Tài liệu Politeness strategies in giving and responding to compliments in the voice of vietnam 2015 and the voice of us 2015.

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Vũ Thị Hà POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN GIVING AND RESPONDING TO COMPLIMENTS IN THE VOICE VIETNAM 2015 AND THE VOICE US 2015 MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HANOI, 2018 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Vũ Thị Hà POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN GIVING AND RESPONDING TO COMPLIMENTS IN THE VOICE VIETNAM 2015 AND THE VOICE US 2015 Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D. HANOI, 2018 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR “I confirm that I, myself have written the thesis entitled “Politeness strategies in giving and responding to compliments in the Voice of Vietnam 2015 and the Voice of US 2015” and without making use of any sources or references other than those explicitly stated in the bibliography. Passages extracted literally or as regard content from the sources and references listed in the bibliography are identified in the thesis as a citation or a paraphrase. And the data used for analysis in the thesis is clearly derived. This master thesis has not been previously published. And if it is subsequently proved that I cheat, I am ready to take the responsibility, includingthe withdrawal of my academic degree.” Author’s Signature Vũ Thị Hà Approved by SUPERVISOR Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D. Date: i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude towards Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D. my thesis supervisor- the one who has been very supportive and patient with me for the whole process. Secondly, I want to convey great thanks to the teacher in the Department of English, the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences for their help, suggestions and support during this essay writing process. Last but not least, I am thankful for all my family: my parents, elder brother and daughter who have encouraged and helped me a lot in terms of time and spirit to complete this thesis Without any of those above, this thesis will not be possible. After all, I have tried to do my best in writing this thesis, but I realize that it is still far for being perfect. Therefore, I regard any criticism and recommendation fromreaders. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION BY AUTHOR ....................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1 1.1.Rationale...................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Aims of the study ....................................................................................... 2 1.3. Research questions ..................................................................................... 3 1.4. Scope of the study ...................................................................................... 3 1.5. Significance of the study ............................................................................ 3 1.6. Research methods....................................................................................... 4 1.7. Structure of the study ................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................... 6 2.1. Previous Studies ......................................................................................... 6 2.2. Theoretical background .............................................................................. 8 2.2.1. Communication and inter-cultural communication ......................... 8 2.2.2. Politeness and politeness strategies ............................................... 17 2.2.3. Compliments and compliment responses ........................................ 25 2.2.4. The voice show ................................................................................ 30 2.3. Summary. ................................................................................................. 33 CHAPTER 3: POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN TWO TV PROGRAMS..................... 34 3.1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 34 3.2. Analysis .................................................................................................... 35 3.2.1. The voice of Vietnam....................................................................... 35 3.2.2. The voice of US ............................................................................... 51 iii CHAPTER 4: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCESBETWEEN TWO CULTURESIN GIVING AND RESPONDING TO COMPLIMENTS .. 65 4.1. Similarities and differences in giving compliment in the Voice Vietnam and the Voice US............................................................................................. 65 4.1.1. Similarities in employing positive politeness strategies to give compliment. ............................................................................................... 70 4.1.2. Differences in using positive politeness strategies to give compliments .............................................................................................. 70 4.1.3. Applying the positive politeness strategy in giving compliment ..... 73 4.2. Similarities and differences in responding to compliments in the voice Viet Nam and the voice US ............................................................................. 78 4.2.1. Similarities in applying positive politeness strategies in responding to compliments. ......................................................................................... 81 4.2.2. Differences in using strategies to respond to compliments ............ 81 4.3. Summary .................................................................................................. 82 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 83 5.1. Recapitulation .......................................................................................... 83 5.2. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................ 83 5.3. Implications .............................................................................................. 84 5.4. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies ..................................... 85 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 86 iv ABSTRACT This research discovers the manner of giving and responding to compliments of the coaches, candidates, MC, etc… who directly participated in the Voice of Vietnam and the Voice of US 2015 and the polite strategies used by the characters in these programs. This study was based on three theoretical frameworks: Rogers’s theory of Communication (1994); Herbert’s theory of compliment responses; Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategies. To carry out this study, the author chose qualitative method as an analytical method. Based on theoretical frameworks and practical linguistic data, the author has decided to focus on verbal compliments and complement responses of the participants. After analyzing the data, the author will identify politeness strategies conducted by the Vietnamese and American in the show as well as point out the similarities and differences between them. In conclusion, the author found out the connection between culture and communication. Accordingly, some suggestions are made with the aim of helping learners improve their language skills and communication efficiency. v LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment Table 4.2. Strategies in responding to compliments Table 4.3: Positive politeness strategy in delivering compliment responses vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: communication process Figure 2.2: Brown and Levinson’s (1987) strategies for performing FTAs Figure 4.1: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment in the Voice of Vietnam Figure 4.2: Positive politeness strategies in delivering the compliment in the Voice of US vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1.Rationale Many studies have demonstrated the important role of language in the development of modern society. People use language as a main tool to communicate or interact with the society. Communication is not only a process of sending and receiving information among people but also the foundation of all human relationship. It is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbol, sign, or behavior (Alwasilah, 1986). Playing a very important part in our daily life, whether in work or in life, communication is a bridge between people and helps us understand each other. During interaction process with another person, we can determine their levels of needs, thoughts, emotions, experience etc..., in order to timely and conformably meet the goals and missions communication. Through communication, people enter the social and cultural relationships, ethics and social norms. Therefore, language, communication and culture cannot be separated in a society. The difference between Oriental and Western culture creates the difference in social norms in communication, especially the politeness in communication. In fact people in each society have their own rule to make the politeness in communication. Being polite means being aware of and respecting the feelings of other people. Politeness can and will improve your relationships with others, help to build respect and rapport, boost your self-esteem and confidence, and improve your communication skills. One of the best expressions of politeness in communication is through compliments and compliment responses. In the process of communicating with people, if you know how to use dexterity compliment and compliment 1 responses, the relationship becomes much better. Honest compliments will help your relationship with another grow better. Those who feel honored and respectful of the effort will be motivated more than those who think their efforts are not paid attention. They will be more eager to believe that they are making a real difference. In addition, polite compliments and compliments reflect not only the dexterity of communication, but also the cultural identity of each society, country. There were some previous studies of compliments and compliment responses in a film, books, but no research was carried out with any television programs, so the author thought that this study will open a new look in giving and responding to compliment of Vietnamese and American cultures. This study focused on analyzing compliments and compliment responses in two TV shows: The Voice of Vietnam and The of Voice in 2015, in the light of politeness strategies. Accordingly we can see the differences and similarities in the communication culture of the Vietnam and America in the context of globalization. The study also attempts to suggest some useful implications in order to help language learners improve their language skill to gain their purpose of social communication as well as to make the process of using foreign language better. 1.2. Aims of the study - To discover the way people give compliments and respond to these compliments in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US in 2015. - To describe and analyze the politeness strategies employed by the participants in The Voice of Vietnam and the Voice of US. Whereby the readers can see the differences and similarities in the American and 2 Vietnamese culture in modern society and improve the using language to gain purpose of social communication. 1.3. Research questions Based on the background of study, the writer formulates the research questions of this study: - What kinds of politeness strategies were used to compliment in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US in 2015? - What kinds of politeness strategies were used to respond to the compliments in The Voice of Vietnam and The Voice of US 2015? - What are the similarities and differences in the way people giving and responding to compliment between the Vietnamese and American cultures? 1.4. Scope of the study The study takes only the dialogues containing compliments and compliment responses in ten programs of The Voice of Vietnam season 3 and ten programs of The Voice of US season 8 in 2015 as the data. Moreover, the author only focused on selecting and analyzing verbal data delivered by the participants in these programs. This thesis concentrated on analyzing the politeness strategies: especially positive politeness in delivering the compliments and their responses expressed by the interlocutors. 