A contrastive study on invitations in english and vietnamese

thesis to find out the similarities and the differences in invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese..

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON INVITATIONS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

(ĐỐI CHIẾU LỜI MỜI TRONG TIẾNG ANH

CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY

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

A CONTRASTIVE STUDY ON INVITATIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Assoc Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung

(Signature and full name)

Date: / / 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a number of people

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc

Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly

supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher

A special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers at Faculty of English under Hanoi Open University and many others, without whose support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished

I am also indebted to my friends, who squeeze time from their busy schedule to help me finish my thesis, they are all busy with their own thesis but they are willing to give their helping hands as soon as I am in need

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my wife, my daughter and my son, for the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

- CALP: cognitive academic language proficiency

- D: Social distance

- H: Hearer

- EFL: English as a Foreign Language

- Eg: For example

- ESL: English as Second Language

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of abbreviations iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION ……… 1

1.1 Rationale for the research ……… ……… 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the research ……… ……2

1.3 Research questions……… 2

1.4 Methods of the research 2

1.5 Scope of the research ……… …6

1.6 Significance of the research ……… …… 7

1.7 Structural organization of the thesis……… 8

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ……… 9

2.1 Previous studies……… 9

2.2 Theoretical background ………10

2.2.1 The syntax, semantics ……… 10

2.2.2 Categories of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese……… … 15

2.2.3 The theory of letter writing……… … 16

2.3 Theoretical framework ……… 17

2.3.1 Politeness strategies………17

2.3.2 Generalization of speech acts……….20

2.3.3 Invitations as speech acts………24

2.3.4 Direct and indirect speech acts……… 26

2.3.5 Informal letters ……… 27

2.4 Summary ……… 31

Chapter 3: INVITATIONS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 32

3.1 Invitation strategies to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese 32

3.1.1 Direct invitations in English ……… 32

3.1.2 Direct invitations in Vietnamese……… 35

3.1.3 Indirect invitations in English ……… 37

3.1.4 Indirect invitations in Vietnamese……… 39

3.2 Forms of invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese……… 42

3.2.1 Forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English 42

3.2.2 Forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in Vietnamese……… 44

3.3.The similarities and differences in forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese 47

3.4 Summary……… 49

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION ……… 51

4.1 Concluding remarks ……… 51

4.2 Limitation of the study ……… 51

4.3 Recommendations/Suggestions for further study ……….52

REFERENCES ……… ………53

APPENDICES……….56

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the research

There is no doubt that today mastering a language is very necessary because it can give learners important opportunities to communicate to study and work effectively abroad It is very difficult to master a foreign language because the enormous vocabulary and profound understanding in grammar are not enough So it is necessary for learners to understand the culture of the language

that they want to master

The goal of learning a language, these days, is to be able to carry out effective communication Communication, however, may fail to achieve as there

is lack of certain understandings of the country where that language is spoken There are “unwritten rules” are potentially confusing and create misunderstandings even for native speakers (Levine & Adelman, 1982) Wall (1987) indicated that many of our daily social interactions involve making invitations and responding to them Everyday people are usually invited to do small things including going somewhere, drinking something, eating food or in special occasions such as birthday party, graduation So that making invitations

is now very important in our daily life It is a speech act used very often in communication People can use it both in spoken and written forms in many ways It helps people to create, maintain and reinforce a good relationship with other people In teaching students to write a letter of invitation, It has been found that they have some difficulties such as they confuse formal and informal invitations; they cannot make other invitations themselves but for the forms or the invitations are not appropriated Mastering how to make appropriate invitations which are suitable to a particular culture should be taken in considerations so as not to cause hurts, shocks, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations Moreover, as a teacher of English at Nam Duyen Ha high school, I found that my learners have faced many problems when they write a letter of invitations and how to write an informal letter of invitation to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English effectively They often feel confused to choose the right form of invitations and make errors in using them

Because of the above reasons, I have decided to choose the title: “A

contrastive study on invitations in English and Vietnamese” to study for the

thesis to find out the similarities and the differences in invitation strategies and

forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese

1.2 Aims and objectives of the research

1.2.1 Aim

The thesis aims to point out the similarities and differences in invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese

2 What are the similarities and differences in forms of invitation letters to

a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese letters?

1.4 Methods of the research

1.4.1 Research approach

This research is mainly conducted by the qualitative Also, contrastive analysis is used to find out the similarities and differences in invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and in Vietnamese Therefore, the considerations, remarks, consumptions, comments and conclusions in the thesis are mainly based on data analysis

1.4.2 Research setting

The research is conducted with references from diverse reliable sources such as textbooks, short stories, books, cards, letters and films in English and their Vietnamese equivalents are used In the past years teaching the writing skill for learners of Nam Duyen Ha high school in Thai Binh, the author has found out that making invitations is rather difficult for students as they only learn vocabulary and make their own invitations, ignoring how these invitations can be used in specific contexts This leads to a drawback that students somehow learn English word by word and cannot use them effectively and properly in English daily conversations This research aims at pointing out invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents in order to help students at Nam Duyen Ha high school identify more clearly about the differences in structure as well as in semantics of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and their Vietnamese equivalents

1.4.3 Principles for intended data collection and data analysis

This research aims at investigating invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and their Vietnamese equivalents For such reason, the author has presented theoretical background related to both fields of linguistics as well as notions Then details of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and their Vietnamese equivalents are also presented clearly

Regarding material selecting, various textbooks, books, cards, letters are

a great use to list a great number of the English invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents

To achieve these aims and the stated objectives, the process of data collection and analysis have been carried out through four major steps Firstly, collecting forms of invitation to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and in Vietnamese from textbooks, books, cards, letters, magazines, novels, short stories, the internet and films Secondly, analyzing and classifying these invitations in terms of semantic features in details Thirdly,

comparing and identifying the similarities and differences between invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese Finally, discussing the findings and suggesting some implications for teaching and learning invitations in English and Vietnamese as a foreign language

With regards to reliability, the data for this research was only collected from trustworthy sources Quotations and information used in the study is precise as they were presented in the original materials with clear references of the author, the name of publishers, the time and place of publication as well as the page number where the data is cited

1.4.4 Research methods

The study describes and compares the invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese and then withdraw some implications for the teaching and learning

of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language In order to achieve these aims

and objectives, the thesis uses the following research methods:

1.4.5 Major methods vs supporting methods

The study is intended to investigate the English invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents, therefore, the descriptive, comparative and contrastive methods have been chosen as major methods First of all, the descriptive method is used to describe the invitation strategies in English and Vietnamese to a housewarming party, a birthday party based on aggregated statistics to show similarities and differences between them Secondly, the comparative and contrastive methods are applied to compare forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese to identify similarities and differences in terms of the structural features

Moreover, some other methods such as analytical, collecting and statistical methods have also been used as supporting methods The first, the analytical method is used to analyze the constituents of invitations to a housewarming party,

a birthday party in English and Vietnamese to identify its model The second,

collecting and statistical methods are used to survey, collect and statistics to show the structural and identifying models of invitations to a housewarming party and a birthday party

In short, with the combination of the descriptive and contrastive methods, structural and semantic similarities as well as differences of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese could be discovered

1.4.6.Data collection techniques

The data collection is the most important step in any research This procedure consists of two main stages Firstly, a large number of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese were collected

in order to make the corpus of this thesis Secondly, the collection of materials were done to hold up the Chapter II Books on structure and semantics used for the need to set the theoretical basic for this thesis to be carried out

The data are collected from different sources such as textbooks, books, cards, letters, magazines, novels, short stories, the internet and films; Moreover, these sources are well known and are confirmed by reliable publishers, and especially they are found to provide the most fertile examples for the studied below

1.4.7.Data analysis techniques

After collecting 100 invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party including 50 English invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party and

50 Vietnamses invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party expressing from textbooks, books, cards, letters, magazines, novels, short stories, the internet and films respectively, we categorize them into two main aspects: structural and semantic one

Data collected will be mainly analyzed on the basis of the following points: Semantic features: the classification is carried out on the basis of typical semantic features of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in both languages

Structural features: the classification of the data is mainly based on the different structural categories, namely: Declarations, representatives, expressives

directives, commissives, performatives, imperatives, “wh”questions, “yes, no” questions, tag questions to compare them between English and Vietnamese

1.5 Scope of the research

1.5.1 Academic scope

Due to the limited time as well as the scope of the research, the research focuses on invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese

Implications for invitation letters writing to a housewarming party, a birthday party for students in high school have some difficulties: The students can only write following the suggestions, they can’t write ones themselves because they have never held this kind of party

The research will find out the similarities and differences between invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese and make crucial contributions to the field of linguistics and improve the efficiency of teaching how to make invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English for my students in Nam Duyen Ha high school The findings hopefully would bring out various suggestions for teachers and students

to conduct further studies related to writing invitations as well as contribute considerably to English learning and teaching in Vietnam

1.5.2 Social scope

The applications of this work will hopefully contribute greatly to find out the appropriate methods to write an informal letter of invitation to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese not only in their study at school but also in their daily usage of English as a foreign language

1.6 Significance of the research

1.6.1.Theoretical significance

The thesis clarifies the similarities and differences in invitation strategies and forms of the invitation letters to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese letters From that, the research results of the thesis will make a certain contribution to the theory of teaching method in general and the research of teaching how to write invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English in particular

The research deals with making invitation speech acts, which set up and promote social rapports among people in a particular culture The sresearch is carried out with the hope to provide common understandings on writing a letter

of invitation for students in high schools to avoid cultural conflicts and effectively carrying out writing a letter of invitation in real life situations In addition, the study’s findings hope to make contributions to raising the importance of studying the cross-culture for English teachers and students in our school

Moreover, the research also could help learners of English and Vietnamese as a foreign language have a deeper insight into both English and Vietnamese invitations, and reduce the risk of committing errors when making

invitations

1.7 Structural organization of the thesis

This thesis is organized into five chapters

Chapter 1 – Introduction - gives a brief overview of the research with

the rationale for choosing the topic of the research, aims, objectives, scope, significance of the thesis and structural organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 - Literature review - presents the previous studies relating to

the research area and theoretical background and theoretical framework employed for conducting the thesis

Chapter 3 – Invitations in English and Vietnamese: shows the

findings which address the research questions through the data gathered and analyzed This section also discusses the results obtained in relation to the research questions and some previous studies The research implications for

teaching and learning English as a foreign language can be found as the last part of this chapter

Chapter 4 - Conclusion - makes a brief summary of the whole thesis,

points out some limitations and give recommendation as well as suggestions

for a further study References come at the end of the research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1.Previous studies

Up to now, there have been many studies on invitations in English and Vietnamese

Robert J Starr (1972), studied how to isolate the attitude of high ability

ninth grade BSCS students toward instruction utilizing “Invitations to Enquiry.”

