MA Thesis by Le Bich Thuy

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN

ISSUING ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN

INVITATIONS

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor ÑAËNG THÒ HÖÔÛNG, EdD

Submitted by LEÂ BÍCH THUÛY

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality………………………………………………………………………………………………… i

Retention and use of the thesis…………………………………………………………………………………. ii

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………… iii

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iv

Abbreviations and symbols.……………………………………………………………………………..…… v

List of charts………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vi

List of figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vii

List of tables………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study ………………………………………………………………………………………….…..1

1.2 The aims of the study……………………………………………………………………………………………………..5

1.3 The organization of the study………………………………………………………………………………………5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Written and spoken language……………………………………………………………………………………..7

2.1.1 Distinction between spoken and written language…………………………..….………..….7

2.1.2. English and Vietnamese spoken language…………………………………………………………….9

2.2. Communicative competence………………………………………………………………….….………………10

2.2.1. Definitions…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………….10

2.2.2. Sociolinguistics and the learning of English as a foreign language……………12

2.3. Speech acts………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……………13

2.3.1. Direct and indirect speech acts ………………………………………………………………………..…..14

2.3.2. Indirectness in requests………………………………………………………………….………………………....16

2.3.2.1. The most direct strategies (Bald-on-record strategies)…………………… ……. 16

2.3.2.2. Conventionally indirect strategies ………………………………………………………………....17

2.3.2.3. Non-conventionally indirect strategies ……………………………………………………….. 17

2.4. Politeness ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..………..18

2.4.1. Theories of politeness………………………………………………………………………………………………...18

2.4.2. Politeness and indirectness………………………………………………………………………….…………...21

2.4.3. Social variables affecting politeness……………………………………………………………….…...23

2.4.3.1. Power……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………...23

2.4.3.2. Social distance………………………………………………………...………………………………………………24

2.4.3.3. Gender……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

27

2.4.3.4. Age………………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………..

28

2.5. Invitations …………………………………………………………………………………….………………………………….30

2.5.1. The nature of invitations……………………………………………………………………..…………………… 30

2.5.2. Written and spoken invitations……………………………………………………..……………….…………32

2.5.3. Reasons for making invitations ………………………………………………..…………….………………32

2.5.4. Problems with invitations………………………………………………………………………..……………… 34

2.5.5. The structure of English and Vietnamese spoken invitations……………….….. 35

2.5.5.1. The structure of English spoken invitations………………………………….…………… 36

2.5.5.2. The structure of Vietnamese spoken invitations………………………………………. 37

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research questions……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 40

3.2. Research design………………………………………………………………….……………………………….…….. 40

3.3. The characteristics of the subjects…………………………………………………………….…..……..42

3.3.1. The first group of subjects……………………………………………………….……………………………….42

3.3.2. The second group of subjects……………………………………………………….………………………….43

3.4. Instruments……………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………….44

3.4.1. Description of the questionnaires………………………………………………………………….……….44

3.4.2. Data collection procedure………………………………………………..……………………………………… 46

3.5. Assumptions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………47

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE

FINDINGS

4.1. Data analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………48

4.1.1. The preference of strategy use between groups: Overall results……………….48

4.1.2. Preference for and use of politeness strategies in relation to social status,

age and gender …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 50

4.1.2.1. Social status and age……………………………………………………………………………………..…… 51

4.1.2.2. Social status and gender……………………………………………………………………………………… 59

4.1.2.3. Age and gender……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 66

4.2. Discussion of the findings………………………………………………………………………………………… 74

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………… 81

5.2. Recommendations…………………………………………………………………………………………………………83

References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………….. 86

Appendix 1 Questionnaire to English native speakers………………………….…………………….97

Appendix 2 Questionnaire to Vietnamese native speakers……………………………………..100

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the Masters’ Thesis submitted today entitled:

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY: POLITENESS IN ISSUING ENGLISH

AND VIETNAMESE SPOKEN INVITATIONS

In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Masters’ Programs

issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Department of English Linguistics

and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National

University- Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2007

LE BICH THUY

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LE BICH THUY, being a candidate for the degree of

Master of Arts (TESOL) accepted the requirements of the University relating to

the retention and use of Master’ Thesis deposited in the Library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Masters’ Thesis

deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research,

in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the

care, loan and reproduction for theses.

Ho Chi Minh City, August, 2007

Signature ………………………………………

LE BICH THUY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Ms.

Dang Thi Huong, EdD, for her enthusiastic guidance, her thoughtful comments,

her valuable support as well as her precious encouragement. Without Ms Dang

Thi Huong, my whole-hearted thesis supervisor, I would not have finished my

thesis.

I am also grateful to Professor Nguyen Van Luan, PhD, Dean of The Faculty of

Economics, Vietnam National University- HCM City, who has created favorable

conditions and eased my workload so that I am able to attend the master program

and finish my thesis. I am greatly indebted to the lecturers, teaching staff and

students at The Faculty of Economics and The National Institution of Politics,

HCM City for completing the survey questionnaires.

I also wish to thank Jack Bayfield, Sandra Jaye Smale, Charle Harmouy and

their families who gave me great assistance in distributing and collecting the

questionnaires for English native speakers.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother for her love and

support, without which I would hardly have been able to overcome difficulties to

complete it.

ABSTRACT

The awareness of the interactional similarities and differences in issuing or

declining invitations in cross-cultural contexts can contribute significantly to

better competence of performing this speech act. This study has tried to

investigate politeness in issuing English and Vietnamese spoken invitations

under the effect of social status, age and gender.

Two questionnaires were delivered to both English native speakers and

Vietnamese native speakers as an instrument for the research. Forty English

native speakers and forty Vietnamese native speakes participated in answering

the questionnaires.

The results of the study showed that there were both similarities and differences

in the selection of politeness strategies employed by English native speakers and

Vietnamese native speakers in issuing spoken invitations. Social status, age and

gender also affected differently to the choice of strategies used by both groups of

subjects.

Some pedagogical implications were suggested for the teachers of English on

teaching spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English.

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

CID Conventional indirectness

ENS English native speakers

F-T-F Female-to-female

F-T-M Female-to-male

HCMC Ho Chi Minh City

NCID Non-conventional indirectness

M-T-F Male-to-female

M-T-M Male-to-male

VNS Vietnamese native speakers

VNU Vietnam National University

LISTS OF CHARTS

4.1 The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of

lower social status in situation 5…………………………………………………….………….52


equal social status in situation 5…………………………………….……………….………….54


higher social status in situation 5………………………………………………..….………… 56

4.4 The proportion of total politeness strategies used by ENS in

comparing to those by VNS in situations 1 and 3…………………………………60

4.5 The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in

comparing to those by VNS in situation 1 and 3……………..…………………..63


comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the same gender in

situations 2 and 4……………………………………………………………………………….…………….68


comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the different gender in

situations 2 and 4 ………………………………………………………………………..……………………71

LISTS OF FIGURES

2.1 Components of communicative language ability in communicative

language use…………………………………………………………………………………………………….11

2.2 Possible strategies for doing FTAs………………………………………………………….20

2.3 Wolfson’s “bulge” model……………………………………………………………………………25

LIST OF TABLES

3.1 The first group of subjects………………………………….………………………….…………….43

3.2. The second group of subjects………………………………….……….………………………….44

4.1 The frequency of politeness strategies used by two groups of

subjects ……………………………………………………………………….…………..………………………49

4.2 Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the

invited of lower social status in situation 5…………….……..………………………53


invited of equal social status in situation 5………………..…………..………………55


invited of higher social status in situation 5……………………………………………57


invited of the same gender in situation 1 and 3……………………………………61


invited of different gender in situation 1 and 3…………………………………….65


invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4………………………………….69


invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4…………………………….……72

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the study

At present, English is the main language of the world communication. It is used

as a means to acquire access to the world’s intellectual and technical resources.

It is also used as a medium of politics, science, technology and international

trade and chiefly as an international language among nations. In Vietnam, since

the “open-door policy” was implemented in 1986 and the international

relationship between Vietnam and other countries was developed, English has

become increasingly important.

Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese people want to study English so that they

can use it not only to access information and knowledge but also to communicate

effectively in social interations. However, many Vietnamese learners of English,

in spite of having developed good linguistic competence, still face

communication difficulties arising from the lack of sociolinguistic and

communicative competence. They are not well aware of the fact that different

languages express feelings, construct messages in different ways and each

community has its own rules constraining speech behavior. Therefore, they

usually let their native language transfer inappropriately into the target

language. One of the typical examples is the act of greeting. Due to the

influence of the culture, a Vietnamese learner tends to say “Where are you

going?” or “What are you doing here?’ as a sign of greeting in stead of

saying”How are you?”, “How have you been?” or just ”Hello”, “Hi” “Good

morning”, etc. Furthermore, the hospitality and friendliness of the Vietnamese

sometimes influence them to issue utterances: “You must go to our party. We

really want you to come” or the like as invitations which are quite inappropriate

in English speaking cultures.

As a matter of fact, the lack of knowledge on how to say, what to say and when

to say can result in misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication or lead to

wrong judgment such as: Vietnamese are curious and impolite people who just

want to know other’s personal matter and to impose their minds on others.

Therefore, obviously the ability of using a foreign language fluently, effectively

and socially requires more than knowing its grammatical, semantic rules or

getting native-like pronunciation but also requires the learners’ certain

knowledge of socio-cultural factors in the use of language.

It is undeniable that whether the learners of English can gain communicative

proficiency or not depends not only on their own efforts but also largely on their

teachers. According to Thomas (1983, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31), it is the

language teachers who should take the responsibility of facilitating, guiding

language learners to interpret values and patterns which they would have

difficulty in interpreting as well as help them to “express themselves in exactly

the way they choose to do – rudely, tactfully or in an elaborately polite manner”.

It is also the teachers who should endeavor to make their students aware of and

sensitive to the sociolinguistic variables that play a role in different types of

situational frames (Yorio, 1980, cited in Wolfson, 1989: 31).

In Vietnam, the teaching of English has shifted from the focus on vocabulary,

grammatical rules and pronunciation to the emphasis on communicative

competence lately. More and more course books which pay attention to the

impact of socio-cultural factors on the issuing of English have been used in many

educational institutions. In addition, the number of foreign language centres

which claim to apply the communicative approach with the focus on social and

communicative competence together with the provision of good teaching

conditions has also mushroomed these days. Moreover, there is a positive

growing awareness of the need for socio-cultural knowledge in teaching and

learning English from Vietnamese teachers of English. However, in order to help

the Vietnamese learners of English gain communicative proficiency, further

investigations on why, when, what, how and where to use various patterns of

speech behavior is still in need and should receive more concern from the

teachers. Hopefully with the help of qualified Vietnamese teachers of English

who can provide feedback to learners concerning the appropriate or

inappropriate use of English, the Vietnamese learners will be in a position to

communicate effectively with people of English speaking community.

In social communication, politeness is one of the aspects of culture which clearly

influences the use of language. It is of great value to not only scholars with

particular interests but also to foreign language teachers who aim at enabling

their non-native learners to use target language in the most appropriate way.

Politeness in its relation to speech acts in general and to directive speech acts in

particular has long been a great concern of many linguistics and educators all

over the world. Invitation, which is a kind of directive speech act, has also been

taken into consideration recently.

Edmondson and House (1881: 132) state that an invitation is a social activity and

has a particular significance in social life. It may happen daily in all

communities, all cultures. Nowadays, as communication among people across

cultures is increasing, invitation has become a more essential and effective

means of establishing, maintaining social relationships with other people than

ever before. As a matter of fact, there have been some studies that took this field

as a main subject. Wolfson (1989) pointed out the need to have knowledge of

how to give, interpret and response to invitations as one of the aspects to interact

socially. Ñaëng (1992) investigated how speakers of Vietnamese and speakers of

English issue, accept and decline spoken invitation. J. Ceùsar (2003) presented a

cross-cultural study of how American English and Latin American Spanish

decline invitations.

Frankly speaking, making people well aware of the interactional similarities and

differences in issuing or declining invitations in cross-cultural contexts can

contribute significantly to better competence of performing this speech act.

However, with the purpose of the improvement of communication and the

elimination of misunderstandings relating to this speech behavior among

cultures, the investigation of the impact of politeness on the production of spoken

invitations across cultures is extremely necessary. Because of the great

significance of polite invitations in social interaction among nations where

English is currently the major language and at the time when Vietnam is opening

its door widely to the world for international integration, there is a need to

investigate the politeness phenomenon in its relation to English spoken

invitations in comparison to Vietnamese spoken invitations.

As a teacher of English whose learners are majored in business, I totally

acknowledge the importance of politeness in business communication.

Moreover, issuing invitations can also become one of the learners’ social

activities once they graduate and access the world of bunisess people. Therefore,

in order to help them avoid inappropriate transfer of Vietnamese cultural belief

to English culture, I would like to focus my thesis on politeness in direct and

indirect spoken invitations in Vietnamese and in English.

1.2. The aims of the study

This cross-cultural study will focus on politeness in issuing direct and indirect

Vietnamese and English spoken invitations to see if there are any similarities

and differences between them. The aims of the study are:

1. To investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies (indirect

and direct) by English native speakers when issuing spoken invitations in

relation to social status, age and gender;

2. To investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies (indirect

and direct) by Vietnamese native speakers when issuing spoken invitations

in relation to social status, age and gender; and

3. To suggest some implications for teaching English spoken invitations to

Vietnamese learners of English with a close attention to the effect of

politeness.

1.3. The organization of the study

The study is organized into five chapters. Chapter One has introduced the

background, the aims and organization of this study. Chapter Two presents the

relevant literature review of the study. Chapter Three deals with methodology

employed in the study. Chapter Four consists of data analysis and discussion of

the findings. Chapter Five presents the conclusions and offers some

recommendations for English teaching in Vietnam.

This chapter has provided the background, the aims and structure of the study.

Relevant literature reviews will be presented in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Written and spoken language

Conversation is a social activity in which language plays a decisive role. It is

thanks to language that differentiates human beings from animals. This part will

distinguish spoken language and written language but the main focus of the study

lies on spoken language in general and spoken invitations in particular.

2.1.1. Distinction between spoken and written language

Spoken language and written language are both forms of language but they

exploit different features of the same system. There are some major points that

differentiate the two.

According to Cameron (2001), scholars have mentioned the following

characteristics of speech as distinguished from writing:

a. Speech is transient rather than permanent. The speakers often take turns in

speaking and also have no permanent record of what they have said earlier.

By contrast, written language can be stored, retrieved and recollected.

b. Speech is additive. The speakers may stick together elements from previous

turns-at-talk, add languages as they go along (and…and, then…and then…).

