Apology strategies in english by young vietnamese EFL learners and young americans

Apology strategies in English by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans Apology strategies in English by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans Apology strategies in English by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN VÂN ANH

APOLOGY STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH BY YOUNG VIETNAMESE EFL LEARNERS AND

YOUNG AMERICANS

(Chiến lược xin lỗi bằng tiếng Anh của người Việt học

tiếng Anh và người Mỹ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.02

HANOI – 2021

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN VÂN ANH

APOLOGY STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH BY YOUNG VIETNAMESE EFL LEARNERS AND

YOUNG AMERICANS

(Chiến lược xin lỗi bằng tiếng Anh của người Việt học

tiếng Anh và người Mỹ)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.02

Supervisor: Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa

HANOI – 2021

DECLARATION

I certify that the work in this dissertation has been carried out by me

to the best of my knowledge No part of this thesis was previously presented for another degree or diploma at this or any other institution

Hanoi, November 2020

Signature

Nguyễn Vân Anh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to

my supervisor – Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa I am grateful to have been accepted as your student in this MA coursework program If it had not been for your precious guidance and continuous motivation, I might not accomplish this thesis

I wholeheartedly appreciate and wish to thank all the American and Vietnamese respondents for their willingness to complete the data in the questionnaire, as long as attending the interview for the present study

I from the bottom of my heart also would like to express my thanks

to my family and friends for their devoted encouragement without which I would not be able to complete this study

Hanoi, November 2020

Nguyễn Vân Anh

of three Vietnamese EFL learners and three Americans was conducted to dig in interviewees‟ comments about the questionnaire All interviewed Americans agree that to be more genuine, when giving apology, the non-native speakers should explain for their offence The accomplishment of the thesis is hoped to serve as a useful source of reference for researchers in related fields, Vietnamese teachers and learners of English It is cemented by the important findings that incorporating culture into the teaching of English

is inevitable The Vietnamese EFL learners, as a result, should be provided with both linguistic and cultural input

LIST OF ABRREVIATIONS

Des.Apo Recognizing hearer as deserving apology

Lac.Int Expressing lack of intent

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABRREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and Objectives 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significant of the study 3

1.6 Organisation of the thesis 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Speech acts 6

2.1.1 Definition of speech acts 7

2.1.2 Classification of speech acts 7

2.2 Speech act of apology 9

2.2.1 Definition of apology 9

2.2.2 Apology strategies 10

2.2.3 Politeness 13

2.3 Previous studies about of speech act of apology 15

2.4 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Methods of the study 18

3.2 Theoretical framework 18

3.3 Participants 19

3.4 Instruments 20

3.4.1 Discourse completion task (DCT) 20

3.4.2 Interview 24

3.5 Data collection procedure 25

3.6 Summary 26

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27

4.1 Main strategies and sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans 27

4.1.1 Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners 27

4.1.2 Main strategies by young Americans 28

4.1.3 Sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans 29

4.2 Sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans in each situation 31

4.2.1 Sub-strategies in situation 1 (Meeting) 31

4.2.2 Sub-strategies in situation 2 (Salary) 32

4.2.3 Sub-strategies in situation 3 (Zoo) 32

4.2.4 Sub-strategies in situation 4 (Flashcards) 33

4.2.5 Sub-strategies in situation 5 (Plagiarism) 34

4.2.6 Sub-strategies in situation 6 (Book) 35

4.2.7 Sub-strategies in situation 7 (Restaurant) 36

4.2.8 Sub-strategies in situation 8 (Curfew) 37

4.2.9 Sub-strategies in situation 9 (Stepping foot) 38

4.2.10 Sub-strategies in situation 10 (Camera) 38

4.2.11 Sub-strategies in situation 11 (Birthday) 39

4.2.12 Sub-strategies in situation 12 (Vase) 40

4.2.13 Sub-strategies in situation 13 (Wrong size) 41

4.2.14 Sub-strategies in situation 14 (Shopping) 42

4.2.15 Sub-strategies in situation 15 (Lipstick) 43

4.3 Main apology strategies and sub-strategies distribution across situations 43

4.4 Answers of the interview across four questions 50

4.5 Summary 51

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 53

5.1 Recapitulation 53

5.2 Concluding remarks 54

5.3 Implications of the study 54

5.4 Limitations of the study 55

5.5 Recommendations for Further Studies 56

REFERENCES 57 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND TRANSCRIPTS IV APPENDIX 3: RAW DATA XIII

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Apology strategies categorized by Fraser (1981) 11

Table 2.2: Apology strategies categorized by Olshtain and Cohen (1983) 11

Table 2.3: Apology strategies categorized by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) 12

