ommon english auxiliaries prominent linguistic features and possible pedagogical implications = một số trợ động từ thông dụng trong tiếng anh những đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học nổi trội và ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu

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

BÙI ĐỖ HOÀNG HẢI

COMMON ENGLISH AUXILIARIES:
PROMINENT LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
Một số trợ động từ thông dụng trong tiếng Anh: Những đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học
nổi trội và ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.02.01

Hanoi - 2014


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

BÙI ĐỖ HOÀNG HẢI

COMMON ENGLISH AUXILIARIES:
PROMINENT LINGUISTIC FEATURES AND POSSIBLE
PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Một số trợ động từ thông dụng trong tiếng Anh: Những đặc điểm ngôn ngữ học
nổi trội và ứng dụng sư phạm khả hữu

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.02.01
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Võ Đại Quang

Hanoi - 2014


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
“Common English auxiliaries: prominent linguistic features and possible
pedagogical implications” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of MA in English Linguistics.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used
without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.

Hanoi, 2014

Bui Do Hoang Hai

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support from a

number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Vo Dai Quang, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly supported me
through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and
suggestions have inspired me greatly throughout my growth as an academic
researcher.
A special word of thanks goes to my colleagues and many others, without whose
support and encouragement it would never have been possible for me to have this
thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the sacrifice
they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

ii


ABSTRACT
The thesis is focused on the linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might as
politeness markers in English. It is also aimed at investigating different types of
mistakes commonly committed by students at Ninh Giang High School. Another
focus of the thesis is the seeking of possible solutions to the problems encountered
by students in using Could, Would, May, Might as politeness markers. Also,
possible solutions to how the uses of Could, Would, May, Might should be most
effectively taught are offered. In addition to these, suggestions for future research
are provided.

iii


ABBREVIATIONS & TABLES

MoD

Deontic modals

MoE

Epistemic modals

AdvF

Adverbs of frequency

Qnt

Quantifiers

Nec

Necessary

Psb

Possible

Imp

Impossible

FTA

Face Threatening Act

FFA

Face Flattering Act

FSA

Face Saving Act

DCT

Discourse Completion Task

Q

Question

iv


TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY ............................................................ i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................ ii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... iii
ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................ iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................ v
PART A: INTRODUCTION........................................................................ 1
1. Rationale of the study ................................................................................... 1
2. Aim of the research ...................................................................................... 1

3. Objectives of the research. ............................................................................ 1
4. Scope of the research .................................................................................... 1
5. Significance of the research .......................................................................... 2
6. Structural organization of the thesis.............................................................. 2
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 3
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................... 3
1.1. Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis ........ 3
1.2. Theoretical preliminaries ........................................................................... 5
1.2.1. English auxiliaries ................................................................................... 5
1.2.2. Concept of “Politeness” .......................................................................... 8
1.3. Summary ................................................................................................. 14
CHARPTER 2. METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 15
2.1. Research orientations ............................................................................... 15
2.1.1. Research questions ................................................................................ 15
2.1.2. Research setting .................................................................................... 15
2.1.3. Research approaches ............................................................................. 15
2.2. Research methods..................................................................................... 15

v


2.2.1. Data collection instruments ................................................................... 15
2.2.2. Data analysis ......................................................................................... 17
2.2.3. Procedure............................................................................................... 18
2.3. Summary .................................................................................................. 18
CHAPTER 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ...................................... 19
3.1. Findings & Discussion on linguistic features of Could, Would
May, Might ..................................................................................................... 19
3.1.1. Structural features of Could, Would, May, Might ............................... 19
3.1.2. Semantico-pragmatic features of Could, Would, May, Might ............. 21

