an american and vietnamese cross-cultural study on teachers' criticisms to students' presentations = nghiên cứu giao văn hóa việt mỹ về cách thức phê bình của giáo viên đối với các bài thuyết trình của sinh viên

Vietnam national university - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES





VŨ THÙY LINH





AN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CROSS-
CULTURAL STUDY ON TEACHERS’ CRITICISMS
TO STUDENTS’ PRESENTATIONS

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT MỸ VỀ CÁCH THỨC PHÊ BÌNH
CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI THUYỂT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN




M.A. MINOR THESIS



Major: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

HANOI, 10/2009
Vietnam national university - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES





VŨ THÙY LINH





AN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CROSS-
CULTURAL STUDY ON TEACHERS’ CRITICISMS
TO STUDENTS’ PRESENTATIONS

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT MỸ VỀ CÁCH THỨC PHÊ BÌNH
CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI THUYỂT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN




M.A. MINOR THESIS



Major: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG (PhD)











HANOI, 10/2009

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT


i
ii
iii
Part I: Introduction
1
1. Rationale of the Study
1
2. Aims of the Study
1
3. Scope of the Study
2
4. Methodology
2
5. Design of the Study
2
Part II: Development
4
Chapter 1: Literature Review
4
1.1. Speech acts
4
1.2. Speech act of criticizing
6
1.3. Directness and Indirectness
8
1.3.1 Directness and Indirectness in Language
8

1.3.2 Directness and Indirectness in Culture
10
1.4. Oral Presentation
12
1.4.1 Definition of Presentation
12
1.4.2 Class Presentation Assessment Criteria
12
Chapter 2: The Study
15
2.1 Comments on Participants and Questionnaires
15
2.2 Data collection procedure
17
2.3 Data coding
17
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion
20
3.1 Criticizing strategies used by American and Vietnamese teachers
20
3.1.1 Direct criticisms
20
a. Negative evaluation
20
b. Disapproval
21
c. Identification of problem
22

v

d. Consequences
23
3.1.2 Indirect criticisms
24
a. Demand for change
24
b. Indicating standard
25
c. Request for change
25
d. Advice for change
26
e. Suggestion for change
27
f. Asking/ Presupposing
28
3.2 Similarities and differences in using direct and indirect strategies
29
Part III: Conclusion
36
Appendix
I



1
PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. RATIONALE
The past decade has witnessed the rapid development of pragmatics and growing

attention on speech acts such as apology, request, and compliment. However, the speech
act of criticism remains to be an area less explored by scholars at home and abroad.
According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 62), criticism is a face-threatening act
that threatens the hearer’s positive face, which is “the want of every individual that his
wants be desirable to at least some others”. Therefore, the speaker tends to adopt various
strategies to save face for the one being criticized. However, cultural differences could
result in variance in criticism strategy preferences and an interlocutor may inappropriately
choose some criticism strategies according to his own culture with another interlocutor
from different culture, thus leading misunderstanding in the cross-cultural communication.
The fact that criticism plays a very important in teaching and learning is
undeniable. This is because students may learn from mistakes of one another as well as
from the comments that they receive. Teachers, however, form different cultures have
different ways of giving criticisms to their students’ presentations. Some may be open and
direct in their criticisms while others may resort to indirect strategies. Thus, misusing this
may have counter-productive effects on the relationships between the interlocutors.
All the aforementioned reasons have encouraged us to carry out a study entitled
“An American and Vietnamese Cross – Cultural Study on Teachers’ Criticisms to
Students’ Presentations”. We do this study with the hope of raising the awareness of
cross-cultural differences in American and Vietnamese ways of criticizing in general and
criticizing students’ presentations in particular.
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The study aims to make a comparison in the ways of criticizing students’ presentations
between American and Vietnamese teachers.
To reach this aim, two objectives need to be achieved. First, the study examines what
politeness strategies are employed by American and Vietnamese teachers when they
give criticisms to their students’ presentations. Second, the study also analyzes the

2
similarities and differences between two groups of teachers in the use of politeness
strategies in their criticism to students’ presentations.

