chi nga.1
TRANSCRIPT
PRAGMATIC VIOLATION IN REQUESTS BY VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ms. Le Pham Hoai
Huong, my supervisor whose guidance and support, correction and
suggestions are of great important to the manuscript of this paper. She has
been always my source of wisdom, knowledge and encouragement during my
process of writing it.
Second, I am greatly indebted to Mr. Tran Van Phuong, Head of the
Department of Foreign Languages and all the teachers at Phu Xuan University
for their constant encouragement and having devotedly taught me during my
four-year student life.
Third, I wish to sincerely thank all my friends and informants who had
given me a very effective and practical cooperation, and above all, their
faithful encouragement.
At last, my warmest and profound thanks are due to my family for
having wholly supported and taken good care of me during the research was
being conducted.
Hue, April 2008
Nguyen Thi Hang Nga
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ABSTRACT
The research is a study on pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese
speakers of English. Its purpose is to help Vietnamese speakers, especially
English majors to better their communicative competence when making
requests by alerting their pragmatic violation in requests and to provide ways
to help them overcome their violation.
The subjects of the study consist of 100 participants from first to fourth
year English major students at Phu Xuan University. In order to collect data,
the researcher combined two main methods: recording dialogues and
questionnaire. The results showed that the pragmatic violation in requests by
English majors was commonly making pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic
errors. There are four main causes of these problems: the influence of
Vietnamese language, student’s personality, the influence of Vietnamese
socio-culture and textbooks and study environment.
Based on the study findings, the paper ends with some practical
suggestions for the students and teachers of the English Section of Foreign
Languages Department at Phu Xuan University on how to deal with the
mistakes in requests by students so as to improve their communicative
competence.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abstract
Table of contents
Chapter I: Introduction
I.1. Background
I.2. Research objectives
I.3. Research significance
I.4. Research questions
I.5. Scope of the thesis
I.6. Structure of the thesis
Chapter II: Literature review
II.1. Introduction
II.2. What is Pragmatics?
II.2.1. Changing Definitions of Pragmatics
II.2.2. Pragmatic Violation
II.2.3. Speech Acts
II.3. Requests
II.3.1. Requests as a Speech Act
II.3.2. Requests Strategies
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II.3.3. How to make a request?
II.4. A comparison between Vietnamese and English requests
II.5. Previous studies
Chapter III: Research methodology
III.1. Introduction
III.2. Methodology
III.3. Research subjects
III.4. Data Collection Methods
III.4.1. Recording Dialogues
III.4.2. Questionnaire
III. 5. Procedure of Data Collection
III.5.1. Questionnaire
III.5.2. Recording Dialogues
III.6. Data analysis
III.7. Summary
Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion
IV.1. Introduction
IV.2. Pragmatic violation in requests
IV.2.1. Pragma-linguistic error
IV.2.2. Socio-pragmatic error
IV.3. Causes
IV.3.1. Influence of Vietnamese language
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IV.3.2. Student’s Personality
IV.3.3. Influence of Vietnamese Socio-culture
IV.3.4. Textbooks and Study Environment
IV.4. Suggestions to overcome the errors
IV.4.1. General Suggestions
IV.4.2. Suggestions to help English majors remedy errors in requests
IV.5. Summary
Chapter V: Conclusion and Implications
V.1. Summary of the study
V.2. Implications
V.2.1. Learning communicative competence in requests
V.2.2. Teaching communicative competence in requests
V.3. Final words
References
Appendices
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Chapter I:
INTRODUCTION
I.1. Background
All languages have a set of conventions about language use. These
conventions are social and cultural. So they differ from language to language,
from country to country and from culture to culture. W.Humboldt, a great
German culturist said that language is a soul of a nation. It is clear that
language plays an important role in human communication because in all
aspects of life, language is a vital key to lead to people’ success. Therefore,
foreign languages, especially English are being learned by a large number of
people with great motivation.
However, to master one language in an efficient way is not easy. Learners
of English tend to have difficulties in understanding the intended meanings
communicated by a speech act, or producing a speech act using appropriate
language and manner in language being learnt. Even though one may say
words clearly and use long, complex sentences with correct grammar, still has
a communication problem. He/she may say inappropriate unrelated things
during conversation or have little variety in language use.
As a student at the Department of Foreign Languages, I have found that a
number of English majors have problems in language competence, especially
in the speech act of requests in conversational cases; therefore, I decided to
choose: “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English”
as a topic of my research.
I.2. Research objectives
The study is carried out with the aims as follows:
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Introducing English majors to requests strategies and how to make
requests.
Presenting English majors the comparison between Vietnamese and
English requests.
Helping English majors to better their conversational competence when
making requests by alerting and correcting their pragmatic violation in
requests commonly made by themselves
I.3. Research significance
The research focuses on problems in language competence in using
requests of English majors. Thus, it helps students to recognize their
problems in a specific scope. The study also provides some suggestions
with the hope that they could produce a small contribution to the
improvement in learning and teaching English especially in learning and
teaching pragmatics in English.
I.4. Research questions
This research concentrates on the three main questions:
1. How do English majors use requests?
2. Do they often make mistakes in using requests? If yes, what are
the mistakes?
3. How to help them overcome mistakes and use requests in
English in an effective way?
I.5. Scope of the thesis
There are many aspects of pragmatic violation by Vietnamese speakers of
English. Nevertheless, this research cannot cover all problems related to but
only the pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English in
some aspects such as: Vietnamese speakers’ errors in using request strategies,
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factors influence their requests and some suggestions providing to help them
conquer the errors.
I.6. Structure of the thesis
The thesis is divided into five chapters as follows: Chapter one introduces
the background of the study, defines research objectives, research
significance, research questions, scope and the structure of the thesis. Chapter
two presents definitions of pragmatics, the pragmatic violation, speech acts,
requests and a brief comparison between Vietnamese and English requests.
“Research methodology” chapter expresses methods and procedures to carry
out the study. This chapter consists of four sections: methodology, research
subjects, data collection methods and data analysis. The following chapter
includes the results and the presentation of the findings. Finally, chapter five
concludes the study by summarizing what have been dealt with and provides
implications.
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Chapter II:
LITERATURE REVIEW
II.1. Introduction
This chapter includes four main parts. Changing definition of pragmatics,
pragmatic violation and speech acts in the study will be firstly presented. Part
two of the chapter will focus on requests as a speech act, request strategies
and how to make a request. The next part of the chapter will be a comparison
between requests by native speakers of English and requests in Vietnamese.
The chapter will also discuss previous studies related to this research.
II.2. What is Pragmatics?
II.2.1. Changing Definitions of Pragmatics
Although pragmatics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, research on
it can be dated back to ancient Greece and Rome where the term
“pragmaticus” is found in Late Latin and “pragmaticos” in Greek, both
meanings of being practical.
Pragmatics is hard to define because it is studied by many disciplines. It
involves “use of language.” It involves taking context into account. But it is at
this point that it becomes very difficult to pin down a precise definition that
captures what the field of pragmatics is all about.
According to Charles Morris (1938) pragmatics studies the relations of
sign to interpreters. By elaborating the sense of pragmatism in his concern of
conversational meanings, Grice (1975) suggested that pragmatics should
center on the more practical dimension of meaning namely the conversational
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meaning which was later formulated in a variety of ways (Levinson, 1983;
Leech, 1983).
Practical concerns also helped pragmaticians’ focus to explaining
naturally occurring conversations which resulted in discoveries of the
Cooperative Principle by Grice (1975) and the politeness Principle by Leech
(1983). Subsequently, Yule (1985:127) said, “when we read or hear pieces of
language, we normally try to understand not only what the words mean, but
what the writer or speaker of those words intended to convey. The study of
“intended speaker meaning” is called pragmatics. That is, “pragmatics is the
study of ‘invisible’ meaning”, or meaning that derives not only from the
words and structures used, but also from the situation of the utterance and how
that affects of speaker means. In addition, in Sperber and Wilson’s (1986)
relevance theory convincingly explains how people comprehend and utter a
communicative act.
In 1987, a symbol of this development was the establishment of the IPrA
(the International Pragmatic Association). In its Working Document, IPrA
propose to consider pragmatics as a theory of linguistics adaptation and look
into language use from all dimensions (Verschueren, 1987). Henceforward,
pragmatics has been conceptualized as “what speakers mean to convey when
they use a particular structure in context…” (Hatch, 1992:260 ). The ability to
comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred to as pragmatic
competence (Kasper, 1997) which often includes one’s knowledge about the
social distance, social status between the speakers involved, the cultural
knowledge such as politeness, and the linguistics knowledge explicit and
implicit. An utterance describing pragmatic function is described as
metapragmatic.
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According to Wikipedia from the Internet:
(http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm, accessed on
January 10th 2008), pragmatics involves three major communication skills.
They are as follows:
Using language for different purposes, such as :
- Greeting (e.g: hello, goodbye)
- Informing (e.g: I’m going to get a sandwich.)
- Demanding (e.g: Give me a sandwich.)
- Promising (e.g: I’m going to get you a sandwich.)
- Requesting (e.g: I would like a sandwich, please.)
Adapting or changing language according to the need or expectation of
other people, such as:
- Talking differently to a baby than to an adult.
- Giving enough background information to a new person not
familiar with the topic of conversation, or the difference between
talking quietly in a classroom compared to talking loudly on a
play-ground.
Following rules for conversations and narrative. These examples
include telling a story, giving oral reports, and recounting events of the
day. There are rules for taking turns in conversation, telling a story,
introducing a topic of conversation, staying on the topic, and rephrasing
when misunderstood. There are also rules for appropriate use of
nonverbal signals in conversation such as distance between a speaker
and a listener, facial expressions and eye contact. Rules may also vary
in different cultures. It is important to understand the rule of your
communication partner.
