UNDERGRADUATE THESIS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

AN ANALYSIS OF THANKING STRATEGIES

Republic of the Philippines

Mindanao State University- General Santos City
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM
1st Semester, AY 2019-2020

A Final Requirement in
Research in Daily Life 1 (Qualitative Research)

to
JOVETH JAY D. MONTANA
Adviser

by

MEMBER
MEMBER
MEMBER
MEMBER
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
STEM- (Section)

December 2019
Abstract
Acknowledging the help and support of others has become a well-
established feature of the academic communication process. Although
acknowledging someone’s contributions and assistance may not be
related to establishing claims in academic goals, its significance
becomes recognized. This study explored the use of thanking
strategies and uncovered the move structure of the thesis
acknowledgements written by students who graduated last April
2014 with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in English in Mindanao State
University- General Santos City. The study used a random sampling in
order to get the 32% of the total thesis acknowledgements, that is, 10
corpus out of 31. Results revealed that AB English students used
explicit thanking strategies (85.86%) more frequently than implicit
thanking strategy (14.14%). The study found out that the choice of
thanking strategies differs when students thank different addressees.
S2, S3, and C1 are the three thanking strategies most frequently used
for advisers, for thesis committee/panel members, and other faculty
members; S3 and C2 for friends and classmates; S3, C2 and implicit
thanking strategies for family members; and lastly, S2, S3, and C1 for
Almighty God. In general, advisers, thesis committee/panel members,
and other faculty members provide more academic guidance and
support; friends, classmates and family members provide non-
academic support, in a form of moral, financial, or spiritual; and God
for wisdom, knowledge and guidance. Moreover, out of 10 thesis
acknowledgements, not one follows the original model proposed by
Al-Ali (2010).

Introduction

Expressing gratitude is a feeling or response based on a past act performed

by the hearers (Quirk, 1993 and Searle, 1969). It is also a way of showing politeness;

thus it is a speech act performs by the speakers of most languages which is carried

out through spoken or written form. If the speech act of expressing gratitude is done

appropriately, positive feelings may arise and reinforce the relationship between

interlocutors. Conversely, inappropriate thanking expressions or lack of thanking

expressions may be viewed as oddness, impoliteness, or even rudeness (Cheng and

Wei Kuo, 2011). Thanking is one of the most frequently occurring acts in daily

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interactions (Hinkel, 1994) and it has been defined as an important speech act and a

politeness marker in the literature (Wong, 2009).

Searle (1969) defined thanking as an expressive illocutionary act; that is,

when thanking, the speaker expresses gratitude for the hearer’s participation in a

prior action that is beneficial to the speaker. The speaker feels grateful or

appreciative for the prior action, and makes an utterance that counts as an

expression of gratitude or appreciation. Similarly, the main communicative purpose

in thesis and dissertation acknowledgements is for student writers to show

appreciation and indebtedness to the assistance and contributions received from

others to accomplish their academic research (Cheng, 2012). Bach and Harnish

(1979) indicated that the genuine feeling of gratitude is not necessary, but the

expressions of gratitude should meet social expectations.

Acknowledging the help and support of others has become a well-established

feature of the academic communication process. Although acknowledging

someone’s contributions and assistance may not be related to establishing claims in

academic goals, its significance becomes recognized. With its particular place in

dissertations and its particular purpose to be written, acknowledgments are the

sections of the academic papers where the authors gain an opportunity to express

their indebtedness, gratitude and/ or appreciation to the ones supported them

intellectually morally and/ or financially during their studies. Besides, the text is

admitted to be serving not only for the purpose of expressing debts and gratitudes

but also for author’s reflecting an ideal scholarly identity carrying academic values

of modesty, self-effacement by a display of their academic and social networks

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(Hyland, 2004) as cited by Karakas (2010). Hyland and Tse (2004) revealed that

acknowledgement sections are now commonplace in academic books and research

articles and appear to be almost universal in dissertations, where they offer

students a unique rhetorical space to both convey their genuine gratitude for

assistance and to promote a capable academic and social identity. Yet despite their

importance in the academic practice of reciprocal gift-giving, acknowledgements

have been largely neglected in applied linguistic studies, which have tended to focus

on explicitly argumentative and persuasive genres. As a result, little is known of

their structure and expression, and students are often left to their own devices

when writing them. While acknowledgements encourage students to express their

gratitude explicitly and honestly and to show their interpersonal network in the

academic community, students may have problems adequately expressing gratitude

in this academic discourse (Hyland, 2004).

