Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS a cross cultural study on hedges showing power distance in contemporary english and vietnamese novels

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DI

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DISTANCE

IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NOVELS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về phương tiện rào đón thể hiện khoảng cách

quyền lực trong tiểu thuyết Anh và Việt đương đại)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

HANOI – 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ KIM ANH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON HEDGES SHOWING POWER DISTANCE

IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NOVELS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về phương tiện rào đón thể hiện khoảng cách

quyền lực trong tiểu thuyết Anh và Việt đương đại)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D

HANOI – 2017

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the work presented in this study report has been implemented on my own

I confirm that this paper is submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the M.A

Degree in English Linguistics and has not been submitted in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification Besides the mentioned references, no other person’s work has been used in this thesis without due acknowledgement

Hanoi, 2017

Trần Thị Kim Anh

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, Ph.D

Date: ………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have given me valuable guidance, great support and encouragement

during my research and thesis writing I would like to express my sincere gratitude and

appreciation for their contribution

First and foremost, I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor Dr

Huynh Anh Tuan, who helped me in many ways, from the selection of the topic for this

research to academic thesis writing Thanks to his invaluably constructive suggestions

and comments during my research, the thesis has been successfully completed I am

greatly grateful to his expertise, enthusiasm, kindness, encouragement and support

Special thanks also go to my friend Nguyen Thi Sinh, who aided me to send the two

English novels from the UK Without her help, the data collection procedure could not

be finished

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies,

University of Languages and International Studies, who provided me with adequate

support throughout the duration of my study

Last but not least, I would like to say thanks to my colleagues in the Institute for

Nuclear Science and Technology, who took on my work when I was absent from the

office to attend the lessons and gave me time to complete the course

ABSTRACT

This study is conducted to investigate power distance manifestation through the use of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels from the perspective of cross-cultural communication The analysis is carried out on the basis of the research data on

hedges identified in the four selected novels: “Clever girl” by Tessa Hadley, “Into the darkest corner” by Elizabeth Haynes, “Bến không chồng” by Duong Huong and

“Nhắm mắt thấy Paris” by Duong Thuy This study is implemented by the combination

of descriptive, comparative and contrastive methods The findings indicate that both low and high power distance are manifested in the use of the four hedge categories, including modal, performative, pragmatic-marker and quantificational hedges In the English novels, all the groups of age, gender and social status share low power distance

by using hedges which mitigate the imposition on interlocutors, utterance propositions expressing an epistemic judgment and strengthen the solidarity between interlocutors

In contrast, in the Vietnamese novels, the power distance is very high in terms of age and social status; the gender power distance stands at equal or low level For the younger and lower subgroups, the hedges are often used to show modesty or humble attitude and respect for the interlocutors or to make uncertain statements For the older and higher subgroups, the hedges are used to strengthen the importance of the utterance and the subjective propositions made by the speaker

2.1.1.1 Development of the concept of hedges and hedging 5

3.6 Data analysis method 29

4.1 The hedges showing power distance identified in the English and Vietnamese novels in terms of age, gender and social status

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 62 REFERENCES

APPENDICES

64

68

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PDI Power Distance Index

EMVs Epistemic Modal Verbs EMAdjs Epistemic Modal Adjectives EMAdvs Epistemic Modal Adverbs EMNs Epistemic Modal Nouns DMVs

Deontic Modal Verbs (shifting the responsibility away from the speaker to the necessity or obligation)

MSVs Mental State Verbs

IPMs Interpersonal Pragmatic-Markers PPMs Propositional Pragmatic-Markers QAs Quantity Approximators

FAs Frequency Approximators

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 Taxonomy of hedges established for the present study 12 Table 4 Categories of hedges showing power distance used by groups of age,

gender and social status in English and Vietnamese novels

33

Table 5 Modal hedges identified in the English novels 35 Table 6 Modal hedges identified in the Vietnamese novels 37 Table 7 Comparing modal hedges across the groups in the novels 39 Table 8 Performative hedges identified in the English novels 41 Table 9 Performative hedges identified in the Vietnamese novels 42 Table 10 Comparing performative hedges across the groups in the novels 44 Table 11 Pragmatic-marker hedges identified in the English novels 46 Table 12 Pragmatic-marker hedges identified in the Vietnamese novels 47 Table 13 Comparing pragmatic-marker hedges across the groups in the novels 49 Table 14 Quantificational hedges identified in the English novels 50 Table 15 Quantificational hedges identified in the Vietnamese novels 51 Table 16 Comparing quantificational hedges across the groups in the novels 52

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Hyland’s classification of scientific hedges 9

1.1 Rationale for the research

It is widely accepted that each culture has its own level of tolerance to inequality of power On the basis of Mulder’s study (1975), Hofstede (1984) introduced the cultural variable power distance to describe cultural value differences towards the distribution

of power It focuses on how a culture views power relationships between individuals

The manifestation of power distance can be revealed through using various communication devices in both spoken and written languages, in daily life and even in literature One of the means to show such manifestation is the use of hedges

Being an important linguistic phenomenon, hedging has recently received a good concern of linguists Based on the first introduction of hedge as a linguistic term by Lakoff (1972), both conceptual and empirical studies have been conducted on the subject Researchers have focused on different issues regarding definition, form, category and function of hedges However, Yu (2009) indicates that those previous hedge studies mainly focus on genres of academic and scientific writings, several of spoken discourse and hedge comprehension while less attention is paid to hedges in literature (i.e., novels), one of the prominent types of discourse in which values, beliefs, ideologies and cultural dimensions of a particular nation or a social class can be presented through language

This thesis, therefore, provides comprehensive research on power distance dimension

in close relation to the utilization of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese

novels with a systematic analysis of (1) the manifestation of power distance by using

hedges and (2) the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power

distance in the novels

All of the above-mentioned information has encouraged me to conduct the study

entitled “A cross-cultural study on hedges showing power distance in contemporary

English and Vietnamese novels”

1.2 Aim of the research and research questions

The aim of this research is to find out the similarities and differences in the use of

hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels In

particular, the study fulfills the following tasks:

- To identify hedges showing power distance used in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels;

- To compare the use of hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels

To achieve such goal, two research questions are addressed:

(i) Which hedges showing power distance are used in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels?