Meanwhile, the information conveyed in writing is hierarchically ordered

within the clause structure.

c. Speech is loosely structured grammatically and is lexically sparse. Writing, by

contrast, is grammatically compact and lexically dense.

d. Speech is redundant. The speakers tend to make frequent use of repetition,

paraphrase and statement to help listeners comprehend and remember what

they are saying. On the contrary, since written language does not have to

make such demands on short term memory, it tends to avoid redundancy.

e. Speech tends to be people-centered and writing tends to be topic-centered.

Because of the presence of an audience and the need to keep the conversation

going, speakers not only focus on their topic but also try to engage their

listeners. Meanwhile, the written message should be as clear, unambiguous,

and coherent as possible because the writers will not be there to explain and

defend it.

No matter what differences may exist between speech and writing; they should

not be regarded as two separate systems but as “a continuum with conversation

at one end and formal writing at the other end with an overlap in the middle”

(Ñaëng, 1992: 27).

Nowadays as the face to face communication across cultures is increasing, the

need of effectively orally interaction becomes more urgent than ever before. In

addition, because of the transient characteristic of speech, in oral

communication, people would have to be very careful in selecting what to say

and how to say, etc. in order not to offend others by unintentional mistakes. As a

matter of fact, the knowledge of what to say, how to say, when to say, etc. should

become a habit or else they would have no time to think and choose the

appropriate ones in conversation. Those are partly the reasons why this study

focuses on the spoken language.

2.1.2. English and Vietnamese spoken language

Halliday (1985) finds that there are certain prosodic features which are

accidental properties of a particular language.

In spoken English, the changes in intonation, rhythm do affect to express

utterance meanings. Besides, different structures in the form of speech can

convey different attitude, social relation, formality, etc. Thus, the imperative

structure “Open the door” can express the higher imposition, less formality and

politeness than the question structure “Can you open the door?”

In spoken Vietnamese, the manner of speech is highly influenced by the use of

particles which can help much to express politeness (a, ñi aï, daï, thöa, kính, etc.)

or solidarity (nha, nhe, nheù, nhæ, ha, etc.) or interest (ñi maø, naøo, etc.). Besides,

“different terms of address such as: oâng, baø, chuù , baùc, coâ ,dì, con, etc. are

frequently used to express politeness as well as to show different relationships

and always appear in spoken situation” (Ñaëng, 1992: 30)

In addition, speech behavior in both Vietnamese culture and English speaking

societies is also greatly affected by social variables such as: gender, age, social

status, educational background, etc. of participants.

Generally speaking, when investigating any spoken language, we need to take

these properties into account to have a better understanding about it.

2.2. Communicative competence

Everyday experience supports the view that communicative competence is one

of the main factors determining how successful one can be in society. So, what’s

communicative competence?

2.2.1. Definitions

Wofson (1989) points out that there is a need to acquire what Dell Hymes has

called “communicative competence” to become an effective speaker of a new

language. According to Hymes (1972), communicative competence involves not

only the knowledge “about” language form but also the knowledge “of” what to

say to whom and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. In his

opinion, communicative competence is the one that enables us to convey and

interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific

contexts.

Extending this definition, Canale and Swain (1980: 112) identifies the construct

of communicative competence made up from four subcategories: Grammatical

Competence, Discourse Competence, Sociolinguistic Competence and Strategic

Competence. Then, Bachman (1990: 79) modifies the model and builds

“language competence” model in which he places grammatical and discourse

competence under the term “organizational competence”. In addition, Bachman

breaks Canale and Swain’s Sociolinguistic Competence into separate pragmatic

categories: Illocutionary Competence (pertaining to sending and receiving

intended meanings) and Sociolinguistic Competence (dealing with such

considerations ad politeness, formality, metaphor, register and culturally related

aspects of language). Moreover, Bachman (1990: 85) considers Strategic

Competence as an entirely separate element of communicative language ability

which serves as an “executive” function of making the final “decision” among

many possible options on wording, phrasing and other production and receptive

means for negotiating meaning.

The components of communicative language ability suggested by Bachman

(1990: 85) were presented in Figure 2.1 below.

Strategic Competence

Psycho physiological Mechanisms

Context of Situation

Knowledge Structures (Knowledge of the world)

Language Competence (Knowledge of language)

Figure 2.1: Components of communicative language ability in communicative

language use (Bachman, 1990: 85) Whatever definitions scholars may provide, they all seem to agree on the need

of social cultural knowledge of participants towards their own communication

success. In other words, they accept the influence of sociolinguistics on the study

of language in general and of speech in particular.

2.2.2. Sociolinguistics and the learning of English as a foreign language

Language allows human beings to communicate with each other in a particular

social cultural context. However, languages are different from one another not

only in areas as phonology, syntax and lexicon but also in “the norms and values

which inform speakers’ knowledge as to what is appropriate to say, to whom and

under which conditions” (Wolfson, 1989: 14). As a result, sociolinguistic rules

are far from universal across cultural groups. “When people coming from

different social cultural interact, they tend to judge each other’s behavior

according to their own value systems” (Wolfson, 1989: 14). Thus, common

questions from Asians on first encounters such as “How old are you?” or “Are

you married?” or “How much do you earn each month” and the like are

considered too personal and impolite by Westerners. Meanwhile, some of the

questions asked by Americans “Have you ever kissed your boyfriend?” or “Why

don’t you drink?” or “Why don’t we share hands?” to Malaysians are regarded as

absolutely inappropriate or taboo (Wolfson, 1989: 26) because they normally do

not drink or touch hands of people of opposite sex except when they are wearing

gloves. Besides, any questions regarding sex are absolutely taboo on the eyes of

the Islamic religion.

In fact, intercultural misunderstanding is more likely to occur and cause more

negative effect on communication than the one caused by mispronunciation or

grammatical errors. Native speakers seem to be more tolerant to foreigners who

pronounce “man” into ”men”, “want” into ”one” or “What do he do?” and the

like. They tend to judge those errors as natural to the process of language

learning and even find their own pleasure with those silly things. However, an

inappropriate question or the failure to utter the customary apology, compliment

or congratulation would receive less sympathy and tend to be interpreted as an

intentional rudeness and hence be reacted negatively.

It is obvious that to communicate effectively in the target language, the learners

of English also need sociocultural information on how to interpret and respond to

different sociolinguistic behaviors of English native speakers such as: greeting,

requesting, inviting, etc.

2.3. Speech acts

Speech act theories originated in Austin’s observation (1962: 58) which states

that in “saying something that has a certain sense and reference, one is normally

doing something”. According to Austin’s theory (1962), an utterance may

perform three related kinds of acts: the locutionary acts of which the meaning

can be totally taken from that of individual linguistic elements forming the

utterance; the illocutionary acts through which the speakers express their

intention to do something in such a way that the listener can recognize them as

well and the perlocutionary acts through which the utterance can produce certain

consequential effects upon the feelings, thoughts or actions of the audience.

Searle (1969: 96) contributed to speech act theory by considering the purpose of

an act from the speaker’s perspective and classifying speech acts (the term he

preferred for Austin’s illocutionary acts) to five categories:

1. Declaratives: bring out changes in the world (e.g. announce, name, etc).

2. Representatives: state what the speaker believes to be the case or not

(e.g. assert, report, describe, etc.).

3. Directives: try to get Hearer to do something (e.g. order, request, etc.).

4. Commissives: commit the speaker to do something(e.g. promise, threat,

etc.).

5. Expressives: express feelings and attitudes (e.g. apologize, thank, etc.).

While Searle classifies speech acts (illocutionary acts, in fact) into five

categories, Bach and Harnish (1979) consider illocutionary acts as

communicative actions and hence divide them into four classes (constatives,

directives, commisives and acknowledgements) according to distinctions

between the expression of beliefs, of attitudes, of intentions or desires to act or

to cause others to act and of feelings.

Similarly, Geis (1995) introduces his Dynamic Speech Act Theory in which he

argues that it is necessary to play emphasis on the social interaction nature of

utterances and treat them as communications rather than merely focus on their

linguistic nature. Then, he strongly recommends that the study of speech acts

should carefully take account of the affect of social features of context such as

social relationships between participants, psychological states, and attitudes of

participants, etc. in which utterances happen.

2.3.1. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

The distinction between direct and indirect speech acts plays an important part in

speech act theory. Austin (1962) argues that certain acts can be performed

directly by using explicit performative verbs like: invite, request, order, etc. or

by using sentences of a type with which those acts are conventionally associated.

Thus, we can directly use a declarative sentence to make an assertion or an

imperative one to make a request.

Likewise, Yule (1996: 54) claims that “types of speech acts can be made on the

basis of structures” and that in English, there are generally three structural forms

(declarative, interrogative and imperative) with three general communicative

functions (statement, question and command/request). Then, in his opinion

(Yule, 1996: 54-55), “whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure

and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect

relationship between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act”.

Similarly, Searle (1975) states that speakers can perform one illocutionary act

implicitly by way of performing another illocutionary act explicitly. Therefore,

the utterance “Could you turn on the lights?” which contains the illocutionary

force of an assertion can be used to make a request.

Normally people do not unintentionally deliver indirect speech acts. In general,

people have some reasons for being indirect.

Concerning why indirectness is used, Thomas (1995: 143) suggests a variety of

reasons for the universal of indirectness including: the desire to make one’s

language more/less interesting; the increase the force of one’s message; the

principle of expressibility; and politeness.

First of all, according to Thomas, people construct indirect utterances for the

pleasure of playing with language for the fact that indirectness can colour

utterances, sentences or even whole texts with more or less interest. Secondly,

Thomas explicates that indirectness can be used in order to strengthen our

message. This effect is accomplished through the greater “investment” that a

hearer of an indirect uttered pronouncement has to afford concerning time and

energy in order to understand what has been saying. The third reason for being

indirect is the principle of expressibility in which people would use indirect

speech acts when some ideas are too difficult to express. As another important

reason for being indirect, Thomas delineates politeness. Her article shows us that

there are some circumstances in which we have to use indirectness in order to

prevent hurting someone by directly stating something unpleasant or directly

threatening his/her freedom of action.

2.3.2. Indirectness in requests

There are generally three major levels of indirectness which are normally used

in many cross-cultural interlingua studies of speech acts and had previously been

empirically tested and successfully used by a number of researchers (Blum-

Kulka et al,1989; Trosborg, 1995; Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1986; Van Mulken,

1996; Hassall, 1999; Fukushima, 2000; Billmyer and Varghese, 2000). They are

as follows:

2.3.2.1. The most direct strategies (Bald-on-record strategies)

This most direct level is realized by requests syntactically marked (Imperatives)

or by others verbal means that name the act as a request (Tell me...). According

to Blum-Kulka et al (1989: 18) and Economidou-Kogetsidis (2002: 23), there are

eight sub strategies in this level.

a. Mood derivable/ Imperative: “Please look after the kids for a few hours”

b. Direct questions: “Where is the post office?”

c. Explicit performative: “I ask/order you to leave"

d. Hedged performative: “I would like/ want to ask you to leave”

e. Obligation statement: “You should/ ought to leave now”

f. Want statement: ”I’d like / want /wish you to clean up the floor”

g. Need statement: “You need to do that”

h. Pre-decided statement: “I’m helping myself to your cigarettes, OK?’

i. Expectation statement/ Question: “Are you/aren’t you going to tell me

what happened between you and Peter?”

j. Reminded requests: “Mike, you haven’t paid me”

2.3.2.2. Conventionally indirect strategies

This conventionally indirect level covers strategies that realize the act by

reference to contextual preconditions necessary for its performance, as

conventionalized in a given language. There are two sub strategies in this level

(Blum-Kulka et al: 1989: 18; Economidou-Kogetsidis: 2002: 23)

a. Suggestory formulae: “How about going out for dinner tonight?”, “Why not

have lunch with us?”

b. Query preparatory:

• Ability: “Can/could you pass the salt please?”

• Possibility: “Would it be possible to lend me some money?”

• Willingness: “Would you mind if I use your computer?”

• Knowledge: “Do you know where Pizza Hut is?”

2.3.2.3. Non-conventionally indirect strategies

This category includes strategies which are not conventionalized in the language

and hence require more inferencing activity for the hearer to derive the

speaker’s requestive intent. The sub strategies of this level suggested by Ervin-

Trip(1976: 28) and Economidou-Kogetsidis(2002: 23) are as follows:

a. Non-explicit question directives: “We’re having a party tonight. Are you

free to come?’; “Are you able to come to my party?’

b. Strong hints: “The kitchen is in a mess”

c. Mild hints: “Whose duty is it today?”

This scale of indirectness is based on the transparency of the requestive force.

As a result, the most direct requests are the ones in which requestive force is

either marked syntactically or indicated explicitly due to the realization of

performative verbs. The issue of relationship between the scale of indirectness

and the degree of politeness will be discussed later in part 2.4.2 of this study.

2.4. Politeness

2.4.1. Theories of politeness

Expanding Grice’s “Co-operative Principle” (1975), Lakoff (1977) attempts to

account for politeness phenomenon. She suggests that “politeness is developed

by society in order to reduce friction in personal interaction” (1975: 64) and

comprises three rules of politeness: 1. Don’t impose; 2. Give options and 3.

Make the receiver feel good.

The first rule, “Don’t impose”, is associated with distance and formality. The

speaker shows his/her politeness by asking for permission or apologizing in

advance to lessen the imposition on the hearer when requiring the hearer to do

something. The second rule, “Give options”, is associated with deference and

accounts for cases in which the linguistic manifestations of politeness appear to

leave the choice of confirming or not to the addressee. Her third rule, “Make the

receiver feel good”, accounts for the case in which the speaker employs devices

which will make the addressee feel liked and wanted.

Similarly, Leech (1980: 19) defines politeness as “strategic conflict avoidance”,

adding that it “can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the

avoidance of a conflict situation”. Then, he presents a detailed analysis of

politeness in terms of six maxims: Maxim of Tact; Maxim of Generosity; Maxim

of Approbation; Maxim of Modesty; Maxim of Agreement; and Maxim of

Sympathy. Leech’s concepts of politeness were based on the three scales: the

cost/benefit scale, the “optional” scale and the “indirectness” scale. The first

scale which specifies how much the proposed action is judged by the speaker to

be of cost or benefit to the speaker. The second that specifies to what extent the

proposed action is at the choice of the addressee. The last scale which specifies

how much inference is involved in the proposed action.

Meanwhile, the central to Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness is the

concept of “Face” which is defined as “the public self-image that every member

wants to claim for himself” (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 66). According to

Brown and Levinson (1978: 66), “face is something that emotionally invested,

and that can be lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to

in interaction”. They distinguish two components of face, “positive face” and

“negative face”, which are two related aspects of the same entity and refer to

two basic desires or wants of any individual in any interaction. “Negative face”

refers to “The want of every competent adult member that his actions be

unimpeded by others”. “Positive face” refers to “The want of every member that

his wants be desirable to at least some others”.

