MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY


PHAM THI HONG NINH

A PRAGMATIC STUDY ON APOLOGY
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU NGỮ DỤNG HỌC VỀ HÀNH ĐỘNG XIN LỖI
CỦA NGƯỜI ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT


M.A THESIS




Hanoi, 2013

i
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY


PHAM THI HONG NINH

A PRAGMATIC STUDY ON APOLOGY
IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

NGHIÊN CỨU NGỮ DỤNG HỌC VỀ HÀNH ĐỘNG XIN LỖI
CỦA NGƯỜI ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT


Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervior: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van Que


Hanoi, 2013

ii
DECLARATION

I hereby declare that no part of the enclosed Master Thesis has been
copied or reproduced from any other’s work without acknowledgment
and that the thesis is originally written by me under strict guidance of my
supervisor.
Hanoi, 30
th
December 2013.


Pham Thi Hong Ninh


APPROVED BY




Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van Que






iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am gratefully indebted to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van
Que for his valuable suggestions, advice and corrections during the course of
my writing.
I also wish to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the Faculty
of Postgraduate Studies, Hanoi Open University, for their useful lectures,
supports, encouragements and for inspiring in me the love for English -
foreign language teaching and doing research.
I also take this opportunity to send my thanks to all my colleagues in
Chu Van An University in Hung Yen province for their supports and
encouragements during the thesis preparation.
Finally, I would like to show my deep gratitude to members of my
family, especially my husband, for their great supports, encouragement, love
and unshakeable trust without which my thesis would not have been
accomplished.










iv


ABBREVIATIONS

N: Number
Per: Percentage
IFID: Illocutionary Force Indicating Device














v
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1: The five general classifications of speech acts 11
Table 3.1: Degree of frequency in saying apologies provided by English and

Vietnamese speaker 31
Table 3.2: Structure of IFID strategy provided by the English and Vietnamese
speakers: Situation 1 37
Table 3.3: Structure of IFID strategy provided by the English and Vietnamese
speakers: Situation 2 39
Table 3.4: Structure of IFID strategy provided by the English and Vietnamese
speakers: Situation 3 40
Table 3.5: Structure of IFID strategy provided by the English and Vietnamese
speakers: Situation 4 42
Table 3.6: Structure of opting out strategy provided by the English and
Vietnamese speakers: Situation 2 43
Table 3.7: Structure of opting out strategy provided by the English and
Vietnamese speakers: Situation 4 44
Table 3.8: Structure of admitting guilt with explanation strategy provided by
the English and Vietnamese speakers: Situation 1 47
Table 3.9: Structure of offering a repair strategy provided by the English and
Vietnamese speakers: Situation 1 49
Figure 3.1: The degree of frequency in saying apologies provided by English
and Vietnamese speakers in situation 1 33


vi
Figure 3.2: The degree of frequency in saying apologies provided by English
and Vietnamese speakers in situation 2 34
Figure 3.3: The degree of frequency in saying apologies provided by English
and Vietnamese speakers in situation 3 35
Figure 3.4: The degree of frequency in saying apologies provided by English
and Vietnamese speakers in situation 4 36






















vii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
ABBREVIATIONS iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Methods of the study 3
6. Significance of the study 3
7. Design of the study 4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Literature review 5
1.1.1. Previous studies oversea 5
1.1.2. Previous studies in Vietnam 8
1.2. Theories on speech acts 9
1.2.1. Definition 9

viii
1.2.2. Type of speech acts 10
1.3. Speech act and politeness 12
1.3.1. Politeness 14
1.3.1.1. Definition of politeness 14
1.3.1.2. Politeness across cultures 15
1.3.1.3. “Politeness- directness- indirectness” in apologizing 16
1.4. Speech acts of apology 16
1.4.1. Definitions of apologies 17
1.4.2. Apologizing forms in English and Vietnamese 19
1.5. Apology strategies used in the researcher’s study 22
1.5.1. Strategy 1: Illocutionary Force Indicating Device ( IFID) 22
1.5.2. Strategy 2: Opting out 22
1.5.3. Strategy 3: Admitting guilt with an explanation 23
1.5.4. Strategy 4: Offering of repair 25

