So sánh cách thức từ chối lời mời của người việt nam học tiếng anh và người bản ngữ nói tiếng anh

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Pragmatic competence

To become effective communicators in today’s connected world, it is necessary for

language learners to gain true communicative competence. Communicative competence,

according to Hymes (1967), includes not only knowledge of linguistic forms but also

knowledge of when, how and for whom it is appropriate to use these forms. Likewise, Ellis

(1994:696) states that communicative competence “entails both linguistic competence and

pragmatic competence”.

Pragmatic competence is defined as ‘the ability to use language effectively in order

to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context’ (Thomas 1983:94).

She also distinguishes between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence.

Pragmalinguistic competence refers to the appropriate language to accomplish a speech

act, whereas sociopragmatic competence refers to the appropriateness of a speech act in a

particular context.

Increasing attention has been paid to pragmatic competence due to the fact that

many learners may have good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary but

they may still fail in real interaction with native speakers. Moreover, in accordance with

Thomas (1983), native speakers often forgive the phonological, syntactic and lexical errors

made by L2 speakers but usually interpret pragmatic errors negatively as rudeness,

impoliteness or unfriendliness.

Over the past few decades, language teaching in the world and in Vietnam has

witnessed a shift from the focus on the development of learners’ linguistic competence to

the development of learners’ communicative competence. To facilitate this change, there is

a need for more studies on learners’ pragmatic competence, including studies on

interlanguage pragmatics. This study is carried out in an attempt to understand more about

the interlanguage pragmatics of Vietnamese learners of English.

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1.2. The speech act of refusal to invitation: a face - threatening act

Refusals are considered to be a ‘sticking point’ for many non-native speakers

(Beebe et al. 1987). Refusals to invitations occur when a speaker directly or indirectly says

‘No’ to an invitation. It is, in fact, a face – threatening act. Face, in Brown and Levinson’s

(1987:61) definition, is ‘the public self image that every member wants to claim for

himself’, that is the emotional and social sense that everyone has and expects everyone else

to recognize. Therefore, in interaction, people often cooperate to maintain each other’s

face. However, some acts, by their nature, make it difficult to maintain the face of the

participants in an interaction. These acts are referred to as face-threatening. Some acts

threaten the hearer’s face, others threaten the speaker’s face, still others threaten the face of

both the hearer and the speaker. To reduce the risk of possible communication breakdown

due to these face-threatening acts, the participants can say something to lessen the threat to

the face of the others. This is referred to as a face-saving act.

Refusing an invitation contradicts the inviter’s expectation; thus, it is a face -

threatening act. It tends to risk the interpersonal relationship of the speakers. To maintain

the face of the inviter, the person who refuses the invitation is expected to use many face￾saving acts or strategies. Or in other words, it is important for that person to give the

impression that he/she still cares about the inviter’s wants, needs or feelings. It requires a

high level of pragmatic competence. However, the way people refuse, or the manipulation

of the face-saving strategies, varies across languages and cultures. Language learners, due

to the limitation in language proficiency and the high requirement of pragmatic

competence for this speech act, are at a great risk of offending their interlocutor when

carrying out a refusal to an invitation. Beebe et al. (1987:133) claim that ‘the inability to

say ‘No’ clearly and politely, though not directly has led many non-native speakers to

offend their interlocutors.’ The present study is an attempt to understand more about

Vietnamese EFL learners’ refusal strategies in the hope to raise their pragmatic awareness

and partly improve their pragmatic competence.

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1.3. Structure of the thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 discusses pragmatic competence, the

speech act of refusal to invitation and the rationale of the study. The chapter ends with

information on the structure of the thesis.

Chapter 2 reviews previous studies on the speech act of refusal, especially those

examining the factors under investigation of the study, i.e. the strategy use in relation to the

interlocutor’s social status. The review helps form the theoretical background for the study.

Chapter 3 describes the methodology used in the study, including the aims, the

research question of the study, the data collection method, the data collection instrument,

data collecting procedures and the subjects of the study. The coding framework and data

analysis are also presented in this chapter.

Chapter 4 presents and discusses the results of the study with regard to the

strategies used by the two groups of subjects, native speakers of English (NSEs) and

Vietnamese learners of English (VLEs) in relation to the interlocutor’s social status for the

speech act of refusal to invitation.

Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings of the study, gives implications for

language teaching, points out the limitations of the study and suggests areas for further

research.

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Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Research on the speech act of refusal

Although the speech act of refusal is a face-threatening act which causes problems

for not only non-native speakers but also native speakers, fewer studies have investigated

the act than other acts such as request, apology or greeting. However, the studies on the

speech act of refusal vary across the areas of study around the act. Some of them aim to

reveal the speech act in one language or culture, for instance, Chinese (Chen, Ye & Zhang,

1995; Bresnahan, Ohashi, Liu, Nebashi & Liao, 1999), English (Kitao, 1996), Japanese

(Moriyama, 1990; Laohaburakit, 1995), Peruvian Spanish (Garcia, 1992, 1996). Some

have been interested in the cross-cultural perspective of the speech act. They compare the

refusal patterns or strategies used by speakers of a language other than English with those

used by native speakers of English (Shigeta, 1974; Liao & Bresnahan, 1996; Phan, 2001;

Nelson, Carson, Batal & Bakary, 2002; Kwon, 2004; Hsieh, Chia-Ling & Chen, 2005;

Dang, 2006). Others study the refusal strategy use of non-native speakers of English and

native speakers of English or focus on pragmatic transfer (Beebe & Takahashi & Uliss￾Weltz, 1990; Beebe & Cumming, 1996; Lauper, 1997; Al-Issa, 2003; Al-Eryani, 2007).

This chapter will review previous studies investigating the speech act of refusal.

Specifically, the studies on cross-cultural refusals will be reviewed in section 2.2 and those

on interlanguage refusals will be reviewed in section 2.3.

2.2. Cross-cultural refusals

Some major studies on cross-cultural refusals are Kwon (2004) and Nelson et al.

(2002). Besides, there are some unpublished studies which are MA theses on the speech act

of refusal to requests and refusals to invitation in English and Vietnamese, Phan (2001)

and Dang (2006).

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