A study on english politeness strategies for declining invitations with reference to the vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR
DECLINING INVITATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ BẰNG TIẾNG ANH
KHI TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI VỚI CÁC LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG
TIẾNG VIỆT)

TRẦN THỊ THÙY LINH

Hanoi, 2016


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS STRATEGIES FOR
DECLINING INVITATIONS WITH REFERENCE TO THE
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ BẰNG TIẾNG ANH
KHI TỪ CHỐI LỜI MỜI VỚI CÁC LIÊN HỆ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG
TIẾNG VIỆT)

TRẦN THỊ THÙY LINH

Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Assos. Prof. Võ Đại Quang, Ph.D

Hanoi, 2016


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and
support from a number of people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to
Associate Professor Võ Đại Quang(PhD) for the invaluable support,
enthusiastic guidance, and encouragement he gave me throughout my
research.Who has patiently and constantly supported me through the stages
of the study, and whose stimulating ideas, expertise, and suggestions have
inspired me greatly through my growth as an academic researcher.
Secondly, I am deeply grateful to some foreign and Vienamese
authors for their theoretical discussions and fundamental advice for the
study, especially PH.D Duong Bach Nhat with the thesis on “ the use of
politeness strategies in inviting and declining invitations in American
English and Vietnamese (2008)”. The thesis helped the author a lot in the
study and without this, the data for the study would certainly not be
analyzed and processed professionally.
My sincere acknowledgement also go to all my lecturers and officers
of Faculty of Graduate Studies,

Hanoi Open University, who have

facilitated me with the best possible conditions during my whole course of
studying.

Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for
the sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

ii


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I hereby declare that this thesis “A STUDY ON ENGLISH POLITENESS
STRATEGIES FOR DECLINING INVITATIONS WITH
REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS is my own
piece of academic work and all the sources that I have used or quoted have
been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. This
research has not been previously submitted for any degree at this or any
other universities.
Ha Noi,2016

Tran Thi Thuy Linh

Approved by
Supervisor

Assos. Prof. Dr. Vo Dai Quang
Date………………………..

iii


ABSTRACT
The present thesis has been carried out on the background of the
achievement and deficiences in the existing studies on both English and

Vietnamese declining invitation commonly employed in politeness
strategies. This study which focused on speech acts of declining invitations,
was conducted in the hope of finding out the similarities and differences
between how declining invitations are made in English and Vietnamese by
the people who are speaking these two languages under the light of
contrastive analysis and cross-cultural perspective. Data used for analysis in
this study were mainly collected through survey questionnaires, Through
analysis of forms of declining invitations provided by two groups of
participants, it was deduced that native speakers of English and Vietnamese
are quite different in making declining invitations under three social
variables: social distance, relative power, and threats to each other's. A
detailed analysis of declining invitation in the Vietnamese and English
culture is presented. Through a collection of examples, the properties for
distinguishing declining invitations from genuine ones are identified Some
categories used to indicate declining intentions are analyzed in detail with
situations. The statistics got from each of the strategies are also analyzed.
For a speech act to be appropriately performed, certain conditions must be
satisfied. Yet for declining invitation, these conditions are violated. But,
though defective, this speech act is successfully performed. So it is analyzed
how this speech act is successfully performed by violating the felicity
conditions. By using the questionnaires the author was interested in
determining whether factors such as lack of resources such as learning
material, under qualification in English as a subject, lack of training in the
structure of English and other factors had any influence in the properties for
distinguishing declining invitations. As a kind of a speech act, the declining
invitations has two expectable perlocutions. The possible perlocutions are
iv


discussed in the study. Then in the next part, the pragmatic functions are

categorized into caring function, conversational function and making
declining invitations function. The present thesis is investigated from the
perspective of addresser. Further studies can take the perspective of the
addressee as a complementary part to better comprehend the invitations.

v


ABBREVIATIONS

e.g : Exempli gratia (for example)
etc : et cetera
DCT : Discourse Completion Task
D : Difference
E:

English

ELT : English Language Teaching
FTA : Face Threatening Act
FRA : Face Respecting Act
H:

hearer

HUBT: Hanoi University of Business and Technology
MPQ:

Metapragmatic Questionaires

PA:

Age power

PG:

Gender power

PPS : Positive Politeness Strategies
PS : Status power
S:

speaker

Si : similar
VN : Vietnamese
Italics type is used for terms and examples

vi


LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Speech act classification………………………….

19

Table 2.2. Information on the research participants………….

