HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH CODE: 12 - GRADUATION THESIS B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDIES A STUDY ON HOW ENGLISH SPEAKERS AND THE VIETNAMESE REFUSE OFFERS Supervisor : Le Thi Anh Tuyet, M.A Student : Pham Thi Thu Hien Date of birth : 05/07/1994 Class : K19A3 (2012-2016) HANOI – 2016 Graduation Paper ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS At this stage of research accomplishment, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Le Thi Anh Tuyet, M.A from whom I have received enormous kindness and guidance Without her kind and patient instruction, it is impossible for me to finish my thesis I also deliver my thanks to my classmates and all friends and teachers in Hanoi Open University who squeeze their busy schedule to help me finish my thesis Finally, I’m grateful to my parents for their love, encouragement and support to take care of me so that I can concentrate on my study and it well Thank to you all Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) Graduation Paper TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and Objectives of the Study Scope of the Study Research Questions Methods of the Study Design of the Study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1.The Relationship between Language and Communication 1.2 Cross – Culture Communication 1.3 Speech Acts 1.4 Refusal as a Speech Act 1.5 Refusal to an Offer 10 1.6 Summary 10 CHAPTER 2: FINDINGS ON STRATERGIES OF REFUSING OFFERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 12 2.1 Categories of Refusals in English and Vietnamese 12 2.1.1 Direct Refusals in English and Vietnamese 12 2.1.1.1 Speech Act of Direct Offer Refusals in Vietnamese 13 2.1.1.2 Speech Act of Direct Offer Refusals in English 15 Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) Graduation Paper 2.1.2 Indirect Refusals in English and Vietnamese 20 2.1.2.1 Speech Act of Indirect Offer Refusals in Vietnamese 20 2.2 Refusal Strategies in English and Vietnamese 26 2.3 Discussion on the Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese in Refusing Offers 29 2.3.1 The Similarities 29 2.3.2 The Differences 29 2.4 Cultural Influences in Refusal Strategies of English and Vietnamese .31 2.4 Summary 34 CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONSTO HAVE SOUND OFFER REFUSALS 35 PART C: CONCLUSION 38 REFERENCES Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) Graduation Paper LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table 1: Examples of Vietnamese Direct Refusals 14 Table 2: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in Vietnamese 15 Table 3: Examples of English Direct Refusals 16 Table 4: Structures of Direct Refusal Speech Acts in English 18 Table 5: Distribution of Direct Refusal in Response to Offers by English Speakers and the Vietnamese in % 18 Table 6: Examples of Vietnamese Indirect Refusals 21 Table 7: Structures of Indirect Refusal Speech Acts in Vietnamese 22 Table 8: Examples of English Indirect Refusals 23 Table 9: Structures of Indirect Refusal Speech Acts in English 24 Table 10: Distribution of Indirect Refusal in Response to Offers by English Speakers and the Vietnamese in % 25 Table 11: Result of Survey on Direct and Indirect Strategies in English and Vietnamese 27 Table 12: Result of Survey on Direct Strategies in English and Vietnamese 27 Table 13: Result of Survey on Indirect Strategies in English and Vietnamese 28 Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale It is undeniable that language is the most important tool for communication It is closely related to the way people think and behave Through language, people can connect to each other regardless of their countries and cultures Each language and the culture of the country cannot be separated from each other However, communication can fail to achieve as misunderstanding of the unique culture of each country with language use Hence, it is necessary to master a language It is not only gives learners countless opportunities to communicate, study and work effectively oversea, but also improves language understanding in order to use and avoid breakdown communication Refusal is one of the most important speech acts which is commonly used in everyday life.Of the universal speech acts, refusal is a subtle ones, it has a high face-threatening act in communication, especially in intercultural communication Sometimes, we want to refuse someone or something but not know how to reject without hurting others’ feelings or make them disappointed Thus, it is difficult to find out the most effective strategy to enhance daily conversations This requires the speaker politeness, delicateness and word choices Based on literary works either published or uploaded in the internet and English speaking materials written by native speakers, this paper studies refusals of offers to enhance the efficiency of the teaching and learning of this speech act in English and Vietnamese, create the tactfulness and flexibility in language use for both Vietnamese learners ofEnglish and English-speaking learners of Vietnamese with the maxim declared in a Vietnamese proverb: “You not have to buy words, so not let them hurt the feeling of others.” Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) Moreover, clarify the contrastive featuresand similarities as well as differences between English and Vietnamese from cultural perspective help the Vietnamese learners overcome the difficulties when they face the sticky cases of refusing offers It also helps to enhance and improve language communicative competence of Vietnamese learners of English Aims and Objectives of the Study This paper aims to find out howpeople express refusals to an offer in English and Vietnamese It also clarify the similarities and differences in terms of syntactic and cross-culture feature of spoken refusals in English and Vietnamese and analysis it in the effort of increasing not only the effectiveness of teaching and learning refusals utterance in English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for Vietnamese learners of English Scope of the Study Because of the limitation of the time and the scope, my graduation cannot cover all aspect of the issue Hence, the study just focus on verbal aspects of the speech act of refusing offers Research Questions The research question is aimed to answer the flowing questions: How English and Vietnamese people refuse an offer? What are basic forms of refusal speech act in both languages? What are the similarities and differences between English speakers and the Vietnamese in term of refusing an offer? What are cultural influences on refusal strategies of both languages? Methods of the Study In carrying the research, I have adopted such methods of study such as: descriptive methods, comparison, contrastive analysis and statistics techniques Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) Design of the Study The thesis consists of three parts The first one is the theoretical background Next is the most important part in the thesis, it is findings on the refusal strategies in English and Vietnamese The last one is suggestion to have sound offer refusals Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1.The Relationship between Language and Communication Language is generally accepted as a system of symbols including sounds, words and the rules of words combination that people used as a mean of communication It is one of the most amazing characteristics of human being which best distinguishes mankind from animals Language as a social phenomenon was first described by Ferdinand Saussure in his syllabus of General Linguistics published in 1916 According to him, language is a complex of necessary conventions which is socially accepted It is a treasure which is maintained by people speaking the same language in community, a system of signals and grammar exists potentially inside each brain or community’s brains exactly After Saussure’s definition of language, a broader view of what is to be included in language description has been proposed by many language scholars working in this field According to Keraf (1980) “Language is a means of communication between members of the public symbols of the sound produced by means of said human Sitindoan(1984) also shares this definition of language when the researcher considers language as a symbols of the sound produced by means of said human, and the system means that are arbitrary; used by men in his life as a means of communication between each other to form, express, and communicate thoughts and feelings, culture and nature Therefore, what can be derived from these points of view is that language is a communication tool produced by symbols, system, meaning which help to express self-expression, make integration and social adaption as well as hold social control (Keraf, 1980) Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) The term culture has a wide range of definitions According to Tylor E (1871), culture is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as member of society.Also, when it comes to the notion of culture , there is a most widely accepted that culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values, behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned and passed down through the generation in an identifiable group of people (Linell Davis) However, Goodenough (1981) believes that “a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves Furthermore, the definition of culture, in Kroeber’s and Kluckhohn’s point of view (1952), consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of and for behaviors acquired and transmitted by symbols It constitutes the distinctive achievement of human groups and includes embodiment in artifacts The essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values On the one hand, culture systems may be considered as products of action On the other hand, it is as conditioning elements of further action The definition of language and culture imply that they are closely connected to each other On the one hand, culture seems so inclusive, it permeates almost every aspect of human life including languages that we use On the other hand, when we need to share a culture, we communicate through language Moreover, language is complexly intertwined with culture (they have evolved together, influencing one another in the process, ultimately shaping what it means to be human) As Krober A L (1923) said, “Culture, Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) This table below shows how the Vietnamese and English speakers refuse offers indirectly in five surveyed situations It can be seen from the table thatVietnamese speakers used indirect refusals more frequently than English counterparts Moreover, the offer of food and drink accounted for the lowest proportion of indirect refusals produced by English speakers and Vietnamese As seen that Vietnamese speakers use indirect refusals more frequently than speakers of English The data also shows that the direct refusal speech acts were not commonly used in all five surveyed situations The number of indirect refusals collected was1348 out of 1480 speech acts which made up 91.1% of total speech acts Of which,indirect speech acts in English accounted for most of proportion with 50.4% and the figure for Vietnamese was 40.7% 2.2.Refusal Strategies in English and Vietnamese Refusals often include explanations/reasons why such refusals are necessary Refusal strategies function to reassure the recipient of the refusal that he or she is still approved of but that there are necessary reasons for the refusal, and all that the refusal regrets the necessity for the refusal (Beebe et al.1990) Bee et.al.