Nguyen Thi Kim Quy (2004), pointed out the similarities and differnces

on inviting and responding to invitation in Vietnamese and English in term of across – cultural perspective

Nguyen Van Lap ( 2005), classified categories of invitation as speech etiquette in Vietnamese in terms of speech act theory The thesis introduced and analyzed two main categories of invitation in Vietnamese including invitations with explicit performative verbs and invitations with implicit performative verbs, which lays a foundation for the data related to making invitation in Vietnamese

in this study

Le Thi Mai Hong (2008), focused and emphasized on politeness strategies used in the speech acts of requests and invitations between English and Vietnamese The study pointed some major differences between politeness strategies employed in English invitations in comparison with the Vietnamese ones The studies mentioned above are helpful to this study in terms of providing the theoretical background for the thesis as they are closely related to making and responding to invitations in English and Vietnamese right in the thesis

Ngo Thi Bac Ha (2010), found out the similarities and differences of the pre-sequences in invitations from those languages

Nguyen Van Trong (2012), pointed out some major similarities and differences of making invitations in English and Vietnamese The effects of social distance, relative power, and ranking of impositions to the choice of inviting forms native speakers of English and Vietnamese native speakers have also been found

Le Thi Kim Ngoc (2013), pointed some major similarities and differences

of making and accepting invitations in English and Vietnamese

Đinh Phuong Thuy (2014), found out the syntactic and cultural similarities and differences between spoken invitations in Vietnamese and English native speakers She pointed out cultural mistakes that students make frequently are

invitees And some solutions were given to help learners make invitations perfectly

2.2 Theoretical background

2.2.1 The syntax and semantics

2.2.1.1 The syntax

In linguistics, syntax refers the rules that govern the ways in which words

combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences Adjective: syntactic

More simply, syntax can be defined as the arrangement of words in a sentence The term syntax is also used to mean the study of the syntactic

properties of a language

Syntax is one of the major components of grammar Traditionally,

linguists have recognized a basic distinction between syntax and morphology (which is primarily concerned with the internal structures of words)

However, this distinction has been somewhat disrupted by recent research inflexion grammar

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."(Linguist Noam Chomsky created this sentence-which is grammatically correct but incomprehensible-to demonstrate that the rules governing syntax are distinct from the meanings words convey.)

According to Chomsky (1971), "Syntax is the study of the principles and

processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language

Under analysis”

(Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1971)

According to Burgess (1968), "And the words slide into the slots ordained

by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we

call meaning ."It is syntax that gives the words the power to relate to each other in a sequence to carry meaning-of whatever kind-as well as glow

individually in Just the right place” (Anthony Burgess, Ender by Outside,

1968)

According to William Cobbett (1918), "Syntax is a word which comes

from the Greek It means, in that language, the joining of several things

together; and, as used by grammarians, it means those principles and rules

which teach us how to put words together so as to form sentences It means, in

short, sentence-making Having been taught by the rules of Etymology what are

the relationships of words, how words grow out of each other, how they are varied in their letters in order to correspond with the variation in the

circumstances to which they apply, Syntax will teach you how to give all your

words their proper situations or places, when you come to put them together into sentences”

(William Cobbett, A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of Letters:

Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but More Especially for the Use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys,

1818)

It is a mistake to believe that some English speakers follow rules in their

speech and others do not Instead, it now appears that all English speakers are

successful language learners: they all follow unconscious rules derived from their early language development, and the small differences in the sentences that they prefer are best understood as coming from small differences in these rules

The differences of the sort that we are looking at here follow lines of social class and ethnic group rather than geographical lines Thus we can speak

of social varieties or social dialects." (Carl Lee Baker, English Syntax, 2nd ed

MIT Press, 1995)

"Many kinds of spoken language have a syntax that is very different from

the syntax of formal writing It is essential to understand that the differences exist not because spoken language is a degradation of written language but because any written language, whether English or Chinese, results from centuries of development and elaboration by a small number of users In spite of the huge prestige enjoyed by written language in any literate society, spoken language is

primary in several major respects." (Jim Miller, An Introduction to English

Syntax Edinburgh University Press, 2002)

Meaning = Denotation?

It has also been suggested that the meaning of a word is simply the entity

in the World which that word refers to This makes perfect sense for proper nouns like ‘New York’ and ‘the Eiffel Tower’, but there are lots of words like

‘sing’ and ‘altruism’ that don’t have a solid thing in the world that they are connected to So meaning cannot be entirely denotation either

Meaning = Extension and intention

So meaning, in Semantics, is defined as being Extension: The thing in the world that the word/phrase refers to, plus Intension: The concepts/mental images that the word/phrase evokes

The study of semantics looks at how meaning works in language, and because of this it often uses native speaker intuitions about the meaning of words and phrases to base research on We all understand semantics already on a subconscious level, it’s how we understand each other when we speak

One of the things that Semantics looks at, and is based on, is how the meaning of speech is not just derived from the meanings of the individual words all put together

The Principle of Compositionality says that the meaning of speech is the sum of the meanings of the individual words plus the way in which they are arranged into structure

The relationships between words

Semantics also looks at the ways in which the meanings of words can be related to each other Here are a few of the ways in which words can be semantically related:

* Synonymy – Words are synonymous/ synonyms when they can be used

to mean the same thing (at least in some contexts – words are rarely fully identical in all contexts) Begin and start, Big and large, Youth and adolescent

* Antonymous Words are antonyms of one another when they have opposite meanings (again, at least in some contexts) Big and small, Come and go, Up and down

* Polysemy - A word is polysemous when it has two or more related meanings In this case the word takes one form but can be used to mean two different things In the case of polysemy, these two meanings must be related in some way, and not be two completely unrelated meanings of the word Bright (shining) and bright (intelligent) Mouse (animal) and mouse (computer hardware)

* Homophony – Homophony is similar to polysemy in that it refers to a single form of word with two meanings, however a word is a homophone when the two meanings are entirely unrelated Bat (flying mammal) and bat (sports equipment) Pen (writing instrument) and pen (small cage)