Table 2.4: Apology strategies categorized by Holmes (1990) 12

Table 2.5: Apology strategies categorized by Trosborg (1995) 13

Table 3.1: Main strategies and sub-strategies 18

Table 3.2: Power and Distance in some situations 24

Table 4.1: Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners 27

Table 4.2: Main strategies by young Americans 28

Table 4.3: Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans 28

Table 4.4: Sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans 30

Table 4.5: Sub-strategies in situation 1 (Meeting) 31

Table 4.6: Sub-strategies in situation 2 (Salary) 32

Table 4.7: Sub-strategies in situation 3 (Zoo) 32

Table 4.8: Sub-strategies in situation 4 (Flashcards) 33

Table 4.9: Sub-strategies in situation 5 (Plagiarism) 34

Table 4.10: Sub-strategies in situation 6 (Book) 35

Table 4.11: Sub-strategies in situation 7 (Restaurant) 36

Table 4.12: Sub-strategies in situation 8 (Curfew) 37

Table 4.13: Sub-strategies in situation 9 (Stepping foot) 38

Table 4.14: Sub-strategies in situation 10 (Camera) 38

Table 4.15: Sub-strategies in situation 11 (Birthday) 39

Table 4.16: Sub-strategies in situation 12 (Vase) 40

Table 4.17: Sub-strategies in situation 13 (Wrong size) 41

Table 4.18: Sub-strategies in situation 14 (Shopping) 42

Table 4.19: Sub-strategies in situation 15 (Lipstick) 43

Table 4.21: Strategy A: Explicit expression of apology across situations 44

Table 4.22: Strategy B: Explanation or account across situations 46

Table 4.23: Strategy C: Acknowledgement of responsibility across situations 47

Table 4.24: Strategy D: Promise of forbearance across situations 48

Table 4.25: Strategy E: Concern for the hearer across situations 49 Table 4.20: Sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans in 15 situations XIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

English is no doubt the international language which is used in almost every country in the world Since it has become undeniable important, English learners have studied many aspects of that language to apply to a lot

of fields of life including communication The globalization and development

of global economy has promoted the valuable opportunities for citizens around the world to interculturally communicate Although many Vietnamese learners are assumed to be excellent at English grammar system, not many of them are confident that they can communicate correctly and competently when using English as a second language The reason can be

“Communication across cultures is, by definition, problematic, for cultures are systems of symbolic meanings shared by one group yet foreign to another” (Geertz, 1973; Trice & Beyer, 1993)

Several years ago, the traditional methods were popular in teaching English, which allow Vietnamese learners to learn and use grammar solely when speaking or producing an utterance The result was that even they could make grammar-acceptable sentences, their speech seemed to be quite robotic Fortunately, recognizing the demand for communicative competence, there has been a shift in the teaching and learning methods over the past decade Many more subjects have been added to the universities‟ curricula with the aim of assisting the learners to better understand about the culture within the language, as Hall (1959) said “Communication is culture Culture is communication” However, there has still been a gap between theory and practice, since Vietnamese learners still lack real experiences, which leads to the confusion when interacting with the native speakers Although having

learned the culture, having known the culture, they still find it difficult to apply it in real life because they have the tendency to use the speaking rules from their native speech community when communicating with members in other speech community They seem to speak English in Vietnamese culture and also express their thoughts basing on their own culture when interacting with foreigners It has still been challenging to them to determine what to say, where to say, and how to say most effectively in specific situations although they may know the theories or the rules in phonology, syntax, and semantics

of English

Realizing that the differences in sociolinguistic rules in society have interfered ESL learners, and have even caused the communication breakdown, there used to be some researchers who have expressed their concern about this field in different speech acts such as thanking, refusing, greeting, complimenting, or those alike In Vietnam, some research workers also did some investigations about speech acts by using traditional contrastive method in Vietnamese and English in greeting (Nguyen Phuong Suu, 1990), requesting (Do Thi Mai Khanh, 2000; Phan Thi Van Quyen, 2001), or disagreeing (Kieu Thi Thu Huong, 2006) Apologizing, nevertheless, has been under-researched even though it is one of the most-interested topics all over the world Previously, some research about apology conducted by Cohen, Olshtain and Rosenstein (1985), García (1989), Trosborg (1987, 1995), Bergman and Kasper (1993), Maeshiba, Yoshinaga, Kasper, & Ross (1996) or Rose (2000) showed that when doing the apology, the research subjects have been influenced by their mother tongue Also, they use apology strategies differently in comparison to the native speakers It is obvious that there would

be variation in how the apologizing is carried out among different human societies because it is a social act For those reasons, apologizing need to be

more deeply-researched

1.2 Aims and Objectives

The overall aim is to identify the differences and similarities in apology strategies between young Vietnamese EFL learners and young Americans in order to enhance pragmatic learning and teaching in the English language classroom To obtain the final aim, two objectives were set The first objective in the present study examines how young Americans apologize in certain situations Similarly, apology strategies by Vietnamese EFL learners are also carefully investigated The other objective attempts to determine how apology strategies by these two groups differ

1.3 Research questions

The study attempts to answer the following questions:

1 In certain contexts, what are the apology strategies used by young

Vietnamese EFL learners and young Americans?

2 What are the differences and similarities between young Vietnamese EFL learners and young Americans in the way they use apology strategies?

