A study on politeness strategies in requests by the characters in the novel “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer

The current study aims to uncover how politeness strategies in requests are employed in the novel “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer.. The study aims to investigate English native speakers’

Nghiên cứu chiến lược lịch sự trong lời thỉnh

cầu của các nhân vật trong tiểu thuyết

“Chạng vạng” của Stephenie Meyer

Trần Thị Phương Linh

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn:

Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: The speech act of request is a face-threatening act in human’s

communication because it challenges the mutual face of both the speaker and the hearer The current study aims to uncover how politeness strategies in requests are employed in the novel “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer All the requests carrying the illocutionary force of getting somebody to do something serve as the data source The coding system is based on Blum-Kulka et al (1989) and Trosborg (1995)’s coding manual The findings show that the characters in “Twilight” overwhelmingly chose the Direct Strategies in formulating their requests, in which the Imperative Strategy or Mood Derivable was the most preferable strategy On the choice of Internal Modifications, the speakers in “Twilight” used a wide range

of mitigating devices within the Head Act to reduce the requestive force, mostly the Question forms, Downtoners, and Past tense With reference to External Modifications, the speakers mostly chose Grounders to give reasons for their requests The findings also show that the choice of request strategies and mitigating

devices was influenced by the relationships between the characters

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Lời thỉnh cầu; Chiến lược lịch sự; Kỹ năng nói; Tiểu thuyết

Content

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Language, as stated by Crystal (1992:212), is “the systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs, or written symbols in a human society for communication and self-expression” If communication is to be effective, both the speaker and the hearer need to have shared knowledge; i.e., the same perception of what they are talking about In other words, people need to have communicative competence

Hymes (1967, cited in Tam, 2005) asserts that communicative competence includes not only knowledge of the linguistic forms of a language but also knowledge of when, how and to whom it is appropriate to use these forms In other words, linguistic components; i.e grammatical, lexical, phonologicalare not enough for a language learner to avoid

cultural shock, miscommunication or even communication breakdown Language learners thereforeshould acquire pragmatic competence, i.e., the ability to perform language functions appropriately in social contexts Being aware of the importance of pragmatic ability, a lot of researchers have drawn their attention to its crucial role, highlighted the significance of social context, and made suggestions for appropriateness in communication

The teaching and learning of foreign languages, including English has shifted from linguistic forms of the target language to the communicative approach with more emphasis

on communicative competence in order to meet the demand of global development In line with this, the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam has witnessed a great effort in improving learners’ communicative competence More attention has been paid to oral skills and practice which stress on the pragmatic meanings of utterances in contexts Nevertheless, the traditional ways of teaching and learning, which mainly focused on the development of linguistic competence seem to hold its position as the prominent method This leads to the fact that Vietnamese learners appear to fail to communicate naturally and appropriately in English These learners may possess relatively good linguistic knowledge

to understand the structures and the words literally, but they fail to achieve communicative goals because they may not be aware of the hidden or unsaid meanings of utterances under certain settings, and lack social appropriateness and linguisticrealization rulesfor performing and respondingcommunicative acts Unfortunately, while grammatical errors are likely to be accepted by native speakers, English learners’ pragmatic incompetence seems to be much less tolerated, and is often consideredrude This again highly appreciates the importance of mastering saying the right thing at the right time to avoid unintentional impoliteness, misunderstandings, or communication breakdown

The speech act of request has been regarded as one of the face-threatening acts (FTAs) in communication, since it intrinsically threatens the hearer’s face and is affected

by social parameters (Brown and Levinson, 1987) Requests occur in everyday life and play a leading role in human interaction as a vital part of successful communication Hence, many interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatic studies within different language backgrounds have widely examined the speech act of request such as House & Kasper (1981, 1987), Blum-Kulka (1987), Blum-Kulka et al (1989), Trosborg (1995), Hassall (1999), Tam (2005) Most of those studies focused on examining the use of pragmalinguistic formulae employed to express the request head act and the modification devices that accompany it Obviously, these studies have investigated numerous aspects of the Head Act of request and provided a relatively full understanding in single language,

interlanguage, and cross-culture pragmatics However, there seems to remain gaps in literary genre that need to be bridged since literature, as being judged, plays a significant role in our life, especially the spiritual one It has worked as a reflection of society and culture (Thao, 2010); as a matter of fact, language, especially daily language used in a literary works appears to be presented truthfully and naturally

