VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

NGUYỄN THANH LOAN

AN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CROSS-

CULTURAL STUDY ON REFUSING AN
INVITATION

SUMMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS( TEFL)

Hanoi, May 2010

 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

NGUYỄN THANH LOAN

AN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CROSS-

CULTURAL STUDY ON REFUSING AN
INVITATION

SUMMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS( TEFL)

SUPERVIOR: ĐÀO THU TRANG, MA.

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my

professor, M.A Dao Thi Thu Trang . From the point of a teacher, an advisor,
and a mentor, you introduced and inspired me to do this research. My
professional development has been growing increasingly with your precious
guidance and continuous motivation.
I owe my parents for their constant source of love, support and
couragement . I am immensely grateful to them for standing behind me
whenever I needed them especially in times of difficulties.
I wish to thank Ms Adrienne Gallagher, Ms Christine Mc, for
releasing the burden of data collection in America.
I would also want to extend a special shout-out to all the research
participants. Without your valuable opinions and ideas on the questionnaires,
the project would not have been accomplished.
Finally, my special thanks go to all my dear friends for their
understanding and assistance during the process of preparing this research. I
count each of you as my special blessings.
While I am greatly indebted to all of these people for their tireless
help to my completion of this thesis, I myself remain responsible for any
inadequacies that are found in this work.

Nguyen Thanh Loan

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 ABSTRACT
This thesis is an attempt to provide a cross- cultural comparison of a
speech act in American and Vietnamese: refusing, with the focus on refusing
an invitation. The research is based on the authentic data collected with the
participations of 25 Americans and 25 Vietnamese. By using a modified
version of the discourse completion task (DCT) developed by Beebe et al.
(1990), the study defines similarities and differences in refusal strategies of
an invitation between American native speakers of English and Vietnamese
native speakers. Besides, cultural factors to their refusal strategies are taken
into consideration.
The findings of the research provide evidence that refusing as a
response to a speech act like invitations, is a sensitive and subtle
communicative act. Therefore, various refusing strategies are resorted to and
both the American and the Vietnamese tend to be more indirect when
refusing an invitation. However, in the same context, there are remarkable
differences between two groups in their refusal strategies. It suggests that the
performance of refusing act is culture-specific and reflective of the
fundamental values and believes of the society.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements………………………………………………. . i
Abstract……………………………………………………………. ii
Table of contents………………………………………………… . iii
List of abbreviation, firgures, and tables……………………….. v
Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………… . 1
1.1 Rationale…………………………………………………….. 1
1.2 Aims of the study…………………………………………... 1
1.3 Significance of the study…………………………………..... 2
1.4 Scope and limitation of the study…………………………... 2
1.5 Organization of the study………………………………….... 3
Chapter 2: Literature review……………………………………… 4
2.1 The relationship between language and communication…… . 4
2.2 Cross-cultural communication………………………………. 6
2.3 Speech acts…………………………………………………… 7
2.4 Refusal as a speech act………………………………………... 9
2.5 Refusal to an invitation………………………………………. . 11
2.6. Politeness in expressing refusals…………………………….. 11
2.7. Directness and indirectness as communication style in refusal.. 15
2.8. Directness – Indirectness- Politeness………………………… 18
2.9. Refusal strategy………………………………………………. 19
2.10. Related studies on refusal as speech acts……………………. 22
2.10.1 Review of related studies on refusal worldwide……………. 22
2.10.2 Review of related studies on refusal in Viet nam………….. 23
Chapter 3 Methodology
3.1 Participants……………………………………………………. 25

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 3.2 Data collection instruments……………………………………. 25
3.3 Data collection instruments……………………………………. 26
3.4 Data analysis…………………………………………………. 28
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion………………………………… 30
4.1 Research question 1: How do Americans and Vietnamese refuse an
invitation?.................................................................................... 30
4.2 Research question 2: What are the similarities and differences
between Americans and Vietnamese in refusing an invitation?....39
4.3 What are the cultural influences in refusal strategies of Americans
and Vietnamese?....................................................................... 40
4.4 Application………………………………………………. 42
Chapter 5:………………………………………………………….. 45
5.1 Summary of the study…………………………………….. 46
5.2. Contribution of the study………………………………… 46
5.3 Limitation of the study…………………………………… 48
5.4 Suggestion for futher studies……………………………… 49
References
Apprendices
Apprendix A
Apprendix B
Apprendix C

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 LISTS OF FIGURES, TABLES, AND ABBREVIATIONS

1. Lists of abbreviations

G: Groups

A: Americans

V: Vietnamese

DCT: Discourse Completion Test

2. Lists of figures

Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson 1987: 60)

Figure 2: Kaplan’s diagrams

3. Lists of tables

Table 1: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= lower.

Table 2: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= equal

Table 3: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= higher

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction

This initial chapter outlines the research problem and rationale for
the study as well as its scope and significance. More importantly, the aims
and objectives are highlighted with three research questions to provide
guidelines for the whole research. Lastly, the chapter concludes with an
overview of the rest of the paper, serving as a compass to orientate the
readers throughout the research.

1.1. Rationale

In daily conversation, when an inviter give an invitation, he/she

hopes it to be appreciated and accepted. However, sometimes, an invitee
has to refuse an invitation. He finds it hard to express refusals. Actually,
refusing is considered face-threatening act (Brown and Levinson, 1989). It
is argued that when the invitee refuses, he/ she may threaten the inviter’s
positive face. Therefore, the ways people giving the refusal are important
so as not to lead to breakdown in communication.
In previous studies, researchers focused on extending and responding
an invitation but quite general. This paper carries out a specific case of
responding an invitation – a refusal, to consider American and Vietnamese
culture in refusing an invitation. The study is expected to be a helpful guide
for people of two cultures and especially for Vietnamese learners of
English to understand language and culture of English speaking countries.
1.2. Aims of the study
Initially, the study is carried out to discover the way people express
refusals to an invitation in Vietnam and America. In the next step, the range
of refusing strategies in the 2 languages are compared and contrasted to

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clarify similarities and differences in the way the Vietnamese and the
American refuse an invitation in their own language and culture. The study
is hoped to contribute to increasing cross-cultural awareness among foreign
language teacher and leaner as well as other potential interactants in cross
cultural communication. In short, the paper is going to answer three
research questions as follows:
1. How do Americans and the Vietnamese refuse an invitation?
2. What are the similarities and differences between Americans and the
Vietnamese in refusing an invitation?
3. What are the cultural influences in refusal strategies of Americans
and the Vietnamese?
1.3 . Significance of the study.
The research is aimed at highlighting the similarities and differences
of refusal strategies between the American and the Vietnamese. Once
having been completed, this study would give decent benefits. On the first
place, it has, to some stands, contributed to the study of verbal
communication in cross-cultural context. On the second place, the research
can draw some similarities and differences in refusal patterns of two
groups; consequently, it can helpfully contribute to metal understanding
between the two cultures in general and their speech acts in particular.
Moreover, the findings of the research also give hint for communicators to
take these cultural differences into consideration in order to achieve
successfully their communication targets. The pedagogical implication is
expected to improve the teaching and learning of cross cultural
communication in foreign language universities.
1.4. Scope and limitation of the study
Since extending and responding is a very broad and sophisticated
field, it would be impossible to cover all aspects of this issue. Within the

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scope of a graduation thesis and the constraints of time and resources, the
research will only focus on finding typical order of semantic formulas in
refusals of invitations of the American and the Vietnamese
Also, by “refusing an invitation”, here, the researcher targets at the
verbal communication between research objects, which means that such
key components of this aspect, for example, words, patterns and language
are taken into consideration. Other aspect of communication, namely, non-
verbal communication is beyond the scope of this study.
1. 5. Organization
Chapter 1: Introduction – describes the researcher’s rationale, aims,
objectives, significance and scope of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review-lays the theoretical foundation for the
research.
Chapter 3: Methodology- Details the methods that have been used
and the procedures that have been followed by the researcher.
Chapter 4: Results and discussion
Chapter 5: Conclusions – ends the study by summarizing its main
points as well as finding out the limitation and suggestions for further
studies. The following parts are references and appendix.

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 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter, as its name suggests, provides an overview of the

literature related to this study, laying speech acts of refusals. Not only are
the terms like refusals of speech acts, politeness, directness and
indirectness , refusal strategies defined but critical background information
about the key terms is also presented to ensure a thorough understanding
of the research matters. Besides, the review will reveal the research gap
thus rationalizing the need to carry out the study.

2.1. The relationship between language and culture

Language is generally accepted as a system of arbitrary vocal

symbols used for human communication. It is a defining characteristic of
human being , which best distinguishes man from animals.