(1990) proposed a classification of refusals comprised of three categories: direct refusals, the speaker can use either performative verbs (I refuse) or no performative statements with a direct “No” and negative willingness/ability (I cannot/ I will not/ I not think so) Both languages were found to make use of the same refusal strategies: direct and indirect, but not necessarily the same number and use of refusals formulas Table11 indicates that, both Vietnamese and English speakers generallyproduced fewer direct refusals but more indirect ones Indeed, as Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 26 shown in the table that, the Vietnamese delivered 8.3% for direct refusals compared to 9.6% for Englishand 91.7% for indirect refusals, compared to 90.4% for English counterpart Table 11: Result of Survey on Direct and Indirect Strategies in English and Vietnamese Strategies Direct Indirect Language Total number of refusals counted English 9.6% 90.4% 813 Vietnamese 8.3% 91.7% 667 As far as the direct refusal formulas are concerned, the Vietnamese were different from English in term of using direct strategies to refuse offers Firstly, the proportion of participation ofEnglish speakers using Nonperformative statement was 5.7% while the figure for Vietnamese counterpart was lower, at 2.8% By contrast, about 3.9% of English speakers using strategy of negative willingness abilityto turn down offers, compared to 5.1% of Vietnamese participants Table 12: Result of Survey on Direct Strategies in English and Vietnamese Country Non- Negative Total number of performative willingness refusals counted statement ability English 5.7% 3.9% 73 Vietnamese 2.8% 5.1% 59 Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 27 Apart from direct ways, there are indirect strategies in both Vietnamese and English If a refusal response is expressed indirectly, the degree of inference increase as the speaker must choose the appropriate form to soften the negative effects of a direct refusal (Félix-Brasdefer, 2008) Indirect refusals may include different strategies such as: reason, statement of alternative, statement of regret, promise of future acceptance, etc Table 13: Result of Survey on Indirect Strategies in English andVietnamese Country Indirect strategies Total number Reason Alternative Statement Promise of Others of of regret future refusals acceptance counted English 17.3% 8.9% 13.2% 8.1% 2.9% 740 Vietnamese 16% 3.5% 14.6% 2.8% 1.2% 608 The table illustrates the distribution of indirect refusal strategies in response to offers in % by English speakers and Vietnamese Overall, English speakers used indirect strategies more frequently than Vietnamese In addition, reason was used as the most popular strategy to refuse offers in both languages The number of Vietnamese using reason as indirect strategies was higher than that of English The figure was 18.6% and 17.3% respectively Also, about 14.6% of Vietnamese using statement of regret, compared to 13.2% of English counterpart By contrast, English speakers enjoy using indirect strategies of alternative and promise of future acceptance more than Vietnamese Theproportion for English speakers was 8.9% and 8.1% in turn Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 28 while the figure for Vietnamese was lower, at 3.5% and 2.8% respectively Beside, others strategies such as: wish, avoidance, the consideration of feeing just accounted for 2.9% for English and 1.2% for Vietnamese 2.3 Discussion on the Similarities and Differences between English and Vietnamese in Refusing Offers Generally, there are some similarities and differences of the speech act of refusing offers between English and Vietnamese 2.3.1.The Similarities The first similarity is that Vietnamese and English speakers both employ the directness types, including direct refusal such as “No way, no thanks”…in English, “thôi, khỏi…” in Vietnamese and the ability of negation speech act which means the speaker doesn’t have ability to accept the offer These speech acts can be “I can’t” in English, “tôi giúp anh”…in Vietnamese Furthermore, bothEnglish speaker and the Vietnamese prefer to use indirect refusal strategies rather than direct ones Speech act of indirect refusal is performed through the other speech act such as “I’m really busy this week” in English or “tôi tự làm được” in Vietnamese Generally speaking, the speakers of English utilize more direct strategies than Vietnamese people do, but not in almost all situations What is more, in term of indirect refusal, both English speakers and the Vietnamese mostly use the refusal strategies such as giving the reasons why not accepting offers from others or express the regrets to reject offers (see the given example above) 2.3.2.The Differences Refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese mainly differ in practical strategies of word use and syntactic