Disagreeing among power unequals in english and vietnamese a cross cultural pragmatics study

CHAPTER IV: CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN THE USE OF DISAGREEING POLITENESS STRATEGIES.... CC differences and negative PT in the subject’s use of six major groups

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND GRAPHS

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

2 Aims of the study

2.1 Overall purpose

2.2 Specific aims

3 Research questions

4 Scope of the study

5 Contributions of the study

6 Methodology

7 Organization of the study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Cross-Cultural pragmatics (CCP) and interlanguage pragmatics (ILP)

1.1.2 Pragmatic transfer and relevant issues

1.2 Speech act theory and disagreeing as a speech act

1.2.1 Notion of speech acts

1.2.2 Classification of speech acts

1.2.3 Disagreeing as a potential face threatening act

1.3 Politeness theory and its application to the present study

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1.3.3 Application of politeness approach in the present study

1.4 Disagreeing in previous studies and in the present study

1.4.1 Previous studies of disagreeing in English and Vietnamese

1.4.2 Summary of findings and shortcomings in the previous studies

1.4.3 Disagreeing in the present study

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research methods

2.1.1 An overview of research methods in inter-language pragmatics

2.1.1.1 A brief description of the two major research methods in ILP

2.1.1.2 Common trends in applying research methods to ILP studies

2.1.1.3 Some concluding remarks on ILP research methods

2.1.2 Research methods in the present study

2.1.2.1 The chosen research methods

2.1.2.2 Reasons for choosing the methods

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Data collection instruments

2.2.1.2 Discourse completion task (DCT)

2.2.2 Subjects

2.2.3 Procedures of developing instruments and gathering data

2.3 Data analysis

2.3.1 Validity test (T-Test) for developing data-gathering instrument (DCT)

2.3.1.1 A description of the T-Test

2.3.1.2 Interpretation of the T-Test scores

2.3.2 Chi-square analysis of the MAQ and DCT

2.3.2.1 A description of the Chi-square

2.3.2.3 Results of the Chi-square analyses

CHAPTER III: CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN THE PERCEPTION OF RELATIVE POWER

3.1 Power and language in social interactions in previous studies

3.1.1 The concept and nature of power in social interactions

3.1.2 Previous studies of power and language in social interactions

3.1.3.1 Power and language are closely interconnected

3.1.3.2 Power is conceptualized differently in different cultures

3.1.3.3 Factors that need taking into concern when studying power

3.1.4 Concluding remarks

3.2 Perception of P in the present study

3.2.1 The perception of P in the family context

3.2.1.1 Equal-power situations in the family context

3.2.1.2 Unequal-power situations in the family context

3.2.1.3 Concluding remarks of P perception in the family context

3.2.2 The perception of P in the university context

3.2.2.1 Equal-power situations in the university context

3.2.2.2 Unequal-power situations in the university context

3.2.2.3 Concluding remarks of P in the university context

3.2.3 The perception of P in the work context

3.2.3.1 Equal-power situations in the work context

3.2.3.2 Unequal-power situations in the work context

3.2.3.3 Concluding remarks of P in the work context

3.2.4 The perception of P in the social context

3.2.4.1 Equal-power situations in the social context

3.2.4.2 Unequal-power situations in the social context

3.2.4.3 Concluding remarks of P in the social context

CHAPTER IV: CROSS-CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN THE USE OF DISAGREEING POLITENESS STRATEGIES

4.1 Disagreeing politeness strategies realized in the invested situations

4.1.1 Disagreeing strategies based on B&L’s framework

4.1.1.1 4.1.1.2 4.1.1.3 4.1.1.4 4.1.1.5 Don’t do the FTA (No FTA)

4.1.2

4.2 Disagreeing politeness strategies in powerless situations

4.2.1 Situation 1

VIII

4.2.3

4.2.4

4.3 Disagreeing politeness strategies in powerful situations

4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.3.4 PART C: CONCLUSION

1.Major findings

1.1 On inverse PT and CC differences in power perception

1.2 2.Implications

3 Suggestions for further studies

ARTICLES AND PROJECTS RELATED TO THE DISSERTATION

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRES

APPENDIX B: CODING SYSTEM OF DISAGREEING POLITENESS STRATEGIES

APPENDIX C: STATISTIC RESULTS

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

Examples are numbered for ease of reference For example, (4.9) signifies the ninth

example in the fourth chapter

Underlined: used to highlight what is being demonstrated

In the text:

Italics: used for emphasis, examples, politeness strategies, or technical terms mentioned for

the first time

&: used to replace “and” for linking the names of co-authors of references.

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND GRAPHS FIGURES

In chapter I:

Figure 1.1: Classification of communicative illocutionary acts 17

Figure 1.2: Lakoff’s rules of pragmatic competence 27

Figure 1.3: B&L’s framework of politeness strategies 30

Figure 1.4: Taxonomy of disagreement (Adapted from Miller, 2000: 1095) 44

In chapter II: Figure 2.1: Methods of data elicitation 51

Figure 2.2: Procedures of developing instruments and gathering data 71

Figure 2.3: T-Test description 72

Figure 2.4: Interpretation of P, D, and Se values in the T-Test 74

Figure 2.5: Description of the Chi-square analysis of P perception 79

Figure 2.6: Description for the Chi-square test of the use of disagreeing strategies 80

TABLES In chapterII: Table 2.1: 13 valid and reliable situations in which S & H are not equal in power 75

Table 2.2: Six selected situations for the DCT 78

Table 2.3: General notation 2 x 2 contingency table 81

Table 2.4: An example of a 2 x 2 contingency table in the present study 81

Table 2.5: The Chi-square distribution table 82

Table 2.6: The analytical framework of the present study 90

In chapter III: Table 3.1: Power distance index values for 50 countries and 3 regions 96

Table 3.2: Role relationships used for Equal/Unequal dyads (Spencer-Oatey, 1996: 11) 99

Table 3.3: Family equal-power situations (Sit 3 and 6) 103

Table 3.4: Family powerless situations (Sit 1 and 4) 105

Table 3.5: Family powerful situations (Sit 2 and 5) 107

Table 3.6: CC differences and inverse PT in P perception in the family context 108

Table 3.7: University equal-power situations (Sit 7 and 8) 110

Table 3.8: University powerless situations (Sit 9 and 10) 112

Table 3.9: University powerful situations (Sit 11 and 12) 114

Table 3.10: CC differences and inverse PT in P perception in the university context 116

Table 3.11: Work equal-power situations (Sit 15, 17, and 18) 117

Table 3.12: Work powerless situation (Sit 16) 120

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Table 3.13: Work powerful situations (Sit 13 and 14) 121

Table 3.14: CC differences and inverse PT in P perception in the work context 123

Table 3.15: Social equal-power situations with gender aspect (Sit 19 and 20) 125

Table 3.16: Social equal-power situations with social status (Sit 21 and 22) 127

Table 3.17: Social equal-power situations with economic status (Sit 23 and 24) 129

Table 3.18: Social equal-power situations with physical strength (Sit 25 and 26) 130

Table 3.19: Social equal-power situations with intellectual capacity (Sit 29 and 30) 132

Table 3.20: Social powerless situation with age aspect (Sit 27) 134

Table 3.21: Social powerful situation with age aspect (Sit 28) 135

Table 3.22: CC differences and inverse PT in P perception in the work context 136

