a vietnamese - american cross-cultural study on disparaging = nghiên cứu giao văn hóa việt - mỹ về cách thức chê bai

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality of project report i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents iv
Lists of figures and tables v
Abbreviations vi
PART A – INTRODUCTION 1
1. RATIONALE 1
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY 2
3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2
4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY 2
5. METHODOLOGY 3
6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY 3
PART B – DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION 4
1.1.1. Language and Culture 4
1.1.2. Cross – Cultural Communication 6
1.2. CROSS – CULTURAL PRAGMATICS 6
1.3. SPEECH ACTS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH ACTS 8
1.4. POLITENESS 11
1.4.1. Politeness and the notion of Face 11
1.4.2. Politeness strategies 14
1.4.3. Social factors affecting politeness 17
1.5. DIRECTNESS AND INDIRECTNESS 18
1.5.1. Directness (D) and Indirectness (ID) as Communication Styles 18
1.5.2. Socio- Cultural Factors Influencing the Use of Directness and Indirectness In

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Human Interaction 20
1.6. DISPARAGING 22
1.6.1. Disparaging as a speech act 22
1.6.2. Disparaging and criticizing 22
1.6.3. Popular topics for disparaging 23
CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY 24
2.1. Survey research as the main method 24
2.2. Subject of the study 24
2.3. Data collection instrument 24
2.4. Data collecting procedures 25
2.5 Comments on the survey questionnaire 25
2.6. Comments on the informants 26
CHAPTER 3 – STRATEGIES OF DISPARAGING 28
3.1. STRATEGIES USED IN DISPARAGING 28
3.1.1. 14 main types of disparaging strategies 28
3.1.2. Integrative disparaging strategies 38
3.2. USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM COMMUNICATING
PARAMETERS 40
3.2.1. Data Analysis 40
3.2.2. Concluding Remarks 50
3.3. USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM
INFORMANTS‟PARAMETERS 54
3.3.1. Data Analysis 54
3.3.2. Concluding Remarks 62
3.4. USE OF DISPARAGING STRATEGIES AS SEEN FROM THE TOPIC OF
DISPARAGING 67
3.4.1. Data Analysis 67
3.4.2. Concluding Remarks 71
PART C – CONCLUSION 74

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1. REVIEW OF THE FINDINGS 74
2. IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 77
3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 77
4. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 77
BIBLIOGRAPHY 79
APPENDICES 83
ENGLISH SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES 83
VIETNAMESE SURVEY QUESTIONAIRES 88



















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LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987:60) 15
Figure 2: Kaplan‟s diagram 18
Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Following Searle, 1969) 10
Table 2: Realization of strategies used in disparaging 29
Table 3: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from American communicating partner‟s
parameters 52
Table 4: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟
parameters 53
Table 5: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from American informants‟ parameters 65
Table 6: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from Vietnamese informants‟ parameters 66
Table 7: Use of disparaging strategies as seen from topic of disparaging 67
Table 8: Ranking of occurrence of disparaging strategies in English and Vietnamese…
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ABBREVIATIONS

S.
: Speaker
A.
: Addressee
H.
: Hearer
FTA
: Face Threatening Act
FSA
: Face Saving Act
D
: Directness
ID
: Indirectness

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PART A – INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE
Vietnamese learners usually find it difficult to communicate appropriately in English with
native speakers, especially American people despite their language competence. Shyness
and lack of confidence are common problems facing Vietnamese learners. They sometimes
even can not understand native speakers and feel uncomfortable to express themselves in
particular situations. This partly originates from the lack of socio-cultural knowledge and
interaction skills among Vietnamese learners.
The differences between western and eastern culture can be referred to as a reason why
Vietnamese learners often fail in communicating with native speakers. Asian learners are
not familiar with western cultural norms.
It is concluded that language and culture have a close relationship. Even an English-
competent learner needs cultural knowledge of the target language to be successful in
communication. Therefore, learning about the target culture, and especially the differences
between the source and target cultures is an effective way for us to master the target
language. Cultural knowledge will help us to avoid misunderstanding, culture shock and
breakdown in communication.
A number of studies have been carried out so far on English-Vietnamese cross-cultural
pragmatics / communication by Vietnamese authors such as Conveying Good and Bad
News (Quang, 1992), Requesting (Thanh, 2000), Apologizing and Responding to
Apologies (Phuong, 1999), Requesting (Tam, 1998), Greeting (Suu, 1990; Nguyen, 1997),
Advising (Le, 1999), Thanking and Responding to Thanks (Hoang, 1998), Refusing a
Request (Quyen, 2001), Expressing Sympathy (Nga, 2003), Making Suggestions (Lam,

