Hedging strategies manifested in conversations in film sweet home alabama = chiến lược rào đón thể hiện qua lời hội thoại trong phim ngôi nhà hạnh phúc ở alabama

certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee [hearer or receiver] and / or of the speaker." T

1 Rationale

It is difficult to see adequately the functions of language, because it is sodeeply rooted in the whole of human behaviour Language is not onlycommunicative mean, but also an efficient mean for exchanging culture andpromoting the development of human society in many fields Kramsch ( 1998:3)states that language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives.Moreover, from the view of personal aspect, language of an individual personreflects his or her knowledge and characteristic Thus, communicativecompetence [skills of using and choosing language] plays an important part indaily life conversation and it involves 3 different aspects: linguistic knowledge,interactional skill and cultural knowledge as Saville - Troike (1986:25) proposed( cited in Le Thi Thuy Ha 2003-M.A thesis)

"Communication is only successful when a speaker is aware of what to say to

whom and how to say it appropriately" (Nguyen Quoc Sinh 2004 - M.A Thesis).

Since language expresses, embodies, and symbolizes cultural reality, therefore,learning a language is closely related to the acquisition of cultural knowledge In

other words, "language and culture are inseparable or inter-dependent" (Nguyen

Quoc Sinh, ibid.) However, many Vietnamese learners of English (6even theyare teachers) suppose that a good command of a foreign language or success inforeign language learning bases on mastering grammar rules and accumulating

as much vocabulary as possible As a result, they definitely fail in realcommunication using English Hence, Vietnamese learners of English mustknow how to use English under the norms of English-speaking culture

Hedges (or hedging use), considered to be the devices of politeness, is animportant factor that determines the success in choosing language from the point

of view of culture or society as well as from the point of view of linguistics

According to Janet Homes (1995:75), "Hedges attenuate or reduce the strength

of the utterance They damp down its force or intensity or directness" Since, it is

at least a device used to avoid being conflicts in conversation, therefore studyinghedges in more detail will be useful for English teaching and learning What is

more, to some extent, English and Vietnamese have some similarities of usinghedges, and there are also have some differences of culture and languages, ofcourse

It is easy to recognize that hedges are manifested in all kinds of convrsationswith many relationships of participants since hedges are devices of politeness.The manifestation of hedges in the everyday conversation is quite common, and

it has been largely discussed so far by many linguists, and methodologists, etc.Yet, there is, to my knowledge, no one has studied this aspect from films whichare regarded as being the vehicles used to reflect the society and culture.Language in films is not only similar, but also familiar with conversation in reallife Thus, studying hedges via films is factual and useful to all users of English.For all above reasons, we choose "Hedging Strategies Manifested inConversations in Film "Sweet Home Alabama"

2 Aims of the study

The aims of this thesis are:

- To give an overview understanding on Hedges, and its uses - hedging

- To raise the importance of Hedges in human communication

- To study how Hedges are manifested in conversation in film "Sweet Home"

- To provide language teachers and learners of English with an insight intoHedges for teaching and learning

3 Scope of the study

- Politeness and hedges are affected and controlled by many factors includingparalinguistic ( such as tone, loudness, pitch, intonation, etc.) and non-verbalfactors ( facial expression, eye-contact, gestures, etc.) However, this study onlydeals with verbal aspects with the use of hedges via spoken words

- The data analysis is based on utterances in conversation between characters inthe film "Sweet Home Alabama" - a modern film of Touchstone Picture, directed

by George Lance It tells the story of a girl whose name is Melonie, leaving herhusband to come to a big city with the wish that she will be more successful in

her career as a fashion designer In New York, she meet Andrew, whose mother

is the Mayer of the city , and they fall in love with each other In order to getmarried to Andrew, Melonie comes back home in a small town-Alabama- todivorce her husband She does not know that her husband now is famous andsuccessful After persuading her husband to sign in the bill of divorce paper, shecomes back to New York to hold the wedding When the wedding is going on,the lawyer enters to notice that the divorce paper is not legal, because Meloniehas not signed Then, Melonie decides to come back Alabama, where herhusband is waiting

4 Methods of the study

- Revision of local and foreign relevant theoretical works

- Quantitative combined with qualitative method

5 Design of the study

The thesis is divided into 3 main parts:

Part A: Introduction

This part refers to the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study

Part B: Development

This part is divided into 3 chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

Chapter 2: Hedging strategies manifested in conversations in the film " Sweet

Home Alabama"

Part C: Conclusion

This part summarizes the main results of the study It also offers someimplications to teaching English communicatively as well as some suggestionsfor further works.

According to a 1980 paper by Canale and Swain "which has become

canonical in applied linguistics", communicative competence consists of 4

components: Linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competence.They can be summarized as follows:

1 Linguistic competence is knowing how to use the grammar [words andrules], syntax and vocabulary of a language This competence requires the usersknow what words they use? How they put them into phrases and sentences?