structure Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 29 In term of strategies, both groups prefer to use indirect refusal strategies rather than direct ones Generally speaking, the English utilize more direct strategies than the Vietnamese do, but not in out of situations The Vietnamese just use slightly more direct refusal strategies than the English in the offer of help In term of indirect refusals, we also noted that both groups used reason more than any other strategies On average, the Vietnamese used more reasons and statements of regret while English employ more alternative and promise of future acceptance Although both groups favored reason, the range of content of English speakers’ reasons are broader and often more direct and sound unacceptable Vietnamese subjects were more concerned about being indirect, preserving face, and avoiding embarrassment Most of the respondents softened their refusal with, for example, statements of regret alternative, or promise of future acceptance In addition to this, syntactic structures distinguish between English and Vietnamese refusals.Although both the English and the Vietnamese refuse an offer by giving the reasons, the reasons of the Vietnamese are brief and they not attach anything more But sometimes, the English try to replace the reasons by dilemma making the refusing be softer and the partner does not lose face or feel hurled or offence A remarkable point is that the English tend to attach the regrets of not accepting the offer while Vietnamese are rare to use them Consider the following examples: “Well, thanks It looks delicious But I’m really full I’ll try it next time.” (S1) Therefore, the contrastive analysis of refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese shows that there are no consistent similarities in any functions Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 30 between Vietnam and English From the above examples and the analysis of their structures, we can draw some conclusions about the differences between two languages: Firstly, refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese also has a few of common characteristics in structures and contents of the general refusals, but it also has some own characteristics Secondly, a sentence of refusing an offer in English is simpler and has fewer variants than its equivalent structure in Vietnamese Thirdly, a sentence of refusing an offer in Vietnamese is more complicated than its equivalent structure in English Last but not least, a great number of variants of refusing an offer in Vietnamese make it have more nuances in structure than its equivalent structure in English This helps the language learners to express more nuances in their thought when they have a conversation 2.4.Cultural Influences in Refusal Strategies of English and Vietnamese Language is the carrier of culture and culture reflects itself from language Therefore, from the analysis above, it can be understood that these similarities and differences in refusal strategies are the manifestation of cultural differences between Vietnamese and Western Culture Firstly, in term of intercultural verbal styles, Viet Nam and some other Asian countries like China, Korean, Japan, etc…belong to high-context communication The meaning or intention is conveyed through the context and the non-verbal channels (pause, silence, tone…) of the verbal message They not tell directly Moreover, Vietnamese are influenced by agricultural culture and Confucianism Therefore, they focus on the delicateness, consideration in their language use to maintain the affection and gratitude of Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 31 their friends, their neighbors…These results in adiversified and various addressing system which depends on age, social status, hierarchy… And this system of address of Vietnamese has more complex terms in kinship than English does such as anh, chị,em, cô, dì, chú, bác tao, mày… For example: Cảm ơn cậu nhiều Mà cậu học không muộn Tớ tự dắt mà (S4) Cảm ơn sếp tin tưởng cất nhắc Nhưng em thiếu nhiều kinh nghiệm (S5) While English people are more direct and blunt in expressing their thought and they just use personal pronoun “I, You” for their partners in any conversation For example: No thanks but I cannot accept this gift from you (S3) No I not need your help (S5) In Vietnamese culture, the face of Vietnamese involved the respect of hierarchy, the status admission of interlocutor Therefore, politeness behavior is not only personal politeness strategies but also forcefully is the clever choice in vocabulary Some words “dạ, ạ, xin, thưa” oftenappear in Vietnamese speechact of refusal when they talk to the older people (teachers, parents, grandparents,etc…) As I have referred above, Vietnamese often use philosophy of human life in refusing an offer while English rarely use We know that English-speaking countries belong to low-context communication; the meaning is expressed through explicit verbal messages to help the listeners understand easily People’s speech acts are also embedded in the cultural background The doctrine of collectivism and social hierarchy Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 32 influenced Vietnamese, so people try to be harmonious and self-restrained in the social communication English people are influenced by individualism and equality, so their association is more simple and direct Li Hong Lin (2007) says that the variety of speech acts is influenced by the social distance, social power, and difficulty of acquired