A study on different types of verbal responses to questions in english conversations with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY LƯU THỊ THÚY HẰNG A STUDY ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF VERBAL RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE VI

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

LƯU THỊ THÚY HẰNG

A STUDY ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF VERBAL RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG CÁC LOẠI LỜI ĐÁP KHÁC NHAU CHO CÂU HỎI ĐÀM THOẠI TIẾNG ANH TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI

TIẾNG VIỆT )

M.A THESIS Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2015

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

LƯU THỊ THÚY HẰNG

A STUDY ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF VERBAL RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHỮNG CÁC LOẠI LỜI ĐÁP KHÁC NHAU CHO CÂU HỎI ĐÀM THOẠI TIẾNG ANH TRONG SỰ

LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT )

M.A THESIS

Field: English Language Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang

Hanoi, 2015

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A STUDY ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF VERBAL RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS IN ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2015

Luu Thi Thuy Hang

Approved by SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Dr Vo Dai Quang

Date:………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to

my professor, Dr Vo Dai Quang From the point of a teacher, an advisor and a mentor, you introduced and inspired me to do this research My professional development has been growing increasingly with your precious guidance and continuous motivation

My special thanks go to all my lectures in Post-graduate Department of Ha Noi Open University for their precious assistance, knowledge and enthusiasm

I own my parents for their constant source of love, support and encouragement I am immensely grateful to them for standing behind me whenever I needed them especially in times of difficulties

I would also want to extend a special shout-out to all the research participants Without your valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaire, the project would not have been accomplished

Finally, my special thanks go to all my dear friends for their understanding and assistance during the process of preparing this research I count each of you as my special blessings

While I am greatly indebted to all of these people for their tireless help to my completion of this thesis, I myself remain responsible for any inadequacies that are found in this work

Luu Thi Thuy Hang

In Vietnam nowadays, the country is integrating into the global village More and more foreign companies and organizations have been sprung up like mushroom Therefore, communication skills with foreign counterparts play an important role in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of their work Vietnamese staff’s ability to communicate with foreigners has become a subject of discussion

Due to the differences in response type usage to questions across cultures, it is unavoidable for Vietnamese learners of English to have some problems in responding to questions On the basis of analyzing these problems, some suggestions for better teaching and learning of English in Vietnamese are presented I hope this paper will help students understand the differences of verbal resonses to questions in Vietnamese and English conversation to become more proficient in their studying of English.The study hopes to provide a comprehensive picture of response patterns to question both in English and Vietnamese conversation

LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

DCT: Discourse Completion Test

NSE: Native Speaker English

NSV: Native Speaker Vietnamese

2 Lists of tables

Table 1: Correlation of content and format in adjacency pair 11

Table 2: Forms of indirect responses to questions 22

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate oforiginality………

Acknowledgement……… ……

Abstract………

List of tables and abbreviations

Table of contents

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale …

1.2 Aims of the study …

1.3 Objectives of the study …

1.4 Scope of the study …

1.5 Significance of the study …

1.6 Structure of the study …

CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review the previous study

2.1.1.Review of previous studies overseas………

2.1.2.Review of previous studies in Vietnam

2.2 Review the theoretical background

2.2.1 Conversational theory …

2.2.1.1.Conversation ………

2.2.1.2 Conversation structure

2.2.1.3 Conversation analysis

2.2.1.4.Conversational principle

2.2.1.5 Verbal communication

2.2.2 Questions and Responses

2.3.Summary

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1.Research-governing orientations …

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ii iii

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3.1.1 Research questions …

3.1.2 Research setting

3.2 Research methods

3.2.1.Data collection

3.2.2.Data analysis

3.3.Summary

CHAPTER 4 : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1.The different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation

4.1.1 Direct responses

4.1.2 Indirect responses

4.2 Similarities and differences of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversation

4.2.1 Similarities

4.2.2 Differences

4.3 Some possible implications for teaching the different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation

4.4 Summary

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation .…

5.2 Concluding remarks .…

5.3 Limitation of the research

5.4 Suggestions for further studies

REFERENCES

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In the age of global communication, it is important and necessary

to communicate effectively This requires language learners not only the knowledge of linguistic structure of the target language but also ability to use it appropriately in different situations, depending on factors such as settings, context and relationships between speakers (Washburn, 2001)