3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The main focus of this study is the teachers’ politeness strategies in giving
criticisms to students’ presentation. Not everything to criticism is studied but merely
negative criticisms about presentations in classroom.
To serve the purpose of the research, the target population is identified as American
and Vietnamese college teachers who teach third-year students. This selection ensures that
the students of these teachers are required to make frequent oral presentations during their
terms and the teachers have experience in giving comments on students’ presentations.
4. METHODOLOGY
Since the main purpose of the study is to compare the ways of criticizing students’
presentations between American and Vietnamese teachers; therefore, describing,
comparing and contrastive analysis prove be the best candidates of all. Thus, the thesis will
be oriented in the following steps:
- do the questionnaire
- identify strategies of criticism of both English and Vietnamese teachers in the
source of questionnaire result.
- classify the criticisms into sub-strategies
- describe the criticisms in each language to find out the typical features of each sub-
strategies.
- analyze, compare, and contrast criticizing strategies based on the cultural features
in the two languages to point out the basic similarities and differences in this
aspect.
- reach the comments and conclusions on the subject under research.
5. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The study is composed of three parts:
Part I: INTRODUCTION
Introduction describes the study’s rationale, aims, objectives, scope and
methodology.
Part II: DEVELOPMENT
There are three chapters in this part.

3
Chapter 1: Literature Review lays the theoretical foundation for the research by
discussing (1) theory of speech act, (2) speech act of criticizing, (3) directness and
indirectness in language and culture, and (4) an overview of presentation and criteria for a
good presentation.
Chapter 2: Study details the methods that have been used and the procedures that
have been followed by the researcher.
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion presents the findings from the survey and
discuss them in detail.
Part III: CONCLUSION
This part ends the study by summarizing its main points as well as points out the
limitations and suggestions for further studies.


4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 SPEECH ATCS

The notion of speech acts dates back the British philosopher of language John Austin
(1962). In his very influential work, ‘How to do things with words’, Austin defines speech
acts as the actions performed in saying something or actions performed using language. In
fact, when speaking, we perform certain linguistic actions such as giving reports, making
statement, asking questions, giving warnings, making promises and so on. In other words
speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking – all the things we do when we
speak. Austin (1962) distinguished between the three kinds of acts, namely locutionary,
illocutionary and perlocutionary then. Of these, a locutionary act is the act of saying
something in the full sense of “say”. An illocutionary act is the one of using the sentence to

perform a particular function; and a perlocutionary act is the one of producing some kinds
of effects that are produced by means of saying something. Among above three kinds of
acts, the illocutionary act which Austin later termed “speech act” is the core interest of
Austin as well as of other pragmatists (Levinson, 1983).
Meanwhile, Searle (1974) argue that each type of illocutionary acts requires certain
expected or appropriate called felicity conditions. These conditions relate to the beliefs and
attitudes of the Speaker and the Hearer and to their mutual understanding of the use of the
linguistic devices for information. What is more, Searle (1965), cited by Minh, (2005: 11)
emphasized that Austin’s felicity conditions are not only dimensions in which utterances
can go wrong but they are also constitutive of the various illocutionary forces, and
therefore, can differentiate illocutionary acts from one another. Searle classified those
felicity conditions into four kinds, which are:
(1) Preparatory conditions: the person performing the speech acts has to have quality
to do so.
(2) Sincerity conditions: the speech act must be performed in a sincere manner.
(3) Propositional context conditions: The utterance must have exact content.
(4) Essential conditions: The speech act has to be executed in the correct manner.
(Searle, 1979: 44)

5
Both Austin and Searle have paved the way to research into linguistic functions
instead of linguistic forms as is often observed in earlier linguistic studies. They also have
tried to classify speech acts and put them under categories.
Austin (1962) categorizes five classes of speech ants as:
(1) Verdictives: “the giving of the verdict”, e.g. assess, appraise
(2) Exercitives: “exercising of powers, rights, or influence”, e.g. command, direct
(3) Commissives: “committing the speaker”, e.g. promise, propose
(4) Behavitives: “reaction to other people’s behavior and fortunes”, e.g. apology,
thank
(5) Expositives: “expounding of views, the conducting or arguments and the classifying

of usages and of references”, e.g. accept, agree
However, this classification is criticized for basing mainly on the performative verb
through which a speech act is expressed and having no clear or consistent principle or set
of principles based on which Austin constructed his taxonomy. Thus, many speech acts
according to his classification, may belong to two different categories.
Searle (1979), finding fault with Austin’s, suggests his own classification of speech acts.
These speech acts are further described as follows:
(1) Representatives: representing states of affairs (e.g.: assertions, conclusion, or
description).
(2) Directives: getting the hearer to do something (e.g.: suggestion, commands or
requests).
(3) Commissives: committing the speaker to doing something (e.g.: threats, refusals, or
promises.)
(4) Expressives: expressing feelings about states of affairs (e.g.: apologies,
compliments or congratulation).
(5) Declarations: bringing about changes of some states of affairs (e.g.: resignition,
declaration or baptism.)