Following their theories, in communication, there is possibility of appearing

some Face Threatening Acts (FTA) which are “by their nature run contrary to

the face wants of the addressee and/ or of the speaker” (Brown and Levinson,

1978: 70). To deal with those acts, they identify a set of strategies which can

help either to avoid or minimize them.

With redressive action On record

Off record Do the FTA

Positive politeness

Don’t do the FTA

Negative politeness

Without redressive action, baldly

Figure 2.2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1978:

In their opinion, positive face threatening acts should be adjusted by positive

politeness strategies in which the speakers should “claim common ground”,

“convey that speaker and hearer are cooperators” and “fulfill hearer’s want for

some X” (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 107). Meanwhile, negative face

threatening acts should be solved by applying negative politeness strategies,

some of which are: Be conventionally indirect; questions, hedge; minimize the

imposition, etc.

In general, Lakoff, Leech, Brown and Levinson share two things in common

when concerning politeness phenomenon in speech: first, politeness is thought to

be personal strategies in communication; second, they assume that politeness

closely relates to the limitation of imposition, to the use of giving options as well

as to indirectness.

2.4.2. Politeness and Indirectness

According to Sifianou (1992), most scholars, basing on the investigation of

English, have argued that the degree of indirectness determines the degree of

politeness to a great extent. The main reason for this argument reasonably

originates from the concept of Western individualism. It is widely accepted that

most English speaking societies place a higher value on privacy and individuality

(i.e., the negative aspect of face), so individual’s freedom and independence is

highly respected. In other words, to Western societies in general and to most

English speaking societies in particular, the principal of distance and non-

imposition plays a crucial role in social interactions.

Although there are some ideas that indirectness and politeness are not the same

(Kasper, 1998; Holtgraves, 1986), most scholars have argued that overall, in

English, indirectness and politeness are closely related, especially in request- a

kind of directive speech acts.

While the scale of indirectness seems to be universal, the assertion between

indirectness and politeness differ across cultures.

Contrary to most English societies where the display of non-imposition and

concerns for distancing in speech acts are believed to help avoid face

threatening acts and hence to be more polite, a number of cultures prefer a show

of solidarity and sincerity by directly deliver them. Sifianou (1992) has proved

that Greeks request, advise and suggest structurally more directly than English

because they see those acts as their duty to help and support each other without

any idea about imposition or non-imposition. In another study which examines

the politeness perceptions of speakers of Israeli Hebrew, Blum-Kulka (1987)

finds that speakers of Hebrew favor directness rather than indirectness.

Wierzbicka (1985) comes to a similar result with the speakers of Polish.

Generally speaking, speakers from those mentioned cultures either seem to pay

much attention to involvement and solidarity relation, i.e. the positive aspect of

face, or belong to a kind of societies where people depend on each other more

and therefore individuals are less emphasized than interdependent social

relations. In other words, most of them probably correspond to positive

politeness societies where indirectness will not necessarily be related to

politeness.

Indirect speech acts in relation to politeness phenomenon in Vietnamese have

just received some attention lately with Vuõ’s article (1999) on “Indirectness and

Politeness in Vietnamese requests”. Vuõ argues that indirectness with the concept

of non-imposition is not necessarily politeness in Vietnamese culture. However,

though her arguments are rather reasonable, her data mainly taken from some

pieces of conversations of nine families in Hanoi are not convincing enough.

Besides, the purpose of the article which is to investigate the relationship

between politeness and indirectness in Vietnamese requests is, in my opinion,

too large and beyond the keen of so small an article. Therefore, the association

of politeness and indirectness in Vietnamese culture should be investigated in

concerning to a specific kind of speech acts and with a larger number of

informants.

2.4.3. Social variables affecting politeness

This section discusses two factors affecting the choice of politeness strategies in

delivering speech acts as suggested by Brown and Levinson which are Power

and Social distance. Then, Age and Gender which are also believed to cause

more or less significant impact on language use in spoken interactions are also

pointed out.

2.4.3.1. Power

J.Ceùsar-Feùlix-Brasdefer (2003) in his study has proved that the social status

(power) of participants did play a role in the selection of strategies employed in

declining an invitation. Similarly, Hussein (1995) discusses making refusals in

Arabic and maintains that in three levels of social status (equal and unequal),

speakers use different refusal strategies. Likewise, the findings of Beebe at all

(1990) reveal the interaction of power with the directness of refusals.

As Robin Lakoff (1989) argued, politeness and power are closely related.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 77), power or social status is “an

asymmetric social dimension of relative power involving the degree to which

hearer can impose his/her own plans and self-evaluation (face) at the expense of

the speaker’s plans and self-evaluation”. Similarly, Scollon and Scollon (1995)

states that power refers to the vertical disparity between the participants in a

hierarchical structure. Brown and Levinson predict that the greater the power

hierarchy distance, the more redressive strategies will be used by the less

powerful interactant. As a result, in situation where there is explicit hierarchical

difference between participants like the relationship between a boss and an

employee, a professor and a student or between people of higher and lower

social status in general, the politeness strategies used is relatively predictable.

The more powerful the hearer is in relation to the speaker, the more polite the

speaker would be. Then, in situation where that difference is not clear like the

relationship between close friends or between people of equal social status,

participants are expected to adopt various politeness strategies in particular

circumstances and to people at particular social distance.

2.4.3.2. Social distance

Janet Holmes (1996: 12) points out that “the relative social distance between the

speaker and the addressee(s) is one of the most basic factors determining

appropriate levels of politeness behavior in most, if not all, societies”. Brown

and Levinson (1987: 76) identify social distance as “a symmetric social

dimension of similarity or difference… based on assessment of the frequency of

interaction and the kind of material or non-material goods (including face)

between speaker and hearer”. Likewise, Leech (1983: 126) defines social

distance as “a crucial factor determining politeness behavior which involves

considering the roles people are taking in relation to one another in a particular

situation”.

Concerning social distance as a factor in accounting for differences in politeness

behavior, Wolfson’s ‘bulge’ model (1988: 32) suggests that:

Generally we behave similarly with less explicit linguistic politeness to

those at the two extremes of social distance that is to people we do not

know at all and to intimates. Meanwhile, people who are neither in the

category of complete strangers nor close and intimate friends receive a

great deal of attention in the form of linguistically polite interactions.

Strangers Friends Intimates

Figure 2.3: Wolfson’s “bulge” model (1988, cited in Holmes, 1996: 14)

Linguistic politeness

According to Janet Holmes (1996), because positive politeness generally

involves emphasizing what people share, it minimizes the distance between

them. On the other hand, negative politeness emphasizes the social distance

among people. As a result, she says, “negative politeness strategies tend both to

express distance and to emphasize power distinctions…Positive politeness

strategies express solidarity and also emphasize equality between participants”

(1996: 19).

Power and social distance affect differently to different cultures in determining

appropriate linguistic behavior. In most Western societies nowadays, as Holmes

(1996: 19) points out, “solidarity has largely won out over power”. The manager

of a company and his/her staff are obviously quite different in power (social

status). However, because they work together daily and know each other well,

they may have relatively close distance and hence often use positive politeness

strategies. They may call each other by their first names only and may more

frequently use direct speech in interactions. Same situation happens between a

professor and her/his students at university. In those cases, politeness usage will

be determined by factors like the formality of context, gender of participants

other than power and distance.

In Vietnamese culture, the terms of solidarity and power are mutually integrated.

Because of the influence of Confucianism, most Vietnamese are well aware of

who is in higher position and who is in lower one. The power differences may

arise from age, institutional position, gender and education, etc, in which age

factor plays a rather crucial role. No matter how well participants know each

other and whether they are in formal or informal context, the power of the

superior is always respected. In no cases can the lower person call the higher by

his/her first name. In no circumstances can the status of the participants be

challenged. However, solidarity factor is also taken into account in Vietnamese

spoken interactions. Since the use of softeners and hierarchical kinship terms of

address which make people sound to be all members in the same big family,

Vietnamese people balance the need of power realization and the need of

solidarity. In fact, appropriate terms of address together with suitable softeners

or particles at the end of the utterances can shorten the social distance between

participants but help maintain their power (social status) at the same time.

Generally, it seems that distance does not influence as much on the choice of

appropriate polite linguistic behaviors in Vietnamese culture as power, age and

gender of participants. Moreover, because of the fact that people usually just

issue spoken invitations to whom they somehow know well and not in too formal

context, I would like to focus on power, age and gender of participants in this

study.

2.4.3.3. Gender

Nowadays it is widely accepted that women and men talk differently (Thorne

and Henley, 1975; Thorne, Kramarea and Henley, 1983; Coates, 1986; Graddol

and Swann, 1989; Mills, 1995; Lakoff, 1975). Deborah Tannen (1990) claims

that women and men have different linguistic styles and communication goals.

Women’s speech tends to be cooperative in character in that women

acknowledge one another’s contributions and engage in more active listening.

What women value is connection, intimacy and solidarity, so they are likely to

insist on the commonality of their experience, not its uniqueness in talking. They

seek involvement and focus on interdependencies between people. Meanwhile,

men’s conversations are less social and more individualistic and aim at

controlling the flow of talk. They “see the world as a hierarchy in which any

individual may be one-up or one-down” and the interactive task they set

themselves is to gain, assert or maintain status. As a result, their speech shows a

tendency to seek independencies and focus on hierarchical relationship

(Chodorou, 1974; Gilligan, 1982).

Concerning the differences of gender politeness in speech, Holmes (1996: 115)

states that because they are more sensitive to the positive face needs of

intimates and friends, women are much more likely than men to express positive

politeness or friendliness in private interactions. Women’s utterances show

evidence of concern for the feelings of the people they are talking to more

explicitly than men’s do. However, in public, being well aware of the fact that

what they say may threaten face of other people, women tend to use the

extremes of negative politeness more frequently than men do.

Similarly, McKay and Hornberger (1996: 251) suggest that men are more likely

to be polite in a way that honors the wishes of others not to be imposed upon

(negative politeness) rather than polite in a way that recognizes the desire of

others to be liked, admired and ratified (positive politeness).

In Vietnamese culture, it is believed that straightforwardness is one of the most

typical qualities for men while women usually prefer “beating about the bush”,

which is a sign of the stylistic variation in language use between females and

males. Besides, like in most English speaking societies, under the influence of

social, cultural and historical factors which govern the reciprocal social status

between women and men as well as different social expectations on them and so

on, there are obviously many empirical evidences for gender differences in other

aspects of Vietnamese language use such as lexical variation, intonation

contours, voice quality, etc. Gender differences in language use seem to be

universal. The difference, if there is any between males and females in English

and Vietnamese cultures, will partly reflect their opinions on politeness in

issuing spoken invitations. In other words, the question of how gender as a social

variable affects the choice of making indirect or direct spoken invitations in

English and Vietnamese is still under the need of investigation for the purpose of

the study and will be discussed later in chapter 4.

2.4.3.4. Age

Apart from gender and social status, age is also a social variable which

influences significantly and differently to human behavior in different cultures.

Asian cultures in general emphasize the importance of age related to respect and

the amount of wisdom a person has. When a person gets older, (s)he is believed

to become wiser. So, elderly people are often given the right to decide important

things within the family. Besides, the older a person is the more respect (s)he

would receive from the young people. As a result, when talking to older

addressees, speech behavior of Asian people is considered to be highly

deference.

As a matter of fact, age obviously has a significant impact on speech behavior in

social communication. Vietnamese people always try to know the age of

interlocutors to choose the appropriate terms of address for polite purpose. That

explains the reason why Vietnamese often have the habit of asking the age of

any people they communicate, which normally irritates many Westerners.

Conversational style and politeness strategy of Vietnamese people to people of

various age levels is quite different. Meanwhile, it seems that English native

speakers do not take age factor into great consideration. Though they do respect

elderly people, the age of addressees is not considered to be the factor that

automatically decides the amount of respect. Westerners tend to demand more

information and interaction before showing their respect to someone. To them,

age is just as important as other social factors. A person would be respected for

his own values not because of his age. Therefore, less deference and control is

given to elderly people in the majority of those cultures in comparison to most

Asian cultures.

The differences between Western and Asian ideas about age will surely trouble

Vietnamese learners of English. The choice of politeness strategies in issuing

spoken invitations is differently affected by age factor in English speaking

cultures and in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, we cannot help taking the age of

participants into account so that the topic investigated would be fully understood.

2.5. Invitations

2.5.1. The nature of invitations

An invitation is an ask for another’s time and action and very often for a closer

social relationship. It is the inviter’s effort to get the invited to joint with her/him

in a specific event. Therefore, the act of inviting is a kind of directives, as

Coulthard(1995: 24) says:

Directives are all attempts by the speaker to get hearer to do something-

in this class the speaker is wanting to achieve a future situation in which

the world will match his words and thus this class includes not simply

’order’, ‘request’ but, more subtly, ‘invite’, ‘dare’ and ‘challenge’.

Similarly, Searle(1990a: 359-360) in his explanation of directives also claims

that directives “may be very modest attempts as when I invite you to do it or

suggest that you do it” and that “the verbs denoting memebers of this class are

“ask, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat and also invite, permit,

advise”.

Not only do invitations belong to the category of directives but more specifically,

they are also much similar to requests in the way that the speaker acts out of a

desire/ wish to cause the hearer perform an action and the hearer is indeed able

to perform that action. It is argued by Geis (1995) that invitations constitute face

respecting acts rather than face threatening acts. He reasons that because the

hearer commonly expresses appreciation for invitations no matter how

personally they feel about the prospects of spending time with the speaker,

invitations pay respect to the hearer’s positive face. However, in my opinion, as

the nature of issuing an invitation is, more or less, the imposition of the speaker’s

desire on the hearer to perform the suggested action, like requests, invitations

“imply intrusion on the hearer’s territory and limit his freedom of action”

(Brown and Levinson, 1978: 70). In other words, they are both “intrinsically face

threatening activities” (Brown and Levinson, 1978: 70) even though the act of

inviting involves benefits to the hearer and costs the speaker in some ways. They

threaten the negative face of the addressee and therefore “comprise a category

of inherently impolite acts in which negative politeness is essential” (Leech,

1983: 106).

According to Geis (1995), invitations and requests are not totally alike. They

differ from each other in at least two specific ways. First, in an invitation, the

speaker proposes that the hearer do something with him/her rather than for

him/her. Second, besides threatening the negative face of the hearer, invitations

are more likely to threat the hearer’s positive face than requests. It is possible to

reject a request because one is unwilling to perform the action without

necessarily threatening the addressee’s positive face. For example, if one wants

to reject a request to take care of someone’s cats, he may say that he hates cats.

This may be an insult to the requester’s cats, not the requester himself. However,

Geis (1995) argues, it is very difficult to turn down an invitation because one is

unwilling to accept it without threatening the addressee’s positive face for the

action he’s rejecting involves being with the inviter.

As a result, in order to have better understanding about the preference for using

indirect or direct politeness strategies in issuing spoken invitations, it is

impossible for us to totally apply the results of similar investigations on requests.

