A contrastive study of apologizing in english and vietnamese

ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on forms and strategies of apologies in English and Vietnamese, and is aimed at pointing out similarities and differences in linguistic means used to apologi

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF APOLOGIZING

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU HÀNH VI XIN LỖI TRONG

TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

ĐIÊU THỊ THU PHƯƠNG

Field: English Language Code: 62220201

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A Thesis

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF APOLOGIZING

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU HÀNH VI XIN LỖI TRONG

TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

ĐIÊU THỊ THU PHƯƠNG

Field: English Language Code: 62220201

Supervisor: Nguyễn Đăng Sửu, PhD

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled A

CONTRASTIVE STUDY OF APOLOGIZING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

of Master in English Language Except for the indicated references, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2017

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Date: ………

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to give sincere thanks to my supervisor Nguyen Dang Suu, PhD for his continuous support, encouragement, patience, sympathy and critical feedback

I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to a number of people, without whose support this thesis would not have been completed

I am also grateful to my close friends and my colleagues at Hanoi Open University, Hanoi University of Business and Technology and ETC English Training Center for their contribution in helping me distribute my questionnaires and code data for the research

I also wish to thank other friends for their understanding and assistance during the process of this study

Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my parents for their constant source of love, support and encouragement in times of difficulty and frustration

Dieu Thi Thu Phuong

ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on forms and strategies of apologies in English and Vietnamese, and is aimed at pointing out similarities and differences in linguistic means used to apologize between English and Vietnamese with focus on the categorical dimensions of conversation, politeness strategies and some particular situations in which apologies are recommended in English and Vietnamese The data collection and analysis of both books’ Vietnamese and English reveal that choices of strategies affected by the conversations’ parameters such as age, gender, occupation, marital status, living area and acquisition of foreign languages They have no much difference about the choice of positive and negative politeness strategies As such, the findings of the study prove that apologizing with various strategies of positive and negative politeness and different degrees of directness – indirectness is a sensitive and sophisticated communicative act in both English and Vietnamese cultures since apologizing means admitting one’s own failure or guilt Apologies show that a person takes responsibility and avoids blaming others The findings also confirm that performance of apologizing is cultural – specific and reflective of social values

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CON : Center for the hearer DCT : Discourse Completion Test ENG : English

EXPL : Explanation FOR : Promise of Forbearance FTA : Face Threatening Act INT : Intensification

H : Hearer

S : Speaker RESP : Acknowledgement of Responsibility REP : Offer of Repair

VNM : Vietnamese

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1: Apologizing strategies employed by English and Vietnamese 27 Tablel 3.2: Frequency of the use of apologizing categories by English and

Vietnamese across the first five situations 37 Table 3.3: Frequency of the use of apologizing categories by English and

Vietnamese across the last five situations 47

Figure 1: First rule of Lakoff’s theory of politeness 14 Figure 2: Second rule of Lakoff’s theory of politeness 15 Figure 3: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 1 31 Figure 4: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 2 32 Figure 5: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 3 34 Figure 6: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 4 35 Figure 7: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 5 36 Figure 8: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 6 38 Figure 9: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 7 39 Figure 10: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation 8 41 Figure 11: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation

9 44 Figure 12: Apologizing strategies are used by English and Vietnamese in situation

10 46

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.2.1 Aims of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER II - LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Previous studies 5

2.2 Theories of speech acts 8

2.3 Politeness 13

2.4 Apologizing 18

CHAPTER III – THE STRATEGIES OF APOLOGIZING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 25

3.1 Research methods 25

3.1.1 Subjects of the study 27

3.1.2 Data collection instruments 28

3.1.3 Data collection procedures 28

3.1.4 Questionnaires 29

3.2 Apology data analysis by situation 30

3.3 Discussions 48

CHAPTER IV SOME SUGGESTED APPLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH FINDINGS 50

4.1 Survey questionnaires 50

4.1.1 Subjects 50

4.1.2 Questionnaires 50

4.1.3 Procedure 50

4.2 Common opinions given by learners of English when using strategies of apologizing 51

4.2.1 Students’ perception of learning using strategies of apologizing Error! Bookmark not defined 4.2.2 Learner’s factor that hinder the students’ participation in using strategies of apologizing 51

This part analyzes the facts related to the reasons preventing students from getting involved in using strategies of apologizing 51

4.3 Suggestions for teaching strategies of apologizing 60

4.4 Summary of the chapter 62

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 63

1 Recapitulation 63

2 Limitations of the study 64

APPENDIX 1 68

APPENDIX 2 71

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Vietnam is entering the hectic development flow of the world in which international cooperation in general and cultural, educational exchanges in particular are strongly pushed up In fact, learning foreign languages and especially English has been extremely important The international language of English has been considered an effective tool to supportably proceed those activities much more easily In all aspects of language, speech acts are assessed

as the most specific culture In each language and culture, people have different ways to express their behavior It means speaker will have different recognitions

of speech acts is of utterances that when issued perform an action Making apologies which are observed in English and Vietnamese is a good example It is common and important in daily interaction Apologies show the fact that a language is not just a simple utterance at all Many problems will certainly follow if culture and politeness factors are neglected The two cultures have their own politeness standards, so an utterance in general and an apology as well in particular may be acceptable in Vietnamese, but unacceptable in English and vice-versa or the ways people make apologies are different In some cases, people apologize directly while others apologize indirectly Obviously, it is very important to get ourselves well prepared for those matters No matter how different they are, politeness strategy is always a desirous goal to reach On a small scale of cross-culture communication, the study tries to make clear the contrast between the two speech acts of apologizing in English and Vietnamese Apologies in English and Vietnamese share some certain similarities, but have differences, too Vietnamese and English speakers do not have the same conceptions of apologizing based on their habits and cultures

For those reasons, the contrastive study of speech act of apologizing in English and Vietnamese is made I hope that my thesis can provide the readers more important knowledge and essential elements to become more confident in cross-cultural communication It is also useful for foreign language learning and teaching in Vietnam I also expect that my thesis can help my students at Hanoi

University of Business and Technology understand and use the apologizing words clearly and effectively most clearly and effectively

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The aims of this study are

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

There are three objectives of the study:

• To examine strategies of apologizing in English and Vietnamese

• To present the similarities and differences of apologizing between English and Vietnamese

• To give some suggested applications of the study results to the teaching apology at Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT)

1.3 Research questions

• What are strategies of apologizing in English and Vietnamese?