3.1.3. Phonological features ........................................................................... 22
3.2. Findings & Discussion on types of mistakes commonly committed by
elementary level students at Ninh Giang high school .................................... 24
3.2.1. Mistakes related to structural organization of the sentence ................. 24
3.2.2. Mistakes related to semantico-pragmatic usage .................................. 24
3.2.3. Mistakes related to phonological features ............................................ 25
3.2.4. Teaching and learning conditions ........................................................ 25
3.3. Findings & Discussion on the possible pedagogical implications for
teaching Could, Would, May, Might .............................................................. 25
* Solutions to the types of mistakes committed by elementary level students at
Ninh Giang high school .................................................................................. 25
3.3.1. Solutions to mistakes related to structural organization of the
sentence .......................................................................................................... 25
3.3.2. Solutions to the types of mistakes related to
semantico-pragmatic usage ........................................................................... 27
3.3.3. Solutions to mistakes related to phonological features ........................ 28
3.4. Summary .................................................................................................. 28
PART C: CONCLUSION............................................................................. 29

vi


1. Recapitulation.............................................................................................. 29
2. Conclusions ................................................................................................. 29
2.1. Conclusions on objective 1 ...................................................................... 29
2.2. Conclusions on objective 2 ...................................................................... 30
2.3. Conclusions on objective 3 ...................................................................... 30
2.4. Recommendations ................................................................................... 31
3. Limitations of the current research ............................................................. 31
4. Suggestions for future research ................................................................... 32

REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 33
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 35
APPENDIX ....................................................................................................... I

vii


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In interpersonal communication via English, the auxiliaries Could, Would, May,
Might convey different modal meanings and thus express different attitudes of
language users. In my observation as an English teacher, I can see that learners of
English are likely to commit mistakes related to the uses of these auxiliaries as
politeness markers.
For this reason, I have made up my mind to choose this as the topic for my research.

2. Aim of the research
This thesis is an attempt to gain an insightful look into the linguistic features of
Could, Would, May, Might as politeness markers in interpersonal communication.
And, on this basis, possible pedagogical implications might be obtained.

3. Objectives of the research
The following have been set forth as specific objectives of the thesis:
(i) Identification of the linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might as
politeness markers in English.
(ii) Categorization of the mistakes commonly made by learners of English in using
Could, Would, May, Might as politeness makers.
(iii) Possible pedagogical implications in the teaching of Could, Would, May, Might
as politeness markers in interpersonal interaction.

4. Scope of the research
All English modal auxiliaries can be employed as politeness markers in
interpersonal communication. Among those modal auxiliaries Could, Would, May,
Might lie within the range of most commonly employed politeness markers. This
study is confined to linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might as politeness
markers in interpersonal interaction. In addition, the thesis is also concerned with

1


different types of mistakes likely to be committed by learners of English at Ninh
Giang high school in using Could, Would, May, Might and the possible solutions
that might be obtained.

5. Significance of the research
The practical value of the thesis lies in the fact that, with the research results
obtained, an insight can be gained into the linguistic features of Could, Would, May,
Might. This type of knowledge, to the possible extent, helps facilitate teaching,
translating, and communicating in English.

6. Structural organization of the thesis
The study is composed of three main parts.
Part A is the introduction which presents the rationale, aim, and scope of the study
as well as the significance of the research.
Part B is “Development” which consists of three chapters.
Chapter one is about the theoretical background for the research. This chapter is
aimed at establishing the framework of investigation.
Chapter two is entitled “Methodology”. This chapter gives a general description of
the research method, the subjects chosen for the study, the data collection
instruments and the research procedures.

Chapter three, “Findings and Discussions”, presents the linguistic features and the
results of the survey, observation, and interview. These were done by students and
teachers. Comparison of the students‟ and teachers‟ progress, and some relevant
pedagogical implications are brought forward for learners of English.
The final part is the “Conclusion” which presents a recapitulation, and provides
conclusions on each of the thesis objectives. Recommendations and suggestions for
future studies are also herein provided.
At the end of the thesis are References and Appendices.

