Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa việt – mỹ về cách rào đón khi tranh luận

At that time, the study examines whether cultures affect the way of using hedges in argument by the American and Vietnamese.. Scope of the study The study is only confined the area of v

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

NGUYỄN THỊ DUYÊN

A VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN CROSS CULTURAL STUDY

ON THE USE OF HEDGING IN ARGUMENT

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH RÀO ĐÓN

KHI TRANH LUẬN

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

HANOI-2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

NGUYỄN THỊ DUYÊN

A VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN CROSS CULTURAL STUDY

ON THE USE OF HEDGING IN ARGUMENT

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH RÀO ĐÓN

KHI TRANH LUẬN

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

SUPERVISOR: PHAN THỊ VÂN QUYÊN, M.A

HANOI– 2012

i

DECLARATION

I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research I confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees to any other university or institution

Signature:

Name: Nguyễn Thị Duyên Date: Octocber 2,2012

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to send my great gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Phan Thị Vân Quyên for her insightful instructions, detailed comments and correction of my drafts of this thesis I am deeply indebted to her enthusiastic assistance as well as her encouragement during my course of writing this thesis

In addition, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues at ThaiNguyen Univeristy of Information and Communication Technology for their useful suggestions and cooperation to obtain indispensable data for this study report

I would also like to convey my big thanks to those who are candidates of Master course 19 – ThaiNguyen for their invaluable materials and references of this study

Last but not least, my thanks go to my family, my friends who stimulated and supported me to accomplish this research

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ABSTRACT

This study aims to find out the similarities and the differences in the use of hedges in argument by American and Vietnamese students Additionally, the goal of the thesis is to help Vietnamese learners of English avoid potential problems when using hedges to argue with English native speakers Participants of the study were

30 American students and 30 Vietnamese students who are at the age of 20-25 The data was collected via a discourse completion task (DCT) which was accompanied

by the sample of questionnaire The survey questionnaire was designed in two versions- one in English delivered to American participants, one in Vietnamese version for Vietnamese informants Finally, contrastive analysis was discussed and some suggestions were made for Vietnamese learners of English in using hedges to argue with English native speakers

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATION vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Scope of the Study 2

4 Design of the Study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT……… 3

1.1 Communication 3

1.1.1 Verbal communication 4

1.1.2 Non- verbal communication 5

1.2 Culture 6

1.3 Cross-cultural communication 7

1.4 Potential problems in cross-cultural verbal communication 8

1.5 Cross-cultural study 9

1.6 Politeness 11

1.6.1 Face 11

1.6.2 Politeness Strategies 12

1.7 Argument 13

1.8 Hedges and Use of hedges in argument 15

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1.9 Review of previous studies 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Research question 20

2.2 Subjects of the Study 20

2.3 Data collection instruments 20

2.4 Procedures 22

2.5 Methods of the study 22

3.1 Realization of hedges used in argument 23

3.2 The frequency of using hedges in argument 25

3.3 Use of hedges as seen from informants’ parameters 27

3 4 Use of hedges as seen from communicating partners’ parameters 30

3.5 Contrastive analysis 35

3.5.1 Similarities 36

3.5.2 Differences 36

3.6 Implications 37

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 38

1 Summary 38

2 Suggestions for further Studies 39

RERERENCES 40 APPENDIX I

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LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS

TABLES

Table 1: Holliday‟s view of culture 7

Table 2: DCT‟s features 21

Table 3: Frequency of using hedges in argument 25

Table 4: Frequency of hedging types used by American and Vietnamese informants 28

FIGURES Figure 1: Elements of Commnunication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992:7-10) 4

Figure 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levison, 1987) 12

Figure 3: Use of hedge in argument from gender perspective 27

Figure 4: Use of hedges to different kinds of partners 30

Figure 5: Use of hedges from communicating partner as parents 31

Figure 6: Use of hedges from communicating partner as close friend 32

Figure 7: Use of hedges from communicating partner as classmate 34

CHART Chart 1: Distribution of hedging categories in argument 26

In the trend of globalization, all countries together would like to be loyal friends and potential partners not only in economy but also such other field as cultures and politics It is the opening-policy applied by many governments that stimulates the exchanging and studies different cultures which has been increased promptly Hence, cross-cultural communication attracts more and more attentions and the studies of the linguists As the world has been so far changing, it is extremely essential to do researches on how people from different cultures communicate to each other

