000029167 PRAGMATIC DEVIATIONS IN LETTERS OF REQUEST IN ENGLISH WRITTEN BY VIETNAMESE THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY Những sai lệch thực dụng trong thư xin việc bằng tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ ba chuyên ngành tiếng Anh người

000029167 PRAGMATIC DEVIATIONS IN LETTERS OF REQUEST IN ENGLISH WRITTEN BY VIETNAMESE THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT AN GIANG UNIVERSITY Những sai lệch thực dụng trong thư xin việc bằng tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ ba chuyên ngành tiếng Anh người Việt Nam tại trường Đại học An Giang

M IN ISTRY OF E D U C A T IO N A N D T R A IN IN G

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

T R A N THI T H A N H H U E

PRAGMATIC DEVIATIONS IN LETTERS OF REQUEST IN ENGLISH

WRITTEN BY VIETNAMESE THIRD-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS

1.1 Statement o f the problem and background to the study

1.2 Pragmatic language learning and teaching at AGU

1.3 Aims o f the study

1.4 The scope o f the study

1.5 An overview o f the thesis

2.2 Politeness and indirectness in requests

2.2.1 Request arid face

2.2.2 The relation between politeness and indirectness in requests

2.3 Letters o f request

2.3.1 Written requests versus spoken requests

2.3.2 The purpose and possible structure o f a letter o f request in English2.3.3 Directness in the move “ Requesting” o f a letter o f request in English2.3.4 Letters o f request from a cross-cultural perspective

2.4 Pragmatic deviations

2.4.1 The notion o f pragmatic deviations 20

2.5.2 Studies on letters written by non-native speakers o f English 292.5.3 Studies on errors committed by Vietnamese learners o f English 30

C H A P T E R 3: M E T H O D O L O G Y

C H A P T E R 4: D AT A A NA LY SI S , F I NDI NGS AND D IS CUS S ION

4.1 Pragm atic deviations in the move structure o f the letters o f request by Vietnamese 37

s tu d e n t s ,

4 1 1 Analytical framework for analyzing the moves o f a letter 374.1.2 Pragmatic deviations in the move structure o f Vietnamese students’ letters 394.1.2.1 Pragmatic deviations in move ( 1 )“ Opening salutation" 394.1.2.2 Pragmatic deviations in move (3) “ Polite ending” 404.1.2.3 Pragmatic deviations in move (4) “ Closing salutation” 434.1.2.4 Pragmatic deviations in writing the element “ Date” o f the letter 444.2 Pragmatic deviations in the requests in Vietnamese students’ letters 45

li

4.2.1 Differences in the requests made by Australian and Vietnamese students in their 45letters

4.2.1.5 M ajor differences in requests made by VS and AS 564.2.2 V ietnam ese students' pragmatic deviations in their requests in the letter 58

4.2.2.3 Source-based categories o f sociopragmatic deviations com mitted by VS 62

4.2.3 Discussion o f the students’ pragmatic deviations and their causes 66

in

R E F E R E N C E S 93

A P P E N D I X E S

A P P E N D IX 1(a): Supportive moves o f the move “ Requesting” used by AS and VS 98

A P P E N D IX 1(b): Ways o f expressing move (3), “ Polite ending” , by AS and VS 99

A P P E N D IX 3: Sample letters written by Australian students and their moves (a) 101

A P P E N D IX 3: Sample letters written by Australian students and their moves (b) 102

A P P E N D IX 4: Sample letters written by Vietnamese students and their moves (a) 103

A P P E N D IX 4: Sample letter written by a Vietnamese student and their moves (b) 104

A P P E N D IX 5: Native speakers’ com ments on the V S ’ letters 105

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LIST OF TABLES AND GRA PHS

C ategories o f request strategies

The m ove o f letters o f request written by Australian student

W ays o f expressing the move “ Polite ending by the two groups

The choice o f request strategies in letters written by the two groups

The choice o f request perspectives by the two groups

The selection o f Donwgraders and Upgraders by the two groups

The use o f supportive moves o f the request by the two groups

R easons for requesting provided by the two groups

Pragmatic deviations in the Vietnamese students’ requests

Four source-based categories o f sociopragmatic deviations

Source-based categories o f sociopragmatic deviations in V S ’ letters

N ative speakers’ perceptions on the students’ letters

Cultural mismatches in the reader’s expectations in letters o f request

The choice o f request strategy types by the two groups

The use o f Impositive by the two groups

Sociopragm atic deviations committed by the Vietnamese students

Tw o categories o f pragmatic deviations

SY M BO LS AND A BB REV IATIONS

LI : First language

L2 : Second language

TL : Target language

AGU : An Giang University

ESL : English as a Second Language

EFL : English as a Foreign Language

ABSTR ACT

A lthough pragmatic competence is a key factor to enable the language learner to obtain effectiveness and social appropriateness in using the target language, it does not receive sufficient attention in foreign language teaching Studies on language learners’ pragm atic deviations will bring some practical value to the EFL teaching and learning The present study aims at (1) identifying pragmatic deviations in letters o f request in English written by Vietnamese third-year English-major students at An Giang University (AGU), (2) tracing possible causes o f these deviations, and (3) providing som e recom m endations for improving the students’ pragmatic awareness in writing letters o f request in English In this study, the term ‘pragmatic deviations’ is used to refer to non-native students’ inappropriateness or deviations from the rules o f language

in use in the target language Data were gathered using the following methods: a letter writing task for thirty Australian students (AS) and forty Vietnamese third-year students o f English at AGU (VS), and interviews with eight Australian teachers to

d raw their com m ents on pragmatic aspects o f the V S ’ letters The AS in the study served as informants to establish basic conventions o f letters o f request in English Letters written by VS were compared with those by AS to see how VS deviated from

“ co nventions” drawn from the corpus o f A S ’ letters Pragmatic deviations in V S ’ letters w ere analysed in two aspects o f the letter: (1) the moves o f the letter, and (2) the perform ance o f the speech act o f request in the letter, and classified into two categories: pragmalinguistic deviations and sociopragmatic deviations The study concluded that a majority o f VS committed pragmatic deviations o f both aspects o f the letter Additionally, the V S ’ pragmatic deviations fell into both categories: pragmalinguistic 'and sociopragmatic deviations, with the latter being more seriously com m itted than the former In regard to their causes, the study showed that VS' pragm atic deviations in their letters could be ascribed to four types o f causes: interlingual, intralingual, induced, and com pound causes, am ong which interlingual causes were the most significant From the findings, the study suggested some pedagogical implications for the teaching and learning o f letters o f request in English and recom m ended some pragmatic awareness-raising activities for improving

V ietnam ese students’ pragmatic awareness in writing such a kind o f letter in English

A C K N O W LE D EM E N TS

i would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Due Hoat for his enorm ously helpful advice, consistent support and guidance throughout the conduction o f this thesis

My special thanks go to the staff o f Post-graduate Department o f Hanoi University o f Foreign Language Studies for making my study possible

1 would also like to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to Ms Nguyen Thai