II.2.2. Pragmatic Violation
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Pragmatic violation (also referred to as pragmatic failure) refers to the
speaker's production of wrong communicative effects through the faulty use
of speech acts or one of the rules of speaking. Thomas (1983) draws on the
study of sociolinguistic miscommunication. She uses the term “pragmatic
failure” to refer to the inability of the individual to understand what is meant
by what is said. Particularly interesting about Thomas's description of
pragmatic failure is the dichotomy between two types of pragmatic failure.
She makes this distinction on the basis of the difficulty of analysis and
possible remedies in terms of both the responsibility of language teachers and
the responses of language learners. She calls the two categories of pragmatic
failure: "pragmalinguistic" and “sociopragmatic” failure.
1. Pragmalinguistic failure
The first category of “pragmatic failure" proposed by Thomas (1983) is
the so-called "pragmalinguistic failure". She refrains from using the term
"pragmalinguistic error" because, to her, pragmatics is not strictly
formalizable. The term error, therefore, does not seem applicable here. In
other words, although grammar can be judged according to prescriptive rules,
the nature of pragmatic or sociopragmatic patterns is such that it is not
possible to say that "the pragmatic force of an utterance is wrong. All we can
say is that it failed to achieve the speaker's goal" (cited in Wolfson, 1989: 16).
In this case, the learners of a language translate an utterance from their first
language into the target language. The learners, however, fail to get their
meaning across because the communicative conventions behind the utterances
used are different. This, as Thomas points out, is more a linguistic, hence
pragmalinguistic, problem than a pragmatic one because: (1) it has little to do
with speaker's perception of what constitutes appropriate behavior; and (2) it
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has a great deal to do with knowing how to phrase a request, for instance, so
that it will be interpreted as a request rather than as an information question.
2. Sociopragmatic failure
The second type of “pragmatic failure” that Thomas identifies is what she
calls sociopragmatic failure. It has to do with knowing "what to say" and
"whom to say it to." Many of the misunderstandings that occur stem from
what Thomas identifies as differences in evaluation regarding what she terms
"size of imposition," "tabus," "cross-culturally different assessments of
relative power or social distance," and "value judgments." Thomas provides a
useful way of looking at the type of diversity which exists across cultures and
which often leads to cross-cultural problems. In doing so, she separates out
what she sees as major areas in which there exist differences in cultural rules
regarding speech behavior.
We use language to make things happen. Pragmatic violation frequently
occurs when people take part in conversation. In that case, an individual with
pragmatic problems may say inappropriate or unrelated things during conversation
tell stories in a disorganized way or have little variety in language use. Bardovi -
Harlig (2003) also points out how lack of pragmatic awareness could affect
people’s relationship that the consequences of pragmatic differences are often
interpreted on a social or personal level rather than as a result of the language
learning process. That is, being outside the range of language use allowed in a
language, or making a pragmatic violation may have various consequences. A
pragmatic error can lower social acceptance. Non –native speakers may be denied
academic or professional opportunities (Matsuda, 1999), may hinder good
communication between speakers, may make the speakers appear abrupt or brusque
in social interaction, or may make the speakers appear rude or uncaring, e.g. “I
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want you to” and “ you had better..” as equivalent to “it would be better” in
English. Consequently, peers may avoid having conversation with an individual
with a pragmatic disorder.
So how can we keep the ball rolling? How can we continue to find usefulness
in communication through language? Imagine that people all told lies in a random
fashion (as apposed to for particular and often transparent reasons.) how effective
would language be as a communicative device? According to the website: http:
www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm, accessed on January 10th
2008), the Gricean maxims are a framework for understanding how human
cooperate socially in their use of language. In a nutshell, here are Gricean maxims
(Yule:1996):
Maxim of Quantity
Do not say what you believe is false
Do not say something that you lack adequate evidence for
Maxim of Relevance
Be relevant
For example: A: Do you like cottage cheese?
B: Well, I travel to Cleveland every other Tuesday. (Not
relevant unless Cleveland is well-known to be he cottage
cheese capital of the world.)
Maxim of Quality
Make your contribution as informative as is required
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
Your book gives you an interesting example:
Tom : How far can you run without stopping?
Mary: Twenty four miles.
Tom : I guess you can’t run a whole marathon without stopping.
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Mary: Nonsense, I have done it a number of times.
Literally, Mary can be said not to have lied in her first answer, since the
fact that she can run 26 miles entails the fact that she can run 24 miles.
But she violated the first maxim of Quantity. Her answer was not
informative enough that Tom assumes that Mary is respecting this maxim
is what underlies his second question (which is actually an indirect
question).
Here is a violation of the maxim of Quantity at a store:
Q: Do you have a selection of red shoes that aren’t on display?
A: Yes.
Maxim of Manner
Avoid obscurity of expression
Avoid ambiguity
Be brief
Be orderly
There are other maxims that are not “conversational maxims” but
which may also be observed during conversational exchanges
(aesthetic, social, moral), such as “Be polite”.
Tran (2004:143) also gives various examples of four ways to fail to fulfill
a maxim:
A participant may quietly and unostentatiously violate a maxim. If he
does so quietly, he may mislead.
Example: Saying “Bill has a wife” when in fact he has two wives. This
violates one of the maxims of quantity, and would certainly normally
be misleading.
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He may opt out from the operation of the maxim and of the Cooperative
Principle. He may make it plain that he is not willing to cooperate. He
may, for example, say “I cannot say more. My lips are sealed.”
He may be faced be a clash. It may be impossible to fulfill one maxim
without violating another. E.g.: He may be unable to fulfill the first
maxim of Quantity without violating the second maxim of Quality.
Example: A asks: How many children does Mary have?
B answers: More than one.
He may flout a maxim: that is he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. This is
similar to violating a maxim, except that in this case the hearer is
expected to recognize what is happening and if so, then the maxim is
likely to be being exploited to generate a conversational implicature.
Example: A asks : Where is Bill?
B answers: There is a yellow VW outside Sally’s house.
II.2.3. Speech Acts
a) What is a speech act?
The philosopher J.L.Austin (1911-1960) claims that many
utterances thing people say are equivalent to actions. When someone
says: “I name this ship” or “I now pronounce you man and wife”, the
utterance creates a new social or psychological reality. According to
Yule (1996:47) speech acts are defined as “actions performed via
utterance”. A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in
communication. A speech act might contain just one word, as in “Sorry”
to perform an apology, or several words or a sentence: “I am sorry I
forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind.” Speech acts include real-
life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also
appropriate use of that language within a given culture. Specific speech
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acts include: apologies, complaints, compliments, refusals, promises,
and requests.
Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:
(http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html, accessed on
January 15th 2008):
Greeting: “Hi, John. How are things going?”
Request: “Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?”
Complaint: “I have already been waiting for the computer, and I was
told it could be delivered within a week.”
Promise: “I will try my best to be at home for dinner.”
Compliment: “Hey I really like your dress!”
Invitation: “We are having some people over Saturday evening and
wanted to know if you would like to join us.”
Speech acts are difficult to perform in a second language because learners
may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in a second
language or they may transfer their first language rules and conventions into
the second language assuming that such rules are universal. Because the
natural tendency for language learners is to fall back on what they know to be
appropriate in their first language, it is important these learners understand
exactly what they do in that first language in order to be able to recognize
what is transferable to other languages. Something that works in English
might not transfer in meaning when translated into the second language. For
example, the following remark as uttered by a native English speaker could
easily misinterpreted by a native Vietnamese hearer:
Mary: “I could not agree with you more.”
Hung: “Hmmm…” (Thinking: “she could not agree with me? I
thought she liked my idea.!”)
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According to Austin (1996), there are three types of acts that can be
performed by every utterance, given the right circumstances:
Locutionary: is the act of actually uttering.
Illocutionary: is the act performed in saying something. The
illocutionary act is not in one-to-one correspondence with the locution
from which it is derived. There are different locutions that express the
same illocution and vice-versa. For example, there are indirect speech
acts that are acts with a different force than the obviously deducible
one. A typical example is the illocution of the utterance “Could you
pass the salt?” uttered at a dinner table. For a speaker of English in
particular situation this means: “pass the salt, please!” and no one
would assume that the speaker is indeed interested in whether the
addressee would be able to pass the salt.
Perlocutionary: is the act performed by saying something in a particular
context. It presents the change achieved each time, in a particular
context. Depending on the kind of perlocution, different conditions
have to hold in order for it to be achieved. For example, the addressee
in the salt example has to realize that the speaker’s intention is to
ultimately get hold of the salt.
Verbs that name the speech act that they intend to effect are called
Performatives. A performative uttered by the right person under the right
circumstances has as a result a change in the world. For example, “I now
pronounce you husband and wife” uttered by a priest, in the church with all
legal and traditional aspects being settled, will have actual effect of the
couple referred to being husband and wife after the performative has taken
place.
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b) Classification of speech acts
Yule (1996:53) suggests five types of general function performs by
speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and
commissives.
Declarations: are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via
their utterance immediately.
Example: - The boss: “You are fired.”
- Jury Foreman: “We find the defendant guilty.”
Representatives: are those kinds of speech acts that state what the
speaker believes the case or not. The different kinds are: statements of
fact, assertions, conclusions and descriptions.
Example: - “No one makes a better cake than me.”
- “It was a warm sunny day.”
Expressives: are those kinds of speech acts express how the speaker
feels about the situation. They describe psychological states and can be
statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow.
Example: - “I am really sorry!”
- “Congratulations!”
Directives: are those kinds of speech acts are those kinds of speech acts
get some one else to do something. They express what the speaker
wants. They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions, and they can
be positive or negative.
Example: - “Could you close the window?”
Commissives: are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to
commit themselves to some future action. They express what the
speaker intends. They are promises, threats, refusal, and pledges.