However, invitations and requests belong to the same category of speech act

(directives) and share somehow similar characteristics. Therefore, some

significant achievements gained from researches on requests which have largely

been accepted by most scholars such as the scale of indirectness-directness in

requests can be used as one of the foundations for our investigations.

In addition, Edmondson and House (1981: 132) when considering the

characteristics of the invitation suggested that:

The invite…has therefore the following characteristics: A wishes B to

know that he is in favor of a future action to be performed by B, which he

believes may involve costs to himself and benefits to B. He also believes

however that the cost involved will be outweighed for himself by the

social benefits consequent to B’s doing that future action.

Therefore, invitations also include promises. Besides, according to Bach and

Harnish (ibid: 51), an invite can be defined as “S requests (directive) H’s

presence and promises acceptance of his presence”. As a result, invitations can

also be classified as a kind of commisives.

To sum up, invitations can be considered as both a kind of directives and

commisives.

2.5.2. Written and spoken invitations

A social arrangement of some sort or another needs to be made somehow to

express solidarity, to maintain existing relationship or to build new relationship

and the extending of invitations is a principal means of accomplishing this.

Invitations may be issued in written or spoken forms. Written invitations are

usually sent in special events like weddings, workshops or the anniversary of an

organization, etc., which are normally formally organized. Obviously, due to the

characteristics of those cases, the language written is always well-chosen and

follows some fixed conventional styles. It is not flexible and usually very formal.

Besides, it would take the sender some sort of time before getting the exact

feedback from the receiver. In Western societies, written invitations are more

usually sent by mails or email than by directly face-to face delivery. Meanwhile,

a Vietnamese written invitation is more frequently delivered directly from the

sender to the receiver accompanying with a spoken one, especially in personal

cases such as invitations to a house warming party or to a wedding party. In those

events, if the inviter truly wants the invited to join with her/him, (s)he will give

the written invitation directly to the hand of the invited together with a spoken

invitation. Otherwise, (s)he can send it by post but has to invite orally by

telephone in advance. Without a word from the sender, the invitation would be

more likely to be considered insincere or not important.

Normally spoken invitations are made face-to-face or by telephone. Nowadays,

in most daily occasions, spoken invitations have outgrown written ones for the

fact that they are more direct, more immediate in getting feedback and they can

be issued more flexibly thanks to the combination with more or less friendly,

solidarity attitude from the speakers according to different contexts. In the scope

of this study, I would like to focus on spoken invitations issued by native English

speakers in comparison to those made by native Vietnamese speakers.

2.5.3. Reasons for making invitations

Concerning the reasons why invitations are made, there are some similarities

between English speaking cultures and Vietnamese culture as the following:

1/ To socialize : To enjoy the company of one’s friends, to introduce

strangers to each other, to go out for fun, etc.;

2/ To show hospitality and kindness at great events: public holidays, long

weekends, New Year, etc;

3/ To share happiness: promotion, house-warming, birthday party, arrival

of new baby, etc.;

4/ To show respect to elders and teachers;

5/ To mark anniversaris: wedding, traditional death anniversaries; and

6/ To repay favors and show gratidtude. Ñaëng (1992: 59, 69)

2.5.4. Problems with invitations

According to Ñaëng (1992), in dealing with invitations as a social activity, people

may have to face some possible problems of: self-invitation, pseudo-invitation,

non-invitation and “who pays”. She points out that self- invitations such as

“Could I drop by to see you tonight?” or “Do you mind if I come…?” do occur in

English but very rarely and only in a very informal situation between familiars

for the purpose of expressing intimacy. Meanwhile, pseudo-invitations are very

common both in English and in Vietnamese. However, though they can skillfully

deal with pseudo-invitations in their native language, Vietnamese learners of

English sometimes do confuse between a real English invitation and a pseudo

one like in the case of “Let’s get together for lunch sometimes “.They tend not to

realize that the speaker just intends to express his interest in continuing the

relationship without making any definite commitment for a future meeting.

Consequently, their effort in negotiation for the exact time and place for lunch

usually would make the English native speakers confused and uncomfortable. In

addition, Ñaëng’s study (1992) shows that in Vietnamese culture there is the

existence of non-invitations which merely act as a greeting or a show of interest

but have nothing to do with inviting whereas there is none of this kind in English.

Besides, “who pays” can possibly be a real problem to language learners in

cross-cultural communication.

In general, further investigations on problems with spoken invitations would be

very exciting and useful for both language teachers and language learners.

However, considering all of these problems in this study would be beyond my

keen. Therefore, in order to have a better and clearer look at the topic, I would

like to focus on analyzing the real unambiguous invitations without paying any

attention to problems of self invitations, pseudo-invitations, non-invitations and

of “who pays”.

2.5.5. The structure of English and Vietnamese spoken invitations

Normally, the exchange structure of an unambiguous spoken invitation consists

of various moves: the lead (pre-invites), the invitation (the head act), the

response including positive response (satisfy) or negative response (contra)

(Edmondson & House, 1981; Wolfson, 1989; Ñaëng, 1992)

2.5.5.1. The structure of English spoken invitations

English people usually preface the head act of an invitation by the lead (pre-

invite). It is the question or comment which signals the adressee that an

invitation will follow if (s)he makes the appropriate responses. According to

Wolfson (1989), leads are functionally classified into three types. The first type

functions to establish the availability of the addressee by questions which is

meant to elicit the desired information such as “Are you doing anything on

Saturday night?”, “What’s your schedule tomorrow?” or” Do you have any plans

for the weekend?”. The second type of lead is intended to convey the feelings of

speakers without any specific commitment. They are utterances such as “I’d

really love/like to make a date with you to have lunch and talk things over” or “It’s

really horrible that we never see each other” or “You know, X, we’re gonna have

to get together for lunch one of these days”. The final type is related to some

shared knowledge of a past attempt to negotiate a social arrangement by the

participants in the interaction or by someone closely associated who is not

present at the moment of speaking:”Did we decide on anything specific?” or “Are

we going to have lunch still?”. Then, normally the invitation itself will follow the

lead though the invitations may occur without leads.

The head acts (the invitations themselves) can be tentative expressions as

follows:

- Would you be free to go to a play with me this weekend?

- I was wondering if you would like to come round for a meal next Friday? …

(Ñaëng, 1992: 38)

They can be less tentative like in the case of:

- I would like to invite you to join our dinner this Saturday evening?

- Why don’t you go with us for a movie this afternoon?

- How about dinner tonight? (Ñaëng, 1992: 38)

If the invitation is accepted (the satisfy), the addressee will be likely to use a

number of different expressions such as :

- That’s very kind of you . thank you./ Thank you.

- I’d love to/ That would be great/ Yes, thank you. What time?/ O.K./ …

(Ñaëng, 1992: 40)

In the case when the declining (contra) happens, expresions such as the

following seem common:

- How kind of you to think of me, but…

- I’d love to/delighted to, but…

- I’m terribly sorry, but… (Ñaëng, 1992: 45)

2.5.5.2. The structure of Vietnamese spoken invitations

The conclusions from Ñaëng’s study (1992) show that it is uncommon for

Vietnamese to clear the ground move as “Are you free next Sunday morning

(Saùng Chuû nhaät tôùi baïn coù raûnh khoâng?)” and the like before isuing the real

invitation. Frequently they would indicate the reason for the invite by

expressions as “Toái mai nhaø mình coù lieân hoan, tôùi cho vui nheù (tomorrow we will

have a party at home, please come and join us)” or “Chuû nhaät tôùi laø sinh nhaät

mình, môøi baïn tôùi chôi (Next Sunday will be my birthday. I would like to invite you

to come and join us)” and the like.

Then, according to Taï (2004), the structure of the Vietnamese head act in

invitations may be one of the following types:

Type 1: Xin môøi / Môøi+ oâng/anh/ chò/ baø…

(Polite marker)+ Performative verb “invite” + Speaker 2

This type is used in very common context when the action to be invited is stated

in advance.

For example: Speaker 1: (gives a packet of cigarettes to speaker 2 ) : Môøi anh.

Type 2: Xin môøi / Kính môøi/ Môøi+ oâng/anh/ chò/ baø…+ noäi dung môøi

(Polite marker)+ Performative verb “invite”+ Speaker 2+ the action to be

invited

For example: “Xin môøi / Kính môøi/ Môøi baùc ñeán döï tieäc vôùi gia ñình toâi” (I would

like to invite you to come and join our party)

Type 2: Speaker 1+ Xin môøi / Kính môøi/ Môøi+ oâng/anh/ chò/ baø…+ noäi dung môøi

Speaker 1 +(Polite marker)+ Performative verb “invite”+ Speaker 2+ the action

to be invited

For example: “ Em xin môøi anh duøng theâm côm “ (I + polite marker+ invite you

to have more rice)

Similarly to that in English, as Ñaëng (1992) points out, Vietnamese responses to

spoken invitations can be accepting or declining. The most common accepting

expressions are as follows:

- Daï/ vaâng aï, con seõ tôùi (Yes, I’ll come )

- Theá naøo mình cuõng tôùi (I’ll certainly come) (Ñaëng, 1992: 57)

Meanwhile, because it is uneasy at all to refuse an invitation without hurting the

inviter’s feeling, the act of declining an invitation in Vietnamese also takes time

and energy with expressions like:

Oâi…(hesitation)…tieác quaù! Phaûi chi em bieát sôùm. Em coù heïn vôùi coâ em vaøo ngaøy ñoù

maát roài (Oh!…Sorry!...If I’d known a bit earlier…I’ve an appointment with my

teacher that day) … (Ñaëng, 1992: 62-65)

Frankly speaking, there have been so far many researches which took the leads

of invitations and responses to them in relation to politeness strategies as their

major subjects (J.Cesaùr Feùlix-Brasderfer, 2003; Hironi Kinjo, 1987). Therefore,

in this study, I would like to merely focus on the head moves of invitations in

relation to politeness concept under the influence of age, gender and social

status of participants.

This chapter has provided the theoretical framework to the study. The

description of method of data collection, selection of subjects as well as

instruments will be discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the methodology employed in the study. It consists of the

presentation of the research questions, the research design, the description of the

subjects and the data collection procedure.

3.1. Research questions

This cross-cultural study focuses on the similarities and differences between

Vietnamese and English spoken invitations under the impact of politeness. The

implications for better teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese

learners of English are the objectives of the study. Therefore, in order to

successfully gain those aims, the following research questions were designed:

1/ Which politeness strategies (direct or indirect) do English native

speakers prefer to apply when issuing English spoken invitations?

2/ How is the choice of direct and indirect English spoken invitations

influenced by the three essential factors: social status, age and gender?

3/ Which politeness strategies (direct or indirect) do Vietnamese native

speakers prefer to apply when issuing Vietnamese spoken invitations?

4/ How is the choice of direct and indirect Vietnamese spoken invitations

influenced by social status, age and gender ?

3.2. Research design

Because the nature of the study is to describe and investigate the influence of

politeness on the issue of spoken invitations in order to suggest pedagogical

techniques, the qualitative methodology is the main focus of the research. Data

was collected through two similar sets of questionnaires. They were used as the

main source of data collection in this study for four reasons:

First, the use of questionnaires allows investigators to collect a considerable

amount of data about the speech forms considered appropriate by social

members within a relatively short time. Second, this type of data collection

permits the researchers to control for “specific variables of the situation, thus

giving coherence to the findings which may be difficult to achieve otherwise”

(Wolfson: 1989: 70). Third, by using the same situations for both English native

speakers and Vietnamese native speakers as respondents, I could directly

compare the strategies used by both groups of subjects to determine similarities

and differences. Furthermore, according to Ñaëng (1992: 46), with questionnaires,

“fear and embarrassment of direct contact with the researcher can be avoided

and guaranteed confidentiality may elicit more truthful responses than in a

personal interview”.

Obviously, the use of questionnaires as method of data collection is sometimes a

problem. Wolfson (1989: 70) points out that “writing an answer permits more

time to plan and evaluate it than one normally has while participating in an

outgoing interaction”. Therefore, what people claim they say in a given situation

may not be necessarily what they actually say in a real situation.

I acknowledge that this type of data collection cannot elicit data that provide the

full range of insights into the speech phenomenon under investigation. However,

comparing to naturalistic data collection such as role plays, interviews,

observations, etc. suggested by Wolfson (1981; 1982) and others (Hymes: 1962;

Wolfson et al: 1989), this type has the advantages of less time consuming, of

controlling social variables and can help avoid the problems of note-taking that

relies on the researchers’ memory as well as avoid matters of legal and ethical

issues recording in naturalistic situations (Hinkel: 1997). Moreover, as Rose and

Ono (1995: 207) says “we should not expect a single source to provide all the

necessary insights into speech act usage”, I perceive that though this method of

eliciting data underlies limitations, it does provide appropriate responses which

can help answer the research questions of the study. In addition, I do believe that

my informal talks to some foreigners whom I met and to my colleagues would

more or less contribute to the findings and give reliable answers to the research

questions.

The data was, then, coded and analyzed with the help of quantitative techniques

which aimed at a full analysis of the descriptive data related to the answers to

the research questions. They are analyzed according to the scale of indirectness

and directness to investigate the preference for and use of politeness strategies

(indirect and direct) by English native speakers (ENS) and Vietnamese native

speakers (VNS) when issuing spoken invitations under the influence of social

status, age and gender of subjects. To sum up, the study would be the

combination of both the qualitative and the quantitative method.

3.3. The characteristics of the subjects

Two groups of subjects took part in the study. The first group consisted of 40

ENS. The second group included 40 VNS. All of the subjects were selected

intentionally with the purpose of investigating the following factors: social status,

age and gender which may have some influence on their speech behaviour.

3.3.1. The first group of subjects

The age range of the ENS was from 18 to 60 years old. 20 were female and 20

were male. Among this group of subjects, 9 were students at the University of

New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, Australia; 6 were staffs and professors

at the same university; 9 worked in business, medical treatment, business, etc. in

Sydney and London; 1 were foreign teachers of English at Duong Minh foreign

language centre, HCM City; 7 were tourists from English speaking countries who

stayed in Pham Nguõ Laõo Street, HCM City for a short time; and 8 participants

just graduated from high school and worked as volunteer teachers of GAP

program from February 2005 to December 2006 at The University of

Transportation, Ho Chi Minh Branch (located in District 9, HCM City). The

nationality of the subjects also varied: 17 of them were English; 8 were

Canadians; 3 were New Zealanders; 1 was American; and the rest was

Australians.

Concerning educational background of the subjects, all of them graduated from

high school; 15 had bachelors’ degree; 6 had master’s degree and 1 had PhD’s

degree.

The information about the ENS subjects was presented in Table 3.1.