2004), Expressing Annoyance (Phung, 2006), Promising (Be, 2008), but no research has
been conducted on disparaging.
There is a good reason for the choice of this act because it is a face-threatening act.
Therefore, it requires much sensitivity and cross-cultural awareness in order to gain
effective communication without hurting the listeners.
This research will hopefully provide learners as well as teachers and people working in
intercultural environment with better understanding of the nature of this behavior across

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cultures and ability to reduce to the least negative effect on cross-cultural communication,
and most importantly, to communicate safely and effectively.
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY
 To investigate the way Vietnamese people and American people disparage in given
situations
 To clarify the most noteworthy similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese
and American people disparage in their own languages and cultures.
3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research plans to address the following questions:
Question 1: How do American and Vietnamese people disparage in different situations
and with different communicating partners?
Question 2: What are the most noteworthy similarities and differences in the ways
Vietnamese and American disparage in their own languages and cultures?
4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
 The thesis focuses on strategies of expressing disparagement in Vietnamese and
American culture. Responding to disparagement is beyond the scope of this study.
 The author is fully aware of the remarkable contribution of paralinguistic and
extralinguistic aspects of disparaging, however, they are not taken in to consideration.
 The Vietnamese Northern dialect and American – English are chosen for contrastive
analysis.
 The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires both in English and

Vietnamese, based on socially-differentiated situations in which disparagement takes
place and three groups of informants in social, business, and family status. Recorded
and video taped face-to-face conversations are impossible due to limitations of time,
geographical distance and financial difficulties.




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5. METHODOLOGY
In order to achieve the objectives of the cross-cultural research, the main method of the
study is survey research. All the considerations, comments and conclusions in this thesis
are largely based on:
- reference to relevant publications
- survey questionnaires
- statistics, description and analysis of the collected data
- personal observation
- consultation with supervisor
- discussion with Vietnamese and foreign colleagues
6. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The thesis consists of three main parts:
Part A: INTRODUCTION – All the academic routines required for an MA thesis are
presented
PART B: DEVELOPMENT – This is the focus of the study and consists of 3 chapters
Chapter 1: Literature Review
Chapter 2: Methodology of the study
Chapter 3: Strategies of disparaging
Part C: CONCLUSION: Review of the findings, implications and limitations of the study
and some suggestions for further research.

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PART B – DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. CROSS – CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
1.1.1. Language and Culture
In the “Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary” (encyclopedic edition, 1992: 506),
language is defined as “system of sounds, words, patterns, etc. used by humans to
communicate thoughts and feeling”. To begin with, the words people use reflect their
common experience. “They express facts, ideas or events that are communicable because
they refer to a stock of knowledge about the world that other people share”(Kramsch,
1998:03). Through words people also express their attitude, belief, view points which other
people share. Therefore, language expresses cultural reality.
In addition, members of a community or a social group also create experience through
language. They give meaning to it through various media they choose to communicate
with one another, for instance, speaking over the phone or face to face, writing a letter,
reading a newspaper or interpreting a graph or a chart. People use spoken, written or visual
medium to create meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to through the
speaker‟s tone of voice, accent, facial expression, conversational style, gestures. Through
all verbal and non-verbal aspects, language represents cultural reality.
Finally, language is viewed as a system of signs which has its own cultural value. Speakers
use language to identify themselves and others and to symbolize their social identity. Thus
language symbolizes cultural identity.
In the previous, the nature and use of language have been discussed; now we need to
clarify what we mean by culture in order to make explicit the relationship between
language and culture.

