VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN THỊ QUẾ HƯƠNG LINGUISTIC MEANS TO EXPRESS MODALITY
IN OFFERS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE -
A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

(Phân tích đối chiếu các phương tiện ngôn ngữ thể hiện tình thái
trong câu đề nghị tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt)

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15 HANOI - 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
HANOI - 2011 - iii -
ABSTRACT
Natural languages offer speakers many and various linguistic devices to facilitate
their communication. That is, these devices are supposed to support the speakers in terms
of sharing information together with expressing their emotions and attitudes. It can be said
that modality is an important part in communicating activities. This study investigates how
speakers of English and Vietnamese express the modal meaning in different offering
strategies in terms of linguistic means. It attempts to seek what is the similarities and
differences of the modal tools in English and Vietnamese offers. Finally, the study
suggests how teachers of English can help learners with the use of modal markers in the
speech act of offering to produce the natural and appropriate utterances.
The study starts with providing some theoretical preliminaries, in which the notion
of modality and offer with its definition, classification and characteristics is presented. The
main part focuses on analysis and comparison of modal linguistic means used in English
and Vietnamese offers. Data used in this study are collected from various sources of
textbooks, especially English practical textbooks, articles, and stories in English and
Vietnamese. To obtain the main objective of the study which is to show the similarities and
differences of the modal tools in the two languages, we take examples in both English and
Vietnamese into consideration.
Finally, some major findings are pointed out. The results show that in offers, both
two languages have three kinds of modal markers, which are lexical markers, grammatical
markers, and prosodic markers. However, the usage of the these markers is not the same in
English and Vietnamese.

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2.1.1.1 Modal Verbs 22
2.1.1.2. Modal particles in direct offers in Vietnamese. 23

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2.1.1.3. Other lexical makers. 25
2.1.2. Grammatical markers 25
2.1.2.1. Imperative mood 25
2.1.2.2. Vocative 27
2.1.3. Prosodic markers - Intonation 28
2.2. Modal markers in conventionally indirect offers 28
2.2.1. Lexical markers 29
2.2.1.1. Modal Verbs 29
2.2.1.2. Modal particles in Vietnamese 30
2.2.1.3. Other lexical markers 31
2.2.2. Grammatical markers 31
2.2.2.1. Interrogative 31
2.2.2.2. Conditional 32
2.2.2.3. Suggestory formula 32
2.2.3. Prosodic markers – Intonation 32
2.3. Modal markers in non-conventionally indirect offers 33
2.3.1. Lexical markers 33
2.3.2. Grammatical markers 34
2.3.3. Prosodic markers 34
2.4. The similarities and differences of using linguistic means to express modality in
offers in English and Vietnamese 34
2.4.1.Similarities 34
2.4.2. Differences 35
2.5. Summary 36
PART C: CONCLUSION 38
1. Conclusions 38

which leads to a lot of differences in using language.
For the above reasons, the author would like to choose the topic “Linguistic means
to express modality in offers in English and Vietnamese - a contrastive analysis” with
the attempt to find out the similarities and differences of the modal tools in English and
Vietnamese offers. It’s also hopeful that this minor thesis will be of some help to those
who are interested in this aspect of language.
2. Aims of the study.
The study aims at :
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- Exploring the modality markers in making offers in English and Vietnamese.
- Comparing and contrasting the range of modality markers in order to clarify the
similarities and differences in the way Vietnamese and English people use linguistic means
to express modality in offering in their own language and culture.
- Contributing to promoting awareness among foreign language teachers and learners of
the mentioned issue.
3. Research Questions
In general, with the aims above, the following research questions will be addressed:
- What are linguistic means to express modality in offers in English and Vietnamese?
- What are the similarities and differences between linguistic means to express modality in
offers in English and Vietnamese?
4. Scope of the study
The study gives a description and analysis of linguistic means to express modality
in offers in terms of (1) lexical markers, (2) grammatical markers, and (3) prosodic
markers. It centers on the similarities and differences in using modality markers in the
speech act of offering between English and Vietnamese .
The materials on offers in English are taken from some English practical textbooks
such as Functions of English, Headway Intermediate, Life Lines, Streamlines, Business
Objectives… and examples of offers in Vietnamese are taken from some short stories by
Thạch Lam, Nam Cao, Thế Lữ, Nguyễn Huy Thiệp….


