Strategies used in giving advice by english and vietnamese students

STRATEGIES USED IN GIVING ADVICE BY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE STUDENTS NHỮNG CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG ĐỂ ĐƯA RA LỜI KHUYÊN CỦA SINH VIÊN VIỆT VÀ SINH VIÊN ANH Hoang Tra My Central Universi

STRATEGIES USED IN GIVING ADVICE BY ENGLISH

AND VIETNAMESE STUDENTS

NHỮNG CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG ĐỂ ĐƯA RA LỜI KHUYÊN

CỦA SINH VIÊN VIỆT VÀ SINH VIÊN ANH

Hoang Tra My

Central University of Construction (CUC)

Email: hoangtramy.hn@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Cultural knowledge plays an important role in learning language To help English learners enrich their cultural knowledge, this study is to find out the similarities and differences in the ways of giving advice of English and Vietnamese students The study uses a quantitative method to collect data by carrying out a survey questionnaire among 60 students from different universities The study is aimed to find out some significant results Firstly, in most situations, Vietnamese give advice more frequently than English students However, in sensitive situations, both of them share the same point of views by avoiding advising Furthermore, only in Vietnam, advising frequency depends on the level of closeness of relations and the seriousness of the problems Lastly, in advising, English students prefer indirectness regardless of age and social position The directness of Vietnamese, in contrast, relies on the closeness and the positions of speakers and hearers All these similarities and differences are explained due to the cultural influences

Key words: Giving advice strategies; politeness in advising; direct and indirect advice; Vietnamese

culture; Western culture

TÓM TẮT

Kiến thức văn hóa đóng một vai trò quan trọng trong việc học ngoại ngữ Để bồi đắp kiến thức văn hóa cho người học tiếng anh, nghiên cứu này nhằm tìm ra những điểm giống và khác nhau trong cách đưa ra lời khuyên của sinh viên bản địa và Việt Nam Phương pháp phân tích định lượng được áp dụng với một bảng câu hỏi được gửi cho 60 sinh viên từ các trường Đại Học Nghiên cứu đã tìm ra một số kết quả đáng chú ý Trong hầu hết các tình huống, sinh viên Việt đưa ra lời khuyên thường xuyên hơn, đặc biệt trong những mối quan hệ gần gũi Tuy nhiên cả hai đều có xu hướng tránh đưa ra lời khuyên trong nhưng tình huống tế nhị Cuối cùng, khác với sinh viên bản địa, sinh viên Việt thích khuyên trực tiếp và mức độ trược tiếp tiếp đó phụ thuộc rất lớn vào mức độ gần gũi và vị trí xã hội của người nói và người nghe Sự đa dạng về văn hóa giải thích cho những khác nhau này

Từ khóa: Chiến lược đưa ra lời khuyên; tính lịch sự trong lời khuyên; lời khuyên trực tiếp; lời khuyên gián

tiếp; văn hóa Việt Nam; văn hóa Phương Tây

1 Introduction

1.1 Aims of the study

Giving advice is an extremely crucial

speech act in our daily communication;

nevertheless, how to give advice politely is a

really challenging question to everyone,

especially to people coming from different or

opposite culture Vietnamese students, for

example, meet various obstacles in dealing with

cultural problems when communicating with

Westerners Among those, the act of giving

advice seems to trouble them most because they

are unaware of when and how or what strategies

to give advice This study, consequently, deals

with two main questions (1) in what situations

do English and Vietnamese students give advices? And (2) which strategies used in giving advice by Vietnamese and English students?

1.2 Literature Review

1.2.1 Social Distance, Directness and Indirectness

Social distance, in the view of Levison

(1987) and Wolfson (1988), is one of the factors

that determine politeness behaviors and Wolfson (1988) adds by stating that there is very little solidarity established among strangers and intimates because of the relative pre-existing

familiarity of their relationship, whereas the

negotiation of relationships is more likely to

happen among friends

People from English-speaking countries

often use direct expressions while Oriental

people in general and Vietnamese in particular

seem to prefer roundabout and indirect patterns

(Kaplan; 1972)

1.2.2 Giving Advice in Politeness

Many linguistic scholars have done

researches on question of politeness There are

various conclusions made by many scholars such

as Grice (1975), Lakoff (1973), Leech (1980),

Scolon (1983), Richard (1985), Yule (1996) and

others

Basing on the theory of conventional

principles of Grice, Lakoff (1973) has described

politeness in terms of three rules namely “don’t

impose”, “offer options” and “encourage

feelings camaraderie” while Leech (1983)

suggests these maxims accounting for the level

of politeness in different cultures Richard

(1985), furthermore, notes how language

expresses the social distance between speakers

and listeners and how face-work maintains and

saves face during conversation Especially,

Brown and Levinson (1978) distinguished

between ‘positive face’, one’s desires are

approved or accepted and ‘negative face’, one’s

desires to be free from imposition from others

In various situations, people need help

from others; hence, it is important to give a piece

of advice in politeness The speech act of

advising has to cope with the social cultural

backgrounds in which politeness is an essential

norm As a result, it is necessary to learn about

rules and norms of giving advice to others

1.3 Methodology: Survey Research

The study is carried out basing on the

quantitative method A survey questionnaire

including 10 situations related to social and

family problems is employed in this study Five

social and five family problems are dealt with

separately to find out the differences and

similarities in responses

The study is divided into two parts; the

first one is designed to check the frequency of giving advice through three levels namely really

necessary, necessary and unnecessary while the

second one deals with ways English and Vietnamese students apply to advise people in different age and social status