Example: - “I will go to Paris tomorrow.”
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- “We will not do that.”
II.3. Requests
II.3.1. Request as a Speech Act
Searle (1969) affirms that when we speak we are performing speech
acts, acts as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, making
promises and so on. He suggests that these acts are performed in accordance
with certain rules for the use of linguistic elements (1969:16). According to
Searle, the goal of spoken interaction is to communicate things, to the hearer
by getting him/her recognize the intention that one has to communicate those
things. The speakers then must achieve the intended effects on the hearer by
allowing him/her to recognize his/her attention to achieve that effect. Once,
the hearer recognizes the intention of the speaker to achieve an effect this is
generally achieved (Searle, 1969:43). Therefore the recognition of the
intention or intended meaning of the utterance (speech act) seems crucial in
achieving a level of success in understanding.
Also, Searle (1969:72) gives the definition of a request: “A request is a
directive speech act whose illocutionary purpose is to get the hearer to do
something in circumstances in which it is not obvious that he/she will perform
the action in the normal course of events.” By initiating a request, the speaker
expresses a desire for the hearer to be able to perform an action.
Some examples of requests:
- “Could I use your computer, please?”
- “Do you mind if I open the door?”
- “Clean up this mess, it is disgusting.”
There are two types of discourse structures for requests, including some
optional elements for more varied requests:
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1. Casual and short requests:
o Getting attention
o Supportive moves (optional)
o The head act + subjunctive
o Thanking
2. Careful and long requests:
o Getting attention
o Small talk (optional)
o Supportive moves
o Head acts + subjunctive
o Thanking
o Closing the conversation (optional)
II.3.2 Request strategies
According to Blum-Kulka & Olshtain (1989:201-202) request strategies
are divided into three types in terms of the level of the inference (on the part
of the hearer) needed to understand the utterance as a request. The three types
of requests include:
a) Direct strategies
This most direct level was realized by requests syntactically marked
(such as imperatives) or by other verbal means that name the act as a
request:
“Clean up the kitchen.”
“I am asking you to clean up the kitchen.”
“I would like to ask you to clean up the kitchen.”
“You will have to clean up the kitchen.”
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“I really wish you would clean up the kitchen.”
b) Conventionally indirect strategies
This conventionally indirect level covers “strategies that realize
the act by reference to contextual preconditions necessary for it
performance, as conventionalized in a given language” (Blum-Kulka,
1989:47).
For example:
“How about cleaning up?”
“Could you clean up the kitchen, please?”
c) Non- Conventionally indirect strategies
This category includes strategies which are not conventionalized in
the language and hence require more inferencing activity for the hearer
to derive the speaker’s requestive intent:
For example:
“You have left the kitchen in a right mess.”
“I am trying to find out about refunds for delayed flights…?”(a
request for a refund)
There are nine sub-levels of strategy types. These are as follows:
Direct strategies
Mood derivable (the grammatical mood of the verb in the utterance
marks its illocutionary force as a request).
For example:
“Leave me alone.”
“Clean up this mess, please.”
Explicit performatives (the illocutionary force of the utterance is
explicitly named by the speakers.)
For example:
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“I am asking you not to park the car here.”
Hedge performatives (utterances embedding the meaning of the
illocutionary force.)
For example:
“I would like to ask you to clean up the kitchen.”
“I would like you to give your lecture a week earlier.”
Obligation statements (the illocutionary point is directly derivable from
the semantic meaning of the locution.)
For example:
“You will have to clean up the kitchen.”
“You will have to move your car.”
Want statements (the utterance expresses the speaker’s intentions,
desire or feeling vis a vis the fact that the hearer do X.)
For example:
“I really wish you would clean up the kitchen.”
“I really wish you would stop bothering me.”
Conventionally indirect strategies
Suggestory formulae (the sentence contain a suggestion to X)
For example:
“How about cleaning up?”
“Why do not you get lost?”
“So, why do not you come and clean the mess you made
last night?”
Query preparatory (the utterance contains reference to preparatory
conditions, such as ability or willingness, the possibility of the act being
performed, as conventionalized in any specific language.)
For example:
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“Could you clean up the kitchen, please?”
“Would you mind moving your car, please?”
Non- Conventionally indirect strategies
Strong hints (the utterance contains partial reference to objects or to
elements needed for the implementation of the act directly
pragmatically implying the act.)
For example:
“You have left the kitchen in a right mess.”
Mild hints (utterances that make no reference to the request proper or
many of its elements but are interpretable through the text as request,
indirectly pragmatically implying the act.)
For example:
“I am a nun.” (in request to a persistent hassler).
II.3.3 How to make a request?
Although there has been an argument on the effectiveness between
direct and indirect strategies, many people still believe that in many cases,
utilizing indirect speech acts help speakers more active and effective in
transferring what has been said. By making a request, the speaker infringes
on the recipient’s freedom of action or even a power play. As for the
requester, he/she may hesitate to make request for fear of exposing a need
or out of fear of possibly making the recipient lose face (Blum-Kulka et
al.1989:11). In this sense, requests are face-threatening to both the
requester and the recipient. Since requests have the potential to be
intrustive and demanding, there is a need for the requester to minimize the
imposition involved in the request.
One way for the speaker to minimize the imposition is employing
indirect strategies rather than direct one. Of course, between friends, more
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casual direct requests can be used. I may, for instance, request Peter to
open the window by saying, “Peter, will you be able to reach the window?”
Thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to reach the window, but at
the time I am requesting him to do so if he can. Since the request is
performed indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question it count
as an indirect speech act.
However, when you ask someone to do something for you, or ask if
you can do something, it is important to sound polite. Of course, you must
take into account many factors when make requests (for example, the age,
social distance, gender, and level of imposition.)
Asking someone to do something for you:
“Could you open the door for me, please?”
“Would you mind opening the door for me, please?”
“Can you open the door for me, please?”
Speaking tip: “Could” and “Can” are followed by the verb without to.
“Would you mind” is followed by the verb and “–ing”.
Asking if you can do something
“Can I use your computer, please?”
“Could I borrow some money from you, please?”
“Do you mind if I turn up the heating?”
“Would you mind if I turn up the heating?”
Speaking tip: “Could” is more polite than “Can”
“Do you mind” is followed by the verb in the present tense, but “Would
you mind if…” is followed by the verb in the past tense.
- When you are using these two sentences, do not use “please”. It is
already polite enough!
II.4. Comparison between Vietnamese and English requests
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In reality, a person may have a large vocabulary, use long, complex
sentences, use correct grammar, pronounce words clearly, and still have
communication strategies problem if they do not say at a right time or not fit
to the age, position, psychology of the hearer. This section points out the
similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English requests in terms
of communication culture.
C. Mac (2000:42) said: “Language is a direct reality of ideology.” Kagan
(1988) also admitted that human nature can be captured through
communication and unity from person to person. In terms of communication
style, in order to keep the neighborhood relation, Vietnamese people are found
to prefer the subtle and careful way of communication. According to Tran
(1998) Vietnamese speakers have the conversational habit as “beating around
the bush”, have never gone straight to the point as Westerners. Therefore
“learners might be more verbose than native speakers of English in making a
request, utilizing more supportive move strategies” (Blum-Kulka et al.1989).
Vietnamese speakers of English do so. For example, to request a lift
somewhere, Vietnamese speakers of English may say: “Do you think you can
take me by your car to my home because you leave near me and have to drive
that way if you take or you do not?”
On the contrary, English speakers use more direct and fewer
unconventionally indirect strategies. For English, the most popular approach
to requests is to make speaker-oriented requests. Speaker-oriented requests are
often by appearance of a request for permission which implies that the
recipient of the request has control over the speaker. Hence, speaker-oriented
requests avoid the appearance of trying to control or impose on the hearer and
are therefore perceived as being more polite (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989)
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For example: “Do you think I could borrow your note from yesterday’s
class?” or: “Can I borrow your note from yesterday?”
The request sequence in English has been divided in the literature into the
following three segments. For a request: “Danny, can you remind me later to
bring the book for you on Monday? Otherwise it may slip out of my mind.”
Attention Getter/ Alerter (address terms, etc…): Danny
Head act (core of the request sequence, the request proper): “Can you
remind me later to bring the book for you on Monday?”
Supportive Move(s) (before or after Head Act): “Otherwise it may slip
out of my mind.”
As for Vietnamese, it is hearer-oriented they use when they make a
request (the request emphasizes on the role of the hearer). For example:
“Could you clean up the kitchen, please?”
However, Blum-Kulka et al, 1989:40) considers: “requests in any
languages are made in consideration of number of social and situational
factors. Although it may not so overt at times, culture has been found to differ
as to which factors count more than other and languages vary in the extent to
which they switch directness levels by situation.” Therefore, both Vietnamese
speakers and native speakers of English are aware of the different situations
and use different degrees of directness according to context. For instance, they
employ a high level of directness in asking a low-imposition request, but a
high level of indirectness in a high-stake request. In addition, proper request
expressions are often preceded by pre-request that are face-saving for both
interculors. Pre-request check feasibility of compliance and overcome
possible grounds for refusals. For example, by first asking “Are you free
tonight?” both Vietnamese and English speakers might try to check physical
availability of the interlocutor. Since no actual request has been issued, a
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negative answer at the preliminary stage is face-saving. The speaker can also
back out of admitting request intent and the hearer can avoid a request
interpretation of the pre-request.