Traditionally, language is described with an exclusive emphasis on

verbal forms of communication. However, David, Cheshire, and Swan
(1994) claim that language is not simply involved in verbal
communication; and that a failure to examine non-verbal systems of
communication would lead to an inadequate account of how verbal
language itself works. Also, Emite and Pollock in “Language and learning”
affirm that “language is a complex and abstract phenomenon that can be
realized through a number of verbal and non verbal codes such as body
motions, facial expressions, etc.”

In recent years, a broader view of what is to be included in language

description and functions of language have been taken by many language
scholars working in this field. According to Lee (2003) language can be
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defined as the system of communication comprising codes and symbols
which are used by humans to store, retrieve, organize structure and
communicate knowledge and experience. Language is not a static process.
It is the primary instrument in the expression, transmission, and adaptation
of culture. Language is used to maintain one’s own culture and to acquire a
new culture and new knowledge. The learning of a second or foreign
language enables one to view life through another cultural lens.

Therefore, what we can derive from these points of view is that

language provides us with many of the categories we use for expression of
our thoughts, so it is therefore natural to assume that our thinking is
influenced by the language which we use. To some extent, what we think
are also shaped by the values and customs in the country we grow up.

The term culture has a wide range of definitions. It is a set of beliefs,

values, norms, customs, traditions, rituals, and a way of life that
differentiates one group from another. Tylor (1958) views culture as that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man.

Banks (1988, p. 261) defines culture as, “a cluster of attributes such

as values, beliefs, behaviour patterns and symbols unique to a particular
human group.”. Goodenough believes that “A society’s culture consists of
whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner
acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any
one of themselves.” ( Cited in Wardhaugh, 1992).

According to Nguyen (1998) culture is “a shared background

resulting from a common language and communication style, customs,
beliefs, attitudes and values.”. It means that culture does not belong to any
single person but to all people. It is shared from generation to others.
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 In sum, culture is the total accumulation of beliefs, customs, values,
behaviors, institutions and communication patterns that are shared, learned
and passed down through the generation in an identifiable group of people.
(Linell Davis,1999)

The definitions of language and culture imply that the two are
closely connected to each other. On one hand, culture seems so inclusive; it
permeates almost every aspect of human life including languages people
use. On the other hand, when people need to share a culture, they
communicate through language. Without language, culture cannot be
completely acquired nor can it be effectively expressed and transmitted.
Without culture, language cannot exist. A language both reflects and
affects a culture’s way of thinking. Any changes in a culture influence the
development of its language. Also, culture provides guidelines for our
linguistics behavior. Respectively, “the language of a community is a part
of a manifestation of its culture and even help shape that culture” ( Phan,
2001).

2.2. Cross-cultural communication

As referred above, there is a close relationship between language and

culture. Thus, whether we speak in a first or second language, we are
influenced by sociocultural norms and constraints that affect the way we
communicate. Communication between people of different cultural
backgrounds involves much more than overcoming the language
barrier. Hidden cultural differences often cause a great deal of
misunderstanding and friction. These differences are a serious problem
because they are mostly invisible and inaudible but they affect the true

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meaning of the messages sent and received by interlocutors. When the
message is sent through a cultural filter, a breakdown of communication is
likely because the decoding is influenced by a set of values, attitudes,
beliefs, preconceptions, and expectations that are different from those of
the sender. As a result, the message often becomes distorted in the mind of
the recipient.

Therefore, it is vital to concern with the communication between

among interlocutors of different cultural backgrounds in attempt to avoid
misunderstanding, culture shocks and even conflicts in cross cultural
communication in particular and in communication in general.

2.3. Speech acts

Speech act theory begins with the work of the two philosophers,
John Austin and John Searle .The concept was first introduced by Austin
(1962) and then modified by his former student Searle (1969, 1975, 1976).
Both speech acts theorists share the view that there is close link between
speech acts and language functions.

Austin’s main contribution to speech act theory is the axiom that by

saying something, we actually do something. That is, a speaker performs an
act when making an utterance. In other words, when we say something, we
are simultaneously accomplishing a communicative action, that is, we are
using words to perform actions in real world contexts. For example, when
we say, “Could you open the door?” we wish to achieve the goal of having
the intended audience help us to open the door. Thus, speech acts are
referred to as actions happening in the world with which we accomplish
goals as actors in a social event. Speech act is a unit of speaking and
performs different functions in communication. Human beings perform

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speech acts when they offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint,
invitation, compliment, or refusal.

According to Austin (1962), a single speech act actually has three

separates but related acts including locutionary act, illocutionary act and
perlocutionary act. Whenever a speaker produces an utterance, he performs
a locutionary act. This is simple the act of producing a linguistically well-
performed and thus meaning expression. However, mostly, we do not just
produce utterances with no purposes in mind. For example, we may
promise, threaten, inform, question, greet and so on. This called the
illocutionary. So the following statement: “It’s very cold”, could have the
illocutionary force of a statement, a warning, a greeting or some other acts.
Of course, in daily communication, we do not simply create an utterance
with a function without intending it to have any effect. This kind of act via
utterances is generally known as a perlocutionary act. When saying “Could
you please bring me some water?”, the speaker wishes the act of bringing
some water to be performed: This is its perculutionary force. The
perlocutionary act refers to the hearer’s recognition of and response to the
illocutionary act (that is, the hearer may feel amused, annoyed, as a
consequence of the speaker’s utterance).

Among the three acts, the illocutionary act is regarded as the most
important, as it is actually what the speaker wants to achieve through the
action of uttering the sentence. Yule claims that of these types of speech
acts, the most distinctive one is illocutionary force: in deed the term speech
act is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary
force of an utterance.

There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts in daily

communication. In the theory of Searle (1975), there are 5 ways of
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classification of illocutionary acts. This is one of the most influential and
most widely used as follows:

x representatives: these speech acts constitute assertions carrying true

or false values (e.g. statements);
x directives: in these speech acts, there is an effort on the part of the
speaker to have the hearer do something (e.g. request, advice);
x commissives: speech acts of this kind create an obligation on the part
of the speaker; that is, they commit the speaker to doing something
(e.g. promises);
x expressives: these speech acts express an attitude or an inner state of
the speaker which says nothing about the world (e.g. apologies,
congratulations, compliments);
x declarations: speech acts in which declarative statements are
successfully performed and no psychological state is expressed (e.g.
an excommunication).
2.4. Refusal as a speech act

According to Tanck (2002), refusal is a face-threatening act to the

listener/ requester /inviter because it contradicts his/her expectations. In
cross –cultural communication, refusals are known as “ striking points” for
many non-native speakers (Beebe, Takahashi, and Uliz Welt 1990).
Refusals can be tricky speech acts to perform linguistically and
psychologically since the possibility of offending the interlocutor is
inherent in the act itself. (Known,2004).

In social interactions, one of the most potential miscommunication

may happen in refusal. According to Brown and Levinson (1989) refusal is
one of Face-threatening acts (FTAs). “Face” means the public self-image of

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a person. It refers to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone
has and expects everyone else to recognize.

There are many reasons why people want to save their faces. They
may have become attached to the value on which this face has been built,
they may be enjoying the results and the power that their face has created
or they may be missing higher social aspirations for which they will need
this face. Goffman also defines “face work”, the way in which people
maintain their face. This is done by presenting a consistent image to others.
One can gain or lose face by improving or spoiling this image. The better
that image, the more likely one will be appreciated. People also have to
make sure that in the efforts to keep their own face, they do not in any way
damage the other’s face. In daily communication, people may give threats
to another individual’s self-images or create FTAs. These acts impede the
freedom of action (negative face) and the wish that one wants be desired by
others (positive face) by either speaker or the addressee or both. Refusals
threaten the inviter’s face because they may restrict the inviter’s freedom to
act according to his /her will. On the other hand, refusals may threaten the
addressee’s public image to maintain approval from others. Therefore, in
order to reduce the risk of the invitee’s losing face, they have to know the
face-preserving strategies ( Holtgraves,2002)

Refusal to invitation is considered as one of FTAs, especially to the

positive face-want of the addressee. Thus, there are some strategies related
to politeness strategies needed in order to lower the threat as well as to
have smooth interaction. However, the choice of these strategies may vary
across languages and cultures. For example, in refusing invitations, offers
and suggestions, gratitude was regularly expressed by American English
speakers, but rarely by Egyptian Arabic speakers (Nelson, Al-batal, and

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Echols, 1996). When Mandarian Chinese speakers wanted to refuse
requests, they expressed positive opinion (e.g., ‘I would like to….’) much
less frequently than American English since Chinese informants were
concerned that if they ever expressed positive opinion , they would be
forced to comply. (Cited in Adullah Ali Al Eryani )

2.5. Refusal to an invitation

The speech act of refusals occurs when a speaker directly or

indirectly says no to an invitation. Inviting is mostly a social habit. It is one
of the most sensitive and communicative acts to strengthen the relation or
intimacy. Refusals are potentially face-threatening and essentially impolite
acts (Brown and Levinson, 1983). As failure to refuse appropriately can
risk the interpersonal relations of the speakers, refusals usually include
various strategies to avoid offending one’s interlocutors.

