VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN ISSUING ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN INVITATIONS

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor Submitted by

ANG TH HNG, EdD LE BCH THUY

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality Retention and use of the thesis. Acknowledgements Abstract.. Abbreviations and symbols... List of charts List of figures List of tables i ii iii iv v vi vii viii

CHAPTER 1: 1.1 1.2 1.3

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study ...1 The aims of the study..5 The organization of the study5 LITERATURE REVIEW

CHAPTER 2: 2.1.

Written and spoken language..7

2.1.1 Distinction between spoken and written language......7 2.1.2. English and Vietnamese spoken language.9 2.2. Communicative competence..10

2.2.1. Definitions..10 2.2.2. Sociolinguistics and the learning of English as a foreign language12 2.3. Speech acts.13

2.3.1. Direct and indirect speech acts ....14 2.3.2. Indirectness in requests.....16 2.3.2.1. 2.3.2.2. 2.3.2.3. 2.4. The most direct strategies (Bald-on-record strategies) . 16 Conventionally indirect strategies ....17 Non-conventionally indirect strategies .. 17

Politeness ....18

2.4.1. Theories of politeness...18 2.4.2. Politeness and indirectness....21 2.4.3. Social variables affecting politeness....23 2.4.3.1. 2.4.3.2. 2.4.3.3. Power....23 Social distance...24 Gender.. 27 2.4.3.4. Age... 28 2.5. Invitations ..30

2.5.1. The nature of invitations.. 30 2.5.2. Written and spoken invitations...32 2.5.3. Reasons for making invitations ...32 2.5.4. Problems with invitations.. 34 2.5.5. The structure of English and Vietnamese spoken invitations... 35

2.5.5.1. 2.5.5.2.

The structure of English spoken invitations. 36 The structure of Vietnamese spoken invitations. 37 METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: 3.1. 3.2. 3.3.

Research questions. 40 Research design.... 40 The characteristics of the subjects.....42

3.3.1. The first group of subjects..42 3.3.2. The second group of subjects..43 3.4. Instruments..44

3.4.1. Description of the questionnaires..44 3.4.2. Data collection procedure.. 46 3.5. Assumptions 47

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS 4.1.

DATA

ANALYSIS

AND

DISCUSSION

OF

THE

Data analysis48

4.1.1. The preference of strategy use between groups: Overall results.48 4.1.2. Preference for and use of politeness strategies in relation to social status, age and gender 50 4.1.2.1. 4.1.2.2. 4.1.2.3. 4.2. Social status and age.. 51 Social status and gender 59 Age and gender 66

Discussion of the findings 74 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

CHAPTER 5: 5.1. 5.2.

Conclusion. 81 Recommendations83

References... 86 Appendix 1 Questionnaire to English native speakers..97 Appendix 2 Questionnaire to Vietnamese native speakers..100

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I certify my authorship of the Masters Thesis submitted today entitled: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN ISSUING ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN INVITATIONS In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Masters Programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Department of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University- Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007

LE BICH THUY

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LE BICH THUY, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accepted the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master Thesis deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Masters Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan and reproduction for theses.

Ho Chi Minh City, August, 2007

Signature

LE BICH THUY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Ms. Dang Thi Huong, EdD, for her enthusiastic guidance, her thoughtful comments, her valuable support as well as her precious encouragement. Without Ms Dang Thi Huong, my whole-hearted thesis supervisor, I would not have finished my thesis. I am also grateful to Professor Nguyen Van Luan, PhD, Dean of The Faculty of Economics, Vietnam National University- HCM City, who has created favorable conditions and eased my workload so that I am able to attend the master program and finish my thesis. I am greatly indebted to the lecturers, teaching staff and students at The Faculty of Economics and The National Institution of Politics, HCM City for completing the survey questionnaires. I also wish to thank Jack Bayfield, Sandra Jaye Smale, Charle Harmouy and their families who gave me great assistance in distributing and collecting the questionnaires for English native speakers.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother for her love and support, without which I would hardly have been able to overcome difficulties to complete it.

ABSTRACT
The awareness of the interactional similarities and differences in issuing or declining invitations in cross-cultural contexts can contribute significantly to better competence of performing this speech act. This study has tried to investigate politeness in issuing English and Vietnamese spoken invitations under the effect of social status, age and gender. Two questionnaires were delivered to both English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers as an instrument for the research. Forty English native speakers and forty Vietnamese native speakes participated in answering the questionnaires. The results of the study showed that there were both similarities and differences in the selection of politeness strategies employed by English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers in issuing spoken invitations. Social status, age and gender also affected differently to the choice of strategies used by both groups of subjects.

Some pedagogical implications were suggested for the teachers of English on teaching spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English.

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

CID ENS F-T-F F-T-M HCMC NCID M-T-F M-T-M VNS

Conventional indirectness English native speakers Female-to-female Female-to-male Ho Chi Minh City Non-conventional indirectness Male-to-female Male-to-male Vietnamese native speakers

VNU

Vietnam National University

LISTS OF CHARTS
4.1 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of lower social status in situation 5..52 4.2 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of equal social status in situation 5...54 4.3 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of higher social status in situation 5... 56 4.4 The proportion of total politeness strategies used by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situations 1 and 360 4.5 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situation 1 and 3....63 4.6 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4..68

4.7

The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the different gender in situations 2 and 4 ..71

LISTS OF FIGURES
2.1 Components of communicative language ability in communicative language use.11 2.2 2.3 Possible strategies for doing FTAs.20 Wolfsons bulge model25

LIST OF TABLES
3.1 3.2. 4.1 The first group of subjects...43 The second group of subjects...44 The frequency of politeness strategies used by two groups of subjects ...49 4.2 Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of lower social status in situation 5...53 4.3 Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of equal social status in situation 5....55 4.4 Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of higher social status in situation 557

4.5

Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situation 1 and 361

4.6

Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situation 1 and 3.65

4.7

Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4.69

4.8

Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4.72

CHAPTER 1.
1.1.

INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

At present, English is the main language of the world communication. It is used as a means to acquire access to the worlds intellectual and technical resources. It is also used as a medium of politics, science, technology and international trade and chiefly as an international language among nations. In Vietnam, since the open-door policy was implemented in 1986 and the international relationship between Vietnam and other countries was developed, English has become increasingly important. Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese people want to study English so that they can use it not only to access information and knowledge but also to communicate effectively in social interations. However, many Vietnamese learners of English, in spite of having developed good linguistic competence, still face

communication difficulties arising from the lack of sociolinguistic and communicative competence. They are not well aware of the fact that different languages express feelings, construct messages in different ways and each community has its own rules constraining speech behavior. Therefore, they usually let their native language transfer inappropriately into the target language. One of the typical examples is the act of greeting. Due to the influence of the culture, a Vietnamese learner tends to say Where are you going? or What are you doing here? as a sign of greeting in stead of sayingHow are you?, How have you been? or just Hello, Hi Good morning, etc. Furthermore, the hospitality and friendliness of the Vietnamese sometimes influence them to issue utterances: You must go to our party. We really want you to come or the like as invitations which are quite inappropriate in English speaking cultures. As a matter of fact, the lack of knowledge on how to say, what to say and when to say can result in misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication or lead to wrong judgment such as: Vietnamese are curious and impolite people who just want to know others personal matter and to impose their minds on others. Therefore, obviously the ability of using a foreign language fluently, effectively and socially requires more than knowing its grammatical, semantic rules or getting native-like pronunciation but also requires the learners certain knowledge of socio-cultural factors in the use of language. It is undeniable that whether the learners of English can gain communicative proficiency or not depends not only on their own efforts but also largely on their teachers. According to Thomas (1983, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31), it is the language teachers who should take the responsibility of facilitating, guiding language learners to interpret values and patterns which they would have

difficulty in interpreting as well as help them to express themselves in exactly the way they choose to do rudely, tactfully or in an elaborately polite manner. It is also the teachers who should endeavor to make their students aware of and sensitive to the sociolinguistic variables that play a role in different types of situational frames (Yorio, 1980, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31). In Vietnam, the teaching of English has shifted from the focus on vocabulary, grammatical rules and pronunciation to the emphasis on communicative competence lately. More and more course books which pay attention to the impact of socio-cultural factors on the issuing of English have been used in many educational institutions. In addition, the number of foreign language centres which claim to apply the communicative approach with the focus on social and communicative competence together with the provision of good teaching conditions has also mushroomed these days. Moreover, there is a positive growing awareness of the need for socio-cultural knowledge in teaching and learning English from Vietnamese teachers of English. However, in order to help the Vietnamese learners of English gain communicative proficiency, further investigations on why, when, what, how and where to use various patterns of speech behavior is still in need and should receive more concern from the teachers. Hopefully with the help of qualified Vietnamese teachers of English who can provide feedback to learners concerning the appropriate or inappropriate use of English, the Vietnamese learners will be in a position to communicate effectively with people of English speaking community. In social communication, politeness is one of the aspects of culture which clearly influences the use of language. It is of great value to not only scholars with particular interests but also to foreign language teachers who aim at enabling their non-native learners to use target language in the most appropriate way.

Politeness in its relation to speech acts in general and to directive speech acts in particular has long been a great concern of many linguistics and educators all over the world. Invitation, which is a kind of directive speech act, has also been taken into consideration recently. Edmondson and House (1881: 132) state that an invitation is a social activity and has a particular significance in social life. It may happen daily in all communities, all cultures. Nowadays, as communication among people across cultures is increasing, invitation has become a more essential and effective means of establishing, maintaining social relationships with other people than ever before. As a matter of fact, there have been some studies that took this field as a main subject. Wolfson (1989) pointed out the need to have knowledge of how to give, interpret and response to invitations as one of the aspects to interact socially. ang (1992) investigated how speakers of Vietnamese and speakers of English issue, accept and decline spoken invitation. J. Cesar (2003) presented a cross-cultural study of how American English and Latin American Spanish decline invitations. Frankly speaking, making people well aware of the interactional similarities and differences in issuing or declining invitations in cross-cultural contexts can contribute significantly to better competence of performing this speech act. However, with the purpose of the improvement of communication and the elimination of misunderstandings relating to this speech behavior among cultures, the investigation of the impact of politeness on the production of spoken invitations across cultures is extremely necessary. Because of the great significance of polite invitations in social interaction among nations where English is currently the major language and at the time when Vietnam is opening its door widely to the world for international integration, there is a need to

investigate the politeness phenomenon in its relation to English spoken invitations in comparison to Vietnamese spoken invitations. As a teacher of English whose learners are majored in business, I totally acknowledge the importance of politeness in business communication. Moreover, issuing invitations can also become one of the learners social activities once they graduate and access the world of bunisess people. Therefore, in order to help them avoid inappropriate transfer of Vietnamese cultural belief to English culture, I would like to focus my thesis on politeness in direct and indirect spoken invitations in Vietnamese and in English. 1.2. The aims of the study

This cross-cultural study will focus on politeness in issuing direct and indirect Vietnamese and English spoken invitations to see if there are any similarities and differences between them. The aims of the study are: 1. To investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies (indirect and direct) by English native speakers when issuing spoken invitations in relation to social status, age and gender; 2. To investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies (indirect and direct) by Vietnamese native speakers when issuing spoken invitations in relation to social status, age and gender; and 3. To suggest some implications for teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English with a close attention to the effect of politeness.

1.3.

The organization of the study

The study is organized into five chapters. Chapter One has introduced the background, the aims and organization of this study. Chapter Two presents the relevant literature review of the study. Chapter Three deals with methodology employed in the study. Chapter Four consists of data analysis and discussion of the findings. Chapter Five presents the conclusions and offers some recommendations for English teaching in Vietnam. This chapter has provided the background, the aims and structure of the study. Relevant literature reviews will be presented in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Written and spoken language

Conversation is a social activity in which language plays a decisive role. It is thanks to language that differentiates human beings from animals. This part will distinguish spoken language and written language but the main focus of the study lies on spoken language in general and spoken invitations in particular. 2.1.1. Distinction between spoken and written language Spoken language and written language are both forms of language but they exploit different features of the same system. There are some major points that differentiate the two.

According to Cameron (2001), scholars have mentioned the following characteristics of speech as distinguished from writing: a. Speech is transient rather than permanent. The speakers often take turns in speaking and also have no permanent record of what they have said earlier. By contrast, written language can be stored, retrieved and recollected. b. Speech is additive. The speakers may stick together elements from previous turns-at-talk, add languages as they go along (andand, thenand then). Meanwhile, the information conveyed in writing is hierarchically ordered within the clause structure. c. Speech is loosely structured grammatically and is lexically sparse. Writing, by contrast, is grammatically compact and lexically dense. d. Speech is redundant. The speakers tend to make frequent use of repetition, paraphrase and statement to help listeners comprehend and remember what they are saying. On the contrary, since written language does not have to make such demands on short term memory, it tends to avoid redundancy. e. Speech tends to be people-centered and writing tends to be topic-centered. Because of the presence of an audience and the need to keep the conversation going, speakers not only focus on their topic but also try to engage their listeners. Meanwhile, the written message should be as clear, unambiguous, and coherent as possible because the writers will not be there to explain and defend it. No matter what differences may exist between speech and writing; they should not be regarded as two separate systems but as a continuum with conversation

at one end and formal writing at the other end with an overlap in the middle (ang, 1992: 27). Nowadays as the face to face communication across cultures is increasing, the need of effectively orally interaction becomes more urgent than ever before. In addition, because of the transient characteristic of speech, in oral

communication, people would have to be very careful in selecting what to say and how to say, etc. in order not to offend others by unintentional mistakes. As a matter of fact, the knowledge of what to say, how to say, when to say, etc. should become a habit or else they would have no time to think and choose the appropriate ones in conversation. Those are partly the reasons why this study focuses on the spoken language. 2.1.2. English and Vietnamese spoken language Halliday (1985) finds that there are certain prosodic features which are accidental properties of a particular language. In spoken English, the changes in intonation, rhythm do affect to express utterance meanings. Besides, different structures in the form of speech can convey different attitude, social relation, formality, etc. Thus, the imperative structure Open the door can express the higher imposition, less formality and politeness than the question structure Can you open the door? In spoken Vietnamese, the manner of speech is highly influenced by the use of particles which can help much to express politeness (a, i a, da, tha, knh, etc.) or solidarity (nha, nhe, nhe, nh, ha, etc.) or interest (i ma, nao, etc.). Besides, different terms of address such as: ong, ba, chu , bac, co ,d, con, etc. are

frequently used to express politeness as well as to show different relationships and always appear in spoken situation (ang, 1992: 30) In addition, speech behavior in both Vietnamese culture and English speaking societies is also greatly affected by social variables such as: gender, age, social status, educational background, etc. of participants. Generally speaking, when investigating any spoken language, we need to take these properties into account to have a better understanding about it.

