Asking for Permission in English and Vietnamese

Graduation Paper

DECLARATION
Title: Asking for Permission in English and Vietnamese
I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced
from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is
originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.
Hanoi, 1 May 2015

Student
(signature)

Full name
Nguyen Thi Anh Linh

Supervisor
( signature)

Full name
M.A. Vo Thanh Trung

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A. Vo
Thanh Trung for his enthusiastic and useful guidance, insightful comments,
and encouragement without which my thesis would not have been completed.
My special thanks go to all my lecturers in Hanoi Open University for
their precious assistance, scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm.
I am grateful to all the participants for their enthusiastic participation in
the thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to express my indebtedness to my
family, especially my parents and my sister who have given me constant
support and love during the completion of the thesis.

Nguyen Thi Anh Linh

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TABLE OF CONTENT

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PART A
INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the research
We are now living in the time of unstoppable development of the world
in which international cooperation in general and cultural, educational
exchanges in particular are vigorously promoted. In fact, learning foreign
languages, especially English, has played an increasingly important role. The
international language of English has been described as an effective tool to
supportably proceed those activities much more easily. Traditional language
learning, however, is becoming outdated in modern times because only
vocabulary and grammar are focused on. In fact, today English is learnt for
communicative goal, so only vocabulary and grammar is not enough.
Another important aspect is culture. The communicative goal may
definitely fail to achieve if this aspect is ignored. It is believed that each
country has its own distinctive features which learners should be paid much
attention to. If they do not eagerly get themselves prepared for knowledge
about one culture in which they are newly involved, lots of misunderstandings
and embarrassments will follow when there are communications and
interaction as well. Good preparation for cultural knowledge will be useful to
help the speakers or anyone involved to avoid them. Maybe a good basis of
culture is an advantage over others in social interactions. Therefore, language
and culture have a mutual relationship. In communicative contexts, their
engagement as well as involvement is easily spotted off.
When communication among people who come from different cultures or
even from the same one occurs, misinterpretations possibly lead to
misunderstandings because each represents his or her own culture including
customs, rituals and etiquettes. In cross- culture communication, a person

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usually imposes his individual judgments on others’ actions just based on
what he has known earlier. As a result, the communicative target is impossible
to obtain. Obviously cultural understandings benefit the interlocutors to
become successful in communication, perceive certain ways of speaking more
deeply so that they can have suitable reactions. Asking for permissions which
are observed in English and Vietnamese is a good example. It is common and
important in daily interaction. Asking for permissions shows the fact that a
language is not just a simple utterance at all. Many problems will certainly
follow if culture and politeness factors are neglected. The two cultures have
their own politeness standards, so an utterance in general and asking for
permissions as well in particular may be acceptable in Vietnamese, but
unacceptable in English and vice-versa or the ways people ask are different.
In some cases, people make direct requests while others make indirect
requests. Obviously, it is very important to get ourselves well prepared for
those matters. No matter how different they are, politeness strategy is always
a desirous goal to reach. On a small scale of cross-culture communication,
the study tries to make clear the contrast between the two speech acts of
asking for permissions in English and Vietnamese. Asking for permissions in
English and Vietnamese shares some certain similarities, but has differences,
too. Vietnamese and English speakers do not have the same conceptions of
what makes a polite way of asking for permissions based on their habits and

cultures.
For those reasons, the study of speech act of asking for permission in
English and Vietnamese is made. It will provide good reference and
suggestion to well asking for permission and avoiding unwanted
misinterpretations so that people have more opportunities to become
successful communicators.
2.

Aims of the research
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This graduation thesis is conducted in an attempt to make a comparison
between asking for permission in English and Vietnamese so as to help
Vietnamese learners have a better knowledge on how to ask for permission
politely in English , thus being able to use them effectively in the real-life
communication and to avoid communication breakdown.
3.

