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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material
unpublished elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have
qualified for or been awarded another degree of diploma.

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of
the thesis.

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree of diploma in any other
tertiary institution.

Lê Thị Bích Nguyệt

Date:
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my thanks to many people who have assisted me during the
time I wrote the thesis.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervior, Mr. Pham Xuan
Tho, M.A. I owe him a special debt for his scholarly guidance, his reading, editing and
correcting my drafts.

I extend my gratitude to all the staffs of the Post Graduate Department at the
National University, College of Foreign Languages for their endeavours creating the best
studying condition they can for all the students, including me.

I wish to send my special thanks to Professor Alan Maley, Professor Deryn Verity
and my friend Bui Thi Hien for their help collecting documents for the study, to my
nephew Le Tuan Anh and my friend Tran Thi Thuy Nga for releasing my burden of data
collection, to all the informants for their time and effort completing my questionnaires.

I take this opportunity to thank my colleages at Mohri Architect & Associates, Inc.
All of them have given me a favorable working condition and supported me during the
time we work away from home. Especially, I would like to thank my friend Le Thanh Tuan
for his generosity in letting me use his laptop for a long time in our poor working condition
in Phu Tho.

Finally, my deepest gratitude is for my family: my parents, my brothers and sisters,

my husband, Nguyen Tien Dung and my little daughter, Nguyen Minh Ngoc. Their love,
encouragement and support have helped me overcome the difficulties I have faced,
especially during the stressful time I worked on the thesis.

Once more I would like to thank all. Without your assistance, this thesis could not
have been completed.
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ABSTRACT

This study investigated the speech act of refusals to invitations of Vietnamese

learners of English. It focuses on the Vietnamese learners’ pragmalinguistic competence.
The strategies used by Vietnamese learners of English in refusing invitations were
examined and compared with those by native speakers of English. And the strategies used
by native speakers of English were used as the base line. The subjects were 20 Vietnamese
learners of English and 20 native speakers of English. The subjects’ refusals were collected
using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). The DCT contained three situations modified
from those by Beebe et al. (1990). The interlocutor’s different social statuses, i.e. higher,
equal and lower status, were manipulated in the questionnaire. The Vietnamese
participants were graduate students of Post Graduate Studies, College of Foreign
Languages, Hanoi, Vietnam. The native – speaker participants were of convenience, most
of them were Australian, others were British, American, Canadian, Irish and New
Zealanders. The data were categorized according to the refusal taxonomy developed by
Beebe et al. (1990) and analyzed in terms of frequency, order and content of semantic
formulas. Results indicated that as compared with native speakers of English (NSEs),
Vietnamese learners of English (VLEs) displayed differences in their frequency, order and
content of the speech act of refusals to invitations, though they did share some similarities.
For instance, Vietnamese learners of English used a similar range of semantic formula with
native speakers of English. However, in the content of their refusals, they gave different
reasons. The VLEs cited such a reason as a dinner with their mother-in-law which was not
found in the data elicited from the NSEs. The differences imply that the VLEs fall back in
pragmatic competence in comparison with the NSEs, which may cause them pragmatic
failures in real interactions with NSEs.
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TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

Statement of authorship…………………………………………………………..………..i
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………...……………………ii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………iii
Table of content…………………………………………………………………………...iv
List of abbreviations………………………………………………………………………vi
List of tables………………………………………………………………………………vii
Chart………………………………………………………………………………………vii

Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………………………………..……1

1.1. Pragmatic competence……………………………………………...…………………..1
1.2. The speech act of refusal to invitation: a face-threatening act ………..……….………2
1.3. Structure of the thesis …………………………………………...……………………..2
Chapter 2: Literature review …………………………………………………………….4
2.1. Research on the speech act of refusal ………………………………………………….4
2.2. Cross-cultural refusals …………………………………………………………………4
2.3. Interlanguage refusals ………………………………………………………………….7
2.4. Interlocutor’s status and the choice of refusal strategy ………………………………11
Chapter 3: Methodology ………………………………………………………………...13
3.1. Aims and research question …………………………………………………………..13
3.1.1. Aims of the study …………………………………………………………..13
3.1.2. Research question …………………………………………………………..13
3.2. Data collection ………………………………………………………………………..13
3.2.1. Data collection method …………………………………………………......14
3.2.2. Data collection instrument ………………………………………………….15
3.2.3. Data collection procedures and subjects of the study ………………………16
3.2.3.1. Data collection procedures ……………………………………….16
3.2.3.2. Subjects of the study ……………………………………………...16
3.3. Coding framework
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Chapter 4: Results and discussion ……………………………………………………...23

4.1. Results
4.1.1. The frequency of semantic formulas ………………………………………23
4.1.1.1. Total number of uses of semantic formulas ……………………..23
4.1.1.2. The frequency of semantic formulas in relation to interlocutor’s
status ……………………………………………………………25
4.1.2. Order of semantic formulas ………………………………………………..27
4.1.2.1. Order of semantic formulas in refusals to a higher status person...27
4.1.2.2. Order of semantic formulas in refusals to an equal status person...29
4.1.2.3. Order of semantic formulas in refusals to a lower status person …30
4.1.3. Content of semantic formulas ………………………………………………31
4.2. Discussion ……………………………………………………………………………33
Chapter 5: Conclusion …………………………………………………………………..37
5.1. Major findings ………………………………………………………………………..37
5.2. Implications for language teaching …………………………………………………..38
5.3. Limitations of the study ………………………………………………………………39
5.4. Recommendations for further research ………………………………………………39

References
Appendix
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

DCT: Discourse Completion Task

EFL: English as a foreign language

ESL: English as a second language

L1: First language

L2: Second language

NNS: Non-native speaker

NS: Native speaker

NSE: Native speaker of English

VLE: Vietnamese learner of English

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The frequency of semantic formulas in relation to interlocutor’s status ………26

Table 2: Order of semantic formulas in refusals to a higher status person ……………..28

Table 3: Order of semantic formulas in refusals to an equal status person ……………..29

Table 3: Order of semantic formulas in refusals to a lower status person ……….……..30

CHART

Total number of semantic formula ………………………………………………………24