A Contrastive Analysis Of English And Vietnamese Expressions Of Politeness
Abstract
Politeness is such a culturally diverse concept that when Brown and Levinson (1987) introduced their theory of politeness, it created much debate amongst academics both for and against its claim of being universally applicable (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2015). This paper seeks to establish a connection between the English and Vietnamese languages in terms of their expressions used to convey messages of welcomes, goodbyes and offers, all of which are produced using the bald on-record politeness strategy, part of the larger politeness theory. By examining pairs of equivalent phrases having largely matching structures and vocabularies and employed in performing the same speech acts in the same socio-cultural contexts, we can arrive at a conclusion that, after all, Brown and Levinson deserve credits for certain aspects of their theory, specifically those that concern bald on-record expressions being applied in a given pair of languages under study such as English and Vietnamese. It is worth noting that the this study discuss only the kind of bald on-record phrases formulated in cases where the face threats are implicitly mitigated and thus considered polite. Finally, possible implications resulting from the research can be observed in various areas like language learning, tourism and sociolinguistic cases of studies involving cross-cultural perception of politeness.
Introduction
English and Vietnamese represent quite different cultures and norms, which heavily affects the way each people expresses politeness in everyday conversations. To fully understand each other, we must first appreciate the influences of our backgrounds and the contexts in which we are conducting our exchanges. For one thing, Vietnamese culture leans towards Eastern Asian cultures and embraces Confucian values that could prove foreign to Westerners, including English people. Take honor or ‘face’ for instance, and we can easily imagine how different the stances each side would take on a certain cultural issue. And in the context of this paper, face happens to represent half of the equation, the other half being bald on-record strategies specifically created to sort out and deal with most situations involving speeches whose threats to the hearer’s (H) face have been tacitly reduced. Better knowledge of bald on-record politeness expressions usage in English and Vietnamese not only lead to enhanced comprehension of the similarities and differences between the two languages, but also improve awareness of politeness in conversations and reduce instances of cross-cultural pragmatic failure. This includes appreciating both the syntactical and semantic aspects of the two languages and the way one culture perceives concepts of personal dignity, mutual respect and social courtesy and manners.
Literature review
How to show politeness when talking is often one of the most distinguishing features when it comes to examining a language pragmatically and comparing it to another. By carefully considering all the works on this issue, we can gradually build a well-informed set of perspectives on the breadth of Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies’ validity and usefulness, their shortcomings and areas of improvement, which in turn would help to illuminate more clearly the case of bald on-record strategies employed to formulate polite expressions. The subtopics under discussion include definitions of politeness and face, strategies often employed to demonstrate respect and deference, cases of failure and misunderstanding, experts’ views on this phenomenon and suggested remedies. Politeness is an effort made by the speaker to avoid any unpleasant feelings or damage to self-respect for the listener (Mills, 2003). Much as politeness is highly valued in civilized societies and high classes, its history dates back to as recent as the early 18th century. This was when Lord Shaftesbury first dedicated a number of works to the topic of politeness, contributing to a growing awareness of social etiquette in the middle class whose members aspire to attach themselves to higher social strata. According to Klein (1984), Shaftesbury defined politeness as the art of being pleasing in company: “Politeness may be defined a dext'rous management of our words and actions, whereby we make other people have better opinion of us and themselves”.
A very important view on politeness was proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987), which states that there exist positive politeness strategies and negative politeness strategies. These strategies in turn are meant to deal with two kinds of face: positive face and negative face. Positive face is defined as 'the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others executors', and negative face as 'the want of every 'competent adult member' that his actions be unimpeded by others'. These theories were based on the theory of face introduced by Erving Goffman, claiming that face is one’s perception of self-value and importance to others (Goffman, 1955).
There are four main kinds of politeness strategies: bald on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record. The first type, bald on-record, makes no effort to minimize the damage to the listener’s face, so it is often used when the speakers know each other well or when speed of exchange is essential. Positive politeness is utilized to make the listener feel accepted as part of a group. Negative politeness is intended to preserve the hearer’s sense of independence (Maha, 2014). Lastly, off-record strategies are employed to only mildly refer to the speaker’s intent. Despite the desire of most people that their face wants be respected, the decisive factor here remains their unique upbringing, societal backgrounds and norms, which dictate what qualify as “politeness”. For example, use of the Japanese honorific system is not necessarily related to avoiding a face threatening act. Opinions to the contrary, however, cite the difference in how Japanese and Westerners define “politeness”, a concept whose core the former base heavily on group belonging while the latter on individualism. Thus, considering the Japanese context where a distinct set of politeness rules apply, failure to properly use these terms of address does constitute a positive face-threating act, thereby rendering the honorifics system compatible with Brown and Levinson’s politeness paradigms. Other points of contention on this matter have to do with the four politeness strategies overlapping each other in terms of usage and their effects on both the positive and negative face of the hearer (Johnson, Roloff, & Riffee, 2004). Moreover, various factors play a part in determining the effectiveness or choice of a politeness strategy and also the perceived severity of a face threat, namely body languages, the order of conversations and each person’s particular style of communication dependent on their habits and emotions.
In summary, all arguments and viewpoints considered, a number of weaknesses in Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies stand out as most prominent: a certain lack of cross-cultural applicability and oversight of contributing aspects apart from the isolated speech acts themselves. Still, the point stands that credits are awarded to Brown and Levinson for inspiring further research into this area of communication studies by acting as pioneers and inviting others to search for alternate theories that seek to improve on theirs where there exist shortcomings. Furthermore, individuals stand to benefit from attempting to follow the guidelines set forth in the politeness theory as a way of elevating their speeches’ quality and propriety.
