a cross-cultural study on differences in expressing annoyance between english and vietnamese = nghiên cứu giao thoa văn hóa về sự khác biệt trong cách thức biểu hiện sự bực bội giữa người anh và người việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ MINH THƯƠNG



A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON DIFFERENCES IN EXPRESSING
ANNOYANCE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VỀ SỰ KHÁC BIỆT TRONG CÁCH THỨC
BIỂU HIỆN SỰ BỰC BỘI GIỮA NGƯỜI ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT)


PROGRAM I
M.A. MINOR THESIS




Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh, M.A.



Hanoi, 2009

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Certification of originality of project report
Acknowledgments
Abstract
Table of contents
List of abbreviations
List of tables and figures
Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale
2. Aims of the study
3. Scope of the study
4. Methodology
5. Comments on the data collection
The questionnaire
The informants
6. Design of the study

Part B: Development
Chapter I: Literature review
I.1. Speech Acts
I.1.1. Notions of “Speech Acts”
I.1.2. Types of Speech Acts
I.1.3. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
I.1.4. Expressing annoyance as a speech act
I.2. Politeness
I.2.1. Notions of Politeness:
I.2.2. Politeness Strategies
I.2.3. Expressing annoyance as a face-threatening act
Chapter II: Communicative strategies used to express annoyance in English and

Vietnamese
II.1. Realization of the strategies


v
II.2. Data analysis
II.2.1. Use of strategies as seen from informants’ parameters
II.2.2. Use of strategies in terms of communicative partners
II.3. Major cross-cultural similarities and differences between the English and the
Vietnamese informants
II.3.1. Similarities and differences as seen from informants’ parameters
II.3.2. Similarities and differences in terms of communicative partners

Part C: Remarks and Recommendations
1. Review of the findings
2. Recommendations
3. Recommendations for further studies

Bibliography
Appendix


1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE
Cross-cultural Communication describes the ability to successfully form, foster, and
improve relationships with members of a culture different from one‟s own. It is based on
knowledge of many factors, such as the other culture‟s values, perceptions, manners, social
structure, and decision-making practices, and an understanding of how members of the
group communicate- both verbally and non-verbally, in person, in writing or in any other

kind of communication.
Miscommunication is today‟s greatest workplace hazard. And with the world becoming
smaller and more diverse, miscommunication seems to be happening more and more.
People from different cultures encode and decode messages differently, increasing the
chances of misunderstanding. In other words, when miscommunication happens, it means
that the speaker fails to achieve his utterance purposes. Miscommunication even
sometimes leaves the hearer a negative impression on the speaker as he/she misunderstands
what the speaker wants to convey or express.
With its importance, Cross-cultural Communication has been the topic of a large number
of Masters dissertations within Vietnam National University. A number of aspects of
Cross-cultural Communication has been tried to reveal such as greetings, requesting,
prohibiting, thanking and so on. However, another kind of emotion that is not easy to
express, but can‟t helping expressing in some situations is the expression of annoyance. It
is not like the expression of thanking or any other positive emotion that are encouraged to
express, annoyance is a negative expression that requires the addresser have to second-
think about how to express his/her feeling without deteriorating the relationship with
others.
With such above-mentioned reasons, the author would like to spend time and effort to
carry out a research on the same topic but focuses on other aspects in order to provide a
more comprehensive picture of the speech act of expressing annoyance.
The subject receives much attention of my colleagues, including both English and
Vietnamese as all of them are trying to further understand about others‟ culture to seek for
a harmonization. Due to the limited time, only verbal expressions are considered.

2
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The research is intended to investigate major similarities and differences in expressing
annoyance in English and Vietnamese, particularly the communicative strategies used to
express the negative emotion. It aims to provide a better insight into cross-cultural
similarities and differences between the two languages and cultures, thus helping to avoid

any communication breakdown.
To achieve this overall purpose, the study aims to:
 Provide a general picture of the theory of speech acts and politeness.
 Find out major similarities and differences in expressing annoyance in English and
Vietnamese
 Compare and contrast the communicative strategies used by Vietnamese and
English when they want to show their annoyance in verbal communication.
 Contribute to raise cross-cultural awareness among foreign language users.
To achieve the objectives, following two questions are raised to be addressed:
(1) What are different strategies of expressing annoyance verbally in English and in
Vietnamese?
(2) What are similarities and differences in the choice of strategies in verbal
expressions of annoyance in English and Vietnamese culture?
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study is limited to the data obtained from the survey questionnaire on ways of
expressing annoyance in English and Vietnamese. The answers from informants in the
survey questionnaire and direct interviews are used as linguistic inputs. Due to the limited
time and the scope of a Minor Thesis, only 50 English (out of 65) and 50 Vietnamese (out
of 80) informants were chosen for data analysis.
The study is also restrained to verbal aspects of the act of expressing annoyance only. No
matter how important non-verbal aspects such as paralanguage and extra-language are,
they are excluded within the study.
Only Vietnamese Northern dialect and English native speakers are chosen for contrastive
analysis. By English native speakers, the author means those who speak English as their
mother-tongue.

