A study on how english speakers and the vietnamese refuse offers

16 Table 4: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in English .... 18 Table 5: Distribution of Direct Refusal in Response to Offers by English Speakers and the Vietnamese in % .... 2

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH

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GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

A STUDY ON HOW ENGLISH SPEAKERS AND THE VIETNAMESE REFUSE OFFERS

Supervisor : Le Thi Anh Tuyet, M.A Student : Pham Thi Thu Hien Date of birth : 05/07/1994

Class : K19A3 (2012-2016)

HANOI – 2016

CODE: 12

Graduation Paper

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At this stage of research accomplishment, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Le Thi Anh Tuyet, M.A from whom I have received enormous kindness and guidance Without her kind and patient instruction, it is impossible for me to finish my thesis

I also deliver my thanks to my classmates and all friends and teachers in Hanoi Open University who squeeze their busy schedule to help me finish my thesis Finally, I’m grateful to my parents for their love, encouragement and support to take care of me so that I can concentrate on my study and do it well

Thank to you all

Graduation Paper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 2

3 Scope of the Study 2

4 Research Questions 2

5 Methods of the Study 2

6 Design of the Study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

1.1.The Relationship between Language and Communication 4

1.2 Cross – Culture Communication 6

1.3 Speech Acts 7

1.4 Refusal as a Speech Act 8

1.5 Refusal to an Offer 10

1.6 Summary 10

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS ON STRATERGIES OF REFUSING OFFERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 12

2.1 Categories of Refusals in English and Vietnamese 12

2.1.1 Direct Refusals in English and Vietnamese 12

2.1.1.1 Speech Act of Direct Offer Refusals in Vietnamese 13

2.1.1.2 Speech Act of Direct Offer Refusals in English 15

Graduation Paper

2.1.2 Indirect Refusals in English and Vietnamese 20

2.1.2.1 Speech Act of Indirect Offer Refusals in Vietnamese 20

2.2 Refusal Strategies in English and Vietnamese 26

2.3 Discussion on the Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese in Refusing Offers 29

2.3.1 The Similarities 29

2.3.2 The Differences 29

2.4 Cultural Influences in Refusal Strategies of English and Vietnamese 31

2.4 Summary 34

CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONSTO HAVE SOUND OFFER REFUSALS 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 38 REFERENCES

Graduation Paper

LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1: Examples of Vietnamese Direct Refusals 14

Table 2: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in Vietnamese 15

Table 3: Examples of English Direct Refusals 16

Table 4: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in English 18

Table 5: Distribution of Direct Refusal in Response to Offers by English Speakers and the Vietnamese in % 18

Table 6: Examples of Vietnamese Indirect Refusals 21

Table 7: Structures of Indirect Refusal Speech Acts in Vietnamese 22

Table 8: Examples of English Indirect Refusals 23

Table 9: Structures of Indirect Refusal Speech Acts in English 24

Table 10: Distribution of Indirect Refusal in Response to Offers by English Speakers and the Vietnamese in % 25

Table 11: Result of Survey on Direct and Indirect Strategies in English and Vietnamese 27

Table 12: Result of Survey on Direct Strategies in English and Vietnamese 27

Table 13: Result of Survey on Indirect Strategies in English and Vietnamese 28

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

It is undeniable that language is the most important tool for communication It is closely related to the way people think and behave Through language, people can connect to each other regardless of their countries and cultures Each language and the culture of the country cannot be separated from each other However, communication can fail to achieve as misunderstanding of the unique culture of each country with language use Hence, it is necessary to master a language It is not only gives learners countless opportunities to communicate, study and work effectively oversea, but also improves language understanding in order to use and avoid breakdown communication

Refusal is one of the most important speech acts which is commonly used in everyday life.Of the universal speech acts, refusal is a subtle ones, it has a high face-threatening act in communication, especially in intercultural communication Sometimes, we want to refuse someone or something but do not know how to reject without hurting others’ feelings or make them disappointed Thus, it is difficult to find out the most effective strategy to enhance daily conversations This requires the speaker politeness, delicateness and word choices

Based on literary works either published or uploaded in the internet and English speaking materials written by native speakers, this paper studies refusals of offers to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and learning of this speech act in English and Vietnamese, create the tactfulness and flexibility in language use for both Vietnamese learners ofEnglish and English-speaking learners of Vietnamese with the maxim declared in a Vietnamese proverb:

“You do not have to buy words, so do not let them hurt the feeling of others.”