(ii) What are the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels?

1.3 Significance of the research

Theoretically, the study provides criteria and guidelines for identification and

classification of hedges showing power distance in both English and Vietnamese

languages Based on the pragmatic function analysis of hedges, the study gives a valid

explanatory framework underlying hedge choices for power distance manifestation

Practically, the research findings can contribute to Vietnamese understanding of the

way English people use hedging expressions to show power distance Accordingly,

Vietnamese learners of English are able to avoid culture shocks in cross-cultural or intercultural communication, to improve their pragmatic competence and then to adopt

appropriate strategies in different communication situations

1.4 Scope of the research

Although communication comes with paralinguistic factors (e.g., loudness,) and linguistic factors (e.g., facial expressions), within the limit of a minor thesis, this research focuses on the verbal mode of hedges showing power distance in the four

extra-contemporary English and Vietnamese novels including “Clever girl” by Tessa Hadley,

“Into the darkest corner” by Elizabeth Haynes, “Bến không chồng” by Duong Huong and “Nhắm mắt thấy Paris” by Duong Thuy In this study, power distance is examined

in terms of age power, gender power and social status power though it is expressed in a variety of aspects On the basis of the politeness theory, the study explains how power distance actually works through the use of hedges

1.5 Research methodology

To explore power distance manifestation through the use of hedges in the selected contemporary English and Vietnamese novels, this study is conducted from the perspective of cross-cultural communication Accordingly, the research sheds light on the similarities and differences in the way people of each cultural background use hedges to show power distance

The research data is composed of hedges taken from conversations in the four selected novels The collection of hedging expressions is implemented with the combination of semantic, grammatical and pragmatic criteria All of the identified hedges are then classified on the basis of the categories developed by Yu (2009) and in groups of age, gender and social status After being processed, the data is arranged in overall distribution for analysis and discussions later

The research data is then qualitatively interpreted and discussed in order to explore the

manifestation of power distance This pragmatic analysis is undertaken based on the

politeness theory

Finally, to find out the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power

distance in the selected English and Vietnamese novels, comparative and contrastive

analysis methods are employed in the study

1.6 Design of the research

The study is composed of five chapters:

Chapter 1 “Introduction” gives a brief introduction of the motivation for the research,

the aim of the research, the key research questions, the theoretical and practical

significance of the research, the scope of the research and the research methodology

Chapter 2 “Literature review” attempts to establish a theoretical background for the

present study and presents an overview of previous works related to hedges

Chapter 3 “Research methodology” explains the specific approach and methods for

conducting the research, data collection, data analysis and attempts to establish an

analytical framework of the study

Chapter 4 “Findings and Discussion” presents research findings and provides full

discussions about the findings

Chapter 5 “Conclusion” includes a summary of the research results, implications of the

findings, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents a theoretical background and an overview of previous works related to hedges for the study The former provides a detailed discussion about hedges and hedging, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, cross-cultural communication, politeness theory and hedging, and contemporary novels The latter briefly reviews related studies

on hedges in various areas in order to find out the knowledge gap and then raise a rationale for the present research

of politeness theory and hedging This section ends with a definition of contemporary novels

2.1.1 Hedges and hedging

2.1.1.1 Development of the concept of hedges and hedging

It seems challenging to give definitions of hedges and hedging covering all approaches

This part presents the development of the concept of hedge and hedging to show clarity and agreement as to what counts as a hedge and hedging

The notion of “hedge” and its use as a linguistic term can be traced back to Lakoff

(1972) when he published his article “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts” He used the term to refer to words or phrases that “make things fuzzier or less fuzzy” (1972: 195) He indicated the possibility that hedges may

“interact with felicity conditions for utterances and with rules of conversation” (1972:

213) However, he was concerned with the logical properties of hedges, not interested

in the communicative value of the use of hedges Lakoff’s definition focuses on

clarifying the semantic basis, on which the notion of hedge rests; therefore, his

definition of hedges has remained a basis for many analyses of the hedging

phenomenon Supporting Lakoff's concern, another definition of hedge has been

developed by Brown and Levinson (1987: 145) as "a particle, word or phrase that

modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it says of

that membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true

and complete than perhaps might be expected"

The term has moved far from its origins since it attracted the interest of pragmatists and

discourse analysts It is now used not only for expressions which modify the category

membership of a predicate or noun phrase, but also for other syntactic constructions

After the mention of a fact that certain verbs and syntactic constructions may convey

hedged performatives (e.g., I suppose that…) (Lakoff, 1972), the idea of hedged

performatives has then become one direction of the expansion of the term According

to Markkanen and Schröder (1997), hedges are considered as modifiers of the

speaker’s/writer’s commitment to the truth-value of a whole proposition, not as making

individual elements inside it more imprecise

The concept of “hedge” is broadened in the furthest direction in which hedges are

treated as the realization of an interactional or communicative strategy called hedging

When Markkanen and Schröder (1989, 1992) make a discussion about the role of

hedges in scientific writing, they see the hedges as modifiers of the writer's

responsibility for the truth value of the propositions expressed or as modifiers of the

weightiness of the information provided, or the attitude of the writer to the information