Nevertheless, “the English have been found to place a higher value on
privacy and individuality” (Sifianou, 1992: 41). They express their thinking
directly, frankly and only use two personal pronouns “I” and “You” for every
subjects. While the Vietnamese have been found to emphasis involvement and
in group relation; therefore according to Honey, the system of personal
pronouns in Vietnamese is extremely complex. Moreover, Vietnamese society
hold old age in high esteem, there are respectful pronouns used of older
people such as: grandfather, aunt, uncle, elder sister, etc…Therefore, those
words: “ạ, dạ, thưa, xin, nhỉ, nhé,…”are often used when Vietnamese people
communicate. For example, a sentence spoken by a younger sister to her older
sister: “Chị rửa bát cho em nhé?” might be translated into English like this:
“Would you please washing the dishes for me?” But in friends relationship
Vietnamese speakers use words in a friendly way: “Mày rửa bát giúp tao
nhé?” This can be also translated like the first one in Eghlish: “Would you
please washing the dishes for me?”
It is therefore that requests in Vietnamese are more active and flexible
than that of English so they are more persuasive to the hearers.
II.5. Previous studies
Dealing with problems on requests, many studies have been carried out to
find problems as well as solutions.
Relating to the case of requests, Blum-Kulka (1991) presents a model for
the study of inter-language that expands inter-language to embrace inter-
culture. He focuses on pragmatics of “requests” and discusses constraints
(level of proficiency, perception of target language norms, and length of stay
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in target community). Besides, he also presents data from bilingual English-
Hebrew immigrant speech acts, showing the behavior is different from Israeli
and from American patterns: authentically intercultural. His claim is native
Israeli norms are defied because learners do not wish to identify native
speaker norms. In this study, Blum-Kulka gives helpful theoretical
introduction. For example, he gives four categories for linguistic encoding ( a
opposed to situational parameters and social meanings), strategy type (direct,
conventionally indirect, hints), perspective (hearer dominant, speaker
dominant, hearer and speaker dominant, impersonal), internal modifications
(downgrades- “please”, hedges, upgraders- e.g., time-specifiers, expletives),
external modifications (grounders- e.g.,explanations and justification, cost
minimizers, disarmers).
Cohen and Olshtain (1993) describe ways in which non-native speakers
assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. They found that in
delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a
general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without
planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures often though in two
languages and sometimes in tree languages, utilized a series of different
strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to
grammar nor to pronunciation.
Looking at the extent to which communication in ESL classroom (in
London) resulted in the acquisition of requests, Ellis (1992) found that both
learners failed to develop the full range of request types or a broad linguistic
repertoire for performing those types that they did acquire. They also failed to
develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of requests
to take account of different addressees. His interpretation was that the
classroom lacks the conditions for sociolinguistic needs even though it
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fostered interpersonal and expressive needs. However, there was no data in
the kinds of requests they were exposed to.
With an attempt to focus on request strategies produced by adult ESL
learners, Francis (1997) carried out a study on the development of request
strategies in non-native speakers of English. The non-natives were found to
rely on direct request strategies until their proficiency improved, whereupon
they began to use more complex strategies, the percentage of conventionally
indirect requests made by intermediate students was twice that of elementary
students. To some extent contextual demands help to explain variations across
settings. Students were more likely to explain their circumstances and desires
in terms of their own perspective when in the position of justifying these to
the advisor.
Hayashi’s paper (2000) compares a request-refusal interaction in German
and Japanese role-plays. He finds out some of the differences between the two
languages are: 1) in Japanese, the refuser often used back-channeling and
hedging expressions which prepared the requester for the upcoming refusal.
This tendency did not exist in German, where there were twice as many
refusal expressions found in the interactions than in Japanese. 2) Japanese
speakers sometimes expressed empathy for the requester before actually
refusing. 3) In German, the requester suggested an alternative repeatedly and
if each alternative is reject and the requester explains the reasons. 4) In
German, accepting the legitimacy of the reason implies compliance with the
request, while in Japanese showing understanding for the reasons can be a
stage before a refusal.
The study of Izaki (2000) examines sociolinguistic differences in request
behavior in French and Japanese focusing supportive move strategies (pre-
request moves). Native speakers of Japanese and French role-played three
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request dialogues and their performance was compared to that of seven French
speakers learning Japanese. Japanese speakers always used the pre-committal
strategy (For example: “I have a favor to ask of you.”) before making a
request. The request can be preceded by another optional pre-request move
that provides or ask for relevant information. In French, no pre-committal
strategy appeared in the data; instead a pre-request move and a response to the
pre-request are presented in all request interactions. Sometimes since the pre-
request move functions as a requestive hint, the speaker has no need to make
an actual request. French speakers also often use conditional clauses
suggesting that the hearer takes socio-cultural differences in determining
distance, power, and the degree of imposition of the request, and these results
in differential politeness levels between the two languages.
Iwai and Rinnert (2001) gave out the study which reports the realization
of requests and apologies among four groups: ESL/EFL respondents in Hong
Kong, EFL respondents from Japan, ESL respondents from Singapore and
native speakers from US. Thirteen percent of the Japanese respondents in EFL
in the situation of breaking a friend’s vase asked, “What should I do?” in the
situation of forgetting a meeting with their professor, Japanese infrequently
used a mitigator with their repair (I will be there if you do not mind…” “I am
afraid I will be an hour late.” in apologizing they were likely to repeat “I am
sorry. I am sorry”, which US respondents did not do. The Japanese use
significantly fewer words than the other groups. With regard to requests, only
the Japanese EFL respondents used either direct strategy (“Please lend me
your notes.”) or a conventionally indirect expression of desire (“I would like
you to lend me your notes.”). This is consistent with behavior in Japanese
according to the researchers. The Japanese used the conventional politeness
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marker “please” much more frequently than the other groups and used other
softeners much less frequently than the other three groups.
Luu and Tran (2007) did their study on refusal of assistance offers
(English versus Vietnamese). They focus on the semantico-structural features
of the refusals of an assistance offer in English and Vietnamese. Also, they
investigate the politeness strategy of refusals, and draw some similarities and
differences between the two languages. The study ends up with some
comments and proposals on how we help language learners overcome
difficulties caused by the interference when facing with sticky situations to
enhance the communicative competence for the Vietnamese learners of
English.
In fact, some Vietnamese speakers of English have made pragmatic
violation in requesting. It is difficult for Vietnamese speakers to master the
pragmatic competence of English because of the lack of books concerning this
problem. In addition, these authors did their researches on a lot of aspects of
speech acts: request, apology, refusal, etc. but they have not analyzed the
“pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English.” That is
why I chose this topic to do my research.
II.6 Summary
This chapter described pragmatics, speech acts and requests. Especially
request strategies and a brief comparison between English and Vietnamese
requests were presented. The gaps in the literature were pointed out; the next
chapter will discuss the research methodology.
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Chapter III:
METHODOLOGY
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III.1. Introduction
This chapter presents information about the quantitative and qualitative
approaches and research subjects. It also introduces methods to collect data
and the way data were analyzed.
III.2. Methodology
Both qualitative method and quantitative method were used in the study.
According to Gorman and Clayton (1997:23), qualitative method is “a
process of inquiry that draws data from the context in which events are
embedded and the perspectives of those participating in the events, using
introduction to derive possible explanations based on observed phenomena”.
Qualitative method was used to cite opinions of participants in the
interview. Therefore, it is also widely used as “a kind of research method that
produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other
means of quantification” (Strauss and Corbin, 1900:17).
“Quantitative methods are research techniques that are used to gather
quantitative data-information dealing with numbers and anything that is
measurable. Statistics, tables and graphs are often used to present the results
of these methods” (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research,
accessed on April 3rd 2008). Quantitative method relies less on interviews,
observations, small number of questionnaires, focus groups, subjective reports
and cases studies. Quantitative method was used to count respondents in the
questionnaires and the frequency errors made by English major students in
making requests.
Qualitative method used to understand the meaning of the numbers
produced by quantitative method. Using quantitative methods gave precise
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and testable expression to qualitative ideas. Therefore, the combination of
qualitative and quantitative data gathering was utilized in the study.
III.3. Research Subjects
The subjects of the study were 100 English major students chosen at
random at Phu Xuan University. All the respondents were first, second, third
and fourth year English major students. They ranged from eighteen to twenty
five years old.
III.4. Data collection Methods
Recording dialogues based on request situations and questionnaire
methods were used in the study.
III.4.1. Recording dialogues
Five situations (requests ranging from low position to high position) (see
Appendix 1) that may cause problems for English major students were given
to 10 students in class II-Phu Xuan University to perform. Each situation was
role-played by two students. They were asked to make the requests in that
situation. The performance of English major students was recorded and was
analyzed in the findings chapter.
III.4.2. Questionnaire
One hundred questionnaires were delivered to one hundred English major
students at Phu Xuan University. They were formulated with 7 closed
questions (see Appendix 2). The respondents were also able to give opinion in
the opened questions. After the data were collected, the frequency analysis
was used to count responses. Results were then interpreted and presented in
tables and charts.
III.5. Procedures of Data Collection
III.5.1. Questionnaire
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Before copies of the questionnaire were distributed to English major
students in the English Section of the Department of Foreign Languages at
Phu Xuan University, a pilot study was conducted with the help of three
English major students from fourth year and second year English classes. The
main purpose of this pilot study was to test the clarity and effectiveness of the
questionnaire. After the pilot survey, in order to make the answers by students
in the questionnaire more effective and easier 100 copies of the questionnaire
in Vietnamese were delivered to 100 first-year, second-year, third-year and
fourth-year students. Before filling in the questionnaire, English majors were
briefly introduced to the research topic as well as research purposes. These
copies were distributed to them on the first period of the class and were
collected on the last period so they could answer the questions in any break
between two periods. Finally, because of some reasons, 97 copies of
questionnaire were used to analyze and count responses. Results were then
presented in tables, charts and figures.
III.5.2. Recording Dialogues
Prior to the recording the participants were asked for their consent. After
they had agreed to participate in the study at an agreed time and place, a tape
recording was conducted. Five situations were given to ten English majors at
class II-Phu Xuan University. Each situation was role-played by two students.