2


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Review of previous studies related to the research area of the thesis
Following are the previous research works directly related to the theme of the
thesis:
(i) Politeness markers used in offering assistance in English and Vietnamese, Hồ
Thị Kiều Oanh, No 5(40).2010. Science and Technology magazine,
Da Nang university
This article describes and compares the politeness markers used in the speech act of
offering assistance in Australian English and Vietnamese. These politeness markers
include the strategies and the social deixes (Addressing Terms, Formal Semantic
Items, and Pragmatic Particles) investigated in various situational contexts, and then
explain the underlying reasons for the similarities and / or dissimilarities in the use
of these politeness markers in terms of face and politeness aspects of the Australian
and Vietnamese cultures.
This study is related to strategies, politeness markers, formal semantic items,
pragmatic particles. Strategies of offering assistance: the way the speech act of

offering assistance is realized with regard to linguistic forms and means; politeness
markers: strategies and social deixes; formal semantic items: formal forms used to
show deference.; pragmatic particles: words that have no lexical meaning, used to
indicate the grammatical relationship between fully semantic words within a
sentence.
(ii) A contrastive analysis of the meanings expressed via the modal verbs can, may,
must in English and the equivalent expressions in Vietnamese, Nguyễn Minh Huệ,
2010. ULIS

3


Preliminaries and features of modal auxiliaries in English and in Vietnamese,
making a comparison between modal meanings expressed by can, may, must in
English and their Vietnamese equivalent expressions and offering some suggestions
for the application of the study to the teaching of English modals.
The thesis has gained a correct interpretation of a modal verb May, accorded a
central place to the role of both speaker and hearer in the construction of meaning
and taking account of both social and psychological factors. Comparing with
English modal verb May, Vietnamese modal verb is quite ambiguous in nature. The
implication of teaching English modal verbs to Vietnamese learners of English: one
of the suggestions is about ways which help learners to realize the meaning of each
modal in certain setting by regarding to the context of the utterance. That is the
reason why teaching English modal verbs faces with great challenges.
The issues are left for further research: a contrastive analysis on English and
Vietnamese modal systems in expressing the notion of possibility, permission and
obligation and a study on linguistic means capable of expressing permission and
obligation in English
(iii)

A study on politeness strategies manifested in advising in English and

Vietnamese, Lê Thu Thảo, 2008. ULIS
This study is related to positive and negative politeness strategies. It has drawn out
the important role of politeness in social communication, especially in cross cultural communication, studied positive and negative politeness strategies
manifested in advising in English and Vietnamese, put forward some suggestions
for teaching advising situations.
This study is only a partial investigation in to the politeness strategies in advising in
English and Vietnamese so there are still some important issues that remained
unanswered such as “Addressing forms in advising” etc… Particularly it would be
useful for English teaching and learning if the future research is focused on “The
use of positive and negative politeness strategies of English and Vietnamese people

4


in daily communication” or “the use of politeness strategies in making suggestions
in English and Vietnamese” in the near future.

1.2. Theoretical preliminaries
1.2.1. English auxiliaries
An auxiliary verb is most generally understood as a verb that "helps" another verb
by adding grammatical information to it. On this basis, the auxiliary verbs of
English can be classified into primary auxiliaries (DO, HAVE, BE) and modal
auxiliaries. Primary auxiliaries mainly perform grammatical function. Modal
auxiliaries are those auxiliaries that perform both grammatical and modal function,
i.e. they express the speaker‟s attitudes towards the propositional content and the
interlocutor.
1.2.1.1. English primary auxiliaries
English has three primary auxiliary verbs: do, be, and have. All three take part in

the formation of various grammatical constructions, but carry very little meaning
themselves. For example, the primary auxiliary be is used to form the progressive,
as in: Tim is dancing.
It makes little sense to ask what is meant by BE in this sentence. Instead, what is of
interest is what is does, i.e. that it helps form a verb phrase which, as a
whole, indicates that Tim's dancing is going on at this moment. The same reasoning
applies to all the primary auxiliaries. They are auxiliaries in the true sense of being
'helpers' in conveying verbal meaning.
The verb to be forms the passive voice (The ball was hit by John)
The verb to have forms the perfect tenses (I have decided to retire).
The verb to do enables us to negate or to ask questions (He did not write the book,
Do you mind?).
Notice that each of these verbs can act as a main verb as well, as in I am happy, He
has a lot of money, and He does his own thing.

