Cách diễn đạt sự bất đồng giữa những người không bình đẳng về quyền lực trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt: Nghiên cứu dụng học giao văn hoá

Cách diễn đạt sự bất đồng giữa những người không bình đẳng về quyền lực trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt: Nghiên cứu dụng học giao văn hoá

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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NGUYEN QUANG NGOAN

DISAGREEING AMONG POWER-UNEQUALS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE:

A CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS STUDY

Major: English Linguistics Code: 62.22.15.01

SUMMARY OF PHD DISSERTATION

ON ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

HANOI, 2009

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

ANS: Australian native speaker

B&L: Brown and Levinson

CC: Cross-cultural

CCP: Cross-cultural pragmatics

D: Social Distance

DCT: Discourse completion task/test

FTA: Face Threatening Act

H: Hearer

IL: Interlanguage

ILP: Interlanguage pragmatics

MAQ: Metapragmatic assessment questionnaire

VLE: Vietnamese learner of English

VNS: Vietnamese native speaker

Politeness strategies:

Avoid D: Avoid disagreement

Bald-on R: Bald on record

Common G: Presuppose/ raise/ assert common ground

Concern: Assert or presuppose S’s knowledge or concern for H’s

wants Conventionally ind: Be conventionally indirect

Deference: Give deference

Encourage: Condolence, encouragement

FTA as a GR: State the FTA as a general rule

Gift: Give gifts to H

Hint: Give hints

Impersonalize: Impersonalize S and H

In-group: Use in-group identity markers

Include S&H: Include both S and H in the activity

Interest: Intensify interest to H

Ironic: Be ironic

Minimize the imp: Minimize the imposition, Rx

Multiple P: Multiple positive politeness

Multiple N: Multiple negative politeness

Multiple O: Multiple off record

Negative P: Negative politeness

No FTA: Don’t do the FTA

N + O: Negative politeness plus off record

Optimistic: Be optimistic

Positive P: Positive politeness

Promise: Offer, promise

P + N: Positive politeness plus negative politeness

P + O: Positive politeness plus off record

P + N + O: Positive politeness plus negative politeness plus off

record Reciprocity: Assume or assert reciprocity

Reason: Give (or ask for) reasons

Rhetorical Q: Use rhetorical questions

Single P: Single positive politeness

Single N: Single negative politeness

Single O: Single off record

Vague: Be vague

In tables and sample analyses:

CCD: Cross-cultural difference

+D: Small social distance

=D: Not-large-nor-small social distance

-D: Large social distance

-P: Powerless/Low power

=P: Equal-power

+P: Powerful/High power

+Se: Formal setting

=Se: Semi-formal setting

-Se: Informal setting

Italics: used for emphasis, examples, politeness strategies, or technical

terms mentioned for the first time

&: used to replace “and” for linking the names of co-authors of references

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the last fifteen years in Vietnam, there have been a great number of contrastive pragmatics studies comparing and contrasting Vietnamese and English in various speech acts However, there have not been sufficient interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) studies contrasting English

by Vietnamese learners and English by its native speakers It is for this reason that the author decided to contribute to developing the trend of ILP studies by conducting a research into pragmatic transfer (PT) from Vietnamese to English in the act of disagreeing under the influence of the relative power (P) in some particular contexts

Disagreeing is the speech act under investigation in this study, and it was chosen because of some major reasons Firstly, no studies of the speech act of disagreeing have been conducted in Vietnam from the ILP perspective Secondly, another focus of my study is on the effects

of P on verbal interactions, and according to many researchers (Beebe

& Takahashi, 1989; Rees-Miller, 2000; and Locher, 2004), the realizations of disagreeing strategies are proven to be under great influence of P However, the author has not noticed any studies of speech acts, in which P was realized as a separated social variable that

is in focus Thus, it is the author’s purpose to attempt to investigate the issue

There are also some other reasons for the author’s choice of P as the focused social variable operating in this study One reason is that, as far as the author knows, there have been no thorough empirical studies

of power influence on verbal interaction in Vietnam although there have been a lot of relevant discussions and studies on power and its correlation with language in English-speaking cultures (e.g., Ng, 1995; Ng and Bradac, 1993; Watts, 1991, 2003; Hofstede, 1977, 1991, 2001; Holmes, 1992; Rees-Miller, 2000; Fairclough, 2001; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Locher, 2004) Thus, this study can serve to fill in the gap in the Vietnamese literature Another reason is that, according to Hofstede (1991, 2001) and his supporters, including Spencer-Oatey (1997), Gibson (2002), Samovar & Porter (2001), and Ting-Toomey