Wardhaugh (1992) summarized and explains Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1975)
speech act theories and then concludes:
In contrast to Austin, who focused his attention on how speakers realize their
intentions in speaking, Searle focused on how listeners respond to utterances, that is, how

6
one person tries to figure out how another is using a particular utterance [ ] what we see
in both Austin and Searle is a recognition that people use language to achieve a variety of
objectives.
Wardhaugh (1992: 287)
Another approach to distinguish types of speech acts can be made on the relationship
between structure and function (Yule, 1996: 54). He divided speech acts into direct speech

act and indirect act and defines,
“Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have
a direct speech acts. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure
and a function, we have an indirect speech act.”
The utterances “Turn on the fan, please”, for example, the speaker (S) has directly
requested the hearer (H) to turn on the fan. The syntactic structure of this utterance
indicates a straightforward request in English. Nevertheless, the same request can be made
in a more tacit, indirect manner to achieve the same result; S may say something like “It’s
hot in here”.

1.2 SPEECH ACT OF CRITICIZING

In real-life communication, the speech act of criticizing – as in the case of
complaining has proven to be composed of different speech acts and of great risk of
causing face threatening act. It is, therefore, suggested the studies on criticizing as a speech
act across cultures should be carried out with the hope of contributing to the successful
cross-cultural communication.
The speech act of criticizing has been studied by different researchers such as
House and Kasper (1981), Tracy, van Dusen, and Robison (1987), Tracy and Eisenberg
(1990), Wajnryb( 1993, 1995) and Toplak and Katz(2000) and others.
Tracy, et al (1987) investigated the characteristics of criticisms by people from
different cultural backgrounds and distinguished “good” from “bad” criticisms. According
to him, a good criticism is one that displays a positive language and manner, suggests
specific changes and possible critic, states justified and explicated reasons for criticizing
and does not violate the relationship between interlocutions and is accurate. Supporting
that point of view, Wajnrub(1993) holds “an effective criticism must be kept simple
specific, well-grounded, linked to strategies for improvement and delivered as an attempt

7
to share experience. It also needs to be softened by means of a number of strategies. These

include ‘measuring words’ (to avoid being too negative), ‘soft-pedaling’ (i.e. using internal
and external modifications to lessen the harshness of the criticism), ‘using affirmative
language’ such as comforting messages, ‘distancing and neutralizing’ (to depersonalize the
criticism) and ‘using negotiating language’ (to avoid imposing on the addressee).
(Wajnryb, 1993; cited by Minh, 2005:15). That point of view seems to be supported by
Wajnryb (1995) who preferred a direct and ‘economical’ criticism rather than indirect,
wordy, and ‘time-wasting’ one.
Along these perceptions, Toplak and Katz (2000) focused an the difference
between the speaker and the addressee when giving their judgments of the criticism given,
“The addressee tented to view sarcasm as more severe than the speaker intended”.
However, they also discovered that sarcasm was not perceived by the recipient as having
as negative an impact on the relationship between the interlocutors as direct criticisms.
Tracy and Eissenberg (1990) in their investigation into the preferences for message
clarity and politeness in giving criticism found that among people from different races and
gender the superiors tender to given more weight to message clarity that did subordinates
and that this preference also varied according to gender and race.
Overall, the speech act of criticizing has attracted many researchers thanks to its
great contribution to thoroughly deep understanding of the field. Yet, the definition of this
speech act is still not mentioned, which makes it difficult to compare and contrast the
findings of the various studies.
One of the most widely-used definition in the study of the field is Tracy et al’s
(1987), in which they consider both criticizing and complaining as the act of ‘ finding
fault’ and define these two speech acts as ‘negative evaluation of a person or an act for
which he/she is deemed responsible’. However, Tracy et al’s (1987: 56) suggest two main
points to distinguish between criticizing and complaining, which are “content and form and
the salient role identity” of the giver and the receiver, criticisms are usually associated with
higher social status and complaints with lower social status, although there may also be
exceptions.
Another definition of criticism is found in House and Kasper (1981), who consider
criticisms, accusations, and reproaches as different kinds of complaints. Their reasons for

this are that all of these speech acts share the same two features, namely “post-event” and
“anti-speaker”. However, one might argue against this definition at least on the following
grounds. Firstly, a criticism does not necessarily have to be always targeted at an event
which happens earlier in the sense used by House and Kasper. It can also be made about
something static, permanent, and independent of chronological time such as a person’s

