HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

ABSTRACT This thesis is to show the hedging before giving bad news in English and Vietnamese to express the similarities and the differences between using hedging before bad news in Engl

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH

AND VIETNAMESE

(CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC RÀO ĐÓN VÀ CÁCH THỨC THỰC HIỆN CHÚNG TRONG TIẾNG

ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH TUYẾT

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

o0o

M.A THESIS

HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH

AND VIETNAMESE

(CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC RÀO ĐÓN VÀ CÁCH THỨC THỰC HIỆN CHÚNG TRONG TIẾNG

ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

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

(HEDGING STRATEGIES AND HOW TO REALIZE THEM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE) submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the

thesis

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Assoc Prof Dr Phan Van Que

(Signature and full name) Date:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my supervisor Assoc

Prof Dr Phan Van Que, who has given me the golden knowledge and skill to

complete this wonderful thesis on the topic hedging before giving bad news in Vietnamese

Secondly, I am also indebted to many teachers of postgraduates Studies Department who have supported and given the knowledge to my M.A Course through their lectures

Thirdly, many thanks to Le Quy Don High School for the gifted in Lai Chau Province

to give me a chance to find out the actual status on learning English in this school for

me to fulfill my thesis with the situation here

Last but not least, I would also like to thank my family and friends who helped me a lot

in finalizing this thesis within the limited time frame

ABSTRACT

This thesis is to show the hedging before giving bad news in English and Vietnamese to express the similarities and the differences between using hedging before bad news in English and Vietnamese

Moreover, the thesis gives the system of literature review of speech acts, directness and indirectness, the definition and features of the face, politeness and politeness strategies Furthermore, this thesis provide the definition of hedging, giving the framework of hedging before giving bad news, then analysis the similarities and the difference in English and Vietnamese on this issue

Next, the thesis also makes the application on the situation in using this on the actual status in some context

Last but not least, the thesis also mentions some suggestions for teachers and learners to import the language

The thesis also provides the suggestion for further study

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1:Quality hedges with not talking the full responsibility for his utterance’s

truth 28

Table 2: The speaker’s commitment is stressed to the truth of his utterance 28

Table 3: The point of the speaker’s assertion is to inform the listener……… 29

Table 4: The degrees of probability expressed in increasingdoubt 29

Table 5 : The quality through auxiliary 30

Table 6: The quantity hedges that not as much or precise information as might be expected 31

Table 7: Clauses whose use is to modify the performative verb by giving the reason why the sender made that utterance 32

Table 8:Direct function as violations’ notices of face wants which may be derived from Maxim hedges……… 34

Table 9: The expressions query if the speaker’s discourse is adequate or not 35

Table 10:The Communicative illocutionary acts 37

Table 11:expressions which are separated intosections of quality, quantity, relevance, manner, and politeness 41

Table 12: The adverbs of modal 42

Table 13:The achievement of student in Le Quy Don High School The Gifted in Lai Chau 51

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Design of the study 3

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Previous studies 4

2.2 Theoretical background 5

2.2.1 Speech Acts 5

2.2.2 Directness and indirectness in speech 7

2.3.3 Face, politeness, and politeness strategies 12

2.2.4 Hedging 20

2.3 Theoretical framework 25

2.3.1 For semantics 25

2.3.2 For pragmatics 26

2.3.3 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness 26

2.3 4 Hedging before giving bad news 34

2.3.5 Hedging as a device 35

2.4 Summary 37

Chapter 3: ANALYSIS OF HEDING STRATEGIES 38

3.1 Needs of hedging before giving bad news 38

3.2 Vietnamese equivalents for the English hedges in using hedging before giving bad news 39

3.2.1 Vietnamese equivalents for the English hedges in using hedging before giving bad news 39 Table 12: The adverbs of modal 41

3.2.2 Differences between English and Vietnamese Equivalents in using hedging before giving bad news 41

3.3 Hedging strategies in giving bad news 43

3.4 Summary 48

Chapter 4: APPLICATION OF HEDGING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING 49

4.1 The actual status of teaching English in Le Quy Don high school for the gifted in Lai Chau Province 49

4.2 Suggestions 57

4.2.1 Suggestion for teachers 57

4.2.2 Suggestions for students 57

4.3 Answering for the Research question 58

4.4 Summary 58

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 59

5.1 Concluding remarks 59

5.1.1 Main similarities 59

5.1.2 Main differences 59

5.2 Limitation of the study 60

5.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study 60

REFERENCES 61

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

Sharing bad news is part of everyday life Bad news is not involved to death only Bad news might be news from a doctor telling someone about their terminal disease, from companies, business or corporation informing the person about a layoff which is coming Or bad news might come from a child’s failure at school, or news about an accident Therefore, bad news means things affect your mood drastically

No one enjoys delivering bad news, but soon or late, people will have to deliver bad news as well as face its unpleasant feelings Besides, people who send these bad-news messages must deliver them in a careful way, which make the person whom these messages direct to feel acceptable

Different cultures have different values, especially in communication Each culture has its own rules in communication, so learners of a foreign language should master these rules so that they can avoid communication breakdowns or cultural shocks Delivering bad news is such a sensitive task How to deliver bad news naturally requires learners much knowledge of the language

Even though understanding that successful communication is the ultimate objective of learning a foreign language, many Vietnamese learners hold a view that being successful in foreign language is to master all the grammar rules and accumulate

as much as possible new words Therefore, even having grammatically well-formed ability, students might get some unexpected experience in culture shock as well as communication breakdown when they get into a real and specific situation This unwanted incidence happens because of their insufficient knowledge and the lack of social values, relationships between people in the new culture that students are not used

cross-feeling of sadness or to lessen their pain However, in some cases, the informers have

no choice even with the best and most talented ones

Needless to say, hedges such as “I regret to inform” have a great effect of minimizing

the shock to the wife All in all, hedging is a way used in a certain context for specific communicative intention that speakers use for some purposes such as politeness, vagueness, and mitigation Therefore, the desire to have further findings into major similarities and differences in using hedges when speakers give bad news by learners and teachers in Le Quy Don High School in Lai Chauhas motivated the writer to

convey this research entitled “Hedging strategies and how to realize them in

English and Vietnamese” After this research, the writer hopes to provide all of you

wider socio-cultural knowledge as well as the awareness needed for better

communicating in learning of students and teaching of teachers English in Vietnam

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

- To find out hedging strategies in English

- To find out the way to realize them in English and Vietnamese

1.3 Research questions

- What are hedging strategies in communication?

