SỰ CHUYỂN DI văn hóa TRONG CÁCH SINH VIÊN VIỆT NAM đưa RA lời mời TRONG TIẾNG ANH

In the light of theoretical background of speech act, politeness in the light of crosscultural communication, this study investigates the cultural transfer on the way Vietnamese students of English offer English invitations. Data in this study are gathered via questionnaires. For the purpose of investigating the dimensions thoroughly, the communicating partners’ social parameters such as gender, age, and relationship among interlocutors are taken into consideration. The findings of all the investigated aspects are presented in the light of cross cultural communication. The common belief is reassured that the influence of Vietnamese language on the adoption of Asking assistance in English invitations is most profound. It is also concluded that in respect of the communicating partners’ parameter of age, the cultural transfer on the use of strategies in English invitations is strongest. This study hopefully makes a contribution to the development of an effective approach to English Language Teaching.

In the light of theoretical background of speech act, politeness in the light of cross-cultural communication, this study investigates the cultural transfer on the way Vietnamese students of English offer English invitations

Data in this study are gathered via questionnaires For the purpose of investigating the dimensions thoroughly, the communicating partners’ social parameters such as gender, age, and relationship among interlocutors are taken into consideration

The findings of all the investigated aspects are presented in the light of cross cultural communication The common belief is reassured that the influence of Vietnamese language on the adoption of Asking assistance in English invitations is most profound It is also concluded that in respect of the communicating partners’ parameter of age, the cultural transfer on the use of strategies in English invitations is strongest

This study hopefully makes a contribution to the development of an effective approach to English Language Teaching

List of tables and figures

Table 1 Strategies used in inviting same-sex communicating partners

Table 2 Strategies used in inviting opposite-sex communicating partners

Table 3 Strategies used in inviting older communicating partners

Table 4 Strategies used in inviting younger communicating partners

Table 5 Strategies used in inviting close communicating partners

Table 6 Strategies used in inviting nodding acquaintances

Table 7 The employment of inviting strategies as seen from communicating partners’

parameters

Figure 1 Inviting strategies used by Vietnamese Students of English

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACCEPTANCE PAGE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………ii

ABSTRACT……… iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES……… iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS………v

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

PART I INTRODUCTION

This section will frame the paper by providing a brief description of the topic and stating the research objectives, its scope of study, and the structure of the study.

1 RATIONALE

With the prevalence of Communicative Language Teaching, there is growing concern about the close connection between language and culture Language, in fact, cannot exist independently but closely integrates with the context it belongs to, which

is clearly seen in the Levine’s iceberg theory with language considered as the

“exposed part” of culture Concerning this relationship in communication, Nguyen Quang states that “There is an obvious correlation between cultural factors, language and communicative competence, which requires an appropriate consideration” (Nguyen Quang, 2002) Therefore, it is obvious that linguistic knowledge and cultural background which are under mutual influences integrate with each other to serve communication purposes

When the communication in second language is taken into consideration, the impacts of native language culture on it do exist with some facilitating the target language interaction and some interfering with that and causing communication breakdown Therefore, for the purpose of successful intercultural interchange, there is

an essential need to control cultural transfer in a favorable way in which positive effects, known as positive transfer, are encouraged while adverse ones, the interference, are downplayed This, in fact, is the essence of second language learning, which becomes the goal of foreign language teaching

From this view, the influence of Vietnamese language use on the communication in English is available for a deep and thorough exploration By virtue

of this, barriers against intercultural interchange will be exposed, which make a contribution to the development of effective approaches to English learning and teaching

Therefore, an investigation into the cultural transfer in the adoption of strategies

in English invitations by Vietnamese students of English will partially improve Vietnamese learners’ language competence and facilitate their performance in real-life communication

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The aims of the research could be clearly identified as follows:

- To investigate strategies Vietnamese students of English use when offering invitations

- To study how Vietnamese language exerts its influence on the adoption of strategies in English invitations

- To figure out what cultural factors affect the cultural transfer in the adoption of these strategies when seeing from the communicating partners’ parameters

- To contribute to the development of Communicative Teaching Language

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The research especially focuses on the use of strategies in English invitations by Vietnamese students of English with the absence of responding strategies The adoption of these strategies is only seen from the communicating partners’ parameters

of gender, age, and relationship while the view from the informants’ parameters is a matter of further studies Moreover, the research is only confined to verbal aspects of inviting while paralinguistic and extra-linguistic factors go beyond the scope of this study despite their importance in interpersonal communication

4 RESEARCH DESIGN

As for the design of the study, it is composed of three main parts:

Part I - Introduction – This part introduces the rationale, the scope, aims and

the design of the study

Part II - Development – This section is divided into three chapters.

- Chapter 1 – Literature review - In this chapter, the theory of speech act, politeness, cultural transfer as well as the related studies are critically discussed

- Chapter 2 – Methodology – This chapter outlines the research methods used and presents the following procedures by giving research questions, describing the participants, the research instruments, and the procedure of data collection and analysis.

- Chapter 3 – Results and Discussion – In this chapter, the data analysis and findings of the research are displayed with the demonstration of tables and figures The strategies adopted in invitations by Vietnamese students of English are figured out, and the cultural transfer in the employment of these strategies is drawn from detailed analysis of data

Part III – Conclusion – This part summarizes the key points of the whole

study before offering implications for English Language Teaching It also mentions the limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies

PART II DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

This section presents the theoretical framework of the study, literatures related

to inviting strategies in the light of cross-cultural communication

1.1 SPEECH ACTS

People perform intended actions while communicating to serve the purposes of interpersonal interaction Because of the close link between speech acts and language functions, the theoretical framework of speech acts is developed by a lot of theorists with two most basic ideas formulated by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969)

The concept of speech acts by Austin (1962) which is primarily grounded on the axiom “Say is part of doing” or “Words are connected to actions” views a speech act is a speaking unit, and serves different communicative functions Accordingly, in his work, Austin classified utterances into five categories including Verdictives, Exercitives, Commisives, Behabitives, and Expositives

Developing from this approach, Searle (1969) who views speech acts from the speaker’s perspective proposes the taxonomy with five subclasses named as Commissive, Directive, Declarative, Expressive, and Representative

Commissive: a speech act that commits the speaker to perform the action

described in the statement (for example, a promise or a threat)

Directive: a speech act in which the speaker expects the hearer to do something

(for example, a suggestion, a request, or a command)

Declarative: a speech act that makes a change to the situation related to the

statement (for example, an announcement)

Expressive: a speech act that reflects the speaker’s senses and attitudes about

something (for example, an apology, a complaint)

Representative: a speech act that depicts an event having true or false value

(For example, an assertion, a claim, or a report)

From this interpretation, Yule (1997: 55) summarizes these five fundamental functions of speech acts as follows:

Speech act type Direction of fit S= speaker

X= situationDeclarations

1.2 SPEECH ACT OF INVITING

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “invite” is “to ask somebody to come to social event” or “to ask somebody formally to go somewhere or

do something”

In the light of Searl’s speech acts theory, inviting belongs to directive subclass

in which there is a speaker’s expectation that the hearer will do the action mentioned

in the statement This action may be going somewhere or attending a particular social event, mainly the one hosted by the speaker

1.3 THEORY OF POLITENESS

The theoretical framework of politeness consists of a lot of concepts in respect

of three most basic ideas developed by Lakoff (1973, 1975), Leech (1983), and Brown and Levinson (1987)

Lakoff (1973) views politeness as an interaction facilitator in interpersonal relations which targets conflict and friction minimization in human communication, and is associated with three crucial rules named as “Do not impose”, “Offer options”, and the intimacy or “camaraderie” Meanwhile, Leech’s notion of politeness adhere to six maxims concerning the tact, the generosity, the approbation, the modesty, the agreement, and the sympathy which reflect interlocutors’ effort to avoid conflicts as well as preserve the comity in their interchange

In spite of these theories’ popularity, I was convinced that ideas of Brown and Levinson (1987) primarily grounded on Goffman’s notion of face is most influential

1.3.1 Notion of face

Goffman (1967) defines face as “the positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by the lines others assume he has taken during a particular contact”;

in other words, it is the reflection of self worth in the light of accepted social attributes

Goffman claims that a person’s face is featured by wants to be seen as consistent, as valuable, and as worthy of respect In his view, the thoughtfulness and the respect are crucial to the maintenance of face

Developing from this interpretation, Brown and Levinson (1987) see face as

“the public self-image” related to people’s desires for the conversational appreciation and for the “freedom from imposition” among interactants across social

communication The former called “positive face” is the wants of approval while the latter known as “negative face” is the wants of self-determination.

