AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

A CROSS – CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE OF SPEECH ACTS AND ITS APPLICATION
TO EFL CLASSROOMS
Nguyen Thi Nhat Minh1
1

An Giang University, VNU - HCM

Information:
Received: 16/01/2019
Accepted: 02/05/2019
Published: 11/2019
Keywords:
Cross-cultural perspective,
illocutionary force,
performative verbs, speech
acts, utterances

ABSTRACT
Speech acts, the actions performed by utterances, play an important role in
communication, particularly verbally. Speech act performance requires not
only knowledge of the language, but also knowledge about the appropriate
use of that language in a certain situation within a particular culture. As a
result, cultural awareness constitutes an integral part of this important area
of pragmatics. This study provides some insights into the use of speech acts
by Vietnamese EFL learners from a cross-cultural perspective. It is
suggested that the influence of culture has resulted in students’ common
failures to understand and perform English speech acts. To minimize this
kind of pragmatic failure, it is recommended that EFL teachers raise
students’ awareness of some cultural issues in cross-cultural

communication. Furthermore, it is necessary to incorporate speech acts into
English language teaching with authentic input and lifelike communicative
activities.

1. INTRODUCTION

cultural perspective, and to explore some
pedagogical issues related to common
pragmatic failure in terms of performance of
English speech from which teachers of English
can get some useful tools for their teaching.

In order to achieve successful communication
in a foreign language, people are required to
understand what the speaker is saying and know
how
to
respond
appropriately.
In
communication, people not only say things
containing grammatical structures and words,
but also perform actions via those utterances,
namely speech acts. However, for most
language learners, it is difficult to understand
the intended meaning communicated by speech
acts, or to produce a speech act appropriately in
the target language because of the close tie
between speech acts and culture. This paper
aims to present an overview of speech act

theory, to examine speech acts from a cross-

2. AN OVERVIEW OF SPEECH ACT
THEORY
Since introduced by Austin (1962) and further
developed by Searle (1969), the theory of
speech acts has been growing over time with
the contribution of numerous scholars. Within
its scope, this paper presents some basic
concepts of speech acts, including definition of
speech acts, the performative hypothesis and
speech act taxonomy.

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AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

2.1 Definition of speech acts and three
related acts

Yule (1996) also emphasized that of these three
dimensions, the most worthy discussed item is
illocutionary force. Indeed, the term “speech
acts” is generally interpreted narrowly to mean
only the illocutionary force of an utterance.
However, it is quite problematic that the same
utterance can potentially have different
illocutionary forces, for example, ‘I’ll see you
later’ can be interpreted as a promise or a

warning. How can speakers assume that the
intended illocutionary force will be recognized
by the hearer? That question has been addressed
by considering the Illocutionary Force
Indicating Devices (IFIDs)..

Yule (1996) defined speech acts as the actions
performed by utterances, and in English, these
actions are generally labelled as apology,
complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or
request, for instance, “Raise your hand!”
(request), “I’ll call you tonight,” (promise),
“The tea is too cold.” (complaint) (p.48)
Cohen (2006) offered a similar definition that
speech acts are often (but not always) patterned,
routinized utterances that speakers use to
perform language functions, such as thanking,
complimenting,
requesting,
refusing,
apologizing, and complaining.

IFIDs means an indication in the speaker’s
utterance of the communicative force of that
utterance. The most obvious device for
indicating the illocutionary force is a
performative verb which explicitly names the
illocutionary act being performed.

Austin (1962) proposed the original distinction

between the different aspects of a speech act
into
locutionary,
illocutionary
and
perlocutionary. His classification was then
developed and exemplified by Yule (1996) as
follows.

Nevertheless, in some cases there is no
performative verb to be identified, so IFIDs
which can be identified are word order and
intonation. For instance, “You’re going!” (I tell
you that you are going); “You are going?” (I
request confirmation about whether you are
going); “Are you going?” (I ask you if you are
going). (Yule, 1996, p.50)

A Locutionary act is the basic act of forming
the sounds and words to create a meaningful
utterance in a language. For example, in
English language, uttering ‘Aha mokofa’ may
be considered a failure to produce a locutionary
act whereas ‘I’ve just made some coffee’ is a
success.

2.2 The performative hypothesis

Most well-formed utterances are produced with
some kind of purpose. The sentence ‘I’ve just

made some coffee” might be uttered to make a
statement, an offer, an explanation or for some
other communicative purpose. This is called the
illocutionary act - the communicative force or
intention of an utterance

Another element of speech act theory is the
performative hypothesis. This is the assumption
first proposed by Ross (1970) that underlying
every utterance (U), there is a clause containing
a performative verb (Vp) which makes the
illocutionary force more explicit. The basic
structure of the underlying clause is I (hereby)
Vp you (that) U.

