Politeness Strategies In Showing Disagreement In Group Work Phuong Thuy K39 A11

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ENGLISH DEPARTMENT NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THÙY POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN SHOWING DISAGREEMENT IN GROUP WORK USED BY VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS SUBMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ENGLISH DEPARTMENT NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THÙY POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN SHOWING DISAGREEMENT IN GROUP WORK USED BY VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS SUBMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL) SUPERVISOR: PHAN VÂN QUYÊN, MA.

ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Phương Thùy, QHF051E11, being the candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I want to thank the English Department of the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for giving me permission to commence this thesis in the first instance, to do the necessary research work and to use the department’s library. I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Mrs. Van Quyen Phan, lecturer of Cross-cultural Communication, whose help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis, and who looked closely at the final version of the thesis for English style and grammar, correcting both and offering suggestions for improvement. I also want to thank my friend Miss Ha Cao from Seattle Central Community College, USA for her assistance on the questionnaire delivery. Especially, I would like to give my special thanks to my Mom and Dad whose patient love, encouragement and assistance enabled me to complete this work.

ABSTRACT The objective of the thesis for Bachelor graduation by Miss. Phuong Thuy Nguyen, CFL-VNU, is to investigate the politeness strategies in showing disagreement in group work used by Vietnamese and American undergraduate students. In the thesis, special consideration has been given to culture, communication, cross-cultural communication, politeness and social factors affecting human choice of politeness strategies. On the basis of these input data, the author uses conversation completion test to collect the data from 24 Vietnamese undergraduate students and 24 American undergraduate students. The results were analyzed to find out the strategies mostly used by the two groups, clarify the similarities and differences between them, as well as check whether gender differences influence their choice of disagreement strategies or not. The research carried out for this thesis lead to significant new knowledge, which has resulted in the consideration of gender and cultural differences in intercultural communication. The research can be a verbal communication reference for numerous beneficiaries who involve in cross-cultural interactions in which Vietnamese and American people participate.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction Page 1.1. Rationale……………………………………………………... 1 1.2. Purposes of the study……………………………………….... 2 1.3. Significance of the study …………………………………….. 3 1.4. Scope of the study……………………………………………. 3 Chapter 2: Literature Review 5 2. 1. Cross-cultural Communication 5 Communication ………………………………………………. 5 Culture…………………………………………………………. 6 Cross-cultural Communication ……………………………….. 7 2. 2. Politeness in CCC 8 2.2.1. Face and Face Wants …………………………………… 8 2.2.2. FTAs and FSAs ……..…………………………………. 9 2.2.3. Politeness across Cultures ……………………………… 10 2. 3. Expression of Disagreement 15 2. 3.1. Politeness and Expression of Disagreement (ED) 15 - Expression of Disagreement as a Communicative Act - Expression of Disagreement as a Communication Need - Expression of Disagreement as an FTA - Politeness in Expression of Disagreement 2. 3.2. Expression of Disagreement in Cooperative Learning 17 Group 2. 3.3. Disagreement Strategies …………………………… 20 2. 4. Related Studies on Disagreement Strategies 24 Chapter 3: Methodology 26

3.1. Participants …………………………………………………. 26 3.2. Data collection instrument …………………………………. 26 3.3. Procedures of data collection ………………………………. 26 3. 3. 1. Stage 1: Designing the questionnaire 26 3. 3. 2. Stage 2: Piloting 27 3. 3. 3. Stage 3: Delivering the questionnaires 27 3. 3. 4. Stage 4: Encoding the data 28 Chapter 4: Data Analysis 30 4. 1. Disagreement strategies used by Vietnamese and American 30 undergraduate students in group work discussion 4.1.1 Vietnamese respondents’ findings ……………………. 32 4.1.2 American respondents’ findings ………………………. 33 4.2 Similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and 35 American express their disagreement verbally 4.2.1 Similarities ……………………………………………... 35 4.2.2 Differences …………………………………………….. 35 4.3 Gender differences in the ways Vietnamese and American 39 express their disagreement verbally Chapter 5: Findings and Discussion 40 5. 1. Similarities in the choice of disagreement strategies in group 40 work between American and Vietnamese undergraduate students 5. 1.1. Mostly employed disagreement strategies by both 40 Vietnamese and American undergraduate students in group work 5.1.2. Gender influence on the choice of disagreement 42 strategies of Vietnamese and American undergraduate students 5. 2. The differences in the choice of disagreement strategies in 43

group work between American and Vietnamese undergraduate students Chapter 6: Conclusion 45 6. 1. Major findings of the research ……………………………… 45 6.2. Conclusion …………………………………………………… 46 6. 3. Suggestion for further studies on disagreement strategies ….. 46 Reference Appendices List of Figures

Figure 1: Choices of Politeness Strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1978) Figure 2: Eight disagreement strategies, as proposed by Garcia (1986) Figure 3: Vietnamese and American Respondents Encoded Figure 4: Garcia (1986)’ strategies encoded Figure 5: The grouping of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies employed by Vietnamese and American respondents Figure 6: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by Vietnamese male and female respondents Figure 7: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by American male and female respondents Figure 8: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by Vietnamese and American respondents Figure 9: The percentage of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies in disagreement expressions of Vietnamese and American respondents Figure 10: The percentage of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies in disagreement expressions of Vietnamese and American male and female respondents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1. 1. Rationale People use language differently to communicate with each other. They may express same meaning with various different functions of speech. These differences are contributed to social factors. Solidarity, gender, age, or power can be regarded as the social factors that influence people’s choices of verbal way to communicate. Hence, to obtain the politeness in verbal interaction, one should have deep knowledge of the social values of the communicating context that one is in. In verbal communication, words are not only used to make statement. They can be use to convey many meanings such as making requests, giving thanks, making apology, making promise, and so on. These language actions are called ‘speech acts’ or ‘communication actions’ by linguistics. Showing disagreement is also seen as a speech act. A person at times makes an expression of disagreement when he/she has different attitudes from his/her interlocutor or when he/she is not contented with his/her interlocutor. Then, the relationship between the speaker (S) and the hearer (H) maybe threatened. Disagreement is common in everyday communication. A mother shows disagreement to her son when he does something wrong. A student shows disagreement to his teacher when he is given a bad mark unreasonably. A boss shows disagreement when one of his employees comes late so frequently, etc. Likewise, disagreement can be seen at various interactions in college context, especially in group work. Since most of its activities are to discuss, argue, come to concurrence and then churn out the final production of the work, disagreement is inevitable.

For recent years, Vietnam has adopted several new ways of teaching and learning from other developed countries in which the theory of cooperative learning is applied. However, this new approach is not so familiar with Vietnamese students who have been used to involving in self-independence learning style for a long time. One of the biggest difficulties is that Vietnamese students are lacking of interpersonal and group work skills. Showing disagreement is, therefore, a challenging mission for them to accomplish success in their group work. 1. 2. Aims of the study The study is carried out to achieve the following objectives - to identify communicative strategies used by American and Vietnamese undergraduate students in showing disagreement in group work - to find out the similarities and differences in the choice of disagreement strategies in group work by American and Vietnamese undergraduate students Research questions: 1. What disagreement strategies do male and female Vietnamese undergraduate students mostly employ in group work? 2. What disagreement strategies do male and female American undergraduate students mostly employ in group work? 3. What are the similarities and differences in the choice of disagreement strategies in group work between American and Vietnamese undergraduate students?