30

Table 3.1 Situation investigates in DCT questionare……….…

50

Table 3.2 Summary of distribution of the informants under
study………………………………………………………….…
Table 3.3

51

The total number & frequency of NPS in declining by the

VietNamese and English informants…………………..

52

Table 3.4 NPS leading rates used in declining invitations by the
VietNamese

and

English

seen

from

the

informant’s

parameters……………………………………………………..

53

Table 3.5 The total of number of PPS employed in declining invitations
by the Vietnamese and English…………………..

55

Table 3.6 PPS leading rates used in declining invitations by the
VietNamese

and

English

seen

from

the

informant’s

parameters………………………………………………………

vii

56

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. i
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .............................................................ii
ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................vi
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1 .INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
1.1 Rationale ..................................................................................................1
1.2 Aims of the research ................................................................................2
1.3 Objectives of the research ........................................................................2
1.4 Scope of the research ...............................................................................3
1.5 Significance of the study .........................................................................3
1.6 Organization of the Study ........................................................................3
Chapter 2 .LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................ 5
2.1 Review of previous studies ......................................................................5
2.1.1General studies of politeness and cross-cultural pragmatics .................9
2.1.2 Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness .................................. 10
2.1.3 John Langshaw Austins definition of communication ..................... 11
2.2 Review of theoretical background .........................................................12
2.2.1. Pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics .........................................12
2.2.2 Generalization of Speech acts ............................................................14
2.2.2.1. Definitions of speech acts ...............................................................14
2.2.2.2 Classification of speech acts ............................................................16
2.2.2.3 Direct and indirect speech acts ........................................................18
2.2.3 Theoretical background .......................................................................19
2.2.3.1 Politeness strategies .......................................................................... 19

viii

2.2.3.2 The politeness principle ................................................................... 19
2.2.3.3 Classification of politeness ............................................................... 21
2.2.3.4 Linguistic politeness strategies ........................................................ 22
2.2.3.5 The meaning of face ........................................................................ 23
2.2.3.6 Types of threats to face ...................................................................24
2.3. Summary ...............................................................................................25
Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 27
3.1 Research-governing orientations ...........................................................27
3.1.1 Research questions..............................................................................27
3.1.2 Research participants ..........................................................................27
3.2Research methods ...................................................................................29
3.2.1 Research procedure .............................................................................29
3 .2.2 Data collection instruments ...............................................................31
3.2.4 Data analysis techniques .....................................................................33
3.3 Summary……………………………………………………………….34
Chapter 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ........................................... 35
4.1 Findings..................................................................................................35
4.2. Discussions ........................................................................................... 49
4.2.2. The use of NPS in declining invitations as seen from informants: ...52
4.2.3.1 The use of PPS in declining invitations as seen from informants’
parameters: ...................................................................................................55
4.3 Summary ................................................................................................56
Chapter 5 RECAPITULATION : ............................................................ 58
5.2 Conclusions on the objectives. ..............................................................59
5.2.1 Conclusion on objective 1: .................................................................59
ix


5.2.2 Conclusion on objective 2: .................................................................59

5.3 Implications of the study .......................................................................60
5.3.1 Implication for foreign language teaching and learning.....................61
5.4 Limitations of the study .........................................................................62
5.5 Suggestions for further studies ..............................................................62
REFERENCES
APPENDIX A
APPENIX B

QUESTIONAIRE

x


Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
It is often said that to master a foreign language is difficult. Because
enormous vocabulary and profound understanding in grammar are not
enough, having certain understandings of the culture where that language is
spoken is a must. Let take English and Vietnamese as an example. There are
differences in the use of language between English and Vietnamese. To
immerse into the culture and daily life of the target language is necessary in
order to comprehend wholly that language. In other words, learning a
language means learning the culture of the country where that language is
spoken. Acquiring a second language demands more than learning new
words and another system of grammar (Levine and Adelman, 1982). The
goal of learning a language, these days, is to be able to carry out effective
communication. Communication, however, may fail to achieve as there is
lack of certain understandings of the country where that language is spoken.
There are “unwritten rules” being potentially confusing and creating

misunderstandings even for native speakers (Levine & Adelman, 1982). A
deep understanding of culture may benefit students in terms of interacting
with people in the native country where their target language is widely
spoken.Language and culture can not be separated from each other. Each
country has its own traditions, customs, rituals reflected by the language.
Understanding social conventions and attention therefore, learners will truly
succeed in using English when they must be aware of the relationship
between language and culture, especially using politeness strategies in daily
social interaction.
Declining invitations, one of the communicative acts widely used in
social interaction, has exposed itself as an interesting topic for many
researchers. Goffman (1971) Brown’s and Levinson’s (1987), Yule (1997)
1