1.4 Scope of the study

In this study, pragmatics and the speech act of theory are the two main applied theoretical frameworks Due to the time limit, every matter

of the interlanguage can impossible to be discussed, which means the study will only focus on the language use in apology strategies of young Vietnamese EFL learners and young Americans in 15 situations Moreover, the DCT will mainly concentrate on verbal communication in the use of the speech act of apology by the speakers/wrongdoers Therefore, it is beyond the scope of this study that whether or not the hearers accept the apology

1.5 Significant of the study

Some previous research about speech acts of thanking, promising, arguing, or convincing have been undertaken, which presented the results that

there are differences in strategies between native and non-native speakers In addition, speech acts conducted in different cultures also have shown dissimilar results Apology is considered a sensitive part but very popular in daily life; however, it has been under researched in Vietnam Therefore, an investigation into apology strategies in English with two groups of participants – young Vietnamese EFL learners and young Americans will bridge the gap in the literature because other speech acts have been investigated fully except this With the hope of contributing to studies in speech acts, the finding in this research will be a reference material for not only teachers but also learners or textbook writers

In addition, with the finding in this study, English language learners may be able to improve their communicative competence and avoid the communication breakdown more effectively

1.6 Organisation of the thesis

The study is divided into four chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 is the introduction of the research including six sub-parts:

Rationale, Aims and Objectives, Research questions, Scope of the study, Significant of the study, and Design of the study

In Chapter 2, the review of literature is clearly demonstrated In

details, relevant theories of the study about speech act theory, and some recent research on apology strategies are reviewed

Chapter 3 presents the method and procedures of the study In this

chapter, the stages of the research progress including selection of methods, theoretical framework, subjects, data collection instruments, and data collection procedure are described After that, the data analysis and

discusses are presented in Chapter 4

In Chapter 4, the results are objectively and clearly discussed,

compared, and interpreted before leading to the conclusions

Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the research including 5 sub-parts:

Recapitulation, Concluding remarks, Implications of the study, Limitations, and Recommendations for Further Studies A summary of the development of the study and a brief re-statement of the findings are demonstrated in the Recapitulation and Concluding remarks Then, two

pedagogical implications are discussed In the Limitation sub-part, some so-called shortcomings and their suggested practical solutions are be mentioned A statement of unanswered questions that requires further research beyond the limits of the study is shown in Recommendations for Further Studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the theoretical background of the research will be presented into three main parts The first section will discuss the theory of speech act and its categories Some notions about speech acts of apology and the way they are classified by different researchers will be discussed in section 2, together with the relation between the act of apology and the concept of politeness The final part in this chapter will be about some previous studies about of speech act of apology

2.1 Speech acts

In his first theory, Leech (1983) categorized pragmatics into two types The first type is pragmalinguistic, which is major in studying pragmatic strategies, routines, and a variety of linguistic forms to convey communicative actions The second one has a tendency to be about social perceptions underlying participants‟ interpretation and performance of communicative action, whose name is sociopragmatics In other aspect, Cohen (1996) put pragmatics into two distinct levels of abilities required for pragmatic competence – sociocultural ability and sociolinguistic ability The former ability enables language users to choose speech act appropriate for the given contexts; and with the later one, they can choose the actual language forms for realizing the speech act

Speech acts are one of the most vital branches in pragmatics, which seem to have aroused a wide interest, and to have been deeply dug and studied for a quite long time Speech acts have often been a powerful tool in various fields such as psychology, literature, anthropology, or philosophy In linguistics, speech acts are applicable in problems in syntax, semantics, second language learning, and so on

2.1.1 Definition of speech acts

Because speech acts are a branch in pragmatics, there are also as numerous definitions as pragmatics, based on different researchers‟ approaches Austin (1962), considered speech acts are acts performed by utterances like giving orders or making promises These speech acts, considered the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication, are performed in authentic situations of language use Nunan (1999), when talking about speech acts, suggested that when people communicate with others by issuing utterances, they not only make prepositional statements about objects, contents, and situations, but also fulfill social functions, such as greeting, inviting, refusing, apologizing, complaining, through the use of a string of fabricated words, namely speech acts

2.1.2 Classification of speech acts

Owing to different approaches, each researcher had their own ways of categorized types of speech acts Austin (1962), in his early work, claimed that a speech act consists of three related acts, namely (a) locutionary act, (b) illocutionary act, and (c) perlocutionary act The first act – (a) locutionary act,

is the basic act of utterance of producing a meaningful expression; or in simpler explanations, it is the act of saying, or the speaker‟s utterance, or the literal meaning of the utterance For example, the context is a date between speaker A and hearer B Speaker A came late and said: “The traffic was terrible.” By arranging the structure of the words, speaker A created a meaningful utterance with an affirmative form of the sentence By making a locutionary act, the speaker does have some purposes that are expressed in (b) illocutionary act Illocutionary act is an utterance with some kinds of function

in mind, like a statement, an explanation, an offer, or other communicative purposes (promising, apologizing, threatening, predicting, ordering,

requesting, and so on) If locutionary act is the act of saying, then illocutionary act is the inside act of utterance In the example above, the underlying meaning of his utterance might be an apology or an explanation,

or both However, the interpretation of the utterance by the hearer might not

be different from what the speaker wish, which leads to (c) perlocutionary act This kind of act, which is the last part of the speech act, according to Austin (1962), is the influence of the utterance on the hearer, depending on specific circumstances With the example above, the reaction of hearer B to speaker A‟s utterance might be forgiveness or accusation

