A contrastive analysis of apologizing by english and vietnamese speakers

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY








NGUYEN TRANG NHUNG

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF APOLOGIZING
BY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS

PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH THỨC XIN LỖI CỦA NGƯỜI
ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT


M.A. THESIS




HANOI – 2013


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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY







NGUYEN TRANG NHUNG

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF APOLOGIZING
BY ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS

PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU CÁCH THỨC XIN LỖI CỦA NGƯỜI
ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT

M.A. THESIS

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van



HANOI – 2013



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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been copied
or reproduced by me from any other‟s work without acknowledgement and
that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my
supervisor.

Hanoi, October 10, 2013
Candidate Supervisor



Nguyen Trang Nhung Prof. Hoang Van Van

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to give sincere thanks to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van
for his continuous support, encouragement, patience, sympathy and critical
feedback.
I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to a number of people,
without whose support this thesis would not have been completed.
I am also grateful to my close friends and my colleagues at Hanoi Open
University, Hanoi University of Business and Technology and ETC English
Training Center for their contribution in helping me distribute my
questionnaires and code data for the research.
I also wish to thank other friends for their understanding and assistance during
the process of this study.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my parents for their
constant source of love, support and encouragement in times of difficulty and
frustration.


Nguyen Trang Nhung

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration
Acknowledgements
Table of contents ………………………………………………………………
List of abbreviations
List of tables and figures
PART 1 – INTRODUCTION
1- Rationale of the study
2- Aims of the study
3- Research questions
4- Scope of the study
5- Methods of the study
6- Design of the study
PART 2 – DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
1.1 Literature review: Overview of previous studies on apologies
1.2 Theoretical background
1.2.1 Theories of speech acts
1.2.1.1 Austin‘s theory of speech acts
1.2.1.2 Searle‘s theory of speech acts
1.2.2 Politeness
1.2.2.1 Theories of politeness
1.2.2.1.1 Lakoff‘s theory of politeness
1.2.2.1.2 Brown & Levinson‘s theory of politeness
1.2.2.2 Politeness strategies and choices of strategy
1.2.3 Apologizing
1.2.3.1 Definitions of apology

1.2.3.2 Apologizing as a speech act
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1.2.3.3 Some particular situations in which apologies are recommended
in English and Vietnames
1.2.3.3.1 In English
1.2.3.3.2 In Vietnamese
1.2.3.4 Apologizing strategies
Chapter 2 – Methodology
2.1 Research methods
2.2 Subjects of the study
2.3 Data collection instruments
2.4 Data collection procedures
2.5 Questionnaires
Chapter 3 – Findings and discussions
3.1 Apology data analysis by situation
3.2 Discussions
PART 3 – CONCLUSION
1. Recapitulation
2. Limitations of the study
3. Implications of the study
3.1 Implications for English – Vietnamese cross-cultural communication
3.2 Implications for language learning and teaching
4. Suggestions for a further study
REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………
APPENDIX


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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

CON
DCT
ENG
EXPL

FOR
FTA
INT
H
S
RESP
REP
VNM
Concern for the hearer
Discourse Completion Test
English
Explanation
Promise of Forbearance
Face Threatening Act
Intensification
Hearer
Speaker
Acknowledgement of Responsibility
Offer of Repair
Vietnamese

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: The relation between ‗words‘ and ‗world‘
Table 2: Patterns of apologizing in Vietnamese daily communication
Table 3: Apologizing strategies employed by English and Vietnamese speakers
Table 4: Frequency of the use of apologizing categories by English and
Vietnamese speakers across the first five situations
Table 5: Frequency of the use of apologizing categories by English and
Vietnamese speakers across the last five situations
Figure 1: First rule of Lakoff‘s theory of politeness
Figure 2: Second rule of Lakoff‘s theory of politeness
Figure 3: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 1
Figure 4: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 2
Figure 5: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 3
Figure 6: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 4
Figure 7: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 5
Figure 8: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 6
Figure 9: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese

speakers in the situation 7
Figure 10: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 8
Figure 11: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 9
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Figure 12: Employment of apologizing strategies by English and Vietnamese
speakers in the situation 10