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The study just focuses on social relationship and ignores the kinship between the
informants (Speakers) and the communicative partners (Hearers) as it is pre-supposed that
in family relationship, annoyance is seemed to be expressed more directly and frequently.

The informants were asked to express their annoyance to a certain person only, not a thing
or object.
IV. METHODOLOGY
The survey is carried out with the following tools:
(i) Relevant publications
(ii) Survey questionnaire
(iii) Statistics, description and analysis of the collected data
(iv) Consultation with supervisor
(v) Interview friends and colleagues
(vi) Personal observation
V. COMMENTS ON THE DATA
The survey questionnaire is designed to collect information for data analysis in the form of
hand-outs and direct interviews. The questionnaire includes 2 main parts:
Part 1 was for getting general information on the informants, including nationality, age,
gender, occupation and acquisition of foreign languages.
Part 2 can be considered as the main part of the questionnaire which was designed for
eliciting the uses of linguistic elements and communicative strategies in expressing
annoyance in the three following situations:
Situation 1: How would you say to express your annoyance if someone comes to your
house and rings the doorbell continuously?
Situation 2: How would you say to express your annoyance if someone installs computer
software into your computer without your permission?
Situation 3: How would you say to express your annoyance if someone continuously
sounds his/her horn behind you when the traffic light is red?
The informants were asked to express their annoyance verbally with the following
communicative partners: close friend, acquaintance, colleague, boss and stranger
However, there are some important dimensions that the questionnaire does not cover such
as paralinguistic factors, body-language factors, communicative environment factors and

4

mood factors. A sample of the questionnaire in both English and Vietnamese is attached in
the Appendix of the thesis.
VI. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The study consists of 3 main parts:
PART I: Introduction. Rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology and
data collection are all provided in the part.
PART II: Development. The main part consists of 3 chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature review
Chapter 2: Communicative strategies used to express annoyance in English and
Vietnamese
PART III: Conclusion. In the part, the author aims to review the research findings and
suggests some recommendations for Vietnamese users of English as well as for further
studies.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
I.1. Speech Acts
Speech Act Theory and a new revolution in linguistics are opening unexplored ground in
how we understand human language. Speech Act Theory has its foundation in a series of
lectures by John L. Austin at the Williams James lecture series given at Harvard in 1955,
which later was gathered in a book, How to Do Things Words. In his understanding
language is not just a passive practice of describing a given reality, but a particular practice
to invent and affect those realities. The speech act theory of Austin is then further
developed by a number of other talent philosophers such as John R.Searle, William
P.Alston, François Récanati, Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish.
I.1.1. Notions of Speech Acts
With the most influential book, Austin presented a new picture of analyzing meaning;
meaning is described in a relation among linguistic conventions correlated with
words/sentences, the situation where the speaker actually says something to the hearer, and

associated intentions of the speaker. His central question was what speakers do with
language. The idea that meaning exists among these relations is described successfully by
the concept of acts: in uttering a sentence, that is, in utilizing linguistic conventions, the
speaker with an associated intention performs a linguistic act to the hearer.
The Speech Act Theory went on to look at the way language speakers shape its function
and look at the different uses of language. Austin‟s famous example of saying, “I do” in
the right setting changes our status from unmarried to married. “Do you take this woman to
be your wedded wife?”. “I do”. In other circumstances, we can say “I do” and nothing
much changes in world. “Do you like Chocolate?” “I do.” In both cases, the words mean
the same thing, but the action of the speaker is different. One declares an ontological
change from a bachelor to a husband. The second expresses a preference for chocolate.
According to Austin, , constatives are utterances in which something is said and they can
be evaluated along a dimension of truth while performatives are utterances in which
something is done which cannot be evaluated along a dimension of truth but felicity.
Austin claimed that speakers might convey three levels of meaning by utterance. “We first
distinguished a group of things we do in saying something, which together we summed up
by saying we perform a locutionary act, which is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain

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sentence with a certain sense and reference, which again is roughly equivalent to
“meaning” in the traditional sense. Secondly, we said that we also perform illocutionary
acts such as informing, ordering, warning, undertaking etc,. ie. utterances which have a
certain (conventional) force. Thirdly, we may also perform perlocutionary acts: what we
bring about or achieve by saying something, such as convincing, persuading, deterring
and even, say, surprising or misleading”. (J.L.Austin, How to Do Things with Words, p
109).
It is beyond doubt that the second great contribution to the development of speech act
theory belongs to the American philosopher J.R. Searle. According to Searle (1960 &
1970), speech acts can be grouped in a small number of basic types based on the speaker‟s
intention. The approach will be discussed in details later.

