PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Disagreement is defined as an "everyday phenomenon," and an expression of a
view that differs from that expressed by another speaker (Sifianou, 2012, p.1).
This speech act is generally considered dispreferred it threatens the speakers face
(Brown & Levinson, 1987). Most of the research on argumentative discourse
focuses on the expression of disagreement (Holtgraves, 1997; Locher, 2004;
Rees-Miller, 2000).
Also, it is suggested that context plays an important role in the analysis of the
matters of disagreement. One of the likely influences on disagreement strategy
selection is the differences in power and social distance between speakers and
listeners. To date, studies of pragmatics and power are fragmented and made in
deduction across research attempts. This study is conducted aiming at comprehending
power and social distance and pragmatic politeness strategies in disagreement as more
than a linguistic aspect of communication. As such, the study may uncover the
characteristics of power and social distance, and the nature of the relationship
between these factors and the use of language.
As a former student in the faculty of English (F.O.E), Hanoi National University of
Education (HNUE), the researcher is well aware of the teaching and learning
situation, and some language features of English lecturers and learners in the faculty.
For this reason, English majors of the faculty, particularly English seniors, who are
believed to gain a certain competence in English use, are selected as the subjects of
the study.
2. Aims of the study and Research questions
The study is expected to fulfill the following aims:
First, the study aims to investigate the disagreement strategies used by English major
seniors at F.O.E, HNUE.

Second, the study aims to find out the most-frequently-used politeness strategies in
disagreement by English major seniors at F.O.E, HNUE.
Last but not least, the study aims to uncover the influences of power and soical
distance differences on the disagreement politeness strategy selection of English
major seniors at F.O.E, HNUE.
Subject to the aims raised above, the study seeks the answers to the following
research questions:
1. What are the types of the disagreement strategies used by Vietnamese English
seniors at F.O.E, HNUE.
2. What are the types of politeness strategies used in disagreement by Vietnamese
English seniors at F.O.E, HNUE?
3. How do power and social distance differences influence the use of politeness
strategies in disagreement by Vietnamese English seniors at F.O.E, HNUE?
3. Design of the study
This study consists of three parts:
Part I, Introduction, presents the rationale, aims, research questions, scope and design
of the study.
Part II, Development, comprises 3 chapters.
Chapter 1, Literature review, outlines the theoretical knowledge about power and
social distance, politeness strategies and disagreement
Chapter 2, Methodology, offers research approach, subjects of the study, research
instruments, and data collection procedures.
Chapter 3, Findings and discussions, provides the analysis and research findings.
Chapter 4, Conclusion, summarizes the main contents of the study, points out the
limitations of the study, and gives suggestions for future studies.
PART II: DEVELOPMENT

I.

Theoretical background
1. Overview of politeness strategies
The academic study of politeness was a new field when Leech (1977) published his
first paper on the subject-language and Tact, shortly before the introduction of a
more extensive and influential study by Brown and Levinson in 1987. In recent
years, politeness is still a topic that has been extensively studied in sociolinguistics,
and Brown and Levinson`s model of politeness (1987) undoubtedly remains one of
the most well-known in spite of some criticism. In line with many former studies, the
politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1987) is favorably used as the theoretical
framework in this paper.
The core concept of this model is face, i.e the public self-image of a person. Face
wants denotes the expectation that ones self-image is respect. Face, as Brown and
Levinson state, includes positive face and negative face. The positive face defines the
desire that the self -image be appreciated and approved of by interactants, while
negative face means the freedom of action and freedom from imposition.
Brown and Levinson (1987) also refer to the concept of face threating acts (FTAs)
as the communicative acts; by their nature, running contrary to the face wants of the
addressee and/or the speaker.
Regarding the term politeness as a pragmatic notion, according to Kasper (1991), it
refers to ways in which the relational in linguistic action is expressed. In another view,
politeness can be interpreted as a strategy, or a series of strategies, employed by
speakers aiming at the goal of promoting and maintaining harmonious relations with
other people. Meanwhile, linguistic politeness, presents the use of language to carry
out social actions where mutual face wants are respected.
In this study, five sets of politeness strategies, namely the on-record, positive
politeness, negative politeness, off-record and dont do the face-threatening act
provided by Brown & Levinson (1987) is applied for analysis.