Moreover, clarify the contrastive featuresand similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese from cultural perspective help the Vietnamese learners overcome the difficulties when they face the sticky cases of refusing offers It also helps to enhance and improve language communicative competence of Vietnamese learners of English

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

This paper aims to find out howpeople express refusals to an offer in English and Vietnamese It also clarify the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and cross-culture feature of spoken refusals in English and Vietnamese and analysis it in the effort of increasing not only the effectiveness of teaching and learning refusals utterance in English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for Vietnamese learners of English

3 Scope of the Study

Because of the limitation of the time and the scope, my graduation cannot cover all aspect of the issue Hence, the study just focus on verbal aspects of the speech act of refusing offers

4 Research Questions

The research question is aimed to answer the flowing questions:

1 How do English and Vietnamese people refuse an offer?

2 What are basic forms of refusal speech act in both languages?

3 What are the similarities and differences between English speakers and the Vietnamese in term of refusing an offer?

4 What are cultural influences on refusal strategies of both languages?

5 Methods of the Study

In carrying the research, I have adopted such methods of study such as: descriptive methods, comparison, contrastive analysis and statistics techniques

6 Design of the Study

The thesis consists of three parts The first one is the theoretical background Next is the most important part in the thesis, it is findings on the refusal strategies in English and Vietnamese The last one is suggestion to have sound offer refusals

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 The Relationship between Language and Communication

Language is generally accepted as a system of symbols including sounds, words and the rules of words combination that people used as a mean

of communication It is one of the most amazing characteristics of human being which best distinguishes mankind from animals

Language as a social phenomenon was first described by Ferdinand Saussure in his syllabus of General Linguistics published in 1916 According

to him, language is a complex of necessary conventions which is socially accepted It is a treasure which is maintained by people speaking the same language in community, a system of signals and grammar exists potentially inside each brain or community’s brains exactly

After Saussure’s definition of language, a broader view of what is to be included in language description has been proposed by many language scholars working in this field According to Keraf (1980) “Language is a means of communication between members of the public symbols of the sound produced by means of said human Sitindoan(1984) also shares this definition of language when the researcher considers language as a symbols

of the sound produced by means of said human, and the system means that are arbitrary; used by men in his life as a means of communication between each other to form, express, and communicate thoughts and feelings, culture and nature Therefore, what can be derived from these points of view is that language is a communication tool produced by symbols, system, meaning which help to express self-expression, make integration and social adaption as well as hold social control (Keraf, 1980)

The term culture has a wide range of definitions According to Tylor E (1871), culture is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of society.Also, when it comes to the notion of culture , there is a most widely accepted that culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generation in an identifiable group of people (Linell Davis) However, Goodenough (1981) believes that “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 any one of themselves Furthermore, the definition of culture,

in Kroeber’s and Kluckhohn’s point of view (1952), consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behaviors acquired and transmitted by symbols It constitutes the distinctive achievement of human groups and includes embodiment in artifacts The essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values On the one hand, culture systems may be considered as products of action On the other hand, it is as conditioning elements of further action

The definition of language and culture imply that they are closely connected to each other On the one hand, culture seems so inclusive, it permeates almost every aspect of human life including languages that we use

On the other hand, when we need to share a culture, we communicate through language Moreover, language is complexly intertwined with culture (they have evolved together, influencing one another in the process, ultimately shaping what it means to be human) As Krober A L (1923) said, “Culture,

then, began when speech was present, and from then on, the enrichment of either means the further development of the other.”

