chi Nga.1

PRAGMATIC VIOLATION IN REQUESTS BY VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ms. Le Pham Hoai

Huong, my supervisor whose guidance and support, correction and

suggestions are of great important to the manuscript of this paper. She has

been always my source of wisdom, knowledge and encouragement during my

process of writing it.

Second, I am greatly indebted to Mr. Tran Van Phuong, Head of the

Department of Foreign Languages and all the teachers at Phu Xuan University

for their constant encouragement and having devotedly taught me during my

four-year student life.

Third, I wish to sincerely thank all my friends and informants who had

given me a very effective and practical cooperation, and above all, their

faithful encouragement.

At last, my warmest and profound thanks are due to my family for

having wholly supported and taken good care of me during the research was

being conducted.

Hue, April 2008

Nguyen Thi Hang Nga

Nguyen Thi Hang Nga Thesis Paper 2008 1


ABSTRACT

The research is a study on pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese

speakers of English. Its purpose is to help Vietnamese speakers, especially

English majors to better their communicative competence when making

requests by alerting their pragmatic violation in requests and to provide ways

to help them overcome their violation.

The subjects of the study consist of 100 participants from first to fourth

year English major students at Phu Xuan University. In order to collect data,

the researcher combined two main methods: recording dialogues and

questionnaire. The results showed that the pragmatic violation in requests by

English majors was commonly making pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic

errors. There are four main causes of these problems: the influence of

Vietnamese language, student’s personality, the influence of Vietnamese

socio-culture and textbooks and study environment.

Based on the study findings, the paper ends with some practical

suggestions for the students and teachers of the English Section of Foreign

Languages Department at Phu Xuan University on how to deal with the

mistakes in requests by students so as to improve their communicative

competence.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Table of contents

Chapter I: Introduction

I.1. Background

I.2. Research objectives

I.3. Research significance

I.4. Research questions

I.5. Scope of the thesis

I.6. Structure of the thesis

Chapter II: Literature review

II.1. Introduction

II.2. What is Pragmatics?

II.2.1. Changing Definitions of Pragmatics

II.2.2. Pragmatic Violation

II.2.3. Speech Acts

II.3. Requests

II.3.1. Requests as a Speech Act

II.3.2. Requests Strategies



II.3.3. How to make a request?

II.4. A comparison between Vietnamese and English requests

II.5. Previous studies

Chapter III: Research methodology

III.1. Introduction

III.2. Methodology

III.3. Research subjects

III.4. Data Collection Methods

III.4.1. Recording Dialogues

III.4.2. Questionnaire

III. 5. Procedure of Data Collection



III.6. Data analysis

III.7. Summary

Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion

IV.1. Introduction

IV.2. Pragmatic violation in requests

IV.2.1. Pragma-linguistic error

IV.2.2. Socio-pragmatic error

IV.3. Causes

IV.3.1. Influence of Vietnamese language



IV.3.2. Student’s Personality

IV.3.3. Influence of Vietnamese Socio-culture

IV.3.4. Textbooks and Study Environment

IV.4. Suggestions to overcome the errors

IV.4.1. General Suggestions

IV.4.2. Suggestions to help English majors remedy errors in requests

IV.5. Summary

Chapter V: Conclusion and Implications

V.1. Summary of the study

V.2. Implications

V.2.1. Learning communicative competence in requests

V.2.2. Teaching communicative competence in requests

V.3. Final words

References

Appendices



Chapter I:

INTRODUCTION

I.1. Background

All languages have a set of conventions about language use. These

conventions are social and cultural. So they differ from language to language,

from country to country and from culture to culture. W.Humboldt, a great

German culturist said that language is a soul of a nation. It is clear that

language plays an important role in human communication because in all

aspects of life, language is a vital key to lead to people’ success. Therefore,

foreign languages, especially English are being learned by a large number of

people with great motivation.

However, to master one language in an efficient way is not easy. Learners

of English tend to have difficulties in understanding the intended meanings

communicated by a speech act, or producing a speech act using appropriate

language and manner in language being learnt. Even though one may say

words clearly and use long, complex sentences with correct grammar, still has

a communication problem. He/she may say inappropriate unrelated things

during conversation or have little variety in language use.

As a student at the Department of Foreign Languages, I have found that a

number of English majors have problems in language competence, especially

in the speech act of requests in conversational cases; therefore, I decided to

choose: “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English”

as a topic of my research.

I.2. Research objectives

The study is carried out with the aims as follows:



Introducing English majors to requests strategies and how to make

requests.

Presenting English majors the comparison between Vietnamese and

English requests.

Helping English majors to better their conversational competence when

making requests by alerting and correcting their pragmatic violation in

requests commonly made by themselves

I.3. Research significance

The research focuses on problems in language competence in using

requests of English majors. Thus, it helps students to recognize their

problems in a specific scope. The study also provides some suggestions

with the hope that they could produce a small contribution to the

improvement in learning and teaching English especially in learning and

teaching pragmatics in English.

I.4. Research questions

This research concentrates on the three main questions:

1. How do English majors use requests?

2. Do they often make mistakes in using requests? If yes, what are

the mistakes?

3. How to help them overcome mistakes and use requests in

English in an effective way?

I.5. Scope of the thesis

There are many aspects of pragmatic violation by Vietnamese speakers of

English. Nevertheless, this research cannot cover all problems related to but

only the pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English in

some aspects such as: Vietnamese speakers’ errors in using request strategies,



factors influence their requests and some suggestions providing to help them

conquer the errors.

I.6. Structure of the thesis

The thesis is divided into five chapters as follows: Chapter one introduces

the background of the study, defines research objectives, research

significance, research questions, scope and the structure of the thesis. Chapter

two presents definitions of pragmatics, the pragmatic violation, speech acts,

requests and a brief comparison between Vietnamese and English requests.

“Research methodology” chapter expresses methods and procedures to carry

out the study. This chapter consists of four sections: methodology, research

subjects, data collection methods and data analysis. The following chapter

includes the results and the presentation of the findings. Finally, chapter five

concludes the study by summarizing what have been dealt with and provides

implications.



Chapter II:

LITERATURE REVIEW

II.1. Introduction

This chapter includes four main parts. Changing definition of pragmatics,

pragmatic violation and speech acts in the study will be firstly presented. Part

two of the chapter will focus on requests as a speech act, request strategies

and how to make a request. The next part of the chapter will be a comparison

between requests by native speakers of English and requests in Vietnamese.

The chapter will also discuss previous studies related to this research.

II.2. What is Pragmatics?

II.2.1. Changing Definitions of Pragmatics

Although pragmatics is a relatively new branch of linguistics, research on

it can be dated back to ancient Greece and Rome where the term

“pragmaticus” is found in Late Latin and “pragmaticos” in Greek, both

meanings of being practical.

Pragmatics is hard to define because it is studied by many disciplines. It

involves “use of language.” It involves taking context into account. But it is at

this point that it becomes very difficult to pin down a precise definition that

captures what the field of pragmatics is all about.

According to Charles Morris (1938) pragmatics studies the relations of

sign to interpreters. By elaborating the sense of pragmatism in his concern of

conversational meanings, Grice (1975) suggested that pragmatics should

center on the more practical dimension of meaning namely the conversational



meaning which was later formulated in a variety of ways (Levinson, 1983;

Leech, 1983).

Practical concerns also helped pragmaticians’ focus to explaining

naturally occurring conversations which resulted in discoveries of the

Cooperative Principle by Grice (1975) and the politeness Principle by Leech

(1983). Subsequently, Yule (1985:127) said, “when we read or hear pieces of

language, we normally try to understand not only what the words mean, but

what the writer or speaker of those words intended to convey. The study of

“intended speaker meaning” is called pragmatics. That is, “pragmatics is the

study of ‘invisible’ meaning”, or meaning that derives not only from the

words and structures used, but also from the situation of the utterance and how

that affects of speaker means. In addition, in Sperber and Wilson’s (1986)

relevance theory convincingly explains how people comprehend and utter a

communicative act.

In 1987, a symbol of this development was the establishment of the IPrA

(the International Pragmatic Association). In its Working Document, IPrA

propose to consider pragmatics as a theory of linguistics adaptation and look

into language use from all dimensions (Verschueren, 1987). Henceforward,

pragmatics has been conceptualized as “what speakers mean to convey when

they use a particular structure in context…” (Hatch, 1992:260 ). The ability to

comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred to as pragmatic

competence (Kasper, 1997) which often includes one’s knowledge about the

social distance, social status between the speakers involved, the cultural

knowledge such as politeness, and the linguistics knowledge explicit and

implicit. An utterance describing pragmatic function is described as

metapragmatic.



According to Wikipedia from the Internet:

(http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm, accessed on

January 10th 2008), pragmatics involves three major communication skills.

They are as follows:

Using language for different purposes, such as :

- Greeting (e.g: hello, goodbye)

- Informing (e.g: I’m going to get a sandwich.)

- Demanding (e.g: Give me a sandwich.)

- Promising (e.g: I’m going to get you a sandwich.)

- Requesting (e.g: I would like a sandwich, please.)

Adapting or changing language according to the need or expectation of

other people, such as:

- Talking differently to a baby than to an adult.

- Giving enough background information to a new person not

familiar with the topic of conversation, or the difference between

talking quietly in a classroom compared to talking loudly on a

play-ground.

Following rules for conversations and narrative. These examples

include telling a story, giving oral reports, and recounting events of the

day. There are rules for taking turns in conversation, telling a story,

introducing a topic of conversation, staying on the topic, and rephrasing

when misunderstood. There are also rules for appropriate use of

nonverbal signals in conversation such as distance between a speaker

and a listener, facial expressions and eye contact. Rules may also vary

in different cultures. It is important to understand the rule of your

communication partner.

II.2.2. Pragmatic Violation


http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm


Pragmatic violation (also referred to as pragmatic failure) refers to the

speaker's production of wrong communicative effects through the faulty use

of speech acts or one of the rules of speaking. Thomas (1983) draws on the

study of sociolinguistic miscommunication. She uses the term “pragmatic

failure” to refer to the inability of the individual to understand what is meant

by what is said. Particularly interesting about Thomas's description of

pragmatic failure is the dichotomy between two types of pragmatic failure.