In Vietnam, as the economy grows and international business develops, English proficiency becomes a master tool for young people to get

a job They encounter foreigners in everyday settings where communication

is necessary In the modern society, the need for communication is increasing, especially in the process of globalization, when communication spreads beyond the boundary of a country During the last decades, linguistic researchers have broadened their focus of their interests from the development of grammatical competence to other areas of target language development, such as discourse and pragmatic competence, common speech routines, for example, requests, apologies, complaints, compliments, refusals, and the like have been most frequently studied in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics

A question which is now posed to us is how we can precisely understand and interpret the speaker’s intents to a question; what types of question responses are; what strategies the speaker uses to respond to questions; and what factors affect speaker’s responding behavior This is the reason that motivated our choice of the research to present a contrastive analysis of responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversation Through the study, we hope to gain some insights which highlight both the similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese response types, strategies used to respond to question by Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese The study will also try to present difficulties as well as some practical recommendations for the process of teaching and learning English

1.2.AIMS OF THE STUDY

The study aims at pointing out the different types of responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversations, thus suggesting some implications for teaching them to the Vietnamese learners of English as foreign language

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

To achieve the above mentioned aims, the following objectives are put forward:

- Finding out the different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation

- Describing the similarities and differences of verbal responses to questions in English conversation and the Vietnamese ones

- Suggesting some possible implications for learning and teaching the different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation

1.4.SCOPE OF THE STUDY

In this paper, the similarities and differences of verbal responses to

questions in English conversation and the Vietnamese ones will be

discussed under five types, which are:

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Theoretically, the study is carried out with the hope to distinguish the different types of responses to questions as well as different responding strategies in English and Vietnamese conversations.Practically, the reasearch hope that the finding could make contributions to put forward some implications for teaching the the verbal responses to questions in Enghlish conversation

1.6.STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

The thesis consists of five main chapters

Chapter 1 includes six small parts: rationale, aims, objectives, scope,

significance and structure of the study

Chapter 2 points outcomprehensible review of theoretical background on conversational theory and questions and responses, and it is concerned with literature review in which attention is paid to the classification of questions

and responses in the theoretical framework by Tsui (1994)

Chapter 3 describes the methodology used in the study such as the research-governing orientations and research methods Research-governing orientations includes research questions, research setting Research methods includes major method and supporting methods, data collection and data analysis

Chapter 4 is the findings and discussions This part discusses three circumstances: different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation, similarities and differences of verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnamese convesation and some possible implications for teaching the different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversation

Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings of the study, point out the limitations of the study and suggests areas for further research

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.Review the previous study

2.1.1.Review of previous studies overseas

It is not correct that a behavioral approach requires any series of responses

to be explained by a chaining hypothesis The explanation may consist of an appeal to the size of unit to be considered, or to a series of outside stimuli which are correlated with the series of responses, or to the temporal gradient between succesive responses and the reinforcement in fixed interval

behaviour ( Dews, 1962) There are no doubt other such explanations for the emission of a series of responses which are perfectly acceptable to

behaviour theory, and some of these may well eventually have to be

invoked In any case, behavior theory does not rest upon the validity of the chaining hypothesis Nevertheless, we have evidence in this book for

viability of the chaining hypothesis to explain the emission of certain kinds

of verbal behavior under particular conditions It is the kind of research which will reveal the extent to which different theories are indeed necessary

to explain the emission of a series of verbal responses

2.1.2 Review of previous studies in Vietnam

A number of studies have been carried out so far on different types of verbal responses to questions in English conversations with reference to Vietnamese equivalents by Vietnamese authors such as: A study on English and Vietnamese responses to compliments ( Tam Thanh ,2011), A cross-cutural study of giving compliments andresponses in English and Vietnamese (Thanh Canh, 2010)

According to Thanh (2011), with the purpose to make an investigation into syntactic and pragmatic features of verbal responses to compliments

in their contrast in English and Vietnamese, this study aims to describe and analyze different types of compliment responses in English and Vietnamese

in order to increase knowledge and effective use of verbal responses to

compliments in teaching and learning English as a foreign language

According to Canh( 2010),the main purpose of this thesis is to raise the aware of culture gap It isdone, focused on the comparison of the ways