Searle (1969), unlike Austin (1962), divided speech acts into five types: (1) Representatives, (2) Commisives, (3) Directives, (4) Declaratives and (5) Expressives, which tend to be the purposes of the utterance When speaker uses (1) representatives, they have the tendency to state what they believe to

be the case or not such as asserting or describing For instance, when saying

“She made a cake yesterday”, the speaker wants to inform the hearer of the information In type (2) commisives, the speaker commits himself/herself to some future actions For example, with the utterance “I will pick you up tomorrow”, the speaker is promising The next type is (3) directives, which is used when the speaker tries to make some effort to have the hearer do something “How about going out tonight?”, for example, means the speaker

is using a suggestion With type (4) declaratives, I personally tend to feel that

it is normally used when the speaker has more power than the hearer, or when the speaker wants to declare something for themselves For example, the officiant in the wedding tells the groom and bride: “I now pronounce you husband and wife” The last type according to Searle (1969) is expressives It

is used when the speaker expresses his attitudes and feelings about something, like in the utterance “How beautiful the weather is!”, he is praising the mildness of the weather

Cohen (1996), relatively similar to Searle (1969), categorized 14 speech acts and grouped into five major categories: (1) Representatives (including assertions, claims, and reports); (2) Directives (including suggestions, requests, and commands; (3) Expressives (With the acts of apology, complaint, and thanks; (4) Commisives (Including promises, threats

or offers) The last major category is (5) Declaratives which involve decrees and declarations While the names of these groups may vary in other classifications given by different scholars, the names of the speech acts from Cohen‟s taxonomy seem to have been more widely accepted

Allan (1998) had two ways of classifying speech acts that are probably likely to be the combination of Searle‟s (1969) and Leech‟s (1983) theories The first way was called “a lexical classification” which distinguishes among speech acts according to the illocutionary verbs the speakers expresses The second way is based on the act the speaker expresses, such as requesting, apologizing, promising, and so on However, this kind of classification, personally, is a bit too wide and unfocused

2.2 Speech act of apology

According to Cohen‟s (1993) taxonomy, along with speech act of complaint and thanks, speech act of apology is grouped in expressives, which

is used when the speaker desires to show his attitudes and feelings about something In almost all contexts where L2 is used, there may be a link between culture and pragmatic competence in a second/foreign language In this case, the need of giving the apology from the speakers may vary from cultures to cultures Nevertheless, the deep finding about how different cultures affect speakers in perceiving the need of apologizing will not be discussed in this study

2.2.1 Definition of apology

The term “apology” may vary due to the differences in various scholars‟ approaches and cultures It is also defined according to the functions

it may serve For instance, it is said to be a „„speech act set of maximal potential semantic formulas, any one of which can act as a minimal element to represent apology‟‟ by Olshtain and Cohen (1983) They thought that an apology is called for when social norms have been violated, whether the offence is real or potential Likewise, in Goffman‟s (1971) theory, an apology

is taken to maintain or restore social harmony because it is used to remedy a real or virtual offence In an alternative approach, Brown and Levinson (1987) considered it is a negative politeness strategy from the speaker to save hearer‟s face needs According to Kasper and Bergman (1993), apologies are

a compensatory action to an offence in the doing of which the Speaker was causally involved and which is costly to the Hearer In Leech‟s (1983) “tact maxim”, apology is a convivial speech act whose goal coincides with the social goal of maintaining harmony between Speaker and Hearer

2.2.2 Apology strategies

By and large, no matter how many apology strategies each scholar divides into, there seems to be some strategies in common as follows: expression of apology, explanation, promise of non-recurrence, and offer of compensation

Fraser (1981) categorized apology eight strategies, namely: (1) requesting the acceptance of the given apology; (2) announcing that apology

is forthcoming; (3) stating the offender‟s obligation to apology; (4) expressing regret for the offence through; (5) acknowledging responsibility for the act; (6) requesting forgiveness for the offence; (7) promising forbearance; and (8) offering redress to show that the offender really regrets the offence with offers These strategies are shown through the use of intensifiers (like in (4) ); words (like “I must apologize” in (3) ), clauses (for example in (2) ); or from

a similar offending act (like in (7) )

Table 2.1: Apology strategies categorized by Fraser (1981)

1 requesting the acceptance of the given apology

2 announcing that apology is forthcoming

3 stating the offender‟s obligation to apology

4 expressing regret for the offence through

5 acknowledging responsibility for the act

6 requesting forgiveness for the offence

7 promising forbearance

8 offering redress to show that the offender really regrets the offence with

offers With Olshtain and Cohen‟s (1983) theory, apology strategies are classified into five main categories as follows: (1) explanation, (2) expression

of apology, (3) promise of non-recurrence, (4) acknowledgement of responsibility, and (5) offer of repair

Table 2.2: Apology strategies categorized by Olshtain and Cohen (1983)