The relationships between sentences

Sentences can also be semantically related to one-another in a few different ways

* Paraphrase – Paraphrases have the same truth conditions; if one is true, the other must also be true “The boys like the girls’ and ‘the girls are liked by the boys”, “John gave the book to Chris’ and ‘John gave Chris the book”

* Mutual entailment – Each sentence must be true for the other to be true

“John is married to Rachel” and “Rachel is John’s wife”,

“Chris is a man” and “Chris is human”

* Asymmetrical entailment - Only one of the sentences must be true for the other to be true, but that sentence may be true without the other sentence necessarily having to be true ‘Rachel is John’s wife’ entails ‘John is married’ (but John is married does not entail Rachel being his wife), ‘Rachel has two brothers’ entails ‘Rachel is not an only child’ (but Rachel not being an only child does not entail Rachel having two brothers)

* Contradiction – Sentences contradict each other when one sentence is true and the other cannot be true ‘Rachel is an only child’ and ‘Rachel’s brother

is called Phil’, ‘Alex is alive’ and ‘Alex died last week’

Ambiguity - One of the aspects of how meaning works in language is ambiguity A sentence is ambiguous when it has two or more possible meanings, but how does ambiguity arise in language? A sentence can be ambiguous for either of the following reasons:

Lexical Ambiguity - A sentence is lexically ambiguous when it can have

two or more possible meanings due to polysemous (words that have two or more related meanings) or homophonous (a single word which has two or more different meanings) words

Example of lexically ambiguous sentence: Prostitutes appeal to the Pope This sentence is ambiguous because the word ‘appeal’ is polysemous and can mean

‘ask for help’ or ‘are attractive to’

Structural Ambiguity - A sentence is structurally ambiguous if it can have

two or more possible meanings due to the words it contains being able to be

combined in different ways which create different meanings

Example of structurally ambiguous sentence: Enraged cow injures farmer with axe In this sentence the ambiguity arises from the fact that the ‘with axe’ can either refer to the farmer, or to the act of injuring being carried out (by the cow)

in language is important in language in a social situation Semantics is also informed by other sub-disciplines of linguistics, such as Morphology, as understanding the words themselves is integral to the study of their meaning, and Syntax, which researchers in semantics use extensively to reveal how meaning is created in language, as how language is structured is central to meaning

2.2.2 Categories of invitations in English and Vietnamese

This research goals to investigate the similarities and differences in terms

of syntactic, semantic features of invitations in English and Vietnamese, in the effort of increasing not only the effectiveness of learning invitations utterance in English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for English learners

in Vietnam Nevertheless, there is a little proper work on inviting in both languages The analytic framework of this study has been collected from a number of English and Vietnamese researches as well as practical textbooks

to invitations which contains different forms of inviting These are dissertations

by Nguyen Van Lap (2005), Luu Quy Khuong (2004) Tran Yen Bao Tran (2009), Nguyen Van Trong (2012) and Tillitt and Bruder (1999) In these researches and textbooks, different linguistic forms of invitations are specified and found out

First, take a look at the definitions of the term "performative sentence" Austin (1962), made a great contribution in terms of discovering and developing what is called: performative sentence Austin (1962) stated that an performative sentence occurs when:

- A sentence is uttered and an action thereby is performed

- The grammatical structure of the sentence makes it look as though the sentence states that it performed that action

Cao Xuan Hao (1991), defined that a performative sentence is a kind of expressive and declaration It expresses the actions that contain in the utterance

by directly uttering Such kind of sentence using a verb named performative verb namely "to invite" in English

Following sentences illustrate this:

Eg: It's just that Alan and I wanted to have a few people over for a dinner to

celebrate finishing dissertation and we would like to invite you especially, since you're chairman (Tillitt & Bruder, 1999)

“We moved to our new place To celebrate this wonderful event, we invite you to come to our housewarming party We will have and drinks to commemorate the event.”

“I'll have a birthday party at 2:pm on 11th January It'll be celebrated in my house

I'll fell happy when you come Some my friends have been invited, too I think you'll fun when you meet my friend Because they're lovely Come here you can taste some special food which my mother will cook In the party I'll make a tiny game, You'll like it After the party we'll come to the beach”

Similarly, Paltridge indicated that an explicit performative sentence is a statement which contains a performative verb that names the speech act

Tran Yen Bao Tran (2009), indicated that explicit performative invitations are employed between the interlocutors who differ in social or status

Tilltitt and Bruder (1999), has introduced numerous structures of English invitations used in formal situations to informal ones In his dissertation, Nguyen Van Lap (2005) has introduced forms of Vietnamese inviting including invitations in with performative verb (mời) and invitations without performative verb Luu Quy Khuong (2007), in addition, has introduced different kinds of direct invitations in English and Vietnamese He indicated similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese through contrastive analysis Plus, another research goes to Tran Yen Bao Tran (2009), has recorded different structures used to make direct invitations in English and Vietnamese Nguyen Van Trong (2012), he has studied the categories of invitations in English and Vietnamese

These researches and textbook mentioned above is prominent in terms of providing the analytical framework for discussing categories of invitations to a housewarming party in English and Vietnamese

2.2.3 The theory of letter writing

Although the practice and concept of letter-writing displays great continuities from Antiquity to the Renaissance the changes were also significant Just as in the 17th century, already in ancient times the letter had frequently been defined as a kind of conversation between absent friends Nevertheless, Greeks and Romans took this precept more seriously and more narrowly than later times

In Antiquity the concept of the letter was principally that of the familiar letter It had to be brief and ought to treat a simple subject in simple terms "If anybody should write of logical subtleties or questions of natural history in a letter, he writes indeed, but not a letter" – claimed Demetrius (ca 350-283 B.C.) In terms

of style not many variations were allowed Demetrius mentions only the plain and the graceful, and Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) by far the most

influential authority in Latin epistolography, acknowledged the existence of many sorts while claiming that only two of them pleased him greatly, the familiar

or jesting and the grave A letter in the plain style needed to be direct and natural;

it was not constrained by strict rules, since too much elaboration also contradicted "the laws of friendship"

By the Middle Ages, letters of all kinds enjoyed the same legitimacy

"Letter" was now an extremely broad category, including practically anything

that had a salutation and a signature No wonder late medieval dictatores and

Renaissance humanists found it difficult to categorise letters and borrowed the rhetorical concepts of oratory when describing them Little difference was seen

between sermo and epistola, and the writing of both needed to comply with

narrowly defined rules The efforts to classify letters resulted in the precise circumscription of a large number of different types In 1522 Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536) , although breaking with tradition in many respects and liberal in questions of style and form, still organised his manual on letter-writing according to these groups, mentioning thirty of them (e.g letter of petition, recommendation, consolation, lamentation, congratulation, thanksgiving, narration, order, love, etc.) Getting rid of the theoretical lore of the Middle Ages was more difficult than could be expected, and the theory of letter-writing remained embarrassingly linked to scholastic rhetoric until the end of the

16th century Nonetheless, the rediscovery of the familiar letter in the early

Renaissance meant that in practice letter-writing developed gradually into a new

art, whose style was reframed in imitation of Cicero, and was liberated from the restrictions of scholasticism.

2.3 Theoretical framework

2.3.1 Politeness strategies

Politeness, an issue which has a great impact to human being and deeply

influences to human interaction, will be now discussed right in this part because politeness is basic to the production of social order, and a precondition of human cooperation… any theory which provides an understanding of this phenomenon

at the same time goes to the foundation of human social life

(Brown and Levinson, 1987), in language studies, politeness implies the following: "(a) how languages express the social distance between speakers and their different role relationships, (b) "how face-work, that is, the attempt to

establish, maintain, and save face during conversation, is carried out in a speech community" (Richards et al 1985, p.281)

Languages differ in how they express politeness In English, phrases like: It’s hot here I wonder if I could open the window? Can be used to make a request more polite In other languages, the same effect can be expressed by a word or particle Politeness markers and the use of address forms convey differences between formal speech and colloquial speech

Human communication establishes and maintains not only a comfortable relationship between people but also a social harmony Therefore, in interpersonal communication, in terms of politeness, every participant notes social factors such as age, gender, power and distance among the interlocutors

Moreover, politeness may be described as a form of behavior which is exercised in order to consolidate and promote relationship between individuals

or, at least, to keep it undamaged

According to Leech (1983), politeness means to minimize the effect of impolite statement or expression (negative politeness) and maximize the effects

of polite illocutions (positive politeness) (Leech, 1983) However, the known theory is developed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Their universalistic formulation of politeness theory is problematic in some aspects The main issue of politeness is the notion of face Face is defined as “the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” (Brown and Levinson

best-1987, p.61) "Face" associates with the English idiom to lose face which means

“to do something which makes other people stop respecting you; to not maintain your reputation and the respect of others” Brown and Levinson treat the aspects

of face as “basic wants”, and distinguish between positive face and negative face Positive face is interpreted as the want of every member to be desirable to, at least, some others, whereas negative face is the want of every “competent adult member” for his actions to be unimpeded by others (1987, p.62) Moreover, Yule (1996) argues that in most English speaking contexts, the participants in an interaction often have to determine, as they speak, the relative social distance between them, and hence their face wants (1996, p16) “ In everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected If a speaker says something that represents a threat to another individual’s expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face

threatening act Alternatively, given the possibility that some actions may be interpreted as threat to another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen to possible threat This is called a face saving act (Yule 1996, p.61) Analyzing politeness, the anthropologists Brown and Levinson (1987) distinguishes between positive strategies of politeness, those which show closeness, intimacy, and rapport between the speaker and the hearer, and negative politeness strategies, those which indicate various degrees of social distance between the speaker and hearer In situations of social distance or closeness The choice

of appropriate politeness strategies in a given context depends on a number of factors Brown and Levinson (1987) groups these factors into a simple formula consisting of three independent variables, namely the social distance (D) of the speaker and the hearer (a symmetric relation), the relative power (P) of the speaker and the hearer (an asymmetric relation), and the absolute ranking of impositions (R) in the particular culture The social distance (D) is a symmetric social dimension of similarity/difference within which the speaker and the hearer stand for the purposes of this act In some situations, D is based on an evaluation

of frequency of interaction and the types of material and non-material goods (embracing face) between S (speaker) and H (hearer) The evaluation will be usually measures of social distance relied on stable social attributes The relative power (P) which is an asymmetric social dimension is the degree to which H can impose his own plans and his own self– evaluation (face) at the expense of S’s plans and self – evaluation Generally, there are two sources of P, either of which may be authorized or unauthorized – material control (over economic distribution and physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others The absolute ranking (R) of imposition which is situational and cultural defined is the degree to which there is an interference in the speaker’s wants or self-determination or approval (speaker’s negative and positive wants) There are normally two scales or ranks which are identifiable for negative–face: a ranking

of impositions in proportion to the expenditure of services (including the time provision) and good (including non-material goods such as information, regard expression and other face payments) As for positive-face, the, ranking of imposition embraces an assessment of the amount of “pain” given to the hearer’s face, based on the differences between the hearer ’s desired self-image and that

presented in face threatening acts Cultural rankings of facets of positive face (like success, niceness, beauty etc.) can be ranked in specific circumstances, so

do the negative face rankings Besides, that there are also personal rankings can explain why some people object to certain kinds of face threatening acts and some do not These three factors affect indirectness in human interaction, especially in the choice of politeness strategies which is an essential aspect of inviting Together with cross-cultural perspective, politeness is another aspect which is used to create the framework for data analysis Basing on the theory of Brown and Levinson (1987), a bank of 6 situations was designed to elicit offers These situations were grouped according to three variables, namely social distance (D) of the speaker and the hearer , the relative power (P) of the speaker and the hearer (an asymmetric relation), and the absolute ranking (R) of impositions in the particular culture