of giving compliment and responding tocompliments between the English and the Vietnamese Using the authenticable datafrom survey, which is conducted with 30 native speakers in each culture, this researchis carried out with three sub-aims: (1) to find out similarities and differences betweentwo cultures in the way they perform speech act of compliment; (2) to investigate theculture factors that have influence on the word choice of interlocutors; (3) to enrichthe knowledge of second language learners about the importance of culture factor inleaning target language The result also illustrates the fact that people in two culturesare very friendly They tend to give compliments a lot However, what theycompliment on, how they give and respond to, it differs How detailed theinformation

is it? The readers will find the answers in the next chapters of the thesis

Research on Viet Nam speech acts of refusal restricted to indirectness and directness includes a study on some cross-cultural differences in refusing a request in English and Vietnamese (Phan, 2001).She found that both Angolophone and Vietnamese informants tended to use more direct refusals than directs ones Moreover, both Anglophone and Vietnamese always exceeded the urbanies in the degree of indirectness Informants who did not know any foreign language are less direct and more indirect than those with

Anglophone and Vietnamese when refusing Comparing the degree of directness and indirectness of refusals extended by two groups of informants, all the Anglophone informants were more direct than Vietnamese ones

In general, as all the other speech acts, refusal occurs in all languages However, people coming from different cultures speaking different language refuse in different ways Among all the studies on refusals, in terms of language examined, English have been by far the most commonly investigated languages of comparison for studies on native and non-native refusals, followed by Japanese as a first or second language Other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Mexican, German are also examined Vietnamese studies on speech acts of refusal are still limited Moreover, compared among studies of Vietnam speech acts by far, refusals of requests

or apologies received more attention than refusals of invitations Until now, there have been some works studying refusals Nguyen Phuong Chi studied some ways of refusals: nonverbal like shaking head, brushing something aside, having a dirty look… and verbal Pham Thi Van Quyen studied the refusals of requesting in Vietnamese in comparison with English basing on some available situations Nguyen Thi Hai studied the refusals in conversations with such speech acts as “requesting”, “asking, “begging”,

“advising”, “inviting”, “ thanking”, “ complimenting”, “ congratulating”

…in Vietnamese

2.2 REVIEW THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Conversational theory

2.2.1.1 Conversation

First and foremost, it is necessary to clarify the term “conversation” Conversation is the primary means for human communication Many linguists have given different definitions of what a conversation is, as follow: “Conversation is the exchange of language through language” (Hornby et al, 1963), or “conversation is a friendly, natural talk in which people exchange information, ideas, and emotion to one another” (Collins, 1987) Levinson sees conversation as “familiar predominant kind of talk in which two or more participants freely alternate in speaking, which generally occurs outside specific institutional settings like religious services, law courts, classroom, and the like” However, the definition of Finegan et.al about the conversation may help us understand deeply

“A conversation can be viewed as a series of speech acts- greetings, enquiries, congratulations, comment, invitations, requests…to accomplish the work of these speech acts, some organization is essential: we take turns

to speak, answer questions, mark the beginning and end of conversation, and make corrections when they are needed ”

2.2.1.2 Conversation structure

When we are talking to each other we are not just pronouncing words

By saying something we are also doing something An utterance such as

“Could you close the door?” can function as a request for information or a warning depends on the circumstances When we say something, we also expect the addressee to respond in one way or another, by answering a question, by agreeing or disagreeing to a proposal, by acknowledging receipt of information, and so on, in other words by being an active partner This is what interaction is about The term “interaction” could actually apply to a very large number of quite different social encounters For example, a teacher talking to a student in a classroom is one kind of

interaction Others include a boss talking to his assistant at the workplace, a doctor to patient in a clinic.The basic pattern “I speak – you speak – I speak – you speak” is what linguists call the structure of conversation The study

of question responding acts in conversation is necessary There are two approaches to examine the conversation structure: conversation analysis and discourse analysis

2.2.1.3.Conversation analysis

Many conversational analysis researchers have defined ordinary conversation as the kind of casual, social talk that routinely occurs between friends and acquaintances, either face-to-face or on the phone According to Markee (2000) “conversation analysis concerned with naturally occurring instances of everyday talk follow still another, separate academic tradition

of inquiry, which concentrates on the actual discourse mechanisms that serve to allocate turns of speaking, to negotiate changes in focus and to manage and direct the flow of interaction” Conversation analysis, like ethnomethodology, focuses on the common, everyday competencies that make the social interaction possible It examines oral dialogue to determine the social and pragmatic principle whereby speakers and hearers negotiate, structure and interpret conversation The general strategy in conversation analysis is to examine actual verbal interactions in order to bring the structural properties of talk The descriptive units that the conversation analysis has been using in describing the structure of conversation are Turn, Adjacency pair and Sequence