2 Sociolinguistic competence is knowing how to use and respond tolanguage appropriately, give the setting, the topic and the relationships amongpeople communicating This competence asks: which words and phrases fit thissetting and this topic? How can the speakers express a specific attitude (courtesy,authority, friendliness, respect, etc.) when they need to? How do they know whatattitude another person is expressing?

3 Discourse competence is knowing how to interpret the larger contextand how to construct longer stretches of language so that the parts make up acoherent whole [cohesion and coherent] This competence asks: How are words,phrases and sentences put together to create conversations, speeches, email,messages, newspaper articles?

Strategic competence is knowing how to recognize and repair communicationbreakdowns, how to work around gaps in one's knowledge of the language, andhow to learn more about the language and in the context Strategic competenceasks : How do speakers know when they have misunderstood or when someonemisunderstood them? What do they say then? How can they express their ideas ifthey do not know the name of something or the right verb form to use?

Richards et al (1985:49, in Nguyen Quoc Sinh, ibid.) propose a definition of

communicative competence as "the ability not only to apply the grammatical

rules of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also know when and where to use these sentences and to whom."

Gumperz (1972:205, cf Wardhaugh 1986:248) give the understanding of

communicative competence as " describes his ability to select, from the totality

of grammatically correct expressions available to him, forms which appropriately reflect the social norms governing behaviour in specific encounters."

In conclusion, communicative competence is a linguistic term for theability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language to form correctutterances, but also to know when to use these utterances appropriately

Therefore, it is, as "something multi-faceted and hidden in that it provides

repertoires of knowledge and skills necessary to successful communication and

avoid communication breakdowns in different situations or culture-specific context", very important to any learners of language, especially foreign learners

when making conversation with native speakers

J L Austin was the originator of the term "Speech Acts", and in hisWilliam James Lectures at Havard University in 1955, subsequently published as

How to Do Things with Words, he developed the first systematic theory of

utterances as human action In this famous paper, Austin studied what kinds ofthings people do when they speak, how they do them and how their acts will besuccessful or failed He considered that when people speak, they do something,and therefore, words are regarded as actions According to him, most utteranceshave no truth-condition and they are neither statements nor questions but they areonly actions One can apologize by saying "I apologize," promise by saying "Ipromise," and thank someone by saying "Thank you." These are examples ofexplicit performative utterances, statements in form but not in fact Or so thoughtAustin (1962) when he contrasted them with constatives Performatives areutterances whereby we make explicit what we are doing Austin challenged thecommon philosophical assumption (or at least pretense) that indicative sentencesare necessarily devices for making statements He maintained that, for example,

an explicit promise is not, and does not involve, the statement that one ispromising It is an act of a distinctive sort, the very sort (promising) named bythe performative verb Of course one can promise without doing so explicitly,without using the performative verb 'promise', but if one does use it, one is,according to Austin, making explicit what one is doing but not stating that one isdoing it Austin eventually realized that explicit constatives function inessentially the same way After all, a statement can be made by uttering "Iassert " or "I predict ", just as a promise or a request can be made with "Ipromise " or "I request " So Austin let the distinction between constative andperformative utterances be superseded by one between locutionary andillocutionary acts He included assertions, predictions, etc (he retained the term'constative' for them) along with promises, requests, etc., among illocutionaryacts His later nomenclature recognized that illocutionary acts need not be

performed explicitly you don't have to use "I suggest " to make a suggestion

or "I apologize " to apologize Even so, it might seem that because of theirdistinctive self-referential character, the force of explicit performatives requiresspecial explanation Indeed, Austin supposed that illocutionary acts in generalshould be understood on the model of explicit performatives, as when he madethe notoriously mysterious remark that the use of a sentence with a certainillocutionary force is "conventional in the sense that at least it could be madeexplicit by the performative formula" (1962, p 91) Presumably he thought thatexplicit performative utterances are conventional in some more straightforwardsense Since it is not part of the meaning of the word "apologize" that anutterance of "I apologize " count as an apology rather than a statement, perhapsthere is some convention to that effect If there is, presumably it is part of ageneral convention that covers all performative verbs

P F Strawson (1964) argued that Austin was overly impressed withinstitution-bound cases In these cases there do seem to be conventions thatutterances of certain forms (an umpire's "Out!", a legislator's "Nay!", or a judge's