Ha, M A , o f the Post-Graduate Department for her enthusiasm and valuable comments

on my thesis My special thanks also go to Dr Paul Van Kleek for his constructive com m ents on the initial version o f the thesis, and to Ms Ann Robinson, M.A., for her encouragem ent, advice and assistance in proofreading the final draft o f the thesis

I am indebted to the English-major students at An Giang University and the native speakers o f English who have helpfully participated as the informants o f the study,

w ithout w hose cooperation this thesis would hardly be conducted

1 would also like to thank my friends and -my colleagues for their assistance in adm inistering the questionnaires

Special thanks are also given to the Rector, Assoc Prof Dr Vo Tong Xuan, the administrators, the Dean o f the English Faculty and all o f my colleagues at An Giang University for their support and encouragement during my studying time

Finally, 1 Should particularly like to express my deepest gratitude to my mother whose great sacrifice and enormous love has encouraged me a great deal in com pleting the study, to my grandparents and my relatives for their support during my studies My thanks especially go to my husband Huynh Thanh Tien, who is also my best college, for his support -and encouragement without which I would hardly accomplish my studies

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 St atement of the problem and background to the study

Language is more than a system o f sounds and gramm ar rules and a certain language alw ays exists in close relationship to its socio-cultural context If one is unaware o f the culture behind a language, one can hardly com municate successfully in that language

For this reason, EFL students need to obtain not only grammatical com petence but also pragmatic competence The former refers to the knowledge o f grammar, phonology and vocabulary o f a language (Canale and Swain, 1980) while the latter is concerned with the ability to use language appropriately in specific situations (Levinson, 1983) Pragmatic competence, as Bachm an (1990:87) describes, is divided into two categories: “ illocutionary com petence” (ability to send and receive intended

m eanings), and “ sociolinguistic com petence” (ability to deal with such considerations

as politeness, formality, metaphor, register and culturally related aspects o f language)

In fact, obtaining pragmatic competence is much more difficult than gaining grammatical competence and non-native learners usually develop the latter in the absence o f the former In addition, research has further shown that grammatical

d evelopm ent does not guarantee a corresponding level o f pragmatic im provem ent and even advanced EFL students usually produce well-formed utterances that are pragmatically unacceptable (Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei, 1998; Thom as, 1983)

M ost important is that if language learners fail to convey or com prehend intended illocutionary force or politeness value o f a certain utterance, they possibly suffer from various problems in cross-cultural communication, even com munication breakdowns despite their grammatical correctness Although native speakers may not show direct feedback on non-native speakers’ violations o f pragmatic norms, as soon as leaving the interaction, they may perceive the speakers as “rude, nosy, cold or suffering from low self-esteem” (Washburn, 2 0 0 1 :21)

So far, L2 learner pragmatic problems have been termed variously For example, Jam es (1998: 164) uses the terms “ pragmatic error” to refer to errors which arise

“ w henever speakers misencode or hearers misdecodc a m essage” causing the damage

o f its pragmatic force Thom as (1983: 94) introduces the phenom enon ‘pragmatic failure’ which she defines as the ‘inability to understand what is meant by what is

s a id ’ Wolson (1989:141) uses the terms “ pragmatic transfer” or “ sociolinguistic transfer” to refer to the use o f speaking rules from the learner’s ow n speech com m unity when interacting with native speakers o f the target speech com munity, or

w hen speaking or writing in the target language

However, pragmatic problems are also found in AGU students’ performance o f English, both in oral (e.g role-play, discussion, oral presentation, etc.) and in written production (e.g writing paragraphs, essays, letter writing, etc.) A m ong written tasks, letter writing seems to be the most challenging as the students usually fail to convey their intended message as well as meet the reader’s expectations concerning factors as format, content, politeness value and so on As a result, their letters in English contain problem s both in gram m ar (the accuracy o f vocabulary, syntax and morphology) and

in pragmatics (the appropriateness o f letter format, register, speech acts and politeness value) Flowever, this study merely focuses on the latter pragmatic problems in letters o f request which have been quite ignored among the teachers o f English here

It is hoped that the study can help both the teachers and students at AGU to raise their

aw areness o f the problems as well as to improve their teaching and learning o f pragmatic appropriateness in letter writing

In this study, the term pragmatic deviations is used to refer to the student

inappropriateness or deviations o f the language rules used in the target language Pragmatic deviations in the students’ letters o f request are deviations concerning the letter format, the performance o f the speech act o f requesting, the organization o f ideas, and so on

Pragmatic deviations can cause com munication problems or miscom m unication between native and non-native speakers Therefore, they can be considered as an indicator o f ‘potential’ communication failure In this study, the notion o f pragmatic

deviations is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘pragmatic failure’ suggested by

T hom as (1983)

1.2 Th e learning and teaching of English at AGU

A lthough pragmatic competence is very important in helping learners perform the language in a fully native-like manner and succeed in cross-cultural com munication,

in EFL teaching and learning context in Viet Nam, in general, and at AGU, in particular, it does not receive explicit or consistent attention There may be several reasons for this problem

First, the English-major students at AGU do not have good linguistic environment which is believed to help improve the learner pragmatic awareness At this institution, English teaching and learning mainly take place in the classroom with a limitation of time English learners receive little or no exposure to natural language use outside the classroom N or do they have an opportunity to contact native speakers Awareness o f pragmatics, thereforé, tends to be limited to textbooks and classroom materials which often provide insufficient information on cultural and contextual factors influencing the use o f language (Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Williams, 1998)

In addition, pragmatic competence is also a problem which teachers at AGU face for the following reasons First, only a few o f them have had opportunities to study or stay in English speaking countries and gain valuable experience from daily exposure

to pragmatic language use The rest gain their pragmatic com petence m ainly through English books Second, there is a shortage o f both reference materials and expertise consultations to widen their knowledge and clarify some aspects o f pragmatics Finally, they usually suffer from the pressure o f timely completing a given curriculum that is mainly grammatical-based The above factors are maybe the cause to

“ teaching-induced errors”(Thomas, 1983: 99) in letters o f request in English by AGU students

Therefore, it is necessary to conduct more research into pragmatic failure in written com m unication, particularly in the letter o f request to raise the teachers’ and the students’ awareness o f its importance in language learning So far, there has not been any research on Vietnamese university students’ pragmatic deviations in writing

letters o f request Therefore, a study on this “ usually neglected problem ’' would be significant to both the teachers and the students at AGU and satisfy a great personal interest for improving the students’ pragmatic competence to write letters o f request.

1.3 Aims o f the study

The present study aims at:

• identifying pragmatic deviations in letters o f request in English written by

V ietnamese third-year English-major students at An Giang University

• finding out major causes o f the students’ pragmatic deviations in writing letters o f request

• providing some recom mendations for improving the students’ pragmatic awareness in writing letters o f request in English

T he research.questions o f the study are:

1 What pragmatic deviations are found in the letters o f request written by thethird-year English-major students at AGU, specifically in terms o f (1) the

m ove structure o f the letter, and (2) the request in the letter?

2 What are the major causes o f the students' pragmatic deviations in this specific task o f writing letters o f requests in English?

3 What implications can be drawn in order to help Vietnamese learners o f English at A GU im prove their pragmatic com petence in writing letters o f request?

