(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) a vietnamese american cross cultural study of giving comments on contestants’ performance by judges in vietnam and american idol

ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on cross-cultural similarities and differences in giving comments on contestants’ performance by judges in Vietnam Idol and American Idol.. Giving comments w

ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on cross-cultural similarities and differences in giving comments on contestants’ performance by judges in Vietnam Idol and American Idol Politeness strategies realized for giving comments are analyzed with data taken from the video clips of the two shows

The thesis falls into two major chapters:

Chapter I: “Theoretical preliminaries” deals with the notion of culture, culture, speech acts, classifications of speech acts, politeness, and politeness strategies

cross-Chapter II: “Data analysis and findings”: Video clips are used to collect data for the study Giving comments which resorts to various strategies of politeness is a flexibly and effectively communicative act in both Vietnamese and American cultures

ABBREVIATIONS

A: American

CUP: Cambridge University Press

FTA: Face Threatening Act

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT

II Aims of the study

III Scope of the study

IV Methodology

V Comments on the informants

VI Design of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: THEORITICAL PRELIMINARIES

I.1 Culture

I.1.1 Definition of culture

I.1.2 Language-culture interrelationship

I.1.3 Communication and cross-cultural communication

I.1.4 Culture shock

I.1.5 Communicative competence

I.2 Speech acts

I.2.1 Theories of speech act

I.2.2 Classification of speech acts

I.2.3 Commenting as a speech act

I.3 Politeness

I.3.1 Theory of politeness

I.3.2 Politeness principles

I.3.3 Politeness strategies

I.3.3.1 Positive politeness strategies

I.3.3.2 Negative politeness strategies

i

ii iii

II.1 Information of American Idol and Vietnam Idol

II.1.1 American Idol

II.1.2 Vietnam Idol

II.2 Realisation of politeness strategies in giving comments on contestants’

performance by judges in American Idol and Vietnam

II.2.1 Giving comments with both positive and negative politeness strategies

II.2.2 Strategies realized and discussed

II.3 Data analysis of strategies in giving comments on contestants’

performance by judges in Vietnam Idol 2010 and American 2011

II.3.1 Data analysis

II.3.1.1 Top 4-judges’ choice- Vietnam Idol and top 4 perform American

Idol 2011

II.3.1.2 Top 3 Vietnam Idol and top 3 perform American Idol 2011

II.3.2 Major cross-cultural similarities and differences

II.3.3 Concluding remarks

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I RATIONALE

It is of little doubt that language plays a very important role in human’s life Then, English, nowadays, has become an international means of communication in our modern life However, almost all of people learning English find very difficult to understand or to convey English native speakers’ ideas or thinking, maybe, because of the cultural difference between Vietnam and English speaking countries Besides, the lack of the learners’ awareness of the target language culture and the cultural differences is also the source of culture shock in every aspect of cross-cultural communication It is the reason why those days, the study of communication and cross-cultural communication has become an urgent need thanks to the popularity of mass media and the increasing demand

of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Doing research on communicative acts has, therefore, been of great significance

With the development of society, the need of entertainment has been increasing more rapidly People seek many ways to relax their mind such as go for holiday, go camping and

so on However, the simplest way of entertainment is music Many music shows and games have been broadcasted on TV attracting the interest of most of people Vietnam Idol and American Idol are very famous shows of music nowadays Besides selecting an excellent contestant to become the idol of music, the audience also concern the manner the judges give comments on the performance of contestants Thus, Vietnamese – American cross-cultural studies appear useful and vital in this way

Commenting is common in many languages and cultures It is realized by comforting, showing concern or expressing likes or dislike or reaction, etc with the hearer Cross-cultural study on judges’ commenting on contestants’ performance has not received much concern form linguistics and researchers Then, how do Vietnamese and American judges give comments on contestants’ performance? How are the two manners different? Which manner is a positive way? This leads the author to the decision to conduct a research into

“A Vietnamese-American cross-cultural study of giving comments on contestants’ performance by judges in Vietnam and American Idol” to find out the similarities and

differences in the manner of giving comments of Vietnamese and American judges on

contestants’ performance The findings from the study hopefully would be a source of assistance in understanding between the two cultures American and Vietnamese

II AIMS OF THE STUDY

The aims of the study are:

- To convey ways which judges give verbal comments on contestants’ performance

in Vietnam Idol 2010 and American Idol 2011

- To point out the similarities and differences in the manner American and Vietnamese judges commenting in their target language and culture

- To answer the two research questions:

+ Which politeness strategies are used by Vietnamese judges and which ones are chosen by American judges?

