1

Sympathizing Utterances in English and Vietnamese

1. Rationale
Communication is an art and in order to succeed in life, we need good communication
skills. It is a prerequisite for establishing a standard in the culture of daily life and
communication. Whether in Western countries or in Vietnam, the art of communication is
always a decisive factor for success or failure in all relationships.
In society, we have friends, neighbors and colleagues, and other relationships. Sharing
joys or having fun with others always makes both parties happy. However, there are times
when we encounter very sensitive situations such as having to express our feelings and
feelings towards a relative, a friend or an acquaintance who has just experienced
something unfortunate or bad such as a loss, a disappointment, an illness, an accident, or
the death of his or her family member, it is often difficult for us to know what to say or
how much to say at such a difficult time. Generally much of what we say depends on how
well we know the person who has had the unfortunate experience. But in every case we
support the person by showing this person that we understand what he or she is going
through or how he or she must feel. We empathize with their sadness or disappointment,
offering him or her words of consolation, comfort and encouragement.
In communication, when we know that our relatives, our friends or our acquaintances
have just experienced bad luck, we are obliged to say something. We all know that much
of what we say depends on how well we know the suffer or on the seriousness the
situation. Situations may vary from bad luck to problems (financial, social, business, etc.)
to failures, to illnesses or to death. But in every case, we support the sufferer by offering
words of consolation, comfort and encouragement and try to show that we understand
what the person is feeling. Sympathizing is an art that requires wisdom and tact.
At present, cultural activities between Vietnamese and foreign partners, with English
as a communication tool, are taking place very actively. It is certain that these activities
cannot avoid what linguists call "culture shock", "cultural conflict" and "communication
breakdown" due to differences in language and culture. Therefore, there is a great need
for the study of the similarities and differences of the speech acts in the aspect of
linguistic politeness in English - Vietnamese conversation
In Vietnamese culture, a culture of distinctive community characteristic, caring for
others, even private matters, is very normal. “Therefore, in communication in general and
especially when expressing sympathy, Vietnamese people often tactfully ask for private
matters of the interlocutor” (Phạm Minh Thảo (2000:56)”.
In contrast, in American culture, a culture that values personal freedom, it is taboo or
impolite to talk about privacy. Althen (2003: 5) writes that:
The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their
devotion to individualism. They are trained from very early in their lives to
consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their
own situations in life and their own destinies. They are not trained to see
themselves as members of a close-knit, interdependent family, religious
group, tribe, nation, or any other collectivity.
It is because of clear differneces in Vietnamese and English cultures regarding the
interest in private matters in communication that a study of “Sympathizing Utterances in
English and Vietnamese” will contribute significantly to the success of Vietnamese-
English cultural communication and in teaching English in the direction of
communicative approach.
2. Aim and Objectives
2.1. Aim
The study aims to investigate the similarities and differences in sympathizing
utterances in English and Vietnamese in terms of ways of expressing sympathy and
politeness.
2.2. Objectives
In order to achieve this aim, the researcher will try to fulfil the following objectives:
- to examine the similarities and differences in sympathy strategies in English-
Vietnamese sympathizing utterances.
- To explore the similarities and differences in the use of modality markers displaying
politeness in English-Vietnamese sympathizing utterances.
3. Research Questions
In order to achieve the aim and objectives of the study, the following research
questions will be addressed:
1. What sympathy strategies are used in English-Vietnamese sympathizing utterances?
2. What lexico-modal markers are used in English-Vietnamese sympathizing utterances?
4. Scope of the Study
The study centres only on sympathizing utterances in English and Vietnamese and
does not deal with the following points:
First, it does not deals with paralinguistic and extralinguistic factors although these
factors are important in communication because not much agreement has been reached on
these issues by linguists.
Second, there is no distinction between American English or British English in this
study. The English utterances are both British English and American English.
Third, due to the constraints of resources and time, this study focuses on sympathizing
utterances in real-life conversations, not on responding ones.
Finally, I am fully aware that some factors such as age, sex, social status, or
relationship between interlocutors are important because they affect politeness strategies
the speaker uses, but due to some reasons such as the limited time and research
competence, these aspects are beyond the scope of this study.
5. Significance of the Study
Theoretically, first, this study highlights the role of culture in verbal behaviors and
contributes to the study of a speech act in the light of pragmatics and linguistic politeness.
Second, the application of the achievements of language theories, both at home and
abroad, to investigate the sympathy and politeness strategies used in the sympathizing
utterance will contribute to the preservation of the purity of Vietnamese.
Practically, the findings of the study point out some noteworthy similarities and
differences in sympathizing utterances in English and Vietnamese. Therefore, the study