Table 2.3: Apology strategies categorized by Blum-Kulka, House and

of apology, contains three smaller ways to apologize explicitly: (1) an offer of apology, (2) an expression of regret, and (3) a request for forgiveness The explanation or account is included in strategy B – the second category The next one, strategy C, acknowledgement of responsibility, shows the last five sub-classifications: (1) accepting the blame, (2) expressing self-deficiency, (3) recognizing hearer as deserving apology, (4) expressing lack of intent, and (5) offering repair/ redress Strategy D - promise of forbearance is the last way to apology owning to Holmes (1990)

Table 2.4: Apology strategies categorized by Holmes (1990)

Strategy C: acknowledgement of responsibility

accepting the blame expressing self-deficiency recognizing hearer as deserving apology

expressing lack of intent offering repair/ redress Strategy D: promise of forbearance

Trosborg (1995) divided this issue into eight categories, but with two separated circumstances – when the hearer does not feel the need of apologizing, and when they do In the first circumstance, there are two strategies, namely “opt-out” and “minimize” The six remaining strategies - acknowledge responsibility; explanation; IFIDs; offer of repair; promise for forbearance; and concern for the hearer, are the results when the hearer accepts that an apology is necessary

Table 2.5: Apology strategies categorized by Trosborg (1995)

When the hearer does not feel the need of apologizing opt-out

minimize

When the hearer accepts that an apology is necessary

acknowledge responsibility explanation

IFIDs offer of repair promise for forbearance concern for the hearer

To conclude this part, there is a variety of ways to classify the types of apology; and each type has different approaches Thus, when creating the taxonomy for a study, one should choose those categories that are suitable for

the objectives of the study

Watts (2003, p 39) categorized politeness as follows: (1) Politeness is the natural attribute of a 'good' character; (2) Politeness is the ability to please others through one's external actions; (3) Politeness is the ideal union between the character of an individual and his external actions

Many researchers such as Lakoff (1973); Brown and Levinson (1987); Yule (1996), Watts (2003) etc have conducted studies of politeness Among those, the root and most common approach is Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987) The core of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory

is the abstract notion of “face” Owning to Brown and Levinson (1987),

“face”; is defined as “the public self- image that every member (of a society) wants to claim for himself” There are two types of face The first one is called positive face It is “the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others” The other is negative face, which is “the want of every competent adult member that his actions be unimpeded by others”

2.2.3.2 Politeness in apologizing

The notion of face previously explained is particularly interesting for the speech act of apologies since they involve cost to the speaker and support for the hearer Olshtain (1989, cited in Deutschmann, 2003), in a more specific way, points out that: “An apology is basically a speech act which is intended to provide support for the H (hearer) who was actually or potentially mal-affected by a violation X.” In the decision to carry out the verbal apology, the S (speaker) is willing to humiliate himself or herself to some extent and to admit to fault and responsibility for X Hence, the act of apologizing is face viewing for the H and face-threatening for the S, in Brown and Levinson‟s (1978) terms Therefore, the speech act of apologising is face-saving for the hearer and face-threatening for the speaker

Holmes (1995) defines remedial apologies as negative politeness based

on the fact that their purpose is redressive action The author also proposes

that apologies are face-supporting acts for both the hearer and the speaker since they mutually benefit from such action Moreover, Holmes (1995) points out that despite the fact that apologies are utilised when the hearer‟s face is damaged, and thereby they are considered as negative politeness strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1987), some of the elements which are included within the realisation of the speech act of apologies might focus somehow on speaker‟s positive face needs

In short, apologies might be understood as pure tools which might serve to show respect to the hearers for having violated a particular social norm

2.3 Previous studies about of speech act of apology

A number of studies on EFL‟s learners‟ apology and/or apology strategies have been conducted during the past 30 years Basing on different theories, approaches, and proficiency levels, there have been numerous results

as followings

In 1987, Trosborg did a research on the speech act of apology by comparing the role-plays between Danish EFL‟s learners and native English speakers The results showed that the use of modality markers from Danish EFL‟s learners is dissimilar from native English ones

Holmes (1990) used the ethnographic method to describe the strategies used by New Zealand speakers of English After collecting 183 apologies, he realized that there was equality between the instances where a single strategy was used and the ones that included combinations of strategies

Cordella in 1991 measured different uses of frequency, distribution and function of apology strategies for the comparison of apology strategies in English for Chileans and Australians to come up with a consequence that the frequency of apology strategies had no significant differences; however, a feature (gender) in one social factor remarkably influenced the use of apology

in both groups

In a research to discover the difference between non-natives and natives in English apology situations, Linnell, Porter, Stone and Chen (1992) revealed that there were no differences between two research subjects in six out of eight apology situations

Deutschmann, in his study in 2003, examined the forms and functions

of apologies, together with their social and conversational variation He discovered that in the British National Corpus that consisted of diverse recordings of over 1700 speakers in different contexts and situations, from formal to informal, the frequency of strategies that imply speakers trying to minimize their responsibility was four times greater than those that imply assuming responsibility Also, the choice of strategies was influenced by the degree of formality of the setting in which the apology was performed