+ Who employs more politeness strategies in verbal communication: Vietnamese judges and American ones?

- To contribute to raise cross-cultural awareness in using verbal cues for foreign language teachers and learners as well as other potential interactants of international communication

III SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study is focused on the verbal aspect of the act of giving comments by judges on contestants’ performance after live show in the two latest shows: Vietnam Idol 2010 and American Idol 2011 basing on the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson and other

linguistics researchers Because of some limitations, the author only focuses on the final round: top 4 and top 3 perform

This part is focused on a detailed depiction of the methodology applied in the research paper More specially, the size and characteristics of the research subject altogether with research instruments, data collection procedure as well as data analysis procedure are put into description and justification

IV.1 Selection of subjects

In order to conduct this study, the researcher has employed top 4 and top 3 performs of Vietnam Idol 2010 and also two ones of American Idol 2011 the research subjects in this study have been chosen under the procedure of information-oriented sampling, as opposed

to random sampling In these two performs of American Idol 2011, the researcher has

obtained 51 utterances of commenting; meanwhile, she has got 36 commenting utterances

of Vietnam version, which makes a total of 87 utterances This size of the samples could somehow be considered eligible enough for the researcher to carry out a reliable study

IV.2 Research methods

To conduct the study, the researcher has employed two methods namely quantitative and qualitative ones The combination of these two methods has offered the researcher valid data for later analysis

Regarding the aim of the study, the researcher has found that quantitative is the most feasible method to deal with the research problems It is because in the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships The objective of quantitative research is

to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/ or hypotheses pertaining to phenomena The process of measurement is central to quantitative research because it provides the fundamental connection between empirical observation and mathematical expression of quantitative relationships

Besides, qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts Qualitative researcher aims to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior The qualitative method investigates

the why and how of decision-making, not just what, where, when Hence, smaller but

focused samples are more often needed, rather than large samples

IV.3 Data collection procedures

The data collection procedure has been divided into two successive phases

Phase 1:

This phase has concentrated mainly on collecting 4 shows of American Idol and another 4 shows of Vietnam Idol To be more specific, the researcher has spent a lot of time finding then watching 12 Vietnamese episodes and 12 American ones then collected 4 episodes of each version

Phase 2:

The researcher has watched then taken notes all the transcripts of the commenting parts of totally 8 American and Vietnamese shows Afterwards, she has identified the strategies of

examples of each strategy have been noted down to exemplify the researcher’s later analysis

IV.4 Data analysis procedures

First, the verbal data have been interpreted into subtypes of politeness strategies As observed, there are seven strategies that are most commonly used by both Vietnamese and American judges

After that, the researcher has calculated the frequency of commentators’ using the above politeness strategies This step has been followed by her converting the frequency into the percentile forms for comparison

Finally, the researcher has compared the frequencies of politeness strategies used by Vietnamese judges and American ones

In the two shows Vietnam Idol and American Idol, there are two groups of informants The Vietnamese group consists of 3 informants (one female and two males), but in the final round, one informant is added The second group was 3 judges (also one female and two males)

Details of the informants’ parameters are:

- Vietnamese group:

+ Two females: singer (Siu Black) and editor (Diem Quynh)

+ Two males: director (Quang Dung) and composer (Quoc Trung)

- American group:

+ One female: singer/actress and record producer Jennifer Lopez

+ Two males: singer-songwriter Steven Tyler and music manager Randy Jackson

VI DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The thesis consists of three parts

Part A: INTRODUCTION

This part includes the rationale, aims, scope of the study, methodology and design of the

study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT

This part is divided into two chapters:

Chapter I: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES

In this chapter, theories of culture, cross-culture, culture–shock, language-culture interrelationship, speech act, and classifications of speech acts, politeness, politeness principles and politeness strategies, definition of the two shows are critically discussed