She makes this distinction on the basis of the difficulty of analysis and

possible remedies in terms of both the responsibility of language teachers and

the responses of language learners. She calls the two categories of pragmatic

failure: "pragmalinguistic" and “sociopragmatic” failure.

1. Pragmalinguistic failure

The first category of “pragmatic failure" proposed by Thomas (1983) is

the so-called "pragmalinguistic failure". She refrains from using the term

"pragmalinguistic error" because, to her, pragmatics is not strictly

formalizable. The term error, therefore, does not seem applicable here. In

other words, although grammar can be judged according to prescriptive rules,

the nature of pragmatic or sociopragmatic patterns is such that it is not

possible to say that "the pragmatic force of an utterance is wrong. All we can

say is that it failed to achieve the speaker's goal" (cited in Wolfson, 1989: 16).

In this case, the learners of a language translate an utterance from their first

language into the target language. The learners, however, fail to get their

meaning across because the communicative conventions behind the utterances

used are different. This, as Thomas points out, is more a linguistic, hence

pragmalinguistic, problem than a pragmatic one because: (1) it has little to do

with speaker's perception of what constitutes appropriate behavior; and (2) it



has a great deal to do with knowing how to phrase a request, for instance, so

that it will be interpreted as a request rather than as an information question.

2. Sociopragmatic failure

The second type of “pragmatic failure” that Thomas identifies is what she

calls sociopragmatic failure. It has to do with knowing "what to say" and

"whom to say it to." Many of the misunderstandings that occur stem from

what Thomas identifies as differences in evaluation regarding what she terms

"size of imposition," "tabus," "cross-culturally different assessments of

relative power or social distance," and "value judgments." Thomas provides a

useful way of looking at the type of diversity which exists across cultures and

which often leads to cross-cultural problems. In doing so, she separates out

what she sees as major areas in which there exist differences in cultural rules

regarding speech behavior.

We use language to make things happen. Pragmatic violation frequently

occurs when people take part in conversation. In that case, an individual with

pragmatic problems may say inappropriate or unrelated things during conversation

tell stories in a disorganized way or have little variety in language use. Bardovi -

Harlig (2003) also points out how lack of pragmatic awareness could affect

people’s relationship that the consequences of pragmatic differences are often

interpreted on a social or personal level rather than as a result of the language

learning process. That is, being outside the range of language use allowed in a

language, or making a pragmatic violation may have various consequences. A

pragmatic error can lower social acceptance. Non –native speakers may be denied

academic or professional opportunities (Matsuda, 1999), may hinder good

communication between speakers, may make the speakers appear abrupt or brusque

in social interaction, or may make the speakers appear rude or uncaring, e.g. “I



want you to” and “ you had better..” as equivalent to “it would be better” in

English. Consequently, peers may avoid having conversation with an individual

with a pragmatic disorder.

So how can we keep the ball rolling? How can we continue to find usefulness

in communication through language? Imagine that people all told lies in a random

fashion (as apposed to for particular and often transparent reasons.) how effective

would language be as a communicative device? According to the website: http:

www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm, accessed on January 10th

2008), the Gricean maxims are a framework for understanding how human

cooperate socially in their use of language. In a nutshell, here are Gricean maxims

(Yule:1996):

Maxim of Quantity

Do not say what you believe is false

Do not say something that you lack adequate evidence for

Maxim of Relevance

Be relevant

For example: A: Do you like cottage cheese?

B: Well, I travel to Cleveland every other Tuesday. (Not

relevant unless Cleveland is well-known to be he cottage

cheese capital of the world.)

Maxim of Quality

Make your contribution as informative as is required

Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

Your book gives you an interesting example:

Tom : How far can you run without stopping?

Mary: Twenty four miles.

Tom : I guess you can’t run a whole marathon without stopping.


http://www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm


Mary: Nonsense, I have done it a number of times.

Literally, Mary can be said not to have lied in her first answer, since the

fact that she can run 26 miles entails the fact that she can run 24 miles.

But she violated the first maxim of Quantity. Her answer was not

informative enough that Tom assumes that Mary is respecting this maxim

is what underlies his second question (which is actually an indirect

question).

Here is a violation of the maxim of Quantity at a store:

Q: Do you have a selection of red shoes that aren’t on display?

A: Yes.

Maxim of Manner

Avoid obscurity of expression

Avoid ambiguity

Be brief

Be orderly

There are other maxims that are not “conversational maxims” but

which may also be observed during conversational exchanges

(aesthetic, social, moral), such as “Be polite”.

Tran (2004:143) also gives various examples of four ways to fail to fulfill

a maxim:

A participant may quietly and unostentatiously violate a maxim. If he

does so quietly, he may mislead.

Example: Saying “Bill has a wife” when in fact he has two wives. This

violates one of the maxims of quantity, and would certainly normally

be misleading.



He may opt out from the operation of the maxim and of the Cooperative

Principle. He may make it plain that he is not willing to cooperate. He

may, for example, say “I cannot say more. My lips are sealed.”

He may be faced be a clash. It may be impossible to fulfill one maxim

without violating another. E.g.: He may be unable to fulfill the first

maxim of Quantity without violating the second maxim of Quality.

Example: A asks: How many children does Mary have?

B answers: More than one.

He may flout a maxim: that is he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. This is

similar to violating a maxim, except that in this case the hearer is

expected to recognize what is happening and if so, then the maxim is

likely to be being exploited to generate a conversational implicature.

Example: A asks : Where is Bill?

B answers: There is a yellow VW outside Sally’s house.

II.2.3. Speech Acts

a) What is a speech act?

The philosopher J.L.Austin (1911-1960) claims that many

utterances thing people say are equivalent to actions. When someone

says: “I name this ship” or “I now pronounce you man and wife”, the

utterance creates a new social or psychological reality. According to

Yule (1996:47) speech acts are defined as “actions performed via

utterance”. A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in

communication. A speech act might contain just one word, as in “Sorry”

to perform an apology, or several words or a sentence: “I am sorry I

forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind.” Speech acts include real-

life interactions and require not only knowledge of the language but also

appropriate use of that language within a given culture. Specific speech



acts include: apologies, complaints, compliments, refusals, promises,

and requests.

Here are some examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:

(http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html, accessed on

January 15th 2008):

Greeting: “Hi, John. How are things going?”

Request: “Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?”

Complaint: “I have already been waiting for the computer, and I was

told it could be delivered within a week.”

Promise: “I will try my best to be at home for dinner.”

Compliment: “Hey I really like your dress!”

Invitation: “We are having some people over Saturday evening and

wanted to know if you would like to join us.”

Speech acts are difficult to perform in a second language because learners

may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in a second

language or they may transfer their first language rules and conventions into

the second language assuming that such rules are universal. Because the

natural tendency for language learners is to fall back on what they know to be

appropriate in their first language, it is important these learners understand

exactly what they do in that first language in order to be able to recognize

what is transferable to other languages. Something that works in English

might not transfer in meaning when translated into the second language. For

example, the following remark as uttered by a native English speaker could

easily misinterpreted by a native Vietnamese hearer:

Mary: “I could not agree with you more.”

Hung: “Hmmm…” (Thinking: “she could not agree with me? I

thought she liked my idea.!”)


http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html


According to Austin (1996), there are three types of acts that can be

performed by every utterance, given the right circumstances:

Locutionary: is the act of actually uttering.

Illocutionary: is the act performed in saying something. The

illocutionary act is not in one-to-one correspondence with the locution

from which it is derived. There are different locutions that express the

same illocution and vice-versa. For example, there are indirect speech

acts that are acts with a different force than the obviously deducible

one. A typical example is the illocution of the utterance “Could you

pass the salt?” uttered at a dinner table. For a speaker of English in

particular situation this means: “pass the salt, please!” and no one

would assume that the speaker is indeed interested in whether the

addressee would be able to pass the salt.

Perlocutionary: is the act performed by saying something in a particular

context. It presents the change achieved each time, in a particular

context. Depending on the kind of perlocution, different conditions

have to hold in order for it to be achieved. For example, the addressee

in the salt example has to realize that the speaker’s intention is to

ultimately get hold of the salt.

Verbs that name the speech act that they intend to effect are called

Performatives. A performative uttered by the right person under the right

circumstances has as a result a change in the world. For example, “I now

pronounce you husband and wife” uttered by a priest, in the church with all

legal and traditional aspects being settled, will have actual effect of the

couple referred to being husband and wife after the performative has taken

place.



b) Classification of speech acts

Yule (1996:53) suggests five types of general function performs by

speech acts: declarations, representatives, expressives, directives, and

commissives.

Declarations: are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via

their utterance immediately.

Example: - The boss: “You are fired.”

- Jury Foreman: “We find the defendant guilty.”

Representatives: are those kinds of speech acts that state what the

speaker believes the case or not. The different kinds are: statements of

fact, assertions, conclusions and descriptions.

Example: - “No one makes a better cake than me.”

- “It was a warm sunny day.”

Expressives: are those kinds of speech acts express how the speaker

feels about the situation. They describe psychological states and can be

statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow.

Example: - “I am really sorry!”

- “Congratulations!”

Directives: are those kinds of speech acts are those kinds of speech acts

get some one else to do something. They express what the speaker

wants. They are commands, orders, requests, suggestions, and they can

be positive or negative.

Example: - “Could you close the window?”

Commissives: are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to

commit themselves to some future action. They express what the

speaker intends. They are promises, threats, refusal, and pledges.

Example: - “I will go to Paris tomorrow.”



- “We will not do that.”

II.3. Requests

II.3.1. Request as a Speech Act

Searle (1969) affirms that when we speak we are performing speech

acts, acts as making statements, giving commands, asking questions, making

promises and so on. He suggests that these acts are performed in accordance

with certain rules for the use of linguistic elements (1969:16). According to

Searle, the goal of spoken interaction is to communicate things, to the hearer

by getting him/her recognize the intention that one has to communicate those

things. The speakers then must achieve the intended effects on the hearer by

allowing him/her to recognize his/her attention to achieve that effect. Once,

the hearer recognizes the intention of the speaker to achieve an effect this is

generally achieved (Searle, 1969:43). Therefore the recognition of the

intention or intended meaning of the utterance (speech act) seems crucial in

achieving a level of success in understanding.

Also, Searle (1969:72) gives the definition of a request: “A request is a

directive speech act whose illocutionary purpose is to get the hearer to do

something in circumstances in which it is not obvious that he/she will perform

the action in the normal course of events.” By initiating a request, the speaker

expresses a desire for the hearer to be able to perform an action.