Objectives of the research
This graduation thesis is designed to pursue these following specific
objectives:
(i)Pointing out the similarities between asking for permission in
English and Vietnamese

(ii) Pointing out the differences between asking permission in
English and Vietnamese.
(iii) Suggesting some possible implications for asking permission in
English, thus helping Vietnamese learners able to use them effectively in the
real-life communication and to avoid communication breakdown.

4.

Scope of the research
This thesis focuses on the act of asking for permission performed by
native speakers of English and then make comparison between them and
those performed by Vietnamese native speakers in order to find out the
similarities and differences of the two countries. I also use definitions and
statements of some authors who conduct research on pragmatics and speech
act theories.

5.

Research questions
* What are the popular ways of asking permission in English and
Vietnamese

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* What are the similarities between the ways to ask for permission in
English and Vietnamese
* What are the differences between the ways to ask for permission in
English and Vietnamese.
6.Methods of the study
In carrying out the research I have adopted such methods of study as
collecting data, contrastive analysis, statistics techniques and observation.
7. Design of the study
Part A: Introduction: this part deals with Rationale, Aims, Scope,
Research Questions, Methods and Design of this study
Part B: Development consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature review: this chapter provides the theoretical
background including speech act theory, politeness strategies, definition of
permission, asking for permission as Speech Acts
Chapter 2: Asking for permission in English and Vietnamese: this
chapter will discuss written and verbal asking permission; direct and indirect
way of asking permission; formal and informal way of asking permission
Chapter 3: Findings and discussions : this chapter presents the
results gained in survey questionnaires and observation and discusses the
similarities and differences in asking for permission as speech acts made in
English and Vietnamese.

Part C: Conclusion : this part summaries the major findings recorded
during the making of the thesis, presents the limitations of the study, provides
some suggestions for further research and gives some suggestions on learning
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English for Vietnamese learners.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 . Speech Act Theory
1.1.1Definition
Developed by many famous philosophers, speech acts have been
central to linguistic works for a long time and have been further developed by
others and held a great concern of any research paper.
There are some definitions of speech acts of linguists in the world. To
begin with, usually when we want to express something we often do not only
create utterances containing grammatical structures and words, but also
perform actions through these utterances, according to George Yule (1996).
It is noticeable that human beings use language in order to perform
actions, to create obligations and new social relations and to do such things as
reassuring, promising, or apologizing, etc. According to J.L. Austin, a

philosopher of language, “contended that truth or falsehood and the logical
relationships between words were inadequate to account for language use”
[An Introduction to Pragmatics, ...: 164] and “the more we consider a
statement not as a sentence (or proposition) but as an act of speech... the
more we are studying the whole thing as an act” [J. Austin, How to Do
Things with Words, 1962: 20]. Under the insights of Austin, there is growth of
perspective that is one of the well-recognized attempts to account for
pragmatic meaning.
The two other famous linguistic researchers are Schmidt and Richards
who define speech act theory as one that has to do with the functions of
languages, so in the broader sense we might say that speech acts are all the
acts we perform via speaking, all things we do when we utter. The theory of
speech acts is partly taxonomic and partly explanatory. It must systematically
identifies types of speech acts and the ways in which they can succeed or fail.
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It must reckon with the fact that the relationship between the words being
used and the force of their utterance is often oblique.
Thus, actions which are performed via utterances are generally called
speech acts, and they are often given some specific labels such as promise,
complaint, apology, compliment, request and invitation.
For example:
You are fired! [Pragmatics, George Yule, 1996:47]