1.5. Significance of the study This thesis is expected not only to provide the readers an overview of giving and responding to compliments in Vietnam and US’s culture but also to increase the knowledge of politeness strategies in cultural communication. The author hopes that this study will be a reference document for further 3 research in the same field and provide enough information about related topic. In addition, this research is expected to enhance people’s capability to choose the effective strategy of communication. 1.6. Research methods In this study, we use descriptive quantitative method by means of arranging, analyzing and interpreting them. Qualitative approach is used to make the data analysis more reliable. Contrastive method is used to find out the similarities and differences in giving compliments and responding to compliments of the participants in these programs. 1.7. Structure of the study The research structure is as the bellows: Chapter 1: Introduction It consists of Rationale, Aim(s) of the Study, Research Questions, and Scope of the Study, Significance of the Study, Research Methods, and Structure of the Study. Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter provides readers with the Review of previous studies, Theoretical background on Culture; Communication; Politeness and Politeness strategies; Compliments and compliment responses; The Voice show. Chapter 3: Politeness strategies of compliments and compliment responses in two TV shows It is concentrated on finding and collecting data of politeness strategies: Bald- on record, Positive politeness in two TV shows. 4 Chapter 4: Similarities and differencesbetween two cultures in giving and responding compliments In this chapter, we focus on analyzing data to find the similarities and differences, so we divide it into two main parts: Similarities between compliments and compliment responses in the Voice of Vietnam and the Voice of US in 2015, Differences between compliments and compliment responses in these programes. Chapter 5: Conclusion and suggestion This part states Recapitulation, Concluding Remarks, Limitations and Suggestions for Further Studies. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Previous Studies There is a large number of research studies, focusing on giving and responding to the complements that were conducted by both foreign and Vietnamese researchers. Following are some related articles and studies: In the MA thesis namely “politeness strategies in giving and responding to compliments: a sociopragmatics study of compliments in “The devil wears prada”. Rahayu (2009) discovered the way the characters gave and respondedcomplimentsas well as the politeness strategies employed by thecharacters in the movie entitled “The Devil Wears Prada”. This research focused on analyzing the compliments delivered by characters with combination of non-verbal acts and the addressees respond to complements in various ways. In the research on “Replying to compliments in English and Vietnamese”, Trần Quỳnh Giao (2010) show the differences between CRs in Australian English and Vietnamese in terms of strategy use as well as strategycombination, using the Naturalized Role-play (Tran, 2004d, 2006a, 2006b) to solve the hotly debated methodological issue in cross-cultural pragmatics research. There is another study of politeness strategy named “An analysis of politeness strategy in Barack Obama’s Victory speech” by Sari (2016). In this thesis work, the author found out and analyzed the typesof politeness strategies that used by Barack Obama in his victory speech, based on Brown and Levinson theory. He also showed that Barack Obama performed positive politeness strategy by joking, intensify interesting, exaggerating, complimenting including Sand H in the activity, be optimistic, promising, offering and assuming or asserting reciprocity in his utterance during his 6 victory speech. In a study by Nguyễn Quang (1999) about some differences in compliments and compliment responses in Vietnamese - American speech communication. He not only pointed out the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and American speech in giving and responding to compliment but also gave some note in Vietnamese - American intercultural communication in order to avoid culture shock and cultural conflicts. In the study “Compliment and positive strategies”, Al-Azzawi (2011) investigated the complimenting behavior of English speakers, as a strategy to express positive politeness. In his study, he focused on describing the linguistic structures of complement, functions of compliments, types of compliment responses and the differences between men and women in paying compliments. There is another study on compliments and responses to compliments by Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh, Phan Thị Vân Quyên (2011). This is a study of the transfer in behavioral communication of compliments and compliment received in English by Vietnamese students of English in the faculty of English teacher education, Vietnam national university, Hanoi – university of languages and international. In this research, the authors discovered ways of giving compliments and responding compliments in English by these students in order to find intersection and transition from source language and culture (L1 - Vietnamese) to target language and culture (L2 - American English). Since then, the authors provided suggestions for improving the language usage to help students succeed in intercultural communication Vietnam United States in complements and complement responses. Additionally, Fauzi (2010), who carried out the study named “A politeness strategy analysis on the main characters’ dialogues of the movie 7 pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”, analyzed and described data form 18 expressions of three main character dialogue by using Brown and Levinson’s theory particularly Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) and politeness strategies. This research concluded that it has four politeness strategies utilized with positive politeness as the most used strategies, bald on record and followed by negative politeness, and off-record as the last and the rarest strategies with on expression. The above researches were the studies of compliments and compliment responses; politeness strategies used in behavioral communication and compliments. The study of Rahayu (2009) focused on analyzing the compliments delivered by characters with combination of nonverbal acts and the addressees respond to complements in various ways. Several other studies found differences in the way they offered compliments and complliment responses between the genders. However, the previous studies had not included any studies on positive politeness strategies employed in delivering compliments and compliment responses in the Voice Vietnam and the Voice US. The authors argued that focusing on positive politeness strategies in employing compliments and compliment responses would point to similarities and differences in utilizing language between Vietnamese and Americans. These would help foreign language learners avoid cultural conflicts in communication. 