % F %

1 Syntactic downgraders Past tense 8/37 21.6 3/26 11.5 0/15 0 Conditional clause 0/37 0 1/26 3.8 0/15 0 Embedded clause 2/37 5.4 0/26 0 0/15 0 Modals 17/37 46 10/26 38.5 1/15 6.7

2 Lexical downgraders Politeness markers 7/37 18.9 4/26 15.4 6/15 40 Downtoners 0/37 0 0/26 0 0/15 0 Understaters 1/37 2.7 0/26 0 0/15 0 Consultative device 2/37 5.4 0/26 0 0/15 0 Hedge 0/37 0 0/26 0 2/15 13.3

3 Upgraders Intensifiers 0/37 0 1/26 3.8 0/15 0 Commitment 0/37 0 0/26 0 0/15 0 Time intensifiers 0/37 0 7/26 27 6/15 40

From table 3, it can be seen that the total number of internal modifiers used by VLs decreases gradually across 3 situations (37 times in Si 1, 26 in Si 2, and 15 in Si.3) But we can begin with syntactic downgraders first Modals are employed most by VLs, especially in situations 1 and 2, accounting for 46% and 38.5 of the total, respectively Next comes to the use of past tense in situations 1 (21.6%) and 2 (11.5) However, VLs’ use of past tense with present time

reference is completely relied on the past form of the modals can and will, namely could and would The similarity between VLs’ use of modals and that of past tense can be also seen

when they both show a decrease from situation 1 to situation 3 That is to say, when the speaker’s power over the addressee increases, VLs’ use of modals and past tense to redress the illocutionary force of asking for something back decreases In addition, whereas showing preference to modals and past tense, VLs employ conditional clause and embedded clause very few or even ignore them in different situations In terms of lexical downgraders, VLs also show their great preference to politeness markers in 3 situations, especially in situation 3 (40%) Meanwhile, they make use of only 13.3% of hedge in situation 3, 2.7% of understaters and 5.4% of consultative device in situation 1, but refuse to use these 3 modifiers in situation

2 What is more, they also refuse to use downtoners in 3 situations The most noticeable point with regard to upgraders is VLs’ refusal to employ them in situation 1 But their use of them

in situations 2 and 3 is also uneven They rely mainly on time intensifiers (27% in situation 1 and 40 in situation 3), but use only 3.8% of intensifiers in situation 2 and ignore commitment

in 3 situations However, we can see that the use of internal modifiers by VLs decreases gradually through 3 situations

4.1.2.2 External modifiers

The table below shows the use of external modifiers by VLs

F % F % F %

1 Mitigators Preparators 7/17 41.2 10/19 52.6 12/20 60 Grounders 4/17 23.5 0/19 0 2/20 10 Disarmers 1/17 5.9 2/19 10.5 0/20 0 Promisers 0/17 0 0/19 0 0/20 0

2 Aggravators Demanders 5/17 29.4 7/19 36.9 3/20 15 Warners 0/17 0 0/19 0 3/20 15

Table 4: Mitigators and aggravators across 3 situations by VLs

In contrast with internal modifiers, the total number of external modifiers used by VLs increases across 3 situations, though slowly (17 times in Si 1, 19 in Si 2, and 20 in Si 3) But there are two noticeable points in the use of mitigators by VLs First, they show their great preference to preparator to soften the illocutionary force made in the head act, and the percentage of this modifier increases gradually through 3 situations But the calculation also says that 50% out of 60% of preparators used in situation 3 by VLs concerns with the due date and overdue borrowing by the addressee and the speaker takes advantage of this to make a preparation for asking the laptop back Second, VLs refuse to use promiser as a mitigator in 3 situations to make up the speech act Meanwhile, grounders are used situations 1 (23.5%) and

3 (10), and disarmers are employed in situations 1(5.9%) and 2 (10.5) With regard to aggravators, VLs intensify the illocutionary force made in the head act by relying heavily on demanders in situations 1 and 2, accounting for 29.4% and 36.9, respectively, whereas warners are used only in situation 3 with the same percentage as demanders (15%)

4.1.3 Alerters

The use of alerters by VLs is shown in following figure

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Figure 2: Alerters across 3 situations by VLs

Looking at figure 2, we can see that only attention getters are made use of in 3 situations by VLs But their use of this alerter is different in different situations Whereas they are employed most in situations 2 and 3 (83.3% and 89.9, correspondingly), only 13.3 of them of the total is used in situation 1 Similarly, first names are used in situations 2 and 3 though few (16.7% and 11.1, respectively), but not in situation 1 On the contrary, titles are used so much (86.7%) in situation 1 but is ignored in situations 2 and 3 In other words, VLs prefer to use titles in situation 1 and attention getters in situations 2 and 3, and limit to use first names in 3

situations

4.2 ESs’ use of strategies and modifiers

4.2.1 Strategies

The use of strategies to make up the speech act of asking for something back by ESs is shown

in the following table

Imperative

s

Demand statements

H’s ability H’s

willingness

S’s permission

Strong hints

Mild hints

F % F % F % F % F % F % F %

1 Car 0/33 0 7/33 21.2 3/33 9.1 1/33 3 12/33 36.4 8/33 24.2 2/33 6.1

2 Book 1/33 3 13/33 39.4 4/33 12.1 0/33 0 3/33 24.3 7/33 21.2 0/33 0 3.Laptop 7/33 21.2 9/33 27.3 3/33 9.1 0/33 0 7/33 21.2 7/33 21.2 0/33 0