4. Does gender influence the choice of disagreement strategies by those students in group work? 1. 3. Significance of the study As the research is aimed at highlighting the differences of being polite in disagreement situations in college cooperative learning groups between Vietnamese and American undergraduate students, with its findings, the research has, to some stands, contributed to the study of verbal communication in cross-cultural context. Moreover, the findings of research also give hint for communicators to take these cultural differences into consideration in order to achieve successfully their communicating targets. Moreover, as the integrating of Vietnam into globalization and the membership of Vietnam in WTO (World Trade Organization) open a wide road to cross-cultural education in which verbal communication competence is of great concern, to a degree the findings play an important part in such communication improvement of both Vietnamese, American or other foreign students, teachers, or even educators. 1. 4. Scope of the study Politeness can be manifested and understood in different ways in different cultures through both verbal and nonverbal behaviors. This study is focus on only verbal aspect of disagreement in interpersonal interactions where politeness is interpreted in concrete context of cooperative learning groups. In order to answer the research questions afore-set, the survey will be carried out in institutions in Vietnam and the U.S.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is a literature review of the related theories, remarks, arguments and findings that equip basic background for the researcher and frame the study in a scientific way to achieve its objectives. 2. 1. Cross-cultural Communication Communication Communication, as defined in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, is “the activity or process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people informationquot;. In other words, communication is actually a two-way process whereby meaning is sent and received so as to gain shared understanding. Communication requires that all involving participants have a common communicative means. In one hand, information is encoded and transferred via verbal means including singing, speaking, and using tone of voice, etc. In another hand, communication can be established via nonverbal or physical means such as body language, eye-contacts, or facial expressions (Dictionary.com). Hence, human communication is divided into verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication can be defined as communicating through words. Nonverbal communication can be best defined as the procedure of communicating with a person or party without using any form of speech to grab an audience attention or to exploit a message. Thus, to communicate successfully, interlocutors must acquire a lot of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, such as listening, observing, analyzing, evaluating, etc. Human interpersonal communication is in fact a social interaction in which the intercourse is between or among interlocutors who are social entities,

and since the meanings conveyed through communication are for social interacting purposes in some social contexts. For example, the communication between a student and his professor is a social interaction between two social entities (a student and a professor) in an attempt to accomplish some academic intentions in school context. For that reason, human communication is under the influence of social features such as status, gender, power, or distance, etc., and therefore, varies accordingly. Cultures So far, there are over 160 definitions of the term ’culture’ (Kroeber & Kluckholm, 1985). Acording to Samovar & Porter: ”Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.” (Samovar & Porter: 1994) Herbig and Dunphy (1998) suggest a classification of ten characteristics of culture which estimate its role in a society. First, culture is functional whose purpose is to offer guidelines for human behaviours. It is also a social phenomenon which is created by human and human interaction. Culture is, besides, prescriptive which stipulates rules for social behaviours. Culture can be learned from other members of the society while it is arbitrary as some certain behaviour is tolerable in one culture but not in others. What’s more, culture is value-laden because it provides values and tells its people what is right and what is wrong. Although culture is long-term which is built up by human beings in a long time and is the sum of acquired experience

and knowledge, it can be changeable to adjust to new environments and situations. Culture helps to satisfy needs of the members of a society by offering direction and guidance. Last but not least, culture facilitates both verbal and non-verbal communication (Herbig & Dunphy, 1998). Culture informs our communicating behavior: it determines our standard of `normality' and influences understanding of the world, and plays as a factor in our interpretations of the utterances or behavior of others. Cross-cultural communication The way people communicate is not the same from day to day. There are a lot of factors that influence people’s choices of communication. The factors can be not only individual personality, mood, or context but also cultural influences (LeBaron, 2003). That is, communication is an interaction which requires at least a sender and a receiver whose relationship decides the effectiveness of the communication. The relationship varies within and across families, clans, ethnic groups, nations, or cultures. Can one person understand what his interlocutor is trying to say? Does he recognize the meanings that his interlocutor(s) is (are) conveying by using some word choices? Is his mood receptive and positive? Is there trust between them? Is there something in his utterances causing misunderstanding to and shocking his interlocutor(s)? Cross-cultural Communication is a field of study that deals with these questions, concerning with the communication between/ among interlocutors of different cultural backgrounds in an attempt to avoid misunderstanding, culture shocks, and even conflicts. In other words, cross- cultural communication studies are cultivating cultural fluency, the

awareness of the ways cultures operate in communication, and the abilities to respond effectively to cultural differences (LeBaron, 2003). 2. 2. Politeness in Cross-cultural Communication 2.2.1. Face and Face Wants Face is a multi-faceted term whose meaning is associated closely with culture and some other terms like ‘honor’ and ‘humiliation’ (Rosenberg, 2004). Face refers to the value that an individual has for himself/herself and maintains such self-esteem in both private and public situations. The concept of face is different in different cultures. To understand its relevance in cross-cultural context, it is necessary to learn how to identify ‘high-context’ and ‘low-context’ cultures in which the value of face varies (Rosenberg, 2004). In low-context societies, such as the U.S. and Western countries, communication is usually direct and the core of the society is the belief of individual. Therefore, people are free to go and associate with any group they prefer, and if one commits any kind of social blunder, there is no group shame, only ‘personal embarrassment’. As a result, the face issue in low-context societies is not as importance as in collectivistic, or interdependent societies, characterized by high-context culture. High-context cultures are, for example Japan, China, or Middle-Eastern countries, very often, “hierarchical and traditional societies” in which people regard the concept of shame and honor (Rosenberg, 2004). The utmost importance in such societies is the group harmony. They dislike direct confrontation and conflicts. Thus, the status of being humiliated or losing face in front of others is seriously shameful and unacceptable in high-context cultures.

Discussed by Erving Goffman in his article published in 1963: ‘On Face Work’, the concept of ‘face’ was broken down into two different categories: positive face and negative face. Positive face is the need of ‘being seen as a good human being’ while negative face is the need to ‘remain autonomous’ (Goffman, 1967). Brown and Levinson also introduce their definition of the two kind of ‘face’: Negative face: the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others. Positive face: the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others. (Brown & Levinson, 1978) 2.2.2. FTAs and FSAs A hypothesis was that some particular illocutionary acts can threaten a person’s face at certain levels. Brown and Levinson also state that, “certain kinds of acts intrinsically threaten face” (ibid, 1987:68). Hence, B&L initiated the term ‘Face Threatening Act’ (FTA) standing for a threat to a person’s face. An FTA, such as expressing disagreement, criticizing, or accusing, can harm a person’s positive face by indicating speaker’s lack of concern for the hearer’s self-image; while an FTA, for instance ordering, requesting, reminding, offering or promising can threaten a person’s negative face by imposing on the hearer. Moreover, some acts are threatening to the speaker rather than to the hearer by either offending the speaker’s positive face wants or negative face wants. Regardless of cultural differences, FTAs will most likely lead to more of the same in any culture (Rosenberg, 2004). When face-threatening moves are

deemed necessary, the probability for a successful communication increases. In order to repair damage caused by face-threatening behaviors, speakers may say something to lessen the possible threat. It is called face-saving act (FSA). Face-saving measures have to do with forestall potential loss of face, and are future-oriented. Although cultures are changing and adapting into new circumstances and environments, face issues can still be very important, especially in cross- cultural communication. However, even in same-culture communication, it seems likely that a shared attitude of mutual face concern will yield more successful results than aggressive confrontation and face-threatening behaviors. 2.2.3. Politeness across cultures As afore-mentioned, despite of cultural differences, an action or utterance of face threat, in any culture yet at some different levels, can lead to communication discord or offense. Therefore, every culture has its own politeness strategies of mitigating the face threat to others in interpersonal communication. That is why the issue of politeness has been taken into great consideration. The academic study of politeness theory was a new field and started quite recently. In 1977, Geoffrey Leech published his first paper on the subject ‘Language and Tact’. Shortly after, Brown and Levinson (B&L) introduced a more extensive and significant study on politeness in 1978: ‘Universals of Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena’. Since then, the field has been developed steadily and, accordingly, an international journal: “Journal of Politeness Research’ was founded in 2005.