In addition to the functional point of view, several researchers argue that hedges might

perform social functions Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) see hedges as strategies to

minimize the threat to face that is hidden behind acts of communication According to

Pindi and Bloor (1986), hedges are used in academic writing to signal distance, to protect one’s own reputation, to avoid absolute statements that may put researchers in

an embarrassing situation, to express the extent to which writers commit themselves to the truth value of their statements and to allow researchers to be more open to other possibilities of interpretation On the basis of Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) work, Myers (1989) argues that hedges can be better understood as positive or negative politeness strategies to deal with social interactions (i.e., solidarity with readers, unspeakability of direct criticisms and deference towards the scientific community)

It can be seen from the above discussions that the term “hedge” is defined in various

ways, from a pure linguistic direction to other directions widened with pragmatic, discoursal, interactional, communicative and social connotations This development can be divided into three stages Firstly, Lakoff’s originally linguistic concept works on

a local level modifying words or phrases within a proposition with its focus on content

Secondly, the term is investigated mainly in linguistic and pragmatic aspects modifying the truth value of the whole proposition and the speaker’s/writer’s commitment or attitude to the propositional content with its focus on the speaker/writer-content relationship Thirdly, the term is pragmatically and socially explored to modifying relationships between interlocutors or social relationships in a wider context with its focus on interpersonal and social relationships It is concluded that a good way to fully

understand the concept of “hedge” is to take all those elements into consideration

Therefore, hedges might be defined, in this study, as a word, particle, phrase or linguistic means having functions to:

- Modify the membership degree of another linguistic unit (e.g., a predicate or a noun phrase) in a set; it reveals that membership is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true or complete than perhaps might be expected

- Perform a speech act, i.e used as a hedged performative (e.g., I think that …)

- Modify the weightiness of the information given, the speaker’s attitude or his/her commitment to the propositional content of a statement or the speaker’s responsibility for the truth value of the propositions expressed

- Reduce the risk of negation and disagreement; contribute to good interpersonal relationship or good interactional behavior in communication

- Assist in saving the speaker’s or the hearer’s face, protecting the speaker’s reputation, projecting the speaker’s personality, strengthening solidarity with the addressee, showing modesty, gaining respect and approval from other people

Based on the way of defining a hedge in this study, hedging can be described as a

linguistic phenomenon, which is composed of strategies to:

- Convey the speaker’s certainty or doubt towards a statement and show the degree of confidence the speaker assigns to his/her claim

- Allow the hearer to evaluate the truth value of the assertion

- Show politeness where it marks a statement as being provisional, pending acceptance by the community or the hearer and mitigate face-threats

- Provide speaker-hearer interaction and act as a bridge which links the speaker’s intentions and the hearer’s receptions of those intentions

2.1.1.2 Taxonomy of hedges

Yu (2009: 55) indicates that “the taxonomy of hedges is rather arbitrary” because

“there are no unified criteria for the classification of hedges” This part, thus, provides

an overview of several prominent categorizations of hedges available in the literature

and a proposal of taxonomy for the present study

Salvager-Meyer (1994), in a study on how medical writers modulate their discourse in

different rhetorical sections of research paper and case reports, examined the frequency

and types of hedging techniques used in the different rhetorical sections of research

paper and case reports and how communicative purpose of each rhetorical section

influences the use of hedging conventions He undertook a rigorous contextual analysis

in both formal and functional criteria to identify hedges and propose a taxonomy of hedges He attempted to establish a five-type taxonomy of hedges as in table 1

Table 1 Taxonomy of hedges by Salvager-Meyer (1994: 154-155)

About Somewhat Often

Personal expressions

Expressions of the author’s personal doubt and direct involvement

I believe

To our knowledge

charged intensifiers

Emotionally-Comment words used to project the author’s reactions

Extremely interesting Unexpectedly

Compound hedges

- Double hedges

- Treble hedges

- Quadruple hedges

- It may suggest that …

- It would seem likely that

- It would seem somewhat unlikely that …

Hyland (1996a) established different categories for scientific hedges (i.e., in the field of cell and molecular biology) from a social, pragmatic, and discoursal point of view His category model for hedges is illustrated in figure 1

Figure 1 Hyland’s classification of scientific hedges (1996a: 438)

He developed a fuzzy category model, in which two main types were mentioned, including: content-oriented hedges and reader-oriented hedges

The content-oriented hedges, subdivided into accuracy-oriented hedges and

writer-oriented hedges, mitigate the relationship between propositional content and a

representation of reality According to Hyland (1996a), the accuracy-oriented hedges

concern the writer’s focus on propositional accuracy or in other words, they involve the

writer’s desire to express propositions with greater precision Again, accuracy-oriented

hedges are separated into two small types: attribute and reliability hedges The former

enables writers to specify more accurately how far their results approximate to an

idealized state They are represented by adverbs (e.g., generally, almost, quite)

Whereas, the latter indicates the writer’s confidence or uncertainty in the truth of a

proposition and is realized by modal verbs (e.g., may, might, can, could), modal

adjectives (e.g., likely, possible), modal adverbs (e.g., apparently, maybe), and modal

nouns (e.g., chance, probability) The writer-oriented hedges, according to Hyland