I.1.2. Types of speech acts
Austin classifies illocutionary acts into five types, i.e., verdictives, exercitives,
commissives, behabitives, and expositives.
Verdictives: excercising judgment
Exercitives: exerting influence, exercising power
Commissives: assuming obligation, declaring intention
Behabitives: adopting attitude, expressing feeling
Expositives: clarifying reasons, argument, or communication
Searle (1979: 12) was the second most influential person who took Austin‟s words in
caution and revised his work. For Searle, the basis for categorizing speech acts is the
illocutionary point or the purpose of the act from the speaker‟s perspectives, including:
Representatives: Illocutionary acts that undertake to represent a state of affaires.
Expressives: Illocutionary acts that express only the speaker‟s psychological attitude
towards some state of affairs.
Directives: Illocutionary acts that S uses to get H to do something or carry out some
actions.
Commissives: Illocutionary acts that commit S to doing something.
Declaratives: Illocutionary acts that bring about the state of affairs/the changes in the
world via their utterance they refer to.
Though there are many other classifications proposed by other linguistics such as Yule
(1996:55), the classifications of Austin and Searle are the most influential and noteworthy.

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It can be said that Austin‟s theory has laid basic and firm foundation for Searle to present
the clearest and most useful working classification of speech acts.
I.1.3. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
In discussion of speech acts, it is common to make a distinction between direct and indirect
speech acts.
Whenever there is a direct relationship between the structure and the function of an
utterance, we have a direct speech act. Let‟s consider the example:

+ “You make me annoyed”.
It can be understood in a structural direct way that the S tries to show his/her annoyance to
the action of the H.
Whenever there is an indirect relationship between the structure and the function of an
utterance, we have an indirect speech act. Or in other words, it can be said that indirect
speech acts means that what the speaker says does not mean what he/she implies or wants
the hearer to do. In Brown & Levinson‟s belief (1987:134), “Indirectness is any
communicative behavior, verbal or nonverbal that conveys something more than or
different from what it literally means”. For example, in the situation where the traffic light
is red, but a person continuously sounds the horn behind you, so you say:
+ “Có mắt không đấy?”
It can be easily understood that this is not a question by the S to know whether the H have
eyes or not. But he/she hints to notice the H that the traffic light is still red and requests the
person to stop making such a noise.
In direct speech acts, the S says what he/she wants/means, while in indirect speech acts, the
S means more than what he/she says (Searle, 1980:viii), i.e the speaker performs one
illocutionary act implicitly by the way of performing another illocutionary act explicitly. In
English, indirect speech acts tend to be generally associated with greater politeness than
direct speech acts.
I.1.4 Expressing annoyance as a speech act
According to the “Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary Encyclopedic Edition 1992,
expressing annoyance is “an act of expressing slight feeling of displeasure and hostility”.
(cited from Tien Phung, 2006 : 11).
From the notions of speech act theory which has been described in the I.1.1, it can be
asserted that expressing annoyance is an illocutionary act. It not only denotes the speaker‟s

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psychological state or feelings but also attempts to get the hearer to do something and
express what the speaker wants.
Expressing annoyance may be direct or indirect speech act. Let‟s consider the following

examples:
+, “Bấm ít thôi. Đang đèn đỏ mà.”
For example, in expressing annoyance to your acquaintance who is sounding the horn
continuously behind you when the traffic light is red, you may produce such an utterance:
+, “Mày giỏi thì đi trước đi.”
Actually, this is not a request to ask the person to drive, but rather it requests the person to
stop sounding his/her horn and wait for the green light. Therefore, this is considered an
indirect speech act of expressing annoyance.
The speech act of expressing annoyance is a reaction to a past or on-going action, the
consequences of which are perceived by the speaker as affecting him/her unfavorably.
The functions of expressing annoyance can be listed as: (1) to express displeasure,
disapproval, blame, censure, threats or reprimand as a reaction to a perceived
offense/violation of social rules; (2) to hold the hearer accountable for the offensive action
and possibly suggest/request a repair (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993, cited from Tien Phung,
2006:12).
The act of expressing annoyance is also cross-culturally different according to different
beliefs, customs, values and attitudes, ect.
Annoyance is a common emotional phenomenon in social interaction. However, the
expression of the emotion is very delicate and easy to make other lose face and impinge on
the relationship between S and H. Therefore, the study is aimed to provide a general and
brief picture of innate emotion and suggest several strategies which can be used to
minimize the negative consequences of the speech act.
Expressing annoyance is also a Face-Threatening Act as it is the act of expressing a
negative emotion by the Speaker to the Hearer in response to an action/utterance by the
Hearer that make the Speaker feel unpleasant. As a result, this may make the Hearer feel
unpleasant too and lose his/her face. This may impact on the relationship between the two
persons.