will be of great help to those who learn English and those who work with foreign partners
in providing them with a good knowledge of expressing sympathy to maximize the
effectiveness in communication and avoid culture shock in cross-cultural communication.
6. Research Methods and Procedures
6.1. Research Methods
To achieve the aim and objectives of the study, the researcher adopts the following
methods:
- Qualitative and quantitative methods: The qualitative method is used to classify and
describe materials in order to find out the characteristics of the speech act of sympathizing
and determine the linguistic devices in displaying politeness in sympathizing utterances.
In addition, some techniques used in linguistics such as semantic analysis, context
analysis, pragmatic analysis, etc. will be used to support the qualitative analysis method.
The quantitative method with statistical analysis techniques is employed to count and
analyze the data collected. Both qualitative and quantitative methods used in combination
enable the author to reach efficiency in the study.
- Contrastive analysis is applied to compare and contrast the number of sympathy and
politeness strategies and lexico-modal markers used in English and Vietnamese
sympathizing utterances.
- Descriptive and Interpretive methods: Descriptive and interpretive methods are highly
required to characterize and interpret the findings.
6.2. Data Collection
In order to gather the data for the study, I plan to collect 200 sympathizing
utterances (100 English utterances and 100 Vietnamese ones) directly addressed to the
person who has experienced loss, disappointment, etc. from transcripts of American and
Vietnamese movies and publications.
6.3. Data Analysis
After the sympathizing utterances are gathered, they will be analysed to identify
sympathy and politeness strategies as well as lexico-modal markers that English and
Vietnamese people use in sympathezing utterances based on Brown and Levinson’s
politeness strategies. Then, the strategies, both sympathy and politeness, and lexico-modl
markers that have been identified will be presented in forms of tables and figures. Finally,
the data will be compared and contrasted to find out the differences and similarities in
politeness strategies employed in sympathizing utterances in English and Vietnamese.
7. Theoretical Background
Making reference to research works related to the field of English-Vietnamese cross-
cultural communication conducted by master’s and doctoral students, I find that the
linguistic devices used to express politeness have not been studied carefully and have not
highlighted the role of these devices in the aspect of politeness. Specifically, among a big
number of research works on cross-cultural communication that have been carried out the
works produced by Nguyen Quang (2000), Some differences in Vietnamese-American
speech communication in the way of complimenting and receiving compliments, PhD
thesis, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU Hanoi and Ha Cam Tam
(2005), Requests by Vietnamese learners of English, PhD thesis, VNU, Hanoi National
University, and Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh (2005) with the topic "Criticizing and
Responding to Criticism In A Foreign Language: A study of Vietnamese Learners of
English, PhD thesis, University of Auckland.
Nguyen Quang carefully analyses politeness strategies as well as lexico-modal markers
in the speech acts of complimenting and responding to compliment. But due to the
peculiarities of the study, he only focuses on politeness strategies and interactive
communication in complimenting and responding to compliments in Vietnamese and
English.
In her work, Ha Cam Tam deals with the aspect of interlanguage pragmatics, directly
related to the speech act of requesting, focusing on outstanding problems that language
learners often encounters when they wants to making requests politely in English
communication.
Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh (2005)’s work focuses on researching the similarities and
differences between Vietnamese-English learners and Australians when criticizing and
responding to criticism, studying the movement of learning in criticizing and responding
to criticisms of Vietnamese learners of English to clarify the pragmatic attribute of these
speech acts.
The study most closely related to my research is Pham Thi Kim Chi’s MA thesis
entitled “A Study of Comforting in English and Vietnamese”. The study focuses on
comforting expressions in different types of discourse in English and Vietnamese to find
out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese of syntactic and
pragmatic features of these expressions. However, this study is only concerned with the
description and analysis of the typical syntactic and pragmatic features of comforting
expressions in relation with politeness in spoken discourse in English and Vietnamese.
Like other research works on the speech acts, due to the peculiarities of each, the
works produced by the authors mentioned above do not mention sympathy strategies,
especially lexico-modal markers displaying politeness in sympathizing utterances
between two linguistic-cultural communities studied. This is exactly what needs to be
done in order to understand more of the aspects of a speech act in both English and
Vietnamese.
In the current context, the exchange among countries in the world is happening more
and more strongly, the improvement of foreign languages in general and English in
particular, is more important than ever before. Researching the similarities and differences
in English - Vietnamese cross-cultural communication is of great significance, making an
important contribution to improving the quality of communication and teaching English.
    Realizing that politeness and its relation to culture in human communication are clearly
shown in the speech act of sympathizing, the author has decided to choose this speech act
as the object of the study.
The following part presents the theoretical framework related to the theories of speech
acts, politeness and modality.

