This study provides some insights into the use of speech acts by Vietnamese EFL learners from a cross-cultural perspective. It is suggested that the influence of culture has resulted in students’ common failures to understand and perform English speech acts. To minimize this kind of pragmatic failure, it is recommended that EFL teachers raise students’ awareness of some cultural issues in cross-cultural communication. Furthermore, it is necessary to incorporate speech acts into English language teaching with authentic input and lifelike communicative activities.
Trang 1A CROSS – CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE OF SPEECH ACTS AND ITS APPLICATION
TO EFL CLASSROOMS
Nguyen Thi Nhat Minh1
1 An Giang University, VNU - HCM
Information:
Received: 16/01/2019
Accepted: 02/05/2019
Published: 11/2019
Keywords:
Cross-cultural perspective,
illocutionary force,
performative verbs, speech
acts, utterances
ABSTRACT
Speech acts, the actions performed by utterances, play an important role in communication, particularly verbally Speech act performance requires not only knowledge of the language, but also knowledge about the appropriate use of that language in a certain situation within a particular culture As a result, cultural awareness constitutes an integral part of this important area
of pragmatics This study provides some insights into the use of speech acts
by Vietnamese EFL learners from a cross-cultural perspective It is suggested that the influence of culture has resulted in students’ common failures to understand and perform English speech acts To minimize this kind of pragmatic failure, it is recommended that EFL teachers raise students’ awareness of some cultural issues in cross-cultural communication Furthermore, it is necessary to incorporate speech acts into English language teaching with authentic input and lifelike communicative activities
1 INTRODUCTION
In order to achieve successful communication
in a foreign language, people are required to
understand what the speaker is saying and know
how to respond appropriately In
communication, people not only say things
containing grammatical structures and words,
but also perform actions via those utterances,
namely speech acts However, for most
language learners, it is difficult to understand
the intended meaning communicated by speech
acts, or to produce a speech act appropriately in
the target language because of the close tie
between speech acts and culture This paper
aims to present an overview of speech act
theory, to examine speech acts from a
cross-cultural perspective, and to explore some pedagogical issues related to common pragmatic failure in terms of performance of English speech from which teachers of English can get some useful tools for their teaching
2 AN OVERVIEW OF SPEECH ACT THEORY
Since introduced by Austin (1962) and further developed by Searle (1969), the theory of speech acts has been growing over time with the contribution of numerous scholars Within its scope, this paper presents some basic concepts of speech acts, including definition of speech acts, the performative hypothesis and speech act taxonomy
Trang 22.1 Definition of speech acts and three
related acts
Yule (1996) defined speech acts as the actions
performed by utterances, and in English, these
actions are generally labelled as apology,
complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or
request, for instance, “Raise your hand!”
(request), “I’ll call you tonight,” (promise),
“The tea is too cold.” (complaint) (p.48)
Cohen (2006) offered a similar definition that
speech acts are often (but not always) patterned,
routinized utterances that speakers use to
perform language functions, such as thanking,
complimenting, requesting, refusing,
apologizing, and complaining
Austin (1962) proposed the original distinction
between the different aspects of a speech act
into locutionary, illocutionary and
perlocutionary His classification was then
developed and exemplified by Yule (1996) as
follows
A Locutionary act is the basic act of forming
the sounds and words to create a meaningful
utterance in a language For example, in
English language, uttering ‘Aha mokofa’ may
be considered a failure to produce a locutionary
act whereas ‘I’ve just made some coffee’ is a
success
Most well-formed utterances are produced with
some kind of purpose The sentence ‘I’ve just
made some coffee” might be uttered to make a
statement, an offer, an explanation or for some
other communicative purpose This is called the
illocutionary act - the communicative force or
intention of an utterance
A Perlocutionary act is the intended effect an
utterance has on the hearer Depending on the
circumstances, the sentence ‘I’ve just made
some coffee’ will be uttered on the assumption
that the hearer will recognize it as an
explanation for a wonderful smell or an offer to
drink some coffee (Yule, 1996, pp.48-49)
Yule (1996) also emphasized that of these three dimensions, the most worthy discussed item is illocutionary force Indeed, the term “speech acts” is generally interpreted narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance
However, it is quite problematic that the same utterance can potentially have different
illocutionary forces, for example, ‘I’ll see you
later’ can be interpreted as a promise or a
warning How can speakers assume that the intended illocutionary force will be recognized
by the hearer? That question has been addressed
by considering the Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs)
IFIDs means an indication in the speaker’s utterance of the communicative force of that utterance The most obvious device for indicating the illocutionary force is a performative verb which explicitly names the illocutionary act being performed
Nevertheless, in some cases there is no performative verb to be identified, so IFIDs which can be identified are word order and
intonation For instance, “You’re going!” (I tell you that you are going); “You are going?” (I
request confirmation about whether you are
going); “Are you going?” (I ask you if you are
going) (Yule, 1996, p.50)
2.2 The performative hypothesis
Another element of speech act theory is the performative hypothesis This is the assumption first proposed by Ross (1970) that underlying every utterance (U), there is a clause containing
a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary force more explicit The basic
structure of the underlying clause is I (hereby)
Vp you (that) U
Yule (1996) provided a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of this hypothesis He pointed out that this hypothesis helps to make clear what elements are involved
in the production and interpretation of
Trang 3utterances For example, comparing the two
utterances below, we can see that the
underlying clause in utterance [b] make the
illocutionary force more explicit than in
utterance [b]
a Clean up the mess!