In this sentence, the speaker gives the utterance at the same time with
the action of sacking the listener. It means that the utterance used to perform
the act of ending the job of the hearer.
What is more, studying an utterance we focus on two parts: surface
(including grammatical structures and words) and the meaning, the meaning
of the utterance is the core of communication. Speech act performs different
functions in communication, and it is a unit of speaking. J. Austin (1962)
affirmed that there is a close connection between speech acts and language
functions.
In Austin’s theory of Speech act, he claimed that “actions are
performed via utterances only with verbs he called performatives, the
prototype speech act”. This can be verbs or verbal phrases, typically
formulaic, explicitly indicating the act the speaker actually wants to express
as it is uttered. However, there is a basic argument that some utterances are
not statement or questions, but rather actions. Austin generalized the notion of
expressing actions with language, arguing that all utterances had the
underlying performative structure.
In accordance to Austin’s view, Yule (1996) also restressed the
definition of speech act. Speech acts are actions performed via utterances, in
English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as apology,
complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request. He added that these
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descriptive terms for different kinds of speech acts apply to the
communicative intention of speakers in producing an utterance.
In the final analysis, it is believed that speech act is an act that a
speaker performs when making an utterance.
1.1.2 . Three components of a speech act
According to Austin (1962) and Yule (1996), a single speech act
obviously contains three separate components but related to speech acts:
locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and perlocutionary acts.
Locutionary act is the first component which is “the basic act of utterance
or producing a meaningful linguistic expression” (Yule, 1996). Actually, we
usually do not make utterance without having any purposes, so whenever a
speaker gives an utterance, he performs a locutionary act. A locutionary act
includes three related acts: phonetic act, linguistic act and referring act.
The second component is Illocutionary act, a kind of act, performed
via “the communicative force of an utterance”, which we create
communicative purpose in mind.
The last component of speech acts is perlocutionary act; it occurs
when we make an effective statement, it means that we want a speech act to
have an effect. The perlocutionary act is regarded as the most important act of
speech acts, because it is obviously what speaker wants to achieve through the
action of uttering the sentence. (Yule, 1996)
In the book How to Do Things with Words, Austin indicates that to
perform a locutionary act we shall perform such an act as: ''asking or
answering a question, giving some information or an assurance or a warning,
announcing a verdict or an intention, pronouncing sentence, making an
appointment or an appeal or a criticism, making an identification or giving a
description, and the numerous like.'[How to Do Things with Words, 1962:99]
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E.g.:
Act (A) or Locution
He said to me ‘Shoot her!’ meaning by ‘shoot’ shoot and referring by
‘her’ to her Act (B) or Illocution He urged me to shoot her Act (C) or
Perlocution He persuaded me to shoot her He got me to shoot her [How to
Do Things with Words, 1962:102]
It has been proved that illocutionary force is the most discussed of the
three acts, and the term speech act is generally interpreted as the illocutionary
force of an utterance. The same locutionary act can count as a prediction, a
promise, or a warning as follow:
e.g.: I will see you later. (=A)
[I predict that] A : a prediction [I promise you that] A : a promise [I
warn you that] A : a warning
Basically, an illocutionary act is a linguistic act performed in uttering
certain words in a given context, a perlocutionary act is a non-linguistic act
performed as a consequence of the locutionary and iliocutionary.
In short, Locutionary act is the basic act of making a meaningful
linguistic expression. There are some purposes or functions in mind when the
locutionary acts are uttered. Illocutionary act is an act performed via the
communicative force of an utterance. Generally, we also perform
illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, etc. in engaging
in locutionary. By dint of controversial force associated with it in uttering a
sentence. Perlocutionary act is what we bring about or achieve by saying
something, such as convincing, persuading, or deterring. Perlocutionary acts

are performed only on the assumption that the hearer will recognise the effect
the speaker intended
1.1.3 Classification of speech acts.
1.1.3.1 Austin’s Classification
Austin (1962) takes the initial role in formulating the theory of speech
acts. In accordance to his study, all utterances should be considered as actions
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of speakers, stating or describing is only one function of language. He claims
that the declarative sentences are not only used to say things or describe states
of affairs but also used to do things.
In How to Do Things with Words, Austin identifies three distinct levels
of action beyond the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and
what one does by saying it through out the same purposes, topic and
participants.
Austin’s categorization of illocutionary acts can be broken down into
five classes:
Verdictives: typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire,
arbitrator such as acquit, grade, estimate, diagnose, rare, analyse, put it as,
reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure.
Exercitives: which are the exercising of powers, rights, or influence.
An exercitive is the giving of a decision in favor of or against a certain course
of action. It is a decision that something is to be so, as distinct from a

