nghiên cứu giao văn hoá về việc sử dụng “sandwich feedback” của giáo viên người mỹ và người việt trong việc đưa ra lời phê bình và tác động của nó đối với sự tiếp thu của sinh viên

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************


LẠI HOÀI CHÂU



A CROSS – CULTURAL STUDY OF USING THE SANDWICH
FEEDBACK BY VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN TEACHERS
AND ITS EFFECTS ON STUDENT’S UPTAKE

(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC
“SANDWICH FEEDBACK” ĐỂ PHÊ BÌNH
CỦA CÁC GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGƯỜI MỸ
VÀ TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA NÓ ĐỐI VỚI SỰ TIẾP THU CỦA SINH VIÊN)

M.A Minor Thesis


Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15



Hanoi - 2012


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************


LẠI HOÀI CHÂU



A CROSS – CULTURAL STUDY OF USING THE SANDWICH
FEEDBACK BY VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN TEACHERS
AND ITS EFFECTS ON STUDENT’S UPTAKE

(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC
“SANDWICH FEEDBACK” ĐỂ PHÊ BÌNH
CỦA CÁC GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGƯỜI MỸ
VÀ TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA NÓ ĐỐI VỚI SỰ TIẾP THU CỦA SINH VIÊN)

M.A Minor Thesis


Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Supervisor: Dr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng



Hanoi - 2012

v

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION



1.1. Rationale
1
1.2. Previous studies
3
1.3. Aims of study
4
1.4. Research questions
5
1.5. Significance of study
5
1.6. Scope of the study
5
1.7. Organization of the study
6
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
8
2.1. Definition of feedback

8
2.2. Definition of criticism
9
2.3. Definition of sandwich feedback communication (SFC)
11
2.4. Pragmatics and significance of SFC in communication
13
2.4.1. What is pragmatics?
13
2.4.2. What is Politeness?
16
2.4.3. Politeness strategies (PSs)
16
2.4.4. Relation of sandwich feedback and politeness
20
2.5. Vietnamese and American cross-cultural SFC
21
CHAPTER 3: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
24
3.1. Overview of the research methodology
24
3.2. Design of study
25
3.2.1. Selection of informant
25
3.2.2. Data collection instrument
27
3.2.3. Data processing procedure
28
3.3. Data analysis

29
3.3.1. The patterns of SFC (Structures of SFC that teachers often use)
29
3.3.2. SFC as a politeness strategy
34
3.4. Discussion
41
CHAPTER 4: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
43
4.1. Pedagogical implication
43
4.2. Limitation of study and the suggestion for further researches
44
4.3. Conclusion
REFERENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
45
46


1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
In the world where globalization has connected everyone closer, it is so common when
people mention every aspects of it day after day. The expression of globalization has
shown everywhere from the food to clothes, from house decoration to the choice of car,
especially in the way people communicate. The need of exchange information becomes
greater, leading to the born and development of cross-cultural communication. In this

type of communicating, besides the content of information, culture understanding
played a crucial role for the message to be understood fully and politely.
Without awareness of culture, communication can negatively impact to the relationship
and on the contrary, the relationship between interlocutors will be motivated with a
deep understanding of culture. For example, in America, after the presentation, people
are often got good comments lik
a polite signal in their culture and possibly the performance is not as good as that
praise, the presenter will recognize the necessity of improving their behaviors then. It
would not be a big problem if those styles of comment were not applied in Vietnam
where people trust all the words in the feedback they get and think of their performance
      After all, the problem of cross cultural
communication, sooner or later, will be shown out. The above example can be found
anywhere in international companies and schools in Vietnam, inspiring the author to
have a careful scan of this matter  giving feedback. Though it is not new, there is type
that has not been widely kno       
great attention, leading to the decision of researching about it.