2. Overview of disagreement
Most of the languages consist of all sorts of speech acts and of course, including
disagreements. Though continuously used, the manner of disagreeing is different in
different cultures, power relations and even in different genders.
According to Rees-Miller (2000), he defines disagrement as the speakers reaction by
a verbal or paralinguistic response to some untrue proposition uttered or presumed to
be espoused by an addresse.
Brown and Levinson (1987) simplify the definition of disagreement as they refer it
to a kind of speech acts, which threatens the addressee's negative face when
being imposed the speakers will. However, what type of speech acts disagree is
varies between authors. Sama et al (2013) summaries a list of classifications to which
disagreement is attibuted. Accordingly, disagreement can be subsumed into
commissive speech act (Austin), an act of asserting (Fraser, 1975), and a
representative act (Searle, 1976). It may be a reactive speech act stimulated by
preceding utterances (Sornig, 1977) or a conflictive speech act causing social
disharmony between/among interlocutors (Leech, 1983).
All in all, the above theories view disagreement as dispreferred , and as a form
of conflict in communication events, which 'is largely destructive for social
solidarity and threatens interlocutors face.
On the other hand, recent studies on disagreement can provide us with a different
view on this kind of speech act as they are not in favor of looking at disagreement as
an act of threatening or destroying, but as a multidimensional act which may
foster solidarity among people in their interactions. As Angouri and Locher (2012)
state, disagreement is an everyday speech act which is expected in certain
interactional practices such as problem solving and decision making. Sifianou
(2012) describes disagreement as a situated activity, interactionally managed by
interlocutors (p.4). He clarifies that this activity is multidirectional as it can affect

either or both positive and negative face of the interlocutors, and multifunctional as
it can serve various functions such as establishing hostility or solidarity.
In summary, disagreement is considered preferred or dispreferred, face-threatening or
face-enhancing. The notion of preference or dispreference depends on the context and
the nature of the communication in which it performs.
Muntigl and Turnbull (1998) suggest a taxonomy of disagreement strategies,
including five types of disagreement: irrelevancy claim, challenge, contradiction and
counterclaim and contradiction followed by counterclaim, which is flavorable in this
study.
3. Overview of politeness strategies in disagreement
Many researchers draw interest in applying the theory of politeness into the speech act
theory, and the study of pliteness strategies in disagreement is not out of their favor.
On the one hand, in the view of disagreement as negative-face threat, Brown and
Levinson (1987) propose two positive politeness strategies to avoid this threat:
1. 'Seek agreement' (e.g., by engaging in safe topics), and 2. 'Avoid disagreement'
(e.g., by using token agreement, hedging, and white lies) (p. 112113). They
additionally suggest three situations in which more direct strategies of disagreement
are preferred to less direct strategies: 1. when there is less social distance
between the speaker and addressee, 2. when the speaker has greater power than the
addressee, and 3. when the severity of disagreement is less.
Whereas, viewing disagreement as a multidimensional and multifunctional act has
led researchers to investigate the expression of this speech act in relation to the
context of interaction. They have tried to explore the possible effects of contextual
variables such as age, gender, power, solidarity, personal traits, and the degree of
formality of the interaction on the expression of disagreement. For example,
Kamisli and Dogancay-Aktunas (1996) study the discourse of power and politeness,