Some examples of requests:

- “Could I use your computer, please?”

- “Do you mind if I open the door?”

- “Clean up this mess, it is disgusting.”

There are two types of discourse structures for requests, including some

optional elements for more varied requests:



1. Casual and short requests:

o Getting attention

o Supportive moves (optional)

o The head act + subjunctive

o Thanking

2. Careful and long requests:

o Getting attention

o Small talk (optional)

o Supportive moves

o Head acts + subjunctive

o Thanking

o Closing the conversation (optional)

II.3.2 Request strategies

According to Blum-Kulka & Olshtain (1989:201-202) request strategies

are divided into three types in terms of the level of the inference (on the part

of the hearer) needed to understand the utterance as a request. The three types

of requests include:

a) Direct strategies

This most direct level was realized by requests syntactically marked

(such as imperatives) or by other verbal means that name the act as a

request:

“Clean up the kitchen.”

“I am asking you to clean up the kitchen.”

“I would like to ask you to clean up the kitchen.”

“You will have to clean up the kitchen.”



“I really wish you would clean up the kitchen.”

b) Conventionally indirect strategies

This conventionally indirect level covers “strategies that realize

the act by reference to contextual preconditions necessary for it

performance, as conventionalized in a given language” (Blum-Kulka,

1989:47).

For example:

“How about cleaning up?”

“Could you clean up the kitchen, please?”

c) Non- Conventionally indirect strategies

This category includes strategies which are not conventionalized in

the language and hence require more inferencing activity for the hearer

to derive the speaker’s requestive intent:

For example:

“You have left the kitchen in a right mess.”

“I am trying to find out about refunds for delayed flights…?”(a

request for a refund)

There are nine sub-levels of strategy types. These are as follows:

Direct strategies

Mood derivable (the grammatical mood of the verb in the utterance

marks its illocutionary force as a request).

For example:

“Leave me alone.”

“Clean up this mess, please.”

Explicit performatives (the illocutionary force of the utterance is

explicitly named by the speakers.)

For example:



“I am asking you not to park the car here.”

Hedge performatives (utterances embedding the meaning of the

illocutionary force.)

For example:

“I would like to ask you to clean up the kitchen.”

“I would like you to give your lecture a week earlier.”

Obligation statements (the illocutionary point is directly derivable from

the semantic meaning of the locution.)

For example:

“You will have to clean up the kitchen.”

“You will have to move your car.”

Want statements (the utterance expresses the speaker’s intentions,

desire or feeling vis a vis the fact that the hearer do X.)

For example:

“I really wish you would clean up the kitchen.”

“I really wish you would stop bothering me.”

Conventionally indirect strategies

Suggestory formulae (the sentence contain a suggestion to X)

For example:

“How about cleaning up?”

“Why do not you get lost?”

“So, why do not you come and clean the mess you made

last night?”

Query preparatory (the utterance contains reference to preparatory

conditions, such as ability or willingness, the possibility of the act being

performed, as conventionalized in any specific language.)

For example:




“Would you mind moving your car, please?”

Non- Conventionally indirect strategies

Strong hints (the utterance contains partial reference to objects or to

elements needed for the implementation of the act directly

pragmatically implying the act.)

For example:

“You have left the kitchen in a right mess.”

Mild hints (utterances that make no reference to the request proper or

many of its elements but are interpretable through the text as request,

indirectly pragmatically implying the act.)

For example:

“I am a nun.” (in request to a persistent hassler).

II.3.3 How to make a request?

Although there has been an argument on the effectiveness between

direct and indirect strategies, many people still believe that in many cases,

utilizing indirect speech acts help speakers more active and effective in

transferring what has been said. By making a request, the speaker infringes

on the recipient’s freedom of action or even a power play. As for the

requester, he/she may hesitate to make request for fear of exposing a need

or out of fear of possibly making the recipient lose face (Blum-Kulka et

al.1989:11). In this sense, requests are face-threatening to both the

requester and the recipient. Since requests have the potential to be

intrustive and demanding, there is a need for the requester to minimize the

imposition involved in the request.

One way for the speaker to minimize the imposition is employing

indirect strategies rather than direct one. Of course, between friends, more



casual direct requests can be used. I may, for instance, request Peter to

open the window by saying, “Peter, will you be able to reach the window?”

Thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to reach the window, but at

the time I am requesting him to do so if he can. Since the request is

performed indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question it count

as an indirect speech act.

However, when you ask someone to do something for you, or ask if

you can do something, it is important to sound polite. Of course, you must

take into account many factors when make requests (for example, the age,

social distance, gender, and level of imposition.)

Asking someone to do something for you:

“Could you open the door for me, please?”

“Would you mind opening the door for me, please?”

“Can you open the door for me, please?”

Speaking tip: “Could” and “Can” are followed by the verb without to.

“Would you mind” is followed by the verb and “–ing”.

Asking if you can do something

“Can I use your computer, please?”

“Could I borrow some money from you, please?”

“Do you mind if I turn up the heating?”

“Would you mind if I turn up the heating?”

Speaking tip: “Could” is more polite than “Can”

“Do you mind” is followed by the verb in the present tense, but “Would

you mind if…” is followed by the verb in the past tense.

- When you are using these two sentences, do not use “please”. It is

already polite enough!

II.4. Comparison between Vietnamese and English requests



In reality, a person may have a large vocabulary, use long, complex

sentences, use correct grammar, pronounce words clearly, and still have

communication strategies problem if they do not say at a right time or not fit

to the age, position, psychology of the hearer. This section points out the

similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English requests in terms

of communication culture.

C. Mac (2000:42) said: “Language is a direct reality of ideology.” Kagan

(1988) also admitted that human nature can be captured through

communication and unity from person to person. In terms of communication

style, in order to keep the neighborhood relation, Vietnamese people are found

to prefer the subtle and careful way of communication. According to Tran

(1998) Vietnamese speakers have the conversational habit as “beating around

the bush”, have never gone straight to the point as Westerners. Therefore

“learners might be more verbose than native speakers of English in making a

request, utilizing more supportive move strategies” (Blum-Kulka et al.1989).

Vietnamese speakers of English do so. For example, to request a lift

somewhere, Vietnamese speakers of English may say: “Do you think you can

take me by your car to my home because you leave near me and have to drive

that way if you take or you do not?”

On the contrary, English speakers use more direct and fewer

unconventionally indirect strategies. For English, the most popular approach

to requests is to make speaker-oriented requests. Speaker-oriented requests are

often by appearance of a request for permission which implies that the

recipient of the request has control over the speaker. Hence, speaker-oriented

requests avoid the appearance of trying to control or impose on the hearer and

are therefore perceived as being more polite (Blum-Kulka et al, 1989)



For example: “Do you think I could borrow your note from yesterday’s

class?” or: “Can I borrow your note from yesterday?”

The request sequence in English has been divided in the literature into the

following three segments. For a request: “Danny, can you remind me later to

bring the book for you on Monday? Otherwise it may slip out of my mind.”

Attention Getter/ Alerter (address terms, etc…): Danny

Head act (core of the request sequence, the request proper): “Can you

remind me later to bring the book for you on Monday?”

Supportive Move(s) (before or after Head Act): “Otherwise it may slip

out of my mind.”

As for Vietnamese, it is hearer-oriented they use when they make a

request (the request emphasizes on the role of the hearer). For example:


However, Blum-Kulka et al, 1989:40) considers: “requests in any

languages are made in consideration of number of social and situational

factors. Although it may not so overt at times, culture has been found to differ

as to which factors count more than other and languages vary in the extent to

which they switch directness levels by situation.” Therefore, both Vietnamese

speakers and native speakers of English are aware of the different situations

and use different degrees of directness according to context. For instance, they

employ a high level of directness in asking a low-imposition request, but a

high level of indirectness in a high-stake request. In addition, proper request

expressions are often preceded by pre-request that are face-saving for both

interculors. Pre-request check feasibility of compliance and overcome

possible grounds for refusals. For example, by first asking “Are you free

tonight?” both Vietnamese and English speakers might try to check physical

availability of the interlocutor. Since no actual request has been issued, a



negative answer at the preliminary stage is face-saving. The speaker can also

back out of admitting request intent and the hearer can avoid a request

interpretation of the pre-request.

Nevertheless, “the English have been found to place a higher value on

privacy and individuality” (Sifianou, 1992: 41). They express their thinking

directly, frankly and only use two personal pronouns “I” and “You” for every

subjects. While the Vietnamese have been found to emphasis involvement and

in group relation; therefore according to Honey, the system of personal

pronouns in Vietnamese is extremely complex. Moreover, Vietnamese society

hold old age in high esteem, there are respectful pronouns used of older

people such as: grandfather, aunt, uncle, elder sister, etc…Therefore, those

words: “ạ, dạ, thưa, xin, nhỉ, nhé,…”are often used when Vietnamese people

communicate. For example, a sentence spoken by a younger sister to her older

sister: “Chị rửa bát cho em nhé?” might be translated into English like this:

“Would you please washing the dishes for me?” But in friends relationship

Vietnamese speakers use words in a friendly way: “Mày rửa bát giúp tao

nhé?” This can be also translated like the first one in Eghlish: “Would you

please washing the dishes for me?”

It is therefore that requests in Vietnamese are more active and flexible

than that of English so they are more persuasive to the hearers.

II.5. Previous studies

Dealing with problems on requests, many studies have been carried out to

find problems as well as solutions.

Relating to the case of requests, Blum-Kulka (1991) presents a model for

the study of inter-language that expands inter-language to embrace inter-

culture. He focuses on pragmatics of “requests” and discusses constraints

(level of proficiency, perception of target language norms, and length of stay



in target community). Besides, he also presents data from bilingual English-

Hebrew immigrant speech acts, showing the behavior is different from Israeli

and from American patterns: authentically intercultural. His claim is native

Israeli norms are defied because learners do not wish to identify native

speaker norms. In this study, Blum-Kulka gives helpful theoretical

introduction. For example, he gives four categories for linguistic encoding ( a

opposed to situational parameters and social meanings), strategy type (direct,

conventionally indirect, hints), perspective (hearer dominant, speaker

dominant, hearer and speaker dominant, impersonal), internal modifications

(downgrades- “please”, hedges, upgraders- e.g., time-specifiers, expletives),

external modifications (grounders- e.g.,explanations and justification, cost

minimizers, disarmers).