Characteristics of the subjects Number Percentage

18-29 19 47.5% 30-39 10 25% 40-49 7 17.5%

Age range Over 50 4 10% Female 20 50% Gender Male 20 50% High school completion 18 45% Bachelor 15 37.5% Master 6 15%

Education

PhD 1 2.5%

Table 3.1: The first group of subjects

3.3.2. The second group of subjects

Meanwhile, Vietnamese subjects’ age range was from 20 to 60. 20 of them were

female and the rest was male. 10 participants were third year students at the

Faculty of Economics, VNU; 15 had bachelors’ degree and worked as staffs at

the Faculty of Economics, VNU or at the National Political Institution, HCM

Branch; 13 had masters’ degree ; 2 had PhD‘s degree. They were lecturers at the

same two educational institutions.

The information about the VNS subjects was presented in Table 3.2.

Characteristics of the subjects Number Percentage 18-29 23 57.5% 30-39 9 22.5% 40-49 6 15%

Age range

Over 50 2 5% Female 20 50% Gender Male 20 50% High school completion 10 25% Bachelor 15 37.5% Master 13 32.5%

Education

PhD 2 45%

Table 3. 2: The second group of subjects

3.4. Instruments

3.4.1. Description of the questionnaires

Two similar questionnaires containing five situations that ask for spoken

invitations were organized into two parts. The first part of the questionnaire was

conducted to obtain the subjects’ personal information such as their educational

background, age, gender and status which all have significant impact on their

choice of politeness strategies when issuing spoken invitations in given

situations. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of five situations

together with a number of discourse completion questions to collect data for the

study. The five situations were formulated as follows:

Situation 1: inviting someone to a party made to celebrate the completion

of the inviter’ master degree.

Situation 2: inviting someone to have more food during the meal.

Situation 3: inviting someone to join the inviter’s house warming party.

Situation 4: inviting someone to dine out.

Situation 5: inviting someone to join the inviter’s promotion party.

Concerning the appropriateness of situations, I could say that: firstly, because all

subjects are intentionally chosen for their relatively high educational

background, the five given situations can be considered to be much likely to

happen and familiar to them; secondly, following the result of the investigation

on invitations done by Ñaëng (1992: 52), both ENS and VNS often issue spoken

invitations for showing hospitality, celebrating special events or of socializing

themselves. In general, five given situations are appropriate for the purpose of

the study, which is to investigate common spoken invitations (See Appendix 1

and 2 for more detail).

Each situation of the questionnaire was designed to serve a certain purpose.

Situations 1 and 3 are to investigate the effect of gender and social status of

participants when issuing spoken invitations. There are six discourse completion

questions in each situation. Similarly, to consider the impact of gender and age

of participants on the inviter’s decision whether to choose this or that politeness

strategies in making spoken invitations, two situations (Situation 2 and 4) were

given with six discourse completion questions in each. However, when taking

the effect of Age and Social status into consideration, I just look at one situation

(situation 5). The combination of three levels of age and three levels of social

status would form 9 discourse completion questions for the subjects to answer. If

there were two situations for this case, the number of questions would be 18,

which would trouble subjects a lot and may lead to inaccurate data. Therefore, I

would consider it one of the limitations of the study. Moreover, according to the

theory of statistics, a sample of 30 subjects involved to investigate a

phenomenon is large and idealistic enough to come to a conclusion about that

phenomenon. As a result, I do believe that the sample of 40 subjects may

provide significant data.

3.4.2. Data collection procedure

It is not difficult for me to collect data from Vietnamese subjects because all of

them are willing to help. Besides, because most of them are working for

educational institutions, their answers were very clear and reliable. I had to

spend time and effort to explain how to complete the questionnaires to my third

year students. Although they were very eager to help their teacher, some of them

got confused. The result is that six of them let some questions unanswered.

Therefore, I had to ask for help from another group of students to get all the

needed data. In general, because these subjects are my colleagues, neighbors,

students, close friends who are willing to help with the data collection, the

collected data are therefore reliable and appropriate to serve for the purpose of

the study.

The process of getting data from English native speaker subjects had some

difficulties. It took me more than two months to get only 14 questionnaires

answered. I spent my time in Phaïm Nguõ Laõo Street (it is named “Foreign Town”

in many guide books for foreign tourists) in Ho Chi Minh City, making friends

with foreigners and asked them for help. Some of them did refuse for some

reasons. Fortunately, most foreigners whom I met were very friendly and willing

to help me. Obviously, I could not do this quickly without the accompany of an

Australian female student who was the English volunteer teacher of the

University of Transportation near my house. The rest of the questionnaires that I

got were from Sydney and London by both email and post. Three other

Australians and one Londoner who used to work as volunteer English teacher at

the same university delivered them to their classmates, university professors and

staff as well as to the members of their family and even to their neighbors when

they came back home after spending their time in Vietnam. Then, they sent them

to me by post and email. Without this precious help, I could not get the essential

data for the study.

3.5. Assumptions

The study was based on the following assumptions:

The major sample population involved to investigate politeness phenomenon in

Englsih spoken invitations is my foreign friends – Australian and English

students- who are volunteer teachers at Ho Chi Minh Branch of The University

of Transportation, Ha Noi (located in District 9, HCM City) with the assistance of

their family members, friends, colleagues, neighbours, professors at university,

etc. who are all English native speakers and are willing to help.

The teachers and staff who have at least B.A. degrees and are teaching or

working at the Faculty of Economics, VNU, or at National Politic Institution, Ho

Chi Minh City (located in District 9) as well as my third year students who are

studying at the Faculty of Economics, VNU, constitute another crucial sample

population.

All informants are my teachers, my colleagues, neighbors, students, close friends

as well as their family members, close friends, classmates and professors at the

university of my foreign friends. Those people are willing to help and have

educational background. Therefore, the collected data are reliable and

appropriate.

This chapter has presented the methodology employed in the study. The next

chapter will report the results of data analysis and the discussion of the findings.

CHAPTER 4. CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND

FINDINGS

This chapter presents the results of the study regarding the preference for and

the use of politeness strategies (direct or indirect) by both ENS and VNS on

issuing spoken invitations; and the influence of interlocutors’ status, age and

gender on strategies used across cultures. The findings are analyzed and

discussed to find out answers to the research questions raised in the previous

chapter.

4.1. Data analysis

In order to answer the research questions, I examined the overall use and

preference for politeness strategies between two groups of subjects including

status, age and gender. I also used the scale of directness-indirectness described

in chapter Three as the model for cross-linguistic analysis of inviting strategies.

Each head act of invitations made by subjects in given situations was coded and

analyzed to compare the average frequencies of direct and indirect strategies

across cultures. Then, to account for the effect of interlocutors’ status, age and

gender on strategies used, the preference for these strategies in each situation

was analyzed.

4.1.1. The preference of strategy use between groups: Overall results

As mentioned in the preceding chapter, 40 questionnaire responses by 40 ENS

and 40 VNS were collected. 33 discourse completion questions of 5 given

situations answered by 40 subjects per group totaled 1320 strategies.

As Table 4.1 shows, direct inviting strategies constitute 21.364% in English and

84.09% in Vietnamese. The proportion of conventional indirectness in English is

61.667% in comparison to only 12.94% in Vietnamese. Besides, ENS gave more

hints (16.364%) than VNS did (only 3.61%) in given situations of issuing spoken

invitations. Furthermore, the number of participants who chose not to issue FTA

in English also outnumbered in Vietnamese. Generally, these results indicate

that the Vietnamese respondents are more direct in making spoken invitations

than their English counterparts.

VNS ENS Strategies

n % n %

Direct 1110 84.09 282 21.364

Conventional Indirect 162 12.94 814 61.667

Non- conventional Indirect 47 3.61 216 16.364

No invitation 1 0.076 8 0.606

Total 1320 100 1320 100

Table 4.1: The frequency of politeness strategies used by two groups of subjects

Typical examples of the three levels of directness- indirectness in English

spoken invitations are:

• Direct:

- Come to a party of mine on Saturday (Sit 1.3.)

- Have some more (Sit 2.1)

- I would like to invite you to my party (Sit 1,3, 5)

- I’m having a party. You have to be there (Sit 1.1, Sit 3)…

• Conventional indirect:

- Would you like some more?(Sit 2)

- Can I offer you some more? (Sit 2)

- Let’s go out for dinner. (Sit 5)

- Would you like to come over…? (Sit 1, 3, and 4)

- You should come over for my housewarming party. (Sit 4)

• Non-conventional indirect:

- Party at mine! Won’t be fun without you (Sit 1, 3, 5)

- Everybody would come to my party (Sit 1, 3, 5)…

- That boy would join my party. (Sit 1, 3, 5)…

The following examples are typical for the three levels of directness-

indirectness in Vietnamese:

• Direct

- Môøi Hoaøng ñeán nhaø döï tieäc cuøng mình (Sit 1.1)

- Môøi baùc duøng theâm (Sit 2, 5,6)

- Nhôù ñeán döï tieäc taân gia ñaáy (Sit 3,4)

• Conventional indirect

- Em coù theå môøi anh ñeán döï tieäc ñöôïc khoâng aï?( (Sit 1.5)

- Loan aên theâm nöõa khoâng? (Sit 2.3)

- Anh Cöôøng toái nay ñi duøng côm vôùi em ñöôïc khoâng anh? (Sit 5)

• Non-conventional indirect:

- Ñöøng khaùch saùo nheù (Sit 2)

- Sao baùc duøng ít theá aï? Meï chaùu seõ buoàn ñaáy aï (Sit 2)

4.1.2. Preference for and use of politeness strategies in relation to social

status, age and gender

Social status, gender and age of both the inviter and the invited may affect

significantly to the choice of politeness strategies employed by ENS and VNS

when issuing spoken invitations. They not only influence strategy used but also

affect each other in speech. To be polite in speech, participants always take

account for these factors before making any utterances. Therefore, in this part,

the three social variables were analyzed in pairs (social status and age; social

status and gender; gender and age) to find out the impact of each pair on the

selection of strategies employed by both groups of subjects.

4.1.2.1. Social status and age

The effect of social status and age on spoken invitations issued was investigated

with situation 5 in the questionnaire. The combination of age and social status

would form 9 discourse completion questions. If there were two situations for

this case, the number of questions would be 18, which would be too many for

subjects to answer and hence may lead to inaccurate data.

Each question in the situation was designed to serve a certain purpose. It was to

investigate what kind of politeness strategies was employed if

1. The inviter were in lower status and older than the invited.

2. The inviter were in lower status than and at the same age as the invited.

3. The inviter were in lower status and younger than the invited.

4. The inviter were in the same social status as and older than the invited.

5. The inviter were in the same social status and at the same age as the

invited.

6. The inviter were in the same social status as and younger than the

invited.

7. The inviter were in higher social status and younger than the invited.

8. The inviter were in higher social status than and at the same age as the

invited.

9. The inviter were in higher social status and older than the invited.

The preference for politeness strategies used by ENS and VNS was analyzed in

three separate cases.

a. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of lower status in

relation to age

0

20

40

60

80

100

direct CID NCID

ENSVNS

Chart 4.1: The proportion of total politeness strategies employed to the

invited of lower social status in situation 5

As Chart 4.1 indicates, the majority of spoken invitations used by ENS was in

conventional indirect forms when the invited was in lower status. Besides, the

number of direct and non-conventional politeness strategies were relatively

equal. Meanwhile, direct strategies were mostly employed by VNS and the

proportion of non-conventional ones were pretty few in the same case.

As the data in Table 4.2 showed, different from VNS who tended to totally gave

direct invitations to the invited of younger age (92.5%), 70% of head acts by

ENS was in conventional indirect forms. ENS also employed more hints (10%) in

comparision to only 2.5% by VNS. It is rather clear from the figures that the

younger age of the invited influenced ENS differently from VNS.

Similarly, when the invited was older than or as young as the inviter, the

proportion of direct head acts used by VNS was always much higher (87.5% and

80%) than by ENS (25% and 17.5%). The highest proportion of politeness

strategies used by ENS in the two cases was in conventional forms, mostly in the

suggest formulae like “ Why don’t we…? / How about ….?” Or “Would you like

to….?”. In addition, there is an undeniable tendency of ENS to give more hints to

the invited of older age (25.5%) than of same age (15%). Meanwhile, though

VNS did give more conventional indirect invitations to people of older age

(15%) than to people of the same age (7.5%), the number of hints they used for

both groups of invited was few and completely equal (5%)

VNS ENS The invited Politeness Strategies

n % n %

Direct 37 92.5 8 20

Conventional indirect 2 5 28 70

Nonconventional indirect 1 2.5 4 10

Younger age

Total 40 100 40 100

Direct 35 87.5 10 25

Conventional indirect 3 7.5 24 60

Nonconventional indirect 2 5 6 15

Same age

Total 40 100 40 100

Older age Direct 32 80 7 17.5

Conventional indirect 6 15 24 60

Nonconventional indirect 2 5 9 25.5

Total 40 100 40 100

Table 4.2: Participants’ preference for and use of politeness strategies to the

invited of lower social status in situation 5

b. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of equal status in

relation to age

0102030405060708090

direct CID NCID

ENSVNS

Chart 4.2: The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of

equal social status in situation 5

The columns in Chart 4.2 provided an overall look at the strategies issued by

both ENS and VNS when they invited people of equal social status under the

impact of age. In this case, the majority of politeness strategies used by ENS was

conventional indirect (76.67%). The number of direct and non-conventional

indirect ones was rather equal (13.3% and 10%). On the contrary, VNS mostly

employed direct invitations to this group of counterparts (89%) in comparison to

only few conventional indirect strategies (approximetely 8% ) and only 1% hints

issued

As Table 4.3 showed, when the invited was younger, ENS rarely issued hints to

invite orally (only 1%). They used this strategy more frequently (7.5%) when

they were as young as the invited and most regularly (12.5%) when they were

younger. Besides, though they were at equal social status, the older age of the

invited still made them deliver spoken invitations less directly (7.5%) than when

inviting people of the same age (15%) or of younger age (17.5%).

Quite different from ENS, VNS tended to employ almost all spoken invitations

indirectly to the invited of younger age( 97.5%). 85% was to people of same age

and 82.5% to those of older age. They only used hints when inviting people of

older age but with a very small proportion (5%). Besides, the conventional

indirect politeness strategies were also employed in this case though more rarely

(2.5% to younger people; 15% to same age people and 12.5% to people of older

age).

VNS ENS The invited Politeness Stategies

n % n %

Direct 39 97.5 7 17.5

Conventional indirect 1 2.5 29 72.5

Nonconventional indirect 0 0 4 1

Younger age

Total 40 100 40 100

Direct 34 85 6 15

Conventional indirect 6 15 31 77.5


Same age

Total 40 100 40 100

Direct 33 82.5 3 7.5


Older age


Total 40 100 40 100


invited of equal social status in situation 5

c. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of higher social status

in relation to age

The overall results from Chart 4.3 showed that VNS and ENS differed

significantly in the choice of strategy for spoken invitations in the settings where

the addressee was in higher social status under the influence of age. While most

ENS employed indirect politeness strategies, the majority of VNS chose to use

direct ones. To ENS, between the explicit and non-explicit indirect strategies,

the use of explicit ones was more faroured in this case. As appeared in the chart,

VNS did issue both kinds of indirect strategies but few. However, in comparison

to the previous two cases when the invited was of lower or equal social status, it

seems that the higher status of the addressee did influence VNS to employ more

indirect politeness strategies such as questions or hints.

