A study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the coursebook new headway, intermediate

Positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate” 20 II.2.1.. The author of this study aims to inv

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

TRIỆU THỊ TRANG

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE

COURSEBOOK – NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE

(NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ CÓ TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI CỦA

GIÁO TRÌNH GIAO TIẾP “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE.”)

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 602215

Hanoi-2009

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

TRIỆU THỊ TRANG

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK –

NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ CÓ TRONG CÁC BÀI HỘI THOẠI CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH GIAO TIẾP “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE.”) M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

CODE: 602215

Supervisor: Prof NGUYEN QUANG (Ph.D.)

Hanoi-2009

Chapter 1: Theoretical background 4

Chapter 2: Positve and Negative Politeness strategies in Conversational

activities in the coursebook “New Headway, ntermediate”

17

II.2 Positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities

in twelve units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate”

20

II.2.1 Positive politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve

units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate”

20

II.2.2 Negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in twelve

units of the coursebook “New Headway, Intermediate”

25

Chapter 3: Implications for teaching the coursebook 30

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

C.A: Conversational Activity

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ELT: English Language Teaching

FTA: Face Threatening Act

H: Hearer

NPS: Negative Politeness Strategy

P.S Politeness Strategy

PPS: Positive Politeness Strategy

S.A: Speech Act

S: Speaker

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1 Circumstances determining choice of strategies (P Brown and S.C Levinson, 1987:60)

Figure 2: Strategies to mininze risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001)

Table 1: Statistics of positive and negative politeness strategies in each CA

Figure 3: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the

conversations

Table 2: Statistics of the frequency of positive politeness strategies

Figure 4: Frequency of positive politeness strategies used in the conversations

Table 3: Statistics of the frequency of negative politeness strategies

Figure 5: Frequency of negative politeness strategies used in the onversations

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The English language seems to take over the world in the course of the twenty – first century and become the global language Nowadays, English has played an important role in our daily life and made a considerable contribution to education, culture, business, science and technology The number of people learning English for various purposes such as job, business, traveling is continually on the increase everyday Therefore, variety kinds of English teaching and learning materials are available all over the world, especially in Vietnam

In Vietnam, English has been regarded as the most important foreign language nowadays, especially since the Vietnamese Government carried out the open – door policy English then becomes a compulsory subject in most schools, colleges and universities throughout the country However, the emphasis on transmission of structural rules and forms often serves as the principle method of teaching English in Vietnam Therefore, most Vietnamese teachers tend to focus more on grammar rather than on communication But this method, in fact, can not do much help for students to assure a successful cross- cultural communication in daily life The students may get difficulty in achieving contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication As a consequence, culture shock and communication breakdown might happen in communication even though students are good at English grammar Obviously, cultural knowledge is an important key to success in learning English because second language learning is second culture learning In order to acquire the second foreign language – English, it is necessary to learn not only linguistic knowledge and interaction skills but also knowledge of the target culture Cultural factors are included in the course designs in many schools and universities today Understanding cultural factors gives students chances to expose themselves to the target environment Vietnamese students normally tend to employ English based on their native culture and thus, it easily causes misinterpretation, misunderstanding and misbehavior in cross-cultural communication They sometimes appear impolite, unfriendly or even rude, in spite of themselves

Therefore, for successful international communication, learners of English must be aware of not only their own culture but English speaking cultures as well, especially the hidden parts of culture including face, facework and politeness Politeness is really

a vital part of all social interactions

The author of this study aims to investigate and highlight the important role of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate” by Liz & John Soars so as to improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication in English for the third – year students

of the University of Labour and Social Affairs

2 Aims of the study:

The aims of the study are:

- To study positive and negative politeness strategies in most typical contextual environments in the conversational activities of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate”

- To collect and design sample cross – cultural activities and exercises to raise students’ cross- cultural awareness

- To suggest effective and efficient ways of teaching the course book “New Headway”

3 Scope of the study:

This study focuses on the realization of positive and negative politeness strategies found in the conversational activities (twelve units) of the course book “New – Headway, Intermediate”

4 Methodology:

The major method that the author has employed is quantitative with due reference

to qualitative method since this study focuses on the practical aspects of cross – cultural communication All the considerations and conclusions are based on analysis and reference The main approaches are:

- Reference to publication;

- Discussion with supervisor;

- Discussion with colleagues;

- Personal observations

5 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts:

Part I: Introduction which includes Rationale, Aims of the study, Scope of the study

and Methodology

Part II Development

Which covers three chapters, the first chapter focuses on the theoretical background of speech acts, politeness and politeness strategies; the second chapter analyses the positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities in the course book – New Headway, Intermediate through the frequency of its occurrences The last chapter offers some implications for learning and teaching politeness strategies for the third- year students of ULSA

Part III Conclusion which summarizes the main findings and giving suggestions for

further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I.1 Speech acts (SA)

One of the concepts which have attracted many linguists and scientists in the study

of language usage is that of speech acts Green (1975) emphasizes that speech acts are viewed and performed differently in different cultures In fact, it has been proved that people in different cultures choose alternative ways to express speech acts These differences in many cases proved, lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication in cross – cultural interaction

The theory of speech acts studies the relations between language symbols and their use for communication purposes Austin (1962) is the first to initiate the theory of

speech acts In his very influential book, How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1962),

observes that in saying something that has a certain sense and reference, one is normally doing something other than just saying something like making a request or making a promise or an offer, etc According to Austin, there are three types of acts:

* Locutionary acts: A locutionary act is the performance of an actual utterance and its ostensible meaning, comprising phonetic, phatic and rhetic acts

E.g: He said to me “The door is here!”

* Illocutionary acts: Illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something, it is closely connected with the speaker’s intention such as stating, questioning, promising, giving commands, threatening and many others Illocutionary acts are considered the core of the theory of speech acts Basically, illocutionary act indicates how the whole utterance is to be taken into the conversation Sometimes it is not easy to determine what kind of illocutionary act the speaker performs, therefore, in order to correctly decode the illocutionary act performed by the speaker, it is also necessary for the hearer to be acquainted with the context the speech act occurs in

Let’s analyse the example: “The door is here” This simple declarative sentence can

be interpreted in at least two ways It can be either understood literally a reply to the question “Where is the way out?” or possibly “Where is the door?” or it can be taken as

an indirect request to ask somebody to leave The sentence has thus got two illocutionary forces: direct speech act and indirect speech act

In order to have better understanding and orientation about illocutionary acts, many linguists proposed their classification Sharing with Autin’s view on SA classification, Searle (1983: 240) divides illocutionary acts into five major categories:

+ Declaratives: The speaker brings about some state of affairs by virtue of the utterance itself The performance of the act brings about a change in the world This class includes declarations such as baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

+ Assertive: The speaker believes that the proposition expresses actual state of affairs, including complaints, accusations, etc

+ Directives: The speaker attempts to get the hearer to carry out a future course of action This class consists of requests, commands and advice, etc

+ Commissives: The speaker becomes committed to doing some future action, e.g promises, guarantees, oaths, etc

+ Expressives: Speech acts that express on the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition, e.g congratulations, excuses, thanks, etc

* Perlocutionary acts: Perlocutionary acts can be described in terms of the level of their psychological consequences, often performing an act by saying something such as persuading, convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone

to do or realize something

E.g: Would you open the door?

The act is successful if the hearer recognizes that he should open the door As a perlocutionary act it succeeds only if the hearer actually opens the door

As another example, consider the following utterance: "By the way, I have a CD of Westlife; would you like to borrow it?" Its illocutionary function is an offer, while its

intended perlocutionary effect might be to impress the listener, or to show a friendly attitude, or to encourage an interest in a particular type of music

There are many utterances with the purposes to effect the hearer in some ways or other, some convey the information directly, others are more careful and polite so they employ indirectness to transmit the message

I.1.1 Direct and indirect speech acts

I.1.1.1 Direct speech acts

One of the remarkable issues in the study of speech acts is the difference between direct and indirect speech acts A direct speech act can be performed by using sentences literally or using implicit performative sentences Directness requires a good feeling for the situation, however, being too direct when stating the opinion might seem like an insult, especially if the hearer perceives the speaker as being lower in the social hierarchy Direct commands, of course, can easily sound like that the speaker is bossing people around

E.g: “Give me the sweater!”

“Where is the carpark?”

Asking direct questions from someone may make hearers feel that the speaker is being nosy or intrusive Furthermore, they might feel the S is forcing them to be rude

by asking a question they cannot skate over and must answer with a direct “I don’t want to tell you.”

