a vietnamese - american cross-cultural study on disparaging = nghiên cứu giao văn hóa việt - mỹ về cách thức chê bai

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs Brown and Levinson, 1987:60 ...15 Figure 2: Kaplan‟s diagram ...18 Table 1: The five general functions of speech

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality of project report i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

Lists of figures and tables v

Abbreviations vi

PART A – INTRODUCTION 1

1 RATIONALE 1

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 2

3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 2

5 METHODOLOGY 3

6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY 3

PART B – DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION 4

1.1.1 Language and Culture 4

1.1.2 Cross – Cultural Communication 6

1.2 CROSS – CULTURAL PRAGMATICS 6

1.3 SPEECH ACTS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH ACTS 8

1.4 POLITENESS 11

1.4.1 Politeness and the notion of Face 11

1.4.2 Politeness strategies 14

1.4.3 Social factors affecting politeness 17

1.5 DIRECTNESS AND INDIRECTNESS 18

1.5.1 Directness (D) and Indirectness (ID) as Communication Styles 18 1.5.2 Socio- Cultural Factors Influencing the Use of Directness and Indirectness In

Human Interaction .20

1.6 DISPARAGING 22

1.6.1 Disparaging as a speech act 22

1.6.2 Disparaging and criticizing 22

1.6.3 Popular topics for disparaging 23

CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY 24

2.1 Survey research as the main method 24

2.2 Subject of the study 24

2.3 Data collection instrument 24

2.4 Data collecting procedures 25

2.5 Comments on the survey questionnaire 25

2.6 Comments on the informants 26

CHAPTER 3 – STRATEGIES OF DISPARAGING 28

3.1 STRATEGIES USED IN DISPARAGING 28

3.1.1 14 main types of disparaging strategies .28

3.1.2 Integrative disparaging strategies 38

3.2 USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM COMMUNICATING PARAMETERS 40

3.2.1 Data Analysis 40

3.2.2 Concluding Remarks 50

3.3 USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM INFORMANTS‟PARAMETERS 54

3.3.1 Data Analysis 54

3.3.2 Concluding Remarks 62

3.4 USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM THE TOPIC OF DISPARAGING 67

3.4.1 Data Analysis 67

3.4.2 Concluding Remarks 71

PART C – CONCLUSION .74

1 REVIEW OF THE FINDINGS 74

2 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 77

3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 77

4 SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 77

BIBLIOGRAPHY 79

APPENDICES 83

ENGLISH SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES 83

VIETNAMESE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES 88

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987:60) 15

Figure 2: Kaplan‟s diagram 18

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Following Searle, 1969) 10

Table 2: Realization of strategies used in disparaging 29

Table 3: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from American communicating partner‟s parameters 52

Table 4: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟ parameters 53

Table 5: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from American informants‟ parameters 65

Table 6: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from Vietnamese informants‟ parameters 66

Table 7: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from topic of disparaging 67

Table 8: Ranking of occurrence of disparaging strategies in English and Vietnamese…

74

ABBREVIATIONS

PART A – INTRODUCTION

1 RATIONALE

Vietnamese learners usually find it difficult to communicate appropriately in English with native speakers, especially American people despite their language competence Shyness and lack of confidence are common problems facing Vietnamese learners They sometimes even can not understand native speakers and feel uncomfortable to express themselves in particular situations This partly originates from the lack of socio-cultural knowledge and interaction skills among Vietnamese learners

The differences between western and eastern culture can be referred to as a reason why Vietnamese learners often fail in communicating with native speakers Asian learners are not familiar with western cultural norms

It is concluded that language and culture have a close relationship Even an competent learner needs cultural knowledge of the target language to be successful in communication Therefore, learning about the target culture, and especially the differences between the source and target cultures is an effective way for us to master the target language Cultural knowledge will help us to avoid misunderstanding, culture shock and breakdown in communication

English-A number of studies have been carried out so far on English-Vietnamese cross-cultural pragmatics / communication by Vietnamese authors such as Conveying Good and Bad News (Quang, 1992), Requesting (Thanh, 2000), Apologizing and Responding to Apologies (Phuong, 1999), Requesting (Tam, 1998), Greeting (Suu, 1990; Nguyen, 1997), Advising (Le, 1999), Thanking and Responding to Thanks (Hoang, 1998), Refusing a Request (Quyen, 2001), Expressing Sympathy (Nga, 2003), Making Suggestions (Lam, 2004), Expressing Annoyance (Phung, 2006), Promising (Be, 2008), but no research has been conducted on disparaging

There is a good reason for the choice of this act because it is a face-threatening act Therefore, it requires much sensitivity and cross-cultural awareness in order to gain effective communication without hurting the listeners

This research will hopefully provide learners as well as teachers and people working in intercultural environment with better understanding of the nature of this behavior across

cultures and ability to reduce to the least negative effect on cross-cultural communication, and most importantly, to communicate safely and effectively

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

 To investigate the way Vietnamese people and American people disparage in given situations

 To clarify the most noteworthy similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and American people disparage in their own languages and cultures

3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research plans to address the following questions:

Question 1: How do American and Vietnamese people disparage in different situations

and with different communicating partners?

Question 2: What are the most noteworthy similarities and differences in the ways

Vietnamese and American disparage in their own languages and cultures?

4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

 The thesis focuses on strategies of expressing disparagement in Vietnamese and American culture Responding to disparagement is beyond the scope of this study

 The author is fully aware of the remarkable contribution of paralinguistic and extralinguistic aspects of disparaging, however, they are not taken in to consideration

 The Vietnamese Northern dialect and American – English are chosen for contrastive analysis

 The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires both in English and Vietnamese, based on socially-differentiated situations in which disparagement takes place and three groups of informants in social, business, and family status Recorded and video taped face-to-face conversations are impossible due to limitations of time, geographical distance and financial difficulties

5 METHODOLOGY

In order to achieve the objectives of the cross-cultural research, the main method of the study is survey research All the considerations, comments and conclusions in this thesis are largely based on:

- reference to relevant publications

- survey questionnaires

- statistics, description and analysis of the collected data

- personal observation

- consultation with supervisor

- discussion with Vietnamese and foreign colleagues

6 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

The thesis consists of three main parts:

Part A: INTRODUCTION – All the academic routines required for an MA thesis are

presented

PART B: DEVELOPMENT – This is the focus of the study and consists of 3 chapters

Chapter 1: Literature Review

Chapter 2: Methodology of the study

Chapter 3: Strategies of disparaging

Part C: CONCLUSION: Review of the findings, implications and limitations of the study

and some suggestions for further research

PART B – DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 CROSS – CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