and many other researchers contribute politeness strategies to the domain
which are the pioneers in this field.
England and Vietnam are two countries with different cultures so their
social and linguistic norms are different as well. The study is an attempt to
provide a cross-culture comparison of ways English and Vietnamese deal
with a tactful -required kind of speech acts: declining an invitation. In this
study, the similarities and differences between the English politeness
strategies for declining invitations and those in Vietnamese will be
discussed under three situations: friendship activities, family activities and
social activities.
For those reasons, I would like to carry out a small study on investing
English politeness for declining invitations with reference to the Vietnamese
with a view to establishing a cross-linguistic analysis of declining
invitations in English to Vietnamese. I hope that this study would help
learners achieve their communicative goals in social interaction as well as

avoid making mistakes, and to some extent, it will be a contribution to the
study

of

cross-cultural

pragmatic

understanding

and

effective

communication.
1.2 Aims of the research
The thesis is aim at helping Vietnamese learners of Enghlish as a
foreign language to gain a better understanding of these strategies
commonly employed for declining invitation in English and with the
knowledge gained they will be able to use them effectively in daily
communication.
1.3 Objectives of the research
In order to achieve mentioned above aims, the following objectives are
put forward:


To point out the English politeness strategies commonly employed

for declining invitations

2




To point out the similarities and differences between the English

politeness strategies for declining invitations and those in Vietnamese
 To suggest the possible implication for Vietnamese learners of
Enghlish as a foreign language to gain a better understanding of these
strategies and be able to use them effectively in daily
communication.
1.4 Scope of the research
This research concentrates on studying the English politeness strategies for
declining invitation. However, within the framework of a master graduate
paper, only speech acts of declining performed by native speakers of
English and then compare them to those performed by Vietnamese native
speakers will be focused on all the expressions are taken from questionare,
reference book etc.Applied for perfoming the English politeness strategies
for declining invitations are mainly collected and analysed.
1.5 Significance of the study
(1) Theoretical significance: An insight can be obtained via this thesis
into politeness strategies employed in declining invitations.
(2) Practical significance: The amount of knowledge provided in the
thesis is likely to facilitate cross-cultural communication in English
and Vietnamese
1.6 Organization of the Study
This thesis consists of five chapters:
Chapter 1 is the “Introduction”, which presents the background to the
study, aims of the study, research questions, methods of study, scope of

the study, significance of the study.
Chapter 2 is the “Literature review” which provides the readers with the
literature review of the research, attempting to present the theoretical
background including general understanding about language learning

3


process, and overview of ostensible invitations in English and Vietnamese:
major linguistic features and commonly employed politeness strategies.
Chapter 3: is the “Methodology” this chapter focuses on presenting
research questions, research participants, research procedure, data
collection, as well as methods of analysis.
Chapter 4: is the “Finding and discussion” this chapter presents the results
gained in survey questionnaires and observation and discusses the
similarities and differences in how declining invitations speech acts are
made in English and then compare them to those performed by Vietnamese
as well as the influence of three variables to the choice of declining
invitation forms of two groups of participants.
Chapter 5: is the “Conclusion” this part provides conclusions on each of
the objectives, implications for using ostensible declining invitations in
conversation and suggestions for further research.

4


CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter begins with an overview of pragmatics, moves on to

discuss studies related to theory of speech acts and ends by sketching out the
politeness and interaction. The first part tries to provide an understanding of
what pragmatics is and including those in cross- cultural pragmatics; and
studies specific to the Vietnam and English context. The second part gives
an overview of theory of speech acts. This part is divided into two sections:
speech acts and classification of speech acts. The last part is general studies
of politeness and interaction with the definition of politeness, politeness
strategies, the meaning of face and types of threats to face. Other
approaches to politeness and criticism of this theory are also discussed.
2.1 Review of previous studies
In this section, studies of politeness can be roughly grouped into
two types of data collection: experimental and natural setting. Studies with
experimental methods mostly make use of data collection in the form of
discourse completion test and role play. Natural method studies gather
data by observing natural interaction. My data are collected by employing
role play and discourse completion test which are classified as
experimental

methods and natural although

the goal

is to obtain

responses that approximate real interaction.
I will discuss the main issues addressed in each study and attempt
to find common points of interest with my study.
Social status plays a role in language usage. Olshtain and Weinbach (1987)
explore the speech act of complaining among native and non-native
speakers of Hebrew and find that both groups tend to cluster around the

