Tài liệu A study of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book new headway – elementary

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ HƯỜNG A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATION ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK NEW HEADWAY – ELEMENTARY (NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG HOẠT ĐỘNG GIAO TIẾP CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH NEW HEADWAY - ELEMENTARY) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HA NOI - 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ HƯỜNG A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE CONVERSATION ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK NEW HEADWAY – ELEMENTARY (NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG HOẠT ĐỘNG GIAO TIẾP CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH NEW HEADWAY - ELEMENTARY) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Quang HA NOI - 2017 DECLARATION I here y st te th t I: Nguy n Thi Hường, from QH2015.E3, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (MA), accept the requirements of the university rel ting to the retention nd use of M ster‘s Gr du tion P per 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 and reproduction of the paper. October, 1st 2017 N i ễ H ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is an honor for me to express my deep and sincere thanks to those who have made this thesis possible. First of all, I would like to pay my great gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Nguy n Quang, for his continuous support, careful guidance and valuable advice throughout my thesis-writing period. With his comprehensive instruction, his inspiration, enthusiasm and immense knowledge, he helped me step by step write up my thesis to the best of my ability and opened my knowledge of literature. It was very lucky for me to be under his guidance. My heartfelt thanks and blessings also go to my family, especially my parents who are always by my side and support me during the time I did my thesis. Their well-being is of great spiritual motivation for me all the time. Last but not least, I want to offer special thanks to all of my friends who always supported and stood by me during the completion of the graduation paper. To them all I dedicate this thesis. ii ABSTRACT English has been an indepensible means of communnication in daily life. However, in fact, a large number of English learners find it hard to communicate fluently and confidently. Therefore, it is essential to find out ways to interact well in daily communication which are partly presented in the politeness strategies used during the process of interaction. As a result, this study is carried to find out politeness strategies and how they work in communication. All converational ctivities in the course ook ―New He dw y – Element ry‖ are examined. Then the data is analyzed according to two types of strategies, the positive and negative ones. The research results reveal that positive politeness strategies are used much more than negative politeness strategies found in most of conversations in the book. Furthermore, twelve positive politeness strategies and six nagative posliteness strategies are used in the book. Finally, implications are offered for teaching and learning English with consideration to politeness strategies in communication. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ……………………………………………………….. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...………………………………………….. ii ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………….. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………….. iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ……………………………………. vi LIST OF APPENDICES ..………………………………………………. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .…………………………………………. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Statement of research problem and the rationale for the study ....................1 1.2. Aim and significance of the study .....................................................................2 1.3. Objectives of study .............................................................................................2 1.4. Scope of study .....................................................................................................2 1.5. Design of the study.............................................................................................3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Culture and Communication .............................................................................4 2.1.1. Definition of culture .....................................................................................4 2.1.2. Definition of communication .......................................................................4 2.1.3. The relationship between culture and communication ...............................5 2.2. Politeness .............................................................................................................5 2.2.1. What is politeness? .......................................................................................5 2.2.2. Previous studies on politeness ......................................................................8 2.2.3. Positive politeness and positive politeness strategies ..................................9 2.2.4. Negative politeness and negative politeness strategies..............................14 iv CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1. Data source ........................................................................................................18 3.2. Methods .............................................................................................................18 3.2.1. Techniques for data collection ...................................................................19 3.2.2. Techniques for data analysis ......................................................................19 3.2.3. Process of data analysis ..............................................................................19 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1. Frequency of positive and negative politeness strategies in the conversational activities .....................................................................................20 4.2. Positive politeness strategies in the conversational activities .......................21 4.3. Negative politeness strategies in the conversational ......................................26 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 5.1. Summary of the findings ..................................................................................30 5.2. Implications to English teaching and learning ..............................................31 5.3. Limitation of the study and Reccomendations for further research ...........31 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 33 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................I v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 60) Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001) Figure 3: The frequency of positive politeness strategies Figure 4: The frequency of negative politeness strategies LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The statistics of positive and negative politeness strategies Table 2. The statistics of positive politeness strategies Table 3. The statistics of negative politeness strategies LIST OF APPENDICES APPENDIX: Summary of positive and negative politeness strategies in the course ook ―new he dw y – element ry‖ vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS S: Speaker H: Hearer FTA: Face Threatening Act PPS: Positive Politeness Strategies NPS: Negative Politeness Strategies T: Track P: Page vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Statement of research problem and rationale for the study People are probably unable to communicate well in their daily life, without language which is regarded as the most popular means of communication to exchange information among people at work or in study. Although there have been over 10,000 languages available in the world, some of them have been used as the common languages and only few have been spoken widely around the world. English is a language which many countries use as a first language and many have considered it as the common language for teaching in schools and universities. People have studied English for different purposes such as getting job, studying abroard, promotion or travelling. In Vietnam, English has been taught as a foreign language for serveral decades and recently, English has become a compulsory subject in most schools, colleges and universities. Although teaching speaking skill as well as other skills have been put in all the textbooks from primary school to high school for several years, most Vietnamese teachers have still focused on teaching grammar like structural rules and forms of tenses rather than speaking skill. This accidentally makes a large number of students learning English but unable able to make everyday conversations well when they meet foreigners who speak English. Besides, many Vietnamese are afraid of talking in English because they do not know how to appear polite in English. Therefore, this study is conducted with the hope to point out how positive and negative politeness strategies are used in the conversational activities under investigation, thus helping to improve the teaching nd le rning of ―Everyd y English‖ in the course book New Headway – Elementary, by Liz & John Soars. 1 1.2. Aim and significance of the study This research aims to r ise Vietn mese le rner‘s w reness of how to use politeness strategies appropriately in order to achieve successful communication. Moreover, the study expects to put forward some suggestions for the teaching of positive and negative polite strategies to language teachers. Hence, as this thesis completed, it can be beneficial for both theoretical and practical contributions. In terms of theoretical significance, this study contributes to making explicit the important role of politeness strategies in verbal communication, especially in crosscultural communication. For practical significance: This study helps gain an insight into the method employable for teaching politeness strategies in the course book ―New He dw y - Element ry‖ s well s in djustment nd pplic tion of te ching techniques. 1.3. Objectives of the study This thesis is conducted with two main objectives. Firstly, the author comes to investigate positive and negative politeness in most typical contextual environments in ―Everyd y English‖ of the course ook New He dw y – Elementary. In addition, the second purpose is to collect and analyze the extent to what politeness strategies are recruited and distributed in the coursebook. In brief, these objectives can be achieved through finding tentative answers to the following research questions: 1. How are positive politeness strategies used in the “Everyday English activities”of the course book “ New Headway – Elementary”? 2. How are negative politeness strategies used in the “Everyday English activities”of the course book “ New Headway – Elementary”? 1.4. Scope of the study The study investigates the use of positive and negative politeness strategies only in the conversational activities of ―Everyd y English‖ in 14 units presented in the course book New Headway – Elementary written by Liz & John Soars. 2 1.5. Design of the study The study consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 (Introduction) presents the rationale, the objectives, significance and the scope of the study. Literature of culture, communication, politeness and politeness strategies are reviewed in chapter 2. Chapter 3 disscusses methodology of the study with research questions, the participants, the method for data collection and data analysis. In chapter 4, data are analyzed and findings are discussed towards research questions 2 and 3. Finally, chapter 5 summarizes the main finding of the study, pointing out some limitations of the research, offering implications for English teaching and learning, and giving recommemdations for further research. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Culture and Communication 2.1.1. Definition of culture Levine nd Adelm n (cited in Nguy n Qu ng, 2002: 30-31) hold that ―culture is a share background (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes, and values‖. ―Culture‖ in this study does not refer to art, music, literature, food, clothing styles, and so on. It refers to the informal and often hidden patterns of human interactions, expressions, and viewpoints that people in one culture share. The hidden nature of culture has been compared to an iceberg, most of which is hidden underwater! Like the iceberg most of the influence of the culture on an individual cannot be seen. The part of culture that is exposed is not always that which creates cross-cultural difficulties; the hidden aspects of the culture have significant effects on behaviour and on interactions with others. According to Phillip K. Bock (cited in Nguyen Thi Tuyet, 2005: 3), culture is considered ―in its broadest sense, as what makes you a stranger when you are away from home. It includes all those beliefs and expectations about how people should speak and act, which have become a kind of second nature to one as a result of social learning. When you are with members of a group who share your culture, you do not have think about it, for you are all viewing the world in pretty muach the same way and you all know, in general terms, what to expect of one another‖. Banks (1989: 8) also shares a very remarkable notion of culture in which he claims that “the essence of culture is not its artifacts, tools or other tangible culture elements but how the members of the group interpret, use and perceive.‖ 2.1.2. Definition of communication The term ―communic tion‖ h s lre dy included many definitions with emphasis on various factors. Hybels and Weaver (2001: 5) defined communication as ―any process in which people share information, ideas, and feelings that involve 4 not only the spoken and written words but also language, personal mannerism and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message.‖ Nguyen Quang (1998: 3) states that ―Communnication is the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behaviour.‖ 2.1.3. The relationship between culture and communication There has always existed the close relationship between culture and communication; that means, culture creates communication and communication in its turns reflects culture. Without communication, it would not be possible to see and interpret how culture manifests itself intraculturally and interculturally. Samovar (1981: 20) points out the close-knit relationship between these two factors in inter ction ―Culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed or interpreted. Culture is the foundation of communication‖. It is revealed from S mov r‘s opinion th t culture and communication got are reciprocally supportive in which culture is the cradle to nourish communication and communication comes back to be the paddle for the development and maintenance of culture. 2.2. Politeness 2.2.1 What is politeness? Politeness is an important construct in the studies of communication and pragmatics, especially in cross – cultural communication. Hence, it is obvious that there have been lots of definitions and conceptualisations of politeness extended by many scholars. According to Blum-Kulla (1983: 131), politeness linguistically refers to ―the interactional balance achieved between two needs: the need for pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness”, 5 Thomas (1995: 157) gives another opinion of politeness, politeness is understood as “strategies (or series of strategies) employed by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals, such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relation”. Holmes (1992: 296) points out in her book An Introduction to Sociolinguistics th t politeness includes t king ccount of other people‘s feeling in order to make himself comfortable. Nguy n Qu ng (2004: 11) functionally claims that “Politeness is any communicative act (verbal and/or nonverbal) which is intentionally and appropriately meant to make other(s) feel better or less bad”. Generally, most of the scholars share the view that politeness is any behaviour in communication that the is resorted to the im to s tisfy the he rer‘s or at to make the hearers feel better or less bad.  Face It is undeniable that the realisation of politeness in communication partly relates to the public self-image of the participants. Brown and Levinson (1987) mention this image in their research which is referred to s ―f ce‖. ―Face is the public-self image that every member wants to claim for himself‖ (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 61). In addition, these authors classify face into two types: negative face and positive face. Negative face focuses on the basic claim to territories, personal preserves, rights to non-distraction while positive face concerns with the positive consistent self-image or ‗person lity‘(cruci lly including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants. In daily communication, it is possible to exist both dimensions: one is respect for face as norms or values subscribed to by members of a society which is called face as want, the other dimension runs contrary to the face wants of the addressee and/or of the speaker which is defined as Face-Threatening Act (FTA). Brown and Levinson (1987: 60) suggest five common strategies to deal with FTA, these stratetegies are illustrated in Figure 1 below: 6 Lesser risk Estimation of risk of face loss Do the FTA 5. Don’t do the FTA On record 1. Without redressive action, badly 4. Off record With redressive action Greater risk Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategy 2. Positive Politenes s 3. Negative Politenes s (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 60) Nguyen Quang (2002) comments that this view by Brown and Levinson is more or less eurocentric and thus decreasing their di gr m‘s univers l v lue. Therefore, he proposes the following figure: FTA encounter 3. Do not do the FTA Do the FTA On record 2. With redressive action 2. Off record Positive politeness Negative politeness 1. Without redressive action/ On record Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001) 7 2.2.2. Previous studies on politeness There has been a variety of studies conducted to investigate politeness by various scholars through out the years. That could list Lakoff (1973, 1990), Leech (1983), Watts (1989), Frazer (1990), Cruse (2000), Eelen (2001, Watts (2003)… Lakoff (1973: 296) is one of the pioneers to adopt Grice's construct of Conversational Principles in an effort to account for politeness. She explicitly extends the notion of grammatical rule to the domain of politeness and considers the form of sentences. Leech (1983: 82) introduces the politeness principle whose function is to maintain the social equilibrium and the friendly relations and to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place. Watts (1989: 19) identifies politeness as linguistic behaviour which is perceived to be beyond what is expectable. Politeness is viewed as explicitly marked, conventionally interpretable subset of 'politic' responsible for the smooth functioning of socio-communicative interaction and the consequent production of well-formed discourse within open social groups characterized by elaborated speech codes. Lakoff (1990: 34) sees politeness as "a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange‖. Fraser (1990: 232) presents the notion of politeness as a Conversational Contract. Cruse (2000: 362) states that the purpose of politeness is the maintenance of harmonious and smooth social relations in the face of the necessity to convey belittling messages. Eelen (2001: 240) argues for an alternative conceptualization of 'politeness' with the characteristics of variability, evaluativity, argumentativity and discursiveness. Watts (2003: 20) refers to 'Politic behaviour' in which the participants construct 8 as being appropriate to the ongoing social interaction. The construction may have been made prior to entering the interaction, but is always negotiable during the interaction, despite the expectations that participants might bring to it. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations. We can see it as a way to do the Face Threaten Acts (FTAs) or don‘t do the FTAs. 2.2.3. Positive politeness and positive politeness strategies 2.2.3.1. What is positive politeness? In the research on politeness in language usage, Brown and Levinson (1987) note th t ―Positive politeness is redress directed to the addressee‟s positive face, perennial desire that his wants (or the actions/ acquisitions/ values resulting from them) should be thought of as desirable” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 101). According to Nguy n Qu ng (2004), ‗Positive politeness is any communicative act (verbal and/or nonverbal) which is intentionally and appropriately meant to show the speaker‟s concern to the addressee, thus, enhancing the sense of solidarity between them‟ (2004: 24). In this thesis, the researcher focuses her analysis on the positive strategies found in the conversations of the course book. 2.2.3.2. Positive politeness strategies Positive politeness stratedy, as seen by Yule (1996: 64), ―leads the requester to inquire for a common goal, and even friendship‖. Positive politeness is to focus on proximity etween spe kers nd he rers which c n e shown s ―solidarity strategy‖. People use this str tegy in order to indic te common ground and solid rity in which spe kers sh re he rers‘ w nts. Thus, positive politeleness is used not only to redress the FTA, but also to indicate that speakers want to come closer to hearers. 9 Brown and Levinson (1987) specify the super-strategy on record with positive politeness into fifteen positive politeness strategies realised in communication, while Nguyen Quang (2002) emerged seventeen positive politeness strategies to help speakers minimize the FTA. Those seventeen strategies are presented below: Strategy 1: Notice, attend to H (his/ her interest, wants, needs, goods, etc...). This str tegy suggests th t S should t ke notice of spects of H‘s conditions with compliments to create the harmony in interpersonal relations and to achieve communicative point. Eg: A: Thank goodness! It‟s Friday! B: Yeah. Have a nice weekend! A: Same to you. (T7.11) Or: It‟s a lovely day! What shall we do? It‟s raining again! What shall we do? (T12.7) Or: Goodness, you cut your hair! (...) By the way, 1 came to borrow some flour. You must be hungry, it‟s a long time since breakfast. How about some lunch? (Brown and Levison, 1987, p.103) Strategy 2: Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H). This is often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodic. Eg. Every place I go, I‟ll think of you Every song I sing, I‟ll sing for you (T14.5) Strategy 3: Intensify interest to H S intensifies the interest of his or her own contri ution, y ―m king good story‖‖ nd draws H as a participant into the conversation with direct questions and expressions like you know, see what Eg: ....And I have never met a famous person –oh, just a minute, well not met but I‟ve seen ... er...I saw a famous politician at the airport once – Oh, who was it? I can‟t remember his name. Er... I‟ve only seen one Shakespeare play, when I was at school, we saw Romeo and Juliet (T14.3) 10 Strategy 4: Use in-group identity markers. Using any of the numberable ways to convey in-group membership: address forms, language or dialect, jargon or slang and ellipses. Eg: (1) I couldn‟t hear. I think it said 4. Look! There it is on the departure board. It is gate 4. OK. Come on! Let‟s go. (T14.7) (2) Mind if I smoke? Got any spare cash? How about a drink? (Brown and Levison, 1987, p.112) Strategy 5: Seek agreement in safe topics. S seeks ways in which it is posibble to agree with H. Eg: A: I don‟t sell apples. B: You don‟t sell apples. That‟s strange. What about cheese. Can I have some cheese? A: I don‟t sell cheese, either. B: You don‟t sell cheese! That‟s amazing. Nơ, I want some pizza, but I‟m sure you don‟t sell pizza, do you?(T9.6) Strategy 6: Avoid disagreement. The desire to agree or appear with H leads also to mechanisms for pretending to agree such as white lies and hedges. Eg: A: Oh, sorry. I forgot . Usually, I have pizza but not on Thursdays. Today‟s Thursday, isn‟t it? B: Yes, it is. Mmm... OK, ...er...OK. Forget the pizza. What about bread? I don‟t suppose you have any bread? A: Yes, you are right. (T9.6) A: Have you got friends? B: I have friends. So-called friends. I had friends. Let me put it that way. (Brown and Levison, 1987, p.114) 11