0

20

40

60

80

100

direct CID NCID

ENSVNS

Chart 4.3: The proportion of total politeness strategies used to the invited of

higher social status in situation 5

In Table 4.4 below, the results indicated that there seemed to be no difference in

the kind of politeness strategies VNS employed to orally invite the people who

were younger, older than or as young as they were. 82.5 % invitations were

direct, 10% was conventional indirect and 7.5 % was non-conventional indirect.

Age factor tended not to affect much to the choice of politeness strategy used by

VNS to the invited of higher status. However, this factor did influence

significantly the terms of address they used. Because in Vietnamese culture, the

use of kinship terms is closely related to age and politeness, the appropriate and

extended use of kinship terms according to age is taken as a way of expressing a

good manner. As a result, in stead of employing different politess strategies,

VNS used different terms of address to the invited of different age ranges as a

way to express their politeness.

One noticeable point is that ENS did take the age of the invited into account in

this situation. ENS offered more direct spoken invitations (20%) to people of the

same age, less (15%) to those of younger age and least (12.5%) to those who are

older. Concerning the amount of conventional indirect politeness strategies used

by ENS, the majority of them was for older people (70%), second position is for

younger and the third was for people who are as young as they were (57.5%).

The number of hints given in this case was highest to the invited of the same

age(22.5%) and equal to the rest of addressees (17.5%).

VNS ENS The invited Politeness Stategies

n % n %

Direct 33 82.5 6 15


Nonconventional indirect 3 7.5 7 17.5

Younger age

Total 40 100 40 100

Direct 33 82.5 8 20



Same age

Total 40 40 40 100

Direct 32 80 5 12.5



Older age

Total 40 40 40 100


invited of higher social status in situation 5.

In summary, age and social status affected differently to the choice of politeness

strategies employed by ENS and VNS: the majority of choices from ENS was for

conventional indirectness while that of VNS was for directness. However, in

ENS’ data, when the invited was in lower status, subjects tended to employ most

direct invitations to the invited of the same age, most hints to the one who was

older and most conventional indirect to the younger person. Meanwhile, the

answers from VNS show that the top proportion of indirectness would be for the

older invited while the largest amount of directness would be for younger

partners. Therefore, the major difference is that ENS saw the necessity to invite

younger people indirectly whereas VNS considered direct spoken invitations

suitable.

Differently, in the setting where the invited was of equal position, ENS issued

more direct spoken invitations to younger people, more nonconventional indirect

ones to older partners while the majority of conventional indirectness was for the

same age people. VNS, though, used more conventional indirect politeness

strategies to the same age people together with more hints to older ones while

they kept issuing the largest amount of directness for the younger.

In addition, though VNS were still loyal to the use of directness, the higher status

and age of the addressee also made VNS invite more conventional indirectly to

the invited of older age. Meanwhile they affected ENS to deliver more direct

and hints spoken invitations to the same age people.

The preference for politeness strategies used by both ENS and VNS when

issuing spoken invitations under the impact of social status and gender was

analyzed in the following section.

4.1.2.2. Social status and gender

The impact of social status and gender on the kind of spoken invitations issued

was investigated with situation 1 and 3 in the questionnaire. The content of the

two situations was totally similar. The combination of gender and social status

created 6 discourse completion questions in each situation. Therefore, in total,

12 discourse completion questions would help to investigate the frequency

distribution of politeness strategy used by both groups of subjects when issuing

spoken invitations under the influence of social status and gender.


investigate what kind of politeness strategies the inviter would employ if

1. The invited were a male and in equal social status.

2. The invited were a female and in equal social status.

3. The invited were a male and in lower social status.

4. The invited were a female and in lower social status.

5. The invited were a male and in higher social status.

6. The invited were a female and in higher social status.


two separate cases:

a. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of the same gender in

relation to status

Both Chart 4.4 and Table 4.5 below illustrate the spoken invitations used by ENS

and VNS to their partners of the same gender in relation to status.

The results revealed that both male and female ENS prefered conventional

indirect politeness strategies to the other two strategies when they orally invited

the same gender addressees. Besides, Chart 4.4 also indicates that females

issued a few more direct spoken invitations (26.67%) to their females

counterparts than males did to their male partners (25%). In addition, one crucial

point to notice is that the number of males who refused to do this kind of face

threatening act in the case tribled that of females (3 male subjects answered they

would not invite the people who were of the same gender and in higher social

status; meanwhile, there was only one female who gave the same response).

Compared with ENS, VNS mostly employed direct strategies to the partners of

the same gender. Moreover, as appeared in the chart, there were pretty few

subiects in the group who chose to deliver hints in this setting. Remarkably,

Vietnamese males tended to invite their male partners more directly (94.47% in

comparing to 91.67%) and less indirectly (4.7% in comparing to 6.67%) than the

ways females did to the invited of the same gender. This point seems to be

different from what the ENS males and females did in the same case.

0

20

40

60

80

100

D CID NCID No FTA

ENS(M-T-M_)VNS(M-T-M)ENS(F-T-F)VNS(F-T-F)

Chart 4.4: The proportion of total politeness strategies used by ENS in

comparing to those by VNS in situations 1 and 3

The results in Table 4.5 indicated the difference in the frequency distribution of

strategies used by both groups of subjects in relation to status.

VNS ENS

Male to

Male

Female to

Female

Male to

Male

Female to

Female

The invited Politeness

Stategies

% n % n % n %

D 38 95 37 92.5 14 35 13 32.5

CID 1 2.5 1 2.5 20 50 19 47.5

NCID 1 2.5 2 5 6 15 8 20

Lower status

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100

D 38 95 37 92.5 11 27.5 11 27.5

CID 2 5 3 7.5 18 45 23 57.5

NCID 0 0 0 0 11 27.5 6 15

Equal status

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 40

D 37 92.5 36 90 5 12.5 8 20

CID 2 5 4 10 25 62.5 21 52.5

NCID 1 2.5 0 0 7 17.5 10 25

Higher status

Total 40 100 40 100 37 92.5 39 97.5


invited of the same gender in situation 1 and 3

In ENS’ data, when the invited group was males and in lower social status than

the inviters, the direct strategy presents 35%, the conventional strategy shows

50% and the nonconventional takes 15%. When they were females, the data

shows 32.5% for direct, 47.5% for conventional indirect and 20% for hints.

Similarly, in VNS data, the percentage of subjects who chose to invite directly is

95% (males) and 92.5% (females); to invite indirectly by using suggest formulae

is 2.5 % (same for both males and females); to deliver hints is 2.5% for males

and 5% for females. It is clear that ENS and VNS shared one thing in common:

males employed more direct politeness strategy and provided less hints than

females did. Another noticeable point is that ENS men invited more

conventional indirectly than women in the case.

Quite contrary to the previous situation, there were not as many ENS males who

employed the conventional indirect to the invited of equal status as female did

(45 % for males and 57.5% for females). In addition, in this case, men also

issued more hints than women (27.5% and 15%). Meanwhile, in VNS’ data, men

continued to invite more directly and less indirectly than women. One crucial

question is that neither men nor women delivered any hints.

As presented in Table 4.5, the results also revealed that there were significant

differences in the strategy selection employed by ENS and VNS when the

invited were of higher social status. While men in ENS group became less direct

(12.5%) than women (20%), Vietnamese male native speakers kept issuing more

direct politeness strategy (92.5%) than women (90%). Besides, in contrast to

women of ENS group who employed fewer conventional indirect invitations than

men (52.5% and 62.5%), in VNS’ data, the number of women who chose the

same strategy doubled that of men (10% in comparing to 5%). Moreover, unlike

the case of female ENS who issued many hints (25%) to invite people of the

same gender and higher status, none of female VNS chose this strategy. Also,

although men of both groups did deliver hints, ENS outnumbered VNS in this

situation.

In summary, the fact that the invited and the inviter were of the same gender and

under the impact of social status affected differently to ENS and VNS. In higher

status than their male partners, both ENS and VNS males issued more direct

strategies than females. However, when they were at equal and lower status, the

choice of strategies by ENS males shifted to indirectness while both VNS and

ENS females continued issuing a high degree of indirectness to their female

parners. Meanwhile, VNS males kept unchanged in their selection.

b. Participants making spoken invitations to the invited of different gender

and in relation to status

The results presented in Chart 4.5 show that there were significant differences in

the frequency distribution of politeness strategies between ENS and VNS males

and females when they were asked to orally invite people of different gender.

0

20

40

60

80

100

D CID NCID No FTA

ENS(F-T-M)VNS(F-T-M)ENS(M-T-F)VNS(M-T-F)

Chart 4.5: The proportion of total politeness strategies made by ENS in

comparing to those by VNS in situation 1 and 3

As appeared in the chart, in general, ENS females tended to employ much more

direct spoken invitations(31.67%) than ENS males (20.83%). However, they

issued fewer both conventional and nonconventional indirect politeness

strategies in the case. Besides, there was only one ENS female who refused to

do this face threatening act in comparing to three males who chose the same

solution. Meanwhile, the data of VNS group showed no similarities between the

two groups. The results showed that the number of VNS who invited directly

nearly tribled that of ENS. Unlike ENS females, there were fewer VNS females

who used direct politeness strategies to invite males than VNS males did to

invite females. Moreover, different from ENS group, the number of conventional

and nonconventional indirect strategies employed by VNS females was also

more than by VNS males. The biggest difference between the two groups was

that none of VNS refused to do FTA in this situation while there were four ENS

who did the act.

In Table 4.6 below, the results indicated that there were more differences than

similarities in the frequency distribution of politeness strategies between ENS

and VNS when the invited was in lower status than and different gender from the

inviter, In this setting, though the proportion of conventional strategies employed

by both ENS, VNS females and males was totally equal (55%:55 % = 2.5%:2.5%

= 1:1), the percentage of those strategies used by ENS males and females was

much higher than that of VNS (55% and 2.5%). Under the impact of status, quite

contrary to ENS males who employed 27.5% direct strategies and hence fewer

than ENS females (32.5%), VNS males were more direct( 97.5%) than VNS

females( 92.5%). Besides, while VNS males delivered no hints in the case, the

percentage of ENS males who employed hints was even more (17.5%) than that

of females in the group(12.5%). In short, it seems that VNS females were more

indirect and ENS females were more direct than males in the same

circumstances.

In contrast to the previous case, the results indicated that in the situation where

the invited was of equal status, both VNS and ENS female inviters were more

direct than males in their groups. As appeared in the data, the politeness

strategies used by VNS females constituted 90% for direct ones, 7.5% for

conventional indirect and 2.5 % for hints. Meanwhile, the frequency distribution

of direct spoken invitations by VNS males was 87.5%; of conventional indirects

was 10% and of hints was 2.5%. Similarly, though the preference for strategies

of ENS group presented different percentages, the results in ENS data also

showed that ENS men tended to give fewer direct spoken invitations than ENS

women. Only 27.5% ENS males answered that they would directly invite equal-

status females while there was 42.5% ENS females who chose the same solution

to orally invite male partners. The number of conventional indirect invitations

given by ENS men was 60 % ( 45% in women choice) and for the use of hints

was 12.5% (same as women).

VNS ENS

Female to

Male

Male to

Female

Female to

Male

Male to

Female


Stategies

n % n % n % n %

D 37 92.5 39 97.5 13 32.5 11 27.5

CID 1 2.5 1 2.5 22 55 22 55

NCID 2 5 0 0 5 12.5 7 17.5

Lower status

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100

D 36 90 35 87.5 17 42.5 11 27.5

CID 3 7.5 4 10 18 45 24 60

NCID 1 2.5 1 2.5 5 12.5 5 12.5

Equal status

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 40

D 34 85 38 95 8 20 3 7.5

CID 6 15 2 5 23 57.5 27 67.5

NCID 0 0 0 0 8 20 7 17.5

Higher status

Total 40 100 40 100 39 97.5 37 92.5


invited of different gender in situation 1 and 3

Another noticeable point is that the higher status of the invited affected

differently the choice of politeness strategies employed by both ENS and VNS of

different gender when they were asked to orally invite the people of opposite

gender in situations 1 and 3. To ENS, though the use of conventional indirect

politeness strategies was still prefered, ENS women kept being more direct than

men. The proportion of direct strategies used by females over males which was

2.6 (20%: 7.5%) was still higher than the sum of both proportions of conventional

and nonconventional indirect strategies used by females over males which was

0.85 (57.5%: 67.5% + 20%:17.5%). The data also showed that there were more

males than females in the group who refused to do this FTA (3 for men and 1 for

women). Meanwhile, the data in VNS group showed an opposite result. To

VNS, even though direct spoken invitations were mostly favored by the majority

of participants, more VNS females tended to employ indirect politeness

strategies when inviting males than VNS males in the same situation. The

number of females issuing indirect politeness strategies tribbled (15%:5%) that

of males while the proportion of direct invitations by men over by women was

only 1.1 (95%:85%).

To sum up, in the setting where the invited was of opposite gender, VNS

females seemed to be more indirect than males when the invited was in lower

and higher status and more direct to the people of equal status. Meanwhile, ENS

females always use more direct invitations than ENS males do in all three

situations.

The impact of gender and age would be investigated in the following section of

this chapter.

4.1.2.3. Age and gender

The impact of age and gender on politeness strategies employed was

investigated with situations 2 and 4 in the questionnaire. The content of the two

situations was totally alike. Similarly to the previous case, the combination of

age and gender formed 6 discourse completion questions in each situation.

Therefore, in total, 12 discourse completion questions would help to investigate

the frequency distribution of politeness strategies used by both groups of subjects

when issuing spoken invitations under the influence of age and gender.


investigate what kind of politeness strategies the inviter would employ if

1. The invited were a female and at younger age.

2. The invited were a male and at younger age.

3. The invited were a female and at the same age.

4. The invited were a male and at the same age.

5. The invited were a female and at older age.

6. The invited were a male and at older age.


two separate situations:

a. Making spoken invitations to the invited of the same gender

The overall results presented in Chart 4.5 indicates that, like other cases, ENS

mostly favored the conventional indirect politeness strategies when they orally

invited someone under the influence of age and gender. In addition, though

females employed fewer numbers of conventional indirectness (61.67%)

comparing to males (65%), they showed a high tendency of using more hints

(23.33%) and fewer direct invitations(15%). It can be inferred that ENS females

were more indirect than males in this setting. VNS’ data revealed a different

result. Though the majority of subjects kept issuing direct spoken invitations, in

comparing to the previous settings, they tended to deliver much more indirect

politeness strategies. Besides, the data also indicated that, unlike ENS females,

VNS females were more direct than males because they employed more direct

strategies (80% and 76.67%), fewer conventional ones (15.82% and 18.33%) and

fewer nonconventional indirect strategies ( 4.17% and 5%) than men did in the

same situation.

a.

