Pragmatics Lecture Notes

Lecture Notes on Pragmatics FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS, 2009
Chapter one
PRAGMATICS: BASIC CONCEPTS
Unit one: WHAT IS PRAGMATICS?
1. Definitions and background

+ Yule’s (1997:3) definitions
- Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning
- Pragmatics is the study of contextual meaning
- Pragmatics is the study of how more gets communicated than is said
- Pragmatics is the study of the expression of relative distance
+ (Crystal, 1992: 310)
“Pragmatics is the study of language from the point of view of the users-
especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in using language
in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other
participants in an act of communication”
+ Richards et al. (1992: 248)
Pragmatics includes the study of:
1. how the interpretation and use of UTTERANCES depends on knowledge of
the real world.
2. how speakers use and understand SPEECH ACTS.
3. how the structure of sentences is influenced by the relationship between the
speaker and the hearer.
2. Syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
+ Syntax is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms, how they
are arranged in sequence, and which sequences are well-formed. This type of study
generally takes place without considering any world of reference or any user of the
forms.
+ Semantics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the
entities in the world; that is how words literally connect to things. Semantic analysis
also attempts to establish the relationships between verbal descriptions and states of
affairs in the world as accurate (true) or not, regardless of who produces that
description.
+ Pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and
the users of those forms. In this three-part distinction, only pragmatics allows
humans into the analysis.
3. Exercises
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan, Quy Nhon University, Cell: 0911308279 - 0906505968
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1. Mike, Annie and Mike’s cat, Felix, are in Mike’s kitchen.

Mike: What happened to that bowl of cream?
Annie: Cats drink cream.
What is the semantic meaning and what is the pragmatic meaning of “Cats
drink cream”?
2. Pragmatics analyses language in use and many of the utterances we use do
not consist of full sentences yet are entirely understandable in contexts. For
example, Steve is in the kitchen with Jane.
Jane: Coffee?
Steve: Sure!
Jane: White?
Steve: Black.
How do you interpret this dialogue?
3. Provide a semantic meaning and a pragmatic meaning for “It’s cold in here.”
in three different contexts, (a), (b), and (c) below:
(a) Mike and Annie are in the living room. Mike asks Annie whether
she’d like to eat dinner in the living room or the kitchen. Annie replies,
“It’s cold in here”.
(b) The Queen and her butler, James, are in the drawing room. The
window is open. The Queen says, “It’s cold in here”.
(c) Mike and Annie are in the greenhouse. Mike wonders why his orchids
haven’t bloomed. Annie replies, “It’s cold in here”.
4. Now provide a 4th context for “It’s cold in here” which would yield a 4th and
different pragmatic meaning.
5. Provide at least one possible semantic paraphrase (semantic meaning) for
sentences (a) to (f) below by changing individual words, the sentence
structure, or both.
(a) The party is going to begin after he leaves.
(b) Her mother is unhappy.
(c) My friend loathes string beans.
(d) I’ll look for that book right now.
(e) Steve hugged Jane.
6. For (a) to (c) below, provide three alternatives for the underlined utterance.
Each alternative should potentially have a similar pragmatic meaning, even
though the semantic meaning would be different.
(a) Matt: Do you want some cake?
Chris: I’m on a diet.
(b) Tom: How was the party?
Jerry: Don’t ask.
(c) Peter: Lend me a pen.
Mary: Here. But it’s running out of ink.
Unit two: DEIXIS AND DISTANCE
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1. Deixis
Deixis (from Greek) means ‘pointing’ via language. Any linguistic form used
to ‘point’ is a deictic expression. Deictic expressions are also called indexicals. They
are used to indicate people via person deixis (‘me’, ‘you’) or location via spatial
deixis (‘here’, ‘there’), or time via temporal deixis (‘now’, ‘then’).
Deixis usually requires a speaker and a hearer sharing the same context and it
is an application of a general pragmatic principle which says that the more two
speakers have in common, the less language they’ll need to identify familiar things.
In deixis the speaker constitutes the deictic centre, and there are ‘near
speaker’ or proximal terms (‘this’, ‘here’, ‘now’), and ‘away from speaker’ or distal
terms (‘that’, ‘there’, ‘then’). Note that deixis is used differently in different
languages.
2. Person deixis
Proximal forms are ‘I’ and ‘you’; distal forms are ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’. In many
languages these basic categories of speaker, addressee, and others are elaborated
with markers of relative social status (e.g. honorifics in Vietnamese, ‘tu’ and ‘vous’
in French). In English there is no exclusive ‘we’ (excluding the addressee) and
inclusive ‘we’ (including the addressee) distinction. This may create ambiguity.
Other languages make this distinction.
3. Spatial deixis
The basic proximal form is ‘here’ and distal form is ‘there’. Other forms ‘left,
‘right’, ‘up’ ‘down’, ‘below’, ‘behind’ …. Some verbs of motion have a deictic
sense, such as ‘come’or ‘bring’ (movement toward the speaker) and ‘go’ or ‘take’
(movement away from the speaker).
4. Temporal deixis
The basic proximal form is ‘now’ and distal form is ‘then’ (which applies to
both past and future). Other deictic expressions are ‘yesterday’, ‘today’, ‘tonight’,
‘this week’, ‘next month’, ‘later’, ‘soon’, ‘before’, ‘ago’ etc. All these expressions
depend for their interpretation on knowing the time of utterance.
In English, the choice of verb tense is a basic type of temporal deixis. The
present tense is the proximal form and the past tense is the distal form. Something
that is treated as extremely unlikely or impossible from the speaker’s current
situation is also marked via the distal (past tense form). So the distal form is used to
communicate not only distance from current time but also distance from current
reality or facts.
5. Different usages of deictic terms.
a- Gestural use: interpreted only by somebody who is monitoring some
physical aspects of the communication situation. For example: I want you to put it
there.
b- Symbolic use: interpreted merely by knowing certain aspects (e.g. time,
location,…) of the speech communication situation. For example: Hello, is Johnny
there, please?
c- Anaphoric use: referring to what is previously mentioned (an antecedent).
For example: I drove my car to the parking lot and left it there.
d- Non-deictic use: mentioning more general reference. For example: I want
to go here and there in my free time.
6. Exercises
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1. Discuss the following sentences in terms of personal, spatial, and/or temporal

deixis.
- I am hungry.
- I was hungry.
- Hand me that pen over there.
- An Australian publisher bought this for $ 5 million.
- You can vacuum while you wash the dishes, and – keep your hat on –
I’ll get the groceries.
2. Discuss the differences in the following pairs of utterances:
- Come to bed! & Go to bed!
- Come in, please! & Go in, please!
3. Is the following utterance nonsense? Why/Why not?
I am not here now.
4. What is the difference between the two utterances?
- Let’s go.
- Let us go.
5. Discuss the differences of the first and second singular person in English and
Vietnamese.
English: I you
Vietnamese: tôi anh
tao mày
em thầy
…… ……
6. Which of the following words is a deictic expression?
- here - city
- Wednesday - then
- place - ago
7. Where is the speaker at the time of speaking?
- Go to bed.
- The Astronauts are coming back to Earth.
- Can you take this plate into the kitchen for me?
- I was born in New York and have lived there ever since.
8. In each of the following utterance, what can you deduce about the date of the
utterance?
- I first met my wife in the year 1991.
- The 1936 Olympic Games will be held in Berlin.
- Who would, at the time, believe that poor, hard-working boy could
become President Abraham Lincoln, who devoted his life to his nation
and was assassinated in 1865.
9. Discuss the deictic usage in the following :
- Move it from there to there
- Hello, is Tom there? (on the phone)
- There we go.
- You, you, but not you come and see me after class
- You can never tell what will happen to the earth tomorrow.
Unit three: REFERENCE AND INFERENCE
1. What is reference?
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Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms to

enable a listener, or reader, to identify something.
Those linguistic forms are referring expressions, which can be proper nouns
(e.g. Shakespeare, Japan), definite noun phrases (e.g. the author, the country),
indefinite noun phrase (e.g. a woman, a beautiful place), or a pronoun (e.g. he, it,
them).
Successful reference means that an intention was recognized, via inference,
indicating a kind of shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer, and hence
social connection.
2. Referential and attributive uses
Referential use: referring expressions have identifiable physical referents [1].
[1] There’s a woman waiting for you.
Attributive use: an expression which does not have an identifiable physical
referent but means whoever/whatever that fits the description [2].
[2] He wants to marry a woman with a lot of money.
3. Names and referents
A truly pragmatic view of reference allows us to see how a person can be
identified via a common noun (e.g. the cheese sandwich) [3] and a thing can be
identified via a proper noun (e.g. Shakespeare) [4].
[3] (Between two students)
A. Can I borrow your Shakespeare?
B. Yeah, it’s over there on the table.
[4] (Between two waiters in a restaurant)
C. Where’s the cheese sandwich sitting?
D. He’s over there by the window.
4. The role of co-text
Context is the physical environment, which has a powerful impact on how
referring expressions are to be interpreted.
Co-text is a linguistic part of the environment in which a referring expression
is used. The co-text clearly limits the range of possible interpretations we might have
for a referring expression because it actually provides a number of possible referents.
[5] a. The cheese sandwich is made with white bread.
b. The cheese sandwich left without paying.
5. Anaphoric reference.
Anaphoric reference is a second or subsequent reference to an already
introduced referent (i.e. antecedent) [6]
[6] In the film, a man and a woman was trying to wash a cat. The man was
holding the cat while the woman poured water on it.
There is sometimes a reversal of the antecedent-anaphor pattern. In this case,
it is called cataphoric reference [7]
[7] I turned the corner and almost stepped on it. There was a large snake in
the middle of the path.
The absence of a referring expression as anaphoric reference where it is
expected is called zero anaphora, or ellipsis. [8]
[8] Kim bought potatoes and Dana beans.
6. Exercises
1. Are the following expressions referring expressions?
1. a man in “A man was in here looking for you last night”.
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2. a man in “The first sign of a monsoon is a cloud on the horizon no bigger than
a man’s hand”
3. forty buses in “This engine has the power of forty buses”.
4. forty buses in “Forty buses have been withdrawn from service by the
Liverpool Corporation”.
5. it in “Every man who owns a donkey beats it”.
2. What is the referent of the underlined expression in each of the following
sentences?
1. Shakespeare takes up the whole bottom shelf.
2. We are going to see Shakespeare in London.
3. I hated Shakespeare at school.
4. Picasso’s on the far wall.
5. The new Mozart is better value than the Bach.
6. My Rolling Stones is missing
7. Brazil wins World Cup.
8. Japan wins first round of trade talks.
9. The heart-attack mustn’t be moved (in a hospital).
10. Your ten-thirty just cancelled (at a dentist’s office).
11. A couple of rooms have complained about the heat (at a hotel reception).
12. The ham sandwich near the window wants his bill.
3. Analyze the anaphoric reference, cataphoric reference, or zero anaphora in the
following sentences.
1. Peel and slice six potatoes. Put them in cold salted water.
2. I rented a house. The kitchen is really big.
3. The bus came on time, but he didn’t stop.
4. My introduction was too short. It had to be rewritten.
5. Sam picked, Dan washed, and Kim pickled the potatoes.
6. Sandy was afraid of the dark, as was Dana.
7. James got hot lunch at school, and so will his brother.
8. John wants to be president.
9. When we were in England last year, I went fishing with my friend, Peter.
Early in the morning we were sitting quietly by the side of a lake when we had an
unpleasant surprise. We saw a duck come along with three ducklings paddling
cheerfully behind her. As we watched them, there was a sudden swirl in the water.
We caught a glimpse of the vicious jaws of a pike - a fish which is rather like a
freshwater shark - and one of the ducklings was dragged below the surface.
This incident made Peter furious. He vowed to catch the pike. On three
successive mornings we returned to the vicinity and used several different kinds of
bait. On the third day Peter was lucky. Using an artificial frog as bait, he managed to
hook the monster. There was a desperate fight but Peter was determined to capture
the pike and he succeeded. When he had got it ashore and killed it, he weighed the
fish and found that it scaled nearly thirty pounds - a record for that district.
Unit four: PRESUPPOSITION AND ENTAILMENT
1. What is presupposition and what is entailment?
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A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to

