A study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the coursebook “new headway” intermediate as seen by teachers of university of economic technical industries

This research paper entitled “A study of politeness strategies and role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” intermediate as seen by teachers

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

************************

LƯU THI ̣ PHƯƠNG THUÝ

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK

“NEW HEADWAY” -INTERMEDIATE AS SEEN BY TEACHERS OF UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC-TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình giao tiếp NEW HEADWAY trình độ intermediate dưới cái nhìn của

giáo viên trường Đại học Kinh tế -Kỹ thuật Công nghiệp

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Linguistics

Code : 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

************************

LƯU THI ̣ PHƯƠNG THUÝ

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK

“NEW HEADWAY” -INTERMEDIATE AS SEEN BY TEACHERS OF UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMIC-TECHNICAL INDUSTRIES Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình giao tiếp NEW HEADWAY trình độ intermediate dưới cái nhìn của

giáo viên trường Đại học Kinh tế -Kỹ thuật Công nghiệp

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code : 60220201

Supervisor : Prof Nguyễn Quang

HANOI - 2016

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this thesis is my own work I confirm that this work is for the requirement of the M.A, and this thesis has not been submitted for elsewhere in any other form for the fulfilment of any other degree or tertiary institution

Hanoi, November 2016

Luu Thi Phuong Thuy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the completion of this thesis, I would like to show my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to a number of people for their encouragement and support

To begin with, I would like to express my greatest and deepest thankfulness

to Prof Nguyen Quang, my supervisor, for his valuable guidance, and advice during the procedure of my thesis Without his supervision, this M.A thesis could not have been accomplished

In addition, I would like to give my thanks to Mrs Le Ngoc Hanh, dean of English Faculty as well as all UNETI teachers who participated in my study, for their wholehearted facilitation Without their ideas, their support and their contribution, I cannot complete my thesis

Last but not least, I wish to send my special thanks to my family particularly

my mother, my father and my husband for their help on the completion of this thesis They have always supplied the best conditions form me to fulfil the thesis

ABSTRACT

This paper is carried out at endeavour of exploring UNETI teachers‟ perception in the linguistics politeness strategies under the influence of role relationships in the conversational activities in New Headway On the basis of quantitative method, survey questionnaire with multiple choice questions and discourse completion task are employed to collect data from fifteen UNETI teachers

of English The research shows that the frequencies of politeness strategy occurrence in conversational activities of the material are not always the same The result reveals that positive politeness strategies are preferred more than negative politeness strategies in almost all kinds of conversational activities Moreover, the role relationships relating to relative power, social distance and ranking of impositions make considerable impact on the choice of politeness strategies The study reveals that all the UNETI consume politeness in both utterances in NHW and the significant role relationships in the selection of the types of politeness strategies

In addition, they classified them into positive and negative politeness strategies

NPS : Negative politeness strategies

PPS : Positive politeness strategies

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1: Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown /Levinson, 1987: 60)

Figure 2: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the conversations

Figure 3: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the conversations Figure 4: Frequency of negative politeness strategies used in the conversations Table 1: The statistics of the appearance of positive and negative politeness strategies based on the roles of participants

Table 2: The statistics of the choice of the appearance of positive or negative politeness strategies based on the roles relationships under UNETI teachers‟ perception

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Research methodology 2

5.1 Research questions 2

5.2 Research method 3

5.2.1 Instrument 3

5.2.2 Data analysis 3

6 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6

1.Theory of Speech Acts 6

2.Theory of politeness and politeness strategies 7

2.1.Theory of politeness 7

2.2.Politeness strategies 9

2.2.1.Positive politeness 10

2.2.2.Negative politeness 14

3.Role relationships affecting politeness strategies 16

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 19

1 Research questions 19

2 Instruments 19

2.1.Multiple choice questionnaires 19

2.2 Discourse completion task 20

3 Participants 20

4 Data collection procedure 20

4.1 Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW 20

4.2 Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW as seen by UNETI teachers of English 21

5 Data analysis method 21

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

1 Positive and negative politeness in conversational activities in the course book “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE” 22

1.1 Overview of politeness strategies in “New Headway” intermediate (NHW) 22

1.2.Frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book “New Headway, Intermediate” 23

1.2.2.Negative Politeness strategies in conversational activities 29

2.Politeness Strategies in terms of role- relationship 33

3.Politeness in terms of role - relationship in NHW as seen by UNETI teachers of English 36

PART C: CONCLUSION 38

1 Summary of main findings 38

2 Limitation 39

3 Suggestions for further study 39

REFERENCES 40 APPENDIXES I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Language has always been an indispensable part not only in communication among people who share or do not share the same nationality, social or ethnic background but also in recording and understanding culture Among languages all over the world, English is considered the most powerful language The number of people learning English has sharply increased and a variety of learning and teaching materials are available to meet their learning demands

