A study on refusing an invitation in english and vietnamese

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

NINH THỊ THU HÀ

A STUDY ON REFUSING AN INVITATION
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2015


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNVERSITY

NINH THỊ THU HÀ

A STUDY ON REFUSING AN INVITATION
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI TRONG
TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A. THESIS

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Dr. Nguyễn Đăng Sửu

Hanoi, 2015


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project
report entitled A STUDY ON REFUSING INVITATION IN ENGLISH
AND VIETNAMESE submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is
indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due
acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2015

Ninh Thi Thu Ha

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)
Dr. Nguyen Dang Suu
Date:……………………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to
my professor, Dr. Nguyen Dang Suu. From the point of a teacher, an

advisor and a mentor, you introduced and inspired me to do this research.
My professional development has been growing increasingly with your
precious guidance and continuous motivation.
My special thanks go to all my lectures in Post-graduate
Department of Ha Noi Open University for their precious assistance,
knowledge and enthusiasm.
I own my parents for their constant source of love, support and
encouragement. I am immensely grateful to them for standing behind me
whenever I needed them especially in times of difficulties.
I would also want to extend a special shout-out to all the research
participants. Without your valuable opinions and ideas on the
questionnaire, the project would not have been accomplished.
Finally, my special thanks go to all my dear friends for their
understanding and assistance during the process of preparing this
research. I count each of you as my special blessings.
While I am greatly indebted to all of these people for their tireless
help to my completion of this thesis, I myself remain responsible for any
inadequacies that are found in this work.
Ninh Thi Thu Ha

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ABSTRACT

It’s really difficult to refuse someone when he or she offers you
something or to do something, especially when you’re busy or you don’t
want to do. You want to refuse but you don’t know how to say let your
friends or your listeners feel satisfied and contented. Or when your boss
offers you a promotion but you feel you have no ability, how can you

refuse? I hope this paper will help students understand the differences of
refusing an offer in Vietnamese and English to become more proficient in
their studying of English.
Based on literary works either published or uploaded on the Internet
and English speaking materials written by native speakers, this paper studies
refusals of invitation to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and learning
of this speech act in English and Vietnamese, create the tactfulness and
flexibility in language use for both Vietnamese learners of English and
English-speaking learners of Vietnamese with the maxim declared in a
Vietnamese proverb: “You don’t have to buy words, so don’t let them hurt
the feeling of others.”
Moreover, investigating the politeness strategies of refusals and
finding the similarities and differences in two languages can help the
Vietnamese learners overcome the difficulties caused the interfere of two
cultures when they face the sticky cases of refusing offers. It also helps to
enhance and improve language communicative competence of Vietnamese
learners of English.

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LIST OF TABLES AND ABBREVIATIONS

1. Lists of abbreviations
G: Group
E: English
V: Vietnamese
DCT: Discourse Completion Test

2. Lists of tables

Table 1: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations
Refuser status = lower
Table 2: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations
Refuser status = equal
Table 3: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations
Refuser status = higher

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality…………………………………………………….i.
Acknowledgement…………………………………………...………….….ii.
Abstract…………………………………………………………………....iii.
List of tables and abbreviations …………...…………......………..……...iv.
Table of contents ……………………………………………………….….v.
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rational…………………………………………………..………...…..1.
1.2. Aims of the study ............................................................................…2.
1.3. Objectives of the study ........................................................................2.
1.4. Scope of the study ...............................................................................2.
1.5. Significance of the study .................................................................…3.
1.6. Structure of the study ..........................................................................3.
CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Review the previous study ..................................................................5.
2.1.1 Review of previous studies overseas………….………………..…....5.
2.1.2 Review of previous studies in Vietnam………………………………7.
2.2 Review the theoretical background ......................................................8.
2.2.1 Speech acts........................................................................................8.
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2.2.2 Classification of speech acts…………………………………….....12.
2.2.3 What is invitation? ........................................................................16.
2.2.4. Refusing an invitation………………………………………..…....17.
2.2.5 Directness and Indirectness ...........................................................18.
2.2.6 Politeness strategies ......................................................................20.
2.2.7. Politeness in Vietnamese culture………………………………….24.
2.3. Summary……………………………………………………………..26.
CHAPTER 3:METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research-governing orientations .......................................................27.
3.2 Research questions ............................................................................27.
3.3Method of the study ...........................................................................28.
3.3.1Data collection ................................................................................28.
3.3.2 Data Analysis .................................................................................30.
3.4. Summary……………………………………………………….….….30.
CHAPTER 4 : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. The ways English and Vietnamese people refuse an invitation........32.
4.1.1 When the invitee is at a lower status .............................................32.
4.1.2 When the invitee is at an equal status ............................................35.
4.1.2 When the invitee is at a higher status…………………………......38.
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4.2. The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese
in refusing an invitation .......................................................................41.
4.2.1. The similarities……………………………………………………41.
4.2.3. The differences……………………………………………...……43.
4.3 The cultural influences on the strategies of English and
Vietnamese refusals ..............................................................................45.