According to Brown and Levison, because of the mutual vulnerability of face, speakers are expected to be persistently heedful of their own and the hearers’ faces and responsible for maintaining them for the duration of social interaction If participants are not able to defend their faces from threats, they may confront the humiliated or

“losing face” that results in communication breakdown For the purpose of saving face, Brown and Levinson develop the theory of face-threatening acts

1.3.2 Face-threatening acts (FTAs)

From the view of Brown and Levinson, face threatening acts are ones that are inherent in social interaction and may infringe on interlocutors’ autonomy They not only impede self-determination but also undermine both positive face and negative face of interactants, resulting in the interpersonal communication failure as conversations are obviously built in the spirit of mutual maintenance of face

The growing concern for the communication breakdown leads to an essential requirement to minimize the face-threatening or to save the faces Considering this issue, Brown and Levinson develop a theory seeing politeness as the minimization of face-loss They present some politeness strategies used by interlocutors to manage their conversation by dint of the following chart:

Flowchart of politeness strategies ordered against estimated threat to face

On record

Off record

Without redressive action, baldly

With redressive action

Positive politeness

Negative politeness

There is a set of five available possibilities favored to minimize the risk of losing face, ranging from the best case with “do not perform the FTA” that perfectly preclude face threats to the worst one.

If FTA is performed, interlocutors may do it “on record” or “off record” in the spirit of explicitness with the former being more direct than the other If interactants perform FTA by going “off-record”, they tend to leave a hint for their counterparts to interpret By virtue of making the alternative interpretation open to the hearer, the self-determination is preserved and the imposition is avoidable in social interaction

In the case that “on record” strategy is employed, the act may be claimed baldly

or with redress To go “on record” and “baldly” entail that the speaker’s intentions is conveyed bluntly and without softeners, exposing the hearer’s face to the threatening thrust Hence, the great difference between statements with and without redress is that the former comes with the presence of redressive language to mitigate the speech act force though it is expressed unambiguously like the latter Therefore, the “with redressive act” strategy is of smaller losing face risk and preferable

In respect of “on-record” strategy with redress, Brown and Levison concern the negative politeness and positive politeness in parallel with the theory of negative and positive face

1.3.3 Positive Politeness Strategies

There are fifteen substrategies addressed to the hearer’s positive face

1) Strategy 1: Notice, attend to hearer (her/his interests, wants, needs,

goods…)

Eg: You must be hungry…

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

Eg: Oh Lan, you are the only one I want to see today!

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

Eg: You’ll never guess what is happening So strange!

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

Eg: What’s going on, darling?

5) Strategy 5: Seek agreement in safe topics

Eg: Yes, the weather is wonderful today, isn’t it?

6) Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement

Eg: Well, you may be right, but you may want to revise it

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

Eg: People like you and me rarely say like that

8) Strategy 8: Joke to put the hearer at ease

Eg: How about lending me a few fivers?

9) Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose knowledge of and concern for hearer’s

wants

Eg: I know you like “Breaking Dawn”, so I bought two tickets

10) Strategy 10: Offer, promise

Eg: I’ll drop by sometime next week

11) Strategy 11: Be optimistic that the hearer wants what the speaker wants,

and that the face threatening act is slight

Eg: I am sure you won’t mind if I take this from you.

12) Strategy 12: Include both speaker and hearer in the activity

Eg: Let’s have a drink next week

13) Strategy 13: Give or ask for reasons

Eg: I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink

14) Strategy 14: Assert reciprocal exchange or tit for tat

Eg: If you help me prepare the dinner, I’ll go shopping with you on Thursday

15) Strategy 15: Give gifts to hearer (goods, sympathy, understanding,

cooperation)

Eg: I’m really sorry to hear about your cat

1.3.4 Negative Politeness Strategies

The following ten strategies are related to hearer’s negative face

1) Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

Eg: Could you please pass the salt?