- How are they realized in English and Vietnamese?

- What are implications for teaching speaking English skill?

1.4 Methods of the study

The methods of this study is for finding out the hedging before giving bad news in Vietnamese and English, so the method is with the comparative and descriptive analysis to be used The study is emphasis on research and find out the previous studies, the theories and then analyzing the ways Vietnamese and English use hedging before bad new and give specific sample

1.5 Scope of the study

The scope of study is research of hedging in English is used in a lot of different situation, but in this thesis, it is researchedin the scope of before giving bad news

1.6 Significance of the study

The significance of the finding includes:

of highly sensitive acts in human interactions every day, so this thesis gives the similarities and differences of using hedging before giving bad news to learners and teachers to improve and reduce the shock in each situation

not to hurt the other in the act of giving bad news is essential to achieve successful communication

1.7 Design of the study

The research is divided into 5 below chapters:

Chapter 1 (Introduction) introduces the aims, rationale, scope, research questions, and

methodology of the study

Chapter 2 (Literature review):

Chapter 3 (Findings and discussion) analyses gathered data from survey in order to

explore major cross-cultural similarities and differences when choosing the hedges in specific situations

Chapter 4(Applying of the research findings)in Le Quy Don High School for The Gifted in Lai Chau Province

Chapter5 (Conclusion): summarizes the main findings from the research, offers some

implications for teaching English in Vietnam, and gives some suggestions for further research later

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies

B Halabisaz Department of English, A Pazhakh (Corresponding Author) Department

of English, M Shakibafar Department of English, Islamic Azad University Boroujerd Science and Research Branch, Boroujerd, Iran (2014) with the title “Hedging in Thesis Abstracts on Applied Linguistics across Persian and English” This study investigated the hedge in thesis abstracts to understand how the writers of these theses make their claims about their new findings The categories of hedges were applied according to Crompton’s (1997) taxonomy of hedge, and the data were analyzed through two-way Chi-Square, SPSS version 16 The results showed that there was a significant difference between natives and non-natives in terms of using hedges in abstracts of linguistic theses written by English and Persian writers Native English writers used more hedging devices, while non-natives (Iranian) writers employed less hedge devices

in their M.A abstracts The differences are attributed to the degree of rhetorical sensitivity and modality, awareness of audience, purpose, and cultural background of the learners The implication of this study can be helpful in academic writing, and EFL writing instruction

Adamu Musa(2014), with the thesis of “Hedging In Academic Writing: A Pragmatic Analysis Of English And Chemistry Masters’ Theses In A Ghanaian University” using Hyland’s (1998) Poly-pragmatic Model, the present study investigates the discourse functions of hedges in English and Chemistry Masters’ Theses in the University of Cape Coast It further explores the differences regarding the discourse functions hedges perform in both disciplines The study, which is both qualitative and quantitative in nature, reveals that hedging in English and Chemistry Masters’ Theses perform three pragmatic functions and that the preference for these functions, to some extent, varies

in both disciplines due to a number of factors The study has a pedagogical implication Adamu Musa(2014), the thesis title of “Hedging Strategies in English and Chemistry Masters’ Thesis in the University of Cape Coast, Ghana” Following this argument, hedging, the technique of presenting claims with caution, precision, moderation, and humility has attracted much scholarly attention However, a plethora of studies into hedging as an important rhetorical tool in academic writing have concentrated on experts writing, particularly

Vassileva (2001), of University of Auckland in New Zealand the title of “Ideas and Options in English for specific Purposes” found out the hedge when giving bad news to patients of doctors

According the the research of Tran Thi My Linh (2010), the title “

A vietnamese – english cross – cultural study of the use of hedging before giving bad new“ to show the differences and similarities in English and Vietnamese when using the hedging before giving bad news with the situation of abroad people coming to Vietnam for travelling

Nguyen Thanh Huy and Truong Thi Hong Nhung (2015) with the thesis of “Using hedges in English and Vietnamese conversations: The similarities and differences” Doing research on using hedges in conversation is the first step to approach pragmatics study which requires learner a determined effort With hardworking process to deal with pragmatics, learners’ language power of word usage is extremely widened Not only do they can use target language flexibly, but they are also more confident in conversational English with less anxieties of unexpected interpretation This article mainly focuses on the similarities and differences in using hedges in English and Vietnamese conversation in order to help students use English effectively based on the cooperative principles as well as point out the implication for leaning and using hedges

In conclusion, Although these thesis has shown some researches on using the hedging before giving bad news, but the situations are different, and the above researchers has not found the hedging strategies and how to realize it in English and Vietnamese Therefore, this thesis will show more about the situation of learning English of hedging before giving bad news for high school students is the first thesis on this issue

2.2 Theoretical background

2.2.1 Speech Acts

People often use language for doing things: to report, greet, and ask questions,order,warn propose marriage, and promise and perform many other actions in daily life.The sentences people utter are not used only to say something but also to do things Davidson (1998)

For example: After “I sentence you to death” is declared by a judge, there will be an

action of executing the prisoner Speech act theorists try to explain what people do when a sentence is uttered

For example: when a speaker says “Close the door,” this speaker performs the act of

ordering and also expects the hearer to recognize the speaker’s intention by going to close the door