01020304050607080

D CID NCID

ENS(F-T-F)VNS(F-T-F)ENS(M-T-M)VNS(M-T-M)


comparing to those by VNS to the invited of the same gender in

situations 2 and 4

The detailed analysis of the data in Table 4.7 presented the responses from both

subjects when taking the age of the invited into account.

Firstly, in the situation where the subjects were asked to orally invite people of

younger age, the number of ENS subjects who chose suggestory formulae or

query preparatory strategies still took 50% of the total strategies used. However,

ENS females issued much more hints (32.5%) and fewer direct strategies

(17.5%) than ENS males did (10% and 40%). They tended to be more indirect

than men. Meanwhile, VNS women delivered more direct invitations (85%) than

males (77.5%) and also issued fewer conventional indirect ones (10% and

17.5%). Moreover, VNS females and males shared one thing in common: they

employed the equal number of hints (5%). Therefore, VNS females somehow

employed more direct politeness strategies than males.

VNS ENS

Female to

Female

Male to

Male

Female to

Female

Male to

Male


Strategies

n % n % n % n %

D 34 85 31 77.5 7 17.5 16 40

CID 4 10 7 17.5 20 50 20 50

NCID 2 5 2 5 13 32.5 4 10

Younger age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100

D 30 75 30 75 10 25 11 27.5

CID 7 17.5 8 20 23 57.5 24 60

NCID 3 2.5 2 5 7 17.5 5 12.5

Same age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 40

D 32 80 31 77.5 1 2.5 2 5

CID 8 20 7 17.5 31 77.5 34 85

NCID 0 0 2 5 8 20 4 10

Older age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100


invited of the same gender in situations 2 and 4

Secondly, to the invited of the same age, the results showed that there were

almost no differences between ENS females and males in their preference for

the politeness strategies employed. From 25% to 27.5% of both ENS males and

by each group of gender was

somehow equal. The only noticeable point is that, unlike ENS group, VNS males

tended to be more indirect when inviting the people of different gender who

were of their age. They issued a few more suggestory formulae or query

preparatory strategies (20% and 17.5% by women) as well as more hints (5% and

2.5% by females).

Finally, the trend of using politeness strategies of ENS and VNS to the people

who were older proved to have somehow similar result. In ENS’ data, the

number of females who employed hints doubled that of males (20% and 10%)

while the percentage of direct invitations issued by males doubled that of

females (5% and 2.5%). However, ENS men seemed to prefer conventional

indirect strategies more than women. 85% of them responsed that they would

invite by saying “Would you like to…” or the like to the invited of different

gender who were older. Therefore, ENS males were thought to be more indirect

than females. Similarly, VNS’ data showed that VNS males also favored

indirect politeness strategies than females. They not only issued fewer direct

spoken invitations (77.5% and 80%) but also used more hints (5% and 0%).

In summary, the results showed that the age of the interlocutors would cause an

impact on the preference for politeness strategies used by both ENS and VNS

males and make them invite a person of the same gender more directly than

females. The age factor influenced both VNS and ENS females.

The frequency distribution of politeness strategies employed by ENS and VNS

when the interlocutors are of different gender under the influence of age would

be investigated in the following section.

b. Making spoken invitations to the invited of different gender

0102030405060708090

D CID NCID

ENS(F-T-M)VNS(F-T-M)ENS(M-T-F)VNS(M-T-F)


comparing to those by VNS to the invited of different gender in

situations 2 and 4

The results in Chart 4.7 indicated that there were significant differences in the

strategy selection done by ENS and VNS. ENS continued to be loyal to the use

of conventional indirect strategies while the majority of VNS prefered the direct

politeness strategies. Specifically, the results showed that though the percentage

of direct spoken invitations made by ENS females and males were totally equal,

females issued more hints and males used more conventional indirect ones.

Meanwhile, the gap between the selection of strategies of VNS females and

males seemed to be bigger. Many VNS females chose to use direct spoken

invitations to male partners in comparing to a much fewer number of males who

did the same act to female partners. Besides, VNS females also deliver much

more conventional indirect strategies than males in the same setting. The only

similar point between VNS females and males was that they issued relatively

equal number of hints.

Table 4.7 below presents the frequency distribution of politeness strategies used

by both ENS and VNS when taking age and gender of the invited into

consideration.

VNS ENS

Female to

male

Male to

female

Female to

male

Male to

female


Strategies

n % n % n % n %

D 31 77.5 24 60 10 25 15 37.5

CID 6 15 12 30 20 50 21 52.5

NCID 3 7.5 4 10 10 25 4 10

Younger age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100

D 32 80 26 65 13 32.5 8 20

CID 5 12.5 12 30 22 55 27 67.5

NCID 3 7.5 2 5 5 12.5 5 12.5

Same age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 40

D 34 85 25 62.5 2 5 2 5

CID 6 15 12 30 30 75 34 85

NCID 0 0 3 7.5 8 20 4 10

Older age

Total 40 100 40 100 40 100 40 100


invited of different gender in situations 2 and 4

As what we could see in the data, it was hard to reach a conclusion whether VNS

females were more direct or indirect than males when inviting people of

different gender who were younger. First, VNS females favored further direct

strategies than males because the frequency distribution of direct invitations by

them was 77.5% compared to 60% of males. In addition, the percentage of

suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies they employed was only

half of that by VNS men. Besides, they also issued fewer hints. Nevertheless,

VNS females tended to be more direct than males. Compared with VNS females,

ENS women were less direct than men. Only 25% of their answers were in direct

form while 37.5% men chose the direct strategies. Besides, they also issued

much more hints than men did. The proportion of hints distributed was 25% for

females and only 10% for males while the percentage of conventional strategies

was nearly equal. Therefore, ENS females tended to be more indirect than ENS

males when inviting younger people of different gender.

Secondly, the results presented in Table 4.7 showed that there were some

similarities in the frequency distribution of inviting strategies used by ENS and

VNS in the setting where the invited was as young as the inviter. Both ENS’ and

VNS’ data indicated that females issued more direct invitations than males. 80%

of the responses from VNS and 32.5% ENS females were in direct form in

comparison to 65% VNS and 20% ENS males. Females of both groups were

found to employ much fewer conventional indirect politeness strategies than

males. There were 55% of females and 67.5% of males who used conventional

strategies.

Finally, when the invited was older than the inviter, the results were different. In

ENS’ data, both females and males employed fewer direct spoken invitations

comparing to the cases when the invited was younger than or as young as the

inviter (only 5%). Unlike in the previous settings, the proportion of indirect

politeness strategies used here was the majority (75% for females and 85% for

males). Although ENS females issued fewer suggestory formulae or query

preparatory strategies than males, they issued more hints (20%). Meanwhile,

VNS’ data indicated that VNS females were more direct than men when inviting

older people of different gender. Unlike ENS females, VNS females issued most

of their spoken invitations in direct form (85%) and the other 15% was for

conventional indirect. In comparison to females, males in the group used fewer

direct strategies and more indirect ones.

To sum up, age and gender of the invited affected not only to different groups of

subjects but also to subjects of different gender. In the setting where the

addressee was younger or older than the inviter, VNS females were more direct

than males. Meanwhile, ENS females seemed to be more indirect in the first

situation and employ fewer conventional indirect politeness strategies and more

hints than males in the second. Besides, to males who were of the same age,

ENS and VNS females shared one thing in common, i.e., they issued fewer

suggestory formulae or query preparatory strategies and used more direct spoken

invitations than men did to females who were of the same age.

4.2. Discussion of the findings

In this section, the findings were discussed to find out the answers to the four

research questions.

As mentioned above, the data analysis revealed some significant differences

between the ENS’ and VNS‘productions of spoken invitations under the impact

of politeness. Even though this finding concerns the results from the context-

specific situation, it still offers evidence that there are distinct cross-cultural

differences between VNS and ENS in making spoken invitations.

First, concerning the answers for the first and third research questions, the VNS

were found to employ a higher degree of directness as far as the head acts of

their spoken invitations were concerned while ENS showed a pretty high

frequency of employing indirectness. The results also showed how direct spoken

invitations are the most favored strategies for VNS while conventional indirect

ones are the most preferred strategies for ENS. Besides, they showed how

important it is in the English language to acknowledge the use of conventional

indirectness (normally in interrogative form) even with the inviting act which

brings benefits to the addressee. On the other hand, direct politeness strategies,

normally with the use of imperatives and the performative verb “invite”, were

extensively employed by VNS subjects and perceived as socially accepted by

the majority of VNS participants.

However, this finding does not mean VNS are less polite than ENS or ENS are

more polite than VNS in delivering spoken invitations. It only reflects different

language habits which originate from different cultures. Because inviting is a

kind of negative face threatening acts, in English speaking cultures, ENS would

consider the limitation of imposition, the use of giving options together with the

indirectness as ways of performing face saving acts. Therefore, the preference

for indirect spoken invitations by ENS could be explained by their cultural values

where individual’s freedom and independence is highly respected. Meanwhile, it

could be argued that the tendency for higher directness on the part of the VNS is

consistent with the characteristics of a solidarity-oriented society. Therefore, the

direct spoken invitations employed by VNS in the research served to emphasize

the intimacy, closeness and solidarity. Moreover, the use of particles and address

terms in Vietnamese culture somehow achieves to soften the imperative spoken

invitations and make them more polite and widely acceptable.

As a result, considering the relationship between directness/indirectness in

spoken invitations and politeness, it is evident from the above findings that

politeness is not always determined by indirectness. It is against Brown and

Levinson’s hierarchy which assumes that the more indirect an utterance, the

more polite it comes (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 17-21). In Vietnamese culture

and particularly with spoken inviting behavior, indirectness with the concept of

non-imposition or giving options is not necessarily politeness. It can be even

misunderstood as insincerity and hence may lead to the breaking of a further

social relationship.

The effect of social status, age and gender on the preference for and use of

inviting politeness strategies by both ENS and VNS was examined to answer the

second and fourth research questions. The findings revealed that these factors

did have a different impact on the choice of both groups.

Regarding the influence of social status and age of participants to the choice of

politeness strategies employed by both groups, the data in Table 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4

showed different results.

It is undeniable that both groups of subjects saw the need of being indirect to the

people who were older no matter what levels of social status those people were

in. However, almost VNS invited people of younger age directly though that

person was a boss, an employee or a colleague. Meanwhile, ENS considered

younger people as distant and hence applied negative politeness strategies to

reduce the imposition of the inviting, especially in the setting when those people

were at lower position. In addition, while ENS reacted differently to people of

the same age accordingly to status (direct to lower status, conventional indirect

to equal and most hints to higher status), VNS only realized the necessity of

employing indirectness to people of the same age when they were in equal

status.

That is to say, to ENS, it is true that the power of the addressee is very important

to the politeness strategies employed by the speaker. According to Brown and

Levinson, the more powerful the hearer is, the more polite the speaker would be,

from which they mean the more indirect people would be in the speech act of

requesting. The majority of strategies employed by ENS has proved to follow

this belief. However, under the effect of age, the results show that it is not

correct to the invited of lower status because ENS employed even more indirect

invitations than to the one of higher or equal status. Moreover, what Brown and

Levinson believe is also not totally suitable in the case of VNS. Unlike ENS who

considered age factor was not important but significant as social status, VNS took

the age of the addressee in greater consideration than his/her social status in

invitations. They used the same degree of directness to younger people

regardless of their status, and to same-age partners except when they were of

equal status. Therefore, social status of the participants did not affect as much to

the selection of politeness strategies by VNS as their age did.

Concerning the effect of both social status and gender on the choice of politeness

strategies by ENS and VNS, gender relationships were examined together with

social status.

Firstly, with male partners of higher status, both ENS and VNS males issued

more direct strategies than females. However, being of equal or lower status, the

choice of strategies by ENS males shifted to indirectness while VNS males kept

unchanged in their selection. As Chodorou (1974) and Gilligan (1982) said,

because men see the world as a hierarchy in which any individual may be one-up

or one-down, their speech shows a tendency to seek independencies and focus

on hierarchical relationship. This can explain the reason why more ENS chose to

use directness to people of lower position and negative politeness to the ones of

higher or equal positions. Nevertheless, if the choice of strategies by VNS were

explained in such a way, VNS males would be very impolite people who always

think themselves as superior, which is not true. VNS males tended to prefer

more direct patterns to their male partners as a sign of closeness and

friendliness. It seems that, to VNS males, the necessity of realizing the status of

the same gender addressees is not as important as the need to show solidarity

between themselves, especially in the act of inviting.

Meanwhile, the strategy selection of both ENS and VNS females when inviting

the people of the same gender shows the suitability between the reality and the

theory suggested by Holmes (1996), which states that being well aware of the

fact that what they say may threaten face of other people, women tend to use the

extremes of negative politeness more frequently than men do. Besides, in this

case, there were more women than men who saw the need of inviting indirectly,

no matter what social status they were in.

Surprisingly enough, in the setting where the invited was of opposite gender,

ENS females always invited more directly than ENS males did in all three levels

of social status. On the contrary, VNS females seemed to be more indirect than

males when the invited was in lower and higher status, and more direct to the

people of equal status. This result indicates that there are not only differences in

the way women and men orally invite someone but there are also differences in

the selection of strategies among women and men themselves. While the

majority of ENS women employed indirect politeness strategies to the invited of

the same gender to save face, they saw another need to show intimacy and

solidarity to the people of different gender by inviting directly. Here, it seems

that ENS females are less aware of the values of a more negative politeness

society where the limitation of imposition, the giving options and the indirectness

are more preferred. Meanwhile, the fact that VNS females were always more

indirect to both people of same and different gender than men except for the

case of equal social status proved the perception that VNS females prefer

“beating about the bush” rather than being straightforward.

Finally, with the respect to the impact of both the invited’s and the inviter’s age

and gender on the selection of politeness strategies used for spoken invitations,

the results in Table 4.6 showed that, different from the effect of status, the age of

the interlocutors would somehow make both ENS and VNS males invite a person

of the same gender more directly than females do. To ENS males, the idea that

they ususally do not pay as much attention to the age of the adressee as other

factors such as social status or gender again proved to be correct. It is obvious

that they did not change their politeness strategy together with the change of

their male partners’ age while they did employ different types of strategies when

the status was different. To VNS males, the reason why the majority of them

issued directness may be explained by the need to show closeness and solidarity

among Vietnamese peers of the same gender.