This paper’s primary stance is that of an observer absorbing the contributions of all sides, all the while focusing predominantly on comparing the bald on-record politeness strategies utilized by English and Vietnamese in light of the literature dedicated to this subject. The final outcome derived from this research may help to shed more light on how similar or different politeness strategies are used in English and Vietnamese against their distinct sociolinguistic and cultural backdrops.
Contrastive Analysis
Although bald on-record stands out as the only politeness strategy to not have any concern for threat mitigation, there are circumstances when the straight utterances actually serve to relieve the hearer’s anxiety about encroaching on the speaker’s free will. Such situations entail welcomes, farewells and offers, where the hearer (H) is most likely to threaten either the speaker’s (S) positive or negative face, and where the bolder and firmer the expressions are, the more polite they will be. Brown and Levinson list some prime examples of bald on-record usage in everyday English conversations which, together with their Vietnamese equivalents, form the basis of the contrastive analysis model that follows. As stipulated above, the polite expressions employed in this comparison fall under three categories, which will be discussed, illustrated, and compared in turn. First and perhaps most common in all languages are cases of welcoming phrases that, according to Brown and Levinson (1987), invite H to trespass on S’s negative face by allowing H to enter into S’s premises, space and hospitality. And most often used of all the different ways of extending one’s welcome to others is probably ‘Come in’ (Brown & Levinson, 1987), a typical bald on-record imperative in both English and Vietnamese used to signal that H are received as guest of S.
Both English and Vietnamese contain such phrases frequently reserved for invitations, and most often they are uttered baldly on record by S to minimize H’s reservation. The imperative mood is usually utilized to deliver these kinds of polite commands, as they are well suited to circumstances where S and H know each other well. When welcoming, saying goodbye or making offers to unacquainted guests or those with higher social statuses, hedges and terms showing respect such as “please”, “sir” or “madam” should be utilized to soften the threat to H’s positive and negative faces. Last but not least, a small difference is that Vietnamese welcomes can sometimes include pronouns like “anh”, “bạn”, “em”, “chị”, etc. , at the end of the phrase to denote closeness and regard to H’s presence, which is often unnecessary in English.
Quite similar to welcomes are farewells, which S uses to make H less uncomfortable impinging on S’s positive face by leaving S’s company. A variety of expressions in the form of imperatives are available for S’s use to indicate that he has no problem with H taking his leave, chief among which are:
English and Vietnamese share plenty of farewell phrases that are prototypically associated with certain common situations of use as illustrated in the above examples ranging from general partings to well-wishing before a trip. Bald on-record directions are aimed at H as S attempts to be polite by insisting that H can leave without being concerned about S’s feelings. Several structures with largely identical meanings demonstrate the universality of these instances in both languages, with the exception of some inherent syntactical distinctions setting them apart.
The third category of bald on-record messages with implicitly redressed negative face threats are offers. Some English examples are from Brown and Levinson, together with their Vietnamese equivalents:
- S signal that H need not need care about certain: Don’t bother, I’ll clean it up. Khỏi mắc công, để tôi dọn cho.
- S relieves H of a duty: Leave it to me. Để đấy cho tớ.
- S wants H to continue receiving S’s hospitality: Have some more cake. Ăn thêm miếng bánh nữa đi.
- S invites H to a close occasion: Have dinner with us. Ăn tối với chúng tôi nhé.
Looking at these samples syntactically, one cannot but notice the addition of words like “đi”, “nhé”, “cho”, etc. , at the end, serving as typical function markers of offers and without which the Vietnamese phrases would lost their pleading character. English offers do not need such extra words to convey otherwise similar meanings. Other than this issue, it can be said that some English and Vietnamese expressions of offer quite match each other in terms of where and when they are used, given their diverse nature as opposed to welcomes or farewells, which are relatively less abundant.
Conclusion
To best sum up the findings of this contrastive analysis, we should note the following main similarities and differences as pointed out earlier. First, it is safe to say that, despite other distinct features native only to either English or Vietnamese, both languages seem to behave in a fairly corresponding fashion when it comes to expressing and perceiving bald on-record polite expressions. Many common sociocultural contexts can be identified in which semantically identical set phrases in popular use are closely linked with particular settings. This leaves only some syntactical and grammatical discrepancies to be cited as unique to each language. Most importantly, the universal validity can be said to be best manifest in these specific aspects of English and Vietnamese, lending some more support to Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory to say the least.
Discussion
By realizing and taking advantages of similarities in the ways both peoples show their welcomes, bid farewells and offer to help, teachers can begin familiarizing English and Vietnamese learners with the new language through highlighting common simple phrases with similar grammatical structures and directly translated vocabularies. This not only helps with easier association and comprehension of new knowledge, but it also makes for a faster establishment of basic conversational skills, especially in uncomplicated situations such as when people first met, take their leaves or simply make short, straightforward offers. Provided the appropriate circumstances apply, beginners benefit from the simple sentences and expressions that helps them state clearly their intentions without risking making errors or being misunderstood by foreigners, which is often the case as they try using more complex, polite expressions usually found in positive or negative politeness strategies, and especially off-record messages.
For those working in hospitality or the tourism industry, specifically the ones serving as the first points of contact with foreign tourists such as hotel receptionists or tour guides, it is vital to make a good first impression by making guests feel welcomed, through the proper use of welcoming phrases. Also, as tourists leave after their stay, their last encounters with hotels’ or resorts’ staff should be marked with well-placed, well-timed parting remarks. It goes without saying that all personnel’s offers of help, service or assistance during guests’ stays must be accompanied by hedges or produced in a way that display respectful and polite manners.