b I hereby order you that you clean up this
mess (Yule, 1996, p.51)
However, there are some disadvantages to the
performative hypothesis The first one is that a
explicit performative version has a much more
serious impact than an implicit version as in the
following utterances:
The work was done by Emily
I hereby tell you that the work was done by
Emily
Another disadvantage is that it is difficult to
know exactly what a performative verb might
be for some utterances For example, both the
speaker and the hearer can recognize the
utterance in ‘You are dumber than a rock’ as an
insult, it would be strange to have an explicit
version as ‘I hereby insult that you are dumper
than a rock.’ (Yule, 1996, p.52)
2.3 Speech act taxonomy
Instead of listing the all possible explicit
performatives, there are various attempts to
classify speech acts Searle (1975) categorized
speech acts into five types of functions
Representatives (assertion, description,
statement) is stating what is believed or known
Directives (command, order, request,
suggestion) is getting the hearer to do
something Commissives (promise, threat,
refusal, pledge) is committing the speaker to
some future actions Expressives (thanks,
apology, praise) is expressing feelings or
attitudes Declarations (declaring, firing from
employment, ordering) is bringing about a
change
A different approach is based on structure to classify speech act as direct or indirect In English, there are three basic structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and three general communicative functions (statement, question, request) We will have a direct speech act when there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, for instance, a declarative used to make a statement On the other hand, when the relationship between structural form and function is indirect, e.g an interrogative used to make a request, we will have an indirect speech act (Yule, 1996)
In light of this approach, one utterance can be used to have two different functions For
example, with the utterance ‘It is cold outside’,
if the speaker describes the weather to the hearer, the declarative is a statement But if this utterance is used to ask the hearer to close the door, the declarative performed is to make a request
On the other hand, different structures can be used to accomplish the same basic function For example, when the speaker wants the addressee not to stand in front of the TV, he may produce the following utterances
Move out of the way!
You’re standing in front of the TV
Do you have to stand in front of the TV?
(Yule, 1996, p.55)
It is evident that although the three utterances are of different structural forms, their basic function in this situation is a command
However, in some situations, a hearer, still fails
to identify the indirectness of a speech act, as in
a famous example by Blum-Kulka (1983) cited
in Locastro (2003, p.242)
Child: Can you fix the needle?