three central strategies: disapproval, complaints and warning. When the
speaker is of lower status than the hearer, he/she tends to choose less
5


confrontational

strategies

(disapproval

and

complaint);

when

the

interlocutors are equals or the speaker has higher social status, they tend to
use complaint and warning strategies. This finding would seem to have a
psychological basis and therefore more general validity. People who are in
a higher position or have more power feel more confident and thus dare
to complain to or warn subordinates, whereas those of lower status do
not want to take a risk by expressing strong complaints, fearing for their
job or the relationship.
Complaining styles can differ according to gender and between
native and non-native speakers.

Geluykens and Kraft (2007) studied

gender variation in native (English) and interlanguage (German-English English produced by native speakers of German) complaints. The study
used discourse completion tests to explore how complaints are realized in
language. It found that FTA realization (Brown and Levinson, 1987) by
non-native speakers was longer and more verbose than native speakers. In
terms of using downgrading or mitigating strategies (e.g. ‘please’, ‘I’m
sorry’) and upgrading strategies or negative terms of address and the use
of swear words (e.g. ‘You beast’, ‘Bloody Hell’), L2 speakers used
significantly more

downgrading

than mother

tongue respondents.

Upgrading was far less frequent than downgrading in both L1 and L2.
Male speakers used more upgrading than females, but female speakers
used more mitigating strategies than male speakers. The respondents may
perceive written complaint as a formal medium and therefore avoid using
expressions that could cause offence.
Several researchers have compared how native and non-native
speakers express

disagreement. Kreutel (2007) studies

how

native

speakers of English and non-native speakers who are ESL students do
so. Non-native speakers used desirable, mitigating features significantly
less frequently than native speakers and displayed a higher frequency of
6


undesirable rude and impolite features. Non- native speakers tend to lack
mitigating devices and use impolite expressions instead. It is unsurprising
that native speakers are able to use language to negotiate conflict situations
in a mitigating manner, although the level of skill varies with the
individual. Interestingly, no relationship between pragmatic skills and
proficiency level among the non-native speakers could be found in her
study. According to her, this confirms the assumption that pragmatic
competence is not automatically linked to proficiency in the grammatical
and lexical spheres. It may also be understood as an argument for the
importance of explicit pragmatic instruction.
Another type of experimental

study compared

politeness

behaviour among speakers of several different languages. In their
study on “Cross-cultural and situational
behavior”,

Blum-Kulka

variation

in

requesting

and House (1989) compared the ways five

different groups of subjects, native speakers of Hebrew, Canadian
French, Argentinian Spanish, Australian English and German, realized
requests in their L1. They interpreted the results as showing that the
“cultural” factor interacts with situational factors. All languages vary their
requests by situation, but differ in specific choices within each situation.
The choices between the more direct and less direct strategies are
culture-specific (patterns of speech or interactional styles). The findings
show interesting cross-cultural differences in directness levels: from among
the five languages examined, Argentinian Spanish speakers were found to
be the most direct, followed by speakers of Hebrew. The least direct were
the Australian English speakers. Speakers of French Canadian and German
were found to be at the mid-point of directness.
Even though we can go by cultural stereotypes to try to predict the
strategies people use when dealing with some acts, this is often
misleading. The concrete situation often is more important in determining
7


the language choices
people make. Olshtain and Weinbach (1993, pp.111-113) compare L1
complaining in different cultural groups and find that respondents from
all three cultures (British, American and Hebrew) behaved in similar
ways when confronting the same situation. About two-thirds of the
respondents in each group chose to realize the speech act of censure, while

only one-third opted out, or in other words preferred to say nothing.
They expected that the findings would confirm the previous studies
finding that Israeli society appeared to be more direct and positive
politeness
oriented,

oriented,
and

British more indirect

American

falling

and

somewhere

negative

politeness

in between.