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1
PART I – INTRODUCTION

1- Rationale of the study
Nowadays, English plays an important role in many sectors all over the world.
It is considered as an international language and spoken everywhere. It helps
people from different countries and cultures communicate and become closer.
In all aspects of language, speech acts are assessed as the most specific
culture. In each language and culture, people have different ways to express
their behavior. It means speakers will have different recognitions of speech
acts. Up to now, there are many definitions of speech acts, however,
according to Austin (1975), the most common and general view of speech
acts is of utterances that when issued perform an action. In my thesis, I choose

the speech act of apologizing to be the researched object. Fraser (1981) said
that an apology is the speech act when somebody is offended due to the fact
that personal expectations are not fulfilled. Besides, according to Trosborg
(1995), the speech act of apologizing is required either when the social norms
of politeness demand the mending of a behavior or when a linguistic
expression has offended another person. This speech act always requires the
presence of two respondents, one person apologizes and one person expects
an apology.
My thesis with the title ―A contrastive analysis of apologizing by English and
Vietnamese speakers‖ focuses on analyzing the speech act of apologizing of
two countries which represents for two different cultures: Western and
Eastern culture. As we know, in Western countries, people have been living
with the words to express apology in their whole life. When they were only
small children, they have been taught to say these words. Whenever they
make a very little mistake, they are always ready to say apology. Even some



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mistakes weren‘t caused by them; they still say ―sorry‖. For example: when
walking on the road, someone bump into each other, the first words they say
are sure that ―sorry‖ or ―I‘m sorry‖ instead of finding it to be whose mistake
first. This communicative culture has existed in Western communities for a
long time. This help people communicate and work very comfortable and
effective.
However, contrary to Western countries, Vietnamese people from Eastern
culture rarely say something to express their apology such as ―Sorry‖ or ―I‘m
sorry‖ …. My personal observation shows that the expression of apology is a
ceremonious and affected action; sometimes it is even a bit shameful. In
Vietnam, even for some situations in which we can‘t help expressing the

apology, people still spend a lot of time considering the situation first. They
hesitate so much to say these words. They forgot one thing that their ego‘s put
too high. So we can easily understand why Vietnamese people hardly say
―I‘m sorry‖ or ―Sorry‖. In general, instead of saying these words directly,
Vietnamese people often have a tendency to use other ways such as saying
something else or using other actions to express apology.
The significance of my thesis is expressed through two issues. The first issue
is that the speech act of apology is evidently face-threatening and it is
considered as one of the most highly sensitive acts in daily social
communication. The second one is that it is necessary to find out the suitable
and effective way of expressing the apology as well as avoid hurting the other
in the act of giving apology to gain success in social communication. In
conclusion, I hoped that my thesis can provide the readers more important
knowledge and essential elements to become more confident in cross-cultural
communication. It is also useful for foreign language learning and teaching in
Vietnam. I also expect that my thesis can help people understand and use the



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apologizing words clearly and effectively most. Actions to express apology
are nice characteristics in every culture all over the world. Don‘t be afraid or
ashamed when saying apology.

2- Aims of the study
The aims of this study is to investigate the act of apologizing with subjects
from different cultures (English – Western Culture and Vietnamese – Eastern
Culture) in order to find out whether there are similarities and differences
between their usage of apologies. The study also tries to know the way the
speech act of apology is recognized by English and Vietnamese people,

pointing to any similarities or differences that two groups might display in
their responses to the situations calling for apology and explaining the
motives that cause those similarities and differences. Answers to this question
will be of particular importance in that it constitutes a fertile ground upon
which the other questions that underlie this thesis can be examined.

3- Research questions
The study focused to answer the following research questions:
1- How do English people apologize?
2- How do Vietnamese people apologize?
3- Are there any similarities and differences between their usages of
apologizing strategies?

4- Scope of the study
 The thesis focuses on analyzing situations and strategies of expressing
apology in English and Vietnamese culture.



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 The data were collected by making a Discourse Completion Test
(DCT), based on socially different situations in which apology is
recommended.