Chapter II: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In this chapter, the author focuses on analyzing the manner of giving comments of judges through the two shows with the illustration of video clips (if necessary) The similarities and differences in the way of giving comments by Vietnamese and American judges are drawn from detailed and critical analysis of data

Part C: CONCLUSION

Summary of the major findings and suggestions for further research are mentioned in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES

I.1 CULTURE

I.1.1 Definition of culture

Culture is often thought of as shared behavior and beliefs, but in any society, all individuals never think and act exactly the same Each author has different definitions of culture

Levine and Aleman (1993) think culture as

“a shared background (for example national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a

common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, art, music and all the other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time It also refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of human interactions, expressions and view points that people in one culture share.”

Here, it means that culture consists of everything that happens in our daily life Most people in a country have same habits or same patterns of thinking or behave similarly, these are called culture

Wardhaugh (1992: 217) states that: “A society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has

to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so

in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.”

Language and culture always keep changing, consequently, people’s behaviors and attitudes seem to vary due in time and space

According to Bock (1970:1),

“Culture, in its broadest sense, is what makes you a stranger when you are away from

home It includes all beliefs and expectations about how people should speak and act which have become a kind of second nature to you as a result of social learning When you are with members of a group who share your culture, we or you do not have think about it, for you are all viewing the world in pretty much the same way and you all know, in general terms, what to expect of one another.”

Culture is always the result of human intervention in the biological processes of nature It

is the product of socially and historically situated discourse communities, created and shaped by language Culture is always changing because culture consists of learned

patterns of behavior and belief More clearly, language can not occur alone and is never separated from social activities and its culture

I.1.2 Language-culture interrelationship

Otto Jespersen (1921) says that “Human language originated while humans were actually

enjoying themselves.” (cited in Karen Risager (2006:3) - Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity) It means that language was created naturally in our daily

life, for example when we work; we have to use language to exchange our ideas or important information

According to Kramsch (1998:4), “language is the principle means whereby we conduct

our social lives When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture

in multiple and complex ways.”

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication

In the “Oxford advanced learner’s Dictionary” (Encyclopedic edition, 1992:506), a

language is considered to be a “system of communicating with other people using sounds,

symbols and words in expressing a meaning, idea or thought.” This language can be used

in many forms, primarily through oral and written communications as well as using expressions through body language

Sapir (1921:207) defines that, “Language does not exist apart from culture, that is, from

the socially inherited assemblage of practices and beliefs that determines the texture of our lives.”(cited in Karen Risager (2006:3) - Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity) He considers culture as “what society does and thinks” and language is

“a particular how of thought”

Language and culture always keep changing, consequently, people’s behaviors and attitudes seem to vary due in time and space Culture is the result of human intervention in the biological processes of nature So culture is always changing as culture consists of learned patterns of behavior and belief Meanwhile language can not occur alone and is never separated from social activities and its culture It is widely recognized that the correlation between language and culture is undeniable

I.1.3 COMMUNICATION AND CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Communication is a broad-ranging topic Everyday we communicate with others in many

ways Communication can be understood as the exchange and flow of information and

ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information,

or feeling to a receiver (U.S Army, 1983 cited at http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcom.html) Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit

According to many linguists like Saville Troike (1982:25), speakers must have to communicate effectively and appropriately They have to have linguistic knowledge, interaction skills and cultural knowledge Lustig (1996:28) states that: “Communication is

a symbolic process in which people create shared meanings.” To him, symbols play a key role in communication process because they represent the shared and specific meanings that are communicated Language and communication are always changing along with the change of society because communication is considered as a process in which meanings are created and shared by groups of people as they participate in the ordinary and everyday activities that form the context of common interpretations

Cross-cultural communication referred to as intercultural communication is defined as

“an exchange of ideas, information between persons from different cultural

backgrounds There are more problems in cross cultural communication than in communication between people of the same cultural background Each participant may interpret the other’s speech according to his or her own cultural conventions and expectations If the cultural conventions and misunderstandings can easily arise, even resulting in a total break down of communication This has been shown by research into real life situations, such as job interviews, doctor-patient encounters and legal communication.” Richards (1983:92)