making an utterance. Speakers, not sentences, have presupposition. [1]
An entailment is something that logically follows what is asserted in the
utterance. Sentences, not speakers, have entailment. [1]
[1] Mary’s brother bought three horses.
Possible presuppositions: A person called Mary exists and she has a brother;
Mary has a brother and he has a lot of money. (These presuppositions are the
speaker’s and all of them can be wrong).
Possible entailments: Mary’s brother bought something, bought three
animals; bought two horses; bought one horse; Mary’s brother did something; and
many other logical consequences.
Constancy under negation: Basically, it means that the presupposition of a
statement will remain constant (i.e. still true) even when that statement is negated. [2]
& [3]
[2] a. Mary’s dog is cute.(= p) [3] a. Mary’s dog isn’t cute (= NOT p)
b. Mary has a dog.(= q) b. Mary has a dog.(= q)
c. p >> q c. NOT p >> q
2. Types of presupposition
An existential presupposition is not only assumed to be present in possessive
constructions (e.g. your car >> you have a car), but more generally in any definite
noun phrase (e.g. the Queen of England, the cat, the girl next door).
a. A factive presupposition is the information following verbs or verb phrases
like know, realize, regret, be aware, be odd, be glad. This information is treated as a
fact (i.e. truth). [4]
[4] She didn’t realize he was ill. (>> he was ill)
b. A lexical presupposition is contained in the word itself (e.g. stop, start,
again). One meaning of the word is asserted, whereas another meaning is
understood. [5]
[5] He stopped smoking. (>> He used to smoke)
c. A structural presupposition is similar to a lexical presupposition, but in
this case, certain sentence structures presuppose that part of the structure is already
assumed by the speaker to be true. Wh- questions are a common type of this
presupposition. [6]
[6] When did he leave? (>> He left)
d. A non-factive presupposition is – contrary to previous types – one that is
assumed not to be true. It follows verbs such as dream, imagine, and pretend. [7]
[7] I dreamed that I was rich. (>> I was not rich)
e. A counter-factual presupposition presupposes that the information (e.g. in
counterfactual conditional clauses with If) is not only not true but the opposite of
what’s true or ‘contrary to facts’. [8]
[8] If you were my friend, you would have helped me. (>> You are not my
friend)
4. Exercises
A. Which presuppositions can you infer from the following utterances?
1. All Jack’s children are bright. 3. Don’t close the door.
2. Close the door. 4. My neighbour mowed the lawn.
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5. Hey, Judy, give me a hand. 11. You’re late again.

6. We regret telling him that news. 12. Where did you buy the bike?
7. I wasn’t aware that she was 13. We imagined we were in Hawaii.
married. 14. He pretends to be ill.
8. It isn’t odd that he left early. 15. If I had a car, I would travel
9. I’m glad that it’s over around the country.
10. They started complaining.
B. Read the text and fulfil the tasks following it.
Software for Hard Times
By David Liebhold TIME October 2nd, 2000
HO CHI MINH CITY – For Tran Coi, the only difficult thing about the New
Economy is trying to explain it to his mother. Coi’s father was killed in combat a few
months before he was born, so Coi’s Mom had to raise the family of five by farming a
small piece of land. Coi has come a long way: now 27, he is a senior programmer at
FSOFT, a state-owned software development company. “My mother doesn’t really
know what I do,” he confesses, “except that it has something to do with computers.”
But she isn’t complaining. Coi now makes $300 a month – more than ten times the
nation average – and his family, at last, is doing fine.
Vietnam is counting on people like Coi as it tries to make the dramatic leap
from subsistence farming into the information age. In June Hanoi unveiled a five-year
plan to support its budding high-tech sector, which includes constructing two large
software parks. The industry is still tiny, even by regional standards: software exports
totaled just $9 million last year. But it is growing exponentially, with exports projected
to reach $500 million by 2005. Investors say the efficiency, diligence, and creativity of
Vietnamese programmers is impressive, and labor costs are among the lowest in the
world. That has some industry insiders thinking that Vietnam could one day replicate
India’s success in information technology. The transformation is already under way. In
Ho Chi Minh City, British-owned Silkroad System has hired 17 local programmers to
write software for the likes of Jardine Fleming and Merrill Lynch. Says managing
director David Appleton: “We are on the edge of a huge success story here.”
Much of that hope rests on the human capital at Hanoi’s disposal. Vietnamese
youth – who make up half the population of 79 million – regularly win prizes in
international mathematics and computing competitions. Universities in HCMC alone
are churning out 2,000 IT graduates each year. “It seems our brains are not bad”, say
Nguyen Thien Nhan, vice chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee. Foreign
investors agree.
Tasks
1. List as many presuppositions as possible that the writer assumes in the first two
sentences of paragraph one, but does not state.
2. Point out an example that illustrates the “constancy under negation” property.
3. Point out examples of existential presuppositions.
4. Point out examples of factive presuppositions.
5. Point out examples of lexical presuppositions.
6. Point out examples of structural presuppositions.
7. Are there any examples of non-factive presuppositions in the text?
Unit five: COOPERATION AND IMPLICATURE
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Implicatures are primary examples of more being communicated than is said,

but in order for them to be interpreted some basic cooperative principle must be
assumed to be in operation.
1. The cooperative principle. (p. 37)
It is divided into 4 sub-principles (maxims)
a. Quantity:
+ Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current
purposes of the exchange).
+ Do not make your information more informative than is required.
b. Quality:
+Do not say what you believe to be false.
+ Do not say something for which you lack adequate evidence.
c. Relation: Be relevant.
d. Manner: Be perspicuous
+ Avoid obscurity of expression.
+ Avoid ambiguity.
+ Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
+ Be orderly.
2. Hedges.
a. Some hedges for quality maxim:
+ As far as I know, they’re married.
+ I may be mistaken, but I though I saw a wedding ring on her finger.
+ I’m not sure if this is right, but I heard it was a secret ceremony in Hawaii.
+ I couldn’t live without her, I guess.
b. Some hedges for quantity maxim:
+ As you probably know, I am terrified of bugs.
+So, to cut a long story short, we grabbed our stuff and ran.
+I won’t bore you with all the details, but it was an exciting trip.
c. Some hedges for relation maxim:
+ I don’t know if this is important, but some of the files are missing.
+This may sound like a dumb question, but whose hand writing is it?
+ Not to change the subject, but is this related to the budged?
d. Some hedges for manner maxim:
+ This may be a little bit confusing, but I remember being in a car.
+ I’m not sure if this makes sense, but the car has no lights.
+ I don’t know if this is clear at all.
3. Conversational implicature
It is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meaning via
implicatures and it is listeners who recognize those communicated meanings via
inference.
a. Generalized conversational implicatures
When no special knowledge is required in the context to calculate the additional
conveyed meaning, it is called a generalized conversational implicature . One common
example in English involves any phrase with an indefinite article of the type ‘a/an X’.
It is interpreted as: a/an X +> not speaker’s X. [1]
[1] I was visiting in a garden one day. A child looked over the fence.
b. Scalar implicatures.
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A number of generalized conversational implicatures are commonly

communicated on the basis of scale of values and are consequently known as scalar
implicatures.
Some scales of values are < all, most, many, some, few > or < always, usually,
often, sometimes >
The basic of scalar implicature is that, when any form in a scale is asserted, the
negative of all forms higher on the scale is implicated(e.g. some +> not all, not most,
not many) [2]
[2] I’m studying linguistics and I’ve completed some of the required courses.
c. Particularized conversational implicatures
Conversations take place in very specific contexts in which locally recognized
inferences are assumed. Such inferences are required to work out the conveyed
meanings which result from particularized conversational implicatures. [3]
[3] Leila: Whoa! Has your boss gone crazy?
Mary: Let’s go and get some coffee.
Because they are by far the most common, particularized conversation
implicatures are typically just called implicatures.
d. Properties of conversational implicatures
All the conversational implicatures are situated within conversation, with the
inferences being made by people who hear the utterances and attempt to maintain the
assumption of cooperative interaction.
Implicatures have certain properties. Most importantly, conversational
implicatures can be cancelled. [4]
[4] + You’ve won five dollars, in fact, you’ve won ten! (cancelled)
4. Conventional implicatures
In contrast to all the conversational implicatures discussed so far, conventional
implicatures are not based on cooperative principle or the maxims. They don’t have to
occur in conversation and they don’t depend on social contexts for their interpretation.
Conventional implicatures are associated with specific words and result in
additional conveyed meanings when those words are used. For example,
a. but +> ‘contrast’ [5]
[5] Mary suggested black, but I chose white.
b. even +> ‘contrary to expectation’ [6]
[6]Even John came to the party.
c. yet +> ‘different, or perhaps the opposite, at a later time’ [7]
[7] Dennis isn’t here yet.
d. and +> ‘in addition/plus’ [8]
[8] Yesterday, Mary was happy and ready to work.
e. and +> ‘and then’ (sequence) [9]
[9] She put on her clothes and left the house.
5. Exercises
1. The following speakers are using hedges to indicate that they may not be
conforming to certain maxims. Which maxims?
1. As you know, … 6. By the way, …
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2. I am not liberty to say any more, 7. I probably don’t need to say this, but …
3. I have no evidence for this, but … 8. I’m not sure if it’s true, but …
4. I know this is irrelevant, … 9. I still have some doubt, but …
5. This may be just a rumour, but… 10. I’m not quite sure, but I believe …
2. Is the inference in brackets a presupposition or an implicature derived from the
underlined utterance? Why?
1. A: My boy friend lives in London.
B: My boyfriend lives in Paris. (I have a boyfriend)
2. A: What?
B: Why are you laughing at me? (You are laughing at me)
3. A: Why is she eating those?
B: Her father didn’t give her any supper. (She didn’t have any supper)
4. A: Is Mike engaged?
B: He’s bought a ring. (Mike is engaged)
5. A: You look pleased.
B: I managed to pass the exam. (I tried to pass the exam)
3. Is each of the inferences in brackets a presupposition or an implicature. If it is an
implicature, how can it be cancelled? And is it a generalized implicature or a
particularized implicature?
1. Linda: What’s with Jeans?
Jen: She discovered that her central heating is broken? (Her central
heating is broken)
2. Terry: How do you like your bath?
Phil: Warm. (I don’t like it hot)
3. Annie: What do you think of this necklace and bracelet?
Mike: The bracelet is beautiful. (The necklace is not beautiful)
4. Lois: Has the kitchen been painted?
Gabriela: Tom’s away. (No)
5. Jane: Have you seen my sweater?
Steve: There’s a sweater on the sofa. (It’s not Steve’s sweater)
6. Austin: It works now.
Barbara: When did Eric fix it? (Eric fixed it)
4. Discuss the utterances below in terms of conversational implicatures and
inferences. Point out the maxim that seems to be discarded
1. A: Tony doesn’t seem to have a girlfriend these days.
B: He’s driven to New York every weekend.
2. C: You know, I can crush rocks with my bare hands.
D: Yeah, and the sun rises in the West.
3. E: Where do you live? (stranger to woman)
F: Somewhere.
4. G: Why don’t you stop smoking? (wife to husband)
H: Next month.
5. I: You’re late.
J: I left my watch at home.
Unit six: CONVERSATION AND PREFERENCE STRUCTURE
1. Conversation analysis.
Floor: the current right to speak in a conversation.
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Turn: the opportunity to speak at some point during a conversation.