2. 6. Politeness in expressing refusals

Early word on politeness by Goffman (1967) described politeness as

“the appreciation an individual shows to another through avoidance or
presentation of rituals”. Lakoff (1973) suggests that if one wants to succeed
in communication, the message must be expressed in a clear manner while
Leech (1983) see it as forms of behaviour aimed at creating and
maintaining harmonious interaction. Politeness, in an interaction, can then
be defined as the means to show awareness of person’s face. According to
Brown and Levinson (1987), politeness, as a form of behaviour, allows
communication to take place between potentially aggressive partners. They
set out to develop a model of politeness which will have validity across
cultures. Two authors also distinguish two types of politeness, positive and
negative politeness. Positive politeness is used to satisfy the speaker’s need

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for approval and belonging (maximizing positive face) .Positive politeness
expresses solidarity. In this sense, politeness can be accomplished in
situation of social distance or closeness. Negative politeness functions to
minimize the imposition (negative face). Both types of politeness are
increased when hearer is more powerful and when familiarity between
speaker and hearer is lower.

Also, Brown and Levinson (1987) considered that a calculation of

three factors: distance, power, and imposition results in the degree of face-
threat that needs to be compensated for by appropriate linguistic strategies.

+ Distance: the social distance between speaker and hearer (a

symmetric relation). It is one of the factors that determines politeness
behaviors (Leech 1983; Brown and Levinson 1987). The notion of social
distance refers to the consideration of “the roles people are taking in
relation to one another in a particular situation as well as how well they
know each other” (p.126), which means the degree of intimacy between
interlocutors. Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that politeness increases
with social distance. On the other hand, Wolfson (1988) mentions that there
is very little solidarity establishing speech behaviour among strangers and
intimates because of the relative existing familiarity of their relationship,
whereas the negotiation of relationships is more likely to happen among
friends.

+ Power: the difference in terms of power or dominance between

speaker and hearer. (An asymmetric relation) The role of social status in
communication involves the ability to recognize each other’s social
position (Leech 1983; Brown and Levinson 1987; Holmes 1995).
Holmes(1995) claimed that people with high social status are more prone to
receive deferential behaviour, including linguistic deference and negative
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politeness. Thus those with lower social status are inclined to avoid
offending those with higher status and show more respect to them.

+ Imposition: The absolute ranking of imposition in the particular

culture.

As mentioned above that refusal is a serious threat to the positive

face of the addressee, there must be some efforts to minimize the threat.
The speaker should apply certain strategies which relate the politeness
strategies. Therefore, it is important to select a politeness strategy that
balances distance, power, and the weight of imposition. Politeness strategy
is categorized into 5 types, including bald-on record, positive politeness,
negative politeness, off record and do-nothing (Brown and Levinson,
1978).

+ Strategy 1: Bald-on record strategies: Speakers use bald-on record

politeness strategies when there is a little risk of losing face. This occurs in
case the social distance between speakers and hearer is small, so that their
relative power is about the same or “where maximum efficiency is very
important” (Brown and Levinson, 1978). Commands, insults, criticisms,
confrontations, and warnings are examples of bald on record.

+ Strategy 2: Positive politeness strategies: are used to satisfy the

hearer’s desire to be liked and supported. They emphasized the
establishment of solidarity and intimacy and include expressions centred on
hearer’s interests, wants, needs, and things he or she has. Exaggerated
expression of interest, expressions of approval , sympathy and interest,
asserting knowledge of the hearer’s wants, offering and promising,
assuming/asserting are one of many examples of using the politeness
strategies.

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 + Strategy 3: Negative politeness strategies, in contrast, are meant to
satisfy the hearer’s desire to be respected (not imposed on). They include
being indirect questions, hedges, expressing pessimism, minimizing the
imposition, giving deference, apologizing, impersonalizing the speaker and
hearer, nominalising, going on record as incurring a debt, and not indebting
the hearer.

+ Strategy 4: Off record strategies are the indirect uses of the

language where the speaker is vague, ambiguous or incomplete.

+ Strategy 5: Do nothing, as the name implies, is the strategy

whereby the speaker chooses to say nothing in case face –threat is too
great.

Lesser risk

Greater risk

Circumstance determining choice of strategy

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Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson
1987: 60)

Cited in Garcia (1992) , in Yenliana Wijaya’s study (2004), she also

summarized the classification scheme of Scollon and Scoloon (1983),
which groups the Brown and Levinson politeness strategies divided into
two categories: solidarity and deference. Solidarity politeness strategies
include bald-on record and positive politeness, which imply “an underlying
assumption of low power difference and low distance”. They also establish
camaraderie and solidarity between speakers. Deference politeness
strategies include off-record, do-nothing and negative politeness. They
“place value on maintaining distance between individuals” (Scolon, 1983)
and imply formality and respect.

2.7. Directness and Indirectness in expressing refusals.

Directness and indirectness are basic forms of expression, which are

universal in all languages and culture. Although both of them exist in
communication, they are different from culture to culture.

Kaplan (1972) is one of the scholars who have carried out authentic
research into directness and indirectness in communication. In his study of
700 essays written by overseas students in the United States, Kaplan
proposes 4 discourse structures that contrast with English hierarchy (Figure
a). He concentrates mainly on writing and restricts his study to paragraphs
in order to find out what he calls “cultural thought patterns”:

1- Parallel constructions, with the first idea completed in the second part
(Figure b),

2- Circularity, with the topic looked at from different tangents (Figure c),

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3- Freedom to digress and to introduce “extraneous” material (Figure d),

4- Similar to (3), but with different lengths, and parenthetical

amplifications of subordinate elements (Figure e).

They are respectively illustrated by the following diagrams:

Figure 2: Kaplan’s diagrams

Kaplan claims that each diagram represents a certain language or a

group of languages. He identifies his discourse types with genetic language
types, respectively.

Figure a. English.

Figure b. Semitic.

Figure c. Oriental.

Figure d. Roman.

Figure e. Russian.

In his diagrams, people from English-speaking countries often use

direct expressions and thought patterns, and Oriental people in general and
the Vietnamese in particular, seem to prefer roundabout and indirect

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patterns. We will examine the semantic formulae in terms of the directness-
indirectness continuum employed by American and Vietnamese.

Directness is a style of communication in which speaker want to get

the straightforward to the points. The speech interprets exactly and literally
what the speaker said.

Indirectness is any communicative behaviour, verbal or non verbal

that conveys something more than or different from what it literally means
(Brown and Levinson, 1978). Searle (in Brown and Yule, 1983) defines
indirect speech acts as a: “case in which one act is performed indirectly by
the way of performing another”

There are many socio-cultural factors affecting the directness-

indirectness of utterances. Nguyen Q. (1998) proposes 12 factors that, in
his view, may affect the choice of directness and indirectness in
communication:

1- Age: the old tend to be more indirect than the young.

2- Sex: females prefer indirect expression.

3- Residence: the rural population tends to use more indirectness than the
urban.

4- Mood: while angry, people tend to use more indirectness.

5- Occupation: those who study social sciences tend to use more

indirectness than those who study natural sciences.

6- Personality: the extroverted tend to use more directness than the

introverted.

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7- Topic: while referring to a sensitive topic, a taboo, people usually opt for
indirectness.

8- Place: when at home, people tend to use more directness than when they
are elsewhere.

9- Communicative environment/setting: when in an informal climate,

people tend to express themselves in a direct way.

10- Social distance: those who have closer relations tend to talk in a more
direct way.

11- Time pressure: when in a hurry, people are likely to use direct
expressions.

12- Position: when in a superior position, people tend to use more

directness to their inferiors (p.5).

2.8. Directness- Indirectness - Politeness

Many arguments have been advanced on the relationship between

directness- indirectness - politeness. It has been observed that higher levels
of indirectness may result in higher levels of politeness. The link between
indirectness and politeness is supported by Searle’s observation that
“politeness is the most prominent motivation for indirectness in requests,
and certain forms tend to become the conventionally polite ways of making
indirect requests” (1975)

According to Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983): direct

requests appear to be inherently impolite and face-threatening because they
intrude in the addressee’s territory, and these authors argued that the
preference for polite behavior is indirectness. Leech suggests that it is
possible to increase the degree of politeness by using more indirect
_____________________________________________________
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illocutions: “(a) because they increase the degree of optionality, and (b)
because the more indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and
tentative its force tends to be” (1983).

