A CROSS CULTURAL STUDY ON THE ECONOMICALITY AND REDUNDANCY IN REQUESTING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

This thesis was carried out to provide a cross –cultural comparison of speech behavior in English and Vietnamese in the act of requesting, with the focus on the popularity of redundancy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về tính kiệm ngôn và rườm ngôn trong

hành vi yêu cầu của người Anh và người Việt

M.A Minor ThesisField: LinguisticsCode: 602215

HANOI – 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

- -HOÀNG THỊ MỴ

ON THE ECONOMICALITY AND REDUNDANCY IN

REQUESTING IN ENGLISH A

A CROSS – CULTURAL STUDY ND VIETNAMESE

Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về tính kiệm ngôn và rườm ngôn trong

hành vi yêu cầu của người Anh và người Việt

M.A Minor ThesisField: LinguisticsCode: 602215

By: Hoang Thi My – K16C Supervisor: Do Thi Mai Thanh, M.A

HANOI - 2010

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT

I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled

A CROSS – CULTURAL STUDY ON THE ECONOMICALITY AND REDUNDANCY IN REQUESTING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts.

Hoang Thi My December 2010

My special thanks also go to my friends, Luong Huong Thao and Pham Doan Khanh Ly, students of University of Queensland, Australia for their information and kind help.

I am indebted to all those who have kindly advised and helped me towards the completion

of my research.

Finally, my heart – felt gratitude goes to my family members for their encouragement and assistance throughout my training course.

When people from different linguistic and cultural background come into contact,misunderstandings are inevitable, as a result of clashing rules of interaction and languagehabits This thesis was carried out to provide a cross –cultural comparison of speech

behavior in English and Vietnamese in the act of requesting, with the focus on the

popularity of redundancy and economicality in requesting; and the link between theaddresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age and the use of lexico modal makers seen

as redundancy – creating factors A questionnaire was designed consisting of 3 situations

to collect data from 100 students (50 from Vietnam and 50 from English –speakingcountries) with the evenly distributed number of males and females The collected datawere categorized into 4 groups of communicative partner: same sex but younger, same sexbut older, opposite sex but younger and opposite sex but older; and analyzed according to

14 types of lexico modal markers suggested by N.Quang and Blum-kulka

The findings of the study provide that addressee’s gender and relative status exertconsiderable influence on the ways people make request Particularly, in Vietnamese whattype of lexico modal markers can be employed for each communicative partner dependslargely on the level of politeness of such markers, whereas in English, there seems to be noclear-cut distinction The results also revealed that in both cultures, no significantdifference in language behavior can be found in both male and female

The findings of the study also enable the researcher to advance some suggestions foravoidance of communication breakdown and potential culture shock and some implicationsfor ELT

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FFA Face Flattering Act

FGA Face Giving Act

FTA Face Threatening Act

LIST OF TABLESTable 1: Distribution of insufficient economicality in English in 3 situations

Table 1: Distribution of insufficient economicality in Vietnamese in 3 situations

Table 3: Lexico modal markers used for communicative partner of same sex and younger

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of abbreviations iv

List of tables v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale and the statement of the problem 1

2 Aims of the study 3

3 Significance of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 4

5 Method of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Speech acts and classification of speech acts 5

1.2 Requesting as a speech act 7

1.3 Redundancy and classification of redundancy 9

1.3.1 Redundancy 9

1.3.2 Classification of redundancy 10

1.3.2.1 Modality redundancy 10

1.3.2.2 Habitual redundancy 11

1.3.2.3 Insufficient redundancy 11

1.4 Economicality and classification of economicality 11

1.4.1 Economicality 11

1.4.2 Classification of economicality 11

1.4.2.1 Modality economicality 11

1.4.2.2 Habitual economicaltiy 12

1.4.2.3 Insufficient economicality 12

1.5 Lexico modal markers 12

1.6 Previous studies on lexico modal markers, addresser’s/addressee’s gender and relative age when making requests 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research design 18

2.2 Participants 18

2.3 Data collection instrument 19

2.4 Data collection procedures 20

2.5 Data analysis methods and procedures 20

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1 The popularity of economicality and redundancy in requesting 22

3.2 The link between the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relative age and the use of lexico modal makers seen as redundancy – creating factors 24

3.2.1 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of same sex and younger 25

3.2.2 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of same sex and older 29

3.2.3 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of opposite sex and younger 33

3.2.4 The use of lexico modal markers for communicative partner of opposite sex and older 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 40

1 Conclusions 40

2 Pedagogical implications 41

3 Suggestions for further study 42

REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale and the statement of the problem