The conclusion in Dang Thanh Phuong‟s (2000) study is that the apologies in English and Vietnamese differ in terms of frankness and indirectness depending on the context of communication In addition, English subjects use more lexical markers in their apologies; meanwhile, in the Vietnamese subjects‟ apologies and responses, the politeness markers are more dominant Kieu Thi Hong Van‟s (2000) study emphasized in factors majorly affecting apology strategies of the Vietnamese and the English and came to the conclusion that Vietnamese ESL learners are mostly influenced

by the age, while the power distance and familiarity level are the two main factors affecting English speakers‟ choice of apology strategies

To sum up, the results of previous research have shown that despite the equal opportunities to access apology strategies as native speakers, nonnatives

or EFL learners still apologize differently from the natives‟ norms These differences can be explained for the following reasons: First of all, the perception of situations that need to be apologized is different based on the

diverse cultures As a result, the verbal production of apology will not be the same in different cultures Second, due to the limited proficiency and level of language use from research subjects, the quantity of strategies is not similar And finally, because of the nonequivalence when translating from L1 to L2, non-native speakers seem to misunderstand some concepts when apologizing Therefore, studies on speech act of apologies, particularly in Vietnam should

be dug more deeply This present study will discover the apology strategies used by two research subjects in as many new contexts as possible

2.4 Summary

All things considered, the chapter presents the relevant literature, which helps to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study It is firstly concerned with the introduction and classification of speech acts The next parts focus on presenting a review of speech act of apology and apology strategies categorized by some researchers and previous related studies

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Methods of the study

The major linguistic method of the study is qualitative method because it focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and conversational communication The study exploits the combination of description and comparison to reveal the ways that two groups of research subjects used their apology in certain context Firstly, the apology strategies are analyzed in details to reveal how Americans and Vietnamese EFL Learners apologize in the same context Secondly, all the strategies are then compared and contrasted in a comparative approach to justify their similarities and differences

3.2 Theoretical framework

In this study, the combination of Holmes‟s (1990) and Trosborg‟s (1995) theories was used to analyze the data, because it fits in well with the objectives of the present research Due to the overlapping of the two theories, four main categories of Holmes (1990) were remained, while one (Strategy E: concern for the hearer) was added The strategies and sub-strategies are demonstrated in the table below

Table 3.1: Main strategies and sub-strategies

Strategy A: explicit expression of

apology ( Str.A: Ex.Apo)

an offer of apology ( Apo) I apologise

responsibility (Str.C: Ack)

accepting the blame ( Bla) It‟s my fault

expressing self-deficiency I was confused

( Sel-Def)

recognizing hearer as

deserving apology ( Des.Apo)

You are right

expressing lack of intent (Lac.Int)

I don‟t mean to make you displeased

offering repair/ redress

It won‟t happen again

Strategy E: concern for the hearer

The total number of participants were 40, who all graduated from university with a bachelor degree Specifically, 20 Vietnamese ESL learners reached C1 level of English, as they are considered to have sufficient competence to communicate They can, not only express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for the right expression, but also produce clear, well-structured, detailed sentences in specific situations

The participants in both groups are all English teachers who are

working in different schools or English centers in every level from kindergarten to university They are currently living in various cities of Vietnam from the North to the South With this choice, the answers are more diverse and more complete, as they reflect different backgrounds or cultures

3.4 Instruments

Two types of instruments were used in the present study The first one

is the questionnaire based on the discourse completion task; and the other is the interview Discourse completion task (DCT) is the major type of instrument Besides, when the participants did the DCT, six of them were also asked to attend an additional interview

Discourse Completion Task (DCT) is a type of questionnaire whichprovides some particular situations and asks the participants to show their ways to apologize if they were in those situations DCT can examine a large number of samples in total selected population with the nearly precise results This kind of instrument is not only convenient and quick to use, also does not require costly transcription, but also easy to classify the data

After responding to the questionnaire, six participants (3 from Vietnam and 3 from America) were randomly asked to attend a semi-structured interview to collect the data for further research A semi-structured interview can elicit and increase the interviewees‟ stimulation, so that they may provide more information Qualitative method was then used to analyze the data by coding the participants‟ answers By using this type of instrument, the researcher was able to observe directly the participants‟ feelings, thoughts, beliefs, or intentions

3.4.1 Discourse completion task (DCT)

The design of the DCT in the present study was based on the theories and results of following research:

The study “Problems in the comparison of speech acts across cultures”

by Woflson, Marmor and Jones (1989, pp.175-195) examined the actual conditions which elicited apologies in everyday interactions in American English The investigation revealed that apologies were made as recognition

of a speaker‟s own failure to meet an implicit or explicit obligation to another These failures, intentional or not, ranged from the breaking of a piece of property to the breaking of a social contract The study shows that many of the important obligations presented in the CCSARP questionnaire did indeed operate in American society They are: (1) The obligation to keep a social or work-related commitment or agreement; (2) The obligation to respect the property of others; (3) The obligation not to cause damage or discomfort to others In addition, there were a number of others more subtle and difficult to describe including; (4) The obligation not to make others responsible for one‟s welfare; (5) The obligation not to appear to expect another person to be available at all time; (6) The obligation not only to remember people we‟ve met, but not to confuse strangers with acquaintances; (7) More subtle obligation develop between peers to protect one another from sanctions from those in authority over them Americans typically apologize for wrongdoing

of only themselves and a few others such as spouse, young children, and pets (Sugimoto, 1998)