A long with the researcher’s special personal interest in the topic, these factors have

created an urge for her to choose the minor thesis, namely “A study on politeness strategies

in requests used by characters in the novel“Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer” The study

aims to investigate English native speakers’ use of polite request strategies and modification devices via the language employed by the characters in the novel It is an attempt to support the aforementioned studies and to fill the gap in the area

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at exploring how polite request strategies are appropriately manifested

in the English language Specifically, the study attempts to examine the choice of politeness strategies and modification devices in requests employed by the characters in the novel “Twilight” by Stepheanie Meyer

3 Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are:

- To uncover the use of politeness strategies in requests employed by the characters

in the novel “Twilight”

- To uncover the use of modification devices in requests employed by the characters

in the novel “Twilight”

4 Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following research questions:

 What politeness strategies are employed by the characters in “Twilight” in their requests?

 What mitigation devices are employed by characters in “Twilight” in their requests?

5 Scope of the study

The study focuses entirely on the verbal aspect related to speech acts Other non-verbal aspects such as facial expressions and eye contact are beyond the scope of the study Theories of speech acts and politeness are applied The study uses the theoretical framework which is based on Blum- Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg’s (1995) coding system All requests made by the characters in “Twilight” are the data source

6 Significance of the study

The study would hopefully be of theoretical and practical significance in the area of pragmatics where the use of linguistic acts should be taken into account

Theoretically, the study would contribute to a better understanding of speech acts in general and the speech act of request in particular

Practically, findings of the study would heighten Vietnamese learners and teachers’ awareness of native speakers’ use of request strategies As a result, Vietnamese learners of English could probably adopt appropriate tones of polite requests in the English language

to improve their pragmatic competence More importantly, the research findings would be

a reference source for those who have deep concerns about the utilization of politeness

strategies in requests as well as other speech acts

7 Method of the study

The method employed in this study is mainly the Quantitative method which stresses more on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistic The study makes use of utterances in “Twilight” as the major data source, thus counting and measuring are commonly used The research findings are generally presented in tables and charts or figures

8 Organization of the study

The study comprises three parts

Part A is “Introduction” which presents the rationale, aims and objectives, research

questions, scopes, significance, method and organization of the study

Part B entitled “Development” consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature on speech acts, the speech act of request, and

politeness theory which play a role of basis for the analysis work

Chapter 2 is “Methodology” which outlines the data collection, data analysis, and

analytical framework

overview on “Twilight”, and the 2nd

one is an investigation of polite request strategies which provides a collection of examples and detailed analysis to uncover how the characters in “Twilight” manage their requests politely on their choice of strategies and modifications

Part C, “Conclusion”, presents the conclusion of the study, implications, and

suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter, divided into three sections, provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research Section 1.1 discusses the theory of speech act and the speech act of request Section 1.2 discusses the main issues of politeness theory and indirectness in requests, and section 1.3reviews some previous studies conducted on the speech act of request

1.1 The speech act theory

1.1.1 Speech acts

1.1.2 The speech act of request

1.2 Politeness

1.2.1 Politeness theory

1.2.2 Social variables affecting politeness

1.2.3 Politeness and indirectness

1.2.4 Politeness and indirectness in requests

1.2.5 Modification

1.3 Previous studies on requests

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists of four main sections Section 2.1 revises the research questions whereas section 2.2 presents the data collection Section 2.3 discusses the data analysis, and the last section provides the study’s analytical framework

2.1 Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following research questions:

 What polite request strategies are employed by the characters in “Twilight”?

 What mitigation devices in requests are employed by the characters in “Twilight”?

2.2 Data collection

The data of the study is the corpus of 683 requests collected from the novel “Twilight”

by Stephenie Meyer published by Little, Brown and Company in 2005

The request utterances in this study are identified as those carrying the illocutionary force of getting somebody to do something, ranging from ordering to begging Specifically, in “Twilight”, the illocutionary force and propositional content of a request can be realized through syntax and the choice of words within context The relationships among the characters also contribute to the realization of the request utterances Such

suggestory forms as “Why don’t you sit with me today?” (p.87)or Elliptical phrases as