In summary, the relationship between language and culture is complex and homologous Language is a major component and supporter of culture as well as primary tool for transferring messages, which is inextricably bound with culture Furthermore, it enables us to store meanings and experience to facilitate communication Language is influenced, shaped by culture and reflects culture Through language, culture is transmitted and human learn their culture through language In other words, without language, culture cannot be acquired or transmitted Without culture, language cannot exit

1.2 Cross – Culture Communication

Based on the discussion above, there is a close relationship between language and culture We describe our experiences and culture by using language, and its structures influence our perceptions Language in turn shapes our thoughts and culture It is a part of culture, which reflects people’s attitudes, beliefs, worldviews and it can influence the culture to a certain extent

Therefore, communication between people of different cultural backgrounds involves much more than overcoming the language barrier When the message is sent through a cultural filter, a breakdown of communication often becomes distorted in the mind of receivers because of the cultural differences which may cause a great deal of misunderstanding and friction due to the differences in values, attitudes, beliefs, preconceptions and expectation of individual senders

Thus, culture differences are the most serious areas causing misunderstanding, unpleasantness and even conflict in cross-culture communication Consequently, in term of communication, being aware of the

cultural backgrounds of different people from various places plays an integral part in avoiding misunderstanding and culture shocks

1.3 Speech Acts

Theory of speech act was first proposed in 1962 by John Langshaw Austin, one of the founders of pragmatic, and later developed by John R Searle in 1969 Both of them are philosophers of language

Austin J.L defined speech acts as the actions performed in saying something or actions perform using language That is when we perform acts,

we are making utterances In other words, we are using words to perform actions in the real contexts For example, when Mary says “I promise to clean the house” in an appropriate context then she does not just say something or describe what she is dong in particular, rather in making the utterance she performs the promise Thus, speech acts are communicative acts that convey

an intended language function It is a unit of speaking which occur in everyday talk, every society and performnumerous functions in communication such as suggestions, requests, apologies, refusals, offers, commands

According to Austin (1962), there are three aspects of speech acts including locution, illocution and perlocution A locutionary act is the act of saying something or the performance of an utterance It is a physical utterance

by the speaker For instance, if someone says ‘ Ring the bell!’the locutionary acts is the realization of the speaker’s utterance An illocutionary act is using

a sentence to perform a function such as question, command, greeting, warning In other words, it is ‘what is done in uttering the word’, the function

of the word, the specific purpose that the speaker have in mind (Ibid.16) For example, the utterance “I swear this will never happen again” is used to perform the illocutionary act of promising

A perlocutionary act is an act performed by saying something such as convincing, persuading, comforting, inspiring or surprising It is the action that results from the locution To say “Do not make noise”, for instance, has the force

of warning when spoken in a certain context By hearing the statement, and understanding it as a warning, the hearer is warned, which is not to say that she

or he must or will act in any particular ways regarding the warning

Among the three acts, illocutionary is considered to be the most important one by Ye G (1996) Also, the illocutionary act which Austin later termed “speech act” is the core interest of Austin and other pragmatists ( Levinson, 1983)

Meanwhile, according to Searle (1974), each type of illocutionary acts requires certain expected or appropriate conditions called felicity conditions His classification of speech acts are described as follows:

(1) Representatives : stating what the speaker believes to be the case or not ( assertions, conclusions, or descriptions )

(2) Expressive : expressing psychological state ( pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow )

(3) Directives : getting the hearer to do something ( commands, orders, requests, suggestions )

(4) Commissives : committing the speaker to do something ( promises, threats, or refusals )

(5) Declarations : speech acts that change the world via their utterance ( resignations, declaration, or baptism )

1.4 Refusal as a Speech Act

First, the notion of refusal should be taken into account According to Oxford Advanced Dictionary, refusal is an act of saying or showing that you will not accept something that you are expected to do In Vietnamese

dictionary, it means you do not want to accept the things you were given or offered such as a request, an offer, a command, an invitation, etc.In term of pragmatism, refusal is a type of speech act that is intended aresponse to another individual's request, invitation, offer or suggestion In Kwon’s point

of view (2004), refusals are sticking point in cross-cultural communication and they can be a tricky speech act to perform linguistically and psychologically since the possibility of offending the interlocutor is inherent

in the act itself

In general, refusal can be understood that the disapproval or rejection

of the interlocutor’s idea It means saying “No, I will not do it” in response to someone else’s utterance, in which he or she has conveyed to us that he/she wants us to do something and expects us to do it