However, some researchers on interlinguistics argue that directness

not always less polite than indirect, Blum Kulka in her word “Indirectness
and politeness in requests: same or different?” (1987) states that for Israelis
indirectness is not necessarily associated with polite inference. Similarly,
Nguyen (1998) claims that in Vietnamese, indirectness does not always
imply politeness. In fact, from cultural of view, it is widely considered in
European languages, including English, American, indirectness and
politeness , to various degrees, are correspondent, whereas, indirectness is
not fully accompanied with politeness in non European languages in
general and in Vietnamese in particular.

2.9. Refusal strategies

In 1983, Rubin claimed that there were 9 ways of refusing across a

numbers of cultures as following:

1. Be silent, hesitate, show a lack of enthusiasm

2. Offer an alternative

3. Postponement

4. Put the blame on a third party or something over which you have no
control.

5. Avoidance

6. General acceptance of an offer but giving no details

7. Direct and indirect the address.

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8. General acceptance with excuses.

9. Say what is offered is inappropriate.

Some years later, Garcia (1992) posited the refusal strategies are
(2004: 3 in Yenliana Wijaya)

“1. Mitigated refusals. Hedges (international modification) that diminished

the negative effects a direct refusal might have had on the interlocutors are
often used to mitigate refusals

e.g.: “Well...it’s me….you knows…I can’t”

2. Indefinite reply: Replies, that are indefinite, are used to avoid a direct
refusal and/or making a commitment.

For example: “Hey well let me see because I have courses”

3. Expression of regret/sorrow. Upon receiving the invitation, the

participants can respond with an expression of regret/sorrow for not being
able to accept the invitation. This expression of regret /sorrow functioned
in some cases as an indirect refusal.

For example: “I’m sorry I cannot come.

4. Non –verbal refusal: Some participants may not verbalize their refusal
but express it non - verbally, namely by frowning and moving their head
from right to left.

5. Reasons/ Explanations: In some instances participants provides detailed

reasons/ explanations for refusing the invitation.

For example: I can’t go because my mother is very sick, she needs me”

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6. Inquiry to third party: In responding the invitation, participants can
respond by expressing the need to check someone else.

For example: I have to ask my husband first about this”

7. Direct refusal.

For example “No, it’s impossible”

8. Token agreement/acceptance: There is possibility for the participants to

accept the invitation even when the situation called for refusal.

For example: “Okay, okay, very well”

9. Criticism: The participants criticize the invitation make by the inviter.

For example: “It’s too boring for me”

10. Gratitude

For example : “Oh thank you see I am in the same situation because Quela
– you know my daughter , Quela?”

11. Expression of willingness to try/to comply. After refusing the

invitation, one can express their desire to accept it if is possible for them to
do so.

For example: Unfortunately I can’t, but I’m going to try

12. Positive Opinion /Well Wishing

For example: I love a party. Well, you‘re going to enjoy it. Well, you
know, don’t you?”

13. Promise of future acceptance/making future plans

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After refusing the invitation, the participants can make promise to accept a
future invitation and /or make future plans.

For example : “...Any way we can get together another day or you can go
to the house and have dinner together.”

Kartomihardjo (1993) attempted to examine the linguistic forms of

rejection to an invitation, a request, and an offer used in various social
interactions in East Java in relation to societal conventions and non-
linguistic factors underlying the choices of the forms use. From the
analysis, he found that there are seven strategies that people in East Java
use to refuse. These were (1) the use of the word “no” or equals to that
word, with or without apologizing before it, (2) giving reasons with or
without apologizing before it, (3) the use of pre-equipment or condition as
the replacement of the refusal, (4) giving suggestions, comments and
choices, (5) thanking for refusing, (6) the use of comments to refuse, and
(7) the use sign or non-verbal. Kartomihardjo also found that all the
strategies, which are mentioned before, are mostly influenced by sex,
status, social distance, and ethnicity. ( cited in Yenliana Wijaya)

2.10. Related studies on refusal as a speech act.

2.10.1 Review of related studies on refusal worldwide.

Beebe and Takahashi ( 1990 ) , focusing on the effect of status on the

performance of face –threatening acts of refusals by the Japanese learners
of English, have found that Japanese informants tends to shift their styles
more according to interlocutors status than speakers of American English.
Japanese tend to express regrets or apologies more frequently to people
with higher status but less frequently to those with lower social status. They
start refusal with an apology or statement of regret, followed by an excuse,

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while American almost always start with an expression of positive opinion
such as “I would like to”, and followed by expressing regret and giving
excuse. Moreover, Japanese excuses are often, much less specific than
American ones and in general, the Japanese refusals often sound more
formal.

There have also been studies of refusals in intercultural and non

native contexts. Beckers (1999) also found that Americans still employed
their refusal strategies according to social status whereas Germans varied
their strategies according to social distance (stranger acquaintance and
intimate). Germans also employed fewer semantic formulae than did
Americans, which are the combination of three variables of social distance,
social status and gender.

In 2004, Li Jiayu analyzed the similarities and differences of refusal

strategies between Americans and Chinese in shopping activities. She
jumped into conclusion that although the customers tended to make
refusals, they preferred to adopt some refusal strategies to “soften” this
potentially face-threatening act so as to keep a friendly business
relationship between dealers. Therefore, Chinese and Americans were
willing to abide by the cooperation principle and the politeness principle by
means of insertion sequences and hinting words. However, on the whole,
the finding drew from interpersonal communication indicated that Chinese
tended to use the politeness refusal strategy of “marginally touching the
point” because they were more economical in their choices of the number
of the token of the refusal strategies so that they could restore relationship
with people. The Chinese often used the mode “prefaces + phony approval
+ reasons” while the Americans tend to use the mode “prefaces/no thanks/
reasons. They employed different refusal strategies in refusing and even did

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not hesitate to give a peer a lesson if they were right, which suggested a
hypothesis of “question attentiveness”.

Felix Brasdefer (2006) investigated refusal interactions with

Mexican monolingual speakers of Spanish in formal and informal
situations. Role-plays and retrospective interviews were used to collect the
production data. In both formal and informal contexts, participants showed
a preference for directness over indirectness. The most frequent strategies
included reasons or explanations and indefinite replies, which were used to
soften the refusals. To this end, the subjects also employed conditionals or
diminutives. The retrospective verbal reports were used as a
complementary data and showed why most subjects felt compelled to
provide justification to soothe the negative effect of refusals

2.10.2. Review of related studies on refusal in Viet Nam.

Research on Viet Nam speech acts of refusal restricted to

indirectness and directness includes a study on some cross-cultural
differences in refusing a request in English and Vietnamese (Phan, 2001)

She found that both Anglophone and Vietnamese informants tended

to use more direct refusals than direct ones. Moreover, both Anglophone
and Vietnamese always exceeded the urbanies in the degree of indirectness.
Informants who did not know any foreign language are less direct and more
indirect than those with knowledge of some foreign languages. There are
some differences between Anglophone and Vietnamese when refusing.
Comparing the degree of directness and indirectness of refusals extended
by two groups of informants, all the Anglophone informants were more
direct than Vietnamese ones.

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 In general, as all the other speech acts, refusal occurs in all
languages. However, people coming from different cultures speaking
different language refuse in different ways. Among all the studies on
refusals, in terms of language examined, American have been by far the
most commonly investigated languages of comparison for studies on native
and non- native refusals, followed by Japanese as a first or second
language. Others languages such as Chinese, Spanish, Mexican, German
are also examined. Vietnamese studies on speech acts of refusal are still
limited. Moreover, compared among studies of Vietnam speech acts by far,
refusals of requests or apologies received more attention than refusals of
invitations.

Identifying these gaps, the researcher conducted an American and

Vietnamese cross –cultural study on refusing an invitation. This study will
investigate how Americans and Vietnamese use the refusal patterns to
decline an invitation in terms of the interlocutors’ status (high, equal, low
status). Besides, the researcher also examined how cultural influence
affects on invitation refusal strategies employed by both groups.

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 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In the previous chapter, a brief overview of the literature on the

research topic was given, which laid the theoretical basis for the whole
study. In this chapter, the method employed to answer the research
questions would be described in details. The participants, the instruments
and the procedure of data collection and analysis would be justified.