To sum up, gender and age of counterparts obviously had a different impact on

females of both groups. Firstly, the number of those who chose to be indirect to

their same gender partners outnumbered that of males. The results showed that

there are more females than males (both ENS and VNS) who tried to avoid

threatening the face of the adressees and their own face also by giving options to

the adressees of different ranges of age. Secondly, when the invited was of

different gender, his/her age influenced the choice of politeness strategies by

ENS and VNS in another way. The results in Table 4.7 indicated that in the

setting where the addressee was younger or older than subjects, VNS females

were more direct than males in their group. Meanwhile, ENS females seemed to

be more indirect in the first situation and employ fewer conventional indirect

politeness strategies and more hints than males in the second. Besides, to the

male invited who was as young as they were, both ENS and VNS women shared

one thing in common: they issued fewer suggestory formulae or query

preparatory strategies and employed more direct spoken invitations than men in

their groups. As a result, the age of the counterparts had a stronger impact on the

selection of strategies employed by both ENS and VNS females than by males.

Females of both groups seem to be more sensitive to age and gender of the

adressees and always take those factors into consideration. They employed

various different strategies for different groups of the invited than males in their

groups.

This chapter has provided the results of data analysis and discussion of the

findings. While ENS prefered the selection of indirect politeness strategies in

issuing spoken invitations, VNS favored direct ones.

From the results of data analysis and discussion of the findings, some conclusions

will be reached and some pedagogical implications for teaching English spoken

invitations to Vietnamese learners of English will be suggested in the next

chapter.

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter draws out the conclusion of the research and suggests some

pedagogical implications for the teachers of English when teaching English

spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners.

5.1. Conclusion

Different cultures may lead to different communication styles, which can be

easily seen in communication problems in social interaction. As a result, the

acquisition of sociolinguistic competence would be of considerable value to any

learners who want to communicate successfully in another language. Since

politeness is an integral part of the socio-cultural system, the awareness of the

differences in politeness expression between the mother language and the target

language (Vietnamese and English in this study) can contribute a lot to the

development of communicative competence of Vietnamese learners of English.

Spoken invitations are one of the very frequent speech acts which can take place

in daily activities, both in English and Vietnamese cultures. The investigation of

the choice of direct or indirect spoken invitations by ENS and VNS under the

influence of social status, age and gender has shown both similarities and

differences between the two groups of subjects.

The biggest difference between these two groups is the preference for politeness

strategies employed when they invited someone orally. Coming from a society

where the principles of non-imposition are widely accepted as being polite, the

majority of ENS used indirect politeness strategies to deliver the speech act of

inviting. They possibly preferred structural indirectness to indicate their distance,

give options and through this they soften the impositions. Meanwhile, VNS come

from a society where greater importance is attached to solidarity relations and

dependence rather than distance and independence, so most of them tended to

employ structurally directness when issuing spoken invitations. Moreover,

because inviting is an act that brings benefits to the hearer, in Vietnamese

culture, it seems to be more convenient for the hearer of a spoken invitation to

accept if s(he) is clearly forced to do so. Therefore, in this case, the imposition is

to save the face of the hearer than to threaten her/his face.

Some other differences and similarities between the two groups of subjects were

found during the process of investigating the impact of social status, age and

gender on the selection of politeness strategies employed.

Concerning the effect of social status and age, the results show that ENS took the

first factor into greater consideration than the second while VNS had quite

opposite selection. Besides, the examination of social status and gender also

indicate that men and women had different tendency in the choice of politeness

strategies to invite people of different status. In general, ENS males employed

more strategies to invite people of same gender together with the change of

addressee’s status than ENS females. VNS females also employed similar

strategies to the people of opposite gender in comparison to VNS males.

Moreover, when both gender and age of the addressees were taken into

consideration, the results indicate that they had a stronger effect on both ENS

and VNS females’ selection of politeness strategies.

The results of this study show that issuing English spoken invitations is not an

easy and simple task for Vietnamese learners of English for the fact that there

are both similarities and differences. As a result, communicative failure can

possibly happen regardless of their good will of delivering any spoken invitation

to an English native speaker.

5.2. Implications

Being polite is becoming more and more significant nowadays while the

expression of politeness clearly falls within the speaker’s communicative rather

than linguistic competence. Therefore, foreign language teachers are expected

to provide language learners not only with linguistic competence but also with

communicative competence which will enable them to select grammatically

correct expressions which are also appropriate in the specific situation. (Sifiano,

1992: 203)

Basing on the findings of the study, I would like to suggest some implications for

teaching English spoken invitations to Vietnamese learners of English with a

close attention to the effect of politeness.

1. First of all, Vietnamese learners of English should be well aware of the

cultural differences in the preference for the choice of politeness strategies

between ENS and VNS. They should be informed that generally ENS often

use conventional indirect structures to perform the speech act of inviting

while VNS have the habit of performing it directly.

2. Besides, as the findings showed, it is necessary for the teacher to notice the

learners about the different impacts of social status, age and gender on the

invitation strategies used by ENS and VNS. The increase of learners’

awareness will not only help them improve their communicative performance

in English but also prevent them from unintentionally appearing impolite and

rude.

3. The lecture of cultural differences and the long lists of alternatives for drills

and memorization as to what is appropriate and polite when inviting in

English may possibly bore the learners and thus defeat the original purpose.

Therefore, some following ways are suggested to avoid such problems.

a. First, Vietnamese teachers of English should consciously and

conscientiously try to present an appropriate model for students to

imitate. However, because there is not just one way of behaving

appropriately, teachers should let their learners as creative as possible. If

the learners employ a rather inappropriate construction for the inviting in

a specific context, teachers can invite the class to give alternative

possibilities.

b. Second, the use of real life situations in role play activities is extremely

important in practicing the use of inviting strategies. Besides, if those

situations are carefully chosen to depict everyday life, they can lead to

interesting class discussions about how to be more appropriate or more

polite in English culture and why. Therefore, the supporting role of

teachers during the discussion can help to demonstrate the expected

structures implicitly through which learners acquire them unconsciously

in a more exciting way than listening to the lecture.

c. Third, suitable teaching materials play a significant role to develop

learners’ sociocultural knowledge and hence may contribute importantly

to the development of communicative competence. As a result, it is

necessary for the teachers to exploit as many authentic materials as

possible so that the practice of the speech act would be more natural and

enjoyable. Moreover, accordingly to the level of the learners, they can

make groups, create situations themselves and challenge each other to

make suitable spoken invitations in a close attention to politeness

factors.

d. Finally, because classroom interaction is rather different from what

happens in society, teacher should encourage learners to put theory into

practice by making friends with foreigners who may be tourists or

teachers at foreign language centers... and try inviting them out for a

drink. Although this kind of practice may cost, the experience is

invaluable and can make really fast progress in learning.

This chapter has given the conclusion of the study and made some

recommendations about how to teach English spoken invitations effectively to

their Vietnamese learners of English. Hopefully, the study may contribute to

avoid the communicative problems of Vietnamese learners of English in social

interaction.

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APPENDIX 1 (Questionnaire to ENS)

QUESTIONNAIRE

I would very much appreciate your help with my research. Could you please fill in

the blanks or put an X in the appropriate box in the following:

I. PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Nationality: …………………………………. First Language: ………………………………….

Age range: Under 20 20-30 30-40 40-50 Over

50

Gender: Female Male

Profession: ……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Education: ……………………………………………………………………………………………..

QUESTIONNAIRE:

Would you please read the following questions, put yourself in given

situations and then write down what you actually say in each situation:

Situation 1:

You are a candidate for the MA degree and have just finished your thesis.

You open a celebration party at home on Saturday night at 6 p.m. You

would like A to come. What would you say if A were:

1. Richard, a male colleague of equal position to you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Melanie, a female colleague of equal position to you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. Patrick, a male colleague of lower position than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Nancy, a female colleague of lower position than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Mr Edward, a colleague of higher position than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Mrs. Sidsel, a colleague of higher position than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Situation 2:

During the dinner at your house, as the host, you want B to have some more

food. What would you say if B were:

1. Linda, a female classmate of your younger brother or sister?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Thomas, a male classmate of your younger brother or sister?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. Janet, your female friend who is at your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Harry, your male friend who is at your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Mrs. Lisa, a friend of your parents who is much older than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Mr. Hampton, a friend of your parents who is much older than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Situation 3:

You have just finished moving into a new house and want to invite C over

to celebrate. What would you say if C were:

1. Harrison, your male colleague?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Cathy, your female colleague?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. Robert, your male employee?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Lessie, your female employee?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Mr. Peterson, your boss?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Mrs. Laura, your boss?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Situation 4:

You and D are business partners. You would like D to have dinner with you

to discuss more about the terms of your contract. What would you say if D

were:

1. Mr. Wright, who is younger than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Mrs. Thatcher, who is younger than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. Mr. Gordon, who is just about your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Mrs. Julian, who is just about your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Mr. Miller, who is older than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Mrs. Michel, who is older than you are?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Situation 5:

You’ve just been promoted, so you throw a party to celebrate at X restaurant, 18

p.m. on Saturday. You want to invite E (male or female) to join with you. What

would you say if E were:

1. Your boss who is younger than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

2. Your boss who is at your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

3. Your boss who is older than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

4. Your colleague of equal position to you and is younger than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Your colleague of equal position to you and is at your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

6. Your colleague of equal position to you and is older than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

7. Your employee who is younger than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

8. Your employee who is at your age?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

9. Your employee who is older than you?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

APPENDIX 2 (Questionnaire to VNS)

PHIEÁU KHAÛO SAÙT

Baûn caâu hoûi döôùi ñaây cuûa toâi nhaèm thu thaäp döõ lieäu cho ñeà taøi nghieân cöùu. Mong

ban vui loøng daønh chuùt thôøi gian quyù baùu traû lôøi caùc caâu hoûi sau. Caâu traû lôøi cuûa

baïn raát quan troïng ñoái vôùi söï thaønh coâng cuûa ñeà taøi, vaø chæ ñöôïc söû duïng vaøo muïc

ñích nghieân cöùu chöù khoâng nhaèm muïc ñích naøo khaùc.

I. THOÂNG TIN CAÙ NHAÂN:

Tuoåi: < 20 20 -30 30-40 40-50 > 50

Giôùi tính: Nöõ Nam

Ngheà nghieäp: …………………………………………………………………

Trình ñoä hoïc vaán: …………………………………………………………

II. CAÂU HOÛI NGHIEÂN CÖÙU Xin Baïn vui loøng ñoïc caùc tình huoáng sau ñaây vaø traû lôøi theo caùch baïn thöïc

söï duøng trong cuoäc soáng

Tình huoáng 1:

Baïn vöøa baûo veä xong luaän vaên thaïc só vaø toå chöùc tieäc chuùc möøng vaøo toái thöù

baûy, luùc saùu giôø taïi nhaø. Baïn muoán môøi ngöôøi A ñeán döï. Baïn seõ noùi theá naøo

neáu A laø:

1. Hoaøng, moät ñoàng nghieäp nam coù vò trí xaõ hoäi ngang baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Lan, moät ñoàng nghieäp nöõ coù vò trí xaõ hoäi ngang baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Thu, moät ñoàng nghieäp nöõ coù vò trí xaõ hoäi thaáp hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

4. Tuaán, moät ñoàng nghieäp nam coù vò trí xaõ hoäi thaáp hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5. Quang, moät ñoàng nghieäp nam coù vò trí xaõ hoäi cao hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

6. Truùc, moät ñoàng nghieäp nöõ coù vò trí xaõ hoäi cao hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tình huoáng 2:

Trong böõa aên toái taïi nhaø baïn, vôùi cöông vò laø chuû nhaø, baïn muoán môøi ngöôøi

B duøng theâm moùn. Baïn seõ noùi theá naøo neáu ngöôøi B laø:

1. Trí, moät caäu baïn cuøng lôùp cuûa em trai hoaëc em gaùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Hoàng, moät coâ baïn cuøng lôùp cuûa em trai hoaëc em gaùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Mai, moät ngöôøi baïn nöõ cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

4. Huøng, moät ngöôøi baïn nam cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5. Loan, (nöõ) moät ngöôøi lôùn tuoåi laø baïn cuûa cha meï baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

6. Vieät, (nam) moät ngöôøi lôùn tuoåi laø baïn cuûa cha meï baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tình huoáng 3:

Baïn vöøa chuyeån sang nhaø môùi xong vaø toå chöùc tieäc taân gia. Baïn muoán môøi

C ñeán döï. Baïn seõ noùi theá naøo neáu C laø:

1. Sôn, (nam) ñoàng nghieäp cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Thuyù, (nöõ) ñoàng nghieäp cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Trang, (nöõ) caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

4. Hoaøn, (nam) caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5. Tuù, (nam) caáp treân cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

6. Thuïc, (nöõ) caáp treân cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tình huoáng 4:

Baïn vaø D laø ñoái taùc laøm aên. Baïn muoán môøi D ñi aên toái vôùi baïn ñeå hai ngöôøi

tieáp tuïc baøn luaän veà caùc ñieàu khoaûn trong hôïp ñoàng. Baïn seõ noùi theá naøo neáu

D laø?

1. Döông, moät ngöôøi nam nhoû tuoåi hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

2. Mai, moät ngöôøi nöõ nhoû tuoåi hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

3. Cuùc, moät ngöôøi nöõ cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

4. Quaân, moät ngöôøi nam cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

5. Cöôøng, moät ngöôøi nam lôùn tuoåi hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

6. Ngaân, moät ngöôøi nöõ lôùn tuoåi hôn baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tình huoáng 5:

Baïn môùi ñöôïc thaêng chöùc vaø môû tieäc chia vui taïi nhaø haøng X luùc 18 giôø ngaøy thöù

baûy. Baïn muoán môøi E (nam hoaëc nöõ) ñeán döï. Baïn seõ môøi nhö theá naøo neáu E laø:

1. Ngöôøi nhoû tuoåi hôn baïn nhöng laø caáp treân cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

2. Ngöôøi nhoû tuoåi hôn baïn vaø laø ñoàng nghieäp cuøng caáp vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

3. Ngöôøi nhoû tuoåi hôn baïn vaø laø caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

4. Ngöôøi cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn nhöng laø caáp treân cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

5. Ngöôøi cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn vaø laø ñoàng nghieäp cuøng caáp vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

6. Ngöôøi cuøng tuoåi vôùi baïn nhöng laø caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

7. Ngöôøi lôùn tuoåi hôn baïn nhöng laø caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

8. Ngöôøi lôùn tuoåi hôn baïn nhöng laø ñoàng nghieäp cuøng caáp vôùi baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

9. Ngöôøi lôùn tuoåi hôn baïn nhöng laø caáp döôùi cuûa baïn?

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

XIN CHAÂN THAØNH CAÛM ÔN SÖÏ GIUÙP ÑÔÕ CUÛA BAÏN!

MA Thesis by Le Bich Thuy

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