The emergence of English as a global language has presented a solution to language barrierand brought people closer together and its contribution towards such fields as economy,culture, education, science, technology etc, is undeniable Mastering a good competence ofEnglish not only brings benefits in business, cultural exchanges, education anddevelopment to nation-states but can benefit individuals as they will have greater careeropportunities In the contemporary context of international integration and economicglobalization, the role of using English in communication has never been so important topeople worldwide, including the Vietnamese The open door policy has brought thecontrasting effects (both threats and opportunities) to national economic climate with thestrong performance of foreign companies and the significant changes in employmentmarket, which is accompanied by the increasing demand of skilled and English –fluentspeaking workforce In order to meet such requirements, English teaching programs inVietnam have shifted from a focus on the linguistic competence to the communicativecompetence

According to Hymes (1976), the communicative competence includes not only knowledge

of the linguistic forms of a language but the knowledge of when, how and to whom it isappropriate to use these forms as well In another word, when communicating, people donot only attempt to produce grammatically correct sentences, but also try to apply them inthe right combination of context What is more, language is also intimately bound up withculture There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiologicalchanges in our brain, which could affect our thoughts and perceptions The patterns andconnections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits ofour community It is observed that many people from different cultures, whencommunicating using one common language often impose their culture on that language

As a result, it may be difficult for the communication process, including verbal and verbal communication with its influential socio-cultural factors Thus, communicativecompetence involves the understanding of culture, social knowledge and other skills of

non-interaction According to J.Richard et al (1985, p.49), “when someone wishes to

communicate with others, they must recognize the social setting, their relationship to the other person(s), and the types of language that can be used for a particular occasion They must also interpret written or spoken sentences within the total context in which they are used”.

However, in Vietnam, there is a fact that English though has been taught for many years,little attention of learners has been paid to the rules of speaking and oral practice, and evenless attention to culture-specific verbal and non-verbal behavior Vietnamese learners tend

to translate whatever ideas they want to express into the target language with and effort ofmaking their utterances grammatically correct without awareness of cross-culturaldifferences Consequently, failure in applying what they have learnt to actualcommunication is inevitable despite their fairly good knowledge of grammar and aconsiderable amount of vocabulary An invisible communication barrier may occur andculture shock may happen due to their insufficient knowledge of social norms and values,roles and relations between individuals There have been many cases where theinappropriateness of utterances has produced unwanted communication breakdown insocio-cultural interaction

With the aim to achieve successful communication in the real world, numerous cultural studies have been carried out so far to help the Vietnamese speakers of Englishavoid confusion when expressing themselves, especially in situations which requiresensitive speech acts such as requesting, apologizing, etc Requesting – one of the mostsensitive illocutionary acts in English and Vietnamese – has been the topic of so manyresearches whose major findings mainly point out the basic differences betweenVietnamese and English when using politeness, directness or indirectness strategies inrequesting However, little is known about request segments which can be seen asredundancy and whether the redundant language elements constituting a request such as

cross-“just a tiny bit” in English or “một chút xíu” in Vietnamese should be considered as a

politeness strategy or just a language marker by people from different cultures More

importantly, how these redundant elements or terminologically known as “ lexico modal

marker’ or “modality markers” are linked to the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and

relative age in both cultures requires a further clarification All the reasons above motivate

me to conduct a research on economicality and redundancy in requesting in English and

Vietnamese culture with the hope of discovering answers to the uncertainty and promoting

awareness of cross-cultural differences in English and Vietnamese culture

2 Aims of the study

The aims of the study are;

- To explore the popularity of redundant and economical factors in making requests

in the specific situations, under certain variables such as age, the addresser’s/addressee’s gender and relative age in English and Vietnamese

- To compare and contrast the range of lexico modal markers or modality markersconstituting the redundancy and economicality in requesting in order to clarify thesimilarities and differences in the way Vietnamese and English – speaking peoplerequest in their own language and culture

- To contribute to promoting cross-cultural awareness among foreign languageteachers and learners was well as other potential interactants in cross-culturalcommunication

In brief, this paper aimed to address three following research questions:

1 Is economicality or redundancy preferred by the Vietnamese and English peoplewhen making requests?

2 Is the use of these economicality/redundancy factors linked to the addresser’s/addressee’s gender and relative age?

3 Significance of the study

Although the study was carried out on a small scale, within a minor thesis of 40 pages, it isexpected to be a contributing factor to rising awareness of both Vietnamese teachers andlearners of English on the cultural similarities and differences between the two languageswhen using redundancy and economicality factors in requesting More importantly, fromthe major findings of the study, Vietnamese speakers of English may get to know to useappropriately modality markers in requesting in different situations when communicatingwith English -speaking foreigners In addition, the study is expected to be useful andaccessible to all teachers, learners and researchers as a material and reference of cross-cultural communication

4 Scope of the study

This study follows the speech act approach It focuses mainly on verbal communicationand analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaire The questionnairedesigned to elicit the informant’s request forms in the proposed situations.