1.1.1 Language and Culture

In the “Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary” (encyclopedic edition, 1992: 506), language is defined as “system of sounds, words, patterns, etc used by humans to communicate thoughts and feeling” To begin with, the words people use reflect their common experience “They express facts, ideas or events that are communicable because they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share”(Kramsch, 1998:03) Through words people also express their attitude, belief, view points which other people share Therefore, language expresses cultural reality

In addition, members of a community or a social group also create experience through language They give meaning to it through various media they choose to communicate with one another, for instance, speaking over the phone or face to face, writing a letter, reading a newspaper or interpreting a graph or a chart People use spoken, written or visual medium to create meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to through the speaker‟s tone of voice, accent, facial expression, conversational style, gestures Through all verbal and non-verbal aspects, language represents cultural reality

Finally, language is viewed as a system of signs which has its own cultural value Speakers use language to identify themselves and others and to symbolize their social identity Thus language symbolizes cultural identity

In the previous, the nature and use of language have been discussed; now we need to clarify what we mean by culture in order to make explicit the relationship between language and culture

The word “culture” is used frequently in our daily life, however, defining “culture” is not

an easy task The term “culture” is not used in the sense of “high culture”, for example, the knowledge and appreciation of music, literature, the arts and so on It is particularly understood in the sense of whatever a person must know to function in a society

One of definitions we should consider is that of Goodenough (in Wardhaugh, 1992:217):

“A society‟s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for anyone of themselves”

Culture is the knowledge which every one must know in order to behave appropriately and accordance with the social norms within a society We accumulate this sort of knowledge through the process of becoming the full member of a society by accepting all its ideas, values and patterns of behavior There exists one way of thinking about culture is to contrast it with nature Nature refers to what is born and grows organically (from the Latin nascere: to be born) and culture refer to what has been grown and groomed (from the Latin colere: to cultivate) There seems to be a complete separation between nature and culture in the view that culture is non-natural However, any object processed by human intention or human touch is a product of culture For instance, a natural rock will become a product of culture if a human turns it in to an axe – a working tool Therefore, Nguyen Quang (2008) concluded that culture should not be separated completely from nature as culture lies in nature

And in the definition by Marie Emmitt and John Pollock (1990:39), culture is described in

a way as “the ideas, customs, skills, arts and tools which characterize a given people in a given period of time.” As seen from this view, culture has never belonged and will never belong to any single person but to all people who share a culture This point of view is

confirmed by Levin and Adelman (1993): “Culture is a shared background (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes and values.” They compared culture with an “iceberg” with the

visible part and the invisible part The former one consists of appearance, food, language, etc and the later one includes values, beliefs, customs, attitudes, communication style, etc Unfortunately, the hidden part which creates cross cultural difficulties and communicative barriers exercises a strong influence on an individual behavior and interaction Thus, in order to be successful in communication across cultures, we must learn the hidden parts of the culture regarded as the submerged part of the iceberg

According to R.A Hudson (1981) culture contains language Goodenough (1957) also views the language of a society is an aspect of culture

In short, the interrelation between language and culture plays an important role in communication Culture influences the way language is expressed And in its turn,

language reflects culture Therefore, it is impossible to separate language from culture when communicating and especially when teaching and learning a language

a product of the cultural environment and biases of their upbringing Therefore, it is very easy for the people who share the same culture to communicate with each other

It is not the case any more Globalization has brought nations closer to each other Now people have chance to communicate with people coming from different cultures, having different background knowledge Difficulties occur in the process of cross-cultural communication People tend to see their culture as the norm to measure all others They interpret other‟s utterances in their own cultural convention Culture shock is an unavoidable result when people with different world view, different expectations of each other come in to contact People often experience negative feelings when they are exposed

to an alien culture Curiosity, confusion, fear, disgust, anger even hostility are common symptoms However, the most common is “a disturbing feeling of disorientation and helplessness” – the feeling of an outsider in the host society Bock (1970) called this phenomenon “culture shock”

Thus, all of us should be good cultural communicators We should be positive and adopt openness, a receptive attitude towards other cultures in order to avoid breakdown in communication In addition, we will discover more our own culture in the exposure to other cultures Cross –cultural communication is no longer frustrating experience but a rewarding one, an opportunity to widen our mind to the world

1.2 CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS

In recent years, language, which is viewed as a social product, has been studied in a living environment – the context Language is now put in a close relation with context in order to

produce the proper meaning This trend led to the emergence of a new direction in language studies related to the term “cross-cultural pragmatics” attracting many scholars such as Austin 1962, Abrahams 1976, Atlas 1984, Ameca 1987 and Wierzbicka 1985 For them, utterances could not be interpreted outside their context: “Pragmatic is the study

of the relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language understanding, or that are grammatical zed, or encoded in the structure of a language.”(Levinson, 1983: 9, 21)

The term “pragmatics” is used to refer to how language is used to communicate with the focus on the actual uses of language in real and specific communicative situations Therefore, in communication we have to go beyond the meanings implied in individual words to discover how we use utterances Kasper (cited in Crystal, 1996) gave the definition of pragmatics “Pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language

in social interaction, and the effects the use of language has on other participants in the act

of communication.”

According to Richards (1992:284), pragmatics includes the study of:

 How the interpretation and use of utterances depend on knowledge of the real world

 How speakers use and understand speech acts

 How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the hearer

Therefore, the pre-existing world knowledge, social and cultural knowledge, or the cultural schemata plays a very important role in communication And the study of difference in expectations based on cultural schemata and by looking at “the ways in which meaning is constructed by speakers from different cultures” is generally known as cross - cultural pragmatics (Yule, 1997:87)

Obviously, the study of differences of language use in the light of cross-cultural pragmatics originates from the point of view of cross – cultural understanding which is very social and practical

1.3 SPEECH ACTS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH ACTS

At the beginning of “How to do things with words” John Austin (1962:1) bemoaned the common philosophical view point that “the business of a sentence can be only to describe some state of affairs or to state some facts which must be either truly or falsely” He discovered that despite the fact-stating appearance, many sentences have a really different uses He is the first to give the idea of Speech Acts (SA) Speech acts are utterances which contain information needed to assert and performs actions, or according to Austin, “things that people do with words” In other words, utterances not only contain a message but also have a social force in themselves Therefore, the sentence: “It‟s hot” does not simply describe the fact of hot weather but in some contexts it is a request to open the door or turn

on the fan The usual forms of speech acts we meet in language use are promising, wishing, booking, complaining, forgiving and so on (Verscheren, 1977) Austin‟s theory drew the attention of many other philosophers sharing the same view that speech acts and language functions are closely linked Further developments have been made and more specific explanations have been given to the performance of speech acts and speech act verbs in natural language