Cohen and Olshtain (1993) describe ways in which non-native speakers

assessed, planned, and then delivered speech acts. They found that in

delivering the speech acts, half of the time respondents conducted only a

general assessment of the utterances called for in the situation without

planning specific vocabulary and grammatical structures often though in two

languages and sometimes in tree languages, utilized a series of different

strategies in searching for language forms, and did not attend much to

grammar nor to pronunciation.

Looking at the extent to which communication in ESL classroom (in

London) resulted in the acquisition of requests, Ellis (1992) found that both

learners failed to develop the full range of request types or a broad linguistic

repertoire for performing those types that they did acquire. They also failed to

develop the sociolinguistic competence needed to vary their choice of requests

to take account of different addressees. His interpretation was that the

classroom lacks the conditions for sociolinguistic needs even though it



fostered interpersonal and expressive needs. However, there was no data in

the kinds of requests they were exposed to.

With an attempt to focus on request strategies produced by adult ESL

learners, Francis (1997) carried out a study on the development of request

strategies in non-native speakers of English. The non-natives were found to

rely on direct request strategies until their proficiency improved, whereupon

they began to use more complex strategies, the percentage of conventionally

indirect requests made by intermediate students was twice that of elementary

students. To some extent contextual demands help to explain variations across

settings. Students were more likely to explain their circumstances and desires

in terms of their own perspective when in the position of justifying these to

the advisor.

Hayashi’s paper (2000) compares a request-refusal interaction in German

and Japanese role-plays. He finds out some of the differences between the two

languages are: 1) in Japanese, the refuser often used back-channeling and

hedging expressions which prepared the requester for the upcoming refusal.

This tendency did not exist in German, where there were twice as many

refusal expressions found in the interactions than in Japanese. 2) Japanese

speakers sometimes expressed empathy for the requester before actually

refusing. 3) In German, the requester suggested an alternative repeatedly and

if each alternative is reject and the requester explains the reasons. 4) In

German, accepting the legitimacy of the reason implies compliance with the

request, while in Japanese showing understanding for the reasons can be a

stage before a refusal.

The study of Izaki (2000) examines sociolinguistic differences in request

behavior in French and Japanese focusing supportive move strategies (pre-

request moves). Native speakers of Japanese and French role-played three



request dialogues and their performance was compared to that of seven French

speakers learning Japanese. Japanese speakers always used the pre-committal

strategy (For example: “I have a favor to ask of you.”) before making a

request. The request can be preceded by another optional pre-request move

that provides or ask for relevant information. In French, no pre-committal

strategy appeared in the data; instead a pre-request move and a response to the

pre-request are presented in all request interactions. Sometimes since the pre-

request move functions as a requestive hint, the speaker has no need to make

an actual request. French speakers also often use conditional clauses

suggesting that the hearer takes socio-cultural differences in determining

distance, power, and the degree of imposition of the request, and these results

in differential politeness levels between the two languages.

Iwai and Rinnert (2001) gave out the study which reports the realization

of requests and apologies among four groups: ESL/EFL respondents in Hong

Kong, EFL respondents from Japan, ESL respondents from Singapore and

native speakers from US. Thirteen percent of the Japanese respondents in EFL

in the situation of breaking a friend’s vase asked, “What should I do?” in the

situation of forgetting a meeting with their professor, Japanese infrequently

used a mitigator with their repair (I will be there if you do not mind…” “I am

afraid I will be an hour late.” in apologizing they were likely to repeat “I am

sorry. I am sorry”, which US respondents did not do. The Japanese use

significantly fewer words than the other groups. With regard to requests, only

the Japanese EFL respondents used either direct strategy (“Please lend me

your notes.”) or a conventionally indirect expression of desire (“I would like

you to lend me your notes.”). This is consistent with behavior in Japanese

according to the researchers. The Japanese used the conventional politeness



marker “please” much more frequently than the other groups and used other

softeners much less frequently than the other three groups.

Luu and Tran (2007) did their study on refusal of assistance offers

(English versus Vietnamese). They focus on the semantico-structural features

of the refusals of an assistance offer in English and Vietnamese. Also, they

investigate the politeness strategy of refusals, and draw some similarities and

differences between the two languages. The study ends up with some

comments and proposals on how we help language learners overcome

difficulties caused by the interference when facing with sticky situations to

enhance the communicative competence for the Vietnamese learners of

English.

In fact, some Vietnamese speakers of English have made pragmatic

violation in requesting. It is difficult for Vietnamese speakers to master the

pragmatic competence of English because of the lack of books concerning this

problem. In addition, these authors did their researches on a lot of aspects of

speech acts: request, apology, refusal, etc. but they have not analyzed the

“pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of English.” That is

why I chose this topic to do my research.

II.6 Summary

This chapter described pragmatics, speech acts and requests. Especially

request strategies and a brief comparison between English and Vietnamese

requests were presented. The gaps in the literature were pointed out; the next

chapter will discuss the research methodology.



Chapter III:

METHODOLOGY



III.1. Introduction

This chapter presents information about the quantitative and qualitative

approaches and research subjects. It also introduces methods to collect data

and the way data were analyzed.

III.2. Methodology

Both qualitative method and quantitative method were used in the study.

According to Gorman and Clayton (1997:23), qualitative method is “a

process of inquiry that draws data from the context in which events are

embedded and the perspectives of those participating in the events, using

introduction to derive possible explanations based on observed phenomena”.

Qualitative method was used to cite opinions of participants in the

interview. Therefore, it is also widely used as “a kind of research method that

produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other

means of quantification” (Strauss and Corbin, 1900:17).

“Quantitative methods are research techniques that are used to gather

quantitative data-information dealing with numbers and anything that is

measurable. Statistics, tables and graphs are often used to present the results

of these methods” (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research,

accessed on April 3rd 2008). Quantitative method relies less on interviews,

observations, small number of questionnaires, focus groups, subjective reports

and cases studies. Quantitative method was used to count respondents in the

questionnaires and the frequency errors made by English major students in

making requests.

Qualitative method used to understand the meaning of the numbers

produced by quantitative method. Using quantitative methods gave precise


http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research


and testable expression to qualitative ideas. Therefore, the combination of

qualitative and quantitative data gathering was utilized in the study.

III.3. Research Subjects

The subjects of the study were 100 English major students chosen at

random at Phu Xuan University. All the respondents were first, second, third

and fourth year English major students. They ranged from eighteen to twenty

five years old.

III.4. Data collection Methods

Recording dialogues based on request situations and questionnaire

methods were used in the study.

III.4.1. Recording dialogues

Five situations (requests ranging from low position to high position) (see

Appendix 1) that may cause problems for English major students were given

to 10 students in class II-Phu Xuan University to perform. Each situation was

role-played by two students. They were asked to make the requests in that

situation. The performance of English major students was recorded and was

analyzed in the findings chapter.


One hundred questionnaires were delivered to one hundred English major

students at Phu Xuan University. They were formulated with 7 closed

questions (see Appendix 2). The respondents were also able to give opinion in

the opened questions. After the data were collected, the frequency analysis

was used to count responses. Results were then interpreted and presented in

tables and charts.

III.5. Procedures of Data Collection




Before copies of the questionnaire were distributed to English major

students in the English Section of the Department of Foreign Languages at

Phu Xuan University, a pilot study was conducted with the help of three

English major students from fourth year and second year English classes. The

main purpose of this pilot study was to test the clarity and effectiveness of the

questionnaire. After the pilot survey, in order to make the answers by students

in the questionnaire more effective and easier 100 copies of the questionnaire

in Vietnamese were delivered to 100 first-year, second-year, third-year and

fourth-year students. Before filling in the questionnaire, English majors were

briefly introduced to the research topic as well as research purposes. These

copies were distributed to them on the first period of the class and were

collected on the last period so they could answer the questions in any break

between two periods. Finally, because of some reasons, 97 copies of

questionnaire were used to analyze and count responses. Results were then

presented in tables, charts and figures.


Prior to the recording the participants were asked for their consent. After

they had agreed to participate in the study at an agreed time and place, a tape

recording was conducted. Five situations were given to ten English majors at

class II-Phu Xuan University. Each situation was role-played by two students.

Therefore, 25 dialogues were performed. Each one took appropriately five

minutes. The role-players were encouraged to perform freely in a pretty

informal atmosphere. The researcher thus could get useful and valuable

information from recording dialogues. The students’ performance did

contribute significantly to the paper’s accomplishment.

III.5. Data Analysis



The data collected were categorized into themes to answer the research

questions and were presented in the findings chapter.

III.6. Summary

This chapter has presented definitions of qualitative and quantitative

methods. It included description of research subjects and the ways data were

collected and analyzed. The next chapter will present the results of the

findings.

Chapter IV:

FINDINGS and DISCUSSION



IV.1. Introduction

This chapter is divided into three main sections. Section one introduces

the pragmatic violation in requests by English majors. Second section deals

with the causes of the problems. Lastly, section three provides suggestions to

help English major students better their conversational competence in making

requests.

IV.2. Pragmatic violation in making requests

Most English majors agreed that using a speech act in an appropriate

language and manner of English is very difficult. Therefore, they often make

mistakes in using speech acts, especially in making requests. Their errors in

requests are divided into two types: pragma-linguistic errors and socio-

pragmatic errors across five given situations.

IV.2.1. Pragma-linguistic errors

Pragmalinguistic shows the learner’s lack of knowledge about language

itself (forms, structures, and vocabulary). This type of errors occurs when the

language learner knows which speech act to use and when to use it but does

not know the appropriate language to form a linguistically acceptable speech

act. Data collected through questionnaire and recording dialogues show the

problems.

For requests have the potential to be intrustive and demanding, English

major students found some request situations in English difficult to make

requests. Table 1 introduces these request situations.

Number Request situationsFrequency (N=97)

Percentage

1 Request to the older 56 57.7%2 Request to people at high position 59 60.8%



3 The degree of request imposition 68 70.1%4 Psychology of the hearer 61 62.8%5 None of the above 7 7.2%

Table 1: Some request situations that English majors find difficult to make requests.

From the figures shown in table 1, requests that have a difficult degree of

imposition are the situations that English majors found most difficult to make

requests (made up 70.1%). Only 7.2% of English majors accepted that they

had no difficulty with the above request situations.