2

So far, no one could deny the role that English has empowered in aspects of life and
became the international language, being learnt and taught widely in all countries.
However, in process of teaching this language to students, teachers from different
countries have their own way of monitoring classroom in each part of a lesson. In my
opinion, among parts of teaching, presenting, eliciting, the skill of giving feedback is
one of the most noticeable matters. This act follows other activities as a review part for
both teacher and students to have a reflection on what they have done before. It not
only greatly benefits students in correcting or editing their products but also be a
challenge for teachers. The instructors may find it a difficult part for the fact that


and talk carefully in accordance with culture. Hence, it is a good reason for the choice
of this act to be the focus of research.
In Vietnam, the teaching and studying of English have a long time been imposed to the
curriculum, but it is clear that cultural factors were not paid enough attention. It is
required from the fact that teachers must have an orientation for their teaching
strategies, basing on solid knowledge of cross culture and politeness strategies,
bringing good effects to their teaching. In position of a teacher, the author of these
papers (researcher) has a motivation to carry out the research to raise her own
understanding of giving sandwich feedback, benefiting her in the way of giving
assessment for students. Moreover, not only is this politeness limited to the use in
classroom but also it can be applied in daily life among wise communicators which
helps them a lot in work and other fields.
1.2. Previous studies
There are hundreds of papers writing about cross cultural communication and
          
           -editing in foreign


3

In Vietnam, there are previous researches about
Vietnamese-American cross culture but none of them has mentioned about the use of
sandwich feedback. Communication strategies are also gets the concerns of many
learners (study of boasting by Nhung, 2010, about economicality and redundancy in
requesting by My, 2010, about expressing sympathy by Hien, 2010, about disparaging
by Van, 2010). Giving comment strategies are paid notice as well by Huong (2011)
with dissertation about corrective feedback, by Hang (2010) with application of
feedback in writing, etc.  (see definition in 2.2) is still a
new term in Vietnam. Hence, these papers not only revise the way that teachers in
Vietnam use feedback but also introduce a new type of feedback.

In short, under the push of finding something new, interesting and useful, the topic of
sandwich feedback in cross cultural communication had been chosen to be the main
discussion of these papers. According to this study, teachers could have a deeper look
at their teaching manners, see clearly the advantages and drawbacks of the new method
of comment and consider applying it in their teaching.
1.3. Aims of study
Regarding to the previous researches, the author inspire herself looking up the answers
for some following questions as the purposes of the whole research.
First, what sandwich feedback is and what its roles are in communication in general
and in giving comment to Vietnamese students in particular. The background part will
be considered under the view of communication, looking at feedback as a strategy to
strengthen the effects of communication. The discovery about the acts of giving
feedback and the use of sandwich feedback basing on the theories of speech and
politeness will be covered first and then its application in second language classrooms.


4

The second aim of these papers is to find out the similarities and differences in the use
of sandwich feedback among Vietnamese and American teachers. Giving comments is
             
background culture, teachers in different countries give their students feedback in
various ways. Thus, the dissertation heads to search out a worthy comparison between
the two cultures. Hopefully some useful pedagogical implications could be implied
from those findings, contributing to the teaching procedure of the author in particular
and of other teachers in general.
Those main aims orient the papers to set up some detailed goals. For the first target to
build up a trustful background, the definitions and relating aspects would be retrieved
from rare materials of previous studies and sources on the Internet. The searching
would provide the author and readers a theory part on which other following parts of

collecting data could be based on. The searching will focus mostly on the metaphor
images of sandwich, comparing it with a politeness strategy of giving comments to
students. Besides, the types, methods and field of application would also be paid
attention.
On the other hand, to narrow the view on Vietnam circumstances, the author would
carry out a survey and observations to calculate the data and make the necessary
implications. In this main part, the frequency, the method that teachers used would be
focused most. It is great if the author could find out some common structures and
sentences that teachers often use. In addition, the questions in the survey would be
around the attitude of students towards feedbacks and sandwich feedbacks. Their
uptakes should be let evaluated from their general results and their self-evaluation.
1.4. Research questions
- In what way that criticisms are often given to students by Vietnamese and
American teachers?


5

- How often do the teachers use the sandwich feedback in their assessment to
?
- What may be 
- What are the suggestions for teachers in teaching English for Vietnamese
students?
1.5. Significance of study
In the trend of studying about cross culture and its expression in daily life, this
linguistic dissertation adds an unfilled part about strategy of giving smart feedback to
learners. As mentions above, in Vietnam, those there are researches of politeness
strategy have been touched several years ago but the volume wrote about feedback is
still limited and there is no study about sandwich feedback before.
Another expected contribution of these papers is the withdrawal of similarities and

differences in the use of sandwich feedback between American and Vietnamese
teachers, providing more useful knowledge for teachers. The result of these papers
could help not only the author in reacting to students but also other teachers in finding
a wise way to communicate with students in classrooms.
1.6. Scope of the study
The research is going to be carried out in 4 months, from April, 2012 to September
2012. For the limitation of time and trustful reference documents, the author has to
constringe the scope of a cross cultural research in all aspects. In this dissertation, the
differences between American and Vietnamese cultures are taken into consideration
through the comparison of English using. It is necessary to emphasize that English in
these papers is only considered the tool to express the thoughts and conventional habits
of people in different countries with different cultural backgrounds. To be more