3.1. Participants:

The study is conducted with the participants of 50 respondents in

total, equally divided into Vietnamese and American native respondents.
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Actually, finding and delivering questionnaire to foreign respondents are
quite difficult because of distance and time. However, with the tireless help
of researcher’s friends, who are living and studying in America, the
obstacle is overcome.
Since the thematic subject of this paper is cross-culture, participants
are randomly chosen regardless of their age, genders, occupations and
material status. Also, by choosing randomly respondents, the finding will
be more subjective and reliable.
3.2. Data collection instruments
Americans were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test
(DCT) (Appendix A) in written English, and Vietnamese were ask to
complete the same version in Vietnamese . The DCT is a form of
questionnaire depicting some natural situations to which the respondents
are expected to respond making refusals. This test was originally designed
by Blum-Kulka in 1982 and has been widely used since then in collecting
data on speech acts realization both within and across language groups.
Many findings have been proposed, and significant generalizations have
been made on the basis of the data from the DCT. The value of such data is
generally recognized, particularly for the purpose of developing “an initial
classification of semantic formulae and strategies that will occur in natural
speech” (Beebe 1985, p.10). A DCT using written questionnaires is
appropriate for the purpose of this study because it has some specific
advantages. Wolfson, Marmor and Jones (1989) describe the use of the
DCT as an effective means of gathering a large number of data in a
relatively short period. A large number of participants can be surveyed with
the DCT more easily than role plays, thus making statistical analysis more
feasible. Within the time constraints of the present study, this methodology
worked well. However, there are some disadvantages when using this type

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of data. It is not natural speech. It is more accurately described as a record
of what subjects think they would say, or perhaps what they want the
researcher to think they would say, rather than a record of real behaviour.
This might lead to responses that differ from natural speech patterns. This
method has also been challenged by scholars who question the difference
between participants’ answers and what they actually say in real-life
conversations (Rintell and Mitchell 1989). Moreover, the DCT cannot
show “the depth of the emotion that affects the tone, content, and form of
linguistic performance” (Beebe and Cummins 1996, p.80). Thus,
naturalistic data collection, gathered from role-play or recorded in natural
settings, can be expected in future studies to provide a more complete
understanding of this refusal speech act. In spite of its short-comings, the
DCT can be a useful tool for providing a preliminary investigation at
cultural differences in the performance of refusals of requests.
3.3. Data collection procedures.
3. 3.1. Designing the questionnaire
The questionnaire has 2 parts:
Part 1: Background information. In this part, subjects were asked to
provide information (age, gender, nationality) as well as more specific
information if the subject was non-native American English speakers.
Part 2: Discourse Completion Test
The Discourse Completion Test used in this study involves five
written situations, comprising the focus of the study, refusals and two
distracters were also included. These distracters elicited an apology and
request, and are not referred in the results of the study. Each situation could
include a status differential: higher, equal or lower and each one could only
be answered by a refusal.
The subject of each situation is listed below:

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 1. Refusal of an invitation given by a professor.
2. Request (Distracter)
3. Refusals of an invitation given by a friend.
4. Offer (Distracter)
5. Refusal of an invitation given by a staff.
3. 3.2. Piloting the questionnaire:
First, the questionnaire is given to 5-10 respondents to get feedback
and workability of the questionnaire. The correction and adjustment will be
made afterwards.
3.3.3. Delivering the questionnaire.
For Vietnamese respondents, the questionnaire is delivered directly
by face to face meeting.
For American native speakers, the questionnaire is sent via emails to
researcher’s friends. With the helpfulness and enthusiasm of them, the
questionnaire print version is given to the respondents directly.
There is a common requirement is that respondents must answer the
questions quickly by writing what their oral responses would be to each
situation is posed.
3.3.4. Encoding the data
The collected data will be encoded with abbreviations.

G: Groups

A: Americans

V: Vietnamese

DCT: Discourse Completion Test

3.4. Data analysis

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 The data collected through the Discourse-Completion-Test are
analyzed. The analysis was based on an independent examination of each
response. The same semantic formulas as employed by Beebe, Takahashi,
& Uliss-Weltz , 1990 (Appendix C) are used. For example, if a respondent
refused an invitation to a friend’s house for dinner, saying “I’m sorry, I
already have plans. Maybe next time,” this was coded as: [ expression of
regret] [ excuse] [promise of future acceptance]. I then coded the order of
semantic formulas used in each refusal. In the above example, [expression
of regret] was first (1), [excuse] second (2) , and [promise of future
acceptance] third(3) . Therefore, the order of this example is that [ (1)
expression of regret+ (2) excuse +(3) promise of future acceptance ].In the
process of coding, some of the semantic formulae in Beebe and Takahashi
(1990) were not found in the data, and were therefore removed from the list
of semantic formulae. There were also some semantic formulae which we
have added, as they appeared in the data many times. The researcher
worked with an American native speaker of English to check the meaning
of each sentence. This provided a cross-check on the researchers’ choice
and the use of codes. In a study of this scope, it is not necessary to have
fully independent rater checks, and this process of consultation was
sufficient to confirm the validity of the investigator’s choice of coding. In a
more extensive study, it would be necessary to use a fully independent
rater. Some sentences may carry more than one semantic formula. Thus
researcher had to cooperate with each other to agree on which semantic
formula that sentence should carry. Therefore, the validity and reliability of
the obtained results was satisfactory.

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 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Introduction

As stated in the previous chapter, all survey questionnaires delivered

were returned. All collected data from 50 questionnaires were analyzed

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and discussed to provide the answers to the three research questions.
Tables were used for clearer presentation and comparison.

4.1. Research question 1:

How do Americans and Vietnamese refuse an invitation?
Both Americans and Vietnamese are asked to fill out the DCT
questionnaire, in which there are three situations relating to refusals of
invitations from the inviters, who are higher, lower and equal to the
invitees.

Situation 1: Invitees at lower status

The first prompt requires the speaker to decline invitations of a

professor. The invitee is lower position than him. The frequency of use of
the individual components of the speech act set for this situation can be
found in the table 1.

G (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 )

A Gratitude Reason Reason/Excuse Positive

(11/25) /Excuse /Explanation opinion
Regret /Explanation ( 2/25) ( 2/25)
( 5/25) (17/25) Positive
No Gratitude opinion
( 2/25) (9/25) ( 4/25)
Reason
/Excuse
/Explanation
(1/25)
Positive
opinion
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 ( 1/25)

V Gratitude Reason/Excuse Alternatives

(15/25)+ /Explanation (4/25)
addressing ( 8/25)
terms (11/25) Alternatives Gratitude
Promise of (5/25) (7/25)+
future Promise of addressing
acceptance future terms (9/25)
(7/25) acceptance
Reason/ (9/25)
Excuse
/Explanation
(4/25)

Table 1: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= lower.

( 5/25) means 5 subjects over 25 ones answered with this category.

(1),(2) ,( 3) ,(4) means position of the utterances is represented.

The components, which are typically found in Americans’

production of refusals of professor’s invitation, are: (1) gratitude/
appreciation+ (2) excuse/ reasons/ explanation + (3) Positive opinion. For
instance:

1. “Thank you. I have already eaten. It’s so nice of you to ask.”

[(1) Gratitude+ (2) reason+ (3) Positive opinion]

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 2. “Thank you. But I just had lunch”

[(1) Gratitude+ (2) reason]

3. “I just ate at the Indian restaurant down the street and I got a little
indigestion, thank you though.

[(1) Reason+ (2) Gratitude]

Vietnamese counterparts tend to use the formula: (1) Thank you +

(2) addressing term + (3) Offer for alternatives or a promise for future
acceptance.

For example:

1. “Cảm ơn giáo sư, để khi khác em sẽ dùng bữa cùng gia đình thầy
ạ”

(Thank you, professor. I will join with your family next time.)

[ (1) Gratitude+ (2) Addressing term +(3) Promise for future

acceptance]

2. “Cảm ơn giáo sư, mời thày và gia đình cứ dùng bữa tự nhiên ạ”

( Thank you, professor. Be yourself with your family.)

[(1) Gratittude+(2) Addressing term + (3) Alternatives]

3. “Em cảm ơn thày , thày dùng bữa tự nhiên, em ngồi uống nước
trà đợi thầy cũng được ạ.”

(Thank you, professor. Be yourself! I will drink some tea to wait

for you.)