2.2. Theoretical background 2.2.1. Communication and inter-cultural communication 2.2.1.1. Definition of Communication Communication is a Latin originated word, meaning of which is sharing or exchanging information, news, ideas, etc. with someone. It acts as a bridge of meaning among people and the most common medium of 8 communication is language. Different scholars defined communication in different ways. Some of their definition of communication will be considered for the study as follows: Schramm (1954) saw communication as a two-way process with both the speaker and the listener providing and receiving verbal or non-verbal feedback. Both the speaker and the listener take turns to speak and listen to each other. Other characteristics of messages that impact communication between two individuals are intonation and pitch patterns, accents, facial expressions, quality of voice and gestures. This model also indicates that the speaker and listener communicate better if they have had the same experiences. However, this may mean that both the receiver and sender are limited by their experience. Nevertheless, there must be some experience common to both in order for the communication to be useful and for the intended message to be conveyed. For example, if you were asking someone who did not speak the same language as you if they wanted sugar in their coffee, you would most probably point to the sugar and then the cup of coffee, hoping that the other individual has had some common experience of putting sugar in their coffee. However, if the receiver comes from a culture where sugar is not used, then your communication will be ineffective. Two people from completely different cultures who speak different languages and who have no common experiences may find that communication becomes nearly impossible without help from a third party such as a translator or an interpreter. Common ground or mutual understanding is important in communication and essential for interpersonal communication. Berelson and Steiner (1964) defined communication as the transmission of information, ideas, emotions and skills through the use of words, figures, symbols, graphs, and pictures. These researchers focused on 9 the functions of communication and means of pursuing these functions to give their definition. Nguyễn Quang (1998) gives the definition of communication concisely and briefly “Communication is the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behavior.” Obviously, he claims that communicationis executed and perceived by both senders and receivers through their verbal and nonverbal behavior. In other words, it is possible to say that communication includes the transmitting information verbally and non verbally. This definition is clearer than these above ones because it presents not only the functions of communication but also the important channels through which communication can be transmitted: verbal andnonverbal communication. Communication is a process of transmitting messages from one to another person through a channel. Kreitner and Carlene (2010) defined “The communication process is a chain made up of identifiable links. Links in this process include sender, encoding, medium, decoding, receiver and feedback”. In order to communication to process effectively, there are five elements: sender, message, channel/medium, receiver and feedback. In the process, there are eight steps starting from the idea of the sender and ending with feedbacks of the receiver. For the first step, the sender will develop an idea to be sent. This is also known as the planning step, where the sender plans the topic for communication. Next step is encoding, which means converting the idea into a perceivable form, for example report form, letter form etc. After finishing encoding, the message can be presented in various ways, like oral, written or nonverbal. Then, the sender will choose a medium or channel to transmit the message to the receiver. The following step is transmitting the message and the sender’s duty also ends with this step. Next, the receiver will receive the message and start decoding it. At this level, for the communication 10 to be effective, it is very important for both sender and receiver to have a common understanding or interest. In addition, the final step is feedback. This step is essential for a communication as it ensures that the receiver has understood the message correctly. One very useful definition of communication is that proposed by Rogers (1994) “Communication is the process of transmitting information, ideas, and attitudes from sender to receiver for the purpose of influencing with intent”.This definition sees communication as a process through which senders and receivers of messages interact. Besides, by this way of defining, Rogers also mentions the purpose of communication. The most important underlying assumption presupposed by this definition of communication refers to the components of communication which are sender, receiver and message as illustrated in the following figure: Figure 2.1: communication process 14 Figur e 2.1: All of these above definitions have their own meaning and are useful for different research fields. However, within the scope of this research paper, the researcher suggests adopting the definition of Rogers (1994) which helps people achieve the basic knowledge of communication. 11