behavior However, these factors not enjoy same status in Vietnamese and English speech act of refusing an offer Social power plays integral part in Vietnamese, so does the social distance in English According to Li, The cross-linguistic differences are due to basic differences in cultural values Social hierarchy is typically illustrated in the aspects of superior and inferior social ranks, parents and children, teachers and students Social distance is typically displayed in the relation of close relatives or friends and ordinary friends or strangers Additionally, English people are not sensitive to social rank English may use the same type of refusal speech acts to refuse anyone, regardless of his social status However the selection of refusal speech acts based on social distance is quite different The more distant the social distance, the more indirect the refusal speech acts English possibly would use more assistantspeech acts and rhetorical utterances to weaken the frankness of refusal For instance, consider the situation 1: the hearer is offered to eat something If her friend offers him, the English may refuse like this “No, thanks I’m full now” or “No I would not” If her friend’s mother offers, the refusal speech acts may be “It’s very nice of you, but I’m full”, “Thank you It smells delicious But I have just had meal”, “Oh, thanks I’ve eaten already And I’m full now I cannot eat any more” The later refusal speech acts have the associative and rhetorical utterances such as “It’s very nice of you”, “It smells delicious” Those utterances alleviate the refusal impact Vietnamese is just on the opposite They consider the social order, so the refusal bases on Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 33 relationship, social status, age…that result in the speech act of refusing an offer of Vietnamese is quite different in each situation That means directness of the speech act of refusing an offer varies and depends on whom they speak to in each situation such as parents, friends, lover… For example, Vietnamese refuse their friends “ tớ không ăn đâu”, or refuse their mother “ no mẹ ơi” or refuse their grandparent “ Cháu không ăn thêm đâu ạ” And therefore, the addressee words also change such as “tớ, con, cháu…” while English just use “I” or “me” This contributes to make Vietnamese have more nuances 2.4 Summary Directness and indirectness are basic forms of expression whichexist in communication as common style of refusal.Strategiesof refusing are various in both languages, however, speakers of English and Vietnamese tend to use indirect refusal strategies in conversations because it is a polite and delicate way to turn down offers without hurting the interlocutors feeling or losing their faces Moreover, there are numerous similarities and differences found in English and Vietnamese language in term of producing refusals Thus, it is worth studying and improving awareness about those things to enhance the level of refusal performance and avoid misunderstanding in daily communication between the two languages Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 34 CHAPTER III: SUGGESTIONS TO HAVE SOUND OFFER REFUSALS The previous analysis of refusal strategies in both English and Vietnamese culture has raised a question to all of us that to be success in a target language does notmean full understanding of that linguistic system, but a broader acquisition about the target culture Hence, the core of this chapter is to bring forwards certain implications in cross-culture communication and in foreign language teaching and learning Learning language is a form of activity that involves many of the cultural and social factors Thus, to master a second language requires us to understand about communication in term of culture differences To enhance the communication between English and Vietnamese languages, there are some suggestions to have sound offer refusals for users of English and Vietnamese language First of all, it is awareness of cultural differences orcross-culture communication It is quite clear that cross-culture communication contains in itself potential culture shock because each participant may interpret the other’s idea according to his or her own cultural conversations and expectations In line with that idea, Levine & Adelman (1982) states “culture conflict” is “Cultural misunderstanding that creates negative feelings and confusion” and “cultural conflicts occur as a result of misinterpretations, ethnocentrism, stereotypes, and prejudice Thus, it is the variety of cultures in the world that causes culture shock Therefore, learning for awareness of cross-cultural interaction and learning for culture adjustment is essential or vital for not only a person whoexpects to survive in a new environment, but also for a learner of foreign of foreign language who expects to succeed in communication Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 35 In fact, there are so many differences between systems of beliefs, values, norms and assumptions of people from difference cultures and here English – Vietnamese In short, awareness of cultural differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese refusals to offers help us to enhance the understandingof culture influence on language and help us avoid unnecessary cultural conflicts to be successful in cross-cultural communication Secondly, it is recently undeniable that cross-cultural competence (the awareness of cross- cultural interaction) is seen as the main goal in language teaching and learning