A Perlocutionary act is the intended effect an
utterance has on the hearer. Depending on the
circumstances, the sentence ‘I’ve just made
some coffee’ will be uttered on the assumption
that the hearer will recognize it as an
explanation for a wonderful smell or an offer to
drink some coffee. (Yule, 1996, pp.48-49)

Yule (1996) provided a closer look at the
advantages and disadvantages of this
hypothesis. He pointed out that this hypothesis
helps to make clear what elements are involved
in the production and interpretation of

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AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

utterances. For example, comparing the two
utterances below, we can see that the
underlying clause in utterance [b] make the
illocutionary force more explicit than in
utterance [b]

A different approach is based on structure to
classify speech act as direct or indirect. In
English, there are three basic structural forms
(declarative, interrogative, imperative) and
three general communicative functions
(statement, question, request). We will have a
direct speech act when there is a direct
relationship between a structure and a function,
for instance, a declarative used to make a
statement. On the other hand, when the
relationship between structural form and
function is indirect, e.g. an interrogative used to
make a request, we will have an indirect speech
act. (Yule, 1996)

a. Clean up the mess!
b. I hereby order you that you clean up this
mess. (Yule, 1996, p.51)
However, there are some disadvantages to the
performative hypothesis. The first one is that a

explicit performative version has a much more
serious impact than an implicit version as in the
following utterances:
The work was done by Emily.

In light of this approach, one utterance can be
used to have two different functions. For
example, with the utterance ‘It is cold outside’,
if the speaker describes the weather to the
hearer, the declarative is a statement. But if this
utterance is used to ask the hearer to close the
door, the declarative performed is to make a
request.

I hereby tell you that the work was done by
Emily.
Another disadvantage is that it is difficult to
know exactly what a performative verb might
be for some utterances. For example, both the
speaker and the hearer can recognize the
utterance in ‘You are dumber than a rock’ as an
insult, it would be strange to have an explicit
version as ‘I hereby insult that you are dumper
than a rock.’ (Yule, 1996, p.52)

On the other hand, different structures can be
used to accomplish the same basic function. For
example, when the speaker wants the addressee
not to stand in front of the TV, he may produce
the following utterances


2.3 Speech act taxonomy
Instead of listing the all possible explicit
performatives, there are various attempts to
classify speech acts. Searle (1975) categorized
speech acts into five types of functions.
Representatives
(assertion,
description,
statement) is stating what is believed or known.
Directives
(command,
order,
request,
suggestion) is getting the hearer to do
something. Commissives (promise, threat,
refusal, pledge) is committing the speaker to
some future actions. Expressives (thanks,
apology, praise) is expressing feelings or
attitudes. Declarations (declaring, firing from
employment, ordering) is bringing about a
change.

Move out of the way!
You’re standing in front of the TV.
Do you have to stand in front of the TV?
(Yule, 1996, p.55)
It is evident that although the three utterances
are of different structural forms, their basic
function in this situation is a command.

However, in some situations, a hearer, still fails
to identify the indirectness of a speech act, as in
a famous example by Blum-Kulka (1983) cited
in Locastro (2003, p.242)
Child: Can you fix the needle?
Adult: I’m busy.
Child: I just wanted to know if you can fix it.

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AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

3. THE APPLICATION OF CROSSCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES OF
SPEECH ACTS TO TEACHING
ENGLISH IN THE VIETNAMESE
CONTEXT

Many speakers, in addition, seem to translate
from the source language to the target one when
they speak, which raises problems when
transferring and recognizing speech acts from
one language to another.

3.1 The importance of speech acts in EFL
setting

Nguyen (1999) found that because of the
influence of culture, the Vietnamese tend to be
overtly modest, particularly in spoken language.

In fact, we do not want to show off our ability,
we’re shy. As a result, Asian people in general
and the Vietnamese in particular are usually not
as successful in interviews as Westerners. The
Anglo-American interview style, for example,
requires candidates to sell themselves, whereas
an interviewee from a different sociocultural
background may shy away from such
presentation (Roberts, Davies & Jupp, 1992).
Therefore, we do not understand an
interviewer’s intention in the question “Do you
think you can do it?” which requires the
interviewees to talk about their capability or
their plans to do it. Consequently, many
interviewees mistakenly use short answers like
“Yes, I do”, which makes interviewers unclear
and unsatisfied (Nguyen, 1999)