5


(Source: grammar/verbphrases/primary-auxiliary-verbs/)
To put it in a nutshell, we can say that primary auxiliaries mainly perform
grammatical function rather than convey other types of meaning.
1.2.1.2. English modal auxiliaries
Language was first subject to the truth conditional laws of logic, until intensional
logic accepted that there is truth relativity in language (speech), an idea that led to
the notion of „possible worlds‟, in order to explain modal or temporal operators,
among other linguistic aspects that rely on the „points of view‟ difference between
language (grammar) and discourse. Bally (1932) took over the mediaeval
proposition analysis. Proposition used to be decomposed into modus and dictum:
dictum corresponds to the propositional content, while modus stands for the
speaker‟s subjective attitude towards dictum. The linguist points out that modality

may be both explicit and implicit and the relation between modus and dictum is
represented by a scale, having the explicit at one of its ends and the implicit or
synthetic at the other, where modality is incorporated in dictum. Modal verbs are
implicit morphological manifestations of modality (Boicu, 2007: 2).
There are 10 core or central modals in English: can, could, may, might, must, ought,
shall, should, will, and would. Other verbs--including need, had better and invariant
be--may also function as modals (or semi-modals).
Palmer (2001: 7) proposes a binary distinction the former separates „non-modal‟
from „modal‟ and is associated with the notional contrast between „factual‟ and
„non-factual‟ or „real‟ and „unreal‟, although a more satisfactory terminology has
been used in recent years: „realis‟ and „irrealis‟. Modality belongs to the „irrealis‟
domain, along with some tenses and moods.
The second distinction Palmer makes divides modal verbs in keeping with the two
main semantic categories: epistemic and deontic.

6


Halliday (1970), in his systemic functional grammar, distinguishes between two
systems that he calls „modality‟ and „modulation‟. The former concerns the
utterance through which the speaker subjectively qualifies his involvement in the
truth value of the propositional content. It is associated with semantic categories
such as „probable‟, „possible‟, „virtually certain‟ and „certain‟. This system was
derived from what Haliday considered to be the interpersonal metafunction of
language.
Modulation concerns the ideational metafunction of the content and of the
conditions that influence it. Its types are defined in terms of „permission‟,
„obligation‟, „ability‟, „desire‟, etc. The cause of ambiguity would be the fact that
the two systems are semantically similar, since they both underlie the same group of
modal verbs.

Hoffman (1993) states that there are four main modalities contained by logical,
epistemic, deontic and capacity modals. He puts forward the assumption that
“Natural languages have three basic logical modal concepts: [Nec] necessary, [Psb]
possible and [Imp] impossible; the first two are defined and given symbols in
logic”.
The linguist adds: “The big division in English linguistic modality is between the
epistemic ones which relate propositions one to another, and the others which
generally have some subject-orientation” (emphasis in the original).
The author analyzes the similarities between the two main series of modal verbs,
epistemic modals (MoE) and social deontic modals (MoD) and parallels them with
quantifiers (Qnt) and adverbs of frequency (AvF), in a table of seven degrees of
„strength‟ concerning all the four classes of elements.
“These seven degrees of „strength‟ range from [Nec] (necessary) down to [Imp]
(impossible) and are found in many guises in most languages, though specific words
may well be missing (as in MoD, and especially for the capacity modals) for
intermediate terms. Quantifiers form the most complete scale in most languages”
(Hoffman 1993: 111).