The word “culture” is used frequently in our daily life, however, defining “culture” is not
an easy task. The term “culture” is not used in the sense of “high culture”, for example, the
knowledge and appreciation of music, literature, the arts and so on. It is particularly
understood in the sense of whatever a person must know to function in a society.
One of definitions we should consider is that of Goodenough (in Wardhaugh, 1992:217):

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“A society‟s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to
operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they
accept for anyone of themselves”.
Culture is the knowledge which every one must know in order to behave appropriately and
accordance with the social norms within a society. We accumulate this sort of knowledge
through the process of becoming the full member of a society by accepting all its ideas,
values and patterns of behavior. There exists one way of thinking about culture is to
contrast it with nature. Nature refers to what is born and grows organically (from the Latin
nascere: to be born) and culture refer to what has been grown and groomed (from the Latin
colere: to cultivate). There seems to be a complete separation between nature and culture in
the view that culture is non-natural. However, any object processed by human intention or
human touch is a product of culture. For instance, a natural rock will become a product of
culture if a human turns it in to an axe – a working tool. Therefore, Nguyen Quang (2008)
concluded that culture should not be separated completely from nature as culture lies in
nature.
And in the definition by Marie Emmitt and John Pollock (1990:39), culture is described in
a way as “the ideas, customs, skills, arts and tools which characterize a given people in a
given period of time.” As seen from this view, culture has never belonged and will never
belong to any single person but to all people who share a culture. This point of view is
confirmed by Levin and Adelman (1993): “Culture is a shared background (for example,
national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style,
customs, beliefs, attitudes and values.” They compared culture with an “iceberg” with the
visible part and the invisible part. The former one consists of appearance, food, language,

etc and the later one includes values, beliefs, customs, attitudes, communication style, etc.
Unfortunately, the hidden part which creates cross cultural difficulties and communicative
barriers exercises a strong influence on an individual behavior and interaction. Thus, in
order to be successful in communication across cultures, we must learn the hidden parts of
the culture regarded as the submerged part of the iceberg.
According to R.A. Hudson (1981) culture contains language. Goodenough (1957) also
views the language of a society is an aspect of culture.
In short, the interrelation between language and culture plays an important role in
communication. Culture influences the way language is expressed. And in its turn,

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language reflects culture. Therefore, it is impossible to separate language from culture
when communicating and especially when teaching and learning a language.
1.1.2. Cross-Cultural Communication
Cross-Cultural Communication can be defined by Porter and Samovar (1985: 39) as
occurring “when a message producer is a member of one culture and a message receiver is
a member of another” or “the exchange of information between individuals who are
unlikely culturally.”(Roger & Steinfatt 1999: 103)
Human beings used to live in one sole world, which could be their home, cities,
neighborhood or even their own country. People gradually learn the language, beliefs and
behavior of the group in which they are nurtured. It is acceptable to say that each person is
a product of the cultural environment and biases of their upbringing. Therefore, it is very
easy for the people who share the same culture to communicate with each other.
It is not the case any more. Globalization has brought nations closer to each other. Now
people have chance to communicate with people coming from different cultures, having
different background knowledge. Difficulties occur in the process of cross-cultural
communication. People tend to see their culture as the norm to measure all others. They
interpret other‟s utterances in their own cultural convention. Culture shock is an
unavoidable result when people with different world view, different expectations of each
other come in to contact. People often experience negative feelings when they are exposed

to an alien culture. Curiosity, confusion, fear, disgust, anger even hostility are common
symptoms. However, the most common is “a disturbing feeling of disorientation and
helplessness” – the feeling of an outsider in the host society. Bock (1970) called this
phenomenon “culture shock”.
Thus, all of us should be good cultural communicators. We should be positive and adopt
openness, a receptive attitude towards other cultures in order to avoid breakdown in
communication. In addition, we will discover more our own culture in the exposure to
other cultures. Cross –cultural communication is no longer frustrating experience but a
rewarding one, an opportunity to widen our mind to the world.
1.2. CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS
In recent years, language, which is viewed as a social product, has been studied in a living
environment – the context. Language is now put in a close relation with context in order to

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produce the proper meaning. This trend led to the emergence of a new direction in
language studies related to the term “cross-cultural pragmatics” attracting many scholars
such as Austin 1962, Abrahams 1976, Atlas 1984, Ameca 1987 and Wierzbicka 1985.
For them, utterances could not be interpreted outside their context: “Pragmatic is the study
of the relations between language and context that are basic to an account of language
understanding, or that are grammatical zed, or encoded in the structure of a
language.”(Levinson, 1983: 9, 21)
The term “pragmatics” is used to refer to how language is used to communicate with the
focus on the actual uses of language in real and specific communicative situations.
Therefore, in communication we have to go beyond the meanings implied in individual
words to discover how we use utterances. Kasper (cited in Crystal, 1996) gave the
definition of pragmatics. “Pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of
users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language
in social interaction, and the effects the use of language has on other participants in the act
of communication.”
According to Richards (1992:284), pragmatics includes the study of:

 How the interpretation and use of utterances depend on knowledge of the real
world
 How speakers use and understand speech acts
 How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the
speaker and the hearer.
Therefore, the pre-existing world knowledge, social and cultural knowledge, or the cultural
schemata plays a very important role in communication. And the study of difference in
expectations based on cultural schemata and by looking at “the ways in which meaning is
constructed by speakers from different cultures” is generally known as cross - cultural
pragmatics. (Yule, 1997:87)
Obviously, the study of differences of language use in the light of cross-cultural
pragmatics originates from the point of view of cross – cultural understanding which is
very social and practical.