2) Strategy 2: Do not assume willingness to comply Question, hedge

Eg: I don’t suppose you could pass the salt

3) Strategy 3: Be pessimistic about ability or willingness to comply Use

subjunctive

Eg: You don’t have any envelopes, do you?

4) Strategy 4: Minimize the imposition

Eg: I just dropped by for second to ask…

5) Strategy 5: Give deference

Eg: We very much look forward to your dining with us

6) Strategy 6: Apologize

Eg: I am sorry to bother you, but I can’t wait anymore

7) Strategy 7: Impersonalize S and H

Eg: It’s regretted that you can’t get that job

8) Strategy 8: State the FTA as a general rule

Eg: Passengers are requested to get off the bus

9) Strategy 9: Nominalize

Eg: I am surprised at your failure to reply

10) Strategy 10: Go on record as incurring debt or as not indebting hearer

Eg: I’d be eternally grateful if you could help me with my homework

1.3.5 Social factors influencing politeness strategies

According to Brown and Levinson (1987:75), the risk of face loss is crucially determined by the integration of three contextual variables named as the social distance between the speaker and the addressee (D), the power difference between them (P), and the ranking of imposition in the particular culture (R) These three factors, therefore, substantially contribute to the choice of politeness strategies

1.4 THE ADOPTION OF INVITING STRATEGIES

Inviting is a directive speech act in which there is an imposition on the hearer; therefore, from the view of Brown and Levinson (1987), inviting may be a face threatening act that infringes on invitees’ autonomy, resulting in the interpersonal communication breakdown

As a result of that, for the avoidance of communication breakdown, there is a common tendency that the speakers adopt different strategies in offering invitations in which they intentionally plan what they are going to say and define what aims they want to achieve from that

1.5 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON INVITING STRATEGIES

The study by Toshihiko Suzuki (2009) investigated the linguistic strategies employed in invitations by American students with the concern given to lexical, grammatical, and discourse dimensions The study’s outcomes were achieved from the analysis of data collected from the discourse completion test carried out with the assistance of American undergraduates In her study, Suzuki claimed that inviting strategies used by native speakers fell into three subclasses including lexical strategies, grammatical strategies, and discourse strategies The two initial subtypes dealt with the utilization of words and structures in invitations while the other concerned the communicative aspect The author analyzed the integration of two categories in utterances, coming to the lexiogrammatical perspective on inviting strategies In respect of the remaining type, by dint of the interpretation from data gathered, the author came up with a detailed classification of conversational strategies which were presented below:

1 Address

2 Supportive move (event depiction)

3 Head act (interrogative)

4 Head act (hypothetical and interrogative)

5 Preparatory act (question on hearer’s plan)

6 Head act (hypothetical and declarative)

7 Supportive move (directions)

8 Head act (declarative)

9 Supportive move (encouragement)

10 Head act (present option)

11 Head act (imperative)

12 Supportive move (present option)

13 Preparatory act (specification of reason)

14 Supportive move (speaker’s want to have hearer)

15 Preparatory move (speaker’s want)

16 Preparatory act (question on hearer’s situation)

17 Preparatory act (question on hearer’s will)

18 Preparatory act (speaker’s readiness)

19 Supportive move (specify what hearer can do)Among of these, the study figured out that five initial strategies were frequently employed by American students though the combination of different strategies was more preferable in real-life conversations In spite of the fact that the study developed

an extensive approach to the adoption of inviting strategies, the deep and thorough understanding of the issue was not really provided The author only viewed these

strategies from their frequency in American invitations with absence of cultural factors, especially in the case of discourse strategies that actually existed in parallel with real-life communication By dint of the mutual connection among culture, language and communicative competence, there was a requirement to study language

in accordance with culture which obviously influenced the language use This made a contribution to the development of Communicative Language Teaching and the improvement of learners’ language acquisition

Mahmoud A Al-Khatib (2006) developed three main ways of inviting including explicit strategies, implicit strategies, and intensifying devices in his study

on pragmatics of offering invitations in Jordanian society

1 An explicit way of inviting

2 An implicit way of inviting

3 Intensifying devices

• Stressing common membership

• Swearing (by all that’s holy and valuable) so as to make the invitee accept the invitation