On

the

contrary, the results show that the differences among the three groups

were not significant. This is because the chosen situations had a much
stronger impact on strategy choice and this impact was similar in all three
cultures. Generally these results suggest that one must take into account
situational factors before generalizing about cultural characteristics.
Sociological factors can be used to understand the way disagreement is
expressed. Rees-Miller (2000) observed seminar classes and academic
talks at a large American research university to examine the choice of
linguistic markers used to soften or strengthen disagreement. She

found

that Brown and Levinson’s (1987) factors of power and severity do affect
the choice of strategies for disagreeing, but in complex ways through the
particularities of context. These general factors in her judgement are not
sufficient to account for all means for expressing disagreements. In this
study, professors tended to use more humour, positive comments, and
inclusive pronouns when disagreeing with students than did interlocutors of
equal power or students disagreeing with professors. Of course, the
pedagogical context is important as well. Neither power nor severity
accounts for how professors may use disagreement as a teaching device.
8


Indeed, a seminar discussion is often only successful when differing
points of view are argued for, so disagreement as a natural part of this
process may not threaten face as it might in general conversation.

In

addition, efficiency of communication and getting on with the lesson

may takeprecedence over lengthy face-saving expressions. In this study,
observation of natural discourse shows how the seminar room may
become a place where different politeness strategies are appropriate,
perhaps to be set by the professor or discussion leader. This would create
real-life variation that conditions the ideal model of Brown and Levinson.
However, it is generally true that power and the degree of imposition affect
strategies used in interaction. Natural methods have also been applied to
studying the relationship between language use and cultural stereotypes.
Edstrom (2004) cites studies that attribute a high level of frankness and
directness to native Spanish speakers. Observing the conversations of
Venezualans, she found more direct expressions of disagreement than
indirect ones. Her findings thus confirm those of previous studies that
Venezuelans are confrontational when disagreeing. She would explain this
as the nature of the culture. This brings to mind various books written on
cross-cultural communication for people who will do business or move to
live in another country, so that they will be equipped to understand the
culture and prepare themselves in advance.
One disadvantage of the natural method is that it is often hard to collect
data on different groups (L1/L2 speakers) or across cultures, so comparison
is not systematic.
2.1.1General studies of politeness and cross-cultural pragmatics
In the studies discussed here, experimental studies involve crosscultural comparison of speech acts between native and non-native
speakers, or between speakers of different languages. Studies employing
natural methods seem to deal mainly with L1. We will see how speakers
9


with

different

levels

of language proficiency make choices about

language use, and how situational factors can have a large influence on the
strategies chosen.
2.1.2

Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness
The theory of politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) is

widely recognized and remains relevant to contemporary research as the
basis for further elaboration (e.g. Harris 2001: 452, Pérez de Ayala 2001:
144-5). It is also (together with Leech’s model) the most common model
presented in textbooks for students of pragmatics, e.g. Yule (1989),
Thomas (1995), Mey (2000), and Cameron (2005).
The general frame for this model (Brown and Levinson 1987: 4) is
the assumption about essentially rational and efficient nature of
communication lying also at the heart of Grice’s Co-operative principle
(CP). In this conception, the CP is understood as the default principle
governing verbal interaction, which is not deviated from without a reason.
Politeness, then, is interpreted as a principle motivating such deviations
from the most efficient way of communication, in other words, a major
underlying motivation for flouting the maxims of CP. The word major does
justice to the fact that there are, as Brown and Levinson admit (1987: 95),
other motives for not following the maxim, such as to avoid responsibility.
However, unlike CP, politeness does not have an irrevocable status as a
principle. It cannot be interpreted as the background presumption with
which interlocutors enter interaction. In this respect, Brown and Levinson

disagree with Leech, who argues that both principles, i.e. CP and PP
(Politeness Principle) are basically coordinated (Leech 1995: 80). They
point out (1987: 5) that politeness must be expressed in a clear way, i.e.
openly manifested.
To substantiate this claim, they invoke Goffman’s notion of a ‘virtual
offence’ (1987: 33) which is supposed to predict that “the non10


communication of the polite attitude will be read not merely as the absence
of that attitude, but as the inverse, the holding of an aggressive attitude.”
To draw a contrastive parallel with CP, it means that one does not set out to
look for a possible interpretation of an utterance as polite, contrary to what
it communicates at face value. This contrasts with the way the mechanism
of looking for an alternative interpretation works in the case of
conversational implicatures, interpreted as cooperative contributions at a
deeper level despite superficial flouting of the CP. Brown and Levinson’s
example of ‘Shut your mouth’ demonstrates this clearly – there is hardly
any possibility to read it as an expression of polite attitude.
To get straight to the core of Brown and Levinson’s theory,
understanding their notion of face is essential.
2.1.3 John Langshaw Austins definition of communication
According to J. L. Austin (1962), communication is a series of
communicative acts or speech acts. These speech acts are used
systematically to accomplish particular communicative purposes.
Austin had prepared a series of lectures to be delivered at Oxford and
Harvard. A posthumous reworking of these notes is the seminal book
entitled How to Do Things with Words. In his book, Austin (1962:11)
explores performative utterances. Consider the following utterances:
“I do (sc. take this woman to be my lawful wedded wife)” – As uttered
in the course of the marriage ceremony.