6

detailed, the focus of the study is about the way teachers giving sandwich feedbacks to
students, not disparaging, ill speaking or other acts of communication.
During the time of researching, the author found out that there are many types of
feedback presented by the scholars: differentiated, early warning, peer grading, etc.
             
concern of these papers. It is both new and inspiring to define, category and find out
the fact about this strategy of communication.
During the time of carrying out the thesis, Vietnamese and English documents of
famous authors writing about the concerned matters would be involved as a
background sources for the author to base on. Referring to the objectives above, the
author intended to observe the teaching procedure of Vietnamese teachers in some
university and colleges in Hanoi and American teachers in ACET center with their
students. The age and gender are not the counted factors in this research.
1.7. Organization of the study

Following the usual format, the study is divided into four main chapters: Introduction,
Theoretical background, Data analysis and Conclusion respectively.
The first chapter: Introduction. It mentions the basic information about the research:
reasons to choose topic, the significance, objectives and scope of the study.
The second chapter: Theoretical background. It covers the review of literary products
for the definitions of basic concepts of the research: feedback, criticism, sandwich
feedback, politeness strategy, Vietnamese-American cross cultural researches.
The third chapter: Data collection and analysis. There is room for methodology, data
collection instruments, procedures of collecting data. The discussion of data collected
could be found in last sub part of this chapter.


7

The last chapter: Pedagogical implications and conclusion. It covers some pedagogical
implications for teachers to use the act politely and effectively, the recognition of
limitations of the research and the suggestions for further studies.
In brief, this first chapter presents the readers with an overview of the research: the
reasons for carrying out, the goals, limitation, organization and meaning of the study.
The readers would find reasonable ideas and good orientation for the following part of
data collection and data analysis.

8

CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Definition of feedback
As defined on the website of British Council, feedback is information that teachers or
other learners, give to learners on how well they are doing, helping the learner improve
specific points, or supporting to plan their learning (Internet [1]). The pre-requisite to
give feedback is to have something to assess which is achieved by giving the
participants exercises to work on, or feedback is in response to explicit questions
(Eckstein, 2004). In either case, students can see their learning progress. Feedback can
be immediate, during an activity, or delayed, at the end of an activity or part of a
learning program and can take various forms (Internet [1]). A group of authors
summary that feedback to students can come in many forms, not just in writing, and
may include oral comments, the use of audio and self- and peer-review
processes(DCQE, 2010). It may include comments made online or during face - to-
face contact time with individuals or groups of students.
For a long time in teaching history, feedback has been known as a useful connection
between teachers and students to get wrong things corrected. In these papers, the author
assumes that feedba, provides students
the orientation to their study, corrects the mistakes and helps the teachers withdraw the
necessary changes. For its importance, teachers, especially the novice ones, invest a lot
of time and consideration to turn it into an effective communication act. Providing

students with constructive feedback is recognized as being critical to their development
as learners and can also enhance their self-esteem and motivation (DCQE, 2010).
However, it is not always easy for a person to give out their opinion which aims at
correcting 


9

on the verge of being ignored or worse, turning out to be counteraction. The feedback
should be differentiated and objective (Eckstein, 2004). There is obvious effect of these
       Consequently, feedback is best
when it motivates students to overcome difficulties and vice versa, is worst when it
makes the student feel bad about him or herself (Eckstein, 2004). In short, a
communication strategy is necessary for teachers to consider, getting closer to their
learners and bringing them positive changes.
Feedback, under the view of communication, is a strategy that has been divided into
many patterns. Feedback itself is a pattern which turns out to be the large abstract root
for all the following ones, setting the context for the different categories: kind of
feedback, source of feedback, public feedback, grades as feedback and ways of
receiving feedback from students. To be more detailed, feedback has been divided into
many types: sandwich feedback, differentiated feedback, etc., among which, the first
one could be considered new and useful for all teachers with all kinds of tasks
(Eckstein, 2004). Sandwich feedback was invented, probably, as a clever method for
all teachers in particular and for all people in general.
2.2. Definition of criticism
a new term to people who have right to give feedback to
others       s thesis (2010), he limited the

which benefits his writing on literacy criticism. However, this way of defining should
be opened more with different forms, turning to be a more general one as criticism is

an evaluative or corrective exercise can occur in any area of human life (Internet [3]).
It is a judgment of a performance (Seamon, 2001) and the person who makes that



10

         
beauty or technique.
As it is may be seen, criticism is interfering in something that has faults, defects or
drawbacks and trying to bring out the correct and faultless form of it (Farahyasir,
2010). People often think of it as something unpleasant, but it need not be. In
classroom, the criticism happens frequen      
typical type of work that needs criticizing to make improvement under the help of
teachers or instructors. Doubtlessly, there are styles, types and levels of criticism that
have different effects. It is a consensus among people and discussions that there are
two types of criticisms: a constructive and a destructive one. In a humorous report of
TEMCAT (2009) after a conference, the author even assumed that with the same
criticism, the people who criticize would found it constructive and those who receive
the comment would see it destructive. To some extent, that remark sounds
psychologically logical. In fact, destructive criticism, which aims at characteristics of
personality, opposes a person in the presence of others, seriously threatens the face of
the hearer, is a bad attack rather than criticism. It turns to be an aggressive act and
probably starts the continuously increasing process of a negative conflict (Farahyasir,
2010). Students who receive such kinds of comments from a bad-tempered teachers or
jealous peers may be demotivated in their next presentation. On the other hand,
constructive criticism has a goal of improving some areas of life or work. Often does
the constructive criticism refer specifically to the critique of a written work, in perhaps
a teacher/student setting, which would allow that person to have further improvement
on the work or to improve their approach to future endeavors (Internet [6]).

Communication is loaded with multiple intentions, thus people may not know how to
actually employ a critique without , making
a critique negative. It is recommended that the criticisms can guide, support, give


11

moral support and inspiration by involving both positive and constructive statements.
With a purpose of easing the intense when criticizing students, many teachers cleverly
insert that criticism in the middle of two praise or positive comments on strong points
of students. This balanced strategy actually will effect tenderly on the one who get the
feedback, creating a pleasant environment in class. Teachers and those who concern
are now quite excited to apply this new strategy of criticism which is later called
Sandwich Feedback communication.
2.3. Definition of sandwich feedback communication (SFC)
  (SF), as its
name may hint, is a metaphor
implying the ways of giving
comments to students. A sandwich
is a food item, typically consisting
of two or more slices of bread with
one or more fillings between them
(Internet [6]).
(image
retrieved from Internet)

The meat at the middle is the core of the cake, but hardly do people want to eat it
separately and the breads are must-components, making a perfect meal. The
comparison with sandwich may give us a more clear and vivid imagination of a
communication strategy.

There are many kinds of sandwich, equal to which are several ways of giving
in the proceedings of Department for
curriculum and quality enhancement (2012), giving effective feedback, orally or in
writing, may conform to the following structure:



12

 improve and explain how they might do this by



To be more detailed, SFC is often called a three-step process for sharing criticism in a
supportive way. The first step happens when the speaker (teacher) appreciates the
person, shares a statement of recognition for some quality, ability. The reasons for this
act is when t
recognition must be sincere, or it will not have value. The second step is describing the
behavior that needs changing, stating how it is not supportive to the teacher and to the
purpose of the tasks, challenging the behavior. A key factor of this step is that the
teacher should not pass judgment on the person. The last step is a praise again or the
questions from teachers that what they can do to give ongoing support to help this
change. The identification of specific behavior, word, or phrase teacher can use will be
           
This method helps to ensure that feedback is balanced and that the student is more
like
            
points, following by stating out the points/behaviors/parts that need to be improved and
finally makes a suggestion of how to improve or negotiating with the students (Jessica


two steps of showing corrective comments on specific action and then the advices for a
better performance.
Some people may argue that this road is complicated and there is no need to praise the
students after (and even before) the criticism. However, the advocates of using
contributes great role in a good


13

and fluent communication. Teachers need to state out where the students'
understanding is faulty and correct any misunderstanding they have, but do not want to
undermine their confidence. The commenters want them to feel good about what they
have done and to feel that they can do better. If the feedback is negative with students
they may tune the teachers out and not listen or give up all together. If they are
especially sensitive they may be hurt and take the criticism personally, and worse,
especially arrogant student may take the comments as an attack and attack back.


