VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ LÀ A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN THE
CONVERSATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF THE COURSE BOOK
“MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE (NEW EDITION)

Nghiên cứu các chiến lược lịch sự được sử dụng trong các bài hội thoại của
giáo trình tiếng Anh thương mại “MARKET LEADER, INTERMEDIATE”
(Tái bản)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.02.01

Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

activities of the course book “Market Leader, Intermediate” (New edition)” is the result of
my own work for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and
International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. The research has not been
submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions. I agree that the origin of
my thesis deposited in the library can be accessible for the purposes of study and research.
February, 2014 Nguyễn Thị Là
ii ACKNOLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete
this thesis.
First of all, I’m thankful to the Post-graduate Department of ULIS, VNUH for giving me
permission to carry out and complete this M.A. thesis and to use the Department’s data.

successful cross-culture communication, politeness strategies are commonly used in daily
social interactions. Therefore, the author conducts this study with the aims of investigating
politeness strategies in conversational activities of the course book “Market Leader,
Intermediate” (New edition). Her attempt is to help students at Hanoi University of
Business and Technology achieve success in communication in their future work.
In the coursebook “Market Leader, Intermediate” most of conversational activities are
discussed and analysed mainly on politeness theories of Brown & Levinson and Nguyen
Quang. The research shows that the frequencies of politeness strategies occurance in
conversational activities of the material are not always the same. The findings show that
negative politeness strategies are employed more frequently than positive politeness, bald-
on-record and off-record strategy. Most politeness strategies are used in such conversational
activities as making disagreements, agreements and requests.
In addition, the author also suggests some recommendations that might work in the
Vietnamese context to improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication for
students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS viii

2.1.2. Research techniques 25
2.1.2.1. Techniques for data collection 25
2.1.2.2. Techniques for data analysis 25
2.1.2.3. Steps for Data Analysis 26
2.2. Data Analysis 26
2.2.1. Frequency of Occurrence of Politeness Strategies in the Coursebook “Market
Leader, Intermediate” 26
2.2.2. Bald-on-record Strategy in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader,
Intermediate” 28
2.2.3. Positive Politeness Strategies in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader,
Intermediate” 31
2.2.4. Negative Politeness Strategies in Conversational Activities of “Market Leader,
Intermediate” 34
2.2.5. Off-record Strategy in Conversational Activities of
“Market Leader, Intermediate” 38
2.3. Concluding remarks 39
CHAPTER 3: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN TEACHING
ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS
AND TECHNOLOGY 40
PART III: CONCLUSION
3.1. Summary of the study 42
3.2. Limitations of the study 42
vi

3.3. Suggestions for further study 43
REFERENCES 44
APPENDIX………………………………………………………………I

activities of the course book “Market Leader, Intermediate” 27
Table 3: The frequency of politeness strategies in terms of functions of utterance 28
Table 4: Frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies in
conversations of“Market Leader, Intermediate” 32
Table 5: Frequency of occurrence of negative politeness strategies in
conversations of“Market Leader, Intermediate” 36

FIGURES
Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies 15
Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face 15
Figure 3: The frequency of occurrence of politeness strategies in conversational
activities of the course book “Market Leader, Intermediate” 27
Figure 4: The frequency of bald-on-request strategy in terms of
functions of utterances 29
Figure 5: The frequency of positive politeness strategies in terms of
functions of utterances 31
Figure 6: Frequency of occurrence of positive politeness strategies
in conversations of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 32
Figure 7: The frequency of negative politeness strategies in terms of
functions of utterances 35
Figure 8: Frequency of occurrence of negative politeness strategies
in conversations of “Market Leader, Intermediate” 36