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 26
2.1. Subjects of the study 26
2.2. Research procedure 26
2.3. Research instruments 27
2.3.1. Questionnaire 28
2.3.2. Interview 28
2.4. Method of data analysis 29
2.4.1. Statistic 29
2.4.2. Compare and contrast 29

ix
CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31
3.1. Results of questionnaire 31
3.1.1. Situation 1 33
3.1.2. Situation 2 33
3.1.3. Situation 3 34
3.1.4. Situation 4 35
3.2. Results of interview 36
3.2.1. Strategy 1: Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) 36
3.2.2. Strategy 2: Opting out 43
3.2.3. Strategy 3: Admitting guilt with an explanation 46
3.2.4. Strategy 4: Offering of repair 49
3.3. Discussion 51
3.3.1. Similarities 51
3.3.2. Differences 53
PART 3: CONCLUSION 56
1. Recapitulation 56
2. Limitations of the study 57
3. Suggestions for further studies 57
REFERENCES I

APPENDICES IV

1
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
The main reasons making English become one of the most important
languages in the world are the speedy globalization of the world and the
consequent need for effective communication language. As the result, learning
English has become a basic and urgent need for those who wish to be professionals
in various fields and who are preparing to join an increasingly competitive labor
market. However, it is not enough to teach and learn the grammar and vocabulary.
Learning pragmatic and cultural competence is also very necessary so that learners
can use the target language in a socially and culturally appropriate way.
Speech acts are of importance in daily life in all languages. In language
acquisition, speech acts in a target language have been demonstrated in the field
of inter-language pragmatics. The performance of speech acts is indicated to
differ considerably from cultures to cultures, which leads to communication
difficulties in cross-culture. In this study, the speech act is the apology which
belongs to expressive speech acts, in which speakers try to indicate their
attitudes.
Using apologies is a particular way of politeness in social situations.
However, each society has a special set of social norms consisting of more or
less explicit rules that prescribe the certain behavior, a state of the affair, or ways
of thinking in the context. Thus, apologizing is not an easy matter in anyone’s
own language, and making it in a second or foreign language more complicated.
That is why studying the way people apologize in different languages is
important in order to understand the intricacies of language. Furthermore,

2
comparative studies on languages taught as second or foreign language are

essential in order to improve teaching methods and techniques which could raise
more learners' awareness of differences between not only their native language
and the target language but also between the two cultures.
For these above reasons, the paper entitled “A pragmatic study on apology
in English and Vietnamese” is intended to help the Vietnamese learners of
English get access to the deeper understanding of English culture.
2. Aims of the study
− Presenting some theoretical background on speech acts and apologies.
− Examining types of strategies that Vietnamese use to apologize in 4
situations
− Comparing how similarly and differently the English and Vietnamese
speakers use apologies in terms of cross-cultural features based on
comparing strategies of apologies.
− Gaining an insightful look at and strongly recommend effective techniques
significantly improve translation and language teaching.
3. Research questions
i. How do the English and Vietnamese speakers say apologies in studied
contexts?
ii. What are the similarities and differences in making polite apologies
between the English and Vietnamese speakers?
4. Scope of the study
The study is a comparative analysis on making polite apologies in English
and Vietnamese in terms of cross-cultural perspective performed by the speakers

3
of English and Vietnamese. The thesis is limited to verbal aspects of making
apologies based on seven forms and four strategies.
5. Research methods
The study has been carried out on the basis of a combination of different
methods as Compare and Contrast and Statistics.

The procedures of the study are as follows:
− Collect apologizing forms which are extracted from English and Vietnamese
books.
− Analyze the data collected from the books to find out the similarities and
differences in making apologies in English and Vietnamese so as to provide
theoretical background.
− Deliver questionnaire and interview the participants of the study.
− Collect the data from questionnaire and interview.
− Analyze the data of the previous step to investigate the similarities and
differences of using apologies between the English and Vietnamese speakers
in reality.
− Draw the conclusion.
6. Significance of the study
The need for the paper entitled “A pragmatic study on apology in English
and Vietnamese” is imperative as there are few studies on apologies in English
and Vietnamese, so it is aimed to study the apology strategies in depth with the
hope of making certain contributions to existing knowledge of the same field and
the results presented can be used in a future comparative study.

4
7. Design of the study
The thesis is composed of three parts including four chapters as follows:
Part I: ‘Introduction’, which gives in brief relevant information of the study
such as the Rationale, Aims, Research Questions, Scope, Methods and Design of
the study.
Part II: ‘Development’, which is subdivided into 3 chapters.
Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical background of the study including speech acts
of apologies, politeness, and strategies of apologies.
Chapter 2 discusses issues of methodology, research questions, research
participants, research procedure, research instruments, data collection, and

method of analysis.
Chapter 3 presents an overview of results and discusses the results of
questionnaire and interview.
Part III: entitled the ‘Conclusion’ which includes the recapitulation of main
ideas, the implications, the limitations of the study, and suggestions for further
studies.