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I.2 Politeness

I.2.1. Faces
In social communication, politeness is a matter of importance which is always highly
appreciated and preferred. With its importance, politeness has been of concern by a large
number of linguists, particularly Lakoff (1973, 1975), Brown & Levinson (1978, 1987) and
Leech (1983).
Central to the theory of politeness provided by Brown & Levinson (1987) is the abstract
notion of “face” which refers to “the public self-image that every member of a society
wants to claim for himself” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p61). Thus, “face is something that
is emotionally invested, and that can be lost, maintained or enhanced and must be
constantly attended to in interaction” (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p61). According to them,
there are two types of faces:
Negative face: the want of every “competent adult member” that his action be
unimpeded by others. In other words, this is the desire for freedom of action and freedom
from imposition by others.
Positive face: the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some
others. Or in other words, this is the need to be accepted, appreciated and approved of in
social interaction.
Negative face and positive face can be simply defined as “the need to be independent” and
as “the need to be connected” respectively (G. Yule, 1996:62). Face is something that
should be acknowledged and aware of in social relationships.
From the notions of “face”, Brown & Levinson claims the type of Face-Threatening Acts.
Face Threatening Acts (FTA) are those that threaten not only others‟ face but also one‟s
own. As Yule (1996:61) claims: “If a speaker says something that represents a threat to
another individuals’ expectations regarding self-image, it is described as a face-
threatening act.” Expressing annoyance, are FTAs since they reveal one‟s negative
emotion towards an action or utterance by the other.
I.2.2. Politeness strategies
In the context of the mutual vulnerability of face, any rational agent will seek to avoid
these face-threatening acts, or will employ certain strategies to minimize the threat.
Regarding the politeness theory of Brown & Levinson, Fasold (1990:160) believes

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“Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of Brown &
Levinson.” They (1987:60) presented five strategies a person can deal with a “face-
threatening act”. These five strategies are numbered, indicating that the greater the risk, the
more appropriate the higher-numbered ways of dealing with it are:

1. without redressive action, baldly
On record 2. positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action .
3. negative politeness
4. off record
5. Don‟t do the FTA

Figure 1: Possible responses to face-threatening acts
I.2.2.1 Bald-on-record
The prime reason for bald-on-record usage may be simply because the S wants to do the
FTA with maximum efficiency more than he/she wants to satisfy the H‟s face. The bald-
on-record strategy can be used in the case, the S is in a great urgency or desperation, so
he/she doestn‟t care about the face of the H and no face redress is necessary. For example;
+ Help me! (the S is being threatened by a robber).
+ Đưa tay đây. (the H is going to fall from the mountain to the sea and the S is
trying to pull him up).
In short, the bald-on-record strategy can be used when the face threat is not minimized or
face is ignored and when the S minimizes the face threats by implication.
I.2.2.2. Positive politeness
Brown & Levinson (1996) suggested 15 sub-strategies which will be considered briefly in
the following section.
(1) Notice, attend to H (interest, want, needs, goods)

In general, this strategy suggests that S should take notice of aspects of H‟s conditions
(noticeable changes, remarkable possessions, anything which looks as though H would
want S to notice and approve of it).
+ Cái váy mới của chị đẹp quá cơ.

11
+ Goodness, you have your hair cut.
(2). Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)
This is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodics, as
well as with intensifying modifiers, as in the English.
+ Vai diễn anh đóng thật là thành công.
+ How excellent your English is.
(3). Intensify interest to H
+ Có đến hàng nghìn người tại Bờ Hồ tối hôm 10-10.
+ I’ve never seen such a beautiful girl.
The exaggeration in these cases may redress an FTA simply by stressing the sincerity of
the S‟s good intentions, but there are also seems to be an element of attempting to increase
the interest of the conversational contributions by expressing them dramatically.
(4). Use in-group identity markers
By using this strategy, the S can implicitly claim the common ground with the H that is
carried by that definition of the group. This includes in-group usages of address forms, of
language or dialect, of jargons or slang, and of ellipsis.
(5). Seek agreement
(5.1). Safe topics
The raising of safe topics allows the S to stress his agreement with the H and therefore to
satisfy H‟s desire to be “right”, or to be corroborated in his opinions.
+, The weather today is good, isn’t it?
+, “Ồ, cái áo này hợp với chị quá!”
(5.2). Repetition
Repeating is used to stress emotional agreement with the utterances (or to stress interest

and surprise”. For example:
+, A: John has received the scholarship of Cambridge university !
B: Cambridge university !
+ , A: Chị Lan bị nhiễm H1H1 rồi.
B. Chị Lan á?