1.4 T h e scope of the study

V ietnamese students o f English can make errors in various aspects in their letters o f request in English such as the letter format, discourse markers, pragmatics, grammar, etc In addition, these are believed to occur at different levels o f English proficiency For exam ple, beginners and Intermediate learners frequently make grammatical errors (Nguyen Van Loi, 1999; Pham Thi Nhat 1999: Bui Yen Ngoc, 2000) Advanced

language learners, on the other hand, mainly make errors concerning usage, stylistic appropriateness, discourse markers, etc Bardovi-Harlig and Dornyei, 1998).

H ow ever, the present study simply focuses on one aspect o f deviations - pragmatic deviations in letters o f request written by the third-year English-major students at

A GU The other types o f deviations are excluded from the study Also, such social factors as age, gender, status, etc o f the participants are not discussed in the data analysis o f the study

P ragm atic deviations in Vietnamese students’ letters o f request in English will be identified in the following aspects:

(1) The move structure o f the letter

(2) The performance o f the speech act o f request in the letter

In this study the first aspect, pragmatic deviations in the move structure o f the letter,

is briefly presented The study puts an emphasis on analyzing deviations in the second aspect, the performance o f the speech act o f request in the letter

1.5 An overview of the study

The research consists o f five chapters Chapter one, Introduction, introduces the background, the aims, the scope, the significance and the overview o f the study

C hapter two, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background to the study In the notion o f request as a speech act o f directives, the request perspectives, strategies, and modifications are presented The relation between directness/indirectness and politeness in requests is also reviewed Some features o f written requests are also discussed The chapter then describes some significant conventions o f letters o f request in English Next, with regard to the notion o f pragmatic deviations, their classifications and possible causes are presented This chapter also reviews previous studies related to the field under study

Chapter three, M ethodology, describes issues o f the methodology such as the participants involved in the study, the data collection instruments and the research procedure o f the study.

Chapter four is Data Analysis and Discussion This chapter analyzes and discusses Vietnamese students’ pragmatic deviations in terms o f two aspects: (1) the move structure of the letter, and (2) the speech act o f request in the letter

Chapter five, Implications and Conclusion, suggests some implications to raise the learners’ pragmatic awareness in writing letters o f request in English at AGU It then discusses the limitations o f the study and provides some suggestions for further studies

CHAPT ER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the theoretical background to the study consisting o f six sections Section 2.1 reviews the theory o f speech acts and requesting as a speech act Section 2.2' discusses issues o f politeness and indirectness in requests Major characteristics o f an English letter o f request are presented in section 2.3 The last section 2.4 describes the notion o f Pragmatic deviations used in the studies, their classifications and causes Previous research related to the study is reviewed in section 2.5 The last section, 2.6, is the summary o f the entire chapter

2.1 Speech Acts and the Speech Act o f Requests

This section begins with a brief overview o f the theory o f speech acts The following part focuses on issues related to the speech act o f request such as request strategies, request perspectives and request internal and external modifications

2.1.1 Speech A cts

Philosophers such as Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) point out that many utterances

do not just com municate information but are equivalent to actions They state that in saying something one is doing something In fact, people use language to ask questions, request favors, make comments, etc A speech act is an utterance which has

a function o f communication “ When we say that a particular bit o f speech or writing

is a request, an instruction or an exemplification, we are identifying what that piece of

la n g u ag e.is doing, or how the listener/ reader is intended to react” (Me Carthy, 1991:9)

According to Austin (1962) an utterance is perceived as having three basic senses and that in performing a certain act the speaker is performing simultaneously three kinds

o f acts:

(i) locut i onar y act: the ut t erance o f a s e n t e n c e with d e t e r m i n a t e sense

and reference (ii) i l l ocut i onary act: the m a k i n g o f a s tat ement , offer, p r omi s e , etc in

u t t er i ng a sentence, by virtue o f a c on v e n t i o n a l force associ at ed with it

(iii) p er lo c u t i o n a ry act: the b r i ngi ng a b o u t the effect s on the a u d i e n c e by

m e a n s o f uttering the s ent ence, such effect b e i ng speci al to the

c i r c u m s t a n c e s o f utterance

( Aus t i n, 1962, cited from Le vi ns on, 1983: 23 6 )

It is the illocutionary act that is the focus o f A ustin’s interest, and the term “ speech acts” is actually used exclusively to refer to that act

There are a great num ber of possible illocutionary acts and several attempts have been made to classify them into a small number o f types However, such classifications are difficult, as the verb meanings are often difficult to distinguish and the s p e a k e r’s intentions are not alw ays clear

Generally, according to the directness o f the speech acts, there are two kinds o f speech acts: direct and indirect speech acts The former indicates what the speaker

m eans explicitly w hereas the latter ju st contains implications (Blum -Kulka, House, and Kasper, 1989) '

From another perspective, Searle (1969) classifies speech acts into five categories according to the sp eak er’s intentions: Representatives, Directives, Com m issives, Expressives, and Declarations “The speech act o f request belongs to the category o f Directives which are performed when the speaker/writer tries to get the hearer/reader

to do or not do som ething.”

2.1.2 The Speech A c t o f Requests

R eq u e s ts.a re am ong the com m on routine formulae in most languages, including English and V ietnamese While Searle (1969) classifies requests into the category o f

“directives” which is used to get the hearer to do or not do something, Leech (1983) defines requesLas a ‘pre-event a c t’ since they express the speaker’s expectations that the hearer will perform the requested act, verbal or non-verbal Sharing L ee ch ’s view, (Blum- Kulka et al., 1989: 12) state that “requests are made to cause an event or to change o n e ”

The speech act o f request is often performed in a sequence (ibid) The request sequence in English as well as in many other languages has been divided in the literature into the following three segments:

Attention getter/ alerter (address terms)Head act (the core o f the request sequence)Supportive move(s) (elements before or after the head act)

‘Attention getter’ refers to address terms used with the request 'H ead a c t’ is the minimal unit which can realize the request and is the core o f the request sequence

‘Supportive m o v e s’ are external elements occurring either before or after the Head act

to add further details or modify the request in terms o f politeness and force

The following exam ple will show this sequence in close up

‘Sir, I would really appreciate it if you would kindly grant me a w e e k 's extension 1 hope you will respond favorably to this request, as I have never asked for one before.'

The request sequence in this example include: an' alerter Sir: pre-posed supportive moves / w o u ld really appreciate it: the request proper or Head act W ould y o u grant

m e a w e e k ’s extension? optionally elaborated with down-graders kindly: and post­ posed supportive moves I hope y o u w ill resp ond favorably to this request as

2.1.2.1 Request Strategies

B lum -K ulka et al (1989) established nine strategies o f requesting They are ranked according to the decrease o f directness (i.e strategy one is the most direct and strategy nine is the least direct) and correspondingly they represent the increasing level of politeness (i.e strategy one is the least polite and strategy nine is the most polite)

The strategies are also divided into three levels o f indirectness: Impositive (strategies 1-5), Conventional Indirectness (strategies 6-7), and Non-Conventional Indirectness (strategies 8-9) Direct Strategies (Impositive) mark the request explicitly, such as Imperative Conventional Indirectness strategies refer to contextual preconditions necessary for its performance as conventionalized in the language Non-conventional Indirect strategies partially refer to the object depending on contextual clues

Table 1 presents the categories o f request strategies according to Blum-Kulka et al.’s fram ework (1989:18) The definitions of these strategies are taken from the same source The exam ples given are the w riter’s (See Table 1 page 10)

Level o f

Indirectness

Request Strategy types

Definition and Example

Iinpositive

1 Mood derivable

Utterances in which the grammatical mood o f the verb

signals illocutionary force (G ive me one w e e k ’s extension.)

2 Performatives Utterances in which the illocutionary force is

explicitly named ( I request a one w e e k ’s extension for the subm ission o f the assignm ent.)

3 Hedged performatives

Utterances in which the naming o f the illocutionary

force is modified by hedging expressions ( / w ould like

to ask y o u fo r an extension.)

4.Obligation statements

Utterances which state the obligation o f the hearer to

carry out the act ( You sh o u ld help me.)

5 Want statements

Utterances which state the speaker’s desire that the

hearer carries out the act (I really w ish y o u let me hand in the assignm ent one w eek later.)

Conventi onal

Indirectness

6.Suggestoryformulae

Utterances containing a suggestion to do X (H ow about g ivin g me som e m ore tim e?)

7 Query preparation

Utterances containing reference to the preparatory

conditions such as ability or willingness (C ould yo u give me som e more time so that I can finish it successfully?)

Non-Conventionäl

Indirectness

8 Strong hints Utterances containing partial reference to the element

needed for the implementation o f the action (You have assigned inadequate time.)

9 Mild hints Utterances that make no reference to the request

proper, or any o f its element, but are interpretable as a

request by context ( One more w eek is so delighting.)

Both situational and cultural factors influence the use o f these request strategies For example, a ‘big favor’ usually comes with more indirect and polite strategies than a small or ‘low -im position’ request Friends use more casual requests than acquaintances provided that the content o f requesting is the same However, the

specific directness levels appropriate for given situations might differ cross- culturally.

2.1.2.2 R equest Perspectives

'P ersp e ctiv e' is understood as the sp e a k e r’s view o f relative d om inance o f the speaker

or the hearer in the formulation o f a speech a c t’ (Tam, 1996: 59) Requests usually include reference to the requester, the recipient o f the request, and / or the action to be performed

Blum - Kulka and Olshtain (1984), Blum- K ulka et al (1989) classified request perspectives according to the pronoun used in the head-act From this view, the speaker can manipulate requests by choosing from the following types o f request perspectives:

- H earer-oriented perspective (em phasizing the role o f the hearer):

Could you give me one extra w eek?

- Speaker-oriented perspective (em phasizing the sp e a k e r’s role as the requester):

Could I have one more w eek to finish the assignm ent?

- Inclusive perspective (including both the hearer and the speaker):

Can wc extend the deadline?

- Impersonal-perspective:

It needs one more week to be finished.

Blum -K ulka et al (1989: 19) also affirms that ‘-‘choice o f perspectives affects social meaning; since requests are inherently im posing, avoidance to nam e the hearer as actor can reduce the fo rm ’s level o f coerciveness” In another study, B lum -K ulka (1989: 60) states that “ speaker-perspective m arks the form o f politeness” because

speaker-oriented requests such as C o u ld 1 ? look like requests for perm ission which

imply that the addressee has control over the speaker

In the present study, the students are asked to write a letter o f request for an extension,

so speaker-oriented requests should be employed to show the requester’s politeness and attem pt to soften the imposition o f the request

2.1.2.3 R eq uest M odifications

The requester can modify (e.g mitigate or aggravate) the request by means o f request modifications There are two types o f request modifications: internal modifications (e.g syntactic or lexical downgraders or upgaders) and external modifications (e.g supportive moves) This section presents these types o f request modifications in details

a Internal M odifications

Internal M odifications are defined as elements within the request proper (linked to the Head Act), the presence o f which is not essential for the utterance to be potentially understood as a request Internal Modifications include Downgraders and Upgraders

D o w ngraders are used as a means o f softening the face-threatening nature o f requests

The speaker may indicate being pessimistic with the outcome o f the request (Negative usage) or hesitant about making the request (Interrogative and Modal ‘m ig h t’) The use o f Past T ense or Embedded clause may also serve as distancing elements

Here are som e examples o f syntactic Downgraders:

Coul d you give me an extension o f one week? (Interrogative)

I want ed to ask for a one- week extension to finish the assignment (Past tense)

I w ould appreciate it if you grant me an extension (If-clause)

I am w o n d e r i n g if I can have the deadline extended for a week (Em bedded clause)

Some ex am ples o f Lexical Downgraders are:

Do you think I could have a one- week extension? (Consultative Device)

Could you give m e just some more time? (Hedge)

Would you kindly extend the deadline? (Politeness marker)

Could you possibly give me an extension? (Downtoner)

Whereas D ow n- graders serve to mitigate or soften the act Up- graders aim to emphasize or aggravate the compelling force o f the request For example:

I strongly request you (Intensifier)

b External Modifications

If there is a supportive move, it may either precede (pre-posed supportive moves) or follow (post-posed supportive moves) the Head Act and affects the context in which the request is im bedded, and thus indirectly modifies the request

In a Letter o f Request by a student to a teacher, the request is usually preceded or

fo lowed by G rounders which provide reasons for requesting (I am a fra id I have not had the necessary tim e to com plete the assignm ent) The supportive moves may also

be A pologies for m aking the request (I am terribly sorry that I co u ld not fin is h the assignm ent) or Promises (I prom ise not to ask y o u for such a thing in the future.)

Supportive m oves accompanying the Head-act serve to persuade the reader to do the ac'.ion requested

2.2 Politeness and Indirectness in Requests

This section reviews literature related to the following aspects: (a) requests and face,(b the relation between politeness and indirectness in requests

2.2.1 Requests a nd Face

In defining the speech act o f requests, Brown and Levinson (1987) say that requests arc face-threatening acts, both in terms o f the speakers’ positive face and the hearer’s negative face Requests threat the hearer’s negative face because “the hearer can interpret requests as intrusive impingement on freedom o f action, or even as a show in the exercise o f pow er” (ibid., 71) Similarly, Blum- Kulka et al (1989:12) explain that

“the request, in requiring a future effort from the interlocutors, imposes mainly on the hearer” Furthermore, in terms o f the speaker’s positive face, requests are oriented to

offence that would take place if the request were not made The hearer’s refusal to com pel the act may m ake the speaker upset and disturb the harmony between the two people Therefore, requests burden both the speaker and the hearer.