viii
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS
However, the traditional teaching method with emphasis on teaching grammar rules and
structures cannot offer students much help in acquiring successful cross-cultural
communication skills. This is completely true for those whose major is English for
business. The reason is that students may confront with difficulties in achieving
contextual, situational and cultural appropriateness in communication. As a result, cultural
shock and communication breakdown might happen in communication even though the
students are very good at grammar. For that reason, it is necessary for them to learn not
only linguistic knowledge and interactional skills but also knowledge of the target culture.
They must be aware of their own culture and English speaking cultures as well, especially
the hidden parts of culture including face, facework and politeness because politeness is
really a vital part of all social interactions.
For those reasons, the author of this study aims at investigating and emphasizing the
important role of politeness strategies in the conversational activities of the course book
“Market Leader, Intermediate” by David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent so as to
improve the teaching and learning of verbal communication in English for the second –
year students at Hanoi University of Business and Technology.
2. Objectives of the study:
The objectives of the study are:
- To study bald-on-record politeness strategies, on-record strategies and off-record
strategies in most typical contextual environments in the conversational activities of the
course book “Market Leader, Intermediate”.
- To put forward some suggestions for efficient ways of teaching the course book.
2

3. Research questions
1) What politeness strategies are used in the conversational activities of the course
book “Market Leader, Intermediate”?
2) Which politeness strategy is the most commonly used?
4. Scope of the study
Although there are a lot of important issues in pragmatics, this thesis only focuses on

advice for teachers to teach the coursebook effectively.
Part III: Conclusion which summarizes the main findings, mentions the limitations of the
study and give some suggestions for further study.

In terms of grammatical structure, this sentence is a statement which provides the
information about the atmosphere right at the place where the utterance is made. However,
by saying this, the speaker also wants to do an action towards the hearer. It might be a
request to ask him/ her to open the window or turn on the air-conditioner. With that
5

purpose, this utterance can be considered a request rather than a statement itself. Here are
some other examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:
Greeting: "Hi, Eric. How are things going?"
Request: "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes, please?"
Complaint: "I‟ve already been waiting three weeks for the computer, and I was told it
would be delivered within a week."
Invitation: "We‟re having some people over Saturday evening and wanted to know if
you‟d like to join us."
Compliment: "Hey, I really like your tie!"
Refusal: "Oh, I‟d love to see that movie with you but this Friday just isn‟t going to
work."
The speaker is expected to correctly interpret the speaker’s intention via the process of
inferences. Therefore, the hearer needs to take all the circumstances surrounding the
conversation because they can make a lot of help in inferring the hidden intention. People
call those circumstances speech events. According to Yule (1996:57), a speech event can
be considered as “an activity in which conversational participants interact via language in
a conventional way to achieve some outcome”.
In the very influential book written in 1962, Austin claimed that speech acts can be
analysed on three levels:
* A locutionary act: is the performance of an actual utterance and its ostensible meaning,
comprising phonetic and phatic acts.
E.g: “The door is here!”
* An illocutionary act: is closely connected with the speaker’s intention such as stating,
questioning, promising, giving commands, threatening and many others. Illocutionary acts

types of general functions performed by speech acts: declarations, representatives,
expressives, directives and commissives.
 Declarations: “are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their
utterance” (Yule, 1996:53). The speaker brings about some state of affairs by virtue
of the utterance itself. The performance of the act brings about a change in the
world. This class includes declarations such as baptisms, pronouncing someone
guilty or pronouncing someone husband and wife.
Eg: Priest: I now pronounce you husband and wife.
 Representatives: these speech acts presents a state of affairs. The speaker’s
intention is to make his words fit the world.
Eg: It was a warm sunny day.
7

 Expressives: are the speech acts which express certain psychological states or what
the speaker feels such as: pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, etc.
Eg: I like fish and chips.
 Directives: are the speech acts which the speaker uses to get the hearer to carry out
a future course of action. This class consists of requests, commands and advice, etc.
Eg: Could you lend me some money, please?
 Commissives: are the speech acts in which the speaker becomes committed to
doing some future action, e.g. promises, guarantees, oaths, etc.
Eg: I‟ll give it back to you tomorrow.
Following Searl’s classification of speech acts, Yule (1996:56) summarizes the five
general functions of speech acts with their key features in a table:
Speech act type
Direction of fit
S = speaker
X = situation
Declarations
words change the world