Nevertheness, the relationships between speakers and hearers play important parts

in communicating Obviously, a mother would have no problem saying those things to her seven-year-old, for two reasons: One, the two are socially very close to each other and two, the mother is higher in the social hierarchy than the seven-year-old But if a stranger walks up to someone on the street and says those things, the hearer might feel

offended Politeness rules dictate that increase in social distance requires more

indirectness Directness often marks closeness between equals, because the speaker trust them enough to interpret his message at face value and need not read some hidden criticism into it

I.1.1.2 Indirect speech acts

According to Searle (1969) “In indirect speech acts, the speaker communicates to the hearer more than s/he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.” Indirectness seems to be

very useful in socially distant situations It may be unacceptable if the speaker employs such utterances with strangers or with the person who is in higher social rank and power In such cases, indirectness can be a better choice Instead of using directness

like: “Give me the sweater!” or “Where is the carpark?” To be more polite, the speaker should use the indirectness such as: “Can you give me the sweater?” or “Could you please give me the sweater?” and “Can you tell me where the carpark is?” or “Do you know where the carpark is?” or so on by using conventional indirectness with

modal verbs, questions, hedges,… in the utterances

Showing indirectness in the conversational interactions often exposes politeness According to Blum- Kulka (1987), politeness is, in the light of functional and pragmatic approach, basically, a function of redress action which is related to

“indirectness” Sharing with Kulka’s view, Nguyen Quang (2003) proposes that

“Politeness” seems to be related to “conventional indirectness” but not necessarily to

“nonconventional indirectness.”

I.2 Politeness

Politeness has been considered as a pragmatic phenomenon, requiring a great deal

of research to improve human interaction and therefore reinforce the study of language

in its social context Politeness is a basic ingredient of successful interpersonal communication Although the essence of politeness is popular in all cultures, it is expressed differently in different cultures It is also a culturally defined phenomenon, and what is considered polite in one culture can be in many cases quite rude or simply strange in another In language study, politeness is defined in Wikipedia as the

practical application of good manners or etiquette And “Politeness is the ability to please others through one‟s external actions” (Watt, 2003:39) According to Thomas,

“politeness is interpreted as a strategy (or series of strategies) employed by a speaker

to achieve a variety of goals, such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relation.”

(Thomas, 1995: 157)

Brown and Levison (1978) distinguished two types of politeness: positive and negative politeness Positive politeness is used to satisfy the speaker’s needs for approval and belonging, Positive politeness is attempts by a speaker to treat the listener

as a friend or as someone to be included in discourse For an American speaker, giving

a friend or co-worker the compliment, “Your hair looks nice today,” would be one example of positive politeness Negative politeness, on the other hand, is an attempt by the speaker to save the listener’s face by engaging in some formality or restraint to minimize the imposition of a face - threatening act

According to Brown and Levinson (1978), politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face" Face refers to the respect that an individual has for himself or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations

I.2.1 Face

Face might be treated respectfully as norms or values subscrided to by members of

a society It refers to the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects others to recognize In their 1987 book, Brown and Levinson define that face is the public self image that everyone tries to project However, “when we attempt to save another’s face, we can pay attention to their negative face wants or their positive face wants” (Yule, 1996:61) Face is a social image that individuals would like to preserve for themselves

I.2.1.1 Positive face

Positive face is defined by Brown and Levinson (1987:60) as the individual desire that her/ his wants be appreciated and approved of in social interaction Positive face refers to one's self-esteem Positive face is threatened when the speaker or hearer does not care about their interactor’s feelings, wants, or does not want what the other wants Positive face threatening acts can also cause damage to the speaker or the hearer When

an individual is forced to be separated from others so that their well being is treated less importantly, positive face is threatened For example: damages to hearers can be

expressions of disapproval (e.g insults, accusations, and complaints), contradictions, disagreements; and damages to speakers can be acceptance of a compliment or confessions

I.2.1.2 Negative face

Negative face is defined as the desire for freedom of action and freedom from imposition (Brown and Levinson,1987) Negative face is threatened when an individual does not avoid or intend to avoid the obstruction of their interlocutor's freedom of action It can cause damage to either the speaker or the hearer, and makes the one of the interlocutors submit their will to the other Freedom of choice and action is impeded when negative face is threatened For examples: damages to hearers can be orders, requests, suggestions, advice, remindings, threats, offers, and promises; and damages to speakers can be excuses or apologies

I.2.2 Politeness strategies

Linguists have stated different ways of expressing politeness strategies Nevertheless, many basically agree to some general principles for being polite in social interactions which are Politeness Rules of Lakoff (1990), Politeness Principles Maxims

of Leech (1983) and Politeness Strategies of Brown and Levinson (1987) Amongst outstanding linguists, the most influential theory of politeness is put forward by Brown and Levinson

In Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies, the concept of “face” is the central part

of their theory A set of five strategies to minimize risk of losing face is suggested by these two authors The choice of the strategies will be performed on the basic of the speaker’s assessment of the size of the face threatening acts (FTAs), which are certain illocutionary acts liable to damage or threaten another person’s face The following figure shows circumstances determining choice of the strategies

Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies

(P Brown and S.C Levinson, 1987:60)

In spite of his high appreciation of the above chart, Nguyen Quang (2001) has some

comments on its universal value, especially on the sorting numbers two and three for

positive and negative politeness He proposes the following figure:

Lesser risk

Greater risk

Do the FTA

5 Don’t do the FTA

4.Off-record

On record

1 Without redressive action, baldly

With redressive action

2 Positive Politeness

3 Negative Politeness

Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001)

It is no doubt that politeness strategies play a really important role in communication When a speaker employs politeness strategies, especially positive and negative politeness strategies in an appropriate manner, she or he may attain success in intracultural and cross – cultural communication Therefore, positive and negative politeness strategies are highlighted in this section in particular and in the whole research in general

I.2.2.1 Positive politeness and positive politeness strategies

Positive politeness shows the closeness, intimacy and rapport between the speaker and the hearer According to Brown & Levinson (1987:101), “positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee’s face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the actions, acquisitions, values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable In positive politeness, the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of other’s wants

in general or to the expression of similarity between ego’s and other’s wants” In order

4 Do not do the FTA

2 With redressive action

Positive Politeness Negative Politeness

1 Without redressive action

to be polite the speaker pays more attention to the H and hopes to satisfy the H’s communicative needs

Politeness strategies vary from language to language and within each society Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer’s positive face They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, compliments

Viewing that the Vietnamese always want to let others know that they pay attention

to other’s problems and give help whenever it is needed, Nguyen Quang (2003) suggests seventeen positive politeness strategies, of which the initial fifteen ones are adopted originally by Brown & Levinson, they are as follows:

* Strategy 1- Notice, attend to H (her/ his interest, wants, needs, goods, etc )

This strategy suggests that S should take notice of aspects of H’s conditions

E.g: Your coat is very nice Where did you get it?

* Strategy 2 – Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

This often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodic

E.g: What a fantastic garden you have!

* Strategy 3 - Intensify interest to H in S’s contribution

S intensifies the interest of his or her own contribution, by “making a good story” and draws H as a participant into the conversation with direct questions and expressions

like you know, see what

E.g: I come into his room, and what do you think I see? – a huge mess all over the place and right in the middle, a naked…

* Strategy 4 - Use in-group identity markers

Using any of the innumerable ways to convey in- group membership: address forms, language or dialect, jargon or slang and ellipses

E.g: Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?

* Strategy 5 - Seek agreement in safe topics

S seeks ways in which it is possible to agree with H

E.g: A: “She had an accident last week

B: Oh my God, an accident!”

* Strategy 6 - Avoid disagreement

The desire to agree or appear to agree with H leads also to mechanisms for pretending

to agree such as white lies and hedges

E.g.: Well, in a way, I suppose you‟re sort of right But look at it like this

* Strategy 7 – Presuppose, raise, assert common ground

The value of S’s spending time and effort on being with H, as a mark of friendship or interest in him, by talking for a while about unrelated topics

E.g.: Isn‟t it a beautiful day?

* Strategy 8 - Joke to put H at ease

Jokes are based on mutual shared background and values and putting H “at ease”

E.g.: Great summer we‟re having It‟s only rained five times a week on average

* Strategy 9 - Assert or presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for H’s wants

Asserting or implying knowledge of H’s wants and willingness to fit one’s own wants

in with them

E.g.: I know you like chocolates, so I‟ve bought you home a whole box of them

* Strategy 10- Offers, promises

Strategies 10 to 13: The speaker and hearer can claim some kind of reflexivity between their wants

E.g.: I‟ll take you out to dinner on Saturday

* Strategy 11 – Be optimistic that the hearer wants what the speaker wants

E.g.: I know you‟re always glad to get a tip or two on gardening

* Strategy 12 – Include both S and H in the activity

E.g.: Let‟s go for a walk

* Strategy 13 – Give or ask for reasons

E.g.: Why don‟t we eat out tonight?