(1996a), concern the writer’s focus on self-protection against the consequences of poor

judgment They can be realized by employing the absence of writer agency with

impersonalized and passive constructions as the preferred forms

Regarding the reader-oriented hedges, Hyland (1996a) implies that they help reduce

the risk of negation on subjective grounds and confirm the attention writers give to the

interactional effects of their statements Thus, they can be realized through the use of

personal pronouns (e.g., I, we), questions, appeals to testability and suggestions for

alternatives

Unlike the two above-mentioned category models for hedges, a different taxonomy

was developed by Yu in 2009 when he conducted a cross-sectional research on the

pragmatic development of hedging with Chinese-speaking EFL learners Based on the

interactions between grammatical, semantic and pragmatic properties, the model is

composed of four broad types: modal hedges, performative (mental) hedges,

pragmatic-marker hedges, and quantificational hedges This taxonomy can be

summarized as in table 2

Table 2 Taxonomy of hedges by Yu (2009: 104)

Mental state predicates with epistemic meaning and modalized evidential meaning

I think that …

I can hear …

marker (implicit) hedges

Pragmatic Interpersonal pragmaticPragmatic markers

- Propositional pragmatic-markers

- Quite rarely, textual modifications

- If you like, You know

- Admittedly, In fact

- By the way

Quantificational hedges

in academic and scientific writing (i.e., medical discourse and textbooks on cell and molecular biology) However, the differences in taxonomies of hedges reflect the lack

of unified criteria for hedge classification This may also reflect hedges as highly context-dependent and pragmatic in nature Therefore, to offer a satisfactory classification of hedges, it is necessary to provide a careful description of the properties and characteristics of hedges In agreement with that point of view, Yu’s (2009) taxonomy of hedges is established on the basis of the complex interactions between grammatical, semantic and pragmatic features of hedges

The present study investigates hedges in the novels in which it is necessary to put the

interactions between characters into a particular context and pragmatically examined in

nature, thus the grammatical, semantic and pragmatic criteria should work together for

hedge classification Accordingly, a taxonomy of hedges established for the present

study is adapted from the categorization developed by Yu (2009)

Nevertheless, the power distance manifestation in this study is explored through the use

of hedges, there needs to be a distinction between epistemic and deontic subtypes of

modal hedges which clearly clarify the level or the kind of power distance In addition,

it is essential to distinguish mental state verbs from performative verbs in performative

hedge category Regarding pragmatic-marker hedges, pure textual pragmatic markers

are rarely used as hedges; in case they are, such cases are often realized through their

implicit propositional or interpersonal functions Textual modifications are thus not

investigated in this study From the above account, the taxonomy proposed for this

study has the final terminologies as shown in table 3:

Table 3 Taxonomy of hedges established for the present study

Modal hedges

- Epistemic modal verbs

- Epistemic modal adjectives

- Epistemic modal adverbs

- Epistemic modal nouns (Those four epistemic hedges express possibility and

- Mental state verbs

- Performative verbs

- I think that …

- May you permit me …

marker hedges

2.1.2 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions - Power distance

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social anthropologist and psychologist, has studied interactions between cultures His cultural dimensions theory provides a systematic framework for the assessment of the differences between nations and cultures He first focused his research on the 40 largest countries, and then extended it to 50 countries and 3 regions That initial analysis identified systematic differences in national cultures

on four dimensions: power distance , individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance

and masculinity-femininity, and was published in Culture's Consequences book in

1984 Michael Harris Bond and colleagues conducted independent research among students in 23 countries, using a survey instrument developed with Chinese employees and managers in 1991 The results from that study led Hofstede to add a fifth dimension to his model: long-term orientation - short-term orientation, initially called Confucian dynamism, to cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm In 2010, Minkov's World Values Survey data analysis of 93 countries finally led Hofstede to identify a sixth last dimension: indulgence versus restraint To sum up, Hofstede’s theory is based on the idea that value can be placed upon six cultural dimensions, including power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term versus short-term orientation, and indulgence versus restraint

The present study investigates the manifestation of power distance through the use of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels, the power distance dimension

is thus clearly presented and discussed in this part

The term power distance was first mentioned by Mulder in 1958 It is a measure of

power imbalance between more powerful individuals and less powerful ones in a society Mulder (1975) indicated that individuals with more power tend to increase or maintain the distance between themselves and the less powerful while individuals with less power tend to decrease the distance between themselves and the more powerful

On the basis of Mulder’s studies, Hofstede (1984, 2001) introduced the cultural

variable power distance to describe attitudes towards the distribution of power He

defined it as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions or

organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally

In this study, power distance refers to the way in which power is distributed and the

extent to which the less powerful accept that power is spread unequally It is examined

in terms of the power relationships of three aspects: age (younger/older/equal), gender

(female/male) and social status (lower/higher/equal positions)

Hofstede’s power distance index (PDI) for over 70 countries (2010) indicates that the

range of inequality varies from culture to culture with the lowest score of 11, the

average score of 53 and the highest score of 104 According to his analysis (2003),

there are various differences between low power distance (LPD) and high power

distance (HPD) cultures Those which have LPD emphasize individual credibility and

expertise, democratic decision-making processes, equal rights and relations, and

equitable rewards and punishments based on performance, whereas HPD exists in

cultures in which decision-making processes are automatic; credibility and experience

is judged on a status-basis

The paragraphs below provide an overview of power distance assessment in England

and Vietnam Figure 2 shows a comparison of PDI between England and Vietnam

Figure 2 PDI in England and Vietnam

35

70

0 30 60 90 120

As can be seen from Figure 2, England scores 35 on the cultural scale in terms of PDI

In comparison with Arab countries in which the power distance is very high (PDI = 80) and Austria where it is very low (PDI = 11), England belongs to the group of LPD countries On the other hand, the PDI of Vietnamese culture stands at 70, which, in accordance with Hofstede’s assessment, is known as a HPD country

In the words of Hofstede (1984, 2001), English culture views individuals as more or less equal, tends to diminish status, and distributes power more evenly than HPD cultures His research shows that the PDI score at first seems incongruent with the well-established and historical class system and it exposes one of the inherent tensions

in English culture – between the importance of birth rank on the one hand and a deep seated belief that where people are born should not limit how far they can travel in life