Methodology

The study was based on a corpus of 10 undergraduate thesis

acknowledgements written in 2014 by the students of Bachelor of Arts in English

from Mindanao State University, General Santos City. The acknowledgements were

analyzed for their thanking strategies and their move structure to determine how

these students expressed thanks or gratitude. The researcher used random

sampling in order to get the 32% of the total undergraduate thesis

acknowledgements. There were 31 graduates of the AB English program, thus 31

thesis acknowledgements.

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 The researcher adapted the coding scheme proposed by Stephanie W. Cheng

(2012) of National Chiao Tung University. Thanking expressions are categorized

into six semantic units: (1) thanking, explicitly using words that contain expressions

of gratitude, such as thank, appreciate, gratitude, indebted, and grateful, (2)

addressees, (3) reasons due to the favor received, such as insightful comments,

efforts, and academic guidance, (4) reasons due to positive feelings, such as love,

support, and encouragement, (5) indispensability, using double negation structure,

such as without… not… and were it not… not…, and (6) elaboration, elaborating on

reasons for thanking.

Results and Discussions

All undergraduate theses contained acknowledgements. This confirms the

importance of this section even though it is not directly related to the research

claims and significance of a thesis (Hyland & Tse, 2004). The length of the

undergraduate thesis acknowledgements ranges from one to two pages.

The semantic units of thanking and addressees in Examples 1 and 2 are

followed by reasons indicating positive feelings such as prayers offered, love,

encouragement, and support. In Examples 3 and 4, the favor received from the

addressees such as academic assistance in the forms of constructive criticisms and

academic instruction.

Moreover, C2 and C1 are the most frequently used complex thanking

strategies, with a total of 25 occurrences constituting 29.41% of all occurrences of

thanking strategies. In C2 and C1, after the student writers express their thanks and

reasons, they elaborate the specific assistance of the addressee(s). There are various

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ways of elaboration which include giving reason for the support, patience,

encouragement and motivation as shown in example 5 and 7; revealing the feelings

of the writer towards the addressees as indicated in example 6 and example 8.

Conclusion

Showing appreciation has important social value. The speech act of thanking

in oral or written form, particularly the use of thanking strategies, provide very

practical information for us to communicate appropriately in many social situations

and meet social expectations. For non-native speakers/writers, learning the

formulaic expressions of gratitude and the patterns of thanking strategies is part of

the discourse competence they need to develop. (Cheng and Wei Kuo, 2011)

The different uses of thanking strategies represent the self of the students

who are fully aware of the support and assistance (in all aspect) from other people.

In this study, the researcher has analyzed thesis acknowledgements and attempted

to investigate AB English graduates’ use of thanking strategies in acknowledgement

section. Results show that AB English students used explicit thanking strategies

(85.86%) far more frequently than implicit thanking strategies (14.14%).

References:
Al-Ali, M. N. (2010). Generic patterns and socio-cultural resources in
acknowledgements accompanying Arabic Ph.D. dissertations. Pragmatics,
20, 1-26.

Bach, K. & Harnish, R. (1979). Linguistic communication and speech acts.

Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Basthomi, Y. (2008). Interlanguage Discourse of Thesis Acknowledgments Section:

Examining the Terms of Address.

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Cheng, S. (2012). A Contrastive Study of Master Thesis Acknowledgements by
Taiwanese and North American Students. Open Journal of Modern
Linguistics 2012. Vol.2, No.1, 8-17

Cheng , S. and Chih-WeiKuo. (2011). A Pragmatic Analysis of MA Thesis

Acknowledgements. The Asian ESP Journal Autumn Edition, Volume 7
Issue3.

Eisenstein, M., & Bodman, J. W. (1986). “I very appreciate”: Expressions of gratitude

by native and nonnative speakers of American English. Applied
Linguistics,7(2), 167- 185.

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 APPENDIX A

Letter Asking Permission for the Director of Senior High School

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APPENDIX B

Questionnaire

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 APPENDIX C

Interview Questionnaire

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 APPENDIX D

Documentation during the Interview/Conduct of the Study

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