This is understood that cross-cultural communication is the exchange and negotiation of information ideas, feelings and attitudes between individuals who come from different language and cultures It is clear that with the process of globalization, especially the increasing of global trade, different cultures will meet, conflict, and blend together People from different culture find it is hard to communicate not only due to language barrier but also affected by culture styles As a result, if the cultural conventions and norms of the

interlocutors are widely different, culture shock or breakdown of communication can easily arise because of misunderstandings or misinterpretations

In brief, people of different cultures and countries have different ways of viewing or interpreting the intention of communication Therefore, speakers are unable to understand other’s ideas not because of their limited competence of translation but due to cultural barriers Understanding the differences of cultures, communication and cross-cultural communication enables participants to discover their own culture and to avoid misinterpretations and then to behave themselves in a different new world

I.1.4 CULTURE SHOCK

Culture shock is a term used to describe an anxious feeling when people move to a strange place and meet with many unexpected situations Many linguists give the definitions of this topic

To Foster, “culture shock is mental illness, and is true of much mental illness, the victim

usually does not know he is affected He finds that he is irritable, depressed, and probably annoyed by the lack of attention shown him.”(cited in Understanding Culture Shock at

http://www.rotary5080ye.org/understanding_culture_shock.htm)

It means that when one affects culture shock, he himself is not able to realize this situation As culture shock is mental illness, it makes our mind always anxious, nervous and so on

Valdes (1995:35) assumes that “culture shock is a common experience for a person

learning a second language in a second culture Culture shock refers to a phenomena recognizing from mild irritability to deep psychological panic and crisis Culture shock is associated with feeling in the learners of estrangement, anger, hostility, homesickness and even physical illness.”

It is clear that many people face difficulty or anxiety when in strange and unexpected

situations as Harris and Moran (1998:226) say “culture shock is neither good or bad, and

necessary or unnecessary”

In brief, culture shock is a common situation belonging to our mind It is the stress of moving to a new place and there are no fixed symptoms ascribed to culture shock as each person is affected differently

I.1.5 COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Hymes' original idea was that “speakers of a language have to have more than

grammatical competence in order to be able communicate effectively in a language; they also need to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes.”

Canale and Swain (1980 - Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second

language teaching and testing Applied Linguistics 1, 1-47.) defines communicative

competence in terms of three components:

 grammatical competence: words and rules

 sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness

 strategic competence: appropriate use of communication strategies

Sharing the same point of view, Saville Troike (1982) states there are three essential

components of communication They are linguistic knowledge, interactional skills and

cultural knowledge

These perspective show the fact that linguistic aspects only are far to be enough for appropriate use and interpretation of language in a community Therefore, new methods of foreign language teaching and intensive cross-cultural studies have been conducted so far would avoid the language learners and cross cultural communicators from the culture shock and communication breakdown

I.2 Speech acts

I.2.1 Theories of speech act

Speech act is a term taken from the word of philosophers of language, John Searle and John Austin in particular who assumes that in saying something a speaker also does something

Speech act theory was first formulated by the philosopher John Austin (1962) His theory

of speech acts emerges from his consideration, and rejection, of a distinction which he sees as central to philosophy of language up to his own work This is the distinction between utterances which are meaningful, which are all thought to be statements of what

is or is not the case, and utterances which are meaningless This view holds that only statements are ever meaningful But Austin rejects this pointing to another class of ordinary utterances which are neither meaningless nor constative (i.e of the nature of a

statement) He calls such non-constative, meaningful utterances ‘performatives’ since they are utterances the production of which, given certain conditions (to be investigated), serves as the performance of some conventional social act So instead of the traditional constative/nonsense distinction Austin in effect postulates two distinctions: constative/performative and meaningful-utterance/meaningless-utterance

John Austin (1962) defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something When people produce utterances, they often perform actions via those utterances These actions are called speech acts; for example: complaint, compliment, invitation, comment

or request A speech art is part of a speech event The speech act can be investigated under three different headings: (1) as meaningful speech, (2) as speech with a certain conventional force, and (3) as speech with a certain non-conventional effect These three related acts are called locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act

 Locutionary act is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic expression The locutionary act is performed with some purposes or function in mind

 Illocutionary act is an act performed via the communicative force of an utterance

In engaging in locutionary acts we also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, commenting…In uttering a sentence by virtue

of conversational force associated with it

 Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring perlocutionary acts are performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended

Of the three above acts, illocutionary act is of the most importance in communication as

an utterance can as it brings about various forces The illocutionary act can account as a prediction a promise or a warning For example, the utterance “I’ll see you again” can be interpreted as a promise or a warning That is the reason why Yules (1997:52) explains

that “Speech act is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary

force of an utterance.”