Actions performed when the speakers utter the sentence are called speech acts This idea shows that when people utter statements, they do not only utter the sounds or words with grammatical structure, but they also perform some actions in the process of speaking There are many theorists mentioning about speech acts, and the one most mentioned is J.L Austin

According to Austin (1998) in How to Do Things with Words, when producing

an utterance, three related acts are performed:

- A locutionary act involves uttering sounds and words following the

grammatical rules to form meaning

- An illocutionary act is a particular act performed via utterance or the

function of the utterance

- A perlocutionary act involves intention to produce an effect on feeling and

action of the hearer

According to Leech (1998), he agrees with Austin in the way that each sentence has alocutionary act and an illocutionary act, but he refers to them as sense and force,respectively

Moreover, Bach and Harnish (1998) state that when people speak thereis mutual belief that both speaker and hearer refer to the same thing and meaning, andthe speaker

is saying with some recognizable illocutionary intent Another speech acttheorist, Stenius (1998) points out that each utterance comprises a sentence-radicalthat is descriptive content of the sentence, and a modal element or mood Steniusmentions 3 moods including indicative mood, describing something; imperative mood,performing the desire of the speaker; and interrogative mood, performing a feeling ofuncertainty or curiosity

Davidson (1998) makes a distinction among moods in thesame way as Stenius does, and adds uses in sentences such as to assert, to give orders,and to ask questions

From the ideas proposed by these theorists, it can be seen clearlythat when a sentence

is uttered, not only the meaning is conveyed but also the force ofthe utterance or the illocutionary intent of the speaker for the hearer to recognize

Normally, some sociolinguistics report that research relating to language is usually beyond just words or sentences which are considered as principle elements of linguistics

According to Bach (1979) shown that The inference the hearer makes and takes himself to be intended to make is based not just on what the speaker says but also mutual contextual beliefs

Austin (1962) has shown as speech act is to report states of affairs and utterance

of some sentences can be treated as performance of an act Moreover, Richards defines speech acts as an utterance or a functional unit in communication Similarly, Hymes (1972) defines them as the acts we perform when we speak It is argued that speech acts are relating to culture and manner of doing them is ruled by social contexts which are different in each community

In other word, these findings have to be analyzed with social context also It means that language must deal with real situations with human’s interactions and social contexts According to Nguyen Hoa (2000) defined asthe business of a statement can only be to describe some state of affairs or to state some fact, which must do either falsely or truly, this meant that it is needed to understand that some sentences intend to show emotion and feeling clearly or to affect them in special ways

2.2.2 Directness and indirectness in speech

2.2.2.1 Directness and indirectness

According to Jannedy, Poletto, and Welden (1994), it is point out that for direct speech acts,declarative sentences constitute speech acts of assertion, interrogative sentencesconstitute questions, and imperative sentences constitute orders and requests

In otherwords, a direct speech act has a direct relationship between the form and the functionto communicate the literal meaning that the words in sentences conventionallyexpress As a result, the declarative sentence “the book is on the table” has thefunction of assertion The interrogative sentence “Who is he talking to?” has thefunction of question, while the imperative sentence “Leave me alone!” is an order

Moreover, the direct speech act sometimes contains performative verbs, such as

“Ipromise to drive you home,” and “I order you to drive me home.” These statementsdirectly perform the speech act stated by the verbs promise and order, respectively

According to Searle (1993) sentences should be read on two levels One is themeaning conveyed by words and sentences themselves or literal meaning, while theother is the speaker’s meaning or metaphorical meaning When the speaker conveysmetaphorical meaning, the speaker’s intended meaning for the word or sentence coulddiffer from the literal meaning

All of the sentences: “The car is broken, dear,” “Couldyou help me lift the box?” and “Enjoy your meal” should be read for metaphoricalmeaning because the speakers‟ intended meanings differ from what they literallyspeak When people communicate with indirect speech acts, the hearer can understandthe real intent of the speaker because both sides share background informationtogether with the power of rationality and inference on the side of the hearer

Both indirect and direct ways are considered as verbal expressions So, there are two main forms of universal expressions which directness and indirectness But it can

be said that language is only used straightforwardly or indirectly Therefore, the way

we employ language will depend a lot on cultural contexts which are different among various communities

Kaplan (1972) has showed four structures or cultural patterns, which are different from English linearity (figure a) He focuses on writing and paragraphs as his main concentration in the research

According to Nguyen Quang (1998), direct and indirect speech in English and Vietnamese is also found in phenomenon of by the way

For example: “safe” topics as good news, congratulations, weather This phenomenon

happens less frequently But for the “subtle” and “unsafe” topics (bad news, borrowing money, sex, religions, etc.) this phenomenon appears much more frequently

In English, people seem to show three purpose of the conversation right away in the beginning But in Vietnamese, it goes in the opposite way and people often go around before going straight to their main point According to Nguyen Quang (1998),

if relationship between them and the time allow, participants will have a discuss unrelated stuff or small talk

The exact sentence spoken in one context can perform a different act inanother context As Searle (1998) says, the utterance can constitute differentillocutionary acts, and it is quite complex to tell what the act of the utterance is

Forexample, when a wife says to a husband at a party “It’s quite really late,” it might bejust a statement of fact and sometimes a request If the speaker intends to state the factof the time, the statement in a declarative sentence type is a direct speech act

However, if the speaker wants to request her husband to take them home, thesentence, although declarative, does not directly perform a representative act butrather the act of request When the type of sentences and the function are not related,the indirect speech act occurs

Indirectnessis opposed to directness Indirectness also has some advantages Thai (2007) alleges that the indirect approach to an issue is employed when the speaker needs to avoid or postpone a certain sensitive point in a conversation or composition and adigressive development or delayed theme in writing is meant to respect the judgment of readers