4.4 Implication ......................................................................................47.
4.5. Summary……………………………………………………………49.
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1 Recapitulation. ................................................................................50.
5.2 Concluding remarks. .......................................................................51.
5.3 Limitation of the research ...............................................................52.
5.4Suggestions for further studies .........................................................53.
REFERENCES…………………………………………………………54.
APPENDIX: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1.

RATIONALE
Human communication is a combination of cooperation and

understanding. Success in communication depends greatly on the ability to
recognize speakers’ communicative intentions and pragmatic meaning of
their utterances. Actually, those who may be regarded as fluent in a second
language owing to their phonetic, syntactic and semantic knowledge of that
language may still be unable to produce language that is socially and
culturally appropriate.
In everyday social life, people are sometimes invited to go
somewhere or to do something. Accepting an invitation is a delicate matter
although it is much easier than refusing as the latter is a face-threatening act.
Many people devalue the importance of refusal strategies for invitations

because normally, it is a person right to say something he/she doesnot like
or doesnot want to. However, it is not as simple as it is thought to be since
misbehavior in this domain can result in the interlocutor’s feeling of being
shocked, angry, or even seriously insulted. It is because everybody, as a
human being, expects the appreciation and respect from others. England and
Vietnam are the two countries with different cultures so their social and
linguistic norms are different as well. This paper is an attempt to provide a
cross-culture comparison of ways English and Vietnamese deal with a
tactful-required kind of speech act: refusing an invitation.
I have decided to choose the subject “Refusing an invitation in
English and Vietnamese “to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and
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learning of this speech act in English and Vietnamese, create the tactfulness
and flexibility in language use for both Vietnamese learners of English and
English-speaking learners of Vietnam with the idea reflected in a
Vietnamese proverb: “You don’t have to buy words, so don’t let them hurt
the feelings of others.”
1.2.

AIMS OF THE STUDY
Initially, the study carried out to discover the way people refuse an

invitation in Vietnam and English. In the next step, the study aims to find
out the cross-cultural differences between English and Vietnamese in
refusing an invitation, then suggesting some implications for teaching and
learning the ways that English people refuse an invitation.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
In line with the aims of the research, the specific objectives can be

described as follows:
- Pointing outthe ways people refuse an invitation in English and
Vietnamese.
- Finding outthe similarities and differences of the ways that English and
Vietnamese people refuse an invitation.
- Suggesting some implications for teaching and learning the ways that
English people refuse an invitation.
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
- In this paper, the similarities and differences in refusal strategies between
English and Vietnamese will be discussed under three circumstances, which
are:
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a, When the invitee is at a lower status
b, when the invitee is at an equal status
c, when the invitee is at a higher status.
- This study discusses some ways of refusing invitation in English and
Vietnamese to find out some similarities and differences on theory.
- In this research, the writer interviews 25 foreigners and conducts survey
questionnaire to 25 Vietnamese people to find out how English and
Vietnamese people refuse invitations and gives some recommendations.
1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
With some objectives above, the study primarily contributes to
understand the English and Vietnamese communicating styles from crosscultural points of view. The paper shows how people receive the invitation
and which ways they should choose to decline it. The paper can to some
extent, help learners of English understand the cultures of the two nations
and the polite ways to refuse invitation in certain contexts.
1.6. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY
The thesis consists of five main chapters.

Chapter 1 includes six small parts: rationale, aims, objectives, scope,
significance and structure of the study.
Chapter 2 reviews previous studies on the speech act and the theoretical
background of speech act, classification of speech acts, refusal as a speech
acts, directness, indirectness and politeness.