It is observed that redundancy factors are more popular to people when making requestthan economicality ones The study especially centers on the similarities and differencesbetween English and Vietnamese students in using modality markers as redundancy factors

to make requests to people of different ages and genders in some given situations TheVietnamese Northern dialect and the English language spoken in the United State, GreatBritain and Australia (whose cultures are referred to as Anglicist cultures) are chosen forcontrastive analysis The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires, whichenables the researcher to get information from a large population in a short period of time.Recorded and videotaped face –to-face conversations are impossible due to limitations oftime, geographical distance and financial difficulties

5 Method of the study

The research method used in the study is the survey research – a kind of quantitative one.All the considerations, remarks, comments and assumptions given in the thesis are basedlargely on the analysis of statistic data with due reference to publication

The practical approaches are

- Studying relevant publications

- Conducting survey questionnaires

- Analyzing the collected data

- Resorting to personal observations and experience

- Consulting the supervisor

- Discussing with Vietnamese and foreign colleagues

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a brief overview of the literature review on the research topic for the

aim of laying theoretical foundation for the whole paper Initially, key terms like “speech acts”, “requesting”, “economicality and redundancy”, “lexico modal markers or modality markers” are explained Afterwards, some issues related to this research,

specifically gender and politeness strategies are also reviewed to contextualize the researchpaper as well as show the gaps in the literature and how this paper could fit in In brief, theresearchers have no ambition to review all aspects in making requests in the twolanguages; this study’s literature review only covers issues connected to using redundantfactors in requesting and the influence of the addresser’s/ addressee’s gender and relativeage on the use of these factors

1.1 Speech acts and classification of speech acts

Modern linguistics has been referred to as the study of language as a system of humancommunication A main observation is that la

Language can be used not only to describe the reality but also to change the existingreality In simple words it can be asserted ‘to speak is to act’ Linguistic acts that intend toinfluence the reality are commonly called speech acts Speech acts play an important role

in effective communication; these acts are functional units in communication

Language can be used not just to talk about, but also to do things Such acts performed

by language have been called speech acts, and the verbs used are known as speech act orperformative verbs Speech acts have been divided into those in which a performative verbactually appears (they are called explicit) and those which do not have one in their surfacestructure (called primary)

The speech acts used in conversations can be divided into three basic categories:

Meta-interactive acts concern the organization of the conversation itself, i.e the marking

of beginnings and endings (examples: now, right); the opening or closing of a conversation(e.g hello; bye) or the structuring of the conversation in some way (Sorry, I'm afraid I

must go now) Turn-taking acts are used to pass on, hold, or obtain the floor in public

speaking (what do you think?; if I may just finish this; could I come in on this?)

Interactive acts consist of eliciting acts, which require some linguistic response, like

asking for information, a decision, agreement, or the clarification or repetition of anutterance; informing acts, which offer information or respond in other ways to elicitingacts, like agreeing, confirming, qualifying or rejecting; acknowledging acts, which providepositive or negative follow-up or feedback, directing acts, which ask for an immediate orfuture action.

According to Austin (1962), there are three related acts They are locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary These are three distinct levels of action beyond the act

of utterance itself Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance, where sayingequals doing, as in betting, welcoming and warning For example, we might produce

utterance “Could you open the door, please?” to perform an act of requesting The

intention of requesting in this act is generally termed as the illocutionary force Andfinally, perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener Depending on the

circumstances, S will utter “Could you open the door, please?” on the assumption that H

will recognize the effect S intended Once the S’s intention is recognized by H, the act isgenerally known as having the perlocutionary effect

According to Yule, G (1996, p.49), of these three dimensions, illocutionary force is mostfrequently discussed Indeed, the term “speech act” is generally interpreted as the

illocutionary force of an utterance For example, the utterance “It’s stuffy here” can

represent different illocutionary forces such as a request, a complaint, a warning, etc.However, which illocutionary act is performed depends on how the utterance fits into theparticular circumstances

Speech acts may be conveniently classified by their illocutionary type, such as asserting,requesting, promising, and apologizing, for which we have familiar verbs These differencetypes may in turn be distinguished by the type of attitude S expresses As a result, there arethousands of possible illocutionary acts However, such classifications are difficult becauseS’s intentions are not always clear

According to Searle (1969), there are five types of speech acts based on S’s intentions

They are declaratives, representatives, expressive, directives, and commissives

A declarative is speech act, where the speaker brings about some state of affairs by the

mere performance of the speech act (declare, bequeath, appoint, excommunicate) For

example, “The paper for the Busan conference is accepted” Representatives are those

kinds of speech acts that state what S believes to be the case or not For example, “The

earth moves around the sun” An expressive is a speech act, the purpose of which is to

express the speaker’s attitude to some state of affairs (thank, congratulate, apologize,

condole, deplore, welcome) For example, “I like the ideas presented in this conference”.

