VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN THỊ MINH THƯƠNG
A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON DIFFERENCES IN EXPRESSING
ANNOYANCE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VỀ SỰ KHÁC BIỆT TRONG CÁCH THỨC
BIỂU HIỆN SỰ BỰC BỘI GIỮA NGƯỜI ANH VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT) PROGRAM I
M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh, M.A.
Hanoi, 2009
Vietnamese
II.1. Realization of the strategies v
II.2. Data analysis
II.2.1. Use of strategies as seen from informants’ parameters
II.2.2. Use of strategies in terms of communicative partners
II.3. Major cross-cultural similarities and differences between the English and the
Vietnamese informants
II.3.1. Similarities and differences as seen from informants’ parameters
II.3.2. Similarities and differences in terms of communicative partners

Part C: Remarks and Recommendations
1. Review of the findings
2. Recommendations
3. Recommendations for further studies

Bibliography
Appendix 1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE
Cross-cultural Communication describes the ability to successfully form, foster, and
improve relationships with members of a culture different from one‟s own. It is based on
knowledge of many factors, such as the other culture‟s values, perceptions, manners, social
structure, and decision-making practices, and an understanding of how members of the
group communicate- both verbally and non-verbally, in person, in writing or in any other

any communication breakdown.
To achieve this overall purpose, the study aims to:
 Provide a general picture of the theory of speech acts and politeness.
 Find out major similarities and differences in expressing annoyance in English and
Vietnamese
 Compare and contrast the communicative strategies used by Vietnamese and
English when they want to show their annoyance in verbal communication.
 Contribute to raise cross-cultural awareness among foreign language users.
To achieve the objectives, following two questions are raised to be addressed:
(1) What are different strategies of expressing annoyance verbally in English and in
Vietnamese?
(2) What are similarities and differences in the choice of strategies in verbal
expressions of annoyance in English and Vietnamese culture?
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study is limited to the data obtained from the survey questionnaire on ways of
expressing annoyance in English and Vietnamese. The answers from informants in the
survey questionnaire and direct interviews are used as linguistic inputs. Due to the limited
time and the scope of a Minor Thesis, only 50 English (out of 65) and 50 Vietnamese (out
of 80) informants were chosen for data analysis.
The study is also restrained to verbal aspects of the act of expressing annoyance only. No
matter how important non-verbal aspects such as paralanguage and extra-language are,
they are excluded within the study.
Only Vietnamese Northern dialect and English native speakers are chosen for contrastive
analysis. By English native speakers, the author means those who speak English as their
mother-tongue.

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The study just focuses on social relationship and ignores the kinship between the
informants (Speakers) and the communicative partners (Hearers) as it is pre-supposed that
in family relationship, annoyance is seemed to be expressed more directly and frequently.

mood factors. A sample of the questionnaire in both English and Vietnamese is attached in
the Appendix of the thesis.
VI. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The study consists of 3 main parts:
PART I: Introduction. Rationale, aims of the study, scope of the study, methodology and
data collection are all provided in the part.
PART II: Development. The main part consists of 3 chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature review
Chapter 2: Communicative strategies used to express annoyance in English and
Vietnamese
PART III: Conclusion. In the part, the author aims to review the research findings and
suggests some recommendations for Vietnamese users of English as well as for further
studies.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
I.1. Speech Acts
Speech Act Theory and a new revolution in linguistics are opening unexplored ground in
how we understand human language. Speech Act Theory has its foundation in a series of
lectures by John L. Austin at the Williams James lecture series given at Harvard in 1955,
which later was gathered in a book, How to Do Things Words. In his understanding
language is not just a passive practice of describing a given reality, but a particular practice
to invent and affect those realities. The speech act theory of Austin is then further
developed by a number of other talent philosophers such as John R.Searle, William
P.Alston, François Récanati, Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish.
I.1.1. Notions of Speech Acts
With the most influential book, Austin presented a new picture of analyzing meaning;
meaning is described in a relation among linguistic conventions correlated with
words/sentences, the situation where the speaker actually says something to the hearer, and

I.1.2. Types of speech acts
Austin classifies illocutionary acts into five types, i.e., verdictives, exercitives,
commissives, behabitives, and expositives.
Verdictives: excercising judgment
Exercitives: exerting influence, exercising power
Commissives: assuming obligation, declaring intention
Behabitives: adopting attitude, expressing feeling
Expositives: clarifying reasons, argument, or communication
Searle (1979: 12) was the second most influential person who took Austin‟s words in
caution and revised his work. For Searle, the basis for categorizing speech acts is the
illocutionary point or the purpose of the act from the speaker‟s perspectives, including:
Representatives: Illocutionary acts that undertake to represent a state of affaires.
Expressives: Illocutionary acts that express only the speaker‟s psychological attitude
towards some state of affairs.
Directives: Illocutionary acts that S uses to get H to do something or carry out some
actions.
Commissives: Illocutionary acts that commit S to doing something.
Declaratives: Illocutionary acts that bring about the state of affairs/the changes in the
world via their utterance they refer to.
Though there are many other classifications proposed by other linguistics such as Yule
(1996:55), the classifications of Austin and Searle are the most influential and noteworthy.