• What are similarities and differences of apologizing between English and Vietnamese?

• What are some suggested applications of the result to the teaching apology at HUBT?

1.4 Methods of the study

In this study, the writer would like to use both qualitative and quantitative methods The writer uses qualitative methods to have understanding

of a phenomenon or situation or event comes from exploring the totality of the situations which are often with access to large amounts of "hard data" Next, Quantitative data was elicited by means of a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) which consists of different situations The collected data will be analyzed in comparing and contrasting techniques to find out similarities or differences in the ways English and Vietnamese perform the act of giving apology as a politeness strategy

Besides, the writer also uses two surveys for this thesis

The first survey includes 10 apology situations with 60 participants in two groups: 30 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people The collected data is to examine strategies of apologizing in English and Vietnamese, and then they will be analyzed to find out the similarities and differences

The second survey contains of 28 questions There are 125 students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology taking part in this survey The collected data will be analyzed to explore the students’ opinions in learning strategies of apologizing to suggest ways for teaching English in order to improve their ability in expressing the ways to apologize

1.5 Scope of the study

The thesis focuses on analyzing situations and strategies of expressing apology in English and Vietnamese culture

The data were collected by making a Discourse Completion Test (DTC) with two surveys The first survey is based on 10 socially different situations in which apology is recommended with 30 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people The second survey consists of 28 questions with 125 students

My thesis doesn’t focus on analyzing behavior of apologizing; it only concentrates on investigating strategies of apologizing in order to find out the similarities and differences of apologizing between English and Vietnamese

1.6 Significance of the study

The findings of the research will help increase reader’s awareness as well

as students’ awareness at Hanoi University of Business and Technology of strategies of apologizing and cross-cultural differences in order to avoid culture shock and to guarantee successful communication Besides, as a teacher of English, the author feels duty-bound to raise her students’ awareness of conventional behavior in common situation and to incorporate the study of cultural behaviors as an integral part of each lesson

1.7 Design of the study

My research is divided into five main chapters with many different sections:

Chapter I – INTRODUCTION focuses on seven issues: the rationale,

aims and objectives, research questions, methods of the study, scope of the

study, significance of the study, design of the study

Chapter II - LITERATURE REVIEW discusses the previous studies,

theoretical background of subjects: theories of speech acts, theories of politeness and apology

Chapter III – STRATEGIES OF APOLOGIZING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE presents findings of the study and discusses more ways to

express apology The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese in forms and strategies of apologizing will be presented and discussed deeply

Chapter IV – SOME SUGGESTED APPLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH FINDINGS suggests some applications in teaching English at

Hanoi University of Business and Technology basing on the survey about students’ opinions to use strategies of apologizing

Chapter V CONCLUSION summarizes main points of the study,

limitations, and suggestions for further research in this field

At the end of this study, there is an Appendix which supplies the reference

of the study

CHAPTER II - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Previous studies

Many researchers in the world chose the speech act of apology to be the title of their studies These researches indicated that the countries with different cultures have different rules in expressing their strategies of apologizing to keep politeness in each situation The result of the studies revealed that pragmatic competence expresses people‘s ability in employing speech acts appropriately The researchers have carried out many studies on apologizing in different languages such as the politeness strategies employed, the cultural values reflected in the realization of an apology, gender, the factors affecting the use of

a particular strategy and the strategies used by native and non-native speakers

Studies of apologizing have been carried out by Kasper et al (1989, 1996), Trosborg (1987, 1995) and Olshtain (1989) Kasper and Berman (1993) investigate perception and performance in native and non-native apology by means of a Dialogue Construction questionnaire completed by three groups of informants: Native speakers of American English (AEN), Thai and Thai non-native speakers of English (IL) The data is coded into the five major categories summarized according to the semantic formulae identified as constituting the apology speech act set (Olshtain and Cohen, 1983; Blum-Kulka et al, 1989) Through the data collected, they find out that contextual factors operate differentially in the strategy selection The most sensitive strategy to contextual factors is Upgrading The more Obligation and Face-loss involve in an offence, the more upgrading of apology will be provided Taking on responsibility is the only strategy that related with context-external factor (Distance) The more distant the relationship to the offended party, the less the informants are likely to admit accountability They find no effect of contextual factors on Downgrading responsibility, Repair and Verbal redress

In 1989, Olshtain carried out her study on comparing the employment of strategies of apologies by speakers of English, French, German, and Hebrew The findings revealed that there were some considerable similarities in selecting expressions of responsibility She concluded that different languages will realize apologies in very similar ways In 1997, Sugimoto also researched about the speech act of apology The subjects, who participated to answer an open-ended

questionnaire, consisted of 181 Japanese college students (82 males and 99 females) and 200 American college students (79 males and 121females) The results of the research indicated that the respondents focus on employing these strategies: explanation of the situation, regret and reparation The Japanese subjects may be interested in using these strategies than American ones A promise of forbearance and compensation were used mainly in Japanese strategies of apology