2.3.2 Generalization of speech acts

2.3.2.1 Definitions of speech acts

J Austin (1962), takes the pioneering role in formulating the theory of speech acts According to him, all utterances should be viewed as actions of the speakers, stating or describing is only one function of language He points out that the declarative sentences are not only used to say things or describe states of affairs but also used to do things Also, in 1962, he defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something When people produce utterances, they often perform actions via those utterances These actions are called speech acts: such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request A speech act is part of a speech event The speech act performed by producing an utterance, consists of three related acts including locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act They are listed as follows:

Locutionary act is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic

expression The locutionary act is performed with some purposes or functions in mind

Illocutionary act is an act performed via the communicative force of an

utterance In engaging in locutionary acts we generally also perform illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, etc In uttering a sentence by virtue of conversational force associated with it

Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying

something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring perlocutionary acts are

performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognize the effect you intended Speech acts, since then, developed by many famous philosophers and have been central to the works and further developed by many other philosophers and a great concern of any research paper in terms of doing researches on linguistic fields

The two other famous linguistic researchers are Schmidt and Richards who reaffirm that: speech act theory has to do with the functions of languages, so

in the broader sense we might say that speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking, all things we do when we speak The theory of speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory It must systematically classify types

of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being used and the force of their utterance is often oblique Paltridge (2000), defines that a speech act is an utterance that serves a function in communication Some examples are apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal A speech act might contain just one word such as "No" to perform a refusal or several words

or sentences such as: "I' m sorry, I can't, I have a prior engagement" And require not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational setting influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness strategies used to realize directive speech acts such as requests (p.15) Yule (1996, p.47), another famous linguist, defines that "in attempting to express themselves, people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform actions via those utterances." According to him, actions performed via utterances are speech acts In daily communication, people perform speech acts when they offer an apology, greeting, complaint, invitation, compliment or refusal Since people often do more things with words than merely convey what words encode, speech acts have to be seen from real-life interactions For example, in a classroom situation, when a teacher says:

May I help you? It is a request more than a question

In the same way, when a student talks to his friend, we are having some people over Saturday evening and wanted to know if you’d like to join us

This example is an invitation more than a question Moreover, speech acts require not only knowledge of any languages but also the culture of the country where this language is used

For examples in Vietnamese when we utter:

Where are you doing? means we are greeting the people we meet

2.3.2.2 Classification of speech acts

Austin grouped illocutionary acts into five classes:

Verdictives are typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire

arbitrator such as acquit, grade, estimate, diagnose, rare, analyze, put it as,

reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure

Exercitive are the exerciting of power, rights or influence An exercitive

is the giving of a decision in favour of or against a certain course of action It is a decision that something is to be so, as distinct from a judgement that it is so

It is a very wide class; example are: appoint, dismiss, degrade, name,

order, sentence, warn, declare, open, advise, announce, nominate, veto

Commissive: The whole point of commissive is to commit the speaker to

a certain course of action They may include a declaration or announcements of

intention Some examples are: am determined to, propose to, intend, agree, bet,

envisage, plan, pledge myself, declare my intention, vow, guarantee, shall, swear

Behabitives include the notion of rection to other people’s behavior and

fortunes and of attitudes and expressions of attidtudes to someone else’s past conduct or imminent conduct These are some examples: apologize, thank, deplore, compliment, congratulate, condole, sympathize, complain, blame, welcome, defy, protest

Expositives classify how utterances fit into ongoing discourse, or how

they are being used Here are some examples: affirms, deny, describe, identify,

mention, remark, inform, tell, answer, report, testify, illustrate, explain, begin by, turn to, conclude by, analyze, regard as, understand, refer

According to Yule (1996), there is one general classification system that lists five types of general functions performed by speech acts including declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and commissives

Declarations are speech acts that change the world via their utterance

The speaker has to have a special institutional role, in a specific context, in order

to perform a declaration appropriately For example, "Priest: I now pronounce

you husband and wife."

Representatives are speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be

the case or not Statement of fact, assertions, conclusions and descriptions are examples of the speaker representing the world as he or she believes it is For

example, “The Moon goes round the Earth." or "It is windy today”

Expressives are speech acts that state what the speaker feels They

express psychological states and can be statement of pleasure, pain, likes,

dislikes, joy and sorrow For example, "What a great party!"

Directives are speech acts that the speakers use to get the hearer to do

something They express what the speaker wants For instance, "Stand up,

please! "or "Could you open the door?"

Commissives are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to

some future action They express what the speaker intends They are promises, threats, refusals, pledges For example:

"I’ll give one hand." or "I’ll be back."

