The speech act of apology made by Vietnamese EFL Learners An interlanguage pragmatic study

The speech act of apology made by Vietnamese
EFL Learners: An interlanguage pragmatic study


Nguyễn Hương Lý


Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm
Năm bảo vệ: 2012


Abstract. Part A is the introduction of the study including the identification of the
problem, the aims, the objectives, the scope of the study, the significance, the research
method as well as the organization of the study. Part B contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1
reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the study including pragmatics, speech act theory
and some previous studies on interlanguage apologies. Chapter 2 discusses issues of
methodology and outlines the study design, data collection instruments, reliability and
validity test of the data collection instruments, procedure of data collection, selection of
subjects and analytical framework. Chapter 3 presents the data analysis and discusses the
findings on the choice of apology strategies used by EN speakers, EFL learners and VN
speakers in relation to the variables of Power (P), Social Distance (D) and Ranking of
Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied. Some pragmatic transfer on interlanguage
apology is also mentioned in this chapter. Part C provides an overview of major findings
and interpretations, implications, limitations and suggestions for further research.

Keywords. Tiếng Anh; Giao tiếp; Liên ngôn ngữ; Người Việt Nam

Content
1. Identification of the problem

To become effective communicators nowadays, it is essential for English foreign language (EFL)
Learners to gain communicative competence. Communicative competence, according to Ellis, “entails
both linguistic competence and pragmatic competence” (Ellis, 1994:696). Linguistic competence is the
ability to use the linguistic rules of a given language. Pragmatic competence, on the other hand, is “the
ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in
context” (Thomas, 1983:94). Likewise, Bialystok (1993) claimed that pragmatic competence is the ability
to make use of different language functions, the ability to understand the speakers’ underlying intention;
and the ability to modify the speech according to contexts.
Recently, increasing attention has been paid to pragmatic competence due to the fact that foreign
language learners who have good knowledge of grammar and a wide range of vocabulary but lack
sociolinguistic awareness may encounter communicating problems with native speakers because of their
incompetence
to use sociolinguistic rules properly or interpret those words correctly.
Moreover, in
accordance with Thomas (1983), native speakers often forgive the phonological, syntactic and lexical
errors made by L2 speakers but usually interpret pragmatic errors negatively as rudeness, impoliteness or
unfriendliness.
Thus foreign language speakers
need to have more than pure linguistic competence in
order to be able to communicate effectively in a language and know how a language is used by members
of a speech community to accomplish their purposes (Hymes:1972). In other words, it can be justifiably
suggested that foreign language speakers need to use the target language in both linguistically and socially
appropriate ways.
Over the past few decades, language teaching in the world has witnessed a shift from the focus on
the development of learners’ linguistic competence to the development of learners’ communicative
competence.
Many empirical studies on learners’ pragmatic competence on the basis of diverse
speech acts have been conducted
in variety of cultures and languages
to gather

information on what
appropriate use of linguistic forms in different sociocultural contexts actually comprises (e.g., Bergman
& Kasper, 1993; Blum-Kulka, 1991;
Ellis, 1992;
Trosborg, 1987, 1995; Yu, 1999a, 1999b, 2005;
Shardakova, 2005; Bataineh, 2006, 2008). Those studies have contributed greatly to a better
understanding of the use of linguistic forms in different languages and cultures and further to avoiding
cross-cultural miscommunication.
On response to this trend, some Vietnamese researchers investigated similarities and differences in
the realization of speech acts such as requesting, inviting, disagreeing, greeting, giving and receiving
compliments, apologizing, promising made by speakers of English and Vietnamese. Among these speech
acts, apology is considered a highly-recurrent and routinized act. Kasper (1996) stated that in any speech
community, participants need to engage in remedial verbal action upon committing an offense, that is to
apologize. However, this kind of speech act is still under-researched in Vietnam. Van (2000), Phuong
(2000) and Trang (2010) are some of Vietnamese researchers working on this topic up to now. However,
their studies mainly compared and contrasted the realization of apology between two groups of language,
English and Vietnamese. N
ative Vietnamese speakers’ speech act behavior which can influence
Learners’ performance of the target language was understudied.
Thus, gaps are still there to fill in
pragmatics, especially in the interlanguage speech act of apology. In this study the aim is to compare the
speech act of apologies among EN speakers, English EFL learners and VN speakers.
2. Aims of the study
This study aims at identifying Vietnamese EFL learners’ deviations linguistically in the
production of apology in relation to English native speakers in the contexts studied. In particular, the study
attempts to find out how much Vietnamese learners of English can approximate native speakers in the
apology strategy use as well as responding to contextual factors involved in the contexts.
3. Objectives of the study
The study will uncover the deviations in using apology strategies by Vietnamese EFL learners in
some contexts studied. Particularly, it uncovers:

1) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and Vietnamese EFL Learners.
2) differences in the use of apology strategies by EN Speakers and VN Speakers.
4. Scope of the study
Due to limited time, it is impossible to cover all interlanguage pragmatic matters. This study just
focus on the language used by Vietnamese learners of English in formulating in the speech act of apology
in relation to the three social parameters (P, D and R) in the contexts studied. In other words, the survey
concentrates on verbal communication. Moreover, the survey mainly considers the acceptance of
apologies and ignores all the cases where apologies are refused. As a result, the theoretical frameworks
applied to this study are pragmatics and the speech act theory.
5. Significance of the study
This study will be an attempt to fill in a gap in the area of interlanguage pragmatics where
learners’ production of linguistic acts has not taken into consideration enough. Thus, the study will be a
reference material for not only English language learners to improve their knowledge on the interlanguage
pragmatics but also their communicative competence.
6. Method of the study
Quantitative is mainly used in this study. In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are
based on the analysis of the empirical studies and statistics processed Chi-square test. In addition, such
methods as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive are also utilized to describe and analyze, to
compare and contrast the database so as to bring out differences in using apology strategy by English and
Vietnamese speakers.
7. Organization of the study
This study is divided into three parts as follows:
Part A is the introduction of the study including the identification of the problem, the aims, the
objectives, the scope of the study, the significance, the research method as well as the organization of the
study.
Part B contains 3 chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical issues relevant to the study including
pragmatics, speech act theory and some previous studies on interlanguage apologies. Chapter 2 discusses
issues of methodology and outlines the study design, data collection instruments, reliability and validity
test of the data collection instruments, procedure of data collection, selection of subjects and analytical
framework. Chapter 3 presents the data analysis and discusses the findings on the choice of apology

strategies used by EN speakers, EFL learners and VN speakers in relation to the variables of Power (P),
Social Distance (D) and Ranking of Imposition (R) in the contexts under studied. Some pragmatic transfer
on interlanguage apology is also mentioned in this chapter.
Part C provides an overview of major findings and interpretations, implications, limitations and
suggestions for further research.


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