Therefore, 25 dialogues were performed. Each one took appropriately five
minutes. The role-players were encouraged to perform freely in a pretty
informal atmosphere. The researcher thus could get useful and valuable
information from recording dialogues. The students’ performance did
contribute significantly to the paper’s accomplishment.
III.5. Data Analysis
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The data collected were categorized into themes to answer the research
questions and were presented in the findings chapter.
III.6. Summary
This chapter has presented definitions of qualitative and quantitative
methods. It included description of research subjects and the ways data were
collected and analyzed. The next chapter will present the results of the
findings.
Chapter IV:
FINDINGS and DISCUSSION
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IV.1. Introduction
This chapter is divided into three main sections. Section one introduces
the pragmatic violation in requests by English majors. Second section deals
with the causes of the problems. Lastly, section three provides suggestions to
help English major students better their conversational competence in making
requests.
IV.2. Pragmatic violation in making requests
Most English majors agreed that using a speech act in an appropriate
language and manner of English is very difficult. Therefore, they often make
mistakes in using speech acts, especially in making requests. Their errors in
requests are divided into two types: pragma-linguistic errors and socio-
pragmatic errors across five given situations.
IV.2.1. Pragma-linguistic errors
Pragmalinguistic shows the learner’s lack of knowledge about language
itself (forms, structures, and vocabulary). This type of errors occurs when the
language learner knows which speech act to use and when to use it but does
not know the appropriate language to form a linguistically acceptable speech
act. Data collected through questionnaire and recording dialogues show the
problems.
For requests have the potential to be intrustive and demanding, English
major students found some request situations in English difficult to make
requests. Table 1 introduces these request situations.
Number Request situationsFrequency (N=97)
Percentage
1 Request to the older 56 57.7%2 Request to people at high position 59 60.8%
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3 The degree of request imposition 68 70.1%4 Psychology of the hearer 61 62.8%5 None of the above 7 7.2%
Table 1: Some request situations that English majors find difficult to make requests.
From the figures shown in table 1, requests that have a difficult degree of
imposition are the situations that English majors found most difficult to make
requests (made up 70.1%). Only 7.2% of English majors accepted that they
had no difficulty with the above request situations.
Across five situations recorded, situation 5 is seen to be the one which has
the lowest degree of request imposition. As a result, English majors showed
no mistakes with this kind of situation in terms of pragma-linguistic errors.
With four situations left, data collected through recording dialogues illustrate
the mistakes of English majors in requesting. The mistakes are presented
according to the strategies used across the sequence: head acts and external
modifications (supportive moves).
IV.2.1.1. Head Acts
Table 2 shows the distribution of the request head acts across the four
situations.
Types of requests S1 S2 S3 S4 Total PercentageDirect requests 2 3 5 25%
Conventionally indirect requests
2 5 5 2 14 70%
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Unconventionally indirect requests
1 5%
S = situation
Table 2: Distribution of request head acts produced by English majors
(Frequency = 20)
As can be seen from table 2 from recording dialogues, 70% of English
major students preferred using conventionally indirect requests. 25% of
informants stated that they used direct strategy when making requests.
Unconventionally indirect request accounted for only 5%. However, data
collected through recording dialogues showed that it was easy for English
majors to make requests where the relationship is equal (situation 1),
therefore; students made no mistakes in this situation. But when attempting to
perform the requests with a teacher-a person of distant relationship (situation
3 and 4) students made some mistakes in direct and conventionally indirect
strategies. The following examples of conventionally indirect strategies by
English majors from transcription shown the problems (head acts are
underlined):
(1). I forget to bring my pen. Can you lend me one of yours? (Situation 3)
(2). I want to ask you some questions about the study. Would you explain it to
me? (Situation 4)
(3). I need you help me a thing. Can I see you to ask about my study?
(Situation 4)
Overall, conventionally indirect requests were often conveyed by query
preparatory containing reference to preparatory conditions. However, indirect
requests were preceded by the verb “to want” and “need” (Situation 4) making
the requests impolite. Because these two verbs did not show high levels of
deferential politeness with a person (teacher) of distant relationship, therefore;
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the speaker in this situation appeared as rude and brusque. In addition,
example (2) also shows the lack of the word “please” to signal politeness of
the question. If this request were uttered by a superior, the word “please”
would not needed. However, it was the request of a student to her teacher (a
subordinate to a superior) the word “please” is needed. Further, the request
head acts in hearer-oriented form as shown above were introduced by the
modal verb “can” making the requests too informal and at the same time
impolite for the speakers could not minimize the imposition of the requests. In
short, the use of the verb “want”, “need”, “can” and the lack of “please” to
convey indirect requests by English majors could not produce a politeness
effect. This kind of internal modifications may not serve as a distancing tactic
to express respectful politeness, distancing the speaker from the content of the
proposition and from the addressee.
As for the direct requests, the same to conventionally indirect requests
which were found to be less polite via two situations 3 and 4, English majors
were seen to be unable to soften their demand when making requests. This
problem was also observed in the situation 4. Examples of incorrect direct
request head acts are shown below (head acts are underlined):
(4). I want to meet you and ask you something about my study. Please explain
it for me!
(5). I would like to ask you about my study. Is it ok?
(6). I have some problems on my study. I need you to make it clear.
As shown in the examples above, direct requests were employed using in
the hedge performative as in (5), a verb in the imperative (mood derivable) as
in (4) and by means of utterance stating the speaker’s desire that the hearer
perform the act (Want statement) as in (6). It should be noted that direct
requests are often internally modified by the lexical mitigator “please” to
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soften the harshness of a direct request and are used as an indicator positive
politeness. Nevertheless, English majors over-relied on the word “please” to
disguise speaker-centered “me” imperative, the preference for direct requests
in the situation 4 by English major students seems to be offended their
teacher. Therefore, these results showed the lack of “downgraders” and
acknowledgement of the degree of imposition in students’ requests. They
indicated no variation in their linguistic forms regardless of whom they were
talking to or what the circumstance might be. In other words, English majors
were unable to vary their request to meet different situations. This is in line
with the result of the question 2 in the questionnaire in which most of the
English major students answered “No” (see chart 1).
Data from the questionnaire show that most of participants (82.4%)
admitted that they were not able to use various requests when they meet
different situations. Only 17.6% of informants said they can manage to vary
their requests with situations differently. It is therefore that when the
imposition of requests is high, English majors would directly transfer their
pragmatic knowledge from native language as Vietnamese into the target
language, assuming that such rules are universal. For instance, in example (4)
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student translated Want statement “I want to meet you and ask you about my
study” which is considered direct in English, actually negatively transferred
from an indirect strategy in Vietnamese language where the sentence indicates
that the requester was intentionally omitting the head act to mitigate the
imposition as in “Em muốn gặp và hỏi cô một số điều về bài nghiên cứu…”.
Therefore this request was deviated significantly from native speakers’ norms.
IV.2.1.2. External modifications
External modification of the request precedes or follows the request
head act to accompany it. However, less attention has been paid to these
modification devices especially Preparators, Reasons and Positive politeness.
Examples from recording dialogues show the lack of external modifications in
students’ requests:
Situation 2: (A student wants his friend to go and find a good used car)
Student A: Can you go with me to find a used car on Sunday? I have
no experience in buying a car.
Student B: Oh, I am sorry. I am very busy at this time.
Preparators refers to those elements employed by the requester to prepare
the addressee for the ensuing request (House and Kasper 1981). However,
when making request in situation 2 English major did not employ this type of
external modification or Prerequests to check on the availability of the hearer,
therefore; her requests was failed.
Like the lack of Preparators, example of situation 3 shows the lack of
Reasons and Positive politeness “please”:
Situation 3: (A student borrows a pen from her teacher)
Student A: Excuse me!
Student B: Yes?
Student A: Could I borrow your pen?
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Student B: Sure, here you go.
Student A: Thank you
Student B: No problem!
Reasons and Positive politeness are two indirect strategies used to
mitigate the illocutionary force of a request and to smooth conversational
interaction. Nevertheless, the requester in this situation did not show the
reason why she wanted to borrow a pen from her teacher. Moreover, “please”
to signal politeness was not utilized in this distant relationship. Consequently,
the speaker was found to be less polite and could not smooth the interaction
between a student and a teacher.
IV.2.2. Socio-pragmatic errors
This type of error often occurs in cross-cultural communication. Data
collected through tape recording show this problem as using the Vietnamese
way of speaking and cross-culturally different assessments of relative power
or social distance.
IV.2.2.1. Using Vietnamese way of speaking
Vietnamese people are believed to be formal in their speaking behavior.
Learners when trying to alert the addressee to make requests directly
transferred their way of speaking in Vietnamese language. Situation 3
indicates their mistake:
Student to teacher to borrow a pen: “I’m sorry but can you help me?”
In fact, the intended using this utterance of the requester in this situation
was to alert the addressee to prepare and smooth the imposition of the request
head act following. However, it was not suitable with the target language
norms. Native speakers in this case would think that “why sorry” but instead it
should be: “Excuse me, could you do me a favor?” If students used this
sentence, it would sound more natural.
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Another example of situation 4 on tape recording also shows the problem:
(At the preceding of the request to teacher to make appointment):
Student A: Excuse me, teacher!
Student B (teacher): Yes?
In this circumstance, when trying to make the Precursors or Alerters of
the request, student A made sociopragmatic failure. The most commonly used
form of addressing a teacher is “teacher” or “teacher + given name”, but
actually, the word “teacher” cannot be used as form of addressing in English.
It sounded impolite as for the student to call her teacher in that way.
