i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the work presented in this research report has been performed and interpreted solely by myself. I confirm that this word is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the B.A. Degree and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification. Dong Thap, April 2012 Nguyen Thi Phuong Dung ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the process of carrying out the study, I have received a large amount of contribution and support from many people. First, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to Dean and all the lectures of the Foreign Language Department of Dong Thap University who gave me a chance to study the thesis. Second, I would like to express my greatest and sincerest appreciation to Mrs. Huynh Cam Thao Trang, M.A, and my supervisor, for her precious advices, guidance, and support in the pursuance of this study. Last but not least, I am grateful to my two friends Phan Thanh Tan and Nguyen Van Trong for what they have done to help me finish the study. iii ABSTRACT This paper investigates how similarly and differently native speakers of English and Vietnamese use apologies politely in terms of cross-cultural perspective in the light of 3 apology strategies including: getting attention, rejecting a request or an invitation and admitting guilt with an explanation basing on the previous study of Mrs. Huynh Cam Thao Trang (2009) as a foundation for research. The data are collected by books, questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire is obtained with 20 Vietnamese participants and 20 English participants including American, Australian, Canadian and English. The interview is also delivered to 20 English participants and 20 Vietnamese participants. The participants for questionnaire and interview are different. Their responses then are analyzed separately to identify the types of apology structure and to measure the degree of frequency in giving apologies. The study is of a descriptive nature. Frequencies, percentages and the means of these percentages are considered. The prime findings of the study reveal that Vietnamese and English native speakers are nearly similar in the choice of apology forms appropriate in admitting guilt with an explanation and different in the degree of using apologizing words. The Vietnamese native speakers less give apologies than native speakers of English. It seems that the English native speakers give apologies more politely than Vietnamese people but in Vietnamese culture instead of using apologizing word Vietnamese people have different ways of speaking to show the politeness. iv ABBREVIATIONS n total number (n=1) total number of participants is 1 p. page Per. percentage S situation T.N total number v TABLE OF CONTENT Page STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS iv TABLE OF CONTENT v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1. Motivation of the study 1 2. Aims of the study 2 3. Research methods 3 4. Scope of the study 3 5. Significance of the study 3 6. Previous study 3 7. Organization of the thesis 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5 1. Speech acts 5 2. Speech acts and Politeness 6 2.1. Politeness 9 2.1.1. Definition of politeness 9 2.1.2. Politeness across cultures 10 2.1.3. “Politeness- directness- indirectness” in apologizing 11 3. Speech acts of apology 12 3.1. Definitions of apologies 13 vi 3.2. Apologizing forms in English and Vietnamese 16 3.3. Apology strategies 19 3.3.1. Strategy 1: Getting attention 19 3.3.2. Strategy 2: Rejecting a request or an invitation 21 3.3.3. Strategy 3: Admitting guilt with an explanation 22 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 24 1. Research questions 24 2. Research participants 24 3. Research procedure 25 4. Research instruments 25 4.1. Questionnaire 26 4.2. Interview 26 4.3. Books analysis 27 5. Method of data analysis 27 5.1. Statistic 27 5.2. Compare and contrast 27 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 29 1. An overview of results 29 1.1.2. Situation 2 34 1.1.3. Situation 3 35 1.1.4. Situation 4 36 1.1.6. Situation 6 37 1.2. Results of interview 39 1.2.1. Getting attention 39 1.2.2. Rejecting a request or an invitation 43 vii 1.2.3. Admitting guilt with an explanation 45 3.2. Discussion 58 3.2.1. Similarities 58 3.2.2. Differences 60 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 63 1. Summary 63 2. Results 64 3. Suggestions 65 REFERENCES 67 APPENDICES viii APENDIX 1 viii APENDIX 2 x APENDIX 3 xii APENDIX 4 xiv 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Motivation of the study Commonly language is an important part of culture, and a culture is reflected through its language. A piece of culture can be referred to, but it is differently interpreted. In the broadest sense, language is also the symbolic representation of a person, since it comprises his/her historical and cultural background, as well as his/her approach to life and his/her ways of living and thinking. Brown (1994: 165) describes that “a language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture”. In a word, culture and language are inseparated, so foreign language learning is foreign culture learning. As a result, nowadays learning a foreign language does not only learn syntactic structures or learn new vocabulary and expressions but also incorporate some cultural elements intertwined with language itself. As Vietnam is integrating many countries around the world, learning English is getting more and more important and essential. English has been used as an international language all over the world and as a means of communication with different purposes. However, to succeed in communication is not easy since every society has its own socio- cultural and communicative behaviors. The difficulty is that understanding how to communicate effectively with individuals who speak another language or who rely on different means to reach communicative goal. It is, therefore, perhaps the most important for people to realize that a basic understanding of cultural diversity is the key to effective cross-cultural communications. In daily life, people take plenty of actions to communicate with others, for example, thanks, apologies, greetings, invitations, compliments, requests or complaints which can be done both verbally and non-verbally. There have been many conflicts of the world are caused as result of the lack of cross –culture knowledge. Take speech acts of apology as an example. An apology is one of the cultural features that people who learn English need to pay attention to. It is an 2 expressive speech act which is not only a normal utterance but also an issue of great concern. Apologizing occurs in every culture to maintain good relations between interlocutors. When one apologizes, one may intend not merely to express regret but also to seek forgiveness. However, with different social level and ages, people use different ways of apologies. In Vietnamese daily life, in many situations Vietnamese people need to say “sorry” but as a habit they rarely do so. A great number of foreign visitors, therefore, complain that they are disappointed and angry when they do not receive any apologies from Vietnamese people when they have fault. Because of different culture, when communicating with English native speakers, Vietnamese people often make mistake and misunderstand. Apologizing is not an easy matter in Vietnamese language, and having to do it in a second or foreign language is even more complicated. The native speakers of English and Vietnamese share differences and similarities in terms of giving apologies in social interaction. Thus, mastering how to give apologies politely, effectively and appropriately not to misunderstand, shock and hurt is a need. For the above reasons, finding the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese in apologies is a must. The finding hopefully helps Vietnamese teachers and learners keep the conversation with foreigners going on. To achieve it, the thesis is attempted to answer tree research questions: 1. How do the Vietnamese native speakers and the English native speakers say apologies? 