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It can be said that Austin‟s theory has laid basic and firm foundation for Searle to present
the clearest and most useful working classification of speech acts.
I.1.3. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts
In discussion of speech acts, it is common to make a distinction between direct and indirect
speech acts.
Whenever there is a direct relationship between the structure and the function of an
utterance, we have a direct speech act. Let‟s consider the example:

examples:
+, “Bấm ít thôi. Đang đèn đỏ mà.”
For example, in expressing annoyance to your acquaintance who is sounding the horn
continuously behind you when the traffic light is red, you may produce such an utterance:
+, “Mày giỏi thì đi trước đi.”
Actually, this is not a request to ask the person to drive, but rather it requests the person to
stop sounding his/her horn and wait for the green light. Therefore, this is considered an
indirect speech act of expressing annoyance.
The speech act of expressing annoyance is a reaction to a past or on-going action, the
consequences of which are perceived by the speaker as affecting him/her unfavorably.
The functions of expressing annoyance can be listed as: (1) to express displeasure,
disapproval, blame, censure, threats or reprimand as a reaction to a perceived
offense/violation of social rules; (2) to hold the hearer accountable for the offensive action
and possibly suggest/request a repair (Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993, cited from Tien Phung,
2006:12).
The act of expressing annoyance is also cross-culturally different according to different
beliefs, customs, values and attitudes, ect.
Annoyance is a common emotional phenomenon in social interaction. However, the
expression of the emotion is very delicate and easy to make other lose face and impinge on
the relationship between S and H. Therefore, the study is aimed to provide a general and
brief picture of innate emotion and suggest several strategies which can be used to
minimize the negative consequences of the speech act.
Expressing annoyance is also a Face-Threatening Act as it is the act of expressing a
negative emotion by the Speaker to the Hearer in response to an action/utterance by the
Hearer that make the Speaker feel unpleasant. As a result, this may make the Hearer feel
unpleasant too and lose his/her face. This may impact on the relationship between the two
persons.

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I.2 Politeness


10
“Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness is that of Brown &
Levinson.” They (1987:60) presented five strategies a person can deal with a “face-
threatening act”. These five strategies are numbered, indicating that the greater the risk, the
more appropriate the higher-numbered ways of dealing with it are:

1. without redressive action, baldly
On record 2. positive politeness

Do the FTA with redressive action .
3. negative politeness
4. off record
5. Don‟t do the FTA

Figure 1: Possible responses to face-threatening acts
I.2.2.1 Bald-on-record
The prime reason for bald-on-record usage may be simply because the S wants to do the
FTA with maximum efficiency more than he/she wants to satisfy the H‟s face. The bald-
on-record strategy can be used in the case, the S is in a great urgency or desperation, so
he/she doestn‟t care about the face of the H and no face redress is necessary. For example;
+ Help me! (the S is being threatened by a robber).
+ Đưa tay đây. (the H is going to fall from the mountain to the sea and the S is
trying to pull him up).
In short, the bald-on-record strategy can be used when the face threat is not minimized or
face is ignored and when the S minimizes the face threats by implication.
I.2.2.2. Positive politeness
Brown & Levinson (1996) suggested 15 sub-strategies which will be considered briefly in
the following section.
(1) Notice, attend to H (interest, want, needs, goods)

and surprise”. For example:
+, A: John has received the scholarship of Cambridge university !
B: Cambridge university !
+ , A: Chị Lan bị nhiễm H1H1 rồi.
B. Chị Lan á?

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(6). Avoid disagreement
(6.1). Token agreement
The desire to agree or appear to agree with H leads also to mechanisms for pretending to
agree, instances of “token” agreement.
+, A: Do you think this shirt fits me?
B: Maybe.
+, A: Anh thấy bộ phim này có hay không?
B: Cũng được.
(6.2). White lies
+ A: “Cậu thấy cái áo này của mình thế nào?”
B: “Ừ, mình thấy nó cũng hợp với cậu đấy”.
(6.3). Hedging opinions
+, I really sort of think…
+, It’s really beautiful, in a way.
+, You really should sort of try harder.
Using the hedge, the S may want to avoid a precise communication of his attitude.
(7). Presuppose/raise/assert common ground
Using the strategy, firstly the S often spends time and effort on talking for a while about
unrelated topics. The S can thereby stress his general interest in the H, and indicate that he
hasn‟t come to see the H simply to do the FTA (e.g. a request), even though his intent to do
it may made obvious by his having brought a gift.
(8). Jokes
Joking is a basic positive-politeness technique, for putting H “at ease”. Furthermore, a joke

(13). Give (or ask for) reasons
Asking for or giving reasons is a way of implying “I can help you” or “you can help me”,
and, assuming cooperation, a way of showing what help is needed.
+, Tại sao anh không chờ đến khi đèn xanh?
+, What was the reason for your action?
(14). Assume or assert reciprocity
The existence of cooperation between S and H may also be claimed or urged by giving
evidence of reciprocal rights or obligations obtaining between S and H. Thus S may say, in
effect, “I’ll do X for you if you do Y for me” or “I did X for you last week, so you do Y for
me this week” (or vice versa).
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(15) Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation)
Finally S may satisfy H‟s positive-face want (that S want H‟s wants, to some degree) by
actually satisfying some of H‟s wants.
I.2.2.3. Negative politeness
(1). Be conventionally indirect
By using the strategy, S will use phrases or sentences that have contextually unambiguous
meanings to convey what he means indirectly. The strategy is based on the indirect speech
act.
+, Can you please pass the pencil?
(2). Question, hedge
There are several kinds of hedges, such as Hedges on illocutionary force, Hedges on
illocutionary force, Adverbial-clause hedges, Prosodic and kinesic hedges. For example:
+ Em nghĩ rằng chương trình này không phù hợp với máy tính của em sếp ạ.
+ To the best of my recollection, the house was built in the 1980s.
The hedges may suggest that the speaker is not taking full responsibility for the truth of
his/her utterance.

+, I don’t want to bother/interrupt you, but could you please help me checking this
document?
Give overwhelming reasons: The S can claim that he/she has compelling reasons for
doing the FTA, thereby implying that normally he wouldn‟t dream of infringing the H‟s
negative face:
+, Em nghĩ vấn đề này ngoài anh ra không ai có thể giải quyết được.
+, I can think of nobody else who could deal with the issue.
Beg forgiveness: The S may beg the H‟s forgiveness, or at least ask for “acquittal”- that is,
the H should cancel the debt implicit in the FTA:
+, Xin lỗi vì đã làm phiền, nhưng anh có thể vui lòng cho em mượn cái điện thoại
của anh một chút được không ạ?
+, I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind lending me your cellphone?
(7) Impersonalize S and H: One way of indicating that the S doesn‟t want to impinge on
the H is to phrase the FTA as if the agent were other than the S, or at least possibly not the
S or not S alone, and the addressee were other than H, or only inclusive of H. This results
in a variety of ways of avoiding the pronouns “I” and “you”. For example:
+, (I ask you to) finish the exercise tonight.
+, It appears (to me) that we cannot complete the plan within the month.

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(8). State the FTA as a general rule
+, Passengers (in stead of “you”) will please refrain from flushing toilets on the
train.
(9). Normalize
+, I am surprised that you failed to reply.
(10). Go on record as incurring a debt or as not indebting the H.
+, I’d be eternally grateful if you would….
+, I’ll never be able to repay you if you…
Depending on the social distance, the power relationship and the intention of the S, he/she
may choose negative or positive politeness strategies. Positive politeness is approach-

11.0
38.0
3
Avoid giving opinion
8.0
6.0
4
Joking
6.0
4.0
5
Telling a white-lie
6.0
12.0
6
Give (or) ask for reasons
32.0
12.0
7
Using requesting utterance
24.0
4.0
8
Reciprocity
0.0
4.0
Table 1: Summary of politeness strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants
1. Bald-on-record
The strategy is employed in the situations where the S doesn‟t want to care about the face
of the H or where the S finds the interest of the H more important than keeping the face of

following examples:
+ Em chào sếp ạ. Em đang thắc mắc có chuyện gì mà sếp cần gặp em gấp vậy ạ?
+ Hình như còi của anh bị kẹt à?
+ Em cứ tưởng là cháy nhà cơ.
+ Sếp ơi, hình như máy của em không tương thích với phần mềm này sếp ạ.
+ I’m wondering whether the software is contained with virus or not.
+ Would you please keep quite, if you don’t mind.
+ I really sort of think that the software is not useful to my work.
+ Perhaps, you don’t need to do that.
+ My goodness. You scared me. I thought something was wrong because you had rang the
doorbell so many times.
+ The software seems useful but I have already installed another similar one.