& Chung (2005), high-power-distance values are for Asian countries and lower-power-distance values are for the USA, Great Britain and its former dominions, including Australia Vietnam is an Asian country but it was not a country under Hofstede’s investigation, so it

seems to be logical to hypothesize that Vietnam is among other Asian countries which show high-power-distance values but this hypothesis must be tested, especially in comparison with an English-speaking culture, Australia A third reason is that the effects of P on language have been discussed and emphasized by many authors (e.g., Holmes, 1992; Ng & Bradac, 1993; Ng, 1995; Rees-Miller, 2000; Fairclough, 2001; Nguyen Quang, 2002, 2004; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Locher, 2004) However, to what extent does the relative power affect the speaker’s use of disagreeing strategies realized in Vietnamese by the Vietnamese native speakers (VNS) and in English by the Vietnamese learners of English (VLE) and Australian native speakers (ANS)? Do the effects cause negative PT in the use of disagreeing strategies from Vietnamese to English? These are some of the questions which remain unanswered, and so the questions the author hopes to answer in the present study

2 Aims of the study

2.1 Overall purpose

The overall purpose of the dissertation is to investigate thoroughly primarily the negative PT from Vietnamese into Australian language and culture, and secondarily noteworthy Vietnamese-Australian CC differences as valid clues for the interpretation and discussion of the

PT in the speech act of disagreeing under the effects of P in the investigated situations

2.2 Specific aims

To achieve the overall purpose, the study is aimed:

- to find out the major features of Vietnamese-English PT caused by the VLE and CC differences between the VNS and ANS in their use

of disagreeing politeness strategies with the more powerful as well as with the less powerful in the investigated situations

- to investigate the effects of P on the subject’s use of disagreeing politeness strategies reflected from the differences in their use of politeness strategies for disagreeing which is affected by their perception of P described in the relative roles in the investigated situations

3 Research questions

1 What are some significant features of negative PT caused by the VLE and what are some significant CC differences between the VNS and ANS in their use of disagreeing politeness strategies in the investigated situations? Sub questions are:

- Which features of negative PT and CC differences in the use of disagreeing politeness strategies are significant?

- Which CC differences between the VNS and ANS lead to negative PT and which CC differences do not?

- Which disagreeing politeness strategies are used and preferred

by the VLE, ANS, and VNS? What are the differences in their use of those strategies in the powerful and powerless situations?

- Which politeness strategies in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework are realized, either as single strategies or strategy combinations for disagreeing in the investigated situations? Is there a high possibility for strategy combinations?

2 How does the subject’s perception of P in the investigated situations affect their use of disagreeing politeness strategies? How do the similarities and differences in the subject’s perception of P affect negative PT and CC differences in their use of disagreeing politeness strategies? Sub questions are:

- How is P described in the relative roles in the investigated situations perceived by the VNS, ANS, and VLE?

- To what extent is the VNS’s perception of P different from the ANS’s? Is it true that Vietnam is a higher-power-distance culture than Australia?

- Is there the phenomenon of inverse PT in P perception caused by the VLE in the investigated situations?

- How do the similarities and differences in the subject’s perception of P in the investigated situations affect their use of disagreeing politeness strategies?

4 Scope of the study

- The study focuses on intralinguistic factors Paralinguistic and extralinguistic aspects are, therefore, out of the scope of the study The verbal interaction is restricted to the act of disagreeing

- The act of disagreeing focuses on the frequency and realizations of politeness strategies used by the VLE, ANS, and VNS in some specific situations in light of the politeness framework by Brown and Levinson (1987)

- The particular situations are restricted to thirty situations in the

Meta-pragmatic Assessment Questionnaires (MAQ) and six situations

in the Discourse Completion Task (DCT)

- “Among power-unequals” is meant to cover all the interactions

between not only the more powerful and the less powerful but also the less powerful and the more powerful in various situations in the four

contexts: (1) at home, (2) at work, (3) at school, and (4) in society

- P is described in the relative roles, such as a parent versus his/her child (at home), a university lecturer versus a student (at school), a boss versus an employee (at work), or an elder person versus a younger one (in society)

- The focused social variable is P, which is used to refer to the relative power each speaker temporarily has in each given context However, the social distance (D) and the speaking context (Se) are also taken into consideration for detailed interpretation and discussion of each particular situation

- Vietnamese-Australian PT in disagreeing among power-unequals is what the study aims to investigate Thus, comparison and contrast of disagreeing strategies by the VLE and ANS are in focus However, for the objectivity and validity of the research, the study is expanded to cover the comparison and contrast of the power perception and disagreeing strategies by the VNS and ANS to serve as the basic background for the interpretation, discussion, and conclusion of the

PT

5 Contributions of the study

The study is expected to bring out some following contributions:

- Theoretically, it contributes an investigation to some research areas

in Vietnam: (1) socio-cultural effects (i.e power effects) on verbal interactions, (2) pragmatic transfer (i.e Vietnamese-English transfer), (3) speech act theory (i.e disagreeing as a speech act), and (4) linguistic politeness Specifically, this is the first thorough empirical research in Vietnam, the focus of which is on the influence of P on

language, or to be more exact on disagreeing, and also the first study

of Vietnamese-Australian PT in the act Its findings are expected to reinforce or deny existing hypotheses in the fields and to bring about a better insight into the issues

- Practically, its findings on the Vietnamese-Australian PT, especially negative PT, in the frequency and realizations of disagreeing strategies

in particular situations with sufficient details and plenty of specific examples from a rich source of data can be applied to English language teaching and CC communication

- Methodologically, it serves as a valid study on people’s perception

of socio-situational factors and the production of language strategies

in verbal interactions through the suitable research methodology of the combination between the MAQ and DCT It also contributes a new way of applying Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness model to data analyses in empirical studies concerning linguistic politeness

7 Organization of the study

The present study is 197 pages long divided into three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B – Development, and Part C – Conclusion

Part A is the introduction to the study consisting of 10 pages (pp 10) in which the author writes about the reasons for which the study is conducted Other issues clarified in this section are the aims, scope, research questions, and contributions of the study A summary of all the parts and chapters is also presented to help the audience have an overall idea of the study Part B is the major part of the study which consists of 177 pages (pp 11-187) divided into four chapters, discussing the relevant theoretical concepts, literature review, methodology and results of the present study Part C consists of 10 pages (pp 178-197) regarding the conclusions, implications, and suggestions for further studies Following is the structure of the study

 Abbreviations and conventions

 List of figures, tables, and graphs

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

2.1 Overall purpose

2.2 Specific aims

3 Research questions

4 Scope of the study

5 Contributions of the study

1.1.2 Pragmatic transfer and relevant issues

1.2 Speech act theory and disagreeing as a speech act

1.2.1 Notion of speech acts

1.2.2 Classification of speech acts

1.2.3 Disagreeing as a potential face threatening act

1.3 Politeness theory and its application to the present study

1.3.1 Definitions of politeness

1.3.2 Politeness approaches in literature

1.3.2.1 The strategic view

1.3.2.2 The normative view

1.3.2.3 Concluding remarks

1.3.3 Application of politeness approach in the present study

1.4 Disagreeing in previous studies and in the present study

1.4.1 Previous studies of disagreeing in English and Vietnamese

1.4.2 Summary of findings and shortcomings in the previous studies

1.4.3 Disagreeing in the present study

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research methods

2.1.1 An overview of research methods in inter-language pragmatics

2.1.1.1 A brief description of the two major research methods in ILP

2.1.1.2 Common trends in applying research methods to ILP studies

2.1.1.3 Some concluding remarks on ILP research methods

2.1.2 Research methods in the present study

2.1.2.1 The chosen research methods

2.1.2.2 Reasons for choosing the methods

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Data collection instruments

2.2.1.1 Meta-pragmatic assessment questionnaires (MAQ)

2.2.1.2 Discourse completion task (DCT)

2.2.2 Subjects

2.2.3 Procedures of developing instruments and gathering data

2.3 Data analysis

2.3.1 Validity test (T-Test) for developing data-gathering instrument

(DCT)

2.3.1.1 A description of the T-Test

2.3.1.2 Interpretation of the T-Test scores

2.3.1.3 Results of the T-Test

2.3.2 Chi-square analysis of the MAQ and DCT

2.3.2.1 A description of the Chi-square

2.3.2.2 Interpretation of the Chi-square

2.3.2.3 Results of the Chi-square analyses

CHAPTER III: CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND

PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN THE PERCEPTION OF RELATIVE POWER

3.1 Power and language in social interactions in previous studies

3.1.1 The concept and nature of power in social interactions

3.1.2 Previous studies of power and language in social interactions3.1.3 Major findings and shortcomings in the previous studies of power3.1.3.1 Power and language are closely interconnected