7.1 The Theory of Speech acts

The theory of speech acts was first mentioned by Austin in his outstanding work “How
to do things with words” (1962) which is believed as one of the most significant notions
in the study of language use. This theory is accepted and developed by the majority of
linguists such as J. Searle (1979) and Yule (1997).
Austin (1962) believes that in saying something that contains sense and reference, S
tends to perform certain linguistic actions such as making a promise, an apology, giving
warning and so on. There are a variety of opinions about the speech act.
Austin (1962) makes a very well-known distinction between the three kinds of act,
namely locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary then. Locutionary act “is the basic
act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression”. An illocutionary act is
the one of “forming an utterance with some kind of function in mind”. Besides, it is
believed that “we do not, of course, simply create an utterance with a function without
intending it to have an effect”. In other words, a perlocutionary act is effects or results
produced in the process of saying something. For example, in this statement:
I’ve just made some coffee.
The locutionary act is the combination between many words that helps to create the
meaningful linguistic expression (1).
The illocationary act is used for making an offer .
The perlocutionary act (1) helps H to recognise the effect that S means to produce (to
share S’s feeling about that comic book; to recommend H to read it, etc.)
Yule (1996) also claims that among 3 dimensions, “the most discussed is illocutionary
force. Indeed, the term ‘speech act’ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only
the illocutionary force of an utterance” (p.49). The fact is that the same locutionary act
can be represented by different illocutionary forces. For instance, the utterance “I’ll see
you later” can count as a prediction, promise or a warning.
7.1.1 Classification of Speech Act
Austin, Searle, and Yule classify speech acts and put them under many different
categories.
Austin (1962) categorizes speech acts into 5 classes:
- Verdictives: consist in the delivering of a finding, official or unofficial, upon evidence
or reasons as to value or fact so far as these are distinguishable. For example: assess,
appraise, diagnose, reckon, estimate, etc.
- Exercitives: is the giving of a decision in favour of or against a certain course of action,
or advocacy of it. For example: command, direct, beg, recommend, advise, etc.
- Commissives: The whole point of a commissive is to commit the speaker to a certain
course of action. For example: promise, vow, pledge myself, swear, guarantee,
contemplate, etc.
- Expositives: are used in acts of exposition involving the expounding of views, the
conducting of arguments and the classifying of usages and references. For examples:
affirm, deny, describe, accept, emphasize, illustrate, etc.
- Behabitives: reaction to other people’s behavior and fortunes and of attitudes and
expressions of attitudes to someone else’s past conduct or imminent conduct. For
example: accept, agree, apologize, bless, dare, thank, protest, etc.
However, Searle (1979) believes that Austin’s taxonomy need to be revised due to many
weaknesses and he assigns his own classification of speech acts as follows:
- Commissives: committing S to doing something (e.g. promises, threats, refusals).
- Directives: getting H to do something (e,g. suggests, requests).
- Declaratives: producing changes in some state of affairs (e.g. resignations,
pronouncements, baptism)
- Representatives: describing states or events (e.g. assertions, conclusions, reports)
- Expressives: expressing feelings and attitudes about some states of affairs (e.g.
compliments, appologies, complaints)
From the classification deveploped by Searle (1979), Yule (1996: 55) illustrates the
five general functions of speech acts through the following table:
Functions of speech acts (following Searle 1979)