"Overruled!") count as the performance of acts of certain sorts Likewise withcertain explicit performatives, as when under suitable circumstances a judge orclergyman says, "I pronounce you husband and wife," which counts as joining acouple in marriage In such cases there are specific, socially recognizedcircumstances in which a person with specific, socially recognized authority mayperform an act of a certain sort by uttering words of a certain form Strawsonargued, though, that most illocutionary acts involve not an intention to conform

to an institutional convention but an intention to communicate something to anaudience Indeed, as he pointed out, there is no sense of the word 'conventional'

in which the use of a given sentence with a certain illocutionary force isnecessarily conventional, much less a sense having to do with the fact that thisforce can be "made explicit by the performative formula." In the relevant sense,

an act is conventional just in case it counts as an act of a certain sort because, andonly because, of a special kind of institutional rule to that effect However, unlikethe special cases Austin focused on, utterances can count as requests, apologies,

or predictions, as the case may be, without the benefit of such a rule It isperfectly possible to apologize, for example, without doing so explicitly, without

using the performative phrase "I apologize " That is the trouble with Austin'sview of speech acts - and for that matter John Searle's (1969), which attempts toexplain illocutionary forces by means of "constitutive rules" for using "force-indicating devices," such as performatives These theories can't explain the factthat, e.g., an apology can be made without using such a device.There is asuperficial difference between apologizing explicitly (by saying, "I apologize")and doing it inexplicitly, but there is no theoretically important difference.Except for institution-bound cases like those illustrated above, performativityrequires no special explanation, much less a special sort of convention.

1.2.1 Definition of Speech Acts

According to Yule (1996:47) " in attempting to express themselves, people

do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, they perform action via those utterances", thus " actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts." ( Cited in Nguyen Quoc Sinh,

ibid.).Yule also gives the notion of Speech Event which has the same functions as

"total situation" in following Austin's statement, that is " We must consider the

total situation in which the utterance is issued - the total speech-act - if we are to see the parallel between statements and performative utterances." (1962:52)

1.2.2 Locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts

Austin (1962) identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act ofutterance itself He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does insaying it, and what one does by saying it, and dubs these the locutionary, theillocutionary, and the perlocutionary act, respectively Suppose, for example, that

a bartender utters the words, "The bar will be closed in five minutes," reportablewith direct quotation He is thereby performing the locutionary act of saying thatthe bar (i.e., the one he is tending) will be closed in five minutes (from the time

of utterance), where what is said is reported by indirect quotation In saying this,the bartender is performing the illocutionary act of informing the patrons of thebar's imminent closing and perhaps also the act of urging them to order a lastdrink Whereas the upshot of these illocutionary acts is understanding on the part

of the audience, perlocutionary acts are performed with the intention ofproducing a further effect The bartender intends to be performing theperlocutionary acts of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to closeand of getting them to order one last drink He is performing all these speechacts, at all three levels, just by uttering certain words

From what are discussed above, we can give the general view of threedimensions of speech act as follows:

Locutionary act is simply the speech acts that have taken place It is the basis of

utterance and the act of producing a meaningful expression People who cannotform sounds and words to create a meaningful expression in a language will not

be able to produce a locutionary act

Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance,

where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming and warning

Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts

the bet or pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned When the perlocutionaryact is identical to the illocutionary act, then communication gets success

Among these three dimensions of speech act, illocutionary acts is thetarget and it is assumed that speech acts means illocutionary acts Since anindividual locutionary act may have different illocutionary forces and requiredifferent perlocutionary acts, the above distinction is necessary for acquiringcommunicative effectiveness

1.1.3 Classification of speech acts

A different approach to distinguishing types of speech acts can be

made on the basis of structure One of this, as Yule (1996:54) supposed is made

on the basis of grammatical structure which divides speech acts into three types:Statement, question and command (or request) These three generalcommunicative functions coincide with three structural forms (three basissentence types): declarative, interrogative and imperative Look at the following Yule's examples:

You wear a seat belt (declarative)

Do you wear a seat belt? (interrogative)Wear a seat belt! (imperative)

These examples reveal a direct relationship between the structure (i.e.form) and the function, which show an optimal description of what declarativesentences used as assertions, imperatives used as commands or permissions, andinterrogatives used as questions mean However, structure and function do notalways correspond with each other, for instance, a question-formed utterancemay function as a question or request or even an exclamation Therefore, therelationship between structure and function is not always one-to-one Base onthese kinds of relationship, we have different types of speech acts as well If thisrelationship is direct ( as Yule's examples above), we have a direct speech act; ifthis relationship is indirect, we have an indirect speech act Hence, aninterrogative used to make a question is a direct speech act, and in case we use aninterrogative to perform a request or a suggestion or an offer/invitation - it iscalled an indirect speech act For example:

a) Do you like tea or coffee?

I ask you if you like to drink tea or coffee and I assume you to answer

"tea" or " coffee" (direct speech act)

b) Would you like to drink some tea?