Adult: I’m busy
Child: I just wanted to know if you can fix it
Trang 43 THE APPLICATION OF
CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES OF
SPEECH ACTS TO TEACHING
ENGLISH IN THE VIETNAMESE
CONTEXT
3.1 The importance of speech acts in EFL
setting
According to the contemporary pedagogical
tendency, the major duty of a teacher of foreign
languages is to help learners develop their
communicative competence In fact,
achievement of successful communication in a
foreign language calls for many factors beyond
linguistic competence This fact can account
for the paradox that even EFL learners with
good mastery of English syntax and vocabulary
fail to use English appropriately It is pragmatic
failure that leads to their communication
breakdown, especially in cross-cultural
contexts
In oral communication each utterance serves a
specific function It is obvious that these
utterances, namely speech acts, play a dominant
role in daily conversations However, they seem
to be a hard task for most foreign language
learners to understand and to perform Their
difficulties mostly spring from inadequate
mastery of the conversational norms involved
in the production of speech acts This arouses a
practical need for the integration of speech acts
into English language teaching
3.2 The influences of culture on the
Vietnamese performance of English
speech acts
Theoretically, communicative, or pragmatic,
competence is the ability to use language forms
in a wide range of environments, factoring in
the relationships between the speakers involved
and the social and cultural context of the
situation (Lightbown & Spada, 1999; Gass &
Selinker, 2001) For this reason, it is hard for
non-native speakers to speak appropriately
Many speakers, in addition, seem to translate from the source language to the target one when they speak, which raises problems when transferring and recognizing speech acts from one language to another
Nguyen (1999) found that because of the influence of culture, the Vietnamese tend to be overtly modest, particularly in spoken language
In fact, we do not want to show off our ability, we’re shy As a result, Asian people in general and the Vietnamese in particular are usually not
as successful in interviews as Westerners The Anglo-American interview style, for example, requires candidates to sell themselves, whereas
an interviewee from a different sociocultural background may shy away from such presentation (Roberts, Davies & Jupp, 1992)
Therefore, we do not understand an
interviewer’s intention in the question “Do you
think you can do it?” which requires the
interviewees to talk about their capability or their plans to do it Consequently, many interviewees mistakenly use short answers like
“Yes, I do”, which makes interviewers unclear
and unsatisfied (Nguyen, 1999)
As Locastro (2012) remarked, every culture has characteristic speech acts that reflect its norms and values The Vietnamese also tend to be modest in dealing with compliments In her research, Tran (2006) found that the Vietnamese often accept the compliment in a downgrade or disagreement way, which is a sharp contrast to English native speakers For example:
- English situation
A: You look great!
B: Thank you
- Vietnamese situation
A: Cái áo bồ mặc đẹp thiệt đó! [What a
beautiful dress you’re wearing!]
Trang 5B: Đẹp gì mà đẹp Đồ cũ lắm rồi [It’s not
beautiful It’s very old.] (Tran, 2006,
p.12)
3.3 Common pragmatic failure in
understanding and performance of
English speech acts in reality
Understanding the intended meaning imparted
by a speech act is not a simple task at all In
many cases the hearer cannot figure out or
might even misunderstand the speaker’s
intention, which might lead to communication
breakdowns For example:
A: Can you repair the leaky faucet?
B: Yes, I can., would you like me to fix it?
Here the hearer interprets the speaker’s
utterance as a normal Yes / No question which
asks about his ability to do the action while A is
actually making a request B’s misinterpretation
is due to his oversimplification of the use of
Yes / No questions
Failure to understand speech acts also arises
from learners’ tendency to transfer speech act
strategies and conventions from the source
language to the target language Pragmatically,
it is noticeable that something that works in
English might not keep the same meaning when
translated into another language For instance,
Vietnamese learners often translate the
expression ‘I couldn’t agree with you more’
into ‘Tôi không thể đồng ý với bạn hơn nữa’
which expresses a strong disagreement In fact,
the meaning of this utterance is similar to ‘I
completely agree with you’, which is
completely opposite to their interpretation
Thus misleading translation may result in
serious misunderstanding
In an attempt to conduct daily conversations,
Vietnamese EFL learners may find it
challenging to produce speech acts using
appropriate language and manner in the target
language Follows are some common cases of
pragmatic failure in students’ performance of speech acts
For most students, the frequent way of greeting the teacher as he or she enters the classroom is
“Good morning / Good afternoon, Teacher”
The most commonly used form of addressing a
teacher in Vietnam is “Thầy / Cô” (Teacher)
and the Vietnamese avoid calling the name of the superior for the reason of respect However,
the word “teacher” cannot be used as a form of
addressing in English language Native English speakers often address their teacher by the title
Mr / Mrs / Miss / Ms followed by their surname Therefore, a native English teacher may feel a bit puzzled when addressed with the
word “Teacher” only
In another situation, if a native speaker of English remarks to a Vietnamese interlocutor