judgment that is so.
It is a very wide class; examples are: appoint, dismiss, degrade, order,
sentence, warn...
Commissive: the whole point of a commissive is to commit the speaker
to a certain course of action. They may include a declaration or
announcements of intention. For example: am determined to, propose to,
intend, agree, bet...
Behabitives: consist of the notion of reaction to other people’s
behavior and fortunes and of attitudes to someone else’s past conduct or
imminent conduct, examples are: apologize, thank, compliment, condole,
complain...
Expositives: identify how utterances fit into ongoing discourse, or how
they are being used like: affirm, deny, inform, tell, explain...
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1.1.3.2 Yule’s Classification
Under the speech act theory of Searle, Yule (Pragmatics, 1996)
classifies five types of general functions performed by speech acts including
declarations, representatives, expressive, directives, and commissives.
Declarations are speech acts that make the world change via their
utterance. In illustration, the speaker needs to have a special institutional role,
in a particular context, so as to perform a declaration appropriately. For
instance, “Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife ”, “Referee: you

’re out!”, “Jury Foreman: We find the defendant guilty” [p.53]
Representatives are speech acts that state what the speaker believes to
be the case or not. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and
descriptions are representatives. For example, “The earth is flat”, “Chomsky
didn’t write about peanuts”, and “It was a warm sunny day”.[p.53]
Expressives are speech acts that state what the speaker feels. They point
out psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes,
joy, and sorrow. They can be led by something the speaker does or the hearer
does, but they are about the speaker’s experience. For example, “I’m really
sorry”, “Congratulations”, “Oh, yes, great, mmmm, ssahhh!” [p.53]
Directives are speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do
something. They express what the speaker wants. They are commands, orders,
requests, suggestions. For example, “Gimme a cup of coffee. Make it black. ”,
“Could you lend me a pen, please? ”, “Don’t touch that. ” [p.54]
Commissives are speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves
to some future action. They express what the speaker intends. They are
promises, threats, refusals, pledges. For example, ‘77/ be back”, “I’m going
to get it right next time”, “We will not do that”, [p.54]

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Yule (1996) also presents a table showing key features of these five
general functions of speech acts as follows:

Table 1.1
Speech act types

Direction of fit

S = Speaker
X = Situation

Declarations

words change the world

S causes X

Representatives

makes words fits the S believes X
world

Expressives

makes words fits the S feels X
world

Directives

make the world fits S wants X
words

Commissives

take

the

world

fits S intends X

words
Speech act analysis offers us usefulness to illustrate the kinds of things we
can do with words and identify some conventional utterance forms we use to
perform specific actions. Yet, we need to look at more extended interaction to
understand how those actions are carried out and interpreted within speech events.
Of these types, the characteristic of invitations can be easily recognised
in commissives and directives. In our daily communications, inviting is one
kind of speech act that is commonly used with high frequency.
1.1.3.3 Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
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In Pragmatics (1996), Yule points out that there is an easily recognised
relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative,
imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement,

question, command/request)
e.g.:
You open the door, (declarative)
Do you open the door? (interrogative)
Open the door! (imperative)
[p.54]
Yule (1996) shows that whenever there is a direct relationship between
a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever an indirect
speech act happens there is an indirect relationship between a structure and a
function.
For example:
Table 1.2:
Structural forms
Declarative

General communicative functions
Statement

You open the door
Interrogative

Question

Do you open the door?
Imperative

Command/ request

Open the door!