8
personality or appearance. Secondly, the feature “anti-speaker” seems more applicable to
complaints than to criticisms as pointed out by Tracy et al. (1987). Both the illocutionary
force and the illocutionary point that a critic and a complainer intend are inherently
different. In criticizing, S may intend H to try to improve to his or her own benefits, or S
just may wish to express his or her opinion known. In complaining, S implies that
something bad has happened to himself or herself, or that H has done something bad to
him or her and therefore expects a repair from the latter. Thus, criticisms are usually,
though not necessarily, associated with constructive attitudes or at least with non-self
involvement, which is not the case with complaints.
In light of this discussion, it is apparent that compared to other speech acts, our
understanding of the speech act of criticizing is rather limited due to the fact that this
speech act is under-researched in literature. It is therefore necessary that more studies be
conducted to shed lights on the pragmatic properties of criticizing, thus supplementing the
existing body of speech act research, which is presently confined to a rather small set of
speech acts.

1.3 DIRECTNESS AND INDIRECTNESS
1.3.1 Directness and Indirectness in Language

Directness and Indirectness is one of the major dimensions in cross-cultural
pragmatics. It has been the subject of studies by many pragmatists, discourse analysts,
sociologists and ethnographers including Searle, 1975; Brown and Levinson, 1984; Leech,
1983; Saville-Troike, 1986; etc….

Saville- Troike (1986) noticed that directness and indirectness have relation with
language and that all kinds of speech acts can be classified as either direct. She
differentiated these two kinds based on the relationship between the surface from and the
interactional function. In a direct act, they match while in an indirect act, they do not. To
illustrate this, she cited examples of asking others to be quiet. While ‘Be quiet!’ is a direct
act used as command, statements like ‘It’s getting noisy here’ or ‘I can’t hear myself think’
are indirect speech acts used for the same purpose.
In his book ‘Pragmatics’ (1996), Yule, a discourse analyst offered another way to
distinguish between direct and indirect speech acts. He claimed that ‘whenever there is a
direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act.

9
Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a function we have an
indirect speech act’.
However, among the various ways off differentiating direct and indirect speech
acts, Searle’s way seems much clearer and simpler. As for him, in direct speech acts, the
speaker says what he means while in indirect speech act, the speaker means more than he
says. Therefore, direct speech acts are clear enough to hearers to understand. Meanwhile,
to grasp the massager of an indirect speech act, one needs some inferential work.
At discourse level, indirectness can be understood as: in a sequence of sentences,
the first sentence paves the way for the information, which is embedded in the sentence
that comes later.

1.3.2 Directness and Indirectness in Culture

The most influential factors found in people’s ways of thinking and expressions are
the cultural factors. In turn, each culture influences in communication may verify. The
variations are distinguished in linguistic description via the terms “directness” and
“indirectness”. While our culture pays great attention to indirectness in communication,
another culture prefers a more direct style in communication by considering roundabout

expression as unnecessary and insincere.
In his study on 700 essays of foreign students in the United States, Kaplan found
out four ‘cultural thought patterns’ in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon linearity. They are the
culturally-based discourse structures, each of which represents a certain language or a
group of languages. The following diagrams respectively illustrate them:



(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

10
1. figure(a): Anglo-Saxon linearity ( with English)
2. figure(b): Parallel constructions, with the first idea completed in the second part
(with Semitic)
3. figure(c): Circularity, with the topic looked at from different tangents (with
Oriental)
4. figure(d): Freedom to digress and introduce “extraneous” material (with Romance)
5. figure(e): similar to (d) but with different lengths, parenthetical amplifications, and
an abrupt stop of subordinate elements ( with Russian)
According to Kaplan’s diagrams, English-speaking people are inclined to use
straightforward and direct way of expression. Meanwhile, Oriental people in general and
the Vietnamese in particular seem to prefer and roundabout expressions. This can be
illustrated in the following examples.
Informing a mother of her son’s death a Vietnamese may say:
“Thưa bác chúng cháu đã cố gắng rất nhiều nhưng cậu ấy đã bỏ gia đình ta mà đi. Âu đó
cũng là cái số bác ạ. Cháu mong bác đừng vì thế mà quá đau buồn”.
In the same action, an American can say:
“Mrs. Smith, I regret to inform you that your son died from injuries. Please accept my
sympathy for your loss and be assured that the accident happened very quickly and your
son couldn’t have suffered” Nguyen Quang (2003:257)