Indirectness is also a strategy used to avoid “face-threatening-acts” Furthermore, indirectness is a good choice to maintain politeness as in “Indirectness is thus most generally attributed to politeness Deborah (2007) supposes that sometimes telling the complete truth can actually get communicators into trouble, for example a communicator asks a question and his partner gives him a truthful answer with no explanation, the communicator may think the answer is suspicious even though the partner is telling the truth

2.2.2.2 Factors affecting directness and indirectness

There are many factors in social and natural patterns what influence the use of directness and indirectness in daily communication According to Nguyen Quang (1998) finds out in his research that there are twelve factors which may affect people’s decision in using these two kind of interactions as below:

Age: the old tend to choose indirect speaking than the young do

Sex: women prefer indirect expressions to direct ones

Residence: people in rural areas tend to use more indirectness than ones in urban and cities

Mood: people often say indirectly when getting angry

Occupation: Those whose jobs relating to social sciences seem to be more indirect than those whose jobs involving in natural sciences

Personality: The extroverted tend to be more direct than the introverted

Topics: people tend to use indirect ways of communication in subtle topics

Place: those staying at home tend to be direct rather than they are in other places

Communication environment/ setting: When staying in an informal context, people have inclination of expressing themselves in a more direct way

Social distance: those whose relationship is more closed, they are more likely to communicate directly

Time pressure: people tend to be direct when they are in a hurry

Relative powers: When in a superior or high position, people prefer directness , which

is different from their inferiors

2.2.2.3 Indirect Speech and Flouting of Cooperative Principle

When the indirect speech act is considered, it is related to the flouting of thecooperative principle Grice states that people have a cooperative principle when they

communicate They interpret language on the assumption that the speaker is obeyingfour maxims: the maxim of quality, the maxim of quantity, the maxim of relevance,and the maxim of manner Yule (1996)

1 The maxim of quality It means that the speaker always says the truth Hewill not say

something that he believes is false, and he will not say things for whichhe does not have the adequate evidence

2 The maxim of quantity It is assumed that the speaker follows the rule ofgiving

enough information The speaker does not say too much or too little; he will beas informative as required

3 The maxim of relevance It means that the speaker should be relevant whenhe

engages in the communication Whatever he says should be related to the topic ofcommunication

4 The maxim of manner The speaker will not speak something ambiguous orobscure,

and he will make his speech flow orderly

If the speaker does not follow each cooperative principle, it is said that heviolates the particular maxim; as a result, the hearer cannot understand what thespeaker wants to convey Sometimes, the speaker seems to violate the principle, buthe actually does not and the hearer can still understand what the speaker really wantsto say For example, the speaker might use hyperbole, but this is not because thespeaker intends to violate the maxim of quality, and he does not lie, as well He justmakes his point more forceful, while the hearer understands his intention If thissituation happens, it is called flouting, not violating

According to Sadock (2004) flouting the cooperative principle is related to theindirect speech act When the indirect speech act is used, at least one maxim of thecooperative principle is being flouted For example, in the context that a guest of arestaurant who finds the food disgusting says, “This meal is delicious”, the speaker isflouting the maxim of quality because he does not speak the truth The hearer, whodoes not know the context and takes the literal meaning, thinking the utterance isperforming the direct speech act, will find that this is the act of complimenting;however, the real intent of the speaker is to criticize or to complain The utterance isirony or sarcasm, so the speaker does not literally mean what he asserts By saying itas if it were the speech act of praising, the speaker actually performs the speech act ofblaming

For the hearer to comprehend the indirect speech act the utterance performs,the hearer and the speaker need to share sufficient background about the context.When A asks a question “Do you like ice-cream?” and B responds “Is the PopeCatholic?”, B is flouting the maxim of relevance because it seems that theinterrogative sentence does not answer the question “Do you like ice-cream?” If Adoes not have the background knowledge that Pope is the religious leader ofCatholics, A cannot take the interrogative sentence “Is the Pope Catholic?” as theanswer “Yes” for the question “Do you like ice-cream?”, but A might take it as aquestion being asking of him Although “Is the Pope Catholic? is an interrogativesentence, it is used to perform the act of response or the statement, not the questionrequiring the answer “yes” or “no Moreover, only persons sharing the knowledge of“the Pope” will be able to interpret the sentence correctly

2.2.2.4 Speech acts and Culture

Speech acts are also related to culture According to Cutting (2002: 21)

“theways of expressing speech acts vary from country to country, from culture to culture”

He gives an example of Indian culture which has a positive attitude towards fat peoplebecause they indicate prosperity and health That is why “How fat you are!” in Indiais the speech act of praising or congratulating Nevertheless, “How fat you are!” inWestern society now will be recognized as criticizing To compliment femaleWesterners on their appearance, “How slender you are!” is used In Thai culture,people once praised an unborn child by saying “how ugly the baby is” because

in thepast many newborn children died very young and people believed that the ghostsliked to take the beautiful babies

However, nowadays with the progression of themedicine and hospital, that belief has gradually disappeared and “How ugly the babyis!” is not a compliment any more People have changed to say, “How lovely the babyis!”, instead Any more here, like a threat in one culture is not a threat in another.Therefore, the way to perform the speech act in one culture is different from anotherculture Hedging strategies play an important role in speech act Hedges are used to moderate the force of an utterance or the certainty of its content and therefore play an important role in interpersonal communication

2.3.3 Face, politeness, and politeness strategies

According to Brown and Levinson (1987) “Politeness is basic to the production

of social order and a precondition of human cooperation, so that any theory which provides an understanding of this phenomenon at the same time goes to the foundation

of human social life.”

