A study of politness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book market leader – intermediate

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LÀ A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATIONAL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ LÀ

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK

“MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE (NEW EDITION)

Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình tiếng Anh thương mại “MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE”

(Tái bản) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.02.01

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ LÀ

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE

CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK

“MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE (NEW EDITION)

Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của giáo trình tiếng Anh thương mại “MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE”

(Tái bản)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.02.01

Supervisor: Dr Kiều Thị Thu Hương

Hanoi, 2014

my thesis deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research.

February, 2014

Nguyễn Thị Là

valuable comments, endless encouragement, kind guidance and correction.

I also wish to acknowledge all the lecturers at the Post Graduate Department, University ofLanguages and International Studies whose lectures have enriched my knowledge in manyfields of linguistics as well as of daily life They are Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân, Prof Dr LêHùng Tiến, Asoc Prof Dr Võ Đại Quang, Dr Lê Văn Canh, Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ, Dr NgôHữu Hoàng, Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm, Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn

My sincere thanks go to my colleagues and friends at Hanoi University of Business andTechnology, who have constantly assisted me in completing the research

Finally, I would not have been able to complete this work without the whole-heartedsupport and endless encouragement from my husband, our parents and our son

When people from different cultures using different languages communicate to each other,there exists the possibility of miscommunication In order to avoid misunderstanding andculture shock, learners of foreign languages especially of English should know how tobehave properly in each certain situation Being considered one of the key factors ofsuccessful cross-culture communication, politeness strategies are commonly used in dailysocial interactions Therefore, the author conducts this study with the aims of investigatingpoliteness strategies in conversational activities of the course book “Market Leader,Intermediate” (New edition) Her attempt is to help students at Hanoi University ofBusiness and Technology achieve success in communication in their future work

In the coursebook “Market Leader, Intermediate” most of conversational activities arediscussed and analysed mainly on politeness theories of Brown & Levinson and NguyenQuang The research shows that the frequencies of politeness strategies occurance inconversational activities of the material are not always the same The findings show thatnegative politeness strategies are employed more frequently than positive politeness, bald-on-record and off-record strategy Most politeness strategies are used in such conversationalactivities as making disagreements, agreements and requests

In addition, the author also suggests some recommendations that might work in theVietnamese context to improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication forstudents at Hanoi University of Business and Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS viii

PART I – INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Objectives of the study 1

3 Research question 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methodology: 2

6 Design of the study 2

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Speech Acts 4

1.1.1 Speech Acts and Speech Events 4

1.1.2 Classification of Speech Acts 6

1.1.2.1 Function-based Approach 6

1.1.2.2 Structural-function Based Approach 7

1 2 Politeness theory 8

1 2 1 Notions of politeness theory 8

1.2.2 Conversational-maxim View on Politeness 9

1.2.2.1 Grice’s Principle 9

1.2.2.2 Lakoff’s rules 10

1.2.2.3 Leech’s Maxims 11

1.2.3 Face-management View on Politeness 13

1.2.3.1 The Concept of Face 13

1.2.3.2 Strategies for FSAs 14

1.3 Previous study 23

CHAPTER II: POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK “MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE” 25

2.1 Methodology 25

2.1.1 Data source 25

2.1.2 Research techniques 25

2.1.2.1 Techniques for data collection 25

2.1.2.2 Techniques for data analysis 25

2.1.2.3 Steps for Data Analysis 26

2.2 Data Analysis 26

2.2.1 Frequency of Occurrence of Politeness Strategies in the Coursebook “Market Leader, Intermediate” 26

2.2.2 Bald-on-record Strategy in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 28

2.2.3 Positive Politeness Strategies in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 31

2.2.4 Negative Politeness Strategies in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 34

2.2.5 Off-record Strategy in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 38

2.3 Concluding remarks 39

CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN TEACHING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY 40

PART III: CONCLUSION 3.1 Summary of the study 42

3.2 Limitations of the study 42

3.3 Suggestions for further study 43

REFERENCES 44

APPENDIX………I

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURESTABLES

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts 7Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of politeness strategies in conversational

activities of the course book “Market Leader, Intermediate” 27Table 3: The frequency of politeness strategies in terms of functions of utterance 28Table 4: Frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies in

conversations of“Market Leader, Intermediate” 32Table 5: Frequency of occurrence of negative politeness strategies in

conversations of“Market Leader, Intermediate” 36

FIGURES

Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies 15Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face 15Figure 3: The frequency of occurrence of politeness strategies in conversational

activities of the course book “Market Leader, Intermediate” 27Figure 4: The frequency of bald-on-request strategy in terms of