In the study of directness and indirectness, Nguyen Quang (2003) gives an example
of what he terms the “By the way phenomenon”, which is widely and practically used by
the Vietnamese.
Anh ạ, đợt này em xây nhà bận quá. Đúng là “làm ruộng thì ra, làm nhà thì tốn” thật. Anh
biết không, lúc đầu dự trù khoảng 230 triệu là thoải mái thế mà mới xây xong phần thô đã
mất đến hơn 160 triệu rồi. Em còn có 70 triệu mà theo dự toán phải mất khoảng 90 triệu
nữa mới hoàn thiện được. Em cũng ngại quá nhưng cũng chẳng biết nhờ vả ai. Em qua hỏi
anh xem anh có thể cho em vay khoảng 20 triệu đươc không ạ? Em xin gửi lại anh tiền vào
đầu quí tới anh ạ”

You know, I have been so busy with a new house. It is said that “Farming is productive,
Building a new house is unproductive”. At first, the estimation of about 230 million VND
was enough for the whole construction but only the frame completed counts for 160 million

11
VND. It is estimated that it needs about 90 million VND for the finishing while I have only
70 million VND left. I’m so worried but I have no one else to depend on. Thus, I have to
call at you wondering whether you could lend me 20 million VND. If you could, I would
pay your money back at the beginning of the next quarter”.

In the case of borrowing a car, the Anglicist tent to be more direct, for example:
Andy: Hello
Jack: Hi, Andy. This is Jack
Andy: Oh, hi Jack
Jack: I was wondering if you could do me a favor
Andy: That depends.
Jack: Well, I have to go a wedding this weekend. Would it be OK if I borrow your
brand – new car?
Andy: Oh, sure. No problem.
Jack: Thanks a lots, I’ll come by and pick it up tonight

Andy: That’s fine

In brief, in the Vietnamese culture, the purpose of the conversation is often revealed in the
end after a lot of small talk and explanation while in the Anglicist culture, it is more often
put at the beginning and the conservation may be added with some small talk if time is
allowed.
However, the researcher agrees with Nguyen’s (2004) comment that it would be a
mechanical overgeneralization if we based on Kaplan’s diagrams and supposed that
English-speaking people only communicate in direct ways and Oriental people only use
indirect expressions. This is because the written discourse structures Kaplan found out may
be not applied to oral expression. Additionally, even people in one culture do not
communicate in the same way as Thomas (1995: 124) once commented:
Directness is universal in the sense that it occurs to some degree in all
(natural) languages, but that does not mean that we always employ
directness or that we all employ indirectness in the same way. Individuals
and cultures vary widely in how, when and why they use an indirect speech
act in preference to a direct one.


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1.4 ORAL PRESENTATION
1.4.1 Presentation Definition

Ohio Wesleyan University, in their “Guidelines for Oral Presentations” define oral
presentations as “brief discussions of a focused topic delivered to a group of listeners in
order to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion. They are similar to short papers with
an introduction, main body and conclusion. The ability to give brief presentions is a
learned skill and the one that is called on frequently in the workplace”.
To put it differently, a presentation is a kind of communication between the speaker
and the audience, in which the speaker convey the massage to the audience through the use

of verbal and nonverbal communication as well as visual aids.
Presentation comes in many forms, one of which is training form or class
presentations. (Templeton and FitzGerald, 1999: 4) Each class presentation normally
consists of three sections, namely, presentation, question-and-answer and feedback. In the
presentation section, students are given an opportunity to demonstrate their understanding
of a topic and to explain it to an audience. The question-and-answer section, as its name, is
the one in which the presenters answer questions from the audience. Finally, students can
learn a lot from the cogent feedbacks from teachers and peers in the feedback period.
However, in some cases, the presentation and the question-and-answer periods can be
combined to the preference of the presenters.

1.4.2 Class Presentation Assessment Criteria

As mentioned above, at the end of a class presentation, there is a feedback section
in which teachers and students give their comments to the presentation. When a
presentation is assessed, an extensive list of criteria will be considered. In their studies,
Mandel (1987), Templeton and FitzGerald(1999), Koch and Felber (1985) offered a
variety of criteria as such. However, within the scope of this present research, only the
most relevant criteria will be reviewed, i.e. criteria in terms of Content, Organization,
Delivery and Question-handling skills.