In Vietnam, English has developed with an unprecedented speed and become a compulsory subject in schools, colleges and universities Although a lot of Vietnamese learners of English master grammar rules and accumulate as much vocabulary as possible, they often experience communication breakdown when participating in a real daily conversations In order to communicate successfully across cultures, learners need to be provided with cultural knowledge and the relationship between language and culture Additionally, learners must be aware of the hidden parts of culture including politeness strategies in daily social interaction

In communication, people use the politeness strategies to save hearers‟ face and avoid making other people feel uncomfortable

This research paper entitled “A study of politeness strategies and role

relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-Technical Industries” is motivated by the above reasons Hopefully, the research would supply

teachers with an insight into the politeness strategies under the influential role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate)

2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to achieve the following objectives:

- To identify and classify positive and negative politeness employed in the

conversations of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate)

- To investigate how positive and negative politeness strategies are realized with reference to role relationships in the conversations

- To find out how UNETI teachers identify politeness under the influence of role relationships in conversations in NHW

3 Scope of the study

The study focuses on analyzing politeness strategies used under the inference

of role relationships in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-

Technical Industries

4 Significance of the study

The study deals with giving a theoretical background on politeness strategies

in verbal communication As stated in the study, politeness strategies play an integral role in daily communication Hence, the study is carried out to show the readers how the politeness strategies utilized in cross-cultural communication to avoid cultural conflicts

In addition, this study is expected to make contributions to raising the awareness of the importance of politeness strategies in real life situations for learners Practically, the study also supplies the readers with the analysis of the politeness strategies in conversations of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-Technical

Industries

5 Research methodology

5.1 Research questions

The thesis aims to address the following research questions:

- What are positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversational activities in NHW?

- How do role relationships influence the use of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversations of the course book “New Headway”

(intermediate)?

- How do UNETI teachers realize positive and negative politeness strategies

under the influence of role relationships?

5.2 Research method

This paper applies qualitative method and quantitative method because these methods are supposed to describe the way politeness strategies are used, provides the answers to the questions of what types of something happened and seeks to how teachers realize politeness under the influence of role relationships in the course book All the considerations, remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in this study will be based largely on the analysis of statistic data Furthermore, survey research is the method of gathering data from respondents In a survey, the researcher selects a population Since population can be quite large, the author directly questions only a number of samples of the population That is why survey research is a suitable choice for a cross-cultural study All the considerable comments are based on the author‟s description and analysis of the data and questionnaires

5.2.1 Instrument

The instrument used in this thesis is questionnaires which consists of 8 real-life situations, which are aimed at eliciting positive and negative strategies that are recognized in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway” (the third edition) (intermediate) In these situations, various variables are reflected such

as role relationships and positive/negative strategies

5.2.2 Data analysis

 Types of data

Data used in this thesis are collected from the course book “New Headway” (the third edition) (intermediate) The book was designed to develop the communicative ability in daily interaction for learners The thesis is only to focus on one course book All units in these textbooks are divided into four teaching sections such as: reading, listening, speaking and writing Furthermore, in order to answer the third

research question, the researcher employs questionnaire

 Data collection

The data of the study are all utterances in conversations in every unit in the textbook, mainly in listening sections In order to collect the data, the author observed all conversational activities in the course book “New Headway” (intermediate) to find out all utterances including politeness strategies Additionally, the author gives and collects questionnaires for UNETI teachers

- The researcher would find out and discuss with colleagues and supervisor

to identify which utterances consist of politeness strategies

- The researcher would classify the politeness strategies in these utterances

- The researcher would consult with supervisor and colleagues

- The researcher would interpret the data

Step 2:

- The researcher would deliver and gather questionnaires

- The researcher would analyze questionnaires

5 Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion

Part A: Introduction

This part includes rationale, aims, scope, significance of the study, and design

of the study, which would make readers have an overall view of what is going to be presented in the thesis

Part B: Development

This part is divided into three chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

This chapter deals with key terms related to the paper such as language and culture, speech act and politeness strategies

Chapter 2: Methodology

This chapter includes the methods which are exploited in the study The readers would be provided with detail of type of data, data collection, data analysis participants, research method and procedure

Chapter 3: Findings and discussion

In this chapter, the writer would give analysis of positive and negative politeness strategies and role relationships found in the conversational activities in one course book “New Headway” (intermediate) as seen by teachers of English at University of Economic-Technical Industries

Part C: Conclusion

This part presents a summary of the study as well as further research in the future