7


The correlation among the above-mentioned categories is shown in the following
Table (Hoffman 1993: 112):

MoD

MoE

AvF

Qnt

{Nec}

must

must

always

all, every

{Apx-Nec}

should

should

usually

most

-

may/could

often

many/much

can

may

sometimes

some

-

might

occasionally

a few

{Apx-Imp}

should not

should not

seldom, rarely

few

{Imp}

must not

must not, can‟t

never

none, no

{Psb}

1.2.2. Concept of “Politeness”
Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or
etiquette. It is a culturally defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered
polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in another
cultural context.
“Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.” Madame de Stael (Abel
Stevens, 1880).
Have you ever ordered at a restaurant in a foreign country only to get an ugly look
from the waiter? Have you ever asked somebody to do you a favor, only then to
have them refuse with an upset tone in their voice? Well, maybe your problem when
speaking English comes down to a lack of politeness.
The English language is full of these little formalities which can definitely
determine whether you‟re going to make a good first impression on someone or not.
We have this unspoken etiquette when asking for information, or even when we‟re
offering something and we have to take into consideration how we are offering it.
Using “please” and “thank you” is necessary in most situations. In a lot of

8


situations, people expect a sort of indirect way of speaking to each other, which can
be interpreted as for the sake of showing politeness.

(Source: />* “Face” and “Face Threatening Act” (FTA)
Brown and Levinson (1978) provide a slightly different perspective on politeness
phenomena which they have studied in more widely diverse languages and cultures.
They suggest that the origin of politeness phenomena is the same in all societies. All
human beings, in order to enter into social relationships with each other, must
acknowledge the “face” of other people.
Interestingly enough, central to their theory is the abstract notion of “face” which is
derived from that of Goffman (1955) “face-work” (the work of presenting faces to
each other, protecting our own face, and protecting the other‟s face), and from that
of English folk term which ties face up with notions of being embarrassed or
humiliated, and “losing face”.
Brown and Levinson assume that all adult competent members of a society have:
“Face, the public self-image that every member (of a society) wants to claim for
himself consisting of two related aspects:
* Negative face: the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to nondistraction, i.e. to freedom of action and freedom from imposition.
* Positive face: the positive consistent self-image or personality „crucially including
the desire that this self-image be appreciated‟.”
They point out that it is a universal characteristic across cultures that speakers
should respect each others‟ expectation regarding self-image, take account of their
feelings, and avoid Face Threatening Acts
(FTAs – acts which threaten the face wants of the speaker, the hearer, or both of
them). They also propose 4 kinds of FTAs:
(i)

Acts threatening to the hearer‟s negative face by indicating (potentially) that

the speaker does not intend to avoid impeding hearer‟s freedom of action. E.g.

9

ordering, suggesting, advising, reminding, threatening, warning, offering,
promising, complimenting
(ii)

Acts threatening to the hearer‟s positive face by indicating (potentially) that

the speaker does not care about the addressee‟s feeling, wants, etc. – that in some
important respect, he does not want hearer‟s wants. E.g. disapproving, contempting,
complaining, criticizing, disagreeing, accusing and raising taboo topics
(iii)

Acts threatening to the speaker‟s negative face. E.g. accepting an offer,

accepting thanks, excusing, promising unwillingly
(iv)

Acts threatening to the speaker‟s positive face. E.g. apologizing, accepting

compliments, and confessing (Shohibussirri, 2011: 14-15)
* Face Flattering Act (FFA)
Politeness strategies (following Dacia Dressen-Hammouda‟s work):
“Kerbrat-Orecchioni (2011) has argued that viewing politeness solely as deflecting
„face-threatening acts‟ is misleading, because politeness is about more than just
repairing threats. It also includes „anti‐threats‟: people work to save face and
enhance it. Accordingly, she proposes „face-flattering acts‟ (or FFAs, also „faceenhancing‟ or „face-giving‟) as a counterpoint to face‐threatening acts (FTAs).
Whereas FTAs are softened (through indirectness and reductors), FFAs are
reinforced (thanks a lot/very much/a million) but never diminished (thanks a little)”.
* Face Saving Act (FSA)
Source: />“Face saving (or saving face) refers to maintaining a good self image. People who

are involved in a conflict and secretly know they are wrong will often not admit that
they are wrong because they don‟t want to admit they made a mistake. They
therefore continue the conflict, just to avoid the embarrassment of looking bad”.
* Could, Would, May, Might as linguistic means employable for producing FSAs.
+ Positive and Negative Politeness

