Politeness phenomena in English and Vietnamese through using imperative mood within Thang Long University education environment Nguyễn Vân Khánh Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Văn Độ Năm bảo vệ: 2010 Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Tiếng Việt; Giao tiếp; Hiện tượng lịch sự Content: PART A. INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study English is one of the most important languages in communication. It plays a very important role in many aspects of everyday life such as: Education, culture, technology, science, etc…. What is noticeable is that learning English becomes an increasing need for many people in society. They study English for various purposes: for job, for promotion, for going abroad…. In Vietnam, English is very popular and is being taught widely. In Vietnam, with the open-door policy of Vietnamese government, English, day by day, affirms its dominated role for international communication. English is taught compulsory in many schools in Vietnam. Also, it becomes a compulsory subject in many universities and schools, for example, Thang Long University. Although English has been taught in Vietnam for several years but only, grammatical correctness seem to be highly appreciated in teaching. This way of teaching and learning is not effective enough to provide cultural factors to make cross- cultural communication successful. Therefore, learners do not know what to say in order to have a contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication. Even today many Vietnamese teachers of English still appreciate grammatical correctness over appropriateness in communication. They still enjoy grammar translation method. As a result, students cannot communicate orally in an appropriate way despite their rather good linguistic competence. It is obvious that learning a second language means learning a second culture. To study the second language, one needs to be provided not only linguistic knowledge and interaction skills but also cultural knowledge. Nowadays, cultural factors are included in the course design. However, they are often treated as optional supplement to stimulate interest or improve background knowledge. Understanding cultural factors is an important key to succeed in learning English. Although teachers have created more opportunities for them to use English effectively, Vietnamese students may face with many difficulties in communication because they tend to use English based on their native culture – Oriental culture. As a result, sometimes, when they communicate with foreigners, they may make unfriendly or impolite or even rude social expressions unnoticeablely. So as to communicate well across culture, firstly, learners must understand deeply about their own culture. Then, they must be aware of the English speaking culture. They must ensure the hidden parts of culture including politeness. Politeness is a very important part of social interaction. In order to facilitate students at Thang Long University in improving their oral communication, the author of this thesis wants to study the politeness phenomena in English and Vietnamese through using Imperative Mood to make requests. 2. Aims of the study The study aims to find out:  Do English native speakers use Imperative Mood to make polite requests in the Educational Environment?  How do Vietnamese teachers and students at Thang Long University use Imperative Mood to show their politeness when making a request in the Educational Environment?  How do the English native speakers and the Vietnamese native speakers differ in using linguistic structures to make requests in the social situations studied? 3. Scope of the study The study focuses on politeness phenomena shown by both English and Vietnamese speakers who are Vietnamese students and teachers at Thang Long University when using Imperative Mood to make requests. 4. Structure of the study This thesis is structured in three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B – Development and Part C – Conclusions. Part B is composed of three chapters as follows: The purpose of Chapter one (Theoretical background) is to introduce the key theoretical concepts that the study is based on. Chapter two (A study within ThangLong University Educational Environment) introduces the questions the present study attempts to answer. It also describes the procedures and instruments used to collect the data, the participants in the study, as well as the way the data were analyzed. Besides, a tentative analytical framework is also presented. Chapter three (Findings and discussions) presents the results of the study and discusses the differences and similarities politeness phenomena in English and Vietnamese through using Imperative Mood to make requests. Finally, part C – Conclusions will summarize the most important findings of the study as well as present all the limitations, the implications of the study and recommendations for further studies. REFERENCES In English: 1. Beebe, L.M., & Cummings, M.C. (1996), Natural speech act data versus written questionnaire data: How data collection method affects speech act performance. 2. Bright. W. (1992), International encyclopedia of linguistics (edited), Vol. 4, Oxford University Press. 3. Brown, H. D. (1986), Learning a second culture, In J.M. Valdes (Ed.), Culture Bound: Bridging the Cultural gap in Language Teaching (pp. 33-48), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 4. Brown, P. and Levinson, S.C. 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Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977), Động từ trong Tiếng Việt, Nhà xuất bản Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội. . Politeness phenomena in English and Vietnamese through using imperative mood within Thang Long University education environment Nguyễn Vân Khánh Trường. three (Findings and discussions) presents the results of the study and discusses the differences and similarities politeness phenomena in English and Vietnamese through using Imperative Mood to. study focuses on politeness phenomena shown by both English and Vietnamese speakers who are Vietnamese students and teachers at Thang Long University when using Imperative Mood to make requests.