However, the speaker realizing the potential offence he or she brings about to the hearer tends to mitigate the impositive effects o f the utterance on the hearer It is noticeable that the mitigation o f the imposition depends on the relation between the interlocutors and other social factors (e.g age, social distance, power, settings, the types o f request goal - whether it is an obligatory action or a favor) (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

2.2.2 The Relation between Politeness and Indirectness in Requests

As speech acts are believed to carry heavy social implications (Ervin-Trip, 1976), and

be ruled by principles o f cooperation and politeness (Brown and Levinson, 1987; Leech, 1983), the speaker or the writer, for successful com munication, should employ appropriate request strategies that may vary a great deal from one culture to another Leech (1983) suggests that a polite way o f making requests is to ask about the hearer’s ability or willingness to perform the.act Leech (1983: 108) highlights two major reasons that make indirect illocutions to be more polite:

(a) because they increase the degree o f optionality

(b) because the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and

tentative its force tends to be

The degree o f indirectness, according to this line o f reasoning, is directly related to that o f politeness Sharing the same view, Blum -Kulka et al (1989) identify nine request strategies and present them in a rank scale in which the increasing degree o f indirectness is interpreted as being equal to the increase o f politeness level

The equation “the more indirect, the more polite’’ proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983), however, was not always supported by the findings o f some cross-cultural studies o f speech acts in different languages

W hereas in the Cross-cultural Speech Act Realization Project (C C SA R P) conventionally indirect strategies are identified as “ the most frequently used strategy type” in all the languages examined (Blum-Kulka and House 1989: 127), another study 011 Imperatives in Chinese requests reveals opposite findings The study shows that Impositive, a direct bald-on request strategy, is used as the most frequent strategy type by Chinese (Lee-Wong, 1994; Zhang, 1995).

Similarly, several studies conducted by Vietnamese researchers (Nguyen Due Hoat, 1995; N guyen Van Do, 1996; Ha Cam Tam, 1998) point out that Vietnamese speakers and learners o f English, in comparing with native speakers, em ployed more direct strategies in making requests

The different findings from previous studies suggest that perceptions on politeness and indirectness vary from one culture to another Direct requests, for instance, unlike

in English and most other European languages, are not regarded as impolite in

V ietnamese and Chinese Directness, to speakers o f these languages, is appropriate to express sincerity, straightforwardness and cordiality between the interlocutors

H owever, in cross-cultural communication, i f ’Vietnamese learners o f English employ Vietnamese cultural norms in making direct requests in English, native speakers o f English can judge them as impolite or rude

2.3 Letters of Request

This section describes the following aspects: (1) written requests versus spoken requests, (2) purpose and possible structure o f letters o f request in English, (3) directness in'the request move o f the structure, and (4) letters o f request from a cross- cultural perspective

2.3.1 Written requests versus spoken requests

Wilkins (1974:140) shows some major differences between spoken and written language First, in spoken communication, ellipsis occurs quite commonly Most speakers will keep their speech simpler and use shorter utterances In writing, ellipsis

is not favorably used since it can cause difficulty in getting the message across Secondly, repetition is often necessary to ensure comprehension in speech On the

contrary, in writing, there will be no need to repeat statements because too much repetition will make the writing lose its coherence Finally, one can not re-hear spoken language in the same way that one can re-read the writing Writers usually attempt greater complexity o f language in writing since they know that the reader can

go over it a second time

In terms o f speech acts, there are also some differences between spoken and written request as mentioned above Particularly, in spoken requests, the requester can express him self not only verbally but sometimes also non-verbally (e.g gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) The listener, therefore, can get the message across m ore easily and can immediately ask for further information or explanations if needed

On the other hand, the writer with an advantage o f having a lot o f time and more remarkable effort, has to select appropriate language, tone, writing style, and so on, to express him self effectively In written requests the requester has enough time to consider such factors as relation, power, distance, etc between the com m unicators in order to choose the most appropriate way to ,m ake the request Besides, the written requests are expected to include essential details or facts which the reader will need to consider the request The reader also spends more time and effort to read the message and interpret the w riter's intention

Therefore, in com paring with spoken requests, in written requests, com munication between the writer and the reader takes place in a more complicated way Both the com municators-need to spend more efforts in encoding and decoding the message As request is a “ face-threatening act” (Brown and Levinson, 1978), the requester should avoid m aking the recipient more tired o f interpreting the request That means the written requests should be clear, brief and comprehensible Blum- Kulka, Flouse and Kasper (1989:4) emphasize that “ requests in written com munication were found to have a distinct, explicit, and direct pattern differing from the pattern prevalent in oral com m unication.”

2.3.2 The Purpose and Possible Structure o f a Letter o f Request in English

The com m unicative purpose o f the type o f letter investigated in the study is the writer (the student) requesting the recipient (his/her professor) to give him/her an extension for the subm ission o f the assignment

The general com m unicative purpose o f the letter is expressed through a series o f

‘m o v e s ’ A move can be thought o f as “ as part o f a text” (Herry and Roseberry, 2001:154) and each move in a letter expresses a typical com m unicative intention which serves to modify the overall com municative purpose o f the entire letter (Swales, 1990; Bhatia, 1993)

The letters o f request in English examined in this study conventionally consist o f the following moves:

(1) opening salutation

(2) request statement

(3) expression o f thanks

(4) closing salutation

The m ove structure o f the letter presented above is adapted from the one suggested for

a letter o f “ reprint request” in English (the one in which the writer asks the recipient

to reprint som ething for him/her) by Swales (1990: 195) However, it can also be applicable as conventions to the letter o f “extension request” exam ined in the present study fo r tw o reasons

First, these letters share similar purpose o f getting the recipient to do something for the writer though the action requested is different (reprinting versus extending) Second, although the imposition o f the “reprint” request and the “ extension” request may differ slightly, the difference can hardly change the moves and the move structure o f the letter suggested by Swales (1990) Finally, the letter o f reprint request

in English is the only one which can help to establish the move structure o f the letter

o f “extension request” that the researcher o f this study can access to

In short, this section has presented the conventional move structure o f the letter and the reasons why this structure is applied The students will make deviations in terms

o f the letter structure if they do not include these moves and follow the suggested sequence o f moves

2.3.3 D irectness in the move ‘Requesting ’ o f a letter o f request in English

The m ove “ Request statement” is the most important and obligatory as it presents the com m unicative purpose o f the letter The performance o f the specch act o f request in the letter can follow the “direct plan” recom mended by Penrose Rasberry and Myers (1997: 22) in order to create good impression on the reader

According to Penrose et al (1997), a strategy for effective letter writing in English is

“ to get to the point” Effective letters, they explain, should be organized according to

a “ direct plan” in which the beginning o f the message is the position o f the most

em phasis and the end is the position o f the second most emphasis and the middle is the position o f the least emphasis This strategy also reflects the English reader’ expectations o f the organization o f ideas in English letters The basic outline for the

‘direct p la n ’ o f a letter is suggested as follows:’

(i) Main point(ii) Support for, or explanation of, main point(iii) Restatement o f the main point (optional)

( p 23)Such a “ direct plan” can be applicable to the presentation o f the move “ requesting” in the letter o f request The main point is indeed the letter purpose or the reason why the letter is written The request Head-act will be identified in the section o f “ main point” The request supportive moves can be found in the section o f “ support for, or explanation of, main point” , and the repeated request, if any belongs to the section o f

“ restatement o f the main point”

Applying the suggested strategy, the presentation o f the letter move o f “ request statem ent” will be presented as follows

(i) Request Head-act

(ii) Supportive moves o f the request Head-act (e.g reasons, explanations, etc.)