The reason for this is that language and culture is inseparable, that language learning is a process of acculturation and that culture could be defined in term of communication and vice versa When it came to the reality of foreign language teaching and learning situation in Vietnam, as stated in the Introduction, the teaching and learning of which mainly focused on the linguistic competence Meanwhile little attention has been paid to cultural aspects As a result, in terms of the speech act of refusal, the Vietnamese learners may: stick to a limited number of ways of refusing offers in English; impose the conventional ways of refusing offers in Vietnamese when speaking English, be unaware of the ways to soften the potential of threatening fact elements when delivering refusals in English as a result, appear to be unnecessarily rude or impolite Thirdly, learning about politeness strategies of refusal is necessary to have good conversations with foreign people It is because a lack of understanding of politeness strategies in different languages and cultures can aswith inappropriate use of certain speech acts, be a cause of cross-cultural pragmatic failure Situations are complicated when, as is common today with the use of English as an international language, speakers using language which is not their native Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 36 language may be extremely unsure as to the cultural implications of much of what they are saying.Therefore, in interpersonal communication, every participant has to note social factors such as age, gender, power and distance among the interlocutors when making refusals It will minimize the effect of impolite statement or expression and help the interlocutors save their faces when communicating Addition to this, students should search for the common patterns that English speakers use every day when making refusal and learn the way they use it in daily interactions.Many things can happen in conversation that no one can predict so studying about this will help students build vocabulary include these patterns and phrases which enable them to make sound offer refusals Moreover, learning about functional connection between refusals and offers as well as applying themappropriately in each situation allows interlocutors have a successful cross-cultural conversation Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 37 PART C: CONCLUSION In conclusion, the refusal, especially refusing an offer is one of the most important functions of the English and the Vietnamese They are not only useful language device for language communications but also value materials for research and study of the culture They can change every day but always reflect culture of each countries in each ways which is interested to find out Some linguists say,that functions only express the intention or purpose of a speech act, other think thatsocial role, the setting, the topic or even the moodyou arein are criteria for choosing the right function to express yourself effectively Therefore, studying about “the similarities of differences” of refusing an offer between English and Vietnamese enables learners understand clearly the cultural features of each country On the whole, the study above has met some of the requirements for intercultural acquisition to deal with the speech act of criticism The outcome of the study is aimed at the awareness of the target culture and native culture, which can reduce misinterpretations and confusion On the basis of the results of the study, this study has shown some cultural differences and some pragmatic problems facing by Vietnamese learning of English when learning this English speech act This may be the root cause of some problems in learning and teaching foreign language and cross-cultural communication The thesis has been completed with mygreatest effort However, due to the limited time and knowledge about culture and language, that shortcomings and deficiencies are unavoidable.Therefore, it would be grateful for me to receiveuseful comments and criticisms from readers to improve my thesis Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 38 REFERENCES English materials Austin, J.L (1962) How to Do Things with Words Oxford: Oxford University Press Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-Weltz Beebe, L.M., Takahashi, T., & UlissWeltz, R (1990) Developing communication Competence in second Language NY: Routledge Brown P & Levinson S.(1978).Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress Brown, P and S C Levinson (1987) Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brown, G and Yule, G (1983) Discourse Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dung, L V.(2007) Cross culture in foreign language teaching and learning on some communicative practices of Vietnamese people affecting the acquisition of a foreign language Retrieved from www.lrc.ctu.edu.vn Ho Ngoc Trung (2014) Lecture on Discourse Analysis (1st edition) Vietnam Education Publishing House Hornby, A S (2003), Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Oxford: Oxford University Press Hornby A S (2003) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Oxford: Oxford University Press 10 Khuong, L.Q., Thao, T T P.(n.d) A study of refusals of assistants help Retrieved from www.kh-sdh.udn.vn/zipfiles/so22/23 11 Levinson S C.( 1983).Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 12 Li Honglin.