Refusals, as all the other speech acts, occur in all languages However, the way of refusing are various from different kinds of languages And whether each way make listeners feel comfortable when refusing the same invitation or request or not is not the same Refusal is a face-threatening act to the listener, because it is opposite to his or her expectations Also, it is considered to be an especially sensitive nature, and a pragmatic breakdown which includes a level of rudeness and impoliteness, so performing inappropriate refusal strategies may damage the relationship between interlocutors Thus, proper perception and production of refusals requires a certain degree of cultural awareness (Hassani, Mardani, &Hossein, 2011)

In order to avoid appearing offensive or impolite, non-native speakers often overuse indirect strategies that could be misunderstood by native speakers (Al-Eryani, 2007) According to Al-Kahtani (2005), saying no is difficult for non-native speakers of a language How one says 'no' is more important in many societies than the answer itself Therefore, sending and

receiving a message of 'no' is a task that needs special skills The speaker must know when to use the appropriate form and its function depending on his and her interlocutor's cultural-linguistic values Since, failure to refuse appropriately may risk the interlocutors’ relations; refusals have variety of strategies to avoid offending However, sociocultural appropriateness of these strategies differs in languages and cultures

Rubin (1981) as cited in Keshavarz, Eslami, & Ghahraman (2006) states that for language learners with limitations in linguistic as well as sociocultural norms of the target language, performing refusal appropriately necessitates a higher level of pragmatic competence than other speech acts Thus, pragmatic transfer from the first to the second language is more likely

to occur in uttering a complicated and face threatening speech act like refusal (Beebe, Takahashi, &Uliss-Weltz, 1990)

1.5 Refusal to an Offer

The speech act of refusals occurs when a speaker directly or indirectly says no to a request or invitation In everyday life, we always receive offers from others so it is difficult to refuse someone’ offers in any cases It is known as a “sticking point” in cross – culture communication (Known 2004) and a social habit which is sensitive and communicative acts to enhance the relation or intimacy Due to this characteristic, failure to refuse appropriate may lead to breakdown in communication and risk the interpersonal relation

of the speakers, refusal usually include different strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor

1.6 Summary

The close relationship between language and culture is obvious Thus, each language and culture has its different expressions of behaviorand variousrealizations of speech acts by language users Of all speech acts,

refusal is in the top list causing breakdown communication due to its high face-threatening act Therefore, analyzing in term of cultural approach is the best way for English learners to find out the similarities and differences of the speech act of refusing offers in English and Vietnamese

CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS ON STRATERGIESOF REFUSING OFFERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

The previous chapter has established the frame work of the theoretical background from which the speech act of theory, refusal and other related issues have been introduced This chapter will focus on classifying clearly about direct and indirect refusals as well as investigating the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and cross-culture feature of spoken refusals

in English and Vietnamese

2.1.Categories of Refusals in English and Vietnamese

Directness and indirectness are basic forms of expression, which are universal in all languages and culture Although both of them exist in communication, refusals are different from culture to culture and they can be direct or indirect utterances

The aims of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences

in term of syntactic and cross-cultural features of spoken refusal in English and Vietnamese, in the effort of increasing not only the effectiveness of learning refusal utterance in English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for English learners in Vietnam

2.1.1 Direct Refusals in English and Vietnamese

Directness is a style of communication in which speakers want to get straightforward to the points The speech interprets exactly and literally what the speaker said

Direct refusal in English and Vietnamese go directly into the main ideas, the main content and main message that the speaker want to send to the

interlocutors As a result, listeners can immediately comprehend and perceive the message that the speakers want to convey in a conversation without referring to any illocutionary meaning The message from interlocutors will be sent through the specific context

In this paper, I use five situations for five popular types of refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese Here are five situations which I use to analyze how listeners refuse:

Situation 1(S1): You visit to your friend’s house, she offers you to eat some cake that you do not want to eat How can you refuse her?