functions of utterances 29Figure 5: The frequency of positive politeness strategies in terms of

functions of utterances 31Figure 6: Frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies

in conversations of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 32Figure 7: The frequency of negative politeness strategies in terms of

functions of utterances 35Figure 8: Frequency of occurrence of negative politeness strategies

in conversations of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 36

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

FTA Face Threatening Act

However, the traditional teaching method with emphasis on teaching grammar rules andstructures cannot offer students much help in acquiring successful cross-culturalcommunication skills This is completely true for those whose major is English forbusiness The reason is that students may confront with difficulties in achieving contextual,situational and cultural appropriateness in communication As a result, cultural shock andcommunication breakdown might happen in communication even though the students arevery good at grammar For that reason, it is necessary for them to learn not only linguisticknowledge and interactional skills but also knowledge of the target culture They must beaware of their own culture and English speaking cultures as well, especially the hiddenparts of culture including face, facework and politeness because politeness is really a vitalpart of all social interactions.

For those reasons, the author of this study aims at investigating and emphasizing theimportant role of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book

“Market Leader, Intermediate” by David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent so as toimprove the teaching and learning of verbal communication in English for the second –year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology

2 Objectives of the study:

The objectives of the study are:

- To study bald-on-record politeness strategies, on-record strategies and off-recordstrategies in most typical contextual environments in the conversational activities of thecourse book “Market Leader, Intermediate”

- To put forward some suggestions for efficient ways of teaching the course book

3 Research questions

1) What politeness strategies are used in the conversational activities of the coursebook “Market Leader, Intermediate”?

2) Which politeness strategy is the most commonly used?

4 Scope of the study

Although there are a lot of important issues in pragmatics, this thesis only focuses onpoliteness strategies particularly expressed in conversational activities of the course book

“Market Leader, Intermediate” The investigation is based mainly on the theoreticalframework suggested by Brown and Levinson [(1978)1987]

5 Methodology:

The major methods that the author has employed are quantitative and qualitative That is tosay, all the considerations and conclusions are based on the analysis of the data from thebook within the theoretical politeness framework by Brown and Levinson In addition, thefollowing sources are also used:

- Reference to publication,

- Discussion with the supervisor,

- Discussion with the colleagues,

- Personal observations

6 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts:

Part I: Introduction

This part includes the rationale, objectives, research questions, scope, methodology anddesign of the study

Part II: Development

This part covers three chapters:

Chapter I: Literature review which focuses on the theoretical background of speech acts,

classification of speech acts, politeness theory

Chapter II: Politeness strategies in conversational activities of the coursebook

“Market leader, Intermediate” This chapter analyses four types of politeness strategies

found in the conversational activities in fourteen units of the course book “Market Leader,Intermediate” The strategies are expressed in three most common types of speech acts:disagreement, agreement and request

Chapter III: Implications for politeness strategies in teaching English as a foreign language at Hanoi University of Business and Technology This chapter presents some

advice for teachers to teach the coursebook effectively

Part III: Conclusion which summarizes the main findings, mentions the limitations of the

study and give some suggestions for further study

PART II: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theoretical framework in which the study is carried out Itincludes three main sections Section 1 reviews the notions of speech act theory in whichthe author mentions some types of classifications of speech acts In section 2, shedemonstrates politeness theory with view points of some famous linguists such as: Grice,Lakoff, Leech, Brown and Levinson However, the study mainly bases on the politenesstheory proposed by Brown and Levinson and Nguyen Quang The last section reviewssome recent studies related to politeness strategies

1.1 Speech Acts

1.1.1 Speech Acts and Speech Events

Speech acts, as introduced by Oxford philosopher Austin (1962) and further developed byAmerican philosopher Searle (1976), consider the types of acts that utterances can be said

to perform In Oxford dictionary, speech act is defined as “an utterance considered as an action, particularly with regard to its intention, purpose, or effect” In other words, people

use grammatical and lexical units not only to produce utterances to convey information,but also to implicate something

"We use the term speech act to describe actions such as 'requesting,' 'commanding,' 'questioning,'

or 'informing.' We can define a speech act as the action performed by a speaker with an utterance

If you say, I'll be there at six, you are not just speaking, you seem to be performing the speech act

of 'promising.'

(Yule, 2006:45 )

A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to perform an apology, or severalwords or sentences: "I’m sorry I forgot your birthday I just let it slip my mind." Speech

acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also

appropriate use of that language within a given culture Let’s look at the followingexample to see what action is performed via the utterance

It‟s hot in here.