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(6). Avoid disagreement
(6.1). Token agreement
The desire to agree or appear to agree with H leads also to mechanisms for pretending to
agree, instances of “token” agreement.
+, A: Do you think this shirt fits me?
B: Maybe.
+, A: Anh thấy bộ phim này có hay không?
B: Cũng được.
(6.2). White lies
+ A: “Cậu thấy cái áo này của mình thế nào?”
B: “Ừ, mình thấy nó cũng hợp với cậu đấy”.
(6.3). Hedging opinions
+, I really sort of think…
+, It’s really beautiful, in a way.
+, You really should sort of try harder.
Using the hedge, the S may want to avoid a precise communication of his attitude.
(7). Presuppose/raise/assert common ground
Using the strategy, firstly the S often spends time and effort on talking for a while about
unrelated topics. The S can thereby stress his general interest in the H, and indicate that he
hasn‟t come to see the H simply to do the FTA (e.g. a request), even though his intent to do
it may made obvious by his having brought a gift.
(8). Jokes
Joking is a basic positive-politeness technique, for putting H “at ease”. Furthermore, a joke

may be used to minimize an FTA of requesting, as in:
+ Đợi em chút. Em phải “ xử lý” hết chỗ bánh này đã.
(9). Assert or presuppose S’s knowledge of and concern for H’s wants
One way of indicating that S and H are cooperators, and thus potentially to put pressure on
the H to cooperate with the S, is to assert or imply knowledge of the H‟s wants and
willingness to fit one‟s own wants in with them.
+ I know you like an Apple, but it is too expensive, so I bought you an Acer. It is
cheaper but no less modern.

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+ Tôi biết là anh vội, nhưng lần sau anh đừng bấm còi/chuông nhiều như thế được
không?
(10). Offer/promise
Offers and promises are the natural outcome of choosing this strategy; even if they are
false they may demonstrate the S‟ good intentions in satisfying the H‟s positive-face wants.
+, Cảm ơn anh đã có lời mời. Tuần tới em sẽ đến nhà anh chơi.
+, I will come and see you when I am in London.
(11). Be optimistic
The S assumes that the H wants S‟s wants for S (or for both the S and the H) and will help
him/her to obtain them. That is, for the S to be so presumptuous to assume the H will
cooperate with him/her to carry a tacit commitment for the S, or at least a tacit claim that
the H will cooperate with the S because it will be in their mutual shared interest.
+, Tôi nghĩ anh sẽ không phiền nếu tôi yêu cầu anh gỡ chương trình này ra khỏi
máy của tôi chứ.
+, I’m sure you won’t mind if I ask you to close the windows.
(12). Include both the S and the H in the activity.
By using an inclusive “we” form, when the S really means “you” and “me”, he/she can call
upon the cooperative assumptions and thereby redress FTAs.
+, Tôi và anh cùng chờ đèn đỏ mà.
+, Let’s go to the supermarket.

(13). Give (or ask for) reasons
Asking for or giving reasons is a way of implying “I can help you” or “you can help me”,
and, assuming cooperation, a way of showing what help is needed.
+, Tại sao anh không chờ đến khi đèn xanh?
+, What was the reason for your action?
(14). Assume or assert reciprocity
The existence of cooperation between S and H may also be claimed or urged by giving
evidence of reciprocal rights or obligations obtaining between S and H. Thus S may say, in
effect, “I’ll do X for you if you do Y for me” or “I did X for you last week, so you do Y for
me this week” (or vice versa).



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(15) Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)
Finally S may satisfy H‟s positive-face want (that S want H‟s wants, to some degree) by
actually satisfying some of H‟s wants.
I.2.2.3. Negative politeness
(1). Be conventionally indirect
By using the strategy, S will use phrases or sentences that have contextually unambiguous
meanings to convey what he means indirectly. The strategy is based on the indirect speech
act.
+, Can you please pass the pencil?
(2). Question, hedge
There are several kinds of hedges, such as Hedges on illocutionary force, Hedges on
illocutionary force, Adverbial-clause hedges, Prosodic and kinesic hedges. For example:
+ Em nghĩ rằng chương trình này không phù hợp với máy tính của em sếp ạ.
+ To the best of my recollection, the house was built in the 1980s.
The hedges may suggest that the speaker is not taking full responsibility for the truth of
his/her utterance.

Another examples are:
+ Close the door, if you want.
+ Nếu anh bận thì mai tôi gọi lại cho anh cũng được.
(3). Be pessimistic
This strategy gives redress to H‟s negative face by explicitly expressing doubt that the
conditions for the appropriateness of S‟s speech act obtain. The use of the subjunctive in
English seems also to be related to the satisfaction of this want:
+ Would you mind helping me with this?
(4). Minimize the imposition
I just want to ask you if I can borrow a tiny bit of paper.
Here, just conveys both its literal meaning of “exactly‟, “only”, which narrowly delimits
the extent of the FTA, and its conventional implicature “merely”.
(5). Give deference
There are two sides of the coin in the realization of deference: one in which the S humbles
and abases himself, and another where the S raises the H (pays him positive face of a