(2007), Canadian social science: A Comparative Study of Refusal Speech Acts in Chinese and American English Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) 13 Nguyen Thi My Ngan (2010) Refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese-A contrastive Analysis Ho Chi Minh University of Education 14 Searle, J R.,(1969).Speech Acts UK: Cambridge University Press 15 Searle, J.R (1975) Expression and Meaning Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 16 Sydney London Everyman’s Library Leech G.W (1983) Principles of Pragmatics London and New York: Longman 17 Yingling Guo (2012) Chinese and Americam Refusal Strategy-A Crosscultural Approach Academic Publisher 18 Yule, G (1996) The Study of Language (2nd Edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Vietnamese materials 19 Hội ngôn ngữ học Việt Nam (1993) Những vấn đề ngôn ngữ văn hóa, Hà Nội: NXB Giáo Dục 20 Nguyễn Thị Vũ Loan (2008) Khảo sát phương thức ngôn ngữ biểu hành vi từ chối lời cầu khiến tiếng Hán đại (liên hệ với Tiếng Việt) Luận văn Thạc sĩ Ngôn ngữ học Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội 21 Nguyễn Văn Độ (2004) Tìm hiểu mối liên hệ ngôn ngữ văn hóa NXB ĐHQG Hà Nội 22 Phạm Văn Dũng.(1996) Văn hóa giao tiếp Hà Nội: NXB Văn hóa Thông tin 23 Trần Chi Mai (2004) Phương thức biểu hiên hành vi từ chối lời cầu khiến tiếng Anh (liên hệ với tiếng Việt) Luận án Tiến sĩ Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội 24 Trần Ngọc Thêm (1999) Cơ sở văn hóa Việt Nam Hà Nội : NXB Giáo Dục Pham Thi Thu Hien – K19A3 (2012-2016) [...]... language for English learners in Vietnam 2.1.1 Direct Refusals in English and Vietnamese Directness is a style of communication in which speakers want to get straightforward to the points The speech interprets exactly and literally what the speaker said Direct refusal in English and Vietnamese go directly into the main ideas, the main content and main message that the speaker want to send to the Pham... syntactic structures distinguish between English and Vietnamese refusals.Although both the English and the Vietnamese refuse an offer by giving the reasons, the reasons of the Vietnamese are brief and they do not attach anything more But sometimes, the English try to replace the reasons by dilemma making the refusing be softer and the partner does not lose face or feel hurled or offence A remarkable... and communicative acts to enhance the relation or intimacy Due to this characteristic, failure to refuse appropriate may lead to breakdown in communication and risk the interpersonal relation of the speakers, refusal usually include different strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutor 1.6 Summary The close relationship between language and culture is obvious Thus, each language and culture has... requests, apologies, refusals, offers, commands According to Austin (1962), there are three aspects of speech acts including locution, illocution and perlocution A locutionary act is the act of saying something or the performance of an utterance It is a physical utterance by the speaker For instance, if someone says ‘ Ring the bell! the locutionary acts is the realization of the speaker’s utterance An illocutionary... intercultural verbal styles, Viet Nam and some other Asian countries like China, Korean, Japan, etc…belong to high-context communication The meaning or intention is conveyed through the context and the non-verbal channels (pause, silence, tone…) of the verbal message They do not tell directly Moreover, Vietnamese are influenced by agricultural culture and Confucianism Therefore, they focus on the delicateness,... between Vietnam and English From the above examples and the analysis of their structures, we can draw some conclusions about the differences between two languages: Firstly, refusing an offer in English and Vietnamese also has a few of common characteristics in structures and contents of the general refusals, but it also has some own characteristics Secondly, a sentence of refusing an offer in English is... and they can be direct or indirect utterances The aims of this paper is to investigate the similarities and differences in term of syntactic and cross-cultural features of spoken refusal in English and Vietnamese, in the effort of increasing not only the effectiveness of learning refusal utterance in English and Vietnamese but also the ability to use language for English and Vietnamese but also the ability... more nuances in their thought when they have a conversation 2.4.Cultural Influences in Refusal Strategies of English and Vietnamese Language is the carrier of culture and culture reflects itself from language Therefore, from the analysis above, it can be understood that these similarities and differences in refusal strategies are the manifestation of cultural differences between Vietnamese and Western... act in any particular ways regarding the warning Among the three acts, illocutionary is considered to be the most important one by Ye G (1996) Also, the illocutionary act which Austin later termed “speech act” is the core interest of Austin and other pragmatists ( Levinson, 1983) Meanwhile, according to Searle (1974), each type of illocutionary acts requires certain expected or appropriate conditions... strategies more frequently than Vietnamese In addition, reason was used as the most popular strategy to refuse offers in both languages The number of Vietnamese using reason as indirect strategies was higher than that of English The figure was 18.6% and 17.3% respectively Also, about 14.6% of Vietnamese using statement of regret, compared to 13.2% of English counterpart By contrast, English speakers