Directives are those kinds of speech acts that S uses to get H to do something They

express what S wants They are commands, orders, requests, etc For example, “Could you

open the door, please? Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that S uses to commit

themselves to some future actions They express what S intends They are promises,

threats, refusals, etc For example, “I’ll do it”.

Speech acts can also be classified based on the directness of an utterance A direct speech act is an act in which the illocutionary force is built into the structure of the sentence For

example, with the utterance “stop making noise”, the hearer understands the illocution in

the utterance to be a directive without much difficulty or misunderstanding Indirect ways

of getting things done by language are called indirect speech acts For example, if you are

sitting at the only fast computer in the department ten minutes before nine and a colleague

comes in and asks 'Are you teaching at nine?', the question is “what does he want?” When you answer 'No, I am not' and he goes away without saying anything else it is likely that he

wanted to get on the computer to do his work but did not want to ask you directly Another

indirect way to ask would be “Are you going to be long?’ which also avoids the direct question “Can I get on the computer?”

The analysis of speech acts is not only for illustrating the kinds of things we can do withwords but also necessary for identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we use

to perform some specific actions However, a more extended interaction should be takeninto consideration so that we could understand how those actions are carried out andinterpreted with speech events The following part will discuss requesting as a speech act

1.2 Requesting as a speech act

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines requesting as “an act of asking for

something in speech or writing, especially politely” Requesting behavior offers a

particularly fertile ground for the study of any potential cross culture study This is mainlybecause together with thanking, complementing, inviting, etc, requesting is regarded as one

of the most sensitive illocutionary acts in communication

In terms of speech acts, requesting is considered to be an act of requiring the other(s) to do

something performed through utterances in interactions A request expresses a desire forthe addressee to do a certain thing and normally aims for the addressee to intend to and

indeed, actually do that thing For example, when we utter a sentence like: “Would you pass me the salt, please?” pragmatically we produce an utterance containing an act of

asking the listener to pass us the salt

Searle (1969:66) offer this description of a request: a directive speech act which counts anattempt to get H to do an act which S wants H to do, and which S believes that H is able todo; and which it is not obvious that H will do in the normal course of events or of H’s ownaccord This notion of an “act” may include the purely verbal acts of giving information, orgranting permission

As other communication processes, requesting is composed of, at least, three factors: thespeaker, the hearer, and their language The speaker is directed to the final goal, whenhe/she has a request in her/his mind As “the generator of meanings” (Leech, 1985), thespeaker makes some utterances in order to achieve the goals On the other hand, the hearer,

“the interpreter of meaning”, is expected to reconstruct the communicative intention of thespeaker We must bear in mind that achieving the goal depends mainly on the hearer, not

on the speaker It is because if the hearer fails to interpret the communicative intention ofthe speaker, it cannot be regarded as requesting The speaker’s violation of theConversational Maxim (Grice, 1975) will help the hearer’s interpretation

A request may vary in strategy type and level of directness Three levels of directness forrequests have been identified (cf Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989) The first is

“direct” This includes forms that convey requestive force by purely syntactic means, such

as grammatical mood or an explicit performative verb The second level is “conventionally direct” This comprises indirect formulas that are conventionalized in the language as a

means of requesting The last level is “non-conventionally indirect” This refers to hints,indirect request forms that are not conventionalized in the language, and hence requiremore inference by the hearer in order to derive the speaker’s requestive intent Although itmay not so overt at times, cultures have been found to differ as to which factors countmore than others, and languages vary in the extent to which they switch directness levels

by situation (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) Some of the social/situational factors include:

- Relative dominance of the requester in relation to the hearer

- Relative social distance (familiarity) between the interlocutors

- Hearer’s degree of obligation in carrying out the request

- The right the speaker has to issue the request

- Estimated degree of difficulty the speaker has in making the request

- Estimated likelihood of compliance on the part of the hearer

“In broad terms, research seems to support our claim that three sociological factors arecrucial in determining the level of politeness which a speaker (S) will use to an addressee(H): these are relative power (P) of H over S, the social distance (D) between S and H, andthe ranking of impositions (R) involved in doing the face-threatening act (FTA)” (Brownand Levinson, 1987: 15)

From the analysis above, we can see that a request can be made in a direct or indirect waysand it is true to say that requesting is one kind of speech acts used variously and widely ininteraction