15
particular kind, namely that which satisfies the H‟s want to be treated as superior). In both
cases, what is conveyed is that the H is of higher social status than the S.
+, It’s not much, I am afraid, but I hope you like it.
(6). Apologize
Bald-on-record admission of an impingement: The S can simply admit that he/she is
impinging on the H‟s face. For example:
+ Em biết là anh rất bận, nhưng anh có thể giúp em điền vào phiếu điều tra này
được không ạ?
+ I hope this isn’t going to bother you too much…
Indicate reluctance: The S can attempt to show that he is reluctant to impinge on the H
with the use of hedges or by means of expressions such as the following:
+ Em không muốn làm phiền anh, nhưng anh giúp em kiểm tra lại văn bản này
được không ạ?

+, I don’t want to bother/interrupt you, but could you please help me checking this
document?
Give overwhelming reasons: The S can claim that he/she has compelling reasons for
doing the FTA, thereby implying that normally he wouldn‟t dream of infringing the H‟s
negative face:
+, Em nghĩ vấn đề này ngoài anh ra không ai có thể giải quyết được.
+, I can think of nobody else who could deal with the issue.
Beg forgiveness: The S may beg the H‟s forgiveness, or at least ask for “acquittal”- that is,
the H should cancel the debt implicit in the FTA:
+, Xin lỗi vì đã làm phiền, nhưng anh có thể vui lòng cho em mượn cái điện thoại
của anh một chút được không ạ?
+, I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind lending me your cellphone?
(7) Impersonalize S and H: One way of indicating that the S doesn‟t want to impinge on
the H is to phrase the FTA as if the agent were other than the S, or at least possibly not the
S or not S alone, and the addressee were other than H, or only inclusive of H. This results
in a variety of ways of avoiding the pronouns “I” and “you”. For example:
+, (I ask you to) finish the exercise tonight.
+, It appears (to me) that we cannot complete the plan within the month.

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(8). State the FTA as a general rule
+, Passengers (in stead of “you”) will please refrain from flushing toilets on the
train.
(9). Normalize
+, I am surprised that you failed to reply.
(10). Go on record as incurring a debt or as not indebting the H.
+, I’d be eternally grateful if you would….
+, I’ll never be able to repay you if you…
Depending on the social distance, the power relationship and the intention of the S, he/she
may choose negative or positive politeness strategies. Positive politeness is approach-

based, it “anoints” the face of the addressee by indicating that in some respects, S wants
H‟wants (e.g. by treating him as a member of an in-group, a friend, a person whose wants
and personality traits are known and liked).


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CHAPTER II: COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES USED TO EXPRESS
ANNOYANCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
As stated at the beginning of the study, the communicative strategies used in expressing
annoyance verbally in English and Vietnamese is the focus of the thesis. In this section,
basing on the data collected from the survey questionnaires we would like to provide a
descriptive account of the strategies that the Vietnamese and English informants employ to
express their annoyance towards someone and bring out the similarities and differences.
Almost all the strategies we have realized coincide with the politeness strategies for doing
FTAs given by Brown and Levinson.
II.1. Realization of the strategies
The strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants to express their annoyance in
the given situations are summarized in the table below:
No.
Strategies
Vietnamese
(%)
English
(%)
1
Bald-on record
13.0
20.0
2
Hedging

11.0
38.0
3
Avoid giving opinion
8.0
6.0
4
Joking
6.0
4.0
5
Telling a white-lie
6.0
12.0
6
Give (or) ask for reasons
32.0
12.0
7
Using requesting utterance
24.0
4.0
8
Reciprocity
0.0
4.0
Table 1: Summary of politeness strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants
1. Bald-on-record
The strategy is employed in the situations where the S doesn‟t want to care about the face
of the H or where the S finds the interest of the H more important than keeping the face of

the H. When responding to the situations given by the author, both the English and the
Vietnamese people employ the strategy to convey his/her annoyance. Let‟s look at the
following examples:
+ Đừng bấm còi nữa anh ơi. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Biết rồi, khỏi bấm nữa. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Don’t do this again. (responding to the situation 1)
+ Stop making that noise. Can’t you see the light is red? (responding to the situation 3)
+ Go ahead and overtake- if you can. (responding to the situation 3).
+ Remove it right now. (responding to the situation 2)