According to Austin, utterances are divided in to two kinds: constative and performative The constative utterances or statement are characterized as true or false property In contrast, the performative utterances can never be either Its special job is to perform an action Giving a performative utterance means performing an action

Three distinct levels of actions beyond the act of utterances are presented by Austin He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it and dubs these the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act respectively When a speaker makes an utterance, he performs a locutionary act that is an act of saying something, the act of producing expressions which are well-formed and meaningful complying with the general rules of grammar For instance, a bar tender utters the words,

“The bar will be closed in five minutes”, reportable with direct quotation He is performing the locutionary act of saying that the bar (i.e, the one he is tending) will be closed in five minutes (from the time of the utterance)

Austin dubbed “illocutionary” speech acts that can (but need not) be performed by means

of performative formula Being generally considered, when one acts intentionally, one has

a set of intentions For instance, when one arrived home with out keys, his fingers can

make movement in a certain ways with the intention of ringing the doorbell, pushing a button or awaking his spouse The bodily movement related to the fingers comprises a series of actions accordance with different intentions In a similar way, speech acts are not just acts of producing certain words They contain the communicative purposes that is intended and expected to be achieved in the speaker‟s mind You may promise, threaten, inform, question, greet and so on In this way an illocutionary act is performed It is considered to be the most important among three acts To distinct which kind of speech acts of the speaker, the hearer is required to know contextual clues, his / her relationship with the speaker, the speaker‟s purpose, facial expression and intonation Returning to the bartender‟s utterance above, we notice that what the bartender is saying, the content of his locutionary act is not fully determined by the words he is using because they do not specify the bar in question or the time of the utterance In saying this, the bartender is performing the illocutionary act of informing the patrons of the bar‟s closing and urging them to order the last drink

There is a special class of illocutionary acts called performatives which contain verbs which explicitly name the illocutionary acts that is intended These verbs are called performative verbs

Eg “I sentence you to prison.”

“I promise I will never lie you.”

The perlocutionary act refers to the effects of the utterance on the hearer It means that the hearer may have the feeling of amusement, annoyance, persuasion as a result of the speaker‟s utterance So when the illocutionary act is understood by the part of the patrons, perlocutionary acts are performed with the intention of producing a further effect He is performing a perlocutionary act of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is going to be close and to have a desire of having the last drink A conclusion can be drawn from this instance is that the bar tender has performed three level of speech acts in uttering some words However, it is also important to note that there is not always the coincidence of the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act For example, you may say “I have made some coffee” with the intention of offering and the hearer may accept or refuse your offer

Due to the big number of speech acts, many people have attempted to classify them into different types Among them Searle‟s (1969) is known as the most widely used and influential one According to Searle there are five types of speech acts based on the

speaker‟s intentions They are declarations, representatives, expressives, directives and commissives

Declarations are speech acts that change the state of the world via their utterances, the acts

that brings about state of affairs, including namings, firings, hirings, pardons, resignations,

etc For example, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” “You are out”

Representatives are speech acts that state what the speakers believe to be the case or not,

the acts that denote the state of affairs, including assertion, descriptions, reports,

statements, etc For example, “The earth is flat”, “It was a warm and sunny day”

Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speakers feel They express

psychological states and can be statement or attitudes, including apologies, compliments,

greetings, thankings, etc For example, “I am sorry that I lied to you”

Directives are those kinds of speech acts that the speakers use to get the hearer to do

something They express what the speaker wants They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions, etc For example, “Could you lend me a pen, please?” “Don‟t touch that.”

Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that the speakers use to commit themselves to

future actions They express what the speaker intends They are promises, threats, refusals, pledges, etc For example, “I„ll be back”, “We will not do that.”

These five general functions of speech acts can be summarized as follows:

TABLE 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Following Searle, 1969)

S = Speaker

X = Situation

Yule , G (1996:47) shares the view with Austin that “actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts” However, Yule stressed the most discussed role of illocutionary acts among three acts The term “speech act” is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance One utterance can perform different illocutionary acts depending on the particular circumstance it fits into For example the utterance “I„ll come back” may be a promise, a warning, a prediction, etc

According to Yule (1996: 54), another approach based on the relationship between structures and functions can be reached in distinguishing types of speech acts In this way, speech acts can be classified into two types: direct and indirect speech acts He recognizes the relationship between the three structural forms and the three general communicative functions (statement, questions, command / request) He also presented examples as follows:

(a) You wear a seat belt (declarative)

(b) Do you wear a seat belt? (interrogative)

(c) Wear a seatbelt! (imperative)

When an interrogative form is used to ask for information whether you wear a seat belt or not, it is a direct speech act So a direct speech act is produced when there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function On the other hand if the interrogative “Do you wear a seat belt?” form is used to make a request, it is an indirect speech In this case, there is an indirect relationship between the structure and the function Hence, speech acts may be performed either directly or indirectly In English, people use indirect speech acts when they wish to show politeness Comparing the pair of sentences with the same structural form - imperative “Could you stop making that noise!” and “It‟s very noisy in here.”(indirect), the second one seems to be more preferred than the first one because it gives the addressee an out to say, for example, “ I‟m sorry, I just don‟t know that you are concentrating!” According to Searle (1975:61 in Nguyen Duc Hoat): “In indirect speech acts, the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying

on their mutual shared background information, both linguistic and non-linguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.”

1.4 POLITNESS

1.4.1 Politeness and the notion of Face

What is Politeness?