1.3 Redundancy and classification of redundancy

1.3.1 Redundancy

According to Longman dictionary of English language and culture, redundancy, in general

usage can be defined as “more of anything than is (strictly) needed, usually resulting from

repetition or duplication: pleonasm or tautology” Languages differ in the degree and

kinds of redundancy they make use of: Latin syntax has a much higher level of redundancythan English syntax; French often has greater redundancy in writing than in speech It is aconvention of English style that words should be varied rather than repeated, for example,

“It was a great enormous house, the biggest I’ve ever seen” rather than “It was a large large house, the largest I’ve ever seen” Different phrasing is intended to decrease

monotony and perhaps increase the amount of information conveyed Repetition is,however, a common activity and has traditionally been justified as a rhetorical device, usedfor emphasis and the expression of emotion It was lexically and grammatically redundant,but not emotionally

According to Prof Nguyen Quang (1998), redundancy means that a message contains

more information than is needed for it to be understood In another word, redundancy can

be described as the difference between the possible and actual information in a message.This difference may be repetition or other encoding beyond the real essential information,

for example, “Could you please repeat it again?” In this example, “again” is a redundant

word because it is a repetition of “repeat” Redundancy in language is a popularphenomenon across different cultures, Vietnam included Some previous studies revealedthat Vietnamese is different from native speakers of English in terms of thought patterns.When making request members of Vietnamese culture tend to be much more indirect thanpeople from English culture As a result, when examining Vietnamese requests, we find out

more redundant factors than in English, for example “Làm ơn cho em biết bưu điện ở đâu

ấy nhỉ?.

1.3.2 Classification of redundancy

Prof Nguyen Quang also categorized redundancy into three main types: Modality

redundancy, habitual redundancy, insufficient redundancy.

Ta muốn riết mây đưa và gió lượn

Ta muốn say cánh bướm vơí tình yêu

Ta muốn thâu trong một cái hôn nhiều.

1.3.2.2 Habitual redundancy

Habitual redundancy is in fact a type of conventional discourse structures and mainly used

in a certain community of people For instance, English people might say “In my opinion, I think that the bird seems to be saying to us” without noticing that in my opinion or I think

is a kind of habitual redundancy which is caused by their language habits Vietnamese

people share the same situation; e.g.“Theo ý tôi thì tôi cho rằng anh nên xuống xe”

1.3.2.3 Insufficient redundancy

Insufficient redundancy is used by those who have limited knowledge and poor skill atexpressing ideas Among three types of redundancy, it is most confusing and ambiguous

and likely to cause misunderstanding For example, in Vietnamese “Hôm nay thì thế này

ạ, tôi mời ông bà dến thưa chuyện của cháu”, in English “Oh, well, um, really, I I am …I am finding ,um, …I am my ring It may, um, be somewhere here, but …I am but there s nothing ‘s nothing” ”

1.4 Economicality and classification of economicality

1.4.1 Economicality

In contrast to redundancy, economicality is defined by Nguyen Quang as a kind of language contraction, particularly a form of lexico-contraction but still can be understood

in context For example, there is a situation between a couple The husband enters the room

without closing the door When making a very economical utterance “door’, the wife

actually performs an act of requesting to the husband to close the door

1.4.2 Classification of economicality

1.4.2.1 Modality economicality

Modality economicality is seen as the contraction of words or phrases of least importance

in conveying meanings of a message The hearer needs to put the utterances in the context

so that she/he can understand what they really mean

For example, in English “Much have I had lots of dreams and many nice angels seen” and

in Vietnamese “Giá mà cứ như thế này mãi thì thích nhỉ!”

Actually this is related to an adversarial pair of dimension: high context and low context.

In low context cultures, people rely heavily on the context to understand the intended

meaning from contracted language, for example: Yes, I do for the request Do you mind opening the door ? or Me, too for the exclamation I can’t stand him any more

1.4.2.2 Habitual economicality

Habitual economicality is common in both English and Vietnamese Habitual redundancy/

economicality refers to non-conventional discourse structures, for example “(Tôi) nói khí không phải”/ “Năm thì mười hoạ” or “In my opinion/Frankly (Frankly speaking)” both

(either) grammatically and (or) lexically contracted… They can be idiomatic expressions

like “Dã man” (terrible) for “Cậu thật quá đáng” (You are so wicked) or non-idiomatic or habitual/ colloquial expressions like ‘nói cho vuông’, ‘thẳng toẹt ra là’ (frankly)

1.4.2.3 Insufficient economicality

Insufficient economicality is commonly seen among these who have poor ability to expressideas or among small children For example,