Turn-taking: the change of speaker during conversation.
Local management system: a set of conventions for getting turns, keeping
them, or giving them away.
Transition relevance place (TRP): a possible change-of-turn point in an
interaction.
2. Pauses, overlaps, and backchannels.
+ Overlap: both speakers try to speak at the same time.
- Long pauses (silences) and overlaps are caused by a sense of distance or an
absence of familiarity.
- If one speaker actually turns over the floor to another and the other does not
speak, the silence is attributed to the second speaker and become significant. It is
called attributable silence and possibly communicates something.
- Overlaps can also communicate closeness and competition.
Backchannels: vocal indications of attention (e.g. uh-huh, hmm, yeah, mmm, .
..) when someone else is talking.
3. Adjacency pairs
Adjacency pairs: a sequence of two utterances by different speakers in
conversation. The second is a respond to the first (e.g. question-answer). For example,
First part Second part
Anna: Hello Bill: Hi
Anna: How are you? Bill: Fine.
Anna: See ya! Bill: Bye
Insertion sequence: The two part sequence that comes between the first and
second parts of another sequence in conversation (Q1 – Q2 – A2 – A1). For example,
Agent: Do you want the early flight? (Q1)
Client: What time does it arrive? (Q2)
Agent: Nine forty-five. (A2)
Client: Year – That’s great. (A1)
4. Preference structure
Preference structure: a pattern in which one type of utterance will be more
typically found in response to another in a conversation, e.g. an acceptance will more
typically follow an invitation than a refusal. It divides second parts into preferred and
dispreferred social acts.
Preferred: the structurally expected next utterance used in a response.
Dispreferred: the structurally unexpected next utterance as a response.
Analyze the following examples, in terms of preferred – dispreferred structures
a. Can you help me? Sure
b. Want some coffee? Yes, please.
c. Isn’t that really great? Yes, it is.
d. Maybe we could go for a walk. That’d be great.
Preferred Disprefferred
Assessment Agree Disagree
Invitation Accept Refuse
Offer Accept Decline
12
Proposal Agree Disagree

Request Accept Refuse
Table 1:The general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures

(following Levinson, 1983)
5. How to do a dispreferred
How to do a dispreferred Example
delay/hesitate pause; er; em; ah
preface well; oh
express doubt I’m not sure; I don’t know
token yes that’s great; I’d love to
apology I’m sorry; what a pity
mention obligation I must do X; I’m expected in Y
appeal for understanding you see; you know
make it non-personal everybody else; out there
give an account too much work; no time left
use mitigators really; mostly; sort of; kinda
hedge the negative I guess not; not possible
More examples in disagreeing as a dispreffered structure

a delay: er, mm,hmm, e.g. Mm, I don’t think we can get it done if we do it this
way, though.
a prefacing filler: well, oh, e.g. Well, you have a right to your opinion, but I...;
Oh, come off it Enrique! I didn’t see it was funny at all.
a structure of expressing doubt: I’m not sure, e.g. I’m not quite sure, but I
believe...; I’m not so sure I agree.
an apology: I’m sorry, e.g. I’m sorry to disagree, but his so-called humor did
nothing to me in that film; I’m sorry, Alicia, but it just doesn’t appeal to me.
an appeal for understanding: you see, you know, e.g. You know, I don’t think I
can this weekend.
a non-personal expression: everyone else, one, e.g. Everyone has different
tastes. I thought everyone could appreciate classical music!
an explanation, e.g. This is the way I like my living room; I really enjoy it,
actually. I find it quite a good use of my time, especially because it’s very relaxing.
a mitigator: really, mostly, e.g. You can’t really be serious; I think the yellow
paint really brightens it up.
an obligation: I must do X, I have to do X, e.g. I really have to go home; I’m
sorry but I already have a commitment.
a hedge for the negative answer: as a matter of fact, to a certain extent,
actually, e.g. I guess we have different tastes, then.
Notes:
- “Disprefered” shows remoteness, distance, or lack of connection.
- “Dispreferred” needs more time (for hesitation, apology, …) and language.
Chapter TWO
PRAGMATICS: MAJOR ISSUES
13
Unit seven: SPEECH ACTS
1. Speech act theory

The speech act theory, first mentioned by philosopher John Austin (1962) in his
influential work, “How to do things with words”, is one of the most compelling
notions in the study of language use. Levinson (1983: 226) claims that “[of] all the
issues in the general theory of language usage, speech act theory has probably
aroused the widest interest”.
Actually, since its initiation, it has been inherited, refined, and developed by a
number of philosophers and linguists, including Searle (1969, 1975, 1976), Bach and
Harnish (1979), and Wierzbicka (1987), among others.
1.1. Notion of speech acts
As stated, the notion of speech acts was first mentioned by John Austin (1962)
and then discussed by a number of pragmaticists with a common belief that in saying
something that has a certain sense and reference, the speaker normally also does
something such as making a promise, a request, or an apology (Austin, 1962; Geis,
1995). For example, in saying, “I’ll come and pick you up.”, a speaker not only
produces a meaningful utterance but also constitutes the act of promising.
In studying speech act theory, it is essential to have a deep insight into the well-
known distinction made by Austin (1962) between the three kinds of acts: locutionary
act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. According to Austin (1962) and Searle
(1969), clarified by Richards et al. (1992: 217), a locutionary act is the saying of
something, which is meaningful and can be understood; an illocutionary act is using
the sentence to perform a function; and a perlocutionary act is the results or effects
produced by means of saying something. Clyne (1996: 11) puts it simply that locution
is the actual form of an utterance, illocution is the communicative force of the
utterance, and perlocution is the communicative effect of the utterance.
The three acts are, however, ultimately related because normally, in a
meaningful utterance, “S says something to H; in saying something to H, S does
something; and by doing something, S affects H” (Bach & Harnish, 1979: 3). For
example, on producing the meaningful utterance, “I’ve just made some coffee” (the
locutionary act), we might make an offer (illocutionary act) which might get the hearer
to drink some coffee (perlocutionary act).
Of the three dimensions, as stated by Yule (1997: 52), the most essential act
that counts is the illocutionary force because the same utterance can potentially have
quite different illocutionary forces. For instance, the utterance, “I’ll see you later” can
count as a prediction, a promise, or a warning in different contexts. That partially
explains why Yule (1997: 52) claims that “[t]he term ‘speech act’ is generally
interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance”.
Speech acts are a universal phenomenon, but they might vary greatly across
cultures under the effects of socio-cultural norms. This explains why Wierzbicka
(1991: 149) argues that “[e]very culture has it own repertoire of characteristic speech
acts and speech genres”. It is for this reason that studies of speech acts across cultures
have been conducted with an awareness of both universality and culture specificity, as
14
claimed by Blum-Kulka et al.

Work done in this area is based on the assumption that speech communities share
detectable patterns of speech, and that ‘cultural ways of speaking’ provide an
important domain for the exploration of speech as a cultural phenomenon. Specific
studies of speech act from this perspective show how clashes between different
interactional styles can lead to intercultural miscommunication (1989: 5).
What can be interpreted from Blum-Kulka’s argument is that a lack of insight
into differences of speech acts in different cultures appears to be one of the causes
which potentially lead to cultural conflict or communication breakdowns. Thus, more
studies of speech acts across cultures to compare and contrast the similarities and
differences between them are of crucial importance, though it is challenging to
conduct those studies as a result of culture specificity or even context specificity.
1.2. Classification of speech acts
Speech acts can be classified according to their functions. Austin (1962: 151),
for example, started the classification by assigning five types of functions to
utterances, namely: verdictives (e.g., assess, appraise, ...) exercitives (e.g., command,
direct,…), commissives (e.g., promise, propose,...), behabitives (e.g., apologize,
thank,...), and expositives (e.g., accept, agree,...).
Searle (1976) presents one of the most influential and widely used classification
of speech acts with a focus on how listeners respond to utterances intentionally, which
is on the contrary to Austin (1962) whose attention is on how speakers realize their
intentions in speaking (Wardhaugh, 1986: 287). Searle’s classification consists of five
broad types: (1) commissives (e.g., a promise or a threat), (2) declarations (e.g., a
pronouncement at court), (3) directives (e.g., a suggestion or a request), (4) expressives
(e.g., an apology or a complaint), and (5) representatives (e.g., an assertion or a report)
(ibib.: 10-16).
Following Searle (1976), Yule (1997: 55) clarifies the five general types of
speech acts that in declarations, the speaker (S) causes the situation (X); in
representatives, S believes X; in expressives, S feels X; in directives, S wants X; and
in commissives, S intends X.
Bach and Harnish (1979: 41) appear more specific when they divide
illocutionary acts into six categories. Two of them, the effectives and verdictives, are
conventional, not communicative. The four communicative ones are constatives,
directives, commisives, and acknowledgements, which are more or less similar to
Austin’s expositives, exercitives, commissives, and behabitives, and closely related to
Searle’s representatives, directives, commissives, and expressives, respectively, but
their characterizations are a bit different from Searle’s. For instance, suggestions
belong to the constatives in Bach and Harnish’s but to the directives in Searle’s.
Communicative Illocutionary Acts
I II III IV
Constatives Directives Commissives Acknowledgements
Assertives Requestives Promises Apologize
Predictives Questions Offers Condole
Retrodictives
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Requirements Congratulate
Ngoan, Quy Nhon University, Cell: 0911308279 - 0906505968
15
Descritives Prohibitives Greet
Ascriptives Permissives Thank
Figure 1: Classification of communicative illocutionary acts (Bach and Harnish, 1979: 41)
Apart from classifying speech acts according to their functions, linguists have
also divided them into direct and indirect speech acts. It is not very difficult to
distinguish direct speech acts, where speakers say what they mean, and indirect speech
acts, where speakers mean more than, or something other than, what they say. Saville-
Troike (1982: 36), for example, argues,
As defined in speech act theory, direct acts are those where surface form matches
interactional function, as ‘Be quiet!’ used as a command, versus an indirect ‘It’s
getting noisy here’ or ‘I can’t hear myself think’.
This argument is clarified by Yule (1997) when he suggests basing on the
relationship between the three structural forms (declarative, interrogative, and
imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question, and
command/request) to decide which speech act is direct and which one is indirect. The
researcher (ibid.: 54-55) claims,
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.
For example, the declarative structure, “It’s cold in this room.” can function as
a direct speech act if it is used to make a statement (i.e., I hereby tell you about the
weather) but it can also function as an indirect speech act if it is intended as a
command/request (i.e., I hereby request you that you close the door).
The speech act theory has, however, been criticized by a number of scholars,
including Levinson (1983) and Geis (1995), for its insufficiency as a basic framework
for exploring the pragmatics of verbal interactions. Gajaseni (1994, in Yu, 1999: 15-
16) discuses some major weaknesses of the speech act theory that can be summarized
as follows:
- The classified categories of speech acts fail to cover all the communicative
functions of an utterance as they are drawn mostly from the performative verbs
discussed by Austin (1962), which are limited in number.
16
- Speech act analysis is mainly based on intuitive claims about isolated

utterances taken out of context, so it fails to fully explain the illocutionary act(s) of an
utterance like “Well done”, which can be either a compliment or a sarcastic remark.
- Speech act theory is limited in its application to analysis of conversation
because the nature of communication depends crucially on interaction between
interlocutors, while speech act theory seems to focus only on the speaker’s intention
and beliefs.
- Speech act theory seems to ignore the fact that more often than not utterances
are inherently ambiguous and might thus convey any of a number of illocutionary
forces as it places special emphasis on assigning a single act to each isolated utterance
(i.e., specifying if an act is a request, apology, complaint, etc.).
1. Speech acts – basic concepts

Speech acts are actions performed via utterances, e.g. apology, complaint,
compliment, invitation, promise, or request. Speech acts can be analyzed on three levels:
locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.
Locutionary act: the basic of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic
expression. [1]
Illocutionary act: the function you have in mind when forming an utterance, e.g. to
make a statement, an offer, or an explanation. This is the most discussed dimension of speech
acts. [1]
Perlocutionary act: the effect of an utterance on the hearer. [1]
[1] Could you close the door?
17
Felicity conditions: the expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of

a speech act to be recognized as intended. [2]
[2] I sentence you to six months in prison.
The performative hypothesis: underlying every utterance (U) there is a clause
containing a performative verb (Vp) which makes the illocutionary force explicit. Its basic
format is:
I (hereby) Vp you (that) U
Some common performative verbs are promise, warn, predict, ask, tell, order, … [3]
[3] a. Clean up this mess. (implicit performative)
b.I (hereby) order you that you clean up this mess. (explicit performative)
2. Speech act classification (John Searle, 1976)
a. Declarations: speech acts that can bring about a change in the world by being
uttered in a specific context by a speaker who has a special institutional role. [4]
[4] Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
b. Representatives: speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or
not. They can be statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions. [5]
[5] It was a warm sunny day.
c. Expressives: Speech acts that state what the speaker feels. They express
psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislike, joy, or sorrow.
[6] I’m really sorry.
d. Directives: speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something. They
express what the speaker wants. They are commands, orders, requests, and suggestions which
can be positive or negative. [7]
[7] Gimme a cup of coffee. Make it black.
e. Comissives: speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves to some future
action. They express what the speaker intends. They are promises, threat, refusals, pledges.[8]
[8] I’m going to get it right next time.
* Direct and indirect speech acts: Whenever there is a direct relationship between a
structure (declarative, interrogative, or imperative) and a function (statement, question, or
command/request), we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship
between a structure and a function, we have an indirect speech act. [9]
[9] Move out of the way. (direct speech act) / Do you have to stand in front of the TV?
(indirect speech act) / You’re standing in front of the TV. (indirect speech act)
3. Exercises
1. Give the explicit performatives for the following utterances. Some of them may have a
large number of illocutionary forces?
1. I’ll be there
2. I was foolish.
3. This gun is loaded
4. I’m sorry
5. I’ll sit in the front row.
6. Put down that cigarette.
7. I promised I would sit in the front row.
8. Police!
18
9. Lunchtime!
10. My motorbike!
11. Out!
2. Decide whether each of the utterances below is performative, and if not, why not?
1. You congratulate me.
2. I envy you.
3. I command you to put out that cigarette.
4. I warned you not to go.
5. Put your toys away!
6. We convince everyone with our arguments.
3. Give some examples of speech acts in the following cases.
1. Give some examples of intentional or unintentional perlocutionary acts.
2. Give examples of speech acts that function as declarations.
3. Give examples of speech acts that function as representatives.
4. Give examples of speech acts that function as expressives.
5. Give some speech acts that function as directives.
6. Give examples of speech acts that function as comissives.
4. The following utterances are indirect speech acts. Explain. Change them into direct
speech acts.
1. Will you (please) pass the salad?
2. I’d like you to set the table now.
3. It’s cold in here.
4. When are you going to do your homework? (father to son)
5. I am not going to do your home work.
6. It is 10 p.m.
5. The next utterance is ambiguous. The performative hypothesis can show it explicitly.
How?
I’ll be here next week.
6. Give examples of implicit and explicit performatives in Vietnamese.
7. Do you have direct/indirect speech acts in Vietnamese? Give examples.
Unit eight: POLITENESS AND INTERACTION
Politeness is so popular a notion in studying pragmatics and CCP that Thomas