function of this sentence is indirect and thus we have an indirect speech act.
Having the same meaning and function but the idea in (a) is expressed in the form of an
imperative as in (b). Thus, the relationship between the function and structure is direct so
that (b) is a direct speech act.
(b) Open the window.
In conclusion, in indirect speech acts the speaker means more than or other than what is
said. Indirect speech acts are said to be more polite than direct speech acts when they come
to perform speech acts like requesting, commanding, refusing, disagreeing and so on.
1. 2. Politeness theory
1. 2. 1. Notions of politeness theory
In daily conversations and in most social interactions, people always try to choose
appropriate ways of uttering to fit themselves with the situations. The ultimate aim of this
action is to establish or maintain a good relationship towards their interactional partner.
The use of language to behave accordingly is called politeness. Politeness has been
considered as a pragmatic phenomenon, requiring a great deal of researches to improve
human interaction and therefore reinforce the study of language in its social context.
Although the essence of politeness is popular in all cultures, it is expressed differently in
different cultures. It is also a culturally defined phenomenon, and what is considered polite
in one culture can be in many cases quite rude or simply strange in another. In language
study, politeness is defined in Wikipedia as the practical application of good manners or
etiquette. And it is “the interactional balance achieved between two needs: the need for
pragmatic clarity and the need to avoid coerciveness” (Blum-Kulka, 1987:131).
Meanwhile, in terms of cultural aspect, “Politeness is the ability to please others through
one‟s external actions” (Watt, 2003:39). According to Thomas, “politeness is interpreted
as a strategy (or series of strategies) employed by a speaker to achieve a variety of goals,
such as promoting or maintaining harmonious relation.” (Thomas, 1995:157). Sharing the
same view, Yule (1996:60) claimed that politeness is “a fixed concept, as in the idea of
“polite social behavior” or “etiquette, within a culture””.
In Vietnamese language, the word “lịch sự” has the closest meaning to “polite” in English.
It means “having elegant manners and observing property in conformity with social rules

ways of conveying and inferring information. In such cases, instead of observing the CP,
people violate the maxims. As a sequence, the hearer must have a suitable interpretation
for the utterance.
Let’s look at the following example to see what maxim is violated and what the hearer has
to infer from the answer.
A: Is Jill good at singing?
10

B: She‟s a great dancer.
Obviously, when asking the question “Is Jill good at singing?” A expects B to answer
“Yes” or “No”. But instead of saying that, B gives irrelevant information. Thus, in this
case A has to infer the hidden idea B wants to convey that is she’s not good at singing.
Here the irrelevant information shows that the Relation maxim is flouted but B politely
expresses his assessment toward Jill’s singing ability without making a bad impression for
A about Jill.
1.2.2.2. Lakoff’s rules
Making Gricean maxims more concrete, Lakoff proposed three rules of Pragmatic
Competence or Sub-maxim or sub-rules. Lakoff’s theory of politeness suggests that people
follow a certain set of rules when they interact with each other, which prevent interaction
from breaking down. The purpose of the rules is to make the hearer “feel good”. Below are
three Lakoff’s rules of politeness:
 Rule 1: Don’t impose
(used when formal/ impersonal politeness is requires)
This rule means avoiding reference to personal problems, habits, taboo topics and the like.
The speaker should always remember to keep appropriate distance from audience.
 Rule 2: Give opinions
(used when informal politeness is required)
This rule means expressing oneself in such a way that one’s opinion or request can be
ignored without being rejected. In other words, speaker should utter in such a way that it
allows the hearer’s response.