“Esme?” (p.401, a request to help Bella change her clothes) were accordingly coded as

request utterances

2.3 Data analysis

For data analysis, the study made use of the framework proposed by Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg’s (1995) coding scheme Depending on the contexts and linguistic devices used, the strategies were classified under three categories: Category I- Direct, Category II- Conventionally Indirect, and Category III- Non-Conventionally

Indirect (See Appendix B for sample of coding procedure) The number of requests in each

category was calculated along with its relative frequency of occurrence in the data Request modifications were also discussed, mainly in two groups: Internal modifications and external modifications The result was then presented in tables and charts

2.4 Analytical framework

The coding system used in this study is based closely on Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg’s (1995) coding manual A request is characterized to consist of a Head Act and additional elements such as Alerters, Perspectives, and Modifications, in which the modification elements are primarily focused The Head Act, regarded as the “core” of the request, is the minimal unit by which a request is performed

2.4.1 Alerters

There are three types of Alerters: Title/Role, First name, and Attention- getter

2.4.2 Perspective

Blum-Kulka et al (1989: 278):

1 Hearer perspective: Could you show me your driving license, please?

2 Speaker perspective: Could I see your driving license?

3 Inclusive: Could we swap cars?

4 Impersonal: Can one as for a little quiet?

2.4.3 Request strategies

A strategy is referred to as the way the Head Act of the request is realized with respect

to linguistic forms and means Eight request strategies belonging to three major categories

in this study follow the frameworks by Blum-Kulka et al (1989) and Trosborg (1995) They are ranked in order of increasing indirectness

2.4.3.1 Direct requests (DR)- Category 1

Strategy 1: Imperative

Strategy 2: Performative

Strategy 3: Statements of obligation and necessity

2.4.3.2 Conventionally indirect requests (CI)- Category 2

Strategy 4: Statements of speaker’s needs and demands

Strategy 5: Statements of speaker’s wishes and desires

Strategy 6: Suggestory formulae

Strategy 7: Query preparatory

a Reference to hearer’s ability

b Reference to hearer’s willingness

c Permission request

2.4.3.3 Non- conventionally indirect requests (NCI)- Category 3

Strategy 8: Non-explicit requests

a Stating potential grounders:

b Questioning the feasibility of the precondition for the act

c Questioning the availability of the Hearer

2.4.4 Internal modification

Internal modification includes syntactic downgraders, lexical/phrasal downgraders, and upgraders

2.4.4.1 Syntactic downgraders

 Questions

 Negation

 Past tense

 Conditional clause

 Embedding

 Modals

 Non-conventional structures

 Aspect (progressive)

2.4.4.2 Lexical/ Phrasal downgraders

 Politeness markers

 Consultative devices

 Downtoners

 Understatements

 Hedges

 Hesitators

 Interpersonal marker

2.4.4.3 Upgraders

 Adverbial intensifiers

 Do- constructions

 Commitment upgraders

 Lexical intensification

 Time intensifiers

2.4.5 External modifications

 Preparators

 Grounders

 Disarmers

 Sweeteners

 Promise of a reward

 Cost minimizing

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 An overview on “Twilight”

“Twilight” is the first book in the Twilight Saga series written by an American writer, Stephenie Meyer The series includes four books: “Twilight”, “New Moon”, “Eclipse”, and

“Breaking Dawn” The first book was first published by Little, Brown and Company Publisher

in 2005

Generally speaking, “Twilight” can be seen as a romance novel “Twilight” has created a new vampire world, where a vampire can live among human, socialize with them, and drink animal’s blood though their thirst for human’s often challenges them More interestingly, in this world a vampire can fall in love with a human girl and love her enough not to kill her

“Twilight” is written in the first person narrative through Bella’s eyes The story is set primarily in Forks and other cities in Washington DC, America such as Port Angeles and La Push.The novel is a romance between Bella Swan, a quiet eighteen year-old girl and Edward Cullen, a vampire They have to face with the dangers inevitably intertwined with the existence

of human blood drinking vampires, but finally overcome all dangers and obstacles to be with each other

3.2 Politeness strategies in requests by the characters in “Twilight”

3.2.1 The utilization of strategies

3.2.1.1 Balance of politeness strategies in requests in “Twilight”

A wide range of polite request strategies belonging to the three categories was employed

by the characters in the novel “Twilight” As seen from Table 1, the most frequently used request

strategy types were Direct(DR) and Conventionally Indirect(CI) ones, with a rather small

difference in the occurring rates The results show that 323 request utterances (47.3%) out of 683

were opted out for the Direct category, and 251 (36.7%) belong to the Conventionally Indirect category The least preferred request strategies in “Twilight” were Non-conventionally Indirect(NCI) ones with the frequency of 16% (109 utterances)

