|
INFORMATION ON DOCTORAL THESIS
1. Full name: HO THI KIEU OANH 2. Sex: female
3. Date of birth: March 18 th , 1960 4. Place of birth: Danang
5. Admission decision number: 266/SĐH Dated November 5 th, 2003
6. Changes in academic process: having had extension in the academic process from November 30 th, 2007 to November 30 th, 2008; with the extension decision number: 711/QĐ - SĐH.
7. Official thesis title: A comparative study of the Politeness markers
in the offering In english and vietnamese
8. : Major: English Linguistics 9. Code: 62.22.15.01
10. Supervisors: Dr. Nguyen Duc Hoạt, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Ngoc Tu
11. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:
It has been found out from this thesis that Politeness Markers in the offering in English and Vietnamese covers the two interrelated linguistic means: (1) Structural Indirectness Strategies and (2) Social Deixis, the preference for either of which at different levels is explained basing on the linguistic politeness and the assumption of face influencedby (1) the language category diversity and also by (2) thecultural features of the two cultures in question: Australia and Vietnam. This finding is significant and different from the former researches on linguistic politeness in speech acts focusing mainly on the linguistic aspects.
In respect of the language category perspective, Vietnamese is a non-inflectional language (Xtankevich N.V. [137, p. 125]). Therefore, the affective meaning of the speech act of offering and the offerer’s polite attitude towards the offeree are expressed by such Mood Words as the Social Deixis including Addressing Terms especially KTs for non-relatives, F.S.Is. and HP as well as other Pr. Ps functioning as the Indicators or the Modifiers of the speech act of offering. On the contrary; English is an inflectional language (Xtankevich N. V. [137, p. 125]), in which the syntactic means (rather than Mood Words) such as Tense, Aspect and Mood are the main devices to express the level of politeness in the offering in English.
With regard to the cultural features, native Vietnamese speakers belong to the collectivism and hierarchical culture where showing solicitude to other in-group members of higher , lower or equal status is highly appreciated. Offering is then a Face - Enhancing Act (FEA). As a result; Kin Terms (KT) to non-kins, Formal Semantic Items (FSIs) or Honorific Pragmatic Particle (HP) used as a social norm to show adherence to the hierarchy in Vietnamese society together with other overwhelming Strengthening Pragmatic Particles by native Vietnamese speakers could normally strengthen the offering to enhance the solidarity in the community. By contrast, native Australian speakers are pertaining to the individualism and egalitarianism culture in which non-interference into other people’s affair and equality is expected. Therefore offering more often as a Face -Threatening Act (FTA) due to the more likely risk of imposition on the offeree could be commonly expressed by native Australian speakers via the Softening Structural Indirectness to show their distant attitude towards other people for negative politeness rather than via the Strengthening Social Deixis and Pragmatic Particles (Pr.Ps) as used by native Vietnamese speakers to show positive politeness.
12. Practical applicability: The findings of this thesis could help intercultural communicators of English and Vietnamese understand the interactive styles and the Politeness Markers in communication of other peoples and communities, which would help cast light on the socio-cultural stereotype and help these interlocutors avoid “culture shock” in their intercultural communication.
In addition, the empirical findings from this thesis could contribute to the better teaching of Vietnamese to native English speakers or English to native Vietnamese speakers. As far as this issue is concerned, the knowledge of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic rules (Thomas J. [84]) withdrawn from this thesis could help language teachers predict the likely pragmatic errors and design relevant syllabus and teach their students how to realize their speech acts including offering better to help them develop their pragmatic competence.
As regards the study of cross- cultural communication, this piece of work could bring to light the importance of socio-cultural values in regulating the interactive styles of a community. It is true that polite behavior is so deeply engrained in social life and so much influenced by social norms that it is almost impossible to study politeness without analyzing the social rules behind it (Yuling P., [95, p.51]).
Most importantly, the description and comparison of the Politeness Markers in the speech act of offering in Australian English and Vietnamese in this thesis could help the native Vietnamese learners of English as well as the native Australian learners of Vietnamese have a good insight into the speech act of offering so that they could better learn English and Vietnamese as a foreign language.
13. Further research directions: Natural communication is a co-operative activity which requires both productive and receptive strategies. The meanings are negotiated and renegotiated depending on the offeree’s immediate reaction. This study should then be supplemented with further research into the discourse analysis aspect so that speech acts including offering could be more thoroughly studied.
Moreover, the data used in the thesis are primarily based on elicited samples of individual tokens of the offering withdrawn from the Discourse Completion Test. However, these elicited samples have their limitations since such extra-linguistic signals as gestures and intonation which may give important cues when offering are left out. Therefore further study should apply the Ethnographic data collection method so as to obtain the more naturally occurring offering.
14. Thesis-related publications:
1. Ho Thi Kieu Oanh (2003), “An Analysis of the Pragmatic Errors in the Offering Committed by Vietnamese Learners of English”, Ngu hoc tre 2003, pp. 315 - 321.
2. Ho Thi Kieu Oanh (2007), “Some Perspectives on the Politeness in the Offering”, Language and Life 3(137), tr. 14 - 18.
3. Ho Thi Kieu Oanh (2008), Polite Strategies of the Offering in English and Vietnamese - A Contrastive Study, the Scientific and technological project, coded, B 2006 - DN 05 - 04.
Supervisors Date: October 9 th, 2009 Signature:
Full name: Ho Thi Kieu Oanh
Dr. Nguyen Duc Hoat
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Ngoc Tu
|