In English: In Vietnamese

I go to market Mẹ ơi, Nam muốn cơm

I not want eat Bố mẹ đi ông bà ngoại

The definition of redundancy and economicality, especially their classification suggested

by Prof Nguyen Quang serve as a basis for the researcher to carry out this study However,

in my experience and observation, when making requests, in order to obtain the goals,various request segments and redundant factors are used by the speakers and most of which

are lexico modal markers or modality markers such as “please, just a little bit, perhaps, come one” in English or “ạ, dạ, làm ơn, chút xíu thôi, nhé, ấy nhỉ” in Vietnamese In the

following part of this chapter, a theoretical review of lexico modal markers will beincluded to provide a deep insight into their roles and uses in requesting

1.5 Lexico modal markers

One of the ways to realize politeness strategies is via lexico modal markers Lexico modalmarkers are types of modifications for achieving different effects of realizing speech acts.Lexico modal markers are considered to be the most useful means of language to expresspeople’s feelings, attitudes…towards states or events N.Quang (1999:219) assumes thatlexico-modal markers are to reduce face threatening act (FTA) or to enhance face givingact (FGA), to intensify or soften, to assert and/or emphasize people’s attitude

Trosborg (1987: 97, 69) and N.Quang (1999: 219) suggest nine types of lexico modalmarkers, which, in their opinion, can create different degrees of politeness Personally,lexico modal markers are the most popular factors creating the redundancy in requesting.Moreover, each lexico modal marker has its own meaning and function and how to use

them to make requests depends largely on the relationship between the addressers andaddressees especially their gender and relative age.

Types of lexico modal markers appear commonly in requesting are (following N.Quangand Blum Kulka):

1 Consultative devices: S seeks to involve H and bids for H’s cooperation

E.g “Do you know the way to the Post Office?

“ Anh có biết đường đến Bưu điện không?

2 Understaters: To minimize parts of the proposition or to reduce FTA

E.g “Could you show me the reason just a tiny bit, please?

“Xin anh cho em biết lý do dù chỉ một chút được không?

3 Hedges: to avoid specification in making commitment to the illocutionary point of the

utterance

E.g “Tell me the why if you could”

“Nếu có thể bác cho cháu biết lý do anh ấy làm như vậy.’

4 Downtoners: Elements which S modulates the impact of the utterance on the H to

express tentativeness of emphasizing factors

E.g “Would you be able perhaps to stop littering now?

“Có lẽ việc dừng vứt rác không khó gì với chị chứ ạ?

5 Intesnsifiers: Elements by means of which the S over-presents the reality denoted in the

proposition

E.g “Tell me where the Post Office is The map is so confusing

“Bảo cho em đường đến bưu điện với Nhìn bản đồ rối rắm quá”

6 Subjectivisers: Elements which show S’s opinion, attitude, etc, towards the proposition

E.g “I know it’s not easy to speak out, but could you tell me the reason?”

“Cháu biết nói ra không dễ gì Nhưng bác có thể cho cháu biết lý do ko?

7 Commitment upgraders: elements which express the commitment to the proposition

(sure, certain, positive…)

E.g “I’m sure you know the way to the city center, don’t you?”

“Chị chắc em biết đường đến bưu điện, phải không?

8 Cajolers: consists of gambits functioning at interpersonal level of discourse to

harmonize the relationship between two communicative partners (you know, you see ) E.g “Come on, stop littering for the health of others.”

“Thôi nào, em hãy dừng vứt rác vì sức khỏe của người khác với chứ”

9 Appealers: elements to appeal the response from H, usually with approval and

agreement (Ok, right, don’t you think…)

E.g “You’ll stop littering, right?

“Anh sẽ không vứt rác nữa, được chứ?”

10 Politeness markers: elements which show difference to H or mitigate face-threats of

the utterance like “please”, “dạ”, “ạ”…

E.g “Which way to the Post Office, please?

“Làm ơn cho em/anh/chị/cháu biết bưu điện ở đâu ạ?”

11 Grounders: S indicates the reason for the requests (like “basically, “so”, “as”, “the

fact is that”, “that’s how it really is…”)

E.g “Would you mind showing me the way to the Post Office? The fact is that I can’t read the map”

“Anh làm ơn chỉ đường cho em tới bưu điện được không Thực ra là em không biết đọc bản đồ”

12 Sweeteners: by expressing exaggerated appreciation of the H’s ability to comply with

the request, the S lowers the imposition involved

E.g “It’s very kind of you to tell me the reasons”

“Bác yêu quý, bác thật tốt nếu nói cho cháu biết lý do tại sao”.

13 Disarmer: The S indicates his awareness of potential offense, thereby attempts to

anticipate possible refusal

E.g “Is there any possibility you could show me the way to the Post Office?”

“Anh xem nếu có thể được thì chỉ đường cho em ra bưu điện với được không?