5- Methods of the study
In this study, I would like to use both qualitative and quantitative methods.
Quantitative data was elicited by means of a Discourse Completion Test
(DCT) which consists of ten different situations. The collected data will be
analyzed in comparing and contrasting techniques to find out the similarities
and differences in the ways English and Vietnamese perform the act of giving

apology as a politeness strategy.
10 native speakers of English and 10 Vietnamese people [5 native speakers of
English and 10 Vietnamese people are working at ETC English Training
Center, 5 other native speakers are foreigner tourists staying at Silver Hotel at
45 Phan Chu Trinh Street, Hanoi] participated in this study. These subjects
are asked to response a questionnaire with ten situations in which an apology
is expected. The results of the study reveal some similarities and differences
between English and Vietnamese.
Besides, all the comments, considerations and conclusions in this study are
based on:
 references to relevant documents
 statistics and analysis of the collected data
 a survey questionnaire
 consultation with supervisor
 discussion with English and Vietnamese colleagues and friends
 personal observation




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6- Design of the study
My research is divided into three main parts with many different sections:
Part A – Introduction focuses on six issues: the rationale (showing the
importance of English nowadays and apologizing culture in English and
Vietnamese), aims, research questions, scope, methods and design of the
study.
Part B – Development
Chapter 1 – Literature review and theoretical background discusses theories
of the subject, theories of speech acts based on Austin and Searle‘s theories,

theory of politeness and apology. It also shows a review of previous studies
on apologizing, some situations in which apologies are recommended in
English and Vietnamese and strategies to face with these difficulties.
Chapter 2 – Methodology details the methods that have been used, the subject
selections, data collection instruments and procedures and a discourse
completion task.
Chapter 3 – Findings and discussions presents findings of the study and
discusses more about ways to express apology. The similarities and
differences between English and Vietnamese in the apologizing strategies will
be presented and discussed deeply.
Part C – Conclusion summarizes main points of the study, limitations,
implications and some suggestions for further studies in this field.
At the end of this study, there is an Appendix which supplies the reference of
the study and a survey questionnaire for English and Vietnamese.







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PART II – DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 –THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this chapter, the first part will review the previous studies on the speech act
of apology. The second part will be a brief review of the speech act model. It
mainly based on the theories of speech acts of Austin‘s (1962) and Searle‘s
(1969, 1979). Besides, I want to go beyond this particular speech act and
widen the scope of the study by discussing the main outlines of politeness

theories.

1.1 Literature review: Overview of previous studies on apologies
Many researchers in the world chose the speech act of apology to be the title
of their studies. These researches indicated that the countries with different
cultures have different rules in expressing their strategies of apologizing to
keep politeness before each situation. The result of the studies revealed that
pragmatic competence expresses people‘s ability in employing speech acts
appropriately. The researchers have carried out many studies on apologizing
in different languages such as the politeness strategies employed, the cultural
values reflected in the realization of an apology, gender, the factors affecting
the use of a particular strategy and the strategies used by native and non-
native speakers.
In 1989, Olshtain carried out her study on comparing the employment of
strategies of apologies by speakers of English, French, German, and Hebrew.
The findings revealed that there were some considerable similarities in
selecting expressions of responsibility. She concluded that different languages
will realize apologies in very similar ways. In 1997, Sugimoto also researched
about the speech act of apology. The subjects, who participated to answer an



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open-ended questionnaire, consisted of 181 Japanese college students (82
males and 99 females) and 200 American college students (79 males and
121females). The results of the research indicated that the respondents focus
on employing these strategies: explanation of the situation, regret and
reparation. The Japanese subjects may be interested in using these strategies
than American ones. A promise of forbearance and compensation were used
mainly in Japanese strategies of apology.

The study of Garcia (1989) compares the expression of apologies which
performed between non-native speakers of English from Venezuela and
native speakers of English in open-ended role-plays. The findings of this
study indicated that when the respondents want to express apologies to the
host because of their absence at the party, Venezuela respondents employed
the positive politeness strategy which combined explanations of the reason
why they didn‘t attend, avoidance of disagreement with the host and
repetition of the host‘s words and in-group identity markers; otherwise, native
speakers of English mainly used the negative politeness approach. These
apologies included paying deference to the host, self-effacing behavior and
devices to maintain social distance.
Edmundson (1992) carried out an investigation into the perception of
apologies by 161 American native speakers of English. They took part in
assessing whether apologies in an appropriate, sincere, and acceptable number
of television programs. The findings of this research showed interesting
information that not only the sincerity but also the length of the apology
regarded as a standard to decide whether an apology was appropriate. Most of
the respondents said that the apologizer should employ longer apologies
instead of appearance of many too short ones. Almost previous studies I
reviewed in my thesis gave the common conclusion that non-native speakers