Conversation is a collaborative process A speaker does not say everything he or she wants to say in a single utterance Conversation progresses as a series of turns Turn is seen as everything one speaker says before another begins to speak Turn might be short or long Some short

turns consist of a single word like turn (1) and (4) in the following telephone closing

of a second part of the same pair There is a class of first pair parts which include Questions, Greetings, Offers, Requests, etc For some first pair parts, the second pair part is reciprocal (Greeting – Greeting); for some there

is only one appropriate second (Question – Answer), for some more than one (Complaint – Apology/Justification) For examples: (2)

First past

A: Hello

A: What time is it?

A: Morning, Bob! Late again!

Second Part

B: Hi B: About eighty-thirty B: I’m ever sorry I promise it won’t happen again

In a second part pair, there is often a choice of two likely responses

A request is most likely to be followed by either an acceptance of refusal

An assessment is responded by an agreement or disagreement In such cases, one of the responses is termed the preferred response and the other the dispreferred response The preferred is the structurally expected next act and the dispreferred is the structurally unexpected next act The following general patterns are presented by Levinson (1983, p 336)

Preferred Dispreferred

Invitation/Offer Accept Refuse

Question Expected answer Unexpected answer or

non-answer

Table 1 Correlation of content and format in adjacency pair

Sequence

The structure of adjacency pair described so far has been linear: The first pair part followed by the second pair part However, there are also cases of embedding: one pair occurring inside another Sometimes, either because the listener does not understand or because he does not want to commit himself until he knows more or because he is simply stalling, a next speaker produces not a second part but another first pair part This conversational fragment is referred to as insertion sequence Tapes of sequence are illustrated in <3> and <4>:

<3> Agent: Do you want the early flight?

Client: What time does it arrive?

Agent: Five-fifty

Client: Yeah – that’s great

(=Q1) (=Q2) (=A2) (=A1) This sequence takes the form of Q1 - Q2 - A2 - A1, A1 is the answer of Q1, and A2 is the answer of Q2 Therefore, the middle pair Q2 - A2 is called an insertion sequence <4> A: Your jewellery looks very nice

B: Which one do you mean exactly?

A: The necklace

B: Well, I don’t think the same

(Assessment) (Question) (Answer) (Disagreement)

In this conversation, there is pair which consists of making an assessment disagreement with an insertion sequence of question answer pair which seems to function as a condition on the disagreement being provided

Discourse analysis

Coulthard (1985) proposed a descriptive framework for analyzing conversation They discovered a typical classroom exchange that is made up

of three moves: an initiating move, a responding move, a follow-up move,

as the following example:

<5> T: What does the next one mean?

You don’t often see that one round

here, Miri

P: Danger falling rocks

T: Danger, falling rock

Initiating move Responding move

Follow-up move

However, Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) also pointed out that when a move consists of more than one act, then one of the acts is the main act called head act which carries the discourse function of the entire move It is obligation The rest are subsidiary acts called pre-head act if they precede the head act, or post-head act if they follow the head act They are optional Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) illustrated the following conversation:

B: Thanks (Sit down)

(1) (2)

In this conversation, (1) consists of two acts: a question “Why are you standing?” and an invitation “Do sit down” Obviously, the main discourse function of move (1) is an invitation (not a question) B’s response to the invitation is obligatory B’s response “Thanks” can be understood as accepting the invitation A cannot challenge B for not responding to his question If B says “Well, I have been sitting all day”, B’s response is not only an answer to the question, but rather a declination of the invitation A will not challenge B for having only responded to the question but also not the invitation

However, the fact that an initiating move sets up the expectation of a responding move does not mean that the former will always be followed by the latter After the production of an initiation, the next speaker makes a

systemic choice of whether, to support or reject it The following is an illustration of how the system works in conversation form (Tsui, 1994) Tsui supposes a tourist in Birmingham City Centre asks a passer-by “Can you tell

me where New Street station is?” The followings are examples of the choices that are available to the passer-by:

<7> Tourist

Passer-by

Can you tell me where New Street station is?

(a) It’s just round the corner (b) Do you know where the shopping centre is?