Brown and Levinson argue that politeness is the expression of the speaker’s intention to diminish face threats conveyed by face threatening acts towards another, and that there are two forms of politeness: positive politeness and negative politeness. B&L initiated their suggesting ‘choices of politeness strategies’ which communicators may employ to perform an FTA and still be able to save the hearer’s face: Figure 1: Choices of Politeness Strategies (Brown and Levinson, 1978) The chart shows five scalar choices ranging from ‘bald-on record’ performance of an FTA to its non-performance. In particular, positive politeness strategies are intended by the speaker to treat the hearer as a friend or as someone to be included in discourse. For an American speaker, giving a friend or co-worker the compliment, “Your hair looks nice today,” would be one example of positive politeness. Negative politeness, on the other hand, is aimed at saving the hearer’s face by engaging in some formality or restraint. For an American speaker, the answer for the question

“Do you like my new haircut?” that would be best regarded as negative politeness is “It looks great,” despite the fact that the speaker thinks the new haircut horrible (Hondo & Goodman). According to B&L, the politeness strategies are numbered from 1 to 5; and the bigger number the choice is, the lesser the risk of face loss is, hence, the more politeness there is. So far, the universality of B&L’s politeness has been questioned and doubted. It has been objected that B&L’s model has a Western bias and cannot be applied to all languages and cultures (Leech, 2005). To be fair to B&L, though they did commit themselves to a worldwide perception, they also stress the dimensions of cross-cultural linguistic distinction: The essential idea is this: international systematics are based largely on universal principles. But the application of the principles differs systematically across cultures, and within cultures across subcultures, categories and groups. (B&L, 1978:288) Leech (1983), on the other hand, categorizes in more detail some of the core purpose behind these expressions of politeness by produce a set of rules or Politeness Maxims at work in polite conversation. 1) Tact maxim (minimize cost and maximize benefit to other) 2) Generosity maxim (minimize benefit and maximize cost to self) 3) Approbation maxim (minimize dispraise and maximize praise of other) 4) Modesty maxim (minimize praise and maximize dispraise of self) 5) Agreement maxim (minimize disagreement and maximize agreement between self and other)

6) Sympathy maxim (minimize antipathy and maximize sympathy between self and other) The above maxims may be formulated in a general way from the two major facets: to minimize the expression of impolite beliefs and maximize the expression of polite beliefs. As a general rule, politeness studies are conducted under the consideration of the relationship between social motives or concerns and linguistic features. It is found that there are a variety of factors affecting the way people communicate. B&L’s suggest three factors that determine the strength of an FTA in their famous formula: Wx = D(S, H) + P (H, S) + Rx in which D stands for social distance, P for power, and R for rank of imposition. Other suggested social factors to consider such as gender, same- sex and cross-sex communication. In examining the existence of power difference and the distance between participants, Scollon and Scollon (2002) argue that there are three main types of politeness system: Deference politeness system, the Solidarity politeness system and the Hierarchical politeness system. In a deference politeness system, participants are considered to be equal in social status, but there is certain distance between them. So the communicators are equal but there is “a deferential distance from each other” (Scollon and Scollon, 2002). In the solidarity politeness system, the interlocutors “feel or express closeness to each other”, there is neither difference in social position nor distance between them. However, in the hierarchical politeness system, the communicators are not equal in social position. Hence, one may be in a super-ordinate position and the other in a subordinate position.

It is also found that there are some social factors that affect the speaker’s choice whether he/she should employ indirectness or directness to mitigate the face threat on the hearers, which means to communicate the most successfully. Significant is Thomas (1995)’s categories of factors as stated to influence the indirectness in verbal communication across cultures, including: power, distance, size of imposition, and rights and obligations. (1) First and foremost, the indirectness depends on how much power our addressee has over the addressor. The greater the degree of the power differential, the greater the degree of indirectness will be. For example, we will be more indirect when talking to our teachers than to our friends. (2) The indirectness also depends on the social distance, in other words, on how well we know and how close we are with the other person. The closer the relationship with the addressee is, the more direct it is likely to be. It also depends on how close to us the other person is. The better we know the addressee, the more directness is likely to be used. (3) The indirectness, besides, depends on the size of imposition on the addressee. For example, there would be a great difference between borrowing someone’s pen and borrowing someone’s car. The greater the imposition is, the greater the degree of indirectness will be conveyed. The size of imposition is concerning not only with the problem of materials (a car or a pen) but also the weight of information. In Britain, it would be fine to ask someone the time directly, but it is expected to be more indirect when asking about someone’s salary. (4) The indirectness is, in addition, driven by the relative rights and obligations of the speaker and the hearer. If we are asking a taxi driver to drive us to station, we are likely to use much more direct strategies than when we are asking our neighbor.

Concerning the matter of gender, Trudgill (2000) initiated that men and women do not speak different languages, but they speak different varieties of the same language. That is to say, women and men do not employ entirely different forms of language. Different quantities or frequencies of the same form are used by the two sexes. This fact is more or less contributed to the social role they have in society. Nevertheless, according to Holmes (1992), there are other ways in which the verbal communication of women and men differs. As she claims, women are more linguistically polite than men, and that women and men highlight different speech functions. Besides, men and women from time to time have different perceptions which are echoed in their language. This different perception may due to their communicative competence. Brown (1978) also discloses that women mostly use their feeling of sensitivity and solidarity when they talk whereas men’s speech is more matter of fact. Holmes (1992) suggests other four reasons for the fact that women use more standard speech forms than men. Firstly, the way women speak signals their social class background or social status in the community. Secondly, ‘better’ behavior from women are expected than from men by the society. Thirdly, women, as subordinate group, must avoid offending, so they speak gently and politely. Finally, men want to show the macho connotations of masculinity and toughness. 2. 3. Expression of Disagreement 2.3.1. Politeness and Expression of Disagreement In verbal-communication, expression of disagreement, seen as a communicative act, is employed when the speaker has different attitudes

from his/her interlocutor or when he/she is not contented with his/her interlocutor’s behaviors or utterance. However, in everyday life, disagreement expressing is a communication need as it is inevitable and plays a crucial part in conveying one’s opinion. Moreover, in numerous concrete situations, disagreements are even more important to stand up for one’s point rather than to save the addressee’s ‘face’ (Kotthoff, 1993; Locher, 2004). Relating Brown & Levinson's (1987) definitions and assumptions to the explicit situation of disagreement, it is found that this illocutionary act is most likely to arouse a threat to the hearer's positive face as disagreement usually questions the recipient's expertise or even truthfulness and, thus, damages his or her self-image. As Brown and Levinson say, “Relating disagreement to face- the public self-image of oneself that one shows or tends to show to others-disagreement is a kind of Face Threatening Act” (Brown and Levinson, 1978). Paying attention to face, the act of disagreement might threaten the positive face of the addressee. Positive face refers to the want of a person that his wants be desirable to others. For this reason, expression of disagreement is always undesired and dispreferred in most verbal-communication cases. The face-threatening nature of this kind of communicative act indicates that, to express a disagreement is delicate and requires addressors to employ politeness strategies to mitigate the threat they are imposing on their hearer so as to avoid discord and offense.

In short, these afore-mentioned reflections on disagreement expression prove that on one side, it is both a communication act and a communication need, however, on the other side, it is an FTA. Thus, interlocutors need to consider the politeness aspect of the expressions they are conveying. 2.3.2. Expression of Disagreement in Cooperative Learning Groups A contemporary college classroom can easily consist of groups of students with cooperative learning approach in which interpersonal communication is a crucial part and disagreeing helps better and complete students’ missions. Before discussing the expression of disagreement in group work, the author want to review the cooperative learning approach and, more specifically, how a group work operates. Roger and Johnson describe that Cooperative Learning is “the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to achieve some shared goals”. In cooperative learning groups, there are two primary responsibilities given to students: to study the assigned material and to make sure that all other group members do likewise. Cooperative learning may be apply in the teaching of specific matters, to ensure active cognitive processing information during lectures, and to provide long-term support and assistance for academic progress (Roger and Johnson). A variety of names have been given to this form of learning, and there exist some differences among these: cooperative learning, collaborative learning, collective learning, learning communities, peer learning, reciprocal learning, team learning, study circles, study groups, and work groups. But all in all, there are three general types of group work: informal learning