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In the above examples, the S directly expresses his/her annoyance to the action of the H
and requests the H to stop or not repeat such an action again. However, in some other
cases, where the S is very annoyed with the action of the H, he/she may choose negative
words to show his annoyance and even frustration. Here are some examples:
+ Đừng bấm còi nữa, bực mình ghê. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Bất lịch sự. (responding to the situation 3).
+ That is very rude that you did that. (responding to the situation 1)
+ Stop being so childish. (responding to the situation 3)
+ You had not business doing that. (responding to the situation 2).
+ Don’t ever do that again you shmuck! (responding to the situation 1)
+ Back off! (responding to the situation 3)
+ Get a life! (responding to the situation 3
It can be seen from these examples that the strategy is often used by the S when he/she is
very annoyed with the action of the H and therefore, he/she doesn‟t care about keeping
face for the H. Normally, in the cases, the relationship between the S and the H is not close
enough for the S to soften his annoyance.
2. Hedging opinion
In contrast with the bald-on-record strategy, hedging opinion is often used whenever the S
doesn‟t want to soften the FTA to the H. This strategy can be illustrated through the

following examples:
+ Em chào sếp ạ. Em đang thắc mắc có chuyện gì mà sếp cần gặp em gấp vậy ạ?
+ Hình như còi của anh bị kẹt à?
+ Em cứ tưởng là cháy nhà cơ.
+ Sếp ơi, hình như máy của em không tương thích với phần mềm này sếp ạ.
+ I’m wondering whether the software is contained with virus or not.
+ Would you please keep quite, if you don’t mind.
+ I really sort of think that the software is not useful to my work.
+ Perhaps, you don’t need to do that.
+ My goodness. You scared me. I thought something was wrong because you had rang the
doorbell so many times.
+ The software seems useful but I have already installed another similar one.

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+ I’m sorry, but would you mind if I remove the program to free up some space on my
computer?
From the examples, it can be suggested that the strategy is often used in the cases the
relationship between the S and the H is close enough or the H is more powerful than S so S
doesn‟t want to impinge on S. As a result, S tries to be vague about his/her opinion so as to
soften the FTA caused by his/her utterance.
3. Avoid giving opinion
When the annoyance-cause agent is a person who is of higher social rank than the
informants and the informants doesn‟t want to damage the face of the H, they may the
Pseudo-agreement strategy to minimize the annoyance and to pretend to agree with or
sympathize with the action of the H.
+ Chương trình này hay không hả sếp (responding to the situation 2)
+ Chẳng lẽ anh không biết máy tính có chủ à?
+ Thần kinh của cậu không quá căng thẳng đấy chứ?
+ Ơ, em tưởng anh biết phần mềm này lỗi thời rồi chứ ạ?
+ Mình cài mật khẩu rồi cơ mà nhỉ? (responding to the situation 2)

+ Hi. What can I do for you? (responding to the situation 1)
+You must be in a hurry. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Will this improve my work? (responding to the situation 2)
4. Joking
In the situations where the informants do not want to damage the positive face of the H
and wants to minimize the face threatening to the H, the joking strategy is often used.
+ Ôi giời, có phải nút cứu hỏa đâu mà cậu bấm lắm thế?(responding to the situation 1)
+ Sếp muốn “test” máy của em hả sếp?(responding to the situation 2)
+ Biết xe mới rồi, khỏi cần bấm nữa. (responding to the situation 3)
+ And good morning to you too. (responding to the situation 3)
+ I hope this isn’t about that report I wrote. (responding to the situation 1).
5. Telling a white-lie
This strategy is used by both Vietnamese and English informants as to reduce the FTA to
the hearer. Here are some examples:
+ Chương trình này hay quá. Mình cũng đang cần nó. (responding to the situation 2)
+ There is something wrong with my doorbell. (responding to the situation 1)

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6. Give (or ask for reasons)
According to the data collected, it seems that the strategy is frequently used by the
informants to express their attitude to the action of the H. For example:
+ Có việc gì không? (responding to the situation 1)
+ Anh nhầm nhà à? (responding to the situation 1)
+ Chương trình gì vậy? Có ảnh hưởng gì không?(responding to the situation 2)
+ Was there a reason for doing that?(responding to the situation 2)
+ Why don’t you ask me first? (responding to the situation 2)
+ What do you think you’re doing?(responding to the situation 3)
+ Are you trying to signal me?(responding to the situation 3)
+ Is there anything wrong with my bike/car?(responding to the situation 3)
However, in some cases when the informants find annoyed with the action of the H, he/she

even choose negative words to indicate that he/she is annoyed with the action of the H and
doest not care about keeping face for the H. With the expressions, the S does not care
about the reason why the action is done, but he/she implies to express his/her annoyance to
the action and requests the H to stop such the action.
+ Mày làm cái trò gì thế? (responding to the situation 1)
+ Cái quái gì thế này?(responding to the situation 2)
+ What the hell are you doing?((responding to the situation 2)
7. Using requesting utterance
+ Tôi yêu cầu anh tháo ngay chương trình đó ra khỏi máy của tôi. (responding to the
situation 2)
+ Cậu cài xong chưa? Mình nghĩ cậu nên tháo nó ra được rồi đấy. (responding to the
situation 2)
+ Làm ơn im lặng giùm cái. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Bấm gì mà lắm thế. Lần sau đừng có làm như thế nữa. (responding to the situation3)
+ Can you remove it for me, please?(responding to the situation 2)
+ You should calm down. (responding to the situation 3)
8. Reciprocity
It can be seen from the survey findings that the strategy is hardly used by English
informants and totally ignored by Vietnamese informants when they express their