Therefore, at the first step of making the request student A appeared to be
brusque and rude. Instead of saying “teacher”, student A can call her teacher
“Peter Smith”, “Mr/Professor (name)” or even “Sir” or “My lord” to show the
respect to her teacher.
IV.2.2.2. Cross-culturally different assessments of relative power or
social distance
This illustration of sociopragmatic error provided by the not infrequent
phenomenon of English majors’ judging relative power or social distance
differently from native speakers. According to their different social status
people choose the proper request. However, English major students did
differently. Data collected through recording dialogues illustrate the mistakes.
Situation 5 (between a customer and a waiter)
Student A: Excuse me, would you mind giving me a coke, please?
Student B: All right.
It should be noted that five conversations of this situation 5 were violated in
this kind of mistake. They were all over-polite. Here, student A was thought to
be unnatural and funny. In fact, “A coke, please!” is enough.
IV.3. Causes
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Data collected through questionnaire showed that there are many factors
that pose difficulties for English majors in performing requests. However, the
main factors are the influence of the Vietnamese language, student’s
personality, the influence of Vietnamese socio-culture and textbooks and
study environment. Chart 2 presents English majors’ opinions towards these
factors.
As can be seen from chart 2, English majors stated that the factors, such
as Vietnamese language, student’s personality and Vietnamese socio-culture
affected most their abilities in making requests (67%, 61.8% and 57.7%
respectively). Only 32.9% of informants said that text books study
environment made them have pragmatic violation in performing requests.
IV.3.1. Influence of Vietnamese language
Since Vietnamese language has a great influence on making requests, it
brings about advantages as well as disadvantages. Table 3 indicates the
positive influence of Vietnamese language on making requests of English
major students.
Number Positive Influence Frequency (N=97) Percentage
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PRAGMATIC VIOLATION IN REQUESTS BY VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH
1Speaking more flexibly and naturally
33 34.0%
2 Feeling confident 40 41.2%3 Transferring easily 56 57.7%4 Others 5 5.2%
Table 3: Positive influence of Vietnamese language on making requests of
English majors
Table 3 introduces the positive influence of Vietnamese language on
making requests of English majors. 57.7% of English majors stated that the
influence of Vietnamese language helped them transfer the requests easily
whereas 5.2% of participants had other positive influence. The English
presented as in the modal verbs “can” has formal and functional equivalents in
Vietnamese language as “có thể”. And sure enough, English major students
could transfer the requests from Vietnamese language (Bạn có thể đi cùng tôi
được không?) to English (Can you go with me?) and they can do without the
benefit of instruction. To sum up, the influence of Vietnamese language
helped English majors transferring the requests easily and feeling confident
when making requests. Furthermore, it also helped students speak more
flexibly and naturally.
On the contrary with positive influence, chart 3 presents the negative
influence of Vietnamese language on making requests by English major
students.
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Chart 3 shows that while 58.7% of students complained the influence of
Vietnamese language caused the requests verbose, 6.2% of informants had
other negative influence. In fact, the most disadvantage of the influence of
Vietnamese language is making the students’ requests verbose. Example of
situation 2 (a student wants his friend to go with him to buy an affordable
used car) is a clue for this cause: “My friend, now I want to buy a used car for
my own because it is so far from my apartment to the campus, but I do not
have any experience at it, could you make a lift going with me and find a good
one?”.
Besides making the requests verbose, making mistakes and causing
misunderstanding are negative influence of Vietnamese language.
IV.3.2. Student’s Personality
Learners have very different personalities such as being confident, shy,
active, positive, etc. There are two main extremes of personality deeply
affecting on English majors in making requests. Students who are confident,
out-going and willing to take risks probably have more opportunities to
practice their pragmatic competence in making requests because they are more
often involved in interactions with native speakers of English. Conversely,
students who are inhibited, introverted and unwilling to take risks lack
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opportunities for practice. Therefore, personality plays a key role in students’
requests perfectly.
IV.3.3. Influence of Vietnamese Socio-culture
Vietnamese socio-culture is one of the important factors results in
students’ pragmatic violation in requests. From the pragmatic perspective,
language is a form of social action because linguistic communication occurs
in the context of structured interpersonal exchange and meaning is thus
socially regulated (Dimitracopoulou, 1990 in Nunan, 1999, as cited in
Nguyen, 2002). Thus, to speak a language, people must know how the
language is used in a social context. It is well-known that each language has
its rules of usage as to when, how or to what degree a speaker may impose a
given verbal behavior on his/her conversational partner. Vietnamese cultural
values are barriers to English major students in their communicative
competence in English.
Firstly, it is the collectivism culture that made English majors to perceive
their class as a big family; thus, they always appreciate the sentimental
relationship among people. To achieve harmony in communication they have
to be cautious in their speech as well as their behavior so that they will not
hurt any one. It is this characteristic that caused English majors become
passive in class. It prevented them from their own opinions.
The concept of “respect” is another cultural value regarded as a main
factor affecting English majors in thier communicative competence in
requests.
“Being influenced by Confucianism, Vietnamese students always hold
their teachers in high esteem. They respect and believe in their
teachers’ knowledge. They believe that are the most experienced and
learned people. Thus, what their teacher said is right in any
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circumstances. Even when their teachers’ ideas are wrong, they still
respect them. They dare not show their disagreement straightforwardly
in class because of another reason: face-saving.”(Tran, 2006:57)
Therefore, Vietnamese socio-culture had a great influence on requests by
English majors.
IV.3.4. Textbooks and Study Environment
Textbooks and study environment have importantly influenced requests by
English majors. Giving requests has been presented in textbooks for teaching
speaking English. Yet, there are few options for students to learn and put in
use. Even if they have learnt them all, it does not mean that they are able to
use them appropriately because these options are too generalized and no
explanation as to when and whom each of them should be used. As Bardovi-
Harlig straightforwardly states, “It is important to recognize that, in general,
textbooks cannot be counted on as a reliable source of pragmatic input for
classroom language learners” (2001:25). It is also because textbooks generally
provide too little information about language use and often the dialogues
include in the textbooks are misleading and do not sound naturally-occurring
talk (Golato, 2002:568). Also, many text books used for teaching the functions
of English mostly focus on the acquisition of linguistic competence, with
insufficient attention to a fuller communicative competence. Consequently,
English majors have difficulties and made mistakes in using requests indeed.
Besides, the study environment does not force English majors to make
requests sufficiently so they cannot better their communicative competence.
Therefore, their requests are usually uttered with pragmatic mistakes.
IV.4. Suggestions to conquer these errors
Suggestions to help English majors conquer errors in requests are divided
into two parts. General suggestions will be firstly introduced. The second part
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concentrates on how to help English majors remedy their pragmatic
competence in requests.
IV.4.1. General Suggestions
Chart 4 provides the findings of English majors’ opinions towards
suggestions to help them overcome their errors in making requests.
As can be seen from chart 4, 64.9% of English majors practiced everyday
to overcome their pragmatic violation in requests. 54.6% of students showed
that communicating with foreigners helped them much more their pragmatic
competence in requests. 21.6% of participants read books. Only 5.2% of
English majors reported that they had their own ways.
In reality, practicing to make requests by role-plays with different
situations everyday is an effective way. As Offner (1997) stressed, “The only
way to become a good driver is to practice driving. The only way to be able to
play an instrument well is to practice playing it. Likewise, the only way to
become a good English speaker is to practice speaking English” (as cited in
Tran, 2006:64).
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Besides, communicating with foreigners is also a good way. By taking
chance at anywhere and at anytime, especially in the tourist sites, English
major could self-correct and made themselves more active and confident.
Another way to better students’ conversational competence is reading
books. Those books relating to communication helped English majors more
flexible and natural in making requests.
Some English majors had other learning strategies such as listen to
communication cassettes or see films in order to be familiar with different
requests in different situations.
To sum up, English majors can overcome their pragmatic violation in
requests by practicing everyday, communicating with foreigners or reading
books. They can also see films or listen to communication cassettes. However,
practicing everyday to make requests by role-plays is seen to be the most
effective way.
IV.4.2. Suggestions to help English majors remedy errors in requests
Teachers should foresee the errors made by English majors in requests and
may apply the following lesson to help English majors develop and raise their
pragmatic awareness in using requests. According to Kasper (1997), there are
two types of activity that are useful for developing pragmatic awareness:
a) Awareness raising activities
b) Opportunities for communicative practice.
The lesson outlined below involves both types, although there should be
no expectation that b) must immediately follow a): time for reflection and
observation outside the classroom would undoubtedly benefit the student. In
considering a), there is consensus that noticing is a requisite and fundamental
step (Kasper 1997; Tomlinson 1994; Carter and McCarthy 1994; Hinkel 2001;
Kramsch 1993; Schmidt 1993). Each prereading activity was designed to
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activate or instil the seeds of the prerequisite schematic knowledge which will
in turn enable the student to notice the salient points of the text and/or
performance. Tomlinson (1994), proposes the following as objectives of a
pragmatic awareness approach:
To help learners to notice the way that proficient users of the L2 typically
usepragmatic strategies
To help learners to achieve deep, learner-driven analyses of language in use
which can help them to note the gaps and to achieve learning readiness.
To help learners to develop cognitive skills
To help learners to become independent.
These goals elucidate what can be developed through awareness rising.
For opportunities for communicative practice, activities such as role plays,
drama or pair work seem ideal as they allow for students to experiment and
receive feedback in a controllable environment. Cook (1998) posits the use of
plays or parts of plays, and argues that through the type of post-reading
activities proposed below in lesson four, which could equally be performed
with the other lessons, the following are learnable:
Rote learning and repetition of a model
Attention to exact wording
Practice in all four skills
Motivating and authentic language and activity
Instances of culturally and contextually appropriate pragmatic use
Integration of linguistic with paralinguistic use.
