Refusing an invitation in english and some contrasts with that in vietnamese

Part B Development It focuses on the study and consists of three chapters: Chapter I: Theoretical background Chapter II: Refusing an invitation Chapter III: The differences and simi

“REFUSING AN INVITATION

IN ENGLISH AND SOME

CONTRASTS WITH THAT IN

VIETNAMESE”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A

Nguyễn Thị Tường, who introduced me to this thesis: “Refusing an

invitation in English and some contrast with that in Vietnamese and inspired me to do this research If without her valuable guidance, comments, and criticism, my thesis would not have been accomplished

And I would also like to express my indebtedness to D.r Lê Công

Thìn and all my teachers at Foreign Languages Departerment for their

great help with useful and up-to-date materials concerning my field of study

Finally, my sincere thanks are due to my family, to my friend They help me with good ideas and remind me finishing this thesis

5 Design of the study 4

1 3 Speech act and its classification 7

2 2 Refusing an invitation in language communication 16

2 3 Directness and indirectness in refusing an invitation 21

2 3 1 Directness- indirectness- Politeness

2 3 2 The factors effecting directness and

CHAPTER III: THE DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES

OF REFUSING AN INVITATION

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 32

1 The reason for the study

We live in development world, so communication and exchange information are very important People may be Asian, American, and African; European…They have different languages, but having same purpose to exchange information daily And language is considered as a mean of communication and an instrument of thought

Refusing an invitation has an important role in communication of spiritual life It is a way in daily life and how people can use it suitable, so

this thesis is quite important

For example:

A: Would you like to get the cinema tonight?

B: I‟m sorry, tonight I must do homework

During the process of study English we can know some ways to refuse an invitation And then with studying pragmatic, speech act, politeness and conversational theory we understood more about language and use it better So we want to take great consideration on comparing and contrasting refusing an invitation between languages

2 Aims of the study

- To present some ways to refuse an invitation

- To compare and contrast the refusal of an invitation in the two languages in order to clarify the similarities and differences in the way Vietnamese and English speaking people refuse an invitation in their own language and culture

3 Scopes of study

The study confines only to verbal aspects of the actor refusing an invitation Although the author is fully conscious of the role of paralinguistic and non-verbal factors in real-life communication They are beyond the scope of this study

The study especially focuses on strategies of refusing an invitation in English and Vietnamese

The Vietnamese Northern dialect and the English language spoken in the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada are chosen for contrastive analysis

4 Methods of the study

To set up the theoretical framework for the study, the authors refer to

both home and foreign publication in order to achieve of research as

mentioned above The main method of the study is the quantitative one

5 Design of the study

The thesis is divided into three main parts:

Part A Introduction

All the academic routines required for graduation thesis are

presented

Part B Development

It focuses on the study and consists of three chapters:

Chapter I: Theoretical background Chapter II: Refusing an invitation

Chapter III: The differences and similarities of refusing

an invitation between English and Vietnamese

We are difficult to find out the functions of language, because

language is a complicated business In every day talk, we use the word

“language” in many different ways It is not clear how “language” should

be defined or what person on street thinks it actually is We talk about how

miraculously a child’s language is developing but how they make charming

“grammar mistake” like “me maden that” instead of “I made that” Here

language is an ability that is blossoming in the child (William Downs - 1999:6)

We know that everyone uses and speaks a language but we are sure that it is difficult to explain clearly, what the nature of language is? Language plays a central roll in our daily social and mental life thought

We have not been able to get access to it inner manipulations “What is a

language?” is different from “What is language?” In order to answer two

questions, it has debated many linguists The concept of language carries with it many of the ambiguity and unclarity

Gary Grosgrain (1995:5) believes that “language” shapes our

conception of reality And H Jackson and P Stockweell (1996:1) use the

term “language” to refer to general facelty, which enables human being to

engage in the verbal exchange of information The exchange may take place by means of speech, writing, signing, and braille