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Chapter 3 describes the methodology used in the study, including the
aims, the research questions of the study, the data collection method, the
data collection instrument, data collecting procedures and the subjects of the
study. The coding framework and data analysis are also presented in this
chapter.
Chapter 4 is the Findings and Discussions. This part discusses three
circumstances: When the invitee is at a lower status, when the invitees is at
an equal status; and when the invitee is at a higher status, then the
similarities and the differences between English and Vietnamese refusals
will be shown.
Chapter 5 summarizes the major findings of the study, point out the
limitations of the study and suggests areas for further research.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES
2.1. Review of previous studies overseas

Refusal is characterized as a response to one of the speech acts,
request, invitation, offer and suggestion, rather than as an initiating act. It is
a speech by which a speaker denies to engage in an action proposed by the
interlocutor (Chen, Ye and Zhang, 1995)
The speech act of refusal occurs when a speaker directly or
indirectly say no to a request or invitation. Refusal is a face-threatening act
to listener/requestor, inviter, because it contradicts his or her expectations,
and it’s often realized through indirect strategies. Thus it requires a high
level of pragmatic competence (Chen, 1996).
Beebe ad Takahashi (1990), focusing on the effect of status on the
performance of face-threatening acts of refusals by the Japanese learners of
English, have found that Japanese informants tends to shift their styles more
according to interlocutors status than speakers of American English.
Japanese tend to express regrets or apologies more frequently to people with
higher status but less frequently to those with lower social status. They start
refusal with an apology or statement of regret, followed by an excuse, while
American almost always start with an expression of positive opinion such as
“I would like to:, and followed by expressing regret and giving excuse.
Moreover, Japanese excuses are often, much less specific than American
ones and in general, the Japanese refusals often sound more formal.
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There have also been studies of refusals in intercultural and non
native contexts. Beckers (1999) also found that Americans still employed
their refusal strategies according to social status whereas Germans varied
their strategies according to social distance (stranger acquaintance and
intimate). Germans also employed fewer semantic formulate than did
Americans, which are the combination of three variables of social distance,
social status and gender.

In 2004, Li Jiayu analyzed the similarities and differences of
refusal strategies between English and Chinese in shopping activities. She
jumped into conclusion that although the customers tended to make refusals,
they preferred to adopt some refusal strategies to “soften” this potentially
face-threatening act so as to keep a friendly business relationship between
dealers. Therefore, Chinese and Americans were willing to abide by the
cooperation principle and the politeness principle by means of insertion
sequences and hinting words. However, on the whole, the finding drew from
interpersonal communication indicated that Chinese tended to use the
politeness refusal strategy of “marginally touching the point” because they
were more economical in their choices of the number of the token of the
refusal strategies so that they could restore relationship with people. The
Chinese often used to mode “prefaces + phony approval + reasons” while
the Americans tend to use the mode “prefaces/no thanks/reasons”. They
employed different refusal strategies in refusing and even did not hestitate to
give a peer a lesson if they were right, which suggested a hypothesis of
“questionnaire attentiveness”.

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2.1.2. Review of previous studies in Viet Nam.
Research on Viet Nam speech acts of refusal restricted to
indirectnessand directness includes a study on some cross-cultural
differences in refusing arequest in English and Vietnamese (Phan, 2001).
She found that both Angolophone and Vietnamese informants
tended to use more direct refusals than directs ones. Moreover, both
Anglophone and Vietnamese always exceeded the urbanies in the degree of
indirectness. Informants who did not know any foreign language are less
direct and more indirect than those with knowledge of some foreign

languages. There are some differences between Anglophone and
Vietnamese when refusing. Comparing the degree of directness and
indirectness of refusals extended by two groups of informants, all the
Anglophone informants were more direct than Vietnamese ones.
In general, as all the other speech acts, refusal occurs in all
languages. However, people coming from different cultures speaking
different language refuse in different ways. Among all the studies on
refusals, in terms of language examined, English have been by far the most
commonly investigated languages of comparison for studies on native and
non-native refusals, followed by Japanese as a first or second language.
Other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Mexican, German are also
examined. Vietnamese studies on speech acts of refusal are still limited.
Moreover, compared among studies of Vietnam speech acts by far, refusals
of requests or apologies received more attention than refusals of invitations.
Until now, there have been some works studying refusals. Nguyen
Phuong Chi studied some ways of refusals: nonverbal like shaking head,
brushing something aside, having a dirty look… and verbal. Pham Thi Van
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Quyen studied the refusals of requesting in Vietnamese in comparison with
English basing on some available situations. Nguyen Thi Hai studied the
refusals in conversations with such speech acts as“requesting”, “asking,
“begging”, “advising”, “inviting”, “ thanking”, “ complimenting”, “
congratulating” …in Vietnamese.
In this thesis, I will give some examples of the English and
Vietnamese refusals of invitation in different situations. The refusals of
invitation are of two types: directly and indirectly. Then some similarities,
differences as well as some tips for refusing an invitation in English and
Vietnamese will be presented.