Yule (1996) also presents a table showing speech acts classification as follow:

Table 2.1: Speech acts classification

Speech act types Direction of fit S=Speaker

The usefulness of speech acts analysis is illustrating the kinds of things we can do with words and identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we use to perform specific actions However, we need to look at more extended interaction to understand how those actions are carried out and interpreted within speech events To compare selected speech acts from two languages, the topic is still vast and could not be treated exhaustively in any one work The cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to another, but also from one regional and social variety to another So, the different cultures find expression in different system of speech acts, and that different speech acts become entrenched, and, to some extent, codified in different languages Of these types, the characteristics of invitations can be easily recognized in commissives and directives In our daily interactions, inviting is one kind of speech act that is commonly used with high frequency

2.3.3 Invitations as speech acts

Before we get to know the definition of the phrase ‘Making an invitation’,

we first do through the meaning of the verb ‘invite’ and the noun ‘invitation’

To “invite”, according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary means

to “ask somebody to come to a social event” or “to ask somebody formally to go

to somewhere or do something”

An ‘invitation’ is ‘a spoken or written request to somebody to do something or to go somewhere’, ‘the act of inviting somebody or of being invited’, or ‘a card or piece of paper that you use to invite somebody to something’ as in the examples below:

I would like to invite you to a party next Friday.(Tillitt & Bruder, 1999) Would you like to come over my place on Thanksgiving?

I’d love to Shall I bring anything?

Similarly, Vietnamese dictionary (1994) defines “lời mời” as a wish or a

polite request that somebody does something or goes to somewhere The following examples illustrate this:

Anh Tuệ, mời anh vào chơi! (Khai Hung, 1988)

(Mr Tue, Come in, please!)

Rước cụ ngồi chơi (Khai Hung, 1988)

(Get – you – sit – play)

In his dissertation, Nguyen Van Lap (2005), points that “Invitations are polite utterances, requesting others to do something together, which satisfies both the speaker and hearer’s benefits”

Le Thi Mai Hong (2009), indicates that invitation is the act of inviting or a requesting to participate, be present or take part in something Invitation is also a speech act that expresses the speaker’s friendliness, politeness as well as respect and hospitability toward the hearer.” In addition, Wolfson (1989) defines invitations as speech acts that contain reference to time and/or mention of place

or activity, and most important, a request for response After the

above-mentioned definitions we can have the meaning of the phrase ‘making an

invitation’ in English It is the act of making a spoken or written request to

somebody to go somewhere or do something

It is based on the relationship between the inviter and the invitee According to Seal (1976), the goal of the spoken interaction is to communicate things to the hearer by getting him/her to recognize the intention that one has to communicate those things Invitations which are based on a daily basis happen in all the walks of life, to name but three, inviting for meals, social events or other occasions

To begin with, eating together is a great way to spend time with one’s family and friends, but how to create a suitable invitation for meals is not easy It much depends on family members’ status, age, and distance among participants Making invitation for meals, we have some kinds of below questions:

“Would you like to have dinner with us?”

“Would you like to come over our house and have dinner with us?”

“If you would come over to our house, we could have dinner together?”

“Do you think we could cook and have dinner together?”

“Let’s have dinner together.”

Another context in which invitations are used is inviting for social events like: birthday parties, wedding parties, farewells, ceremonies, anniversaries…In these events, the inviters usually have intention to invite in a formal or informal ways

There are some examples:

“Our dear father Brian Jacobson is turning 65 next month We are hosting a surprise birthday party to pay tribute to his life and his hard work in buiding his successful catering business.”

“Come and join us in wishing David Banner a very happy 30 th birthday.” “On December 20 th 2016 will be my birthday To celebrate my 35 th birthday, I am going to hold a warm dinner at Manh Hoach restaurant near Luc Quan crossroad, Co Dong, Son Tay, Ha Noi at 6.00 in the evening of the 2 nd next Sunday I am going to invite all of my friends I will be very eager to meet you in there”

It is indicated that the British frequently invite other people to a party, a meal, an event, a movie… Broadly, these appear to be almost the same as the occasions where Vietnamese invite their acquaintances

English people usually make an invitation directly That means the inviters have a tendency to give the invited people the direct content of the invitation For this function, English invitation has some patterns as basic forms including directive sentence, performative sentence, some kinds of questions and the sentence with ‘if’

2.3.4 Direct and indirect speech acts

In the former part, classification of speech acts has made clear in terms of the speaker’s intention of Yule (1996) This part takes a look at another way of classifying speech acts

Another approach to distinguish different types of speech acts is based on the relationship between the structure and the function Yule (1996), claims that three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and three general communicative functions (statement, question, command/ request)

These are the examples:

You wear a seat belt! (declarative)

Do you wear a seat bealt ? (interrogative)

Wear a seat bealt! (imperative)

They can be combined to create two other types of speech acts: direct and indirect speech acts Yule (1996), defines that whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an direct speech act as

in the following example:

Do join me for a coffee? (Le Huy Lam, 2000)

Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act as in the following examples

Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow? (Tillitt & Bruder, 1999)

It is not only used as a question but also a request, hence it is considered

to be an indirect speech act He adds that indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech acts

2.3.5 Informal writing

When it comes to writing in English, there are two main styles of writing –formal and informal There are two types of letter: Formal and informal invitation letters In this research, the informal letters and are studied

2.3.5.1 Informal and formal writing

Writing can be divided into all kinds of different categories One of the main divides is between informal and formal writing

2.3.5.1.1 Informal writing

In composition, informal style is a broad term for speech or writing

marked by a casual, familiar, and generally colloquial use of language

An informal writing style is often more direct than a formal style and may rely more heavily on contractions, abbreviations, short sentences, and ellipses Informal writing is similar to a spoken conversation Informal writing may include slang, figures of speech, broken syntax, asides and so on Informal writing takes a personal tone as if you were speaking directly to your audience (the reader) You can use the first or third person point of view (I and we), and you are likely to address the reader using second person (you and your)

In a recently published textbook (The Rhetorical Act, 2015), Karlyn Kohrs

Campbell et Al observe that, by comparison, formal prose is “strictly grammatical and uses complex sentence structure and precise, often technical vocabulary Informal prose is less strictly grammatical and short, simple sentences are acceptable and sometimes essential to making a point in informal writing There may be incomplete sentences or ellipsis (…) to make points and ordinary, familiar words (for example, I’m, doesn’t, couldn’t, it’s) and abbreviations (example: TV, photos) whenever possible Informal style may include sentence fragments, such as the truncated style of text messaging and some colloquialisms or slang.”

But as Carolyne Lee reminds us, “simpler prose does not inevitably mean

simpler ideas or simpler conceptualizing” (Word Bytes: Writing in the

Information Society, 2009) The author can show empathy towards the reader

regarding the complexity of a thought and help them through that complexity

2.3.5.1.2 formal writing

Formal writing includes business writing, formal letters, and academic writing Although business writing and academic writing, for instance, have some differences, all formal writing shares certain features

The Rules of Formal Writing

* Most sentences should be complex and add specific meaning to the writing

* You should use a sophisticated vocabulary with terms that are accepted

in the topic’s field

* Keep a serious tone with literal meanings Formal writing should not be filled with clichés and metaphors, like phrases such as ‘hard as nails.’

* The piece should have a specifically-stated purpose, called the thesis in academic writing

* Avoid contractions

* The piece will usually be written in the third-person perspective, which means you will not use ‘I’ or ‘you’

* Use standard spelling (no texting – style words like ‘LOL’)

* Use standard punctuation

* References must be properly cited for academic or published writing

* You should organize the writing into paragraphs that fit together

There are some differences between informal and formal writing:

Informal: May use colloquial words/expressions (kids, guy, awesome, a

lot, etc.)

Formal: Avoid using colloquial words/expressions (substitute with

children, man /boy, wonderful, many, etc.)

Informal: May use contractions (can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, etc.)

Formal: Avoid contractions (write out full words – cannot, will not,

should not, etc.)

Informal: May use first, second, or third person

Formal: Write in third person (except in business letters where first person

may be used)

Informal: May use clichés (loads of, conspicuous by absence, etc.)

Formal: Avoid clichés (use many, was absent, etc.)

Informal: May address readers using second person pronouns (you, your,

etc)

Formal: Avoid addressing readers using second person pronouns

(use one,one’s, the reader, the reader’s, etc.)

Informal: May use abbreviated words (photo, TV, etc)

Formal: Avoid using abbreviated words (use full versions – like

photograph, television, etc.)

Informal: May use imperative voice (e.g Remember….)

Formal: Avoid imperative voice (use Please refer to.….)

Informal: May use active voice (e.g We have noticed that… )

Formal: Use passive voice (e.g It has been noticed that….)

Informal: May use short and simple sentences

Formal: Longer and more complex sentences are preferred (short simple sentences reflects poorly on the writer)

Informal: Difficulty of subject may be acknowledged and empathy shown

Informal letters always contain questions pertaining to the person’s being, as well as that of those around him, like his family and friends

well-Informal letters also rely a lot on memories, shared secrets, humorous moments of the past and shared dreams or conversations

“The overriding instruction for personal letters: Write from the heart in a positive, caring, giving tone Warm letters have always had a powerful ability to build goodwill And in an age of computers and e-mail, the old-fashioned personal letter stand out even more.”

(Robert W Bly, Webster’s New World Letter Writing Handbook Wiley, 2004)

Informal or friendly letters, they have five parts:

1 The heading: The heading can include the writer’s address and the date In

casual, friendly letters the address is not necessary

2 The salutation (greeting): The greeting may be formal, beginning with the

word “dear” and using the person’s given name or relationship, or it may be informal if appropriate example: Dear Uncle, Hi Joe,

3 The body: The body of the letter is the information written in the letter It

includes the message to be written Normally in a friendly letter, the beginning of paragraphs is indented It usually includes an introduction where the person is greeted and state the reason for writing; the main body, the subject and the conclusion are developed or signaling the end where we use suitable remarks are used (invite, send greeting, etc) or indicate that the letter is going to finish

4 The closing: This short expression is always a few words on a single line In

the closing the first word is capitalized

5 The signature line:

Table 2.2: The format of informal letters

 Date

 Opening remarks

 The contents

To reach the aim of this chapter, some steps have been carried out:

First, find the previous studies relating to the this study

Next, find the data for the theoretical background that have theories

relating to the study such as: syntactic and semantic feature

Last, find the data for the theoretical framework which are the frames for

studying the letter of invitations to a housewarming party, a birthday party in English and Vietnamese such as: Politeness strategies, generalization of speech acts, invitations as speech acts and direct and indirect speech acts

After having studied some previous studies, theoretical background and theoretical framework, some results have been found:

First, how to study and analyze syntactic and semantic features of

invitation forms to a housewarming party, a birthday party in letters in English and Vietnamese

Second, according to five speech act types (declarations, representatives,

expressives, directives and commissives) to study invitation

Third, Invitation is divided into two types: Direct and indirect and there

are four categories with seven forms

Last, the writing theory, informal writing a letter of invitation and

informal letters ‘ format were studied to find out how to write an informal letter

of invitation to a housewarming party and a birthday party

All those results are going to be applied for studying on the syntactic and semantic features of invitation forms to a housewarming party, a birthday party and forms of letters of invitation in order to find out the similarities and differences of those between English and Vietnamese then point out some implications for letters of invitation writing in English will be implicated for part

D of unit 10 grade 10 and part D of unit 2 grade 11 in my school