In terms of grammatical structure, this sentence is a statement which provides theinformation about the atmosphere right at the place where the utterance is made However,

by saying this, the speaker also wants to do an action towards the hearer It might be arequest to ask him/ her to open the window or turn on the air-conditioner With that

purpose, this utterance can be considered a request rather than a statement itself Here aresome other examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:

Greeting: "Hi, Eric How are things going?"

Request: "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?"

Complaint: "I‟ve already been waiting three weeks for the computer, and I was told it

would be delivered within a week."

Invitation: "We‟re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted to know if

you‟d like to join us."

Compliment: "Hey, I really like your tie!"

Refusal: "Oh, I‟d love to see that movie with you but this Friday just isn‟t going to

work."

The speaker is expected to correctly interpret the speaker’s intention via the process ofinferences Therefore, the hearer needs to take all the circumstances surrounding theconversation because they can make a lot of help in inferring the hidden intention Peoplecall those circumstances speech events According to Yule (1996:57), a speech event can

be considered as “an activity in which conversational participants interact via language in

a conventional way to achieve some outcome”.

In the very influential book written in 1962, Austin claimed that speech acts can beanalysed on three levels:

*A locutionary act: is the performance of an actual utterance and its ostensible meaning,

comprising phonetic and phatic acts

* An illocutionary act: is closely connected with the speaker’s intention such as

stating,

questioning, promising, giving commands, threatening and many others Illocutionary actsare considered the core of the theory of speech acts Basically, illocutionary act indicateshow the whole utterance is to be taken into the conversation Sometimes it is not easy todetermine what kind of illocutionary act the speaker performs Therefore, in order tocorrectly decode the illocutionary act performed by the speaker, it is also necessary for thehearer to be acquainted with the context where the speech act occurs

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 as a reply to the

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indirect request to ask somebody to leave Obviously, the sentence contains a “force”

which is known as its illocutionary force The sentence has thus got two illocutionary

forces: direct speech act and indirect speech act

* Perlocutionary act: Perlocutionary acts can be described in terms of the level of their

psychological consequences, often performing an act by saying something such aspersuading, 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 aperlocutionary 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 friendlyattitude, or to encourage an interest in a particular type of music

In conclusion, there are three acts or dimensions expressed via an utterance: locution,illocution and perlocution, in which illocutionary act is the main focus of speech acttheory

1.1.2 Classification of Speech Acts

1.1.2.1 Function-based Approach

According to Searl (1976:10-16) and Yule (1996:53), there are five categories or five types

of general functions performed by speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives and commissives.

 Declarations: “are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their

utterance” (Yule, 1996:53) The speaker brings about some state of affairs by virtue

of the utterance itself The performance of the act brings about a change in theworld This class includes declarations such as baptisms, pronouncing someoneguilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife

Eg: Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.

 Representatives: these speech acts presents a state of affairs The speaker’s

intention is to make his words fit the world

Eg: It was a warm sunny day.

 Expressives: are the speech acts which express certain psychological states or

what

the speaker feels such as: pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, etc

Eg: I like fish and chips.

 Directives: are the speech acts which the speaker uses to get the hearer to carry out a future course of action This class consists of requests, commands and advice,

etc

Eg: Could you lend me some money, please?

 Commissives: are the speech acts in which the speaker becomes committed to

doing some future action, e.g promises, guarantees, oaths, etc

Eg: I‟ll give it back to you tomorrow.

Following Searl’s classification of speech acts, Yule (1996:56) summarizes the five generalfunctions of speech acts with their key features in a table:

Speech act type

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (following Searl 1979)

1.1.2.2 Structural-function Based Approach

Another approach to distinguish types of speech acts bases on the structure of an utterance

In English, there are three main types of sentence structures: declarative, interrogative and

imperative According to Yule (1996:55), however, “whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect

speech act” Therefore, there are two types of speech acts: direct speech act and indirect

speech act Let’s consider the following examples to understand more about direct and

indirect speech act

(a) Can you open the window?

In terms of structure, this sentence is an interrogative However, the speaker’s intention isnot to ask about the hearer’s ability of opening the window He/ She wants to request the

7

make a command or request Obviously, the relationship between the structure and

function of this sentence is indirect and thus we have an indirect speech act.

Having the same meaning and function but the idea in (a) is expressed in the form of animperative as in (b) Thus, the relationship between the function and structure is direct so

that (b) is a direct speech act.

(b) Open the window.

