Tài liệu Lời an ủi giữa sinh viên trong tiếng việt và tiếng anh mỹ dưới góc độ giao tiếp đa văn hóa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION ---------- GRADUATION PAPER COMFORTING AMONG STUDENTS IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE- AS SEEN FROM INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION Supervisor: Do Thi Mai Thanh, M.A. Student’s name: Doan Ngoc Anh Course: QH08.F1.E5 Ha Noi, May 2012 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH ---------- KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP LỜI AN ỦI GIỮA SINH VIÊN TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT VÀ TIẾNG ANH MỸDƯỚI GÓC ĐỘ GIAO TIẾP ĐA VĂN HÓA Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh Sinh viên: Đoàn Ngọc Anh Khóa: QH2008.F1.E5 Hà Nội, 5/2012 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Doan Ngoc Anh in group 08.1.E5, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelors Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. DOAN NGOC ANH 2nd May 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, M.A Do Thi Mai Thanh, for her useful guidance, insightful comments, and considerable encouragements to complete this thesis. I wish to express my special thanks to all my lecturers in Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their precious assistance, scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm. Great deals appreciated go to the contribution of all my friends for their assistances in my data collection. I would also want to send my appreciation to all the research participants. Without their valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaires, the research would not have been accomplished. Last but not least, I would like to express my indebtedness to my parents, my cousins and my best friends who have given me constant support and love during the completion of the thesis. Doan Ngoc Anh i ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the similarities and differences in the speech act of comforting among students in American and Vietnamese cultures. The objectives of the present study are to investigate: (i) what topics Vietnamese and American students suggest comforting in their culture, (ii) what comforting strategies Vietnamese and American students use in the situations studied, (iii) what and how socio-cultural factors; namely gender and relationship affect the choice of Vietnamese and American students’ comforting strategies in the situations studied. Topics and strategies realized for comforting are analyzed with data taken from two questionnaires for the Vietnamese and the English students. The first type of questionnaire is Metapragmatic one which was used to explore the appropriate situations’ topics for comforting in two subjects’ cultures and to test the validity and reliability of the situations’ topics. The second questionnaire based on discourse completion task which was used to elicit some forms of comforting from native students of American English and Vietnamese. The results of the DCT were collected from 15 AES and 22 VNS and their responses were classified into eight comforting strategies with the type of quantitative analysis. The results gave out significant differences as well as similarities in the use of topics and strategies between AES and VNS across two situations. Besides, the socio-cultural factors of relationship and gender did have more or less influence on the preference of topics and strategies for comforting peers in which the influence of the relationship is greater than the effect of gender. Therefore, being aware of pragmatic competence is of great importance in cross-cultural communication. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS * Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………. i * Abstract ………………………………………………………………………... ii * Table of contents………………………………………………………………. iii * List of abbreviations …………………………………………………………... v * List of tables ……………………………………………………………........... vi * List of figures and illustrations………………………………………………... vii PART I: INTRODUCTION………………………….………………………..... 1 1. Rationale ...…………………………………………………………………...... 1 2. Aims of the study ……………………………………………...…………….… 2 3. Significance of the study………………………………………….………..….. 2 4. Scope of the study ……………………………………………………….......... 3 5. Structure of the study …………………………………………………………. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………..………….…….. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………..……………. 5 1.1. Speech acts……….…………………………………………………….... 5 1.2. Comforting ………………….…………..……………………………….. 6 1.2.1. Definition of comforting ………………………………………….. 6 1.2.2. Comforting as a speech act ………………………………………... 6 1.2.3. Socio-cultural factors affecting comforting ……………………….. 8 1.3. Comforting and discourse strategy ...…………...……………………… 9 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ………………………………………........ 14 2.1. Research questions………………………………………………………….. 14 2.2. Data collection instrument …………………………………………………. 14 2.3. Content of the questionnaires ……………………………………………… 15 2.4. Selection of subjects……………………………………………………….. 16 iii 2.5. Data collection procedure…………………………………………………... 16 2.6. Data analysis……………………………………………………………….. 17 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION………………….…………... 18 3.1. 3.2. Overall advisable topics and use of strategies for comforting……..… 18 3.1.1. Overall advisable topics for comforting………………………….. 18 3.1.2. Overall use of strategies for comforting………………………….. 19 Use of comforting topics and strategies- as seen from socio-cultural factors …………………………………………………………………………... 21 3.2.1. Relationship……………………………………………………...….. 21 3.2.1.1. Advisable topics for comforting by relationship………………... 21 3.2.1.2. Choice of comforting strategies by relationship in situation 1.... 22 3.2.1.3. Choice of comforting strategies by relationship in situation 2…...26 3.2.2. Gender...…………………………………………………………….. 31 3.2.2.1. Advisable topics for comforting by gender ……………………. 31 3.2.2.2. Choice of strategies by gender in situation 1 ………………….. 32 3.2.2.3. Choice of strategies by gender in situation 1 ……………….….. 35 3.3. Discussion ………………………………………………………….…… 38 3.3.1. Overall use of comforting topics and strategies ……………….…… 38 3.3.2. Factor of relationship ………………………………………….…… 38 3.3.3. Factor of gender …………………………………………….……… 39 PART III: CONCLUSION …………………………………………….……... 41 1. Summary of the findings ……………………………………………….. 41 2. Implication for CCC ……………………………………………………. 41 3. Recommendation for further study …………………………………….. 43 REFERENCES APPENDICES iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AES: American English students CCC: Cross cultural-communication DCT: Discourse completion task FEA: Face enhancing act H: Hearer MPQ: Metapragmatic questionnaire S: Speaker VNS: Vietnamese students v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1. Frequency of preferred comforting topics for AES and VNS ……… 18 Table 3.2. Frequency of preferred strategies for AES and VNS ………………..20 Table 3.3. Frequency of advisable topics for comforting by relationship ………21 Table 3.4. Frequency of strategies by relationship in the love split-up situation………………………………………………………………………….22 Table 3.5. Frequency of preferred strategies by relationship in the death-of-lovedone situation………………………………………………………………………27 Table 3.6. Frequency of advisable topics for comforting by gender……………..31 Table 3.7. Frequency of preferred strategies by gender in love-split-up situation………………………………………………………………………….32 Table 3.8. Frequency of strategies by gender in death-of-loved-one situation….35 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1. Frequency of preferred comforting topics for AES and VNS………19 Figure 3.2. Frequency of overall strategies for AES and VNS………………….20 Figure 3.3. Frequency of strategies for close friends in the love split-up situation………………………………………………………………………….23 Figure 3.4. Frequency of strategies for acquaintances in the love split-up situation…………………………………………………………………………. 24 Figure 3.5. Frequency of strategies by nodding acquaintance in the love-split up situation…………………………………………………………………………. 25 Figure 3.6. Frequency of strategies by close friends in the death-of-loved-one situation…………………………………………………………………………. 28 Figure 3.7. Frequency of strategies by acquaintances in the death-of-loved-one situation…………………………………………………………………………. 29 Figure 3.8. Frequency of strategies by nodding acquaintances in death-of-lovedone situation…………………………………………………………………….. 30 Figure 3.9. Frequency of strategies by same sex in the love split-up situation…..33 Figure 3.10. Frequency of strategies by opposite sex in the love split-up situation………………………………………………………………………….34 Figure 3.11. Frequency of strategies by same sex in the death-of-loved-one situation………………………………………………………………………….. 36 Figure 3.12. Frequency of strategies by opposite sex in the death-of-loved-one situation………………………………………………………………………….. 37 vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE It goes without saying that language plays an important role in communication among human beings; it is not only used to communicate but also to maintain and convey culture and cultural ties. Likewise, culture also has a significant influence on the ways in which language is used pragmatically. As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit – Seneca. In another word, using language without the cultural knowledge leads to produce the ineffective messages however rich the language people have. With this significance of language usage within certain cultures, one can see that learning a new language involves the learning of a new culture (Allwright & Bailey 1991). However, teachers and learners of English in Vietnam still focus on the development of linguistic competence – lexis, grammatical rules, vocabulary, and pronunciation with little attention to oral skills and even less to cultural aspect. As a result, even possibly producing grammatically well-formed utterances, learners may experience unwanted culture shock, and communication breakdown when running into a real and particular context of situation. Besides, with the development of society as well as the process of globalization nowadays, the need for communicating with the native speakers is increasing dramatically. Therefore, teaching and learning pragmatic and cultural competence as well as the differences and similarities between the two cultures is really important for learners to use the target language appropriately and avoid misunderstandings, offenses and communicative breakdowns. In terms of aspects of language, speech acts are considered the most closely related to culture, which attracted a considerable number of researchers; and various cross cultural studies of speech acts such as thanking, requesting, complementing, etc. were carried out. However, little attention has been paid to the speech act of 1 comforting though it is used frequently in daily life. Actually, people find it hard to see someone they care about go through pain or difficulty. Many people would like to help the person feel better and provide comfort but do not know what to say or worry they may say and do the wrong thing and even make matters worse. In such sensitive situations, even the brightest persons seem to be at a loss for words. Therefore, a study on the similarities and differences in comforting in American English and Vietnamese cultures through verbal cues is believed to be of great importance and significance. For all reasons stated, a close look at the speech act of comforting in communication among students would be taken. This will be conducted with the title: “COMFORTING AMONG STUDENTS IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE- AS SEEN FROM INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION” 2. AIMS OF THE STUDY The study aims is: (i) To explore advisable topics for comforting among American and Vietnamese students in American English and Vietnamese culture. (ii) To examine comforting discourse strategies employed by Vietnamese and American students under the influence of relationship. (iii) To examine comforting discourse strategies employed by Vietnamese and American students under the influence of gender. 3. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY As the reasons stated in the previous part, teaching and learning English as a foreign or second language requires the pragmatic and cultural competence to achieve the communicative approach. Therefore, the comparative study on the speech act of comforting is really necessary to improve teaching and learning methods in Vietnam. Moreover, with the increasing demand for interacting and communicating with native American especially among students, being aware of the differences as well as the similarities between two cultures will help learners and speakers especially 2 students in a new environment to use the target language appropriately and avoid misunderstandings, offenses and communicative breakdowns. It is hoped that the investigation into the ways of comforting among Vietnamese and American students will contribute to the success in the real-life communication. 4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study focuses on verbal communication; paralinguistic and non- verbal factors are not discussed here. The data are collected by conducting survey questionnaires by the author herself. Besides, the data analysis is mainly taken into account of strategies based on what is collected from two situations of case study in which the act of comforting occurs among three kinds of students relations: close friend, classmate, and schoolmate relations. In addition, it must be noted that different groups of age of the interlocutors may affect the speaker’s speech patterns. However, the informants in this study are Vietnamese and American students at the age from 18-25 to keep the number of DCT items to a minimum. The number of items would have doubled if the range of age is widened, which would have put a greater strain on the subjects to complete DCT. Finally, because of the limitations of time and materials, this study is unable to discuss the ways the addresses respond when they are comforted. In the view of these limitations, the study can only be regarded as a preliminary study and any conclusions are tentative. 5. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY. As for the design of the study, it is composed of three main parts: Part I - Introduction - introduces the rationale, aims, significance, and scope of the study. Part II - Development - consists of three chapters. They are: 3 - Chapter 1 (Literature review) introduces the key theoretical concepts that the study based on: Speech acts, comforting, and discourse strategies. - Charter 2 (Methodology) mentions the research questions, data collection instruments, selection of subjects, data collection procedures and data analysis. - Chapter 3 (Findings and discussions) presents the results of the study in terms of advisable topics and the use of comforting strategies in order to answer the research questions. Part III – Conclusion – summarizes the most important findings of the study, recommend for CCC as well as proposes some suggestions for further research. 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews the theories and literature relevant to the topic under investigations in the present study. The first section mentions speech acts, the second section reveals comforting, comforting as a speech act and factors affecting comforting. The final section offers the discourse strategies. 1.1 . SPEECH ACTS The notion of speech acts dates back the British philosopher of language John Austin (1962). In his very influential work, ‘How to do things with words’, Austin defines speech acts as the actions performed in saying something or actions performed using language. In fact, when speaking, we perform certain linguistic actions such as giving reports, making statements, asking questions, giving warnings, making promises, comforting and so on. In other words, speech acts are all the acts we perform through speaking – all the things we do when we speak. Austin (1962) distinguished the theory of speech acts between three kinds of acts, namely locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary then. Of these, a locutionary act is the act of saying something in the full sense of “say”. An illocutionary act is the one of using the sentence to perform a particular function; and a perlocutionary act is the one of producing some kinds of effects that is produced by means of saying something. Among above three kinds of acts, the illocutionary act which Austin later termed “speech act” is the core interest of Austin as well as of other pragmatists (Levinson, 1983). In addition, Yule (1997) believed that actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific labels such as requesting, apologizing, offering, etc. The circumstances in which actions are performed to communicate are generally speech events- activities in which participants use language to interact in some conventional way to reach some outcome. 5 According to Searle (1969), language is a part of action theory, and speech act are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and requesting that are performed in speaking. Indeed, American usually says “How are you doing” and Vietnamese say “where are you going?” to perform an act of greeting; or “It’s hot here” can be used to perform acts of statement or request and so forth. It is also argued that speech acts are culture-specific and the manner of performing them is governed by social norms which differ from one community to another. Although many theorists have studied the speech act theory, generally all of them share the common idea that speech act are the actions that are involved when one says something. 1.2. COMFORTING 1.2.1. Definition of comforting Comforting can be broadly defined as an act of making somebody who is worried or unhappy feel better by being kind and sympathetic towards them (see The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary vs. comfort and comforting). Sharing the same ideas, Longman dictionary also defines that ‘comforting is to make someone feel less worried, unhappy, or upset, for example by saying kind things to them or touching them’. It can also be defined in another way such as comforting is to give moral or strength to, to soothe someone in time of affliction or distress, to lessen pain or to ease or relieve them physically and mentally (see The Free dictionary, Thesaurus by Farlex) 1.2.2. Comforting as a speech act In terms of speech act theory, the speech act of comforting can be classified as the kind of directive as the speaker wants the hearer to calm down, to feel better or to overcome the pain. E.g. A person comforting someone after a break up may say ‘Forget him and find another one!’ In addition, comforting can also be seen as a Commissives in the sense that S offers spending time with the H or promises to help the H out, solving the problem or 6 just entertaining the H. In short, the S wants to commit himself to taking an action to help the H out of the current situation. E.g. ‘I’m here to listen to you’ Besides, in another aspect, comforting can be categorized into an expressive type of speech act, especially when the S wants to express his feelings to show sympathy to the H’s problem. E.g. ‘I’m terribly sorry you’re in so much pain’ Moreover, comforting also functions as a representative speech act as the S tries to point out the excuses or reasons to explain why it is pointless for the H to feel sad or disappointed. E.g. ‘He’s just a jerk; he doesn’t deserve you anymore’ Furthermore, in real-life communication, one remarkable feature of this speech act is that it is a composite of several different sub-speech acts such as ‘expressing sympathy’, ‘giving advice’, ‘encouraging’, etc. – to comfort hearers. (Perlocutionary speech act) (Suzuki, T, 2008) E.g.: ‘I’m sorry, but, maybe I’ll be sure to come next time’: This saying comprises two sub-speech acts: apologizing and encouraging. Sharing the same idea with Toshihico Suzuki, Bui Anh Duong (2008) also stated that for different context, both American and Vietnamese people tended to use different strategies to comfort someone and employed at least two strategies for all situations given. Besides of speech act types, the speech act of comforting is supposed to be an FEA (face-enhancing act) for H (cf. Kerbat-Orecchioni, 1997: p.14), because S use this speech act to give advice, offer support, or make a proposal, etc., for the hearers’ benefits. Moreover, comforting messages display high person-centeredness as they recognize the other’s feelings by helping the other to articulate those feelings, 7 elaborating reasons why the other are experiencing those feelings, and assisting the other to see how those feelings fit in