Across five situations recorded, situation 5 is seen to be the one which has

the lowest degree of request imposition. As a result, English majors showed

no mistakes with this kind of situation in terms of pragma-linguistic errors.

With four situations left, data collected through recording dialogues illustrate

the mistakes of English majors in requesting. The mistakes are presented

according to the strategies used across the sequence: head acts and external

modifications (supportive moves).

IV.2.1.1. Head Acts

Table 2 shows the distribution of the request head acts across the four

situations.

Types of requests S1 S2 S3 S4 Total PercentageDirect requests 2 3 5 25%

Conventionally indirect requests

2 5 5 2 14 70%



Unconventionally indirect requests

1 5%

S = situation

Table 2: Distribution of request head acts produced by English majors

(Frequency = 20)

As can be seen from table 2 from recording dialogues, 70% of English

major students preferred using conventionally indirect requests. 25% of

informants stated that they used direct strategy when making requests.

Unconventionally indirect request accounted for only 5%. However, data

collected through recording dialogues showed that it was easy for English

majors to make requests where the relationship is equal (situation 1),

therefore; students made no mistakes in this situation. But when attempting to

perform the requests with a teacher-a person of distant relationship (situation

3 and 4) students made some mistakes in direct and conventionally indirect

strategies. The following examples of conventionally indirect strategies by

English majors from transcription shown the problems (head acts are

underlined):

(1). I forget to bring my pen. Can you lend me one of yours? (Situation 3)

(2). I want to ask you some questions about the study. Would you explain it to

me? (Situation 4)

(3). I need you help me a thing. Can I see you to ask about my study?

(Situation 4)

Overall, conventionally indirect requests were often conveyed by query

preparatory containing reference to preparatory conditions. However, indirect

requests were preceded by the verb “to want” and “need” (Situation 4) making

the requests impolite. Because these two verbs did not show high levels of

deferential politeness with a person (teacher) of distant relationship, therefore;



the speaker in this situation appeared as rude and brusque. In addition,

example (2) also shows the lack of the word “please” to signal politeness of

the question. If this request were uttered by a superior, the word “please”

would not needed. However, it was the request of a student to her teacher (a

subordinate to a superior) the word “please” is needed. Further, the request

head acts in hearer-oriented form as shown above were introduced by the

modal verb “can” making the requests too informal and at the same time

impolite for the speakers could not minimize the imposition of the requests. In

short, the use of the verb “want”, “need”, “can” and the lack of “please” to

convey indirect requests by English majors could not produce a politeness

effect. This kind of internal modifications may not serve as a distancing tactic

to express respectful politeness, distancing the speaker from the content of the

proposition and from the addressee.

As for the direct requests, the same to conventionally indirect requests

which were found to be less polite via two situations 3 and 4, English majors

were seen to be unable to soften their demand when making requests. This

problem was also observed in the situation 4. Examples of incorrect direct

request head acts are shown below (head acts are underlined):

(4). I want to meet you and ask you something about my study. Please explain

it for me!

(5). I would like to ask you about my study. Is it ok?

(6). I have some problems on my study. I need you to make it clear.

As shown in the examples above, direct requests were employed using in

the hedge performative as in (5), a verb in the imperative (mood derivable) as

in (4) and by means of utterance stating the speaker’s desire that the hearer

perform the act (Want statement) as in (6). It should be noted that direct

requests are often internally modified by the lexical mitigator “please” to



soften the harshness of a direct request and are used as an indicator positive

politeness. Nevertheless, English majors over-relied on the word “please” to

disguise speaker-centered “me” imperative, the preference for direct requests

in the situation 4 by English major students seems to be offended their

teacher. Therefore, these results showed the lack of “downgraders” and

acknowledgement of the degree of imposition in students’ requests. They

indicated no variation in their linguistic forms regardless of whom they were

talking to or what the circumstance might be. In other words, English majors

were unable to vary their request to meet different situations. This is in line

with the result of the question 2 in the questionnaire in which most of the

English major students answered “No” (see chart 1).

Data from the questionnaire show that most of participants (82.4%)

admitted that they were not able to use various requests when they meet

different situations. Only 17.6% of informants said they can manage to vary

their requests with situations differently. It is therefore that when the

imposition of requests is high, English majors would directly transfer their

pragmatic knowledge from native language as Vietnamese into the target

language, assuming that such rules are universal. For instance, in example (4)



student translated Want statement “I want to meet you and ask you about my

study” which is considered direct in English, actually negatively transferred

from an indirect strategy in Vietnamese language where the sentence indicates

that the requester was intentionally omitting the head act to mitigate the

imposition as in “Em muốn gặp và hỏi cô một số điều về bài nghiên cứu…”.

Therefore this request was deviated significantly from native speakers’ norms.

IV.2.1.2. External modifications

External modification of the request precedes or follows the request

head act to accompany it. However, less attention has been paid to these

modification devices especially Preparators, Reasons and Positive politeness.

Examples from recording dialogues show the lack of external modifications in

students’ requests:

Situation 2: (A student wants his friend to go and find a good used car)

Student A: Can you go with me to find a used car on Sunday? I have

no experience in buying a car.

Student B: Oh, I am sorry. I am very busy at this time.

Preparators refers to those elements employed by the requester to prepare

the addressee for the ensuing request (House and Kasper 1981). However,

when making request in situation 2 English major did not employ this type of

external modification or Prerequests to check on the availability of the hearer,

therefore; her requests was failed.

Like the lack of Preparators, example of situation 3 shows the lack of

Reasons and Positive politeness “please”:

Situation 3: (A student borrows a pen from her teacher)

Student A: Excuse me!

Student B: Yes?

Student A: Could I borrow your pen?



Student B: Sure, here you go.

Student A: Thank you

Student B: No problem!

Reasons and Positive politeness are two indirect strategies used to

mitigate the illocutionary force of a request and to smooth conversational

interaction. Nevertheless, the requester in this situation did not show the

reason why she wanted to borrow a pen from her teacher. Moreover, “please”

to signal politeness was not utilized in this distant relationship. Consequently,

the speaker was found to be less polite and could not smooth the interaction

between a student and a teacher.

IV.2.2. Socio-pragmatic errors

This type of error often occurs in cross-cultural communication. Data

collected through tape recording show this problem as using the Vietnamese

way of speaking and cross-culturally different assessments of relative power

or social distance.

IV.2.2.1. Using Vietnamese way of speaking

Vietnamese people are believed to be formal in their speaking behavior.

Learners when trying to alert the addressee to make requests directly

transferred their way of speaking in Vietnamese language. Situation 3

indicates their mistake:

Student to teacher to borrow a pen: “I’m sorry but can you help me?”

In fact, the intended using this utterance of the requester in this situation

was to alert the addressee to prepare and smooth the imposition of the request

head act following. However, it was not suitable with the target language

norms. Native speakers in this case would think that “why sorry” but instead it

should be: “Excuse me, could you do me a favor?” If students used this

sentence, it would sound more natural.



Another example of situation 4 on tape recording also shows the problem:

(At the preceding of the request to teacher to make appointment):

Student A: Excuse me, teacher!

Student B (teacher): Yes?

In this circumstance, when trying to make the Precursors or Alerters of

the request, student A made sociopragmatic failure. The most commonly used

form of addressing a teacher is “teacher” or “teacher + given name”, but

actually, the word “teacher” cannot be used as form of addressing in English.

It sounded impolite as for the student to call her teacher in that way.

Therefore, at the first step of making the request student A appeared to be

brusque and rude. Instead of saying “teacher”, student A can call her teacher

“Peter Smith”, “Mr/Professor (name)” or even “Sir” or “My lord” to show the

respect to her teacher.

IV.2.2.2. Cross-culturally different assessments of relative power or

social distance

This illustration of sociopragmatic error provided by the not infrequent

phenomenon of English majors’ judging relative power or social distance

differently from native speakers. According to their different social status

people choose the proper request. However, English major students did

differently. Data collected through recording dialogues illustrate the mistakes.

Situation 5 (between a customer and a waiter)

Student A: Excuse me, would you mind giving me a coke, please?

Student B: All right.

It should be noted that five conversations of this situation 5 were violated in

this kind of mistake. They were all over-polite. Here, student A was thought to

be unnatural and funny. In fact, “A coke, please!” is enough.

IV.3. Causes



Data collected through questionnaire showed that there are many factors

that pose difficulties for English majors in performing requests. However, the

main factors are the influence of the Vietnamese language, student’s

personality, the influence of Vietnamese socio-culture and textbooks and

study environment. Chart 2 presents English majors’ opinions towards these

factors.

As can be seen from chart 2, English majors stated that the factors, such

as Vietnamese language, student’s personality and Vietnamese socio-culture

affected most their abilities in making requests (67%, 61.8% and 57.7%

respectively). Only 32.9% of informants said that text books study

environment made them have pragmatic violation in performing requests.

IV.3.1. Influence of Vietnamese language

Since Vietnamese language has a great influence on making requests, it

brings about advantages as well as disadvantages. Table 3 indicates the

positive influence of Vietnamese language on making requests of English

major students.

Number Positive Influence Frequency (N=97) Percentage



1Speaking more flexibly and naturally

33 34.0%

2 Feeling confident 40 41.2%3 Transferring easily 56 57.7%4 Others 5 5.2%

Table 3: Positive influence of Vietnamese language on making requests of

English majors

Table 3 introduces the positive influence of Vietnamese language on

making requests of English majors. 57.7% of English majors stated that the

influence of Vietnamese language helped them transfer the requests easily

whereas 5.2% of participants had other positive influence. The English

presented as in the modal verbs “can” has formal and functional equivalents in

Vietnamese language as “có thể”. And sure enough, English major students

could transfer the requests from Vietnamese language (Bạn có thể đi cùng tôi

được không?) to English (Can you go with me?) and they can do without the

benefit of instruction. To sum up, the influence of Vietnamese language

helped English majors transferring the requests easily and feeling confident

when making requests. Furthermore, it also helped students speak more

flexibly and naturally.

On the contrary with positive influence, chart 3 presents the negative

influence of Vietnamese language on making requests by English major

students.



