A study on politeness strategies manifested in advising in english and vietnamese

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1. Rationale

English has played a vital role in society and made considerable contribution to education,

culture, science and technology. The number of people learning English for various

purposes (such as for job, business, traveling…) is continually on the increase everyday.

Therefore different kinds of English teaching and learning materials are available over the

world, especially in Vietnam.

In our country, English has been regarded as the most important foreign language

nowadays, especially since the Vietnamese Government carried out the open door policy.

English has been taught for a long time in Vietnam. It becomes a compulsory subject in

most universities and schools throughout the country. However, the emphasis on

transmission of structural rules and forms often sever as the principal method of teaching

English in Vietnamese schools and universities. Most of Vietnamese teacher tends to focus

on teaching as much grammar and vocabulary as possible. In fact, this method cannot do

much help for students to assure a successful communication in daily life. The students

may get difficulty in achieving contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in

communication. Therefore, the failure or the cultural breakdown might easily happen in

oral communication even though they learn English grammar well.

Thus, cultural knowledge is obviously an important key for Vietnamese students to

succeed in learning English because second language learning is second culture learning.

In order to acquire the second language, English, it is necessary to learn not only linguistic

knowledge and interaction skills but also knowledge of culture. When understanding the

cultural factors students may have chances to expose themselves to native speaking

environments. Normally Vietnamese students tend to employ English based on their native

culture and cause misinterpretation in oral communication. They are sometimes impolite,

unfriendly or even hostile by chance. Hence, to communicate well across culture students

must be aware of their own culture as well as the English culture, especially the hidden

part of culture including politeness and politeness strategies, which is really important part

in all social interaction.

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According to Wierzbicka in “A different cultures, different languages, different speech act”

cultural norms reflected in speech acts differs not only from one language to another. Like

the other speech acts, advising may be different from language to language, culture to

culture and community to community. It is our essential component in most aspects of

human life. Thanks to advising human beings seem to be closer, women look prettier,

children behave nicer, men are more perfect and home are more civilized. Together with

other speech activities, advising does a function of identifying a specific culture of people

and speech behavior in politeness, which makes the communication light, bright and

workable.

The author of this study aims to investigate and draw out the politeness strategies

manifested in advising in English and Vietnamese.

2. Aims of the study:

The aims of the study are:

* To draw out the important role of politeness in social communication, especially in cross

- cultural communication

* To study positive and negative politeness strategies manifested in advising in English

and Vietnamese.

* To put forward some suggestions for teaching advising situations

3. Scope of the study:

In all aspects of politeness, the study only deals with verbal aspects. Paralinguistic and non

- verbal factors are not discussed here.

This thesis focuses on positive and negative politeness strategies based on Brown and

Levinson’s theoretical framework (1987). Off record politeness strategies, politeness rules

and politeness principles are out of the scope of the thesis.

The paper is aimed to investigate the English – Vietnamese cross - cultural interaction on

speech act of advice. Its central focus is on which politeness strategy used in advice in both

languages English and Vietnamese. The data analysis is mainly taken in to account of

politeness based on what is collected from ten situations of case study in which the act of

advising occurs and three kind of relations: family relation, social relation, business

relation. The data were collected by conducting survey questionnaires by author herself. In

addition, the data from the interviews with informants is also utilized in the study.

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Examples for illustration are mostly taken from the data and reference is made when they

are taken from other sources.

A part from that, the study referred to positive sense of advice. It does not cover negative

senses such as irony, sarcasm, incitement and so on. With the limitation of thesis, the

response to advice is not regarded.

4. Research questions:

The study will focus on dealing with the following questions:

* How are politeness strategies manifested in advising in English and Vietnamese?

* How is the implication of politeness in advising related to the teaching of language?

5. Methods of the study

The major method that the author has employed is quantitative with due reference to

qualitative method as this study is mainly about the practical aspects of cross - cultural

communication. All the considerations and conclusions are mainly based on the data

analysis and references. Survey questionnaire comes from the daily personal observation.

The Vietnamese Northern dialect and English speakers at Vietnam are chosen for the

contrastive analysis. By “English speaker”, the author means the foreigners who mostly

come from Western countries and speak English as their first language. Approaches and

procedures employed to achieve the research goals are as follows:

* To establish a theoretical background, both home and foreign relevant publications are

critically reviewed and referred to

* To collect sufficient data, the informants are asked to tick in the appropriate space

* The investigation is resorted to in the investigation with the illustration of tables and

charts

* Consultation with supervisor, discussion with colleagues and personal observation are

also significant contribution to the study

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6. Design of the study:

The study is divided in to 3 parts:

Part A: Introduction (Includes: Rationale, Aims of the study, Scope of the study, Research

questions, Methods of the study and Design)

Part B: Development

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

1.1. Cross – cultural communication

1.1.1. Communication & Communicative competence

1.1.2. Cross - cultural communication

1.2. Speech act

1.2.1. Definition of speech act

1.2.2. Classification of speech acts

1.3. Politeness

1.3.1. What is politeness?

1.3.2. Politeness strategies

1.3.2.1. Positive politeness strategies

1.3.2.2. Negative politeness strategies

1.4. On advice

1.4.1. Definition of advice

1.4.2.. Advising as a speech act

1.4.3. Characteristics of advising

Chapter 2: Politeness in advising

2.1. The advising frequency in English and Vietnamese

2.1.1. The data analysis

2.1.2. English findings

2.1.3. Vietnamese findings in comparison and contrast to English

2.2. Politeness in advising

2.2.1. Politeness in advising as a need in English and Vietnamese interaction and cultures

2.2.2. Politeness in advising in English and Vietnamese

2.2.2.1. Data collection

2.2.2.2. Data analysis and findings

2.2.2.2.1. Politeness in advising as seen from informant parameters