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Theory of Speech Acts

One of the significant notions which have impressed a great number of linguists and scientists in the study of interlanguage pragmatics is the application of speech acts Throughout its developments, speech acts has been central to the works

of several philosophers and linguists, such as Austin (1962), Searle (1969), Thomas (1995), and so on According to Austin (1962), producing utterances is a part of, performing actions: in saying something, the speaker does something Beside Yule,

in a pronouncement raised in his very influential book, Pragmatics in 1996, declares that “Actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts.” (p 67)

In the initial distinction in speech acts made by Austin (1962, p 94-108), he introduces three facets among the acts one simultaneously performs when saying something, as illustrated as following:

(1) The locutionary act refers to an utterance simply constructed by a grammatical structure and a linguistic meaning A locutionary act consists of three related sub-acts: (i) a phonic act of producing an utterance in the phonic medium of sound; (ii) a phatic act of constructing a particular linguistic expression in a particular language; and (iii) a rhetic act of contextualizing a sentence

(2) The illocutionary act mentions to the real action accomplished in speaking Example of illocutionary acts include giving permission, making suggestion, swearing and so on

(3) The perlocutionary act concerns the effect of the utterance upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of listener

Let us consider the following utterance: “Don‟t talk” The speaker do not merely say the words “don't” and “talk”, which subsume the locutionary act, but you also perform the act of asking listeners not to talk

It is noteworthy that in Austin‟s points, illocutionary act is considered as the most important of the three acts because it is really what the speaker wants to achieve through the action of uttering the sentences There have been many attempts to systematize, strengthen, and develop Austin‟s theory Of all these

investigations, Searl‟s scheme remains the most influential Searle (1976) states that all illocutionary acts are universally grouped into five types:

 Representatives are those kinds of speech acts which tell people how things are The speaker represents the world as he or she believes it is, which make the world fit the world of belief (e.g complaints, accusations)

 Directives are those kinds of speech act that express attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something (e.g orders, advice, commands, etc.)

 Comissives are those kinds of speech acts that commit the speaker himself to do things (e.g promises, refusals, threats, etc.)

 Expressive are those kinds of speech acts express speakers‟ feelings and attitudes (e.g thanking, congratulating, apologizing, etc.)

 Declarations or declaratives are those kinds of speech acts that bring about changes in the institutional state of affairs (e.g pronouncing someone guilty

or pronouncing someone husband and wife)

2 Theory of politeness and politeness strategies

2.1 Theory of politeness

Besides theory of speech acts, politeness is considered as one important aspect of pragmatic competence as well as the most fundamental backgrounds of this paper It is said that politeness is principal ingredient for success in interpersonal communication In spite of the fact that politeness is popular in all cultures, it is expressed differently in different cultures In everyday life, politeness

is perceived as the use of relatively formal and deferential behaviour In language study, Watt (2003, p.39) contends that “politeness is the ability to please others through one‟s external actions” According to Thomas (1995, p.157), politeness is defined as a strategy (or series of strategies) is used by speaker in order to attain plenty of purposes, such as maintaining friendly, peaceful relations

Regarding this important social role of politeness, a number of studies have also attempted to investigate this area in divergent paths Pragmatic approaches to the study of politeness began from Robin Layoff‟s work (1973) to Grice‟s Cooperative Principle (1975), Leech‟s principle of politeness (1983) and the recent approach from Brown & Levison (1987) During the vast development of

linguistics, a multitude of different approaches to politeness have been proposed in the past thirty five years, and Nguyen Quang (2005, p 10) confirms that there are three main important approaches to politeness :

- Setting the ideal standard for polite acts to refer such as Grice

- Proposing the principles of politeness in communication in the form of do‟s and don‟ts like Layoff, Leech

- Specifying the necessary strategies to encounter Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) in communication as in Brown and Levinson, 1987

However, amongst outstanding linguists, most of the researches on politeness might be related to the theory suggested by Brown & Levison (1987) In spite of the fact that different aspects of this theory have been criticized by many researchers, it has been the preferred model focusing on the notion of politeness Consequently, the theory adopted in the present study is the model of politeness strategy offered by Brown and Levinson (1987)

Brown and Levinson‟s politeness model is founded on the notions of “face” - a term adopted from the work of Goffman Goffman (1967, p.5) states that „„positive social value a person effectively claims for himself by his or her self-presentation‟‟ Face mentions to the respect that an individual has for himself or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private circumstances Furthermore, Yule (1996, p.60) claimed that “the means employed to show awareness of another person‟s face” Respecting the main points of Yule and Goffman, Brown and Levinson (1987, p.61) propose for people‟s face including two basic types of face needs or wants: positive face and negative face

 Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or personality

(crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of)

 Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction, i.e to freedom of action and freedom from imposition

In other words, positive face is the need to be connected and negative face

is the need to be independent In some circumstances, the speaker says something that threats another individual‟s expectations of self-image (their “face”), though both speaker and hearer in conversation are made more aware of the preservation of

their partner‟s face Positive face is threatened when an individual does not concern about their interlocutor‟s feelings, wants, or does not want what the other wants It is suggested that positive face is face needs, or the need to be accepted, liked, and admired, and to maintain a positive self-image Negative face is threatened when the speaker or hearer does not avoid or intend to avoid the blockage of their interactor‟s freedom of action Hence, negative face is face needs or the need not to be imposed upon In their theory, Brown and Levinson (1987) provide the definition of a face threatening act (henceforth FTA) When confronted with the need to perform an FTA, the speaker needs to decide how it should be uttered According to Brown

&Levinson (1987, p.65), it is admitted that:

An FTA is any verbal act a speaker (S) addresses to any hearer (H) with a specific intention which S intends H to recognize, this recognition being the communicative point of S‟s doing the communicative act Any utterance is always

to some extent an imposition on H and S; any utterance is intrinsically threatening Some FTAs are more threatening than others

face-In general, during interaction, face can be lost, maintained or enhanced, and must be constantly attended, with the result that S and H cooperate in maintaining face in interaction, such cooperation being based on the mutual vulnerability of face

is one of the most prevalent theories and adopted by this research

According to Brown & Levinson‟s Politeness Strategies, the concept of

“face” plays an important role A set of five strategies to minimize risk of losing face is suggested by these two authors The choice of strategies will be made on the basic of the speaker‟s assessment of the size of the face threatening acts (FTAs) These strategies are illustrated in the following figure:

2.2.1 Positive politeness

Brown and Levinson (1987, p.70) state that “positive politeness is oriented toward the positive face of H, the positive self-image that he claims for himself” Nguyen Quang (2005, p.27) also considers the concept of positive politeness, as

“any communicative act (verbal and/ or nonverbal) which is appropriately intended

to show the speaker‟s concern to the addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity between them” This can be achieved by adopting by positive politeness strategies Therefore, Brown and Levinson (1987, p.102) sketch 15 positive politeness strategies applied by speakers in communication as follows:

Strategy 1: Notice, attend to hearer’s interest, wants, needs, and goods

This generally means that speaker should pay attention to hearer‟s noticeable change remarkable possessions, and other things that hearer wants speaker to notice and approved of

3 Negative Politeness

1 Without redressive action, baldly

E.g You must be hungry, it‟s a long time since breakfast How about some lunch?

Strategy 2: Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy with hearer

This strategy often occurs with many aspects of prosodies, identifying modifiers, and exaggerated intonation, stress, and usually occurs with such adjectives as marvellous incredible, devastating, fantastic, extraordinary and with such adverbs (plus adjectives) as really, absolutely, exactly truly

E.g What a fantastic garden you have!

Strategy 3: Intensify interest to hearer

Speaker wants hearer to share some interest with him/her This strategy seems

to be a good way of communicating

E.g There were a million people in the Co-op tonight

Strategy 4: Use in-group identity marker

Using address form which include the use of second person plural pronoun (you), or such generic names and terms of address as, honey, darling, babe, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, sweetheart, etc These forms are used to soften the FTAs These can occur in the forms of questions, of requests, of imperatives

E.g Come here, mate (honey/buddy)

Strategy 5: Seek agreement

The raising of safe topic allows S to stress his/ her agreement with H; and therefore to satisfy H‟s desire to be right or to be corroborated in his opinion One of the best ways to apply this strategy is “repetition” Agreement may also be stressed by repeating part or all of what the preceding speaker has said, in a conversation In addition to demonstrating that one has heard correctly what was said, repeating is used to stress emotional agreement with the utterance (or to stress interest and surprise)

Another way that helps speaker claim the common ground with hearer is to seek the agreement between speaker and hearer

E.g A: John went to London this weekend

B: To London!

Strategy 6: Avoid Disagreement

There are different ways to avoid disagreement between speaker and hearer while communicating, i.e., using token agreement, pseudo-agreement, white lies, and hedging opinion

E.g A: Can you hear me?

B: Barely

Strategy 7: Presuppose/ Raise/ Assert Common Ground

This strategy is realized through gossip, small talk, personal centre switch, time switch, place switch, avoidance of adjustment of reports to hearer‟s point of view, presupposition, manipulations, presupposition of knowledge of hearer‟s wants and attitudes, presupposition of hearer‟s relationship, presupposition of hearer‟s knowledge A good illustration of this strategy is use of “You know…”

E.g I had a really hard time learning to drive, you know

I had a really hard time learning to drive, didn‟t I?