Situation 2(S2): Your boss offers you a new job position but you are not confident to undertake this position How can you refuse him?

Situation 3(S3): Your friend gives you some money as a gift for your birthday You do not want to receive it How can you refuse him?

Situation 4(S4): Your bike is broken Your friend offers to give you a ride to school but you do not want to bother him How can you refuse him?

Situation 5 (S5): You are typing an important report Your secretary offers to

do the tying for you How can you refuse her?

2.1.1.1.Speech Act of DirectOffer Refusals in Vietnamese

The speech act of direct refusals account for the minority of proportion in mysurvey The number of direct refusals in Vietnamese is 59 out of 132 direct ones According to Tran Chi Mai in her doctoral thesis on "Modes of expression of refusing requests (link with Vietnamese) (2004), basic refusal structure was modeled as follows:

(No/ không) + core component + expansion of core component

Consider these following examples collected from my survey to analyze this kind of structure

Table 1: Examples of Vietnamese Direct Refusals

Situations Categories Vietnamese refusals

S1 Food/drink offer Thôi,bánh ngọt lắm, tớ không ăn đâu

(No Cakes are so sweet, I will not eat them)

Thôi Tớ chẳng quen ăn loại bánh này (No I’m not familiar with this kind of cake)

S2 Opportunity

offer

Em không thể đảm nhận vị trí đó được đâu mà sếp

(I cannot undertake this position) Thôi ạ Sếp biết là em không thể mà Dù sao cũng cảm ơn sếp

(No You know I cannot Thanks anyway)

S3 Gift offer Không Tớ không thể nhận món quà này

được

(No I cannot accept this gift) Thôi Tớ chẳng giám nhận món quà này của cậu đâu

(No I do not want to accept this gift from you)

S4 Favor offer

Thôi Cảm ơn ý tốt của bạn

(No, thanks for your kindness) Thôi, đi đi Sắp muộn học rồi đấy

(Go away, please You can be late for school)

S5 Help offer

Không cần Để tôi tự giải quyết được rồi (No I can manage by myself)

Thôi Tôi làm được mà Cảm ơn cô

(No I can do it Thank you)

According to figures collected from my survey, there have 59 speech acts of Vietnamesedirect refusals which accounted for 4% of the refusal speech acts, including the following structure:

Table 2: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in Vietnamese

2.1.1.2 Speech Act of Direct Offer Refusals in English

There are a variety of ways to turn down an offer from others in English language Consider these following examples to find out its syntactic structures

Table 3: Examples of English Direct Refusals

Situations Categories English direct refusals

S1 Food/drink offer No thanks I’m full

No I would not / will not

S2 Opportunity offer No I cannot undertake this important

position Thank you so much

S4 Favor offer No Thanks I can manage by myself

No Thank you

S5 Help offer No I do not need your help

No Thank you

It can be seen from the example 1 to 5 that the listeners or offered peoplerefuse directly, bluntly and indelicately These ways of response may hurt the feeling of the informants or make them be shocked However, the number of these sentences is just the minority in both languages

The structure of a direct speech act both in English and Vietnamese always includes core components expressing the intention of refusing directly Core component is at the beginning of a speech act and may include negative words such as “No” or “Không/ Không cần/ Khỏi cần/ Thôi/ thôi khỏi” and the negative willingness ability such as:

In English:

I would not / will not (S1)

I cannot undertake this important position (S2)

I cannot accept this gift from you (S3)

For example:

I’m full now (S1)

I’m not comfortable with accepting this gift (S3)

I can manage it by myself (S5)

Bánh ngọt lắm, tớ không ăn đâu.(S1)

(Cakes are too sweet for me I will not eat them.)

Sắp muộn học rồi đấy (S4)

(You will be late for school)

Tôi tự giải quyết được rồi (S5)

I can manage by myself