(1995: 149) argues that “it could almost be seen as a -discipline of pragmatics”.
Grumper, in his introduction to “Politeness- some universals in language usage” by
Brown and Levinson’s (1987), explains that a major reason for this interest is that
politeness, a universal concept, is basic to the production of social order and the
precondition of human cooperation.
1. Definitions of politeness
The notion of politeness has been clarified by a great number of researchers
across cultures. For example, from the strategic perspective and related to the notion of
face, politeness can be defined as “the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face
19
during conversation” (Richard, 1985: 218), “the means employed to show awareness
of another person’s face” (Yule, 1997: 60), the complex system of strategies used to
“minimize the face threat of the FTA” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60), or “behavior
which actively expresses positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing
distancing behavior” (Holmes, 1995: 5).
From the normative perspective, it is defined as “one of the constraints on
human’s interaction, whose purpose is to consider others’ feelings, establish of levels
of mutual comfort, and promote rapport” (Hill et al., 1986: 349) or as “the set of
social values which instructs interactants to consider each other by satisfying shared
expectations” (Sifianou, 1992, in Watts, 2003: 53).
From the communication perspective, Nguyen Quang (2004: 11) defines
politeness as “any kind of communicative act (verbal or nonverbal or both) that is
intentionally and appropriately meant to make another person/ other people feel better
or less bad”. In the dissertation author’s view, this definition is quite general,
appearing an integrative view of both the strategic and normative approach since it
captures both the individual intention (i.e., strategic) and socially institutionalized
appropriateness (i.e., normative).
2. Politeness approaches in literature
There exist different politeness views and approaches that have been put into
several broader categories by different researchers.
For example, Fraser (1990: 220) divided them into four categories: the social-
norm view, the conversational-maxim view, the face-saving view, and the
conversational-contract view. Kasper (1990: 194-196) reviewed two major
conceptualizations of politeness: the strategic politeness and politeness as social
indexing. Watts (2003: divided them into two major groups: the prepragmatic
approaches and postpragmatic approaches. Politeness approaches were also put into
the volitional/strategic approach, normative/social-norm approach, and normative-
volitional/integrated approach (Kieu Thi Thu Huong, 2006, Duong Bach Nhat, 2008).
2.1. The strategic view
This politeness view, also referred to as the instrumental (Kasper, 1992) or
volitional approach (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989), is argued to work well in Anglophone
cultures and be preferred by Western scholars. This view has lead to different
approaches that are categorized by Watts (2003) as prepragmatic approaches. They
comprise the models by Lakkoff (1973), Leech (1983), and Brown and Levinson
(1987), which rely on, or are more or less related to, Grice’s (1975) cooperative
principle. They are discussed in two subcategories: the maxim-based approach and the
face-centered approach.
2.1.2. Maxim-based approach
This approach is under the crucial influence of Grice’s cooperative principle,
first introduced in his lectures at Harvard University in early 1970s and officially
published in “Logic and conversation” in 1975. Grice’s cooperative principle consists
of a limited set of four conversational maxims, named quantity (i.e., Be informative),
quality (i.e., Be true), relation (i.e., Be relevant), and manner (i.e., Be clear), under
each of which falls sub maxims. Grice (1975: 47) also points out that other maxims,
such as politeness maxim can be added to the cooperative principle, which is taken
into serious consideration by Lakoff in her politeness rules.
20
The influence of Grice’s cooperative principle to the realm of pragmatics is so

strong that it remains a crucial part in the well-known models of politeness by Lakoff
(1973) and Leech (1983), and appears to be a closely related factor referred to to
explain part of the realizations of hedges and all the off-record strategies in Brown and
Levinson’s (1987) model.
Based on Grice’s cooperative principle, Lakoff (1973, in Watt, 2003: 60), for
example, suggests two sets of politeness rules, named (1) Be clear and (2) Be polite.
The first set is exactly the same as the Gricean cooperative principle and consists of
four similar rules under the same names: quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. The
second set is, however, Lakoff’s contribution to politeness approach and consists of
three rules: (1) Don’t impose, (2) Give options, and (3) Make A feel good – be friendly.
These rules are schematically presented by Watts (2003: 60) in figure 2.
There, however, exists a great weakness, or to be more exact, a contradiction in
Lakoff’s model. She states that the rules of clarity are a subset of the rules of
politeness. However, if a speaker chooses to be polite by not imposing, or giving
options, or making A feel good, it is certain that at some stage or another in the
interaction s/he will violate the rules of conversation.
Lakoff (1973, in Green 1989: 142-143) gives a clear explanation of her three
politeness rules. Specifically, Rule 1 (Don’t impose) is applied to situations in which
the participants are not equal in power and status. Thus, S will avoid, mitigate, ask
permission for, or apologize for making A do anything which A does not want to do.
Rule 2 (Offer options) is applied to situations where the participants are approximately
equal in status and power, but not socially close. Then, S will phrase his speech so that
A does not have to acknowledge S’s intent to persuade A of some view or course of
action. Rule 3 (Make A feel good) is applied to intimates or close friends, with the
assumption that with a close friend, one should be able to discuss anything, although
there may be some propositions that “even your best friend won’t tell you”.
Thus, the first two rules, based on the basis of avoiding imposition, evoke the
impression of negative politeness, while the third, with a focus on strengthening
solidarity, evoke the impression of positive politeness in Brown and Levinson’s
politeness theory.
Pragmatic Competence
Rules of politeness
Be clear Be polite
Rules of conversation Rules of politeness
(= Grice’s cooperative principle)
R1:Don’t impose
R1: Quantity R2: Give options
Be as informative
R3: Make A feel
as require. Be no
more informative good – be friendly
than required
R2: Quality R3: Relevance R4: Manner
Only say Be relevant Be perspicuous
what you Don’t be ambiguous
believe
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan, Don’t
to Quy Nhon University, be obscure
Cell: 0911308279 - 0906505968
21
be true Be succinct
Figure 2: Lakoff’s rules of pragmatic competence
However, it is perhaps because of the weakness and insufficiency of the model

that it has rarely, if not never, been applied as a theoretical framework to data analyses
in other empirical studies.
Also based on Grice’s cooperative principle, Leech (1983) suggests an
approach to study general pragmatics called rhetorical, by which he means “the
effective use of language in its most general sense, applying it primarily to everyday
conversation” (p. 15). This approach is recognized with two systems: the Textual
Rhetoric and Interpersonal Rhetoric, the latter of which comprises Grice’s
Cooperative Principle and the Politeness Principle, among others.
He (ibid.: 131-150) introduces a number of maxims which, he claims, stand in
the same relationship to the Politeness Principle as Grice’s maxims stand to the
Cooperative Principle. The Politeness Principle runs under the principle of minimizing
the expression of impolite beliefs and maximizing the expression of polite beliefs with
its six maxims. They are (1) Tact Maxim (i.e., Minimize cost to other; maximize
benefit to other), (2) Generosity Maxim (i.e., Minimize benefit to self ; maximize cost
to self), (3) Approbation Maxim (i.e., Minimize dispraise of other; maximize praise of
other), (4) Modesty Maxim (i.e., Minimize praise of self ; maximize dispraise of self),
(5) Agreement Maxim (i.e., Minimize disagreement between self and other; maximize
agreement between self and other), and (6) Sympathy Maxim (i.e., Minimize antipathy
between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and other) (p. 132). In this
model, self will normally be identified with the speaker, and other will be typically
identified with the hearer.
As stated by Leech, the major purpose of the Politeness Principle is to establish
and maintain feelings of comity within the social group because it helps to regulate the
“social equilibrium and the friendly relations which enable us to assume that our
interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place” (p. 82).
Thanks to its sufficient detail with extensive examples of the kinds of linguistic
structures that can be put to realize politeness strategies, Leech’s modal proves to
serve as a theoretical framework for data analyses in other researcher’s studies.
However, the most severe weakness of Leech’s modal lies in the fact that such
concepts as cost, benefit, maximize, minimize, and so on in his maxims all seem to be
vague and general. Also, the model does not take socio-cultural factors, such as the
relative power, social distance, or setting formality into consideration. Consequently,
although it can be practically applicable to some empirical studies, especially of
English-speaking societies, to a certain extent, it can hardly be a universal model,
which is actually not what he states to aim at (Watt, 2003).
2.1.2. The face-centered approach: Brown and Levinson’s politeness
model
The most influential theory of politeness was undoubtedly put forward by
Brown and Levinson (1978 and revised in 1987) and central to the theory of politeness
22
is the concept of face, which is defined as “the public self-image that every member
wants to claim for himself” and “can be lost, maintained, enhanced, and must be
constantly attended to in interaction” (1987: 61). They assume that there are two face
wants: the first is negative face which is the desire to have freedom or not to be
impeded by others and the other is the ‘positive face’ which is the desire to be
approved of or even liked by others (p. 13).
Brown and Levinson’s view on politeness relies on face and the speaker’s
rationality in their choice of suitable strategies to soften the face threat. It is because
they (1987: 60) suppose that certain speech acts, referred to as FTAs, intrinsically
threaten face, and thus need to be softened by rational strategies. To avoid or soften
FTAs, they (ibid.: 69-70) introduce a complex system of rational strategies which are
illustrated with figure 3.
to H’s positive face or negative politeness redressing to H’s negative face.
Lesser 1. without redressive action
on record 2. positive politeness