Therefore, there have been plenty of studies on cultural diversities as well as the differences between cultures Language is indispensable factor affecting the intercultural communication Language is used to communicate but how to get a successful conversation concerns with different elements, for instance, the topic of the conversation, the mutually interesting connections among the speakers and the hearers, the understanding of each other Obviously, argument is unavoidable in communication The participants of the conversation, especially those in familiar relationship are at a high rate of having conflict in every communicating Actually, the struggle may be developed to be a debate or a strong disagreement through the conversation However, as considered to be the most intelligent living creatures, human know how to put an end to a debate That is when hedge is employed as a useful means of communicating

2 Aims of the Study

The aim of the study is to find out the similarities and differences of using hedges in English and Vietnamese At that time, the study examines whether cultures affect the way of using hedges in argument by the American and Vietnamese In addition, the paper wishes to help Vietnamese students avoid potential conflicts in cross-cultural communication when argue with English native speakers

3 Scope of the study

The study is only confined the area of verbal communication, potential problems in communication by both American and Vietnamese The data analysis

of how participants of the study use hedges in argument is mainly done using the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods

The study mainly concentrates on the relations of student-student communication including Vietnamese and American students The situations of the questionnaire are issues between the students and their parents and friends

4 Design of the Study

This paper contains 3 parts

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter provides an overview of basic theories of the study At the very two first of this chapter, the key notions of communication and culture are discussed

in section 1.1 and section 1.2 Section 1.3 reviews the theories of cross-cultural communication This is followed by section 1.4, in which potential problems in cross-cultural verbal communication are mentioned Section 1.5 focuses on the content of cross-cultural study Politeness, argument and hedges are in turn appeared in section 1.6, section 1.7 and section 1.8 Section 1.9 reviews previous studies about hedges and different strategies of using hedges in communication

1.1 Communication

Obviously, human always interact to each other by various means Without communication, it is extremely difficult for man to share ideas, information, and other complicates feelings Human can communicate to each other in a various channels such as language, signs, writing, or behavior Yet, language is not the unique tools for man to express their thoughts and opinions Consequently, the question raised is that “What is communication?”

Hybels & Weaver II claimed that communication is “the process of sharing information, ideas and feelings” (1992:5) This process concerns with a sender and

a recipient who are sharing and exchanging of messages The recipient, of course, need not to be present of the sender‟s intention at the time of communication However, communication requires both participants to share the commonality In another word, one of the most important factors leading the success of communicating is the mutual understanding of the sender and addressee who share the shame custom and culture

In a communication process, it takes into accounts the elements of communication It is assumed that the communication consist of such elements as sender – receiver, message, channels, feedback, noise and setting of the

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communication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992) From the figure 1, it certainly shows that sender- receivers are those who get involved in communication The ideas and feelings shared by a sender- receiver is called message, and feedback is the response

of the receiver- senders to each other Channels are the means which used to share massage including sound, sight, verbal and non-verbal signals The figure also points that the interference that keeps a massage from being understood or accurately interpreted – the noise Setting is defined as where the communication occurs

Figure 1: Elements of Commnunication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992:7-10)

From the figure, it can be shown that there exist different channels of

commnunication which is consisted of verbal and non- verbal communication

1.1.1 Verbal communication

Verbal communication is one way for people to interact to each other by different means such as sounds, words and language Verbal communication, itself, refers to the transform the message and feedback of both senders and recipients Language, as a result, is a useful means for participants in communication to express their thoughts, ideas, and especially feelings Words, or sentences themselves cannot be messages in communication without the participants‟ emotion and attitudes It is likely that the purpose of using verbal communication is to

Noise

Sender- Receive

r

Sender- Receive

r

Channel Setting

Setting Channel Message- feedback

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inform, inquire, argue, and discuss topics of all kinds, and so on However, there has been variety of challenges in verbal communication Misunderstandings and language barriers appear to be attracted the most solutions even the senders and receivers face–to- face communicate and share the common language and culture Anglicist, especially Americans, can have problems when talking to each other because of differences For instance, New Yorkers tend to faster and respond more quickly (“high involvement”) than Californians (“high considerateness”) To some New Yorkers, Californians seem slower, less intelligent and not as responsive To some Californians, New Yorkers seem pushy and domineering (Nguyen Quang, 1998:40).Levels in verbal communication are mainly divided into interpersonal communication and public speaking Additionally, verbal communication belongs

to the intralanguage which takes grammar, lexis, phonetics, rules of language use and etc into account Hence, it seems certain that study verbal communication is the study of the skeleton of language paralleling with the cultural patterns of the target language and the comparative language

