A contrastive analysis of invitation s refusal strategies in american and vietnamese

HCMC University of Pedagogy – English department


A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
OF INVITATION’S REFUSAL
STRATEGIES IN AMERICAN
AND VIETNAMESE

Student: Dang Thi To Nhu
Class: 4A07
Instructor: Ph.D Nguyen Ngoc Vu


December 2010


Invitation‟s refusal strategies 1

Introduction
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. As a result, Larina (2008) shows that numerous
problems in communication occur because people do not only speak different
languages but use them in different ways according to specific social and
linguistic norms, values, and social-cultural convention.
Many people devalue the importance of invitation‟s refusal strategies
because normally, it is a person right to say something he/she doesn‟t like or

doesn‟t 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 every body, as a
human being, expects the appreciation and respect from others. America and
Vietnam are two countries with different culture so their social and linguistic
norms are different as well. This paper is an attempt to provide a cross-culture
comparison of ways American and Vietnamese deal with a tactful-required
kind of speech act: refusing an invitation. In this paper, the similarities and
differences in refusal strategies between American native speakers and
Vietnamese native speakers will be discussed under three circumstances:
when the invitee is at a lower status; when the invitee is at an equal status;

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 2
and when the invitee is at a higher status. To make my topic more practical, I
also suggest some implications in language teaching. I hope that this paper
will be a contribution to the study of cross-cultural pragmatic understanding
and effective communication.

Speech acts
In the 1950s and 60s two philosophers of language, John Austin and
John Searle, developed speech act theory from their observation that
language is used to do things other 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 published in 1969.
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
physical acts, 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

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 3
acts. Thus people do things with words in much the same way as they
perform physical actions.
Paltridge (2000) provided us the definition of 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 (p. 15).

Refusal as a speech act
According to Al-Eryani (2007), a refusal is a respond negatively to an
offer, request, invitation, etc. Refusals, as all the other speech acts, occur in
all languages. However, not all languages/ cultures refuse in the same way
nor do they feel comfortable refusing the same invitation or suggestion. In
many societies, how one says “no” may be more important than the answer
itself, therefore, sending and receiving a message of „no” is a task that needs
special skills. The interlocutor must know when to use the appropriate form
and its function. The speech act and its social elements depend on each
group and their cultural-linguistic values.

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 4
Refusals are considered to be a face-threatening act among the
speech acts. “Face” means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that
emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone
else to recognize. Refusals threaten the inviter‟s face because they contradict
his\her expectations and restrict the inviter‟s freedom to act according to
his\her will. On the other hand, refusals may threaten the addressee‟s public
image to maintain approval from others.
Because a failure to refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal
relations of the speakers, refusals usually include various strategies to avoid
offending one‟s interlocutors. However, it requires a high level of pragmatic
competence and the choice of these strategies may vary across languages
and cultures. For example, in refusing invitations, offers and suggestions,
gratitude was regularly expressed by American English speakers, but rarely

by Egyptian Arabic speakers (Nelson, Al-batal, and Echols, 1996). When
Mandarin Chinese speakers wanted to refuse requests, they expressed
positive opinion (e.g., „I would like to….‟) much less frequently than American
English since Chinese informants were concerned that if they ever expressed
positive opinions, they would be forced to comply (Liao and Bressnahan,
1996).

Politeness
Politeness can be at once understood as a social phenomenon, a means
to achieve good interpersonal relationships, and a norm imposed by social
conventions. So it is phenomenal, instrumental and normative by nature.
According to Brown and Levinson (as cited in “Politeness”, 2010), politeness
strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to

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the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "selfesteem" in public or in private situations. Usually you try to avoid
embarrassing the other person, or making them feel uncomfortable. Face
Threatening Acts (FTA's) are acts that infringe on the hearers' need to
maintain his/her self esteem, and be respected. Politeness strategies are
developed for the main purpose of dealing with these FTA's. What would you
do if you saw a cup of pens on your teacher's desk, and you wanted to use
one, would you

a. say, "Ooh, I want to use one of those!"
b. say, "So, is it O.K. if I use one of those pens?"
c. say, "I'm sorry to bother you but, I just wanted to ask you if I could use
one of those pens?"

d. Indirectly say, "Hmm, I sure could use a blue pen right now."

There are four types of politeness strategies, described by Brown and
Levinson (as cited in “Politeness,” 1997), that sum up human "politeness"
behavior: Bald On Record, Negative Politeness, Positive Politeness, and OffRecord-indirect strategy.
If you answered A, you used what is called the Bald On-Record strategy
which provides no effort to minimize threats to your teachers' "face."
If you answered B, you used the Positive Politeness strategy. In this situation
you recognize that your teacher has a desire to be respected. It also confirms
that the relationship is friendly and expresses group reciprocity.

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 6
If you answered C, you used the Negative Politeness strategy which similar to
Positive Politeness in that you recognize that they want to be respected.
However, you also assume that you are in some way imposing on them.
Some other examples would be to say, "I don't want to bother you but..." or "I
was wondering if ..."
If you answered D, you used Off-Record indirect strategies. The main
purpose is to take some of the pressure off of you. You are trying not to
directly impose by asking for a pen. Instead you would rather it be offered to
you once the teacher realizes you need one, and you are looking to find one.

In many ways, politeness is universal. It is resorted to by speakers of
different languages as a means to an end and it is recognized as a norm in all
societies. Despite its universality, the actual manifestations of politeness, the
ways to realize politeness and the standards of judgment differ in different
cultures. On her thesis, Nguyen, T. L (2010) points out some aspects we

should consider in order to achieve the goal of politeness as following:

- The social background of the communicator. Generally, the more
educated a man is, the more he tends to show his politeness to other people.
The more he knows about the suitable ways to show politeness, the better he
uses them to be polite to others. Besides, the personality of the communicator
is also very important here. Good-tempered person prefers to use “facesaving act” while bad-tempered person prefers “face-threatening act” when
they come across the “face-losing condition”.

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 7
- The communicative circumstances. Communication is a very
complicated process. In formal occasions, people tend to use formal
expressions to show politeness, esp. between the new acquaintances. While
in informal states, people tend to be casual to show intimacy even if it is in the
very moment they meet. And that doesn‟t mean impoliteness. Look at the
following example:
Ex 1: A man came into a bar and said to the waiter: “Hi! Buddy! Gimme
some whisky, would ya?” Although they‟ve never met before, the man used
very casual phrases to enclose their relationship. This is a usual way to show
friendliness to strangers in similar entertaining places.
- The social distance. The social distance between speaker and hearer
is one of the factors that determine politeness behaviors. The notion of social
distance refers to the consideration of the roles people are taking in relation to
one another in a particular situation as well as how well they know each other,
which means the degree of intimacy between interlocutors. However, there
are still some exceptions. For example, people often use family names to call
their close friends, and when these people speak to each other, they will use

direct offer or request. But sometimes they use very formal expressions in
their speech. Look at the following example.
Ex 2: Husband to his wife: “Would you be so kind as to hand the bread
over to me?”
Surely we know that the wife has just quarreled with the husband and the
husband is trying to amuse her in a certain way.

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 8
- The cultural differences. Different culture causes different views of
values, which affects the criteria of politeness and leads to differences in
various aspects.
+Ways to greet each others and farewells.
+ Ways to address terms.
+ Ways to praise others.
+ Ways to express thanks…

Directness and indirectness
Directness and indirectness are basic form of expression, which are
universal in all languages and culture.
Directness is a style of communication in which speaker want to get the
straight forward to the points. The speech interprets exactly and literally what
the speaker said. The power of directness is the hearer does not have to look
for what the speaker might have mean by uttering such and such sentence.
Everything in their interaction is expressed explicitly. Misunderstanding hardly
occurs.
Indirectness is any communicative behavior, verbal or nonverbal that
conveys something which is quite different from its literal meaning. In order to

protect privacy, to minimize the imposition on the hearer and to avoid the risk
of losing face, there is a preference for indirectness on the part of the speaker
to smooth the conversational interaction. For example when conveying the
pragmatic meaning I want you to do it, the English make special effort to
diminish and soften their imposition and show their respect for other people‟s
privacy. An illustration of this is when someone says “can you pass the salt?”
Here, they are not asking about your ability to pass the salt - the literal

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 9
meaning of the sentence - but requesting you to pass the salt. This is very
common in service encounters where “can” is often used to refer to something
other than ability or permission.
There are many socio-cultural factors affecting the directness or
indirectness of utterances. Nguyen (1998) (as cited in Nguyen, T. M. P, p.13)
proposes 12 factors that, in his view, may affect the choice of directness and
indirectness in communication:
1. Age: the old tend to be more indirect than the young.
2. Sex: females prefer indirect expression.
3. Residence: the rural population tends to use more indirectness than
the urban.
4. Mood: while angry, people tend to use more indirectness.
5. Occupation: those who study social sciences tend to use more
indirectness than those who study natural sciences.
6. Personality: the extroverted tend to use more directness than the
introverted.
7. Topic: while referring to a sensitive topic, a taboo, people usually opt
for indirectness.

8. Place: when at home, people tend to use more directness than when
they are elsewhere.
9. Communication environment/setting: when in an informal climate,
people tend to express themselves in a direct way.
10. Social distance: those who have closer relations tend to talk in a
more direct way.

