A contrastive analysis of invitation s refusal strategies in american and vietnamese

 A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF INVITATION’S REFUSAL STRATEGIES IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE Student: Dang Thi To Nhu Class: 4A07 Instructor: Ph.D Nguyen Ngoc Vu  December 2010... As a



A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

OF INVITATION’S REFUSAL STRATEGIES IN AMERICAN

AND VIETNAMESE

Student: Dang Thi To Nhu Class: 4A07

Instructor: Ph.D Nguyen Ngoc Vu



December 2010

Introduction

Human communication is a combination of cooperation and

understanding Success in communication depends greatly on the ability to recognize speakers‟ communicative intentions and pragmatic meaning of their utterances Actually, those who may be regarded as fluent in a second

language owing to their phonetic, syntactic and semantic knowledge of that language may still be unable to produce language that is socially and

culturally appropriate As a result, Larina (2008) shows that numerous

problems in communication occur because people do not only speak different languages but use them in different ways according to specific social and linguistic norms, values, and social-cultural convention

Many people devalue the importance of invitation‟s refusal strategies because normally, it is a person right to say something he/she doesn‟t like or doesn‟t want to However, it is not as simple as it is thought to be since

misbehavior in this domain can result in the interlocutor‟s feeling of being shocked, angry, or even seriously insulted It is because every body, as a human being, expects the appreciation and respect from others America and Vietnam are two countries with different culture so their social and linguistic norms are different as well This paper is an attempt to provide a cross-culture comparison of ways American and Vietnamese deal with a tactful-required kind of speech act: refusing an invitation In this paper, the similarities and differences in refusal strategies between American native speakers and

Vietnamese native speakers will be discussed under three circumstances: when the invitee is at a lower status; when the invitee is at an equal status;

and when the invitee is at a higher status To make my topic more practical, I also suggest some implications in language teaching I hope that this paper will be a contribution to the study of cross-cultural pragmatic understanding and effective communication

Speech acts

In the 1950s and 60s two philosophers of language, John Austin and John Searle, developed speech act theory from their observation that

language is used to do things other than just refer to the truth or falseness of particular statements Austin‟s book How to Do Things with Words (1962) is the next to a series of lectures he gave at Harvard University on this topic John Searle, a student of Austin, further developed Austin‟s work in his book

Speech Acts, which was published in 1969

Austin‟s and Searle‟s work appeared at a time when logical positivism was the prevailing view in the philosophy of language They launched a strong and influential attack on this work The logical positive view of language

argued that a sentence is always used to describe some fact, or state of

affairs and, unless it could be tested for truth or falsity, is basically

meaningless Austin and Searle observed that there are many sentences that cannot meet such truth conditions but that are, nevertheless, valid sentences and do things that go beyond their literal meaning

Searle and Austin argued that in the same way that we perform

physical acts, such as having a meal or closing a door, we can also perform acts by using language We can use language, for example, to give orders, to make requests, to give warnings, or to give advice They called these speech

acts Thus people do things with words in much the same way as they

perform physical actions

Paltridge (2000) provided us the definition of Speech Act:

A Speech Act is an utterance that serves a function in communication Some examples are an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal A speech

act might contain just one word such as „No‟ to perform a refusal

or several words or sentences such as: “I‟m sorry, I can‟t, I have

a prior engagement” It is important to mention that speech acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational setting influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness strategies used to realize directive speech acts such as requests (p 15)

Refusal as a speech act

According to Al-Eryani (2007), a refusal is a respond negatively to an offer, request, invitation, etc Refusals, as all the other speech acts, occur in all languages However, not all languages/ cultures refuse in the same way nor do they feel comfortable refusing the same invitation or suggestion In many societies, how one says “no” may be more important than the answer itself, therefore, sending and receiving a message of „no” is a task that needs special skills The interlocutor must know when to use the appropriate form and its function The speech act and its social elements depend on each group and their cultural-linguistic values

Refusals are considered to be a face-threatening act among the

speech acts “Face” means the public self-image of a person It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize Refusals threaten the inviter‟s face because they contradict his\her expectations and restrict the inviter‟s freedom to act according to his\her will On the other hand, refusals may threaten the addressee‟s public image to maintain approval from others

Because a failure to refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal relations of the speakers, refusals usually include various strategies to avoid offending one‟s interlocutors However, it requires a high level of pragmatic competence and the choice of these strategies may vary across languages and cultures For example, in refusing invitations, offers and suggestions, gratitude was regularly expressed by American English speakers, but rarely

by Egyptian Arabic speakers (Nelson, Al-batal, and Echols, 1996) When Mandarin Chinese speakers wanted to refuse requests, they expressed

positive opinion (e.g., „I would like to….‟) much less frequently than American English since Chinese informants were concerned that if they ever expressed positive opinions, they would be forced to comply (Liao and Bressnahan, 1996)

Politeness

Politeness can be at once understood as a social phenomenon, a means

to achieve good interpersonal relationships, and a norm imposed by social conventions So it is phenomenal, instrumental and normative by nature According to Brown and Levinson (as cited in “Politeness”, 2010), politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to

the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations Usually you try to avoid

embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable Face Threatening Acts (FTA's) are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to

maintain his/her self esteem, and be respected Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTA's What would you

do if you saw a cup of pens on your teacher's desk, and you wanted to use one, would you

a say, "Ooh, I want to use one of those!"

b say, "So, is it O.K if I use one of those pens?"

c say, "I'm sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask you if I could use one of those pens?"

d Indirectly say, "Hmm, I sure could use a blue pen right now."