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1.3. SPEECH ACTS AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPEECH ACTS
At the beginning of “How to do things with words” John Austin (1962:1) bemoaned the
common philosophical view point that “the business of a sentence can be only to describe
some state of affairs or to state some facts which must be either truly or falsely”. He
discovered that despite the fact-stating appearance, many sentences have a really different
uses. He is the first to give the idea of Speech Acts (SA). Speech acts are utterances which
contain information needed to assert and performs actions, or according to Austin, “things
that people do with words”. In other words, utterances not only contain a message but also
have a social force in themselves. Therefore, the sentence: “It‟s hot” does not simply
describe the fact of hot weather but in some contexts it is a request to open the door or turn
on the fan. The usual forms of speech acts we meet in language use are promising,
wishing, booking, complaining, forgiving and so on (Verscheren, 1977). Austin‟s theory
drew the attention of many other philosophers sharing the same view that speech acts and
language functions are closely linked. Further developments have been made and more

specific explanations have been given to the performance of speech acts and speech act
verbs in natural language.
According to Austin, utterances are divided in to two kinds: constative and performative.
The constative utterances or statement are characterized as true or false property. In
contrast, the performative utterances can never be either. Its special job is to perform an
action. Giving a performative utterance means performing an action.
Three distinct levels of actions beyond the act of utterances are presented by Austin. He
distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by
saying it and dubs these the locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary act respectively.
When a speaker makes an utterance, he performs a locutionary act that is an act of saying
something, the act of producing expressions which are well-formed and meaningful
complying with the general rules of grammar. For instance, a bar tender utters the words,
“The bar will be closed in five minutes”, reportable with direct quotation. He is performing
the locutionary act of saying that the bar (i.e, the one he is tending) will be closed in five
minutes (from the time of the utterance).
Austin dubbed “illocutionary” speech acts that can (but need not) be performed by means
of performative formula. Being generally considered, when one acts intentionally, one has
a set of intentions. For instance, when one arrived home with out keys, his fingers can

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make movement in a certain ways with the intention of ringing the doorbell, pushing a
button or awaking his spouse. The bodily movement related to the fingers comprises a
series of actions accordance with different intentions. In a similar way, speech acts are not
just acts of producing certain words. They contain the communicative purposes that is
intended and expected to be achieved in the speaker‟s mind. You may promise, threaten,
inform, question, greet and so on. In this way an illocutionary act is performed. It is
considered to be the most important among three acts. To distinct which kind of speech
acts of the speaker, the hearer is required to know contextual clues, his / her relationship
with the speaker, the speaker‟s purpose, facial expression and intonation. Returning to the
bartender‟s utterance above, we notice that what the bartender is saying, the content of his

locutionary act is not fully determined by the words he is using because they do not specify
the bar in question or the time of the utterance. In saying this, the bartender is performing
the illocutionary act of informing the patrons of the bar‟s closing and urging them to order
the last drink.
There is a special class of illocutionary acts called performatives which contain verbs
which explicitly name the illocutionary acts that is intended. These verbs are called
performative verbs.
Eg “I sentence you to prison.”
“I promise I will never lie you.”
The perlocutionary act refers to the effects of the utterance on the hearer. It means that the
hearer may have the feeling of amusement, annoyance, persuasion as a result of the
speaker‟s utterance. So when the illocutionary act is understood by the part of the patrons,
perlocutionary acts are performed with the intention of producing a further effect. He is
performing a perlocutionary act of causing the patrons to believe that the bar is going to be
close and to have a desire of having the last drink. A conclusion can be drawn from this
instance is that the bar tender has performed three level of speech acts in uttering some
words. However, it is also important to note that there is not always the coincidence of the
illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act. For example, you may say “I have made some
coffee” with the intention of offering and the hearer may accept or refuse your offer.
Due to the big number of speech acts, many people have attempted to classify them into
different types. Among them Searle‟s (1969) is known as the most widely used and
influential one. According to Searle there are five types of speech acts based on the