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expressed their apologies with the greater length than native speakers did.
However, up to now, none of researches can quantify the exact length of the
apologies which to be regarded as a criterion for an appropriate apology.
According to Hussein (1995), he argued that the individual information of
respondents in the study such as their age, status, level of education, situation
or social distance is one of the main elements affecting to determine the

formulas of any speech acts. A research of apology strategies has carried out
by Hussein and Hammouri in 1998. The respondents of this research are
speakers of English coming from Jordani and America. Looking at the
statistical data, it indicated that only Jordani used the strategy of minimizing
the degree of offense or interjecting; in general, all of respondents employ
some main strategies like the expression of apology, acknowledgement of
responsibility, offer of repair or promise of forbearance.
In Vietnam, most of the limited pragmatics researches are in the tradition of
contrastive pragmatics, which contrast the realization patterns of speech acts
such as greeting (Suu 1990), compliment and compliment response (Quang
1998), request and request response (Thanh 2000; Quyen 2001), disagreeing
(Huong 2001, 2006) Vietnamese with those of other languages, particularly
English. The studies on the speech act of apology also follow the tradition of
descriptive and contrastive pragmatics. Some remarkable studies on this
speech act were carried out by Dang Thanh Phuong (2000), Kieu Thi Hong
Van (2000) and Nguyen Thuy Trang (2010).

1.2 Theoretical background
1.2.1 Theories of speech acts
Speech acts can be undertood as the acts people use to communicate. So that a
speech act is the basic unit of communication. In the progress of



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communicating, people express a certain attitude. According to Joanna
Jaworowska, a speech act can be defined as a minimal functional unit in
human communication. In language, a morpheme is the smallest unit
containing information about meaning and a word is the smallest free form.
Speech acts can be described as the things we do when we speak. Austin

(1962) recognized the existence of thousands of verbs in English like
‗promise, invite, refuse, request, require, claim, apologize, comment, suggest
…‘ which mark speech acts. In his opinion, he considered these verbs as
performatives because by using one of them in the first person, a speaker can
perform an act.
For example: „I promise to come to your house at 7 o‟clock.‟

1.2.1.1 Austin’s theory of speech acts
John Langshaw Austin was a British philosopher of language. We remember
him as the developer of the theory of speech acts. He pointed out that ―we use
language to do things as well as to assert things, and that the utterance of a
statement like ‗I promise to do so-and-so‘ is best understood as doing
something — making a promise — rather than making an assertion about
anything‖. The name of one of his best-known works: ‗How to Do Things
with Words‘ – The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University
in 1955, in which he examined how acts of speech can constitute a change in
the world in virtue of having been uttered; the second paragraph reads:
It was for too long the assumption of philosophers that the
business of a ‗statement‘ can only be to ‗describe‘ some state of
affairs, or to ‗state some fact‘, which it must do either truly or
falsely (1962: 1).



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So I found it simply astonishing that language could be used as an instrument
of performance rather than just a tool to describe reality. Therefore, for
example: when someone says ―It‘s cold‖, it doesn‘t simply mean to describe
the fact of cold weather, in some contexts it is a request to close the door or
open the air-conditioner to warm up. In order to gain any understanding on

the subject one has to take into account ideas and concepts from various
scholars whose fields include philosophy, semantics, pragmatics, and
linguistics. The usual forms of speech acts we meet in language use are
complaining, promising, disparaging, greeting, warning, inviting,
congratulating, and apologizing and so on.
Austin (1962) said that the utterance has many types. They fall essentially
into the category ‗statement‘.
Early in the development of speech act theory, Austin proposed that there
were only two types of utterances possible: performative and constative
utterances. He defined performative utterances that ―they do not ‗describe‘ or
‗report‘ or constate anything at all, are not ‗true or false‘; and the uttering of
sentence is, or is a part of, the doing of an action, which again would not
normally be describe as saying something.‖(1962: 5)
For examples:
(E. a) ‗I do (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)‘ – as uttered
in the course of the marriage ceremony.
(E. b) ‗I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth‘ – as uttered when smashing the
bottle against the stem.
(E. c) ‗I give and bequeath my watch to my brother‘ – as occurring in a will.
(E. d) ‗I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.‘
(1962: 5)



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The second type is ‗constative utterances‘. According to Austin (2000),
uttering a constative is ‗saying something‘ that has the property of being
either true or false. So the constative includes all descriptive utterances,
statements of fact, definitions and so forth: utterances which report, inform
and state (Searle 1971).