“I name this ship The Queen Elizabeth” – as uttered when smashing the
bottle against the stem.
Austin argues that the nature of these utterances is in fact performative
rather than contractive. The meanings of these utterances are to be
identified with the performance of an action. In saying "I do," Austin
realized that expression “I do” is not used it remain in the text as it is
philosophically unimportant that is a mistake; in saying "I name this ship
11


The Queen Elizabeth," the speaker actually performs the action of giving
the ship a name.
Performatives are in possession of their own declarative form. In
addition, they generally have well-recognized syntactic characteristics,
such as a verb in the
present tense, a first person subject, and the possibility of adding the adverb
hereby. Austin's investigation of performatives led him to the conclusion
that all utterances partake of the nature of actions.
According to Austin, the same utterance could at the same time
constitute three kinds of acts:
(1) a locutionary act (or locution): The particular sense and
reference of an utterance;
(2) an illocutionary act (or illocution): The act performed in, or by
virtue of, the performance of the illocution; and
(3) a perlocutionary act (or perlocution): The act performed by means
of what is said.
Austin focused on the second of these acts. The locution belongs to the
traditional territory of truth-based semantics. The perlocution belongs
strictly beyond the investigation of language and meaning since it deals with
the results or effects of an utterance. The illocution occupies the middle

ground between them. This ground is now considered the territory of
pragmatics, of meaning in context. Austin emphasizes his claim that only
the verbs used to describe illocutions can be used as performative verbs.
2.2 Review of theoretical background
2.2.1. Pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics

As the study is centered on the speech act of invitations in terms of
cross - cultural perspective. It is, therefore, necessary to look at some basic
information on what is called pragmatics and cross - cultural pragmatics.

12


Pragmatics, since its appearance, has excited great attention from many
leading linguists. Enormous efforts have gone into reaching a satisfactory
definition of this linguistic phenomenon.
The notion of pragmatics is clarified by Richards, Platt, & Webber (1992,
p.284) as follows:
Pragmatics includes the study of:
How the interpretation and use of utterances depend on knowledge of
the real world;
How speakers use and understand speech acts;
How the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship
between the speaker and the hearer.
Of the above issues, the study of speech acts is considered to be of high
importance to pragmatics.
Yule (1996, p.3) defines pragmatics as follows:
Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning.
Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning.
Pragmatics is the study of how more get communicated than is said.

Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance.
As "every culture has its own repertoire of characteristic speech acts"
and "different cultures find expression in different system of speech acts
and different speech acts become entrenched, and to some extent, codified
in different languages" (Wierzbicka (1991, p.25). Nguyen Thien Giap
(2007) states that in different cultures, speech acts are performed in
different ways through different languages.
Linguists, these days, has studied, contrasted how language is used in
different cultures, which is called contrastive pragmatics. Nguyen Thien
Giap (2007) adds

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that in order to master a language successfully, to carry out effective
intercultural communication, having the knowledge of the language is by all
means insufficient, but the knowledge of pragmatics is a must.
Through what has been discussed so far, the speech act of invitations in
English and Vietnamese is not exception. It is about discussed in the study
under contrastive analysis. Cross-cultural perspective, certainly, is a great
concern during the data collection and analysis.
2.2.2 Generalization of Speech acts
2.2.2.1. Definitions of speech acts

J. Austin (1962) takes the pioneering role in formulating the theory
of speech acts. According to him, all utterances should be viewed as actions
of the speakers, stating or describing is only one function of language. He
points out that the declarative sentences are not only used to say things or
describe states of affairs but also used to do things.
Also, in 1962, he defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying

something. When people produce utterances, they often perform actions via
those utterances. These actions are called speech acts: such as apology,
complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request. A speech act is part
of a speech event. The speech act performed by producing an utterance,
consists of three related acts including locutionary act, illocutionary act and
perlocutionary act. They are listed as follows:
Locutionary act is the basic act of producing a meaningful linguistic
expression. The locutionary act is performed with some purposes or
functions in mind.
Illocutionary act is an act performed via the communicative force of an
utterance. In engaging in locutionary acts we generally also perform
illocutionary acts such as informing, advising, offer, promise, etc. In
uttering a sentence by virtue of conversational force associated with it.

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