Chart 3 shows that while 58.7% of students complained the influence of

Vietnamese language caused the requests verbose, 6.2% of informants had

other negative influence. In fact, the most disadvantage of the influence of

Vietnamese language is making the students’ requests verbose. Example of

situation 2 (a student wants his friend to go with him to buy an affordable

used car) is a clue for this cause: “My friend, now I want to buy a used car for

my own because it is so far from my apartment to the campus, but I do not

have any experience at it, could you make a lift going with me and find a good

one?”.

Besides making the requests verbose, making mistakes and causing

misunderstanding are negative influence of Vietnamese language.

IV.3.2. Student’s Personality

Learners have very different personalities such as being confident, shy,

active, positive, etc. There are two main extremes of personality deeply

affecting on English majors in making requests. Students who are confident,

out-going and willing to take risks probably have more opportunities to

practice their pragmatic competence in making requests because they are more

often involved in interactions with native speakers of English. Conversely,

students who are inhibited, introverted and unwilling to take risks lack



opportunities for practice. Therefore, personality plays a key role in students’

requests perfectly.

IV.3.3. Influence of Vietnamese Socio-culture

Vietnamese socio-culture is one of the important factors results in

students’ pragmatic violation in requests. From the pragmatic perspective,

language is a form of social action because linguistic communication occurs

in the context of structured interpersonal exchange and meaning is thus

socially regulated (Dimitracopoulou, 1990 in Nunan, 1999, as cited in

Nguyen, 2002). Thus, to speak a language, people must know how the

language is used in a social context. It is well-known that each language has

its rules of usage as to when, how or to what degree a speaker may impose a

given verbal behavior on his/her conversational partner. Vietnamese cultural

values are barriers to English major students in their communicative

competence in English.

Firstly, it is the collectivism culture that made English majors to perceive

their class as a big family; thus, they always appreciate the sentimental

relationship among people. To achieve harmony in communication they have

to be cautious in their speech as well as their behavior so that they will not

hurt any one. It is this characteristic that caused English majors become

passive in class. It prevented them from their own opinions.

The concept of “respect” is another cultural value regarded as a main

factor affecting English majors in thier communicative competence in

requests.

“Being influenced by Confucianism, Vietnamese students always hold

their teachers in high esteem. They respect and believe in their

teachers’ knowledge. They believe that are the most experienced and

learned people. Thus, what their teacher said is right in any



circumstances. Even when their teachers’ ideas are wrong, they still

respect them. They dare not show their disagreement straightforwardly

in class because of another reason: face-saving.”(Tran, 2006:57)

Therefore, Vietnamese socio-culture had a great influence on requests by

English majors.

IV.3.4. Textbooks and Study Environment

Textbooks and study environment have importantly influenced requests by

English majors. Giving requests has been presented in textbooks for teaching

speaking English. Yet, there are few options for students to learn and put in

use. Even if they have learnt them all, it does not mean that they are able to

use them appropriately because these options are too generalized and no

explanation as to when and whom each of them should be used. As Bardovi-

Harlig straightforwardly states, “It is important to recognize that, in general,

textbooks cannot be counted on as a reliable source of pragmatic input for

classroom language learners” (2001:25). It is also because textbooks generally

provide too little information about language use and often the dialogues

include in the textbooks are misleading and do not sound naturally-occurring

talk (Golato, 2002:568). Also, many text books used for teaching the functions

of English mostly focus on the acquisition of linguistic competence, with

insufficient attention to a fuller communicative competence. Consequently,

English majors have difficulties and made mistakes in using requests indeed.

Besides, the study environment does not force English majors to make

requests sufficiently so they cannot better their communicative competence.

Therefore, their requests are usually uttered with pragmatic mistakes.

IV.4. Suggestions to conquer these errors

Suggestions to help English majors conquer errors in requests are divided

into two parts. General suggestions will be firstly introduced. The second part



concentrates on how to help English majors remedy their pragmatic

competence in requests.

IV.4.1. General Suggestions

Chart 4 provides the findings of English majors’ opinions towards

suggestions to help them overcome their errors in making requests.

As can be seen from chart 4, 64.9% of English majors practiced everyday

to overcome their pragmatic violation in requests. 54.6% of students showed

that communicating with foreigners helped them much more their pragmatic

competence in requests. 21.6% of participants read books. Only 5.2% of

English majors reported that they had their own ways.

In reality, practicing to make requests by role-plays with different

situations everyday is an effective way. As Offner (1997) stressed, “The only

way to become a good driver is to practice driving. The only way to be able to

play an instrument well is to practice playing it. Likewise, the only way to

become a good English speaker is to practice speaking English” (as cited in

Tran, 2006:64).



Besides, communicating with foreigners is also a good way. By taking

chance at anywhere and at anytime, especially in the tourist sites, English

major could self-correct and made themselves more active and confident.

Another way to better students’ conversational competence is reading

books. Those books relating to communication helped English majors more

flexible and natural in making requests.

Some English majors had other learning strategies such as listen to

communication cassettes or see films in order to be familiar with different

requests in different situations.

To sum up, English majors can overcome their pragmatic violation in

requests by practicing everyday, communicating with foreigners or reading

books. They can also see films or listen to communication cassettes. However,

practicing everyday to make requests by role-plays is seen to be the most

effective way.

IV.4.2. Suggestions to help English majors remedy errors in requests

Teachers should foresee the errors made by English majors in requests and

may apply the following lesson to help English majors develop and raise their

pragmatic awareness in using requests. According to Kasper (1997), there are

two types of activity that are useful for developing pragmatic awareness:

a) Awareness raising activities

b) Opportunities for communicative practice.

The lesson outlined below involves both types, although there should be

no expectation that b) must immediately follow a): time for reflection and

observation outside the classroom would undoubtedly benefit the student. In

considering a), there is consensus that noticing is a requisite and fundamental

step (Kasper 1997; Tomlinson 1994; Carter and McCarthy 1994; Hinkel 2001;

Kramsch 1993; Schmidt 1993). Each prereading activity was designed to



activate or instil the seeds of the prerequisite schematic knowledge which will

in turn enable the student to notice the salient points of the text and/or

performance. Tomlinson (1994), proposes the following as objectives of a

pragmatic awareness approach:

To help learners to notice the way that proficient users of the L2 typically

usepragmatic strategies

To help learners to achieve deep, learner-driven analyses of language in use

which can help them to note the gaps and to achieve learning readiness.

To help learners to develop cognitive skills

To help learners to become independent.

These goals elucidate what can be developed through awareness rising.

For opportunities for communicative practice, activities such as role plays,

drama or pair work seem ideal as they allow for students to experiment and

receive feedback in a controllable environment. Cook (1998) posits the use of

plays or parts of plays, and argues that through the type of post-reading

activities proposed below in lesson four, which could equally be performed

with the other lessons, the following are learnable:

Rote learning and repetition of a model

Attention to exact wording

Practice in all four skills

Motivating and authentic language and activity

Instances of culturally and contextually appropriate pragmatic use

Integration of linguistic with paralinguistic use.

The lessons in this paper involve using parts of a film (i.e. spoken

scripts). As has been discussed above, textbook dialogues do not tend to be a

good source of pragmatic input, but representational texts can be. Film scripts,

like plays, are designed as spoken texts, and therefore have the added



advantage of, if not providing a model, then providing a text which can be

engaged with ‘as a text of speech’ (McCarthy 1996: 90). For students it often

is the realm of spoken interaction that proves the most perplexing and fleeting.

Lesson:

Purpose : To raise awareness of Social Contextual factors in communication,

and to discuss how language can change according to differences in these

variables. In particular the lesson is concerned with participants and the

communicative situation, and how these factors affect the way people talk and

are spoken to.

Text : Dialogue from the Mike Leigh film ‘Secrets and Lies’, involving a

telephone conversation between two of the main characters, Cynthia and her

brother Morris (see Appendix 4).

a) Pre reading

Activity purpose: Develop students’ schematic knowledge of participant and

situational variables (see Appendix 3).

Activity: Write the above variables (gender, time etc.) on the board, tell the

class that they are going to read and then watch a telephone conversation, and

that they should ask you questions before they read the text about the

participants and the situation e.g. “what sex are the characters?” Alternatively,

a more advanced group could be encouraged to first come up with the

variables themselves.

Activity purpose: Activate students’ schematic knowledge of how social

distance and the social situation may affect communication.

Activity : In small groups, predict how the participants’ social distance (in this

case very little, especially as perceived by Cynthia) and the social situation

affect the communication. Encourage students to come up with specific

examples. It may be helpful for students to compare this type of dialogue to,



say, an imagined conversation between Morris and a client arranging an

appointment.

b) While reading

Activity purpose : Highlight relevant points in the text, and keep the reading

focused on the lesson purpose.

Activity : Read through and find evidence of

1. The closeness of their relationship

2. Morris not wanting to say no to his sister

3. A problem between Morris’ wife Monica and Cynthia

4. The unimportance of Morris’ status (a successful self-employed

businessman) here

5. Cynthia’s neurotic disposition

c) Post reading

Activity purpose: show that the way we communicate affects how we appear

to others.

Activity : write a description of the two characters, including a description of

their personalities and how you imagine them to look. Then watch the film

clip. Discuss whether or not the descriptions should be changed, and why.

Activity purpose : Highlight how stylistic appropriateness is dependent on the

social context (amongst other things).

Activity : Underline all the informal language in the text. Imagine that an

acquaintance of Morris is asking to bring a friend to the barbecue; change the

dialogue accordingly. Then role-play this situation in pairs. Then role-play

another situation, for example one more similar to the original. Discuss how

the language changes according to the context. Discuss the possible effects of

using inappropriate language in these two contexts.



Sum up by asking students what they have learned in this lesson and what

they can take away from this (hopefully the original lesson purpose).

IV.5. Summary

This chapter has presented pragmatic violation in requests by English

majors. Their errors were divided into two types: pragma-linguistic error and

socio-linguistic error. The causes of these errors were also analyzed in order

to provide suggestions to help English majors better their conversational skill

in requests. Errors have been pointed out, the reasons explained, and

suggestions provided, the next chapter “Conclusion and Implications” will

conclude the study by summarizing what have been dealt with and then

provide implications.



Chapter V:

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS and

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH

V.1. Summary of the study

To master one language in an effective manner is extremely difficult

because each language usage has social and cultural conventions. Therefore,

English majors always have difficulties and make mistakes in using speech

acts, especially requests.