Chapter 1: Theoretical background
This chapter provides the theoretical background including the notions of modality
and the speech act of offering. It consists of two main sections. The first section reviews
the definition, classification of modality and linguistic means to express modality. The
second section reviews the issues on speech act of offering such as definition, classification
and forms of offers.
1.1. Modality
1.1.1. Definition of modality
Research on modality has gone through a long history, appealing to a lot of
linguists, philosophers and logicians; however, there is no agreement about the definition
of modality yet. It has been difficult to delimit the field of modality and modal research to
just a few topics.
Kiefer (1994) holds a philosophical perspective when he talks about modality as
"the relativization of the validity of sentence meanings to a set of possible worlds. Talk
about possible worlds can thus be construed as talk about the ways in which people could
conceive the world to be different". For this reason modality is perceived as a universal
linguistic phenomenon despite the different means in which it is realized.
Modal logic deals with various propositions which are drawn from human attitudes
and experiences from which semantic choices like necessity, possibility, impossibility,
available for utterances, are derived. The method of analysis in modal logic is based on
"the proposal that a proposition can be said to be true in one particular (real or imagined)
world and false in another" (Perkins 1983, p6). Modality is, thus, interpreted in terms of an
event or a proposition and analyzed with respect to the universe in which such events or
propositions are thought of as true or false.
Lyons (1977) pointed out that modality refers to people’s opinions and attitudes
towards propositions expressed with language or circumstances described by propositions.
Most of the grammarians deal with modality in terms of modal verbs. However,
modality is not a formal notion, it is a semantic notion. It is "a conceptual category, a type
of meaning, or complex of meanings, with various reflexes in language" (Khlebnikova

seems to be essentially subjective, and in reference to the speaker’s opinion or attitude”.

1.1.2. Classification of modality
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As mentioned above, modality is not only an appealing but also complicated topic.
However, many linguists have an agreement on the one of the principal divisions, that is
between epistemic and non-epistemic modality.
Wright identifies four types of modality: alethic, epistemic, deontic, and existential.
Alethic modality focuses on truth, epistemic modality on knowing, deontic modality on
obligation, and existential modality on existence (Wright 1951). As a logician, Wright
describes modality within the framework of logic, he fails to offer a description of
modality that reflects language use.
Jennifer Coates (1983) focuses on a linguistic description of modality within the
framework of describing the semantics of the nine modal verbs and one quasi-modal verb
(ought) in contemporary British English in her 1983 book The semantics of the modal
auxiliaries. Coates (1983) identifies two types of modality: epistemic and non-epistemic.
Like the epistemic modality defined by Wright, epistemic modality according to Coates
focuses on “the speakers’ assumptions or assessment of possibilities” as well as “indicates
the speaker’s confidence (or lack of confidence) in the truth of the proposition expressed”
(Coates 1983). Unlike the epistemic modality of logic, however, Coates (1983) argues that
the epistemic modality is more subjective, focusing on the attitude or opinion of the
speaker rather than the truth value of the proposition. In addition to epistemic modality,
Coates also discusses non-epistemic modality with the term “root modality”. However,
unlike with epistemic modality, no definition emerges for non-epistemic modality other
than the caveat that root modality is “more difficult to characterise” (Coates 1983). By not
providing a clear definition in conjunction with the broad encompassment of the term root
modality to include subdivisions most often defined separately in linguistic descriptions of
modality, Coates fails to provide a comprehensive description of modality.
Quirk et al. (1985) distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic modality. Extrinsic

Types
Functions
Examples
Propositional
Epistemic
Evidential
Event
Deontic
Dynamic

Judgement
Evidence

External conditions
Internal conditions

Perhaps this book will be useful.
He is said to be extremely rich.