The study of Garcia (1989) compares the expression of apologies which performed between non-native speakers of English from Venezuela and native speakers of English in open-ended role-plays The findings of this study indicated that when the respondents want to express apologies to the host because of their absence at the party, Venezuela respondents employed the positive politeness strategy which combined explanations of the reason why they didn‘t attend, avoidance of disagreement with the host and repetition of the host‘s words and in-group identity markers; otherwise, native speakers of English mainly used the negative politeness approach These apologies included paying deference to the host, self-effacing behavior and devices to maintain social distance

Edmundson (1992) carried out an investigation into the perception of apologies by 161 American native speakers of English They took part in assessing whether apologies in an appropriate, sincere, and acceptable number of television programs The findings of this research showed interesting information that not only the sincerity but also the length of the apology regarded as a standard to decide whether an apology was appropriate Most of the respondents said that the apologizer should employ longer apologies instead

of appearance of many too short ones Almost previous studies I reviewed in my thesis gave the common conclusion that non-native speakers expressed their apologies with the greater length than native speakers did However, up to now, none of researches can quantify the exact length of the apologies which to be regarded as a criterion for an appropriate apology

According to Hussein (1995), he argued that the individual information of respondents in the study such as their age, status, level of education, situation or social distance is one of the main elements affecting to determine the formulas of

any speech acts A research of apology strategies has carried out by Hussein and Hammouri in 1998 The respondents of this research are speakers of English coming from Jordani and America Looking at the statistical data, it indicated that only Jordani used the strategy of minimizing the degree of offense or interjecting; in general, all of respondents employ some main strategies like the expression of apology, acknowledgement of responsibility, offer of repair or promise of forbearance

Besides, Trosborg (1995) deals with the act of apologizing in apology situations as realized in the speech of Danish learners of English compared to native speakers’ performance The author examines apology performance in role-plays, enacted by native speakers of British English (NSBE), native speakers of Danish (NSDan) and three groups of Danish learners

complaint-of English at different levels complaint-of prcomplaint-oficiency and outlines four categories (based

on the semantic formulae by Blum-Kulka and et al, 1989) including eight strategies in order for increasing directness The data collected shows NSBE and

NS Dan both provide extremely low frequencies of IFIDs, as opposed to the other studies

In addition, no statistical differences are found as regards the frequency of the use of apology strategies by these two groups The only significant difference among the five groups is the use of modality markers Nevertheless, the findings still show that socio-pragmatic strategies are indeed transferred from one language to another This reveals through the high number of direct apologies and rejections, lack of minimizing, lower number of explanations used by learners of three groups Most of the learners’ deviations are assumed as the outcomes of insufficient pragma linguistic knowledge

In Vietnam, most of the limited pragmatics researches are in the tradition

of contrastive pragmatics, which contrast the realization patterns of speech acts such as greeting (Suu 1990), compliment and compliment response (Quang 1998), request and request response (Thanh 2000; Quyen 2001), disagreeing (Huong 2001, 2006) Vietnamese with those of other languages, particularly English The studies on the speech act of apology also follow the tradition of descriptive and contrastive pragmatics Some remarkable studies on this speech

act were carried out by Dang Thanh Phuong (2000), Kieu Thi Hong Van (2000) and Nguyen Thuy Trang (2010)

2.2 Theories of speech acts

Searle (1969: 16) affirms that when we speak we are performing speech acts, acts such as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, making promises and so on He suggests that these acts are performed in accordance with certain rules for the use of linguistic elements Actually, the notion of speech acts dates back to the British language philosopher John L

Austin (1962) In his influential book entitled How to do things with words,

Austin makes an interesting point that in saying something, one is actually doing something This view is considered a breakthrough in linguistics since it points out that many everyday language declarative sentences are not intended to make true or false statements, as it is firmly asserted by logical positivists Rather, they are used to “do things”, that is, to perform certain linguistic actions such as requesting, complimenting, apologizing and so on These utterances are termed performatives by Austin Austin conceptualizes performatives as involving three acts, namely, locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary – the three kinds of acts that, according to him, constitute what people “do with words” Of these, a locutionary act is defined as the act of vocalizing a sentence and assigning a propositional meaning to it An illocutionary act is the one of performing a particular language function and a perlocutionary act is the one of producing some kind of effect on the addressee The core interest of Austin as well as of other pragmatists is the illocutionary act, which Austin later termes “speech acts” (Levinson, 1983)

For example, we might say “It’s hot in here!” (locutionary act ) Its meaning may be, “I want some fresh air!”(Illocutionary act) and the hearer

might open the window (perlocutionary act) In general, there is a close and predictable connection between the locutionary and perlocutionary effect so that the hearer can understand and complete the speaker’s intention But in fact, the same locution could have different illocutionary forces in different contexts For

instance, “What’s the time?” could, depending on the context of utterance, mean

any of the following:

The speaker wants the hearer to tell him the time; The speaker is annoyed because the hearer is late; The speaker thinks it is time the hearer went home (Thomas, 1996:50) Vice versa, different words can be used to perform the same illocutionary act

For example, to request someone to close the door, we can use one of the following utterances:

Shut the door!

Could you shut the door?

Did you forget the door?

Put the wood in the hole

Were you born in a barn?

What do big boys do when they come into a room, Johnny?

(Thomas, 1996:51)

According to Yule (1996) the clearest device for indicating the illocutionary force is an expression containing a performative verb that explicitly

names the illocutionary act being performed For example, I promise you that I

will never do it again In the preceding example, “promise” would be the

performative verb and, if stated, would be very clear IFID (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device) Yule also argues that other IFIDs, which can be identified, are word order and stress and intonation

a You are leaving! [I tell you Y – L]

b You are leaving? [I request confirmation about Y – L]

c Are you leaving? [I ask you if Y – L]

In fact, the same performative verb can also have different illocutionary forces For example, the performative verb “xin lỗi” (be sorry/ apologize) in Vietnamese may have different illocutionary forces in different contexts It can

be an apology in (a), a refusal in (b), or a denial in (c):

a)

A: Sao hôm qua cậu không đến ăn tối ?