13
 Content
All the authors agreed that a good presentation should have clearly stated purpose
and clear arguments. Also, it should be focused, i.e. at no time should the presenter wander
off the topic they are presenting.
 Organization
According to Koch and Felber (1985) a well- organized presentation not only helps

the audiences understand and appreciate its message more easily but also allows the
speaker to eliminate wordiness, or unnecessary materials. He suggested that a presentation
should be divided into three parts, i.e. the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The
introduction should direct audience’s attention to the subject and make them want to listen.
The body should communicate ideas in a clear, meaningful way, and the conclusion should
tie these ideas together in a neat package.
Templeton and FitzGerald (1999) also proposed five most widely used patterns to
organize a presentation including chronological (time sequence), spatial (geographically),
topical, causal, and problem-solution. Which pattern to choose is dependent on the topic
and setting of the presentation itself.
 Delivery
Delivery is the phase in which the speakers present their ideas to the audience. What
the presenters do in this phase will have deciding effects on the success of their
presentation. To make a good delivery, presenters should pay attention to the following
factors.
 Pace and Voice
The speaker’s voice, as for Templeton and FitzGerald (1999), should sound natural,
yet controlled and professional. In addition, volume is also very important. Too much
volume can be intimidating and offensive. However, too little volume is also a problem. If
one makes the audience ‘work’ to hear what he or she has to say, they will not listen long.
Instead, they may judge the presenter as lacking confidence or competence. Templeton and
FiztGerald also suggested that the presenter should make use of silence because a long
pause followed by quietly spoken words always gets the audience’s attention.
 Body language /Non-verbal communication
As Templeton and FitzGerald (1999) pointed out, ‘what you don’t say speaks
louder than works.’ (p.139) Indeed, non-verbal communication plays a crucial role in the

14
success of the presentation. How one looks can help or hurt his or her credibility as a
speaker. Thus, in a presentation, one should pay attention to such elements as distances,

posture, facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, and body movement. The two authors
also suggested that nonverbal communication had to be matched which the verbal content.
 Visual aids
Visual aids are anything used to support the speaker’s message such as read
objects, slide projections, videos, flip charts, etc. As Templeton and FiztGerald (1999) put
in, ‘one picture…a thousand words’, good visual aids add credibility to the presentation
and keep the attention of the audience. Thus, it is suggested that visual aids should be kept
simple and made meaningful to support the content.
 Handling questions
In Templeton and FiztGerald’s (1999) opinion, it is important to be honest, in
control, and confident. Mandel (1987) also agreed with this idea. He even suggested some
tips to deal with question such as saying ‘I don’t know the answer but I will find out and
get back to you’’ in case the presenter does not know the answer to a question.
Additionally, he advised the presenters not to preface, i.e , avoiding starting an answer
with such statements as ‘that’s a very good question, I am glad you asked it’ as it may be
the sign that they are unsure of the answer.
To sum up, to assess a presentation, one may base on a variety of criteria, among
which the most popular are those about content, organization, and delivery and question-
handling skills. These criteria were also the basis for the researcher to design
questionnaires to elicit criticisms of teaches in the present study.

15
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

2.1 COMMENTS ON PARTICIPANTS AND QUESTIONNAIRES
2.1.1 Participants

The present study is involved two groups of participants, i.e. American teachers and
Vietnamese teachers. To check whether the participants were suitable to the study or not,
related questions were added to the personal information part in the questionnaire.

Moreover, for those participants who were staying in Vietnam at the time of data
collection, the researcher normally had a small talk with them before asking them to fill in
the questionnaire. By doing so, the researcher also know more about the participants.
30 American teachers (11 males and 19 females) and 38 Vietnamese teachers (17
males and 21 females) were chosen. The American participants came from a variety of
university in American, i.e. University of Michigan, Columbia Southern University and
Troy University. Meanwhile, Vietnamese participants were chosen from three universities,
i.e. National Economics University, Foreign Trading University and Commercial
University.