In chapter IV: Table 4.1: Perception of P, D, and Se in situation 1 151

Table 4.2: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 1 152

Table 4.3: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 1 154

Table 4.4: Perception of P, D, and Se in situation 9 by the three groups 156

Table 4.5: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 9 157

Table 4.6: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 9 158

Table 4.7: Perception of P, D, and S in situation 27 by the three groups 160

Table 4.8: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 27 161

Table 4.9: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 27 163

Table 4.10 CC differences and negative PT in the subject’s use of six major groups of strategies in the powerless situations 164

Table 4.11 CC differences and negative PT in the subject’s use of 12 subgroups of strategies in the powerless situations 165

Table 4.12: Perception of P, D, and Se in situation 5 by the three groups 169

Table 4.13: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 5 170

Table 4.14: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 5 171

Table 4.15: Perception of P, D, and Se in situation 12 by the three groups 173

Table 4.16: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 12 175

Table 4.17: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 12 176

Table 4.18: Perception of P, D, and Se in situation 13 by the three groups 178

Table 4.19: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 13 179

Table 4.20: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 13 180

Table 4.21 CC differences and negative PT in the subject’s use of six major groups of strategies in the powerful situations 182

Table 4.22 CC differences and negative PT in the subject’s use of 12 subgroups of strategies in the powerless situations 183

In part C:

Table C.1 Negative PT, as seen from the six major groups of strategies 191

Table C.2 Negative PT, as seen from the twelve subgroups of strategies 191

Table C.3 CC differences, as seen from the six major groups of strategies 192

Table C.4 CC differences, as seen from the twelve subgroups of strategies 192

GRAPHS In chapter III: Graph 3.1: Family equal-power situations (Sit 3 and 6) 103

Graph 3.2: Family powerless situations (Sit 1 and 4) 105

Graph 3.3: Family powerful situations (Sit 2 and 5) 107

Graph 3.4: University equal-power situations (Sit 7 and 8) 110

Graph 3.5: University powerless situations (Sit 9 and 10) 112

Graph 3.6: University powerful situations (Sit 11 and 12) 114

Graph 3.7: Work equal-power situations (Sit 15, 17, and 18) 119

Graph 3.8: Work powerless situation (Sit 16) 120

Graph 3.9: Work powerful situations (Sit 13 and 14) 121

Graph 3.10: Social equal-power situations with gender aspect (Sit 19 and 20) 125

Graph 3.11: Social equal-power situations with social status (Sit 21 and 22) 127

Graph 3.12: Social equal-power situations with economic status (Sit 23 and 24) 129

Graph 3.13: Social equal-power situations with physical strength (Sit 25 and 26) 130

Graph 3.14: Social equal-power situations with intellectual capacity (Sit 29 and 30) 132

Graph 3.15: Social powerless situation with age aspect (Sit 27) 134

Graph 3.16: Social powerful situation with age aspect (Sit 28) 135

In chapter IV: Graph 4.1: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 1 152

Graph 4.2: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 1 154

Graph 4.3: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 9 157

Graph 4.4: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 9 158

Graph 4.5: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 27 161

Graph 4.6: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 27 163

Graph 4.7: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 5 170

Graph 4.8: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 5 172

Graph 4.9: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 12 175

Graph 4.11: Realization of 6 major groups of disagreeing strategies in situation 13 179

Graph 4.12: Realization of 12 subgroups of disagreeing strategies in situation 13 181

XIV

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the process of globalization, English has played an increasingly important role invarious fields, such as: science, business, education, and especially, cross-cultural(henceforth CC) communication As a consequence, there have been a large number

of worldwide studies on cross-cultural pragmatics (henceforth CCP) which have

been thoroughly presented in (1) Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper’s (1989)

Cross-cultural pragmatics: request and apologies, (2) Wierzbicka’s (1991) Cross-Cross-cultural pragmatics – the semantics of human interaction, (3) Kasper & Blum-Kulka’s

(1993) Interlanguage pragmatics, (4) Trosborg’s (1995) Interlanguage pragmatics

– requests, complaints and apologies, and (5) Gass & Neu’s (1996) Speech acts across cultures – challenges to communication in a second language.

CCP, according to Trosborg (1995: 45), is a particular field of contrastivepragmatics that is concerned with contrasting pragmatics across culturalcommunities The major reasons for the appearance and development of this fieldare, as clarified by Wierzbicka (1991: 69), that in different societies and culturalcommunities, people speak differently Being profound and systematic, thosedifferences reflect different cultural values, different ways of speaking, anddifferent communicative styles

One of the objectives of those studies is to focus on comparing and contrasting thesimilarities and differences between a language and English in certain speech acts inparticular contexts, which leads to the trend of contrastive pragmatics studies.Another objective is to figure out potential features of pragmatic transfer(henceforth PT) from one language to English, which results in another commontrend, namely interlanguage pragmatics (henceforth ILP) studies The overallpurpose of the CCP studies is to help learners and non-native speakers of Englishbecome aware of potential similarities and differences between their language andculture and English language and culture as well as potential PT, especially

negative PT or pragmatic failures, which may affect their study or use of English tocommunicate with English native speakers and possibly cause culture shock orcommunication breakdowns.

As regards the contrastive pragmatics trend, there have been a great number ofstudies conducted by researchers all over the world, as reviewed by Trosborg(1995) Those studies investigate different speech acts, with a focus on requests,apologies, compliments, and thanks (cf Trosborg, 1995: 46-47) In Vietnam, therehave been a number of contrastive pragmatics studies, as part of the researchers’unpublished PhD research projects, comparing and contrasting Vietnamese andEnglish in certain speech acts comprising complimenting (Nguyen Van Quang,1998), requesting (Nguyen Van Do, 1999), disagreeing (Kieu Thi Thu Huong,

2006), and inviting (Duong Bach Nhat, 2008) There have also been a great number

of other relevant studies of a variety of speech acts on a smaller scale of MA theses,

as presented in Nguyen Quang Ngoan and Nguyen Tien Phung’s (2007) review,presenting various speech acts such as greeting (Nguyen Phuong Suu, 1990; HuynhThi Ai Nguyen, 1997), requesting (Nguyen Van Do, 1996; Do Thi Mai Thanh,2000), apologizing (Dang Thanh Phuong, 1999), refusing a request (Pham Thi VanQuyen, 2001), among others (cf Nguyen Quang Ngoan and Nguyen Tien Phung,2007: 26-29)

Regarding the ILP trend, Kasper & Dahl (1991) present a detailed literature review

of 39 ILP studies Trosborg (1995) also does a good job of reviewing ILPpragmatics studies comprising studies of requests, thanks, complaints, and apologies(cf Trosborg, 1995: 55) In Vietnam, as far as the author of this study is aware ofand able to access, there have been only a few ILP studies, including those ofrequesting (Ha Cam Tam, 1998, 2005), criticizing (Nguyen Thuy Minh, 2006), andgeneral cultural linguistic features, (Pham Dang Binh, 2002)

Thus, in the last fifteen years in Vietnam, there have been a great number ofcontrastive pragmatics studies comparing and contrasting Vietnamese and English

2

in various speech acts However, there have not been sufficient ILP studiescontrasting English by Vietnamese learners and English by its native speakers It isfor this reason that the dissertation author decided to contribute to developing thetrend of ILP studies by conducting a research into PT from Vietnamese to English inthe act of disagreeing under the influence of the relative power (henceforth P) insome particular contexts.