Leech (1983, p.108) believes that indirectness is a mainly used in
conversational strategy, and people tend to use direct speech acts mostly in
connection with politeness as thus they limit the unpleasant message
contained in requests and orders for example. As a result, similar utterances
as in the below example are often used:
" It is very hot in here"
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In this example, the speaker explains or even excuses the reason why
he makes a request (open the window!). Ardissono debates that the speakers
often prefer indirect speech acts so that they do not infringe the hearer’s face,
which might be the case here too. Moreover, when using direct speech acts, it
may result in some impolite situations. For instance, ‘Would you lend me your
book?’ and ‘Lend me your book!’, of course the latter variant would be
definitely unacceptable in some contexts.
Yule (1996) claims that a statement which is often made by using a
declarative ’is a direct speech act, but a declarative which is used to make a
request is an indirect speech act.
e.g.: a. It’s cold outside
b. I hereby tell you about the weather
c. I hereby request of you that you close the door. [p.55]
In the form of a statement, the declarative sentence ‘The door is there.’
can be changed in at least two ways. It can be either easily understood as an

answer to the question ‘Where is the way out?’ or maybe ‘Where is the door?
’ or it can be taken as an indirect request to ask someone to leave. The former
case is called direct speech act, and the latter an indirect speech act. They all
depend on the speakers’ communicating context.
When making a statement, as seen in example (b), the utterance is
functioning as a direct speech act. When it is used to make a
command/request, as shown in example (c), the utterance is functioning as an
indirect speech act.
According to Yule (1996), one of the most common types of indirect
speech act in English, as indicated in the following example, has the form of
an interrogative, but is not typically used to ask a question. The
examples are normally understood as requests.
Could you pass the salt?
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Or: Would you open this?
Indeed, Yule (1996) added that there is a typical pattern in English
whereby asking a question about the hearer’s assumed ability (can, could) or
future likelihood with regard to doing something (will, would). The pattern
normally counts as a request to actually do that something.
1.2. Politeness theory
1.2.1. Definition of politeness
Politeness is something that is very abstract, but it plays an

important role in interaction and has a great effect on the use of speech
acts in human communication. Politeness has been suggested that the
principle of politeness governs all of the communication behave.
It is generally believed that, in everyday social interactions, people act
in such a way as to show respect for the face wants or needs of their
conversational partners. It is a story, simply of

“you respect my public

self-image and I’ll respect yours”. The use of language to carry out social
actions where mutual face wants are respected, can be labeled linguistic
politeness. According to Yule (1996), “politeness in an interaction, can be
then defined as the means employed to show awareness of another’s face”.
Culturally, politeness is seen as “the idea of polite social behave or etiquette
within a culture”.
Brown and Levinson (1978) view politeness as “a complex system for
softening face-threatening acts”.
Hill et al (1986: 349) define politeness as “one of the constraints on
human interaction, whose purpose is to consider other’s feelings establish
levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport”. Lakoff (1975: 64), one
of the pioneers in politeness research sees politeness as consisting of forms of
behave which have been “developed in societies in order to reduce friction in
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personal interaction”. This view is supported by many other researchers in
the field. He defines politeness as: “A system of interpersonal relations
designed to faliciate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and
confrontation inherent in all human interchange”
Leech (1983: 104) interprets politeness as forms of behavior
aimed at creating and maintaining harmonious interactions.
According to Nguyen Quang (2005: 185), “Politeness refers to any
communicative act (verbal and/ or non-verbal) which is intentionally and
appropriately meant to make others feel better or less bad”.
When we make a promise to somebody, we are showing our politeness
by expressing our awareness of another person’s face. In this sense, politeness
can be accomplished in situations of social distance and closeness. To the
former, showing awareness for another person’s face is described in terms of
respect or deference. To the latter, it would be friendliness, camaraderie or
solidarity.
Politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance or
closeness. Showing awareness for another person’s face when that other
seems socially distant is often described in terms of friendliness, camaraderie,
or solidarity.