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speaker‟s intentions. They are declarations, representatives, expressives, directives and
commissives.
Declarations are speech acts that change the state of the world via their utterances, the acts
that brings about state of affairs, including namings, firings, hirings, pardons, resignations,
etc. For example, “I now pronounce you husband and wife” “You are out”
Representatives are speech acts that state what the speakers believe to be the case or not,

the acts that denote the state of affairs, including assertion, descriptions, reports,
statements, etc. For example, “The earth is flat”, “It was a warm and sunny day”.
Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speakers feel. They express
psychological states and can be statement or attitudes, including apologies, compliments,
greetings, thankings, etc. For example, “I am sorry that I lied to you”
Directives are those kinds of speech acts that the speakers use to get the hearer to do
something. They express what the speaker wants. They are commands, orders, requests,
suggestions, etc. For example, “Could you lend me a pen, please?” “Don‟t touch that.”
Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that the speakers use to commit themselves to
future actions. They express what the speaker intends. They are promises, threats, refusals,
pledges, etc. For example, “I„ll be back”, “We will not do that.”
These five general functions of speech acts can be summarized as follows:

TABLE 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Following Searle, 1969)

Speech act types

Direction of fit
S = Speaker
X = Situation
Declarations
words change the world
S causes X
Representatives
words fit the world
S believe X
Expressives
words fit the world
S feel X
Directives

the world fits words
S wants X
Commissives
the world fits words
S intends X

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Yule , G. (1996:47) shares the view with Austin that “actions performed via utterances are
generally called speech acts”. However, Yule stressed the most discussed role of
illocutionary acts among three acts. The term “speech act” is generally interpreted quite
narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance. One utterance can perform
different illocutionary acts depending on the particular circumstance it fits into. For
example the utterance “I„ll come back” may be a promise, a warning, a prediction, etc.
According to Yule (1996: 54), another approach based on the relationship between
structures and functions can be reached in distinguishing types of speech acts. In this way,
speech acts can be classified into two types: direct and indirect speech acts. He recognizes
the relationship between the three structural forms and the three general communicative
functions (statement, questions, command / request). He also presented examples as
follows:
(a) You wear a seat belt. (declarative)
(b) Do you wear a seat belt? (interrogative)
(c) Wear a seatbelt! (imperative)
When an interrogative form is used to ask for information whether you wear a seat belt or
not, it is a direct speech act. So a direct speech act is produced when there is a direct
relationship between a structure and a function. On the other hand if the interrogative “Do
you wear a seat belt?” form is used to make a request, it is an indirect speech. In this case,
there is an indirect relationship between the structure and the function. Hence, speech acts
may be performed either directly or indirectly. In English, people use indirect speech acts
when they wish to show politeness. Comparing the pair of sentences with the same
structural form - imperative “Could you stop making that noise!” and “It‟s very noisy in

here.”(indirect), the second one seems to be more preferred than the first one because it
gives the addressee an out to say, for example, “ I‟m sorry, I just don‟t know that you are
concentrating!”. According to Searle (1975:61 in Nguyen Duc Hoat): “In indirect speech
acts, the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying
on their mutual shared background information, both linguistic and non-linguistic, together
with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.”
1.4. POLITNESS
1.4.1. Politeness and the notion of Face

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What is Politeness?
According to Yule (1996: 60), politeness is stated as “the idea of polite social behavior, or
etiquette, within a culture”. And “being polite is being tactful, generous, modest, and
sympathetic towards others”. Thus, politeness can be understood as appropriate behaviors
that people in any community express following a set of rules generally accepted in each
culture. The speaker‟s conducts are evaluated as more or less polite relative to community
values and norms.
People in different cultures can have their own linguistic and social actions but politeness
governs the process of communication. People always desire to preserve social relationship
and harmony. Politeness is also described by Richards as:
- how languages express the social distance between speakers and their different role
relationships
- how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during
conversation, is carried out in a speech community.
Politeness is also defined by Green (1989:145) as: “whatever means are employed to
display consideration for one‟s addressee‟s feelings (or face), regardless of the social
distance between the speaker and addressee”.
All the above definitions mention “Face”. Although face is a highly abstract notion but it
plays the central role in understanding politeness.
The notion of “Face”