Strategy 8: Jokes

“Jokes” seems to be a very effective strategy for communicating if it is used in the right place, with the right people Typically, this strategy occurs between people who know each other well

E.g How about lending me this old heap of junk? (the hearer‟s new Cadillac)

Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants

This strategy is the way to help speaker communicate with hearer by indicating that speaker and hearer are co-operators and potentially force hearer to cooperate with speaker This commonly occurs with the use of “I know” from speaker

This is also a very interesting strategy which makes hearer feel comfortable E.g I know you can‟t bear parties, but this one will really be good-do come!

Strategy 10: Offers and promises

Speaker wants to show that he/she will help hearer obtain hearer‟s desire or

wants by giving offers and promises which are natural outcome of choosing this strategy Also speaker wants to show his/her good intentions towards hearer‟s positive face wants

E.g I‟ll drop by sometime next week

Strategy 11: Be optimistic

Speaker wants to show his/her good intentions of helping hearer obtain his/her wants by asking hearer to cooperate with speaker in carrying out a tacit commitment This means that speaker not only wants to show his/ her intention but also wants hearer and speaker himself/herself do an action to carry out this commitment

E.g I‟ve come to borrow a cup of flour

Strategy 12: Include both speaker and hearer in the activity

By using we, us, let‟s in the process of communication, speaker shows that speaker and hearer are co-operators, and speaker wants hearer to cooperate with him/her in doing something

E.g Let‟s have a cookie, then

Strategy 13: Give (or ask for reasons)

In Britain, giving or asking for reason seems to be very common and polite This strategy often occurs with such phrases as why not, why don‟t, why shouldn‟t E.g Why don‟t we go to the seashore?

Strategy 14: Assume or assert reciprocity

Giving evidence of reciprocal rights or obligations obtaining between speaker and hearer may claim the existence of cooperation between speaker and hearer E.g I did X for you last week so you do Y for me this week

Strategy 15: Give gifts to hearer (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

Gifts here are not only the material gifts but also are the spiritual gifts

E.g I‟ve just been out shopping Here‟s hot dog for you Like it?

Nguyen Quang (2003, p.78-85) adds two more strategies, namely:

Strategy 16: Comfort and encourage

E.g.: You have my whole-hearted support

Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

E.g.: Are you married or single?

2.2.2 Negative politeness

Yule (1996, p.66) indicates that negative politeness strategy is strongly connected with “a deference strategy” In his views, it might be the typical strategy for the whole group on a particular occasion On the other hand, this strategy is concerned with what is called formal politeness Negative politeness, according to Brown & Levinson (1987, p 129), is “redressive action addressed to the addressee‟s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded” Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer‟s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer These strategies presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for awkwardness or embarrassment than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies Sharing with Brown & Levinson on the definition of negative politeness, Nguyen Quang (2003) emphasizes that “negative politeness is any communicative act which is appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee‟s privacy, thus maintaining the sense of distance between them” Nguyen Quang suggests eleven negative politeness strategies, of which the initial ten ones are adopted originally by Brown & Levinson, they are as follows:

Strategy 1 – Be conventionally indirect

Opposing tensions: desire to give H an “out” by being indirect, and the desire

to go on record and solved by the compromise of conventional indirectness, the use

of phrases and sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings which are different from their literal meaning

E.g.: Could you close the door, please?

Strategy 2 – Question, hedge

Expressing the want not to presume or coerce H In literature, a “hedge” is a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set It says of that membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected E.g.: I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a question

Strategy 4 – Minimize the imposition

Defusing the FTA by indicating that R (rank between S and H), the intrinsic seriousness of the imposition, is not itself great Leaving only D (social distance between S and H) and P (relative power of H over S) as possible weighty factors, so indirectly this may pay H deference

E.g.: Could I talk to you for just a minute?

Strategy 5 – Give deference

Two different possibilities to realize the deference: S humbles and abases himself; and S raises H (pays him positive face of a particular namely that which satisfies H´s want to be treated superior

E.g Excuse me, sir, but would you mind if I closed the window?