According to Yule (1996: 60), politeness is stated as “the idea of polite social behavior, or etiquette, within a culture” And “being polite is being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic towards others” Thus, politeness can be understood as appropriate behaviors that people in any community express following a set of rules generally accepted in each culture The speaker‟s conducts are evaluated as more or less polite relative to community values and norms

People in different cultures can have their own linguistic and social actions but politeness governs the process of communication People always desire to preserve social relationship and harmony Politeness is also described by Richards as:

- how languages express the social distance between speakers and their different role relationships

- how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversation, is carried out in a speech community

Politeness is also defined by Green (1989:145) as: “whatever means are employed to display consideration for one‟s addressee‟s feelings (or face), regardless of the social distance between the speaker and addressee”

All the above definitions mention “Face” Although face is a highly abstract notion but it plays the central role in understanding politeness

The notion of “Face”

Face is defined by Brown and Levinson (in Yule, 1997:61), is “the public self - image that every member wants to claim for himself”, that is emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize

According to Richards (1992: 135), “In communication between two or more persons, the positive image or impression of oneself that one shows or intends to show to the other participants is called Face”

Face can be maintained and enhanced when people show their respect to other people‟s self-image In the process of interaction, both partners of communication share the mutual interest of saving other‟s face Because they understand that saving other‟s face also means saving their own face Polite people often behave in the way to preserve and avoid the loss

of face On the other hand face can be threatened as communicative interaction brings it the possibility of losing face If a speaker say something that might present a threat to another individual„s expectations regarding self - image, it is described as a face threatening act (FTA) And being aware of the risk that some action might be interpreted

as a threat to another‟s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat This is labeled a face saving act (FSA)

Yule‟s (1996:61) examples of FTA and FSA are as follows:

Imagine a late night scene, where a young neighbor is playing his music very loud, and an old couple are trying to sleep One of them proposes an FTA and other suggests an FSA:

FTA: I am going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! (Him)

FSA: Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it‟s getting a bit late and people need to get to sleep (Her)

In Brown and Levinson‟s (1978) account, face comes in two varieties, positive face and negative face

Positive and Negative Face

Positive face is the want of approval That is a person‟s wish to be well thought of That is the desire to have what are admired by others, the desire to be understood by others and the desire to be accepted and treated as a member of the same group and even appreciated by others Positive face establishes a person‟s status as an autonomous, independent and free agent Thus a complaint about the quality of someone‟s work threatens his / her positive face

On the other hand, negative face is the want of self-determination That is a person‟s wish not to be imposed on by others The word “negative” does not mean bad, it is simply the opposite pole of positive Negative face establishes a person‟s immunity from outside interference and excessive external pressure Thus, telling someone that they can not see the doctor at the time they expected to is a threat to their negative face

Any normal interaction can lead to the risk of losing face That is why people attempt to build up participants‟ positive faces and minimize threats to negative faces in communication in cooperative communication

Politeness serves to enhance, maintain or protect face Therefore, addressing the positive face results in positive politeness Positive politeness is approach based What it emphasizes is that both speakers want the same thing and that they have a common goal It shows the concern for the other‟s welfare On the other hand, negative face gives rise to negative politeness Negative politeness is avoidance based It is a concern not to impose

on others or restrict their freedom, but to maintain distance Hence, the concepts of positive face and negative face gives rise to different strategies

1.4.2 Politeness Strategies

In social interaction people may mitigate the force of FTA by using a variety of politeness strategies Depending on positive or negative face oriented, there are two kinds of strategy: positive politeness strategy and negative politeness strategy

Positive politeness strategy aims at the positive face of H S considers H to be the same as

he, with the same rights and duties Negative politeness strategy oriented mainly toward H‟s negative face, his basic want to maintain self-determination S will not interfere with H‟s freedom of action

From the face-saving view, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose a set of strategies to minimize risk of losing face corresponding to the degrees of a face-threat Positive politeness and negative politeness are mentioned

In the process of communication, we sometimes produce some statements which are not directly addressed to other The other can act as if the statements have not been heard They are described as being off record For example, after searching through your bag, you simply produce a statement: “Oh! I forgot my pen.” (Yule, 1996:63)

With an opposite meaning, “on record” refers to direct forms which are statements you directly address the other as a means of expressing your needs Another term is “bald on record indicating the most direct approach, using imperative form The other person is directly asked for something For example, “lend me your pen” In order to soften the demand, expressions like “please” or “would you” may be followed They are labeled mitigating devices

Brown and Levinson‟s strategies can be summarized in the figure 1 below:

Lesser risk Greater risk

on record off record

face saving act bald on record

(with redressive action) (without redressive action, badly)

positive politeness negative politeness

FIGURE 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60)

According to Yule (1996: 65-66), using positive politeness forms tends to emphasize the closeness between S and H and can be seen as solidarity strategy This can be chosen by the whole group as the principal operating strategy or by an individual speaker on a particular occasion Such strategies include personal information, use of nicknames, abusive terms, shared dialects or slang expressions For example “Come one, let‟s go to the party Everyone will be there, we‟ll have fun.”

Using negative politeness forms tends to emphasize H‟s rights to freedom and can be seen

as a deference strategy It can be the typical strategy of the whole group or just an option used on a particular occasion The language associated with a deference strategy emphasizes the speaker and the hearer‟s independence, marked via an absence of personal claims For example: “There‟s going to be a party, if you can make it It will be fun.” After all “both positive and negative politeness strategies are redressive actions, used to mitigate the face threat which a linguistic act might pose for the interlocutor” (Kasper, in Coulmas, 1997:378)

With the view of politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange”

Lack off (in Green, 1989:142) describes three different rules that a speaker might follow in choosing to be polite:

Rule 1: Don’t impose This rule is used when formal / impersonal politeness is required It

is appropriate to situations in which there is an acknowledged difference in power and status between the participants such as between a student and a dean, or between a factory worker and the vice president in charge of personnel A speaker chooses his acts so as to minimize the extent to which he imposes on the hearer He avoids giving or seeking personal opinions, personal reference, reference to family, personal problems, habits and even avoids earthy, slangy, merely emotional language and any topics which are considered taboo

Rule 2: Offer options It is used when informal politeness is required It is appropriate to

situations in which the participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not socially close This can be represented by the relationship between a business person and a new client in a business or between two strangers sharing a semi private room in a hospital Offering options means expressing oneself in such a way that one‟s option or request can

be ignored without being contradicted or rejected, for example, saying “Why don‟t you have a rest?” instead of “You should have a rest.” In short, if the speaker wishes to persuade the hearer of some view or an action, he will phrase his speech so that the hearer does not have to acknowledge the speaker‟s intent

Rule 3: Encourage feelings of Camaraderie This rule is appropriate for close friends or

intimates The governing principle here is not only to show an active interest in the other, asking personal questions and making personal remarks, but also to show regard and trust

by being open about the details of one‟s own life, experiences, feelings and the likes In intimate politeness, almost any topic is fair game, assuming that with a close friend, one should be able to discuss anything

Another author, Leech (1983: 16) believes that politeness principles need to rescue the cooperative principle (be true, be brief, be relevant, be clear) introduces 6 maxims of politeness:

Tact maxim: Minimize cost to other Maximize cost to other

Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self Maximize cost to self

Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other Maximize dispraise of self

Modesty maxim: Minimize praise of self Maximize praise of other

Agreement maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and other

Sympathy maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other Maximize sympathy between self and other

Among these maxims, Leech considers the maxim of “tact” as the most important kind of politeness in English speaking countries

In short, the norm of politeness can be differentiated from culture to culture It is important

to note that the conversational devices which individual speakers applies to execute politeness strategies Various strategies and tactics can be employed in accordance to the speaker‟s desire to change the social distance, the beliefs of appropriate behavior in certain situation and the personal style

1.4.3 Social Factors Affecting Politeness

Brown and Levinson (1987: 74) introduced three factors affecting the choice of appropriate polite expressions: social distance (D) of the speaker and the hearer, the relative power (P) of the speaker and the hearer, and the absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture Each of these variables has an independent effect on the choice of polite strategies

According to Brown and Levinson, (1987 : 76 -77), “the social distance (D) variable is a symmetric social dimension of similarity / difference within which S and H stand for the purposes of this act” In many cases, it is based on an assessment of the frequency of the interaction and the kinds of material or non-material goods (including face) exchanged between S and H An important part of the assessment of D will usually be measures of social distance based on stable social attributes The reflex of social closeness is, generally, the reciprocal giving and receiving of positive face

The relative power (P) is an asymmetric social dimension of relative power: “Power is the degree to which H can improve his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the expense of S‟s plans and self-evaluation.” In general, there are two sources of P, either of which may be authorized or unauthorized – material control (over the actions of others, by

virtue of metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others) In most cases an individual‟s power is drawn from both these sources, or is thought to overlap them

Another factor influencing face threatening act (FTA) is the ranking of imposition (R): “R

is defined by the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent‟s wants by self-determination or of approval (his negative and positive face want)” In general, there are probably two such scales or ranks that are identifiable for negative face FTAs: a ranking of imposition in proportion to the expenditure of services (including the provision

of time) and of goods (including non-material goods like information as well as the expression of regard and other face payment) These intra-culturally defined costing of impositions on an individual‟s preserve are in general constant only in their rank order from one situation to another

1.5 DIRECTNESS AND INDIRECTNESS

1.5.1 Directness (D) and Indirectness (ID) as Communication Styles

As we have discussed above, language has a close link with culture Therefore studying language and applying it in real life do not only require knowledge of the language itself but also the culture that influences it Nations may differ in using strategies to utter the same expression Some prefer the direct way, and the others tend to be indirect or roundabout with the topic The way of using language largely depends on what we call

“cultural thought patterns” that varies in degree and different in different cultures

In his study of 700 essays of foreign students in the United States, Kaplan (1972) proposes

4 discourse structures (opposed to the Anglo – Saxon one) He mainly concentrates on writing and restricts his study to paragraphs in order to find out what he calls “cultural thought patterns”

FIGURE 2: Kaplan‟s diagram

(a) Anglo – Saxon linearity (English)

(b) Parallel constructions, with the first idea completed in the second part (Semitic)

(c) Circularity, with the topic looked at from different tangents (Oriental)

(d) Freedom to digress and introduce “extraneous” material (Romance)

(e) Similar to (d) but with different lengths, parenthetical amplifications and an abrupt stop (Russia)

According to Kaplan‟s diagrams, the English people often use direct expression and thought patterns and the Oriental people in general and the Vietnamese in particular seem

to prefer the roundabout and indirect patterns In the author‟s research on dialogues and texts, it is concluded that the Vietnamese are inclined to use indirect strategies and prefer employing roundabout expression, especially in communication

With the purpose of borrowing money from someone, the following example can be accepted by majority of Vietnamese respondents as a good request

Anh ạ, đợt này em xây nhà bận quá Đúng là “làm ruộng thì ra, làm nhà thì tốn” thật Anh biết không, lúc đầu dự trù khoảng 230 triệu là thoải mái thế mà mới xây xong phần thô đã mất đến hơn 160 triệu rồi Em còn có 70 triệu mà theo dự toán phải mất khoảng 90 triệu nữa mới hoàn thiện được Em cũng ngại quá nhưng cũng chẳng biết nhờ vả ai Em hỏi qua anh xem anh có thể cho em vay khoảng 20 triệu được không ạ? Em sẽ xin gửi lại anh tiền đầu quý tới anh ạ (Nguyen Quang, 2004)

(You know, I have been so busy with the new house It‟s rightly said that “doing the farming benefits more, building the house costs more.” At first, the estimation of about 230 million VND was enough for the whole construction but only the frame completed counts for 160 million VND It is estimated that it needs about 90 million VND for finishing while

I have only 70 million VND left I‟m so varied but I have no one else to depend on Thus, I have to call at you wondering whether you could lend me about 20 million)

However, this request is not accepted as a good request by all Anglicist respondents

We have discussed about the tendency of using indirectness of Vietnamese in particular and the Oriental people in general So why do people like using directness? Thomas (1995: 143) presents his view why the use of indirectness is so pervasive: it is because “…people

obtain some social or communicative advantages from its use.” He put forward a variety of reasons explaining the universal use of indirectness, including:

 The desire to make one‟s language more/ less interesting (for example, enjoying having fun with language)

 To increase the force of one‟s message

 Completing goals

 Politeness / regard for “face”

In conclusion, it is obvious that the ways of language used and strategies have been shaped

by culture However, there are some more factors affecting directness and indirectness in human communication

1.5.2 Socio-Cultural Factors Influencing the Use of Directness and Indirectness in Human Interaction

Thomas (1995:124) lists 4 main factors which appear to govern directness and indirectness

in all languages and cultures as follows:

 The relative power of the speaker over the hearer

 The social distance between the speaker and the hearer

 The degree to which X is rated an imposition in culture Y

 Relative right and obligation between the speaker and the hearer

Nguyen Quang (2003) presents these factors in more detail of 20 socio-cultural factors as follows:

1 Age: old people tend to be indirect than young people

2 Gender: Women are more in favor of indirect expression than men

3 Residence: Rural people appear more indirect than urban people

4 Occupation: people doing social sciences tend to be more indirect in their expression than those doing natural science

5 Position: people of higher status tend to be more direct in their expression than those of lower status

6 Mood: People tend to be more direct in their expression when they are angry

7 Personality: Extroverted people seem to be more direct in their expression than introverted people

8 Topic: People usually prefer indirectness when dealing with subtle and unsafe topics

9 Purpose: People tend to be more direct in their expression when they say something beneficial to the addressee

10 Setting: People prefer directness in an informal conversation climate

11 Location: People tend to be more direct when they are in their own home

12 Channel: People tend to use more directness in writing than in speaking when referring

to a sensitive topic

13 Family relation: People of the same blood tend to be more direct in their expression

14 Social distance: People with a close relation tend to conduct conversation more directly

15 Time pressure: people tend to be more direct in their expression under time pressure

16 Age power: Older people tend to be more direct when talking with younger people

17 Gender power: In a man-centered society, males tend to use more directness than females

18 Qualification power: In specific situations, scholars in a scholar first, peasants-later tend to be more direct in expression than others

19 Physical power: In specific situations, people who are physically stronger tend to be more direct in their expression than those who are physically weaker

20 Economic power: In specific situations, people who are richer tend to be more direct in their expression than those who are poor

Levine and Adelman (1993: 68) also claim that: “Cultural beliefs differ as to whatever directness or indirectness is considered positive In mainstream American culture, the ideal

form of communication includes being direct rather than indirect (Ideal here means that the culture values this style, although not everyone speaks directly.) There are several expressions in English that emphasize the importance of being direct: “Get to the point!”,

“Don‟t beat around the bush!”, “Let‟s get down to business!” These sayings all indicates the importance of dealing directly with issues rather than avoiding them.”

1.6 DISPARAGING

1.6.1 Disparaging as a speech act

In terms of its definition, abstracted from the Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (1992), “disparaging means suggesting that somebody / something is not important or valuable.” People tend to belittle someone / something when they disparage

In the light of cross-cultural pragmatics, as a speech act, disparaging belongs to the group

of expressive speech acts which state what the speakers feel They express psychological states The way people extend to disparagement is more or less guided by their beliefs, customs, personal characters, etc And the act of disparaging, like other speech acts is of course different in different countries and different cultures These differences are found in many aspects, mainly including purpose, topic, circumstance and strategies of disparaging

as well as the personal background of each person and the relationship between the people who disparages and who is being disparaged

1.6.2 Disparaging and criticizing

According to Thomas (1995: 96), it is not always possible to distinguish speech acts because some speech acts are considered as “related” in the sense that they share some certain key features For example, disparaging and criticizing both involve an attempt by the speaker to give negative evaluations on H‟s behavior, acts, choices, words, work, products, etc

Disparaging shares some preconditions of criticizing from S‟s view point

1 The act performed or the choice made by H is considered inappropriate according

to a set of evaluative criteria that S holds or a number of values and norms that S assumes to be shared between himself or herself and H

2 S feel dissatisfied with H‟s inappropriate action or choice and feel an urge to make his or her opinion known verbally

(Adapted from Wierzbicka‟s discussion of criticisms, 1897 and Olshtain & Weibach‟s disussion of complaints, 1993)

In some cases we can not differentiate disparaging and criticizing However, disparaging has a stronger degree of face threat than criticizing

Besides, criticizing isperformed in the hope of influencing H‟s future actions for the better for his or her own benefits as viewed by S (Adapted from Wierbicka, 1987) S thinks that his or her criticism will potentially lead to a change in H‟s future action or behavior and believe that H would not otherwise change or offer a remedy for the situation without his

or her criticism While criticizing has a rather positive purpose, disparaging is generally performed with a negative purpose S tends to give less value, less importance to H

In short, criticizing and disparaging are related and different in some ways They both show the negative evaluation of the S to the H and share some preconditions But disparaging has a stronger degree of face threat Criticizing originates from a positive purpose and including S‟s hope for a better performance of the H Disparaging is generally performed with a negative purpose of belittling others‟ performance, appearance, characteristics, etc Therefore, disparaging has a stronger degree of negative expression than criticizing

1.6.3 Popular topics for disparaging

S often disparage others with the following topics

1 Appearance (too fat, too ugly or having physical defects, etc)

2 Characters (selfish, unpunctual, careless, etc)

3 Ability (bad swimming/ driving / singing, etc)

4 Work performance (not finish a report, give a bad presentation, etc)

5 Family (son, daughter, husband, etc)

In the real life interactions, disparaging has proven to be a highly face threatening act Therefore, the appropriate strategies for disparaging need to be investigated thoroughly and introduced to help communicators succeed in their interactions Comparing disparaging strategies used by Vietnamese and American will be presented in chapter 3

CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY

2.1 SURVEY RESEARCH AS THE MAIN METHOD

In order to achieve the objective of the cross-cultural study, the main method of the study

is the quantitative one Although the study can be conducted by different ways, I decided

to use survey research due to the limitation of finance

The targeted populations are Vietnamese and American native speakers who are living in their own cultures In order to draw conclusions about the similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and American express disparagement in their own language and culture, I have to examine samples (subsets of the defined populations)

Sampling is the crucial methodological issue in survey research because it affects the

result which can be drawn from the study I am fully aware of the importance of a sample which is adequately representative the population I aim at Therefore, I use probability sampling for its reliable result Probability sampling involves selecting a sample that we know the probability that each element has of being selected Simple random sampling is used in my study to ensure that the essential characteristics of the sample are like those of the population Informants‟ parameters and communicating partners‟ parameters are considered to give a good sample Informants‟ parameters are supposed to affect the strategies they use However, the degree of influence will be proved after analyzing the data

2.2 SUBJECT OF THE STUDY

Authentic utterances made by American and Vietnamese people in their own languages and cultures

2.3 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENT

Data is collected from survey questionnaires The author designed two versions of survey questionnaires: one in English and the other in Vietnamese The survey is conducted with both Vietnamese and native speakers They are asked to give their specific utterances when they have to disparage in specific situations and under certain variables

2.4 DATA COLLECTING PROCEDURES

Data is collected by meeting people directly and sending them emails Finally, 40 survey questionnaires including 20 in English and 20 in Vietnamese have been selected for analysis

2.5 COMMENTS ON THE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRE

This cross- cultural research is to investigate some majors Vietnamese – American differences and similarities in disparaging In order to collect sufficient data for contrastive analysis, I design two versions of survey questionnaire: one in English and one in Vietnamese The survey questionnaire has two parts:

Part 1: general information about the informants

Part 2: how American and Vietnamese informants disparage in each situation with different communicating partners

The situations in the questionnaires were designed to reflect real life situations which consist of disparaging in five popular topics of disparaging (appearance / character / work performance / ability / family) and in three relationships: society, family and business

The questionnaire was intended to elicit the linguistic form and strategies of disparaging in the normal conversations It consists of 5 situations as follows:

Situation 1: How would you verbally disparage someone if he/she is too fat?