1.1.2 Non- verbal communication

Besides verbal communication, one indispensable channel of communicating

is non-verbal communication It can be claimed that the participants of communication process, means, message – feedback and setting of non-verbal communication is larger and wider-spread than verbal one Dislike the using of language as verbal communication to have interaction with others, non-verbal

communication is performed without speaking words

In his research, Albert Mehrabian (1981) draws the conclusion of the effectives of a massage in communication Specifically, the intralanguage and paralanguage only occupies in turn 7% and 38% of the effectiveness while the extralanguage or non-verbal communication takes up to 55% of total effectiveness

of a massage Consequently, non-verbal communication plays an extremely important role of the success of relaying message in communication Non-verbal communication or “silent” communication includes the use of gestures, facial

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expressions, eye contact and conversational distance (Nguyen Quang, 1998: 61) The movement of the body or part of the body is defined as gesture In fact, the movement of hands is the most popular part of gesture Gesture, facial expression, eye contact and conversational distance have distinctive features belonging to different cultures

Obviously, both verbal and non-verbal communication plays an extremely important role in the ways people of different cultures interacting to each other, even those who share the same communicative commonality

1.2 Culture

Every country has its own customs, tradition of ceremonies, and cultures In term of cultural communication, culture is understood as the values, belief, attitudes, which are considered as the hidden part of iceberg (Nguyen Quang, 1998:3) The informal and hidden pattern of human interaction of one culture is not always shown clearly Therefore, studying the relationship between culture and communication becomes more important not only to help one to find out the characteristics of one‟s culture, but also the effects of others‟ culture on his ways of communication

Hybels & Weaver II (1992:25) claimed that the goal of giving definition of culture is to clarify the crucial link between culture and communication, as follow:

Culture is a learned set of shared interpretation about beliefs, values, norms and social practice, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of people

The writers explained that the shared interpretation mentions to cultures existing in people‟s minds When the communication takes place, the meanings of symbols on ones‟ mind are shared with other people, which form the basis for culture However, there exist symbols only shared to a few, and not all people are aware of the same symbols Similarly, Nguyen Quang (1998) suggested that the cultural differences are obvious phenomenon, and “what is appropriate in one culture may be inappropriate in another culture” According to Hybels & Weaver II (199:27),

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beliefs refer to “the basic understanding of a group of people about what the world

is like or what is true or false” Values mention to what is good or bad or what is regarded as important defined by a group of people in sharing their culture The rules for appropriate behavior which provide the expectations of the participants in communication process are defined as norms Social practices are the predictable behaviour patterns that are followed by members of a culture Hall (1959) defined culture as the sum of people‟s behaviour patterns, attitudes and material things In addition, culture is also made definition as the values, beliefs, orientations, and underlying assumptions of those in one society (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel, 2007:20) Below is the point of view of culture shown by Holliday (2004:4) He classified the culture basing on essentialist and non-essentialist view with three categories as nature, place and relation

Essentialist view Non-essentialist view Nature Culture – physical identity

(I visited 3 cultures- Spain, Morocco and Tunisia)

Culture – a social force (There was something culturally different about each

of the countries I visited) Place Culture – a country and a

language

Culture – Value

Relation The world- Mutually exclusive

national cultures (People from Egypt cannot

… when they arrive in French Culture)

Cultures can flow, change, intermingle, cut across and through one another

(Schools throughout the world have a lot of cultural similarities)

Table 1: Holliday‟s view of culture

Of all the ideas of linguists, it can be drawn that culture and communication have a crucial relation, in which culture has strong effect on the ways people communicate from coast to coast This is raised the problems of cross-cultural communication

1.3 Cross-cultural communication

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The communication nowadays is not limited among those who share the same belief, norm, values and so on The development of the modern society creates the need of exchanging and communicating of people from different cultures Hence, intercultural communication appears as a useful means of communication

The differences between intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication have been studied Intercultural communication is defined as

“interaction between people whose cultural assumptions are distinct enough to alter the communication event” (Samovar, Porter, &McDaniel, 2007:10) In other words, intercultural communication focuses on “sharing of meanings” across cultures while the cross-cultural communication concentrates on the comparison of communication styles Specifically, “intercultural communication occurs whenever

a message is produced by a member of one culture for consumption by a member of another culture, a message must be understood” (Samovar and Porter, 1991:10) On the other hands, it is assumed that the process of exchanging, negotiating, and mediating one‟s cultural in non-verbal gestures, and relationships is defined as cross-cultural communication Seeking of similarities and differences between cultures is the basis of cross-cultural communication Consequently, intercultural communication involves face-to-face communication between people from different cultures while cross-cultural communication involves comparison of face-to-face communication (Gudykunst & Mody, 2002)