14 Cost minimize: The S indicates consideration of the cost to the H involved in the

compliance with the request

E.g “I’m sorry to bother you, but I would appreciate your help in stopping littering now” “Em xin lỗi phải làm phiện chị, nhưng chị mà chỉ giúp đường cho em ra bưu điện thì chị thật là tuyệt vời”

1.6 Previous studies on lexico modal markers, addresser’s/addressee’s gender and relative age when making requests.

It is widely accepted that it is difficult to make global and abstract statements about men’sand women’s language because people of different communities of practice will havedifferent ways of doings, beliefs, values, power relations and also ways of speaking.However, some common behaviors such as ways of communicating can be seen amongthose from the same community of practice According to Eckert & Mc Connell-Ginet(1998), each community of practice will develop a range of linguistic behaviors whichfunction in slightly different ways from other communities of practice And men andwomen in each community of practice will also have different linguistic behaviours Theynaturally develop their own characteristics of language Thus it is said that there is arelationship between language and gender A vast majority of studies on language andgenders have been devoted to identifying, and trying to explain differences in the speechstyles between men and women And one of the main differences has been found in thearea of linguistic politeness There are different views on this issue

According to Holmes (1995), women’s speech is more polite than men’s He states thatwomen are more likely than men to express positive politeness and to use mitigatingstrategies to avoid or minimize threatening their interlocutors’ face For example, women

tend to interrupt less in conversation and “to be more attentive listeners, concerned to ensure others get a chance to contribute” than men (Holmes, 1995, p.67) They also

interpret and use certain speech acts differently to men For instance, not only do women

use more apologies than men but their apologies serve more often than men’s “as remedies for space and talk offences – areas of interaction where women are particularly vulnerable and where they may have developed a gender sensitivity” (Holmes, 1995,

p.185)

On the contrary, Cameron (1998) and Mills (2002), in their social constructionist research

of gender, have a more flexible approach to the study of gender and linguistic politeness.Such an approach both avoids oversimplifications resulting from viewing men and women

as dichotomous and homogenous groups and regards gender and linguistic politeness asconstructs that interact in complex ways with factors such as culture, age, race, andspecific communities of practice To put it in another way, apart from gender, therelationship between addresser’s and addressee’s relative status known as communicativepartners’ parameters are the main factors that affect the use of language style In her MAthesis, Do Thi Mai Thanh (2000) indicated that age power and social power can alsodetermine what politeness strategy to use for the Vietnamese, because of greater distancebetween interactants, groups of greater age and social power are often received with higherpercentage of negative politeness strategy use, but for the English, there is no substantialdifference

In this chapter, the researcher has attempted to review the literature related to redundancyand economicality in requesting, namely definition of the key terms and some relatedissues Relevant knowledge from various sources serves as the basis for the researchers tocarry out the study and draw some implications with the aim of helping both Vietnameselearners and teachers of English have a better communicative competence Noticeably, inmost studies, the authors regarded lexico modal markers as contributing factors topoliteness strategies rather than redundancy-creating factors Gender, age and socialrelationship have been put in comparison mainly to find out the use of politeness strategies

in Vietnamese and English Whether a male/female from English and Vietnamese uses a

certain lexico modal makers, e,g “just a little bit” “ đi mà” “ạ” “dạ” “phải không” when

making requests to different communicative partners can be considered as languageredundancy or just a politeness strategy still remains in question This study is conducted

to gain a deep insight into the relationship between addresser’s/addressee’s gender andrelative age and lexico modal markers which is treated as redundant factors in requesting inboth Vietnamese and English

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

In the literature review, a brief overview of the research topic for the aim of layingtheoretical foundation for the whole paper had been conducted In this chapter, the studywas carried out with justified methods of data collection and analysis in order to maximizeits validity and reliability Specifically, discussions in detail about the participants, theinstruments as well as the procedure of data collection and analysis were raised in thechapter

2.1 Research design

This research is a survey research and questionnaires were used to collect data Based onthe essence of survey research, the researcher chose the quantitative approach in collecting,classifying, and analyzing the figures This method is suitable to this study because the

quantitative method helps the researcher “achieve gathered data at high level of reliability due to mass surveys” (Balseley, 1970) Moreover, with quantitative approach, the researcher can follow “resolutely the original set of research goals, arrive at more objective conclusions, test hypothesis, determine the issues of causality and eliminate or minimize subjectivity of judgment” (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996).