[(1) Gratitude+ (2) addressing term+(3) Alternatives]

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- 34 -
 According to the table above, expression of “gratitude/ appreciation”
appears in all responses of Americans and Vietnamese although gratitude
may be in different order. (Either at the beginning or at the end of the
utterance). There are similar numbers of people saying thank you to their
professor’s invitation in both groups ( about 20-22 times out of 25
expressions)

One noteworthy difference occurs in this component of refusal is that

Vietnamese prefer offering a promise in the future to maintain the
relationship between the professor and the student. Vietnamese speakers
are somewhat less likely to give a straightforward for the refusal of
professor’s invitation. Unlike, Americans often say directly the reason why
they cannot accept the refusal by saying “I have eaten” or “I just had
lunch” (20 Americans give their reason directly whereas the number of
Vietnamese counterparts are only a half of Americans respectively.) In
some cases, Americans say “No, I can’t” as a direct refusal to the professor
in spite of his higher status.However, there is no any direct refusal in
Vitenamese responses. Besides, Americans only use their popular
addressing term “You and I” where as Vietnamese informants tend to use
many addressing term such as “Professor”, ”Mr” in the conversation
between the professor and the student

Situation 2: Invitees at equal status.

The second case involves the speaker refusing an inviter who has
equal position with an invitee. When refusing a classmate’s invitation,
American speech act set are (1) Regret + Excuse + (2) Offer of alternatives
or a promise for the future acceptance.

For instance:

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 1. “I’m really sorry. I have another commitment. I am generally
available. Can we set it up for another time?”

[(1)Regret+ (2)Reason+ (3) Offer an alternative]

2. “I am sorry. I already have plans. Please let me know the next

time you go and I would love to come along.”

[(1) Regret+ (2) Reason+(3) Promise for future acceptance]

Meanwhile Vietnamese semantic formula is (1) a promise for the

future acceptance +(2) reasons as such:

1. Để lần sau nhé, lần này mình bận mất rồi.Đồng ý chứ?

Perhaps next time, I’m busy now. All right?

[(1) Promise for future acceptance+ (2) Reason]

2. Đành hẹn cậu lần sau nhé. Tớ không thể thay đổi kế hoạch của
mình được.

(See you next time. I cannot change my schedule

[(1)Promise for future acceptance+ (2) Reason]

G (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 )

A Gratitude Reason Reason/Excuse Positive

(18/25) /Excuse /Explanation opinion
Regret /Explanation ( 1/25) ( 2/25)
( 17/25) (12/25) Alternatives
No Promise of (/25)
( 3/25) future
Positive acceptance

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 opinion (7/25)
( 2/25)

V Gratitude Reason/Excuse Alternatives Reason/

(7/25) /Explanation (4/25) Excuse
Regret ( 5/25) ( 8/25) Set for past /Explanation
Promise of Promise of acceptance ( 4/25)
future future (9/25) Statements of
acceptance acceptance sympathy
(11/25) (9/25) ( 6/25)
Reason/ Alternatives
Excuse (5/25)
/Explanation Gratitude
(3/25) (4/25)
No( 2/25)

Table 2: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= equal

( 5/25) means 5 subjects over 25 ones answered with this category.

(1),(2) ,( 3) ,(4) means position of the utterances is represented.

The data in the table 2 shows that expressions of regrets are

produced in most American refusals to their friends. Both of Americans
and Vietnamese rarely say “no” directly to their friends even though they
are in equal status. Only about 2, 3 responses over 25 ones. Mostly
Americans use regret like “I’m sorry/ what a pity” to start their refusal.
There are 17 Americans beginning their refusals with regrets. This style is

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culturally and socially important and appropriate in America. In contrast,
Vietnamese may feel that it is less necessary to express their regret due to
the familiarity and close social distance. Therefore, according to table 2,
only 5 Vietnamese say that they feel regret to decline their friends’
invitations. It reflects traditional thinking of Vietnamese that in close
relationship, people should be open, friendly and informal with each other.
Although, both two groups tend to use the excuse and reason to soften their
refusal, there is slightly different in the order between Americans and
Vietnamese. Whereas Vietnamese people offer alternatives or promise for
future acceptance before giving their excuse as a way to reduce threatening
face of inviter, Americans use excuse first and follow other alternatives in
the future.

Situation 3: Invitees at higher status

In the last situation, the speaker, who is at high social status, declines
an invitation to go to the spa with a staff. The data in the table 3 shows that
American speakers refuse this kind of invitation by saying patterns like ( 1)
regret + (2) reason/ excuse/explanation. Once again, regrets are favored by
Americans when refusing an invitation. More than a half Americans
expresses their regrets. Whereas, Vietnamese informants produce many
“thanks” as gratitude first and state reasons later ((1) gratitude + (2)
reasons.). In this case, although Vietnamese bosses are at higher status
than inviters; however, most of them say thank you to their staff in order to
appreciate their staff’s goodwill. 16 Vietnamese bosses are grateful for
their staff.

For example:

1. Mình xin lỗi, mình có hẹn mất rồi.

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 I’m sorry but I have another commitment.

[(1)Regret+ (2) reason]

2. Cảm ơn cậu nhé, nhưng tuần tới tớ phải đi công tác rồi)

Thanks, but I have to do business next week.

[(1) Gratitude+(2) reason]

G (1 ) (2 ) (3 ) (4 )

A Gratitude Reason Alternatives

(7/25) /Excuse ( 5/25)
Regret /Explanation
( 14/25) (20/25)
No Promise of
( 2/25) future
Alternatives acceptance
( 1/25) (1/25)
Positive
opinion
( 3/25)
V Gratitude Reason/ Reason/Excuse
(9/25) Excuse /Explanation
Regret /Explanation ( 5/25)
( 6/25) ( 21/25) Sympathy
Promise of Alternatives (4/25)
future (5/25) Gratitude
acceptance Sympathy (7/25)
(5/25) (4/25)

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 Sympathy
(5/25)

Table 3: Typical order of semantic formulas in refusals of invitations

Refuser status= higher

( 5/25) means 5 subjects over 25 ones answered with this category.

(1),(2) ,( 3) ,(4) means position of the utterances is represented.

There is a striking difference between Americans and Vietnamese

speakers when giving reasons for their refusals. According to the survey
questionnaire, American participants overuse excuses by some respondents
like: “I’m so busy. I’ve made my plan” “I’ve tied up. I’ve an appointment
with my doctor”, etc. By this way, sometimes, Americans are vague with
their interlocutors. However, it is considered acceptable and normal in
American communication. Because one of America culture values is to
respect individual freedom. Therefore, if the invitee gives their own
personal reasons, the inviter will accept their refusals and not curious about
real reasons any more. Meanwhile, Vietnamese often tend to give either
objective or subjective reasons to soften the face threatening act of refusals.

For example:

In 3rd situation, Americans only briefly answer:

1. “Sorry, I’ve made plans”

[(1) Regret+ (2) Reason (subjective reason)]

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 2. “That sounds lovely. But I have far too much to work right now.
Thank for inviting me.”

[ (1) Positive opinion+ (2) Reason (subjective reason )+

(3) Gratitude]

Vietnamese’s responses are more complicated and detailed.

1. Cảm ơn cậu. Nhưng mình không đi được. Mình không muốn các
nhân viên khác hiểu nhầm, thông cảm cho mình nhé)

( Thanks, but I can’t go with you. I’ m afraid to be misunderstood

by other staffs. Sympathize with me!)

[(1) Gratitude+ (2) Reason (objective reason) + (3)Sympathy]

2. Cảm cậu rất nhiều, nhưng cuối tuần mình rất bận với việc chăm
lũ trẻ con ở nhà lắm.)

Thank you so much. I’m so busy taking care of children at

weekends.

[ (1) Gratitude+ (2) reason (subjective reason ]

4.2. Research question 2:

What are the similarities and differences between Americans

and Vietnamese in refusing an invitation?

The main purpose of this study is to compare and contrast

similarities and differences between Americans and Vietnamese speakers’
patterns when refusing an invitation. The main findings are:

Similarities:

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 Basing on the refusal strategies suggested by Beebe, Takahashi, &
Uliss-Weltz , 1990, it can be discovered from the collected data that most
of refusing strategies are utterd by combined strategies. Combined
strategies are employed with more than single ones . Some typically single
strategies to decline an invitation as follows:

+ Giving gratitude/ appreciation

+Giving positive opinion.

+ Giving excuse/reason/ explanation

+ Giving regret

+ Offering alternatives

- When refusing an invitation, American and Vietnamese speakers use

more indirect strategy with most communicating partners. Both of them
avoid saying no directly to their interlocutors whether they are high, low
or equal status.

- The common tendency is that Americans and Vietnamese give a

variety of reasons to provide rational for their refusals to avoid losing their
inviters’ faces.