Face is defined by Brown and Levinson (in Yule, 1997:61), is “the public self - image that
every member wants to claim for himself”, that is emotional and social sense of self that
everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize.
According to Richards (1992: 135), “In communication between two or more persons, the
positive image or impression of oneself that one shows or intends to show to the other
participants is called Face”.
Face can be maintained and enhanced when people show their respect to other people‟s
self-image. In the process of interaction, both partners of communication share the mutual
interest of saving other‟s face. Because they understand that saving other‟s face also means
saving their own face. Polite people often behave in the way to preserve and avoid the loss

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of face. On the other hand face can be threatened as communicative interaction brings it
the possibility of losing face. If a speaker say something that might present a threat to
another individual„s expectations regarding self - image, it is described as a face
threatening act (FTA). And being aware of the risk that some action might be interpreted
as a threat to another‟s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat.
This is labeled a face saving act (FSA).
Yule‟s (1996:61) examples of FTA and FSA are as follows:
Imagine a late night scene, where a young neighbor is playing his music very loud, and an
old couple are trying to sleep. One of them proposes an FTA and other suggests an FSA:
FTA: I am going to tell him to stop that awful noise right now! (Him)
FSA: Perhaps you could just ask him if he is going to stop soon because it‟s getting a bit
late and people need to get to sleep. (Her)
In Brown and Levinson‟s (1978) account, face comes in two varieties, positive face and
negative face.
Positive and Negative Face
Positive face is the want of approval. That is a person‟s wish to be well thought of. That is
the desire to have what are admired by others, the desire to be understood by others and the
desire to be accepted and treated as a member of the same group and even appreciated by

others. Positive face establishes a person‟s status as an autonomous, independent and free
agent. Thus a complaint about the quality of someone‟s work threatens his / her positive
face.
On the other hand, negative face is the want of self-determination. That is a person‟s wish
not to be imposed on by others. The word “negative” does not mean bad, it is simply the
opposite pole of positive. Negative face establishes a person‟s immunity from outside
interference and excessive external pressure. Thus, telling someone that they can not see
the doctor at the time they expected to is a threat to their negative face.
Any normal interaction can lead to the risk of losing face. That is why people attempt to
build up participants‟ positive faces and minimize threats to negative faces in
communication in cooperative communication.

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Politeness serves to enhance, maintain or protect face. Therefore, addressing the positive
face results in positive politeness. Positive politeness is approach based. What it
emphasizes is that both speakers want the same thing and that they have a common goal. It
shows the concern for the other‟s welfare. On the other hand, negative face gives rise to
negative politeness. Negative politeness is avoidance based. It is a concern not to impose
on others or restrict their freedom, but to maintain distance. Hence, the concepts of positive
face and negative face gives rise to different strategies.
1.4.2. Politeness Strategies
In social interaction people may mitigate the force of FTA by using a variety of politeness
strategies. Depending on positive or negative face oriented, there are two kinds of strategy:
positive politeness strategy and negative politeness strategy.
Positive politeness strategy aims at the positive face of H. S considers H to be the same as
he, with the same rights and duties. Negative politeness strategy oriented mainly toward
H‟s negative face, his basic want to maintain self-determination. S will not interfere with
H‟s freedom of action.
From the face-saving view, Brown and Levinson (1987) propose a set of strategies to
minimize risk of losing face corresponding to the degrees of a face-threat. Positive

politeness and negative politeness are mentioned.
In the process of communication, we sometimes produce some statements which are not
directly addressed to other. The other can act as if the statements have not been heard.
They are described as being off record. For example, after searching through your bag, you
simply produce a statement: “Oh! I forgot my pen.” (Yule, 1996:63)
With an opposite meaning, “on record” refers to direct forms which are statements you
directly address the other as a means of expressing your needs. Another term is “bald on
record indicating the most direct approach, using imperative form. The other person is
directly asked for something. For example, “lend me your pen”. In order to soften the
demand, expressions like “please” or “would you” may be followed. They are labeled
mitigating devices.