The focus of the study is on pragmatic transfer (i.e “transfer of some culturally

specific politeness strategies from one’s native language to the target language”

(Beebe & Takahashi, 1989: 200) It should be noted that a deep insight into thisphenomenon contributes a great deal to language teaching, learning, and use.However, as discussed, in Vietnam the relevant studies are completely limited.Thus, it is urgent that more thorough studies on ILP trend in other speech actsshould be done to build up a better background for teaching and learning Englishand CC communication in Vietnam

It is for this reason that disagreeing has become the speech act under investigation

in this study Disagreeing was chosen also because of some additional reasons.Firstly, some similarities and differences in disagreeing politeness strategiesbetween the Vietnamese and the Americans were investigated by Kieu Thi ThuHuong (2001) and Nguyen Quang Ngoan (2004) at the level of MA theses, from theperspective of contrastive pragmatics It was also studied from the perspective ofconversational analysis combined with contrastive pragmatics by Kieu Thi ThuHuong (2006) for her PhD research project Thus, no studies of the speech act ofdisagreeing from the ILP perspective have been conducted in Vietnam Additionally,

in literature, the dissertation author is able to access only one study of this typewhich was conducted by Beebe and Takahashi in 1989 to contrast English byJapanese learners and that by English native speakers Hence it is expected that athorough investigation into disagreeing from the ILP perspective will contribute todrawing a whole picture of studies of the speech act

Secondly, another focus of the present study is on the effects of P on verbalinteractions, and according to many researchers (Beebe & Takahashi, 1989; Rees-Miller, 2000; and Locher, 2004), the realizations of disagreeing strategies areproven to be under great influence of P In other words, disagreeing is a potentialspeech act on which P is enacted However, the dissertation author has not noticedany studies of speech acts, in which P was realized as a separated social variablethat is in focus Thus, it is the author’s purpose to attempt to investigate the issue.There are also some other reasons for his choice of P as the focused social variableoperating in this study of disagreeing as an example of verbal interaction.

One reason is that, as far as the author knows, there have been no thoroughempirical studies of power influence on verbal interaction in Vietnam although therehave been a lot of relevant discussions and studies on power and its correlation withlanguage in English-speaking cultures (Leech, 1983; Thomas, 1985; Brown &Levinson, 1987; Wartenberg, 1990; Ng, 1995; Ng and Bradac, 1993; Watts, 1991,2003; Hofstede, 1977, 1991, 2001; Holmes, 1992; Rees-Miller, 2000; Fairclough,2001; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Locher, 2004) Thus, this study can serve to fill inthe gap in the Vietnamese literature

Another reason is that, according to Hofstede (1991, 2001) and his supporters,including Spencer-Oatey (1997), Gibson (2002), Samovar and Porter (2001), andTing-Toomey & Chung (2005), high-power-distance values are appreciated in Asiancountries while lower-power-distance values are appreciated in the USA, GreatBritain and its former dominions, including Australia Vietnam is an Asian countrybut it was not a country under Hofstede’s investigation, so it seems to be logical tohypothesize that Vietnam is among other Asian countries which show high-power-distance values but this hypothesis must be tested to know whether it is right or howhigh power distance is perceived in Vietnamese culture, especially when it iscompared to an English-speaking culture, Australia

4

A third reason is that the effects of P on language have been discussed andemphasized by many authors (Leech, 1983; Thomas, 1985; Brown & Levinson,1987; Holmes, 1992; Ng & Bradac, 1993; Ng, 1995; Rees-Miller, 2000; Fairclough,2001; Nguyen Quang, 2002, 2004; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Locher, 2004).However, to what extent does the relative power affect the speaker’s use ofdisagreeing strategies realized in Vietnamese by Vietnamese native speakers and inEnglish by Vietnamese learners of the language and Australian native speakers? Dothe effects cause negative PT in the use of disagreeing strategies from Vietnamese

to English? These are some of the questions which remain unanswered, and so thequestions the author hopes to answer in the present study

2 Aims of the study

2.1 Overall purpose

The overall purpose of the dissertation is to investigate thoroughly primarily thenegative PT from Vietnamese into Australian language and culture, and secondarilynoteworthy Vietnamese-Australian CC differences as valid clues for theinterpretation and discussion of the PT in the speech act of disagreeing under theeffects of P in the investigated situations

2.2 Specific aims

To achieve the overall purpose, the study is aimed:

- to find out the major features of Vietnamese-English PT caused by the VLE and

CC differences between the VNS and ANS in their use of disagreeing politenessstrategies with the more powerful as well as with the less powerful in theinvestigated situations

- to investigate the effects of P on the subject’s use of disagreeing politenessstrategies reflected from the differences in their use of politeness strategies fordisagreeing which is affected by their perception of P described in the relative roles

in the investigated situations

3. Research questions

1. What are some significant features of negative PT caused by the VLE and whatare some significant CC differences between the VNS and ANS in their use ofdisagreeing politeness strategies in the investigated situations? Sub questions are:

- Which features of negative PT and CC differences in the use of disagreeing politeness strategies are significant?

- Which CC differences between the VNS and ANS lead to negative PT and which CC differences do not?

- Which disagreeing politeness strategies are used and preferred by the VLE,ANS, and VNS? What are the differences in their use of those strategies inthe powerful and powerless situations?

- Which politeness strategies in B&L’s (1987) framework are realized, either

as single strategies or strategy combinations for disagreeing in theinvestigated situations? Is there a high possibility for strategy combinations?

2. How does the subject’s perception of P in the investigated situations affect theiruse of disagreeing politeness strategies? How do the similarities and differences inthe subject’s perception of P affect negative PT and CC differences in their use ofdisagreeing politeness strategies? Sub questions are:

- How is P described in the relative roles in the investigated situations

perceived by the VNS, ANS, and VLE?

- To what extent is the VNS’s perception of P different from the ANS’s? Is it true that Vietnam is a higher-power-distance culture than Australia?

- Is there the phenomenon of inverse PT in P perception caused by the VLE in the investigated situations?

- How do the similarities and differences in the subject’s perception of P in theinvestigated situations affect their use of disagreeing politeness strategies?

4 Scope of the study

6

- The study focuses on intralinguistic factors Paralinguistic and extralinguisticaspects are, therefore, out of the scope of the study The verbal interaction isrestricted to the act of disagreeing.

- The act of disagreeing focuses on the frequency and realizations of politenessstrategies used by the VLE, ANS, and VNS in some specific situations in light ofthe politeness framework by B&L (1987)

- The particular situations are restricted to thirty situations in the Meta-pragmatic

Assessment Questionnaires (henceforth MAQ) and six situations in the Discourse Completion Task (henceforth DCT).

- “Among power-unequals” is meant to cover all the interactions between not only

the more powerful and the less powerful but also the less powerful and the more

powerful in various situations in the four contexts: (1) at home, (2) at work, (3) at

school, and (4) in society.