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PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. 1. Literature review
1.1.1. Previous studies oversea.
In the history of the linguistics, there have been a number of studies on the
speech act of apology. Almost all of these studies focused on English, both with
native and non-native speakers, but there are also other studies that investigated
apologies in different languages. Recently, more studies examine the way
learners of foreign and second languages use and perceive apologies in both their
native and target language.
The following sections presents some of these studies to give an overview
of different theories of speech act of apology.
Diversity in definitions of apologies also brings about variety in
classification of apology strategies. Bergman and Kasper (1993) distinguished
seven different apology strategies. The first one which is the most commonly
used is called the Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) such as in “I’m
sorry.” The second strategies are intensified IFID (“I’m terribly sorry”). The

third one is taking responsibility (“I haven’t graded it yet”). The fourth one is
giving an account of the reasons that led to the action that requires an apology
(“I was suddenly called to a meeting”). The fifth one is minimizing the effects
and severity of the action (“I’m only 10 minutes late”). The sixth one is offering
repair or compensation (“I’ll pay for the damage”), and the last one is verbal

6
redress (“It won’t happen again”).
Olshtain and Cohen’s (1983:167) taxonomy was also modified by Holmes
(1990), who divided apologies into four main strategies, each category having
sub-classifications. The first one is “an explicit expression of apology” and
contains the substrategies “offer apology/IFID,” “express regret,” “request
forgiveness.” The second main category is represented by “an explanation or
account, an excuse or justification.” The largest group, “an acknowledgment of
responsibility,” contains “accept blame,” “express self-deficiency,” “recognize H
as entitled to an apology,” “express lack of intent,” “offer repair/redress.”
Finally, the last category is “a promise of forbearance”.
A slightly different taxonomy was proposed by Trosborg (1995), who
distinguished five strategies. She found that apologetic strategies can be divided
according to whether the speaker considers that an action that requires an
apology occurred or not. The first two strategies come from the speaker’s not
accepting that an apology is necessary, and are “explicit denial” and “implicit
denial”. The remaining three strategies are the result of the speaker accepting the
fact that there is a need for an apology. They are “giving a justification”,
“blaming someone else”, and “attacking the complainer”.
Owen (1983:169) incorporated apologies in the broader context of primary
remedial moves. Thus, there are seven strategies for primary remedial moves:
“assert imbalance or show deference,” “assert that an offence has occurred,”
“express attitude towards offence,” “ request restoration of balance,” “give an


7
account,” “repair the damage,” and “provide compensation” .The first four are
grouped under non-substantive strategies, giving an account is considered a
semi-substantive strategy, while the last two are substantive strategies.
Similarly, Fraser (1981:263) designed a categorization of apologies based
on the intent of the speaker. He distinguished nine strategies, namely
“announcing that you are apologizing,” “stating one’s obligation to apologize,”
“offering to apologize,” “requesting the hearer accept an apology,” “expressing
regret for the offense,” “ acknowledging responsibility for the offending act,”
“promising forbearance from a similar offending act,” and “offering redress”.
Some of the strategies above are appear in several studies on apologies, which
makes Fraser’s taxonomy different is that he distinguishes several strategies that
other scholars would place under the category illocutionary force indicating
device (IFID).
Finally, a completely different approach to creating a taxonomy of
apologies has been attempted by Deutschmann (2003). After analyzing The
British National Corpus he proposed three main strategies of apologies according
to the function they express. They are “real apologies” which are the most
frequent ones such as “I apologize for this”, “formulaic apologies”, which
consist of simple IFIDs as in “I’m sorry”; and “face attack” apologies, which
were intended to “disarm” the hearer as in “Excuse me David, I’m talking to
Chris” (p. 75).
In a nutshell, there are many different categorizations of apologies.

8
However, not all the strategies in these taxonomies would work for all the
cultures for the reason that speech act is culture specific as mentioned in earlier
part. As the consequence, when creating the taxonomy for a study one should not
only choose those strategies that are used in the respective culture but also
account both for explicit and implicit apologies. Furthermore, strategies such as

avoiding and postponing apologies should also be a part of the taxonomy
because choosing not to apologize or apologize is also a strategy used when an
apology is required.
1.1.2. Previous studies in Vietnamese
Through the research process, three previous studies related to this thesis
will be used to compare the findings. The first study was carried out by Huynh
Cam Thao Trang (2009). Her study focused on seven forms and three apology
strategies in English and Vietnamese including “getting attention”, “rejecting a
request or invitation” and “admitting guilt with explanation”. Her study,
however, did not concentrate on comparing how similarly and differently native
speakers of English and Vietnamese use polite apologies in terms of cross-
cultural features. The second study is made by Huynh Thi Nhi. The paper
analyzed similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese in the light of
utterances of apology. However, her study did not focus on three apology
strategies as well as did not compare the degree of frequency in using apologies
between Vietnamese native speakers and native speakers of English. The third
study was conducted by Nguyen Thi Phuong Dung which combined the results