2.3.3.1 The definition of the face

Face is a technical term used in psychology and sociology to refer to the status and esteem of individuals within social interactions Thompson (2003)

Since face, understood as every individual’s feelings of self-image Thomas (1995), can be destroyed, maintained via communicating with other people, an individual usually claims for himself or herself through interaction That is the reasons why people usually avoid making other people feel embarrassed

People know that and respect that is why in everyday interchange, we usually avoid embarrassing the other person, or making him feel uncomfortable simply because we bear in mind that everybody has basic face needs or wants which refers to the respect that individual has for him or herself

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), face is the public self-image that all rational adult members of society possessand something that is emotionally invested, and that can be maintained, lost, or enhanced and must be constantly attended to in interaction with others Once face is damaged or threatened, there seems to be a risk of communication breakdown

Therefore, To Watts (2003) & Holmes (1995) maintaining or partially satisfying each other’s face seems to be the major and apparently the only motivation to be polite

in communication In many aspects, face wants include two opposing ones as positive and negative face in that

Positive face

Naturally, people often face two desires: one is to get their goals or purpose and the other is to avoid causing uncomfortable feeling to their partner According to Brown and Levinson (1987) Positive face, is the positive consistent self-image or personality (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interaction It means that people consider positive face as the desire one person admire or value other person’s needs or the need people want to be a member of a group, to be accepted by others

Negative face

According to Brown and Levinson, Negative face isthe basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction Moreover, Negative face is reflected in the desire not to be impeded or put upon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses Thomas (1995), following to Eleden (2001) the wants that one’s action be unimpeded

by othersand is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed on by others Yule (1996)

2.3.3.2 What is politeness?

The definition of Politeness

People have paid a lot of attention to Politeness, especially sociolinguistics and pragmatics Two key issues to politeness are: politeness as social norms (normative

politeness) or conversational principle and maxims and face-saving acts or politeness strategies Blum-Kulka(1987)

Blum-Kulka(1987) indicates in her cross-cultural findings that politeness is a function

of repressive action with the latter having correlative relationship with indirectness, an interaction achieved between two needs, the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness and a social distance and role relationship Through her definition

of politeness, she shows an idea that the more indirect we are, the more polite we become Clearly, she implies that there is a close relationship between indirectness and politeness

For examples:

(1) Indirect way: What’s the hell? It is too tidy

Direct way: you should tidy up your room, son

(2) Indirect: What’s the wife expected to do at this time? (Implies “to get dinner ready”)

Direct : Time to cook, sweetheart

Inspire of the fact that “Face threatening acts” have a variety of degrees, many direct ways of speaking seem to be more accepted so more polite However, according

to Dascal (1983), indirectness might be costly and risky because the speaker have to think more and process more in indirectness (costly) while the hearer may not understand what the speaker wants to perform (risky)

Nguyen Quang (1994) defines politeness in a better way, which is used as politeness’s definition for this study This concept does not lean to any sides: positive or negative but is the combination of the two

In the research, the term of politeness or we can say “speaking in a polite way” is used for for politeness reasons in what Brown and Levinson say due to the following reasons:

Firstly, despite some conversational views, contract and the difference between normative and strategic politeness is not very clear, almost all illocutionary acts should

be performed in the scale of interpersonal relationships

Secondly, according to the writer, normative politeness which relies on social patterns is the foundation of strategic politeness Therefore, interpersonal relationships

are really important to perform normative politeness, which help preserve someone’s face through specific politeness norms

Thirdly, through verbal interaction, whether it is your intention to give a dispraise or not, any disprasing act might have potential effect create a great damage to the hearer’s positive and negative face

Fourthly, politeness strategies can either support the listener’s positive face or avoid affect thee hearer’s freedom

Lastly, Brown and Levinson’s model is suitable for the explanation of verbal interaction used on daily activities in which “participants are reciprocally attending to one another’s face needs” Watts (2003)

2.3.3.3 Principles of politeness

Lakoff (1973) indicates most of the conversations are ruled by politeness principle Similarly Grice in an earlier time said that there are three rules that should be followed in conversation to keep the politeness including Don’t impose and give option

in that Don’t impose is similar to negative politeness’s definition and is you need to try

not to impose on others or to disrupt them in any way and Give options isthat you

should avoid forcing the hearer Similarly Grice in an earlier time said that there are three rules that should be followed in conversation to keep the politeness:

Don’t impose – similar to negative politeness’s definition – you need to try not toimpose on others or to disrupt them in any way Let’s look at following examples:

- Could you possibly ……?

- It’s asking a lot, but can you ……

- I’m sorry to bother you …

expressions:

- It’s up to you,……

- I don’t care if you don’t want to ……

- Make the hearer feel good – you can say things that make the listener feel great as such expressions below

- What would I have done without you?

- I’d really appreciate what you have done

- I owe you once for this help

Leech’s (1983) Politeness principle contains 6 maxims including Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy, those maxims which involve in the cost and advantage and also the favorableness to the listener

2.3.3.4 Positive politeness and strategies

Brown and Levinson (1987) also show some examples for the kinds of decisions that speaker can choose and fifteen politeness strategies toward the positive face of the hearer In general, positive politeness strategies’ purpose is to save the positive face and they are addressed to the hearer’s positive face through informality, intimacy solidarity,… and familiarity’s expressions Therefore, the speaker develops those to satisfy the hearer’s positive face chiefly by two ways including by expressing the

similarities among participants (using expressions such as let’s or why don’t we in English or chúng ta/ chúng mình in Vietnamese), and by showing an appreciation of

the hearer’s self-image

Seventeen below strategies focus on positive face, and are also the examples of positive politeness (cited from Watts 2003 and Nguyen Quang 2003)

The following fifteen strategies are addressed to positive face, and are thus examples of positive politeness (cited from Watts 2003 and Nguyen Quang 2003)

(1) Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (her/ his interests, wants, needs, goods etc)

- Ái chà chà! Hôm nay nhân dịp gì mà diện bộ củ đẹp thế À này, có tiền cho tớ vay năm chục (Wow, how smart you look today! What occasion? By the way, can I borrow 50,000 VND, if you have?)