Situation 2: How would you verbally disparage someone if he/she is always unpunctual?

Situation 3: How would you verbally disparage someone if he /she has performed his / her

work badly?

Situation 4: How would you verbally disparage someone if he / she can not speak English

well despite his / her great effort?

Situation 5: How would you verbally disparage the following person if his / her son

misbehaves?

The informants‟ communicating partners were people in familial, social and business relations:

 Close friend

 Someone they dislike

 Acquaintance

 Sister/ Brother

 Aunt / Uncle

 Colleague (same sex)

 Colleague (opposite sex)

 Boss (younger)

 Boss (older)

2.6 COMMENTS ON THE INFORMANTS

Data were collected from two groups of informants The first group includes native English speakers who are living in the United States or working in some offices and language centers in Vietnam 20 completed questionnaires were received from these informants The second group was Vietnamese They are all living in Northern Vietnam

20 questionnaires were received

With the belief that the parameters of the informants play a very important role in considering their role relationship in communication, informants from both groups were requested to provide information about themselves as follows:

 Age :

 Young age (from 20 to 30)

 Middle age (from over 30 to below 50)

 Old age (over 50)

 Gender: male / female

 Marital status: married / single

 Occupation

 Where they spend most of their time: urban area / rural area

 Acquisition of languages other than their mother tongue

However, the informants were assured to be unidentified in any discussion of the data with the hope of obtaining more authentic utterances from them

In order to ensure compatibility, the questionnaires were distributed to the informants belonging to three groups of age, both genders, both married and unmarried status,

different groups of occupation and different groups of foreign language acquisition

CHAPTER 3: STRATEGIES OF DISPARAGING

3.1 STRATEGIES USED IN DISPARAGING

This study focuses on the act of disparaging across Vietnamese and American languages and cultures from cross-cultural pragmatic perspective and is based on the theories of politeness, directness and indirectness which have been reviewed in the previous chapter

As discussed earlier, what to say and how to say in disparaging are culture- specific and depend much on the parameters of communicating partners, the relationship between the person who disparages and the person who is disparaged, the context, the topic for disparaging and on paralinguistic and non- verbal escorts (which are beyond the scope of this thesis) In addition, the personality of each person (straight, sensitive, etc) also contributes to the act of disparaging

From our knowledge of politeness, directness and indirectness and the data collected by conducting the survey questionnaires, we would like to provide a descriptive account of strategies employed express disparagement by American and Vietnamese speakers and bring out the similarities and differences

3.1.1 Main types of disparaging strategies

In this chapter, the strategies are mainly divided into direct disparaging and indirect disparaging As disparaging is a highly face-threatening act, people tend to apply many strategies to convey their intention and minimize hurting the hearers

The collected data shows that people use both direct and indirect disparaging Speakers use negative adjectives and express their unpleasant feeling directly to the hearers Indirect disparaging is shown by many strategies including advising, being ironic, exaggerating, using idioms, using metaphor, offering help, ordering, requesting, using rhetorical questions, suggesting, supposing / wishing, warning for a bad result In some cases people choose not to perform disparaging because of their own characters (do not like disparaging others, do not like disparage women‟s appearance) Or some choose to take an action, use non verbal behavior (a disappointing look on the mother whose child misbehaves) or keep silent instead of performing verbal utterances These above cases are named “saying nothing” strategy These strategies are available in both English and Vietnamese

Type Strategies American Vietnamese

TABLE 2: Realization of strategies used in disparaging

Type 1: Direct Disparaging

Direct disparagement explicitly point out the problem with H‟s appearance, character, work performance, ability/ talent and family When delivering direct disparaging, S can give out a negative evaluation by using negative meaning adjectives such as “fat”,

“horrible”, “poor” and “bad” Direct disparaging is generally threaten Hs' face, and thus, is difficult to perform by the speaker However, our statistics have shown that this strategy is employed at the highest rate of all the strategies in Vietnamese: 23.6% In English, it ranks the second most used strategy: 13.4% This strategy can be illustrated in the following utterances

You are fat

(Cậu béo quá)

Late again!

(Lại đến muộn nữa rồi!)

You‟ve done your job poorly

(Cậu làm việc tệ quá!)

Your English is still bad

(Tiếng Anh của cậu vẫn còn dở lắm!)

You are a bad father

(Cậu là đồ không biết dạy con)

Thằng béo!

(Hey, fat boy!)

Cậu lúc nào cũng đến muộn!

(You are always late!)

Mày lúc nào cũng chậm chạp, bực cả mình!

(It drives me crazy when you are late!)

Thằng con cô cư xử tồi quá đi

(Your son behaves very poorly)

In addition, the evaluative adjectives with positive meaning in English are combined with a negation will also express negative evaluations

This doesn‟t seem quite right

I don‟t like the way you speak but your voice is so cute

(Tôi không thích cách bạn nói nhưng giọng bạn nghe rất hay)

Type 2: Advising

In order to avoid the face threat of the act of disparaging the speaker also chooses to give

an indirect disparaging which stresses on his cooperation with H by giving advice on how

to perform better, be in shape, teach the child well, study English better The speaker tells the hearer what he should do to improve the current situation It is clearly seen from the table that advising ranks third in terms of frequency among all disparaging strategies in both American and Vietnamese data: American – 12.4% and Vietnamese – 19.1% It means that both American and Vietnamese people prefer using advising This strategy can

be seen in following utterances

Do you exercise any? You should do some activities after work Have fun! Don‟t let work run your life!

(Bạn có tập thể thao không? Bạn nên tập luyện sau giờ làm việc Đừng để công việc cuốn cuộc đời mình đi như vậy.)

You should practice some more

(Bạn nên thực hành nhiều hơn)

I think for your health, you need to lose some weight

(Tôi nghĩ đến sức khỏe của bạn, bạn cần giảm cân đi)

You need to study more

(Anh cần phải học nhiều hơn nữa)

Get some gym

(Tập thể dục thôi)

You need to get back to the gym and cut back on burgers

(Này, cậu phải quay lại tập luyện và ăn ít bánh hamburger đi)

Cậu nên chú ý đến đúng giờ, đừng để mọi người chờ đợi nhé!

(You should be on time, don‟t let others wait for you.)