Strategy 6 – Apologize

By apologizing for doing an FTA, the speaker can indicate his reluctance to impinge on H´s negative face and partially redress the impingement

E.g.: I‟m sorry to bother you

Strategy 7 – Impersonalize the S and H, avoid the pronouns I and you

Phrase the FTA as if the agent were other than S and the addressee were other than H

E.g.: Turn that wretched music down

Strategy 8 – State the FTA as an instance of a general rule

To dissociate S and H from the particular imposition in the FTA (S doesn´t want to impinge on H, but is merely forced to by circumstances), it can be generalized as a social rule/regulation/obligation

E.g.: Parking on the double yellow lines is illegal

Strategy 9 – Nominalize to distance the actor and add formality

The more the speaker normalizes an expression, the more he dissociates from

it

E.g.: Your good performance on the examinations impressed us favourably

Strategy 10 – Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H

S can redress an FTA by explicitly claiming his indebtedness to H, or by disclaiming any indebtedness of H

E.g I could easily do it for you

Strategy 11 – Avoid asking personal questions

Instead of using questions which can cause an FTA to the hearer like “Are you married? How much money do you earn a week?”, communicators employ small talks in the first meeting

E.g It is a nice day, isn‟t it?

3 Role relationships affecting politeness strategies

Regarding this important social role of politeness, researchers have tried to investigate social variables affecting politeness Based on studies done early in the century, they concluded that role relationships are regarded as significant in choosing politeness strategies It is claimed that role relationships are associated with three dimensions including relative power (P) of hearer over speaker, social distance (D) between speaker and hearer, and ranking of impositions (R) involving

in doing the FTA Brown and Levinson (1987, p.76-77) indicate that there are three social variables (P, D & R) which make decision on the choice of the felicitous level

of politeness which a speaker (S) will use to an addressee (H) Lakoff (1977), Grimshaw (1980), and Leech (1983) tend to have an agreement in this point with Brown/Levinson (1987)

Besides Brown and Levinson (1987, p.15) consider the relative power

relationship (P) as “an asymmetric social dimension.” They emphasize that it is the degree to which H can “impose his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the expense of S‟s plans and self-evaluation.” Generally, there are two sources which determine the relative power relationships between S and H, particularly material and metaphysical control The material control is related to economic distribution and physical strength, whereas the metaphysical control concerns individual role which is accepted in society The social distance between S and H (D) is defined as “a symmetric social dimension of similarity/difference within which S and H stand for the purposes of this act” It is recommended that D is based

on an assessment of the frequency of interaction and the kinds of material or non-material goods (including face) exchanged between S and H (or parties or representing S or H, or for whom S and H are representative) According to Nguyen Quang (2004), in generally, the closer social distance, the less polite strategies (both negative and positive strategies) are employed and thus, direct illocutions are usually used On the contrary, the farther social distance, communicators tend to use more “redresses” which belong to positive or negative politeness strategies in order

to reduce FTA An important part of the assessment of D will usually be measures

of social distance based on stable social attributes The reflex of social closeness is, generally, the reciprocal giving and receiving of positive face In effect, it is the degree of familiarity, solidarity or social closeness between S and H as represented through in-group and out-group membership The ranking of impositions (R) closely links to “the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent‟s wants

of self-determination or of approval (his negative-and positive-face wants).” In addition, personal rankings can be explained why some people object to certain kinds of FTAs and some do not In brief, P, D, and R are context-dependent and culture-related parameters There are probably two such scales or ranks that are identifiable for negative-face FTAs: a ranking of impositions in proportion to the expenditure of services (including the time provision) and good (including non-material goods such as information, regard expression and other face payments) As for positive-face FTA, the ranking of imposition embraces an assessment of the amount of “pain” given to H‟s face, based on the

differences between H‟s desired self-image and that presented in FTA However,

it is noteworthy that all three social variables affecting politeness are different from different countries as well as different cultures

As it can be seen obviously, all three dimensions P, D, and R have a great contribution to the seriousness of the FTA which will determine the appropriate type

of strategy to be used

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This research examines how UNETI teachers realize politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in the conversations of the course book

“New Headway” (intermediate) Thus, this chapter explains how the research is done The first part introduces research questions that guide my study The second gives description of instruments and participants The last consists in the procedure for data collection and the explanation of data analysis

1 Research questions

The overarching questions addressed in this study have been formulated as:

• What are positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities in the course book “New Headway” (intermediate)?

 How are positive and negative politeness strategies used in terms of role relationships in the conversations of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate)?

• How do UNETI teachers realize politeness under the inference of role relationships?