(2) Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

- Good old Jim Just the man I wanted to see I knew I’d find you here Could you spare me a couple of minutes?

- Giời ơi, chặc … chặc… , chặc … con bé ấy vô cùng quyến rũ

(3) Strategy 3: Intensify interests to the hearer in the speaker’s contribution

- You’ll never guess what Fred told me last night This is right up your street

- Cậu biết không, bọn tớ quyết định tháng sau sẽ cưới

(4) Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers in speech

- Here’s my old mate, Fred How are you doing today, mate? Could you give us a hand

to get this car to start?

- Ta đi chứ anh bạn (Shall we go, mate?)

(5) Strategy 5: Seek agreement in safe topics

- I agree, right Manchester United played badly last night, didn’t they? D’you reckon you could give me cigarette?

- Mình chuyển sang làm cho UNICEF rồi

- Cho UNICEF cơ à? Nhất đấy!

(6) Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement

- Well in a way, I suppose you’re sort of right But look at it like this Why don’t you?

- Anh nói cũng có lý nhưng theo tôi không thể đốt cháy giai đoạn được

(7) Strategy 7: Presuppose, raise, and assert common ground

- People like you and me, Bill, don’t like being put around like that, do we? Why don’t

we go and complain?

- Túi nặng quá em ạ

- Em biết lắm chứ Toàn bộ giầy dép của em ở trong ấy mà lị

(8) Strategy 8: Joke to put the hearer at ease

- A: Great summer we’re having It’s only rained five times a week on average

- B: Yeah, terrible, isn’t it?

- A: Could I ask you for a favor?

- Các bố ấy không phải là Mike Tyson và vợ các bố ấy không phải là những bịch cát

(9) Strategy 9: Assert and presuppose knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants

- I know you like marshmallows, so I’ve bought you home a whole box of them I wonder if I could ask you for a favor

- Tớ biết cậu không khoái ba cái trò tiệc tùng bù khú nhưng vì hôm nay có cả sếp của

tớ dự nên cậu đến tiếp hộ tớ nhé

(10) Strategy 10: Offer, promise

- I’ll take you out to dinner on Saturday if you cook the dinner this evening

- Này, hôm nào ra Hải Xồm lai rai đi

(11) Strategy 11: be optimistic that the hearer wants what the speaker wants, i.e that the FTA is slight

- I know you are always glad to get a tip or two on gardening, Fred, so if I were you, I wouldn’t cut your lawn back so short

- Trông mời mọc quá nhỉ Tớ phải thử một miếng để xem tài nấu nướng của cậu tiến bộ đến đâu rồi

(12) Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

- I’m feeling really hungry Let’s stop for a bite

- Tại sao ta không đi biển nhỉ?

(13) Strategy 13: Give and ask for reasons

- I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Jim Why not stay at our place this evening?

(14) Strategy 14: Assert reciprocal exchange or tit for tat

- Dad, if you help me with my math homework, I’ll mow the lawn after school tomorrow

- Tớ thổi cơm, cậu dọn bàn nhé

(15) Strategy 15: Give gift to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

- A: Have a glass of malt whisky, Dick

- B: Terrific, thanks!

- A: Not at all I wonder if I could confide for a minute or two

In addition, Nguyen Quang (2003) proposes two more strategies

(16) Strategy 16: Console, encourage H

- Việc gì phải buồn, thua keo này ta bày keo khác

- It’s nothing, really Don’t give up You have my backing

(17) Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

- Thu nhập có khá không?

- Anh chị sinh được mấy cháu rồi?

2.3.3.5 Negative politeness and strategies

While positive politeness is ranging freely, negative politeness is focused and specific

Observing and covering in both pragmatic and socio-linguistic aspects communicative environment, Nguyen Quang (2003) shows his own negative politeness’s definition Negative politeness is any kind of communicative act which is appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus, enhancing the sense of distance between them Simply put, negative politeness is not to poke your nose into others’ privacy Negative politeness can be called distancing/ cool/ distant politeness

Let’s look at ten strategies below which focus on the listener’s negative Watts (2003) and Nguyen Quang (2003)

Following are the ten strategies addressed to the hearer’s negative face (cited from Watts 2003 and Nguyen Quang 2003)

(1) Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

- Could you tell me the time please?

- Anh có thể lấy hộ tôi quyển sách ở trên bàn kia được không?

(2) Strategy 2: Do not assume willingness to comply Question, hedge

- I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a little question

- Nói chí ít ra anh ta cũng kiểu như hơi chậm hiểu

(3) Strategy 3: Be pessimistic about ability or willingness to comply Use subjunctive

- If you had a little time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like to talk about my paper

- Nên chăng ta đứng ngoài cuộc thì hơn

(4) Strategy 4: Minimize the opposition

- Could I talk to you for just a minute?

- Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi anh là tôi có thể mượn ô tô của anh về quê ngày mai được không?

(5) Strategy 5: Give deference

- Excuse me, officer I think I might have parked in the wrong place

- Tôi ngu quá đi mất Nhẽ ra tôi phải hỏi ý kiến anh trước mới phải

(6) Strategy 6: Apologize

- Sorry to bother you but ……

- Xin lỗi phải ngắt lời anh nhưng đấy không phải là ý tôi muốn nói

(7) Strategy 7: Impersonalize the speaker and the hearer Avoid the pronouns I and you

- A: That car is parked in a no-parking area

- B: It’s mine, officer

- A: Well, it’ll have to have a parking ticket

- Có lẽ vấn đề không đơn giản như vậy đâu

(8) Strategy 8: State the FTA as an instance of a general rule

- Parking on the double yellow is illegal, so I’m going to have to give you a fine

- Đề nghị hành khách xuất trình hộ chiếu và vé máy bay khi làm thủ tục vào sân bay

(9) Strategy 9: Nominalize to distance the actor and add formality

- Participation in an illegal demonstration is punishable by law Could I have your name and address, madam?