I offer you some tea and it is actually an offer (indirect speech act)

Yule (1996) also suggests that it is more polite to use indirect speech act thandirect speech act

Austin (1962, in Nguyen Quoc Sinh, 2004:15) proposed five classes ofspeech acts They are:

Expositives: "expounding of views, the conducting of arguments and the

clarifying of usages and of references", e.g state, contend, insist, deny, remind,

Exercitines: "exercising of powers, rights or influences"; e.g order,

request, beg, dare

Behabitives: "reaction to other people's behaviour and fortunes", e.g.

thank, congratulate, criticize

Searle and Vanderveken (1985:13) employs the notion of point ofillocutionary act [purpose of making speech act] as follow to bring classificatoryorder to set of illocutionary acts :

Each type of illocution has a point or purpose which is internal to its being an

act of that type The point of statements and descriptions is to tell people how things are, the point of promises and vows is to commit the speaker to doing something Each of these points or purposes we will call the illocutionary point of the corresponding act We mean simply that a successful performance of an act of that type necessarily achieves that purpose

Searle argues that at base only five broad classes of illocutionary points

"All illocutionary forces [ speech acts] and verbs can be grouped under just

these five categories." ( Searle and Vanderveken, 1985:3-62, 179-216) In fact,

this is the remarkable claim that humans only perform five basic types of actionsusing words The five fundamental kinds of speech acts and their essential

unifying "points" are:

Declarations (or Declaratives): in which the speaker brings about some

state of affairs (the speaker has to have a special institutional role in a specificcontext) by virtue of the utterance itself The performance of the act brings about

a change in the world The class includes endorse, resign, nominate, name,

appoint, apply, etc the primitive or basic verb is to declare.

E.g - Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.

- Referee: You're out!

(Searle 1979:27, cited in Yule 1996:53)

Assertives (or Representatives): in which the speaker belives that the

proposition expressed represents an actual state of affairs and has grounds for so

doing This class includes accuse, criticize, complain, assert, state, deny, predict,

etc The basic assertive verb is to assert.

E.g - It was a warm sunny day.

- The earth is flat.

( Yule, ibid.53 )

Commissives: in which the speaker becomes committed to doing

something at some point in the future The class includes promise, vow, pledge,

guarantee, etc The basic commissive verb is to commit.

E.g - I'll send you a message soon

Directives: in which the speaker attempts to get the hearer to carry out a

future course of action The class includes request, question, order, command,

beg, suggest, urge, etc The primitive or basic directive verb is to direct.

E.g - Close the window, please!

- Don't make noise!

( Author's example)

Expressives: in which the speaker expresses some psychological states,

feelings or attitude, about a given state of affairs The class includes apologize, compliment, deplore, praise, complain, etc No one expressive is more basic than the others

E.g - I'm terrible sorry!

- Wow, yeah, oh, ahhh, hmm!

( Author's example)

Statements, requests, promises and apologies are examples of the four

major categories of speech acts: constatives, directives, commissives and

acknowledgments which are the four types defined by Kent Bach and Michael

Harnish (1979), who develop a detailed taxonomy in which each type ofillocutionary act is individuated by the type of attitude expressed (in some casesthere are constraints on the content as well) There is no generally accepted

terminology here, and Bach and Harnish borrow the terms 'constative' and 'commissive' from Austin and 'directive' from Searle They adopt the term 'acknowledgment', over Austin's 'behabitive' and Searle's 'expressive', for

apologies, greetings, congratulations etc., which express an attitude regarding thehearer that is occasioned by some event that is thereby being acknowledged,often in satisfaction of a social expectation Here are assorted examples of eachtype:

Constatives: affirming, alleging, announcing, answering, attributing, claiming,

classifying, concurring, confirming, conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing, disputing, identifying, informing, insisting, predicting, ranking, reporting, stating, stipulating

Directives: advising, admonishing, asking, begging, dismissing, excusing,

forbidding, instructing, ordering, permitting, requesting, requiring, suggesting, urging, warning

Commissives: agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering, promising, swearing,

volunteering

Acknowledgments: apologizing, condoling, congratulating, greeting, thanking,

accepting (acknowledging an acknowledgment)

Bach and Harnish spell out the correlation between type of illocutionary act andtype of expressed attitude In many cases, such as answering, disputing, excusingand agreeing, as well as all types of acknowledgment, the act and the attitude itexpresses presuppose a specific conversational or other social circumstance

For all the ways to classify speech acts mentioned above, Searle's ( 1979)

is the most widely discussed and agreed

1.2 Face, politeness and politeness strategies

1.2.1 What is Face?

Most of us are fairly sure we know what we mean when we describe

someone's behaviour as "polite" We might make statements like "He always

shows a lot of respect towards his superiors", or " She's always very helpful and obliging", or " He always opens doors for the ladies or help them on with their coats", etc to indicate that someone's behaviour is polite However, "to define the criteria with which we apply that description, is not quite easy." ( Richards.

J Watts 2003:1)

Yule (1996:60) argues that "It is possible to treat politeness as a fixed

concept, as in the idea of polite social behaviour, or etiquette, within a culture."

He also gives the general principles for being polite in social interaction, which

are tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic.

Politeness is also assumed to be the locus and battery of social skillswhose goal is to ensure that everyone feels affirmed in social interaction.Politeness exercises its influence on both the process and goal of interaction,therefore, politeness is a very important principle in language use and plays asignificant role in human communication Let us assume that participants in aninteraction are generally aware that such norms and principles exists in thesociety at large Within an interaction, however, there is a more narrowlyspecified type of politeness at work In order to make this problem clearer, we

need to refer to the concept of Face.

Face is a technical term used in psychology and sociology to refer to thestatus and esteem of individuals within social interactions ( Thompson 2003:32).Brown and Levinson (1987) have made a large part to discuss the concept of face

in which they give the definition of face as follows: "Face is an image of self

delineated in terms of approved social attributes-albeit an image that others may share, as when a person makes a good showing for his profession or religion by making a good showing for himself."

According to Yule (1996), "face means the public self-image of a person.

It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone else to recognize."

Thomas( 1995:169) shares this idea with Yule, that " Face is understood

as every individual's feelings of self-worth or self-image." Since face is

emotionally invested, it can be damaged, maintained or enhanced throughinteraction with others, a person often claim for him/herself through interaction.Moreover, since face is the social self-worth of everyone, in social interactions,participants must pay great attention to each other's face Therefore, in anyexchanges, we should avoid embarrassing the other person, or making him feeluncomfortable because everyone has his basic face needs or wants which refer tothe respect that individual has for him/herself As Watts (2004) supposes

"maintaining or partially satisfying each other's face seems to be major and

apparently the only motivation to be polite in communication”

In everyday social interactions, people generally behave in the ways thattheir expectations concerning their public self-image will be respected Theirexpectations are called face wants

Face consists of two aspects, to many scholars, which are : Positive andnegative face

Brown and Levinson (1987:61) propose their understanding of positive

face is: "the positive consistent self-image or personality (crucially including the

desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants."

According to Yule (1996), a person's positive face is "the need to be

accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others."

From what is mentioned above, an individual's positive face is understood

as the desire that to be liked, admired, valued, respected, approved of, andappreciated by others

Negative is the other side of face wants According to Brown and Levinson

(ibid.), negative face is "the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights

to non-distraction, i.e., to freedom of action and freedom of from imposition."

Yule (ibid.), said that a person's negative face is the need to beindependent, to have freedom of action and not to be imposed on by others Inother words, negative face is reflected in the desire not to be impeded or putupon, to have the freedom to act as one chooses

1.2.1.3 Face-threatening acts ( FTAs)

Every member of society knows that every other member has face wants,therefore, when they participate in an interaction, they must attend to each other'sface In case they say something which tends to threat other's face, they areconsidered to perform a face threatening act (FTA) In other words, FTAs areacts that are seems to damage or threaten others' face

According to Brown and Levinson (1987:65), FTAs are regarded as: "

certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face, namely those acts that by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee [hearer or receiver] and /

or of the speaker." They also make the distinction between acts that threaten negative face and those that threaten positive face Following their distinction,

negative face will be threatened if the speaker does not potentially intend to

avoid impeding hearer's freedom of action (e.g orders and request, suggestions,advice, remindings, dares, warnings); positive face will be threatened if speakerdoes not care about the addressee's feelings, wants, hopes, etc (e.g disapproval,criticism, contempt or complaints).

With the same idea, Yule (1996) observes that a FTA occurs when aspeaker says something that represents a threat to another individual'sexpectation regarding self-image

1.2.2 Politeness

1.2.2.1 Definition of Politeness

Politeness has got great attention of all areas of linguistics, it is, as Brown

and Levinson (ibid.) claim, " central interest in sociolinguistics, pragmatics,

applied linguistics, conversation analysis, etc."

According to The Australian Little Oxford Dictionary, politeness is

defined as good manner, "courteous, cultivated, refined" quality.

Jenny Thomas (1995:50) claims that politeness is " interpreted as desire

to be pleasant to others or as the underlying motivation for an individual's linguistic behaviour." In other words, polite means the way used to show

consideration to others and it is commonly applied for general social behavioursand linguistic means as well

Along with this concept, Yule (ibid.) states politeness simply means

"being tactful, generous, modest, and sympathetic towards others."

There are several approaches to politeness in which Leech's (1983) andLakoff's (1973,1989) conversational maxims and Brown & Levinson's politenessstrategies are more likely considerable to discuss

1.2.2.2 Politeness principle

1.2.2.2.1 Lakoff's politeness rules.

According to R Lakoff (1973), most of the conversation is governed by

the term of called politeness principle Sharing with Grice's (1975) co-operative

principle (but before), she argued that there are 3 rules (or maxims) that speakershould follow when making conversation Her 3 rules are run as follows:

1 Don't Impose: which indicates that speaker should try not to impose on

the hearer and not to prevent him doing what he wants By adhering this rule,speaker must apologizes or ask for permission when speakers ask the hearer to doanything that he does not want to Some expressions used to apply this rules are:

- I'm sorry to bother you

- Could you possibly

- I know it's asking a lot but

2 Offer Options: Speaker should avoid forcing the hearer into the corner,

i.e the speaker offers options to the hearer by expressing himself in such a waythat his opinions or requests are not likely to be contradicted or rejected In thecomparison with the first rule, this one is more informal since it is commonlyapplied for conversations between people who are not different in status orpower, but are not socially close, e.g the businessman and a partner Followingthis rule, speaker can use some expressions as:

- It's up to you

- Do you want to go first?

- I won't be offended if you don't want to

- I don't mind if you don't want to

3 Make the Hearer Feel Good: This rule is considered to be the most

informal one of politeness, which is used in close relationships, e.g close friends,members of a family Therefore, any topic can be mentioned and participantsshow active interests in each other Asking personal questions, making personal

opinions/ideas, etc can be accepted for this rule To apply this rule, indirectspeech acts and hedges are not totally necessary This rule can be seen throughthe use of such expressions:

- What would I have done without you?

- I'd really appreciate your advice on this

- I owe you one for this.

1.2.2.2.2 Leech's politeness maxims

Leech (1983) considers politeness as the answer for the question "why

people were often so indirect in conveying what they mean" and as explanation

for the exception to co-operative principles He gave two concepts "ambivalence"and "pragmatics principle", which were his major interest According to him,people use ambivalent utterance influence of politeness The crucial point ofambivalence concept is that the speaker let the hearer decide what the preciseforce of the utterance is and whether or not it applies to them He also introducespoliteness principles which includes six maxims All of them run as follows:

"Minimize (all things be equal) the expression of impolite beliefs, maximize (all

things be equal) the expression of polite beliefs." Leech's six maxims are:

1 The Tact Maxim: Minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost

to other, maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other

2 The Generosity Maxim: Minimize the expression of benefit to self,

maximize the expression of cost to self

3 The Approbation maxim: Minimize the expression of beliefs which

express dispraise of other, maximize the expression of beliefs which expressapproval of other

4 The Modesty Maxim: Minimize the expression of praise of self,

maximize the expression of dispraise of self

5 The Agreement Maxim: Minimize the expression of disagreement

between self and other, maximize the expression of agreement between self andother

6 The sympathetic maxim: To put the best possible gloss on what we say.

Minimize antipathy and maximize sympathy between self and other

1.2.2.3 Politeness strategies

The two previous sections, we have discussed Lakoff's and Leech'spoliteness principles as the hint that speaker should follow when they participate

in an interaction Brown and Levinson (1987), on the same purpose, provide

"possible strategies for doing FTAs", which are available to speakers to

encounter unavoidable face-threatening acts, to make appropriate communicativechoices and to reduce the possibility of damage and threat to hearer's face or tothe speaker's own face When speaker makes decision to perform the FTA, thereare four strategies for his choices (off-record, bald on-record, positive politeness,negative politeness) ; when speaker makes decision not to perform the FTA, hemay choose to avoid it by saying nothing

If a speaker goes off-record in doing an act A, then there is more than oneunambiguously attributable intention so that he cannot be held to have committed

himself to one particular intent For instance, if one says: "The wind is blowing

hard It is really cold ", he may want someone to close the window, but he

cannot be have to committed himself to that intent Linguistic realizations of record strategies include metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions,understatements, tautologies, all kinds of hints as to what a speaker wants ormeans to communicate, without doing so directly

off-A speaker goes on-record in doing off-A, if it is clear to participants whatcommunicative intention led the speaker to do A, (i.e there is just one

unambiguously attributable intention) For example, if I say " I (hereby) promise

to call you tonight", I did unambiguously express the intention of committing

myself to that future act

Doing an act baldly as being considered to be the first way of going record, without redress, involves doing it in the most direct, clear, unambiguousand concise way These provide no effort by speaker to reduce the impact of the

on-FTA's We will most likely shock the person to whom we are speaking to,embarrass them, or make them feel a bit uncomfortable However, this type ofstrategy is commonly found with people who know each other very well, and arevery comfortable in their environment, such as close friends and family; or incase the speaker does not fear any retribution from the hearer, for example incircumstances where speaker and hearer both are in an emergency situation orwhere the face threat is very small, or where the speaker is vastly superior inpower to hearer.

The second way available to go on-record is to choose to do an FTA with

redressive action According to Brown and Levinson (1987), "by redressive

action we mean action that "gives face" to the addressee, that is, that attempts to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA by doing it in such a way, or with such modifications or additions, that indicate clearly that no such face threat is intended or desired, and that S in general recognize hearer's face wants and himself wants them to be achieved." ( Brown and Levinson 1987: 69) Thus,

a speaker may redress the FTA by choosing positive politeness, that attends topositive face, to enable speaker to pay attention to hearer's positive face; or theycan redress the threat with negative politeness that respects the hearer's negativeface

Brown and Levinson's strategies of performing an FTA can be illustrated

in the following diagram:

1 Without redressive action, baldly

On-record 2.Positive politeness With redressive action

3.Negative politeness

Do the FTA

4 Off-record

5 Don't do the FTA

Thomas (1995) claims that speaker needs to balance three wants in doing

an FTA which are:

- the want to communicate content of the FTA

- he want to be efficient (or urgent)

- the want to maintain hearer's face to any degree

(Quoted in Nguyen Quoc Sinh, 2004:26)

1.2.2.3 Positive politeness and strategies

According to Brown and Levinson (1987:101), "positive politeness is

redress directed to the addressee's positive face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/ acquisitions/ values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable Redress consist in partially satisfying that desire by communicating that one's own wants (or some of them) are in some respects similar to the addressee's wants."

Positive politeness is usually seen in groups of friends, or where people inthe given social situation know each other fairly well It usually tries to minimizethe distance between them by expressing friendliness and solid interest in thehearer's need to be respected (minimize the FTA) In other words, it attends tohearer's positive-face wants and save hearer's face by the assurance that ingeneral, speaker wants at least some of hearer's wants For example, speaker canuse in-group identity markers to indicate that they have the same importance,same rights and duties; or speaker expresses an appreciation of the interlocutor'sself-image

Brown and Levinson (1987) propose fifteen positive politeness strategies

as follows:

Strategy 1: Notice, attend to hearer (H) (her/his interests, wants, needs, goods,

etc.)

Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)

Strategy 3: Intensify interests to the H in the speaker's contribution

Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers

Strategy 5: Seek agreement in safe topics

Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement

Strategy 7: Presuppose, raise, assert common ground

Strategy 8: Joke to put the H at ease

Strategy 9: Assert or presuppose knowledge of and concern for H's wants

Strategy 10: Offer, promise

Strategy 11: Be optimistic that H wants what the speaker wants, i.e that the

FTA is slight

Strategy 12: Include both S and H in the activity

Strategy 13: Give or ask for this reasons

Strategy 14: Assert reciprocal exchange or tit for tat

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

Nguyen Quang (2003) adds 2 more strategies:

Strategy 16: Console, encourage H

Strategy 17: Ask personal questions

1.2.3.1.2 Negative politeness

Negative politeness, as being defined by Brown and Levinson (1987), is

"oriented mainly toward partially redressing H's negative face, his basic want to

maintain claims of territory and self-determination Negative politeness, thus, is essentially avoidance-based, and realizations of politeness negative strategies consist in assurances that the speaker recognizes and respects the addressee's negative-face wants and will not (or will minimally) interfere with the addressee's freedom of action" Brown and Levinson (1987: 70) Thomas

(1995:172) makes this concept clear by stating that " negative politeness is

oriented towards a hearer's negative face, which appeals to the hearer's desire not to be impeded or put upon, to be left free to act as they choose" The main

focus for using this strategy is to assume that speaker may be imposing on thehearer, and intruding on their space It gives redress to FTAs by means ofapologies for imposition or interruption, of linguistic and non-linguisticdifference, of hedges, of impersonalising and softening mechanisms It can beseen through the use of conventional politeness markers, difference markers,imposition minimizes, etc

There are ten negative politeness strategies which are listed by Brown andLevinson (1987):

Strategy 1: Be conventionally indirect

Strategy 2: Do not assume willingness to comply Question, hedges

Strategy 3: Be pessimistic about ability or willingness to comply Use

subjunctive.

Strategy 4: Minimize the opposition

Strategy 5: Give deference

Strategy 6: Apologize

Strategy 7: Impersonalize the speaker and the hearer Avoid the pronouns I and

You.

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

Strategy 9: Nominalize to distance the actor and formality

Strategy 10: Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H.

Nguyen Quang (2003) has added one more strategy:

Strategy 11: Avoid asking personal questions

1.3.1 Hedges defined

Hedges, as George Lakoff (1972) argues, are "words whose meaning

implicitly involves fuzziness - words whose job to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy." He also proposes that hedges involve linguistically indeterminate items

(e.g sort of, kind of, technically speaking) and that hedges can be used to talk

about those natural phenomena that fall outside the central core of conceptualcategories of natural of language According to him, certain usages conveyedhedged performatives - that is, they modify the force of a speech act, forexample:

- " I suppose/guess/think that Mary is going to get married."

- Won't you open the door? (which could be glossed as "I hedgedly request that

you open the door").

As the same line, Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that hedges areparticles, words, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate

or noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that it is partial, or true only

in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected They observe that hedges include two categories: "Strengtheners" (those that act mainly as emphatic hedges) and "Weakeners" (those that soften or

tentativise what they modify) By providing such an understanding ofhedges,they include hedges as part of the strategies available for both positive

politeness where "intensifying modifiers fulfill the substrategy of exaggerating

(interest, approval, sympathy with H)" and more commonly for negative

politeness where they modify the expression of communicative intentions Hereare some examples of Brown and Levinson (ibid.146):

- A swing is sort of a toy.

- Bill is a regular fish.

- John is true a friend.

- I rather think it's hopeless.

- I'm pretty sure I've read that book before.

- You're quite right.

- This paper is not technically social anthropology.

Whereas, Holmes (1995) asserts that devices which reduce the force of an

utterance are generally labeled "hedges", and these hedging devices attenuate or

reduce the strength of the utterance or soften the effect of the utterance They

damp down its force or directness According to her, the notion of hedges is contrast with that of boosters seen as devices utilized to increase illocutionary force of any utterance in which they are used Therefore, as she proposes, hedges

are for negative politeness

There are more some scholars' views of hedges which are not ununified in the

literature James (1983) considers hedges are as compromisers, Quirk et al (1972,1985) regard hedges are downtowners, Hubler (1983) assumes that hedges are understatements, House and Kasper (1981) see hedges as downgraders, Crystal and Davy (1975) view hedges as softeners, Low (1996) says that hedges are backgrounding terms, etc.

Nguyen Quoc Sinh (2004:49) proposes some more ideas of hedges:

- Hedges are expression which do not add any false or truth values to thecontent of utterance;

- Hedges are attitude markers that can be taken as an indication of speaker'ssensitivity towards the hearer; and

- Hedges are used to attenuate the strength of an utterance when the speakerexpresses and reflects his opinion and attitude towards the person addressed, thusavoid making a negative effect of an FTA comment, and to save the hearer's face

1.3.2 Hedges used as positive and negative politeness strategies

As what we have discussed above, to many authors, hedging [the use ofhedges] has been first viewed as negative politeness strategy Lakoff (1992:32)

observes that hedging "occurs as a negative politeness strategy when the

participants are on an approximately equal footing, but not one intimacy, so that both [the speaker and hearer] need protection and feel a need to protect each other." Hubler (1983) also sees hedging as indications of negative politeness and

argues that hedges are primarily used in negative face-work Moreover, she alsoargues that hedges can be interpreted as simultaneously serving the speaker'snegative face needs According to Brown and Levinson (1987), hedges are

normally a feature of negative politeness and can be used to avoid " presuming

and assuming that anything involved in the FTA is desired or believed by the hearer", i.e hedging can be used as a sign to indicate that the speaker does not

want to impose on the hearer's desires or beliefs Similar to Lakoff, they alsostate the advantage of hedging as a strategy protecting the speaker's negative face

in cases when the speaker indicates that he thinks he had a good reasons to do anact which has been criticized by the hearer

On the contrary, since hedging "indicates that speaker consider the hearer

to be in important respect " the same" as he, with in group rights and duties and expectations of reciprocity, or by the implication that speaker likes hearer so that the FTA does not mean a negative evaluation in general of hearer's face"

(Brown and Levinson 1987:70), it can also be seen as a positive politeness

strategy Using hedges as positive politeness markers to fade the speaker intent in

softening and reducing the FTAs of criticizing, for instance, " You really sort of

blotched it, didn't you? Or "You made kind of a mess of it, didn't you?" ( Cited in

Nguyen Quoc Sinh 2004:50) can become a strategy signaling intimacy andrapport between speaker and hearer

For all of the analysis, it is possible to affirm that hedging can be seen asboth positive and negative politeness strategies

1.3.3 Hedges addressed to Grice's maxims

P Grice (1975), an Oxford philosopher, concentrated on studying thedifference between what is said and what is meant He realized that to understand

an utterance one needs not only shared general knowledge of the world andlinguistic knowledge but also knowledge of communicative competence as well

as shared contextual knowledge Therefore, he saw co-operation between theparticipants of a conversation as the fundamental principle underlyingconversation His explanation is formulated in general principle known as theCo-operative Principle:

"Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage

at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."

Grice (1975) proposes four maxims (rules or principles) which he sayspeople follow for a successful conversation:

1 The Maxim of Quality - This states "you should be truthful, have

enough evidence to back up what you are saying, and not say anything that you suspect to be false".

2. The Maxim of Quantity - When you make a contribution to a

conversation, say neither more or less than you actually need to For example, if you ask a stranger for directions to the nearest post-office and they say "it's not