A contrastive analysis of encouraging as a speech act in english and vietnamese

Abstract

In the light of cross- cultural communication, based on the theories of speech act, politeness and directness- indirectness, this thesis presents an in- depth investigation into the act encouraging in English and Vietnamese. Two focal categorical dimensions are taken into consideration: - How do Vietnamese native speakers perform the act of encouraging in the given situations? - How do English native speakers perform the act of encouraging in the given situations? - What are the main similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese native speakers and English native speakers perform the act of encourage in the given situations? The study empirically conducted by analyzing the data taken from two questionnaires: the Metapragmatic Questionaire (MPQ) and Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaire. The former is to test the validity and reliability of the act of encouraging in English and Vietnamese in given situations. The latter is designed for the analysis of D-ID and PP-NP strategies under the influence of such variables as social distance, relative power and blood- non-blood relations, and informants’ parameters (age, gender, marital status, occupation, and living area). By comparing and contrasting, similarities and differences in encouraging in English and Vietnamese languages are brought to light.