9
of the two studies above.
1.2. Theories on speech acts
1.2.1. Definition of speech acts
Searle (1969:24) claims that “Language is part of a theory of action, and
speech acts are those verbal acts such as promising, requesting and
complimenting that one performs in speaking. On this view, minimal units of
human communication are not linguistic expressions, but rather the performance
of certain kinds of acts, such as making statements, asking questions, giving
direction, apologizing, thanking, complimenting and so on. These acts are called
illocutionary acts.” In this sense, we share the definition that those actions
performed via utterances for the purposes of communicating are called speech

acts.
Searle (1969:23) claims that the term “an illocutionary act refers to an
utterance with a communicative force”. For example, when one says:“you look
so beautiful today.” This is an act of complimenting. Thus, a speaker performs
illocutionary acts by expressing his/ her intention to compliment someone, to
promise someone, etc., in such a way, the listener can understand the speaker’s
intention.
The concept of illocutionary point is related to the notion of illocutionary
acts. Illocutionary point refers to the point or purpose of illocution (Searle,
1980:351). In speech act theory, direct speech acts and indirect speech acts are

10
distinguished from each other. The later is defined as “Those cases in which one
illocutionary act is performed indirectly by the way of performing another”
(Searle, 1975:60). Therefore, in direct speech acts the speaker says what she/he
means, while in indirect speech acts the speaker means more than she/he says
(Searle. 1980). For example, a speaker may say “you look like a million dollars”
instead of compliment someone about good appearance.
1.2.2. Type of speech acts
Austin (1962) introduced a classification of acts performed when a person
speaks. The first is a locutionary act producing a meaningful expression. For
instance, if we make a simple sentence like: “your dress is so beautiful”, we are
likely to produce a locutionary act. The second is illocutionary acts, we mostly
do not make utterances without having any purpose in them. These acts are
performed for communicative function. The third is perlocutionary acts. “In
communicating, we do not simply create an utterance without intending to have
an effect” (Yule, 1996). For the sentence, we all wish the act of complimenting
the listener’s dress to be done, or in other words, the perlocutionary force is
performed.
Searle (1969:70) listed five types of speech acts based on the speaker’s

intentions: Declarations: are those kinds of speech acts that change the world
via their utterances. Representatives: are those kinds of speech acts that state
what the speaker believes to be the case or not, for example, statement of fact,

11
assertions, conclusions and descriptions. Expressives: are those kinds of speech
acts that state what the speaker feels. They express psychological states and can
be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy or sorrow. Directives: are
those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something.
They express what the speaker wants. They are commands, orders, requests,
suggestions, compliments, etc. Commissives: are those kinds of speech acts that
speakers use to commit themselves some future action. They express what the
speaker intends. They are promises, threats, refusals an pledges.
Yule (1996: 55) presents a table showing speech act classification similarly:
Speech act types Direction of fit
S= Speaker/
X=Situation
Declarations Words change the world S causes X
Representatives Make words fit the world S believe X
Expressives Make words fit the world S feels X
Directives Make the world fit words S wants X
Commissives Make the world fit words S intends X

Table 1.1. The five general classifications of speech acts
Another approach to distinguish different types of speech acts is based on
relationship between the structure and functions. As Yule (1996) claims, three
structural forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative) and three communicative

12
function (statement, question, command/ request) can be combined to create two

kinds of speech acts: direct (there is a direct relationship between a structure
function, we have a direct speech act) and indirect speech acts (there is an
indirect relationship between a structure and a function, we have indirect speech
act).
1.3. Speech acts and Politeness
Speech act theory is also closely related to the concept of politeness. The
apology speech act is used commonly in daily conversations to show politeness.
In any context, this speech act shows respect and identity as well as the culture
of people who use a specific word choice. Early studies on politeness claims that
this concept is universal (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Lakoff, 1973). According to
Lakoff (1973), there are three main rules of politeness, namely “don’t impose,”
“give options,” and “make the hearer feel good – be friendly” (p. 298).
According to Brown and Levinson (1987), members of a society tend to keep a
certain image of themselves which they call “face.” Brown and Levinson
distinguish between two types of face, namely “negative face” and “positive
face.” “Negative face” is defined as one’s desire that nobody impedes his or her
actions, while “positive face” implies that people expect their needs to be
desirable to others.
Thus, those functions of language that are expressed with the help of
speech acts are intended either to prevent a threat to the speaker’s or hearer’s
face – by being polite when requesting something, for example – or to recover,
or save face – in the case of apologies, for example (Staab, 1983). Apologies as a