Differences:
- Americans produce much more expression of regrets and reasons to
refuse invitations. Typically, regrets often follow reasons in an utterance of
refusals. Americans tend to give their subjective reasons in most cases.
- Vietnamese counterparts are fond of offering alternatives or a promise
for acceptance in the future to make the inviter feel released.
- In Vietnamese responses, there are overuses of adjuncts to refusals
including : statement of gratitude, statement of sympathy and addressing
_____________________________________________________
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term like dear, professor and the overuse of term : yes, ok, right, alright ( ạ,
nhé, vâng) in the situation of refusing people.
4.3. Research question 3 :
What are the cultural influences in refusal strategies of Americans
and Vietnamese?
As stated in chapter 2, culture and language have closer relationship.
The relation of language to culture is that of part to whole. Different cultures
have different perceptions and appropriateness in language production.
Obviuosly , Vietnam and America societies are different , therefore, it is
hypothesized that the discourse relation patterns of refusal strategies might
vary from country to another, although the role and nature of speech act of
refusing might be universal similar.
The Vietnamese tend to belong to collectivism oriented culture, which
etiquette and harmony are very important. Vietnamese believe that in daily
communication, people should consider one another’s feeling when
declining what to say. In other words, how to convey information is more
vital than information itself. They definitely did not want to their
conversation partner to feel humiliated. Therefore, the face value of face-
saving acts should be carefully observed. They often express refusals with
care to reduce face threatening act of refusals. First, Vietnamese highly
appreciate the kindness and goodwill of inviter, then they like offering future
promises for acceptance. Besides, Vietnamese respondents tend to use a
range of items like : “ạ, vâng, nhé” and addressing terms to make their
refusal become soften. For instance, in case of refusing to the professor’s
invitation, the invitee often starts their refusals by add addressing terms
together with their gratitude. “Thanks, Professor, Mr” (cảm ơn giáo sư/ cảm
ơn ngài). It makes the professor feel respected and lose threatening to his
face. Other example is usage of terms of “right, all right, ok” (ạ/ nhé/ đồng ý

_____________________________________________________
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chứ) in refusals to the friend’ s invitation . In case of acquaintances,
Vietnamese like using these terms to show the close relationship between
friends. As a result, the inviters also feel comfortable when their invitation is
refused. On the whole, Vietnamese characteristics are more indirect than
Western people. Thus, they rarely refuse directly any invitation. In case, they
have to decline their invitations, their excuse seems to be indirect and get
near to the point. Also, their reasons are both objective and subjective.
Americans tend to be individualism oriented cultures. It is widely
believed that in the United State, the individuals should speak their mind and
express themselves openly to pursue the goal of communication. Direct style
is, hence, prevailing, which means that Americans choose to speak directly
their opinion their language is often used in straightforward and precise
ways. Due to directness, Americans seem to have little stress on face-saving,
therefore their expression of refusals often brief and direct. In case, they
have to refuse an invitation, they often produce much regret and subjective
reason of themselves as a sign of individual responsibilities to make the
inviters not lose their faces. It is true that:
“American is trained from very early in their life to consider
themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own
situation on their life and their own destinies. They are not trained to see
group, tribe, nation or any other collectivity”. (Gary Althen, Amada
R.Doran, Susan J, Samaria, 2003, p.5) )
4.4 Application.
It’s undeniable that individual may have their own communicative
styles. The choice of different refusal strategies by members of two groups
in influenced by the major dimensions of cultural variability. Consequently,
the refusing patterns described here, though not all- inclusive, are expected
to hold true in general way. Also, they are hoped to add more the existing

_____________________________________________________
- 44 -
knowledge of different communication styles. This research helps people
explore themselves more fully and their own culture. In truth, the
successful communication requires the interlocutors’ abilities and
sensitivities for cross-cultural differences and appropriate politeness
principles. The more they know other’s culture, the more acceptable they
are of cultural differences. Therefore, they can prevent themselves from
misunderstanding or prejudices against other culture. With this knowledge
of different culture, people, then, will be able to come to a full appreciation
of the styles, values, and attitudes that differ from their own and then adapt
whenever necessary. Besides, the study is hoped to raise more awareness of
second language sociocultural constraints on speech acts in order to be
pragmatically competent for language learners. In Vietnam, there are more
and more learners having good commands of English, however, they are
still lack of pragmatic competence. Thus, when second language learners
engage in conversation with native speakers, difficulties may arise due to
their lack of mastery of conversational norms involved in the production of
speech acts. Such conversational difficulties may turn in cause breakdowns
in communication. In order to effectively communicate in the second
language, the learner needs to acquire the socio-cultural strategies used
most frequently by native speakers, and the rules for their appropriate
implementation. We can therefore make the following pedagogical
recommendations for second language instruction:
First, to help foreign language learner produce a conversation in
second language that is socially and culturally appropriate in general, both
socio-cultural and sociolinguistic information should be incorporated into
the language curriculum and language textbooks.
Second, language instructors play an important role in the foreign
language classrooom. To develop leaners’ pragmatic abilities, teacher’s

_____________________________________________________
- 45 -
instruction on pragmatic knowledge should be explicit in order to help
student have a full and deep understanding of effect of pragmatic transfer
in learning second language. Besides, language instructors had better
design activities which expose learners to different types of pragmatic input
and prompt learners to produce appropriate output for example
contextualized, task-based activities.
Finally, to improve the learners’ sociolinguistic ability in a second
language, teachers should teach language forms and functions contextually
in communicative oral activities in both formal and informal situations. The
more chances they access a variety of different situations, the more success
they have in daily communication. Misunderstanding, prejudices and
breakdowns will be reduced considerably in interethnic communication.

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- 46 -
 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

Introduction

The present research is aimed at exploring similarities and

differences in refusal strategies to an invitation between American and
Vietnamese. This study also identifies cultural influences on refusal patterns
of two groups. In the previous chapters, the introduction, the literature, the
implementation, and the results of the research have been thoroughly
elaborated. This concluding chapter is supposed to briefly and critically
evaluate the outcomes and the contribution of the whole research. Also the
research’s limitations will be cited and several suggestions for father studies
will be proposed.
5.1 . Summary of findings
In conclusion, this research paper performs as a fairly comprehensive
study on the speech acts of refusal in Vietnamese and American language.
Significant findings concerning the research questions have been revealed
through a process of filling out the DCT survey questionnaire. Firstly, the
findings show that both participants share the similarities in employing
many combined strategies to refuse an invitation instead of using single one.
Secondly, most of refusals are indirect. Direct refusals as “No” are not a
common strategy for any of the subjects, regardless of their language and
culture background. Last, refusers tend to add different reasons to decline
the invitation in order to save inviter’s faces as well as to maintain
relationships among conversationalists.

_____________________________________________________
- 47 -
 As a failure to refuse appropriately can risk the interpersonal relations
of the speakers, refusals usually include various strategies to avoid offending
one’s interlocutors. However, the choice of these strategies may vary across
languages and cultures. For Americans, they are said to be direct than Asian
people, thus, their refusal tend to be precise, brief and straightforward.
Nevertheless, their directness are shown by producing direct reason and
regret, instead of refusing directly by saying “no” or “I can’t”. For
Vietnamese counterparts, they are rooted in high context culture where
people have close connections over a long period of time. Therefore, they
wish to live in harmony with surrounding people. Also, Vietnamese tend to
live optimistically and look forward to the future. As a result, their refusals
often offer a promise for acceptance in the future. In case they have to refuse
an invitation, they give a variety of reasons including both objective and
subjective. Normally, they rarely make use of the straightforward refusals in
order to avoiding face threatening acts. The typically indirect characteristics
of Vietnamese are revealed by such reasons. Also, the refusals of
Vietnamese seems to be softer than Americans ‘ones. Vietnamese prefers a
range of adjuncts to refusals for instance: gratitude, sympathy and add more
addressing terms, therefore, their refusals are accepted easily.
5.2. Contribution of the study.
The research is believed to offer far-reaching implications follows:
In the first place, it contributes to the scare study on speech acts of
refusals to invitations in two target nations.
Moreover, the study also sheds light on the major similarities and
differences in language and cultures between American and Vietnamese in
employing refusal strategies. Thus, it provides an insight into Vietnamese
and American culture, contributing to the mutual understanding between two
groups.