* Strategy 14 – Assume or assert reciprocity

S may indicate that he believes reciprocity to be prevailed between H and himself, thus that they are somehow locked into a state of mutual helping

E.g.: Dad, if you help me with my maths homework, I‟ll mow the lawn after school tomorrow

* Strategy 15 – Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)

S may satisfy H’s positive-face want by actually satisfying some of H’s wants (action

of gift-giving, not only tangible)

E.g.: A: Have a glass of whisky, Dick

B: Terrific! Thanks

* Strategy 16 – Encourage

S wants to comfort as well as encourage H when he gets some bad news or in a trouble This can be considered as redress action or face saving acts

E.g.: Don‟t worry Everything will be alright

* Strategy 17 – Ask personal questions

Personal questions are considered to be curious and sometimes impolite However, when the communicators want to show their concern or interest, this strategy is also employed

E.g.: Are you married?

I.2.2.2 Negative politeness and negative politeness strategies

Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer These strategies presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for awkwardness

or embarrassment than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies Negative politeness in Brown & Levinson (1987: 129) is “redressive action addressed

to the the addressee’s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded” Sharing with Brown & Levinson on the definition of negative politeness, Nguyen Quang (2003) emphasizes that “negative politeness is any communicative act which is appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on the addressee’s privacy, thus maintaining the sense of distance between them” Nguyen Quang suggests eleven negative politeness strategies, of which the initial ten ones are adopted originally by Brown & Levinson, they are as follows:

* Strategy 1 – Be conventionally indirect

Opposing tensions: desire to give H an “out” by being indirect, and the desire to go on record and solved by the compromise of conventional indirectness, the use of phrases and sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings which are different from their literal meaning

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

* Strategy 2 – Question, hedge

Expressing the want not to presume or coerce H In literature, a “hedge” is a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun

phrase in a set It says of that membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected

E.g.: I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a question

* Strategy 4 – Minimize the imposition

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

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

Strategy 5 – Give deference

Two different possibilities to realize the deference: S humbles and abases himself; and

S raises H (pays him positive face of a particular namely that which satisfies H´s want

E.g.: I‟m sorry to bother you

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

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

E.g.: Turn that wretched music down

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

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

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

* Strategy 9 – Nominalize to distance the actor and add formality

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

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

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

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

E.g.: I could easily do it for you

* Strategy 11 – Avoid asking personal questions

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

in the first meeting

E.g.: It is a nice day, isn‟t it?

Being a teacher of English who is really interested in the relationship between linguistic and culture, acknowledging the importance of positive and negative politeness strategies in cross – cultural communication, the author will study them through conversational activities of the course book “New Headway, Intermediate” in the next chapter

Chapter 2: POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN THE COURSEBOOK “NEW HEADWAY, INTERMEDIATE”

The course book “New Headway” was written by Liz & Soars and published by Oxford University Press in 2000 It is a three- level general English course Level one is for beginners (New Headway, Elementary), level two for students from elementary to pre- intermediate (New Headway, Pre- intermediate) and the highest level is used for students from pre-intermediate to intermediate level (New Headway, Intermediate)

In this section, the author aims at analysing the frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies used in the conversational activities of the course book “New Headway, Intermediate.”

The study and analysis are based on Brown & Levinson’s and Nguyen Quang’s politeness theory

II.1 Frequency of occurrence of positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational activities in the course book “New Headway, Intermediate”

In collecting data, utterances in the conversations in the course book are picked up Then, the author sets up the context, takes roles of participants into consideration and discusses with her colleagues, students to find out whether these sentences are "natural" and “polite” All the utterances which are mostly approved gain a deeper treatment Next, the author consults with specialists and native speakers about the same procedure Eventually, the collection comes up with 160 utterances which are considered "natural" and, to some extent, "polite" in two types All statistics in the study are calculated on the basis of total 160 utterances The following table shows the number of utterances and the equivalent percentages of each conversational activity

Kinds of

conversational

activities

The frequency of using politeness strategies in the course

book (New - Headway, Intermediate)

Positive politeness strategies Negative politeness strategies

Table 1: Statistics of positive and negative politeness strategies in each CA

There are 87 positive utterances (54, 37%) and 73 negative ones (45, 63%) amongst

160 utterances The pie chart below will illustrate clearly the positive and negative percentages

45,6%

Positive Politeness Strategies

Negative Politeness Strategies

Figure 3: Frequency of negative and positive politeness strategies found in the

to their co-interactants (sense of solidarity) and to make the hearer feel good about himself

or his interests so as to attain social harmony