2.2 Participants

A total of 100 university students (50 from Vietnam and 50 from English-speakingcountries) participated in this study In order to ensure compatibility, the number of malesand females were evenly distributed All of the students study in the same university.Those from English – speaking countries are students at the University of Queensland,Australia, among whom 26 are Australian, 5 are British and the rest is from Englishspeaking world such as New Zealand, Canada, America, etc English is used as targetlanguage and its variants, namely American English, British English, Australian English,Canadian English and New Zealand English are accepted It is assumed that people fromthose countries share, to sizable extent, the same culture and language, despite theirdifferences in geography, history, etc The Vietnamese participants are my senior students

at English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, and VNU The subjects are of 18-26 agegroup and all of them have high level of education

The information about the participants’ profiles is quite necessary for data analysis, so thefollowing criteria were taken into account

This study employed questionnaires as the main sources for data collection In accordancewith David (2004), questionnaires were considered to be familiar to most people andnearly everyone could have had some experience of completing questionnaires; so theygenerally did not make people feel worried In my study, questionnaire was employedbecause it was convenient for studies involving large sample sizes as ours Moreover, asstated by Nguyen (2009), the researchers tended to use questionnaires in terms ofefficiency of researcher time, researcher effort and financial resources:

By administrating a questionnaire to a group of people, one can collect a huge amount of information in less than an hour and the personal investment required will be a fraction of what would have been needed for, say, interviewing the same number of people […] (Nguyen, 2009, p.17)

The survey was conducted with both Vietnamese and English native speakers in order tofind out what types of lexico modal makers in requesting they would apply for differentcommunicative partners in 3 different situations:

Situation 1: asking the way to the Post Office

Situation 2: Requesting for giving reasons

Situation 3: Requesting to stop littering

Regarding the questionnaire in detail, a brief introduction about the study’s topic was

firstly provided Afterwards, in order to make it convenient to collect data and analyze, asmany as 3 situations were given corresponding to the research questions’ content To bespecific, in each situation, 15 ways of requesting were designed, among which 14 includedredundant factors (lexico modal markers) and 1 belonged to economicality Participantswere required to put a tick on the communicative partner (same sex but younger, same sexbut older, opposite sex but younger, opposite sex but older) that reflected their viewpoints

on the situation given However, because of Vietnamese complicated addressing system,Vietnamese students were also required to circle appropriate kinship terms for their choice

in each situation

2.4 Data collection procedures.

The process of data collection experienced the following phases

Initially, survey questionnaire had been designed Afterwards, the researcher came to thestep of piloting questionnaire for both Vietnamese and English students, which was carriedout with voluntary respondents for questionnaire Not only did that step help figure out

problems with content, wordings of the questionnaire but it familiarized researcher withhow to respond to possible situations when carrying out in reality Based on the result ofthe experiment, the researcher considered and gave the final version of the questionnaire.

The set of questionnaires with clear instructions to minimize misunderstandings wasdelivered directly to Vietnamese students and soft copies were sent via email to somefriends in Australia who helped to collect data from English- speaking students Besides,the researcher was always willing to assist the participants by giving oral instructions andexplanation in Vietnamese to avoid any misunderstanding and ambiguity Afterwards, allthe papers of questionnaire were collected carefully to ensure the quantity of data

2.5 Data analysis methods and procedures

It was undeniable that data analysis was the process of ordering and extracting meaningfrom the accumulated data In other words, the most essential function of data analysis was

to organize data to make sense of the great amount of information

The descriptive statistics method was used to analyze data collecting from the

questionnaire Specifically described, the accumulated data was processed and classifiedinto categories according to the research questions’ content: (1) the popularity ofredundancy and economicality factors in requesting (2) addresser’s/addressee’s gender andrelative age In fact, collected data was coded, counted, transferred into percentages andgrouped into male/female and 4 groups of communicative partner: same sex but younger,same sex but older, opposite sex but younger and opposite sex but older Tables were used

to illustrate statistics (figures and percentages) achieved from the questionnaires whichwere calculated and transferred numerical form Data description, comparison and contrastmainly focused on striking and significant features in different situations in both subjectgroups

In brief, this chapter illustrates the methodology applied in this study by firstly givingspecific information on the two groups of participants involved in the process of datacollection, namely Vietnamese and English-speaking students In addition, the datacollection as well as data analysis instruments and procedures were also discussed.Obviously, such clear explanation of the methodology helped to show the way for theanalysis of the collected data in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In the preceding chapter, the methodology applied in this study had been clarified withdetailed descriptions of participants, the instruments and the process of data collection andanalysis In this chapter, all collected data will be analyzed and discussed to reveal theanswers to each research question in turn More importantly, the connection between thesefindings and other related studies in the literature are also highlighted to present the newfindings on the research topic as well as further discoveries out of expectations The resultsand discussion will be presented according to the addresser’s and addressee’s gender andrelative age across three situations as well as 14 lexico modal markers

3.1 The popularity of economicality and redundancy in requesting

When the data was collected, the figures show a considerable similarity between the twosubject groups in using economicality in requesting It is observed that redundancy –