A sense of fair play drives a belief that people should be treated in some way as equal

In Vietnam, people accept a hierarchical order, in which everyone has a place, needs no further justification and avoids losing the other’s face Due to the importance of saving face, indirect speech is seen as one of the distinctive features in Vietnamese society

Hierarchy in an organization is regarded as reflecting inherent inequalities Gudykunst (2001) and Heymer (2008) point out certain criteria of hierarchy that can be identified, including age, gender, money status and qualification Challenges to the leadership are not well-received According to Nguyen and Truong (2002), the HPD characteristic is shown both in daily life and in business of Vietnamese people

2.1.3 Cross-cultural communication

Culture, communication and the correlation between them remain a topic of great interest to a number of linguistic researchers Studies on that correlation have led to technological terms of intra-cultural communication, cross-cultural communication, intercultural communication and transcultural communication Among those four kinds

of communication, there is a widespread agreement on the understanding of cultural and transcultural communication The former describes communication

intra-between people who live in the same country and come from the same cultural

background The latter is communication between people who live in the same country

or in different countries but come from different cultural backgrounds, where there is

an explicitly influential acculturation from one to another

In contrast, there is no widespread agreement on the understanding of cross-cultural

communication and intercultural communication Further, there is sometimes an

ambiguity in the use of those two terms This part thus provides a careful discussion on

the terms and attempts to make a distinction between them The conceptualization of

cross-cultural and intercultural communication varies from researcher to researcher

Among them, five popular definitions are presented in the following discussion

To begin with, Scollon & Scollon’s definitions (2001) of intercultural communication

and cross-cultural communication receive much attention from other researchers They

take intercultural communication to signal the study of distinct cultural or other groups

in interaction with each other It means that the comparative analysis of the groups or

synthesis between them arises in this framework as part of the interaction of members

of different groups with each other, and the analyst’s role is to stand outside of the

interaction and to provide an analysis of how the participants negotiate their cultural or

other differences Concerning cross-cultural communication, they take it to signal the

independent study of the communicative characteristics of distinct cultural or other

groups In the cross-cultural framework, comparative analysis or synthesis is made by

the analyst or researcher That means in research designed within the cross-cultural

paradigm, the members of the distinct groups do not interact with each other within the

study but are studied as separate and separable entities In actual instances, the

distinctiveness of the groups under analysis is often presupposed It can be seen from

two above definitions that there exists a clear difference between cross-cultural and

intercultural communication

Levine and Adelman (1993) define cross-cultural communication as (verbal and verbal) communication between people from different cultures; communication influenced by cultural values, attitudes and behaviors; the influence of cultures on people’s reactions and responses to each other Their definition reveals that their understandings of cross-cultural communication resemble the conceptualization of intercultural communication

non-Another definition of cross-cultural and intercultural communication belongs to Roger and Steifatt (1999) They define cross-cultural or intercultural communication as the exchange of information between individuals who are unalike culturally because they are in approval of the idea that cross-cultural and intercultural communication are often used interchangeably This understanding results in ambiguity in the use of two terms

On the contrary, Gudykunst (2003) states that cross-cultural communication focuses on comparison of some phenomena between cultures He argues further that it is essential

to understand cross-cultural communication before taking intercultural communication

Understanding cross-cultural communication is to understand what each culture values

in terms of interacting with others His idea makes no distinction between two terms

In Nguyen Quang’s Lecture Note (2006), he describes cross-cultural communication as communication between people who live in different countries and come from different cultural backgrounds while intercultural communication is communication between people who live in the same country but come from different cultural backgrounds

In this study, to make a clear and full understanding of cross-cultural communication and to distinguish it from intercultural communication, the author approves the definition developed by Scollon & Scollon (2001) Cross-cultural communication defined by Scollon & Scollon (2001) then serves as the research approach for the purpose of investigation into the manifestation of power distance through the use of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels

2.1.4 Politeness theory and hedging

Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory (1987) is seen as the most comprehensive

theory about linguistic politeness The theory emerges from three elements: face, face

threatening acts and politeness strategies “Face” is defined as the public self-image

which everyone wants to preserve when engaged in communication It consists of two

relevant aspects: positive face, on the one hand, showing “the positive consistent

self-image or personality (crucially including the desire that this self-self-image be appreciated

and approved of) claimed by interactions” and on the other hand, negative face as “the

basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction, such as to

freedom of action and freedom of imposition” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 61)

In accordance with the notions of negative and positive face, Brown & Levinson

(1987) proposed the theory on positive politeness and negative politeness strategies

Positive politeness is, in general, a way how to show solidarity and express sympathy

towards the addressee In other words, positive politeness strategies try to minimize the

distance between interlocutors by expressions of friendliness and solid interest in the

hearer's need to be respected The possible face threat is reduced thanks to the fact that

the speaker desires for at least some of the hearer’s wants On the contrary, negative

politeness is oriented towards the hearer’s negative face In other words, negative

politeness strategies enable the speaker to maintain his/her face and avoid conflicts by

keeping the distance between the speaker and the hearer such as in refusal,

disagreement, or critique

Regarding politeness in Vietnam, Nguyen Thien Giap (2000: 34) defines it as a social

convention that is composed of subtlety, toleration, modesty and sympathy Sharing

this point of view, Vu Thi Thanh Huong (2002) indicates four elements of politeness,

including respect, modesty, subtlety and delicacy According to her concept, respect

and modesty are expressed through linguistic behaviors that satisfy social

communication principles and present the hierarchical order in position and age

Therefore, they belong to conventional politeness Subtlety and delicacy are expressed

by linguistic behaviors which mitigate imposition, avoid hurts and gain more

ratification from the interlocutors They are then called politeness strategies

In this study, the concept of politeness is investigated in combination of politeness strategies by Brown & Levinson (1987) and conventional politeness