The survey is carried out among 60

participants (30 Vietnamese and 30 English)

They are in different ages, coming from various universities and belonging to varied social status Vietnamese students are from some universities

in Hanoi including: Open University, Vietnam National University, Hanoi University of Education, Hanoi University of Technology and Hanoi Architectural The natives are students from some universities in Hanoi and some universities in English speaking countries, mostly from Canada, England and American

2 Data Analysis

2.1 The advising frequency in English and Vietnamese

Table 1 The advising frequency used by English

and Vietnamese students (in percentage)

English Vietnamese

(9) 10 20 70 27 43 30

(10) 23 27 50 13 43 44

(1): Situation 1: Your son does not do the homework

(2) Your younger sister has a messy room (3) Your mother has taken drugs

(4) Your father smokes a lot

(5) Your sister falls in love with a married man

(6) Your friend gets low marks in important

exams

(7) Your close friend has gained a lot of weight

(8) Your colleague does not want to live with her

parents and decides to rent a house to live alone

(9) Your roommate often comes home late

(10) Your neighbor often makes noise at night

2.2 Strategies Used by English and Vietnamese

Students

In advising, people often take advantage

of politeness strategies in order to show their

respect and concerns towards others People

from different culture prefer different politeness

strategies When people want to show their

closeness, concern or solidarity, they use

positive politeness strategies or direct ways;

however, when people want to respect others’

independence and privacy, they utilize negative

politeness strategies or indirect ways

In this study, politeness positive and

negative strategies will be dealt with in the

forms of directness and indirectness in the ways

English and Vietnamese students give advices to

others The levels of directness are presented in

four suggested options in each situation These

options are illustrated in terms of four forms of

advices namely imperative, modality markers,

declarative and interrogative The data gathered

are in the table below:

Table 2 The use of four forms of advices by English

and Vietnamese students (in percentage)

English Students Vietnamese Students

S (1) (2) (3) (4) (1) (2) (3) (4)

1 7 13 33 47 47 33 3 17

2 3 17 53 27 53 33 7 7

3 7 17 17 60 7 73 13 7

4 3 10 14 73 3 70 17 10

5 10 20 30 40 13 67 10 10

6 0 17 27 56 3 60 17 17

7 0 20 23 57 0 40 20 40

8 3 27 13 57 7 50 20 23

9 0 17 50 33 17 39 27 17

10 7 10 36 47 10 47 33 10

S: Situation

(1) Imperative (2) Modality markers (3) Declarative (4) Interrogative

3 Discussions

3.1 The Advising Frequency in English and Vietnamese

3.1.1 The advising frequency in English

As mentioned above, giving advice is an excessively important speech act in our daily communication; however, the frequency of advising in different countries is different due to cultural diversity In most Western countries, people highly appreciate individualism and independence and they are inclined to respect others’ privacy and freedom In terms of family, all members from grandparents to children have freedom to make their own choices and others tend to respect them In terms of society, Westerners move their houses time to time and this leads to the fact that they rarely pay attention to neighbors or acquaintances living around them Furthermore, friends often gather for enjoyment rather than share problems or difficulties

According to the statistics shown in table

1, despite close relations in family and distant relations in society, the frequency in which English students give advice in these relations is considerable similar Most English students (72% and 76%) suppose that giving advices is unnecessary while only 5% and 7% regard it as highly necessary This number proves that English students do not have habits of giving advices

Secondly, English students avoid giving advice whether they are in higher or lower positions For example, in situation 1 and 4, most English students (80% and 76%)

disapprove of advising although advisers are in

higher position in situation 1 (parents) and lower

position in situation 4 (children) This

demonstrates that English students give advice

regardless of position

Furthermore, in sensitive situations such

as situation 5, 7 and 9, few English students

suppose that it is highly necessary to give

advices Dating, gaining weight or coming home

late are extremely private matters in Western

culture, nobody should or has right to interfere to

others’ privacy Most of them would like to

ignore these problems instead of commenting or

advising

Lastly, although English students avoid

advising in most situations, they are certain to

raise their voices if someone disturbs their

private life In situation 10, for example, 50%

think it is necessary to advise their neighbors in

case, they often make noise at night as

Westerners not only respect others’