(iii) Restated request (optional)

In other words, from the perspective o f request sequence, the “ direct plan” strategy suggests that the effective request sequence in letters o f request in English is “ Request

H ead-act + Supportive m oves”

The organization o f the request following the suggested ‘direct plan' seems to indicate the “directness” o f the structure o f the letter Organizing the message in such a way, the writer will likely create an effective letter because less effort will be required by the reader to get the message across, and the information is presented in the way that meet the reader’s expectations

2.3.4 Letters o f Request fr o m a C ross-cultural Perspective

C o m posing a text requires the writer to understand the reader’s expectations, which are partly determined by culture (Okamura Shaw, 2000:1) However, in cross-cultural com m unication, the writer o f one language usually finds it difficult to meet the expectations o f the reader who is from another culture and language

In fact, the way that writers from different cultures express their request varies a great deal Different cultures teach different ways o f thinking about things, o f presenting and organizing ideas in writing For example, in respect to “the main point” in English letters, the writer is supposed to write explicitly the information he/she wishes to convey As a result, native speakers o f English value a person who “ gets right to the point” The Japanese, on the contrary, “ are likely to consider such a person insensitive, if not rude as Japanese traditionally speak or write indirectly, leaving the listener or the reader to figure out the point” (Althen, 1988)

In an investigation on politeness markers in Vietnamese requests N guyen Due Hoat (1995) found that Vietnamese speakers, in making requests, showed a general preference o f “ discourse indirectness” , i.e they modified the request with a great

n um ber o f supportive moves and “ beat around the bush” before stating the request Therefore, it can be said that Vietnamese learners o f English, like Japanese, following

their writing style in L I, tend to state the request indirectly in their letters o f request in English In other words, they may not follow a ‘direct plan’ in presenting their ideas

as the native speaker expected Their request sequence tends to be structured as either

“ Supportive move(s) + Head act” or “ Supportive move(s) + Head act + Supportive

m ove(s)”

Therefore, for successful cross- cultural communication, Vietnamese learners o f English should know and should be taught how to write a letter o f request in English, following English conventions and expectations o f form, structure and content Unfortunately, unlike other types o f writing tasks, there is usually no special training

on how to write this type o f letter effectively As a result, Vietnamese learners o f English may write ineffective letters although they are free o f grammatical errors

2.4 Pra gmat ic Deviations

2 4 1 The N otion o f Pragmatic Deviations

According to Bardovi- Harlig and Doliyei (1998: 233), pragmatics “addresses language use and is concerned with the appropriateness o f utterances given in specific situations”

In this study, the term pragmatic deviations is used to refer to the student

inappropriateness or deviations from the pragmatic rules o f language in use in the target language Pragmatic deviations in the students’ letters o f request are deviations concerning the letter format, the performance o f the speech act o f requesting, the organization o f ideas, and so on

The study does not use the notion ‘pragmatic errors' as the learners' deviant

utterances (e.g "M y D ear T eacher!" or "Teacher, p lease let me ha nd in the essay one w eek late ") are not reasonably judged as “ w rong” (i.e they are grammatically

correct) H owever, with respect to the English language use, they are inappropriate in

the given context The addressing form “Teacher ”, which is the translation from

"Thưa th ầ y ” in Vietnamese, is obviously not used by native speakers o f English Also, the request in the form o f imperative is not appropriate because it has a pragmatic force o f a com m an d and thus poses too much imposition on the hearer If we ask a

native speaker to comment on this request, s/he may say that “ it is not wrong but we

d o n ’t speak like that”

Therefore, the problem facing the student in this example is that s/he has learned linguistic form s o f the language without learning the pragmatic conventions o f how those form s are used in different contexts by social insiders The student, as a result, com m its pragm atic deviations from the conventions o f language in use This study aim s at investigating such pragmatic deviations

Pragmatic deviations can cause problems o f miscommunication, so they can be considered as an indicator o f “ potential” com munication failure on the part o f n o n ­native learners in cross-cultural communication For this reason, in this study, the notion o f pragmatic deviations is sometimes used interchangeably with “ pragmatic failure” suggested by Thom as (1983)

In native-nonnative communication, while grammatical errors can be easily tolerated

in the native speaker’s perception, pragmatic deviance is rarely recognized as such by non-linguists Thom as (1983: 97) emphasizes that

If a n o n - na t i v e s p e ak e r a ppe a r s to s pe a k f l uently (i.e is g ra m m a t i c a l l y

c o mp e t e n t ) , a native s p e ak e r is likely to attribute his/ her ap p a r en t i mpol i t enes s

or unf r i endl i nes s , not to any linguistic def i ci ency, but to b o o r i s h ne ss o r ill-

will W h i l e g r a mma t i ca l er r or m a y reveal a s p e a ke r to be a less t han proficient

l a n g u a g e -u se r, pr a gma t ic failure reflects badl y on h i m / h e r as a person.

T h o m a s ’s remarks on the native speaker’s perceptions on the non-native speaker's pragmatic failure concur with those o f Rintell and Mitchell (1989: 248), who claim that “ no “ error” o f gramm ar can make a speaker seem so incompetent, so inappropriate, so foreign as the kind o f trouble a learner gets into when he or she does not understand or otherwise disregards a language’s rules o f use.”

2.4.2 C lassification o f Pragmatic Deviations

Pragmatic deviations can occur in two areas: pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics Pragmalinguistic deviations relate to linguistic problems, caused by differences in the linguistic encoding o f pragmatic force whereas Sociopragmatic deviations concern

cultural problem s and stem from cross-culturally different perceptions o f socio­

cultural factors influencing language use In other words, the former is language-

sp ecific whereas the latter is cultural-specific Figure 1 illustrates two categories o f

pragm atic deviations analyzed in the study

F irgure I: Two categories o f pragm atic d evia tio n s( A d a p ted fr o m Leeds, 1983)

2.4.2.1 P ragm alinguistic deviations

Leech (1983: 11) defines pragmalinguistics as the study o f “the linguistic resources

w hich a given language provides for conveying particular illocutions” In this study

P rag m alin guistic deviation indicates the ¡liability to encode appropriately the

illocutionary force o f an utterance, due to unfamiliarity with the “ resources” o f a target language These deviations occur when the pragmatic force o f the non-native learner’ utterance in a given situation is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers o f the target language in the same situation,

2.4.2.2 Sociopragm atic deviations

S ociopragm atics, as Leech (1983) defines, concerns the conventions governing interactions, including which registers and topics are appropriate under different

circumstances: Sociopragm atic deviation indicates the inability to decide what to say

and w hom to say it to and it stems from unfamiliarity with these norms

Pragmatic deviations can be considered as a source o f potential “ failure” on the part

o f non-native learners in cross-cultural communication Therefore, ‘pragmatic deviatio n ’ will be used interchangeably with “ pragmatic failure” in the study

For the study aim o f identifying and describing pragmatic failure com mitted by the students, the researcher will apply T h o m as’ description o f sources o f pragmatic failure to classify sociopragmatic deviations into four main source-based categories: referring to English taboos, posing imposition, misjudging values in the target language and misjudging the relative power and the social distance between the interlocutors.