In conclusion, in indirect speech acts the speaker means more than or other than what issaid Indirect speech acts are said to be more polite than direct speech acts when they come

to perform speech acts like requesting, commanding, refusing, disagreeing and so on

1 2 Politeness theory

1 2 1 Notions of politeness theory

In daily conversations and in most social interactions, people always try to chooseappropriate ways of uttering to fit themselves with the situations The ultimate aim of thisaction is to establish or maintain a good relationship towards their interactional partner.The use of language to behave accordingly is called politeness Politeness has beenconsidered as a pragmatic phenomenon, requiring a great deal of researches to improvehuman interaction and therefore reinforce the study of language in its social context.Although the essence of politeness is popular in all cultures, it is expressed differently indifferent 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 languagestudy, politeness is defined in Wikipedia as the practical application of good manners or

etiquette And it is “the interactional balance achieved between two needs: the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness” (Blum-Kulka, 1987:131) Meanwhile, in terms of cultural aspect, “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) Sharing the same view, Yule (1996:60) claimed that politeness is “a fixed concept, as in the idea of

“polite social behavior” or “etiquette, within a culture””.

In Vietnamese language, the word “lịch sự” has the closest meaning to “polite” in English

It means “having elegant manners and observing property in conformity with social rules and expectations in interactions” (Hoang Phe et al (1988), translated by Nguyen Duc

Hoat, 1995) V T T Huong (2000:148) assumes that “lịch sự” contains “lễ phép”, “đúngmực”, “khéo léo”, “tế nhị”, which are interwoven but not correspondent.

1.2.2 Conversational-maxim View on Politeness

1.2.2.1 Grice’s Principle

Paul Grice is the first linguist who introduced Cooperative Principle (CP) in the article

“Logic and Conversation” (1975) The CP runs as follow:

Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by theaccepted purpose or direction of talk exchange in which you are engaged

(Grice, 1975:45)

According to this view, in ordinary conversations speakers and hearers share a cooperativeprinciple In other words, speakers shape their utterances to be understood by hearers Theprinciple can be explained by four rules or maxims, which are called Grice’s maxims or

Gricean maxims They are maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

 Maxim of Quality: Be truthful.

1.Don’t say what you believe to be false

2.Don’t say what you lack adequate evidence for

 Maxim of Quantity:

1.Make your contribution as informative as required

2.Don’t make your contribution more informative than is required

 Maxim of Relation: Be relevant

Let’s look at the following example to see what maxim is violated and what the hearer has

to infer from the answer

A: Is Jill good at singing?

B: She‟s a great dancer.

Obviously, when asking the question “Is Jill good at singing?” A expects B to answer

“Yes” or “No” But instead of saying that, B gives irrelevant information Thus, in this

case A has to infer the hidden idea B wants to convey that is she’s not good at singing.Here the irrelevant information shows that the Relation maxim is flouted but B politelyexpresses his assessment toward Jill’s singing ability without making a bad impression for

A about Jill

1.2.2.2 Lakoff’s rules

Making Gricean maxims more concrete, Lakoff proposed three rules of PragmaticCompetence or Sub-maxim or sub-rules Lakoff’s theory of politeness suggests that peoplefollow a certain set of rules when they interact with each other, which prevent interactionfrom breaking down The purpose of the rules is to make the hearer “feel good” Below arethree Lakoff’s rules of politeness:

 Rule 1: Don’t impose

(used when formal/ impersonal politeness is requires)

This rule means avoiding reference to personal problems, habits, taboo topics and the like.The speaker should always remember to keep appropriate distance from audience

 Rule 2: Give opinions

(used when informal politeness is required)

This rule means expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opinion or request can beignored without being rejected In other words, speaker should utter in such a way that itallows the hearer’s response

 Rule 3: Make A feel good

This rule means maintaining equality between interactants in conversation The speakershould always respect the hearer’s personal habits, strengths, weaknesses and so on

In general, the rules seem to be suitable to Western notions of politeness, whichemphasizes non-imposition and freedom of actions Therefore, they are difficult to beconsidered universal rules of politeness because the notions of politeness in Easterncultures seem to be more complex

1.2.2.3 Leech’s Maxims

Leech’s theory approaches politeness from a more pragmatic perspective He began byestablishing two pragmatic systems: pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics (1980(1977)

and 1983) Accordingly, Politeness Principle (PP) is “minimizing (other things being equal) the expression of impolite beliefs”, and there is a corresponding positive version:

“maximizing (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs” which is

somewhat less important

Politeness principle proposes how to produce and understand language based onpoliteness The purpose of PP is to establish feeling of community and social relationship.Thus, PP focuses on process of interpretation that the center of the study is on the effect ofthe hearer rather than the speaker

There are six maxims of the politeness principle that are used to explain relationshipbetween sense and force in daily conversation, those are:

 Tact Maxim: minimize cost to other and maximize

benefit to other Eg: “Won„t you sit down?”