• Promise of repay

• Offering good-wishesFollowing different pattern from Suzuki’s study, this research was an exploration of inviting from the perspective of pragmatics in which the influence of social distance and social context on the employment of inviting strategies was of attention From the analysis of data, it was suggested that this influence was considerably great with the social distance in terms of age and gender acting as the determinants in choosing inviting strategies However, though the author claimed that

the study was grounded on the notion of politeness and face threatening acts introduced by Brown and Levinson, the research actually investigated inviting strategies as seen from the parameter of age and gender while the relative power among interlocutors and the rank of imposition that was stressed by Brown and Levinson were out of consideration Further study on these dimensions was expected

in order to develop pragmatics competence

Despite their significant contribution to the existing literature, the two studies restricted their scope to the adoption of inviting strategies in one independent culture Meanwhile, for the prevalence of cross-cultural communication, further intercultural research was under special consideration in both academic and practical environment

From the light of this expectation, the study on cultural transfer in the adoption

of inviting strategies was a matter of concern

1.6 CULTURAL TRANSFER

1.6.1 Linguistic theory

Though the framework of it comes with a lot of concepts, cultural transfer is basically defined as the cultural interference resulting from cultural difference In this interpretation, cultural transfer happens when the life value and thought patterns of one culture that acts as the guidance for people’s use of words and their behavior on that culture are used to evaluate the words and deeds of other culture Accordingly, cultural transfer is classified into two categories named as surface-structure transfer and deep-structure transfer

Surface-structure transfer

Surface-structure transfer deals with two main aspects that are language forms and communicative matter and linguistic words and deeds

With language forms being under consideration, vocabulary is the centre of attention The culture of vocabulary falls into five aspects

• There are no corresponding words in another language

For example: “áo dài” in Vietnamese

• The words carry strong historical and social implications

For example: the word “cowboy” in American culture

• Idioms

• Proverbs

• Formulae and euphemisms

They are all commonplace in real-life communication and expressed with the absence of speakers’ consciousness However, they are not familiar with non-native speakers because of their limited acquisition of the second language as well as the insufficient language practice Therefore, it is inevitable that the influence of the first language on the foreign language do exist

Deep-structure transfer

In this type, transfer is seen from the psychological perspective in which the influence of the first language habits happens in specific situation, resulting in communication breakdown

1.6.2 Learning theory

In learning theory, transfer take place when people’s learned behavior in one situation continue to exist in other

From the light of this approach, there are two types of transfer including language transfer and communicative transfer.

Language transfer

Language transfer considers the effect of one language on the learning of another It falls into two subtypes: positive transfer and negative transfer When source cultural norms are similar to the ones of target culture, positive transfer occurs whilst the negative one comes with the difference among them Positive transfer facilitates the language learning while the opposite is true of negative transfer in which the use of native language pattern leads to an error or an inappropriate form in the target language

Communicative transfer

Communicative transfer is caused by the use of rules of speaking from one language when speaking another, for example the way of greeting, opening or closing conversations

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this part is to present research methods of the study as well as

the procedure of data collection and analysis

2.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The study aims to answer the following questions:

1 What are strategies used by Vietnamese students of English when offering invitations?

2 How does Vietnamese language affect the adoption of these strategies in English invitations?

3 What are factors influencing the cultural transfer in the adoption of these strategies in English invitations?

4 What are implications for English language teaching?

2.2 PARTICIPANTS

Twenty first year Vietnamese students at the University of Languages and International Studies participated in the research All of them are studying in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education These students, who have been learned English for nearly ten years (7-10 years), are considered at the pre-intermediate level of language proficiency Because of the fact that they have got access to the communicative language learning in a short time, the influence of Vietnamese culture on their way of interacting remains considerable and explicit As a result, first year Vietnamese students were selected as informants of the study with the hope that the findings of the research may contribute to the development of an

effective approach to English language teaching from the initial academic year of students