1.2.2. Politeness strategy
In language studies, politeness implies the following: "(a) how
languages express the social distance between speakers and their different role
relationships, (b) "how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain,
and save face during conversation, is carried out in a speech community"
(Richards et al. 1985, p.281).
Languages differ in how they express politeness. In English, phrases
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like It’s hot here. I wonder if I could open the window? can be used to make a
request more polite. In other languages, the same effect can be expressed by a
word or particle.
Politeness markers and the use of address forms convey differences
between formal speech and colloquial speech.Human communication serves
to establish and maintain not only a comfortable relationship between people
but also a social harmony. Therefore, in interpersonal communication, in
terms of politeness, every participant notes social factors such as age, gender,
power and distance among the interlocutors. Moreover, politeness maybe
described as a form of behaviour which is exercised in order to consolidate
and promote relationship between individuals or, at least, to keep it
undamaged.
According to Leech (1983), politeness means to minimize the effect of
impolite statement or expression (negative politeness) and maximize the
effects of polite illocutions (positive politeness) (Leech, 1983). However, the
best-known theory is developed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987). Their
universalistic formulation of politeness theory is problematic in some aspects.
The main issue of politeness is the notion of face. Face is defined as
“the public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” (Brown
and Levinson 1987, p.61). "Face" associates with the English idiom to lose
face which means “to do something which makes other people stop respecting
you; to not maintain your reputation and the respect of others”. Brown and
Levinson treats the aspects of face as “basic wants”, and distinguishes

between positive face and negative face. Positive face is interpreted as the
want of every member to be desirable to, at least, some others, whereas
negative face is the want of every “competent adult member” for his actions
to be unimpeded by others (1987, p.62).
Moreover, Yule (1996) argues that in most English speaking contexts,
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the participants in an interaction often have to determine, as they speak, the
relative social distance between them, and hence their face wants (1996, p.61)
“In everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their
public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. If a speaker says
something that represents a threat to another individual’s expectations
regarding self-image, it is described as a face threatening act. Alternatively,
given the possibility that some actions might be interpreted t as a threat to
another’s face, the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat.
This is called a face saving act.” (Yule 1996,p.61).
Analyzing politeness, the anthropologists Brown and Levinson (1987)
distinguishes between positive strategies of politeness, those which show
rapport between the speaker and the hearer, and negative closeness, intimacy,
and politeness strategies, those which indicate various degrees of social
distance between the speaker and hearer. In this sense, politeness varies to
show awareness of another person’s face in situations of social distance or
closeness. The choice of appropriate politeness strategies in a given context

depends on a number of factors. Brown and Levinson (1987) groups these
factors into a simple formula consisting of three independent variables,
namely the social distance (D) of the speaker and the hearer (a symmetric
relation), the relative power(P)of the speaker and the hearer (an asymmetric
relation), and the absolute ranking of impositions (R) in the particular culture.
The social distance (D) is a symmetric social dimension of
similarity/difference within which the speaker and the hearer stand for the
purposes of this act. In some situations, D is based on a evaluation of
frequency of interaction and the types of material and non-material goods
(embracing face) between S and H. The evaluation will be usually measures
of social distance relied on stable social attributes.
The relative power (P) which is an asymmetric social dimension is the
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degree to which H can impose his own plans and his own self– evaluation
(face) at theexpense of S’s plans and self – evaluation. Generally, there are
two sources of P, either of which may be authorized or unauthorized –
material control (over-economic distribution and physical force) and
metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of metaphysical
forces subscribed to by those others.
The absolute ranking (R) of imposition which is situationally and
cuturally defined is the degree to which there is an interference in the
speaker’s wants or self- determination or approval (speaker’s negative and