This utterance is spoken to ask the hearer sitting down The speaker uses indirect utterance

to be more polite and minimizing cost to the hearer This utterance implies that sittingdown is benefit to the hearer

 Generosity Maxim: minimize benefit to self and maximize cost to self This

maxim is centered to self, while the tact maxim is to other The example will be

illustrated as follows:

“You must come and dinner with us.”

It is an advice that is involved in directive illocutionary act In this case the speaker impliesthat cost of the utterance is to himself Meanwhile, the utterance implies that benefit is for the hearer

 Approbation Maxim: minimize dispraise of other and maximizing praise of other.

This maxim instructs to avoid saying unpleasant things about others and especially aboutthe hearer

For example:

A: “The performance was great!”

B: “Yes, wasn‟t it!”

In the example, A gives a good comment about the performance He says the pleasant thing about the hearer This expression is a congratulation utterance that maximizes praise

of the hearer Thus this utterance is included the approbation maxim

 Modesty Maxim: minimize praise of self and maximize dispraise of self.

This maxim is applied in assertives/ representatives and expressives like the approbation maxim Both the approbation maxim and the modesty maxim concern to the degree of good or bad evaluation of other or self However, the approbation maxim is exampled by courtesy of congratulation On other hand, the modesty maxim usually occurs in

apologies The sample of the modesty maxim is below

“Please accept this small gift as prize of your achievement.”

In this case, the utterance above is categorized as the modesty maxim because the speaker maximizes dispraise of himself The speaker notices his utterance by using “small gift”

 Agreement Maxim: maximize agreement between self and other people and

minimize disagreement between self and other

The disagreement, in this maxim, usually is expressed by regret or partial agreement This maxim occurs in assertives/ representatives illocutionary act There example will be illustrated below

A: “English is a difficult language to learn.”

B: “True, but the grammar is quite easy.”

From the example, B actually does not agree that all part of English language difficult tolearn He does not express his disagreement strongly to be more polite The polite answerwill influence the effect of the hearer In this case, B’s answer minimize his disagreementusing partial agreement, “true, but…”

 Sympathy Maxim: minimize antipathy between self and other and maximize

sympathy between self and other In this case, the achievement being reached by othermust be congratulated On other hand, the calamity happens to other, must be given

sympathy or condolences This maxim is applicable in assertives/ representatives Theexample is as follows

“I‟m terribly sorry to hear about your father.”

It is a condolence expression which is expressed the sympathy for misfortune This

utterance is uttered when the hearer gets calamity of father’s died or sick This expressionshows the solidarity between the speaker and the hearer

In spite of the fact that Leech’s maxims make it easier for us to compare and explain cultural differences in understanding politeness and the use of politeness strategies, theycannot cover contextual factors such as role of participants, setting and sex Moreover,they seem to be best applied in Anglo-American cultures where social distance is valued

cross-1.2.3 Face-management View on Politeness

1.2.3.1 The Concept of Face

This approach was put forward by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) The central of their

politeness theory focus on the notion of “Face” which was first proposed by Goffman

(1967) According to them, “Face” can be understood as the “public self-image” of each person which might be damaged, maintained or enhanced in conversation “It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize” (Yule, 1996: 60).

Face consists of two aspects: positive face and negative 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” Yule (1996:62) made it clearer when saying: “Positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others” In

short, it is the want to be accepted as a member of the same group

Positive face is threatened when the speaker or hearer does not care about their interactor’sfeelings, wants, or does not want what the other wants Positive face threatening acts canalso cause damage to the speaker or the hearer When an individual is forced to beseparated from others so that their well-being is treated less importantly, positive face isthreatened For example: damages to hearers can be expressions of disapproval (e.g.insults, accusations, and complaints), contradictions, disagreements; and damages tospeakers can be acceptance of a compliment or confessions

Negative face, on the other hand, is defined as “the desire for freedom of action and

freedom from imposition” (Brown and Levinson, 1987:112) or “the need to be independent” (Yule, 1996:62) It is the want to be separate from a group.

Negative face is threatened when an individual does not avoid or intend to avoid theobstruction of their interlocutor's freedom of action It can cause damage to either thespeaker 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

In English-speaking context, people tend to mark their social distance by using addressform in conversations The reason is because they expect their public self-image or face

wants to be respected Whenever there is an action which threats the hearer’s self-image,

the speaker is said to perform a face threatening act (FTA) For example:

A: He‟s a very generous man.