The lessons in this paper involve using parts of a film (i.e. spoken
scripts). As has been discussed above, textbook dialogues do not tend to be a
good source of pragmatic input, but representational texts can be. Film scripts,
like plays, are designed as spoken texts, and therefore have the added
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advantage of, if not providing a model, then providing a text which can be
engaged with ‘as a text of speech’ (McCarthy 1996: 90). For students it often
is the realm of spoken interaction that proves the most perplexing and fleeting.
Lesson:
Purpose : To raise awareness of Social Contextual factors in communication,
and to discuss how language can change according to differences in these
variables. In particular the lesson is concerned with participants and the
communicative situation, and how these factors affect the way people talk and
are spoken to.
Text : Dialogue from the Mike Leigh film ‘Secrets and Lies’, involving a
telephone conversation between two of the main characters, Cynthia and her
brother Morris (see Appendix 4).
a) Pre reading
Activity purpose: Develop students’ schematic knowledge of participant and
situational variables (see Appendix 3).
Activity: Write the above variables (gender, time etc.) on the board, tell the
class that they are going to read and then watch a telephone conversation, and
that they should ask you questions before they read the text about the
participants and the situation e.g. “what sex are the characters?” Alternatively,
a more advanced group could be encouraged to first come up with the
variables themselves.
Activity purpose: Activate students’ schematic knowledge of how social
distance and the social situation may affect communication.
Activity : In small groups, predict how the participants’ social distance (in this
case very little, especially as perceived by Cynthia) and the social situation
affect the communication. Encourage students to come up with specific
examples. It may be helpful for students to compare this type of dialogue to,
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say, an imagined conversation between Morris and a client arranging an
appointment.
b) While reading
Activity purpose : Highlight relevant points in the text, and keep the reading
focused on the lesson purpose.
Activity : Read through and find evidence of
1. The closeness of their relationship
2. Morris not wanting to say no to his sister
3. A problem between Morris’ wife Monica and Cynthia
4. The unimportance of Morris’ status (a successful self-employed
businessman) here
5. Cynthia’s neurotic disposition
c) Post reading
Activity purpose: show that the way we communicate affects how we appear
to others.
Activity : write a description of the two characters, including a description of
their personalities and how you imagine them to look. Then watch the film
clip. Discuss whether or not the descriptions should be changed, and why.
Activity purpose : Highlight how stylistic appropriateness is dependent on the
social context (amongst other things).
Activity : Underline all the informal language in the text. Imagine that an
acquaintance of Morris is asking to bring a friend to the barbecue; change the
dialogue accordingly. Then role-play this situation in pairs. Then role-play
another situation, for example one more similar to the original. Discuss how
the language changes according to the context. Discuss the possible effects of
using inappropriate language in these two contexts.
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Sum up by asking students what they have learned in this lesson and what
they can take away from this (hopefully the original lesson purpose).
IV.5. Summary
This chapter has presented pragmatic violation in requests by English
majors. Their errors were divided into two types: pragma-linguistic error and
socio-linguistic error. The causes of these errors were also analyzed in order
to provide suggestions to help English majors better their conversational skill
in requests. Errors have been pointed out, the reasons explained, and
suggestions provided, the next chapter “Conclusion and Implications” will
conclude the study by summarizing what have been dealt with and then
provide implications.
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Chapter V:
CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS and
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER
RESEARCH
V.1. Summary of the study
To master one language in an effective manner is extremely difficult
because each language usage has social and cultural conventions. Therefore,
English majors always have difficulties and make mistakes in using speech
acts, especially requests.
A lot of studies have been carried out to help English majors have good
pragmatic competence in using speech acts perfectively. However, in terms of
pragmatics, there have not been any studies paying attention to English
majors’ mistakes in using requests or helping them make requests effectively.
As a result, the study on “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese
speakers of English” was carried out to find out what pragmatic violation in
utilizing requests by English majors in particular and to provide suggestions to
help them make requests sufficiently.
Data collected through recording dialogues and questionnaire showed the
pragmatic violation in requests by English majors. These errors included
pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic error. This violation resulted from the
influence of Vietnamese language, student’s personality, the influence of
Vietnamese socio-culture and textbooks and study environment.
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V.2. Implications
Based on the pragmatic violation in requests by English majors, some
implications for the English major students at Phu Xuan University as well as
the teachers of the English section of the Foreign Languages Department are
made. This part, therefore, are divided into separate ones: the former is
implications for the students while the latter is those for the teachers.
V.2.1. Students’ learning communicative competence in requests
* English majors should feel be at home with classmates so as to do role-plays
activities with different situations to enhance their pragmatic competence in
making requests.
* English majors should raise their awareness and motivation in learning and
using speech acts, especially requests.
* English majors’ roles in speaking classes are to take part in every activity
enthusiastically.
* English majors should read books, newspapers and magazines either in
English or Vietnamese. This can help them broaden their background
knowledge academically, culturally, socially, economically, technologically
and so on. By doing this, the students can learn a large number of specific
vocabulary and expressions in requests in a polite way.
* English majors should listen to music, programs on television or on the
radio or view English movies to identify different requests in different
situations.
* Each class should set up a rule that every student has to express
herself/himself in English during the class. By this way, they may find it
natural to speak English more.
* English majors should establish some English clubs in which they can take
part in and improve their pragmatic competence in making requests.
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* English majors should even do Internet-surfing in their spare time to learn
more about native language culture.
V.2.2. Teaching communicative competence in requests
* Teacher should provide input to develop students’ socio-pragmatic and
pragma-linguistic competence.
* Teacher should create communicative opportunities for students to work in
small groups or in pair to discuss the possible use of each option. While they
are discussing, they can learn from their peers because peer-to-peer
scaffolding may be just an important as expert-novice scaffolding (Ko, et al,
2003) and eventually develop their socio-pragmatic and pragma-linguistic
knowledge (Kasper, 2001).
* Teacher should use transcripts or videos containing requests for rehearsals
and then ask students to role-play them again and then give feedback on these
contexts. This activity is of great help for English majors when they encounter
similar situations in real-life communication. Because through role-plays and
simulations, teacher could have the opportunities to show their students the
appropriateness of utterances, and how speakers negotiate certain situations as
well as providing a framework for the performances of speech acts.
* Teacher should avoid over correction or harsh criticism.
* Teacher should give students a few words of encouragement.
* Teacher should try their best to let student know the native language culture
to correct their understanding and proper using of English.
* Additionally, teacher should consider the following activities in order to
teach requests easily.
According to Bardovi-Harlig (2003), some activities for teaching
communicative competence in requests are as follows:
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(from:http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics/mach.htm,
accessed on 15/4/2008)
1. Email requests (Thomas M. & Sholly R.2003)
This activity begins with requests written by the students. Students make
written requests via email to teacher to illustrate various points of pragmatic
appropriateness. Students individually submit their requests and the teacher
put useful one together on worksheets and distribute them. Students then work
in groups to analyzed and revise the messages with advice from the teacher.
Exactly which pragmatic points are taught is independent upon what can be
mined from the messages students write, but the teacher wields some control
by pre-selecting the messages that will be analyzed in class.
2. Spot the Problem! (Melinda E.2003)
* In preparation for the class, teacher prepares role-cards in matching pairs
and problem-cards (containing a pragmatic violation)
* Teacher asks two students to perform the role-play dialogues then give them
role-cards as well as the problem-cards. Other students are asked to observe
and spot mistakes.
* Students perform the role-play, other jot down their observations.
* A whole class discussion follows in which the students share their
observations with each other. The teacher elicits the forms or phrases that
caused the problems and possible ways to overcome them. Any problems
created by differences between the students mother tongue) and English can
also be discussed. If time allowed, more pairs can be asked to perform role-
plays.
3. Speaker and Task Type (Sirgun B.L.2003)
* Language presentation
a) Target speech act (request) is presented in four short dialogues
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b) Each dialogue shows a different speaker relationship (informal/non-distant
and formal/distant) and different task types (for requests, for example, easy to
do and hard to do).
* A visual reference point for students that helps them understand that
appropriate linguistic choices depend on crucial factors in the speech
situation.
* Carefully sequenced activities that move from controlled communicative
situations so that students are given ample practice time to become aware of
differences in the way the speech act is realized in American English as
compared to their own language.
V.3. Suggestions for further research
The results of the present study cannot be generalized to all Vietnamese
speakers of English but rather, should be taken as preliminary indicators of the
behavior of English majors at Phu Xuan University when initiating a request.
In the future, studies employing a large population of male and female
subjects should examine speech act patterns of request behavior by including
data which examine perceptions of Vietnamese speakers of English. In
addition, a large population may shed light on the issue of gender differences
in speech act behavior. Finally, other studies need examine contrastive
analysis by recording native speakers’ requests in order to analyze and
compare them with requests made by Vietnamese speakers of English.
V.4. Final words
Due to the limitations of the researcher’s ability, time and scope, the
researcher welcomes any comments as well as criticisms from readers or from
those who are interested in this issue to overcome all shortcomings the
research processes.
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AMPA receptor targeting. J. Neurosu.23.
25. Kramsch, C. (1993) “Context and Culture in Language
Teaching”, Oxford: OUP.
26. Leech, G. (1983) “Principles of Pragmatics”, London: Longman.
27. Levinson, S. (1983) “Pragmatics”, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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28. Mac, C. & Enghen, P. (2000) Toan tap, Nxb Chinh Tri Quoc gia
Ha Noi, p.42.
29. McCafferty, S, And Ahmed, M. (2000) “the Appropriation of
Gestures of the Abstract by L2 Learners”, in J. Lantolf (ed.)
Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford:
OUP. Pp.199-218.
30. Matsuda, A. (1999) “Interlanguage Pragmatics: What Can It
Offer to Language Teacher?” CATESOL Journal, 11, 39-59.