3.1.3.2 Power is conceptualized differently in different cultures

3.1.3.3 Factors that need taking into concern when studying power3.1.4 Concluding remarks

3.2 Perception of P in the present study

3.2.1 The perception of P in the family context

3.2.1.1 Equal-power situations in the family context

3.2.1.2 Unequal-power situations in the family context

3.2.1.3 Concluding remarks of P perception in the family context

3.2.2 The perception of P in the university context

3.2.2.1 Equal-power situations in the university context

3.2.2.2 Unequal-power situations in the university context

3.2.2.3 Concluding remarks of P in the university context

3.2.3 The perception of P in the work context

3.2.3.1 Equal-power situations in the work context

3.2.3.2 Unequal-power situations in the work context

3.2.3.3 Concluding remarks of P in the work context

3.2.4 The perception of P in the social context

3.2.4.1 Equal-power situations in the social context

3.2.4.2 Unequal-power situations in the social context

3.2.4.3 Concluding remarks of P in the social context

CHAPTER IV: CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND

PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN THE USE OF DISAGREEING

POLITENESS STRATEGIES

4.1 Disagreeing politeness strategies realized in the invested situations

4.1.1 Disagreeing strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s Framework4.1.1.1 Bald on record

4.1.1.2 Positive politeness

4.1.1.3 Negative politeness

4.1.1.4 Off record

4.1.1.5 Don’t do the FTA (No FTA)

4.1.2 Disagreeing strategies in the analytical framework of the present

1.1 On inverse PT and CC differences in power perception

1.2 On negative PT and CC differences in the use of disagreeing

3.Suggestions for further studies

 Articles and projects related to the dissertation

cultural pragmatics (CCP) It begins with a visit to basic concepts and terminologies of CCP, ILP, PT, and so on Next, the speech act theory

is visited with critical comments on the notion and classifications of speech acts, as discussed by Austin (1962), Searle (1969, 1975, 1976), Bach and Harnish (1979), Wierzbicka (1987), and others Then, the author argues for disagreeing as a potential face-threatening act and a dispreferred structure Next, the politeness theory is revisited with a thorough discussion on its notion and approaches in literature Specifically, Western politeness approaches (i.e., strategic approaches

by Lakoff, 1973; Leech, 1983; and Brown and Levinson, 1987) are compared to the Asian ones – the normative approaches by Chinese and Japanese linguists (Hill et all., 1986; Matsumoto, 1988; Ide, 1989;

Gu, 1990; Limao, 1994; among others), with a focus on their view, popularity, influence, and criticisms These politeness approaches from the point of view of Vietnamese researchers (e.g., Nguyen Quang, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004; Duong Bach Nhat, 2008; Nguyen Van Do, 1996, 1999; Nguyen Duc Hoat, 1995; Vu Thi Thanh Huong,

1997, 2002; Pham Thi Hong Nhung, 2007ab) with reference to Vietnamese are introduced to build up a theoretical background for the author’s argument for the chosen theoretical framework in the present study – Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model with suggested amendments Finally, all the up-to-date studies and discussions of disagreeing as a speech act that the author is aware of and able to get access to are introduced for an overview of the achievements and shortcomings in the previous studies of the speech act These are studies and discussions conducted by Leech (1983), Brown and Levinson (1987), Beebe and Takahashi (1989), Holtgraves (1997), Ree-Miller (2000), Locher (2004), Kieu Thi Thu Huong (2001, 2006), and Nguyen Quang Ngoan (2004, 2007a)

2 Chapter two

Chapter two consists of 40 pages (pp 51-90) describing the methodology of the present study In this chapter, various research methods in ILP studies with their strengths and weaknesses, as discussed by well-known authors, are introduced with critical comments before an introduction to the methods in the present study

is made, with specific reasons for choosing them Then, the research design including the data-gathering instruments, subject selection, and data-gathering procedures are all introduced Finally, the data analysis procedures are clarified with a thorough description of the T-Test, Chi-square analysis, and analytical framework Following are some major points of the methodology in the study

2.1 The chosen research methods

The data-gathering methods in the present study are a combination between a perception-eliciting method and a production-eliciting method To be more specific, it is a combination between a metapragmatic assessment questionnaire (MAQ) and an open-ended discourse completion task (DCT)

2.2 Data collection instruments

The MAQ was designed in two versions: one in Vietnamese, delivered

to the VNS and the VLE, and the other in English, delivered to the ANS The MAQ was chosen to help develop the next data-gathering instrument, the DCT, with more validity and reliability It also helps

to examine the subject’s perception of P across the groups for a better insight into the production data

The DCT was also designed in two versions: the Vietnamese version, delivered to the VNS, and the English version, to the VLE and ANS The DCT was chosen in combination with MAQ to study the production data, or to be more specific, the disagreeing politeness strategies used by the subject groups in the study to find out negative

PT and CC differences

2.3 Subjects

The subjects in the study were selected on the basis of being university students and forming two equal groups of males and females They can be divided into three groups: (1) the VLE (2) the ANS, and (3) the VNS The first group consists of fifty VLEs They were fourth-year students at Quinhon University whose major is English The second group consists of fifty ANSs They were chosen under the criteria of being born in Australia, living in Australia, speaking English as their first language and as the language they speak at home with other family members The Australian subjects were all students at the University of Queensland The VNS group consists of fifty first-year students at Quinhon University who were selected on the basis of belonging to the Kinh group born and resident

in Hanoi and its surrounding provinces in Northern Vietnam

2.4 Data analysis

The T-Test is used for testing the validity of the MAQ collected from the VNS Then, the Chi-square analysis is used for analyzing the subject’s P perception and use of disagreeing politeness strategies by the three groups Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework of politeness strategies is based on to build up the analytical framework for analyzing the disagreeing politeness strategies in the study