B: No, I totally disagree with you He cares a lot about what he gives

successfully performing a face saving act (FSA).

Brown and Levinson worked on how to reduce FTAs by setting some strategies which arevery influential and well-known in politeness studies

1.2.3.2 Strategies for FSAs

In Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies, the concept of “face” is the central part oftheir theory A set of possible strategies to minimize risk of losing face is suggested bythese two authors The choice of the strategies will be performed on the basic of thespeaker’s assessment of the size of the face threatening acts (FTAs) The following figureshows circumstances determining choice of the strategies

Lesser risk

Do the FTA

Greater risk

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Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies.

(Brown and 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 proposed the following figure:

2 With redressive action

Positive Politeness Negative Politeness

1 Without redressive action

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

It is easily seen from the figure that the speaker has to choose whether to do the FTA ornot If he/ she decides to do the FTA, there are four possibilities: three sets of on-recordstrategies in which they produce the FTA without any redress action (bald-on-record),produce the FTA with positive politeness and produce the FTA with negative politeness;and one set of off-record strategies If the risk of the FTA is too strong, the speaker canchoose not to do it

 Bald-on-record strategy: this is a direct way of uttering when the speaker wants to

say exactly what he/ she means It is “the most direct approach, using imperative forms The other person is directly asked for something” (Yule, 1996: 63) For example:

-Raise your hand!

- Help!

This strategy is mostly used in emergencies, military or intimate contexts where the

speaker has a higher status or power than the hearer Sometimes, people can use some

mitigating devices such as: please, would you, could you, etc to soften the demand.

However, in daily interaction between social equals, bald-on-record behavior would threatthe hearer’s face and should be avoided Communicators should utter in ways that saveother’s face Brown and Levinson suggested them to use positive politeness strategies andnegative politeness strategies

 Positive politeness strategy:

Positive politeness is used to satisfy the speaker’s positive face It is an attempt by aspeaker to treat the listener as a friend or as someone to be included in the discourse In

terms of definition of positive politeness, Nguyen Quang (2002) states that “positive politeness is any communicative act (verbal and/or non-verbal) which is intentionally and appropriately meant to show the speaker‟s concern to the hearer, thus enhancing the sense of solidarity between them” According to Yule (1996:64), a positive politeness strategy “leads the requester to inquire for a common goal, and even friendship” The

tendency to use positive politeness is to emphasize closeness between speaker and hearer

It can be seen as a “solidarity strategy” This strategy is usually used by people who have

known one another in order to indicate common ground and solidarity in which speakershares hearer’s wants Thus, the usage of positive politeness is not only to redress the FTA,but also to indicate that speaker wants to come closer to hearer

Viewing that the Vietnamese always want to let others know that they pay attention toother’s problems and give help whenever it is needed, Nguyen Quang (2003) suggestsseventeen positive politeness strategies, of which the initial fifteen ones are adoptedoriginally 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?

- 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?)

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

This is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodic.E.g:

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- What a fantastic garden you have!

- My God Your writing? It‟s really fantastic!

* 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” anddraws H as a participant into the conversation with direct questions and expressions

like you know, see what

- 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….

- I dropped in her house, and you know what I see? A huge mess over the living room, the clothes are scattered over the room, and…

* 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?

- 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?)

* Strategy 5 - Seek agreement in safe topics

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

- Isn‟t it a beautiful day?

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- People like you and me, Bill, don‟t like being put around like that, do we? Why don‟t

we go and complain?

* 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

*Strategy 12 – Include both S and H in the

activity E.g.:

- Let‟s go for a walk.

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

* Strategy 13 – Give or ask for reasons

* Strategy 14 – Assume or assert reciprocity

Speaker asks hearer to cooperate with him by giving evidence of habit or obligationsobtained between speaker and hearer Hence, they are locked into a situation of helpingeach other

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.

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* 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 alsoemployed

E.g.: Are you married?