2. What are the similarities and differences in making polite apologies between the Vietnamese native speakers and the English native speakers? 3. Do ages, social positions and relationships influence making polite apologies? 2. Aims of the study The aims of this study are to compare how similarly and differently the native speakers of English and Vietnamese use apologies in terms of cross-cultural features based on comparing the structures and strategies of apologies. The 3 apology strategies including getting attention, rejecting a request or invitation and admitting guilt with explanation will be investigated. 3. Research methods In the study, the methods used to collect relevant data are statistic, compare and contrast apologizing forms which are extracted from books, questionnaire and interview. First, data is mainly collected from English and Vietnamese books. They are then analyzed to find out the similarities and differences in making apologies in English and Vietnamese in terms of providing theoretical background for the process of comparative and contrastive analysis in the thesis. Next, questionnaire and interview are employed to investigate the reality of using apologies between the English native speakers and the native speakers of Vietnamese. They are delivered to 40 native speakers of Vietnamese and 40 English native speakers in Ho Chi Minh City. 4. Scope of the study The study is a comparative analysis on making polite apologies in English and Vietnamese in terms of cross-cultural perspective performed by the native speakers of English and Vietnamese. The thesis is limited to verbal aspects of making apologies based on eight forms and three strategies. The study also investigates the factors influence the way of making apology such as social level, age and relationship. 5. Significance of the study Finding out the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese in polite apologies is expected to make a significant contribution to effective communication. As a matter of fact, Vietnamese people can be more confident when communicating or cooperating with the native speakers of English and use apologies exactly in specific situations. Hopefully, the study will help learners acquire how to remain relationships and keep conversations going on effectively with foreigners. 6. Previous study [...]... answers From making statistic, it is easier to compare and contrast 5.2 Compare and contrast Compare and contrast are the main methods to figure out and answer the research questions of this thesis What are the similarities and differences in making polite apologies between the Vietnamese native speakers and the English native speakers? This greatest issue will be revealed through compare and contrast the. .. data consisting of apology forms and strategies then is analyzed and is a basis foundation to compare and discover the differences and similarities in making apologies politely in Vietnamese and English in theory Therefore, these books serve for theory background not for comparison and contrast 5 Method of data analysis In the present study, in order to answer the research questions, two types of analysis. .. information about what participants say for admitting guilt with their explanation Situation (3), (4) are about getting attention In situation (3), the speaker wants to get attention to an acquaintance but having upper position In situation (4), the speaker gets attention to an old stranger Situation (8) is used to reject an invitation There are various relationships in these situations such as the student... Questionnaire and interview are employed to investigate the reality of using apologies between native speakers of English and Vietnamese An English questionnaire and an English interview are designed for native speakers of English and other Vietnamese versions for native speakers of Vietnamese Two versions have the same questions and the same situations Two kinds of questionnaire and interview are used... of maintaining harmony between the speaker and the hearer." Both definitions of Brown and Levison and Leech are convenient and acceptable, because each one describes this process and captured this phenomenon from both sides: 'individually' (the first one), and 'society' (the second one) Bergman and Kasper (1993) define an apology as a “compensatory action to an offense in the doing of which the speaker... According to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984), there are intercultural, cross- cultural and individual differences in using speech acts Second language learners have been claimed to have disadvantages in using speech acts to communicate with native speakers of the target language because of the complexity of speech acts since they are conditioned by social, cultural, 6 situational and personal factors... native speakers say apologies? 2 What are the similarities and differences in making polite apologies between the Vietnamese native speakers and the English native speakers? 3 Do ages, social positions and relationships influence making polite apologies? 2 Research participants The data is provided by two groups of participants: a group of native speakers of English and a group of Vietnamese The first... analysis carried out on the collected data are statistic, compare and contrast 5.1 Statistic Statistic method is the basic method used popularly to find database for the thesis After having all responses to the questions in questionnaire and interview, they are listed and classified to count how many native English speakers and Vietnamese people have similar answers and how many of them have different answers... can be defined as the basic unit of communication and they are part of linguistic competence As Schmidt and Richards (1980) state speech acts are all the acts that speakers perform through speaking, and all the things that speakers do and the interpretation and negotiation of speech acts depend on discourse of context Speech acts have also been classified as indirect and direct speech acts According... (Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 8th edition: 57) On the other hand, the definition of apologies has also been stated by many experts According to Brown and Levinson, apologies are politeness strategies An apology is a fundamental speech act which is a part of human communication occurs in every culture to maintain good relations between interlocutors It can also be expression of contribution and . questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire is obtained with 20 Vietnamese participants and 20 English participants including American, Australian, Canadian and English. The interview is also. the Vietnamese native speakers and the English native speakers say apologies? 2. What are the similarities and differences in making polite apologies between the Vietnamese native speakers and. comparative and contrastive analysis in the thesis. Next, questionnaire and interview are employed to investigate the reality of using apologies between the English native speakers and the native speakers