Speech act type Direction of fix S = speaker;

X = situation
Declarations words change the world S causes X
 Representatives make words fit the world S believes X
Expressives make words fit the world S feels X
Directives make the world fit words S wants X
Commissives make the world fit words S intends X

Besides, Yule assigns another approach to distinguish types of speech acts which bases
on the relationship between structure and function. According to this, he divides speech
acts into two types, namely direct speech act and indirect speech act. Yule (1996)
claims that: “Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function,
we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between a
structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act” (p.55).
Yule also demonstrates his opinion by giving the following example:
It is clear that the utterance “It’ s cold outside” is a declarative. When it is used to
make a statement, as paraphrased in the utterance “I hereby tell you about the weather”, it
is functioning as a direct speech act. When it is used to make a command/ request, as
paraphrased in the following utterance “I hereby request of you that you close the door”.
In English, speech acts are regularly given more specific labels, such as apology,
complaint, invitation, promise, or request. Searle (1969) defined speech acts as “the
basic or minimal units of linguistic communication”. The speaker expects that their
communication intention will be identified by hearers.
Austin (1962) identified three different features of speech acts:
Locutionary act: It is the basic performance of utterance, or intending a
meaningful expression.
Illocutionary act: It is performed through the communicative force of an
utterance, to make a statement, an offer, an explanation.
Perlocutionary act: It is the effect of an utterance on the Hearer. It depends on
the circumstances.
7.1.2 Speech Act of Sympathizing
 According to Sally Wehmeier (2005:1556), “sympathize” means “feel sorry for sb;
show that you understand and feel sorry about sb's problems”, or theo Nguyễn Như Ý
(1999: 1585) “cảm thông” nghĩa là “thấu hiểu và chia sẻ với nỗi khó khăn, hoàn cảnh
riêng tư éo le của người khác” (understand and share other people's difficulties and
personal problems.)
Judging from semantic aspect, we can see that:
- S knows H has just had an unfortunate experience.
- S wants H to know that S understands what H is experiencing or how he must feel.
- S empathizes with H’s sadness or disappointment.
- S really wants H to get over this unfortunate experience soon.
The meaning of “sympathize” needs to be distinguished from that of “console”
(meaning “give comfort or sympathy to sb who is unhappy or disappointed”(Oxford 7th
2005: 324)) and “comfort” (meaning “make sb who is worried or unhappy feel better by
being kind and sympathetic towards them” Oxford 7th 2005: 299)).
However, in this study, I combine the meanings of “console” and “comfort” with that of
“sympathize” under the name of “sympathize” for the sake of convenience.
7.2. Theories and Rules of Politeness
Politeness is a crucial notion, especially in researches on pragmatics that Thomas
(1995) claims that:“In the past twenty-five years within pragmatics there has been a great
deal of interest in ‘politeness’ to such an extent that politeness theory could almost be
seen as a sub-discipline of pragmatics” (p.149).
Politeness is a concept which has been defined by a great number of linguists.
Brown and Levinson (1978) define politeness as “a complex system for softening face
threats” is politeness. Leech (1983) thinks that “Politeness is strategic conflict avoidance
which can be measured in terms of the degree of effort put into the avoidance of a
conflict situation”.
7.2.1 Lakoff’s Rules of Politeness
Lakoff (1975) proposes three rules of politeness: "Don't impose (Distance)", "Give
options (Deference)" and "Make the receiver feel good" (Lakoff, 1975).
- Don't impose (Distance)
In the first rule, it is the formal politeness. Speaker (S) should avoid imposing hearer
(H) and keep distance with H. It means S shows his politeness through how the speaker
apologizes to H for asking or forcing H to do something. The distance here is understood
as social relationships.
- Give options (Deference)
The second rule of politeness is informal. In this rule, H has the power to decide how
he/she behaves or what he/she does. Indirect speeches are suitable choice for this one.
- Make the receiver feel good
This rule emphasizes on people who have close relationship. S and H have a strong
emotion to be friendly with each other. Thus, this relationship can be show in trust
without caution.
7.2.2 Leech’s Politeness Principles
Leech bases his politeness principles on "cost" and "benefit". Leech (1983) lists six