According to Austin (1962), a speech act consists of three facets: a
locutionary act – the speech act is performed by meaningful utterance,
illocutionary act – the speech act is performed by meaningful utterance with a
certain performative force and perlocutionary act – the act produces certain
consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of the speaker or
of the other people.
A locutionary act ―which is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence
with a certain sense and reference, which again is roughly equivalent to
‗meaning‘ in the traditional sense‖, Austin said (1962: 108). He divides it into
three aspects: phonetic act, phatic act and rhetic act. As Austin argued in How
to Do Things with Words (1962: 92- 93), the phonetic act is ―always to
perform the act of uttering certain noises‖. The phatic act is that ―always to
perform the act of uttering certain vocables or words, i.e. noises of certain
types belonging to and as belonging to a certain vocabulary, in a certain
grammar, with certain intonation‖. The rhetic act generally performs ―the act
of using those vocables with certain more or less definite sense and
reference‖.
The illocutionary act puts the communicative force into the utterance, which
makes the illocutionary act carrying the illocutionary force the most
important. However, discussions on illocutionary force have figured out a
problem that a same locution can potentially forces, and therefore



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Illocutionary Force Indicating Devices (IFIDs) and felicity conditions of
speech acts need to be taken into consideration.
The act was an illocutionary act of promising and a perlocutionary act of
pleasing. However, Austin warns that ―we must avoid the idea, suggested
above though not stated, that the illocutionary act is a consequence of the

locutionary act‖ (1962: 113).
What we do import by the use of the nomenclature of illocution
is a reference, not to the consequences (at least in any ordinary
sense) of the locution, but to the conventions of illocutionary
force as bearing on the special circumstances of the occasion of
the issuing of the utterance (1962: 114).
According to Austin (1962: 150-163), he classifies illocutionary acts into five
types: verdictives, exercitives, commissives, behabitives, and expositives.
Although there‘re some arguments that Austin‘s classification is not complete
but his classification is the best one in making an effort to create a general
picture of illocutionary act. Below is a rough idea of these five types.
Verdictives: These ‗are typified by the giving of a verdict, as the name
implies, by a jury, arbitrator, or umpire‘ (Austin 1962: 150). Verbs that
belong to this class include: acquit, hold, calculate, describe, analyze,
estimate, date, rank, assess and characterize.
Exercitives: Exercitives ―are the exercising of powers, rights, or influence‖
(Austin 1962: 150). It is a very wide class. Examples of this class are: order,
command, direct, beg, recommend, entreat, and advise.
Commissives: The whole point of a commissive is to commit the speaker to a
certain course of action. They involve declarations or announcements of
intention. Verbs belonging to this class include: promise, pledge, contract,
guarantee, embrace, and swear.



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Behabitives: These involve the idea of reaction to other people‘s behavior or
attitudes, and expressions of attitudes to others‘ past conduct. Examples are:
apologize, thank, congratulate, felicitate, welcome, bless, curse, and toast.
Expositives: These involve verbs that make utterances fit into the course of

argument or conversation. For example: affirm, deny, illustrate, answer,
report, accept, class, identify and call.
In short, Austin summarized that ―the verdictive is an exercise of judgment,
the exercitive is an assertion of influence or exercising of power, the
commissive is an assuming of an obligation or declaring of an intention, the
behabitive is the adopting of an attitude, and the expositive is the clarifying of
reasons, arguments, and communications‖ (1962: 162).
The perlocutionary act displays the result of the speaker‘s utterance. Austin
expressed his opinion of a perlocutionary act: ―Saying something will often,
or even normally, produce certain consequential effects upon the feeling,
thoughts, or actions of the audience, or of the speaker, or of other persons:
and it may be done with the design, intention, or purpose of producing them
We shall call the performance of an act of this kind the performance of a
perlocutionary act (1962: 101).