- P is described in the relative roles, such as a parent versus his/her child (at home),

a university lecturer versus a student (at school), a boss versus an employee (atwork), or an elder person versus a younger one (in society)

- The focused social variable is P, which is used to refer to the relative power eachspeaker temporarily has in each given context However, the social distance(henceforth D) and the speaking context (henceforth Se) are also taken intoconsideration for detailed interpretation and discussion of each particular situation

- Vietnamese-Australian PT in disagreeing among power-unequals is what the studyaims to investigate Thus, comparison and contrast of disagreeing strategies by theVLE and ANS are in focus However, for the objectivity and validity of theresearch, the study is expanded to cover the comparison and contrast of the powerperception and disagreeing strategies by the VNS and ANS to serve as the basicbackground for the interpretation, discussion, and conclusion of the PT

The study is expected to bring out some following contributions:

- Theoretically, it contributes an investigation to some research areas in Vietnam:(1) socio-cultural effects (i.e power effects) on verbal interactions, (2) pragmatictransfer (i.e Vietnamese-English transfer), (3) speech act theory (i.e disagreeing as

a speech act), and (4) linguistic politeness Specifically, this is the first thoroughempirical research in Vietnam, the focus of which is on the influence of P onlanguage, or to be more exact on disagreeing, and also the first study ofVietnamese-Australian PT in the act Its findings are expected to reinforce or denyexisting hypotheses in the fields and to bring about a better insight into the issues

- Practically, its findings on the Vietnamese-Australian PT, especially negative PT,

in the frequency and realizations of disagreeing strategies in particular situationswith sufficient details and plenty of specific examples from a rich source of data can

be applied to English language teaching and CC communication

- Methodologically, it serves as a valid study on people’s perception of situational factors and their production of language strategies in verbal interactionsthrough the suitable research methodology of a combination between the MAQ andDCT It also contributes a new way of applying B&L’s (1987) politeness model todata analyses in empirical studies concerning linguistic politeness

socio-6 Methodology

This is primarily a quantitative CCP study in combination with some qualitative methods The data collection is conducted with a combination of MAQ and DCT The data analysis is done with the T-Test and Chi-square statistics in the SPSS package through various techniques including statistical, descriptive, contrastive, and inferential analysis This methodology is presented at length in chapter two.

7 Organization of the study

The present study is divided into three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B –

Development, and Part C – Conclusion.

8

Part A is the introduction to the study in which the author writes about the reasonsfor which the study is conducted Other issues clarified in this section are the aims,scope, research questions, methodology, and contributions of the study A summary

of all the parts and chapters is also presented to help the audience have an overallidea of the study

Part B is the major part which is divided into four chapters, discussing the relevanttheoretical concepts, literature review, methodology and results of the empiricalresearch of the study

Chapter one is where a theoretical background and literature review are done inlight of CCP It begins with an introduction to basic terminologies and concepts ofCCP and ILP Then the speech act theory is visited with critical comments, followed

by a discussion of disagreeing as a potential face-threatening act Next, politenesstheory is revisited with critical comments on its notion and approaches in literature.Especially, Western politeness approaches are compared to the Asian ones, withreference to the perception of the issue by Vietnamese researchers to build up atheoretical background for the chosen theoretical framework in the present study.Finally, all the up-to-date studies of disagreeing as a speech act that the author isaware of and able to get access to, be they domestic or international, are introducedfor an overview of the achievements and shortcomings in the previous studies of thespeech act

Chapter two describes the methodology of the present study In this chapter, variousresearch methods in ILP studies with their strengths and weaknesses, as discussed

by well-known authors, are introduced with critical comments before anintroduction to the methods in the present study is made, with specific reasons forchoosing them Then, the research design including the data-gathering instruments,subject selection, and data-gathering procedures are all introduced Finally, the dataanalysis procedures are clarified with a thorough description of the T-test analysis,Chi-square analysis, and analytical framework

Chapter three discusses the effects of the relative power as a socio-culturaldimension in verbal interactions, especially in disagreeing It is conducted touncover how the VNS, VLE, and ANS perceive the relative power between thespeaker and the hearer in the investigated situations This also helps ensure thevalidity and reliability in the discussion of P effects on disagreeing in chapter four.

In the first place, relevant studies with their findings, discussions, and shortcomingsare presented to serve as a narrower background for the comparison and contrast ofthe perception of P by the VNS and ANS to find out the cross-cultural similaritiesand differences between the two cultures In parallel, the perception of P by theVLE is also compared to that by the VNS for the purpose of finding out possibleinverse socio-pragmatic transfer Concluding remarks of CC differences and inverse

PT are given at the end of the chapter

Chapter four focuses on the Vietnamese-English PT and CC differences in thesubject’s use of disagreeing politeness strategies in the investigated situationsrealized with the data collected from the three subject groups It begins with anintroduction to all the disagreeing strategies realized in the present study either assingle strategies or strategy combinations with examples from the collected data.Then, the statistic results of similarities and differences between the VLE and ANS

as well as between the VNS and ANS in their use of disagreeing strategies in eachsituation are presented, interpreted, and discussed at length Finally, concludingremarks of the PT and CC differences are highlighted

Part C is the conclusion of the study where the author summarizes the majorfindings on the inverse PT caused by the VLE and CC differences between the VNSand ANS in their perception of P in the investigated situations It is also where themajor findings on Vietnamese-English negative PT and CC differences in thesubject’s use of disagreeing politeness strategies are confirmed and highlighted.Then implications of the research findings to better English language teaching and

AC communication are suggested before suggestions for further studies of the field are put forward

10

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.1 Notion and scope

In his discussion of approaches to inter-cultural communication, Clyne (1996: 3) states,

There are three main ways in which the role of culture can be, and has been,

studied – by comparing native discourse across cultures (the Contrastive

Approach), by examining the discourse of non-native speakers in a second

language (the Interlanguage Approach), and by examining and comparing the

discourse of people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds interacting

either in a lingua franca or in one of the interlocutors’ languages (the Interactive

Inter-cultural Approach).

He (1996: 4) also argues that the three approaches are not always clearlydifferentiated and that the third approach has been the least developed andinvestigated so far Actually, Clyne’s classification and comments are completelyappropriate, as seen from the perspective of CCP

According to Kasper & Blum-Kula (1995: 3), pragmatics is considered as “the

study of people’s comprehension and production of linguistic action in context”.

Thus, CCP is the study of liguistic action patterns carried out by language users ofdifferent cultural backgrounds Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989: 1-11) arguethat the field of CCP can be divided into two trends: one is contrastive pragmaticsand the other is ILP

Contrastive pragmatics is concerned with comparing and contrasting the similaritiesand differences in different pragmatic aspects such as politeness or speech actperformance across cultural communities Contrative pragmatics studies areconducted in the belief that in different cultural communities, people speakdifferently and those profound and systematic differences reflect different cultural

styles, which can be explained and made sense of (Wierzbicka, 991: 69).

ILP studies, on the other hand, focus on investigating linguistic actions by languagelearners or non-native speakers in comparison with those by native speakers touncover the learner’s comprehension and production of different pragmatic aspects.However, ILP can also be a branch of Second Language Acquisition Research incontrast to interlanguage morphology, syntax, and semantics Thus, as argued by

Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993: 3), ILP is “a second-generation hybrid” because it

“belongs to two different disciplines, both of which are interdisciplinary”.