principles to minimize the impoliteness and maximize the politeness, namely: Tact,
Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement and Sympathy.
- Tact maxim
The speaker minimizes the cost and maximizes the benefit to the hearer.
- Generosity maxim
The speaker minimizes the benefit and maximizes the cost to self.
- Approbation maxim
The speaker minimizes dispraise and maximizes praise to the hearer.
- Modesty maxim
The speaker minimizes praise and maximizes dispraise of self.
- Agreement maxim
The speaker minimizes disagreement and maximizes agreement between self and other
people.
- Sympathy maxim
The speaker minimizes antipathy and maximizes sympathy between self and other
people.
7.2.3 Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies
7.2.3.1 Bald on record
This strategy is used when S has no intention of reducing the threat posed to H's face
and is only concerned about the efficiency. Therefore, it is used among those who have a
close relationship with each other.
7.2.3.2 Positive politeness
Positive politeness is used as a way to make H feel sense of closeness, often in fairly
well relation. These strategies are used to make the hearer feel good about themselves, as
well as their interests, and attempt to avoid conílict.
There are 15 positive politeness strategies:
- Notice, attend to H (his interests, wants, needs, goods)
- Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)
- Intensify interest to H
- Use in-group identity markers
- Seek agreement
- Avoid disagreement
- Presuppose/ raise/ assert common ground
- Joke
- Assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants
- Offer, promise
- Be optimistic
- Include both S and H in the activity
- Give (or ask for) reasons
- Assume or assert reciprocity
- Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)
(Brown & Levinson, 1987)
7.2.3.3 Negative politeness
The speaker uses these strategies as a way to interact with H in non-imposing way. By
this way, the risk of FTA on the hearer is reduced.
There are 10 negative politeness strategies:
- Be conventionally indirect
- Question, hedge
- Be pessimistic
- Minimize the imposition
- Give deference
- Apologize
- Interpersonalize S and H: avoid the pronouns "I" and "you"
- State the FTA as a general rule
- Nominalize
- Go on record as including a debt, or as not including H
7.2.3.4 Off-record
This strategy uses indirect language and removes S from imposing on H. S only gives
the hints and the decision depends on H, may succeed or not.
7.2.3.5 Don’t do the FTA
This strategy is used when S wants to avoid doing anything to offend H.
7.3. Theory of Modality
7.3.1. Definition of Modality
In recent years, it has come to be recognized that modality is the object of researches
in the field of modal logic. It could be considered as a functional semantic category which
involves in reflecting a variety of relations such as between the utterance and the
subjective reality; between S with his utterances or even between S and H. However, they
are just the most typical features of modality. It is not easy to point out a clear and general
definition for this complex notion.
Many aspects of modality have been mentioned in researches of linguists, in which
Lyon's view is supported by the majority. According to Lyons (1977), modality is words
used by S to express his opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the sentence
expresses or the situation described by the proposition.
 Sharing the same concern, Hoang Trong Phien (1983) believes that modality is a
potential grammatical category which appears in all types of sentence. This could be
shown in the topical sentences and it also helps to inform something new. Thanks to this,
it is enable H to understand S’s attitude towards the reality.
Whereas, Frawley (1992) claims that modality semantically reflects S’s attitude or
degree of awareness of the content of a proposition.
According to Papafragou (2000: 3), “Modal expressions allow us to talk (and modal
concepts allow us to think) about states of affairs which are not present in the current
situation and may never occur in the actual world”.
Judging from the semantic aspect, Downing & Locke (1995) claims that modality is a
semantic category implying notions such as possibility, ability, necessity, desire,
obligation and permission.
From the point of views of many linguists, to some extent, they share a similarity in
seeing that modality is a role part of meaning which contributes to expressing S’s attitude,
opinion towards the proposition mentioned in the utterance.
7.3.2 Classification
Von Right (1952) believes that modality has a variety of types. However he mainly
focuses on four main types: alethic, epistemic, deontic and existential. Their properties are
illustrated in the following table:
Types of modality proposed by Von Wright.