31. Morris, C. (1938) “Foundations of the Theory of Signs”, in
Carnap, R. et al (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Unified
Science, 2:1, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
32. Nguyen Thi Xuan Huong (2002). “Factors affecting Speaking
Abilities of inservice EFL Students at Hue College of Sciences-
Unpublished undergraduate thesis, College of Sciences, Hue
University, Hue City.
33. Schmitdt, R. (1993) “Consciousness, Learning and Interlanguage
Pragmatics:, in G. Kasper and S. Blum-Kulka (eds) Interlanguage
Pragmatics. New York: OUP, pp.21-42.
34. Searle, J. (1969) “An Essay in the Philosophy of Language”,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
35. Sifianou, M. (1992) “Politeness Phenomena in England and
Greece, A Cross-cultural Perspective, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
36. Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986) “Relevance: Communication
and Cognition”, Oxford: Blackwell.
37. Strauss, A, & Corbin, J. (1990) “Basic Qualitative Research:
Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques”, Newbury Park
Sage, p.17.
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38. Tomlinson, B. (1994) “Pragmatic Awareness Activities”.
Language Awareness 3 (3 and 4):109-27.
39. Tran Ngoc Them (1998), Co So Van Hoa Viet Nam, Nxb. Giao
Duc, Hanoi.
40. Tran Thi Phuong Thao (2004), “Essentials of Semantics: A
Short Practical Course Book: Speech acts”, Institute of English
Language and Its Didactic, Cologne University Cologne,
Germany, 143.
41. Tran Thi Thao Phuong (2006), “Vietnamese Cultural Values as
Barriers to EFL Students in Learning Speaking English.
Unpublished undergraduate thesis, College of Foreign Laguage,
Hue University, Hue City.
42. Verschueren, J. (1987) “Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguitic
Adaptation” Working Document # 1, Antwerp: International
Pragmatic Association.
43. Yule, G. (1985) “The Study of Language”, Great Britain:
Cambridge University Press.
44. Yule, G. (1996) “Pragmatics”. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
45.http://www.exchanges/state.gov/education/engteaching/
pragmatics/mach.htm, accessed on April 15th, 2008.
46. http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html, accessed
on January 15th, 2008.
47.www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm , accessed
on January 10th 2008.
48.http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm ,
accessed on January 10th 2008.
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49.http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm ,
accessed on January 10th 2008.
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accessed on April 15th, 2008.
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APPENDIX 1:
RECORDING DIALOGUES
1. Your best friend borrowed your favorite CD a month ago and still has
not returned it. You are in her car and notice that it is in her glove box.
You ask for it back.
2. You have recently moved to a new apartment. Because it is very far
from the campus. You need to buy a used car as soon as possible.
However, since you have never bought a car by yourself, you want your
closed friend to go and find a good, affordable used car with you. What
would you do?
3. You forget to bring your pen. You would like to borrow a pen from
your close teacher. What would you say?
4. You want to make an appointment to see your teacher in order to ask
about your study. What would you say?
5. You are in a restaurant. You want the waiter to give you a coke. What
would you say?
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APPENDIX 2:
QUESTIONNAIRE
This questionnaire is designed to collect data for my research on
“Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese learners of
English”. Therefore, I would be very grateful if you could spare your time to
think carefully and provide appropriate answers to the questions below. Your
responses are very important to the success of my survey. The data will be
used only for the purpose of research, not any other purposes.
Please read the questions carefully and circle the possibility of your
choice in answering.
Note: More than one answer is acceptable.
1. Do you think using a speech act in a appropriate language and
manner of English is very difficult?
a) Yes
b) No
2. Are you able to vary your requests to meet different situations?
a) Yes
b) No
3. What kind(s) of requests situations are difficult?
a) Requests to the older
b) Requests to people at high position
c) The degree of difficulty of requests
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d) Psychology of the hearer
e) None of the above
4. Reason(s) why you have problems in making request?
a) The influence of Vietnamese
b) Your personality (shy/hesitate)
c) The influence of Vietnamese socio-culture
d) The study environment
Your ideas: …………………………………………………….
5. Positive influence of the Vietnamese language results in your
requests in English?
a) Speaking more flexible and naturally
b) Feeling confident
c) Transferring easily
Your ideas: …………………………………………………..
6. Negative influence of the Vietnamese language results in your
requests in English ?
a) Making mistakes
b) Making your requests verbose
c) Causing misunderstanding
Your ideas: …………………………………………………..
7. What are your suggestions to help you make requests in effective
way?
a) Reading books
b) Communicating with foreigners
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c) Practicing everyday
Your ideas: ………………………………………………………
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR COOPERATION!
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PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA
Để cung cấp thêm những thông tin xác thực và đáng tin cậy cho đề tài
nghiên cứu: “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of
English” (Sự vi phạm ngữ dụng học trong câu yêu cầu của người Việt nói
tiếng Anh), các bạn vui lòng trả lời các câu hỏi dưới đây bằng cách khoanh
tròn vào những câu trả lời mà bạn lựa chọn. Sự đóng góp của các bạn là rất
quan trọng trong sự thành công của đề tài nghiên cứu. Những thông tin đó chỉ
phục vụ cho mục đích nghiên cứu của đề tài, không nhằm mục đích nào khác.
Rất cám ơn sự hợp tác và giúp đỡ của các bạn.
Chú ý: Các bạn có thể trả lời nhiều hơn một.
1. Bạn có nghĩ việc sử dụng một hành vi ngôn ngữ với cách thức và ngôn ngữ
phù hợp trong tiếng Anh là rất khó?
a) Đồng ý
b) Không đồng ý
2. Bạn có thể sử dụng phong phú câu yêu cầu của mình khi gặp các tình huống
khác nhau không?
a) Có
b) Không
3. Bạn thấy khó khăn với tình huống nào khi đưa ra câu yêu cầu?
a) Câu yêu cầu đối với người lớn tuổi
b) Câu yêu cầu đối với người có địa vị cao
c) Mức độ khó của việc được yêu cầu
d) Tâm lý của người được yêu cầu
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e) Không ý nào trên đây
4. Vì sao bạn gặp khó khăn khi đưa ra câu yêu cầu?
a) Ảnh hưởng của tiếng Việt
b) Tính cách của bạn (nhút nhát/hay do dự)
c) Ảnh hưởng của văn hoá xã hội Việt Nam
d) Sách giáo khoa và Môi trường học tập
Ý kiến của bạn: …………………………………………………………
5. Ảnh hưởng tích cực của tiếng Việt đến câu yêu cầu trong tiếng Anh của bạn
là gì?
a) Nói một cách uyển chuyển và tự nhiên
b) Cảm thấy tự tin
c) Chuyển đổi một cách dễ dàng
6. Ảnh hưởng tiêu cực của tiếng Việt đến câu yêu cầu trong tiếng Anh của bạn
là gì?
a) Mắc lỗi
b) Làm cho câu yêu cầu rườm rà
c) Gây ra hiểu nhầm
Ý kiến của bạn: ………………………………………………………
7. Theo bạn, làm thế nào để câu yêu câu trong tiếng Anh của bạn đạt hiệu quả
tốt?
a) Đọc sách
b) Giao tiếp với người nước ngoài
c) Luyện tập hàng ngày
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Ý kiến của bạn: …………………………………………………………
CÁM ƠN SỰ HỢP TÁC CỦA BẠN!
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Appendix 3:
Suggested components of sociocultural competence
(Celce-Murcia, Dornyei and Thurrell 1995: 24)
SOCIAL CONTEXTUAL FACTORS
- Participant variables
- Age, gender, office and status, social distance, relations (power and
affective)
- Situational variables
- Time, place, social situation
STYLISTIC APPROPRIATENESS FACTORS
- Politeness conventions and strategies
- Stylistic variation
- Degrees of formality
- Field-specific registers
CULTURAL FACTORS
- Sociocultural background knowledge of the target language community
- living conditions (way of living, living standards); social and institutional
structure;social conventions and rituals; major values, beliefs, and norms;
taboo topics; historical background; cultural aspects including literature and
arts
- Awareness of major dialect or regional differences
- Cross-cultural awareness
- Differences; similarities; strategies for cross-cultural communication
NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATIVE FACTORS
- Kinesic factors (body language)
- Discourse controlling behaviours (non-verbal turn-taking signals)
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- Backchannel behaviours
- Affective markers (facial expressions), gestures, eye conact
- Proxemic factors (use of space)
- Haptic factors (touching)
- Paralinguistic factors
- acoustal sounds, nonvocal noises
- Silence
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Appendix 4:
SECRETS AND LIES
On the phone, Cynthia at home, standing up in the hallway. Morris in his
office with his secretary, Jane, listening and eating a bag of crisps.
C: Listen, Morris, Sweetheart. I wanted to ask you a favour.
M: Oh yeah. What’s that then?
C: You know the party Sunday…
M: The BBQ, yeah
C: Yeah. Can I bring a mate, Sweetheart?
Silence.
C: Hello?
M: Is it a bloke?
C: Course it is not a bloke, silly bugger. Chance would be a fine thing!
Both laugh.
M: Who is it then?
C: Oh just somebody at work. We’ve been out a couple of times and I was
meant to have seen her Sunday only I forgot. That is alright then?
M: I suppose so.
C: What do you mean ‘you suppose so’?
M: No, it’ll be fine.
C: Smashing.
M: Have to check it out though.
C: Check it out? Who with?
Short silence.
M: Listen, Erm, if I don’t ring you back then bring her. Right?
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C: I don’t want to upset nobody.
M: Don’t worry.
C: Are you sure then?
M: Yeah, yeah. No problem. Yeah.
C: O.K. then sweetheart. Looking forward to it.
M: Alright, well, say hello to Roxanne for me.
C: Then.
M: Alright
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