Taking the relationship between hedging and politeness theory into account, Wilamová (2005) describes hedging devices as the pragmatic markers which reinforce the impact

of the message and hence, they appear to be associated mainly with the negative politeness Brown & Levinson (1987) also consider hedging as one of the negative politeness strategies because it is used to redress different types of face threatening acts (e.g., criticism, complaints, requests, suggestions) or to strengthen the force of other acts that may be seen as beneficial to the addressee (e.g., promises) Additionally, it may be used to stress the speaker’s commitment to the truth of his/her utterances or to suggest that he/she does not take full responsibilities for the truth of his/her utterances

In such cases, hedging is in close relation to negative politeness strategies because it makes distance between the speaker and the content of the utterance and the listener

For positive politeness strategies, they achieve hedging effects when they try to minimize the distance between interlocutors; therefore, hedging is regarded as both positive and negative politeness strategies in this study

2.1.5 Contemporary novels

Anthony Burgess, an English novelist, defines a novel as an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting Within its broad framework, the genre of novel has encompassed an extensive range of types and styles, including: picaresque, epistolary, gothic, romantic, realistic, historical-to name only some of the more important ones (cited from https://www.britannica.com/art/novel)

In this study, the concept of contemporary novel is taken into consideration It

describes stories set in current time, deals with the concerns of modern day life and

does not bring in any elements of fantasy Being a kind of realistic fiction,

contemporary novels focus on giving people a window into some corner of everyday

experience and showing them what it will be like to walk in someone else’s shoes

Some of the stories may be politically motivated or designed to raise social awareness

while others exist purely for the purposes of entertainment

The four contemporary novels investigated in the present study tell the stories of

women and the psychology of people in love and in other relationships

2.2 Related studies on hedges

There have been many studies on hedges in the literature both in the world and in

Vietnam In the following literature review of hedge studies up to the date, attention is

paid to four major areas of research The first area of hedge research is located in

academic and scientific writing, in which hedges are often examined in general within

a corpus The second area occurs with spoken discourse, where hedges are often

investigated individually as a discourse marker or pragmatic marker The third area of

hedge research, quite small in number, relies on comprehension rather than production

materials, examining the understanding of hedges The fourth area, limited in quantity,

is set out for hedges in literature

To begin with, Yu (2009) indicates that the majority of hedge studies are found to be

concerned with academic and scientific writing, including genres such as economics

(Pindi and Bloor, 1986; Channel, 1990), medical discourse (Salayer-Meyer, 1991;

1993; 1994; Adams-Smith,1984), molecular genetics articles (Myers, 1989),

news-writing (Zuck & Zuck, 1986), and hedging in textbooks (Myers, 1992; Holmes, 1988;

Hyland, 1994) Hedge studies are conducted most often with academic and scientific

writing because these genres are comparatively hedge-dense areas Hyland (1996a)

states that in science, hedges play a critical role in gaining ratification for claims from a

powerful peer group by allowing writers to present statements with appropriate accuracy, caution and humility Hedges help negotiate the perspective from which conclusions can be accepted In other words, the use of hedges is obligatory in academic writing and scientific articles Myers (1989) has similar observations which argue that hedges are part of wider system of politeness designed to redress the threat research claims may contain to the face of other scientists While writers seek to gain recognition in their field by making the strongest claims they can, such claims are likely to challenge existing assumptions of the discipline A variety of devices are, therefore, employed to mitigate claims and minimize these impositions Hence, the availability of hedge data is best obtainable in academic and scientific genres

As far as the methodology is concerned, hedge studies in academic and scientific writing are usually corpus-based Researchers establish a corpus composed of a number of academic and scientific papers, statistics are then provided for the frequency

or density of hedges occurring in these papers, and a general taxonomy of hedges is also presented In addition, hedges in this area have their own characteristics For example, according to Meyer (1997: 38), the commitment to an academic statement can be mitigated “by pretending that the author is not putting toward the claim of his/her own accord, but that the facts actually speak for themselves, or compel the author to claim what he/she is claiming” Another instance of the feature of hedges in this area is the strategy of shifting responsibility to method Related to this strategy, the fact-finding process reveals the double character of hedging in a most convincing manner, including both strengthening and weakening the argument

Besides studies on academic and scientific writing, hedges have also received a great deal of attention in spoken discourse in which hedge categories, their properties or functions are examined in general Several popular researchers in this field are Crystal and Davy (1975), Keller and Warner (1976), Schifffrin (1987) and Fraser (1988) In addition, many analysts of spoken discourse also target individual items, examining a single hedge at a time in detail Studies in this area reveal that any linguistic expression

functioning as a hedge is due both to its semantic connotations and to its pragmatic

properties Identifying any linguistic expression as a hedge is thus a complicated task

which requires context-based case-for-case analyses

In spite of small number, there are also studies on hedge comprehension Perhaps,

Channel (1994) is the most well-known in this area, who reported a series of studies on

the meaning of approximator + number He concluded the study with three

generalizations Firstly, number approximations were understood to designate intervals

of numbers Secondly, as a general rule, the length of the interval increased as a

function of the size of the exemplar number Thirdly, the nature of the item being

approximated affected the length of interval for which the approximation seemed

appropriate In Vietnam, hedges were mentioned in terms of several different aspects

and levels when researchers carried out their studies on a particular speech act,

pragmatic phenomenon, propositional content strategy or politeness strategies, for

example, Nguyen Quang (2004), Duong Tuyet Hanh (2007), Nguyen Quang Ngoan

(2007), Vu Thi Nga (2002, 2010) However, there has not been any research conducted

with a general view on hedges to be used as the reference database in Vietnam

The following discussions show some findings in a few of Vietnamese research

projects conducted in literature area (i.e., novels)