(c) Sorry, I’m a stranger here

The illustration shows the passer-by the choice of supporting the utterance or rejecting it altogether If he chooses the former, then he has the choice of producing a response, which supplies the information (7a) Or he may produce another elicitation before supplying the information (7b) If the choice is to reject the utterance, he may reject the assumption that he is able

to supply the requested information (7c)

2.2.1.4 Conversational principle

Co-operation and implicature

It has become clear from the studies of conversation that conversation proceeds on the basis that participants are “reasonable” people who can be expected to deal decently with one another In considering the suitability of participants’ moves in conversation, Grice (1975, p 45) formulates a rough general principle which participants will be expected to observe as follows:

“Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the state at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged One might label this the cooperative principle”

Grice has described four categories of special cases of this principle which he called “Maxims” These maxims can briefly be characterized in modified form below:

Maxim of Quantity: Be brief Make your contribution as informative as is required and no more

Maxim of Quality: Be true Do not say what you believe to be false and do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

Maxim of Relation: Be relevant

Maxim of Manner: Be clear Avoid obscurity and ambiguity

Grice points out that speaker do not always follow these maxims They may violate, exploit the maxims That is to say, they do not give as much of the relevant information as he could, or he may offer utterances ambiguously, etc In such instances, the conversation maxims provide a basis for the hearer to construct a sequence of inferences which make it relevant or at least cooperative Grice called this process “implicature”

Let us consider this example:

<8> A: What do you think of our new boss?

B: Not very nice A: Not nice? I think he’s great

This conversation is constructed on the basis of the observation that when a speaker questions a proposition stated by the previous speaker, he is often signaling disagreement by questioning is not relevant unless the speaker is implying disagreement with that statement In brief, conversation

principle Speakers and hearers are guided by considerations of quantity, quantity relation, manner and the process of implicature which allow them

to figure out relationships between the said and the unsaid According to Thomas (1998) a speaker can say one thing and manage to mean something else or something more by exploiting the fact that he may be presumed to be cooperative, in particular, to be speaking truthfully, informatively, relevantly, and otherwise, appropriately The listener relies on this presumption to make a contextually driven inference from what the speaker says to what the speaker means In other words, the hearer has to work out from what is said by appealing to the rules governing successful conversational interaction Sometimes the speaker’s reply is untrue and uncooperative but in fact this is the sort of sarcastic reply we encounter everyday and have no problem at all in interpreting How do we interpret it? There are two ways of inferring the meaning by the speaker: Observation to maxims and Non-observation to maxims

Observation to maxims: observing maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner

Non-observation to maxims: flouting maxims of Quantity, Quality, Relation and Manner

Politeness principles

In the aspects of politeness, different ways of responses to questions ultimately influence someone’s behavior or attitude According to Green (1996), politeness is seen as trade in commodity called face Face is defined

as consisting of the freedom to act unimpeded (Negative Face) and the satisfaction of having one’s value approved of (Positive Face) To maintain face requires the cooperation of others’ actions and value systems, so

interactants trade face, paying face whenever they must perform a threatening act in the course of accomplishing their goals Brown and Levinson (1987) argues that when speaker does an act, which he believes may threaten addressee’s face, speaker must calculate how much he is risking in performing the face – threatening act Therefore, there are some factors affecting to this calculation: speaker’s estimates of the social distance assumed to separate speaker and hearer, the relative social power of speaker and hearer, and the extent to which the act contemplated is considered to be an imposition in the culture of which speaker and hearer are members

face-2.2.1.5 Verbal communication

Communication can be understood as “the exchange of ideas, information, etc between two or more persons” Successful communication should not only send information to another but also ensure that this information is understood by the receivers in more or less the way it is intended by the sender

Communication can take in many different ways Generally speaking, two categories of communication can be identified The first is verbal communication, that is communication using language and speech to share

or exchange information The second is non-verbal communication; that is communication without the use of language but depending rather on other channels such as body language, eye contact, physical appearance, attitude distance and physical contact Due to the limitation of the small study, we only research verbal communication that verbal responses to questions in English and Vietnamese conversations are specifically taken into the consideration

2.2.2 Questions and Responses

Quirk, R & Greenbeam, S (1987) propose that there are three major classes of questions according to the answer they expect They are: Yes-No question, Tag-question, Question Words Besides these, Lyons (1977) characterizes question as utterance with particular illocutionary force The difference between a question and a statement is that the former contains a feature of doubt; the speaker should not know the answer to his questions

Robert, D & Collins, C (1984) see questions as requests and directives They suggest that the logic form of questions should be “I request that you tell me”, instead of “I ask you” Butt (2000) considers questions as a kind of directives on the grounds that a directive is an instruction to perform something and questions are instructions to make verbal perform For example “Tell me the time.” is a directive to make a verbal performance

However, Tsui (1994) and Lyons (1977) assert that questions are not kind of request They also support some examples to illustrate, such as

“No” in response to Yes-No questions:

<9>

<10>

A: Is the door open?