Table 5: Strategies across 3 situations by ESs

As can be seen from table 5, 3 strategies in situation 1 which ESs employ most are speaker’s permission, strong hints, and demand statements, which account for, 36.4%, 24.2, and 21.2, respectively The same thing seems to happen in situations 2 and 3, except that demand statements are used most (39.4% and 27.3, correspondingly), but not speaker’s permission One noticeable point here is that ESs use very few hearer’s willingness (3.0%) and mild hints (6.1) in situation 1 and refuse to use them in situations 2 and 3 whereas their use of imperatives begins with 0% in situation 1 but increases sharply in situation 3, accounting for 21.2% However, if we take into account levels of directness, we can see that ESs show their preference to conventionally indirect strategies in situation 1, which occupy 48.5%, but they prefer to use direct strategies in situations 2 and 3, which take account of 42.4% and 48.5, respectively Meanwhile, their use of non-conventionally indirect strategies is focused on in situation 1 and shows no change in situations 2 and 3, where mild hints are not used and strong hints are employed with the same percentage (21.2%)

4.2.2 Modifiers

4.2.2.1 Internal modifiers

The table below illustrates the use of internal modifiers in 3 situations by ESs

Table 6: Downgraders and upgraders across 3 situations by ESs

Table 6 shows us that ESs use internal modifiers 68 times in situation 1, which is twofold to that in situation 2 and threefold to that in situation 3 With regard to syntactic downgraders, whereas ESs rely mainly on past tense and modals to redress the illocutionary force in 3 situations, their use of these two modifiers presents a converse While their use of past tense decreases gradually through 3 situations, from 28% in situation 1 to 9.5 in situation 3, that of modals increases stably through 3 situations, from 23.5% in situation 1 to 47.6 in situation 3 But it must be said that ESs’ use of modals is quite much more in comparison with past tense and very much more in comparison with conditional clause and embedded clause when these two modifiers are used only in situation 1 and account for 4.4% and 5.9, respectively, and are ignored in situations 2 and 3 As to lexical downgraders, only politeness markers are used in 3 situations by ESs though not many But their use of politeness markers shows a fluctuation when they make use of 5.9% of this modifier in situation 1, 15.5 in situation 2, and 9.5 in situation 3 Other lexical downgraders are used with low frequency and not used evenly in different situations Especially, four modifiers: downtoners, understaters, consultative device, and hedge are refused to be employed in situation 3 by ESs As regards upgraders, ESs place reliance upon time intensifiers to aggravate the illocutionary force made in the head act But one thing which should be paid attention to here is that their use of this upgrader shows a gradual increase through 3 situations (11.7% in situation 1, 18.8 in situation 2, and 28.6 in situation 3) Meanwhile, intensifiers are also used in 3 situations, but with a lower frequency than time intensifiers And commitment is used 1 time only in situation 1, accounting for 1.5% and completely refused in situations 2 and 3

1 Car 2 Book 3 Laptop

F % F % F %

1 Syntactic downgraders Past tense 19/68 28 6/32 18.8 2/21 9.5 Conditional clause 3/68 4.4 0/32 0 0/21 0 Embedded clause 4/68 5.9 0/32 0 0/21 0 Modals 16/68 23.5 10/32 31.3 10/21 47.6

2 Lexical downgraders Politeness markers 4/68 5.9 5/32 15.5 2/21 9.5 Downtoners 2/68 2.9 0/32 0 0/21 0 Understaters 0/68 0 1/32 3.1 0/21 0 Consultative device 6/68 8.8 0/32 0 0/21 0 Hedge 0/68 0 1/32 3.1 021 0

3 Upgraders Intensifiers 5/68 7.4 3/32 9.4 1/21 4.8 Commitment 1/68 1.5 0/32 0 0/21 0 Time intensifiers 8/68 11.7 6/32 18.8 6/21 28.6

4.2.2.2 External modifiers

The use of external modifiers by ESs is presented in the table below

1 Car 2 Book 3 Laptop

F % F % F %

1 Mitigators Preparators 8/21 38.1 13/33 51.5 18/25 72 Grounders 6/21 28.6 5/33 15.1 1.25 4 Disarmers 3/21 14.3 2/33 6.1 0/25 0 Promisers 0/21 0 3/33 9.1 0/25 0

2 Aggravators Demanders 4/21 19 6/33 18.2 3/25 12 Warners 0/21 0 0/33 0 3/25 12

Table 7: Mitigators and aggravators across 3 situations by ESs

As can be seen from table 7, the total number of external modifiers used by ESs shows a fluctuation (21 times in Si 1, 33 in Si 2, and 25 in Si.3) In terms of mitigators, we can see that ESs show their great preference to preparators in all 3 situations to mitigate the illocutionary force made in the head act And the noticeable point here is that their use of preparators also increases gradually through 3 situations (38.1% in situation 1, 51.5 in situation 2, and 72.0 in situation 3) Meanwhile, their use of grounders shows a converse Although ESs still make use of grounders in all 3 situations, their use of it shows a gradual decrease through 3 situations (28.6% in situation 1, 15.1 in situation 2, and 4.0 in situation 3) The same thing also occurs with disarmers, and this mitigator is even ignored in situation 3 Promisers are used only in situation 2 though few (9.1%) and refused in situations 1 and 3 To sum up, ESs’ use of mitigators goes down gradually through 3 situations from preparators to promisers In terms of aggravators, ESs would rather use demanders than warners to intensify the illocutionary force However, their use of demander also cuts back through 3 situations from 19% in situation 1 to 12 in situation 3 Meanwhile only 12% of warner of the total is used in situation 3 but zero percent of it is used in situations 1 and 2

4.2.3 Alerters

The use of alerters by ESs is also presented in the figure below