B: Xin lỗi cậu nhé Mình bị ốm

[Why didn’t you come to dinner last night?

I am sorry I was ill ]

b)

A: Em nhảy điệu này với anh nhé?

B: Xin lỗi em nhảy không giỏi lắm

[May I have this dance?

So sorry, I do not dance very well.]

c)

A: Cậu không bao giờ lau nhà cả Sao cậu không ngăn nắp một chút?

B: Xin lỗi Thế tất của ai vứt ở xó nhà kia?

[You never clean up around here! Why don’t you tidy up more?

Excuse me, but whose socks are those in the middle of the floor? ]

As such, through the IFIDs the Speaker’s intended illocutionary force can

be recognized There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts and several attempts have been made to classify them into a small number of types According to Searle (1979) speech acts can be classified into five types: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives and commissives:

Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their

utterance For example, the marriage candidates cease to be just an ordinary pair

of people, and become a married couple when the phrase “I now pronounce you

man and wife” is uttered In using a declaration, the speaker changes the world

Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker

believes They can be assertions, conclusions, descriptions, beliefs, reports or denials For example:

The earth is flat

Chomsky didn’t write about peanuts

It was a warm sunny day

In using a representative, the speaker makes words fit the world (of belief)

Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker

feels They express psychological states including apologizing, greeting, thanking and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow

I’m really sorry!

Congratulations!

Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahh!

In using an expressive, the speaker makes words fit the world (of feeling)

Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone

else to do something They express what the speaker wants They are commands, orders, requests and suggestions For example:

Give me a cup of coffee Make it black

Could you lend me a pen, please?

Don’t touch that

In using a directive, the speaker attempts to make the world fit the words (via the hearer)

Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit

themselves to some future action They express what the speaker intends They are promises, threats, refusals, pledges For example:

I’ll be back

I’m going to get it right next time

We will not do that

In using a commissives, the speakers undertake to make the world fit the words (via the speaker)

Speech act classification

The five general functions of speech acts (following Searle 1979)

(cited in Yule, 1996: 53 – 55)

In order to understand the speaker’s intention behind the words, the hearer

can rely on some conventional way to predict, called “speech event” For example, when a boy stays out late, his father may ask him “What’s the time? He

will understand that his father is very annoyed and furious with his being late rather than he wants to know the time According to Yule (1996: 57), “a speech event is an activity in which participants interact via language in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome” This is possible because in a

social situation, the involved participants necessarily have a social relationship

of some kind, and, on a specific occasion, may have particular goals A speech event may include a certain central speech act, but it also includes other utterances leading up to and subsequently reacting to the central action According to Searle (1969: 43):

The goal of spoken interaction is to communicate things to the hearer by getting him/her to recognize the intention that one has to communicate those things The speaker then must achieve the intended effect on the hearer by allowing him/her to recognize his/her intention to achieve that effect Once the hearer recognizes the intention of the speaker to archieve an effect this is generally achieved

Therefore, the recognition of the intention or intended meaning of the utterance (speech act) seems crucial in achieving a level of success in understanding Nevertheless, Stubbs (1983) points out that utterances can be wrongly interpreted and also speakers can say one thing and mean another

Speech act type Direction of fit S=Speaker; X=Situation Declarations Word change the world S cause X Representatives Make words fit the world S believes X Expressives Make words fit the world S feels X Directives Make the world fit words S wants X Commissives Make the world fit words S intends X

Because of this, it becomes crucial to consider the context in which a particular speech act is conveyed in order to understand it fully

2.3 Politeness

2.3.1 Theories of politeness

There are many definitions of politeness According to Wehmeier, politeness means having or showing good manners and respect for the feelings of others (2000: 976) Politeness is the expression of the speakers‘intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts towards another (Mill 1003: 6) Or according to William Foley, politeness is a battery of social skills whose goal is to ensure everyone feels affirmed in a social interaction Theory of politeness is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts

to face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees (1997) Through a process of researching related documents, I found that Lakoff and Brown and Levinson were some of the earliest linguists to study politeness Since then, many other theorists have either built on their ideas and principles or disprove them

a Lakoff’s theory of politeness

Robin Tolmach Lakoff, one of the first linguists studying about politeness, is the first person who gave the opinion that politeness is an important aspect of interaction and it needs to be studied After Lakoff, many theorists have focused on either expanding on her maxims or contesting them According to Johnstone (2008), Lakoff‘s theory of politeness indicates that when people communicate with each other, they will follow a certain set of rules which forbid communication from breaking down Lakoff proposes that there are three rules of politeness:

Rule 1: Be clear This rule is based on Grice‘s Cooperative Principle Maxims which lays down a set of principles of conversation and proposes a

framework for language use The Cooperative Principle is summarized as the specifications of ―what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information‖ (Levinson 1983: 102) With the hope to create a detail description about the working process of

Cooperative Principle, Grice made an effort of formulating guidelines for the use

of language efficiently and effectively in conversation

Based on Grice‘s guidelines (1975: 45), this rule is subdivided into a set

of conversational maxims as maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relations and maxim of manners

Figure 1: First rule of Lakoff’s theory of politeness

For example:

Tom: Good afternoon!

I want to buy a ceiling fan

How much is it?

Cashier: A ceiling fan is $100

In the above example, the cashier answered the customer clearly (maxim

of manner), truthfully (maxim of quality) as well as gave him the right amount of information (maxim of quantity) and focused directly on the demand of this customer (maxim of relation) No more or less information as well as no additional level of meaning was given by the cashier in the conversation with

Tom

Be Clear

Quality

Relations Quantity

Manners

Contribute enough information

in the conversation but not more or less

Expect the speakers to be sincere and tell the truth

Be relevant

Speak briefly and orderly without obscurity and ambiguity

To sum up, through this set of conversational maxims, people realize that to ensure a maximally efficient conversation, people need to be sure

that the information they speak must be clear, relevant and sincere

Rule 2: Be polite This rule consists of a sub set of three rules: don‘t impose, give options and make others feel good

Figure 2: Second rule of Lakoff’s theory of politeness

Rule 3: Make a good-be friendly This rule is most variable in terms of

cultural meanings

A number of scholars have contested Lakoff‘s theory of politeness They gave many different comments Tanne (1986) said that her theory is not only the rules but also the senses which the speakers use to express their opinions naturally Brown (1976) showed the main problem of her theory of politeness to

be that she put the rules of politeness in a passive framework without decision and integration; it means the social relationships and expectations about humans

as interactants

b Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness

The theory of politeness‘s also formulated in 1978 by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson Brown and Levinson‘s theory of linguistic politeness combine the formulation of an individual‘s face as a public self-image

The concept of ‗face‘ was introduced by Brown and Levinson with the purpose of illustrating ‗politeness‘ in the broad sense During interactions, the

interactants are interested in maintaining two states of ‗face‘: positive face and negative face Positive face founds the status of one person as an autonomous, independent and free agent Therefore, a complaint about the quality of somebody‘s work threatens their positive face; whereas negative face founds the immunity of one person from outside interference and excessive external pressure Thus, telling somebody who cannot see the doctor at the time they expected to is a threat to their negative face In fact, any normal interaction can lead to the risk of losing face so that in communication, people should make attempt to establish positive faces and minimize threats to negative faces

Politeness serves to enhance, maintain or protect face Thus, the addressed positive face results in positive politeness Positive politeness is approach based

On the other hand, negative face makes a rise of negative politeness Negative politeness is avoidance based This concern is not only to maintain distance but also to affect or limit other freedom The positive politeness is usually seen in groups of friends, or where people of given social situation know each other fairly well Brown and Levinson also indicated that the important key of respective behavior is negative politeness and the key of ‗familiar’ and ‗joking’ behavior is positive politeness

2.3.2 Politeness strategies and choices of strategy

In social communication, each person expresses private characteristics Maybe it is suitable or unsuitable with the thought of other people Therefore, to maintain the peaceful relations with other people, avoid contradictory situations and always respect others ‘freedom of thought and action, people should employ politeness strategies which help to save the hearer‘s face Usually you try to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable

According to Brown and Levinson, Face Threatening Act (FTA‘s) is an act that presents a threat to another individual‘s expectations and desires regarding self-image Politeness strategies are developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTA‘s What would the speaker do if he saw a cup of pencils

on the teacher's desk, and he wanted to use one, would the speaker say?

“Oh, I want to use one of those!”(1)

“Is it OK if I use one of those pencils?”(2)

“I’m sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask if I could use one of those pencils?”(3)

“Hmm, I sure could use a pencil right now.”(4)

As we know, politeness strategies are developed and assisted the speakers to save the hearer‘s face when face-threatening acts are inevitable

or desired Brown and Levinson summarized their politeness strategies into four main types: bald on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record

According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 74), bald on record strategy is a direct way of saying things, without any minimization to the imposition, in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way, for example if

the speaker says (1), the politeness strategy which used here is called the

bald on-record strategy In this situation, the speaker made no attempt to minimize threats to their teacher ‘s ‗face ‘

Positive politeness strategy focuses on the positive face of the hearer The speaker considers the hearer at the equal position, rights and duties This strategy is regarded as a solidarity strategy and it tends to emphasize the closeness between people in conversation In the above example, if the

speaker says (2), it means the speaker used the positive politeness strategy

In this situation, we can realize that the teacher has a desire to be respected

It also confirms that the relationship is friendly and expresses group interaction Negative politeness strategy tends to emphasize the right of freedom of the hearer and it is considered as a deference strategy The language associated with a deference strategy emphasizes the independence

of the speaker and the hearer If in the above example, the speaker says (3),

it means he employed the negative politeness strategy, which similar to the positive politeness in that you realize that they want to be respected however; the speaker also remembers that his current position now is imposing on other people For this situation, the speaker can own some different suggestions such as ―I was wondering if ‖ or ―I don ‘t want to bother you but‖

In short, ―both positive and negative politeness strategies are repressive actions, used to mitigate the face threat which a linguistic act might pose for the interlocutor (Kasper, in Coulmas 1997: 378)

Off-record strategy is defined as a communicative act in which the speaker cannot express a clear intention of communication Returning to

the above example, if the speaker says (4), he used off-record indirect

strategy The main purpose is to take some of the presence off of him He wants borrow a pencil but he makes effort of avoiding imposing the teacher directly He hopes that the teacher recognizes what he needs and

The words ‗I'm sorry ‗ is the typical expression of an apology However, these words can have many possible interpretations for a hearer as well as a speaker According to Cohen (1999), the difference of meaning results in three elements in an apology The first one is admittance of one‘s fault The second one is the expression of regret for the injurious action and the third one is the expression of sympathy for the other’s injury

Holmes defined an apology as a primarily social act which carries an effective meaning (1990: 170) Otherwise, Olshtain and Cohen (1993) defined it

as a convivial speech act happening as the same time to maintain the peace between the apologizer and the recipient when there‘s the violation of social standards even when the offense is only potential According to Searle (1969), apologies have the effect of paying a debt The person who expresses the apology, need to remedy for the victim because of the consequence of their occurred offense

Based on definition of Lakoff (2001), an apology can be regarded as a work of compensating It divides the apoligizer‘s self into two parts The first part is the shame for offence causing to the recipient and the second one is to be lining up themselves with the recipient and the violately social norms In short, Reiter (2000) leads us to understand an apology as a ―compensatory action for

an offense committed by the speaker which has affected the hearer‖

According to Olshtain and Weinbach (1993), when a social norm is violated, it is necessary for apologizer to realize their fault and responsibility with the conversational partner When lacking of an action or an utterance, the violator has to apologize There will be an appearance of apologizer and recipient of apology This act bases on the violators who caused the offence accepts themselves as an apologizer The speech act of apologizing requires an action or an utterance which is intended to set things right

Brown and Levinson (1987) defined an apology as a negative politeness strategy, in which, they focused on respect, deference, and distance rather than friendliness and involvement This is a face threatening act for the speaker and a face-saving act for the addressee

In conclusion, when discussing apologies, there are four assumptions which must be made First, the speakers trust an act has already been performed Second, the speakers rely on this act offended the hearer Third, the speakers believe that they take some responsibility in the act offending the hearer Last, the speakers express their regret to their offences

2.4.2 Apologizing as a speech act

Apologizing is a frequently use speech act which serves different purposes ranging from maintaining polite rituals that could vary from one society to

another to the acknowledgement of serious offences Speech act of apologizing

is common in most societies, cultures and languages It is easily accepted as one

of the main communicative acts, one of the most “sensitive” areas of politeness

in human interactions

As can be seen from the above classification of speech acts, apologizing is

an expressive illocutionary act Kasper and Bergman (1993) defines apologizing

as a compensatory action to an offense in the doing of which the Speaker was

causally involved and which is costly to the Hearer This conceptualization is supported by Goffman’s view of apologies as remedial interchange serving to re-establish social

Harmony after a real or virtual offense (Goffman, 1971) According to Bach and Harnish (1979), in apologizing to someone, either one expresses regret for what one has done or one expresses the intention that one’s utterance satisfies the social expectation to express regret (without actually expressing regret) Back and Harnish consider that apologies fall into the category of acknowledge because in apologizing the addresser presumes he has done something regrettable to the hearer On the other hand, Lakoff (2001) observes that apologies occur in a variety of forms ranging from the canonically explicit to the ambiguously indirect, alluding to the existence of an unambiguous apology form

Kasper and Bergman (1993) distinguish apologies from other expressive acts They argue that apologies have good relations with other expressive speech acts, such as thanking and complimenting Similar to these speech acts, apologizing occurs as a post-event act However, apologizing differs from thanking and complimenting in the fact that it involves events containing norm infringements, while complimenting and thanking refer back to events deserving praise, according to prevailing social norms Another important point is that thanks and compliments commonly hold the addressee to be causally involved in the preceding events, but apologies hold the Speaker as the agent who assumes responsibility for a committed offense

Similar to other speech acts, apologizing constitutes a broad spectrum of behaviors used to satisfy a variety of communicate purposes According to Goffman (1971) – cited in Kasper (1993) – apologies can be divided into two types: those redressing virtual offenses, which are remedied by the sole offering

of an apologetic formula, and those redressing actual damage inflicted on the addressee, sometimes including an offer of material compensation The former is called ritualistic apologies, and the latter, substantive apologies In everyday life,

we encounter different sorts of ritualistic apologies Normally, apologies relate to past acts because we cannot apologize for something we have not done yet However, just as it is possible to thank someone in advance, it is also possible to

apologize for future offences If an interaction is initiated in a way or under conditions that the Speaker knows or assumed to be undesired by his Addressee, which threatens the Addressee’s face, the Speaker will often start with an apology Those are the case of ritualistic apologies as preparation for the other face – threatening acts typically as softeners preparing for requests, complains, and refusals Consider the following examples:

* Excuse me, could I get past, please?

(before ‘territory invasion”)

* Sorry to trouble you, but isn’t that your car parked right in front of the garage?

To sum up, it might be helpful to quote Bruce Frazer’s words in his paper

“On apologizing” (cited in Coulmas, 1981: 15) “Apologies mean all sort of

different things, often in quite subtle ways Learning how to apologize without being too humble is quite an art”

2.4.3 Apologizing strategies

There are many ways to classify apology but it is said that Goffman‘s classification is the most effective view He distinguishes it into two types of compensations: ritual and substantive After that, based on the distinction of

Goffman, Fraser (1981) used two motivations to combine two types While the ritual apology may be created as a kind of habit when the respondent is not responsible for the offense; in substantive apology, the speaker wants to compensate the damage or harm caused by the offense

Through an illocutionary force indicating device (IFID), we can recognize the appearance of an apology directly when the speaker uses a word, expression,

or sentence which contains a relevant performative verb such as ‗apologize ‘,

‗be sorry ‘, ‗excuse ‘, or ‗forgive ‘ Based on the classification of Olshtain and Cohen (1983), a set of apologies strategies with five semantic principles include an expression of an apology, acknowledgement of responsibility, an offer to repair, an explanation or account of the situation and a promise of forbearance After that, Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984) rearranged the five semantic principles of Olshtain and Cohen (1983) to set a new classification of apology strategies In this study, I applied the apology strategies which are conducted by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain 1984; Trosberg 1987; and Holmes 1989

to analyze the data collection It can be categorized as follows:

Strategy 1: An expression of apology (Illocutionary Force Indicating Device IFID) According to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984), IFID is a category

covering the explicit use of apology expressions that mean sorry, forgive me etc… In this study, it is the most commonly used strategy For example: In a crowded elevator, I step on an old woman ‘s foot on accident and that makes her

angry I automatically say „I’m sorry! ‟

Strategy 2: An explanation or account: It means the speakers will express

an account of the cause of the offense or explain the reasons of violation or

damage happened For example: „I‟m sorry I‟m late but I got a stuck on the

Strategy 4: An offer of repair: For this strategy, the speakers usually express

clearly their faults and they make an effort to repair the damage caused by the offense

For example: When you are late for the meeting, you will say clearly that ‟ I am

sorry, I am late, I will never come late one more times”

Strategy 5: Promise for forbearance: In this strategy, the speakers promise not

to repeat that mistake in the future by using the performative verb ‗promise ‘ For

example: I promise it won’t happen again According to Bergman and Kasper

(1993), they indicated that it is classified alongside the strategy 6 below ‗concern for the hearer ‘as verbal redress Whereas the strategy 6 implies unnecessary of acknowledgement of responsibility or the damage caused by the offense not to be dangerous with the speaker, this strategy is the clearest way to express the speaker ‘s responsibility

Strategy 6: Concern for the hearer: In order to pacify the H, the S has to

take explicit cognizance of the H‘s feelings and conditions: I hope that I didn’t

upset you (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) The informants in this study applied a few

occurrences of this strategy

Strategy 7: Intensification: According to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984),

intensification is not a separate strategy It is treated as an element within an apology strategy In this strategy, the complainees expresses their failure in taking on responsibility This strategy brings the high effect based on the choice

of apologizing strategy as well as the number of the apologizing strategy you used

2.5 Language and culture

The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted Language

is used to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties Different ideas stem from differing language use within one’s culture and the whole intertwining of these relationships start at one’s birth

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines culture as “customs, civilization and achievements of a particular time or people.” In general terms then, culture defines a people’s way of life Indeed, it can be considered as the sum total of

norms and values espoused and cherished by a particular people If values are patterns of behavior, norms are standards of behavior

Hantrais (1989) puts forth the idea that culture is the beliefs and practices governing the life of a society for which a particular language is the vehicle of expression Therefore, everyone’s views are dependent on the culture which has influenced them, as well as being described using the language which has been shaped by that culture The understanding of a culture and its people can be enhanced by the knowledge of their language This brings us to an interesting point brought up by Emmitt and Pollock (1997), who argue that even though people are brought up under similar behavioural backgrounds or cultural situations but however speak different languages, their world view may be very different As Sapir-Whorf argues, different thoughts are brought about by the use

of different forms of language One is limited by the language used to express one’s ideas Different languages will create different limitations, therefore a people who share a culture but speak different languages, will have different world views Still, language is rooted in culture and culture is reflected and passed on by language from one generation to the next (Emmitt & Pollock 1997)

From this, one can see that learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture (Allwright & Bailey 1991)

2.6 Summary of the chapter

This chapter discusses the previous studies, theoretical background of subjects: theories of speech acts, theories of politeness and apology They are foundation to design the surveys for the next chapters to find out the data of this thesis

CHAPTER III – THE STRATEGIES OF APOLOGIZING IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

3.1 Research methods

Although the study can be conducted by many different ways, I decided to use qualitative and quantitative methods The collected data from the Discourse Completion Test (DCT) were analyzed using interpretive and statistical methods and classified to compare and contrast based on the focal request of this study In this study, I decided to apply the DCT as a researching instrument to have the respondents of two groups written the utterance they will express when facing with the situations given on this test Following the work of Levenston (1975), Shoshana Blum-Kulka developed this instrument to carry out the study on the comparison of speech act between native and non-native Hebrew speakers DCT is often used as a tool to elicit particular speech acts in linguistics and pragmatics fields The respondents will read the situational prompts in the DCT and elicit the responses of another participant For pragmatics studies, the DCT is used as an instrument to research the speech acts and find out the average of natural speech acts and scripted speech acts Making

a comparison between role-plays and DCT, we can see that role-plays are considered to elicit data more similar to natural speech acts; whereas, DCT is considered harder to score and influented the interlocutors

In the original version, the DCT consisted of 14 apology situations It was considered as a pilot to test in the real studies In this study, the DCT consisted

of 10 situations I really wanted the respondents to write the first thing which came into their minds when they read each situation in the DCT According to the serious level of each situation and social status of apologizer and apologizee,

I organized all situations in my study The subjects were also given a short background questionnaire to have an idea about their age, nationality, gender, occupation and level of education

The usage of DCT in a numerous speech act studies has demonstrated that large scale data collection of this type produces good information on the set of formulas considered appropriate to a given situation Some notable studies include the ones on apologies (Cohen and Olshtain 1983, Olshtain and Blum-Kulka 1985, Ercetin 1995, cited in Tuncel 1999), advices (Hinkel 1997), refusals

(Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford 1991) and requests (House & Kasper 1987, Kulka & House 1989)

Blum-It is essential to realize that the data collected from the DCT cannot be expected to provide the researchers all important and necessary information about the ways in which a speech act is performed in spontaneous interactions It

is believed that the DCT can be an excellent means of corroborating over a wider population results that have been obtained by ethnographic studies while clearly further work with higher quality ethnographic data will be required to obtain a fuller picture It is the most feasible mean in providing researchers the conceptions of what subjects consider to be the socially and culturally appropriate responses in any given context (Lyuh 1992)

DCT allow researchers to elicit data from a large sample of subjects easily, and simultaneously control the explanatory variables that are vital to the study This technique has been employed widely by many researchers (Cohen & Olshtain 1981; Olshtain 1983; Olshtain and Cohen 1983; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain 1984; Kasanga & Lwanga-Lumu 2007) to compare apology strategies

in different languages and for the comparison of strategies used by native speakers and learners of the same language However, this method is not without problems Although this method has been praised for providing a controlled context for the speech acts and supplying the researcher with a large amount of data quickly, it has been critiqued for not providing speech acts performed in a full discourse context

The apology strategies used to analyze the collected data of this study from DCT which are conducted by Blum-Kulka and Olshtain 1984; Trosberg 1987; and Holmes 1989 can be categorized as in table 2

The main focus of this study is to find out the similarities and differences of English and Vietnamese in the way of expressing apology so the applied approach‘s comparative data analysis I hope that with this research method, the secret of apologizing strategies of English and Vietnamese can be discovered