There are four types of politeness strategies, described by Brown and Levinson (as cited in “Politeness,” 1997), that sum up human "politeness" behavior: Bald On Record, Negative Politeness, Positive Politeness, and Off-Record-indirect strategy

If you answered A, you used what is called the Bald On-Record strategy

which provides no effort to minimize threats to your teachers' "face."

If you answered B, you used the Positive Politeness strategy In this situation

you recognize that your teacher has a desire to be respected It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity

If you answered C, you used the Negative Politeness strategy which similar to

Positive Politeness in that you recognize that they want to be respected However, you also assume that you are in some way imposing on them

Some other examples would be to say, "I don't want to bother you but " or "I was wondering if "

If you answered D, you used Off-Record indirect strategies The main

purpose is to take some of the pressure off of you You are trying not to

directly impose by asking for a pen Instead you would rather it be offered to you once the teacher realizes you need one, and you are looking to find one

In many ways, politeness is universal It is resorted to by speakers of different languages as a means to an end and it is recognized as a norm in all societies Despite its universality, the actual manifestations of politeness, the ways to realize politeness and the standards of judgment differ in different cultures On her thesis,Nguyen, T L (2010) points out some aspects we should consider in order to achieve the goal of politeness as following:

- The social background of the communicator Generally, the more educated a man is, the more he tends to show his politeness to other people The more he knows about the suitable ways to show politeness, the better he uses them to be polite to others Besides, the personality of the communicator

is also very important here Good-tempered person prefers to use

“face-saving act” while bad-tempered person prefers “face-threatening act” when they come across the “face-losing condition”

- The communicative circumstances Communication is a very

complicated process In formal occasions, people tend to use formal

expressions to show politeness, esp between the new acquaintances While

in informal states, people tend to be casual to show intimacy even if it is in the very moment they meet And that doesn‟t mean impoliteness Look at the following example:

Ex 1: A man came into a bar and said to the waiter: “Hi! Buddy! Gimme some whisky, would ya?” Although they‟ve never met before, the man used very casual phrases to enclose their relationship This is a usual way to show friendliness to strangers in similar entertaining places

- The social distance The social distance between speaker and hearer

is one of the factors that determine politeness behaviors The notion of social distance refers to the consideration of the roles people are taking in relation to one another in a particular situation as well as how well they know each other, which means the degree of intimacy between interlocutors However, there are still some exceptions For example, people often use family names to call their close friends, and when these people speak to each other, they will use direct offer or request But sometimes they use very formal expressions in their speech Look at the following example

Ex 2: Husband to his wife: “Would you be so kind as to hand the bread over to me?”

Surely we know that the wife has just quarreled with the husband and the husband is trying to amuse her in a certain way

- The cultural differences Different culture causes different views of values, which affects the criteria of politeness and leads to differences in various aspects

+Ways to greet each others and farewells

+ Ways to address terms

+ Ways to praise others

+ Ways to express thanks…

Directness and indirectness

Directness and indirectness are basic form of expression, which are universal in all languages and culture

Directness is a style of communication in which speaker want to get the straight forward to the points The speech interprets exactly and literally what the speaker said The power of directness is the hearer does not have to look for what the speaker might have mean by uttering such and such sentence Everything in their interaction is expressed explicitly Misunderstanding hardly occurs

Indirectness is any communicative behavior, verbal or nonverbal that conveys something which is quite different from its literal meaning In order to protect privacy, to minimize the imposition on the hearer and to avoid the risk

of losing face, there is a preference for indirectness on the part of the speaker

to smooth the conversational interaction For example when conveying the

pragmatic meaning I want you to do it, the English make special effort to

diminish and soften their imposition and show their respect for other people‟s privacy An illustration of this is when someone says “can you pass the salt?” Here, they are not asking about your ability to pass the salt - the literal

meaning of the sentence - but requesting you to pass the salt This is very common in service encounters where “can” is often used to refer to something other than ability or permission

There are many socio-cultural factors affecting the directness or

indirectness of utterances Nguyen (1998) (as cited in Nguyen, T M P, p.13) proposes 12 factors that, in his view, may affect the choice of directness and indirectness in communication:

1 Age: the old tend to be more indirect than the young

2 Sex: females prefer indirect expression

3 Residence: the rural population tends to use more indirectness than the urban

4 Mood: while angry, people tend to use more indirectness

5 Occupation: those who study social sciences tend to use more

indirectness than those who study natural sciences

6 Personality: the extroverted tend to use more directness than the introverted

7 Topic: while referring to a sensitive topic, a taboo, people usually opt for indirectness

8 Place: when at home, people tend to use more directness than when they are elsewhere

9 Communication environment/setting: when in an informal climate, people tend to express themselves in a direct way

10 Social distance: those who have closer relations tend to talk in a more direct way

11 Time pressure: when in a hurry, people are likely to use direct expressions

12 Position: when in a superior position, people tend to use more directness to their inferiors

These factors help to determine the strategies as well as the number of semantic formulae used when speakers perform the act of refusing

Comparison of refusal strategies in America and Vietnamese

Basing on the data collected from Nguyen, T L (2010), I will focus on three situations in which American and Vietnamese refuse the invitations from inviters who have higher, equal and lower status than theirs respectively

(1), (2), (3), (4) means position of the utterance is presented

When the invitee is at a lower status

The components which are typically found in American‟s way of

refusals when the invitee is at a lower status are (1) Gratitude/appreciation + (2) Excuse/reasons/explanation + (3) Positive opinion For example, when a student declines a professor‟s invitation of having lunch with his/her family, he/she might answer as following:

1 “Thank you I have already eaten It‟s so nice of you to ask” [(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason + (3) Positive opinion]

2 “Thank you but I just had lunch”

[(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason]

3 “I just ate at the Indian restaurant down the street and I got a little indigestion, thank you though”

[(1) Reason + (2) Gratitude]