According to the two other researchers Schmidt and Richards, “Speech act theory has to

do with the function of languages, so in the broader sense we might say that speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking, all things we do when we speak The theory

of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory It must systematically classify

types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance

is often oblique.”

The theory of speech act has attracted the interest from a famous linguistics researcher

Blum-Kulka (1989:1) “Speech acts have been claimed by some (Austin, 1962; Searle,

1962, 1975) to operate by universal principles, and claimed by others to vary in conceptualizations and verbalizations across cultures and languages Their modes of performance carry heavy social implications and seem to be ruled by universal principles

of cooperation and politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1978; Leech, 1993) And yet, cultures have been shown to vary drastically in their interactional styles, leading to different preferences for modes of speech act behavior.”

Generally speaking, speech acts are acts of communication To communicate is to express

a certain attitude, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to types of attitude being expressed For example, a statement expresses a belief, an exclamation expresses a feeling, a request expresses a desire…as a n act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies in accordance with the speaker’s intention, the attitude being expressed

I.2.2 Classification of speech acts

Austin (1962:151) divides the illocutionary acts into five major types of functions to utterances They are: verdictives (e.g assess, appraise…), exercitivities (e.g command, direct…), commisives (e.g promise, propose…), behabitives (e.g apologise, thank…) and expositives (e.g accept, agree…)

This classification mainly focuses on how speaker realizes his/her intentions in speaking, specifically, how much speaker wants hearer to believe in the utterance, how speaker chooses the words/functions to express the meaning of the utterance, finally and how speaker utters the sentence and addresses it to hearer on purpose

Meanwhile, Searle (1976:10-16) pays attention to the way hearer responds to the utterance intentionally He classifies speech act into five types:

1 Declaration: changing the state of affairs in the world by utterance, such as I

bet, I resign…(a pronouncement at court)

For example: I hereby pronounce you husband and wife

2 Representatives: describing states or events in the world (e.g an assertion or a

report)

For example: It is a sunny day

3 Commisives: committing the speaker to doing something (e.g a promise or a

threat)

For example: I promise you that I will come back soon

4 Expressives: expressing feelings and attitudes about something They may be

statements of pleasure, pain, likes, joy or sorrow…

For example: It was great!

5 Directives: getting the listener to do something They are commands, orders,

requests and suggestions

For example: You should go out with her

Yule (1997:55) summarizes the five general types of speech acts with their key

functions as in the table below:

Speech act types Direction of fit S=Speaker X= Situation

Declarations Words change the world S causes X

Representatives Make words fit the world S believes X

Expressives Make words fit the world S feels X

Directives Make the world fit words S wants X

Commisives Make the world fit words S intends X

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Yule: 1996)

Speech acts may be either direct or indirect speech acts depending on the direct and

indirect relationships between structures and functions

The two other linguists Saville-Troike (1982) and Yules (1997) analyze speech acts in

terms of directness and indirectness: direct speech act verbs and indirect speech act verbs

Saville-Troike (1982:36) points out: “As defined in speech act theory, direct acts are

those where surface form matches interactional function, as “Be quiet!” used as a

command, versus an indirect ‘It’s getting noisy here’ or ‘I can’t hear myself think’.”

More simply, Yule (1997:554) writes: “Whenever there is a direct relationship between a

structure and a function, we have a direct speech act Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act.”

For example, such a declarative structure as “I will come back soon” can be realized as

a direct speech act if it is used to make a statement, but it can be categorized as an indirect speech act if speaker means it to be a promise or warning

I.2.3 Commenting as a speech act

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Encyclopedic, “commenting is the act of

expressing an opinion or reaction in speech or writing.”

Giving comment to contestants’ performance is, therefore, defined as the act of giving an opinion or reaction to the performance of contestants Here, “give” literally means “offer” or “share” the understanding or experience of others In brief, judges’ giving comments to contestants’ performance after their live show does not only mean the

mere verbal words of commenting, but includes the way judges comment The What and the How are both strongly emphasized in this act

For example, American judges comment on contestants’ performance:

Very nicely done!

It was really beautiful

In the light of speech act, these utterances are regarded as the act of expressing surprise,

and praise The speaker here would like to give the feeling of happiness and surprise to

the success of the hearer’s performance This is an expressive act

Giving comments is also expressed in other acts

For instance, Vietnamese judges give comments:

I will vote this song

If I have a prize, I will give to you for your effort to this song

These utterances are considered as the act of expressing the content or approval with the

performance of contestants in the light of speech act This is a commisives act Here, the

speaker makes promise with the hearer to express his approval or satisfaction with the hearer By promising something, the speaker offers his personal credibility in general as a kind of guarantee that he will really perform the action

When the speaker makes an utterance, he also has an intention in his speech In term of commenting, the speaker uses variety acts of expressing his opinion or reaction In this research, giving comments is analyzed in terms of verbal stimulus, with which the

utterances are expressed in the two shows: Vietnam Idol and American Idol Non-verbal communication, paralinguistic and extra linguistic factors of this act are not in the focus of the study Another factor should be considered is that the response of this stimulus is beyond the scope of the study

I.3 POLITENESS

I.3.1 Theory of politeness

The term “politeness” means something rather different from our everyday understanding

of it and focuses almost uniquely on polite language in the study of verbal interaction

According to Richard J Watts (2003:9), “politeness is not something we are born with,

but something we have to learn and be socialized into.”

The use of language is to carry out social behaviors where mutual face wants are respected, can be labeled linguistic politeness Yule (1996) says that, “politeness in an interaction, can be then defined as the means employed to show awareness of another’s face.” Culturally,

politeness is seen as “the idea of polite social behave or etiquette within a culture.”

Politeness, as defined by Blum-Kulka (1987:140), is “a function of redressive action with the latter having correlative relationship with indirectness.”

More clearly, Blum-Kulka states that politeness is “an interaction achieved between two

needs, the need for pragmatics clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness.” Here, by giving

this definition, the author makes an inference that it should be considered whether there is a

direct relationship between indirectness and politeness as to her “indirectness does not

necessarily/always imply politeness.”

Nguyen Quang (2005:18) gives different view of politeness, “Politeness refers to any

communicative act (verbal and/or nonverbal) which is appropriately intended to make others feel better or less bad.”

Meanwhile, Leech (1983:104) defines politeness as “forms of behavior aimed at creating and

maintaining harmonious interactions.”

Hill et al (1986:349) view politeness as “a complex system for softening face-threatening acts

whose purpose is to consider other’s feelings establish levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport.”(cited in The Universality of face in Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory: A Japanese perspective by Peter Longcope at www.justinecassell.com/discourse09/ /longscope.pdf)

Brown and Levinson, the pioneers in politeness research see politeness as “a complex system

When we give comments to somebody, we often show our politeness by expressing our awareness of another person’s face In this sense, politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance and closeness Showing awareness for another’s face is often described in terms of friendliness, camaraderie or solidarity

I.3.2 Politeness principles

From the view of politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”, Lakoff (1975) suggests three politeness rules:

Rule 1: Formality: do not impose/ keep the distance

- Could you possibly…?

There is a difference in power and status between the participants, such as a student and a dean…This rule will avoid, or ask permission on apologize for making the addressee to anything which he/she does not want to do

Rule 2: Hesitation: offer options; let the hearer make his/her own decision

- I wonder if…

- I won’t be offended if you don’t want to…

The participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not socially close such as a business person and a new client Giving options means expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opinion or request can be ignored without being contradicted or rejected

Rule 3: Camaraderie: make the hearer feel good

- I highly appreciate your suggestion…

- If it had not been for your help…

This is friendly or intimate politeness that encourages feelings of camaraderie It is appropriate to intimates or close friends

According to Nguyen Quang (2005), a person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not be imposed on by others A face saving act oriented to a person’s negative face is called negative politeness A person’s positive face is the need to be accepted by others, to be treated as a member of the same group A face saving act concerned with a person’s positive face is called positive politeness

Another researcher, Leech (1983:132) gives a politeness principles consisting of six maxims They are as follow:

 Tact maxim: minimize cost to other Maximize benefit to other

 Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self Maximize dispraise of self

 Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other Maximize dispraise of self

 Modesty maxim: Minimize praise of self Maximize praise of other

 Agreement maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and other Maximize agreement between self and other

 Sympathy maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other Maximize sympathy between self and other

Of all the maxims, Tact maxim is considered the most important kind of politeness in English-speaking countries He says that his model could be applied universally across cultures But in fact, it can be best applied to English culture where social distance is given higher value, especially in formal situations But it is unsuitable for all situations and societies where social intimacy is highly valued

Brown and Levinson (1978) do not give a rule of politeness principles but set a schema of four components of communicative choices:

- without redressive action, baldly

1 Without redressive action badly

With redressive action

2.Positive politeness

On record: a speaker can potentially get any of the following advantages, he can

enlist public pressure against the addressee or in support of himself

Bald-on-record: efficiency (speaker can claim that other things are more important

than face, or that the act is not a FTA at all.)

Off record: on the other hand, a speaker can profit in the following ways, he can get

credit for being tactful, non-coercive, he can run less risk of his act entering the gossip biography that others keep of him, and he can avoid responsibility for the potentially face-damaging interpretation

Positive politeness: a speaker can minimize the face-threatening upsets of an act by

assuring the addressee that speaker considers himself to be of the same kind

Negative politeness: a speaker can benefit in the following ways, he can pay respect,

deference to the addressee in return for the FTA, and can thereby avoid incurring

Brown and Levinson’s schemata assume that every individual has two types of face: positive and negative Positive face is defined as the individual desire that her/his wants to

be appreciated and approved of in social interaction, whereas negative face is the desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition

According to Nguyen Quang (2005:25), the schemata should be changed in the following ways:

FTA encounter

4 Do not do the FTA

2 With redressive action

Positive politeness

Negative politeness

1 Without redressive action

Do the FTA

On record

Figure 3: Nguyen Quang’s schemata of possible strategies for doing the FTAs

In brief, when communicating or producing utterances, we might have a negative impact on partner’s face Then, besides off-record, individuals can choose positive or negative politeness to avoid communicating partner’s discomfort

I.3.3 POLITENESS STRATEGIES

I.3.3.1 Positive politeness strategies

The notion of positive politeness strategy attracts from various researchers in the related fields

Brown and Levinson assume that positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee’s positive face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/acquisitions/value resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable

Positive politeness strategies are those that are used to satisfy positive face

According to Nguyen Quang (2005: 27), “Positive politeness is any communicative act

(verbal and or nonverbal) which is appropriately intended to show the speaker’s concern

to the addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity between them.”

What is the major contribution of Nguyen Quang’s definition to intracultural and cultural communication is his implicit suggestions of the sensitiveness and appropriateness employed by those who wish to know each other well, or those who would like to be polite to others by using verbal or nonverbal language in a solidary semantic and cultural way Positive politeness is realized in three main mechanisms:

cross- Claim common ground

 Display the sense of cooperation

 Satisfy hearer’s wants

More details:

 Mechanism 1: Claim common ground

 Strategy 1: Notice/attend to H (interest, wants, needs…)

When communicating, S cares for H’s wants or needs:

For example:

You must be thirsty What about some drink?

 Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

It is the way S shows his/her concern by expressing that he/she is really interested in H’s news

I am really honored!

 Strategy 3: Intensify interest to the hearer in the speaker’s contribution

S communicates with H, he shares some of his wants to intensify the interest of his own contributions to the conversation

 Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers in speech

Some ways of address forms can be used flexibly and effectively in this strategy

I will lend you $1,000 Take it easy

 Strategy 5: Seek agreement

In this strategy, S stresses his/her agreement with H, therefore, satisfies H’s desire to be

“right”, or to be corroborated in his opinions There are 4 different policies in order to reach agreement between S and H: using safe topics, using minimal encouragers, repeating and agreeing

I will go there with you if you would like

 Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement

In communication, Brown and Levinson suggest 4 policies: token agreements, white lies, pseudo-agreement, and hedging opinions

A: What is she, small?