An expression of regret

Strategy 1 An expression of apology (IFID) An offer of apology

A request for forgiveness

Strategy 2 An explanation or account (EXPL)

Accepting the blame

Strategy 3 An acknowledgement of Lack of intent

responsibility (RESP) Expressing self-

deficiency

Strategy 4 An offer of repair (REP)

Strategy 5 A promise of forbearance (FOR)

Strategy 6 Concern for the hearer (CON)

Strategy 7 Intensification (INT)

Table 3.1: Apologizing strategies used by English and Vietnamese

3.1.1 Subjects of the study

There are 60 subjects participating in this study: 30 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people Their ages ranged from 25-35 15 of 30 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people (15 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people are working at ETC English Training Center,

15 other native speakers are foreigner tourists staying at Silver Hotel at 45 Phan Chu Trinh Street, Hanoi) Their language levels are ensured so there will not be any problems in using English and expressing apology There have an equal number of English and Vietnamese respondents which is an essential and vital condition to compare both groups ‘behavior Although the number of each group

was only 30, it was thought that their answers to DCT could give an idea about native speakers ‘age of apologies

3.1.2 Data collection instruments

In this study, I designed a new questionnaire comprising 10 apology situations It is a careful selection from many situations of apologizing in the previous researches of Cohen & Olshtain (1981), Blum-Kulka & Olshtain (1984) and Reiter (2000) It consists of incomplete discourse sequences representing socially differentiated situations and covering offences of different types like space (see the situation 1, 3 and 10), time (see the situation 2, 4, 8 and 9), and possession damage (see the situation 5 and 7) Each discourse sequence presents

a short description of the situation, clearly specifying the setting, the social distance between the participants and their status relative to each other, followed

by an incomplete dialogue, thus providing a context which may be expected to give rise to particular apology strategies The questionnaire is designed with many socially differentiated situations which are expected to be familiar to both English and Vietnamese respondents

3.1.3 Data collection procedures

The first phase was the preparation for the data collection process, which included the designing of the DCT for the two main groups of participants: English and Vietnamese Whatever form it was, personal information of all participants was ensured to be confidential and anonymous for ethical reasons Moreover, all the contacts needed for the questionnaire delivery were established As I stated, the discourse completion test was constructed in English and completed by 30 native speakers of English and 30 Vietnamese people A large number of informants are teachers working at ETC English Training Center I and all informants had a formal conversation at our company After I introduced my thesis topic and explained the purpose of my research, they expressed a strong desire to help First, we intended to allocate a special room where the data collection activity took place Due to the length of the questionnaire and the limited time of each teacher (each teacher has to teach different classes at different shifts at our center) so I requested them to kindly

take the questionnaires home with them and to return the complete questionnaires the following days, which I collected personally Most of the teachers who participated were between 25 and 35 years of age

After the data had been collected, they were analyzed carefully in a systematic way with the application of both statistical and interpretive methods, which ensures the validity and reliability of the research Then, for each research question, data was presented in tables and charts to facilitate the synthesis, comparison and generalization of data Graphs were principally used to analyze and compare figures in a general sense, while tables were preferably applied when further details were required Finally, most typical apologies are frequently cited when necessary to illustrate the analysis of data

3.1.4 Questionnaires

Questionnaires, like other research methods, are normally used to measure and understand opinions, attitudes, and actions of a group of respondents, as a step towards making generalizations about the whole population of the community Such generalization of course depends on the nature of the questionnaire, its aims and the number of people who complete it In favor of the use of questionnaires, Lewin (2005) points out that questionnaires can provide the researcher with a way of gathering structured and unstructured data, and that the data collected can be presented numerically and thus can be analyzed using statistical techniques In addition, the language of the questionnaire should be simple and clear, and the researcher should avoid being vague or ambiguous As Moser & Kalton (2004) said that if a question includes an ambiguous word, this could mean that different people will interpret the question in different ways and provide unpredictable and unanalyzable answers

As regards the types of questionnaires, Oppenheim (2003) realizes three types: mail questionnaires, self-administered questionnaires, and group-administered questionnaires Mail questionnaires are sent to respondents via post, while self-administered and group-administered questionnaires are presented to the respondents by the researcher or by someone in an official position The only difference between self-administered and group-administered

questionnaires is that in the former the questionnaire is distributed to single respondents, whereas in the latter the questionnaire is distributed to groups of respondents gathered together Mail questionnaire is less expensive but it brings the low response rate and lack of opportunity to correct misconceptions

In order to have a comprehensive view of the issue, a DCT was carefully designed and revised The questionnaire was designed after the researcher had identified major apologizing strategies together with influential social-cultural factors on the choices from the literature review together with consultation from their supervisor

The participants of this study divided into two groups: English and Vietnamese but they will fill in the same questionnaire A questionnaire consisted of two main parts The first part was designed to get the participants

‘personal information The second part – the main content of the DCT was to investigate the expressions of participants when they apologize the person they were interacting in each given situation From the DCT, we always see the close relevance between the questionnaire items and the research questions The clear language and comprehensive situations wouldn’t ‘t create any difficulties for the participants to provide their answers These situations were designed to meet the purpose of this study and to elicit data on apologizing strategies from both English and Vietnamese subjects They specify the settings followed by the to-be-fill-in utterances for the speaker in relation with the social distance between participants and their status relative to each other It is hoped to find out the different expression of apologizing of other people in the same situations

3.2 Apology data analysis by situation

As it was stated that the aim of this study was to investigate the speech act realization used by a large number of English and Vietnamese teachers working

at ETC English Training Center and some foreigner tourists in situations which required apologies The data were collected via Discourse Completion Test to obtain apologetic responses The responses from the respondents were calculated and their frequencies were taken in order to make a comparison between English and Vietnamese The analysis of apology data collected from 30 native speakers and 30 Vietnamese respondents will be presented in tables to indicate the