 Negative politeness strategies:

Negative politeness is “redressive action addressed to the addressee‟s negative face: his want to have his freedom of action unhindered and his attention unimpeded” (Brown and Levinson, 1987:129) In other words, it is “a face saving act which is oriented to the person‟s negative face tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of the other‟s time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption” (Yule,

1996:62) Obviously, the tendency to use negative politeness forms emphasizes thehearers’ right to freedom That is why negative politeness strategies are called deferencestrategies While positive politeness narrows the distance between interlocutors, negativepoliteness keeps a distance between them or avoids interfering with other’s personalaffairs This strategy is most preferred by native English speakers because Western cultureshighly appreciate individual’s freedom of action To express negative politeness, speakersoften choose deference markers, hedges, modal verbs, expressions of apology, etc

According to Nguyen Quang (2003), there are eleven negative politeness strategies ofwhich the initial ten ones are adopted originally by Brown and Levison, they are asfollows:

* Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

In this strategy a speaker is faced with opposing tensions: the desire to give hearer an

“out” by being indirect, and the desire to go on record These situations could be solved

by the compromise of conventional indirectness, the use of phrases and sentences thathave contextually unambiguous meanings which are different from their literal

meaning, such as “could you”, “can you”, “why for God‟s sake?”, etc.

E.g: Could you give me the book on the table, please

* Strategy 2: Question/ hedge

This strategy derives from 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, such as “sort of”, “rather”, “kind of”, etc.

E.g: I suppose that Harry is coming I wonder if (you know whether) John went out.

* Strategy 3: Be pessimistic

This strategy gives redress to hearer’s negative face by explicitly expressing doubt that the conditions for the appropriateness of speaker’s speech act obtain This strategy can

be done through namely, doing indirect requests with assertions of felicitous conditions

like: “Couldn‟t possibly”, “by any chance” E.g: I don‟t imagine there‟d be any hope

of you.

* Strategy 4: Minimize the imposition

This strategy indirectly may pay hearer defense This strategy will let the H understand that there is no imposition even whether the H could do something for S or not

E.g: I just want to ask you if I can borrow a tiny bit of paper.

* Strategy 5: Give deference

Speaker humbles himself, his capacities, and possessions This strategy occurs between

S and H who have different social status, and normally S is at a lower position Giving

deference can be realized with the use of such phrases: “excuse me”, “sir”, “sorry to bother you but… ”, “please to accept my apology”, ect E.g: Sorry to bother you but it‟s time for dinner.

* Strategy 6: Apologize

By apologizing for doing an FTA, the speaker can indicates his reluctance to impinge onhearer’s negative face and thereby partially redress that impingement S can use this

strategy with some phrases, such as: “I‟m sure you….but… ”, “I wouldn‟t

normally ask you but….”, “I hope this doesn‟t bother you too much”

E.g: I‟m sure you must be very busy, but

* Strategy 7: Impersonalize 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.

- It‟s important that you finish the work on time.

* Strategy 8: State the FTA as a general rule

One way of dissociating speaker and hearer from the particular imposition in the FTA,and hence a way of communicating that speaker does not want to impinge but is merely forced to by circumstances, is to state the FTA as an instance of some general social rule, regulation, or obligation

E.g: I‟m sorry, but late-comers cannot be seated till the next interval.

* Strategy 9: Nominalize

In English, people tend to use more nouns to be polite The more S normalizes

an expression, the more he dissociates from it

E.g: Your regular attendance gives you bonus mark.

* Strategy 10: Go on record as incurring a debt or as not indebting a hearer.

Speaker can redress an FTA by explicitly claiming his indebtedness to hearer, or by disclaiming any indebtedness of hearer, by means of expressions such as for requestsand for offers

E.g: I‟d be eternally grateful if you would (for request) I could easily do it

for you (for offers).

* Strategy 11: Avoid asking personal questions

This is a good strategy in communication, especially in cross-cultural communication

to avoid causing FTA to H, to show respect to H and to create distance between S andH

E.g: How are things?

By presenting figure 1, Brown and Levinson implied that negative politeness strategies are

more polite than positive politeness ones They also studied and concluded that somelanguages and cultures tend to prefer negative politeness (American English) while someothers are likely to use positive politeness more often (Chinese, Japanese)

 Off-record strategy:

In real-life communication, it’s easy for us to observe that in many cases a speaker doesn’t need to say exactly what he/ she means, but the hearer still correctly understands what is

being conveyed Why does the speaker perform such an indirect speech act? Let’s study the following examples to see the reason:

- Uh, I forgot my pen.

- Hmm, I wonder where I put my pen.

(Cited from Yule, 1996: 63)

We often hear these sentences in the context at school or a library where someone doesn’tbring their pen Obviously, the speaker doesn’t address to any certain body and thesestatements might be ignored by hearers But if he/ she is successful in getting a pen from

someone, it’s because “more has been communicated than was said” (Yule, 1996: 63).

In many other cases, off-record strategy is performed with the aim of avoiding adisagreement or refusal toward other For instance:

A: Shall we go to the concert tonight?

B: My mum has fallen ill.

(Cited from K T T Huong, 2001: 25)Clearly, B’s reply doesn’t directly answer A’s invitation, but it can be interpreted as arefusal He won’t be able to go to the concert because his mother is ill

We have seen a lot of off-record utterances and daily conversations and in socialinteractions, but it seems easier for native speakers rather than foreign or second languagespeakers of a certain culture to understand off-record utterances in that culture The reason

is that the native speakers share the same cultural norms and they have similar linguisticknowledge as well as pragmatic one Besides, because off-record utterances don’t directlyaddress to the other, they are considered more polite than bald-on-record utterances andthey should be encouraged to use

1.3 Previous study

Over the last three decades, politeness has become one of the most popular discussions inpragmatics, sociolinguistics and cross-culture communication There have been a greatnumber of researches focused on pragmatics and its effects in many aspects of humaninteractions

In 2003, Pamela Hobbs at the University of California, Los Angeles carried out a study on

“The medium is the message: politeness strategies in men‟s and women‟s voice mail message” The study found out that unlike previous sociolinguistic researches in which

women more often use politeness strategies in their speech than men, the collected data

showed that male speaker’s use of politeness markers was roughly equal to that ofwomen’s In addition, positive politeness strategies were used almost exclusively by malespeakers, and only by attorneys, and the two speakers who used the greatest number ofpoliteness markers in individual messages were both men.

With the desire of exploring the impact of simultaneously engaging in a face to faceconversation and a text message conversation, Jennifer Maginnis (2011) used politenessstrategies modelled by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) to conduct a study named

“Texting in the presence of others: the use of politeness strategies in conversation” The

result reveals the fact that when a face to face partner ignores (no verbal/ nonverbalpoliteness) a text message interruption the partner is seen as more relational/ sociallyappropriate, immediate, attentive and polite

In Vietnam, there have been considerable researches concerning about politenessstrategies expressed in course books at schools or universities Trieu Thi Trang (2009), inher research, focused on positive and negative politeness strategies in conversational

activities of the course book “New Headway, Intermediate” The theoretical framework of

the study is politeness theories proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) andNguyen Quang (2003) The research shows that positive politeness strategies are usedmore frequently than negative politeness strategies In English speaking cultures, wheninterlocutors get more familiar to each other, they tend to use negative politeness strategies

in communication, especially in making requests

Sharing the same interest, Pham Thi Hong Lien (2012) also carried out a study to examinehow often positive politeness strategies and negative politeness ones occurs in the textbook

“New English File, intermediate” The study indicates that in this course book positivepoliteness strategy is the most frequently used in order to show their respect and regardfrom the speaker to the hearer Most positive politeness strategies are in use exceptstrategies 2, 3, 11 and 15 Beside, negative politeness strategies used in this course bookare: strategy 1, strategy 2, strategy 3, strategy 4, strategy 5, strategy 6 and 7 Among them,strategy 2, 1 and 6 are most frequently used

Caring about politeness theories in a more particular communicative context, i.e., theexpression of sympathy employed by American and Vietnamese native speakers, Ta ThiThanh Hien (2010) used the model of politeness strategies proposed by Blum-Kulka et al(1989) The findings show that American speakers used more external modifications

whereas, Vietnamese people were more indirect and used many different types of externalmodifications.

In this study, the author would like to investigate the four types of politeness strategies putforward by Brown and Levinson and Nguyen Quang: bald-on-record, positive politenessstratergies, negative politeness strategies and off-record strategy The data of the research

is collected from the course book “New Market Leader, Intermediate”, which is forstudents of business English

CHAPTER II: POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSEBOOK

“MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE”

The study is conducted on the third book in the series: “Market Leader, Intermediate” with

76 conversational activities chosen from the 14 units The discussions and analysis arebased on Brown & Levinson’s and Nguyen Quang’s politeness theory

2.1.2 Research techniques

2.1.2.1 Techniques for data collection

To collect the data, the author observed all conversational activities in the course book

“Market Leader, Intermediate” to find out utterances which contain politeness strategies

However, in the scale of a minor thesis, she just wants to focus on three most typical and popular speech acts in the course book containing politeness strategies i.e agreement, disagreement and request The politeness strategies are found and classified into four categories: bald-on-record strategy, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record

strategy There are 76 utterances scattering in 14 units but mostly used in “Skills” parts.

2.1.2.2 Techniques for data analysis

After the collection, 76 utterances are taken into consideration and classified into types ofpoliteness strategies For each type, the utterances are examined to put into specific

categories of politeness strategies Based on the result, the author evaluates the samples