Two other studies on apologies in Vietnamese languages done by Kieu Thi Hong Van (2000) and Dang Thanh Phuong (2000) also examined the actual conditions which elicited apologies in everyday interactions in Vietnamese culture In their studies, such situations which were rated as highly offending to mention are: (1) A students plagiarized from a published book and is found out by the professor; (2) A shop worker

hasn‟t finished repairing an antique watch for a familiar customer; (3) A department head borrowed a portable computer from a coworker and accidentally erased some important information; (4) A waiter in an expensive restaurant spilled food on a customer‟s clothes; (5) A taxi driver

in a parking lot backs up into another car; (6) A staff manager has kept an applicant waiting half an hour for a job interview; (7) A person has just taken another person‟s raincoat by mistake in the cloakroom; (8) A person has lots a rather expensive book lent from another one; (9) A person has come 15 minutes late for an important appointment

Overall, it can be found that offending situations calling for an apology in the previous studies in Vietnamese culture are quite similar to those in the US

Basing on previous studies of American and Vietnamese participants mentioned above, a 15-situation questionnaire was created to examine the apology strategies used by the two research subjects The data were analyzed, compared, and presented in the way the two groups of subjects (young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans) used the apology strategies It started with illustrating main strategies and sub-strategies by the two groups After that, sub-strategies in each situation were clearly shown Finally, the details of main apology strategies and sub-strategies distribution across situations were demonstrated During this procedure, the theoretical frameworks of Cohen and Olshtain (1989) and Trosborg (1995) as presented

in Chapter 2 were strictly followed.

Briefly described, the questionnaire consisted of two main parts In the first part, participants were asked to give their general background information such as gender, age, nationality, and the highest level of education This part was designed to categorized the respondents‟ gender,

as well as their nationalities which are either Vietnamese or American, with the age of 22 to 30, and the similar level of education In the second part, there are 15 situations potentially involving apology with descriptions Each situation required reflection on how participants thought they would respond

Because of the time limitation, an initial questionnaire to investigate how the two groups of informants felt about the seriousness of the offence was not conducted However, the reliability and validity of the DCT was not significantly affected because of the two following reasons Firs tly, after carefully and considerably examined the offending situations calling for an apology in the previous studies in Vietnamese culture and those in the US, the situations in the questionnaire were agreed by all participants that they needed apologizing Hence, if there were any situations in which

no apology was in need as some may hypnotize would be rejected Secondly, in the later interview, some questions relating to the interviewees‟ feelings about the seriousness of the offence in the questionnaire were raised Thus, how they perceived the significance of the offence was clearly demonstrated

Apology strategy selection according to contextual factors has been proved to vary across cultures (e.g., Bergman & Kasper, 1993; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984a; Olshtain, 1989; Trosborg, 1987, 1995) The three variables used in this study were based on Brown and Levinson‟s (1987: 76) theory Apart from severity of offence mentioned above, social status and social distance were also major factors influencing the apology strategy made by participants The illustration about these in some particular situations in the questionnaire was presented in the table below When the Speaker has a higher rank, title or social status than Hearer, the

symbol was (+) Similarly, the symbol was (=) or (-) when the Speaker and Hearer are equal in rank, title or social status; or Speaker has a lower/less rank, title or social status than Hearer In terms of the relative social distance, the symbol (+) was used when Speaker and Hearer do not know

or identity with each other They are strangers interacting due to social/ life circumstances In contrast, when Speaker and Hearer know or identity with each other, which means they are quite familiar with each other, the symbol (-) was used

Table 3.2: Power and Distance in some situations

Situation

Power Distance

2 The broken promise of raising salary + -

7 The wrong order in a 5-star restaurant - +

As can be seen in the table, situation 1, 2, 6, 7, 9 and 15 are some specific circumstances which reflect the differences in social status and social distance between the Speaker and the Hearer The remaining parts are overlapped, so that they are not illustrated in the table The overall and complete questionnaire is in Appendix 1

3.4.2 Interview

After having finished doing the DCT, six out of 40 informants were invited to attend an interview With the presence of three Vietnamese and three American participants, they were randomly chosen to be the representatives of both groups The semi-structured interview they carried out is a further part to discover other factors affecting the interviewees‟

answers such as the social distance, power, or seriousness of the offence The Americans and Vietnamese participants explained more clearly about their ways of choosing apology strategies, so that the differences in the results of the questionnaire were better explained The semi-structured form itself is more flexible, as the interview could be both well-organized and informative The questions and answers in the interview were transcribed in detail in Appendix 2

The interviewees‟ answers were printed out fully in order for them to have a better look of what they had said in the questionnaire The first three questions to reveal the reasons of choosing the apology strategies, alternative ways of selecting the strategies, or the feelings about the seriousness of the offence were asked to both Vietnamese and American participants The fourth one to find out how they felt when looking at the answers of their participants‟ counterparts in some situations was given to Americans interviewers only The purpose of this is to discover whether or not the native speakers had a feeling of sufficient sincerity when the non-natives one answered in the same context