through the act of disagreement on native speakers of Turkish and American speakers.
They found that lower status interlocutors used more address terms than higher status
interlocutors. Although both groups made use of address terms while disagreeing with
higher status interlocutors, a thorough analysis indicated the differences in the use of
these terms between the intermediate learners and upper-intermediate learners when
speaking to a person of higher status. Farahani and Molkizadel (2013) investigate the
application of politeness strategies in disagreement by Iranian Advanced EFL
learners. The statistical analysis revealed that there was no significant difference
between the two genders with regard to the type of politeness strategies in
disagreement speech act.
4. Overview of power and social distance
Power may refer to the degree to which hearer can impose his own plan and his selfevaluation at the expense of the speakers plans and self-evaluation. It may be
obtained from the source of material control , i.e the control over economic
distribution and physical force, ormetaphysical control, i.e the control over others
actions by means of force based on social status or rank (Brown, & Levinson, 1987).
Distance may be interpreted as the assessment of frequency of interaction between
speaker and hearer, and what kind of material or non-material goods they exchange.
Social distance, in the view of Brown and Levinson (1987), is an important part of
that assessment based on stable social attributes. Social distance means the difference
in social status between the two interlocutors: equal status or unequal status.
Social distance and relative power, as.Brown and Levinson (1987) argue, are the two
factors involved in the assessment of the seriousness of the face threatening act in
addition to the ranking of imposition in particular culture . As such, they propose a
fomular to calculate the weightness of a FTA, i.e th amount and kind of politeness:
II.

Wx = D(S,H) + P(H,S) + Rx (x denotes a face threatening act).

Methodology
1. Participants

The main subjects of the study are altogether 90 English major seniors at F.O.E,
HNUE, who were born in Vietnam and have never stayed in English-speaking
countries, including 80 females and 10 males.
2. Data Collection Instruments
Two instruments are employed to obtain the research data: The English Language
Proficiency Test (TOEFL), and Discourse Completion Test (DCT).
The English Language Proficiency Test is used to assure the homogeneity of the
student group in terms of their English proficiency. This test includes fifty listening
comprehension questions, forty structure and vocabulary questions, and fifty multiple
choice items with five reading comprehension texts and a essay writing. Each section
is respectively assigned to 25, 20, 25 and 30 points, and the overall score is one
hundred.
The subjects are requested to give response to the English version of the Discourse
Completion Test (DCT). In this case, the DCT is a form of questionnaire describing
some five scenerios of social interaction, such as teacher student, parent - child
manager clerk, friend friend , and husband - wife conversations with a variety
of topics and types of situations to avoid intervening effects of topic selection. The
respondents are expected to react, making disagreement.
3.

Data Collection Procedure

Prior to the actual data collection, the situations in the original studies are radically
modified and adapted to suit the Vietnamese context. The modified form of the DCT
is given to two professors for validation. Their suggestions and observations are well
taken into consideration in designing the final form of the DCT. For further validation,
the DCT may be piloted on ten subjects not included in the sample to see if the
language was comprehensible for EFL learners, and based on their opinion, a few
changes may be made. After this stage, an English language proficiency test is given
to the participants. The participants, whose score were between 65 and 80 (or maybe a

little above), considered upper-intermediates, are selected as respondants of the study,

and the students whose score are below 65 are sacked from the study. After a week
interval, a DCT is administrated to the selected students. If the responses are
incomplete or misunderstood, they are omitted. The researcher will be available
during the questionnaire administration to provide assistance.
4. Data Analysis Procedure
The participants' responses will be analyzed in three steps.First, invalid responses to
DCT are discarded and the total number of valid responses are determined. In the
second step, when identifying the utterances of disagreement from the responses, the
taxonomy from Muntigl and Turnbull (1998), which recognizes five types of
disagreement is applied for analysis of disagreement realizations. In the last step. the
theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987is employed for analysis of
politeness strategies.
III.

Findings and discussions

This section presents the findings of the analysis of the collected data to find out the
answers to the research questions of the study: the types and of disagreement
strategies used, the types of politeness strategies employed and the relationship
between power and soial distance differences and polieness strategies in

IV.

disagreement.
Implications
In this section, some recommendations for the application of the findings of the study
to the English language teaching or translation may be made by the researcher.
V.
CONCLUSION
This part gives the summary of the main points of the research, points out some
limitations or difficulties made during the study, and recommends the topic the
further study.