Estimation of risk of face lost
Do the FTA with redressive action
3. negative politeness
4. off record
5. Don’t do the FTA
Greater
Figure 3: Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness strategies
As seen from figure 3, S can choose either to do the FTA or to avoid it (i.e.,
Don’t do the FTA). If S decides to do the FTA, he can choose to go off record or on
record. If S goes off record, he makes his intentions indirect and ambiguous. If S goes
on record, he expresses his intentions clearly and unambiguously. In the latter case, S
may express his intentions more directly, without redressive action (i.e., bald on
record) or less directly, with redressive action. The redressive action can be either
positive politeness redressing
Brown and Levinson (1987) make their politeness model a production one
which can be widely applied to data analyses in other researchers’ empirical studies by
providing it with sufficient details and specific examples in sub strategies, including
fifteen positive politeness strategies, ten negative politeness strategies, and fifteen off
record strategies, which are discussed with further details and examples in chapter two
and chapter four.
It is a fact that Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model of politeness has become
the most widely-used analytical framework in data analyses of other studies
concerning linguistic politeness in verbal interactions, including those by Vietnamese
researchers. For instance, Nguyen Quang (2004) discusses at length the realizations of
23
Brown and Levinson’s fifteen politeness strategies and ten negative politeness
strategies in Vietnamese in comparison to those in English, with a rich source of
examples collected from his own or other researchers’ CC communication studies. All
those strategies, as remarked by Nguyen Thien Giap in his introduction to the volume
(in Nguyen Quang 2004), have appeared to work well in actual verbal interactions.
Additionally, Duong Bach Nhat (2008) recently conducted a CCP study of inviting
and declining invitations in Vietnamese and American English, based on Brown and
Levinson’s politeness framework, with a focus on positive and negative politeness
strategies and the possible combinations of the two sets of strategies.
However, it has also been criticized and suggested for amendments by the most
researchers. Following are three major criticisms, among others.
Firstly, as discussed, central to their politeness model is the notion of face and it
is this notion that has become severely criticized as being Western-biased and failing
to reflect other languages and cultures, especially the Oriental ones.
For example, severe criticism on their notion of face comes from studies of
Chinese language and culture (Gu, 1990; Mao, 1994; Hu, 1994; Lee-Wong, 1999)
when the researchers argue that Brown and Levinson’s notion of face plays a much
smaller and different role in their culture. For example, Mao maintains that facework
can be thought as involving “an interactional orientation on the part of the individual
speaker toward establishing connectedness to, and seeking interpersonal harmony
with, one’s own community” (1994: 459). Hu argues that face in Chinese culture
revolves around “a recognition by others of one’s desire for social prestige,
reputation, or sanction” (1994: 47, in Yu, 1999: 28). Lee-Wong considers face
maintenance as “an act of balancing – the perception of self in relation to other”
(1999: in Watt, 2003: 102). Thus, it seems these authors have little to do with Brown
and Levinson’s concept of negative face.
Similarly, face has been argued not to work properly in Japanese language and
culture (Hill et al., 1986; Matsumoto, 1988; Ide, 1989). Matsumoto, for instance,
makes a similar conclusion to those of Chinese researchers, discussed above, that the
negative face is not appropriate for Japanese culture and that “the Japanese politeness
system places a higher value on recognition of the interpersonal relation than on
mitigating impositions of freedom of action” (1988: 421).
In Vietnamese language and culture, Vu Thi Thanh Huong (1997, 2002) argues
that the notion of face should be understood as an integration of the personal side (i.e.,
the self image) and the social side (i.e., the social aspect of face). In accord with Vu
Thi Thanh Huong (1997, 2002), Pham Thi Hong Nhung (2007a: 263) concludes that
the notion of face in Vietnamese culture implies the an interdependent self in which
each individual has his/her self image shown, shared, and approved by other members
in the community. She argues that the notion of face in Vietnamese refers not only to
an individual’s own qualities and desires but also his “social role and role-driven
characteristics” (ibid.: 261).Thus, according to these researchers, Brown and
Levinson’s concept of face, especially the negative face, fails to adequately reflect that
notion, especially its social aspect, in Vietnamese culture.
A second severe criticism on Brown and Levinson’s model is that it “excludes
the possibility that two or more strategies might be chosen at the same time” (Watts,
2003: 88). He also argues that “[i]n several examples more than one strategy is in
evidence. This is particularly the case with positive politeness strategies” (2003: 89).
24
Watts’ view is completely in accordance with Thomas’ (1996) criticism on Brown and
Levinson’s claim that positive politeness and negative politeness are mutually
exclusive. According to her, in practice, a single utterance can be oriented to both
positive face and negative face simultaneously (1996: 176). Brown and Levinson
(1987: 230) seem to recognize this problem when they mention the “mixture of
strategies” which, according to them, is “a kind of hybrid strategy somewhere
between” negative politeness and positive politeness.
In fact, the combination of strategies, either of the same or different groups,
have been reported in the empirical studies by a number of researchers, including
Locher (2004), Nguyen Quang Ngoan (2004, 2007), Tran Ba Tien (2004), and Duong
Bach Nhat (2008), among others.
Nguyen Quang Ngoan (2004), for instance, claims that in his study, “many
utterances are a combination of strategies, perhaps for the purpose of trying to be
more polite or to redress to H’s face as disagreeing is such a high FTA” (p. 54). He
(p. 55) illustrates his view, then, with some common strategy combinations realized in
either the Vietnamese or English data which comprise (1) giving deference +
apologizing + asserting condition, (2) apologizing + suggestion, advice + offer,
promise, (3) token agreement + suggestion, advice + apologizing, (4) apologizing +
offer, promise, and so on. The author also affirms his view on the possibility of
strategy combination in his recent study of common disagreeing strategies in
Vietnamese realized from short stories in 5 collections (Nguyen Quang Ngoan, 2007a:
44-45).
Having the same view but being more specific and practical, Tran Ba Tien, in
his (2004) study of asking for permission in Vietnamese and Canadian English, claims
that “in reality, there are some overlaps and borderlines between PPS [positive
politeness strategy] and NPS [negative politeness strategy], i.e. people sometimes use
both negative and positive politeness markers in one utterance” (p. 35, squares are
mine). Consequently, he divides politeness strategies into 3 groups, namely positive
politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, and overlap strategy, the last of
which is the overlap between positive politeness strategies and negative politeness
strategies. His data show that the overlap strategy was realized in both Vietnamese and
Canadian English, but with a higher frequency in Vietnamese in almost all cases as
seen from both the informants’ parameters and the communicating partners’
relationship (pp. 35-50).
In a similar vein, supporting Nguyen Quang (2004: 186), Duong Bach Nhat
(2008: 159) believes that “one PS [politeness strategy] may be used for different
communicative intentions and one communicative intention may employ more than one
PS” (p. 159, squares are mine). Thus, in her study of inviting and declining invitations,
with a focus on studying positive politeness strategies and negative politeness
strategies, based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model, she spends one chapter,
chapter 6, discussing the mixture of politeness strategies which are divided into two
subgroups: hybrid politeness strategies and combined politeness strategies (pp. 159-
188). All these strategy combinations will be further discussed at the end of chapter
two, regarding the methodology of the study.
Thus, all in all, the possibility that politeness strategies can be combined has
been not only discussed in theory but also examined and proven to be great in
empirical studies of different speech acts (i.e. disagreeing, asking for permission, and
25
inviting and declining invitations) in different languages (Vietnamese, Canadian

English, and American English).
A third severe criticism on Brown and Levinson’s modal relies on the relation
of politeness choice and the degree of face loss, suggested in the model and
schematically illustrated with figure 3 above. In their model, Brown and Levinson
show the lesser-to-greater “estimation of face loss” from (1) Ball on record, to (2)
Positive politeness to (3) Negative politeness, to (4) Off record, and to (5) Don’t do the
FTA and argue that “the more an act threatens S’s or H’s face, the more S will want to
choose a higher-numbered strategy” (1987: 60). What it is meant is that the greater
the risk of face loss (i.e., the face threat) is, the higher-numbered strategy should be
chosen to soften the face threat. In other words, higher-numbered strategies are closer
to politeness than lower-numbered ones. This is obviously an evidence of the Western
bias and inadequacy of their notion of politeness, and thus being criticized by other
researchers.
For example, negative politeness (number 3) is implicated to be more polite
than positive politeness (number 2). However, while it appears to be true in many
individualism-oriented cultures in the West, it does not seem to be the case in
collectivism-oriented cultures in the East, including Vietnam, where positive
politeness is more appreciated. It is for this reason that Nguyen Quang (2002: 53)
suggests amending figure 1.3 in such a way that there remain only numbers 1 to 4,
with 1 referring to Ball on record, 2 to both Positive politeness and Negative
politeness, 3 to Off record, and 4 to Don’t do the FTA so that positive politeness and
negative politeness are equally appreciated.
However, while I share the same view with Nguyen Quang (2002) on the equal
contribution of positive politeness and negative politeness in the universal model of
politeness, he still doubts whether it is always appropriate to put off-record (number 4
in Brown and Levinson’s figure and number 3 in Nguyen Quang’s amended figure) in
a higher level of politeness than the on record strategies. It is because indirectness (i.e.,
closely related to off record) does not always necessarily mean politeness, especially
in collectivism-oriented cultures, which have been supported and proven by a number
of researchers (Wierzbicka, 1985; Blum-Kulka, 1987; Nguyen Duc Hoat, 1995;
Nguyen Quang, 2002; Upadhyay, 2004, among others).
2.2. The normative view
The normative view, also referred to as the social-norm view (Fraser, 1990) or
discernment view (Hill et al., 1986; Ide, 1989), is discussed and preferred by a number
of Asian researchers, especially by Japanese and Chinese linguists, as an alternative
politeness approach to collectivism-oriented cultures. The basis of the normative
approach is that politeness must be practiced in accordance with social norms and
conventions and realized mainly by formal linguistic forms as obligatory choices made
to adjudge the message to the social situation. This “involves formal forms such as
honorifics, pronouns, address terms, speech levels, speech formula, etc.” (Ide, 1989,
in Trosborg, 1995: 28).
The normative approach is supported by Japanese researchers, especially Hill et
al. (1986), Matsumoto (1988) and Ide (1989) who argue that Brown and Levinson’s
division of individual face into positive and negative face is not appropriate to
collectivism-oriented cultures where the social group an individual is affiliated is more
important than the individual face. Hill et al. (1986, 347-348) suggest that practicing
26
politeness behavior in Japan according to social conventions is known as Wakimae, the

English equivalent to it is discernment, which is distinguished with volition, the
strategic view from the Western perspective. Matsumoto (ibid.: 403) argues that the
concept of negative face in Brown and Levinson’s model cannot help understand
Japanese culture. She claims that “[a]cknowledgement and maintenance of the relative
position of others, rather than preservation of an individual's proper territory, governs
all social interactions” in Japanese culture (p. 405), and it is honorifics that are one of
the “relation-acknowledging devices” that indicate the interlocutors’ status differences
(p. 411). Similarly, Ide (1989, in Fukada and Asato, 2004: 1995-1996) explains that
volitional politeness is expressed through verbal strategies reflecting the speaker’s
intention as to how polite he/she wants to be in the situation, whereas the use of
linguistic forms such as honorifics is operated by one’s discernment for which
appropriate linguistic forms are selected on the basis of social conventions, being
independent of the speaker’s rational intention.
In a similar vein, the normative view of politeness is also supported by certain
Chinese researchers, such as Gu (1990) and Mao (1994). Gu (1990: 238), for example,
states that limao is the most appropriate Chinese equivalent to the word politeness in
English, and in modern Chinese it is defined as follows:
There are basically four notions underlying the Chinese conception of limao:
respectfulness, modesty, attitudinal warmth, and refinement. 'Respectfulness' is self's
positive appreciation or admiration of other concerning the latter's face, social status,
and so on. 'Modesty' can be seen as another way of saying 'self-denigration'.
‘Attitudinal warmth' is self's demonstration of kindness, consideration, and hospitality
to other. Finally, 'refinement' refers to self’s behavior to other which meets certain
standards (ibid.: 239).
He (ibid.: 256) concludes that although politeness appears a universal
phenomenon, what counts as polite behavior is culture-specific and language-specific.
What is more, in interaction, politeness fulfils normative as well as instrumental
functions. In other words, interactants can use politeness to further their goals (e.g.,
redress to FTAs), but at the same time are constrained by it. A long this line of
reasoning, Mao (1994) relates politeness to the notion of face in Chinese culture. In
reviewing Hu (1944) and Ho (1975), Mao states that the word face in English is
conveyed in two Chinese characters: miànzi and liăn, in which miànzi stands for
prestige or reputation, which is either achieved through getting on in life or ascribed
by other members of one’s own community, while liăn refers to “the respect of the
group for a man with a good moral reputation” and is “both a social sanction for
enforcing moral standards and an internalized sanction” (ibid.: 457). Thus, simply
put, from the Chinese perspective, “it is the harmony of individual behavior with the
judgment of the community, rather than the accommodation of individual desires that
Chinese face emphasizes” (Yu, 1999: 29). Compared to Japanese linguists
(Matsumoto, 1988; Ide, 1989), the Chinese researchers (Gu, 1990; Mao, 1994) appear
more reasonable in partially accepting the self aspect of face in Brown and Levinson’s
theory, though they emphasize the social aspect of the notion.
Apart from those Japanese and Chinese researchers, the normative view is also
realized and discussed in some other studies by non-Anglophone researchers. These
include Nwoye’s (1992) research into the notion of face by Igbo of Nigeria in which
he argues in favor of what he calls group face and states that an Igbo must shows
greater concern over the collective rather than individual self image (p. 315).
27
The normative view on politeness is also discussed by certain Vietnamese