According to the contemporary pedagogical
tendency, the major duty of a teacher of foreign
languages is to help learners develop their
communicative
competence.
In
fact,
achievement of successful communication in a
foreign language calls for many factors beyond
linguistic competence. This fact can account
for the paradox that even EFL learners with
good mastery of English syntax and vocabulary

fail to use English appropriately. It is pragmatic
failure that leads to their communication
breakdown, especially in cross-cultural
contexts.
In oral communication each utterance serves a
specific function. It is obvious that these
utterances, namely speech acts, play a dominant
role in daily conversations. However, they seem
to be a hard task for most foreign language
learners to understand and to perform. Their
difficulties mostly spring from inadequate
mastery of the conversational norms involved
in the production of speech acts. This arouses a
practical need for the integration of speech acts
into English language teaching.

As Locastro (2012) remarked, every culture has
characteristic speech acts that reflect its norms
and values. The Vietnamese also tend to be
modest in dealing with compliments. In her
research, Tran (2006) found that the
Vietnamese often accept the compliment in a
downgrade or disagreement way, which is a
sharp contrast to English native speakers. For
example:

3.2 The influences of culture on the
Vietnamese performance of English
speech acts


-

Theoretically, communicative, or pragmatic,
competence is the ability to use language forms
in a wide range of environments, factoring in
the relationships between the speakers involved
and the social and cultural context of the
situation (Lightbown & Spada, 1999; Gass &
Selinker, 2001). For this reason, it is hard for
non-native speakers to speak appropriately.

English situation

A: You look great!
B: Thank you.
-

Vietnamese situation

A: Cái áo bồ mặc đẹp thiệt đó! [What a
beautiful dress you’re wearing!]

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AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

B: Đẹp gì mà đẹp. Đồ cũ lắm rồi. [It’s not
beautiful. It’s very old.] (Tran, 2006,
p.12)


pragmatic failure in students’ performance of
speech acts.
For most students, the frequent way of greeting
the teacher as he or she enters the classroom is
“Good morning / Good afternoon, Teacher”.
The most commonly used form of addressing a
teacher in Vietnam is “Thầy / Cô” (Teacher)
and the Vietnamese avoid calling the name of
the superior for the reason of respect. However,
the word “teacher” cannot be used as a form of
addressing in English language. Native English
speakers often address their teacher by the title
Mr. / Mrs. / Miss / Ms. followed by their
surname. Therefore, a native English teacher
may feel a bit puzzled when addressed with the
word “Teacher” only.

3.3 Common pragmatic failure in
understanding and performance of
English speech acts in reality
Understanding the intended meaning imparted
by a speech act is not a simple task at all. In
many cases the hearer cannot figure out or
might even misunderstand the
speaker’s
intention, which might lead to communication
breakdowns. For example:
A: Can you repair the leaky faucet?
B: Yes, I can., would you like me to fix it?

Here the hearer interprets the speaker’s
utterance as a normal Yes / No question which
asks about his ability to do the action while A is
actually making a request. B’s misinterpretation
is due to his oversimplification of the use of
Yes / No questions.

In another situation, if a native speaker of
English remarks to a Vietnamese interlocutor
“Your English is excellent!”, a possible
response to his compliment would be “ No, my
English is still poor” because it is natural and
advisable for the Vietnamese to accept
compliments in downgrade or disagreement
ways for the sake of modesty. In contrast,
native English speakers are used to saying
“Thanks, I try my best” in response to
compliments. As a result, the Vietnamese
response may put the interlocutor at a loss to
keep on the conversation.

Failure to understand speech acts also arises
from learners’ tendency to transfer speech act
strategies and conventions from the source
language to the target language. Pragmatically,
it is noticeable that something that works in
English might not keep the same meaning when
translated into another language. For instance,
Vietnamese learners often translate the
expression ‘I couldn’t agree with you more’

into ‘Tôi không thể đồng ý với bạn hơn nữa’
which expresses a strong disagreement. In fact,
the meaning of this utterance is similar to ‘I
completely agree with you’, which is
completely opposite to their interpretation.
Thus misleading translation may result in
serious misunderstanding.