A lot of studies have been carried out to help English majors have good

pragmatic competence in using speech acts perfectively. However, in terms of

pragmatics, there have not been any studies paying attention to English

majors’ mistakes in using requests or helping them make requests effectively.

As a result, the study on “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese

speakers of English” was carried out to find out what pragmatic violation in

utilizing requests by English majors in particular and to provide suggestions to

help them make requests sufficiently.

Data collected through recording dialogues and questionnaire showed the

pragmatic violation in requests by English majors. These errors included

pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic error. This violation resulted from the

influence of Vietnamese language, student’s personality, the influence of

Vietnamese socio-culture and textbooks and study environment.



V.2. Implications

Based on the pragmatic violation in requests by English majors, some

implications for the English major students at Phu Xuan University as well as

the teachers of the English section of the Foreign Languages Department are

made. This part, therefore, are divided into separate ones: the former is

implications for the students while the latter is those for the teachers.

V.2.1. Students’ learning communicative competence in requests

* English majors should feel be at home with classmates so as to do role-plays

activities with different situations to enhance their pragmatic competence in

making requests.

* English majors should raise their awareness and motivation in learning and

using speech acts, especially requests.

* English majors’ roles in speaking classes are to take part in every activity

enthusiastically.

* English majors should read books, newspapers and magazines either in

English or Vietnamese. This can help them broaden their background

knowledge academically, culturally, socially, economically, technologically

and so on. By doing this, the students can learn a large number of specific

vocabulary and expressions in requests in a polite way.

* English majors should listen to music, programs on television or on the

radio or view English movies to identify different requests in different

situations.

* Each class should set up a rule that every student has to express

herself/himself in English during the class. By this way, they may find it

natural to speak English more.

* English majors should establish some English clubs in which they can take

part in and improve their pragmatic competence in making requests.



* English majors should even do Internet-surfing in their spare time to learn

more about native language culture.

V.2.2. Teaching communicative competence in requests

* Teacher should provide input to develop students’ socio-pragmatic and

pragma-linguistic competence.

* Teacher should create communicative opportunities for students to work in

small groups or in pair to discuss the possible use of each option. While they

are discussing, they can learn from their peers because peer-to-peer

scaffolding may be just an important as expert-novice scaffolding (Ko, et al,

2003) and eventually develop their socio-pragmatic and pragma-linguistic

knowledge (Kasper, 2001).

* Teacher should use transcripts or videos containing requests for rehearsals

and then ask students to role-play them again and then give feedback on these

contexts. This activity is of great help for English majors when they encounter

similar situations in real-life communication. Because through role-plays and

simulations, teacher could have the opportunities to show their students the

appropriateness of utterances, and how speakers negotiate certain situations as

well as providing a framework for the performances of speech acts.

* Teacher should avoid over correction or harsh criticism.

* Teacher should give students a few words of encouragement.

* Teacher should try their best to let student know the native language culture

to correct their understanding and proper using of English.

* Additionally, teacher should consider the following activities in order to

teach requests easily.

According to Bardovi-Harlig (2003), some activities for teaching

communicative competence in requests are as follows:



(from:http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics/mach.htm,

accessed on 15/4/2008)

1. Email requests (Thomas M. & Sholly R.2003)

This activity begins with requests written by the students. Students make

written requests via email to teacher to illustrate various points of pragmatic

appropriateness. Students individually submit their requests and the teacher

put useful one together on worksheets and distribute them. Students then work

in groups to analyzed and revise the messages with advice from the teacher.

Exactly which pragmatic points are taught is independent upon what can be

mined from the messages students write, but the teacher wields some control

by pre-selecting the messages that will be analyzed in class.

2. Spot the Problem! (Melinda E.2003)

* In preparation for the class, teacher prepares role-cards in matching pairs

and problem-cards (containing a pragmatic violation)

* Teacher asks two students to perform the role-play dialogues then give them

role-cards as well as the problem-cards. Other students are asked to observe

and spot mistakes.

* Students perform the role-play, other jot down their observations.

* A whole class discussion follows in which the students share their

observations with each other. The teacher elicits the forms or phrases that

caused the problems and possible ways to overcome them. Any problems

created by differences between the students mother tongue) and English can

also be discussed. If time allowed, more pairs can be asked to perform role-

plays.

3. Speaker and Task Type (Sirgun B.L.2003)

* Language presentation

a) Target speech act (request) is presented in four short dialogues



b) Each dialogue shows a different speaker relationship (informal/non-distant

and formal/distant) and different task types (for requests, for example, easy to

do and hard to do).

* A visual reference point for students that helps them understand that

appropriate linguistic choices depend on crucial factors in the speech

situation.

* Carefully sequenced activities that move from controlled communicative

situations so that students are given ample practice time to become aware of

differences in the way the speech act is realized in American English as

compared to their own language.

V.3. Suggestions for further research

The results of the present study cannot be generalized to all Vietnamese

speakers of English but rather, should be taken as preliminary indicators of the

behavior of English majors at Phu Xuan University when initiating a request.

In the future, studies employing a large population of male and female

subjects should examine speech act patterns of request behavior by including

data which examine perceptions of Vietnamese speakers of English. In

addition, a large population may shed light on the issue of gender differences

in speech act behavior. Finally, other studies need examine contrastive

analysis by recording native speakers’ requests in order to analyze and

compare them with requests made by Vietnamese speakers of English.

V.4. Final words

Due to the limitations of the researcher’s ability, time and scope, the

researcher welcomes any comments as well as criticisms from readers or from

those who are interested in this issue to overcome all shortcomings the

research processes.



REFERENCES

1. Austin, J. L, Marina Sbisa, J., O.Urmson (1996), “How to Do

Things with Words”, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

2. Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001), “Evaluating the Empirical Evidence:

Grounds for Instruction in Pragmatics?” in G. Kasper and K.

Rose (eds), Pragmatics in Language Teaching, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, p.25.

3. Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen & Rebecca Mahan-Taylor (2003),

“Teaching Pragmatics”, US Department of State.

4. Blum-Kulka, S., & Olshtain, E. (1984), “Requests and

Apologies: A cross-cultural Study of Speech Act Realization

Patterns(CCSARP)”, Applied Linguistic,5(3), 196-213.

5. Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989), “Cross-cultural

Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies”, Norwood, NJ: Alblex

Publishing Corporation.

6. Blum-Kulka, S. (1991), “Interlanguage Pragmatics: The Case of

Requests” in R. Phillipson, E. Kellerman, L. Selinker, M.

Sharwood Smith, & M. Swain (eds), Foreign/Second Language

Pedagogy Research, 255-272, Cleven, UK: Multilingual Matter.

7. Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (1995) “Language as Discourse:

Perspectives as Language Teaching”, Londom: Longman.

8. Cohen, A. D. & Ohshtain, E. (1993). “The Production of Speech

Acts by EFL Learners”, TESOL Quarterly, 27(1), 33-56.



9. Cook, G. (1998) “Language Play, Language Teaching”. Oxford:

OUP.

10. Ellis, R. (1992) “Learning to Communicate in the Classroom: A

Study of Two Languages Learners’ Requests”. Studies in Second

Language Acquisition, 14(1), 1-23.

11. Francis, C. (1997). “Talk to me! The Development of Request

Strategies in Non-native Speakers of English Working papers” in

Educational Linguistics. 13(2), 23-40.

12. Golato, A. (2002) “German Compliment Responses” Journal of

Pragmatics. 34: 547-571.

13.Gorman, G. E and Clayton, P., (1997) “Quantitative Research for

the Information Professional, Library Association Publishing,

London, p.23.

14. Grice, H. P. (1975) “Logic and Conversation”, in Cole, P. &

Morgan, J. (eds) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, New

York: Academic Press.

15. Hatch, E. (1992) “Discourse and Language Education”, New

York: Cambridge University Press.

16. Hinkel, E. (2001) “Building Awareness and Practical Skills to

Facilitate Cross-cultural Communication”, in M. Celce-Murcia

(ed.) Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, Boston:

Heinle and Heinle.

17. Hayashi, A. (2000) “Conversational Structures and Strategies for

Remedial Work: Interaction of Requests and Refusals from

Contrastive Analysis of Japanese and German”, Bulletin of

Tokyo Gakugei University Section II Humanities, 51, 81-94.



18. House, J. and G. Kasper (1981) “Politeness Markers in English

and German”. Conversational Routine. Ed. F. Coulmas. The

Hague: Mouton de Gruyter, 157-185.

19. Iwai, C. & Rinnert, C. (2001) “Cross-cultural Comparison of

Strategic Realization of Pragmatic Competence: Implications for

Learning World Englishes”, Hiroshima Journal of International

Studies 7,157-181.

20. Izaki, Y. (2000) Cultural Differences of Preference and

Deviation from Expectations in Requesting: A Study of Japanese

and French Learners of Japanese in Contact Situations. Journal of

Japanese Language Teaching 104, 79-88.

21. Kagan, S. (1988) “Cooperative Learning”, Riverside, CA:

University of California.

22. Kasper, G. (1997) “Can Pragmatic Competence Be Taught?”

(Network # 6:

http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/sltcc/F97NewsLetter/Pubs.htm), a

paper delivered at the 1997 TESOL Convention.

23. Kasper, G. (2001) “Four Perspectives on L2 Pragmatic

Development” Applied Linguistics, 22:502-530.

24. Ko, J., Kim, S., Valtsschnoff, J. G., Shin, H., Lee, J.R., Sheng,

M., Premont, R. J., Weinberg, R. J and GIT is required for

AMPA receptor targeting. J. Neurosu.23.

25. Kramsch, C. (1993) “Context and Culture in Language

Teaching”, Oxford: OUP.

26. Leech, G. (1983) “Principles of Pragmatics”, London: Longman.

27. Levinson, S. (1983) “Pragmatics”, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.


http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/sltcc/F97NewsLetter/Pubs.htm


28. Mac, C. & Enghen, P. (2000) Toan tap, Nxb Chinh Tri Quoc gia

Ha Noi, p.42.

29. McCafferty, S, And Ahmed, M. (2000) “the Appropriation of

Gestures of the Abstract by L2 Learners”, in J. Lantolf (ed.)

Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning. Oxford:

OUP. Pp.199-218.

30. Matsuda, A. (1999) “Interlanguage Pragmatics: What Can It

Offer to Language Teacher?” CATESOL Journal, 11, 39-59.