To sum up, as a subset of cross-cultural pragmatics, contrastive pragmatics has thestrength of investigating cross-cultural and cross-linguistic pragmatic differencesand similarities, while ILP focuses on identifying learner-specific pragmaticbehaviors and their relationship to learners' first and second language However,research methods from these areas of investigation should be combined for a goodresearch project, as it is stated by Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993: 13):

“A full-fledged research program that sheds light on the relationship between

cross-cultural differences, IL-specific pragmatic features, including transfer, and

communicative effects will usefully combine methods from all three areas of

investigation.”

Based on this line of reasoning, this research project is a combination of researchmethods from contrastive pragmatics and ILP although the primary investigation isthe comprehension and production of pragmatic aspects in English by Vietnameselearners, which belongs to the discipline of ILP It is also for this reason that the

research subtitle is “a cross-cultural pragmatics study” instead of “an

interlanguage pragmatics study” Another reason for the chosen subtitle is that

“ILP has derived its theoretical and empirical foundation from general and especially cross-cultural pragmatics” (Kasper and Blum-Kulka, 1993: 4).

1.1.2 Pragmatic transfer and relevant issues

Pragmatic transfer, as defined by Beebe & Takahashi (1989: 200), is “transfer of

some culturally specific politeness strategies from one’s native language to the

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target language” It is resulted from the “influence from learners' native language and culture on their IL pragmatic knowledge and performance” (Kasper & Blum-

Kula, 1995: 10)

On the one hand, PT can be divided into negative PT and positive PT, the first of

which is the influence of the first language pragmatic competence on theinterlanguage pragmatic knowledge that differs from the target language, while thelatter refers to pragmatic knowledge behaviors that display consistent across the firstlanguage, the interlanguage, and the target language The focus of ILP is, however,

on negative PT because it may lead to communication breakdown Positive PTattracts less attention possibly because it usually results in communicative success,and thus appearing less exciting to study

On the other hand, in literature, PT is divided into two types of pragmatic failures,

as suggested by Thomas (1983) They are: sociopragmatic failure andpragmalinguistic failure According to Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper (1989: 10), in

the first type, learners “assess the relevant situational factors on the basis of their

native sociopragmatic norms” and in the second type, “native procedures and linguistic means of speech act performance are transferred to interlanguage communication” Pragmatic failure is another term used to refer to negative PT.

As possibly seen in a number of studies, negative transfer has been found at both thesociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic level At the sociopragmatic level, negative PThas been found in the learners’ perception of the status relationships, of theappropriateness of speech acts, of the choice of politeness styles, and so on At thepragmalinguistic level, most of the reported negative PT is related to the learners’strategic options and forms that modify the politeness value of a linguistic act(Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993: 10-11)

One final concept of PT is inverse pragmatic transfer, which is used to refer to the

influence of the second/foreign language pragmatic competence on the learner’sperception and production of different pragmatic aspects in their first language to

make them differ from those perceived or produced by the first language nativespeakers In the present study, the author also investigates the inversesociopragmatic transfer caused by Vietnamese learners of English in theirperception of P in the investigated situation on the basis of Vietnamese culture.

The speech act theory, first mentioned by philosopher John Austin (1962) in his

influential work, “How to do things with words”, is one of the most compelling notions in the study of language use Levinson (1983: 226) claims that “[of] all the

issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably aroused the widest interest”.

Actually, since its initiation, it has been inherited, refined, and developed by anumber of philosophers and linguists, including Searle (1969, 1975, 1976), Bachand Harnish (1979), and Wierzbicka (1987), among others

1.2.1 Notion of speech acts

As stated, the notion of speech acts was first mentioned by John Austin (1962) andthen discussed by a number of pragmaticists with a common belief that in sayingsomething that has a certain sense and reference, the speaker normally also doessomething such as making a promise, a request, or an apology (Austin, 1962; Geis,

1995) For example, in saying, “I’ll come and pick you up.”, a speaker not only

produces a meaningful utterance but also constitutes the act of promising

In studying speech act theory, it is essential to have a deep insight into the known distinction made by Austin (1962) between the three kinds of acts:

well-locutionary act, ilwell-locutionary act, and perwell-locutionary act According to Austin

(1962) and Searle (1969), clarified by Richards et al (1992: 217), a locutionary act

is the saying of something, which is meaningful and can be understood; anillocutionary act is using the sentence to perform a function; and a perlocutionaryact is the results or effects produced by means of saying something Clyne (1996:

11) puts it simply that locution is the actual form of an utterance, illocution is the

14

communicative force of the utterance, and perlocution is the communicative effect

of the utterance

The three acts are, however, ultimately related because normally, in a meaningful

utterance, “S says something to H; in saying something to H, S does something; and

by doing something, S affects H” (Bach & Harnish, 1979: 3) For example, on

producing the meaningful utterance, “I’ve just made some coffee” (the locutionary

act), we might make an offer (illocutionary act) which might get the hearer to drinksome coffee (perlocutionary act)

Of the three dimensions, as stated by Yule (1997: 52), the most essential act that

counts is the illocutionary force because the same utterance can potentially have quite different illocutionary forces For instance, the utterance, “I’ll see you later”

can count as a prediction, a promise, or a warning in different contexts That

partially explains why Yule (1997: 52) claims that “[t]he term ‘speech act’ is

generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance”.

Speech acts are a universal phenomenon, but they might vary greatly across culturesunder the effects of socio-cultural norms This explains why Wierzbicka (1991:

149) argues that “[e]very culture has it own repertoire of characteristic speech acts

and speech genres” It is for this reason that studies of speech acts across cultures

have been conducted with an awareness of both universality and culture specificity,

as claimed by Blum-Kulka et al

Work done in this area is based on the assumption that speech communities share

detectable patterns of speech, and that ‘cultural ways of speaking’ provide an

important domain for the exploration of speech as a cultural phenomenon Specific

studies of speech act from this perspective show how clashes between different

interactional styles can lead to intercultural miscommunication (1989: 5).

What can be interpreted from Blum-Kulka’s argument is that a lack of insight intodifferences of speech acts in different cultures appears to be one of the causes which

studies of speech acts across cultures to compare and contrast the similarities anddifferences between them are of crucial importance, though it is challenging toconduct those studies as a result of culture specificity or even context specificity.

1.2.2 Classification of speech acts

Speech acts can be classified according to their functions Austin (1962: 151), forexample, started the classification by assigning five types of functions to utterances,

namely: verdictives (e.g., assess, appraise, ) exercitives (e.g., command, direct,…),

commissives (e.g., promise, propose, ), behabitives (e.g., apologize, thank, ), and expositives (e.g., accept, agree, ) Searle (1976) presents one of the most influential

and widely used classification of speech acts with a focus on how listeners respond

to utterances intentionally, which is on the contrary to Austin (1962) whose attention

is on how speakers realize their intentions in speaking (Wardhaugh, 1986: 287)

Searle’s classification consists of five broad types: (1) commissives (e.g., a promise

or a threat), (2) declarations (e.g., a pronouncement at court), (3) directives (e.g., a suggestion or a request), (4) expressives (e.g., an apology or a complaint), and (5)

representatives (e.g., an assertion or a report) (ibib.: 10-16) Following Searle

(1976), Yule (1997: 55) clarifies the five general types of speech acts that indeclarations, the speaker (S) causes the situation (X); in representatives, S believesX; in expressives, S feels X; in directives, S wants X; and in commissives, S intends

X Bach and Harnish (1979: 41) appear more specific when they divide

illocutionary acts into six categories Two of them, the effectives and verdictives, are conventional, not communicative The four communicative ones are constatives,

directives, commisives, and acknowledgements, which are more or less similar to

Austin’s expositives, exercitives, commissives, and behabitives, and closely related

to Searle’s representatives, directives, commissives, and expressives, respectively,

but their characterizations are a bit different from Searle’s For instance, suggestions belong to the constatives in Bach and Harnish’s but to the directives in Searle’s.