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 10
11. Time pressure: when in a hurry, people are likely to use direct
expressions.
12. Position: when in a superior position, people tend to use more
directness to their inferiors.
These factors help to determine the strategies as well as the number of
semantic formulae used when speakers perform the act of refusing.

Comparison of refusal strategies in America and Vietnamese
Basing on the data collected from Nguyen, T. L (2010), I will focus on
three situations in which American and Vietnamese refuse the invitations from
inviters who have higher, equal and lower status than theirs respectively.
(1), (2), (3), (4) means position of the utterance is presented.
When the invitee is at a lower status.
The components which are typically found in American‟s way of
refusals when the invitee is at a lower status are (1) Gratitude/appreciation +
(2) Excuse/reasons/explanation + (3) Positive opinion. For example, when a
student declines a professor‟s invitation of having lunch with his/her family,
he/she might answer as following:
1. “Thank you. I have already eaten. It‟s so nice of you to ask”.

[(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason + (3) Positive opinion]
2. “Thank you but I just had lunch”.
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason]
3. “I just ate at the Indian restaurant down the street and I got a little
indigestion, thank you though”.
[(1) Reason + (2) Gratitude]

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 11
Vietnamese native speakers tend to use the formula: (1) Thank you +
(2) Addressing term + (3) Offer for alternatives or a promise for future
acceptance. For example:
1. “Cảm ơn giáo sư, để khi khác em sẽ dùng bữa cùng gia đình
thầy ạ”.
(Thank you, professor. I will join with your family next time.)
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Addressing term + (3) Promise for future
acceptance]
2. “Cảm ơn giáo sư, mời thầy và gia đình cứ dùng bữa tự nhiên ạ”.
(Thank you, professor. Be yourself with you family.)
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Addressing term + (3) Alternaitves]
3. “Em cảm ơn thầy, thầy dùng bữa tự nhiên, em ngồi uống nước
trà đợi thầy cũng được ạ”.
(Thank you, professor. Be yourself. I will drink some tea to wait for
you.)
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Addressing term + (3) Alternatives]
According to the results above, both American and Vietnamese use
expression of “gratitude/appreciation” in their refusals; However, gratitude
maybe in different orders (either at the beginning or at the end of the

utterance).
One noticeable difference occurs in this component of refusal is that
Vietnamese prefer offering a promise in the future to maintain the
relationship between the professor and the student. Vietnamese speakers
are somehow less likely to give a straightforward respond to decline the
professor‟s invitation. In contrast, Americans often say directly the reason

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why they cannot accept the invitation by saying “I have eaten” or “I just
had lunch”. Besides, Americans only use their popular addressing term
“you and I‟ while Vietnamese tend to use many addressing terms such as
“Professor” or “Mr.” in the conversation between the professor and the
students.
When the invitee is at an equal status.
The second case involves the speaker refusing an inviter who has
equal position with him/her. When refusing a classmate‟s invitation, American
normally use this formula: (1) Regret/excuse + (2) Offer of alternatives or a
promise for the future acceptance. For instance:
1. “I‟m really sorry. I have another commitment. I am generally
available. Can we set it up for another time?”
[(1) Regret + (2) Reason + (3) Offer an alternative]
2. “What a pity. I already have plans. Please let me know the next
time you go and I would love to come along”.
[(1) Regret + (2) Reason + (3) Promise for future acceptance]
Meanwhile Vietnamese semantic formula is (1) A promise for the future
acceptance/ an offer of alternative + (2) reasons as following:
1. “Để lần sau nhé, lần này mình bận mất rồi. Đồng ý chứ?”

(Perhaps next time, I‟m busy now. All right?)
[(1) Promise for the future acceptance + (2) Reason]
2. “Để bữa khác được không? Hôm nay mình mắc học rồi”.
(Can we set it up for another time? I have to study today.)
[(1) An offer of alternative + (2) Reason]

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These examples show that both Americans and Vietnamese rarely
say “no” directly to their friends even though they are in equal status.
Mostly, Americans use regret like “I‟m sorry/what a pity” to start their
refusal. This style is culturally and socially important and appropriate in
America. In contrast, Vietnamese may feel that it is less necessary to
express their regret due to the familiarity and close social distance. It
reflects traditional thinking of Vietnamese that in close relationship, people
should be open, friendly and informal with each other. Although both two
groups tend to use the excuse and reason to soften their refusal, there is
slightly different in the order between Americans and Vietnamese.
Whereas Vietnamese people offer alternatives or promise for the future
acceptance before giving their excuse as a way to reduce threatening face
of inviter, Americans use excuse first and follow other alternatives in the
future.
When the invitee is at an upper status.
In the last situation, the speaker, who is at a high social status,
declines an invitation to go to the spa with the staff.
American speakers refuse this kind of invitation by saying patterns like
(1) regret + (2) reason/excuse/explanation. For example:
1. “Sorry, I‟ve made plans”.