Generally, communicating to people whose beliefs, norms, and values culturally different from ours easily leads to misunderstandings In other words, that

is when we communicate across cultural boundaries The misinterpreting can develop to cultural conflict or can cause cultural shock to everyone, especially those who are inexperienced in cross-cultural communication Therefore, problems are easy to occur in cross-cultural communication The following section refers to potential problems in commnunication across cultures

1.4 Potential problems in cross-cultural verbal communication

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Communicating among people who share the same culture, belief, norms, and values still conceal itself problems The participants of the conversation cannot solve the problems themselves, and even lead to an argument or struggle Consequently, there have been existing problems in cross-cultural communication

In this paper, due to the limitation of the study, the main focus is on the cultural verbal communication between American and Vietnamese students

cross-To study the directness and indirectness speech acts, Nguyen Quang (2004:202) carried out a case study by one Request-Reason conversation in both Vietnamese and English 112 Vietnamese learners of English and 26 American and

8 Australian were requested to read the conversation and give feedback and comments Most Vietnamese students agree with the indirect way of the researcher

in the conversation to make the offer more acceptable In contrast, the American and Australian assume that it is not necessary to talk around such as talking about the weather, the elder people, and their health They all directly come to the communicative point without adding any more reasons guiding to the point as follow

- Excuse me, sir Could I have 3 days off please? My mother’s ill, you know

Another problem in cross-cultural communication is that “the judgements that people make about regional differences within a country are similar to those they make about people from another culture” (Nguyen Quang, 1998:40) Consequently, misunderstanding and argumentation is easier to appear between those of different cultures Hence, there have been varieties of cross-cultural communication studies that do research to find out the solutions and suggest advices for communicators to be successful in communicating to people from different cultures

1.5 Cross-cultural study

Obviously, the study of cross-cultural communication plays an important role in study of linguistics and cultural studies Cross-cultural study, itself, examines the human behaviour, belief, and attitudes, and so on cross cultures Carol

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R and Melvin Ember (2002) suggested the outline of a cross-cultural study which consists of organization and classification, numbers of questions, measures of study, and the analysis of the result The classification including three main parts: selection

of cultures, source materials and classification The section of cultures mainly bases

on the criteria of maximum cultural diversity, maximum geographical dispersal and adequacy of literature within the scope of the two preceding criteria

The background knowledge of theories in cross-cultural communication study suggested by Ember, C & M (2002) consists of the detailed description of culture in which a particular community sharing that culture written by a professional social scientist In classification part, the writer preferred to assign each document with coding Then, each category should be included a brief descriptive statement, indicating the range of information

First what are the foci of study? Second, what are the issues of coherence or decoherence within the foci studied? Third, how do these issues apply between foci

(Ember, C & M, 2002:2) The authors suggested that firstly, the one has to define clearly what the problem to study in term of foci is Comparing communities is not the only the approach of cultural comparison, but the focus on the people, the specific communicative commonality shared in that community The second question concentrates on the coherence and decoherence within that foci Making a comparison is to find out the correlation and uncorrelated features of the two cultures which can apply suitably in the foci of the study

Aneas (2009) suggested that the data collection and analysis of a cultural communication essentially base on the certain situations with participants

cross-of the study In other words, the researcher plays an extremely important role in carrying out the research, gathering and analyzing the data, recording and conveying the message in interaction between those who are culturally different

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It cannot be denied that the study of cross-cultural communication has been strongly developed since “The silent language” by Hall (1959) was published Nowadays, the world is changeable, the way people interact to each other, consequently, is not the same as it was Therefore, studying the events and phenomena all over the world attached with cultures and communication helps researchers themselves clearly understand the distinctive features of the customs, cultures that differ from their own culture

In the string of cross-cultural communication studies, politeness plays an important role in getting a successful conversation The following section discusses politeness and politeness strategies in communication

1.6 Politeness

Politeness, in this paper, is discussed from the point of the view of linguistics and in close relation with cultures and communication It is a number of principles for being polite in communication, especially when interact to a particular culture According to Richards (1992:81), politeness is how languages express the social distance between their speakers and their different role relationship In addition, politeness refers to how face work, in which the attempt to establish, maintain and save face during conversation is carried out in a speech community The following

sub-section presents face and politeness strategies

1.6.1 Face

Studying politeness, many linguists suggested that in conversation, the politeness related the face of the speakers and the hearers Face is “the public self–image that every member wants to claim for himself” (Brown & Levinson, 1987)

In other words, the expectation of being respected their self-image in the public of people is face want Face is consistently at risk of possibly losing in communication Yule (1996:61) also pointed that

A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others, and a person’s positive face is

1.6.2 Politeness Strategies

Greater risk

Figure 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levison, 1987)

Basing on this, Brown and Levinson outlined the politeness strategies including four types: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record or indirect strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987:69) Bald on record strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their audience

E.g Do the dishes It’s your turn or Give me those!