2.2. Communicative competence

Everyday experience supports the view that communicative competence is one of the main factors determining how successful one can be in society. So, whats communicative competence? 2.2.1. Definitions Wofson (1989) points out that there is a need to acquire what Dell Hymes has called communicative competence to become an effective speaker of a new language. According to Hymes (1972), communicative competence involves not only the knowledge about language form but also the knowledge of what to say to whom and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. In his opinion, communicative competence is the one that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific contexts.

Extending this definition, Canale and Swain (1980: 112) identifies the construct of communicative competence made up from four subcategories: Grammatical Competence, Discourse Competence, Sociolinguistic Competence and Strategic Competence. Then, Bachman (1990: 79) modifies the model and builds language competence model in which he places grammatical and discourse competence under the term organizational competence. In addition, Bachman breaks Canale and Swains Sociolinguistic Competence into separate pragmatic categories: Illocutionary Competence (pertaining to sending and receiving intended meanings) and Sociolinguistic Competence (dealing with such considerations ad politeness, formality, metaphor, register and culturally related aspects of language). Moreover, Bachman (1990: 85) considers Strategic Competence as an entirely separate element of communicative language ability which serves as an executive function of making the final decision among many possible options on wording, phrasing and other production and receptive means for negotiating meaning. The components of communicative language ability suggested by Bachman (1990: 85) were presented in Figure 2.1 below.

Knowledge Structures (Knowledge of the world) Strategic Competence

Language Competence (Knowledge of language)

Psycho physiological Mechanisms

Context of Situation

Figure 2.1: Components of communicative language ability in communicative language use (Bachman, 1990: 85) Whatever definitions scholars may provide, they all seem to agree on the need of social cultural knowledge of participants towards their own communication success. In other words, they accept the influence of sociolinguistics on the study of language in general and of speech in particular.

2.2.2. Sociolinguistics and the learning of English as a foreign language Language allows human beings to communicate with each other in a particular social cultural context. However, languages are different from one another not only in areas as phonology, syntax and lexicon but also in the norms and values which inform speakers knowledge as to what is appropriate to say, to whom and under which conditions (Wolfson, 1989: 14). As a result, sociolinguistic rules are far from universal across cultural groups. When people coming from different social cultural interact, they tend to judge each others behavior according to their own value systems (Wolfson, 1989: 14). Thus, common questions from Asians on first encounters such as How old are you? or Are you married? or How much do you earn each month and the like are considered too personal and impolite by Westerners. Meanwhile, some of the questions asked by Americans Have you ever kissed your boyfriend? or Why dont you drink? or Why dont we share hands? to Malaysians are regarded as absolutely inappropriate or taboo (Wolfson, 1989: 26) because they normally do not drink or touch hands of people of opposite sex except when they are wearing

gloves. Besides, any questions regarding sex are absolutely taboo on the eyes of the Islamic religion. In fact, intercultural misunderstanding is more likely to occur and cause more negative effect on communication than the one caused by mispronunciation or grammatical errors. Native speakers seem to be more tolerant to foreigners who pronounce man into men, want into one or What do he do? and the like. They tend to judge those errors as natural to the process of language learning and even find their own pleasure with those silly things. However, an inappropriate question or the failure to utter the customary apology, compliment or congratulation would receive less sympathy and tend to be interpreted as an intentional rudeness and hence be reacted negatively. It is obvious that to communicate effectively in the target language, the learners of English also need sociocultural information on how to interpret and respond to different sociolinguistic behaviors of English native speakers such as: greeting, requesting, inviting, etc.

2.3. Speech acts

Speech act theories originated in Austins observation (1962: 58) which states that in saying something that has a certain sense and reference, one is normally doing something. According to Austins theory (1962), an utterance may perform three related kinds of acts: the locutionary acts of which the meaning can be totally taken from that of individual linguistic elements forming the utterance; the illocutionary acts through which the speakers express their intention to do something in such a way that the listener can recognize them as

well and the perlocutionary acts through which the utterance can produce certain consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of the audience. Searle (1969: 96) contributed to speech act theory by considering the purpose of an act from the speakers perspective and classifying speech acts (the term he preferred for Austins illocutionary acts) to five categories: 1. Declaratives: bring out changes in the world (e.g. announce, name, etc). 2. Representatives: state what the speaker believes to be the case or not (e.g. assert, report, describe, etc.). 3. Directives: try to get Hearer to do something (e.g. order, request, etc.). 4. Commissives: commit the speaker to do something(e.g. promise, threat, etc.). 5. Expressives: express feelings and attitudes (e.g. apologize, thank, etc.). While Searle classifies speech acts (illocutionary acts, in fact) into five categories, Bach and Harnish (1979) consider illocutionary acts as

communicative actions and hence divide them into four classes (constatives, directives, commisives and acknowledgements) according to distinctions between the expression of beliefs, of attitudes, of intentions or desires to act or to cause others to act and of feelings. Similarly, Geis (1995) introduces his Dynamic Speech Act Theory in which he argues that it is necessary to play emphasis on the social interaction nature of utterances and treat them as communications rather than merely focus on their linguistic nature. Then, he strongly recommends that the study of speech acts

should carefully take account of the affect of social features of context such as social relationships between participants, psychological states, and attitudes of participants, etc. in which utterances happen. 2.3.1. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts The distinction between direct and indirect speech acts plays an important part in speech act theory. Austin (1962) argues that certain acts can be performed directly by using explicit performative verbs like: invite, request, order, etc. or by using sentences of a type with which those acts are conventionally associated. Thus, we can directly use a declarative sentence to make an assertion or an imperative one to make a request. Likewise, Yule (1996: 54) claims that types of speech acts can be made on the basis of structures and that in English, there are generally three structural forms (declarative, interrogative and imperative) with three general communicative functions (statement, question and command/request). Then, in his opinion (Yule, 1996: 54-55), whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act. Similarly, Searle (1975) states that speakers can perform one illocutionary act implicitly by way of performing another illocutionary act explicitly. Therefore, the utterance Could you turn on the lights? which contains the illocutionary force of an assertion can be used to make a request. Normally people do not unintentionally deliver indirect speech acts. In general, people have some reasons for being indirect.

Concerning why indirectness is used, Thomas (1995: 143) suggests a variety of reasons for the universal of indirectness including: the desire to make ones language more/less interesting; the increase the force of ones message; the principle of expressibility; and politeness. First of all, according to Thomas, people construct indirect utterances for the pleasure of playing with language for the fact that indirectness can colour utterances, sentences or even whole texts with more or less interest. Secondly, Thomas explicates that indirectness can be used in order to strengthen our message. This effect is accomplished through the greater investment that a hearer of an indirect uttered pronouncement has to afford concerning time and energy in order to understand what has been saying. The third reason for being indirect is the principle of expressibility in which people would use indirect speech acts when some ideas are too difficult to express. As another important reason for being indirect, Thomas delineates politeness. Her article shows us that there are some circumstances in which we have to use indirectness in order to prevent hurting someone by directly stating something unpleasant or directly threatening his/her freedom of action. 2.3.2. Indirectness in requests There are generally three major levels of indirectness which are normally used in many cross-cultural interlingua studies of speech acts and had previously been empirically tested and successfully used by a number of researchers (BlumKulka et al,1989; Trosborg, 1995; Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Van Mulken, 1996; Hassall, 1999; Fukushima, 2000; Billmyer and Varghese, 2000). They are as follows:

2.3.2.1.

The most direct strategies (Bald-on-record strategies)

This most direct level is realized by requests syntactically marked (Imperatives) or by others verbal means that name the act as a request (Tell me...). According to Blum-Kulka et al (1989: 18) and Economidou-Kogetsidis (2002: 23), there are eight sub strategies in this level. a. Mood derivable/ Imperative: Please look after the kids for a few hours b. Direct questions: c. Explicit performative: d. Hedged performative: e. Obligation statement: f. Want statement: g. Need statement: Where is the post office? I ask/order you to leave" I would like/ want to ask you to leave You should/ ought to leave now Id like / want /wish you to clean up the floor You need to do that

h. Pre-decided statement: Im helping myself to your cigarettes, OK? i. Expectation statement/ Question: Are you/arent you going to tell me what happened between you and Peter? j. Reminded requests: 2.3.2.2. Mike, you havent paid me

Conventionally indirect strategies

This conventionally indirect level covers strategies that realize the act by reference to contextual preconditions necessary for its performance, as conventionalized in a given language. There are two sub strategies in this level (Blum-Kulka et al: 1989: 18; Economidou-Kogetsidis: 2002: 23)

a. Suggestory formulae: How about going out for dinner tonight?, Why not have lunch with us? b. Query preparatory:
Ability:

Can/could you pass the salt please?

Possibility: Would it be possible to lend me some money? Willingness: Would you mind if I use your computer? Knowledge: Do you know where Pizza Hut is?

2.3.2.3.

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 speakers requestive intent. The sub strategies of this level suggested by ErvinTrip(1976: 28) and Economidou-Kogetsidis(2002: 23) are as follows: a. Non-explicit question directives: Were having a party tonight. Are you free to come?; Are you able to come to my party? b. Strong hints: The kitchen is in a mess c. Mild hints: Whose duty is it today? This scale of indirectness is based on the transparency of the requestive force. As a result, the most direct requests are the ones in which requestive force is either marked syntactically or indicated explicitly due to the realization of performative verbs. The issue of relationship between the scale of indirectness and the degree of politeness will be discussed later in part 2.4.2 of this study.

2.4. Politeness
2.4.1. Theories of politeness Expanding Grices Co-operative Principle (1975), Lakoff (1977) attempts to account for politeness phenomenon. She suggests that politeness is developed by society in order to reduce friction in personal interaction (1975: 64) and comprises three rules of politeness: 1. Dont impose; 2. Give options and 3. Make the receiver feel good. The first rule, Dont impose, is associated with distance and formality. The speaker shows his/her politeness by asking for permission or apologizing in advance to lessen the imposition on the hearer when requiring the hearer to do something. The second rule, Give options, is associated with deference and accounts for cases in which the linguistic manifestations of politeness appear to leave the choice of confirming or not to the addressee. Her third rule, Make the receiver feel good, accounts for the case in which the speaker employs devices which will make the addressee feel liked and wanted. Similarly, Leech (1980: 19) defines politeness as strategic conflict avoidance, adding that it can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a conflict situation. Then, he presents a detailed analysis of politeness in terms of six maxims: Maxim of Tact; Maxim of Generosity; Maxim of Approbation; Maxim of Modesty; Maxim of Agreement; and Maxim of Sympathy. Leechs concepts of politeness were based on the three scales: the cost/benefit scale, the optional scale and the indirectness scale. The first scale which specifies how much the proposed action is judged by the speaker to be of cost or benefit to the speaker. The second that specifies to what extent the

proposed action is at the choice of the addressee. The last scale which specifies how much inference is involved in the proposed action. Meanwhile, the central to Brown and Levinsons theory of politeness is the concept of Face which is defined as the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 66). According to Brown and Levinson (1978: 66), face is something that emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in interaction. They distinguish two components of face, positive face and negative face, which are two related aspects of the same entity and refer to two basic desires or wants of any individual in any interaction. Negative face refers to The want of every competent adult member that his actions be unimpeded by others. Positive face refers to The want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others. Following their theories, in communication, there is possibility of appearing some Face Threatening Acts (FTA) which are by their nature run contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/ or of the speaker (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 70). To deal with those acts, they identify a set of strategies which can help either to avoid or minimize them.
Without redressive action, baldly On record Do the FTA Off record Dont do the FTA Figure 2.2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1978: With redressive action Positive politeness Negative politeness

In their opinion, positive face threatening acts should be adjusted by positive politeness strategies in which the speakers should claim common ground, convey that speaker and hearer are cooperators and fulfill hearers want for some X (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 107). Meanwhile, negative face threatening acts should be solved by applying negative politeness strategies, some of which are: Be conventionally indirect; questions, hedge; minimize the imposition, etc. In general, Lakoff, Leech, Brown and Levinson share two things in common when concerning politeness phenomenon in speech: first, politeness is thought to be personal strategies in communication; second, they assume that politeness closely relates to the limitation of imposition, to the use of giving options as well as to indirectness. 2.4.2. Politeness and Indirectness According to Sifianou (1992), most scholars, basing on the investigation of English, have argued that the degree of indirectness determines the degree of politeness to a great extent. The main reason for this argument reasonably originates from the concept of Western individualism. It is widely accepted that most English speaking societies place a higher value on privacy and individuality (i.e., the negative aspect of face), so individuals freedom and independence is highly respected. In other words, to Western societies in general and to most English speaking societies in particular, the principal of distance and nonimposition plays a crucial role in social interactions. Although there are some ideas that indirectness and politeness are not the same (Kasper, 1998; Holtgraves, 1986), most scholars have argued that overall, in

English, indirectness and politeness are closely related, especially in request- a kind of directive speech acts. While the scale of indirectness seems to be universal, the assertion between indirectness and politeness differ across cultures. Contrary to most English societies where the display of non-imposition and concerns for distancing in speech acts are believed to help avoid face threatening acts and hence to be more polite, a number of cultures prefer a show of solidarity and sincerity by directly deliver them. Sifianou (1992) has proved that Greeks request, advise and suggest structurally more directly than English because they see those acts as their duty to help and support each other without any idea about imposition or non-imposition. In another study which examines the politeness perceptions of speakers of Israeli Hebrew, Blum-Kulka (1987) finds that speakers of Hebrew favor directness rather than indirectness. Wierzbicka (1985) comes to a similar result with the speakers of Polish. Generally speaking, speakers from those mentioned cultures either seem to pay much attention to involvement and solidarity relation, i.e. the positive aspect of face, or belong to a kind of societies where people depend on each other more and therefore individuals are less emphasized than interdependent social relations. In other words, most of them probably correspond to positive politeness societies where indirectness will not necessarily be related to politeness. Indirect speech acts in relation to politeness phenomenon in Vietnamese have just received some attention lately with Vus article (1999) on Indirectness and Politeness in Vietnamese requests. Vu argues that indirectness with the concept of non-imposition is not necessarily politeness in Vietnamese culture. However,

though her arguments are rather reasonable, her data mainly taken from some pieces of conversations of nine families in Hanoi are not convincing enough. Besides, the purpose of the article which is to investigate the relationship between politeness and indirectness in Vietnamese requests is, in my opinion, too large and beyond the keen of so small an article. Therefore, the association of politeness and indirectness in Vietnamese culture should be investigated in concerning to a specific kind of speech acts and with a larger number of informants. 2.4.3. Social variables affecting politeness This section discusses two factors affecting the choice of politeness strategies in delivering speech acts as suggested by Brown and Levinson which are Power and Social distance. Then, Age and Gender which are also believed to cause more or less significant impact on language use in spoken interactions are also pointed out. 2.4.3.1. Power

J.Cesar-Felix-Brasdefer (2003) in his study has proved that the social status (power) of participants did play a role in the selection of strategies employed in declining an invitation. Similarly, Hussein (1995) discusses making refusals in Arabic and maintains that in three levels of social status (equal and unequal), speakers use different refusal strategies. Likewise, the findings of Beebe at all (1990) reveal the interaction of power with the directness of refusals. As Robin Lakoff (1989) argued, politeness and power are closely related. According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 77), power or social status is an

asymmetric social dimension of relative power involving the degree to which hearer can impose his/her own plans and self-evaluation (face) at the expense of the speakers plans and self-evaluation. Similarly, Scollon and Scollon (1995) states that power refers to the vertical disparity between the participants in a hierarchical structure. Brown and Levinson predict that the greater the power hierarchy distance, the more redressive strategies will be used by the less powerful interactant. As a result, in situation where there is explicit hierarchical difference between participants like the relationship between a boss and an employee, a professor and a student or between people of higher and lower social status in general, the politeness strategies used is relatively predictable. The more powerful the hearer is in relation to the speaker, the more polite the speaker would be. Then, in situation where that difference is not clear like the relationship between close friends or between people of equal social status, participants are expected to adopt various politeness strategies in particular circumstances and to people at particular social distance. 2.4.3.2. Social distance

Janet Holmes (1996: 12) points out that the relative social distance between the speaker and the addressee(s) is one of the most basic factors determining appropriate levels of politeness behavior in most, if not all, societies. Brown and Levinson (1987: 76) identify social distance as a symmetric social dimension of similarity or difference based on assessment of the frequency of interaction and the kind of material or non-material goods (including face) between speaker and hearer. Likewise, Leech (1983: 126) defines social distance as a crucial factor determining politeness behavior which involves

considering the roles people are taking in relation to one another in a particular situation. Concerning social distance as a factor in accounting for differences in politeness behavior, Wolfsons bulge model (1988: 32) suggests that: Generally we behave similarly with less explicit linguistic politeness to those at the two extremes of social distance that is to people we do not know at all and to intimates. Meanwhile, people who are neither in the category of complete strangers nor close and intimate friends receive a great deal of attention in the form of linguistically polite interactions.

Linguistic politeness

Strangers

Friends

Intimates

Figure 2.3: Wolfsons bulge model (1988, cited in Holmes, 1996: 14)

According to Janet Holmes (1996), because positive politeness generally involves emphasizing what people share, it minimizes the distance between them. On the other hand, negative politeness emphasizes the social distance among people. As a result, she says, negative politeness strategies tend both to express distance and to emphasize power distinctionsPositive politeness

strategies express solidarity and also emphasize equality between participants (1996: 19). Power and social distance affect differently to different cultures in determining appropriate linguistic behavior. In most Western societies nowadays, as Holmes (1996: 19) points out, solidarity has largely won out over power. The manager of a company and his/her staff are obviously quite different in power (social status). However, because they work together daily and know each other well, they may have relatively close distance and hence often use positive politeness strategies. They may call each other by their first names only and may more frequently use direct speech in interactions. Same situation happens between a professor and her/his students at university. In those cases, politeness usage will be determined by factors like the formality of context, gender of participants other than power and distance. In Vietnamese culture, the terms of solidarity and power are mutually integrated. Because of the influence of Confucianism, most Vietnamese are well aware of who is in higher position and who is in lower one. The power differences may arise from age, institutional position, gender and education, etc, in which age factor plays a rather crucial role. No matter how well participants know each other and whether they are in formal or informal context, the power of the superior is always respected. In no cases can the lower person call the higher by his/her first name. In no circumstances can the status of the participants be challenged. However, solidarity factor is also taken into account in Vietnamese spoken interactions. Since the use of softeners and hierarchical kinship terms of address which make people sound to be all members in the same big family, Vietnamese people balance the need of power realization and the need of solidarity. In fact, appropriate terms of address together with suitable softeners

or particles at the end of the utterances can shorten the social distance between participants but help maintain their power (social status) at the same time. Generally, it seems that distance does not influence as much on the choice of appropriate polite linguistic behaviors in Vietnamese culture as power, age and gender of participants. Moreover, because of the fact that people usually just issue spoken invitations to whom they somehow know well and not in too formal context, I would like to focus on power, age and gender of participants in this study. 2.4.3.3. Gender

Nowadays it is widely accepted that women and men talk differently (Thorne and Henley, 1975; Thorne, Kramarea and Henley, 1983; Coates, 1986; Graddol and Swann, 1989; Mills, 1995; Lakoff, 1975). Deborah Tannen (1990) claims that women and men have different linguistic styles and communication goals. Womens speech tends to be cooperative in character in that women acknowledge one anothers contributions and engage in more active listening. What women value is connection, intimacy and solidarity, so they are likely to insist on the commonality of their experience, not its uniqueness in talking. They seek involvement and focus on interdependencies between people. Meanwhile, mens conversations are less social and more individualistic and aim at controlling the flow of talk. They see the world as a hierarchy in which any individual may be one-up or one-down and the interactive task they set themselves is to gain, assert or maintain status. As a result, their speech shows a tendency to seek independencies and focus on hierarchical relationship (Chodorou, 1974; Gilligan, 1982).

Concerning the differences of gender politeness in speech, Holmes (1996: 115) states that because they are more sensitive to the positive face needs of intimates and friends, women are much more likely than men to express positive politeness or friendliness in private interactions. Womens utterances show evidence of concern for the feelings of the people they are talking to more explicitly than mens do. However, in public, being well aware of the fact that what they say may threaten face of other people, women tend to use the extremes of negative politeness more frequently than men do. Similarly, McKay and Hornberger (1996: 251) suggest that men are more likely to be polite in a way that honors the wishes of others not to be imposed upon (negative politeness) rather than polite in a way that recognizes the desire of others to be liked, admired and ratified (positive politeness). In Vietnamese culture, it is believed that straightforwardness is one of the most typical qualities for men while women usually prefer beating about the bush, which is a sign of the stylistic variation in language use between females and males. Besides, like in most English speaking societies, under the influence of social, cultural and historical factors which govern the reciprocal social status between women and men as well as different social expectations on them and so on, there are obviously many empirical evidences for gender differences in other aspects of Vietnamese language use such as lexical variation, intonation contours, voice quality, etc. Gender differences in language use seem to be universal. The difference, if there is any between males and females in English and Vietnamese cultures, will partly reflect their opinions on politeness in issuing spoken invitations. In other words, the question of how gender as a social variable affects the choice of making indirect or direct spoken invitations in

English and Vietnamese is still under the need of investigation for the purpose of the study and will be discussed later in chapter 4. 2.4.3.4. Age

Apart from gender and social status, age is also a social variable which influences significantly and differently to human behavior in different cultures. Asian cultures in general emphasize the importance of age related to respect and the amount of wisdom a person has. When a person gets older, (s)he is believed to become wiser. So, elderly people are often given the right to decide important things within the family. Besides, the older a person is the more respect (s)he would receive from the young people. As a result, when talking to older addressees, speech behavior of Asian people is considered to be highly deference. As a matter of fact, age obviously has a significant impact on speech behavior in social communication. Vietnamese people always try to know the age of interlocutors to choose the appropriate terms of address for polite purpose. That explains the reason why Vietnamese often have the habit of asking the age of any people they communicate, which normally irritates many Westerners. Conversational style and politeness strategy of Vietnamese people to people of various age levels is quite different. Meanwhile, it seems that English native speakers do not take age factor into great consideration. Though they do respect elderly people, the age of addressees is not considered to be the factor that automatically decides the amount of respect. Westerners tend to demand more information and interaction before showing their respect to someone. To them, age is just as important as other social factors. A person would be respected for

his own values not because of his age. Therefore, less deference and control is given to elderly people in the majority of those cultures in comparison to most Asian cultures. The differences between Western and Asian ideas about age will surely trouble Vietnamese learners of English. The choice of politeness strategies in issuing spoken invitations is differently affected by age factor in English speaking cultures and in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, we cannot help taking the age of participants into account so that the topic investigated would be fully understood.

2.5. Invitations
2.5.1. The nature of invitations An invitation is an ask for anothers time and action and very often for a closer social relationship. It is the inviters effort to get the invited to joint with her/him in a specific event. Therefore, the act of inviting is a kind of directives, as Coulthard(1995: 24) says: Directives are all attempts by the speaker to get hearer to do somethingin this class the speaker is wanting to achieve a future situation in which the world will match his words and thus this class includes not simply order, request but, more subtly, invite, dare and challenge. Similarly, Searle(1990a: 359-360) in his explanation of directives also claims that directives may be very modest attempts as when I invite you to do it or suggest that you do it and that the verbs denoting memebers of this class are ask, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat and also invite, permit, advise.

Not only do invitations belong to the category of directives but more specifically, they are also much similar to requests in the way that the speaker acts out of a desire/ wish to cause the hearer perform an action and the hearer is indeed able to perform that action. It is argued by Geis (1995) that invitations constitute face respecting acts rather than face threatening acts. He reasons that because the hearer commonly expresses appreciation for invitations no matter how personally they feel about the prospects of spending time with the speaker, invitations pay respect to the hearers positive face. However, in my opinion, as the nature of issuing an invitation is, more or less, the imposition of the speakers desire on the hearer to perform the suggested action, like requests, invitations imply intrusion on the hearers territory and limit his freedom of action (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 70). In other words, they are both intrinsically face threatening activities (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 70) even though the act of inviting involves benefits to the hearer and costs the speaker in some ways. They threaten the negative face of the addressee and therefore comprise a category of inherently impolite acts in which negative politeness is essential (Leech, 1983: 106). According to Geis (1995), invitations and requests are not totally alike. They differ from each other in at least two specific ways. First, in an invitation, the speaker proposes that the hearer do something with him/her rather than for him/her. Second, besides threatening the negative face of the hearer, invitations are more likely to threat the hearers positive face than requests. It is possible to reject a request because one is unwilling to perform the action without necessarily threatening the addressees positive face. For example, if one wants to reject a request to take care of someones cats, he may say that he hates cats. This may be an insult to the requesters cats, not the requester himself. However,

Geis (1995) argues, it is very difficult to turn down an invitation because one is unwilling to accept it without threatening the addressees positive face for the action hes rejecting involves being with the inviter. As a result, in order to have better understanding about the preference for using indirect or direct politeness strategies in issuing spoken invitations, it is impossible for us to totally apply the results of similar investigations on requests. However, invitations and requests belong to the same category of speech act (directives) and share somehow similar characteristics. Therefore, some significant achievements gained from researches on requests which have largely been accepted by most scholars such as the scale of indirectness-directness in requests can be used as one of the foundations for our investigations. In addition, Edmondson and House (1981: 132) when considering the characteristics of the invitation suggested that: The invitehas therefore the following characteristics: A wishes B to know that he is in favor of a future action to be performed by B, which he believes may involve costs to himself and benefits to B. He also believes however that the cost involved will be outweighed for himself by the social benefits consequent to Bs doing that future action. Therefore, invitations also include promises. Besides, according to Bach and Harnish (ibid: 51), an invite can be defined as S requests (directive) Hs presence and promises acceptance of his presence. As a result, invitations can also be classified as a kind of commisives. To sum up, invitations can be considered as both a kind of directives and commisives.

2.5.2. Written and spoken invitations A social arrangement of some sort or another needs to be made somehow to express solidarity, to maintain existing relationship or to build new relationship and the extending of invitations is a principal means of accomplishing this. Invitations may be issued in written or spoken forms. Written invitations are usually sent in special events like weddings, workshops or the anniversary of an organization, etc., which are normally formally organized. Obviously, due to the characteristics of those cases, the language written is always well-chosen and follows some fixed conventional styles. It is not flexible and usually very formal. Besides, it would take the sender some sort of time before getting the exact feedback from the receiver. In Western societies, written invitations are more usually sent by mails or email than by directly face-to face delivery. Meanwhile, a Vietnamese written invitation is more frequently delivered directly from the sender to the receiver accompanying with a spoken one, especially in personal cases such as invitations to a house warming party or to a wedding party. In those events, if the inviter truly wants the invited to join with her/him, (s)he will give the written invitation directly to the hand of the invited together with a spoken invitation. Otherwise, (s)he can send it by post but has to invite orally by telephone in advance. Without a word from the sender, the invitation would be more likely to be considered insincere or not important. Normally spoken invitations are made face-to-face or by telephone. Nowadays, in most daily occasions, spoken invitations have outgrown written ones for the fact that they are more direct, more immediate in getting feedback and they can be issued more flexibly thanks to the combination with more or less friendly, solidarity attitude from the speakers according to different contexts. In the scope

of this study, I would like to focus on spoken invitations issued by native English speakers in comparison to those made by native Vietnamese speakers. 2.5.3. Reasons for making invitations Concerning the reasons why invitations are made, there are some similarities between English speaking cultures and Vietnamese culture as the following: 1/ To socialize : To enjoy the company of ones friends, to introduce strangers to each other, to go out for fun, etc.; 2/ To show hospitality and kindness at great events: public holidays, long weekends, New Year, etc; 3/ To share happiness: promotion, house-warming, birthday party, arrival of new baby, etc.; 4/ To show respect to elders and teachers; 5/ To mark anniversaris: wedding, traditional death anniversaries; and 6/ To repay favors and show gratidtude. 2.5.4. Problems with invitations According to ang (1992), in dealing with invitations as a social activity, people may have to face some possible problems of: self-invitation, pseudo-invitation, non-invitation and who pays. She points out that self- invitations such as Could I drop by to see you tonight? or Do you mind if I come? do occur in English but very rarely and only in a very informal situation between familiars for the purpose of expressing intimacy. Meanwhile, pseudo-invitations are very ang (1992: 59, 69)

common both in English and in Vietnamese. However, though they can skillfully deal with pseudo-invitations in their native language, Vietnamese learners of English sometimes do confuse between a real English invitation and a pseudo one like in the case of Lets get together for lunch sometimes .They tend not to realize that the speaker just intends to express his interest in continuing the relationship without making any definite commitment for a future meeting. Consequently, their effort in negotiation for the exact time and place for lunch usually would make the English native speakers confused and uncomfortable. In addition, angs study (1992) shows that in Vietnamese culture there is the existence of non-invitations which merely act as a greeting or a show of interest but have nothing to do with inviting whereas there is none of this kind in English. Besides, who pays can possibly be a real problem to language learners in cross-cultural communication. In general, further investigations on problems with spoken invitations would be very exciting and useful for both language teachers and language learners. However, considering all of these problems in this study would be beyond my keen. Therefore, in order to have a better and clearer look at the topic, I would like to focus on analyzing the real unambiguous invitations without paying any attention to problems of self invitations, pseudo-invitations, non-invitations and of who pays. 2.5.5. The structure of English and Vietnamese spoken invitations Normally, the exchange structure of an unambiguous spoken invitation consists of various moves: the lead (pre-invites), the invitation (the head act), the response including positive response (satisfy) or negative response (contra) (Edmondson & House, 1981; Wolfson, 1989; ang, 1992)

2.5.5.1.

The structure of English spoken invitations

English people usually preface the head act of an invitation by the lead (preinvite). It is the question or comment which signals the adressee that an invitation will follow if (s)he makes the appropriate responses. According to Wolfson (1989), leads are functionally classified into three types. The first type functions to establish the availability of the addressee by questions which is meant to elicit the desired information such as Are you doing anything on Saturday night?, Whats your schedule tomorrow? or Do you have any plans for the weekend?. The second type of lead is intended to convey the feelings of speakers without any specific commitment. They are utterances such as Id really love/like to make a date with you to have lunch and talk things over or Its really horrible that we never see each other or You know, X, were gonna have to get together for lunch one of these days. The final type is related to some shared knowledge of a past attempt to negotiate a social arrangement by the participants in the interaction or by someone closely associated who is not present at the moment of speaking:Did we decide on anything specific? or Are we going to have lunch still?. Then, normally the invitation itself will follow the lead though the invitations may occur without leads. The head acts (the invitations themselves) can be tentative expressions as follows: Would you be free to go to a play with me this weekend? I was wondering if you would like to come round for a meal next Friday? (ang, 1992: 38) They can be less tentative like in the case of:

I would like to invite you to join our dinner this Saturday evening? Why dont you go with us for a movie this afternoon? How about dinner tonight? (ang, 1992: 38)

If the invitation is accepted (the satisfy), the addressee will be likely to use a number of different expressions such as : Thats very kind of you . thank you./ Thank you. Id love to/ That would be great/ Yes, thank you. What time?/ O.K./ (ang, 1992: 40) In the case when the declining (contra) happens, expresions such as the following seem common: How kind of you to think of me, but Id love to/delighted to, but Im terribly sorry, but (ang, 1992: 45)

2.5.5.2.

The structure of Vietnamese spoken invitations

The conclusions from angs study (1992) show that it is uncommon for Vietnamese to clear the ground move as Are you free next Sunday morning (Sang Chu nhat ti ban co ranh khong?) and the like before isuing the real invitation. Frequently they would indicate the reason for the invite by expressions as Toi mai nha mnh co lien hoan, ti cho vui nhe (tomorrow we will have a party at home, please come and join us) or Chu nhat ti la sinh nhat mnh, mi ban ti chi (Next Sunday will be my birthday. I would like to invite you to come and join us) and the like.

Then, according to Ta (2004), the structure of the Vietnamese head act in invitations may be one of the following types: Type 1: Xin mi / Mi+ ong/anh/ ch/ ba

(Polite marker)+ Performative verb invite + Speaker 2 This type is used in very common context when the action to be invited is stated in advance. For example: Speaker 1: (gives a packet of cigarettes to speaker 2 ) : Mi anh. Type 2: Xin mi / Knh mi/ Mi+ ong/anh/ ch/ ba+ noi dung mi Speaker 2+ the action to be

(Polite marker)+ Performative verb invite+ invited

For example: Xin mi / Knh mi/ Mi bac en d tiec vi gia nh toi (I would like to invite you to come and join our party) Type 2: Speaker 1+ Xin mi / Knh mi/ Mi+ ong/anh/ ch/ ba+ noi dung mi Speaker 1 +(Polite marker)+ Performative verb invite+ Speaker 2+ the action to be invited For example: Em xin mi anh dung them cm (I + polite marker+ invite you to have more rice) Similarly to that in English, as ang (1992) points out, Vietnamese responses to spoken invitations can be accepting or declining. The most common accepting expressions are as follows:

Da/ vang a, con se ti (Yes, Ill come ) The nao mnh cung ti (Ill certainly come) (ang, 1992: 57)

Meanwhile, because it is uneasy at all to refuse an invitation without hurting the inviters feeling, the act of declining an invitation in Vietnamese also takes time and energy with expressions like: Oi(hesitation)tiec qua! Phai chi em biet sm. Em co hen vi co em vao ngay o mat roi (Oh!Sorry!...If Id known a bit earlierIve an appointment with my teacher that day) (ang, 1992: 62-65) Frankly speaking, there have been so far many researches which took the leads of invitations and responses to them in relation to politeness strategies as their major subjects (J.Cesar Felix-Brasderfer, 2003; Hironi Kinjo, 1987). Therefore, in this study, I would like to merely focus on the head moves of invitations in relation to politeness concept under the influence of age, gender and social status of participants. This chapter has provided the theoretical framework to the study. The description of method of data collection, selection of subjects as well as instruments will be discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 3.

METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the methodology employed in the study. It consists of the presentation of the research questions, the research design, the description of the subjects and the data collection procedure.

3.1.

Research questions

This cross-cultural study focuses on the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English spoken invitations under the impact of politeness. The implications for better teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English are the objectives of the study. Therefore, in order to successfully gain those aims, the following research questions were designed: 1/ Which politeness strategies (direct or indirect) do English native speakers prefer to apply when issuing English spoken invitations? 2/ How is the choice of direct and indirect English spoken invitations influenced by the three essential factors: social status, age and gender? 3/ Which politeness strategies (direct or indirect) do Vietnamese native speakers prefer to apply when issuing Vietnamese spoken invitations?

4/ How is the choice of direct and indirect Vietnamese spoken invitations influenced by social status, age and gender ?

3.2.

Research design

Because the nature of the study is to describe and investigate the influence of politeness on the issue of spoken invitations in order to suggest pedagogical techniques, the qualitative methodology is the main focus of the research. Data was collected through two similar sets of questionnaires. They were used as the main source of data collection in this study for four reasons: First, the use of questionnaires allows investigators to collect a considerable amount of data about the speech forms considered appropriate by social members within a relatively short time. Second, this type of data collection permits the researchers to control for specific variables of the situation, thus giving coherence to the findings which may be difficult to achieve otherwise (Wolfson: 1989: 70). Third, by using the same situations for both English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers as respondents, I could directly compare the strategies used by both groups of subjects to determine similarities and differences. Furthermore, according to ang (1992: 46), with questionnaires, fear and embarrassment of direct contact with the researcher can be avoided and guaranteed confidentiality may elicit more truthful responses than in a personal interview. Obviously, the use of questionnaires as method of data collection is sometimes a problem. Wolfson (1989: 70) points out that writing an answer permits more time to plan and evaluate it than one normally has while participating in an outgoing interaction. Therefore, what people claim they say in a given situation may not be necessarily what they actually say in a real situation.

I acknowledge that this type of data collection cannot elicit data that provide the full range of insights into the speech phenomenon under investigation. However, comparing to naturalistic data collection such as role plays, interviews, observations, etc. suggested by Wolfson (1981; 1982) and others (Hymes: 1962; Wolfson et al: 1989), this type has the advantages of less time consuming, of controlling social variables and can help avoid the problems of note-taking that relies on the researchers memory as well as avoid matters of legal and ethical issues recording in naturalistic situations (Hinkel: 1997). Moreover, as Rose and Ono (1995: 207) says we should not expect a single source to provide all the necessary insights into speech act usage, I perceive that though this method of eliciting data underlies limitations, it does provide appropriate responses which can help answer the research questions of the study. In addition, I do believe that my informal talks to some foreigners whom I met and to my colleagues would more or less contribute to the findings and give reliable answers to the research questions. The data was, then, coded and analyzed with the help of quantitative techniques which aimed at a full analysis of the descriptive data related to the answers to the research questions. They are analyzed according to the scale of indirectness and directness to investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies (indirect and direct) by English native speakers (ENS) and Vietnamese native speakers (VNS) when issuing spoken invitations under the influence of social status, age and gender of subjects. To sum up, the study would be the combination of both the qualitative and the quantitative method.

3.3.

The characteristics of the subjects

Two groups of subjects took part in the study. The first group consisted of 40 ENS. The second group included 40 VNS. All of the subjects were selected intentionally with the purpose of investigating the following factors: social status, age and gender which may have some influence on their speech behaviour. 3.3.1. The first group of subjects

The age range of the ENS was from 18 to 60 years old. 20 were female and 20 were male. Among this group of subjects, 9 were students at the University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, Australia; 6 were staffs and professors at the same university; 9 worked in business, medical treatment, business, etc. in Sydney and London; 1 were foreign teachers of English at Duong Minh foreign language centre, HCM City; 7 were tourists from English speaking countries who stayed in Pham Ngu Lao Street, HCM City for a short time; and 8 participants just graduated from high school and worked as volunteer teachers of GAP program from February 2005 to December 2006 at The University of Transportation, Ho Chi Minh Branch (located in District 9, HCM City). The nationality of the subjects also varied: 17 of them were English; 8 were Canadians; 3 were New Zealanders; 1 was American; and the rest was Australians. Concerning educational background of the subjects, all of them graduated from high school; 15 had bachelors degree; 6 had masters degree and 1 had PhDs degree.

The information about the ENS subjects was presented in Table 3.1. Characteristics of the subjects 18-29 30-39 40-49 Over 50 Female Male High school completion Bachelor Master PhD Table 3.1: The first group of subjects 3.3.2. The second group of subjects Number 19 10 7 4 20 20 18 15 6 1 Percentage 47.5% 25% 17.5% 10% 50% 50% 45% 37.5% 15% 2.5%

Age range Gender Education

Meanwhile, Vietnamese subjects age range was from 20 to 60. 20 of them were female and the rest was male. 10 participants were third year students at the Faculty of Economics, VNU; 15 had bachelors degree and worked as staffs at the Faculty of Economics, VNU or at the National Political Institution, HCM Branch; 13 had masters degree ; 2 had PhDs degree. They were lecturers at the same two educational institutions.

The information about the VNS subjects was presented in Table 3.2. Characteristics of the subjects 18-29 30-39 40-49 Over 50 Female Male High school completion Bachelor Master PhD Number 23 9 6 2 20 20 10 15 13 2 Percentage 57.5% 22.5% 15% 5% 50% 50% 25% 37.5% 32.5% 45%

Age range Gender Education

Table 3. 2: The second group of subjects

3.4.
3.4.1.

Instruments Description of the questionnaires

Two similar questionnaires containing five situations that ask for spoken invitations were organized into two parts. The first part of the questionnaire was conducted to obtain the subjects personal information such as their educational background, age, gender and status which all have significant impact on their choice of politeness strategies when issuing spoken invitations in given situations. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of five situations

together with a number of discourse completion questions to collect data for the study. The five situations were formulated as follows: Situation 1: inviting someone to a party made to celebrate the completion of the inviter master degree. Situation 2: inviting someone to have more food during the meal. Situation 3: inviting someone to join the inviters house warming party. Situation 4: inviting someone to dine out. Situation 5: inviting someone to join the inviters promotion party. Concerning the appropriateness of situations, I could say that: firstly, because all subjects are intentionally chosen for their relatively high educational background, the five given situations can be considered to be much likely to happen and familiar to them; secondly, following the result of the investigation on invitations done by ang (1992: 52), both ENS and VNS often issue spoken invitations for showing hospitality, celebrating special events or of socializing themselves. In general, five given situations are appropriate for the purpose of the study, which is to investigate common spoken invitations (See Appendix 1 and 2 for more detail). Each situation of the questionnaire was designed to serve a certain purpose. Situations 1 and 3 are to investigate the effect of gender and social status of participants when issuing spoken invitations. There are six discourse completion questions in each situation. Similarly, to consider the impact of gender and age of participants on the inviters decision whether to choose this or that politeness strategies in making spoken invitations, two situations (Situation 2 and 4) were

given with six discourse completion questions in each. However, when taking the effect of Age and Social status into consideration, I just look at one situation (situation 5). The combination of three levels of age and three levels of social status would form 9 discourse completion questions for the subjects to answer. If there were two situations for this case, the number of questions would be 18, which would trouble subjects a lot and may lead to inaccurate data. Therefore, I would consider it one of the limitations of the study. Moreover, according to the theory of statistics, a sample of 30 subjects involved to investigate a phenomenon is large and idealistic enough to come to a conclusion about that phenomenon. As a result, I do believe that the sample of 40 subjects may provide significant data. 3.4.2. Data collection procedure

It is not difficult for me to collect data from Vietnamese subjects because all of them are willing to help. Besides, because most of them are working for educational institutions, their answers were very clear and reliable. I had to spend time and effort to explain how to complete the questionnaires to my third year students. Although they were very eager to help their teacher, some of them got confused. The result is that six of them let some questions unanswered. Therefore, I had to ask for help from another group of students to get all the needed data. In general, because these subjects are my colleagues, neighbors, students, close friends who are willing to help with the data collection, the collected data are therefore reliable and appropriate to serve for the purpose of the study. The process of getting data from English native speaker subjects had some difficulties. It took me more than two months to get only 14 questionnaires

answered. I spent my time in Pham Ngu Lao Street (it is named Foreign Town in many guide books for foreign tourists) in Ho Chi Minh City, making friends with foreigners and asked them for help. Some of them did refuse for some reasons. Fortunately, most foreigners whom I met were very friendly and willing to help me. Obviously, I could not do this quickly without the accompany of an Australian female student who was the English volunteer teacher of the University of Transportation near my house. The rest of the questionnaires that I got were from Sydney and London by both email and post. Three other Australians and one Londoner who used to work as volunteer English teacher at the same university delivered them to their classmates, university professors and staff as well as to the members of their family and even to their neighbors when they came back home after spending their time in Vietnam. Then, they sent them to me by post and email. Without this precious help, I could not get the essential data for the study.

3.5.

Assumptions

The study was based on the following assumptions: The major sample population involved to investigate politeness phenomenon in Englsih spoken invitations is my foreign friends Australian and English students- who are volunteer teachers at Ho Chi Minh Branch of The University of Transportation, Ha Noi (located in District 9, HCM City) with the assistance of their family members, friends, colleagues, neighbours, professors at university, etc. who are all English native speakers and are willing to help. The teachers and staff who have at least B.A. degrees and are teaching or working at the Faculty of Economics, VNU, or at National Politic Institution, Ho Chi Minh City (located in District 9) as well as my third year students who are

studying at the Faculty of Economics, VNU, constitute another crucial sample population. All informants are my teachers, my colleagues, neighbors, students, close friends as well as their family members, close friends, classmates and professors at the university of my foreign friends. Those people are willing to help and have educational background. Therefore, the collected data are reliable and appropriate. This chapter has presented the methodology employed in the study. The next chapter will report the results of data analysis and the discussion of the findings.

CHAPTER 4.

CHAPTER FOUR:

DATA

ANALYSIS

AND

FINDINGS
This chapter presents the results of the study regarding the preference for and the use of politeness strategies (direct or indirect) by both ENS and VNS on issuing spoken invitations; and the influence of interlocutors status, age and gender on strategies used across cultures. The findings are analyzed and discussed to find out answers to the research questions raised in the previous chapter.

4.1.

Data analysis

In order to answer the research questions, I examined the overall use and preference for politeness strategies between two groups of subjects including status, age and gender. I also used the scale of directness-indirectness described in chapter Three as the model for cross-linguistic analysis of inviting strategies. Each head act of invitations made by subjects in given situations was coded and analyzed to compare the average frequencies of direct and indirect strategies across cultures. Then, to account for the effect of interlocutors status, age and gender on strategies used, the preference for these strategies in each situation was analyzed. 4.1.1. The preference of strategy use between groups: Overall results

As mentioned in the preceding chapter, 40 questionnaire responses by 40 ENS and 40 VNS were collected. 33 discourse completion questions of 5 given situations answered by 40 subjects per group totaled 1320 strategies. As Table 4.1 shows, direct inviting strategies constitute 21.364% in English and 84.09% in Vietnamese. The proportion of conventional indirectness in English is 61.667% in comparison to only 12.94% in Vietnamese. Besides, ENS gave more hints (16.364%) than VNS did (only 3.61%) in given situations of issuing spoken invitations. Furthermore, the number of participants who chose not to issue FTA in English also outnumbered in Vietnamese. Generally, these results indicate that the Vietnamese respondents are more direct in making spoken invitations than their English counterparts. Strategies n Direct Conventional Indirect Non- conventional Indirect No invitation Total 1110 162 47 1 1320 VNS % 84.09 12.94 3.61 0.076 100 n 282 814 216 8 1320 ENS % 21.364 61.667 16.364 0.606 100

Table 4.1: The frequency of politeness strategies used by two groups of subjects Typical examples of the three levels of directness- indirectness in English spoken invitations are:
Direct:

- Come to a party of mine on Saturday (Sit 1.3.) - Have some more (Sit 2.1)

- I would like to invite you to my party (Sit 1,3, 5) - Im having a party. You have to be there (Sit 1.1, Sit 3)
Conventional indirect:

- Would you like some more?(Sit 2) - Can I offer you some more? (Sit 2) - Lets go out for dinner. (Sit 5) - Would you like to come over? (Sit 1, 3, and 4) - You should come over for my housewarming party. (Sit 4)
Non-conventional indirect:

- Party at mine! Wont be fun without you (Sit 1, 3, 5) - Everybody would come to my party (Sit 1, 3, 5) - That boy would join my party. (Sit 1, 3, 5) The following examples are typical for the three levels of directnessindirectness in Vietnamese:
Direct

- Mi Hoang en nha d tiec cung mnh (Sit 1.1) - Mi bac dung them (Sit 2, 5,6) - Nh en d tiec tan gia ay (Sit 3,4)
Conventional indirect

- Em co the mi anh en d tiec c khong a?( (Sit 1.5) - Loan an them na khong? (Sit 2.3) - Anh Cng toi nay i dung cm vi em c khong anh? (Sit 5)
Non-conventional indirect:

- ng khach sao nhe (Sit 2) - Sao bac dung t the a? Me chau se buon ay a (Sit 2)

4.1.2.

Preference for and use of politeness strategies in relation to social

status, age and gender Social status, gender and age of both the inviter and the invited may affect significantly to the choice of politeness strategies employed by ENS and VNS when issuing spoken invitations. They not only influence strategy used but also affect each other in speech. To be polite in speech, participants always take account for these factors before making any utterances. Therefore, in this part, the three social variables were analyzed in pairs (social status and age; social status and gender; gender and age) to find out the impact of each pair on the selection of strategies employed by both groups of subjects. 4.1.2.1. Social status and age

The effect of social status and age on spoken invitations issued was investigated with situation 5 in the questionnaire. The combination of age and social status would form 9 discourse completion questions. If there were two situations for this case, the number of questions would be 18, which would be too many for subjects to answer and hence may lead to inaccurate data. Each question in the situation was designed to serve a certain purpose. It was to investigate what kind of politeness strategies was employed if 1. The inviter were in lower status and older than the invited. 2. The inviter were in lower status than and at the same age as the invited. 3. The inviter were in lower status and younger than the invited. 4. The inviter were in the same social status as and older than the invited. 5. The inviter were in the same social status and at the same age as the invited.

6. The inviter were in the same social status as and younger than the invited. 7. The inviter were in higher social status and younger than the invited. 8. The inviter were in higher social status than and at the same age as the invited. 9. The inviter were in higher social status and older than the invited. The preference for politeness strategies used by ENS and VNS was analyzed in three separate cases. a. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of lower status in relation to age

100 80 60 ENS 40 20 0 direct CID NCID VNS

Chart 4.1: The proportion of total politeness strategies employed to the invited of lower social status in situation 5 As Chart 4.1 indicates, the majority of spoken invitations used by ENS was in conventional indirect forms when the invited was in lower status. Besides, the number of direct and non-conventional politeness strategies were relatively equal. Meanwhile, direct strategies were mostly employed by VNS and the proportion of non-conventional ones were pretty few in the same case.

As the data in Table 4.2 showed, different from VNS who tended to totally gave direct invitations to the invited of younger age (92.5%), 70% of head acts by ENS was in conventional indirect forms. ENS also employed more hints (10%) in comparision to only 2.5% by VNS. It is rather clear from the figures that the younger age of the invited influenced ENS differently from VNS. Similarly, when the invited was older than or as young as the inviter, the proportion of direct head acts used by VNS was always much higher (87.5% and 80%) than by ENS (25% and 17.5%). The highest proportion of politeness strategies used by ENS in the two cases was in conventional forms, mostly in the suggest formulae like Why dont we? / How about .? Or Would you like to.?. In addition, there is an undeniable tendency of ENS to give more hints to the invited of older age (25.5%) than of same age (15%). Meanwhile, though VNS did give more conventional indirect invitations to people of older age (15%) than to people of the same age (7.5%), the number of hints they used for both groups of invited was few and completely equal (5%)
VNS n 37 2 1 40 35 3 2 40 32 % 92.5 5 2.5 100 87.5 7.5 5 100 80 n 8 28 4 40 10 24 6 40 7 ENS % 20 70 10 100 25 60 15 100 17.5

The invited Younger age

Politeness Strategies Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

Same age

Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

Older age

Direct

Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

6 2 40

15 5 100

24 9 40

60 25.5 100

Table 4.2: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of lower social status in situation 5 b. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of equal status in relation to age

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 direct CID NCID

ENS VNS

Chart 4.2: The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of equal social status in situation 5 The columns in Chart 4.2 provided an overall look at the strategies issued by both ENS and VNS when they invited people of equal social status under the impact of age. In this case, the majority of politeness strategies used by ENS was conventional indirect (76.67%). The number of direct and non-conventional indirect ones was rather equal (13.3% and 10%). On the contrary, VNS mostly employed direct invitations to this group of counterparts (89%) in comparison to only few conventional indirect strategies (approximetely 8% ) and only 1% hints issued

As Table 4.3 showed, when the invited was younger, ENS rarely issued hints to invite orally (only 1%). They used this strategy more frequently (7.5%) when they were as young as the invited and most regularly (12.5%) when they were younger. Besides, though they were at equal social status, the older age of the invited still made them deliver spoken invitations less directly (7.5%) than when inviting people of the same age (15%) or of younger age (17.5%). Quite different from ENS, VNS tended to employ almost all spoken invitations indirectly to the invited of younger age( 97.5%). 85% was to people of same age and 82.5% to those of older age. They only used hints when inviting people of older age but with a very small proportion (5%). Besides, the conventional indirect politeness strategies were also employed in this case though more rarely (2.5% to younger people; 15% to same age people and 12.5% to people of older age).
The invited Politeness Stategies n Younger age Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total Same age Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total Older age Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect 39 1 0 40 34 6 0 40 33 5 2 VNS % 97.5 2.5 0 100 85 15 0 100 82.5 12.5 5 n 7 29 4 40 6 31 3 40 3 32 5 ENS % 17.5 72.5 1 100 15 77.5 7.5 100 7.5 80 12.5

Total

40

100

40

100

Table 4.3: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of equal social status in situation 5 c. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of higher social status in relation to age The overall results from Chart 4.3 showed that VNS and ENS differed significantly in the choice of strategy for spoken invitations in the settings where the addressee was in higher social status under the influence of age. While most ENS employed indirect politeness strategies, the majority of VNS chose to use direct ones. To ENS, between the explicit and non-explicit indirect strategies, the use of explicit ones was more faroured in this case. As appeared in the chart, VNS did issue both kinds of indirect strategies but few. However, in comparison to the previous two cases when the invited was of lower or equal social status, it seems that the higher status of the addressee did influence VNS to employ more indirect politeness strategies such as questions or hints.

100 80 60 40 20 0 direct CID NCID ENS VNS

Chart 4.3: The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of higher social status in situation 5

In Table 4.4 below, the results indicated that there seemed to be no difference in the kind of politeness strategies VNS employed to orally invite the people who were younger, older than or as young as they were. 82.5 % invitations were direct, 10% was conventional indirect and 7.5 % was non-conventional indirect. Age factor tended not to affect much to the choice of politeness strategy used by VNS to the invited of higher status. However, this factor did influence significantly the terms of address they used. Because in Vietnamese culture, the use of kinship terms is closely related to age and politeness, the appropriate and extended use of kinship terms according to age is taken as a way of expressing a good manner. As a result, in stead of employing different politess strategies, VNS used different terms of address to the invited of different age ranges as a way to express their politeness. One noticeable point is that ENS did take the age of the invited into account in this situation. ENS offered more direct spoken invitations (20%) to people of the same age, less (15%) to those of younger age and least (12.5%) to those who are older. Concerning the amount of conventional indirect politeness strategies used by ENS, the majority of them was for older people (70%), second position is for younger and the third was for people who are as young as they were (57.5%). The number of hints given in this case was highest to the invited of the same age(22.5%) and equal to the rest of addressees (17.5%).
VNS n 33 4 3 40 % 82.5 10 7.5 100 n 6 27 7 40 ENS % 15 67.5 17.5 100

The invited Younger age

Politeness Stategies Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

Same age

Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

33 4 3 40 32 5 3 40

82.5 10 7.5 40 80 12.5 7.5 40

8 23 9 40 5 28 7 40

20 57.5 22.5 100 12.5 70 17.5 100

Older age

Direct Conventional indirect Nonconventional indirect Total

Table 4.4: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of higher social status in situation 5. In summary, age and social status affected differently to the choice of politeness strategies employed by ENS and VNS: the majority of choices from ENS was for conventional indirectness while that of VNS was for directness. However, in ENS data, when the invited was in lower status, subjects tended to employ most direct invitations to the invited of the same age, most hints to the one who was older and most conventional indirect to the younger person. Meanwhile, the answers from VNS show that the top proportion of indirectness would be for the older invited while the largest amount of directness would be for younger partners. Therefore, the major difference is that ENS saw the necessity to invite younger people indirectly whereas VNS considered direct spoken invitations suitable. Differently, in the setting where the invited was of equal position, ENS issued more direct spoken invitations to younger people, more nonconventional indirect ones to older partners while the majority of conventional indirectness was for the same age people. VNS, though, used more conventional indirect politeness

strategies to the same age people together with more hints to older ones while they kept issuing the largest amount of directness for the younger. In addition, though VNS were still loyal to the use of directness, the higher status and age of the addressee also made VNS invite more conventional indirectly to the invited of older age. Meanwhile they affected ENS to deliver more direct and hints spoken invitations to the same age people. The preference for politeness strategies used by both ENS and VNS when issuing spoken invitations under the impact of social status and gender was analyzed in the following section. 4.1.2.2. Social status and gender

The impact of social status and gender on the kind of spoken invitations issued was investigated with situation 1 and 3 in the questionnaire. The content of the two situations was totally similar. The combination of gender and social status created 6 discourse completion questions in each situation. Therefore, in total, 12 discourse completion questions would help to investigate the frequency distribution of politeness strategy used by both groups of subjects when issuing spoken invitations under the influence of social status and gender. Each question in the situation was designed to serve a certain purpose. It was to investigate what kind of politeness strategies the inviter would employ if 1. The invited were a male and in equal social status. 2. The invited were a female and in equal social status. 3. The invited were a male and in lower social status. 4. The invited were a female and in lower social status.

5. The invited were a male and in higher social status. 6. The invited were a female and in higher social status. The preference for politeness strategies used by ENS and VNS was analyzed in two separate cases: a. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of the same gender in relation to status Both Chart 4.4 and Table 4.5 below illustrate the spoken invitations used by ENS and VNS to their partners of the same gender in relation to status. The results revealed that both male and female ENS prefered conventional indirect politeness strategies to the other two strategies when they orally invited the same gender addressees. Besides, Chart 4.4 also indicates that females issued a few more direct spoken invitations (26.67%) to their females counterparts than males did to their male partners (25%). In addition, one crucial point to notice is that the number of males who refused to do this kind of face threatening act in the case tribled that of females (3 male subjects answered they would not invite the people who were of the same gender and in higher social status; meanwhile, there was only one female who gave the same response). Compared with ENS, VNS mostly employed direct strategies to the partners of the same gender. Moreover, as appeared in the chart, there were pretty few subiects in the group who chose to deliver hints in this setting. Remarkably, Vietnamese males tended to invite their male partners more directly (94.47% in comparing to 91.67%) and less indirectly (4.7% in comparing to 6.67%) than the ways females did to the invited of the same gender. This point seems to be different from what the ENS males and females did in the same case.

100 80 60 40 20 0 D CID NCID No FTA ENS(M-T-M_) VNS(M-T-M) ENS(F-T-F) VNS(F-T-F)

Chart 4.4: The proportion of total politeness strategies used by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situations 1 and 3 The results in Table 4.5 indicated the difference in the frequency distribution of strategies used by both groups of subjects in relation to status. The invited Politeness Stategies VNS Male Male % Lower status D CID NCID Total Equal status D CID NCID Total 38 1 1 40 38 2 0 40 95 2.5 2.5 100 95 5 0 100 to Female Female n 37 1 2 40 37 3 0 40 % 92.5 2.5 5 100 92.5 7.5 0 100 ENS to Male Male n 14 20 6 40 11 18 11 40 % 35 50 15 100 27.5 45 27.5 100 to Female Female n 13 19 8 40 11 23 6 40 % 32.5 47.5 20 100 27.5 57.5 15 40 to

Higher status D CID NCID Total

37 2 1 40

92.5 5 2.5 100

36 4 0 40

90 10 0 100

5 25 7 37

12.5 62.5 17.5 92.5

8 21 10 39

20 52.5 25 97.5

Table 4.5: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situation 1 and 3 In ENS data, when the invited group was males and in lower social status than the inviters, the direct strategy presents 35%, the conventional strategy shows 50% and the nonconventional takes 15%. When they were females, the data shows 32.5% for direct, 47.5% for conventional indirect and 20% for hints. Similarly, in VNS data, the percentage of subjects who chose to invite directly is 95% (males) and 92.5% (females); to invite indirectly by using suggest formulae is 2.5 % (same for both males and females); to deliver hints is 2.5% for males and 5% for females. It is clear that ENS and VNS shared one thing in common: males employed more direct politeness strategy and provided less hints than females did. Another noticeable point is that ENS men invited more conventional indirectly than women in the case. Quite contrary to the previous situation, there were not as many ENS males who employed the conventional indirect to the invited of equal status as female did (45 % for males and 57.5% for females). In addition, in this case, men also issued more hints than women (27.5% and 15%). Meanwhile, in VNS data, men continued to invite more directly and less indirectly than women. One crucial question is that neither men nor women delivered any hints.

As presented in Table 4.5, the results also revealed that there were significant differences in the strategy selection employed by ENS and VNS when the invited were of higher social status. While men in ENS group became less direct (12.5%) than women (20%), Vietnamese male native speakers kept issuing more direct politeness strategy (92.5%) than women (90%). Besides, in contrast to women of ENS group who employed fewer conventional indirect invitations than men (52.5% and 62.5%), in VNS data, the number of women who chose the same strategy doubled that of men (10% in comparing to 5%). Moreover, unlike the case of female ENS who issued many hints (25%) to invite people of the same gender and higher status, none of female VNS chose this strategy. Also, although men of both groups did deliver hints, ENS outnumbered VNS in this situation. In summary, the fact that the invited and the inviter were of the same gender and under the impact of social status affected differently to ENS and VNS. In higher status than their male partners, both ENS and VNS males issued more direct strategies than females. However, when they were at equal and lower status, the choice of strategies by ENS males shifted to indirectness while both VNS and ENS females continued issuing a high degree of indirectness to their female parners. Meanwhile, VNS males kept unchanged in their selection. b. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of different gender and in relation to status The results presented in Chart 4.5 show that there were significant differences in the frequency distribution of politeness strategies between ENS and VNS males and females when they were asked to orally invite people of different gender.

100 80 60 40 20 0 D CID NCID No FTA ENS(F-T-M) VNS(F-T-M) ENS(M-T-F) VNS(M-T-F)

Chart 4.5: The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS in situation 1 and 3 As appeared in the chart, in general, ENS females tended to employ much more direct spoken invitations(31.67%) than ENS males (20.83%). However, they issued fewer both conventional and nonconventional indirect politeness strategies in the case. Besides, there was only one ENS female who refused to do this face threatening act in comparing to three males who chose the same solution. Meanwhile, the data of VNS group showed no similarities between the two groups. The results showed that the number of VNS who invited directly nearly tribled that of ENS. Unlike ENS females, there were fewer VNS females who used direct politeness strategies to invite males than VNS males did to invite females. Moreover, different from ENS group, the number of conventional and nonconventional indirect strategies employed by VNS females was also more than by VNS males. The biggest difference between the two groups was that none of VNS refused to do FTA in this situation while there were four ENS who did the act.

In Table 4.6 below, the results indicated that there were more differences than similarities in the frequency distribution of politeness strategies between ENS and VNS when the invited was in lower status than and different gender from the inviter, In this setting, though the proportion of conventional strategies employed by both ENS, VNS females and males was totally equal (55%:55 % = 2.5%:2.5% = 1:1), the percentage of those strategies used by ENS males and females was much higher than that of VNS (55% and 2.5%). Under the impact of status, quite contrary to ENS males who employed 27.5% direct strategies and hence fewer than ENS females (32.5%), VNS males were more direct( 97.5%) than VNS females( 92.5%). Besides, while VNS males delivered no hints in the case, the percentage of ENS males who employed hints was even more (17.5%) than that of females in the group(12.5%). In short, it seems that VNS females were more indirect and ENS females were more direct than males in the same circumstances. In contrast to the previous case, the results indicated that in the situation where the invited was of equal status, both VNS and ENS female inviters were more direct than males in their groups. As appeared in the data, the politeness strategies used by VNS females constituted 90% for direct ones, 7.5% for conventional indirect and 2.5 % for hints. Meanwhile, the frequency distribution of direct spoken invitations by VNS males was 87.5%; of conventional indirects was 10% and of hints was 2.5%. Similarly, though the preference for strategies of ENS group presented different percentages, the results in ENS data also showed that ENS men tended to give fewer direct spoken invitations than ENS women. Only 27.5% ENS males answered that they would directly invite equalstatus females while there was 42.5% ENS females who chose the same solution to orally invite male partners. The number of conventional indirect invitations

given by ENS men was 60 % ( 45% in women choice) and for the use of hints was 12.5% (same as women). The invited
Politeness VNS Stategies

ENS to Male Female % 92.5 2.5 5 100 90 7.5 2.5 100 85 15 0 100 n 39 1 0 40 35 4 1 40 38 2 0 40 % 97.5 2.5 0 100 87.5 10 2.5 100 95 5 0 100 to Female Male n 13 22 5 40 17 18 5 40 8 23 8 39 % 32.5 55 12.5 100 42.5 45 12.5 100 20 57.5 20 97.5 to Male Female n 11 22 7 40 11 24 5 40 3 27 7 37 % 27.5 55 17.5 100 27.5 60 12.5 40 7.5 67.5 17.5 92.5 to

Female Male n

Lower status

D CID NCID Total

37 1 2 40 36 3 1 40 34 6 0 40

Equal status

D CID NCID Total

Higher status

D CID NCID Total

Table 4.6: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situation 1 and 3 Another noticeable point is that the higher status of the invited affected differently the choice of politeness strategies employed by both ENS and VNS of different gender when they were asked to orally invite the people of opposite gender in situations 1 and 3. To ENS, though the use of conventional indirect politeness strategies was still prefered, ENS women kept being more direct than

men. The proportion of direct strategies used by females over males which was 2.6 (20%: 7.5%) was still higher than the sum of both proportions of conventional and nonconventional indirect strategies used by females over males which was 0.85 (57.5%: 67.5% + 20%:17.5%). The data also showed that there were more males than females in the group who refused to do this FTA (3 for men and 1 for women). Meanwhile, the data in VNS group showed an opposite result. To VNS, even though direct spoken invitations were mostly favored by the majority of participants, more VNS females tended to employ indirect politeness strategies when inviting males than VNS males in the same situation. The number of females issuing indirect politeness strategies tribbled (15%:5%) that of males while the proportion of direct invitations by men over by women was only 1.1 (95%:85%). To sum up, in the setting where the invited was of opposite gender, VNS females seemed to be more indirect than males when the invited was in lower and higher status and more direct to the people of equal status. Meanwhile, ENS females always use more direct invitations than ENS males do in all three situations. The impact of gender and age would be investigated in the following section of this chapter. 4.1.2.3. Age and gender

The impact of age and gender on politeness strategies employed was investigated with situations 2 and 4 in the questionnaire. The content of the two situations was totally alike. Similarly to the previous case, the combination of age and gender formed 6 discourse completion questions in each situation. Therefore, in total, 12 discourse completion questions would help to investigate

the frequency distribution of politeness strategies used by both groups of subjects when issuing spoken invitations under the influence of age and gender. Each question in the situation was designed to serve a certain purpose. It was to investigate what kind of politeness strategies the inviter would employ if 1. The invited were a female and at younger age. 2. The invited were a male and at younger age. 3. The invited were a female and at the same age. 4. The invited were a male and at the same age. 5. The invited were a female and at older age. 6. The invited were a male and at older age. The preference for politeness strategies used by ENS and VNS was analyzed in two separate situations: a. Making spoken invitations to the invited of the same gender The overall results presented in Chart 4.5 indicates that, like other cases, ENS mostly favored the conventional indirect politeness strategies when they orally invited someone under the influence of age and gender. In addition, though females employed fewer numbers of conventional indirectness (61.67%) comparing to males (65%), they showed a high tendency of using more hints (23.33%) and fewer direct invitations(15%). It can be inferred that ENS females were more indirect than males in this setting. VNS data revealed a different result. Though the majority of subjects kept issuing direct spoken invitations, in comparing to the previous settings, they tended to deliver much more indirect politeness strategies. Besides, the data also indicated that, unlike ENS females, VNS females were more direct than males because they employed more direct

strategies (80% and 76.67%), fewer conventional ones (15.82% and 18.33%) and fewer nonconventional indirect strategies ( 4.17% and 5%) than men did in the same situation.

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 D CID NCID ENS(F-T-F) VNS(F-T-F) ENS(M-T-M) VNS(M-T-M)

a.

Chart 4.6: The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4 The detailed analysis of the data in Table 4.7 presented the responses from both subjects when taking the age of the invited into account. Firstly, in the situation where the subjects were asked to orally invite people of younger age, the number of ENS subjects who chose suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies still took 50% of the total strategies used. However, ENS females issued much more hints (32.5%) and fewer direct strategies (17.5%) than ENS males did (10% and 40%). They tended to be more indirect than men. Meanwhile, VNS women delivered more direct invitations (85%) than males (77.5%) and also issued fewer conventional indirect ones (10% and 17.5%). Moreover, VNS females and males shared one thing in common: they

employed the equal number of hints (5%). Therefore, VNS females somehow employed more direct politeness strategies than males.

The invited

Politeness VNS Strategies Female

ENS to Male Male n 31 7 2 40 30 8 2 40 31 7 2 40 % 77.5 17.5 5 100 75 20 5 100 77.5 17.5 5 100 to Female to Male Female n 7 20 13 40 10 23 7 40 1 31 8 40 % 17.5 50 32.5 100 25 57.5 17.5 100 2.5 77.5 20 100 Male n 16 20 4 40 11 24 5 40 2 34 4 40 % 40 50 10 100 27.5 60 12.5 40 5 85 10 100 to

Female n Younger age D CID NCID Total Same age D CID NCID Total Older age D CID NCID Total 34 4 2 40 30 7 3 40 32 8 0 40 % 85 10 5 100 75 17.5 2.5 100 80 20 0 100

Table 4.7: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4 Secondly, to the invited of the same age, the results showed that there were almost no differences between ENS females and males in their preference for the politeness strategies employed. From 25% to 27.5% of both ENS males and

by each group of gender was somehow equal. The only noticeable point is that, unlike ENS group, VNS males tended to be more indirect when inviting the people of different gender who were of their age. They issued a few more suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies (20% and 17.5% by women) as well as more hints (5% and 2.5% by females). Finally, the trend of using politeness strategies of ENS and VNS to the people who were older proved to have somehow similar result. In ENS data, the number of females who employed hints doubled that of males (20% and 10%) while the percentage of direct invitations issued by males doubled that of females (5% and 2.5%). However, ENS men seemed to prefer conventional indirect strategies more than women. 85% of them responsed that they would invite by saying Would you like to or the like to the invited of different gender who were older. Therefore, ENS males were thought to be more indirect than females. Similarly, VNS data showed that VNS males also favored indirect politeness strategies than females. They not only issued fewer direct spoken invitations (77.5% and 80%) but also used more hints (5% and 0%). In summary, the results showed that the age of the interlocutors would cause an impact on the preference for politeness strategies used by both ENS and VNS males and make them invite a person of the same gender more directly than females. The age factor influenced both VNS and ENS females.

The frequency distribution of politeness strategies employed by ENS and VNS when the interlocutors are of different gender under the influence of age would be investigated in the following section. b. Making
90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 D CID NCID

spoken

invitations

to

the

invited

of

different

gender

ENS(F-T-M) VNS(F-T-M) ENS(M-T-F) VNS(M-T-F)

Chart 4.7: The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in comparing to those by VNS to the invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4 The results in Chart 4.7 indicated that there were significant differences in the strategy selection done by ENS and VNS. ENS continued to be loyal to the use of conventional indirect strategies while the majority of VNS prefered the direct politeness strategies. Specifically, the results showed that though the percentage of direct spoken invitations made by ENS females and males were totally equal, females issued more hints and males used more conventional indirect ones. Meanwhile, the gap between the selection of strategies of VNS females and males seemed to be bigger. Many VNS females chose to use direct spoken invitations to male partners in comparing to a much fewer number of males who did the same act to female partners. Besides, VNS females also deliver much

more conventional indirect strategies than males in the same setting. The only similar point between VNS females and males was that they issued relatively equal number of hints. Table 4.7 below presents the frequency distribution of politeness strategies used by both ENS and VNS when taking age and gender of the invited into consideration. The invited
Politeness VNS Strategies Female

ENS to Male female % 77.5 15 7.5 100 80 12.5 7.5 100 85 15 0 100 n 24 12 4 40 26 12 2 40 25 12 3 40 % 60 30 10 100 65 30 5 100 62.5 30 7.5 100 to Female to Male male n 10 20 10 40 13 22 5 40 2 30 8 40 % 25 50 25 100 32.5 55 12.5 100 5 75 20 100 female n 15 21 4 40 8 27 5 40 2 34 4 40 % 37.5 52.5 10 100 20 67.5 12.5 40 5 85 10 100 to

male n Younger age D CID NCID Total Same age D CID NCID Total Older age D CID NCID Total 31 6 3 40 32 5 3 40 34 6 0 40

Table 4.8: Participants preference for and use of politeness strategies to the invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4

As what we could see in the data, it was hard to reach a conclusion whether VNS females were more direct or indirect than males when inviting people of different gender who were younger. First, VNS females favored further direct strategies than males because the frequency distribution of direct invitations by them was 77.5% compared to 60% of males. In addition, the percentage of suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies they employed was only half of that by VNS men. Besides, they also issued fewer hints. Nevertheless, VNS females tended to be more direct than males. Compared with VNS females, ENS women were less direct than men. Only 25% of their answers were in direct form while 37.5% men chose the direct strategies. Besides, they also issued much more hints than men did. The proportion of hints distributed was 25% for females and only 10% for males while the percentage of conventional strategies was nearly equal. Therefore, ENS females tended to be more indirect than ENS males when inviting younger people of different gender. Secondly, the results presented in Table 4.7 showed that there were some similarities in the frequency distribution of inviting strategies used by ENS and VNS in the setting where the invited was as young as the inviter. Both ENS and VNS data indicated that females issued more direct invitations than males. 80% of the responses from VNS and 32.5% ENS females were in direct form in comparison to 65% VNS and 20% ENS males. Females of both groups were found to employ much fewer conventional indirect politeness strategies than males. There were 55% of females and 67.5% of males who used conventional strategies. Finally, when the invited was older than the inviter, the results were different. In ENS data, both females and males employed fewer direct spoken invitations comparing to the cases when the invited was younger than or as young as the

inviter (only 5%). Unlike in the previous settings, the proportion of indirect politeness strategies used here was the majority (75% for females and 85% for males). Although ENS females issued fewer suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies than males, they issued more hints (20%). Meanwhile, VNS data indicated that VNS females were more direct than men when inviting older people of different gender. Unlike ENS females, VNS females issued most of their spoken invitations in direct form (85%) and the other 15% was for conventional indirect. In comparison to females, males in the group used fewer direct strategies and more indirect ones. To sum up, age and gender of the invited affected not only to different groups of subjects but also to subjects of different gender. In the setting where the addressee was younger or older than the inviter, VNS females were more direct than males. Meanwhile, ENS females seemed to be more indirect in the first situation and employ fewer conventional indirect politeness strategies and more hints than males in the second. Besides, to males who were of the same age, ENS and VNS females shared one thing in common, i.e., they issued fewer suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies and used more direct spoken invitations than men did to females who were of the same age.

4.2.

Discussion of the findings

In this section, the findings were discussed to find out the answers to the four research questions. As mentioned above, the data analysis revealed some significant differences between the ENS and VNSproductions of spoken invitations under the impact of politeness. Even though this finding concerns the results from the context-

specific situation, it still offers evidence that there are distinct cross-cultural differences between VNS and ENS in making spoken invitations. First, concerning the answers for the first and third research questions, the VNS were found to employ a higher degree of directness as far as the head acts of their spoken invitations were concerned while ENS showed a pretty high frequency of employing indirectness. The results also showed how direct spoken invitations are the most favored strategies for VNS while conventional indirect ones are the most preferred strategies for ENS. Besides, they showed how important it is in the English language to acknowledge the use of conventional indirectness (normally in interrogative form) even with the inviting act which brings benefits to the addressee. On the other hand, direct politeness strategies, normally with the use of imperatives and the performative verb invite, were extensively employed by VNS subjects and perceived as socially accepted by the majority of VNS participants. However, this finding does not mean VNS are less polite than ENS or ENS are more polite than VNS in delivering spoken invitations. It only reflects different language habits which originate from different cultures. Because inviting is a kind of negative face threatening acts, in English speaking cultures, ENS would consider the limitation of imposition, the use of giving options together with the indirectness as ways of performing face saving acts. Therefore, the preference for indirect spoken invitations by ENS could be explained by their cultural values where individuals freedom and independence is highly respected. Meanwhile, it could be argued that the tendency for higher directness on the part of the VNS is consistent with the characteristics of a solidarity-oriented society. Therefore, the direct spoken invitations employed by VNS in the research served to emphasize the intimacy, closeness and solidarity. Moreover, the use of particles and address

terms in Vietnamese culture somehow achieves to soften the imperative spoken invitations and make them more polite and widely acceptable. As a result, considering the relationship between directness/indirectness in spoken invitations and politeness, it is evident from the above findings that politeness is not always determined by indirectness. It is against Brown and Levinsons hierarchy which assumes that the more indirect an utterance, the more polite it comes (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 17-21). In Vietnamese culture and particularly with spoken inviting behavior, indirectness with the concept of non-imposition or giving options is not necessarily politeness. It can be even misunderstood as insincerity and hence may lead to the breaking of a further social relationship. The effect of social status, age and gender on the preference for and use of inviting politeness strategies by both ENS and VNS was examined to answer the second and fourth research questions. The findings revealed that these factors did have a different impact on the choice of both groups. Regarding the influence of social status and age of participants to the choice of politeness strategies employed by both groups, the data in Table 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 showed different results. It is undeniable that both groups of subjects saw the need of being indirect to the people who were older no matter what levels of social status those people were in. However, almost VNS invited people of younger age directly though that person was a boss, an employee or a colleague. Meanwhile, ENS considered younger people as distant and hence applied negative politeness strategies to reduce the imposition of the inviting, especially in the setting when those people were at lower position. In addition, while ENS reacted differently to people of

the same age accordingly to status (direct to lower status, conventional indirect to equal and most hints to higher status), VNS only realized the necessity of employing indirectness to people of the same age when they were in equal status. That is to say, to ENS, it is true that the power of the addressee is very important to the politeness strategies employed by the speaker. According to Brown and Levinson, the more powerful the hearer is, the more polite the speaker would be, from which they mean the more indirect people would be in the speech act of requesting. The majority of strategies employed by ENS has proved to follow this belief. However, under the effect of age, the results show that it is not correct to the invited of lower status because ENS employed even more indirect invitations than to the one of higher or equal status. Moreover, what Brown and Levinson believe is also not totally suitable in the case of VNS. Unlike ENS who considered age factor was not important but significant as social status, VNS took the age of the addressee in greater consideration than his/her social status in invitations. They used the same degree of directness to younger people regardless of their status, and to same-age partners except when they were of equal status. Therefore, social status of the participants did not affect as much to the selection of politeness strategies by VNS as their age did. Concerning the effect of both social status and gender on the choice of politeness strategies by ENS and VNS, gender relationships were examined together with social status. Firstly, with male partners of higher status, both ENS and VNS males issued more direct strategies than females. However, being of equal or lower status, the choice of strategies by ENS males shifted to indirectness while VNS males kept

unchanged in their selection. As Chodorou (1974) and Gilligan (1982) said, because men see the world as a hierarchy in which any individual may be one-up or one-down, their speech shows a tendency to seek independencies and focus on hierarchical relationship. This can explain the reason why more ENS chose to use directness to people of lower position and negative politeness to the ones of higher or equal positions. Nevertheless, if the choice of strategies by VNS were explained in such a way, VNS males would be very impolite people who always think themselves as superior, which is not true. VNS males tended to prefer more direct patterns to their male partners as a sign of closeness and friendliness. It seems that, to VNS males, the necessity of realizing the status of the same gender addressees is not as important as the need to show solidarity between themselves, especially in the act of inviting. Meanwhile, the strategy selection of both ENS and VNS females when inviting the people of the same gender shows the suitability between the reality and the theory suggested by Holmes (1996), which states that being well aware of the fact that what they say may threaten face of other people, women tend to use the extremes of negative politeness more frequently than men do. Besides, in this case, there were more women than men who saw the need of inviting indirectly, no matter what social status they were in. Surprisingly enough, in the setting where the invited was of opposite gender, ENS females always invited more directly than ENS males did in all three levels of social status. On the contrary, VNS females seemed to be more indirect than males when the invited was in lower and higher status, and more direct to the people of equal status. This result indicates that there are not only differences in the way women and men orally invite someone but there are also differences in the selection of strategies among women and men themselves. While the majority of ENS women employed indirect politeness strategies to the invited of

the same gender to save face, they saw another need to show intimacy and solidarity to the people of different gender by inviting directly. Here, it seems that ENS females are less aware of the values of a more negative politeness society where the limitation of imposition, the giving options and the indirectness are more preferred. Meanwhile, the fact that VNS females were always more indirect to both people of same and different gender than men except for the case of equal social status proved the perception that VNS females prefer beating about the bush rather than being straightforward. Finally, with the respect to the impact of both the inviteds and the inviters age and gender on the selection of politeness strategies used for spoken invitations, the results in Table 4.6 showed that, different from the effect of status, the age of the interlocutors would somehow make both ENS and VNS males invite a person of the same gender more directly than females do. To ENS males, the idea that they ususally do not pay as much attention to the age of the adressee as other factors such as social status or gender again proved to be correct. It is obvious that they did not change their politeness strategy together with the change of their male partners age while they did employ different types of strategies when the status was different. To VNS males, the reason why the majority of them issued directness may be explained by the need to show closeness and solidarity among Vietnamese peers of the same gender. To sum up, gender and age of counterparts obviously had a different impact on females of both groups. Firstly, the number of those who chose to be indirect to their same gender partners outnumbered that of males. The results showed that there are more females than males (both ENS and VNS) who tried to avoid threatening the face of the adressees and their own face also by giving options to the adressees of different ranges of age. Secondly, when the invited was of

different gender, his/her age influenced the choice of politeness strategies by ENS and VNS in another way. The results in Table 4.7 indicated that in the setting where the addressee was younger or older than subjects, VNS females were more direct than males in their group. Meanwhile, ENS females seemed to be more indirect in the first situation and employ fewer conventional indirect politeness strategies and more hints than males in the second. Besides, to the male invited who was as young as they were, both ENS and VNS women shared one thing in common: they issued fewer suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies and employed more direct spoken invitations than men in their groups. As a result, the age of the counterparts had a stronger impact on the selection of strategies employed by both ENS and VNS females than by males. Females of both groups seem to be more sensitive to age and gender of the adressees and always take those factors into consideration. They employed various different strategies for different groups of the invited than males in their groups. This chapter has provided the results of data analysis and discussion of the findings. While ENS prefered the selection of indirect politeness strategies in issuing spoken invitations, VNS favored direct ones. From the results of data analysis and discussion of the findings, some conclusions will be reached and some pedagogical implications for teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English will be suggested in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 5.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter draws out the conclusion of the research and suggests some pedagogical implications for the teachers of English when teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners.

5.1.

Conclusion

Different cultures may lead to different communication styles, which can be easily seen in communication problems in social interaction. As a result, the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence would be of considerable value to any learners who want to communicate successfully in another language. Since politeness is an integral part of the socio-cultural system, the awareness of the differences in politeness expression between the mother language and the target language (Vietnamese and English in this study) can contribute a lot to the development of communicative competence of Vietnamese learners of English. Spoken invitations are one of the very frequent speech acts which can take place in daily activities, both in English and Vietnamese cultures. The investigation of the choice of direct or indirect spoken invitations by ENS and VNS under the influence of social status, age and gender has shown both similarities and differences between the two groups of subjects. The biggest difference between these two groups is the preference for politeness strategies employed when they invited someone orally. Coming from a society where the principles of non-imposition are widely accepted as being polite, the majority of ENS used indirect politeness strategies to deliver the speech act of inviting. They possibly preferred structural indirectness to indicate their distance, give options and through this they soften the impositions. Meanwhile, VNS come

from a society where greater importance is attached to solidarity relations and dependence rather than distance and independence, so most of them tended to employ structurally directness when issuing spoken invitations. Moreover, because inviting is an act that brings benefits to the hearer, in Vietnamese culture, it seems to be more convenient for the hearer of a spoken invitation to accept if s(he) is clearly forced to do so. Therefore, in this case, the imposition is to save the face of the hearer than to threaten her/his face. Some other differences and similarities between the two groups of subjects were found during the process of investigating the impact of social status, age and gender on the selection of politeness strategies employed. Concerning the effect of social status and age, the results show that ENS took the first factor into greater consideration than the second while VNS had quite opposite selection. Besides, the examination of social status and gender also indicate that men and women had different tendency in the choice of politeness strategies to invite people of different status. In general, ENS males employed more strategies to invite people of same gender together with the change of addressees status than ENS females. VNS females also employed similar strategies to the people of opposite gender in comparison to VNS males. Moreover, when both gender and age of the addressees were taken into consideration, the results indicate that they had a stronger effect on both ENS and VNS females selection of politeness strategies. The results of this study show that issuing English spoken invitations is not an easy and simple task for Vietnamese learners of English for the fact that there are both similarities and differences. As a result, communicative failure can

possibly happen regardless of their good will of delivering any spoken invitation to an English native speaker.

5.2.

Implications

Being polite is becoming more and more significant nowadays while the expression of politeness clearly falls within the speakers communicative rather than linguistic competence. Therefore, foreign language teachers are expected to provide language learners not only with linguistic competence but also with communicative competence which will enable them to select grammatically correct expressions which are also appropriate in the specific situation. (Sifiano, 1992: 203) Basing on the findings of the study, I would like to suggest some implications for teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English with a close attention to the effect of politeness. 1. First of all, Vietnamese learners of English should be well aware of the cultural differences in the preference for the choice of politeness strategies between ENS and VNS. They should be informed that generally ENS often use conventional indirect structures to perform the speech act of inviting while VNS have the habit of performing it directly. 2. Besides, as the findings showed, it is necessary for the teacher to notice the learners about the different impacts of social status, age and gender on the invitation strategies used by ENS and VNS. The increase of learners awareness will not only help them improve their communicative performance in English but also prevent them from unintentionally appearing impolite and rude.

3. The lecture of cultural differences and the long lists of alternatives for drills and memorization as to what is appropriate and polite when inviting in English may possibly bore the learners and thus defeat the original purpose. Therefore, some following ways are suggested to avoid such problems. a. First, Vietnamese teachers of English should consciously and conscientiously try to present an appropriate model for students to imitate. However, because there is not just one way of behaving appropriately, teachers should let their learners as creative as possible. If the learners employ a rather inappropriate construction for the inviting in a specific context, teachers can invite the class to give alternative possibilities. b. Second, the use of real life situations in role play activities is extremely important in practicing the use of inviting strategies. Besides, if those situations are carefully chosen to depict everyday life, they can lead to interesting class discussions about how to be more appropriate or more polite in English culture and why. Therefore, the supporting role of teachers during the discussion can help to demonstrate the expected structures implicitly through which learners acquire them unconsciously in a more exciting way than listening to the lecture. c. Third, suitable teaching materials play a significant role to develop learners sociocultural knowledge and hence may contribute importantly to the development of communicative competence. As a result, it is necessary for the teachers to exploit as many authentic materials as possible so that the practice of the speech act would be more natural and enjoyable. Moreover, accordingly to the level of the learners, they can make groups, create situations themselves and challenge each other to

make suitable spoken invitations in a close attention to politeness factors. d. Finally, because classroom interaction is rather different from what happens in society, teacher should encourage learners to put theory into practice by making friends with foreigners who may be tourists or teachers at foreign language centers... and try inviting them out for a drink. Although this kind of practice may cost, the experience is invaluable and can make really fast progress in learning. This chapter has given the conclusion of the study and made some recommendations about how to teach English spoken invitations effectively to their Vietnamese learners of English. Hopefully, the study may contribute to avoid the communicative problems of Vietnamese learners of English in social interaction.

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APPENDIX 1 (Questionnaire to ENS) QUESTIONNAIRE

I would very much appreciate your help with my research. Could you please fill in the blanks or put an X in the appropriate box in the following:
I. PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Nationality: . First Language:. Age range: 50 Gender: Profession: Education: Female Male Under 20 20-30 30-40 40-50 Over

.. ..

QUESTIONNAIRE: Would you please read the following questions, put yourself in given situations and then write down what you actually say in each situation: Situation 1: You are a candidate for the MA degree and have just finished your thesis. You open a celebration party at home on Saturday night at 6 p.m. You would like A to come. What would you say if A were: 1. Richard, a male colleague of equal position to you? 2. Melanie, a female colleague of equal position to you?

3. Patrick, a male colleague of lower position than you? 4. Nancy, a female colleague of lower position than you? 5. Mr Edward, a colleague of higher position than you? 6. Mrs. Sidsel, a colleague of higher position than you? Situation 2: During the dinner at your house, as the host, you want B to have some more food. What would you say if B were: 1. Linda, a female classmate of your younger brother or sister? 2. Thomas, a male classmate of your younger brother or sister? 3. Janet, your female friend who is at your age? 4. Harry, your male friend who is at your age? 5. Mrs. Lisa, a friend of your parents who is much older than you are? 6. Mr. Hampton, a friend of your parents who is much older than you are? Situation 3: You have just finished moving into a new house and want to invite C over to celebrate. What would you say if C were: 1. Harrison, your male colleague?

 2. Cathy, your female colleague? 3. Robert, your male employee? 4. Lessie, your female employee? 5. Mr. Peterson, your boss? 6. Mrs. Laura, your boss? Situation 4: You and D are business partners. You would like D to have dinner with you to discuss more about the terms of your contract. What would you say if D were: 1. Mr. Wright, who is younger than you are? 2. Mrs. Thatcher, who is younger than you are? 3. Mr. Gordon, who is just about your age? 4. Mrs. Julian, who is just about your age? 5. Mr. Miller, who is older than you are? 6. Mrs. Michel, who is older than you are?

Situation 5: Youve just been promoted, so you throw a party to celebrate at X restaurant, 18 p.m. on Saturday. You want to invite E (male or female) to join with you. What would you say if E were: 1. Your boss who is younger than you? 2. Your boss who is at your age? 3. Your boss who is older than you? 4. Your colleague of equal position to you and is younger than you? 5. Your colleague of equal position to you and is at your age? 6. Your colleague of equal position to you and is older than you? 7. Your employee who is younger than you? 8. Your employee who is at your age? 9. Your employee who is older than you?

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

APPENDIX 2 (Questionnaire to VNS) PHIEU KHAO SAT

Ban cau hoi di ay cua toi nham thu thap d lieu cho e tai nghien cu. Mong ban vui long danh chut thi gian quy bau tra li cac cau hoi sau. Cau tra li cua ban rat quan trong oi vi s thanh cong cua e tai, va ch c s dung vao muc ch nghien cu ch khong nham muc ch nao khac.
I. THONG TIN CA NHAN:

Tuoi: Gii tnh:

< 20 N

20 -30 Nam

30-40

40-50

> 50

Nghe nghiep: Trnh o hoc van:

II. CAU HOI NGHIEN CU

Xin Ban vui long oc cac tnh huong sau ay va tra li theo cach ban thc s dung trong cuoc song Tnh huong 1: Ban va bao ve xong luan van thac s va to chc tiec chuc mng vao toi th bay, luc sau gi tai nha. Ban muon mi ngi A en d. Ban se noi the nao neu A la: 1. Hoang, mot ong nghiep nam co v tr xa hoi ngang ban? . 2. Lan, mot ong nghiep n co v tr xa hoi ngang ban? .

3. Thu, mot ong nghiep n co v tr xa hoi thap hn ban? . 4. Tuan, mot ong nghiep nam co v tr xa hoi thap hn ban? . 5. Quang, mot ong nghiep nam co v tr xa hoi cao hn ban? . 6. Truc, mot ong nghiep n co v tr xa hoi cao hn ban? . Tnh huong 2: Trong ba an toi tai nha ban, vi cng v la chu nha, ban muon mi ngi B dung them mon. Ban se noi the nao neu ngi B la: 1. Tr, mot cau ban cung lp cua em trai hoac em gai ban? . 2. Hong, mot co ban cung lp cua em trai hoac em gai ban? . 3. Mai, mot ngi ban n cung tuoi vi ban? . 4. Hung, mot ngi ban nam cung tuoi vi ban? . 5. Loan, (n) mot ngi ln tuoi la ban cua cha me ban?

. 6. Viet, (nam) mot ngi ln tuoi la ban cua cha me ban? . Tnh huong 3: Ban va chuyen sang nha mi xong va to chc tiec tan gia. Ban muon mi C en d. Ban se noi the nao neu C la: 1. Sn, (nam) ong nghiep cua ban? . 2. Thuy, (n) ong nghiep cua ban? . 3. Trang, (n) cap di cua ban? . 4. Hoan, (nam) cap di cua ban? . 5. Tu, (nam) cap tren cua ban? . 6. Thuc, (n) cap tren cua ban? .

Tnh huong 4: Ban va D la oi tac lam an. Ban muon mi D i an toi vi ban e hai ngi tiep tuc ban luan ve cac ieu khoan trong hp ong. Ban se noi the nao neu D la? 1. Dng, mot ngi nam nho tuoi hn ban? . 2. Mai, mot ngi n nho tuoi hn ban? . 3. Cuc, mot ngi n cung tuoi vi ban? . 4. Quan, mot ngi nam cung tuoi vi ban? . 5. Cng, mot ngi nam ln tuoi hn ban? . 6. Ngan, mot ngi n ln tuoi hn ban? . Tnh huong 5: Ban mi c thang chc va m tiec chia vui tai nha hang X luc 18 gi ngay th bay. Ban muon mi E (nam hoac n) en d. Ban se mi nh the nao neu E la: 1. Ngi nho tuoi hn ban nhng la cap tren cua ban?

.. 2. Ngi nho tuoi hn ban va la ong nghiep cung cap vi ban? .. 3. Ngi nho tuoi hn ban va la cap di cua ban? .. 4. Ngi cung tuoi vi ban nhng la cap tren cua ban? .. 5. Ngi cung tuoi vi ban va la ong nghiep cung cap vi ban? .. 6. Ngi cung tuoi vi ban nhng la cap di cua ban? .. 7. Ngi ln tuoi hn ban nhng la cap di cua ban? .. 8. Ngi ln tuoi hn ban nhng la ong nghiep cung cap vi ban? .. 9. Ngi ln tuoi hn ban nhng la cap di cua ban? ..

XIN CHAN THANH CAM N S GIUP CUA BAN!