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Figure 1.1: Classification of communicative illocutionary acts (Bach and Harnish, 1979: 41)

Apart from classifying speech acts according to their functions, linguists have also

divided them into direct and indirect speech acts It is not very difficult to

distinguish direct speech acts, where speakers say what they mean, and indirectspeech acts, where speakers mean more than, or something other than, what theysay Saville-Troike (1982: 36), for example, argues,

As defined in speech act theory, direct acts are those where surface form matches

interactional function, as ‘Be quiet!’ used as a command, versus an indirect ‘It’s

getting noisy here’ or ‘I can’t hear myself think’.

This argument is clarified by Yule (1997) when he suggests basing on the

relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, and

imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question,

and command/request) to decide which speech act is direct and which one is

indirect The researcher (ibid.: 54-55) claims,

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.

For example, the declarative structure, “It’s cold in this room.” can function as a

direct speech act if it is used to make a statement (i.e., I hereby tell you about the

weather) but it can also function as an indirect speech act if it is intended as acommand/request (i.e., I hereby request you that you close the door).

The speech act theory has, however, been criticized by a number of scholars,including Levinson (1983) and Geis (1995), for its insufficiency as a basicframework for exploring the pragmatics of verbal interactions Gajaseni (1994, in

Yu, 1999: 15-16) discuses some major weaknesses of the speech act theory that can

be summarized as follows:

- The classified categories of speech acts fail to cover all the communicativefunctions of an utterance as they are drawn mostly from the performative verbsdiscussed by Austin (1962), which are limited in number

- Speech act analysis is mainly based on intuitive claims about isolated utterancestaken out of context, so it fails to fully explain the illocutionary act(s) of an

utterance like “Well done”, which can be either a compliment or a sarcastic remark.

- Speech act theory is limited in its application to analysis of conversation becausethe nature of communication depends crucially on interaction between interlocutors,while speech act theory seems to focus only on the speaker’s intention and beliefs

- Speech act theory seems to ignore the fact that more often than not utterances areinherently ambiguous and might thus convey any of a number of illocutionaryforces as it places special emphasis on assigning a single act to each isolatedutterance (i.e., specifying if an act is a request, apology, complaint, etc.)

1.2.3 Disagreeing as a potential face threatening act

“Disagreeing is a fairly forceful and self-confident act” and in disagreeing, “the emphasis seems to be more on saying that one doesn’t think the same than on saying what one thinks” (Wierzbicka, 1987: 128) She argues that when a person

disagrees, he wants to say that his own opinion is different and to imply that hethinks the first speaker was wrong (or that his idea was not good) Thus, similar toSornig (1977) and Rees-Miller (2000), Wierzbicka thinks that a disagreement is a

18

response to a stimulus which is a prior utterance from the first interlocutor In otherwords, it can be a response to an assessment or a proposal.

However, a disagreement is not always a response to a stimulus It can be a stimulusfrom the first interlocutor According to the definition in the electronic Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Compass, “to disagree with something / with doing

something” is “to believe that something is bad or wrong” or “to disapprove of something” Thus, a disagreement can be a prior utterance (i.e., an assessment or

disapproval of a bad or wrong behavior) This is illustrated in disagreementsituation 1 in Beebe and Takahashi’s study in which a corporate executive gives his

assessment when an “assistant summits a proposal for reassignment of secretarial

duties” in the division (1989: 204).

Regarding the common use of disagreeing, Wierzbicka, 1987: 127-128 puts it into

the argue groups, which is one of her thirty seven groups of English speech act

verbs in her system Nguyen Quang (2007) also puts disagreeing and other relevant

speech acts in the major group of presenting and arguing in his recent book, namely

“Ways of expression in English”, and makes a list of various expressions for

disagreeing and saying that something is incorrect (pp 569-577) What is more, infunction-based textbooks for communication activities in the classroom such as

“Functions of American English” (Jones & Baeyer, 1983), “Say it naturally” (Wall,

1989), and “Function in English” (Blundell et al., 1982), disagreeing has always

been presented as a crucial English function and discussed with appropriate verbalstrategies for expressing disagreement appropriately in particular situations

As regards a particular classification of disagreeing as a speech act, in relation to

Austin’s system, disagreeing belongs to the group of expositives which also comprise other acts, such as: accepting or agreeing Following Searle’s classification (1976), disagreeing belongs to the group of representatives which are

“kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not”

(Yule 1997: 53) In Bach and Harnish’s classification, disagreeing is put into the

dissentives, a subgroup belonging to the constatives in their system Following

Yule’s (1997) classification, like all the other speech acts, disagreeing can be either

a direct or an indirect speech act That means the act of disagreement(communicatively functioning as a statement) can be practically performed in

declarative (direct), interrogative (indirect), or imperative (indirect) structures For

example, when a speaker disagrees with somebody, he may say it directly (e.g., I

disagree with what you are saying.) or indirectly (e.g., Are you kidding me?).

In the reality of social interactions, disagreeing has proven to be a speech act which

is most likely to threaten the addressee’s face, or in other words, it is a potentialface-threatening act (henceforth FTA)

An FTA is a speech act that jeopardizes the solidarity between speakers andaddressees (B&L, 1987: 66) The concept of face includes both the need for

solidarity or approval – positive face – and the need for autonomy or independence – negative face (B&L, 1987) With regard to disagreeing, it is really a potential

FTA It is because disagreeing itself reveals the contradiction between the speakers,

as Rees-Miller (2000) explains,

A Speaker S disagrees when s/he considers untrue some Proposition P uttered or

presumed to be espoused by an Addressee A and reacts with an utterance the

propositional content or implicature of which is Not P (2000: 1008).

In other words, disagreeing is a speech act which involves conflict between thespeaker and the addressee The conflict may lie in the interests of the two speakers(Watts, 2003: 214) or in trying to keep a balance between arguing one’s point and

protecting one’s own and/or the addressee’s face, as “[s]peakers will not only be in

conflict with their conversational partners on a content level, but also with regard

to protecting the addressees’ and/or their own face” (Locher, 2004: 94).