Therefore, when giving feedback, teachers should start and end with positive feedback,
sandwiching suggestions for improvement between these reinforcing comments. Even
if there are largely negative things to say, the comments can still start with the things
that were well done and should be retained in the future.
Even in the less positive aspects of the feedback, the instructor can take a tone that they
are giving suggestions for improvement, not just condemning (Eckstein, 2004). Some

            
understand something, or something in a  
of the task. Usually in the class do the teachers ask for the opinion of other students
before giving out theirs. In this case, it is necessary to be sure that they know about this
technique and practice it. This can make the giving of feedback easier for both the

giver and the receiver.
2.4. Pragmatics and significance of SFC in communication
2.4.1. What is pragmatics?


14

Unlike in the past when language was researched separately, modern linguists views
language as a social product and put it into context to analyze the layers of meaning,
tracking to the born of pragmatics. Austin, Abrahams, Wierzbicka, to list some names,
are those who in favor of the idea that utterances could not be understood fully without
gmatics is the study of the relations between language and context that
are the basic to an account of language understanding (Levinson, 1983:0, 21).
Another way of defining pragmatics is that it is the study of how more get
communicated than said (Yule, 1996: 3). For George Yule (1996:3), pragmatics
belongs to the part of linguistics that tries to probe into those meanings over-loaded or
beyond what is literally conveyed in concrete speech events and situations. In a
nutshell, pragmatics is the study of intended meaning, i.e. meaning which is
communicated but not explicitly said. Speakers (writers) intend to mean more, and
listeners (readers) infer more than the meaning the actual words would suggest (the
invisible meaning of an utterance/sentence). How much is said or not said is tied to the
notion of distance or closeness whether physical, social or conceptual, between the
speaker (writer) and listener (reader). In other words, it is tied to their shared
experience when carrying out speech acts.
The notion of speech acts was born with those reasons, emphasizing the distinction
between using of language to get thing done with other physical acts or mental acts.
Leech (1983:99) examined and introduced the concept of locutionary act (performing
an act of saying something), illocutionary act (performing an act in saying something),
perlocutionary act (performing an act by saying something). It was Austin who first
    

And there is a certain fact that people are well aware of the fact that some, mostly
negative, information cannot or should not be expressed explicitly or directly and that
indirect strategies should be applied.


15

Indirectness nowadays plays a vital role in our communication (Justová V., 2006). To
get thing done by words wisely, people should understand clearly the circumstance, the
interlocutors and the rules under the utterances, especially when they are indirect
speeches. Indirectness is a widely applied conversational strategy, people tend to use
indirect speech acts mainly in connection with politeness (Leech, 1983: 108) since they
want to diminish the unpleasant message contained in requests and orders.
Besides, the work of H.P. Grice takes pragmatics farther than the study of speech acts.
His aim was to understand how "speaker's meaning" - what someone uses an utterance
to mean - arises from "sentence meaning" - the literal meaning of an utterance.
According to him, many aspects of "speaker's meaning" result from the assumption that
the participants in a conversation expect each other to be cooperated which later he
called Cooperative Principle. It has four sub-parts or maxims that cooperative
conversationalists assume each other to be respecting:
- maxim of quality: Speakers' contributions ought to be true.
- maxim of quantity: Speakers' contributions should be as informative as required; not
saying either too little or too much.
- maxim of relevance: Contributions should relate to the purposes of the exchange.
- maxim of manner: Contributions should be perspicuous - in particular, they should be
orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.
The main work of the Cooperative Principle is done when particular non-literal
meanings are conveyed by speakers violating in an obvious way, or "flouting" these

of relevance is broken, the hearer should imply it as an indirect request rather than a

question. The purpose of not observing the maxims was that in the specific conditions,
with different hearers, if speaker does not want to be rude, he may vary smart strategies
to get things done just with words uttered. These strategies changed greatly according
to culture, but they stick to a conc


16

2.4.2. What is Politeness?
Politeness and the notion of Face
Politeness is a key factor in maintaining the communication and avoiding breaking
down. The theory of politeness was developed from early 1970 which marked the
names of Lakoff, Brown and Levinson, Leech. According to Lakoff, politeness is 
what we think is appropriate behaviour in particular situations in an attempt to achieve
and maintain successful social relationships with others (Lakoff 1972: 910). Besides,
politeness is the ability to please others through one's external actions (Watts
(2003:39). There is a common point between these famous theories: all of them
conceive of politeness as strategic conflict avoidance. To simply put it, Yule (1996)
considered polite          

is the public sefl image of a person 
             
communication, according to Brown and Levinson, words can carry out action. It can
save the face of the interlocutors or damage it, which means people can protect or
These acts are called Face Saving acts and Face Threatening Acts
(FTAs). In short, Po
threats (Brown P. & Levinson, S. C., 1978). This acts are done by a series of politeness
strategies.
2.4.3. Politeness strategies (PSs)
As some previous researches had pointed out, Brown and Levinson outlined four main

types of PSs: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness and off-record or
indirect strategy.
The bald on-record strategy 
want to open the door, ie). The positive politeness strategy notices the speaker that the