2.3 RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

The research investigated the cultural transfer in the way Vietnamese students

of English offer English invitations In order to achieve the aims, it was carried out with the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods The study concerned inviting strategies adopted by Vietnamese students as well as the influence of the source culture on that adoption and estimated the frequency of these strategies in each language when seeing from different interactional partners’ parameters

Books and materials from different sources supplied useful information to the study Meanwhile, sufficient data for the study were collected from the questionnaires concerning three real life situations in which invitations were often performed The questionnaires which were designed to deal with two initial research questions fell into two types including one in English and the other in Vietnamese with equivalent values After delivered and collected, they were analyzed in the light of cross-cultural communication

Questionnaires consisted of two following parts:

Part 1 is the informants’ background information

Part 2 is the main content of the questionnaires which was designed to figure out the cultural transfer in the way Vietnamese students of English offer invitations as well as cultural factors closely related to that Part 2 deals with three situations mentioned below:

Situation 1: Invitations to go to the cinema

Situation 2: Invitations to a party

Situation 3: Invitations to go for coffee

In each situation, Vietnamese students were expected to offer invitations which were appropriate to each communicating partners’ parameters such as gender, age, and relationship

2 4 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

In the first place, the questionnaires were piloted before administered The pilot test which was performed by five four-year students gave some constructive feedback about how the instruments work and whether its goal could be reached

After that, when administering the questionnaires, it was greatly important to select the appropriate sample because it played a decisive role in the result of the data collection procedure Basing on the aims and objectives of the research, twenty first year students of English were of concern and became the representatives of Vietnamese students of English at the extent of this study Then, the data was collected directly with the assistance of some strategies to increase the quality and quantity of participants’ response To a higher specification, participants taking part in the survey were initially provided with all the information related to the study before they administered it They were also convinced that the data would be treated confidentially before given clear instructions to complete the questionnaires

To figure out the cultural transfer in the way Vietnamese students of English offer English invitations, the quantitative analysis of data in native and target languages was performed The process of coding data began with the interpretation of informants’ responses to find out strategies used by Vietnamese students Before a deeper examination was taken, the total number of expressions using each strategy was

calculated to find the difference in the frequency of these strategies between the two languages as well as within one language The adoption of these strategies in Vietnamese and English, then, was taken into detailed consideration when seen from different communicating participants’ parameters Hence, the impact of Vietnamese language on students’ performance in English was seen explicitly and influential factors were exposed, which responds to mentioned research questions.

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter is going to analyze and discuss the findings of the study

3.1 INVITING STRATEGIES

The findings from questionnaires reveal that there were 9 inviting strategies adopted by Vietnamese students of English

Strategy 1: Giving options

The speaker reduces the imposition by offering choices open to the hearer when performing the invitation

Vietnamese invitations: “Chị đi xem phim với em không?”

“Em có muốn đến bữa tiệc của chị không?”

English invitations: “Do you want to go to the cinema with me to see

Vietnamese invitations: “Đi xem phim với tớ đi!”

“Đi café buôn chuyện một chút nhé!”

English invitations: “Let’s go to the cinema!”

“Why don’t you come to my party at the weekend?”

Strategy 3: Showing appreciation

The speaker expresses his/her gratitude and admiration for the hearer’s acceptance when inviting

Vietnamese invitations: “Rất vui khi bạn có thể tham dự bữa tiệc nhỏ của tớ

vào cuối tuần này!”

“Mình sẽ vô cùng vui khi bạn tới dự tiệc!”

English invitations: “I would appreciate if you could go for coffee with me”

“I’m very happy if you can come to my party”

Strategy 4: Expressing explicitly

The speaker gives his/her invitation clearly, exactly, and openly In this case, the performative verb “invite” is likely included in the invitation

Vietnamese invitations: “Cậu này, mình mời cậu đi xem phim!”

“Mời bạn đến dự tiệc nhà tớ vào cuối tuần.”

English invitations: “I’d like to invite you to my party this weekend.”

“I want to invite you to go coffee with me.”

Strategy 5: Hedging/Being tentative

The speaker tends to avoid a straightforward expression Before performing an invitation, he/she gives the reasons for it, or asks questions concerning the hearer to notice the hearer’s attitude and help the hearer mentally prepare for what the speaker is going to say