From the perspective of conversational analysis, disagreeing is a dispreferred

structure Levinson (1983: 336), supported by Yule (1997: 79), argues that while

agreement is a preferred structure, disagreement is the respective dispreferred

structure of an assessment or a proposal Levinson (ibid.) also explains that in

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essence, while preferred structures are “unmarked” because they occur as structurally simpler turns, dispreferred structures are “marked” by various kinds of

structural complexity

Along with this line of reasoning, Holtgraves (1997) points out some of thecharacteristics of disagreeing as a dispreferred structure:

A disagreement is a dispreferred move, and when dispreferred moves occur, they

are marked (in the linguistic sense) in some way For example, agreements occur

quickly, but disagreements are often delayed within a turn Agreements are explicit,

syntactically simple, and occur an entire turn; disagreements are more syntactically

complex, and often implicit In addition, disagreements are often prefaced in some

way, such as with hesitating prefaces (e.g., ‘Well …’) (1997: 225).

Because disagreeing is a dispreferred structure and a potential FTA, to disagree withanother person verbally is possibly to threaten that person’s face As a result, avariety of verbal strategies may be employed to soften disagreement Basically, onecan use the super-strategies (e.g positive politeness strategies or negative politeness

strategies) outlined by B&L (1987) For example, the speaker may use partial

agreement and first person plural to redress to the threat to the addressee’s positive

face (ibid.: 68-75), or use interrogatives, hedges, and impersonal forms to soften the

threat to the addressee’s negative face (ibid.: 131)

Of course, it can be argued that disagreement does not always have to be an FTA.For example, Hayashi (1996 in Locher, 2004: 97) claims that sometimes, the

absence of disagreement can be interpreted as “the failure to defend one’s position”.

Another argument is that when the purpose of disagreement is hearer-benefited,disagreeing can be a preferred one For example, when a student tells his friend,

“Oh, I’m too bad at math.” and the friend answers, “No, you aren’t You are better than me.”, the disagreeing is certainly not an FTA It is even a face-saving act

because it is good for the student to hear that

However, disagreeing is basically realized in empirical studies by most if not allresearchers as an FTA, which is also the focus of the present study What should be

taken into concern when studying disagreeing as an FTA is that it is crucial torealize when it is an FTA and when it is not, and the extent to which it is not Thesedepend on a number of factors B&L (1987), for example, emphasize the obvious

influence of the social distance, the relative power, and the ranking of imposition

(henceforth R) on the degree to which a given act rates as face-threatening Other

authors argue for the crucial importance of other factors, such as: the situational

factors which determine not only the expected and socially acceptable content of an

interaction but also the interlocutors’ expectations of their rights and obligations

(Fraser, 1990; Holmes & Stubbe, 2003), or for the purpose for which the

disagreement occurs (Locher, 2004) From the dissertation author’s point of view,

among potential factors, the speech situation, the participant, and the topic are of

great importance for the interpretation of the speech act

By speech situation, we refer to the speaking context at several levels The mostlocal context of any utterance is the immediate discourse context The preciseposition of an utterance in relation to the utterances preceding and following it iscrucial in interpreting its meaning A second level of contextual analysis lies in aneven wider social context That is the society or the culture in which an interactiontakes place because each culture is marked with its own system of cultural values,attitudes, social norms, rules of speaking, or communication styles which affect theproduction and interpretation of discourse For example, as believed by Hofstede(2001: 99-100), while children or students in lower-power-distance cultures,including English-speaking countries like the UK, the USA, or Australia cancontradict their parents or teachers quite directly, it is not commonly the case in ahigh-power-distance culture, such as China, Japan, Korea, or Thailand because inthese communities, children or students are expected to obey and respect theirparents or teachers Another level of context can be the physical setting whichincludes location, time of day, season of year, and other physical aspects like size ofroom or arrangement of furniture For instance, when two speakers sit close to eachother in a small room at home or in an office, the way they disagree with each other

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must be different from the way they do so when they stand far away from eachother in a big hall or sit on a bus which is very noisy and full of people.

In terms of the participant, the author’s argument is that many parameters of thespeakers can affect the ways they disagree with each other, although the degree ofeffect is culture-specific and context-specific Among others, some major

parameters are age, gender, social distance, relative power, and purpose of speaking Obviously, there are a lot of differences in the ways of disagreeing between the

younger and the older versus the ways between those of the same age; the waysbetween the male and the female versus the ways between those of the same sex; theways between the powerless and the powerful versus the ways between those whoare equal; and the ways between two strangers versus the ways between two friends.These differences can also be seen when people disagree with each other fordifferent purposes For instance, when you are to argue your point, you disagreedifferently from the way you do it when you want to protect the addressee’s face

As far as topic is concerned, it depends on whether the topic of argument is safe orunsafe It seems to be more comfortable for people to express their disagreementmore explicitly or directly when they argue on safe topics such as those related toacademic activities or business negotiations They tend to make their disagreementmore implicit and indirect or even to avoid disagreeing when they talk about unsafetopics like religious, political, or personal issues

In summary, disagreeing is a potential FTA in verbal communication Thus, it iscrucial to use appropriate linguistic strategies to soften the potential threat of one’sdisagreement with another to the smallest possible extent However, whether adisagreement is an FTA, how much face-threatening it can be, how it can besoftened, or how it can be interpreted depends on a number of dimensions, including

the speech situation, the participant, and the topic of argument As a

result, when a disagreement is conducted, interpreted, or studied, it should be donerelative to these dimensions.

Politeness is so popular a notion in studying pragmatics and CCP that Thomas

(1995: 149) argues that “it could almost be seen as a -discipline of pragmatics” Grumper, in his introduction to “Politeness- some universals in language usage” by

B&L’s (1987), explains that a major reason for this interest is that politeness, auniversal concept, is basic to the production of social order and the precondition ofhuman cooperation

1.3.1 Definitions of politeness

The notion of politeness has been clarified by a great number of researchers acrosscultures For example, from the strategic perspective and related to the notion of

face, politeness can be defined as “the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face

during conversation” (Richard, 1985: 218), “the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face” (Yule, 1997: 60), the complex system of

strategies used to “minimize the face threat of the FTA” (B&L, 1987: 60), or

“behavior which actively expresses positive concern for others, as well as imposing distancing behavior” (Holmes, 1995: 5) From the normative perspective,

non-it is defined as “one of the constraints on human’s interaction, whose purpose is to

consider others’ feelings, establish of levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport” (Hill et al., 1986: 349) or as “the set of social values which instructs interactants to consider each other by satisfying shared expectations” (Sifianou,

1992, in Watts, 2003: 53) From the communication perspective, Nguyen Quang(2004: 11) defines politeness as “ any kind of communicative act (verbal or nonverbal or both) that is intentionally and appropriately meant to make another person/ other people feel better or less bad” In the dissertation author’s view, this

definition is quite general, appearing an integrative view of both the strategic and

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normative approach since it captures both the individual intention (i.e., strategic)and socially institutionalized appropriateness (i.e., normative).