Tao nghĩ mày nên học cái khác thì hơn

(I think, you„d better study something different.)

Theo tôi anh phải bảo con anh đi

(I think you need to reprimand your son.)

Type 3: Suggesting

S avoids giving a direct utterance of disparaging by making a suggestion for improving the current situation S puts forward an idea or a plan for H to think about Suggesting is more favored by American people with 4.7% while it accounts for only 0.9% with Vietnamese

ones This is a polite strategy because it leaves chances for the hearer to consider and decide Therefore, its degree of imposition is less than advising As a result, the hearer feels comfortable even when he does not follow that suggestion

“Why don‟t we join a gym and start exercising together We can cook dinner together too and help each other try to get in shape.”

(Tại sao chúng ta không tham gia phòng tập và bắt đầu tập luyện cùng nhau Chúng ta cũng có thể ăn tối cùng nhau và giúp đỡ nhau để cùng khỏe mạnh)

I can see you are really trying Let‟s practice together

(Tôi có thể thấy là bạn đang thực sự cố gắng Chúng ta hãy thực hành cùng nhau nào)

Have you considered dieting?

(Bạn đã xem xét việc ăn kiêng chưa?)

Tớ và cậu cùng nhau luyện tiếng Anh nhé!

(Let‟s practice English together.)

Type 4: Requesting

S asks people to do things for improving the current situation Requesting is used by American people with higher rate than Vietnamese people (6.9% compared to 3.7%) They often use the followings:

Please take this work seriously

(Xin hãy làm việc nghiêm túc hơn)

Please be on time

(Lần sau cô đến đúng giờ giúp cháu với)

Stop being late

(Đừng đến muộn nữa)

My time is very valuable and I‟d really appreciate you letting me know if you are going to

be late so I can plan around it

(Tôi rất quý thời gian và tôi sẽ đánh giá rất cao nếu bạn cho tôi biết là bạn sẽ đến muộn để tôi có thể sắp xếp thời gian)

Bạn không dạy được con bạn thì đưa sang đây tớ dạy hộ cho

(If you can‟t teach your son, let me teach him for you.)

With the aim of reducing the negative effect of disparaging, people tend to use a different word to refer to the current situation This indirect strategy is more employed by Vietnamese people with 4.7% in comparison with 3.4% by American ones It is found in the following utterances

You are chubby

(Trông cô rất đầy đặn)

You seem not to be yourself

(Dường như đây không phải là cậu)

You are looking a little heavier these days

(Trông cậu dạo này nặng nề hơn)

Hey, big guy!

(Cậu“ béo”)

Trông chị dạo này khác quá tôi không nhận ra nữa

(These days you look so different that I can not recognize you.)

Trông xếp dạo này có vẻ tăng cân

(You seem to gain weight these days)

Type 6: Offering help

Some people apply this strategy to their boss or people who are close to them They offer help to improve the current situation American people use offering help with a much higher rate than Vietnamese people (5.2 % compared to 0.9%) This strategy shows the concern of the speaker to the hearer‟s problem Therefore, it helps to reduce the degree of face threatening effectively

Would you like some help doing this differently?

(Anh có cần tôi giúp việc này không?)

I noticed that you are having difficulty with your work these days Is there some way I can help?

(Tôi thấy gần đây bạn gặp khó khăn trong công việc Tôi có thể giúp gì cho bạn không?)

Let me help you to correct this

(Để tôi giúp bạn sửa nó)

Chắc em bận quá, để anh làm giúp nhé!

(You maybe very busy Let me do it for you!)

Xếp ơi, xếp có cần em giúp một tay xem lại việc này không ạ?

(May I help you to look over it again, sir?)

Type 7: Using rhetorical question

S uses rhetorical question with no intention of obtaining the answer as an indirect strategy

to express disparagement It is interesting to find out that its rate among Vietnamese people

is about three times as high as that of American people (11.1% compared to 3.3%) It proves that Vietnamese prefer to use rhetorical questions

Can you try harder?

(Cậu có thể cố hơn nữa được không?)

Now who will you blame?

(Nào bây giờ thì đổ lỗi cho ai?)

So you work a different schedule than me?

(Giờ làm việc của cậu khác của tớ à?)

I think you are a beautiful person, but I am concerned about your health Have you thought about how your weight affects your heart?”

(Tôi nghĩ rằng bạn là một người xinh đẹp nhưng tôi lo lắng cho sức khỏe của bạn Bạn có nghĩ tăng cân sẽ ảnh hưởng đến tim không?)

Mày dạy con như thế à?

(Is that the way you teach your son?)

Ai mà cũng không đúng giờ như chị thì sẽ thế nào?

(How will it be if everyone is unpunctual like you?)

Sao dạo này ông nặng nề thế?

(Why do you look so heavy these days?)

Anh đã nghe mọi người phàn nàn về anh chưa?

(Have you heard what people have complained about you?)

Type 8: Using metaphor

S wants to express his attitude or opinion toward H using words with metaphorical meaning This strategy is employed by Vietnamese people with higher rate than American ones (0.3% compared to 1.3%) It is recognized in following utterances

Your little ponk is acting like a monkey

(Thằng con trai chị đang cư xử như khỉ ấy)

Cậu nên chú ý về giờ giấc Cậu lúc nào cũng như rùa ấy

(You should pay attention to time You are like a turtle always)

Đúng là rùa

(You are a turtle)

Học ngu như bò

(You are as stupid as a cow)

Trông anh giống su mô thế

(You look like a sumo wrestler)

Chậm như ốc sên

(You are as slow as a snail)

Type 9: Using idioms

Some speakers employ idioms in disparaging This strategy is found with a higher percentage in Vietnam than in English (1.3% compared to 0.1%) For example,

Your son can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, but I guess you know that

(Con trai bạn đôi lúc thật là khó chịu, nhưng tôi đoán là bạn biết như vậy)

Cha nào con nấy

(Like father, like son)

Các cụ nhà ta đã có câu là dạy con từ thuở còn thơ, anh phải uốn nắn nó ngay để nó nên người

(People say that you should teach your child since he is young You have to get your son some education.)

Late again I‟ve been waiting you for ages

(Lại muộn nữa rồi! Tôi đã đợi bạn lâu lắm rồi)

Chờ cô cháu sắp ngủ được một giấc rồi

(I„ve been waiting for you so long that I„ve slept for a while)

Type 11: Being ironic

Being ironic is one of indirect strategies in which S says the opposite of what he means to convey his intended meaning It is found that the rate of being ironic is higher among