2.2 REVIEW THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.2.1 Speech acts
Following the logical positive of language, a sentence is always used
to describe some facts or affairs, unless it could be tested for truth or falsity,
is basically meaningless. There are many sentences which the listener not
only have their literal meanings, but also meet beyond their literal meaning.
Language is not only used to show the truth or falseness of particular
statements. In the 1950s and 1960s, two philosophers of language, John
Austin and John Searle, developed speech act theory from their observation
that language is used to do things others than just refer to the truth or
falseness of particular statements. Austin’s book How to Do Things with
Words (1962) is the next to a series of lectures he gave at Harvard
University on this topic. John Searle, a student of Austin, further developed
Austin’s work in his book Speech Acts, which was publishes in 1969.

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Austin’s and Searle’s work appeared at a time when logical
positivism was the prevailing view in the philosophy of language. They
launched a strong and influential attack on this work. The logical positive
view of language argued that a sentence is always used to describe some
fact, or state of affairs and, unless it could be tested for truth or falsity, is
basically meaningless. Austin and Searle observed that there are many
sentences that cannot meet such truth conditions but that are, nevertheless,
valid sentences and do things that go beyond their literal meaning.
Searle and Austin argued that in the same way that we perform
physicalacts, such as having a meal or closing a door, we can also perform
acts by using language. We can use language, for example, to give orders, to

make requests, to give warnings, or to give advice. They called these speech
acts. Thus people do things with words in much the same way as they
perform physical actions.
Paltridge (2000) defined a speech act:
A Speech Act is an utterance that serves a function in communication.
Some examples are an apology, greeting, request, complaint, invitation,
compliment or refusal. A speech act might contain just one word such as
‘No’ to perform a refusal or several words or sentences such as: “I’m sorry,
I can’t, I have a prior engagement”. It is important to mention that speech
acts include real-life interactions and require not only knowledge of the
language but also appropriate use of that language within a given culture.
Socio-cultural variables like authority, social distance, and situational
setting influence the appropriateness and effectiveness of politeness
strategies used to realize directive speech acts such as requests.

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In many ways of expressing themselves, “people do not only
produce utterance containing grammatical structures and words, they
perform actions via those utterances.” (Yule, 1996:47). If you work in this
situation where a boss has a great deal of power, then his utterances of
expression, “Youare fired”, is more than just a statement. This utterance can
be used to perform the act of ending your employment. However, the
actions performed by utterances do not have to be as unpleasant as in the
one above. Actions can be quiet pleasant, as in the acknowledment of
thanks: “You’re welcome”, or in the espression of surprise: “Who’d have
thought it?”, or in Vietnamese “Ai mà nghĩ thế?”.
Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but
there are all sorts of other things we can do with words. We can make

requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, offer thanks, give
apologies, and so on. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the
performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the
speaker’s attention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in
saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect
one’s audience.
In general, speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate
is to express a certain attitude being expressed. For example, a statement
expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a
regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience
identifies, in accordance with the speaker’s intention, the attitude being
expressed.
These descriptive terms for different kinds of speech acts apply
to the speaker’s communicative intention in producing an utterance. The
speaker normally expects that his or her communicative intention will be
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recognized by the hearer. Both the speaker and the hearer are helped in this
process

by

the

circumstances

surrounding

the

utterance.

These

circumstances are called the speech event.
In many ways, it is nature of the speech event that determines the
interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech act. For
example, in the wintry day the speaker takes a cup of coffee but it is too
iced, and produces the utterance which is likely to be interpreted as a
complaint: “This coffee is really cold!. Changing the circumstance to a
really hot summer day and the speaker, being given a glass of iced coffee
and producing the utterance, it is likely to be interpreted as a praise. “It
means that there is more to the interpretation of speech act than can be
found in the utterance alone.” (Yule, 1996:48).
Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:
Greeting: "Hi, Eric. How are things going?"
Request: "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?"
Complaint: "I’ve already been waiting three weeks for the computer, and I
was told it would be delivered within a week."
Invitation: "We’re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted
to know if you’d like to join us."
Compliment: "Hey, I really like your tie!"
Refusal: "Oh, I’d love to see that movie with you but this Friday just isn’t
going to work."
Speech acts are difficult to perform in a second language because
learners may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in the
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second language or they may transfer their first language rules and
conventions into the second language, assuming that such rules are
universal. Because the natural tendency for language learners is to fall back
on what they know to be appropriate in their first language, it is important
that these learners understand exactly what they do in that first language in
order to be able to recognize what is transferable to other languages.
Something that works in English might not transfer in meaning when
translated into the second language.
For example, the following remark as uttered by a native English
speaker could easily be misinterpreted by a native Chinese hearer:
Sarah: "I couldn’t agree with you more. "
Cheng: "Hmmm…." (Thinking: "She couldn’t agree with me? I thought she
liked my idea!")
2.2.2. Classification of speech acts.
Austin (1962) introduces a classifications of acts performed
when a person speaks. The first is a locutionary act producing a
meaningful expression. For example, if we make a simple sentence like “I
want a cup of coffee”, we are likely to produce a locutionary act.
Moreover, if we do not only simply say that sentence but also attend to
require the listener to bring us a cup of coffee, this kind of acts via
utterances we produce with purposes in mind is generally known as
illocutionary acts. These acts are performed for communicative function.
“In communicating, we do not simply create an utterance without
intending to have an effect” (G.Yule,1996:48). For the sentence above,
we all want the act of bringing us a cup of coffee to be done or the