researchers, including Nguyen Duc Hoat (1995) and Nguyen Van Do (1996, 1999).
For example, in his study of politeness markers in Vietnamese requests, Nguyen Duc
Hoat (1995), supports the point of view by Hill et al. (1986) and Ide (1989) that
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness framework mainly focuses on the strategic
(volitional) aspect of polite language use, while the social constraints on politeness
output (discernment) are not adequately addressed. From his empirical research, he
(ibid.: 332) concludes that discernment is primary and fundamental and volition is
secondary and complementary for Vietnamese, whereas volition is the main factor
affecting the choice of appropriate polite expressions for American English. Along
with this line of reasoning, Nguyen Van Do argues that Vietnamese perception of
politeness should be understood in broader terms covering more areas of behaviors
(1996: 39) in various complex relations manipulated by social norms and conventions,
affected by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism (1996, 28; 1999: 39). Among these,
what is believed to have affected the Vietnamese notion of politeness the most is
Confucianism, the central convention to which is ‘Lễ’ (equivalent to ‘ritual’ in
English) which “requires people to follow exactly all the rituals and principles
advocated by Confucianism” (Quang Dam, 1994, in Vu Thi Thanh Huong, 1997: 47).
The normative view is, however, also criticized by other researchers, especially
Fukada and Asoto (2004) and Ji (2000). Fukada and Asoto (ibid.), for example, state
they “suspect that both Ide and Matsumoto were misled by the superficial
correspondences between linguistic forms and social rules” (p. 1996) and they argue
that an account based on Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory is superior to the
discernment account in concerning politeness, especially the issue of honorific use, in
Japanese culture. They (ibid.: 1997-2000) give some convincing arguments for Brown
and Levinson’s politeness theory, and thus against Matsumoto and Ide’s discernment
theory. For example, they argue that if socio-cultural variables such as social distance
or rank of imposition operate when Brown and Levinson’s framework is applied, the
model can work better than the discernment theory in Japanese culture. They also
argue that Ide and Matsumoto are not convincing on claiming that Brown and
Levinson’s face preservation does not figure in the use of honorifics, while in fact it
does. Besides, the discernment theory is insufficient because it does not involve a
social rule concerning the use of honorifics by a socially superior person to his/her
subordinate. In addition, the use of honorifics in Japanese culture does not always
show politeness. It is because with certain examples, the use of honorific forms sounds
bizarre, especially when the acts involved are generally considered dishonorable.
These examples include “My teacher killed my classmate.”, “My teacher raped my
classmate.”, or “My teacher committed a bank robbery”.
The normative view by Chinese researchers is also criticized. For example, Ji
(2000) evaluates Mao's (1994) debate with Brown and Levinson about their politeness
theory based on the notion of face and concludes that “Mao's arguments against
Brown and Levinson’s theory are not convincing” (p. 1059). That author refutes two
major arguments form Mao.
On the one hand, Mao (1984) argues that Brown and Levinson’s
conceptualization as a self-image, possibly preferred in the West, can be problematic
in Chinese culture because Chinese face represents a public image, rather than a self-
image. However, it is not convincing because when Mao argues that self is not highly
valued in the Chinese notion of face, he means the Chinese proscription against
28
individual desires for freedom of action – the negative face, so this can only indicate
that Chinese culture is less negative politeness oriented, but not be appropriate “to
disapprove of face as being perceived as a self-image by members of Chinese culture”
(ibid.: 1060).
On the other hand, Mao (1994) argues that the Chinese concept of face
expressed by the word miànzi does not contain a component of negative face and the
Chinese concept of face expressed by another word, liăn, bears only limited
resemblance to positive face. However, it is not convincing to make this conclusion on
the sheer meaning of miànzi or liăn, because “they simply do not have the
connotations Mao claims them to have”, as compared to the most authoritative
Chinese dictionary currently in use (ibid.: 1060-1061). Ji (2000) finally concludes,
Brown and Levinson’s dichotomy of positive and negative faces is justifiable because,
although the two types of face may play an unbalanced role in a particular culture,
there has been no evidence that they can not be identified in that culture (p. 1061).
2.3. Concluding remarks
As discussed, any politeness approach, be it strategic, normative, or whatever, is
controversial, to a certain extent, and may be argued not to adequately represent some
cultures, though it may work well in others. It is because politeness phenomenon is
universal, but culture-specific and context-specific. Consequently, what constitutes
politeness, how it is conceptualized, and how it should be interpreted are all not easy
to discuss thoroughly.
1. What is politeness?
Yule (1997: 60), for example, argues that politeness might “include being tactful,
generous, modest, and sympathetic towards others”.
Richards (1985: 281) considers politeness as “the attempt to establish, maintain, and
save face during conversation”.
2. Different politeness theories.
2.1. Politeness rules by Lakoff (1973)
Rule1: Don’t impose. This rule is the most formal politeness rule which is appropriate
to situations in which there is an acknowledged difference in power and status between the
participants. Following this rule, S will avoid, mitigate, or ask permission or apologize for
making A do anything which A does not want to do.
Rule 2: Offer options. This rule is less formal and is appropriate to situations in which
the participants have approximately equal status and power, but are not socially close.
Generally, in this rule, if S wishes to persuade A of some view or course of action, S will
phrase his speech so that A does not have to acknowledge S’s intent.
Rule 3: Encourage Feeling of Camaraderie. This rule is approximate to intimates or
close friends. In this rule, almost any topic of conversation is fair game, assuming that with a
close friend, one should be able to discuss anything, including the details of one’s own life,
experiences, feelings and the like, with intimate forms of address.
29
2.2. Politeness principles by Leech (1983)

The politeness principle runs under the principle of minimizing the expression of
impolite beliefs and maximizing the expression of polite beliefs with its six maxims:
Generosity Maxim: Minimize benefit to self; Maximize cost to self (in impositives
and comissives).
Approbation Maxim: Minimize dispraise of other; Maximize praise of other (in
impositives and comissives).
Modesty Maxim: Minimize praise of self; Maximize dispraise of self (in expressives
and assertives).
Agreement Maxim: Minimize disagreement between self and other; Maximize
agreement between self and other (in assertives).
Sympathy Maxim: Minimize antipathy between self and other; Maximize sympathy
between self and other (in assertives).
Of the six maxims introduced, Tact Maxim, according to Leech, seems to be the most
important to operate politeness in English-speaking societies.
2.3. Politeness strategies by Brown & Levinson (1987 [1978])
“…Face means the public self-image of a person. It refers to that emotional and
social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to recognize”. (Yule, 1997:
60)
“A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of action,
and not to be imposed on by others”
“A person’s positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be
treated as a member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by
others”.
In simple terms, negative face is the desire to be independent, while positive face is
the want of approval.
Negative politeness is a face saving act which is oriented to the person’s negative face.
It will tend to show deference, emphasize the importance of other’s time and concern, and
even include an apology for the imposition or interruption.
Positive politeness is a face saving act which is concerned with the person’s positive
face. It will tend to show solidarity, emphasize that both speakers want the same thing, and
that they have a common ground.
Face threatening act (FTA): what a speaker says that is a threat to another person’s
face.
Face saving act (FSA): what a speaker says that lessens a possible threat to another
person’s face.
Brown and Levinson (1987: 69) introduce a set of possible strategies for avoiding the
face-threatening acts (FTAs) or for minimizing the face threat of the FTAs. The strategies are
put in Figure below:
Lesser 1. without redressive action

Estimation of risk of face lost
on record 2. positive politeness
Do the FTA with redressive action
3. negative politeness
4. off record
5. Don’t do the FTA
Prof. rDr. Nguyen Quang Ngoan, Quy Nhon University, Cell: 0911308279 - 0906505968
Greate
Assoc.
30
Figure 3: Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness strategies
According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 60), it should be necessary to notice that the
more an act threatens S’s or H’s face, the more S will want to choose a higher-numbered
strategy.
As can be seen from Figure 3, S can choose either to do or not to do the FTA. If S
decides to do an FTA, he can choose one of the four possibilities.
S goes off record if he produces statements that are indirectly addressed to H. H can
act as if the statements have not been heard. Linguistic structures of off-record strategies
include metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions, or all kinds of hints as to what a speaker
wants to mean to communicate, without doing so directly.
In contrast to off-record statements, S goes on record in doing an act if he produces
statements that are directly addressed to H. The most direct approach, using imperative forms
such as, “Give me a pen.” or “Lend me your pen.” is generally known as bald on record (
without redressive action, baldly) ( Yule, 1997: 63).
With redressive action, S gives face to H by employing either positive politeness or
negative politeness strategies.
3. Major factors that affect politeness in interaction.
3.1. Communication context
- Cultural background/norms and communication styles
- Physical setting (time, location, …)
- Co-text (utterances preceding and following the utterance that is being analyzed)
3.2. Participants
- Their relative power (social status, age, gender, intellectual capacity, …)
- Their social distance (close or not close, familiar or unfamiliar)
3.3. Topic or purpose of communication
- Safe or unsafe topic (level of imposition)
- Hearer benefited or speaker benefited
4. Exercises
1. Below are five utterances with an imperative structure. Assume that each one would be
spoken by the host to a guest. Rearrange them in order of politeness, starting with the least
polite. Think about what made some of these utterances more polite than others.
1. Take a look at this
2. Clean up the kitchen floor.
3. Pass the salt.
4. Have some more cake.
5. Peel these potatoes.
2. Here are some possible requests for the same action. Again, assume that each one would
be spoken by the host to a guest and rearrange them in order of politeness, starting with the
least polite. Think about what made some of these utterances more polite than others.
1. Could I possibly ask you to set the table?
2. Set the table.
3. Can you set the table?
3. In each of the following dialogues, there are three alternative responses for the second
speaker. Put them in increasing order of politeness.
1. Maridyth: Well, I’ve done it. I’ve dyed my hair blonde.
Ed: a. You look beautiful.
b. You look awful.
31
c. You look amazing.

2. Tom: Do you like the wine I picked out?
Gabriela: a. It’s Italian, isn’t it?
b. Yes, I do.
c. Not really.
3. Jean: What did the students say about my teaching?
Linda: a. Let’s hope none of them are lawyers.
b. Some students were very positive.
c. Pretty bad.
4. In 1-3 there are three possible responses that Jane could make to Steve. Rank them in
order of politeness, starting with the least polite
1. Steve: This is a great restaurant, isn’t it?
Jane: a. Not really. I hate spicy food.
b. It’s pretty good value, but the food could have been less spicy.
c. I’ll say.
2. Steve: I thought that movie was boring.
Jane: a. So did I.
b. That’s rubbish. I loved it.
c. Parts of it were a bit slow.
3. Steve: Clinton’s a fool.
Jane: a. Well, he has done some foolish things.
b. He is not
d. I’m sorry I have to disagree with you.
5. You are in a room with a friend. Ask him/her to close the door, using all the possible
politeness strategies suggested by Brown & Levinson.
f. Give linguistic examples of politeness choices in Vietnamese.
Chapter THREE
PRAGMATICS IN THE REAL WORLD
Unit nine: CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS

AND INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS
1. Notion and scope

In his discussion of approaches to inter-cultural communication, Clyne (1996:
3) states,
There are three main ways in which the role of culture can be, and has been, studied –
by comparing native discourse across cultures (the Contrastive Approach), by
examining the discourse of non-native speakers in a second language (the
Interlanguage Approach), and by examining and comparing the discourse of people of
different cultural and linguistic backgrounds interacting either in a lingua franca or in
one of the interlocutors’ languages (the Interactive Inter-cultural Approach).
He (1996: 4) also argues that the three approaches are not always clearly
differentiated and that the third approach has been the least developed and investigated
32
so far. Actually, Clyne’s classification and comments are completely appropriate, as

seen from the perspective of CCP.
According to Kasper & Blum-Kula (1995: 3), pragmatics is considered as “the
study of people’s comprehension and production of linguistic action in context”. Thus,
CCP is the study of liguistic action patterns carried out by language users of different
cultural backgrounds. Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989: 1-11) argue that the
field of CCP can be divided into two trends: one is contrastive pragmatics and the
other is ILP.
Contrastive pragmatics is concerned with comparing and contrasting the
similarities and differences in different pragmatic aspects such as politeness or speech
act performance across cultural communities. Contrative pragmatics studies are
conducted in the belief that in different cultural communities, people speak
differently and those profound and systematic differences reflect different
cultural values, different ways of speaking, and different communicative styles,
which can be explained and made sense of (Wierzbicka, 991: 69).
ILP studies, on the other hand, focus on investigating linguistic actions by
language learners or non-native speakers in comparison with those by native speakers
to uncover the learner’s comprehension and production of different pragmatic aspects.
However, ILP can also be a branch of Second Language Acquisition Research in
contrast to interlanguage morphology, syntax, and semantics. Thus, as argued by
Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993: 3), ILP is “a second-generation hybrid” because it
“belongs to two different disciplines, both of which are interdisciplinary”.
To sum up, as a subset of cross-cultural pragmatics, contrastive pragmatics
has the strength of investigating cross-cultural and cross-linguistic pragmatic
differences and similarities, while ILP focuses on identifying learner-specific
pragmatic behaviors and their relationship to learners' first and second language.
However, research methods from these areas of investigation should be combined for
a good research project, as it is stated by Kasper and Blum-Kulka (1993: 13):
“A full-fledged research program that sheds light on the relationship between cross-
cultural differences, IL-specific pragmatic features, including transfer, and
communicative effects will usefully combine methods from all three areas of
investigation.”
2. Pragmatic transfer and relevant issues
Pragmatic transfer, as defined by Beebe & Takahashi (1989: 200), is “transfer
of some culturally specific politeness strategies from one’s native language to the
target language”. It is resulted from the “influence from learners' native language and
culture on their IL pragmatic knowledge and performance” (Kasper & Blum-Kula,
1995: 10).
On the one hand, PT can be divided into negative PT and positive PT, the first of
which is the influence of the first language pragmatic competence on the interlanguage
pragmatic knowledge that differs from the target language, while the latter refers to
pragmatic knowledge behaviors that display consistent across the first language, the
interlanguage, and the target language. The focus of ILP is, however, on negative PT
because it may lead to communication breakdown. Positive PT attracts less attention
possibly because it usually results in communicative success, and thus appearing less
exciting to study.
33
On the other hand, in literature, PT is divided into two types of pragmatic