In the research entitled "A study on hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the

wind by Margaret Mitchell", Huyen (2012) investigated the linguistic devices of

hedges and major pragmatic functions of identified hedges in the conversations in the

novel The findings indicated that there were four main categories of hedging devices

emerging from the data namely modal hedges, performative hedges, quantificational

hedges and pragmatic-marker hedges They performed three functions, including

speaker orientation, accuracy orientation and hearer orientation The study revealed

that the pragmatic functions of hedges were partly portrayed because it was restricted

to linguistic realization of hedging

Another research on hedges was conducted by Hau (2014), namely “Hedges showing power distance in American and Vietnamese contemporary novels from the perspective

of cross-cultural communication” She identified and described the linguistic devices of hedging showing power distance in terms of their syntactic, semantic features and pragmatic functions Simultaneously, she discovered the similarities and differences between the hedge showing power distance in American and Vietnamese novels from perspective of cross-cultural communication The findings of the research showed that there were five categories of hedging devices showing power distance emerging from the data of two American novels and two Vietnamese novels, namely, modal hedges, performative hedges, quantificational hedges, pragmatic-marker hedges and other minor hedge patterns (subjunctives, tag questions/rhetorical questions, expressions borrowing from idioms and impersonalization) The findings also revealed that age, gender and position had certain influences on using hedges showing power distance

However, they were just illustrated through her personal judgment with statements and some popular examples extracted from the novels, not clearly collected and analyzed

on the basis of the statistical data in terms of age, gender and position Therefore, the manifestation of power distance in terms of those aspects did not satisfy the reliability and convincing principles

Based on the gap of previous studies on hedges, the present study attempts to give a valid explanatory framework which underlies the classification of hedges for power distance manifestation and to find out the similarities and differences in the use of

hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels

2.3 Chapter summary

This chapter provides a detailed theoretical background and an overview of previous works related to hedges for the study The first part makes a careful discussion about hedges and hedging, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, cross-cultural communication, politeness theory and hedging, and contemporary novels

In this chapter, distinct definitions of hedges and hedging are presented clearly Hedges

are considered as a word, particle, phrase or linguistic means which have five

functions: (1) Modify the membership degree of another linguistic unit in a set; (2)

Perform a speech act; (3) Modify the weightiness of the information given, the

speaker’s attitude or his/her commitment to the propositional content of a statement or

the speaker’s responsibility for the truth value of the propositions expressed; (4)

Reduce the risk of negation and disagreement; contribute to good interpersonal

relationship or good interactional behavior in communication and (5) Assist in saving

the speaker’s or the hearer’s face, protecting the speaker’s reputation, projecting the

speaker’s personality, strengthening solidarity with the addressee, showing modesty

and gaining more respect and approval from other people

Hedging in this study is described as a linguistic phenomenon, which is composed of

strategies to: (i) Convey the speaker’s certainty or doubt towards a statement and show

the degree of confidence the speaker assigns to his/her claim; (ii) Allow the hearer to

evaluate the truth value of the assertion; (iii) Show politeness where it marks a

statement as being provisional, pending acceptance by the community or the hearer and

mitigate face-threats and (4) Provide speaker-hearer interaction and act as a bridge

which links the speaker’s intentions and the hearer’s receptions of those intentions

In this chapter, four broad hedge categories are established for the present study,

including: modal hedges, performative hedges, pragmatic-marker hedges and

quantificational hedges

The development of Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory is also clearly presented,

followed by a careful discussion about cross-cultural and intercultural communication

to make a distinction between two terms The present study approves the definition of

cross-cultural communication developed by Scollon & Scollon (2001) It signals the

independent study of the communicative characteristics of distinct cultural or other

groups The members of the distinct groups do not interact with each other within the

study but are studied as separate and separable entities It serves as the research approach for the purpose of investigation into the manifestation of power distance through the use of hedges in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels In this chapter, Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies (1987) and conventional politeness are applied for the pragmatic analysis of hedges’ functions The relationship between politeness strategies and hedging is also clarified

The second part reviews four important areas of hedge studies up to the date, including academic and scientific writing, spoken discourse, hedge comprehension and literature

Based on the gap of previous studies on hedges, the present study raises a motivation for research to find out the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels from the perspective

of cross-cultural communication

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter gives a detailed account for the research approach and method used to

offer the answers to the research questions It is also fulfilled with the information

about research data, criteria and guidelines for data collection, and data analysis

method The chapter ends with an analytical framework which can be considered as an

outline of data analysis for the present study

3.1 Research questions

This present research addresses two questions:

(i) Which hedges showing power distance are used in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels?

(ii) What are the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in contemporary English and Vietnamese novels?

3.2 Research approach

In order to investigate power distance manifestation through the use of hedges in the

selected contemporary English and Vietnamese novels, this study is conducted from

the perspective of cross-cultural communication The research aims at shedding light

on the similarities and differences in the way people of each cultural background use

hedges to show power distance

3.3 Research method

In this study, a comprehensive understanding of hedges showing power distance in the

contemporary English and Vietnamese novels from cross-cultural communication

perspective is implemented by the combination of descriptive, comparative and

contrastive analysis methods

After the hedge categories are collected and processed, they are arranged in overall

distribution in terms of age, gender and social status Then they are described and

interpreted in order to explore the manifestation of power distance To find out the similarities and differences in the use of hedges showing power distance in the selected English and Vietnamese novels, comparative and contrastive analysis methods are employed in this phase

3.4 Research data

The data used in this study is composed of hedges taken from conversations in the four selected contemporary novels (including two English novels and two Vietnamese ones), telling the stories of women and the psychology of people in love and in other relationships

Clever girl (2013) by Tessa Hadley is the life story of an ordinary, middle-aged

English woman - Stella It is seen as a powerful exploration of family relationships and class in modern life, witnessed through Stella’s experiences Unfolding in a series of snapshots, this moving novel follows the story of Stella from her childhood, growing

up with a single mother in a Bristol bedsit in the 1960s, into the mysterious shallows of her middle age

Into the darkest corner (2010) by Elizabeth Haynes tells the story of Catherine, who

has enjoyed her single life and experiences big changes when she sees Lee He seems almost too perfect to be true But she then realizes that there is a darker side to him His strange behaviors make Catherine frightened However, no one trusts her when she shares her demons Isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, she plans

on escaping Four years later, when she meets Stuart, Catherine hopes that she might be happy with her new love and safe from harm Unfortunately, soon after that, she receives a phone call informing her of Lee’s impending release Everything then changes

Bến không chồng (1991) by Duong Huong is the story about females living in a

northern village where males are away to serve the war against the French colonial

regime and their lives after the war Due to its occurrence, the older women have lost

their husbands; the young ones could not find any one Conflicts then arise among the

villagers regarding love, social relationships and sex The conflicts are made up with

disagreements between the morality limitation and the nature of sexuality and

reproductivity, between the traditional collective beliefs and individual demands

Nhắm mắt thấy Paris (2010) by Duong Thuy tells the story of a young Vietnamese girl,

Quynh Mai, who works for a Vietnamese division of a French cosmetics company

Having experienced many failures, pains and successes in her life (including her love

and job), she finally came to the realization of the nature of love and happiness In

brief, the novel focuses on the psychology of people in love and in business

relationships

Those four novels are chosen to serve as research data in this study as they are popular

contemporary novels that describe stories of women and the psychology of people in

love and in other relationships set in current time All of the novels have received much

attention from readers mainly because they deal with the concerns of modern day life

without elements of fantasy

3.5 Data collection

For any linguistic expression to be a hedge, it must have some grammatical, semantic

and pragmatic properties which can distinguish it as a hedge Therefore, in the process

of research data collection, it needs to give criteria and guidelines for hedge

identification

The first criterion and guideline for hedge identification are the semantic features of

modifiability For any linguistic expression to be a hedge, it must be able to modify and

demonstrate a degree in modification strength (i.e., altering the state of affairs in terms

of quantity, quality, degree, frequency, extension, intensity, precision, attitude or

commitment) For example, a few can alter the quantity, seldom for the frequency,

somewhat for the degree; I believe can make a personal commitment and kind of can

adjust the preciseness The semantic features of modifiability are intrinsic to all hedges

They are the inherent and internal features of hedging that set out a premise for anything to be a hedge

The second criterion and guideline for hedge identification are the grammatical properties They work out in three ways First, as there are certain grammatical areas that are most potential sources of hedges, to locate these areas may greatly help limit the range of hedges and thus help with hedge identification Second, syntactical

features may directly help with hedge recognition For example, the chance for I think

to be a hedge is exclusively conditioned by its parenthetical usage or by its adjacency

with a that-clause Third, some fully grammaticalized hedges (e.g., maybe, perhaps)

can be immediately recognized even without a context In general, grammatical features specify the diversity of grammatical realization of hedges

The third and more prominent criterion and guideline for hedge identification than the semantic and grammatical components in the majority of cases are pragmatic ones In real communications, language can be used intentionally and strategically Hence, a linguistic expression can be able to express either a factual measure or a strategically vague approximation In this case, the latter can be interpreted as hedges Pragmatic features are the external properties specify the motives and intentions for the use of hedges

To sum up, the semantic, grammatical and pragmatic properties are different dimensions of hedges that are integrated as a whole and should not work in isolation for hedge identification Semantic properties serve as premises constraining any linguistic expression to acquire hedging membership; grammatical properties help limit the range of the membership; and pragmatic properties have the final

3.6 Data analysis method

After being arranged in overall distribution and percentage and described with

statistical tables and figures, the research data is qualitatively interpreted and discussed

in order to explore the manifestation of power distance This pragmatic analysis is

undertaken based on the politeness theory Next, comparative and contrastive analysis

methods are employed in the study to find out the similarities and differences in the use

of hedges showing power distance in the selected English and Vietnamese novels

3.7 Analytical framework

To achieve the aim of the study and give the answers to three research questions, the

analytical framework is established for the present study as follows: First, the power

distance manifestation in this study is investigated in terms of three aspects: age power,

gender power and social status power; the research data is thus collected, arranged in

overall distribution and codified according to the groups of age (i.e., younger, equal,

older), gender (i.e., female, male) and social status (i.e., lower, equal, higher)

Second, hedges showing power distance are identified, extracted according to the

groups of age, gender and social status and then codified as four categories, including

(1) modal hedges realized by epistemic modal verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns (i.e.,

epistemic modal hedges express possibility and indefiniteness) and deontic modal

verbs shifting the responsibility away from the speaker to the necessity and obligation;

(2) performative hedges realized by mental state verbs and performative verbs; (3)

marker hedges realized by interpersonal and propositional

pragmatic-markers; (4) quantificational hedges realized by quantity approximators, frequency

approximators and degree approximators

Third, power distance manifested in the use of hedges is identified and codified as high

power distance, low power distance and not applicable The manifestation of power

distance is also examined by age, gender and social status