_____________________________________________________
- 48 -
 Last but not least, the study give some pedagogical implications to
raise foreign language teachers and learners’ awareness in sociocultural
knowledge and pay more attention to pragmatic transfer in leaning second
language. Also, recommendations are hoped to be useful guideline for
teachers and students in practice .
5.3. Limitation of the study
Although this research has been conducted to be the best of the
research’s efforts, time constraint and other unexpected objective factors
have led to certain unavoidable limitations involving the collection the data
and scope as well as methodology of this study.
First, the total number of participants is only 50 from both countries,
thus the reliability of samples might not be ensured. The fact that
participants for this study were all volunteers may have some effects on the
data collection and analysis. Schumacher and McMillan (1993) noted
that…volunteers tend to be better educated, of higher social class, more
intelligent, more sociable, more unconventional, less authoritarian, less
conforming, more altruistic, and more extroverted than non volunteers (p.
160).
Secondly, this study concentrates on social status as the focal
variable. Other potentially relevant factors involving to refusal strategies
such as social distance and genders are not specifically mentioned in this
research because of lack of researcher’s time. Therefore, the study is not
completely comprehensive.
And finally, due to the methodology of written data elicitation, other
factors such as prosody (intonation, tone, and stress), non-verbal gestures
and facial expressions were not observed. There is also a limitation in the
fact that written data do not have time constraints: participants can correct
their answers. As a result the answers may differ from what participants

_____________________________________________________
- 49 -
really say in real-life situations. Thus naturalistic data collection, from
roleplays or recordings made in natural settings, would be desirable as both a
complement and as a self-standing methodology in more extensive studies.
Despite the aforementioned shortcomings, the researcher’s flexibility
and serious work is expected to have well retained the validity and reliability
of the result. However, it is worth noting that these above shortcomings
should always be taken into consideration when father studies are conducted
in the future
5.4. Suggestions for further studies.
Since there have been so far few American-Vietnamese cross-cultural
studies on speech acts of refusals to invitations, so it offers other researchers
large room to conduct further studies. From the researcher’s point of view,
further studies should be conducted including:
- An American-Vietnamese cross-cultural study on accepting an invitation.
- An American-Vietnamese cross-cultural study on the effects of non-
verbal communication in responding an invitation.

_____________________________________________________
- 50 -
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m
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 36. Scollon and Scoloon (1983),In Interethnic Communication. London:
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37. Searle, J.R. (1969). Speech acts- An essay in the philosophy of
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38. Searle, J.R. (1975). Indirect speech act. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan
(Ed.) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 59-82). New
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39. Tanck, Sharyl. (2002). Speech Acts Sets of Refusal and
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45. Yenliana, W. (2004). Politeness strategies on refusal to invitation
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0&qual=high&fname=/jiunkpe/s1/sing/2004/jiunkpe-ns-s1-2004-
11496029-3403-invitation-chapter2.pdf

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 APPRENDIX A

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

I’m Nguyen Thanh Loan, group 061E11, Vietnam National University,

Hanoi, University of languages and international studies.

This questionnaire is designed for my research into “An American -

Vietnamese cross-cultural study on refusing an invitation”. You can be
confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data.

Would you kindly return the completed questionnaire to me period to 10th

April, 2010.

Thank you very much for your assistance!

Part 1: Background information

Please fill in the blank

1. Age

2. Gender

3. Nationality

4. Is English is your first language?

Part 2: Discourse Completion Test

_____________________________________________________
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Directions: Please write your response in the blank area. Do not spend a
lot of time thinking about what answer you think you should provide;
instead, please respond as naturally as possible and try to write your
response as you feel you would say it in the situation. Potential follow-up
responses by the other person in each scenario have been left out
intentionally.

1. You go to the professor’s home to ask for his comment for your
dissertation. When you go there, his family is having lunch. He invites you
to join with his family. However, you are too full to eat anymore.

You refuse him by saying:

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

2. A classmate asks if he can borrow your notes as he could not come to the
lecture last week. However, you are going to have an exam tomorrow. You
refuse him by saying

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

3. You are the female director of a bank. One day, your staff invites you to
go to a luxurious spa. This staff, together with 4 other persons will be
nominees for the manager in your bank next month. You do not want to
receive her invitation to avoid misunderstanding. You refuse her by saying

_____________________________________________________
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………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

4. Your boss offers you a promotion, however, you have to change your
current work and move to other branch, which is far from home now. You
do not want to change your job. You refuse his offer by saying

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

5. A friend of yours in the university invites you to visit her hometown.

However, you have another appointment at this time and you cannot
change the schedule. You refuse her by saying

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

Thanks you so much!

_____________________________________________________
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 APPRENDIX B

BẢN ĐIỀU TRA

Xin chào! Tôi là Nguyễn Thanh Loan, đến từ lớp 061E11 trường Đại học
ngoại ngữ, Đại học quốc gia Hà Nội. Tôi đang làm nghiên cứu khoa học
nhằm tìm hiểu cách thức từ chối một lời mời của người Việt. Quý vị có
thể vui lòng dành chút thời gian trả lời các câu hỏi trong 5 tình huống được
đặt ra ở bản điều tra này nhằm giúp tôi hoàn thành bản điều tra này. Xin
khẳng định cùng quý vị rằng, chúng tôi sẽ không nêu danh tính quý vị
trong bất cứ trường hợp nào .

Xin cảm ơn quý vị!

I. Xin quý vị cho biết về bản thân mình

1. Tuổi

2. Giới tính

3. Quốc tịch

4. Tiếng mẹ đẻ của quý vị:

II. Xin quý vị trả lời các tình huống

_____________________________________________________
- 59 -
Hướng dẫn: Quý vị viết câu trả lời vào chỗ trống. Quý vị hãy tưởng tượng
mình gặp phải các tình huống dưới đây và trả lời một cách tự nhiên theo
đúng như những gì mình nghĩ!

1. Quý vị đến nhà vị giáo sư hướng dẫn khóa luận của mình. Khi đến nơi,
nhà giáo sư đang ăn tối, ông mời bạn ăn cơm cùng gia đình ông, nhưng quý
vị đang rất no và không muốn ăn thêm gì nữa. quý vị từ chối lời mời của
giáo sư bằng cách trả lời là

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………

2. Một người bạn học cùng lớp muốn mượn quý vị vở ghi chép bài học
tuần trước anh ấy vắng mặt. Nhưng ngày mai quý vị có kiếm tra của môn
học đó và không thể cho anh ta mượn vở . Quý vị sẽ từ chối lời đề nghị của
anh ấy bằng cách trả lời là

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………

3.Quý vị là giám đốc của một ngân hàng. Một ngày, nhân viên cấp dưới
mời quý vị tới một spa hiện đại để chăm sóc sắc đẹp. Nhân viên này cùng
với 4 nhân viên khác sẽ là những ứng cử viên cho chức trưởng phòng trong

_____________________________________________________
- 60 -
tháng tới tại ngân hàng bạn. Quý vị không muốn gây hiểu nhầm cho các
nhân viên khác. Quý vị từ chối lời mời của nhân viên bằng cách trả lời là

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………

4. Sếp của Quý vị đang đề nghị sẽ thăng chức cho quý vị với điều kiện sẽ
phải thay đổi vị trí làm việc tới một chi nhánh khác. Quý vị không muốn
chuyển công tác vì chỗ làm mới rất xa nhà bạn. Quý vị từ chồi lời đề nghị
của sếp bằng cách trả lời là

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………

5. Một người bạn cùng trường đại học của quý vị mời bạn về thăm quê của
anh ta. Tuy nhiên quý vị lại có hẹn vào hôm đó, và quý vị không thể thay
đổi lịch trình. Quý vị từ chối lời mời của anh ta bằng cách trả lời là

………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………

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Xin cảm ơn rất nhiều!

APPRENDIX C
Classification of Refusals by Beebe & Takahashi (1990, pp. 72-73)
I. Direct:
A. Performative
B. Non-performative statement
1.“No”
2.Negative willingness ability
II. Indirect
A. Statement of regret
B. Wish

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C. Excuse/reason/explanation
D. Statement of alternative
1.I can do X instead of Y
2.Why don’t you do X instead of Y
E. Set condition for future or past acceptance
F. Promise of future acceptance
G. Statement of principle
H. Statement of philosophy
I. Attempt to dissuade interlocutor
1.Threat/statement of negative consequences to the requester
2.Guilt trip
3.Criticize the request/requester, etc.
4.Request for help, empathy, and assistance by dropping or holding the
request.
5.Let interlocutor off the hook
6.Self defence
J. Acceptance that functions as a refusal
1.Unspecific or indefinite reply
2.Lack of enthusiasm
K. Avoidance
1.Nonverbal
2.Verbal
a. Topic switch
b. Joke
c. Repetition of part of request, etc.
d. Postponement
e. Hedging
f. Ellipsis

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g. Hint
Adjuncts to Refusals
1. Statement of positive opinion/feeling or agreement
2. Statement of empathy
3. Gratitude/appreciation

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