positive wants). There are normally two scales or ranks which are identifiable
21 for negative–face: a ranking of impositions in proportion to the
expenditure of services (including the time provision) and good (including
non –material goods such as information, regard expression and other face
payments). As for positive – face, the, ranking of imposition embraces an
assessment of the amount of "pain" given to the hearer’s face, based on the
differences between the hearer’s desired self-image and that presented in face
threatening acts. Cultural rankings of facets of positive face (like success,
niceness, beauty etc.) can be reranked in specific circumstances, so do the
negative face rankings. Besides, that there are also personal rankings can
explain why some people object to certain kinds of face threatening acts and
some do not.
These three factors affect indirectness in human interaction, especially
in thechoice of politeness strategies which is an essential aspect of inviting.
Together with cross -cultural perspective, politeness is an another aspect
which are used to create the anlytical framework for data analysis.
Basing on the theory of Brown and Levinson (1987), a bank of 6
situations was designed to elicit offers. These situations were grouped
according to three variables, namely social distance (D) of the speaker and the
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hearer, the relative power (P) of the speaker and the hearer (an asymmetric
relation), and the absolute ranking (R) of impositions in the particular culture.

The situations under study were as follows:
The speaker has more power than the hearer; they are unfamiliar with
each other.
The speaker has more power than the hearer; they are familiar with
each other
The speaker and the hearer are equal in power; they are unfamiliar with each
other.
The speaker and the hearer are equal in power; they are familiar with
each other.
The speaker has less power than the hearer; they are unfamiliar with
each other.
The speaker has less power than the hearer; they are familiar with each other.
1.3. Theoretical background
1.3.1 Definition of permission
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2000), the noun
“permission” has two meanings. It is defined as the act of allowing somebody
to do something, especially when this is done by somebody in a position of
authority. Besides, another meaning of permission is an official written
statement allowing somebody to do something.
1.3.2. Asking permission as Speech Acts
The paper focuses on the first meaning to discuss permission speech act
which makes up a high proportion in every interaction. So, asking for
permission is the act of wanting to know whether a person can do something
or use something or not.
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Ex: Can I use your bike?
In Vietnamese dictionary (2010), the definition of asking for permission
(xin phép) is quite similar to English definition. It is also used to make sure
that a person is allowed to do something.
Ex: Tôi có thể sử dụng máy tính của bạn được không?
In daily life, whenever a person wants to do something or uses
something that belongs to another person, it’s important to ask for permission.
It is because asking for permission shows his/ her respect for others and
increases the chances that his/her request will be granted. However, the
expressions of asking for permission are differently expressed by different
people in different cultures. The speech acts of asking for permission is
indeed confusing and complicated. Therefore, the addressers should pay much
attention to the asking for permission expressions so as to make a polite
permission that will be granted by the authority and avoid creating a
permission which will be assumed as joking, rudeness or sarcasm. Also,
utterances used to give permission should be deeply concerned in order to
know the intentions which the addresser actually wants to say or to do. These
intentions are revealed in the asking for permission expressions.

1.4

Summary
In this chapter, the theory of speech act, politeness and ways of asking
for permission have been discussed.

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CHAPTER II
ASKING FOR PERMISSION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
Asking for permission is something commonly heard in humun daily
life. In terms of linguistics and pragmatics, it is a speech act that can be
broken into different kinds.
2.1 Written and verbal asking permission
Asking for permission is a speech act, a way of communication;
therefore, it also has the characteristics of communication ways, that is,
written and verbal way. Written communication does not usually have a sense
of urgency to it – it’s not required immediately, while verbal communication
is often quick, even unanticipated at times. The slower response factor for
written documents usually allows the writer time to think about what, how, to
whom, and why he or she is writing. Thus, written communication often
allows he or she to plan ahead, to revise, to get all of the points listed above
right, before it is sent. However, written business documents have more usage
conventions relating to grammar and punctuation, and they often depend upon
just what type of document which is being created.
For example:

I am wondering if I can come late at the Monday

meeting
Or Tôi đang phân vân liệu tôi co thể đến họp muộn vào thứ Hai không

On the other hand, verbal communication is much more forgiving – no
punctuation.

And speaker

can immediately explain anything that is

misunderstood. Because of that same immediacy, he or she might need to plan
ahead for anticipated responses and questions whenever he or she is planning
a business discussion. If he or she can anticipate a possible question and
develop its answer ahead of time, he or she will be that much better prepared.
For example:
-

Can I ask you some questions?
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