17

hearer has a face to be respected and it also confirms that the relationship is friendly
and expresses group reciprocity (For example: Is it ok for me to open the door?). The
negative politeness strategy recognizes the hearer's face but it admits that the speaker is
in some way imposing on the listeners like in the sentence: I don't want to interrupt
you but, would it be possible for me to open the door. Off-record indirect strategy
takes some pressure off when the speaker wants to avoid responsibility for doing so.
In brief, positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee
(but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party) and negative
politeness is found in the various ways of mitigating an imposition (Leech). In the
limitation of this research, the author just wanted to focus on these two strategies as
they are used most often in daily life. In Brown and Levinson (1978), there are 15
positive strategies and 25 negative ones being listed. The following examples are taken
to present each strategy:
Positive strategies:
- St. 1: Noticing, attending to Hearer (H)
You must be in hurry. Why don’t you turn to next page for a sooner finish?
- St. 2: Exaggeration
I immediately impress with your beautiful slides
- St. 3: Intensifying interest to H
You have already finished the exercises, don’t you?
- St. 4: Using in-group identity makers
My dear students, how about writing a short paragraph together? I think our

group work could be much better
- St. 5: Seeking agreement
Sure, the weather is very terrible today. So why don’t we stop a long
presentation to change into writing part.


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- St.6: Avoiding disagreement
Well, I think your impromptu speaking is good to some extent.
- St.7: Presupposition/ raise/ assert common ground
As you may know, this part requires a great attention to be fully grasped
- St. 8: Joking
You put a stress on me when I have to give the mark for such an excellent
presentation
- St. 9: 
I am afraid that it may make you unpleasant listening following comments.
- St. 10: Offering and promising
You should not take the mistakes so serious, I’m sure you can improve it easily
- St. 11: Being optimistic
I guess that you don’t mind if I give some comments on your presentation
- St. 12: Including both S and H in the activity
Shall we start right now?
- St. 13: Giving (or ask) reasons
Why don’t you change this part into a comic? I think it would be interesting.
- St. 14: Assuming or asserting reciprocity
I will agree to let you change this part if you find out the mistakes in the
previous part.
- St. 15: Giving gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)
Please don’t mind to have a piece of cake. You are welcome and could you

please tell me more specific about the topic you want to present today?
Negative strategies:
- St. 1: Being conventionally indirect
If you have any disagreement on my comments for your presentation?
- St.2: Questioning, hedge


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More or less, you have to fulfill that assignment before I come back
- St.3: Being pessimistic
I don’t suppose you can help me to move this table.
- St. 4: Minimizing the imposition
The only thing I do is to change a little in the content of your writing.
- St. 5: Giving deference
Excuse me Madam, could I open the door?
- St. 6: Apologizing
I am sorry to bother you but I think you should change the intonation when you
read that paragraph
- St. 7: Impersonalizing S and H
The listening results could be better with the attention on the very beginning
- St. 8: Stating the FTA as a general rule
The over-lengthy of impromptu talk is restricted.
- St.9: Nominalization
It is my honesty to give you the awards for your distinctive result
- St 10: Going on record and incurring a debt, or as not indebting H
I would be grateful if you could help me to clarify this problem
Social factors affecting politeness
Three most important factors that affect the use of politeness strategies are: Relative
power (P), Social distance (D), Ranking of imposition (R). Relative power refers to the

power between the interlocutors. There are three types of power: equal power (between
friends/colleagues. i.e), more power (the boss to the employees) and less power (the
students to the teacher). Social distance is relationship between interlocutors, the closer
people are, the lower degree of social distance is. Ranking of imposition concerns with
the difficulty of the situation: the more difficult the situation is, the higher ranking of
imposition is put.