John must come in now.
Mary can speak French.

Halliday (2000) considers the mood system as a crucial and inseparable part of the
interpersonal meta-function, in which modality and polarity are closely related. Polarity is
“the choice between positive and negative”, as in yes or no, and modality has more to do
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with the “intermediate degrees” between the positive and negative poles, such as
sometimes or maybe (Halliday, 2000). Halliday defines modality as the interpersonal
component of a dynamic discourse, from which a speaker’s attitude or judgment is

descriptions of the types of modality in language, no two agree on a single analysis. From
the initial alethic, epistemic, deontic, and existential modalities proposed by Wright to the
moat recent epistemic, deontic, dynamic, and evidential modalities proposed by Palmer, no
scholar yet to offer a fully comprehensive description of linguistic modality. Even Palmer,
whose analysis best reflects the modality expressed in actual language use, however fails to
acknowledge that all language use expresses speaker subjectivity by denying the realis as a
type of modality.
1.1.3. Linguistic means to express modality
Modality is expressed linguistically by a number of devices like moods, modal
auxiliaries, quasi auxiliaries, adjectival and participial expressions, nominal expressions,
lexical verbs (Perkins 1983). Apart from these grammatical categories, modality is also
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manifested in orthographic devices like punctuation, prosodic features like stress and
intonation-contour (Searle 1969). Verbal categories like tense are also used in some cases
to express modality. Lyons says that "reference to the future is often as much a matter of
modality as it is of purely temporal reference" (Lyons 1977:816). In general, modality can
be conveyed by lexicalisation, grammaticalisation, and prosodification (Võ Đại Quang,
2009).
Lexical markers include modal auxiliary verbs, modal adverbs, modal adjectives,
modal nouns, modal lexical verbs, and hedging devices.
In English, modal auxiliaries play the very important part in conveying modality.
The key way to identify a modal verb is by its defectiveness (it has neither participles nor
infinitives). In addition, modal verbs do not take the inflection -s or -es in the third person
singular, unlike other verbs. The primary semantic characteristics of modals is that they
allow the speaker to express an attitude to the non-factual and non-temporal elements of
the situation. They are used to express various attitudes like possibility, ability,
willingness, probability, obligation, intention etc. In a study on modality, Võ Đại Quang
has made a list of 13 modal auxiliaries including: can, could, may, might, shall, should,
will, would, must, ought to, used to, need, and dare.

Examples: Do you actually know her? Did you actually come there?
Do you honestly admire her?
Adjectives can also express modality when they are combined with to + infinitive
or a that clause.
Examples: - It is impossible to run 60 miles per hour.
- It is essential that you drink enough liquid.
Modal adjectives like sure, likely, possible have the similar meaning as the adverbs
surely, possibly. They are used to express the speaker’s not doubting or seeming to doubt
what he believes or knows.
There are nouns that can express modality. They are often followed by a that
clause or to + infinitive.
Examples: - There is a slight possibility, that you get the next train.
- The chance to win is not very good in a casino.
Some modal nouns such as possibility, probability have the same meaning as their
derivations possible, probable, possibly, probably; however, structures with nouns convey
a more formal style. Some other nouns such as risk, chance, notion, opinion, no doubt…
can be seen as devices expressing uncertainty if they appear in their typical constructions.
Examples: In my opinion, he is a good guy.
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Modal lexical verbs such as think, suppose, believe, ect. (propositional-lexical
verbs) and feel, look, appear, sound, ect (verbs of senses and perception) also show the
speaker’s opinion and attitude toward the content of the subordinate clause. Palmer
considers think/ suppose/ believe… to be weak assertive, the speaker does not totally
commit himself to the truth content of the proposition.
Examples: - I guess you’re feeling tired after a long day of waiting.
When using verbs of sense, the speaker means to say that he is not certain about
what he is saying.
Examples: - Mary looks ill. (The speaker is not certain but just guesses Mary’s
health basing on her tired face or voice)

feeling at that moment". Tune is the combination of different "notes of the voice" which go
up and down constantly when people speak. In this way, Connor's tune corresponds to the
pitch patterns of the voice, and intonation is how people use this pitch variation to convey
pragmatic meaning. It is important to note that in his definition, Connor mentions
intonation as the tool to convey speakers' feeling. According to Roach (1991), intonation
has the following functions: attitudinal function, accentual function, grammatical function,
and discourse function. Attitudinal function is the ability of intonation to enables speakers
to express emotions and attitudes when they speak; this adds special kind of meaning to
spoken language, which is the role in conveying modality. Roach (1991) gives a short
description of the four common intonation patterns. According to Roach, the falling tone
signals finality and definiteness. The rising tone is normally employed in general question,
listing, encouraging and when speakers want to signal something "more to follow". The
fall-rise tone conveys uncertainty, doubt, and in requesting. The rise-fall tone conveys the
state of being surprised, impressed. In a study by Võ Đại Quang (2009), four types of
intonation patterns express speaker’s different emotions and attitudes. The Glide-down
employed would mean strong commitment while a Glide-up used would be interpreted as
being suspicious attitude. If the speaker is grumbling, he/she would be likely to use the
Take-off. The Dive expresses the hesitation or irony of the speaker. Besides, other
parameters such as key, loudness and speed are also important in conveying modal
meaning.
In Vietnamese, the system of tones has limited the role of intonation in conveying
modality. Because Vietnamese is a tonal language, (unlike English, which is an
intonational language,) expressing emotion by changing the pitch of the sentence or phrase
would make the meaning of the sentence different; therefore, many particles have arisen
that can be added to the end of the sentence to express emotion. It is the main cause that
leads to the increase in the number of a group of words called modal particles (ạ, nhỉ, nhé,
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à…). It can be said that in Vietnamese, modal particles are a useful tools in expressing
speaker’s attitude and feeling. Most of modal particles in Vietnamese do not contain

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c) Perlocutionary act is ‘what is done by uttering the word’; it is the effect on
listener, the listener’s reaction.
For example: the utterance “There is something in your shoulder!” may cause the
listener to panic and to look on his shoulder. The perlocution of this utterance is to cause
those emotion and action.
The classification of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1976) is a development
of ideas that appears in Austin’s theory. Speech acts are classified according to the
direction of fit between speech acts and the outside world.
- Declaratives are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their
utterance and bring about correspondence between the propositional content and the world;
thus direction of fit is both words-to-world and world-to-words. The acts of declaratives
are approving, betting, blessing, christening, confirming, cursing, declaring, disapproving,
dismissing, naming, resigning, etc.
Example: I quit from this job. resigning
- Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that express Speaker's belief that p
and have a truth value, show words-to-world fit. The types include arguing, asserting,
boasting, claiming, complaining, criticizing, denying, describing, informing, insisting,
reporting, suggesting, swearing, etc.
Example: I met your parent yesterday. informing
- Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that express Speaker's attitude to a
certain state of affairs specified (if at all) in the propositional content. There is no direction
of fit and propositional content must be related to Speaker or Hearer (1975). The acts are
apologizing complimenting, condoling, congratulating, deploring, praising, regretting,
thanking, etc.
Example: I like your house very much praising
- Directives are those kinds of speech acts that are attempts to get Hearer to do
something, therefore they show world-to-words fit, and express Speaker's wish or desire
that Hearer do A. The acts are advising, asking, begging, challenging, daring, demanding,

Utterance Sentence type Function
______________________________________________
You wear a seat belt. Declarative Statement
Do you wear a seat belt? Interrogative Question
Wear a seat belt! Imperative Command/Request
______________________________________________
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Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we
have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship between structure
and function we have an indirect speech act. For example, in English most requests are
done by using declaratives:
Example: It's cold outside:
The utterance above, used as a statement, is a direct speech act (I hereby tell you
that it is cold outside), used as a command/request, it is an indirect speech act (I hereby
request you that you close the window).
One of the most common types of indirect speech acts in English has the form of
interrogative, which is not typically used to ask a question (we don't expect only an
answer, we expect an action).
Example: Could you pass the salt?
Would you open this?
Indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English
than direct speech acts.
1.2.2 Offering and forms of offers.
1.2.2.1 Offering as a speech act
There are different types of speech acts and offering is one kind among those which
people use a lot in daily life. According to the definition from Oxford Advanced Learner's
Dictionary, to offer is to say that you are willing to do something for somebody or give
something to somebody. In other words, it is a way that a speaker wants to express a
willingness to help or to serve the hearer. It can be a gift offer, favor offer, food/drink offer