B: "Yes, yes, she's small, smallish, not really small but certainly not very big."

 Strategy 7: Presuppose, raise, and assert common ground

There are 3 policies in this strategy: small talk, deixis inversion and presupposition manipulations

We both are hungry now Let’s have dinner

Strategy 8: Joke to put hearer at ease

Making jokes is considered to be one of the helpful way to communicate between S and H.S can share background knowledge, values, goals and sensitivity to H

Wow, that’s a whopper!

 Mechanism 2: Display the sense of cooperation

 Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants This strategy indicates that S and H are cooperations of and thus potentially to put pressure on H to cooperate with S, is to assert or imply knowledge of H’s wants and willingness to fit one’s own wants in with them

I know you can not bear parties, but this one will really be good-do come

 Strategy 10: Offer, promise

This strategy is used to gain the solidarity or cooperation between S and H, S often offer

or promise to do something in order to satisfy for H

I promise it will not happen again

 Strategy 11: Be optimistic

This strategy shows that S tries to establish a close or intimate relationship between S and

H

I believe you will pass the exam

 Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

By using an inclusive “we” form, when S really means “you” or “me”, he can upon the cooperative assumptions and thereby redress FTAs Noting that “let’s” in English is an inclusive “we” form

What about going out for dinner?

 Strategy 13: Give or ask for reasons

Giving or asking for reasons is one way that S shows his/her concern towards H

Why don’t you tell the truth to me?

 Strategy 14: Assert reciprocal exchange

The existence of cooperation between S and H may also be claimed or urged by giving evidence of reciprocal rights or obligations obtaining between S and H

I will go out with you if you promise not to tell this to anyone

Mechanism 3: Satisfy H’s wants

 Strategy 15: Give gifts to H (good, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

S may satisfy H’s positive face wants by actually satisfying some of H’s wants S can give gifts or share the sadness or happiness to H

I’ve just shopped this cake for you Enjoy it?

 Strategy 16: Console and encourage

In this strategy, S expresses his/her concern and good will to H

Keep calm! I believe you will pass the exam easily

 Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

People from negative politeness-oriented culture may get shocked when they meet the first time asks such personal questions as:

How much do you get each month?

Are you married?

I.3.3.2 Negative politeness strategies

According to Nguyen Quang (2005:30), negative politeness “is any communication act (verbal/or non verbal) which is appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus enhancing the sense of distance between them.”

There are five main mechanisms in negative politeness, which consist 11 strategies;

 Mechanism 1: Be indirect

 Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

This strategy solves a dilemma; in other words it satisfies two different communicative points at the same time

Assuring on-record the obvious illocutionary force

Expressing off-record the speaker’s reluctance to produce it

I'm looking for a comb

 Strategy 2: Question, hedge

Brown and Levinson (1987:90) points out: “A hedge is a particle, word, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or now phrase in a set, it says of that membership that is partial, or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected

Grice (1975) classifies hedges based on the four principles: quantity, quality, relation and manner

If you do not mind, we will go to the cinema another time

I wonder whether you will forgive me or not?

 Strategy 4: Minimizing the imposition

This strategy seeks to minimize the R factor in P-D-R paradigm

I wonder if you could finish this assignment for me?

 Strategy 5: Give deference

The social hierarchy and power are two important factors in this strategy

I’m sorry, professor, for not completing my homework

I am sorry for being late

 Strategy 7: Impersonalize S and H Avoid the pronoun I and You

Using this strategy, S does not want to impinge on H both S and H avoid mentioning in communication Thus, S can lower S’s power and reduce the imposition of the act as well

as minimizing the threat over H

There are 5 sub-strategies in this strategy:

- Avoiding performative verb

- Using imperatives

- Using passive voice

- Using indefinite pronouns instead of “I” and “you”

- Using impersonalized subject

Enjoy it

 Strategy 8: State the FTA as instance of a general rule

This strategy is served many aims, S can give requests, advice, orders as general rules for

a group of H and distances S and H through cool and distant utterances

I am going to fine you because you did not stop when the light is red

 Strategy 9: Normalize to distance the actor and add formality