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+ I’m sorry, but would you mind if I remove the program to free up some space on my
computer?
From the examples, it can be suggested that the strategy is often used in the cases the
relationship between the S and the H is close enough or the H is more powerful than S so S
doesn‟t want to impinge on S. As a result, S tries to be vague about his/her opinion so as to
soften the FTA caused by his/her utterance.
3. Avoid giving opinion
When the annoyance-cause agent is a person who is of higher social rank than the
informants and the informants doesn‟t want to damage the face of the H, they may the
Pseudo-agreement strategy to minimize the annoyance and to pretend to agree with or
sympathize with the action of the H.
+ Chương trình này hay không hả sếp (responding to the situation 2)
+ Chẳng lẽ anh không biết máy tính có chủ à?
+ Thần kinh của cậu không quá căng thẳng đấy chứ?
+ Ơ, em tưởng anh biết phần mềm này lỗi thời rồi chứ ạ?
+ Mình cài mật khẩu rồi cơ mà nhỉ? (responding to the situation 2)

even choose negative words to indicate that he/she is annoyed with the action of the H and
doest not care about keeping face for the H. With the expressions, the S does not care
about the reason why the action is done, but he/she implies to express his/her annoyance to
the action and requests the H to stop such the action.
+ Mày làm cái trò gì thế? (responding to the situation 1)
+ Cái quái gì thế này?(responding to the situation 2)
+ What the hell are you doing?((responding to the situation 2)
7. Using requesting utterance
+ Tôi yêu cầu anh tháo ngay chương trình đó ra khỏi máy của tôi. (responding to the
situation 2)
+ Cậu cài xong chưa? Mình nghĩ cậu nên tháo nó ra được rồi đấy. (responding to the
situation 2)
+ Làm ơn im lặng giùm cái. (responding to the situation 3)
+ Bấm gì mà lắm thế. Lần sau đừng có làm như thế nữa. (responding to the situation3)
+ Can you remove it for me, please?(responding to the situation 2)
+ You should calm down. (responding to the situation 3)
8. Reciprocity
It can be seen from the survey findings that the strategy is hardly used by English
informants and totally ignored by Vietnamese informants when they express their

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annoyance. However, by using the strategy, S may soften his FTA towards the H. For
examples:
+ You will see what happens if you donot remove it right now.( responding to the situation
2).
II. 2. Data analysis
II.2.1. Use of the strategies as seen from informants’ parameters.
In the section, a detailed analysis on the choice of strategies by informants is made based
on their personal parameters, such as age, gender, living place, occupation and language
acquisition. The data is expressed in percentage (%). Then some contrasts and comparison

0.0
0.0
8.3
20.0
0.0
Telling a white-lie
6.3
0.0
0.0
8.3
0.0
0.0
Joking
6.3
20.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
12.5
Give or ask for reasons
37.6
0.0
25.0
37.5
0.0
25.0
Using requesting utterance
12.5
40.0
50.0

informants). The Str.8 “Reciprocity” is not used by all the three groups.
English findings:
It can be seen from the Table 3 that no group uses all the eight strategies, particularly the
21-35-aged informants use 4 strategies, the 35-50-aged informants use 3 strategies and the
last group use 5 strategies. The “Bald-on record” strategy is the most popular one among
the over-35 informants (40% among 35-50 informants and 37.5% among over 50
informants) while the 21-35-aged informants prefer to the Str.2 “Hedging”, Str.5 “Ask for
reasons” with 37.5% for each strategy. Slight differences can be seen in the use of
“Reciprocity” strategy, with 8.3% of 21-35-aged informants and 0% of the two other
groups. However, the biggest difference can be seen in the use of the Str.1 “Bald-on
record” and the use of the Str.5 “Give or ask for reasons”. Although the Str.1 “Bald-on
record” is ignored by 21-35-aged informants, it is most used by the 35-50-aged informants
(40%) and over 50 informants (37.5%). Similarly, the Str.5 is ignored by the 35-50 group,
it is frequently used by 21-35 group (27.3%) and over-50 group (25%).
Gender
Strategies
Gender
Vietnamese
English
Male (%)
Female (%)
Male (%)
Female (%)
Bald-on record
18.2
14.3
38.9
14.3
Hedging
18.2

0.0
11.1
0.0
Table 3: Realization of strategies used by Vietnamese and English informants according to their
gender