31. Morris, C. (1938) “Foundations of the Theory of Signs”, in

Carnap, R. et al (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Unified

Science, 2:1, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

32. Nguyen Thi Xuan Huong (2002). “Factors affecting Speaking

Abilities of inservice EFL Students at Hue College of Sciences-

Unpublished undergraduate thesis, College of Sciences, Hue

University, Hue City.

33. Schmitdt, R. (1993) “Consciousness, Learning and Interlanguage

Pragmatics:, in G. Kasper and S. Blum-Kulka (eds) Interlanguage

Pragmatics. New York: OUP, pp.21-42.

34. Searle, J. (1969) “An Essay in the Philosophy of Language”,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

35. Sifianou, M. (1992) “Politeness Phenomena in England and

Greece, A Cross-cultural Perspective, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

36. Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986) “Relevance: Communication

and Cognition”, Oxford: Blackwell.

37. Strauss, A, & Corbin, J. (1990) “Basic Qualitative Research:

Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques”, Newbury Park

Sage, p.17.



38. Tomlinson, B. (1994) “Pragmatic Awareness Activities”.

Language Awareness 3 (3 and 4):109-27.

39. Tran Ngoc Them (1998), Co So Van Hoa Viet Nam, Nxb. Giao

Duc, Hanoi.

40. Tran Thi Phuong Thao (2004), “Essentials of Semantics: A

Short Practical Course Book: Speech acts”, Institute of English

Language and Its Didactic, Cologne University Cologne,

Germany, 143.

41. Tran Thi Thao Phuong (2006), “Vietnamese Cultural Values as

Barriers to EFL Students in Learning Speaking English.

Unpublished undergraduate thesis, College of Foreign Laguage,

Hue University, Hue City.

42. Verschueren, J. (1987) “Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguitic

Adaptation” Working Document # 1, Antwerp: International

Pragmatic Association.

43. Yule, G. (1985) “The Study of Language”, Great Britain:

Cambridge University Press.

44. Yule, G. (1996) “Pragmatics”. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

45.http://www.exchanges/state.gov/education/engteaching/

pragmatics/mach.htm, accessed on April 15th, 2008.

46. http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html, accessed

on January 15th, 2008.

47.www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm , accessed

on January 10th 2008.

48.http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm ,

accessed on January 10th 2008.



http://www.unc.edu/~gerfen/Ling30sp2002/Pragmatics.htm

http://www.carla.umn.edu/speechacts/definition.html

http://www.exchanges/state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics/mach.htm

http://www.exchanges/state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics/mach.htm


49.http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/Pragmatics.htm ,

accessed on January 10th 2008.

50.http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/sltcc/F97NewsLetter/Pubs.htm ,

accessed on April 15th, 2008.


http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/sltcc/F97NewsLetter/Pubs.htm



APPENDIX 1:

RECORDING DIALOGUES

1. Your best friend borrowed your favorite CD a month ago and still has

not returned it. You are in her car and notice that it is in her glove box.

You ask for it back.

2. You have recently moved to a new apartment. Because it is very far

from the campus. You need to buy a used car as soon as possible.

However, since you have never bought a car by yourself, you want your

closed friend to go and find a good, affordable used car with you. What

would you do?

3. You forget to bring your pen. You would like to borrow a pen from

your close teacher. What would you say?

4. You want to make an appointment to see your teacher in order to ask

about your study. What would you say?

5. You are in a restaurant. You want the waiter to give you a coke. What

would you say?



APPENDIX 2:

QUESTIONNAIRE

This questionnaire is designed to collect data for my research on

“Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese learners of

English”. Therefore, I would be very grateful if you could spare your time to

think carefully and provide appropriate answers to the questions below. Your

responses are very important to the success of my survey. The data will be

used only for the purpose of research, not any other purposes.

Please read the questions carefully and circle the possibility of your

choice in answering.

Note: More than one answer is acceptable.

1. Do you think using a speech act in a appropriate language and

manner of English is very difficult?

a) Yes

b) No

2. Are you able to vary your requests to meet different situations?

a) Yes

b) No

3. What kind(s) of requests situations are difficult?

a) Requests to the older

b) Requests to people at high position

c) The degree of difficulty of requests



d) Psychology of the hearer

e) None of the above

4. Reason(s) why you have problems in making request?

a) The influence of Vietnamese

b) Your personality (shy/hesitate)

c) The influence of Vietnamese socio-culture

d) The study environment

Your ideas: …………………………………………………….

5. Positive influence of the Vietnamese language results in your

requests in English?

a) Speaking more flexible and naturally

b) Feeling confident

c) Transferring easily

Your ideas: …………………………………………………..

6. Negative influence of the Vietnamese language results in your

requests in English ?

a) Making mistakes

b) Making your requests verbose

c) Causing misunderstanding

Your ideas: …………………………………………………..

7. What are your suggestions to help you make requests in effective

way?

a) Reading books

b) Communicating with foreigners



c) Practicing everyday

Your ideas: ………………………………………………………

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR COOPERATION!



PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA

Để cung cấp thêm những thông tin xác thực và đáng tin cậy cho đề tài

nghiên cứu: “Pragmatic violation in requests by Vietnamese speakers of

English” (Sự vi phạm ngữ dụng học trong câu yêu cầu của người Việt nói

tiếng Anh), các bạn vui lòng trả lời các câu hỏi dưới đây bằng cách khoanh

tròn vào những câu trả lời mà bạn lựa chọn. Sự đóng góp của các bạn là rất

quan trọng trong sự thành công của đề tài nghiên cứu. Những thông tin đó chỉ

phục vụ cho mục đích nghiên cứu của đề tài, không nhằm mục đích nào khác.

Rất cám ơn sự hợp tác và giúp đỡ của các bạn.

Chú ý: Các bạn có thể trả lời nhiều hơn một.

1. Bạn có nghĩ việc sử dụng một hành vi ngôn ngữ với cách thức và ngôn ngữ

phù hợp trong tiếng Anh là rất khó?

a) Đồng ý

b) Không đồng ý

2. Bạn có thể sử dụng phong phú câu yêu cầu của mình khi gặp các tình huống

khác nhau không?

a) Có

b) Không

3. Bạn thấy khó khăn với tình huống nào khi đưa ra câu yêu cầu?

a) Câu yêu cầu đối với người lớn tuổi

b) Câu yêu cầu đối với người có địa vị cao

c) Mức độ khó của việc được yêu cầu

d) Tâm lý của người được yêu cầu



e) Không ý nào trên đây

4. Vì sao bạn gặp khó khăn khi đưa ra câu yêu cầu?

a) Ảnh hưởng của tiếng Việt

b) Tính cách của bạn (nhút nhát/hay do dự)

c) Ảnh hưởng của văn hoá xã hội Việt Nam

d) Sách giáo khoa và Môi trường học tập

Ý kiến của bạn: …………………………………………………………

5. Ảnh hưởng tích cực của tiếng Việt đến câu yêu cầu trong tiếng Anh của bạn

là gì?

a) Nói một cách uyển chuyển và tự nhiên

b) Cảm thấy tự tin

c) Chuyển đổi một cách dễ dàng

6. Ảnh hưởng tiêu cực của tiếng Việt đến câu yêu cầu trong tiếng Anh của bạn

là gì?

a) Mắc lỗi

b) Làm cho câu yêu cầu rườm rà

c) Gây ra hiểu nhầm

Ý kiến của bạn: ………………………………………………………

7. Theo bạn, làm thế nào để câu yêu câu trong tiếng Anh của bạn đạt hiệu quả

tốt?

a) Đọc sách

b) Giao tiếp với người nước ngoài

c) Luyện tập hàng ngày



Ý kiến của bạn: …………………………………………………………

CÁM ƠN SỰ HỢP TÁC CỦA BẠN!



Appendix 3:

Suggested components of sociocultural competence

(Celce-Murcia, Dornyei and Thurrell 1995: 24)

SOCIAL CONTEXTUAL FACTORS

- Participant variables

- Age, gender, office and status, social distance, relations (power and

affective)

- Situational variables

- Time, place, social situation

STYLISTIC APPROPRIATENESS FACTORS

- Politeness conventions and strategies

- Stylistic variation

- Degrees of formality

- Field-specific registers

CULTURAL FACTORS

- Sociocultural background knowledge of the target language community

- living conditions (way of living, living standards); social and institutional

structure;social conventions and rituals; major values, beliefs, and norms;

taboo topics; historical background; cultural aspects including literature and

arts

- Awareness of major dialect or regional differences

- Cross-cultural awareness

- Differences; similarities; strategies for cross-cultural communication

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATIVE FACTORS

- Kinesic factors (body language)

- Discourse controlling behaviours (non-verbal turn-taking signals)



- Backchannel behaviours

- Affective markers (facial expressions), gestures, eye conact

- Proxemic factors (use of space)

- Haptic factors (touching)

- Paralinguistic factors

- acoustal sounds, nonvocal noises

- Silence



Appendix 4:

SECRETS AND LIES

On the phone, Cynthia at home, standing up in the hallway. Morris in his

office with his secretary, Jane, listening and eating a bag of crisps.

C: Listen, Morris, Sweetheart. I wanted to ask you a favour.

M: Oh yeah. What’s that then?

C: You know the party Sunday…

M: The BBQ, yeah

C: Yeah. Can I bring a mate, Sweetheart?

Silence.

C: Hello?

M: Is it a bloke?

C: Course it is not a bloke, silly bugger. Chance would be a fine thing!

Both laugh.

M: Who is it then?

C: Oh just somebody at work. We’ve been out a couple of times and I was

meant to have seen her Sunday only I forgot. That is alright then?

M: I suppose so.

C: What do you mean ‘you suppose so’?

M: No, it’ll be fine.

C: Smashing.

M: Have to check it out though.

C: Check it out? Who with?

Short silence.

M: Listen, Erm, if I don’t ring you back then bring her. Right?



C: I don’t want to upset nobody.

M: Don’t worry.

C: Are you sure then?

M: Yeah, yeah. No problem. Yeah.

C: O.K. then sweetheart. Looking forward to it.

M: Alright, well, say hello to Roxanne for me.

C: Then.

M: Alright


chi Nga.1

Documents

phu xuan university

cu yu cu

conventionally indirect strategies

international pragmatic association

cambridge university press

recording dialogues illustrate

conventionally indirect requests

teaching communicative competence