promising.
The similarity between offering and inviting is that in both cases, the action
envisaged by the speaker will be desirable or beneficial to the hearer. The difference is the
person who perform the action. With offering, the speaker will perform the action, but with
inviting, the hearer will do.
In case of volunteering, both types of speech acts show the speaker’s willingness to
do something not because it is good for him but for other people. However, unlike offering,
volunteering does not have to be directly beneficial for the hearer, or indeed for other
people. We volunteer to do something that has to be done. This may mean that we will free
some other people of the burden of having to do it, and thus benefit those other people
indirectly.
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Another speech act which refers to an action by the speaker and which is beneficial
to the hearer is promise. Promises refer to actions situated in distant or indefinite future and
they are more hypothetical than offers, which refer to the present or the immediate future.
On the other hand, the action envisaged in an offer is conditional and dependent on the
hearer’s response; whereas, in case of a promise, the action is presented as certain, because
the hearer’s attitude is taken for granted.
1.2.2.2. Forms of offering
In terms of strategy, offers can be made by using three kinds of offering strategies:
direct strategies, conventionally indirect strategies, and non-conventionally indirect
strategies. Direct strategies are realized by offers syntactically marked (Imperatives) or by
other verbal means that name the act as an offer (Let me , I’ll …., I would like to …or I
can……). Conventionally indirect strategies realize the act by reference to contextual
preconditions necessary for its performance, as conventionalized in a given language.
(Suggestory formulae: “How about going out for dinner tonight?” or Query preparatory:
Can I…., May I …, Shall I…., Would you like to….). Non-conventionally indirect
strategies are not conventionalized in the language and hence require more inferencing
activity for the hearer to derive the speaker’s intent (We’re having a party tonight. Are you

I’ll do the the washing up if you like.
7. Offering in form of Imperatives is considered as of less formality. These offers are
usually said with a falling intonation and added “please” at the end of the utterance.
Example: Let me help you.
According to a study by Hoàng Thị Thu Lan (2000), in English, the most popular
offer form is offer in form of Tentative questions, the second popular offer form is offer in
form of Statements. The least popular offer form is offer in form of Tag questions.
1.2.2.3. Politeness in offering
Politeness is a universal phenomenon in every society. Brown and Levinson built
their theory of politeness on the basis of the concept ‘face’. According to them, “face is the
public self-image that every member wants to claim for himself” (1987). This definition is
explained more by Yule (1996) as “face means the public self-image of a person. It refers
to that emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to
recognize.” Face includes two types: “positive face” and “negative face”, which are two
related aspects of the same entity and refer to two basic desires or wants of any individual
in any interaction. “Negative face” refers to “The want of every competent adult member
that his actions be unimpeded by others”. “Positive face” refers to “The want of every
member that his wants be desirable to at least some others”. In other words, negative face
is the wish and need to be independent and free to do things and not to be interfered and
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imposed by others. Positive face is the wish and need to be shared, respected, appreciated,
accepted, liked, and treated as a member of the same group. These two types of face are
two mutual sides, but not separate. That is to say, a violation of negative face can lead to
the loss of positive face and vice-versa.
Lakoff (1975) suggests that “politeness is developed by society in order to reduce
friction in personal interaction” and comprises three rules of politeness: 1. Don’t impose;
2. Give options and 3. Make the receiver feel good. The first rule, “Don’t impose”, is
associated with distance and formality. The speaker shows his/her politeness by asking for
permission or apologizing in advance to lessen the imposition on the hearer when requiring