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Brown and Levinson‟s strategies can be summarized in the figure 1 below:
Lesser risk Greater risk
Do the FTA Don‟t do the FTA

on record off record

face saving act bald on record
(with redressive action) (without redressive action, badly)

positive politeness negative politeness
FIGURE 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60)
According to Yule (1996: 65-66), using positive politeness forms tends to emphasize the
closeness between S and H and can be seen as solidarity strategy. This can be chosen by
the whole group as the principal operating strategy or by an individual speaker on a

particular occasion. Such strategies include personal information, use of nicknames,
abusive terms, shared dialects or slang expressions. For example “Come one, let‟s go to the
party. Everyone will be there, we‟ll have fun.”
Using negative politeness forms tends to emphasize H‟s rights to freedom and can be seen
as a deference strategy. It can be the typical strategy of the whole group or just an option
used on a particular occasion. The language associated with a deference strategy
emphasizes the speaker and the hearer‟s independence, marked via an absence of personal
claims. For example: “There‟s going to be a party, if you can make it. It will be fun.”
After all “both positive and negative politeness strategies are redressive actions, used to
mitigate the face threat which a linguistic act might pose for the interlocutor” (Kasper, in
Coulmas, 1997:378)

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With the view of politeness as “a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate
interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human
interchange”.
Lack off (in Green, 1989:142) describes three different rules that a speaker might follow in
choosing to be polite:
Rule 1: Don’t impose. This rule is used when formal / impersonal politeness is required. It
is appropriate to situations in which there is an acknowledged difference in power and
status between the participants such as between a student and a dean, or between a factory
worker and the vice president in charge of personnel. A speaker chooses his acts so as to
minimize the extent to which he imposes on the hearer. He avoids giving or seeking
personal opinions, personal reference, reference to family, personal problems, habits and
even avoids earthy, slangy, merely emotional language and any topics which are
considered taboo.
Rule 2: Offer options. It is used when informal politeness is required. It is appropriate to
situations in which the participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not
socially close. This can be represented by the relationship between a business person and a
new client in a business or between two strangers sharing a semi private room in a hospital.

Offering options means expressing oneself in such a way that one‟s option or request can
be ignored without being contradicted or rejected, for example, saying “Why don‟t you
have a rest?” instead of “You should have a rest.” In short, if the speaker wishes to
persuade the hearer of some view or an action, he will phrase his speech so that the hearer
does not have to acknowledge the speaker‟s intent.
Rule 3: Encourage feelings of Camaraderie. This rule is appropriate for close friends or
intimates. The governing principle here is not only to show an active interest in the other,
asking personal questions and making personal remarks, but also to show regard and trust
by being open about the details of one‟s own life, experiences, feelings and the likes. In
intimate politeness, almost any topic is fair game, assuming that with a close friend, one
should be able to discuss anything.
Another author, Leech (1983: 16) believes that politeness principles need to rescue the
cooperative principle (be true, be brief, be relevant, be clear) introduces 6 maxims of
politeness:
Tact maxim: Minimize cost to other. Maximize cost to other

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Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self. Maximize cost to self.
Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other. Maximize dispraise of self.
Modesty maxim: Minimize praise of self. Maximize praise of other.
Agreement maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and other.
Sympathy maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other. Maximize sympathy
between self and other.
Among these maxims, Leech considers the maxim of “tact” as the most important kind of
politeness in English speaking countries.
In short, the norm of politeness can be differentiated from culture to culture. It is important
to note that the conversational devices which individual speakers applies to execute
politeness strategies. Various strategies and tactics can be employed in accordance to the
speaker‟s desire to change the social distance, the beliefs of appropriate behavior in certain
situation and the personal style.

1.4.3. Social Factors Affecting Politeness
Brown and Levinson (1987: 74) introduced three factors affecting the choice of
appropriate polite expressions: social distance (D) of the speaker and the hearer, the
relative power (P) of the speaker and the hearer, and the absolute ranking of impositions in
the particular culture. Each of these variables has an independent effect on the choice of
polite strategies.
According to Brown and Levinson, (1987 : 76 -77), “the social distance (D) variable is a
symmetric social dimension of similarity / difference within which S and H stand for the
purposes of this act”. In many cases, it is based on an assessment of the frequency of the
interaction and the kinds of material or non-material goods (including face) exchanged
between S and H. An important part of the assessment of D will usually be measures of
social distance based on stable social attributes. The reflex of social closeness is, generally,
the reciprocal giving and receiving of positive face.
The relative power (P) is an asymmetric social dimension of relative power: “Power is the
degree to which H can improve his own plans and his own self-evaluation (face) at the
expense of S‟s plans and self-evaluation.” In general, there are two sources of P, either of
which may be authorized or unauthorized – material control (over the actions of others, by