groups, formal learning groups, and study teams (adapted from Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1998). Informal learning groups are temporary groups of students within a single class session and can be can be set up, for example, by asking students to turn to a neighbor and spend two minutes discussing a question. Whereas, formal learning groups are teams founded to complete a specific task, such as perform a lab experiment, write a report, carry out a project, or prepare a position paper during a single class session or over several weeks. The most long-term groups (usually existing over the course of a semester) are study teams with stable membership whose main duty is to provide members with encouragement, and support in finishing course requirements and assignments (Davis, 1993). Cooperative learning is especially valuable as a tool for improving communication and problem-solving skills, which are considered to be among the most essential skills for students. Verbal communication is an important part in a group work because the students have to articulate an anticipated solution to an issue or a reaction to a question and make it understandable to other members to have their work done (McEnerney). Among the group work communication skills, disagreeing is encouraged as a tool to foster creativity. In fact, disagreement in group work is inevitable as a communication need during the process of debating issues, as well as arguing about how to get things done. In such situations, both benefits and costs may accrue from the act of expressing disagreement, as Biser (2008) discussed. For the benefits, there will be an engagement in the group as people may easily remain committed to the group’s project when they feel others are

listening to them and their opinion carries some weight, even when they hold a minority point of view. Secondly, disagreement can stronger the project plans. Group members must look intently at areas of a plan that could receive internal or external resistance, and then try to figure out a way to overcome those potential problems, which is an important part of achieving goals. Finally, groups or teams will be stronger because they have to learn how to work through disagreements and misunderstanding; hence, they will be closer connected. However, considering the relationship between individuals and within a group, as an FTA, an expression of disagreement, especially, confrontational disagreement, may turns people off. It is initiated by a lack of trust, understanding or insecurity, and it assumes that one or more people are trying to threaten the group's goals or objectives. As a result, addressees with whom the disagreement is expressed try to distance themselves from others, or worse, the entire situation. Action plans need dedicated efforts to save the situations. If all or some of the group members cannot put their differences aside, then it slows down or brings operations to a halt. Confrontational disagreement causes work groups to miss deadlines and fall short of targets. Moreover, while honest and constructive disagreement builds bonds, confrontational disagreement destroys them (Biser, 2008). When situations go far beyond the level of constructive disagreement, and members of a team may turn from understanding toward defending, then groups are often polarized. Productivity decreases, and in the worst scenario, it could lead to the disbanding of the group (Biser, 2008). Honest and constructive disagreement in a learning group demonstrates a level of trust established by all members, and encourages people to learn and

improve themselves. Confrontational or aggressive disagreement is a sign of deterioration in a group, and it demonstrates a lack of trust. If people continue that way, disagreement will cause deadlocks, chaos and, sometimes, hurt feelings. 2.3.3. Disagreement Strategies According to Brown & Levinson (1978), there are four basic strategies to mitigate the face threatening nature of disagreement. Firstly, if the act is the least face threatening to the hearer (H), the speaker (S) can say it directly, for example: “What you say is nonsense!” (Cậu nói thật là vô lý!) to an intimate friend. Second, if the act is less threatening to H, S can express it with consideration to H’s positive face, for instance: “I am afraid it is not a good idea.” (Mình nghĩ đó không phải là ý kiến hay.) Third, if the act is more face threatening to H, S should utter it with consideration to H’s negative face, for example: “I’m sorry, but I think you should change your idea.”(Thật lấy làm tiếc, mình nghĩ cậu nên đổi ý tưởng khác). And fourth, if the act is the most face threatening to H; S should utter it indirectly, for example: “I believe your idea is good, but it would be better if we use another method.” (Mình thấy ý tưởng của cậu hay đấy, nhưng còn có thể hay hơn nếu chúng ta làm cách khác.) The strategies employed by the S to mitigate a face threatening act should be the one that is appropriate to the degree of the face threat. When one expresses the disagreement directly, it can be said that he is more confrontational. On the other hand, someone is said to be more non-confrontational if he expressed it indirectly. Garcia (1986) proposed that confrontational strategies such as “strong denial” can be mitigated by non-confrontational strategies such as “down

toned suggestion”, “giving reasons” or “expressing willingness to cooperate”. Other subordinates of non-confrontational strategies are “criticism of a third party”, “refusal to cooperate”, or “order to the interlocutor (Schiffrin, 1984). Then these strategies are categorized into 2 main groups: ‘Confrontational’ and ‘Non-confrontational’ (Garcia, 1989), which is explained by the following chart and examples: - Challenge - Refusing to cooperate - Order Confrontational Strategies - Criticism of a third party - Strong denial - Down toned suggestions - Reason giving Non-confrontational Strategies - Expression of willingness to cooperate Figure 2: Eight disagreement strategies, as proposed by Garcia (1986) The eight disagreement strategies, as proposed by Garcia (1986) are: 1. Challenge: a demand for an explanation or justification E.g. “Are you sure it is the best price?” (Cậu chắc đó là giá rẻ nhất à?) “So where can I go?” (Thế con còn đi đâu được nữa?)

2. Refusing to cooperate: an act to show or decline the willingness to work together E.g. “Well, what can I do?” (Tớ thì giúp gì được chứ?) 3. Order: a command or request to do something E.g. “You’d better find out anther department.” (Tốt nhất cậu tìm căn hộ khác đi) “So you go back to him! And see what he can say to you this time.” (Thử gặp lại hắn lần nữa đi, xem hắn sẽ nói gì với cậu.) 4. Criticism of a third party: a critical comment or opinion from person taking part in something E.g. “Well, the person must be crazy!” (Anh ta thật điên rồ!) “I think she’s wrong.” (Mình nghĩ cô ấy sai rồi.) 5. Strong denial: contradiction of a statement, or a statement of something that are not true E.g. “I can’t agree with you at this point.” (Tôi không thể đồng ý với cậu về việc này.) “No, no way” (Không, không được đâu!) 6. Down toned suggestion: an idea given without strong argument or comment E.g. “Yeah? Or maybe I’ll take to her.” (Thế ư? Hay để tớ thử nói chuyện với cô ấy?)

“You might go to another store to check if there is something better” (Có lẽ cậu nên đến hàng khác xem có cái nào tốt hơn không.) 7. Giving reasons: a declaration made to explain or justify an action or an opinion E.g. “I meant I had been studying quite seriously” (Ý em là em đã học rất nghiêm túc rồi đấy chứ ạ!) “I remember checking it carefully” (Tôi nhớ là đã kiểm tra kỹ rồi mà.) 8. Expression of willingness to cooperate: a sign of willingness to work together or to do what someone is asking for E.g. “I would appreciate it. I don’t want to disturb her.” (Tôi rất cảm kích về điều này. Tôi không muốn làm phiền cô ấy đâu.) Those confrontational or non-confrontational strategies in expressing disagreement are, in fact, closely associated with the directness and indirectness in the utterances of the speaker. Leech and Thomas (1990) have indicated some reasons explaining why interlocutors use indirectness in verbal communication. First, the speaker is not able to express themselves directly. This often happens when the speaker finds it difficult to express abstract or complex concepts such as fidelity, or grief. Secondly, speakers obtain some social or communicative advantages such as appraisal by employing indirectness. Last but not least, speakers often employ indirectness for reasons of politeness. Brown & Levinson (1987) also place “Don’t do the FTA” strategies, that is, addressor will not convey the face-

threatening act, as the most polite in their scale of politeness choices. (See chart 1) In short, in expressing disagreements, for politeness reasons, speakers may use confrontational or non-confrontational strategies, in which the choices are taken in to account in a thoughtful way that helps reduce the most threat to the hearer. 2.4. Related Studies on Disagreement Strategies Garcia (1989) studied the stylistic devices used by female American (L1) and female Venezuelan (L2) speakers in an English language role-play situation: disagreeing. The role-play was taken part in by a native English speaker, who has given a description of the situation. Then, the role-play interactions were recorded on a videotape, transcribed and then analyzed in terms of the stylistic devices used. From this study, she found that L1 speakers prefer to use non-confrontational devices; on the other hand, L2 speakers use more confrontational devices. The author also suggested the two categories of disagreement strategies: confrontational and non- confrontational strategies. Accordingly, the writer employed Garcia’s categorization of disagreement strategies for her investigation. Beebe and Takahashi (1989) also conducted a study on American and Japanese performance of face-threatening speech acts in English, especially disagreement in the aspect of status inequality. For the method, they used a discourse completion test. Respondents are 15 native speakers of English and 15 native speakers of Japanese who responded in English. The study demonstrated that the Japanese are much more likely to state an explicit

criticism than the Americans when disagreeing to lower-status interlocutors. It also points out that the Americans used more positive remarks, more softeners, and fewer explicit criticisms than the Japanese when disagreeing to higher-status interlocutors. Japanese respondents think they could criticize even a higher-status person. So, they concluded that Americans are not always more direct and explicit than Japanese as the stereotype which assumes that Japanese are indirect and Americans are direct. Later, Maryanty (1997) studied the linguistic choices of disagreement used by male and female students at Petra Christian University in terms of gender and status. Maryanty also used a discourse completion test as her instrument to collect the data. She used eight different situations for her data collection. From her study, she found that the strategy “giving reason” is the most used when lower status shows disagreement to higher status. On the contrary, higher status mostly used “down toned suggestion” when disagreeing to lower status. She also found that females tended to use “giving reasons” and “down toned suggestion” toward female respondents, while males respondents tended to use “refusing to cooperate” toward their opposite sex hearers. Concerning the gender factor, the writer chooses to do the research with participants who are undergraduate students in college for the reason that the factors of social status and power are equal in the relationship of undergraduate students in colleges.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3. 1. Participants As the research are planned to investigate the disagreement strategies used by American and Vietnamese undergraduate students, so 24 American male and female undergraduate students as well as 24 Vietnamese male and female undergraduate students participated in the study, totaling a sample size of 48 respondents. 3. 2. Data collection instrument To collect the data, a discourse completion test is used; this is a written role-play questionnaire where respondents transcribe what they think they would say in specific situations. By using this kind of questionnaire, data could be gathered in a comparatively short period of time and all respondents are asked to respond to identical situations. Moreover, it is easier to analyze afterwards since the data are written. 3. 3. Procedures of data collection (4 stages) 3. 3.1. Stage 1: Designing the questionnaire In this stage, the four questionnaire forms in Vietnamese and English are designed for Vietnamese and American undergraduate students, respectively, in which gender difference is involved. After considering the theory of cooperative learning approach and investigating real group work discussions, the author sums up that there are four major situations in which disagreement takes place. Thus, to be parallel, the questionnaire includes

four situations. The first situation happens among group members who are arguing to agree on the matter of content (the topic) of their mid-term project. The second situation concerns with the working attitude of group’s members. The third situation deals with the equality of the task distribution in a group work. Finally, the forth and last situation is about the working manners in a group discussion. Respondents are expected to react to the situations honestly and naturally as if they are facing real situations. As 48 best qualified questionnaires are collected, each of which consists of 4 situations, so the total response from the respondents is equivalent to 192 items. This quantity of samples is large enough to be analyzed and give reliable results. 3. 3.2. Stage 2: Piloting The questionnaire was given to about 5-7 relevant respondents to get feedback and workability of the questionnaire. As a result, questionnaire was piloted to find out which questions or expressions were not clear or/and lead to ambiguity or/and misunderstanding to respondents. Correction and adjustment had been made afterwards. 3. 3. 3. Stage 3: Delivering the questionnaires The questionnaires were delivered face-to-face to Vietnamese respondents and via e-mail to American respondents. Moreover, a lot of efforts had been made to make sure that the respondents are willing to take part in the survey and that they are given privacy and freedom in answering the questionnaires.

3. 3.4. Stage 4: Encoding the data The author had issued 30 questionnaires to 30 American undergraduate students and 30 questionnaires to 30 Vietnamese undergraduate students. Afterwards, 24 items from American respondents (12 males and 12 females) and 24 from Vietnamese respondents (12 males and 12 females) are retrieved. The data colleted are encoded (see table 2) and analyzed. Vietnamese V American A Vietnamese male respondent VM Vietnamese female respondent VF American male respondent AM American female respondent AF Figure 3: Vietnamese and American Respondents Encoded Moreover, as the author frames her data into Garcia (1986)’s 8 strategies of disagreement, she also encodes these strategies as follow: Challenging G1 Refusing to cooperate G2 Order G3 Criticism of a third party G4 Strong denial G5 Down toned suggestions G6 Giving reason G7 Expression of willingness to G8 cooperate Figure 4: Garcia (1986)’ strategies encoded In the next chapter, data collected will be categorized and analyzed in four aspects as initiated in the four research questions:

1. Disagreement strategies mostly employed by male and female American undergraduate students in group work 2. Disagreement strategies mostly employed by male and female Vietnamese undergraduate students in group work 3. The similarities and differences in the choices of disagreement strategies in group work by American and Vietnamese undergraduate students 4. The influence of gender on the way American and Vietnamese undergraduate students choose disagreement strategies CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS Introduction In the previous chapter, the methodology applied in this study has been clarified through comprehensive descriptions and justification of the respondents, the instrument and the process of collecting data. In this

chapter, the data collected is analyzed in accordance with the four research questions in order to take the lead to the result discussion afterwards. 4.1 . Disagreement strategies used by Vietnamese and American undergraduate students in group work discussion Basing on the disagreement strategies suggested by Garcia (1986), it can be discovered from the collected data that the disagreeing expressions are uttered with both single and combined strategies. Combined strategy is a combination of strategy G7 (giving reason) and another strategy of both confrontational and non-confrontational ways of expressing disagreement. Giving reason, if used alone or with another non-confrontational strategy, can be considered a non-confrontational way of disagreeing; however, using G7 along with a confrontational strategy is considered confrontational. Besides, it is also noted that strategies G4 (criticism of a third party) and G8 (expression of willingness to cooperate) are not used by both Vietnamese and American respondents. What’s more, it is found that American respondents use one more strategy: complaining besides Garcia (1986)’s eight ones. One example of complaining is shown as follow: AM6: “I can’t believe you guys chat off-topic when we still work hard.” (In situation 2) (Mình không thể tin được 2 cậu lại buôn chuyện linh tinh khi những người còn lại thì đang làm việc cật lực) However, in the concrete situations of disagreeing in the data collected, the author thinks that complaining is also another non-confrontational way of disagreeing. It is contributed to the fact that by employing an expression of

complaint, the addressor indirectly conveys his/her disagreement and believes that the listener understands it. To sum up, to analyze the disagreement strategies used by the Vietnamese and American respondents, the author omits G4 (criticism of a third party) and G8 (expression of willingness to cooperate), and adds combined strategies and complaining into Garcia (1986)’s two groups of strategies in expressing disagreement: confrontational and non-confrontational. G1 G2 G3 G5 Confrontational [G7+G1] [G7+G2] [G7+G3] [G7+G5] G6 G7 Non-confrontational [G6+G7] complaining Figure 5: The grouping of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies employed by Vietnamese and American respondents 4.1.1. Vietnamese respondents’ findings In general, the result displayed in chart 5 shows that Vietnamese respondents use more non-confrontational strategies, including complaining, than non- confrontational ones. Specifically, non-confrontational strategies account for 67.7% of the total (65 times out of 96 expressions).

Particularly, as also revealed from the collected data, combined strategy [G6 + G7] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) is most frequently employed by both Vietnamese male and female respondents. Some respondents choose to give reason first and then give down toned suggestion, whereas others feel they should suggest in a down toned way first and then give reason for that. Actually, this combined strategy proves to be the most effective one since it is utilized 46 times out of 96 expressions, represent about 48% of the total. Strategies VM VF Total G1 0 1 1 G2 1 3 4 G3 7 3 10 G5 1 0 1 Confrontational [G7+G1] 0 0 1 [G7+G2] 1 0 1 [G7+G3] 8 4 12 [G7+G5] 1 1 2 G6 6 6 12 Non- G7 4 3 7 confrontational [G6+G7] 19 27 46 Complaining 0 0 0 Total 48 48 96 Figure 6: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by Vietnamese male and female respondents Examples of combined strategy [G7+G6] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) are shown as follow: In situation 2, VM4 initiates down toned suggestion first: “Các cậu nên tập trung vào buổi thảo luận, chúng ta đến đây không phải để buôn chuyện”

(You should concentrate on the discussion, we are not here to ‘chit chat’) However, reason is first given by VF2 in situation 3: “Phần này khó quá nhóm trưởng ơi! Tớ sợ một mình làm không nổi. Hay nhóm trưởng giúp đỡ tớ phần này một chút nhé!”” (This part is too hard and I am afraid that I cannot cover it by myself. Or could you give me a hand with this part?) In brief, both Vietnamese male and female use more non-confrontational strategies in which combined strategy [G6 + G7] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) is most frequently employed. 4.1.2. American respondents’ findings On the whole, it is also found that both American male and female respondents utter their disagreement more in non-confrontational way than confrontationally. The times non-confrontational strategies are used account for about 76% of the total (73 times out of 96 expressions) which are nearly triple that of confrontational strategies (24%). Strategies AM AF Total

G1 2 3 5 G2 0 1 1 G3 4 0 4 G5 2 2 4 Confrontational [G7+G1] 0 1 1 [G7+G2] 0 0 0 [G7+G3] 4 3 7 [G7+G5] 0 1 1 G6 6 10 16 Non- G7 7 6 13 confrontational [G6+G7] 22 21 43 Complaining 1 0 1 Total 48 48 96 Figure 7: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by American male and female respondents In particular, as presented in figure 7, combined strategy [G6+G7] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) is of most used by the American male and female respondents, which constitutes nearly 45% of the total (43 times out of 96 expressions). Like in what the Vietnamese respondents perform, combine strategy is personally decided whether G7 (giving reason) or G6 (down toned suggestion) goes first. For example, in situation 3, AF8 states her reason first, which paves the way to the follow-up suggestion: “It seems my part will take more time and consideration. So to make sure everyone is happy with my findings, maybe can someone else help me with it?”

(Có vẻ phần của tớ mất nhiều thời gian và công sức hơn. Vậy để mọi người thấy hài lòng với kết quả phần nghiên cứa của tớ thì ai đó có thể giúp tớ một chút được không?) On the contrary, AF10 initiate her suggestion first in situation 2 and 3; and AM1 responds the same way in situation 1, etc. In short, both American male and female use more non-confrontational strategies in which combined strategy [G6 + G7] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) is most frequently employed. 4.2. Similarities and differences in the ways Vietnamese and American express their disagreement verbally 4.2.1. Similarities From the afore-mentioned findings, it can be easily recognized two similarities in the way Vietnamese and American respondents choose their disagreement strategies. First, both the Vietnamese and American respondents tend to be more non-confrontational when they express their disagreement. Second, the combined strategy [G7+G6] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) are most preferred by both groups of respondents. 4.2.2. Differences Although there are two big similarities in the verbal way American and Vietnamese disagree, the two groups still differ from each other in the frequency the strategies used.

Strategies V A G1 1 5 G2 4 1 G3 9 4 G5 1 4 Confrontational [G7+G1] 1 1 [G7+G2] 1 0 [G7+G3] 12 7 [G7+G5] 2 1 G6 12 16 Non- G7 7 13 confrontational [G6+G7] 46 43 Complaining 0 1 Total 96 96 Figure 8: The frequency of disagreement strategies employed by Vietnamese and American respondents Strategies V A Confrontational 32.29% 23.96% Non-confrontational 67.71% 76.04% total 100.00% 100.00% Figure 9: The percentage of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies in disagreement expressions of Vietnamese and American respondents In terms of non-confrontational strategies, generally speaking, as shown in figure 9, the American male and female respondents use more non- confrontational strategies than the Vietnamese male and female respondents (76% and 67.71%, respectively). Notably, strategy G7 (giving reason) and strategy G6 (down toned suggestion) are more used one at a time by American respondents while combined strategy [G6+G7] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) are more used by Vietnamese respondents.

In terms of confrontational strategies, the Vietnamese male and female respondents are more confrontational in expressing disagreement than that of the American group (32.29% and 23.96%, respectively). Specifically, the strategy G3 (order) is used much more times, both alone and in combined strategies, by Vietnamese respondents than American respondents. Strategy G3 (order) is recognized in these following examples in situation 4: VF2 uses single strategy G3 (order) in situation 4: “Hương để bọn nó nói đã. Nghe mọi người nói hết đã chứ!” (Hương, let them talk. Listen to the people here first) VM6 orders along with gives reason in situation 4: “Mày ngồi yên đi! Ai cũng phải đưa ra ý kiến riêng chứ!” (Settle down! Everyone must present their own ideas) In contrast, as revealed in figure 8, unlike Vietnamese respondents, American respondents perform greater tendency to challenge (G1) and show strong denial (G5). These examples below demonstrate the use of these two strategies: In situation 3, AM5 challenged: “Why must I do much difficult stuff while Karl just needs to do small and easy stuffs?” (Taị sao tớ phải làm phần khó thế này trong khi Karl chỉ phải làm phần dễ và ít hơn của tớ?)

In situation 2, AF1 also questions: “Do you guys completely understand what we have discussed?” (Các cậu có thực sự hiểu chúng ta vừa thảo luận cái gì không?) In situation 1, AF3 show strong denial: “This topic is too ambitious for us to do. We can’t make it.” (Chủ đề này quá rộng. Chúng ta không làm được đâu.) In situation 1, AF4 denies strongly: “I don’t think it is the main point we should talk about.” (Tôi không nghĩ đây là thứ chính mà chúng ta cần nói đến.) To sum up, the similarity that Vietnamese and American respondents share is that both use more non-confrontational strategies than confrontational strategies and prefer combined strategy [G7+G6] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) the most when expressing their disagreement. However, the difference is that, American respondents are more non-confrontational than Vietnamese respondents. 4.3. Gender differences in ways Vietnamese and American express their disagreement verbally

To answer the last research question, this part analyzes the similarities and differences in the choice of disagreement strategies by male and female respondent to see whether gender distinction affects their choices or not. In terms of gender distinction, as illustrated in figure 10, the result shows that Vietnam female are more non-confrontational than Vietnamese male respondents (75% versus 60.4% respectively). Likewise, American female respondents use more non-confrontational strategies than American male respondents (77.1% versus 75%). However, the difference in the level of confrontation between American male and female respondents is not as significant as that between Vietnamese male and female respondents. Strategies VM VF AM AF Confrontational 39.6% 25.0% 25.0% 22.9% Non-confrontational 60.4% 75.0% 75.0% 77.1% total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% Figure 10: The percentage of confrontational and non-confrontational strategies in disagreement expressions of Vietnamese and American male and female respondents To be brief, despite the fact that the difference in the degree of confrontation between American male and female respondents is not as significant as that between Vietnamese male and female respondents, male respondents of both groups use fewer non-confrontational strategies than female respondents when expressing their disagreement. Hence, gender difference does affect the male and female respondents in their choice of disagreement strategies. CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The previous chapter has described the results in detail with numerous examples of illustration. In this chapter, the findings are investigated in- depth to affirm the definite answers for the raised research questions, to make a comparison with result of previous research as well as to determine the effect of the method used in the data. The results are aimed primarily at clarifying research question 3 and 4. Question 3: The similarities and differences in the choices of disagreement strategy in group work between American and Vietnamese male and female undergraduate students Question 4: The influence of gender on the way American and Vietnamese undergraduate students’ choices of disagreement strategy 5. 1. Similarities in the choices of disagreement strategy in group work between American and Vietnamese undergraduate students 5. 1. 1. Both Vietnamese and American undergraduate students prefer the combined strategy (down toned suggestion + giving reason) the most. From the analysis of the disagreement expressions by the Vietnamese and American undergraduate students, it is found that both the two groups of respondents prefer using non-confrontational disagreement strategies than confrontational ones, and that the non-confrontational combined strategy [down toned suggestion + giving reason] is of most use. As discussed in chapter II, in the solidarity politeness system, the interlocutors “feel or express closeness to each other”; and there is neither difference in social position nor distance between them (Scollon and

Scollon, 2002). The relationship between respondents is the same in this research situation. The factors of social position and distance are eliminated since the participants are all undergraduate students. Hence, it can be conclude that belonging solidarity politeness systems, the American and Vietnamese respondents mostly express the disagreement in a non- confrontational way with the assumption that if they show their disagreement confrontationally, the group tight will be broken. The avoidance of confrontational strategies by Vietnamese and American respondents means that they take the costs of showing confrontational disagreement in group work into account, that is, their final group work results will miss deadlines and fall short target. This result is true to the remark of Biser (2008). For the reason, both American and Vietnamese tend to show their honest and constructive disagreement in a non-confrontational way. It is also found that both groups the participants, the American and Vietnamese undergraduate students, prefer using the non-confrontational combined strategies [down toned suggestion + giving reason] the most. By using this strategy, the speaker can, in one hand, give their reasons for disagreement and, in another hand, give down toned suggestions. This combined strategy allows them to be more persuasive, honest, and constructive than to give reason or give suggestion alone. Although the disagreement is shown indirectly, the possibility that the hearer will understand and recognize his/her state of being disagreed is still high, thus, the strategy is effective for this stand. Moreover, if the reason is convincing and constructive, with down toned suggestion, the communicative act of

disagreement will be performed in a way that imposes less on the listener, or in other words, mitigates the face threat on the listener. In short, as being characterized by belonging to solidarity politeness system, both the Vietnamese and American respondents express their disagreement more with non-confrontational strategies, in which the combined strategy [down toned suggestion + giving reason] is most preferred. 5. 1. 2. Gender influence on the choice of disagreement strategies by Vietnamese and American undergraduate students As revealed from the data analysis, the male respondents of both groups tend to be more confrontational/ less non-confrontational than the female respondents since they use more confrontational strategies/ less non- confrontational strategies. This finding closely reflects the aspect of gender variations in politeness. Trudgill (2000) initiates that men and women do not use completely different forms of language. They use different amount or frequencies of the same form. Likewise, this finding proves that the frequency of non- confrontational disagreement strategies used by female respondents is greater than that of male respondents. This difference may due to the fact that women concern the feeling of sensitivity and solidarity in conversation while men’s language involves more matter of fact (Brown, 1978). Moreover, the different performance of the male and female respondents might be contributed to the fact that women, as subordinate group, usually speak gently and politely, and avoid offending while men are more to show their macho connotation of masculinity and toughness (Holmes, 1992).

What’s more, Holmes (1992) also mentions the different social expectation toward men and women, and the difference in the way men and women signals their social background and status. These gender variations may influence the choice of disagreement strategies taken up by the Vietnamese and American male and female respondents and supports the arguments on gender and language that the female is more polite than the male. The finding plays as evidence for the answer of the research question 4. 5. 2. The differences in the choice of disagreement strategies in group work between American and Vietnamese undergraduate students The two afore-mentioned findings show similarities in verbal choice of disagreement strategies by Vietnamese and American respondents, however, differences between them are also found. In terms of non-confrontational disagreement strategies, the difference is that, the American male and female respondents use more non- confrontational strategies than the Vietnamese male and female respondents. This means the American respondents tend to be more indirect and less aggressive than the Vietnamese respondents. According to Agreement Maxim and Approbation Maxim (Leech, 1983), the finding also means that the American respondents put more attempt to both minimizing the disagreement between themselves and others and minimizing the dispraise of other than Vietnamese respondents. This discovery contradicts the assumption that high-context cultures (i.e. China, Vietnam, or other Eastern countries) regard the matter of “face” importance more than low-context cultures do (i.e. the U.S and western countries) (Rosenberg, 2004).

In terms of confrontational strategies, it is also found that the Vietnamese male and female respondents are more confrontational in expressing disagreement than that of the American group. This finding is to some stands similar to the previous one. The two findings both disprove the fact that that Vietnam is more collectivistic and group-oriented than the U.S. Specifically, among the confrontational strategies used by Vietnamese and American respondents, there is also difference. Vietnamese respondents use G3 (order) more frequently while American respondents use G1 (challenge) and G5 (strong denial) more frequently. First, The strategy G3 (order) is used much more frequently, both alone and in combined strategies, by Vietnamese respondents than American respondents. This action of order is the same with Brown and Levinson (1987)’s bald-on record strategy which directly do the FTA without any redressive action. It seems that the speaker is trying to show disagreement by taking control over the listener. Moreover, it can also be understood that, in group work discussion where everyone hold equal responsibility in the project, the speaker thinks she/he has the relative right and obligation to directly order or request if he/she feels disagree (Thomas, 1995). Nevertheless, American respondents have greater tendency to challenge (G1) and show strong denial (G5). These strategies are also bald-on record; however, in comparison with G3 (order), the speaker at least states their opinion or questions the interlocutor. These two ways are often seen in group discussions as it is a crucial part to come to any agreement. Thus, this difference in the verbal choice of confrontational strategies implies that American respondents are better at group discussing skills than Vietnamese respondents.

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION Being aimed at highlighting the differences of being polite in disagreement situations in college cooperative learning groups, the findings of the research, in previous chapter, has been analyzed and discussed in-depth in the link with previous research on disagreement strategies. This chapter represents a succinct summary of the main findings of the research, and gives suggestion for further studies. 6. 1. Major findings of the research First as being characterized by belonging to solidarity politeness system, both the Vietnamese and American respondents express their disagreement more with non-confrontational strategies, in which combined strategies [G7+G6] (down toned suggestion + giving reason) is the most preferred. To them, group solidarity is taken into due consideration. Secondly, the discovery that Vietnamese undergraduate students are more confrontational and less non-confrontational than the American undergraduate students contradicts the assumption that high-context cultures regard the matter of “face” importance more than low-context cultures do. In other words, the two findings both disprove the fact that that Vietnam is more collectivistic and group-oriented than the U.S. Thirdly, the difference in the verbal choice of confrontational strategies indicates that American respondents are better at group discussing skills than Vietnamese respondents. Finally, it is found that gender variations influence the choice of disagreement strategies taken up by both Vietnamese and American male and female respondents and supports the arguments on gender and language that the female is more polite than the male.

6.2. Conclusion The expression of disagreement always has both negative and positive facets. Constructive and honest disagreement helps foster creativity, correct wrong-doings and redirect behaviors while destructive and confrontational disagreement threatens relationship between individuals or groups. As an FTA, expressions of disagreement are always dispreferred in almost every culture. However, the reality has shown that disagreement is a crucial part in everyday communication. Yet, in order to achieve communication targets, people from different cultures choose different politeness strategies to mitigate the face-threatening nature of this communicative act. In concrete context of cooperative learning, group work disputes and discussions also require involving members, who belong to the solidarity politeness system, to employ suitable disagreement strategies. This cross-cultural communication research on politeness strategies in showing disagreement in group works used by American and Vietnamese undergraduate students has achieved the aims set at the beginning. By discovering the strategies mostly used by the two groups, clarifying the similarities and differences between them, as well as checking whether gender differences influence their choice of disagreement strategies or not, the research can be a verbal communication reference for numerous beneficiaries who involve in cross- cultural interactions in which Vietnamese and American people participate. 6. 3. Suggestion for further studies on disagreement strategies In cross-cultural communication, pragmatic failure has provoked much consideration. People often fail to accomplish the communicative goal due to misunderstanding with people from other cultures. Despite the fact that

being polite is preferred universally, the connotation of politeness might vary across culture and gender. For that reason, researchers need to probe into specific cultures for the exploitation of concrete communication acts and try to identify the different patterns and discourse strategies. To apply this result for further studies, researchers are highly advised that other social factors, such as power, social status, age, or cross-sex communication, should be involved. The settings of further research can be in other international communities, such as intercultural companies, conferences, or schools. In short, in taking these elements into due consideration, further research may help enrich the guidance on cross-cultural verbal communication for Vietnamese, American people and other foreigners.