According to Jack C, Richards (1992:150) language is divided into

three main functions The first is “descriptive” function of language which

means that language conveys factual information The second is

“expressive” function of language That means language is to know about

the speaker’s felling, preferences, prejudices and past experience The last

is “social” function of language which serves to establish and maintain

social relations between people

According to Halliday (1970:151) language also is divided into three

main functions but different terms The first is “ideational” function which

refers to the speaker’ experience of the real world The second is

“interpersonal” function of language meaning that language indicates,

establishes or maintains social relations between people The last is

“textual” function of language It means that language is to create written

or spoken texts which fit the particular situation

Above are some ideas of linguistic We also understand some functions

of language In real life, we know that language is used to convey meaning, communicate, establish and maintain social relations between people In addition, how to understand meaning which speaker wants to convey? It is very important It depends on speech act

1 2 Theory of contrast

Contrastive analysis is a branch of comparative linguistic

Comparison and analysis are carried out on the same order, factor, feature

of the same object based on linguistic document, passage on act There are

two kinds of contrastive analysis: interior and exterior

- Interior comparison is comparison on the different units, categories

of different levels and aspects of only one language For example: Comparison of phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences in one language

- Exterior is comparison on the different units, categories of two or

more language

We know that language has many functions and the most important one is information exchange In order to successfully exchange information

we need to have a deep understanding about culture and language of others

For example: The word “to be” in English and “là” in Vietnamese may

make foreigners get confused A Vietnamese beginning learner may

translate the sentence “She is beautiful” into “Cụ ấy là đẹp” So contrastive

analysis is very important in linguistic and more important, we contrast

between two or more languages to find out the similarities and the

differences between them (culture, society, language)

1 3 Speech act and its classification

A: Would you like to go fishing, tomorrow?

B: My father will visit me, tomorrow

In the A and B conversation A wants to invite B to go fishing, but

B does not agree and he/she refuses A’s invitation Both A’s utterance and B’s utterance are speech acts

So, when attempting to express themselves, we not only make sentences containing grammatical and lexicological factors but also perform actions thought these actions such as the examples above They do not only intend utter those sentences but also we want to convey more than those As we know, John Austin (1962), a British philosopher, was the

originator of the term “speech acts” and the author of “how do you think

with words” He has put forward the notion of “speech act” and initiated

the speech act theory His theory was developed and presented more

systematically by other linguists such as: John Searle (1969), Hymes (1964), Levinson (1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Schmidts and Richards (1983)… All these speech act theorists share the idea that there is a close

link between speech acts and language functions

Speech acts are actions which performed via utterances for communicating In English, they are commonly given such specific labels

as apologizing, complaining, requesting, invitation, etc In addition, the circumstances in which, via utterances, actions are performed to communicate are generally called speech events

John Austin believes that when people have a single speech act, it actually contains three separations but it is related acts In his three –fold

division of speech acts, Austin categorizes them as: locutionary acts,

illocutionary acts, perlocutionary acts

Making an utterance, the speaker performs a locutionary act that is an act of saying something with a sense and referent It is the basic act of utterance and this act of producing a meaningful-linguistic expression If you were a foreigner, you would be difficult to perform a locutionary act For example:

I want to have a cup of tea

The illocutionary act is the function of utterance, which the speaker wants to express from his/her mind And the communicative purpose is intended or achieved by the utterance In your utterances you might promise, threaten, inform, question, greet, etc This distinction is useful because there is not always a one to one correspondence between syntactic forms and illocutionary acts

For example:

This tea is cold

It could have the illocutionary force of a statement, an offer, and an explanation on some other acts So we know that the illocutionary force is regarded as the most important while the three dimensions of a speech act are performed simultaneously Hearing an utterance the hearer needs contextual clues and regulative rules such as his/her relationship with the speaker, the speaker’s purpose, the previous utterance They are called

performatives And the verb that explicitly names the illocutionary act called performative verb

For example:

I sentence you to prison

I name you Lan

The perlocutionary acts refer to the hearer’s understanding of the illocutionary act that the speaker intends In addition, the hearer may feel amused, annoyed, persuaded or warned as a consequence of the speaker’s

utterance In this example: I have just made some coffee If the intended

illocutionary force of it is an invitation then it causes the hearer to drink

some of coffee or to decline this invitation This is the perlocutionary force

of the speech act In addition, it is important to appreciate and its

perlocutionary effect may not coincide If I warn you against a particular

course of action, you may or may not heed my warning

There are many ways to classify the illocutionary acts but one of the

most influential and most widely used is J, Sealer’s (1969) classification

He has examined more closely the nature of illocutionary acts and set up

five basic types as follows:

(i) Declarations: are those kinds of speech acts that change the word

via their utterances

(ii) Representatives: are those kinds of speech acts that state what the

speaker believes to case or not For examples: statement of fact assertions,

conclusions and descriptions

(iii) Expressive: are those kinds of speech acts that state what the

speaker feels They express psychological states and can be statements of

pleasure, pain, like, dislike, joy and sorrow

(iv) Directives: are those kinds of speech acts that the speaker uses to

get someone else to do something They express what the speaker wants

They are commands, orders, invitations, requests, suggestions, etc

(v) Co missives: are those kinds of speech acts that the speaker uses to

commit themselves to some future actions They express what the speaker

intend They are promises, threats, refusals, and pledges

Another approach to distinguish between types of speech acts is

based on the relationship between the structure and functions As G Yule

claims, three structure forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and

three general communicative functions (statement, question, command)

can be combined to create two other types of speech acts: Direct and Indirect speech act

For examples:

You make some coffee

Do you make some coffee?

Make some coffee

There is a direct relationship between a structure and a function as in:

Could you open the window? (Directive) which directly get the addressee

to open the window? It is direct speech act However, we can make one speech act with the intention of performing another We might say: It is hot

here! (Representative) It is simply that in the room very hot but it is also

directive causing the hearer to open the window Such an indirect relationship between structure and function marks an indirect speech act Therefore, speech act may perform either directly or indirectly In

English, “indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness than direct speech acts” (G Yule-1996) According to J Searle,

(1969: 61), In direct speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on there mutually shared background information both linguistic and non-linguistic, together with the general power of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer Generally, in order to be an effective speech act, certain facility conditions must be satisfied These conditions can be simply summarized as: the utterance must be said by right person to right person in the right place at right time in the right manner and so on Then a speech act is said

to be appropriately performed (Jackson and Stock Well 1996:140) These conditions reflect the nature of communication that is a constant attempt for co-operation and all participants should be aware of the rules governing the speech event

Thus, speech act plays an important role in function of language And Guy Cook reviews that: “Speech act theory, which relates the function

of utterances to set up facility conditions and the knowledge of participants that these conditions exist, may help us to understand the unity of exchanges in communication” (1990:37)

Particularly, G Yule (1996:59) claims that the factors affecting an interaction are called social distance and closeness They relate to an interaction and consist of external factors They typically involve the relative status of the participants based on social value such as age and power For example, you are a lower status and your boss is a higher status, you tend to mark social distance between your boss and you by using address form such as: Murmurs and his/her last name In addition, with the strangers we usually use external factors to speak to them Near by, there are some other factors These are internal factors They are amount of imposition or degree of friendliness For example, in the conversation, we can change from a title-plus-last name to a first name if we feel friendlier during the talk

Smith (1983) who called “five senses” says more specifically They affect the process of interaction

 A sense of self: they always exist in each person such as race,

gender, nationality, age, social economic status, belief, values, etc which need to be known by ourselves

 A sense of other: when we want to communicate effectively, we should understand about our participant The best way to have this is through personal experience

 A sense of relationship between self and other: it is distance between the speaker and the hearer They decide what discourse is Strategies are used in communication

 A sense of the setting and/or social situation: in order to have effective communication with people who have different culture, we should take geographic setting and social situation, formal and informal occasions, etc into account

 A sense of the goal or objective: the goal or objective of a conversation should be accomplished Important general goals and objectives are commonly at a subsconscious state of awareness and require effort to verbalize

Thus, there are many factors effecting on communicating and its effectiveness They are relationship between the speaker and the hearer or the “social distance” and “closeness between them” in Yule’s words That has the great influence on the conversation In order to reach the goal and objective of the communication we must carry out the interaction at the right time Recognizing the factors that impact what is communicated is very essential and the investigation of those should be undertaken in term

of politeness In generally, interaction is understood as communicating, exchange and sharing information

1 4 2 Politeness

In human communication, we always try to make our speech as

polite as possible In pragmatic textbook, culturally, politeness is treated as

“the idea of polite social behavior or etiquette, within a culture” (G Yule 1996: 60) More correctly, politeness is “a number of different general principles for being polite in social interaction within a particular culture.” Linguistic tried to specify generally principle for being polite in social interaction Layoff (in Green 1989:142) described three different rules that a speaker might follow in choosing to be polite

Rule 1 is “do not impose”; it means that avoiding mitigating or asking permission or apologizing for making addressee, doing anything which address does not want to do

Rule 2 is “offer options”, these mean expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opinion or request can be ignored without being contradicted rejected

Rule 3 is encouraged feeling camaraderie/ making a feel good Almost any topic of conversation is fair game so with close friend, one should be able to discuss anything

And another linguist, Leech (1983:16) lists the politeness principle in order to “minimize the expression of impolite beliefs” It consists of six maxims:

Tact maxim: minimize cost of the other and maximize benefit to other Generosity maxim: minimize benefit to self and maximize cost to self

Approbation maxim: minimize dispraise of other and maximize dispraise of self

Modesty maxim: minimize praise of self and maximize praise to other

Agreement maxim: minimize disagreement between self and other Maximize agreement between self and other

Sympathy maxim: minimize antipathy between self and other Maximize sympathy between self and other

In six maxims, Leech considers that the “tact maxim” is the most important

in politeness in English speaking society

According to Brown and Levinson, politeness is divided into five strategies to minimize risk of costing face corresponding to the degree of face-threaten

- Strategy 1: Bald on record

- Strategy 2: Positive politeness

- Strategy 3: Negative politeness

- Strategy 4: Off record (implicating) -

- Strategy 5: Do not do the face threatening acts (FTA)

And Brown and Levinson (1987:60) describe possible strategies for doing “face threatening acts” as following:

Lesser risk (1) without redressive action, badly

On record (2) Positive

Do the FTA With redressive

(4)Off record (3) Negative (5) Do not do the FTA

Greater risk

Circumstances determining choice of strategy

(Brown & Levinson 1987:60)

FTA: face threatening acts

This approach has proved that there are factors, which make one strategy more appropriate than the others do There are three factors as in Brown and Levinson’s analysis:

“In broad terms, research seems to support our claim that three

sociological factors are crucial in determining the level of politeness which

a speaker will use to an address There is relative power of the hearer and the speaker; the social distance between the hearer and the speaker; and the ranking of the imposition involve in doing the face threatening act” (1987:15)

In conclusion, the concept of politeness strategies is still controversial and it is very important in interaction Different language may have different politeness strategies, seeking effective divides successful communication

CHAPTER II REFUSING AN INVITATION

2 1 Refusing as a respond to a speech act

“Refuse” is the act “to show or say that one is unwilling to give, accept or do something” (Oxford Advanced learner’s dictionary-Oxford university press 1995:961)

In real-communication, we always use language to respond the communication of other In addition, refusals are usually used to express what we do not want to do after other’s invitation

For example:

A: Would you like drink some coffee?

B: Thank you, I must go out now

Refusing as a responding a speech act and as replying to an invitation speech act Tsui (1995:57) characterizes a respond as “an utterance which fulfils an interactional expectation set up by the preceding initiating act” And according to Wierzbicka(1987:94) “Refusing means, essentially,

saying “no, I will not do it” in respond to someone else’s utterance, in which he has conveyed to us that he wants us to do something and that he expects us to do it ” In conversation the speaker can make his\her

expression invitation as: “Would you like… or let‟s…etc.” and the hearer respond the speaker’s invitation Refusals are such as “sorry, I can‟t…/ sorry, I‟m busy…etc.” So “refusing is a negative respond to directives”

(Hence Verschieren 1985 in Wierzbicka 1987:96)

2 2 Refusing an invitation in language communication

Refusing an invitation is post-event and negative responding, in which invitation is pre-event act and initiation Using refusals so the hearer does not carry out the illocutionary of the speaker’s invitation

In real life, sometimes we feel different to refuse an invitation and how to make a polite refusal, it is very difficult If we make an impolite respond, the speaker will feel uncomfortable or painful feeling Wierzbicka (1987:94) remarks: “this prevents any further discussion and highlights the direct opposition of the two parties” If the refusing person does not care about the interlocutor’s emotion and attitude, his refusal can be regarded as

a blunt or even rude act and refusals might implicate loss of face for the person who invites

For example: refusing an invitation to go to the cinema may constitute the threat

Positive face: It spends a lot of time to go to the cinema with you Negative face: I do not want to go to with you

In terms of the pragmatic, invitation and refusing are natural sequences

in the structure of the conversation, which called “adjacency pairs”

Adjacency pairs in Yule’s description consist of two parts Yule has observed this structural preference in the following table

First part Second part

Preferred Dispreferred Assessment

Invitation Offer Proposal Request

Agree Accept Accept Agree Accept

Disagree Refuse Decline Disagree Refuse

The general pattern of preferred and dispreferred structure

For example: Coming and having dinner with me

This invitation sets up the expectation of an acceptance or a refusal

An acceptance is the preferred respond It is also considered as a positive responding

- Sure

- Okay

A refusal is the dispreferred responding

- No

- Sorry, I have had dinner

Initiation and refusing is communication situation, which have the conflicting desires between speaker and hearer That is why the hearer is

difficult to say “no” to an invitation

“From a pragmatic perspective, the expression of the preferreds (…) clearly, represents closeness and quick connection The expression of a dispreferreds (…) would represent distance and lack of connection From a social perspective, it is easy to see why participants in a conversation might try to avoid creating contexts for dispreferreds” (Yule 1996:82)

In order to produce polite and effective disprefereds, a number of optional elements might be employed These elements in English in Yule’s observation are:

How to do a Dispreferred Example

Delay/hesitate -pause/ er/ em/ah

Preface -well /oh

Express double -I’m not sure/ I don’t know

Taken yes -That’s great/ I’d love to

Apology -I’m sorry/ that’s a pity

Mention obligation -I must do X/ I’m expected in Y Appeal for understanding - You see/ you know

Making it non-personal - Everybody else/ out there

Giving an account - Too much work/ no time left

Using mitigates - Really/mostly/ sort of

Hedge the negative - I guess not/not possible Usually, the hearer tends to avoid absolution refusal such as: “no, I

do not want” They can be performed in a polite way, which reduces painful and more acceptant for the person who invites Such as: “I‟m really sorry, I must stay at home”

In English, the refusal usually contains some words and phrase as:

-Features of delay: hehh/ hh/ uhm

-The use of prefacing fillers: well

-The use of mitigated refusals: I wish/ I can…

-Hesitations: Let‟s see…

-An explanation of refusals

-Erosive answers to indicate their reluctance

In Vietnamese, according to Nguyễn Phương Chi (1997), the refusals are usually used some words and phrases such as: