the use of politeness in making suggestion in english and vietnamese = sử dụng chiến lược lịch sự khi đưa ra lời gợi ý trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI


THE USE OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN MAKING
SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Sử dựng chiến lược lịch sự khi đưa ra lời gợi ý trong tiếng Anh
và tiếng Việt

M.A MINOR THESIS








HANOI –2012
Field: English linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ TUYẾT MAI

THE USE OF POLITENESS IN MAKING
SUGGESTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Sử dụng chiến lược lịch sự khi đưa ra lời gợi ý trong tiếng
Anh và tiếng Việt

M.A MINOR THESIS




HANOI – 2012

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Đỗ THị Mai Thanh, M.A
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration
Acknowledgements
Abstract
List of figures, tables, and charts

PART I: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………
I. Rationale………………………………………………………………… ………
II. Aims…………………………………………………………………………………
III. Scope…………………………………………………………………………… …
IV. Research questions ………………………………………………………………….

V. Research methodology……………………………………………………… ……
VI. Design of the study …………………………………………………………………

PARTII:.DEVELOPMENT ………………………………………………
Chapter 1: Literature review ……………………… ………………………………….
1. Culture……………………………………………………………………………
1.2.Cross culture communication…………………………………………………
1.3. Politeness and face……………………………………………………………
1.4. Politeness in cross cultural communication…………………………………
1.5. Positive politeness strategies…………………………………………………
1.6. Negative politeness strategies………………………………………………….
1.7. Speech act………………………………………………………………………
1.8. Suggesting as a speech act…………………………………………………….
Chapter 2: Data analysis and findings……………………………………………….
2.1. Comments on survey questionnaires and informants………………………
2.2. The sequence of importance of some factors affectings S‟s choice of
suggesting………………………………………………………………………………
i
ii
iii
iv



1
1
2
2
2
2

2

4
4
4
5
6
8
10
10
11
12
13
13

15
v

2.3. Politeness in suggesting as seen from informants‟ parameter……………
2.4. Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting…………………
2.5. Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting…………………
2.6. The utterances which are commonly used to suggest among the
informants……………………………………………………………………………….
2.7. Politeness in making suggestion as seen from communicating partner‟s
parameter……………………………………………………………………………….
Chapter 3:Some applications of politeness in suggesting in English teaching and
learning………………………………………………………………………………….
Part III: Conclusion
3.1. Summary of major findings…………………………………………………….
3.2. Suggest for further study

Reference
Appendix

17
19
21

22

23

28
28
38
38
39
I
vi

TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS
NPS: Negative politeness strategies
PPS: Positive politeness strategies
FTAS: Face of threatening acts
List of tables
Table 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs ( Brown and Levinson, 1987)
Table 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Nguyen Quang,
1999:130)
Table 3: The in formants‟ status parameters.
Table 4: The sequence of importance of some factors affecting S‟ ss choice of
suggesting

Table 5: Politeness in suggesting as seen from English informants „parameter
Table 6: Politeness in suggesting as seen from Vietnamese informants ‟parameter
Table 7: Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting
Table 8: Realization of negative politeness strategies in suggesting
Table 9: the utterances are used in making suggestion among informants

1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
To our understanding, language is a great heaven prize and treasure for
human in order to fulfill our vital needs as the social beings: communication.
Language appeared, remains and flourishes along with human history. With
the seen development of language and language studies at the moment, there
is no need in proving the crucial and irreplaceable position of language in
human life.
Language is not only for communication but also for cultural exchange
among nations. It is difficult to imagine what our lives would be like without
language.
Cross – cultural communication is an interesting and attractive field for us
to find out the similar and different language when studying speech acts such
as: greeting, advising, promising, and suggesting… among countries in the
world.
There are many ways to make suggestion in Vietnamese and English. But
to make suggestion in an effective way is by no mean easy. People often have
difficulties in making appropriate suggesting in another language.
This leads the author to the research into “ The use of politeness strategies
in making suggestion in English and Vietnamese” to find out the similarities
and differences in making suggestion in Vietnamese and English
II. Aims of the study.

The aims of the study are:

2
- To investigate ways of suggesting in Vietnamese and English
- To compare and contrast the use of politeness strategies in
suggesting in given Vietnamese and English suggesting situations.
- To contribute to raising language teachers‟ and students‟
awareness of cross – cultural differences in the speech act of
suggesting.
III. Scope of the study
In all aspects of politeness, the study only deals with verbal aspects, in the
light of the politeness theory by Brown and Levinson.
The paper is aimed to investigate the English – Vietnamese cross – cultural
interaction in making suggestion in both languages English and Vietnamese.
The data analysis is mainly taken in to account of interviews with informants
to examine politeness strategies based on collected situations of the act of
suggestions. The data were collected by conducting surveys with
questionnaires. In addition, the data from the informants are also utilized in
the study.
IV. Research question
1. How are politeness strategies manifested in suggestion in English
and Vietnamese?
2. What are the implications for teaching and applying the speech act
suggesting in cross cultural communication in Hai Phong private
university.
V. Method of the study
The following methods are resorted to:

3
- Conducting survey (with questionnaires as a data collection

instrument)
- Consulting the supervisor
- Reading relevant publications
- Conducting personal observations

VI. Organization of the study
The study will be organized into the following structure::
Part I: INTRODUCTION outlines the rationale, the methodology, the
aims, the scope, the significance and the organization of the study.
Part II: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW reviews the theoretical issues. It
briefly present and discusses the theory of cross – cultural communication
and summaries of politeness strategies, summaries of works on suggestion.
Chapter 2 DATA ANALYSIS presents and discusses similarities and
differences in using politeness strategies in making suggestion in English and
Vietnamese.
Chapter 3 Some applications politeness strategies in teaching English
Part III: CONCLUSION
Summary of major findings and suggestion for further study
Suggestion for further study


4
PART II : DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
LITERATURE REVIEW
I.1. CULTURE
According to H. Triandis (1994:23), “Culture is a set of human-made
objective and subjective elements that in the past have increased the
probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in a

ecological niche, and this became shared among those who could
communicate with each other because they had a common language and they
lived in the same time and place.”
Hoopes (1979:3) defines that: “ culture is the sum of ways of living,
including valuable ness, beliefs, esthetic, standards, linguistic, expression,
patterns of thinking, behave norms, and styles of communication which a
group of people to assume its survival in a particular physical and human
environment. Culture and the people who are part of it interact. So culture is
not static. Culture is the response of a group of human being to valid and
particular needs of its members. It , therefore, has an inherent logic and an
essential balance between positive and negative dimension”.
Levine and Alelman (1993) consider culture as “ a shared background
( for example national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language
and communication style, customs, beliefs, art, music and all the other
products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a
particular time. It also refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of

5
human interactions, expressions and view points that people in one culture
share”.
Culture is always changing because culture consists of learned patterns of
behavior and belief, cultural traits can be unlearned and learned a new as
human need change. Obviously, language cannot occur alone and is never
separated from social activities and its culture.
I.2.Cross – cultural communication
Cross – culture can be understood as “ the meeting of two cultures or
languages across the political boundaries of nation-state ”s ( Kram, 1998:
81)
The relationship between culture and communication is often compared
with the bond between the voice and the echo.

According to Richard (1985:92). “ cross – cultural communication is an
exchange of ideas, information, etc… between persons from different
backgrounds. There are more problems in cross – cultural communication
than in communication between people of the same cultural background. each
participant may interpret the other‟s speech according to his or her own
cultural conventions and expectations. If the cultural conventions and
misunderstandings can easily arise, even resulting in a total break down of
communication. This has been shown by research into real life situations,
such as job interview, doctor -patient encounters and legal communication”.
Thus cross – cultural communication is a field of study that deals with
these questions, concerning with the communication between/among
interlocutors of different cultural background in an attempt to avoid
misunderstanding, cultural shock and even conflicts. In other words, cross

6
cultural communication studies are cultivating cultural fluency, the awareness
of the ways cultures operate in communication, and the abilities to respond
effectively to cultural differences ( Lebaron, 2003)
I.3.Politeness and face
Many linguists share their understanding and their concern on the concept
of politeness. Brown and Levison (1990: 2), in their introduction to
“Politeness- Some Universals in Language Usage”, emphasize that “the
issues of politeness raise sociological speculations of this scale, they also
touch on many other interests and many other fields.”
Cutting (2002: 44-45) views that “in pragmatics, when we talk of
politeness, we do not refer to the social rules of behavior, we refer to the
choices that are made in language use, the linguistic expressions that give
people space and show a friendly attitude to them”.
It is true to say that politeness is a pragmatic phenomenon. Politeness lies
not in the form and the words themselves, but in their function and intended

social meaning.
Politeness, in terms of cultural aspect, is defined as “a fixed concept, as in
the idea of „polite social behavior‟, or etiquette, within a culture” (Yule,
1996: 60).
Richards (1985:281) identifies politeness as “the attempt to establish,
maintain, and save face during conversation”. Brown and Levinson (199)
analyze politeness and say that in order to enter into social relationships, we
have to acknowledge and show an awareness of the face.

7
„Face’, the public self-image that every member wants to claim for
himself, consisting in two related aspects:
Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to
non-distraction- i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition.
Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or „personality‟ (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of)
claimed by interactants.
We should be aware of the fact that it is a universal characteristic across
cultures that speakers should respect each other‟s expectations regarding self-
image, take account of their feelings, and avoid face threatening acts. Cutting
(2002: 45) analyzes the view of Brown and Levinson (1990) of politeness and
face: “ When face threatening acts (FTAs) are unavoidable, speakers can
redress the threat with negative politeness (which does not mean being
impolite) that respects the hearer‟s negative face, the need to be independent,
have freedom of action, and not be imposed on by others. Or they can redress
the FTA with positive politeness, that attends the positive face, the need to
be accepted and liked by others, treated as a member of the group, and to
know one‟s wants are shared by others”.
Brown and Levinson (1990: 69) suggest five possible strategies for
avoiding face threatening acts (FTAs) or for mitigating the face threat, which

are illustrated in the table 1 below.
Lesser 1.without redressive
on record 2.positive politeness
Do the FTA with redressive action
4.off record 3.negative politeness
5.Don‟t do the FTA

8

Greater

Table 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs ( Brown and Levinson, 1987)
For example, in term of suggesting speech acts:
1. without redressive action: means direct suggestions, such as: “ I
suggest”.
2. on record (with redressive action): means to suggest explicitly
with or without politeness strategy,
3. off record: means not to suggest explicitly but give a listener a
hint so that he or she can infer that the speaker means a suggestion.
don‟t do the FTA: means giving up suggesting
Brown and Levinson number those five strategies to prove that the greater
the face threat is, the greater the numbered strategy should be employed.
Brown and Levinson implicitly consider negative politeness to be “more
polite” than positive politeness. This can be seen from the diagram when they
number the former and the latter 2 and 3 respectively. Nguyen Quang (1999:
129) analyzes that it is this point of view of Brown and Levinson that more or
less decreases their diagram‟s universal value, and he proposes another (see
Figure 2)

9
FTA encounter

4. Don’t do the FTA Do the FTA

3. Off record On record

2. With redressive action

Positive Negative
politeness politeness
Without redressive action

Table 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Nguyen Quang, 1999:130)
I.4. Politeness in cross – cultural communication
Despite of cultural differences, an action or utterance of face threat, in any
culture yet at some different levels, can lead to communication discord or
offense. Therefore, every cultural has its own politeness strategies of
mitigating the face threat to others in interpersonal communication. That is
why the issue of politeness has been taken into great started quite recently.
Goffman (1967) describes politeness as “the appreciations and individual
shows to another through avoidance or presentation of rituals” (p.7). Lakoff
(1973)suggests that if one wants to succeed in communication, the
message must be conveyed in a clear manner. Fraser and Nolan (1981) define
politeness as a set of constraints of verbal behaviors. Leech (1983) sees it as
forms of behaviors aimed at creating and maintaining harmonious interaction.
He also considers the politeness principle as part of the principles for

interpersonal rhetoric. He presents six maxims for the politeness principle (p.
132- 139):

10
- Tact maxim : minimize cost to other. maximize benefit to other.
- Generosity maxim: minimize benefit to self. Maximize cost to
self
- Approbation maxim: minimize praise of self. Maximize dispraise
of self
- Modesty maxim: minimize praise of self. Maximize praise of
other
- Agreement maxim: minimize disagreement between self and
other. maximize agreement between self and other.
- Sympathy maxim: minimize antipathy between self and other.
maximize sympathy between self and other.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness, as a form of
behavior, allows communication to take place between potentially aggressive
partners. They define face as “ the public self image that every member wants
to claim for himself”.
Linguistics have stated different ways of expressing politeness strategies.
Among them, the most influential theory of politeness is put forward by
Brown & Levinson. According to Thomas the Brown and Levinson‟s “has
been extraordinarily influential and very widely discussed” (1995:176).
Although there might be some criticism, such as a few overlaps and
borderlines between positive and negative politeness, their theory can reliably
serve as a theoretical framework for cross-cultural research.
I.5. positive politeness strategies and positive politeness strategies
Positive politeness strategies seek to minimize the threat to the hearer‟s
positive face. They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his
interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the

11
audience knows each other fairly well. In addition to hedging and attempts to
avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of
friendship, solidarity, compliments. According to Brown and Levison
(1987:101), “positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee‟s positive
face, his perennial desire that his wants (or the action, acquisition, values
resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable. In positive politeness
the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of other‟s wants in
general or to the expression of similarity between egos and other‟s wants”. In
order to be polite the S‟s concern to the listener and hopes to satisfy the
listener and hopes to satisfy the A‟s communicative need should be shown
during a conversation.
I.6. Negative Politeness and negative politeness strategies
Negative politeness strategies are oriented towards the hearer‟s negative
face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer. These strategies
presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher
potential for awkwardness or embarrassment than in bald on record strategies
and positive politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to remain
autonomous so the speaker is more apt to include an out for the listener,
through distancing styles like apologies.
Negative politeness in Brown & Levinson (1987:129) is “ redressive
action addressed to the addressee‟s negative face: his want to have his
freedom of action unhindered and his unimpeded”. Agreeing with Brown and
Levinson on definition of negative politeness, Nguyen Quang (2003)
emphasized, “negative politeness is in any communicative act which is
appropriately intended to show that the speaker does not want to impinge on
the addressee‟s privacy, thus enhancing the sense of distance between them”.

12

It is believed that there are eleven negative politeness strategies to avoid the
FTAs.
In short, “negative politeness” involves the speaker and hearer‟s
independence. This is also known as the “formal politeness strategy” which
creates the distance between the speaker and hearer. In most English speaking
countries, people are more inclined to employ negative politeness strategies.
However, what politeness strategy is preferred by what culture suggests a
problem,. In many Asian languages, including Vietnamese, negative
politeness is not always put in a high place. Vietnamese people tend to use
positive politeness to show concern to others and narrow the distance between
the speaker and the hearer. However, in reality there are some overlaps and
borderlines between PPS and NPS, i.e. people sometimes use both negative
and positive politeness marker in one utterance as in the following examples.
Mary, could I possibly use your cell phone for a short while? ( Group
identity marker : Mary [positive politeness] + conventionally indirect strategy
[negative strategy])
I.7.Speech act
it is believed that language is used not only to describe or to inform
something, but also to do something. J. Austin(1962) and J. Seark (1969)
proposed “ speech act theory” for the very first time. Austin suggests that
speech act is saying something that has a certain sense and reference like
making request, promise or offer. Yule (1996) also defined speech act as “
actions via utterances are generally called speech acts”
I.8. Suggesting – as a speech act
Wierzbicka gives a definition of suggesting as : on making a suggestion,
the speaker thinks that it might be a good thing if the addressee did
something. He invites therefore, the addressee to imagine himself actually

13
doing it, so that he can form an opinion about this possibility, and decide

whether or not he wants to follow it. (1987)
Suggestions belong to the group of directive speech acts which, according
to Searle (1976),are those in which the speaker‟s purpose is to get the hearer
to commit him/herself to some future course of action. To put it more simply,
directives are attempts to make the worlds match the words. Bach and
Harnish‟s (1979) definition of directives also implies that the speaker‟s
attitude and intention when performing an utterance must be taken as a reason
for the hearer‟s action. Moreover, one relevant feature affecting directives in
opposition to other speech acts, such as representatives or co missives (Searle
1976), refers to the necessary interaction between the speaker and the hearer
in order to get the speech act performed. As Trosborg (1995;20) points out,
“ only the case of directives is the hearer‟s subsequent act ( getting things
done) part of the speaker‟s intention”.
`









14
CHAPTER 2
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
II.1. Comments on survey questionnaires and informants
The data taken from the survey questionnaire is used at the linguistic input.
There are 5 designed situations. Of the 31 English and 25 Vietnamese
informants, 40 people have been selected for the analysis (20 English

speakers and 20 Vietnamese people). The former group are all English
people. Obviously, they know very little about Vietnam and have no bias
toward answering the survey questionnaire. The later group, theVietnamese in
the North of Vietnam, is my colleagues at Hai Phong private university and
my Students at Hai Phong Private university. It is the author‟s assumption that
the status parameters of the informants may affect the way people
communicate, therefore informants from both groups were asked to provide
information about their:
- Age
- Gender
- Occupation
The informants‟ status parameters are presented in the table below:
Status parameter
Informants
Number of informants
Vietnamese
English
20
20
Age

Above 30
8
9
Under 30
12
11

15
Gender

Male
10
12

Female
10
8
Occupation
Students
6
7
Office workers
5
6
Service workers
9
7
Table 3 : The informants’ status parameter
They are required to list the following factors affecting the choice of
making suggestion ( Direct, indirect, formally, informally) in the sequence of
importance from 1 (most) to 5 (least):
- The position of the addressee
- The relationship between you and the address
- The topic ( subtle, a taboo…)
- The addressee‟s personality (extroverted, introverted…)
- Your psychological mood
The last past of the survey is expected to get the informants ‟suggestion on
given situations:
- Situation 1: Your close friend wants to buy a new cell phone.
What would you say to suggest her/ him to buy a product of a

particular brand, e.g. Apple, Samsung, Sony etc.
- Situation 2: Your boss wants to go on a holiday, but doesn‟t
know where to go. What would you say to suggest her/ him to go
China, or Italy…
- Situation 3: Your business partner wants to hold a party at a
restaurant, but doesn‟t know a good restaurant. what would you

16
say to suggest her/ him to hold at Benare restaurant, Shushi-
hiro restaurant or Fat Duck restaurant.
- Situation 4: Your brother is ill, he wants to go to a good doctor.
What would you say to suggest her/ him.
- Situation 5: Your nodding acquaintance wants to buy an English
book to study. What would you say to suggest her/him




II.2The sequence of importance of some factors affecting S’s choice of
suggesting
Sequence
of importance
Vietnamese
British

A
B
C
D
E

A
B
C
D
E
1
36
%
32
%
28
%
0
%
4
%
10
%
40
%
40
%
10
%
0 %
2
20
%
32
%

16
%
20
%
12
%
10
%
50
%
40
%
0
%
0 %
3
24
%
16
%
16
%
32
%
12
%
40
%
10
%

10
%
30
%
10 %
4
0
%
12
%
24
%
40
%
24
%
30
%
0
%
10
%
40
%
20 %

17
5
20
%

8
%
16
%
8
%
8
%
10
%
0
%
0 %
20
%
70 %
- A: the position of the addressee
- B: the relationship between the S and the addressee
- C: topic
- D: the addressee‟s personality
- E: the S‟s psychological mood
The above factors are assumed to affect the S‟s choice of suggesting.
As to most of Vietnamese informants, the most important factors is the
position of the addressee (36%) the latter are the relationship (32%) and the
topic (28%) the s‟ psychological mood (4%) and the least important one is the
addressee „s personality
However the choice of the British informants are quiet different.
According to the British, the relationship is the most important factor (40% of
the informants rank this factor first and 50 % suppose that they are in the
second rank). the addressee‟s personality (10%) and the least important one is

the addressee‟s personality
To sum it up, the importance of the given factors can be arranged as in the
following table:
Rank
Vietnamese
British
1
The position
The relationship
2
The relationship
Topic

18
3
The topic
Position
4
The s ‟s
psychological mood
Personality
5
Addressee‟s
personality
Psychological mood

.Table 4. The sequence of importance of some factors affecting S‟s choice of suggesting

To be brief, beside social factor like age and gender, these are also many
other ones that affect S‟s making suggestion. And due to different cultures the

influence of the factors is at variable range. Also the importance of those
factors is culturally different.
II.3. Politeness in suggesting as seen from informants’ parameter
English findings
Informant
Age
Gender
Profession

Under 30
Above 30
Male
Female
Students
Office worker
Service worker
NPS
30%
27%
28 %
30,2%
21,2%
18,2%
17,8%
PPS
20%
22,6%
21,8%
19,1%
8,5%

15,5%
20%
Table 5. Politeness in suggesting as seen from English informants’ parameter

19
The overall strategies indicate a higher frequency in the use of NPS by
English speaker in suggesting. PPS accounts for a smaller proportion.
However, the distribution of NPS and PPS varies according to different
parameters of the informants.
People under 30 used more negative politeness oriented than those above
30. in addition, a higher proportion of NPS is seen in the female‟s utterance
than the male‟s (28% 27%) while the reverse is true for PPS (22,6% 21,8%).
As far as profession is concerned, students seem to be more NPO than the
office and service workers (21,2% - 18,2% - 17,8%) while the reverse order is
true in term of PPS.
Vietnamese findings
Informant
Age
Gender
Profession

Under 30
Above 30
Male
Female
Students
Office worker
Service worker
NPS
13,2%

14%
15 %
13,45%
21,2%
11%
12,8%
PPS
30,2%
34,5%
37%
35,6%
8,5%
37%
28%
Table 6. Politeness in suggesting as seen from Vietnamese informants’ parameter
In term of age, there is hardly any difference in the use of NPS. people
above 30 use PPS at a maximum: 34,5% Compared to 30,2% by those under
30.

20
Similarly the proportion of NPS used by the male and female is
appropriately the same (15% - 13,45%).
There are bigger differences as seen from the professional parameter,
21,2% is the percentage of NPS used by students compared to 11% by office
workers and 12,8% by service workers. Office workers make use of PPS with
the biggest proportion 37% Vs 8,5% by students and 28% by service worker.
Similarities:
- the proportion of NPS used by English and Vietnamese students are
higher than those by the people in office and service areas
- the male from both groups of informants are more inclined toward PPS

than the female
Differences:
- the promotion of NPS by Vietnamese males and females are equal.
English female are more negatively polite than the male.
II.4. Realization of positive politeness strategies in suggesting

Strategies
Vietnamese
English
1
Be optimistic
16%
6%
2
Seek
agreement
11.5%
3.8%
3
Encourage
10.4%
4.3%
4
Use in group
identify marker
7.8%
3.6%