2.1.2 Questionnaires

Two questionnaires were designed. One was aimed at Vietnamese teachers and the
other was for Vietnamese counterparts. Each questionnaire was written in participants’
mother tongue and in simple wording to ensure that participants would have no difficulties
in understanding them.
Each questionnaire consisted of three parts, namely, the introduction, the personal
information, the task. The introduction part included an explanation of the purpose of the
questionnaire and the researchers’ promise to preserve the participant’s anonymity. The
personal information part, as its name, was aimed at gathering bio-data of the participants
including age, gender, university and their teaching presentations experience. These bio-
data would help the researcher to choose the most suitable participants for the study, thus,
enforcing the validity of collected data. The task included seven criticism eliciting

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situations. These situations were constructed based on the criteria for a good presentation,
which are discussed in the literature review chapter. They were focused on four aspects of
a presentation namely, content, organization, delivery, and question-handling skills to
which audience normally pays attention.
The seven criticism eliciting situations read: “Supposing that you have attended your

student’s presentation. What would you say in the following hypothetical situations? You
are expected to give your verbal comments to the presenter in class time. Your comments
should be in direct speech (E.g. “I think you should keep eye-contact with the
audience…”) rather than in reported speech (E.g. I would tell him/her to keep eye-contact
with the audience.)”
(1) What would you say to your student if you thought he or she sometimes
strayed far from the topic he/she had identified from the beginning? (E.g.
He/she spent time mentioning something irrelevant to what he/she was
talking about)
(2) What would you say to your student if you thought some of his or her
arguments were not logical and did not support his /her assertions?
(3) What would you say to your student if you thought his or her presentation
was not very well organized so it was rather difficult to follow his or her
ideas?
(4) What would you say to your student if you thought his or her gestures were
not natural enough and sometimes distracted the audience?
(5) What would you say to your student if you thought his or her voice was not
strong and clear enough so sometimes you could not hear him or her?
(6) What would you say to your student if you thought the visual aids he/she
used detracted from the presentation? (E.g. small font size, too colorful
slides, etc.)
(7) What would you say to your student if you thought he/she seemed to lack
confidence when giving answers to the audience’s questions?
Additionally, the researcher also followed the suggestion of Oppenheim (1996, cited
in Nguyen, 2005) when providing sufficient space under each hypothetical situation for the
respondents to write their answers.


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2.2 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE

To collect the necessary data, the researchers have followed the procedure below.
Step 1: Pilot the questionnaires
The questionnaires were piloted to one American and two Vietnamese participants.
The American teacher came from Columbia Southern University and was teaching in
Hanoi. As for the two Vietnamese teachers, one of them came from National Economics
University and one from Foreign Trading University.
Step 2: Revise the questionnaires
After the pilot survey, an amendment was made to the instruction of the task in the
questionnaire. The words of the original questionnaires were so vague that all the three
participants misunderstood what were required of them. Their answers were about they
would do in those situations rather than what they would say to the presenter. Realizing
this shortcoming, alterations were made to enhance the clarity of the instructions of both
questionnaires to avoid misunderstandings.
Step 3: Deliver the main questionnaires
All the questionnaires were delivered to the targeted groups of participants either in
person or via mail.

2.3 DATA CODING

The criticisms given by participants in the seven situations were coded according to
their realization strategies, i.e. direct or indirect and semantic formulas.
According to Blum-Kulka (1987), the directness level of a criticism was
determined by the degree of illocutionary transparency. “The more indirect the mode of
realization, the higher will be the interpretive demands.” (Blum-Kulka, 1987, as cited in
Nguyen, 2005, p.112) Thus, the researcher also interpreted the illocutionary point of a
criticism in order to identify it as a direct or indirect one.
Criticism semantic formulas are semantic structures that have acquired an
illocutionary force representing criticism. (Adapted from Clark, 1979)

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Table 1: Categorization of criticism strategies
Type
Characteristics
1. Direct criticisms
Explicitly point out the problem with H’s choice/
actions/ work/ products, etc.
a. Negative evaluation
Usually expressed via evaluative adjectives with
negative meaning or evaluative adjective with positive
meaning plus negation.
b. Disapproval
Describing S’s attitude towards H’s choice, etc.
c. Expression of disagreement
Usually realized by means of negation word “No” or
perfomatives “I don’t agree” or “I disagree” (with or
without modal) or via arguments against H.
d. Identification of problem
Stating errors or problems found with H’s choice, etc.
e. Statement of difficulties
Usually expressed by means of such structure as “I find
it difficult to understand …”, “It’s difficult to
understand…”
f. Consequences
Warning about negative consequences or negative
effects of H’s choice, etc. for H himself or herself or for
the public.
2. Indirect criticism
Implying the problems with H’s choice/ actions/
work/ product, etc.
a. Correction

Including all utterances which have the purpose of
fixing errors by asserting specific alternatives to H’s
choice, etc.
b. Indicating standard
Usually stated as a collective obligation rather than an
obligation for H personally or a rule which S thinks is
commonly agreed upon and applied to all.
c. Preaching
Usually stated as guidelines to H, with an implicature
that H is incapable of making correct choices otherwise.
d. Demand for change
Usually expressed via such structures as “you have to”,
“you must”, “it is obligatory that” or “you are
required”, or “you need”, “it is necessary”.