As appears in the data, the characters in “Twilight” overwhelmingly chose the

DRstrategies in formulating their requests This challenges the presumption that American

speakers tends to be direct in their conversations A possible explanation for this is that directness, which might be used to show solidarity, friendliness, and concerns, is one of the typical features of the American culture Moreover, in “Twilight”, the cases of emergencies and extreme tensions where most direct strategies were found appeared with a relatively high frequency Close relationship among the characters of the novel, namely lovers, family members and friends, is also another explanation

3.2.1.2 Analysing politeness strategies in requests used in “Twilight”

Different strategies in requests were opted by the characters in “Twilight” All of the eight strategies with sub-strategies based on Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) and Trosborg (1995)’s coding manual were found in this novel

Figure 2: Polite request strategies by types in “Twilight”

Imp.= Imperatives Ned.= Needs Abi.= Ability Grou.= Grounders Perf.=

Performatives

Desi.= Desires Will.= Willingness Feas.= Feasibility

Obli.= Obligation Sug.= Suggestory formulae Perm.=Permission

requests

Avail.=

Availability Figure 2 gives the values for the four most preferable request strategies used The data

shows that the Imperativestrategy ranks in the first position with the frequency of 38.9%, respectively higher than other three most frequently used strategies, namely Willingness (10%), Grounders (9.4%), and Suggestoryformulae (9.2%) These are followed by Obligation (7.5%), Ability (6.3%), Permission requests (4.7%), Feasibility (4%), and Desires (3.7%) The least strategies used were Performatives, Availability, and Needs with the frequency of occurrence of

0.9%, 2.6%, and 2.9% in succession

All in all, in terms of strategies, it is obvious that the characters in “Twilight” used a variety

of the request strategies, but were more declined to the Imperative one Despite classified in the same Direct Category, the Performative strategy was found to be employed at the lowest

frequency

3.2.2 The utilization of internal and external modifications

3.2.2.1 The use of internal modifications

38.9

0.9

7.5 2.9 3.7

9.2

2.6 0

10

20

30

40

50

Imp Perf Obli Ned Desi Sug Abi Will Perm Grou Feas Avail.

Figure 3: The use of internal modifications in “Twilight”

Quest.=

Questions

Cond.= Conditional Clauses Asp.= Aspect Hes.=

Hesistators Neg.= Negation Cons.= Consultative Devices Emb.= Embedding Interp.=

Interper-sonal Markers Pst.= Past tense Pol.= Politeness Markers Dnt.= Downtoners

Mod.= Modals NC Stru= Non-conventional

structures

Unds.=

Understatements

Upg.= Upgraders

The characters in “Twilight” prominently used Question form at the frequency of 39.6%, followed by Downtoners (7.4%), Past tense (7.1%), Negation and Modals with the same rate of 6.5% Politeness Markers and Hesistators were both used at the frequency of 5.3%, whereas Understatements were employed with a slightly smaller amount (4.8%) Conditional Clauses, Consultative Devices, Interpersonal Markers, and Upgraders shared the same frequency of 3.5% At the bottom end, only a small percentage was put aside as Non-conventionally Structures (0.4%), a little increased amount of Aspect (0.7%), and a slightly larger amount of Embedding (2.1%)

3.2.2.2 The use of external modifications or Supportive Moves

Modifications Grd Prep Dis Swtn Prom Cos

Percentage (%) 78.8 5.1 3.8 1.9 6.4 3.8

Table 4: The use of external modifications in “Twilight”

Grd = Grounders Dis = Disarmers Prom = Promise of a reward

Prep = Preparators Swtn = Sweeteners Cos = Cost minimizing

As shown in Table 4, various External Modifications or Supportive Moves were found in the novel with the total number of appearances of 156 The results indicate that Grounders were the

most preferred devices by the speakers with the frequency of 78.8% (n=123) The second

ranking moves were Promise of a reward with 6.4% (n= 10) A little smaller amount was of Preparators with 5.1% (n= 8) Disarmers and Cost Minimizing were used at the same percentage

39.6

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10

20

30

40

50