1.2.1.2 Searle’s theory of speech acts
The American philosopher, John Searle is considered as the person who had
the second great contribution to the development of speech act theory.
Besides inheriting ideas from Austin and elaborating on some of them, he
developed the theory in his own fashion: the essence of it being that to
perform an illocutionary act is to express an illocutionary intention (Searle,
1979). The researches of Searle (1983) and Searle and Vanderveken (1985)



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focus on explaining the illocutionary act in a formal model which is
compatible with the formal analysis of propositional contents.
In Searle‘s theory of speech act, he developed one more act: propositional act.
Then, he continued to subdivide it into two groups: a reference act and an act

of predication. This is the major difference between Austin‘s and Searle‘s
theories of speech act. Below I will show a brief of two ways of classification
of the speech act by Austin and Searle to help the readers have a general view
about the similarities and differences between them.
Austin
1. Locutionary act
 Phonetic act
 Phatic act
 Rhetic act
2. Illocutionary act
3. Perlocutionary act
Searle
1. Utterance act
2. Propositional act
 Reference act
 Act of predication
3. Illocutionary act
4. Perlocutionary act
The uttering of morphemes, words and sentences are the most basic act in
Searle‘s system. A morpheme is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of
word (such as ‗cat‘ or a word element (such as the –s at the end of ‗cats‘) that
cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. Therefore, it is very different
to Austin‘s phone. The utterance act does not correspond to Austin‘s phonetic
act. It doesn‘t mean that Searle rejects the idea of a phonetic act; he realizes it
but doesn‘t include it.
It seems that the utterance act corresponds roughly to Austin‘s phatic act.
The utterance act is a speech act that consists of the verbal employment of
units of expression such as morphemes, words and sentences and the phatic
act is the act of uttering the vocables, words and grammatical units in a
specific language. In short, two kinds of these acts are the same.

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According to Searle (1976), there are five illocutionary points: assertives,
directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives.
Assertives are such utterances which commit the hearer to the truth of the
expressed proposition (e.g. asserting, concluding). For example: ―The black
cat is stupid” - is an assertive illocutionary act (it intends to communicate),
“The name of the British queen is Elizabeth”.
Commissives are statements which commit the speaker to a course of action
as described by the propositional content. They are promises, threats, refusals
For example: “I‟ll be back in ten minutes”, “I promise to come at 6 o‟clock
and make some cakes for you”…
Declaratives are statements that attempt to change the world by ―representing
it as having been changed‖. For example: “You are victory”, “You are out.”
Directives are statements that attempt to make the auditor´s actions fit the
propositional content like suggestions, requests, orders For example:
“Could you give me some money?”, “Turn off the radio.”
Expressives express a psychological state like apologies, thanking, greetings,
compliments For example: “I‟m sorry I‟m late”, “Great!”
As defined, the illocutionary point of the act is the pupose of the act. It means
the illocutionary point of directives is to get the hearer to do something.
Taking advantage of this one, Searle made an effort of establishing the
aforementioned speech acts.
The relationship between language and the world concerned directly with the
‗fit‘ of the illocutionary point. Therefore, the world gets to fit their words
when the speakers employ the illocutionary point of directives; and contrary
to it, their words get to fit the world when the speakers employ the
illocutionary point of assertives. To find out clearly Searle‘s speech act

theory, I show a table below:



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Speech-act
category
Relation between
‘words’ and ‘world’
Object is responsible for the
relation:
Speaker (S) - Hearer (H)
Assertives
Words fit world
S
Commissives
World fits words
S
Declaratives
Words change world
S
Directives
World fits words
H
Expressives
Words fit world
S
Table 1: The relation between ‘words’ and ‘world’

1.2.2 Politeness

1.2.2.1 Theories of politeness
There are many definitions of politeness. According to Wehmeier, politeness
means having or showing good manners and respect for the feelings of others
(2000: 976). Politeness is the expression of the speakers‘ intention to mitigate
face threats carried by certain face threatening acts towards another (Mill
1003: 6). Or according to William Foley, politeness is a battery of social skills
whose goal is to ensure everyone feels affirmed in a social interaction. Theory
of politeness is the theory that accounts for the redressing of the affronts to
face posed by face-threatening acts to addressees (1997). Through a process
of researching related documents, I found that Lakoff and Brown and
Levinson were some of the earliest linguists to study politeness. Since then,
many other theorists have either built on their ideas and principles or disprove
them.