However, in the present study, the author’s focus is on linguistic politeness which is

meant to refer to the ways people (represented by the VNS, VLE, and ANS) express(im)politeness verbally via their use of language, or to be more specific, their use ofVietnamese and English, in the given situations However, different politenessapproaches in literature are first revisited to build up the theoretical background forthe author’s chosen approach and the way it is applied to the present study

1.3.2 Politeness approaches in literature

There exist different politeness views and approaches that have been put intoseveral broader categories by different researchers

For example, Fraser (1990: 220) divided them into four categories: the social-norm

view, the maxim view, the face-saving view, and the contract view Kasper (1990: 194-196) reviewed two major conceptualizations of

conversational-politeness: the strategic politeness and politeness as social indexing Watts (2003: divided them into two major groups: the prepragmatic approaches and

postpragmatic approaches Politeness approaches were also put into the volitional/strategic approach, normative/social-norm approach, and normative- volitional/integrated approach (Kieu Thi Thu Huong, 2006, Duong Bach Nhat,

2008)

In this research work, regarding Australia as an Anglophone culture and Vietnam as

a non-Anglophone culture, the author focuses on discussing the strategic approach and the normative approach, with reference to relevant studies and views by

Vietnamese researchers Then, he argues for an appropriate politeness approach forhis study

1.3.2.1 The strategic view

This politeness view, also referred to as the instrumental (Kasper, 1992) or

volitional approach (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989), is argued to work well in

Anglophone cultures and be preferred by Western scholars This view has lead todifferent approaches that are categorized by Watts (2003) as prepragmaticapproaches They comprise the models by Lakkoff (1973), Leech (1983), and B&L

(1987), which rely on, or are more or less related to, Grice’s (1975) cooperative

principle They are discussed in two subcategories: the maxim-based approach and

the face-centered approach.

clear), under each of which falls sub maxims Grice (1975: 47) also points out thatother maxims, such as politeness maxim can be added to the cooperative principle,which is taken into serious consideration by Lakoff in her politeness rules

The influence of Grice’s cooperative principle to the realm of pragmatics is sostrong that it remains a crucial part in the well-known models of politeness byLakoff (1973) and Leech (1983), and appears to be a closely related factor referred

to to explain part of the realizations of hedges and all the off-record strategies in

B&L’s (1987) model

Based on Grice’s cooperative principle, Lakoff (1973, in Watt, 2003: 60), for

example, suggests two sets of politeness rules, named (1) Be clear and (2) Be polite.

The first set is exactly the same as the Gricean cooperative principle and consists of

four similar rules under the same names: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner.

The second set is, however, Lakoff’s contribution to politeness approach and

consists of three rules: (1) Don’t impose, (2) Give options, and (3) Make A feel good

26

– be friendly These rules are schematically presented by Watts (2003: 60) in figure

1.2

There, however, exists a great weakness, or to be more exact, a contradiction inLakoff’s model She states that the rules of clarity are a subset of the rules ofpoliteness However, if a speaker chooses to be polite by not imposing, or givingoptions, or making A feel good, it is certain that at some stage or another in theinteraction s/he will violate the rules of conversation

be true

Figure 1.2: Lakoff’s rules of pragmatic competence

Lakoff (1973, in Green 1989: 142-143) gives a clear explanation of her three

politeness rules Specifically, Rule 1 (Don’t impose) is applied to situations in which

the participants are not equal in power and status Thus, S will avoid, mitigate, askpermission for, or apologize for making A do anything which A does not want to do

Rule 2 (Offer options) is applied to situations where the participants are

27

of some view or course of action Rule 3 (Make A feel good) is applied to intimates

or close friends, with the assumption that with a close friend, one should be able to

discuss anything, although there may be some propositions that “even your best

friend won’t tell you”.

Thus, the first two rules, based on the basis of avoiding imposition, evoke theimpression of negative politeness, while the third, with a focus on strengtheningsolidarity, evoke the impression of positive politeness in B&L’s politeness theory.However, it is perhaps because of the weakness and insufficiency of the model that

it has rarely, if not never, been applied as a theoretical framework to data analyses

in other empirical studies

Also based on Grice’s cooperative principle, Leech (1983) suggests an approach to

study general pragmatics called rhetorical, by which he means “the effective use of

language in its most general sense, applying it primarily to everyday conversation”

(p 15) This approach is recognized with two systems: the Textual Rhetoric and

Interpersonal Rhetoric, the latter of which comprises Grice’s Cooperative Principle

and the Politeness Principle, among others.

He (ibid.: 131-150) introduces a number of maxims which, he claims, stand in thesame relationship to the Politeness Principle as Grice’s maxims stand to theCooperative Principle The Politeness Principle runs under the principle ofminimizing the expression of impolite beliefs and maximizing the expression of

polite beliefs with its six maxims They are (1) Tact Maxim (i.e., Minimize cost to

other; maximize benefit to other), (2) Generosity Maxim (i.e., Minimize benefit to self ; maximize cost to self), (3) Approbation Maxim (i.e., Minimize dispraise of other; maximize praise of other), (4) Modesty Maxim (i.e., Minimize praise of self ;

maximize dispraise of self), (5) Agreement Maxim (i.e., Minimize disagreement between self and other; maximize agreement between self and other), and (6)

Sympathy Maxim (i.e., Minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize

sympathy between self and other) (p 132) In this model, self will normally be

identified with the speaker, and other will be typically identified with the hearer.

As stated by Leech, the major purpose of the Politeness Principle is to establish andmaintain feelings of comity within the social group because it helps to regulate the

“social equilibrium and the friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place” (p 82).

Thanks to its sufficient detail with extensive examples of the kinds of linguisticstructures that can be put to realize politeness strategies, Leech’s modal proves toserve as a theoretical framework for data analyses in other researcher’s studies.However, the most severe weakness of Leech’s modal lies in the fact that such

concepts as cost, benefit, maximize, minimize, and so on in his maxims all seem to

be vague and general Also, the model does not take socio-cultural factors, such as

the relative power, social distance, or setting formality into consideration.

Consequently, although it can be practically applicable to some empirical studies,especially of English-speaking societies, to a certain extent, it can hardly be auniversal model, which is actually not what he states to aim at (Watt, 2003)

1.3.2.1.2 The face-centered approach: B&L’s politeness model

The most influential theory of politeness was undoubtedly put forward by B&L(1978 and revised in 1987) and central to the theory of politeness is the concept of

face, which is defined as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” and “can be lost, maintained, enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction” (1987: 61) They assume that there are two face wants:

the first is negative face which is the desire to have freedom or not to be impeded by others and the other is the ‘positive face’ which is the desire to be approved of or

even liked by others (p 13)

B&L’s view on politeness relies on face and the speaker’s rationality in their choice

of suitable strategies to soften the face threat It is because they (1987: 60) supposethat certain speech acts, referred to as FTAs, intrinsically threaten face, and thusneed to be softened by rational strategies To avoid or soften FTAs, they (ibid.: 69-

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70) introduce a complex system of rational strategies which are illustrated with figure 1.3.

As seen from figure 1.3, S can choose either to do the FTA or to avoid it (i.e., Don’t

do the FTA) If S decides to do the FTA, he can choose to go off record or on record If S goes off record, he makes his intentions indirect and ambiguous If S

goes on record, he expresses his intentions clearly and unambiguously In the latter

case, S may express his intentions more directly, without redressive action (i.e.,

bald on record) or less directly, with redressive action The redressive action can be

either positive politeness redressing to H’s positive face or negative politeness

redressing to H’s negative face

Figure 1.3: B&L’s framework of politeness strategies

B&L (1987) make their politeness model a production one which can be widelyapplied to data analyses in other researchers’ empirical studies by providing it withsufficient details and specific examples in sub strategies, including fifteen positivepoliteness strategies, ten negative politeness strategies, and fifteen off recordstrategies, which are discussed with further details and examples in chapter two andchapter four