“Your English is excellent!”, a possible response to his compliment would be “ No, my
English is still poor” because it is natural and
advisable for the Vietnamese to accept compliments in downgrade or disagreement ways for the sake of modesty In contrast, native English speakers are used to saying
“Thanks, I try my best” in response to
compliments As a result, the Vietnamese response may put the interlocutor at a loss to keep on the conversation
In cross-cultural communication when a Vietnamese speaker tries to translate an utterance with a certain illocutionary act into English, embarrassment occasionally occurs because there may be various kinds of interpretations For example, the Vietnamese usually greet each other with some informal
utterances such as “Đang đi đâu đó?” (Where
are you going?) or “Ăn cơm chưa?” (Have you eaten?) However, if someone asks an
American or English friend the same questions,
he or she may feel confused with such inquiries because the original illocutionary act of greeting of these utterances is diminished in the
Trang 6English context The hearer would instead
interpret them as intrusion of their personal
privacy In a similar way, other questions
related to salaries, marital status or female ages
are considered impolite and rude to English
native speakers although they are considered a
good way to express the speaker’s care and
attention to the interlocutor in the Vietnamese
context
3.4 Pedagogical implications for
incorporation of speech acts into
teaching English as a foreign language
From the above examples, it can be recognized
that cultural barriers pose major hindrances to
the realization of speech acts in daily
communication, particularly in cross-cultural
situations As a result, infusion of culture
should be considered an inherent part of
language teaching and learning Yet, it does not
mean that teachers try to incorporate all cultural
features in English lessons Attention should
instead be paid to the cultural issues that
strongly influence verbal exchanges, e.g who
can say what to whom, how, when, why, under
what circumstance and in what context
In implementing this strategy, distinction
between the two cultures should be made so
that students are aware that what can be
appropriate in Vietnamese language may be
inappropriate in English language For instance,
when visiting a sick person, native speakers of
English usually express their sympathy by
saying something like “I’m sorry you’re not
feeling well I hope you’ll feel better soon.”
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese in the same
situation would express their solicitude for the
sick person by giving so many pieces of advice
like “Drink plenty of water.” “Take this kind of
medicine.” or “Eat more vegetables.” Such
kinds of concern only arouse Westerners’
misunderstanding of being looked upon as
nạve children This is because westerners do
emphasize self-reliance and independence, so
they are not used to being told what to do, when and how to do it <= not really true
Moreover, it is apparent that speech acts are mostly conducted in real-life interactions which entail freedom and unpredictability Hence it is necessary for English language teachers to create a language environment in the classroom which inspires students to communicate in lifelike situations This strategy can be realized through some communicative activities in which there exists an information gap such as role-play cards This kind of activity puts students in a specific context to perform a conversation Students are provided with clear and detailed instructions but they still have the choice of what to say and how to say it
In order to help students use natural English speech acts, teachers should provide them with authentic input which can be exploited from various sources such as movies, video clips or recordings This type of material offers significant benefits to EFL learners because they can, on one hand, be aware of the related cultural factors and experience the language that native speakers use to achieve certain communicative purposes on the other hand
Besides, while teaching the forms of English, teachers usually inform the students of the usage of that language item, for example, modal
verbs could, might should or had better serve
in advice-giving It would be much better for the students if they are taught to be aware of the tact and appropriateness in the use of these language items Therefore, it is worth pointing
out that should or had better expresses direct
advice and should be used with care in terms of interlocutor’s position or the situation
Preference is usually given to softened or indirect strategies of advice-giving Here is an example by Fujimori, J & Houck, N (2004, p.5)
Direct: You should see The Lord of
the Rings
Trang 7Softened: Maybe you might enjoy seeing
The Lord of the Rings
Indirect: The new The Lord of the Rings
is great I really enjoyed it
4 CONCLUSION
To sum up, we are seemingly living in a world
of speeches, and performance of speech acts is
a popular means of daily communication Not
only does speech act theory deepen our
understanding of those familiar functional
utterances but it also forms the theoretical
foundation from which cross-cultural
perspectives of speech act performance between
English and Vietnamese languages are
developed Those awareness issues along with
their helpful implications shed lights to the
integration of speech acts in English language
teaching Improvement of students’
performance of speech acts is the vital
condition for their successful communication,
especially in cross-cultural contexts
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