Positive politeness strategy which is applied in positive face attempts to minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face and satisfy his/her want Positive politeness tends to show solidarity, emphasies that participants have common goal

in conversation so it is most commonly used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well

+ A positive politeness strategy might be the request:

E.g It would be great if you could do the dishes for me

Lesser rick

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+ The speakers appeals to a common purpose friendly:

E.g You must be hungry now How about something for lunch?

Negative politeness strategy standing for negative face presumes that the speaker will be imposing on the listener, even apologizing for imposition or interruption Negative politeness concerns not to impose on others or restrict their freedom, but maintain distance

+ A question extended and containing a modal verb:

E.g I know you’ve been kinda strapped for cash, but could I borrow $5?

+ Expression apology for the imposition:

E.g I’m sorry to interrupt you, but can you explain this again

Linguistically, negative politeness can be expressed by:

+ Using a passive construction:

E.g Dinner is served (avoids directly imposing on a guest)

+ Indirect speech acts:

E.g It’s hot in here (request somebody to open the door or turn on the fan)

+ Hedges:

E.g I somehow understand what you’ve said

+ Avoiding using address form directly:

E.g Someone’ eaten apples on the table

In short, politeness strategies play a fundamental in communication Different acts of speech require different politeness strategies In interaction, arguing is unavoidable if the participants do not meet the common communicative point The following sections will discuss this issue

Van (1996) pointed that argumentation is a social activity which involves two or more participants in the conversation responding the claim or supporting a claim with evidence It is also an activity of reason in which the speakers aim to support for the claim The goal of argumentation is to justify one‟s standpoint or to refute someone else‟s In addition, argument consists of controversial issues Arguing is, of course, persuasive and contested When having arguments, the relationships among participants are stimulated in communication This is reflected

by the high rate of arguing in conversations in everyday life

Arguments between participants of the conversation help themselves clearly solve the problem or find out a new point However, the participants‟ speech act in argumentation is different from one to another, from coast to coast and from different cultures To gain their point in arguing, naturally, the participants attempt

to use flexibly techniques, especially politeness strategies Perelman (1969)

suggested three techniques in arguing as quasi-logical techniques, techniques structuring reality, and techniques of dissociation Quasi-logical techniques involve

the argument ofthe string of problems happening logically A sufficient agreement

is the starting point of further persuasion or arguments is the technique basing on the structure of reality Techniques of dissociation aim to qualify apparent point to

reality

Argument activities between students about their daily life happen variously

It can be an argument among students about a classmate‟s new coat, hairstyle, and bags and so on Aggression such as teasing, insulting, swearing may appear This may develop as conflicts in cross-cultural communication Hence, useful strategies

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for argumentation, including calming oneself, showing respect to each other in communication and finding out the best solution or method to satisfy all are suggested Additionally, tips of controlling the one‟s emotion, finding the common ideas between participants and modesty are considered best techniques applied in argument

Generally, such suggestions for strategies implemented in argumentation base on politeness strategies with the aim to save face of the interlocutor One effective strategy employed much in communication as well as in argumentation is hedges In discussing politeness strategies in communication, Nguyen Quang (2004) listed various forms of hedges which are employed in politeness strategies The following section reviews theories of hedges

1.8 Hedges and Use of hedges in argument

Studies show that two main approaches about hedges have been discussed so far Lakoff (1972) paid attention on the logical properties of words and phrases In term of semantic analysis, he argues hedges as words whose function is to make meaning fuzzier or less fuzzy (e.g sort of) Lakoff (1972:195) defined hedges as follows:

For me, some of the most interesting questions are raised by the study of words whose meaning implicitly involves fuzziness-words whose job it is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy I will refer to such words as ‘hedges’

Besides, hedging has been view from the perspective of pragmatics In discussing cooperative principle in conversation, Yule (1996:37) assumed that

“there are certain kinds of expressions speakers use to mark that they may be in danger of not fully adhering to the principles These kinds of expression are called hedges”

E.g As far as I know, they’re married

I won’t bore you with the details, but it was an exciting trip

Not to change the subject, but is this related to the the budget?