Alethtic Epistemic Deontic Existential

necessary verified obligatory universal

possible permitted existing
contigent undecided indifferent
impossible falsified forbidden empty

Von Right (1952) divides alethic modality into 2 sub-kinds:

 Sometimes we consider the modes in which a proposition is (or is not) true.
A proposition is pronounced necessarily, possibly, or contingently true. Sometimes
we consider the modes in which a property is present (or absent) in a thing. A
property is pronounced necessarily, possibly, or contingently present in a certain
thing. (p.1)

8. Organization of the Study

The study is divided into 5 chapters:
- Chapter 1, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, aim, objectives, scope of the study,
significance, research questions, methods and organization of the study.
- Chapter 2, THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, presents theory of speech acts, politeness
and modality.
- Chapter 3, METHODS AND PROCEDURES, presents the research methods of the
study, data collection and data analysis.
- Chapter 4, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION, presents the results gained in the
processing of the data and discusses the results of the data analysis.
- Chapter 5, CONCLUSION, summarizes the findings recorded during making this study,
presents the limitations of the study, provides some suggestions for further study and
gives implications on teaching.

8. Intended Outline

Acknowledgements
Table of contents
Abstract
Abbreviations
List of figures and tables
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
1.2 Aim and objectives
1.3. Research questions
1.4. Scope of the study
1.5. Significance of the study
1.6. Organization of the study
Chapter 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Theories of Politeness
2.1.1. Politeness and the notion of face
2.1.2. Politeness principles and strategies
2.1.2.1. Politeness rules by Lakoff
2.1.2.2 Politeness principles by Leech
2.1.2.3 Politeness strategies by Brown & Levinson
2.2. Theory of Speech Acts
2.2.1 Notion and classification of speech acts
2.2.2. The speech act of sympathizing
2.2.3 Outstanding studies on the speech act of sympathizing
2.3 Theory of Modality
2.3.1. Definition of modality
2.3.2. Classification
2.3.3. Linguistic devices of modality in English and Vietnamese
2.3.3.1.Linguistic devices of modality in English
2.3.3.2. Linguistic devices of modality in Vietnamese
2.3.4. Lexico-modal markers in English-Vietnamese sympathizing utterances
Chapter 3. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES

3.1. Data Collection

3.1.1. In English
3.1.2. In Vietnamese
3.2. Data Analysis
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 An Overview of Results
4.1.1. An overview of results in English
4.1.2. An overview of results in Vietnamese
4.2. Results of Data Analysis
4.3. Discussion
4.3.1. Research question 1
4.3.1.1. Similarities
4.3.1.2. Differences
4.3.2. Research question 2
4.3.2.1. Similarities
4.3.2.2. Differences
4.3.3. Research question 3
4.3.3.1. Similarities
4.3.3.2. Differences
Chapter 5. CONCLUSION
5.1. Summary, Major Findings and Implications on Teaching
5.1.1. Summary
5.1.2. Major findings
5.2. Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Further Study
5.2.1. Limitations of the study
5.2.2. Suggestions for further study

APPENDICES
REFERENCES
9. Research schedule
Time Work
20/07/ 2019- 30 /7/2019 Specify the topic of the research propasal
Finish writing research Proposal
1/10/2019- 15/11/2019 Write the introduction of the research
 16/11/2019- 2/1/2019
3/1/2019 – 5/2/2019
6/2/2019- 8/3/2019
9/3/2019- 10/5/2019
11/5/2019- 14/06/2019
15/6/2019-30/6/2019
1/7/2019- 20/7/2019
Write the Literature review
Collect data
Write the Methodology and Procedures of the study
Describe the information and process of collecting
data
Begin analyzing the data and write the Discussion and
findings.
Write the conclusion and implication part
Write the References
Edit the Research

10. References
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