10


According to Yule (2006), A Positive Politeness leads the requester to appeal to a
common goal, and even friendship, via expressions. Usually the on-record
expression does represent a greater risk for the speaker of suffering a refusal and
may be preceded by some „getting to know you‟ talk. For examples:
a. How about letting me use your pen?
b. Hey, buddy, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me use your pen
(Yule, 1996: 64)
A Negative Politeness is typically expressed via questions that contain a modal
verb. This strategy also results in forms which contains apology for the imposition.
For examples:
a. Could you lend me a pen?
b. I’m sorry to bother you, but can I ask you for a pen or something?
c. I know you’re busy, but I might I ask you if–em–if you happen to
have an extra pen that I could, you know–eh–maybe borrow?
(Yule, 1996: 64)
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), Positive Politeness orients to preserving
the positive face of others to emphasize one‟s solidarity with the addressee.
Negative Politeness orients to maintaining the negative face of others when one‟s
tend to opt for the speech strategies emphasize one‟s deference to the addressee.
+ Mitigating Devices
Mitigating devices is used to soften the speaker‟s demands or orders, so the damage

to the hearer can be lessened. These on-record politenesses may be followed by
„please‟ and „would you?‟ For examples:
a. Would you lend me your pen?
b. Lend me your pen, please.

c. Have some more cakes.
(Yule, 1996: 63)

11


Take the situation of a student and his teacher. The student wants to borrow his
teacher‟s pen and he will use either statement (a) or (b). The word „would‟ is a
polite word and it is used to make a polite request, and the word „please‟ is same as
„would‟; when there is no „would‟ word, we can add „please‟ to be sounded more
polite, even the statement begins with a verb but there is a word „please‟ it is
considered as polite. In statement (c), it starts with a verb but it is not a command or
an order, because „have‟ here has the different function as an allowance or
invitation.
+ Indirectness
Indirectness is a universal phenomenon in all natural languages (Thomas, 1995:
119) and it functions as “as a form of politeness” (Lakoff, 1990: 34). It is often
concerned with politeness as a result of the difference between the structure and the
communicative function of utterances. For examples:
This is a conversation between a non-teaching staff member and a lecturer:
A: I suppose you are going to the Main Campus, sir (?)
B: Yes.
A: May I join you in your car, then?
B: Okay.
In the above conversation, A knows that B is on his way to the Main Campus

but he uses indirectness as a politeness strategy by first using intonation (with no
obvious question marker) to present a declarative as an interrogative. He further
uses an interrogative or a question to make his request. If he says, „I want to join
you in your car‟, he would definitely flout the politeness maxims of Lakoff: „Don‟t
impose‟ and „Give options‟.
* Politeness markers
“Politeness markers can be understood as expressions added to the utterance to
„show deference to the addressee and to bid for cooperative behavior‟. The most
obvious example of a politeness marker in English is please, but there are others,

12


e.g., if you wouldn’t/don’t mind, tag questions with the modal verb will/would
following an imperative structure (Close the door, will you/would you?), etc.”.

* Polite requests with " I " as the Subject
Modal
Verb

Example/s

Explanation
May I and Could I are used to request permission.
They are equally polite.

May I ...
?

May I (please) borrow your

pen?

Could I
... ?

Could I borrow your pen
(please)?

Can I ...
?

Can I borrow your pen?

Note:
In a polite request, Could has a present or future
meaning, not a past meaning.
Might is also possible: Might I borrow your pen?
Might I is quite formal and polite; it is used much
less frequently than May I and Could I.
Can I is used informally to request permission,
especially if the speaker is talking to someone s/he
knows fairly well. Can I is usually considered a
little less polite than May I or Could I.
Response

Certainly.
Yes, certainly.
Of course. Yes, of course.
Sure. (informal)

Often the response to a polite request is an action,
such as a nod or shake of the head, or a simple "uhhuh."

13


* Polite requests with "You" as the Subject
Modal
Verb
Would
You...?
Will you...?

Example/s

Explanation

Would you pass me the salt
(please)?