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annoyance. However, by using the strategy, S may soften his FTA towards the H. For
examples:
+ You will see what happens if you donot remove it right now.( responding to the situation
2).
II. 2. Data analysis
II.2.1. Use of the strategies as seen from informants’ parameters.
In the section, a detailed analysis on the choice of strategies by informants is made based
on their personal parameters, such as age, gender, living place, occupation and language
acquisition. The data is expressed in percentage (%). Then some contrasts and comparison

between Vietnamese and English informants are provided in the light of the actual figures.
Some evaluations or conclusions may be made based on the author‟s personal point of
view.
Age
Strategies
Age group
Vietnamese
English
21-35 (%)
35-50 (%)
>50 (%)
21-35 (%)
35-50 (%)
>50 (%)
Bald-on record
12.5
20.0
0.0
0.0
40.0
37.5
Hedging
12.5
20.0
25.0
37.5
40.0
12.5
Avoid giving opinion
12.5

0.0
0.0
8.3
20.0
0.0
Telling a white-lie
6.3
0.0
0.0
8.3
0.0
0.0
Joking
6.3
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
12.5
Give or ask for reasons
37.6
0.0
25.0
37.5
0.0
25.0
Using requesting utterance
12.5
40.0
50.0

0.0
0.0
12.5
Reciprocity
0.0
0.0
0.0
8.3
0.0
0.0
Table 3: Realization of strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants according to their
age
Vietnamese findings:
As it can be seen from the Table 2 that Vietnamese informants aged 21-35 make use of 7
among the 8 strategies whereas informants aged 35-50 and over 50 use four and three
strategies respectively. Of the 8 strategies, “Give or ask for reasons” is the most popular
among Vietnamese informants aged 21-35 (37.6 %) while the choice of the informants
aged 35-50 and over 50 inclines to “Using requesting utterance” (40% and 50%
respectively). It is likely because the older the Vietnamese are, the more powerful they are
in terms of social rank and they seem to think that they have the right to request the other
to do something. No difference shown among Vietnamese informants aged 21-35 in terms

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of using the Str.1 “Bald-on record”, Str.2 “Hedging”, Str.3 “Avoid giving opinion” and
Str.6 “Using requesting utterance” (12.5 %). However, the biggest difference is shown in
the use of Str.3 “Avoid giving opinion” (used by 12.5 % of 21-35-aged informants while
ignored by over 35-aged informants) and Str. 4 “Joking” (used by 6.3% by under 35-aged
informants, 20% by 35-50 aged informants but ignored by over 50-aged informants) and
Str.5 “Give or ask for reasons” (this is most popular (37.6%)) among 21-35-aged
informants and 25% of over 50-aged informants. But this strategy is ignored by 35-50-aged

informants). The Str.8 “Reciprocity” is not used by all the three groups.
English findings:
It can be seen from the Table 3 that no group uses all the eight strategies, particularly the
21-35-aged informants use 4 strategies, the 35-50-aged informants use 3 strategies and the
last group use 5 strategies. The “Bald-on record” strategy is the most popular one among
the over-35 informants (40% among 35-50 informants and 37.5% among over 50
informants) while the 21-35-aged informants prefer to the Str.2 “Hedging”, Str.5 “Ask for
reasons” with 37.5% for each strategy. Slight differences can be seen in the use of
“Reciprocity” strategy, with 8.3% of 21-35-aged informants and 0% of the two other
groups. However, the biggest difference can be seen in the use of the Str.1 “Bald-on
record” and the use of the Str.5 “Give or ask for reasons”. Although the Str.1 “Bald-on
record” is ignored by 21-35-aged informants, it is most used by the 35-50-aged informants
(40%) and over 50 informants (37.5%). Similarly, the Str.5 is ignored by the 35-50 group,
it is frequently used by 21-35 group (27.3%) and over-50 group (25%).
Gender
Strategies
Gender
Vietnamese
English
Male (%)
Female (%)
Male (%)
Female (%)
Bald-on record
18.2
14.3
38.9
14.3
Hedging
18.2

14.3
16.7
57.2
Avoid giving opinion
9.1
7.1
5.6
14.3
Telling a white-lie
9.1
0.0
5.6
0.0
Joking
9.1
7.1
5.6
0.0
Give or ask for reasons
0.0
42.8
11.1
14.3
Using requesting utterance
36.4
14.3
5.6
0.0
Reciprocity
0.0

0.0
11.1
0.0
Table 3: Realization of strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants according to their
gender