(a) Taboos

One o f the most com m on problems in com municating across culture is that speech com m unities vary remarkably with respect to what is considered appropriate to talk about

T aboos are topics that are “off- limit” (James, 1998: 165), and the concept o f taboos is closely related to what is called “ free” goods and “ non- free” goods by L akoff (1974) “ Free goods are those which, in a given situation, anyone can use without seeking perm ission’ (Lakoff, 1974: 27) “N on-free” goods refer to topics that are

“ none o f your business” in cross-cultural communication

T aboos are by no means universal In fact, cultures differ greatly in what is considered

“free” or “ non-free” goods British people, for example, find it intrusive to inquire directly about a stranger’s income, religion, marital status, diseases, sex, etc whereas

in other countries like Vietnam such information may be sought freely Thus, in letters o f request, information concerning the w riter’s or the reader’s personal affairs are regarded as deviances from appropriate topic norms for English speakers

In short; thelear-her needs to be aware that they will make sociopragmatic deviations

w hen referring to something that is a taboo in the target language although such a thing can be pragmatically acceptable for discussing in his/her L I

(b) Size o f im position

As mentioned in the above section, perceptions o f what constitutes “ free” and “non- free” goods vary greatly from culture to culture Talking about things that are regarded as “ free” goods, one does not need to use highly elaborate politeness strategies while more tact will be required to m ention something considered as “ non-

free” As a result, misjudging the notion o f “ free” and “ non-free” goods in the target culture can lead non-native speakers to using inappropriate politeness strategies,

m aking utterances with unexpected size o f imposition on the hearer

(c) Value ju d g m en ts

Speaking o f “ values” , we are not dealing with moral or spiritual qualities, only with the linguistic encoding o f certain attitudes and com municative values such as truthfulness, generosity, or succinctness, etc The way people in different cultures operate pragm atic principles such as politeness varies slightly or greatly

An exam ple for the cultural differences in value judgm ents is the American

‘cooperative' lie Such expressions as We m ust get together som etim es are simply

“polite, m eaningless” words for American (Thomas, 1983: 108) but the non-American often interprets them as genuine invitations and is hurt to find later that they were not intended as such

Therefore, it is not reasonable to judge a people’s moral value according to the way they express themselves using the language In other words, there is no ground to state that one nation or culture is ‘more polite’ or ‘more generous’ than others, simply because it uses more elaborate linguistic formulae or verbose language

(d) C ross- culturally different assessm ents o f Relative Power an d Social D istance

S ociopragm atic failure also occurs when a foreign speaker judges the relative Power and the social Distance between interlocutors differently from a native speaker Brown and Levinson (1987) suggest that in order to compute the weightiness o f a face-threatening act (as request) the interlocutors have to assess the social distance between S and H, the relative power o f H over S and the degree to which the act is rated an im position in that culture

In the V ietnam ese culture, for instance, teachers may have rather higher status than they do in Britain (a social judgm ent), and thus the ways students in the two cultures usually show their respect to teachers are also different Generally, Vietnamese students behave much more deferentially than they would normally be expected Rarely do they address their teachers by only first names Such greetings and

salutation forms which stem from direct translation o f the addressing forms in Vietnam ese as “ Good morning, teacher” , “ Dear teacher” , “ Dear Mr Jack” are deviant from conventional addressing forms in English.

In addition, in cross-cultural communication, non-native speakers usually appear to be behaving in an inappropriate manner since they perceive themselves at a disadvantage (James, 1998), which leads them to the use o f excessively elaborate language formulae to express themselves, especially in making requests

2.4.3 C auses o f Pragmatic Deviations

This section first reviews various sources o f learner errors previously identified by several methodologists and error analysts It then presents major sources o f pragmatic failure suggested by Thom as (1983) Finally, the combination o f sources o f errors from the two perspectives is done to work out a framework for analyzing the causes

o f the students’ pragmatic deviations in the study

Findings from contrastive studies show that one o f the causes o f N N S ' errors is what Odlin (1989) called “negative transfer” o f t h e first language which can also be referred as “ interlanguage causes” This view is shared by Lado (1957:1) who claims that errors originate from the learner's transfer o f the forms and meanings o f their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture The learners in this case produce the target language following the norms o f their own native language

In addition, Richard (1984) and Jain (1984) emphasize that mother tongue interference or-“ interlanguage errors” is not the only one source o f errors Besides it, there are-other types o f “ LI independent errors” which are called “ intralingual errors” and “ developmental errors” They r e f e c t the learner competence at a particular stage and are typical" o f systematic errors in English usage which occur com m only am ong learners and persist for a period o f time For Richard (1984), Intralingual errors can be

indicated by O vergeneralization which is associated with “the use o f previously

available strategies in new situations where they do not apply.”

Another source o f errors is “context o f learning” (Brown, 1994: 215) which refers to

“the classroom with its teacher and its materials” In the classroom context the teacher

or the textbook can lead the learner to make faulty hypotheses about the language This type o f errors indeed is identical with the so-called “ induced-errors” by Stenson (1983) They are the result o f being misled by the ways in which the teachers give definitions, examples, explanations, etc and arrange practice opportunities These errors can also arise from limitations in teaching and learning materials.

From the above-mentioned issues, it can be summarized that methodologists and error analysts have agreed on three main causes o f learner errors, namely interlingual causes, intralingual causes and induced-causes •

In the light o f pragmatics, Thomas (1983) identifies two sources o f pragmalinguistic failure that she termed “teaching-induced” factors and “pragmalinguistic transfer”

“Teaching-induced errors” may com e from poor - quality materials, limited classroom discourse and excessive emphasis on Jinguistic knowledge, neglecting pragmatic input The learner’s poor pragmatic knowledge o f the target language or

“ ignorance” o f the target language norms can also be traced to insufficient pragmatic input

“ Pragmalinguistic transfer” , as Thom as defined, is the inappropriate transfers o f speech act strategies from one language to another Although the translation from LI

to L2 is sometimes semantically or syntactically equivalent, the pragmatic force o f the utterances usually changes Agreeing on this view, Wolson (1989:141) uses the terms

“ pragmatic transfer” or “ sociolinguistic transfer” to refer to the use o f speaking rules from o n e ’s own native speech com munity when interacting with m embers o f the host speech com munity, or when speaking or writing in a second language Similarly, Brown aiid Levinson (1987: p 2 16) state that LI transfer o f speech act strategies is a frequent Cause o f pragmaliguistic failure For example, the learner uses direct speech acts w hereas native speakers would use an indirect one or “off-record” politeness strategies

The other type o f pragmatic failure Sociopragmatic failure, in her view, arises from cross-cultural mismatches in the speaker’s assessment o f social factors as relative power and social distance between the interlocutors, the range o f imposition, and so on

Moreover, according to James (1998) “ it is unusual to be able to ascribe with confidence a given error to a single cause” , suggesting that there may be another cause o f learner pragmatic problems which is the combination o f more than one single cause Generally, some errors are likely ascribable to more than one cause In this study this type o f cause is called ‘com pound cau se’.

In sum m ary, from the above discussion, leaner pragmatic problems in this study will

be traced to the following categories o f causes:

(i) Interlingual causes (i.e learners deviations are ascribed to LI transfer

and/or culture differences)

(ii) Intralingual causes (i.e learner deviations are ascribed to the influence o f

previous learnt language items in TL)

(iii) Teaching-Induced causes (i.e learner deviations are ascribed to issues o f

‘context o f learning’ such as materials, teacher instructions, teaching method classroom discourse, and so on)

(iv) Compound causes (i.e learner deviations are ascribed to the com bination

o f the above causes)

The classifications o f errors and their causes presented above serve as an analytical fram ew ork for the analysis o f the students’ pragmatic problems and their causes in the study in chapter three

2.5 Previous studies related to the study

2.5.1 Studies on the Learner' Requests

i

Contrastive analysis o f the speech act o f request in different languages has been conducted by a number o f researchers (Blum-Kulka, 1989; Kim, 1995; Ha Cam Tam, 1998; N guyen Due Hoat, 1995)

In their cross-cultural pragmatic analysis o f the speech act o f request by second language learners o f Hebrew and by native speakers o f both H ebrew and o f English,

B lum -K ulka (1989) found a significant phenomenon, verbosity, appearing in requests produced by learners o f Hebrew

l e a r n e r s ’ r equest s are realized s y s temat i cal l y by longer ut t er ances than

t h o s e o f nat i ve speakers Thi s trend is m a n i fe s t e d by the use o f s u ppor t i ve

m o v e s ; l earners o f Hebr ew, regar dl ess o f linguistic back g r ou n d , tend to

e m b e d t h e i r requests in l engthy e xp l an a t i o n s an d just i f i cat i ons, w h i c h in

t urn c r ea t e und e s i r a b l e effects o f i nappropri at e use.

(Blum- Kulka, 1989: 26)

Contrastive studies have shown a significant difference between the production o f the speech act o f request in English and some Asian languages

C om paring requests made by Korean learners o f English and requests made by NS o f

E nglish in the sam e situations, Kim (1995) found that Korean learners’ requests greatly differ from those o f NS in terms o f levels o f request directness and external modifications Results showed that despite the similarity between native and no n ­native speakers in using the same level o f indirectness, requests made by NS were

m ore mitigating by means o f internal modifications In terms o f external modifications, NS frequently used preparators (utterances which announce hearer that the speaker is going to make a request) whereas none o f NNS used this type o f move

M ore remarkably, with regard to grounders Korean learners, unlike NS o f English, tended to use them both before and after the request head-act The learners’ requests were supported by much more apologies than those o f NS

Similarly, in contrast to the realizations o f the speech act o f request by V ietnamese learners o f English and Australian speakers o f English, Tam (1998) points out some significant differences between the two groups Vietnamese learners, for example, unlike Australians, tended to use more direct request strategies with few internal and external modifications This made their requests perceived as more ‘direct, less

m itigating and less polite’ (Tam, 1998: 160) The result suggests that ‘Vietnamese were influenced by their mother tongue in which requests are not m itigated’ Basing

on the findings, Tam also claims that Vietnamese learners lack pragmalinguistic and sociopragm atic knowledge in performing the request

In a study on “ Politeness markers in Vietnamese requests"’ Hoat (1995) investigates the degree o f both “ form indirectness” and “ discourse indirectness” o f requests made

by V ietnam ese and Australian speakers “ Form indirectness”, in his definition,

‘covers strategies, the illocutionary force o f which is explicit, hut the structure is elab o rate’ “Discourse indirectness” involves the organization o f requests above a single utterance level, for example, the amount o f pre and post-request justification' (float, 1995: 9) The study found that speakers o f Vietnamese and English showed cross-cultural and cross-situational differences in the degree o f indirectness and distinct preference for specific forms o f indirectness.

It can be seen that Hoat (1995) and Tam (1998) share similar finding that in com parison with NS o f English Vietnamese speakers tend to use more direct request

“ form s” or strategies, even imperatives Based on the significant differences, both studies predict potential problems facing Vietnamese speakers o f English in native- nonnative communication For example Tam highlights that there will be problem o f

LI transfer and Vietnamese speakers may make deviations from the TL in terms o f sociopragm atics and pragmalinguistics Hoat (1995), in addition, claims that

V ietnam ese learners on English, may com m it “pragmatic errors” w hen they transfer their native language-rules o f politeness in their speech act production in the TL

In short, cross-cultural differences in the performance o f requests in the above studies play an important role in predicting Vietnamese learners’ pragmatic failure in cross- cultural com munication However, these studies only focus on spoken requests The author o f the present study wishes to find out whether there are different findings in com paring written requests by Vietnamese learners o f English and by native speakers

o f English

2.5.2 S tud ies on Letters Written by N on-native Speakers o f English

Previously, a'num ber o f studies have been done on cross-cultural differences in letter writing (Kristen, 1998; O kam ura and Shaw, 2000; White, 2001) These studies focused on analyzing cross-cultural differences in certain types o f letters, and all found that the same intention is expressed differently from one culture to another Therefore, in cross-cultural communication, “ it is possible for readers to derive quite different meanings from what the writer intended, which may lead to misunderstanding between the interlocutors” (White, 2001: 63)

In addition, as highlighted from the above studies, although letters written by non­native learners o f English are free from grammatical errors, most o f them appear to be ineffective because o f inappropriateness in both rhetoric and language use.

A dopting G rice’s (1975) maxims o f cooperative principle to the teaching o f writing, White (2001) states that in written communication, both the writer and the reader should be cooperative Besides, it is very important to consider the target readers’ expectations on the writing He says “readers expect clarity, brevity and sincerity, and writing which fails to meet these expectations will be unfavorably received.”

In his research, he delivers a letter o f adjustment written in English by a Polish undergraduate to native readers o f English for their comments Almost all o f the native readers say that they are not satisfied with the letter The student’s letter is perceived as insincere, verbose and too long White concludes that the problem arises from the mism atch between the w riter’s intention and the reader’s expectations, which derives from cultural differences

In short, the above reviewed studies suggest that in order to write an effective letter o f request in English, Vietnamese learners o f English have to consider what native readers expect from their letters in terms o f form, content, and the way to express the request These studies also raise the problem that Vietnamese students o f English may fail to convey their message if they do not meet these expectations in the target language

2.5.3 Studies on errors com m itted by Vietnamese learners o f English

Up to now in the1’light o f error analysis, a few studies have investigated Vietnamese university learners’ errors in writing at low and intermediate level o f English (Bui Yen Ngoc, 2000; N guyen Van Loi, 1999; Phan Thi Nhat, 1999) These studies only identified learners’ grammatical errors relating to the accuracy o f structures, including morphology and syntax

With regard to analyzing discourse errors Pham Dang Binh (2003) identifies cross- linguistic and cross-cultural errors made by Vietnamese learners o f English The most significant errors in Vietnamese learners' discourse is ‘circum locution' In terms o f speech acts, he finds that Vietnamese learners make errors o f using too direct request