26
virtue of metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others). In most cases an individual‟s
power is drawn from both these sources, or is thought to overlap them.
Another factor influencing face threatening act (FTA) is the ranking of imposition (R): “R
is defined by the degree to which they are considered to interfere with an agent‟s wants by
self-determination or of approval (his negative and positive face want)”. In general, there
are probably two such scales or ranks that are identifiable for negative face FTAs: a
ranking of imposition in proportion to the expenditure of services (including the provision
of time) and of goods (including non-material goods like information as well as the
expression of regard and other face payment). These intra-culturally defined costing of
impositions on an individual‟s preserve are in general constant only in their rank order
from one situation to another.

1.5. DIRECTNESS AND INDIRECTNESS
1.5.1. Directness (D) and Indirectness (ID) as Communication Styles
As we have discussed above, language has a close link with culture. Therefore studying
language and applying it in real life do not only require knowledge of the language itself
but also the culture that influences it. Nations may differ in using strategies to utter the
same expression. Some prefer the direct way, and the others tend to be indirect or
roundabout with the topic. The way of using language largely depends on what we call
“cultural thought patterns” that varies in degree and different in different cultures.
In his study of 700 essays of foreign students in the United States, Kaplan (1972) proposes
4 discourse structures (opposed to the Anglo – Saxon one). He mainly concentrates on
writing and restricts his study to paragraphs in order to find out what he calls “cultural
thought patterns”.


FIGURE 2: Kaplan‟s diagram
(a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(b)

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(a) Anglo – Saxon linearity (English)
(b) Parallel constructions, with the first idea completed in the second part (Semitic)
(c) Circularity, with the topic looked at from different tangents (Oriental)
(d) Freedom to digress and introduce “extraneous” material (Romance)
(e) Similar to (d) but with different lengths, parenthetical amplifications and an abrupt stop
(Russia)
According to Kaplan‟s diagrams, the English people often use direct expression and
thought patterns and the Oriental people in general and the Vietnamese in particular seem

to prefer the roundabout and indirect patterns. In the author‟s research on dialogues and
texts, it is concluded that the Vietnamese are inclined to use indirect strategies and prefer
employing roundabout expression, especially in communication.
With the purpose of borrowing money from someone, the following example can be
accepted by majority of Vietnamese respondents as a good request.
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 hỏi qua
anh xem anh có thể cho em vay khoảng 20 triệu được không ạ? Em sẽ xin gửi lại anh tiền
đầu quý tới anh ạ. (Nguyen Quang, 2004)
(You know, I have been so busy with the new house. It‟s rightly said that “doing the
farming benefits more, building the house costs more.” At first, the estimation of about 230
million VND was enough for the whole construction but only the frame completed counts
for 160 million VND. It is estimated that it needs about 90 million VND for finishing while
I have only 70 million VND left. I‟m so varied but I have no one else to depend on. Thus, I
have to call at you wondering whether you could lend me about 20 million)
However, this request is not accepted as a good request by all Anglicist respondents.
We have discussed about the tendency of using indirectness of Vietnamese in particular
and the Oriental people in general. So why do people like using directness? Thomas (1995:
143) presents his view why the use of indirectness is so pervasive: it is because “…people

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obtain some social or communicative advantages from its use.” He put forward a variety of
reasons explaining the universal use of indirectness, including:
 The desire to make one‟s language more/ less interesting (for example,
enjoying having fun with language)
 To increase the force of one‟s message
 Completing goals
 Politeness / regard for “face”

In conclusion, it is obvious that the ways of language used and strategies have been shaped
by culture. However, there are some more factors affecting directness and indirectness in
human communication.
1.5.2. Socio-Cultural Factors Influencing the Use of Directness and Indirectness in
Human Interaction
Thomas (1995:124) lists 4 main factors which appear to govern directness and indirectness
in all languages and cultures as follows:
 The relative power of the speaker over the hearer
 The social distance between the speaker and the hearer
 The degree to which X is rated an imposition in culture Y
 Relative right and obligation between the speaker and the hearer
Nguyen Quang (2003) presents these factors in more detail of 20 socio-cultural factors as
follows:
1. Age: old people tend to be indirect than young people.
2. Gender: Women are more in favor of indirect expression than men
3. Residence: Rural people appear more indirect than urban people
4. Occupation: people doing social sciences tend to be more indirect in their expression
than those doing natural science