independence but also hope to be respected

From all debated data, it can be

summarized that Westerners are inclined to act

in their own ways and others often respect their

privacy and independence by ovoid imposition

Advising is not a popular habit of English

students In fact, participants prefer not giving

advices in most situations, because it may make

others feel unpleasant and compulsory

3.1.2 The Advising Frequency in Vietnamese

Unlike Westerners, Oriental people or

Vietnamese often live in extended families with

three or four generations and they try to show

their concern and closeness towards others by

frequent communication, especially by pieces of

advice In terms of social life, Vietnamese

usually spend their whole lives in one place and

regard their neighbors as their relatives Besides

that, most Vietnamese have extremely close

relations with friends If Vietnamese meet any

obstacles, they always think about finding

friends for their advices and help For these

reasons, it is unsurprising that in both family and

social relations most Vietnamese students (89%

and 62%) regard giving advice is extremely

necessary or highly necessary

Although in both relations, Vietnamese tend to give advices, more students give advices

in problems related to family than social relations The closeness of communicators and the seriousness of problem can explain for this difference For example, in situation 3, although Vietnamese children seldom give advices to the older because of the respect of age, the relation

is extremely close and the problem is too serious; hence, nearly all of them (97%) choose

to raise advices Or in situation 5, 93% Vietnamese students would give advice because dating with a married man is unforgivable in Vietnamese culture

Furthermore, Vietnamese share the same opinions with English in giving advice for sensitive matters In situations 7 and 9, despite being close friends or roommates, 46% and 30% avoid giving advice because they are afraid of threatening others’ faces

In conclusion, Vietnamese regard advising

as a regular habit; however, the level of frequency depends heavily on the closeness of relations and seriousness of problems In addition, dealing with sensitive problems, Vietnamese are slightly reluctant to give advice

3.2 Strategies used by English and Vietnamese students

Advising strategies, in this study, are analyzed in terms of four forms of speech including imperative, modality markers, declarative and interrogative Generally, advice

can be given directly through imperative or utterances including modality markers such as

should, may, might, can, etc or the verb advise

They may also be given indirectly in the form of interrogative or declarative

Normally, Westerners are supposed to be frank and straight; consequently, they may choose direct advices Vietnamese, conversely, are extremely tactful; then, they may prefer indirect advice However, when studying collected data, it is exceedingly surprising to realize that directness belongs to Vietnamese students while indirectness belongs to English ones

Firstly, by looking at the table, it can be

realized that both native speakers and

Vietnamese learners use imperative advices in

the lowest percentage Westerners tend to

respect others’ freedom and privacy so they

often keep distance and leave others chances to

refuse their advices If they give advice in the

form of imperative, which is extremely curt,

demanding and compulsory, they are certain to

threaten hearers’ face and destroy their relation

Likewise, Vietnamese seem to avoid using

imperative in advising, except for two first

situations 47% Vietnamese students in the first

situation and 53% in the second employ

imperative to advise due to their respect of age

and the closeness

Secondly, pieces of advice including

modality markers are used by only a quarter of

English students but a half of Vietnamese

students basing on average value of ten

situations This form is not English’s preference

because of its directness and imposition In

contrast, Vietnamese tend to take advantage of

its directness to show their concerns and regards

to hearers

Declarative can be realized as utterances

unrelated to problems; nevertheless, thanks to

background knowledge, hearers can comprehend

speakers’ suggestions By this way, speakers can

save hearers’ faces and make hearers feel free to

accept or refuse their advice Unexpectedly, in

average, 30% English students give advices in

this form This proves that English students tend

to advise indirectly in both family and social

relations In contrast, only 17% Vietnamese

students give advice in this form More

interestingly, in family, advising in declarative is

extremely low with 10% while in social

relations, it is much higher with 23% in average

This is because the closer Vietnamese are, the

more direct they seem to be

Lastly, a lot of people use interrogative to

give advice These advices are often roundabout

and highly tactful In spite of being straight,

English students use this form with highest

percentage because it is like suggestions so it is

more flexible and easier to be accepted by

hearers This also proves that English do not care

much about age or status in communication Unlike, Vietnamese would not like interrogative

in advising due to its distance, formality and ceremony In addition, to some extent, interrogative is understood as ironical and it may make hearers feel unpleasant

In conclusion, although English are free to

do what they like, they always respect others’ freedom, independence and privacy They hate others’ inference to their lives so they try to keep distance from others In case, English want to give advice, they are certain to choose indirect ways or suggestions to save hearers’ face Vietnamese, in contrast, always want to express their concerns towards others through direct advice, especially in close relations or in higher positions

4 Conclusions

After analyzing and debating all collected data, some significant conclusions can be drawn out in terms of the advising frequency and the directness

In terms of advising frequency, it can be seen that Vietnamese students give advices more often than English ones English students often avoid advising, they only give advice in extremely necessary situations or when they are consulted Vietnamese, in contrast, give advice

as frequently as possible Furthermore, Vietnamese students give advice more frequently to people in family or in close relations while English do not

In terms of directness, English students are more indirect than Vietnamese English students employ declarative or interrogative to advise because they want to keep distance and respect others’ privacy Vietnamese, in contrast, choose imperative and modality markers to advise to manifest their care to others and make them closer In addition, English students give advice indirectly regardless of age and social positions Despite being in close relations or in higher positions, English always prefer advising indirectly On the contrary, the level of directness of Vietnamese students depends heavily on the level of closeness and the social position of communicators

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(The Board of Editors received the paper on 08/12/2013,

its review was completed on 25/12/2013)