REFERENCE Biser Jeremy Neal (2008). Thoughts on Quotes. The Costs and Benefits of Disagreement. Retrieved from http://thoughtsonquotes.blogspot.com/ 2008/04/costs-and-benefits-of-disagreement.html Beebe, L.M. & Takahashi, T. (1989). Do you have a bag? Social status and patterned variation in second language acquisition. In S. M. Gass, C. Madden, D. Preston, & L. Selinker (Eds.), Variation in second language acquisition: Discourse and pragmatics (pp. 103-128). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Brown, P. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Geoffrey Leech (2005), Politeness: Is there an East – West Divide?, Journal of Foreign Languages, 3-5. Davis, Barbara Gross (1993). Tools for Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass Publishers. Retrieved from http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html Holmes, J. (1992).. An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Longman Kotthoff, H. (1993). Disagreement and concession in disputes: On the context sensitivity of preference structures. Language in Society García, C. (1989). Disagreeing and requesting by Americans and Venezuelans. Linguistics and Education.1.3.

Johnson, D.W., R.T. Johnson and K.A. Smith. Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom, 2nd Ed. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company, 1998. Larry A. Samovar and Richard E. Porter (2001), Communication Between Cultures (4th ed.), Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Belmont, CA LeBaron, Michelle. quot;Cross-Cultural Communication.quot; Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Leech, G. N. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. New York: Longman. Leech, Geoffrey and Thomas, Jenny (1990). Language, meaning and context: pragmatics. In N.E. Collinge (ed.). An Encyclopaedia of Language (pp. 173-206). London: Routledge. Locher, M. A. (2004). Power and politeness in action. Disagreements in oral communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. In quot;I'm not agree with you.quot; ESL Learners' Expressions of Disagreement. Karen Kreutel. December 2007. Volume 11, Number 3. TESL-EJ Maryanty, E (1997). A Study of disagreement strategies used by male and female students of the English Department of Petra Christian University. Subabaya McEnerney, Kathleen (1993). Cooperative learning as a teaching strategy. Publication: Medical Laboratory Observer

Goffman, E. (1967). ‘On face work: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction’, in Jaworski, A.,and Coupland, N. (eds.) The Discourse Reader, London, Routledge, pp. 306-321. Roger and Johnson. An Overview of Cooperative Learning. In J. Thousand, A. Villa and A. Nevin (Eds). (1994). Creativity and Collaborative Learning; Brookes Press, Baltimore, Rosenberg, Sarah. quot;Face.quot; Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Samovar & Porter (1994), Herbig’s (1998) in Schmidt, Peter, (2007): Tourism Cultures and Intercultural Encounters. Denmark: Aalborg University. Scollon, Ron and Suzanne Wong Scollon (2000). Intercultural Communication: A Discourse Approach. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching Press. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in interaction: An introduction to pragmatics. New York: Longman. In Herbig, P. & Dunphy, S. (1998). Culture and Innovation. Cross Cultural Management: an International Journal. Emerald, 5, 4. Ting-Toomey, Stella (1990). A Face Negotiation Perspective Communicating for Peace. USA: Sage Trudgill, Peter 2000. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Societ. Pengiun

APPENDIX 2 PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT Xin chào! Mình là Nguyễn Thị Phương Thùy đến từ trường ĐH NN-ĐN QG Hà Nội. Mình đang làm một nghiên cứu về “Chiến lược lịch sự trong cách thể hiện sự phản đối của sinh viên đại học Hoa Kỳ và Việt Nam khi làm việc theo nhóm”. Mình rất mong các bạn giúp đỡ bằng việc hoàn thành 4 tình huống dưới đây. ***Giới tính của bạn: Nam Nữ Ở trường Đại học của bạn, khi làm việc theo nhóm, bạn có thể gặp những tình huống sau. Hãy đọc kỹ các tình huống và hãy trả lời những câu hỏi một cách chân thực nhất như thể chính bạn đang ở trong tình huống đó. Tình huống 1: Bạn được giao làm việc theo nhóm với Hùng và Ly để chuẩn bị cho bài tập giữa kỳ. Chủ đề của bài tập là do các bạn tự chọn. Lúc này, các bạn đang ngồi họp nhóm với nhau để đưa ra chủ đề và vạch ra dàn ý của bài tập. Hùng vừa đưa ra ý tưởng chọn chủ đề của cậu ấy. Tuy nhiên, bạn thấy chủ đề đó quá rộng và “tham lam” cho một bài tập giữa kỳ. Bạn sẽ nói thể nào với Hùng để bày tỏ sự bất đồng quan điểm của mình? Bạn nói: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ”

Tình huống 2: Hiện giờ các bạn đang trong buổi thảo luận để làm một bài tập nhóm. Còn rất ít thời gian cho việc chuẩn bị vì hạn nộp bài tập đang rất gần. Tuy vậy, Ngân và Khánh liên tục “buôn dưa lê” và không tập trung vào công việc thảo luận. Bạn thấy họ làm việc không nghiêm túc và thấy khó chịu với thái độ đó. Bạn sẽ nói như thể nào với họ để thể hiện sự không đồng ý của mình? Bạn nói: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ” Tình huống 3: Bạn được giao làm việc cùng nhóm với ba bạn khác trong lớp cho bài thuyết trình vào tuần tới. Hiện giờ, các bạn đang ngồi cùng nhau và đã thống nhất được dàn ý cho bài thuyết trình. Nhóm trưởng vừa phân công các phần khác nhau cho mỗi thành viện để về nhà nghiên cứu thêm. Tuy vậy, bạn thấy sự phân chia đó chưa đều vì phần của bạn khó hơn và đòi hỏi nghiên cứu nhiều thông tin hơn nhiều so với phần của bạn Hoàng. Bạn sẽ nói với nhóm trưởng thế nào để thể hiện sự không tán thành này? Bạn nói: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ”

Tình huống 4: Bạn đang trong một buổi thảo luận nhóm. Trong lúc thảo luận về một chủ đề, Hương không đợi đến lượt trình bày của mình mà liên tục ngắt lời người khác khi họ đang nói. Hơn nữa, Hương còn luôn thể hiện rằng chỉ có ý kiến của mình đúng và phủ nhận ý kiến của người khác.Bạn rất không đồng ý về cách cư xử của Hương vì Hương làm như thế là không tôn trọng người khác. Bạn sẽ nói gì với Hương? Bạn nói: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ”

APPENDIX 1 Questionnaire in English Thank you for you time and help. The following are some situations which you may find in your campus life. You are asked to read every situation carefully in order to understand the referred situation. Further, you are expected to answer the existing questions honestly as if you really face those situations. Please choose your gender: Male/ Female Situation 1: You are working in the same group with Jane and Peter on a mid-term project. You are free to choose the topic of one area to present. At the moment, you are at your group meeting preparing for the topic and outline of the project. Peter has proposed his idea for the topic. However, you think the topic is too large and ambitious for the project. What would you say to him to show your disagreement? You say: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ”

Situation 2: At the moment, you are at your group meeting. There remains not much time for the preparation of your group’s project as the submission date is quite near. However, Ashley and Jason keep chatting off-topic and do not concentrate on the work. You think they are not very serious and feel a little furious about that. What would you say to them? You say: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ” Situation 3: You are in a group with 3 other classmates working on a project. At the moment, you are at your group meeting. The whole group have discussed and come to a project outline and the leader has assigned particular part to each member to do more research on it at home. However, you think that the distribution is not equal as your part is much more difficult which covers a lot more information than Karl’s. What would you say to the leader to show your disagreement?

You say: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ” Situation 4: You are at your group meeting. In discussing a topic, Janet does not wait for her turn but constantly interrupts other people when they are presenting their ideas. What’s more, she insistently claims her ideas as right and good and rejects others’. You do not agree with her behaviors as she shows little respect to other’s opinion. What would you say to her? You say: “………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………. …………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………... ”

Politeness Strategies In Showing Disagreement In Group Work Phuong Thuy K39 A11

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