The meaning of would you and will you in a
polite request is the same. Would you is more
common and is often considered more polite.
The degree of politeness, however, is often
determined by the speaker's tone of voice.

Will you (please) pass me the
salt?

Basically, could you and would you have the

same meaning. The difference is slight.
Could you
...?

Would you = Do you want to do this please?

Could you pass me the salt
(please)?

Could you = Do you want to do this please,
and Is it possible for you to do this?
Could you and would you are equally polite.

Can you
...?

Can you is often used informally. It usually
sounds less polite than could you or would
you.

Can you (please) pass the salt?

Response
A person usually responds in the affirmative
to a polite request. If a negative response is
necessary, a person might begin by saying "I'd
like to, but...." (e.g. I'd like to pass the salt, but
I can't reach it").

Yes, I'd ( I would ) be happy to

Yes, I'd ( I would ) be glad to.
Certainly
Sure. (informal)

1.3. Summary
In short, this chapter provides a review of some major theoretical points related to
investigations into English auxiliaries in general and English modal auxiliaries
Could, Would, May, Might as politeness markers in particular. Modality in language
is the speaker‟s attitude to the proposition of the utterance. It can be seen from what
has been presented above that Could, Would, May, Might are commonly employed
as linguistic means for preserving negative face of the interlocutor in an interaction;
and they can be employed as a means for producing face saving acts (FSAs) in
interpersonal communication.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research orientations
2.1.1. Research questions
The thesis seeks answers for the following research questions:
(i) What are the linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might as politeness
markers in English?
(ii) What are the types of mistakes commonly committed by learners of English in
using Could, Would, May, Might as politeness makers?
(iii) What are the pedagogical implications for the teaching of Could, Would, May,
Might as politeness markers?
2.1.2. Research setting
The study has been conducted at Ninh Giang High School in Hai Duong. The
instruments used to gather the data are questionnaires supported by observation and

interviews. The researcher gave questionnaires to 90 elementary level students.
2.1.3. Research approaches
This research is intended to be mainly qualitatively conducted. Elements of
quantification are also employed to seek and to support the reliability of the
comments qualitatively arrived at via documents analysis, analysis of the data
obtained by way of questionnaires, interviews, and via inferencing.

2.2. Research methods
This thesis can be seen mainly as a descriptive research. In describing and
establishing linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might and the mistakes
committed at Ninh Giang High School, a number of data collection instruments
have been resorted to. The details are as follows:
2.2.1. Data collection instruments
In order to collect information about the teacher‟s and students‟ teaching, learning

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ability and discover how well the students use Could, Would, May, Might as
politeness markers through the research, the researcher has used document analysis,
questionnaires, observation, and interviews as employable instruments.
* Document analysis
One of the focuses set out for the thesis is the establishment of linguistic features of
Could, Would, May, Might. These features can be revealed via keen observation on
the analyzed data. It then follows from this that document analysis should be seen as
a data collection instrument. This means the analysis conducted on the data obtained
from different sources is sure to bring about useful information on the auxiliaries
under investigation. The assumption here is “The more multi-dimensional the
analysis is, the more informative the results are”.
In other words, document analysis can be seen as both as a technique and as an

effective tool for establishing linguistic features of Could, Would, May, Might with
respect to structural organization, semantico-pragmatic traits and phonological
characteristics.
* Survey questionnaire
Questionnaires have commonly been seen as one of the most effective data
collection instruments in survey research. The main purpose of the questionnaires
designed for this research is to collect different types of mistakes committed by
students in using Could, Would, May, Might as politeness markers. These
questionnaires are to be organized in accordance with the types of mistakes
collected, viz. structural mistakes, semantico-pragmatic mistakes and phonological
mistakes. The questionnaires administered to students are structured in the form of
(i) multiple choice questions, (ii) cloze test (gap filling), (iii) DCT (Discourse
Completion Task), (iv) sentence building on the basis of given words.
With the diversity of forms in the questionnaires, an overview of different mistakes
committed by students can be obtained. And, on account of the established types of
mistakes, possible solutions to the problems might be worked out.

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