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These three factors have a close relationship: When the distance increases, the power
increases and the ranking of imposition decreases and vice versa. The conventional
division of relative power, social distance and ranking of imposition are culture-based
and many researchers agree that there are great distinctions in these concepts between
Asian and Western cultures.
2.4.4. Relation of sandwich feedback and politeness
Communication is a special, meaningful process which takes count most in
information-achieving procedure of human. It is a circle and continuous process where
interlocutors exchange their ideas to create a fluent flow. Feedback sustains and
completes that process; it is the end-result of an idea and makes communication
continuous. The originator first gets the idea to be passed across and then thinks of how
to get it done via appropriate channels or medium. After the coding and dissemination,
one expects the decoder to give response. In the case of this research, the responses
here are the feedbacks from the teachers to students after they finish the tasks or
performance. It could happen in written forms of a writing essay or the notification of
           
perform better. As a result, feedback appears to be a must, not only for the continuity
of class room activity but also for improvement of students. Besides, the responses
from teachers let students know whether their performance and behavior makes sense
or not. Saying in another way, it is a basis for measuring the effectiveness of

communication. Those reasons emphasize the importance of using feedback smartly,
praising the students and creating the relaxing environment in class.
Those are indispensable roles of SFC in teaching and learning procedure. All of reader
will agree that giving criticism is an act of threatening the face. Normally, people
would feel shy when their weaknesses are shown out before many people (in this case:
the class room circumstance). Encouraging the learners saves their face when being


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criticized. With the knowledge of politeness strategies and indirectness, teacher could
break the maxims and lead the comments to the direction they want, benefiting their
learners.
Getting closer to some typical SFC, with the formed presented in previous part, the
author assumed that SFC is a clever combination between face saving act (with the use
of hedging, praising) and the criticisms. The negative politeness strategies are used
appropriately to show that the teacher did not want to inte  

negative strategies for the wide gap between people while in Oriental cultures, the
intimacy between interlocutors inspires them to use positive strategies to get closer to
each other.
2.5. Vietnamese and American cross-cultural SFC
It is the modesty and humility as well as harmonious relations with others that is
appreciated among Vietnamese people (Internet [7]). Seeking to avoid conflict in
relationships, they often prefer to speak about sensitive subjects indirectly. The desire
to achieve harmony between the self and the non-self remains an essential
preoccupation of the Vietnamese in interpersonal relations outside the family group.
The connections between members of wide social groups are expanded by the basic
principles underlying family relationships (Te, 2012). For example, Vietnamese uses
more than a score of kinship terms as personal pronouns, the choice of the appropriate

word depends on the relative age, social status, gender, degree of acquaintance, respect,
and affection between speakers and hearers who are not related to each other by blood
or marriage.
Vietnamese culture seriously concerns with status (obtained with age and education).
This is particularly evident in the attitude towards older people. Respect and
consideration for old age no doubt derive from the obligation of filial piety that


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requires young people to respect and love their parents and parent-like members of the
family. Teachers, even though they are young, enjoy great respect and prestige in
Vietnamese society. Here does the student-teacher relationship retain much of the
quality of a son's respect for his father's wisdom and of father's concern for his son's
welfare. The respect that students show to the teachers is also evident in linguistic
behavior. For example, the terms of address that students use in speaking to their
teachers are the same as those they use in speaking to their parents.
Displays of respect
The respect is the corner-stone of interpersonal relationships in Vietnamese society
the quote in many materials writing about Vietnamese culture (Internet [8]). Normally,
respect is conveyed by the use of special terms of address and certain stylistic devices.
Yet, it is also expressed by nonverbal behavior. On the contrary, in America, people
put emphasis on friendliness in interpersonal relationships. For example, a Vietnamese
student who sits quietly and listens attentively to the teacher wants to express respect to
his teacher. This behavior has often been misinterpreted by the American teacher as
passivity and non-responsiveness.
It is also out of respect that Vietnamese students avoid eye contact with teachers when
speaking. By American standards, a person acting in this way would appear suspicious,
unreliable, or mischievous (Internet [7]). In Vietnamese culture, however, looking into
somebody's eyes usually means a challenge or an expression of deep passion.

Moreover, teachers never say thanks to their students for a small service, such as
closing the window or passing the books around. The person who gives a compliment
never expects a "thank you" in return. In Vietnamese culture, a verbal expression of
thanks in this case refers to a lack of modesty from the person who receives the
compliment. If a verbal response is necessary, he or she would deny the compliment by
saying that he or she does not deserve it.