Thus, the first objective of the study is to find out politeness strategies under the inference of social factors employed in conversational activities in the course book In a broad sense, this research aims at constructing knowledge about UNETI teachers‟ identity of politeness strategies and role relationships in the conversations

of the course book “New Headway” (intermediate)

2 Instruments

The instrument used to gather data is questionnaires The questionnaire in this thesis will be composed of multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) and discourse completion task (DCT)

2.1 Multiple choice questionnaires

With the aim of data collection, the questionnaire is designed The first is a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) which is plotted separately The MCQ consists of four suggested items which cover the conversations in the course book – New Headway-intermediate (NHW) In the procedure of collecting data, the author recognizes there are a variety of conversational activities in NHW, with the result

that twenty conversations are picked up randomly Eight conversations employed both positive politeness and negative politeness strategies are chosen for the aim of finding out politeness strategies in NHW The questionnaire is adapted to deliver to UNETI teachers of English

2.2 Discourse completion task

Within the last one decade, there have been a lot of good methods for cultural and inter-language researchers One of them is discourse completion task (DCT) The researchers investigate that DCT tends to bring more advantages than ethnographic method and role–play method Firstly, it doesn‟t consume large amounts of time Nevertheless, the role-play approach is suggested to be concerned with time-consuming on tape records Secondly, it is unnecessary to use contextual variables in comparison with the ethnographic method DCT contains two different types: Oral Completion Task and Written Completion Task The first one is modelled as a closed role-play and in this closed role-play The second one consists

cross-of written interactions Consequently, DCT along with MCQ are chosen in the questionnaire in this study Although the researcher is painfully aware of the limited point of this method consisting non-authentic collected data and non-verbal features,

it is the first choice thanks to the following reasons First of all, it is considered as an effective tool of collecting data quickly and easily Secondly, it helps researchers control internal context variables With this instrument, the author hopes that the collecting data from the survey questionnaire are natural, typical and reliable for consideration and evaluation

3 Participants

For the concern of the present study, 15 teachers of English at university of economic and technical industries (UNETI) were selected The English Faculty at UNETI divides into two sub-groups These teachers of English belong to the second sub-group They are in charge of teaching New Headway – Intermediate for second-year students All the participants were female aged from 30 to 40 Both participants have at least six-year experiences in teaching with this course book

4 Data collection procedure

4.1 Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW

In the process of collecting data, we first pick up all sentences in conversations

in NHW Then, we set up context, take roles of participants into consideration and discuss with our colleagues and my supervisor to find out whether these sentences are “natural” All sentences/ utterances which are mostly approved to be “natural” gain a deeper treatment Next we consult specialists and native speakers with the same procedure After the two procedures, we have 261 utterances which are considered “natural” and to some extent, “polite” in two types: positive and negative politeness All statistics in the study are calculated on the basis of total 261 utterances

4.2 Politeness strategies under the inference of role relationships in NHW

as seen by UNETI teachers of English

The survey questionnaire will be distributed to all participants directly The goal of this questionnaire is to investigate identity of UNETI teachers of English in specific situations or contexts in which politeness strategies are used After that, the analysis of the result is based on tables and figures

5 Data analysis method

The process of analysing data consists of four steps Firstly, 216 utterances found in NHW belongs two categories of politeness strategies employed: positive and negative politeness After that the author based on certain positive and negative strategies which are introduced by Brown & Levinson(1987) and Nguyen Quang (2002) in order to make detail analysis about these strategies and role relationships

in 216 utterances Secondly, all contexts with S-H relationships are considered

in order to see how S-H relationship affects the choice of politeness strategies Thirdly, all the statistics needed for the study are calculated carefully and presented in the following tables as well as figures Finally, the author will try to find out how UNETI teachers realize the politeness strategies in the conversational activities by analysing figures from data

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1 Positive and negative politeness in conversational activities in the course book “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE”

1.1 Overview of politeness strategies in “New Headway” intermediate (NHW)

“New Headway - Intermediate” is written by John and Liz Soars and published

by Oxford University Press in 2007 This book is considered as an ideal for students

to work in an international environment It is the third level the five-level series It provides a highly authentic and flexible range of materials for English learners worldwide The course book includes 12 main units, with a Grammar reference, Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking skills Thus, it is chosen as a main material for second- years students at UNETI, who have gained background knowledge of international communication and language skills necessary for a wide range of daily/business situations such as participating in meetings, telephoning, negotiating, and socializing Furthermore, this book has been taught at UNETI for four years

Beside much of what we say and communicate is determined by our social relationships and politeness as a means for creating, sustaining, changing and realizing social relations Be aware of the important role of politeness in cross-cultural communication, the author focuses on analysing politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book And in order to gain that aim, the study and analysis are based on Brown & Levinson‟s and Nguyen Quang‟s politeness theoretical framework In the procedure of carrying on this field, we do not make any slight judgment of how good or bad an action is Instead, the researcher gets a detailed insight into politeness strategies which are used by native speakers and the frequency of each strategy

In the first part of this chapter, the author pays much attention to analyse the frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway, Intermediate.”