failures, as suggested by Thomas (1983). They are: sociopragmatic failure and
pragmalinguistic failure. According to Blum-Kulka, House, & Kasper (1989: 10), in
the first type, learners “assess the relevant situational factors on the basis of their
native sociopragmatic norms” and in the second type, “native procedures and
linguistic means of speech act performance are transferred to interlanguage
communication”. Pragmatic failure is another term used to refer to negative PT.
As possibly seen in a number of studies, negative transfer has been found at
both the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic level. At the sociopragmatic level,
negative PT has been found in the learners’ perception of the status relationships, of
the appropriateness of speech acts, of the choice of politeness styles, and so on. At the
pragmalinguistic level, most of the reported negative PT is related to the learners’
strategic options and forms that modify the politeness value of a linguistic act (Kasper
& Blum-Kulka, 1993: 10-11).
One final concept of PT is inverse pragmatic transfer, which is used to refer to
the influence of the second/foreign language pragmatic competence on the learner’s
perception and production of different pragmatic aspects in their first language to
make them differ from those perceived or produced by the first language native
speakers. In the present study, the author also investigates the inverse sociopragmatic
transfer caused by Vietnamese learners of English in their perception of P in the
investigated situation on the basis of Vietnamese culture.
Cross-cultural Second language

Pragmatics Acquisition
Comparative Interlanguage Interlanguage

Pragmatics Pragmatics Phonetics/
Semantics/
Syntatics
Cross-cultural Pragmatic
similarities & aspects of
dfferences learner’s IL
Conver- Speech Conver- Speech

sational act sational act
analysis studies analysis studies
studies studies
34
Current trends in cross-cultural pragmatics studies
Unit ten: RESEARCH METHODS

IN INTERLANGUAGE PRAGMATICS STUDIES
1. Data-gathering methods in inter-language pragmatics

Research methods in ILP have been discussed by a number of researchers
whose discussions on the topic are well presented in Kasper & Dahl’s (1991)
“Research methods in interlanguage pragmatics”, and Gass & Neu’s (1996) “Speech
acts across cultures – challenges to communication in a second language”. Together
with those two authors, other widely-known authors whose relevant discussions on
ILP research methods have been greatly referred to are Rintell and Mitchell (1989),
Beebe & Cummings (1996), Magalef-Boada (1993), Hudson, Detmer & Brown
(1995), Kasper & Blum-Kulka (1993), and Cohen (1996). In those researchers’ works,
all the research methods in the field are thoroughly discussed with their strengths and
weaknesses.
Kasper and Dahl (1991: 3), for example, present a diagram illustrating different
methods of data elicitation in interlanguage pragmatics.
Rating/ discourse closed open observation
multiple choice/ completion role play role play of authentic
interview tasks discourse
perception/ production
comprehension
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elicited observational
Figure 4: Methods of data elicitation
As seen from the diagram, data-gathering methods in ILP are put into two
major methods, perception-eliciting methods and production-eliciting methods, and
five -categories: (1) rating/multiple choice/interview tasks, (2) discourse completion,
(3) closed role play, (4) open role play, and (5) observation of authentic discourse.
These procedures, according to Kasper and Dahl, are characterized on the basis of the
constraints they impose on the data; that is, “the degree to which the data are
predetermined by the instrument, and the modality of language use
subjects/informants are involved in” (1991: 3).
The perception procedures towards the left-hand side of the continuum –
different kinds of rating tasks, multiple choice questionnaires, and interviews – provide
information about subjects’ perception/comprehension of alternative speech act
realizations (e.g., in terms of politeness or directness) or of socio-cultural factors (e.g.,
of relative power, social distance, or ranking of imposition) in given situations. The
production procedures comprise highly constrained instruments, including discourse
completion questionnaires and closed role plays with no interaction, and less
controlled open role plays with partially self-directed interaction between players. The
observation of authentic discourse on the right-hand side is the instrument in which no
deliberate constraints are imposed on the subjects, although unintentional observer
effects should be taken into consideration.
2. A brief description of the two major research methods in ILP
2.1. Methods eliciting perception/comprehension data
These methods can help to study the subjects’ perception of situational factors.
This can be seen in the following example:
Direction: Could you please read the situations on the following pages and tick the
answer in the appropriate box?
Situation: You are applying for a job with a company. You go into a company office to
pick up an application form. A receptionist is sitting behind a desk.
1 2 3 4 5
a
How much authority or right do
none some great
you think the speaker has in
deal
making the request?
not a little very
How acquainted are the speaker
at all bit well
and the hearer?
very mode- very
How large is the imposition of the
small rate large
request on the hearer?
(Ha Cam Tam, 2006: 218-219)

They can also help to study the subjects’ comprehension of speech act
realizations, which can be illustrated with an example conducted by Hudson et al.
(1995).
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Directions: There are 24 situations on the following pages. Each situation will have
three possible responses. Circle the response (a, b, or c) that you think is the most
appropriate for the situation described.
Example:
Situation: You live in a large apartment building. You are leaving to go to work. On
your way out, you meet your next door neighbor, whom you haven’t seen for a long
time.
a. Hello. That’s a nice shirt. Where did you get it? How much did it cost?
b. Nice to meet you. Tell me where you are going. How is your family?
c. Good morning, Bob. How have you been? We haven’t talked for weeks!
(p. 107)
According to Kasper and Dahl (1991), since the early study of the perception of
politeness by Walter (1979), the perception-eliciting procedures have been employed
by a number of researchers, using different speech acts, including requests (Walter,
1979; Carrel & Conneker, 1981; Carrel, 1981b; Tanaka & Kawade, 1982), requests &
apologies (Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985), indirect answers (Carrel, 1979), and
responding acts (Kasper, 1984) (cf. Kasper and Dahl, 1991: 4-9).
These procedures have certain strengths, one of which is that it is quite easy for
the subjects to fulfill the tasks since they do not take as much effort in choosing an
answer as they do in producing language. Thus, it is also easy for the researcher to
gather sufficient data in a limited time. Additionally, they also help to understand the
subjects’ perception of the situational factors obviously affecting language production
and thus can serve as the valid background for further investigation into the subjects’
production of language in the given situations. However, these procedures prove to
have unavoidable weaknesses. Firstly, they just help to uncover the subjects’
perception which is what they think, but not what they actually do – their actual
production of language. What is more, there is a limitation of choices given by the
researcher. Thus, the subjects can hardy offer their choices but only accept one of the
choices suggested by the researcher.
2.2. Methods eliciting production data
The first type of production-elicitation instruments is the discourse completion
task. Cohen (1996: 25) argues that there are two options for a written completion task
in which a situation is briefly described in writing, either in the native or target
language. In the first option, that of open-ended elicitations, there is a written prompt
followed by a space for the respondent to write down a written response. The second
type has been referred to as discourse completion test – DCT (Blum-Kulka, 1982),
where the discourse is structured – part of it is left open and part closed, providing
both for the speech act and a rejoinder. Following is an example of an open-ended
completion task.
Directions: Read each of the situations on the following pages. After each situation
write what you would say in the situation in a normal conversation. The situations take
place in the United States and are to be answered in English
Example:
Situation: You live in a large apartment building. You are leaving to go to work. On
your way out, you meet your next door neighbor, whom you haven’t seen for a long
time.
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You: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Hudson et al., 1995: 73)