[(1) Regret + (2) Reason (subjective reason)]
2. “That sounds lovely. But I have far too much to work right now.
Thank for inviting me”.
[(1) Positive opinion + (2) Reason (subjective reason) + (3)
Gratitude]

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Invitation‟s refusal strategies 14
Vietnamese‟s responses are more complicated and detailed. The usual
formula is (1) Gratitude + (2) Reason
1. “Cảm ơn cậu nhưng mình không đi được. Mình không muốn các
nhân viên khác hiểu nhầm. Thông cảm cho mình nhé”.
(Thanks, but I can‟t go with you. I‟m afraid to be misunderstood by
other staffs. Sympathize with me!)
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason (objective reason) + (3) Sympathy)
2. “Cảm ơn cậu rất nhiều nhưng cuối tuần này mình phải tham dự
đám cưới của đứa bạn mất rồi”.
(Thank you so much but I‟m going to attend one of my friend‟s
wedding at the weekend.)
[(1) Gratitude + (2) Reason (objective reason)]
Once again, regrets are favored by Americans when refusing an
invitation. Vietnamese, however, produce many “thanks” as gratitude first
and state reasons later. In this case, although Vietnamese bosses are at
higher status than invitees, most of them say thank you to their staff in
order to appreciate their staff‟s good will. There is a striking difference
between American and Vietnamese speakers when giving reasons for
their refusals. Americans often give their subjective reasons like “I‟m so
busy”, “I‟ve made my plan” to inform the inviter that they can‟t go. Because

one of American culture values is to respect individual freedom. Therefore,
if the invitees give their own personal reasons, the inviter will accept their
refusals and are not curious about real reasons anymore. Meanwhile,
Vietnamese tend to use objective reasons to soften the face threatening
act of the refusals.

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Conclusion
America and Vietnam are two countries with different linguistic and
cultural features. However, in cross-culture linguistic, beside the differences
due to socio-norm dissimilarities these two countries still have something in
common. When taking strategies in refusing an invitation into consideration,
we can find out main similarities and differences as following:
Similarities:
- When refusing an invitation, American and Vietnamese speakers
usually use indirect strategy with most communicating partners. Both of them
avoid saying no directly to their interlocutors whether they are at high, low or
equal status.
- The common tendency is that Americans and Vietnamese give a
variety of reason to avoid losing their inviters‟ faces.
Differences:
- Americans produce much more expression of regrets and reasons to
refuse invitations. Typically, regrets often follow reasons in the formula of a
refusal sentence. Americans tend to give their subjective reasons in most
cases.
- Vietnamese speakers prefer to provide alternatives or a promise for

acceptance in the future to make the inviter feel released. They also try to
give the interlocutors the objective reasons to soften the face threatening act.

Teaching implications
The results of this thesis demonstrate that refusing in general and
refusing an invitation to be specific is a complex task because it requires the
high level of communicative competence. In order to avoid pragmatic failure,

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speakers need to know both socio-cultural strategies used by most native
speakers and the rules for their appropriate implementation. Therefore, as an
instructor who has important role in students‟ learning progress, teacher
should:
- Prepare authentic materials for learners because learning a second
language also means learning a second culture. Students should have a
chance to get familiar with materials that are closely related to the daily
activities of the country of the language they are learning.
- Teach language linguistic and functions parallel and contextually in
both formal and informal situations in order to develop the learners‟
sociolinguistic ability in an L2.
- Encourage students to perform different speech acts in an L2 in
different situations paying special attention to the differences of gender, of
social class and of social status between the speaker and interlocutor.
- Organize activities that students can have chances to communicate
with both native and non-native speakers of English.

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from December 31, 2010, from />Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Larina, T. (2008). Directness, imposition and politeness in English and
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www.cambridgeesol.org/rs_notes/offprints/pdfs/RN33p33-38.pdf
Liao, C., and Bresnahan, M. I. (1996). A Contrastive Pragmatic Study
on American English as Mandarian Refusal Strategies. Language Sciences,
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Nelson, Al-batal, and Echols, (1996). Arabic and English Compliment
Responses: Potential for Pragmatic Failure. Applied Linguistic, 17, 411-432.
Nguyen, T. L. (2010). An American and Vietnamese Cross-cultural
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/>Nguyen, T. M. P. (2006). Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Refusals of
Requests by Australian Native Speakers of English and Vietnamese Learners
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/>Paltridge, B. (2000). Making Sense of Discourse Analysis. Australia:
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/>

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