13
face-threatening act reflect how people generally behave as if their expectations
concerning their public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected.
In the light of such findings, Nwoye (1992:313) believes that it is
necessary to sub-classify the concept of face into “individual face” and “group
face.” Individual face refers to “the individual’s desire to attend to his/her
personal needs and to place his/her public-self-image above those of others”

while group face refers to “the individual’s desire to behave in conformity with
culturally expected norms of behavior that are institutionalized and sanctioned
by society” .
Another problem that speech acts raise in connection with politeness is the
fact that some speech acts seem to be impolite by their nature, such as orders or
commands, while others are polite by nature, such as offers or invitations (Leech,
1983). Thus, according to Leech, when people talk about speech acts, they must
distinguish between positive politeness, which increases the politeness in the
case of inherently polite speech acts, and negative politeness, which reduces the
impoliteness of inherently impolite speech acts. He also argues that one has to
pay attention to the relative of politeness, as this depends, as it is believed by
authors of studies presented above, on the culture of the speakers.
To sum up, this section mentions theory of speech acts including what
speech acts are and how they are classified. Evidence on speech act perception
and realization from different cultures have demonstrated that more research
should be done so as to provide a theory that has an integrated approach to
speech acts. Therefore, besides a careful definition of the term used in the

14
research and an appropriate taxonomy, it is necessary to take a deep
consideration into social, cultural, and pragmatic influences on the meaning,
perception, and production of speech acts.
1.3.1. Politeness
1.3.1.1. Definition of politeness
Politeness is such an interesting phenomenon that many linguistic experts
have done research so far. The concept of politeness have expressed by many
authors such as Yule (1996), Lakoff (1983), Leech (1983), Richard, J.C.et al
(1990) and Brown and Levinson (1987). Yule (1996:60) states, “Politeness, in an
interaction, can then be defined as the means employ to show awareness of
another person’s face.” Leech (1983:80) notes that politeness means to minimize

the effect of impolite statement or expression (negative politeness) and maximize
the effects of polite illocutions (positive politeness). According to Richard, J.C.et
al.(1990), politeness is defined as “a) how languages express the social distance
between speakers and their different role relationships, b) how face work, that is,
the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversations is carried
out in a speech community.” Politeness, as shown in Coulmas (1981: 84, 235), is
a dimension of linguistic choice and social behaviour, which includes such
notions as courtesy, formality, rapport, deference, respect and distance.
Therefore, in interpersonal communication, in terms of politeness, every
participant considers social factors such as age, gender, power and distance
among the interlocutors. Moreover, politeness may be described as a form of
behaviour which is exercised in order to consolidate relationship between

15
individuals or, at least, to keep it undamaged.
1.3.1.2. Politeness across cultures
Politeness is different from cultures to cultures. For example, if I were to bow to
either friend or stranger in Australia, my action could only be interpreted as
satirical or humorous. It could easily cause offence by appearing to laugh at the
other person's pomposity. On the other hand, the absence of a bow between
Korean males would probably carry significant meaning. Bowing is so normal in
Korea that the action itself may well have lost its force of signaling genuine
respect or politeness. In addition, it is worth noting that within a culture,
individual speakers may also vary somewhat in employing conversational
devices to execute politeness strategies. For example “some people believe that
interruption shows one’s interest in what the other person is talking about but
other people assume that it shows utter disregard for the interrupted speakers
(Green, 1989: 146). Apologizing is one of the most sensitive area of daily
communication in the term “politeness”. It plays a crucial role in keeping people
happy and friendship going. Although by apologizing, speakers recognize the

fact that a violation of the social norm has been communicated and admits to the
fact that he or she at least partially involve in its causes. For example, In
Vietnam, a person says sorry without thinking when he/she bumps into someone
by mistake. As a norm of politeness and a social habit, they would definitely get
annoyed if his/her apology is not given at the appropriate time. However, in
Brazil, neither the teacher nor students always arrive at the appointed hours.
Arriving late may not be very important in Brazil, nor is staying late. In Brazil, a