This may be a bit confused, but I remember being in a car

Brown & Levison (1987) suggested that hedges can act as one of the politeness strategies in communication According to the linguists, communicative functions of hedges are to strengthen or weaken the statement as well as to soften complaints, requests and commands

E.g + Strengthened statement: You know, he’s only my partner at the company + Weakened statement: It maybe late now Shall we go home?

+ Softened complaints: I think you behaved badly last night

+ Softened request: Would you please lend me your car for a while?

+ Softened command: Close the door, will you?

Nguyen Quang (2004: 46) pointed that using hedges in conversation helps to mitigate the disagreement of the speakers, and then reduce the face threatening of the hearers

E.g You really should sort of lay all the cards on the table

It’s easy a pie, in a way

In short, saving face for the other is crucial role of hedge in communication

in general and in argumentation in particular Consequently, hedging is considered

as a politeness strategy from the perspective of pragmatics

In argument, hedges are used variously Such expressions of hedges as If I may say so, As you probably know, This may be a bit confused are normally

employed to propose an argument

E.g If I may say so your handwriting is bad

This may be a bit confused, but are you the last one to leave the room?

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To express disagreements, hedges like I’m not sure if this is right, I may be mistaken, I'm not sure if this makes sense, Do you see my point, Know what I mean, and so on are often applied

E.g I’m not sure if this is right, but someone has stolen my pen

I may be mistaken, but John is travelling to Australia now

To give an end to an argument, hedges employed consist of I don’t know if this is clear at all, I should say that, Ok, so is that clear, etc

E.g I should say it‟s enough for arguing

In term of hedging classification, Yule (1996:38) divided hedges into four

categories towards Grice‟s maxim of quality (e.g As far as I know, I may be mistaken but, I guess…), quantity (e.g As you probably know, I won’t bore you with all the details but,…), relation (e.g I don’t know if this is important but, Not to change the subject but, ), and manner (e.g This maybe a bit confused but, I’m not sure if this makes sense but, I don’t know if this is clear at all,…)

Besides, Prince (1982) divided hedges into two categories as approximators and shields with two more subclasses in each category

 Approximators which affect the truth condition of proposition consists of adaptors and rounders

(+)Adaptors help to express the degree of the truth of proposition, for

example somewhat, sort of, kind of, some, a little bit, quite, to some extent, etc

E.g He is an intelligent student but a little lazy

She somewhat looked at me in the meeting yesterday

(+)Rounders indicates the inexactness of terms as approximately, something

around, about, roughly, essential, etc

E.g The number of students taking part in the contest is approximately two

hundreds

The average mark of the test is something between five and six

 Shields reflect the commitment of the speakers to the truth of propositional content Two subclasses of shields are plausibility shields and attribution shields

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(+)Plausibility shields relate to the speakers‟ expression of doubtful attitude

or uncertainty such as I think, I guess, I believe, I suppose, I’m afraid, I don’t see that, as far as I’ concerned, etc

E.g I guess he was the last person leaving the room

As far as I’m concerned, her plan is the most feasible

(+)Attribution shields include according to, as is well known, someone

suggests that, the possibility will be, etc These will help the speakers express their

attitude indirectly and avoid taking the responsibility of the truth of the message

E.g According to his father, he left home very early in the morning

The price has been increased rapidly, as far as anyone knows

Generally, hedge with its functions and forms play an important role in communicating, especially in argumentation The theory of hedges will help researchers a lot in carrying out the survey Hence, review of previous studies about hedges is the main content of section 1.9

1.9 Review of previous studies

Inspired of hedges in cross-cultural communication and pragmatics, the

researchers put an effort to do this minor study A Vietnamese-American Cutural Study on the Use of Heding in Argument Together with collecting related

Cross-references and information, the writer had an overview of different studies of hedges

An overview of the study “Hedging in Invitation Declining: A American Cross-cultural Study” by Đặng Thị Kim Chung (2003) is made In this paper, seven main hedging strategies in invitation declining were found Besides, factors affecting hedging were also listed Moreover, the writer suggested several exercises and activities as a guide for teachers to teach hedges in general and in invitation declining in particular

Vietnamese-“Analysis of Grammatical Forms and Semantic Functions of Hedging in Political Discourse: American President Debate” by Rufaidah Kamal Abdul Majeed (2010) attract the attention of many readers In this study, the American President