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perlocutionary force is performed. That is the third related act,

perlocutionary acts.
Pretheoretically, we

think

of

an

act

of

communication, a

linguistic communication, or otherwise, an act of expressing oneself. This
rather vague idea can be made more precise if we get more specific about
what is being expressed. The perlocutionary act is a matter of trying to
get the hearer to form some correlative attitude and in some cases to act
in a certain way. For example, a statement expresses a belief and normally
has the further purpose of getting addressee form the same belief. A
request expresses a desire for the addressee to do a certain thing and
normally aims at the addressee to intend and, actually do that thing. A
promise expresses the speaker's firm intention to do something, together
with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it, and normally
aims further at the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to expect, the
speaker to do it.
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 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 throughout the same purposes, topic and
participants.
In Lectures on Discourse Analysis (2013-82), Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung
shows that Austin categorized illocuitionary acts into five classes:
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+ Verdictives: typified by the giving of a verdict by a jury, umpire,
arbitrator such as acquit, grade, estimate, diagnose, rare, analyze, put it as,
reckon, value, characterize, interpret as, measure.
+ Exercitives: is 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 form a
judgement that is so. It is a very wide class; example 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 an
announcement of intention. For example: am determined to, purpose 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 inti ongoing discourse, or how
they are being used like: affirm, deny, inform, tell, explain,…
According to the speech act theory of Searle,J. and Yule,G
(Pragmatic, 1996) classifies five types of general functions performed by

speech

acts

including:

Declarations,

Representatives,

Expressives,

Directives, Commissives.
+ Declarations:

change states of affair, comprising naming, firing,

appointment, etc.
+ Representatives: state what the speaker believes to be the casemor not,
including assertion, description, report, statement, etc.
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+ Expressives: state what the speaker feels; express psychological states
orattitude. They can be apologizing, compliment, greeting, thanking,
accepting, condoling and congratulating.
+ Directives: attempt to get the hearer to do something and express what the
speaker wants.
dismissing,

They are advising, admonishing, asking, begging,

excusing,

forbidding,

instructing,

ordering,

permitting,

requesting , requiring, suggesting, urging and warning.
+ Commissives: commit the speaker to a course of action, expressing
his/her intention such as agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting, offering,
promising, swearing and volunteering.
These five types of speech acts are also presented by G.Yule
(1996:55) as in the table below:
S = Speaker
Speech act type

Direction of fit
X = Situation

Declarations
Representatives
Expressives
Directives
Commissives

Words change the
world
Make words fit the
world
Make words fit the
world
Make the world fit
words
Make the world fit
words

S causes X
S believes X
S feels X
S wants X
S intends X

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Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (following G.Yule
1996)
2.2.3 What is invitation?
Inviting is mostly a social habit. It is one of the most sensitive and
communicative acts to strengthen the relation or intimacy.
Inviting, like thanking, complementing, requesting, etc., is regarded
as one of the most sensitive illocutionary acts in communication (Tank
2002). According to Nguyen Van Lap (1989,3): “Inviting Act is one of the
politerequest forms. The situation, participants, relationship and objective
ofcommunication greatly influence the structure of invitation formulae.

Thearticle has researched deep into the structure forms of invitation in
theVietnamese language.”
Like another request forms (request, command, asking), invitation
can express different polite levels of the speaker. Inviting means polite,
hurry somebody to act that this action is to make both of the speaker and the
hearer satisfied. On the other hand, implementing invitation is suitable for
dialog person’s interest.
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary [6:685]:
“Invitationis request someone to take part in a social event” or “request
someone to goto somewhere or to do something politely”:
Eg: “Would you like to see a tennis march with me on Sunday?”
The same, Vietnamese Dictionary 1 definesthat “Invitation” is
“haverequiring someone to come”.
Eg: “Mời anh đến chơi.”
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