- Mong ước của tôi là hàng tháng kiếm đủ tiền để nuôi các cháu ăn học đầy đủ

(10) Strategy 10: Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H

- If you could just sort out a problem I’ve got with my formatting, I’ll buy you a beer at lunchtime

- Việc này trong tầm tay tôi Anh khỏi phải lo

Nguyen Quang (2003) suggests one more strategy

(11) Avoid asking personal questions

- How much do you earn a month? (avoided)

- Why don’t you marry at such an age? (avoided)

- Chị làm ở đấy lương có cao không? (avoided)

- Anh bao nhiêu tuổi rồi? (avoided)

2.2.4 Hedging

2.2.4.1 Definition of Hedging

Holmes (2002) shows that the ways reducing the an utterance’s force are usually called “hedges” and those hedging devices often reduce the strength of the utterance or soften/ weaken the its effect They decrease force, intensity or directness of the utterance She inclines deliberately towards the view that hedges are used for positive politeness by showing booster’s definition as devices to increase force of the utterance what they are used in

Brown and Levinson (1987hedges defines inas a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a 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 This definition reveals a fact that hedges are strengtheners as well as weekenders

To conclude, hedge is used in interaction as a strategy to avoid propositional content Nguyen Quang (2003) and the utterance’s illocutionary force

The term hedge first appeared in the thesis by G Lakoff, as was mentioned in 2.1 in

Page 4 of the present thesis He first defines hedges as “words whose job it is to make

things fuzzier or less fuzzy” (1972:195), such as sort of, kind of, technically speaking,

etc

In the definition of Lakoff, there are two implications including fuzziness exists naturally in language and hedges can adjust the fuzziness of language, making it less fuzzy or fuzzier

Following to Lakoff, the subsequent linguists have given various definitions of

hedges According to J.Channell (1994:18), vague additives are “phrases or words that

are added to what would otherwise be a precise statement, resulting in a vague reading” the vague additives are similar to hedges of Lakoff, but they are limited to only one aspect of hedges as they only make things fuzzy but not less fuzzy

According to other linguists, the vagueness is another concept close to hedging

as it refers, among other things, and to the use of expressions like sort of,about,etc

expressions that denote the impreciseness of quality, quantity, and identify, which is

very much like the opinion of Lakoff’s “fuzziness” (Channell, 1994)

Similarly, according to Raija Markkanen and Hartmut Schröder (1997), Von

Hahn (1983) used the term “Vagheit” (vagueness) when referring to the false

assumption that the language in academic texts is exact For L A Zadeh, linguistic hedges are words that modify the degree of fuzziness

Following thisdefinition, it could be identified in the discourse between 150 and

450 hedges per hour or more than one every 15 seconds (He Ziran, 2003) Moreover, Hedges are also common in LSP (Language for Special Purposes) texts, such as academic writings, journalistic and legal texts In the present thesis, we will employ G Lakoff’s definition of hedge

There have been so far two main approaches about hedging The term ‘hedge’/

‘hedging’ itself was introduced first by G Lakoff (1972) in his article ‘Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts’ Lakoff argues that the logic of hedges requires serious semantic analysis for all predicates He defines 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' (1972:195) In his article "Fuzzy-Set - Theoretic Interpretation of Linguistic Hedges", Zadeh (1972) followed Lakoff in using the new designation ‘hedge’ and analyzed English hedges (such as simple ones like ‘very’, ‘much’, ‘more or less’, ‘essentially’, and ‘slightly’ and more complex ones like ‘technically’ and ‘practically’) from the point of view of

semantics and logics The author assumes that hedges are operators that act on the fuzzy set representing the meaning of their operands Hedges vary in their dependency

on context Later on, hedging has been viewed from the perspective of pragmatics The concept of hedge/ hedging is understood in different ways in the literarture Hedges have been referred to as compromisers (James,1983), weakeners (Brown and Levinson, 1987), understatements (Hubler, 1983), downgraders (House and Kasper, 1981), mitigators (Labov and Fanshel 1977, Stubbs, 1983),softeners (Crystal & Davy, 1975), backgrounding terms (Low, 1996), approximators and shields (Prince at all.1982) and pragmatic devices (Subble & Homes, 1995), downtoners (Quirk at all, 1972,1985), tentativeness (Homes, 1983,1995) and vagueness (Channell 1994)

Brown & Levinson (1978) dealing with politeness in verbal interaction from the point of view of pragmatics, viewed the hedges as a device to avoid disagreement Moreover, Brown and Levinson (1987) define ‘hedges’ as a particle, phrase or word that modifies the degree of membership of noun phrase or predicate in a set; it says of that membership that it is partial, or that it is more true and complete than might be expected or true only in certain respects (1987) Vietnamese linguists such as Nguyễn Thin Giáp (2000), Nguyễn Quang (2003),Hoàng Phê (2002) also view hedging as a pragmatic phenomenon

Hoàng Phê (2002) states in his Vietnamese Dictionarythat ‘hedges are expressions which are preventive from unexpected misunderstanding and reaction/responses to what is said’ According to Nguyễn Quang (2003), hedging is a strategy used simply to hedge the propositional content In this paper, we mainly view hedging from pragmatic perspective In pragmatics, the concept of hedging is mainly linked to the concept of speech act and politeness phenomena A hedge is either defined as one or more lexico-syntactical elements that are used to modify a proposition, or else, as a strategy that modifies a proposition A hedge can appear after

or before a proposition The term ‘hedging’ is used to refer to the textual strategies of using linguistic means as hedges in a certain context for specific communicative purposes

2.2.4.2 The ways of using hedging

Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) in their Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) There are some ways in hedging as the below situations:

Situation 1: You want to inform about the death of the hearer’s relative

Situation 2: You want to inform that the hearer/ the hearer‘s relative has got a serious disease

Situation 3: You want to inform about an accident in which the hearer’s relative was badly injured:

Situation 4: You want to inform about the hearer’s / the hearer‘s relative’s loss of money or precious property (car/ motorbike/ …)

Situation 5: You want to inform that the hearer/ the hearer‘s relative has been tricked into buying a fake thing

Situation 6: You want to inform about the hearer’s / the hearer‘s relative’s failure in applying for a job

Situation 7: You want to inform that the hearer/ the hearer‘s relative has been fired Situation 8: You want to inform about the marriage break-up of the hearer’s relative Situation 9: You want to inform that the hearer‘s relative has been arrested for a crime Situation 10: You want to inform that the hearer/ the hearer‘s relative has failed an examination

Firstly, an approximator is the type of hedge that affects the propositional content but

notthe speaker commitment, while shields do not affect the truth conditions of the propositions associated with them, but mitigate and modulate the speaker’s commitment

For example,

(1) a His feet were blue

b His feet were sort of blue

c I think his feet were blue

Sentence (1a) conveys the proposition that his feet were blue This is the standard situation, where there is no hedging Sentence (1b), however, conveys a different proposition: His feet were sort of blue or his feet were non-prototypically blue, which

depends on the context Sort of, then, is an approximator that affects the propositional

content but not the speaker’s commitment In contrast, (1c) conveys the same proposition as (1a), i.e the hedge in (1c) does not affect the propositional content What it does implicate is that the speaker is less than fully committed, or committed in

some marked way, to the truth of the proposition I think in (1c) is a shield

There are two classes of approximators: adaptors and rounder The former refers to

words that do the adaptation work on the original mismatch of a meaning to satisfy the

practical needs, such as sort of, almost, really, somewhat, more or less, as illustrated in

(2)

The latter includes words or phrases that give a range to the change of the original

meaning, such as about, approximately, essentially, at least, or so, as in (3)

(2) a This matter was a somewhat difficult one to decide

b -What about his ears? Is he still draining fluid?

-Uh… it’s more just sort of crusted than-uh not… really draining

(3) His weight was approximately three point two kilograms, which is essentially

what his birth weight was Shields can also be further classified into two types: plausibility shields and attribution shields Plausibility shields involve the speaker’s

own attitude or evaluation, such as I assume, as far as I can tell, probably, seem, as

illustrated in (4), and attribution shields attribute the belief in question to someone

other than the speaker, the speaker’s own degree of commitment being only indirectly

inferable, such as according to, it is said that, someone says, as illustrated in (5)

(4) And I think we can probably just finish the work before evening… as far as I

can tell you right now, we can start at once

(5) According to her estimates, she got the baby’s high heart rate within… two to three or so

To sum up, it could see that it is of great value to study hedges in genre-based texts

It is true that hedges have been used as devices whose main function is to make things fuzzier in semantically aspect On the other hand, it is noticeable that hedge may

be seen as both purposes to make thing fuzzier and less fuzzy by finding out the status

of hedging in how people realize the universe at the semantic level

Hedging in increasing the fuzziness

At first, hedge is often related to vagueness and tentativeness, suggesting that using hedges is associated with increasing linguistic fuzziness This idea is traced back

to the findings of Lakoff showing that sentences of natural language are neither often entirely false nor true but rather somewhat false and somewhat true Brown and Levinson (1987) give a explanation of Lakoff’s work and show that hedges are considered as elements which can modify the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set.Thus, hedging might be used to replace the value of the truth in referential information which is between absolute truth and falsehood

Hedging as a decrease in fuzziness

Nevertheless, many researches have disagreed with Lakoff’s idea of hedging as

an increase in fuzziness Thus, hedges may be looked upon and seen as devices which decrease fuzziness

Therefore, hedging could be interpreted to message that the phenomenon in the study does not belong to the conceptual categories limited in natural language In addition, by distancing this phenomenon from a given conceptual category’s core, hedging actually cause the relationship between the relevant conceptual categories and universe phenomenon more accurate

Hedging consists of two semantic characterizations offered above and both are considered as the element of fuzziness that is a basic part in hedging device It is

probably impossible to distinguish between the explanations in practice However, it is useful when being aware of those possible interpretations in some cases when hedging appears in various communication contexts

2.3.2.For pragmatics

Recently, hedges have been considered as pragmatic rather than just a semantic phenomenon In recent research of hedging, interpersonal aspect of the strategy has been emphasized and hedging is analyzed in the communication situation Moreover, the study focuses on the strategy’s influence on the relationship between the speaker and the listener in face-to-face communication

In general, hedging phenomena’s descriptions in pragmatics aspect are seen as circumspect notions whose purposes are in a particular study rather than thorough phenomenon’s deliberations Markkanen and Schroder (1985) explain hedging as a strategy of saying less than one means, the strategy’s purpose is to change the responsibility of the writer for an utterance’s truthfulness and to modify the author’s attitude to the information or suggestions in a context or even to hide this attitude

2.3.3 Hedging as both positive and negative politeness

Many previous findings on hedges rely on the hedges’ treatment of Brown and Levinson’s (1978/ 1987) where they point out that one of hedges’ function is to avoid

“assuming or presuming that anything involved in the FTA is desired or delivered by H” In other words, hedging can be used to show that the speaker does not tend to impose upon the desires or beliefs of the hearer Therefore, in their research, Brown and Levinson see hedges as a greater length which is one of ten strategies relating to the protection of negative face Hubler (1983: 156-159) presents his view and considers hedging phenomena as negative politeness’s signs and also point out that hedges’ main function is for negative face work and being devices as “detensifying” elements which speakers can use “to maximize the emotional acceptability of the propositional content presented to the H for ratification” By contrast, hedging can also be used to interpret and serve simultaneously the negative face of the sender

Hedging as a negative politeness strategy

In general, hedges or hedging is said to belong to negative politeness Brown and Levinson (1987: 105) point out In a literature, hedge is a particle, word, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set