a broader context (See Burleson, 2003a). Burleson and Goldsmith (1998) argued, highly person-centered comforting messages are beneficiary and effective forms of support because they help to lessen the emotional stress of others by creating a supportive conversational environment and encourage sense-making about the upsetting experience. In short, it can be concluded that comforting is a very complex speech act, and it is inclined to be performed by means of other strategies. Also, it is a composite of several different sub-speech acts with the aims of enhancing face for H. 1.2.3. Socio-cultural factors affecting comforting Firstly, the factors of social statues and social distances have a remarkable influence on the use of comforting strategies and internal modification. According to Bui Thi Anh Duong (2008), American and Vietnamese people used a greater number of strategies in high-power and equal –power situations than in the low-power ones. Moreover, social statuses also have influence on the frequency of use of internal modification in the act of comforting. Speakers of unequal power in both Vietnamese and English were prone to use more down graders than upgraders when comforting. (see Bui Thi Anh Duong, 2008) Secondly, age is one of the factors affecting the act of comforting. According to Suzuki (2010), the children used rather limited strategies to perform the speech act of comforting than the adult’s. The common strategies that young informants aged from 7-10 attempted to comfort their communicative partners are apologizing, encouraging, offering something, and soothing while the adult use various of strategies such as giving sympathy, offering solutions, giving advice, or encouraging, giving praises of H, criticizing H’s opponent, wishing for better results, offering support, etc. Relationship is another factor contributing to comforting. Some research has examined how aspects of one’s relationship influence the quality of comforting one gives (Burleson, 2003). For example, Costin and Jones (1992) found that people 8 expend more effort comforting close friends than they do strangers. Besides, comforting may be used as a maintenance behavior in close relationships (David et al., 2009). In fact, comforting bears some similarities to the maintenance behavior of positivity, which includes being supportive of one’s partner (Stafford & Canary, 1991). David et al. (2009) also indicates that people may alter their comforting strategies, depending on their perceptions of equity within romantic relationships. People seek to balance perceptions of supportiveness using comforting strategies. Individuals who recognize themselves as having greater wealth or status than their partner may feel that their role in the relationship is similar to that of a parent or guardian. If individuals perceive that their status is an important contribution they make to the relationship, they may enjoy being able to effectively comfort their partners. Burleson (1994) notes that sophisticated comfort givers often feel better about themselves after providing comfort. It may be that providing effective comforting is a particularly positive experience for those who feel their status creates an obligation to take care of their partners. Therefore, socio-cultural factors such as social status, social distance, age and relationship did have a significant influence on comforting and comforting strategies. 1.3. COMFORTING AND DISCOURSE STRATEGIES As mentioned in previous part 1.2.2, the speech act of comforting can be seen a composite of sub-speech acts or different types of speech act. Therefore, the following comforting strategies were categorized basing on functions of speech act types, and the primary research in the related field. Category A: Expressing sympathy According to Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary, ‘sympathize’ is to feel sorry for somebody; to show that you understand and feel sorry about somebody's problems. In terms of speech act types, ‘expressing sympathy’ can be seen as a expressive speech act. Here are some illustrations: 9 English Vietnamese  I’m so sorry to hear this.  Tôi rất tiếc về chuyện này  I wish there was something I could  Anh mong có thể nói được điều gì đó say to ease your pain. để giảm đi nỗi đau của em lúc này.  I know this is hard and you’re upset.  Tớ biết điều này thật khó khăn và ấy cũng rất buồn.  I understand that you miss your family and friends.  Chị biết em nhớ gia đình và bạn bè lắm. Category B: Reassuring H’s feelings In this strategy, S wants to calm H down and lift H’s spirit up at the same time. According to Bui Anh Duong (2008), it is also one way of indicating that S and H are cooperators and thus to imply knowledge of H’s wants and willingness to fit one’s own wants with them. English Vietnamese  Don’t worry  Đừng lo!  Don’t be sad  Đừng buồn nữa!/ Buồn làm gì!  Cheer up!  Vui lên nào!  Calm down!  Bình tĩnh!  Fighting!/ Go on!/ Move on!  Cố lên nhé! Category C: Soothing Soothing can be understood as an act of saying or doing something that make H to feel calmer and less worried, upset, or angry (Longman Dictionary of Temporary English). Utterances of this type are thought to relieve H’s hurt or sad feeling. 10