B: No A: Open the door, please?

B: No

In the M.A thesis of linguistic: Comparison of structures of Vietnamese and English Questions, Tran Chi Mai (2000) propose two main kinds of Vietnamese questions They are alternative questions and non-alternative questions according to the purposes in the relation of responses

According to Hoang Trong Phien (1980), questions are classified into types basing on the features of questions and responses He asserts that the speaker mainly makes questions because of “unobvious” things This also decides the responses

sub-Non-alternative questions

This kind of questions is created in the hope that the hearer gives the responses In Vietnamese, we often use interrogative pronouns, such as: ai (who), thế nào ( How), đi đâu (where), bao giờ ( when)

<11>

<12>

Ai đang ngoài vườn đấy ạ? (Who is in the garden?)

Cháu đây, bà ạ (It’s me.)

Sao chị biết anh ấy không có tiền? (How do you know that he has money?)

Vì anh ấy trúng vé số (He has just won lottery.)

Alternative questions

This kind of questions often appears some words, such as: có phải, hay….the addressee often gives the response on the basis of the purposes of questions

<13>

<14>

Ai đưa nó đi học bây giờ, tôi hay cô?

Anh ta là người tử tế hay không phải là người tử tế?

Through the literature, there are many linguists pay much attention to initiating acts: requesting, complimenting, complaining…however, the studies of responses are less mentioned Although we meet much difficult to find references to do our research, we try our best to give some types of

followings are various patterns of responses to questions defined linguistic researchers in English and Vietnamese

Lakoff (1973) mentions two kinds of responses to questions: answers and replies According to Lakoff, a question like “What’s the time, please?” has the underlying structure, “I request that you supply the information necessary for us to know what time it is” Let’s consider the following example:

<15> A: What’s the time?

B: (a) Eleven

(b) Time for coffee (c)I haven’t got a watch, sorry

(d) How hold I know

(e) Ask Jack

(f) You know bloody well what time it is (g) Why do you ask?

(h) What did you say?

(i) What do you mean?

Utterance like those in (a) and (b) respond to the question and are considered to be “answer”, whereas utterances like those in (c) to (i) respond to the verb of questioning itself and are considered to be “replies” Lakoff (1973) sees them as all appropriate responses, although some of

them do not satisfy the speaker It is clear that every question is followed by

a set of responses, but the responses are not the answers to the question For example:

<16> A: Where’s Peter’s office?

B: (a) I do not know

(b) I can not tell you

(c) That is none of your business

(d) It is on the second floor

(e) It is over there

Supporting Tsui’s ideas, Dik also illustrates the example above

<25> He sees that all utterances (a) to (e) are responses, but the utterances

(d) and (e) are answers

In the book “An Introduction to Discourse Analysis”, Coulthard (1985) proposes every time a speaker asks a question, there is a set of underlying assumptions, all of which must be true if he is to receive the answer he seeks However, some of assumptions sometimes may not hold while the responses may consist of a challenge or a denial to the assumption Coulthard gives his examination about questions and responses

in the novel “Othello”, and sees that there are eight assumptions of questioning and the eight corresponding challenges and denials to the assumptions that: addressee is listening, addressee hears the question, speaker questions at an appropriate time, addressee understands the question, addressee accepts speaker and empowered to ask the question, addressee thinks the speaker does not know the answer, address is willing to answer, addressee knows the answer In Vietnamese, Le Anh Xuan (2000)

studies positive and negative responding acts in form of questions His studies are on the different types of indirect responses to seeking information questions These indirect responses can be in form of a statement, a question, an exclamation and a special pattern, such as, proverbs, idioms…Le Anh Xuan (2000; p 127) also gives the results of the

Table 2 Forms of indirect responses to questions

In an article entitled “Câu trả lời và câu đáp cho câu hỏi chính danh”,

Le Dong (1985) proposes different patterns of responding to question They are: direct and indirect responses, refusals to answer, challenges to the presupposition of question, responses to implicit meaning of the question and some special responses: misunderstandings or evasive responses Classification of questions and responses in Tsuis model