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e. Request for change
Usually expressed via such structures as “will you…?”,
“can you…?”, “would you…?” or imperatives (with or
without politeness markers), or want-statement.
f. Advice about change
Usually expressed via the performatives “I advise
you…” or structures with “should” (with or without
modality)
g. Suggestion for change
Usually expressed via the performative “I suggest
that…” or such structures as “you can”, “you could”, “it
would be better if” or “why don’t you” etc.
h. Expression of uncertainty
Utterances expressing S’s uncertainty to raise H’s

awareness of the inappropriateness of H’s choice, etc.
i. Asking/ presupposing
Rhetorical questions to raise H’s awareness of the
inappropriateness of H’s choice, etc.
j. Other hints
Including other kinds of hints that did not belong to (h)
and (i). May include sarcasm.



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CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 CRITICIZING STRATEGIES USED BY AMERICAN AND
VIETNAMESE TEACHERS
As stated in 2.3, a criticism can be realized by both direct or indirect strategies and
semantic formulas.
3.1.1 Direct criticism
Direct criticisms are ones which explicitly point out the problem with H’s behavior,
acts, choices, words, work, products and etc. Direct strategies of criticism in English and
Vietnamese used by teachers can be realized via four main sub-strategies such as negative
evaluation, disapproval, identification of problem and consequences.
a. Negative evaluation
 In English
When deliver a direct criticism, teachers can give out a negative evaluation on
student’s presentation by using some negative-evaluative adjectives. For instances:
(1) Your presentation is rather messy. (S3)
(2) Your gesture is poor. (S4)
(3) Your answer was wrong. (S7)
In all the above examples, we face with three adjectives with different meanings
(messy, poor, wrong, etc.), but they are all used to serve the same purpose- to give negative

evaluations on students’ presentation skills.
In addition, the evaluation adjectives with positive meaning in English combined
with a negation will also express negative evaluations on H’s behavior, acts, choices,
words, work, products and etc. In these examples below the positive adjectives focused,
convincing, strong, effective, good, professional, etc. go with a negation “no” or “not”,
which give negative evaluations on students’ presentations.
(4) Your presentation was not focused. (S1)
(5) Your assertions were not convincing enough. (S2)
(6) Your voice was not strong enough. (S5)
(7) Your visual aids were not effective. (S6)
(8) It is no good using that picture for illustration. (S6)
(9) It is not professional to start the answer like … (S7)

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 In Vietnamese
Interestingly, direct criticisms in the form of negative evaluations in Vietnamese
were also found. From the data collected, Vietnamese teachers use the following patterns
to criticize students’ presentation.
 Person/thing criticized + negative-evaluative adjective
(10) Bài nói của em không thành công lắm vì nó hơi lạc đề.(S1)
(Your presentation was not so successful as it as off topic)
(11) Bài thuyết trình này lập luận lủng củng quá. (S2)
(Arguments in your presentation were illogical)
(12) Bài thuyết trình của em rắc rối quá. (S3)
(Your presentation was so complicated.)
 person/thing criticized +là + negative-evaluative adjective
(13) Em nói như vậy là hơi bé. (S5)
(Your voice was low)
(14) Chọn hình ảnh minh họa như thế là hơi lòe loẹt.(S6)
(Your visual aids were colorful)

(15) Trả lời như vậy là lạc đề. (S7)
(Your answers were out of topic)
 person/thing criticized + không/chưa + positive-evaluative adjective
(16) Câu trả lời của em chưa thỏa đáng.
(Your answers were not satisfactory.)
(17) Chất giọng của em chưa cuốn hút người nghe.
(Your voice was not attractive enough)
b. Disapproval
 In English
Another way to deliver a criticism directly is to describe S’s attitude towards H’s
behavior, acts, choices, words, work, products and etc. This type of criticizing is
categorized as disapproval strategies.
The S who disapproves of an action thinks that it is bad things to do, and imagines
that he could prevent this action from happening by expressing his negative opinion of it,
he mentally expresses his opinion.