1.2 Frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book “New Headway, Intermediate”

As mentioned in chapter II Methodology, in collecting data, utterances in the conversations in the course book are picked up Finally, 261 utterances found in conversational activities in the course book “New Headway, Intermediate” fall into two categories of politeness strategies: positive strategies and negative strategies The balance of positive and negative politeness strategies used in NHW is shown in the following figure:

Figure 2: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the conversations

The figure above shows the sum together with the respective percentage of politeness strategies in all conversations in NHW It can be seen clearly from the chart, positive politeness strategies are employed more frequently than negative politeness strategies Definitely, there is a negligible amount of frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies This does not mean that in Western countries everybody seems to have a desire to use positive politeness strategies This seems that the presumptions of Nguyen Quang (2002), for long-term relationships, people tend to decline negative politeness in communication They always want to show their attention or concerns to co-interact ants as well as to

53.3%

46.7%

Positive Politeness Strategies

Negative Politeness Strategies

narrow the distance between S and H

1.2.1 Positive Politeness strategies in conversational activities

There are totally 15 positive politeness strategies according to Brown & Levinson, (1987) and more 2 positive politeness strategies added by Nguyen Quang (2004) Based on this, the author categorizes the utterances into 17 categories The statistics of the frequency of positive politeness strategies which come from study will be converted into Figure 3 as follows:

Figure 3: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the conversations

The chart shows that there are 13 positive politeness strategies employed in NHW We can come up with suggestion that S and H might feel secure in using these strategies The chart above reveals that positive politeness strategies 1, 2, 5, 10 are employed quite often Positive politeness strategy 5: seek agreements has the most usage frequency with 17.3% The use of this strategy (include both S and H in the activity) in daily conversation seems to make the relationship between S and H closer and friendlier by employing safe topics, repetition or minimal encouragers such as: Definitely!/ Can‟t be better./ You‟re kidding and so on

0.07 0.7 15.1

0.07

%

Let‟s take the followings for example:

E.g.: “A: Let‟s go for a run in the park?

B: Me? Run? You must be joking!”

(New Headway, Inter., unit 1) E.g.: “A: My grandfather had two sons from his first marriage

B: Really? I didn‟t know he‟d been married before ”

(New Headway, Inter., unit 3)

In these conversations, the interactors express a want of reaching agreement

by using minimal encouragers, particularly, “You must be joking!”- showing that H wants to seek sympathy with S on his inability of running , “Really?”- registering H‟s surprise

The second highest percentage is strategy 10 (offer, promise) with 15.1% Speakers wants to show their satisfaction at helping hearers gain their desire or needs by giving offers and promises which are natural outcome of choosing this strategy In addition, S wants to make intentions towards a hearer‟s positive face needs In conversation S employ this strategy for the purpose of conveying the sense

of solidarity or friendship between communicators They would like to maintain and develop their relationship by extending invitation offer in order to satisfy the Hs‟ need For instance:

E.g.: “A: I‟ll give you a lift if you like

B: That would be great!”

(New Headway, Inter., unit 4)

In some circumstance, this strategy can be used to convince your partners as well as release their worries by giving promises Let‟s consider the conversation below:

E.g.: “Grandmother: You must look after your money

Antony: Yes, Grandma I will”

(New Headway, Inter., unit 4) Before Antony – grandson travels around Asia His grandmother is worried

about the boys‟ trip Thus, she reminds him to look after his money In order to make his grandmother less worried, he promises to look after his money carefully

As can be seen from the chart, ranking the third is strategy 1 (Notice, attend

to hearer‟s interest, wants, needs, and goods) and strategy 2 (Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy with hearer) with same percentage of 10.7% Communicators use these strategies with the hope that speaker should pay attention to hearer‟s noticeable change remarkable possessions, and other things that hearer wants speaker to notice and approved of For example:

E.g.: “A: I really like your shoes! Where did you buy them?

B: At that new shop in town

(New Headway, Inter., unit 2)

Positive politeness strategy 4: use in-group identity marker is used about 0.9%

By employing this strategy, S can claim common ground with H, which implies that there are more agreement between S and H It also creates an intimate atmosphere and decrease probabilities of communication breakdown Consequently, it makes both S and H reach the comfort and satisfactions in communication Let us take an example:

E.g.: Thank you for calling the Blackpool Concert Hall This is Matt speaking How can I help you?

(New Headway, Inter., unit 2) Another example:

E.g.: A: Bye, Mum I‟m off to school now

B: Take care, my love Have a nice trip

(New Headway, Inter., unit 1) Appearing at the average percentages is strategy 6 (Avoid Disagreement), strategy 12 (Include both speaker and hearer in the activity) and strategy 16 (Encourage) with 0.6%, 0.43% and 0.5 % respectively The following examples can

be taken into consideration:

E.g.: Granddaughter: That kind of thing….or if I‟m going to be home late, or like