Tsui (1994) argues that it is the communicative choice or function, which seeks not only information but also confirmation, agreement, repetition or classification Unlike Quirk and Greenbaum’s (1987) classification of questions which seeks affirmative, negative or information, Tsui gives some examples to illustrate as follow:

Are you still here? (the addressee is working in the office) → seeking information not yes or no confirmation

It’s lovely day, isn’t it? → seeking agreement not a confirmation

What did you say? → seeking the repetition

What do you mean? → seeking the clarification

According to Tsui (1994), questions are different from requests The utterances referred to as Questions elicit or prospect a very different response from requests “A question elicits an obligatory verbal response (or nonverbal surrogate) and the interaction between the speaker and the addressee is completed entirely at the verbal level” Besides, Tsui also suggests that a request elicit an obligatory non-verbal response with an accompanying verbal response, and the interaction is complete at the non-verbal level

Sinclair and Coulthard (1985) introduce the term “elicitation” to describe utterances in the classroom, which elicit verbal responses “An elicitation is an act the function of which is to request a linguistic response- linguistic, although the response may be a non-verbal surrogate such as a nod or raised hand” Tsui (1994) characterizes questions as “elicitations” to avoid the confusion ambiguity with requests or directives Tsui (1994) also gives six subclasses of elicitation: Initiating → Elicitations→ information/ confirmation/ agreement/ commitment/ repetition/ clarification

In characterizing responding acts, Tsui (1994) asserts that not any move following an initiating move is a responding move An initiation can

be followed by a move, which is totally unrelated The question is how do

we decide whether a related move is a responding move? Let’s consider the examples below:

<1>

<2>

A: What’s the time?

(b) Time for coffee

(c) I have not got a watch, sorry (d) How hold I know

(e) Ask Jack (f) You know bloody well what time it is (g) Why do you ask?

(h) What did you say?

(i) What do you mean?

A: Where’s Peter’s office?

B: (a) I do not know

(b) I can not tell you

(c) That is none of your business

(d) It is on the second floor

(e) It is over there.

We can see that B’s utterances are all related to A’s initiating move However, all these utterances are responding moves? To know the answer

of the question, we should consider the illocutionary intent and pragmatic presuppositions (refer to the background belief of the speaker; propositions that the speaker takes for granted to be true in making the utterance) of A’s elicitation

The illocutionary intent for A’s elicitation in the examples above is to get B to provide a piece of information (a) and (b) in <1> and (d) and (e) in

<2> fulfill the illocutionary intent of A’s elicitation They provide the information that A is seeking Although (b) in <1> is given indirectly, A can know the answer on the basis of his common knowledge about the world (The time for coffee is often around eleven o’clock in the morning) According to Tsui (1994), (a) and (b) in <1> and (d) and (e) in <2> are responding moves, the other utterances are challenging moves because they

do not provide the information that A is seeking and do not fulfill the illocutionary intent of A’s elicitation Tsui (1994) argues that any move, which maintain the framework set up by preceding initiating move is a supporting move A supporting move facilitates the progress of the topic presented in the preceding utterance Any more breaks up the discourse framework and holds up the progress of the topic is a challenging move.Take the consideration of the following example:

A

B

What’s the time?

(c) I have not got a watch, sorry (d) How hold I know

(e) Ask Jack (f) Why do you ask?

(g) What did you say

(h) What do you mean?

B makes the utterance like (c) in order to politely provide a reason for not giving the information, while (d) does it in an aggressive way The utterance (e) challenges the presupposition that the addressee has information or the addressee is willing to supply the information In (f) the presupposition that the addressee has the need to ask for the information is challenged, whereas utterances (g) and (h) challenge the presupposition that the speaker can hear and understand what has been said

We have mentioned the literature review of questions and responses

in English and Vietnamese In the study, we try to bring the light of different responses in different contexts in English and Vietnamese In this chapter, we provide theoretical background, that is the criteria for classification of responses to questions in English and Vietnamese, that is really practical for making an in-depth study in the next chapters

2.3 Summary

Here is an overview on the theories are used as the foundation of my research It consists of concepts together with definitions and existing theory used for the research The different types of verbal responses to questions in English anf Vietnamese conversation need to be investigated thoroughly and introduced to help communicators succeed in their interactions Comparing different types of verbal responses to questions used in Vietnamese and English will be presented in chapter 3