In cross-cultural communication when a
Vietnamese speaker tries to translate an
utterance with a certain illocutionary act into
English, embarrassment occasionally occurs
because there may be various kinds of
interpretations. For example, the Vietnamese
usually greet each other with some informal
utterances such as “Đang đi đâu đó?” (Where
are you going?) or “Ăn cơm chưa?” (Have you
eaten?). However, if someone asks an
American or English friend the same questions,
he or she may feel confused with such inquiries
because the original illocutionary act of
greeting of these utterances is diminished in the

In an attempt to conduct daily conversations,
Vietnamese EFL learners may find it
challenging to produce speech acts using
appropriate language and manner in the target
language. Follows are some common cases of

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AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

English context. The hearer would instead
interpret them as intrusion of their personal
privacy. In a similar way, other questions
related to salaries, marital status or female ages
are considered impolite and rude to English
native speakers although they are considered a
good way to express the speaker’s care and
attention to the interlocutor in the Vietnamese
context..

they are not used to being told what to do, when
and how to do it. <= not really true.
Moreover, it is apparent that speech acts are
mostly conducted in real-life interactions which
entail freedom and unpredictability. Hence it is
necessary for English language teachers to
create a language environment in the classroom
which inspires students to communicate in
lifelike situations. This strategy can be realized
through some communicative activities in
which there exists an information gap such as
role-play cards. This kind of activity puts
students in a specific context to perform a
conversation. Students are provided with clear
and detailed instructions but they still have the
choice of what to say and how to say it.


3.4 Pedagogical implications for
incorporation of speech acts into
teaching English as a foreign language
From the above examples, it can be recognized
that cultural barriers pose major hindrances to
the realization of speech acts in daily
communication, particularly in cross-cultural
situations. As a result, infusion of culture
should be considered an inherent part of
language teaching and learning. Yet, it does not
mean that teachers try to incorporate all cultural
features in English lessons. Attention should
instead be paid to the cultural issues that
strongly influence verbal exchanges, e.g. who
can say what to whom, how, when, why, under
what circumstance and in what context.

In order to help students use natural English
speech acts, teachers should provide them with
authentic input which can be exploited from
various sources such as movies, video clips or
recordings. This type of material offers
significant benefits to EFL learners because
they can, on one hand, be aware of the related
cultural factors and experience the language
that native speakers use to achieve certain
communicative purposes on the other hand.

In implementing this strategy, distinction

between the two cultures should be made so
that students are aware that what can be
appropriate in Vietnamese language may be
inappropriate in English language. For instance,
when visiting a sick person, native speakers of
English usually express their sympathy by
saying something like “I’m sorry you’re not
feeling well. I hope you’ll feel better soon.”
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese in the same
situation would express their solicitude for the
sick person by giving so many pieces of advice
like “Drink plenty of water.” “Take this kind of
medicine.” or “Eat more vegetables.” Such
kinds of concern only arouse Westerners’
misunderstanding of being looked upon as
naïve children. This is because westerners do
emphasize self-reliance and independence, so

Besides, while teaching the forms of English,
teachers usually inform the students of the
usage of that language item, for example, modal
verbs could, might should or had better serve
in advice-giving. It would be much better for
the students if they are taught to be aware of the
tact and appropriateness in the use of these
language items. Therefore, it is worth pointing
out that should or had better expresses direct
advice and should be used with care in terms of
interlocutor’s position or the situation.
Preference is usually given to softened or

indirect strategies of advice-giving. Here is an
example by Fujimori, J. & Houck, N. (2004,
p.5)
Direct:
the Rings.

58

You should see The Lord of


AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59

Softened:
Maybe you might enjoy seeing
The Lord of the Rings.

language acquisition: An introductory
course. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.

Indirect:
The new The Lord of the Rings
is great. I really enjoyed it.

Lightbown, P. and Spada, N. (1999). How
languages are learned. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

4. CONCLUSION

To sum up, we are seemingly living in a world
of speeches, and performance of speech acts is
a popular means of daily communication. Not
only does speech act theory deepen our
understanding of those familiar functional
utterances but it also forms the theoretical
foundation
from
which
cross-cultural
perspectives of speech act performance between
English and Vietnamese languages are
developed. Those awareness issues along with
their helpful implications shed lights to the
integration of speech acts in English language
teaching.
Improvement
of
students’
performance of speech acts is the vital
condition for their successful communication,
especially in cross-cultural contexts.

LoCastro, V. (2003). An introduction to
pragmatics – Social action for language
teachers. Michigan: The University of
Michigan Press.
LoCastro, V. (2012). Pragmatics for Language
Educators: A Sociolinguistic Perspective.
New York: Routledge

Nguyen, H. (April, 1999). Illocutionary Force
with Sentence Patterns. Paper presented at
The 1st National Conference on Pragmatics,
Hanoi, Vietnam.
Roberts C., Davies E. & Jupp T. (1992).
Language and discrimination. London:
Longman.
Ross, J.R. (1970). On Declarative Sentences, in
R.A. Jacobs and P.S. Rosenbaum, eds.
Readings in English Transformational
Grammar, Ginn: Waltham, Mass

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