Now, this open-ended completion task can be compared with a DCT
below.
Situation: Among friends
Dan: Ron, I found a great apartment, but I have a problem. I have to pay the landlady
$500 deposit by tonight.
Ron: And you haven’t got it?
Dan: No. I’ll get my salary only next week.
----------------------------------------------
Ron: Sorry, no. I’m out of money right now
(Blum-Kulka, 1982 in Margalef-Boada, 1993: 36)
A great number of researchers have gathered their data using DCT. According
to Kasper & Dahl (1991), the format of DCT was first developed by Levenston &
Blum in their 1978 study of lexical simplification, but it is Blum-Kulka who first
employed it to investigate speech act realizations in 1982. Then, a series of studies of
different speech acts based on DCT were conducted in the Cross-Cultural Speech Act
Realization Project (CCSARP) in the 1980s and others. Those include investigations
into requests (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1986; House & Kasper,
1987; Faerch & Kasper, 1989; Kasper, 1989; Svane in press), complaints (Olshtain &
Weinbach, 1987), refusals (Takahashi & Beebe in press; Beebe, Takahashi, & Uliss-
Weltz, 1990); corrections (Takahashi & Beebe in press), and suggestions (Banerjee &
Carrell, 1988) (cf. Kasper & Dahl, 1991: 9).
There appear certain strengths and weaknesses of DCT as discussed by
different researchers.
On the one hand, the strengths are obvious. Firstly, DCT is a highly constrained
instrument (Kasper & Dahl, 1991: 3) which helps to study the variables such as social
and cultural factors (e.g., P, D, and R) that are likely to affect speech and performance.
Secondly, it surpasses other instruments in ease of use and it saves time and effort
because it helps to gather a large amount of data quickly (Beebe & Cummings, 1996)
without having to worry about the job of transcribing. Most importantly, it helps to
create an initial classification of semantic formulas and strategies that will occur in
natural speech (Beebe & Cummings, 1996).
However, researchers have pointed out certain weaknesses of DCT. Firstly, one
weakness of DCT lies in the fact that it fails to reflect prosodic and nonverbal features
of natural communication because it is in the written form and non-interactive. It is for
this reason that one may also question whether DCT can reflect characteristics of oral
communication because the data elicited are just what the subjects think they have said
or will say but not what they actually say. These doubts have partially been answered
by several researchers. Beebe and Cummings (1985, 1996), for example, find that,
discourse completion responses failed to elicit the full range of formulas and strategies
found in spoken data, being limited in length of response and number of turns it takes
to fulfill the function and deficient in the frequency of repetition and degree of
elaboration as in a corresponding oral interaction. Dahl (1985, in Kasper & Dahl,
1991: 38) refers to Beebe & Cummings that “written role plays bias the response
38
toward less negotiation, less hedging, less repetition, less elaboration, less variety and
ultimately less talk”.
A second type of production-elicitation instruments is role-playing. It is also
referred to as “semi-ethnographic” in the sense that they require the subjects to take
on roles that are not always their own (Olshtain & Blum-Kulka, 1985 in Cohen, 1996:
24). The basic role play may, according to Cohen (1996: 25), consist of a situation,
read aloud or written in the native or target language, a prompt by an interlocutor, and
then the response. In order to turn the role play into a more interactive event, the
interlocutor is to provide one or more rejoinders. Following is an example of a role
play elicited orally:
Directions: You will hear descriptions of 24 different situations. Each situation
will be repeated once. After the repetition, say what you would say if you were in
the situation described.
Situation 5: You work in a small department of a large office. You are in a
department meeting now. You need to borrow a pen in order to take some notes.
The head of your apartment is sitting next to you and might have an extra pen.
You say:
(Hudson et al., 1995: 131-132)
Kasper & Dahl (1991) distinguish two variations of the role play procedure:
closed role plays and open role plays. Closed role plays are stimulus situations
designed to elicit the oral data of a particular speech act which do not involve any
interactions or negotiations between interlocutors. Closed role plays, like DCT, are
classified as highly-constrained, non-interactive procedures by Kasper & Dahl (1991:
34). In closed role plays, the tester and the subject act out a dialog, in which the latter
usually takes on the role of the speaker while the tester plays the role of the hearer.
Open role plays, on the other hands, focus on oral, open-ended discourse. One
subject is usually provided with a situation to which s/he has to respond by interacting
with another subject (i.e., the hearer). They both take on clearly defined roles and are
required to act accordingly. Consequently, open role plays appear to be more
interactive and explicit more natural data.
ILP has been marked with a variety of studies on different speech acts, as
reviewed by Magalef-Boada (1993), using role plays as instruments for eliciting
production data. Among them, there are studies of requests (Walters, 1980; Tanaka,
1988), invitations and requests (Scarcella, 1979), apologies (Cohen & Olshtain, 1981;
Trosborg, 1987), and initiating and responding (Kasper, 1981; Edmonson et al., 1984)
(cf. Magalef-Boada, 1993: 46-51).
In terms of advantages & disadvantages, open role plays have the advantage
that they allow investigation of speech act behavior in its full context where the
subjects can interact and negotiate. Also, in comparison with DCT data, open role
plays provide a far richer data source because, according to Kasper & Dahl (1991: 16),
“they represent oral production, full operation of the turn-taking mechanism,
impromptu planning decisions contingent on interlocutor input, and hence negotiation
…” when necessary, all of which help to represent, although not exactly the same, the
qualities of authentic communication. As compared to authentic conversations, they
are replicable and, like DCT, allow the comparative study of language used by non-
native speakers and native speakers, with variable controls. Role plays, however, have
certain weaknesses. One disadvantage is that they, just as authentic conversational
39
data, need transcribing, and the job is really time-consuming. Also, as Kasper & Dahl
(1991: 20) state, “coding open role play data is more difficult than coding data from
more tightly controlled tasks, since illocutionary force and precise function of
conversational markers often cannot be unambiguously determined”. Additionally,
according to Cohen (1996: 25), role plays would most likely need to be audio- or
video-taped and the taping itself may introduce problems. For example, taping devices
are not always available but even when they are, they may make some subjects
uncomfortable, at least for the first few minutes. Such taping may even cause reactive
effects to the extent that some subjects might develop special verbal strategies for
dealing with tape recorders.
The third type of instruments for eliciting production data is the observation of
authentic speech. This is also called “ethnographic observation” (Cohen, 1996: 24)
involving the collecting of naturally occurring data which may be collected either by
note-taking or audio-/video-recording. This observational data is, however,
underrepresented in ILP research (Kasper & Dahl, 1991). These authors are able to
find only two studies of interlanguage speech act realization in this category: one on
compliments (Wolfson, 1989) and the other on status congruent/incongruent acts
(Bartovi-Harlig & Hartford, 1990) (cf. Kasper & Dahl, 1991: 20-23).
In terms of strengths of this procedure, the best thing about observational data is
that it may be natural and natural data may be good in that it represents spontaneous
natural speech as it really is (Beebe & Cummings, 1996: 67). This procedure also
allows for precise recording about the real social setting, location, and the participants
(Houck & Gass, 1996: 45). Thus, the method can provide reliable information about
the socio-linguistic constraints on the use of a given speech act.
However, as pointed out by a number of researchers (e.g., Rintell & Mitchell,
1989; Kasper & Dahl, 1991; Beebe & Cummings, 1996; Cohen, 1996; Yuan, 2000),
there exist a number of limitations. For example, Cohen (1996: 24) argues that it
would be extremely time-consuming to collect enough natural data in all desired
categories. It would also be virtually impossible to control all the variables (e.g.,
familiarity, age, relative status, gender of interlocutors, and so forth) that role plays
and DCT can build into their design. Thus, the data often tend to be unsystematic and
come from an unidentified target population (Beebe and Cummings, 1996: 67-68). In
addition, there are problems with tape-recording and note-taking. For instance, what
can be taped with approval is a biased subset of the natural speech that is spoken.
Note-taking solves these dilemmas to some extent but presents accuracy problems.
3. Common trends in applying research methods to ILP studies
3.1. A combination of different research methods in ILP studies
Different methods are combined when interlanguage studies are conducted for
several purposes. According to Kasper & Dahl (1991: 24), one method can be
employed to gather the primary source of data, while another has the subsidiary
function of either developing the instrument for the gathering of primary data or
helping with the interpretation of this data. Alternatively, two or more types of data
may play an equal role in the study since both or all of them provide complementary
information for answering the research questions at hand. Additionally, the procedure
can be employed to explicitly compare different data collection techniques.
The most common trend is the combination of production procedure and
metapragmatic assessment.
40
As reviewed by Kasper & Dahl (1991), studies following this trend include
those with a combination of DCT and an informal interview (Einstein & Bodman, in
thanking, 1986), DCT and a rating task (House, in apologies, 1988; Bergman &
Kasper, in apologies, in press), closed role play and a question-answer questionnaire
(Olshtain, in apologies, 1983), closed role play and a rating task (Frazer, Rintell &
Walter, in requests and apologies, 1980; Rintell, in requests and suggestions, 1981),
and open role plays and a playback interview (Garcia, in apologies, 1989; Takahashi &
Duson, in requests, 1989) (cf. Kasper & Dahl, 1991: 25-32).
In Vietnam, there have been a few ILP studies following this trend, including
two on requests with a combination of DCT and rating task, (Ha Cam Tam, 1998,
2005) one on criticizing with a combination of conversation elicitation task and
retrospective interview (Nguyen Thuy Minh, 2006), and one on disagreeing with a
combination of meta-pragmatic assessment questionnaire (MAQ) and DCT (Nguyen
Quang Ngoan, 2009).
3.2. The trend of comparing different types of data
Different types of data in ILP studies have been compared by a number of
researchers. Among them, Rintell & Mitchell (1989) compared requests and apologies
performed by English non-native speakers and native speakers via Discourse
Completion items and closed role plays and the researchers found that the two
procedures yielded very similar data, regardless of the oral or written nature of the data
gathering instrument. A possible explanation for this is, according to Kasper & Dahl
(1991), neither data gathering procedure is interactive. However, one major finding
was found by those researchers: non-native speakers’ oral data was much longer than
the data elicited in the DCT as compared to the native speakers’ responses.
Bodman and Einstein (1988) examined the ways of expressing gratitude by
English native speakers and non-native speakers from three types of data: a written
DCT, open-ended role plays, and field notes of naturalistic data. The main findings
were that all the three types of data yielded the same words and expressions, though
they differ in length and complexity, with DCT data being the shortest and least
complex and naturalistic data the longest and the most complex.
Next is a study by Hartford and Bardovi-Harlig on rejections (1992, in Houk &
Gass, 1996: 47). Based on data collected by means of a DCT and naturalistic data, the
researchers concluded that the DCT results in limited data which show a more limited
range of semantic formula, fewer-status preserving strategies and no extended
negotiations, as possibly seen in the naturalistic data.
Additionally, there are also three studies comparing different types of data, the
results of which are of crucial importance for ILP studies although the investigated
informants are all native speakers. Those studies were conducted by Rose (1992),
Beebe & Cummings (1996), and Yuan (2001).
The first study of this group was conducted by Rose (1992), who investigated
the effects of inclusion of hearer response on questionnaires in requests by native
speakers of American English, via two versions of a DCT, with one including hearer
response and the other excluding it. That author found that the two forms of the DCT
produced no important differences although the no-hearer-response data tended to be a
little bit longer with slightly more supportive moves and downgraders (p. 49).
41
Beebe & Cummings’ (1996) study is also frequently referred to by other ILP
researchers thanks to its important results. They investigated the differences in refusals
between written DCT data and natural spoken data from telephone conversations by
native speakers of American English. They concluded with support to the continued
use of DCTs because although DCT data fail to reflect the repetitions, the number of
turns, the length of responses, the emotional depth, or other features of natural speech,
they are an effective means of (1) gathering a large amount of data in a short time, (2)
creating an initial classification of semantic formulas and strategies likely to be used in
natural speech, (3) investigating the stereotypical, perceived requirements for social
appropriateness, (4) ascertaining the canonical shape of speech acts in the minds of the
speakers of a language, and, perhaps most importantly, (5) gaining insight into the
possible effects of socio-psychological factors on speech and performance (pp. 80-81).
Another recent researcher was Yuan (2001) who compared different data-
gathering methods: written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and recorded conversations.
The speech acts under investigation were compliments and compliment responses
realized by native speakers of Mandarin. On comparing the oral DCT data with the
written DCT data, Yuan found that the informants provided longer responses, more
repetitions, more explanation particles, more inversions, and occasionally more turns
in their oral DCT responses than in the written ones, with a concluding remark that
oral DCT data are, to a certain extent, more representative of natural speech although
both types of data failed to elicit elaborated negotiations in everyday conversations.
That author also concluded that field note data, although being realistic and close to
life, faces the problem of losing content and information about multiple turns and
participants, negotiations among interactants, or the exact wording and phrase order
(pp. 288-289).
4. Some concluding remarks on ILP research methods
As discussed, no ILP research methods have proven to be the best because all
of them have both strengths and weaknesses. Thus, choosing the right method(s) for a
study mainly depends on the research purposes and research situations of the
researchers. However, it is a fact that, in ILP studies, DCT and role play are the most
commonly used methods for eliciting production data, possibly because of their
conveniences in time saving and variable controlling, which facilitates the
compatibility.
In most of the studies, the researchers focus on only one or two speech acts (e.g.
request, apology, complaint, refusal, complement, etc.) for a detailed description and
analysis of the situations investigated. To achieve that aim, there is also a common
tendency of combining several research methods in one study. In this process of
combination, one method may have the subsidiary function of helping develop the
instrument for gathering primary data or interpret those data. Alternatively, two or
more instruments may play an equal role in a study, especially when the research
purpose is for the comparison and contrast of different sources of data.
As regards the comparison of written data and oral data, although certain
researchers have different results to a certain extent, some common points of view
have been shared among them. That is, written data can reflect the same semantic
formula with words and expressions similar to oral data, though they are usually
shorter, less complex, limited in strategies, and unable to capture prosodic and
interactive features.
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Lecture Notes on Pragmatics FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS, 2009

Unit one: WHAT IS PRAGMATICS?

1. Definitions and background

1. Mike, Annie and Mike’s cat, Felix, are in Mike’s kitchen.

Unit two: DEIXIS AND DISTANCE

1. Discuss the following sentences in terms of personal, spatial, and/or temporal

Reference is an act in which a speaker, or writer, uses linguistic forms to

Unit four: PRESUPPOSITION AND ENTAILMENT

1. What is presupposition and what is entailment?

A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to

5. Hey, Judy, give me a hand. 11. You’re late again.

Implicatures are primary examples of more being communicated than is said,

A number of generalized conversational implicatures are commonly

Unit six: CONVERSATION AND PREFERENCE STRUCTURE

Turn: the opportunity to speak at some point during a conversation.

Proposal Agree Disagree

Table 1:The general patterns of preferred and dispreferred structures

More examples in disagreeing as a dispreffered structure

Unit seven: SPEECH ACTS

1. Speech act theory

claimed by Blum-Kulka et al.

Communicative Illocutionary Acts

- Speech act analysis is mainly based on intuitive claims about isolated

1. Speech acts – basic concepts

Felicity conditions: the expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of

Politeness is so popular a notion in studying pragmatics and CCP that Thomas

The influence of Grice’s cooperative principle to the realm of pragmatics is so

Figure 2: Lakoff’s rules of pragmatic competence

However, it is perhaps because of the weakness and insufficiency of the model

on record 2. positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action

5. Don’t do the FTA

Figure 3: Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness strategies

inviting and declining invitations) in different languages (Vietnamese, Canadian

politeness behavior in Japan according to social conventions is known as Wakimae, the

The normative view on politeness is also discussed by certain Vietnamese

2.2. Politeness principles by Leech (1983)

Lesser 1. without redressive action

on record 2. positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action

5. Don’t do the FTA

Figure 3: Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness strategies

c. You look amazing.

Unit nine: CROSS-CULTURAL PRAGMATICS

1. Notion and scope

so far. Actually, Clyne’s classification and comments are completely appropriate, as

On the other hand, in literature, PT is divided into two types of pragmatic

Cross-cultural Second language

Comparative Interlanguage Interlanguage

Conver- Speech Conver- Speech

Current trends in cross-cultural pragmatics studies

Unit ten: RESEARCH METHODS

1. Data-gathering methods in inter-language pragmatics

Figure 4: Methods of data elicitation

(Ha Cam Tam, 2006: 218-219)

(Hudson et al., 1995: 73)

Bryam, M. and Flemming, M. (1998), Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective, Cambridge

Yu, M. C. (1999), Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Pragmatics: Developing Communicative

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