“You must come and dinner with us.”
It is an advice that is involved in directive illocutionary act. In this case the speaker implies
that cost of the utterance is to himself. Meanwhile, the utterance implies that benefit is for
the hearer.
 Approbation Maxim: minimize dispraise of other and maximizing praise of other.
This maxim instructs to avoid saying unpleasant things about others and especially about
the hearer.
For example:
A: “The performance was great!”
B: “Yes, wasn‟t it!”
In the example, A gives a good comment about the performance. He says the pleasant
thing about the hearer. This expression is a congratulation utterance that maximizes praise
of the hearer. Thus this utterance is included the approbation maxim.
 Modesty Maxim: minimize praise of self and maximize dispraise of self.
12

This maxim is applied in assertives/ representatives and expressives like the approbation
maxim. Both the approbation maxim and the modesty maxim concern to the degree of
good or bad evaluation of other or self. However, the approbation maxim is exampled by
courtesy of congratulation. On other hand, the modesty maxim usually occurs in apologies.
The sample of the modesty maxim is below.
“Please accept this small gift as prize of your achievement.”
In this case, the utterance above is categorized as the modesty maxim because the speaker
maximizes dispraise of himself. The speaker notices his utterance by using “small gift”.
 Agreement Maxim: maximize agreement between self and other people and
minimize disagreement between self and other.
The disagreement, in this maxim, usually is expressed by regret or partial agreement. This
maxim occurs in assertives/ representatives illocutionary act. There example will be
illustrated below.
A: “English is a difficult language to learn.”

appreciated and approved of in social interaction”. Yule (1996:62) made it clearer when
saying: “Positive face is the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a
member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others”. In
short, it is the want to be accepted as a member of the same group.
Positive face is threatened when the speaker or hearer does not care about their interactor’s
feelings, wants, or does not want what the other wants. Positive face threatening acts can
also cause damage to the speaker or the hearer. When an individual is forced to be
separated from others so that their well-being is treated less importantly, positive face is
threatened. For example: damages to hearers can be expressions of disapproval (e.g.
insults, accusations, and complaints), contradictions, disagreements; and damages to
speakers can be acceptance of a compliment or confessions
Negative face, on the other hand, is defined as “the desire for freedom of action and
freedom from imposition” (Brown and Levinson, 1987:112) or “the need to be
independent” (Yule, 1996:62). It is the want to be separate from a group.
Negative face is threatened when an individual does not avoid or intend to avoid the
obstruction of their interlocutor's freedom of action. It can cause damage to either the
speaker or the hearer, and makes the one of the interlocutors submit their will to the other.
Freedom of choice and action is impeded when negative face is threatened. For examples:
damages to hearers can be orders, requests, suggestions, advice, remindings, threats,
offers, and promises; and damages to speakers can be excuses or apologies.
In English-speaking context, people tend to mark their social distance by using address
form in conversations. The reason is because they expect their public self-image or face
14

wants to be respected. Whenever there is an action which threats the hearer’s self-image,
the speaker is said to perform a face threatening act (FTA). For example:
A: He‟s a very generous man.
B: No, I totally disagree with you. He cares a lot about what he gives others.
In this situation, B strongly expresses his disagreement with a very direct way. Thus, he’s
said to be performing a FTA.

FTA
4. Off-record
On record
1. Without redressive action, baldly
With redressive action
2. Positive
Politeness
3. Negative
Politeness
15

Figure 1: Circumstances determining choice of strategies.
(Brown and Levinson, 1987:60)
In spite of his high appreciation of the above chart, Nguyen Quang (2001) has some
comments on its universal value, especially on the sorting numbers two and three for
positive and negative politeness. He proposed the following figure: Figure 2: Strategies to minimize risk of losing face (Nguyen Quang, 2001)
It is easily seen from the figure that the speaker has to choose whether to do the FTA or
not. If he/ she decides to do the FTA, there are four possibilities: three sets of on-record
strategies in which they produce the FTA without any redress action (bald-on-record),
produce the FTA with positive politeness and produce the FTA with negative politeness;
and one set of off-record strategies. If the risk of the FTA is too strong, the speaker can
choose not to do it.
 Bald-on-record strategy: this is a direct way of uttering when the speaker wants to
say exactly what he/ she means. It is “the most direct approach, using imperative
forms The other person is directly asked for something” (Yule, 1996: 63). For example:
- Raise your hand!
- Help!