Responses from six situations in the DCT – Situation 1 (Meeting), Situation 2 (Salary), Situation 6 (Book), Situation 7 (Restaurant), Situation 9 (Stepping foot), and Situation 15 (Lipstick) were already printed out, so that it would be easier for interviewees from America to look at This choice was made because, as presented in the previous part, these situations completely reflected the diversity of social distance and social status between speakers and hearers

3.5 Data collection procedure

As presented in the previous part, the data were analyzed after two stages In the first stage, after the creation of the DCT with 15 questions basing on previous studies of American and Vietnamese participants, two

groups of informants with 40 young adults in total, half of whom was 20 young Vietnamese ESL learners and the rest was young Americans, provided the responses in certain situations Initially, 70 questionnaires were sent and

60 participants responded; among whom, answers with the lack of information about informants‟ background (gender, age, nationality, or highest level of education) were rejected Similarly, too brief answers providing insufficient data to analyze were also refused The responses were collected online through Google Form, and then were coded basing on the theoretical framework of Cohen and Olshtain (1989) and Trosborg (1995) After having been obtained, in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the study, the data was carefully interpreted in a systematic way with the application of both interpretive and statistical methods For each research question, tables were then used to facilitate the synthesis, comparison and generalization of the data In some cases, most typical apologies are frequently cited when necessary to illustrate the analysis of data

After finishing stage 1, a face-to-face interview was carried out in stage

2, in which six participants (3 Vietnamese and 3 Americans) were randomly asked to attend a semi-structured interview to collect the data for further research Both groups were asked first three similar questions and there would

be one further question for English speakers The answers of the interviewees were recorded and then transcribed

3.6 Summary

On the whole, the chapter presents the methodology of the study First,

it discusses the methods applied in the study, together with the analytical framework to lay foundation for the data analysis Then, the chapter describes the two groups of informants chosen for analysis - the Vietnamese EFL Learners and the Americans Finally, the instruments and the whole procedure

of the study is depicted in order that each step can be clarified and followed systematically and purposefully in the next chapters

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this part, the data are analyzed, compared, and presented in the way the two research subjects (young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans) use the apology strategies It started with illustrating main strategies and sub-strategies by the two groups After that, sub-strategies in each situation were clearly shown Finally, the details of main apology strategies and sub-strategies distribution across situations were demonstrated

4.1 Main strategies and sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans

First of all, the major content of this part is to investigate main strategies used by Vietnamese EFL learners along with Americans Then the data are compared and contrasted, and the details are in the s ub-parts below

4.1.1 Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners

Table 4.1: Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners

Notes: Total = The total times that strategies were used

V = Young Vietnamese EFL Learners

As can be observed in the table, the largest percentage of apologies falls into Strategy A with 21.3% The proportion of Strategy C is the second highest rate of apology strategy with nearly 15% Strategy B follows Strategy

C with 7.6% Vietnamese EFL Learners do not tend to utilize Strategy D and

E when apologizing

4.1.2 Main strategies by young Americans

Table 4.2: Main strategies by young Americans

Very similar to the Vietnamese, the order of preferred strategy used

by the Americans is Strategy A, Strategy C, Strategy B, Strategy D and finally Strategy E with 21.2%, 14.9%, 9.4%, 4.6% and 1.2% respectively

It is quite obvious that the frequency of strategy used by both Vietnamese learners and Americans is negligibly dissimilar

To make this part more clearly and easily to compare and contrast, Table 4.3 below presents main apology strategy distribution between both groups of informants

Table 4.3: Main strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and

Notes: Total = The total times that strategies were used

V = Young Vietnamese EFL Learners

A = Young Americans

As can be seen in the table, in 15 situations, the two groups of participants used more than 1200 times of the apology strategies They had a tendency to use Strategy A, which accounts for 42.5% The second most used strategy was Strategy C with 29.7% More than a half comparing to Strategy

C was Strategy B with 17% The two least used strategy were Strategy D and

E with the percentage modestly smaller than 10% (8.3% and 2.5% respectively)

In details, it is observable in the table that there is hardly difference in the percentage of apology between the research subjects The largest percentage of apologies by each group of participants falls into Strategy A: Explicit expression of apology category and Vietnamese participants exploited the strategy insignificantly higher than Americans (Vietnamese: 21.3%, Americans: 21.2%) The proportion of Strategy C: Acknowledgement

of responsibility is the second highest rate of apology strategy by both groups

of participants with a total of 14.8% and 14.9% by Vietnamese and Americans respectively Strategy B: Explanation or account follows Strategy C: Acknowledgement of responsibility with the rate of 7.6% by Vietnamese and 9.4% by Americans The fourth largest percentage rate of apology strategy is Strategy D: Promise of forbearance with 3.7% by Vietnamese and 4.6% by Americans Strategy E: Concern for the hearer was at least used by the two group of subjects with 1.3% in Vietnamese data and 1.2% in Americans data

4.1.3 Sub-strategies by young Vietnamese EFL Learners and young Americans

After illustrating the main strategies used by the two groups of subjects, the sub-strategies in details are presented in the table below: