Abstract
When it comes to learning a second language (L2), learners have already possessed and usually bring with them the native speaker’s knowledge of their first language(s) and culture. The influence of the first language (L1) and culture on L2 use is described in technical terms as pragmatic and discourse transfer. This investigation is an in-depth study of pragmatic and discourse transfer of combination of compliment response (CR) strategies in the way Vietnamese learners of English communicate with Australians. Results are as yet unknown patterns of transfer. What distinguishes the present study from previous ones of its kind is the application of my new methodology - the Naturalized Role-play (Tran, 2004d, 2006a, 2006b). Moreover, in the history of this field, this study is the first one which investigates Australian English and Vietnamese compliment responses (CRs) as well as CRs by Vietnamese learners of English in cross-cultural interaction with Australians.
Key Words: Pragmatic and discourse transfer, cross-cultural differences
Research Aims and Background
Pragmatic and discourse transfer (i.e. the first linguistic and cultural influence on L2 learning and usage) has fascinated researchers because its nature has never been fully understood. Based on my new methodology - the Naturalized Role-play (Tran, 2004a; 2004d; 2006a; 2006b), the aim of this study is to investigate pragmatic and discourse transfer of how CR strategies are combined in a CR from Vietnamese into English. The study also aims to contribute to the field pioneering research findings about CRs in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics ii in comparison with Vietnamese and Australian English CRs.
Knowledge of pragmatic and discourse transfer is significant because, as opposed to children learning their L1, adult L2 learners rarely receive explicit input on the appropriateness and politeness of their L2 language use from adult native speakers (NSs). Witten (2002) argued that L2 pragmatics is acquired in the same way as L1 pragmatics. Accordingly, input on L2 pragmatics is as necessary as that on L1 pragmatics. However, children are usually taught politeness strategies as it has long been realized that they need to be (Gleason, 1980; Gleason et al., 1984) whereas adult L2 learners are not. Because norms of appropriateness and politeness vary across cultures (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Held, 1989; Tran, 2002b), pragmatic and discourse transfer may lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication.
This study focuses on CRs by the Vietnamese and Australians because there have been no existing pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics studies of native Vietnamese CRs in comparison with native Australian English ones. In English, CRs have been studied by Pomerantz (1978) for American English, Herbert (1986) for American English, South African English and British English, Herbert and Straight (1989) for American English and South African English, Herbert (1991) for American English and Polish, Holmes (1986) for New Zealand English, Chen (1993) for American English and Chinese, Cordella et al. (1995) for Australian English, etc. “However, studies based on non-Western languages are scarce” (Farghal and Al-Khatib, 2001, p. 1486). Moreover, none of the existing CR studies so far has focused on Vietnamese CRs, still less a comparison between Vietnamese and Australian English CRs. Therefore, this study was intended to supplement cross-cultural pragmatics research with Vietnamese CRs in comparison with Australian English ones.
Moreover, this investigation examines for the first time pragmatic and discourse transfer in CRs in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics. Pragmatic and discourse transfer in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics was studied in the communicative act iii of complaining (Tran, 2002b) but has never been examined in the communicative act of replying to compliments thus far (except for Tran’s study, 2004d; 2006a). On another important note, most previous cross-cultural studies (e.g. Baba, 1999; Jeon, 1996; Liu, 1995; Yu, 1999; Yuan, 1996; etc.) on pragmatic and discourse transfer in CRs were based on American English as the target language. In this study, Australian English was chosen to be the L2, which also added a new feature to the literature on pragmatic and discourse transfer in CRs.
With reference to the literature iv on pragmatic and discourse transfer in replying to compliments, previous studies (Baba, 1999; Golembeski and Yuan, 1995; Jeon, 1996; Liu, 1995; Saito and Beecken, 1997; Yu, 1999; Yuan, 1996) yielded conflicting results as to whether or not there is pragmatic and discourse transfer in L2 learners’ CRs. Given the contradictory literature on pragmatic and discourse transfer in CRs, this study aims to shed new light on this phenomenon in terms of combination of CR strategies.
Research Questions
This study aims at answering the following research questions:
1) Is there pragmatic and discourse transfer of strategy combination in the communicative act of responding to compliments by Vietnamese speakers of English as a second language at the advanced level of proficiency in cross-cultural interaction with NSs of Australian English?
2) If there is transfer, which strategy combination is transferred?
The first research question is answered through the investigation of the following two assumptions:
- There are significant differences in strategy use (specifically strategy combination) in responding to compliments by Australian NSs and by Vietnamese speakers of English as a second language.
- These differences can be accounted for by the similarities in strategy combination in responding to compliments by Vietnamese speakers of English as a second language and by Vietnamese NSs.
If these two assumptions are confirmed, a positive answer can be offered to the first research question. Because it is impossible to answer the question: “Is there pragmatic and discourse transfer” without knowing “What is transferred?”, these questions are considered and answered simultaneously in data analysis.
Methodology
Data collection
Participants
Participants in this study fell into two categories including role-play informants and role-play conductors. All participants gave consent for their data to be used for research purposes by signing in the consent form prior to data collection.
Naturalized Role-play informants
The major source of data for this research project comes from the Naturalized Role-play. There were sixty role-play informants who were Australian English NSs, Vietnamese NSs and Vietnamese speakers of English as an L2 in Australia. All of them were university students, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty-one years. So they showed homogeneity in terms of age, education and profession. Following are details of the role-play informants.
- The English group (E group) included 20 NSs of Australian English in Melbourne, Australia. There were 10 male and 10 female informants in this group. These informants provided the baseline data on CRs in Australian English.
- The Vietnamese group (V group) consisted of 20 NSs of Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City and My Tho, Vietnam. 10 of them were men and the other 10 were women. They gave the baseline data on CRs in Vietnamese.
- The group of Vietnamese learners of English (VE group) was composed of 20 Vietnamese international university students in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. The number of men and women in this group was equally 10. They provided the NNS data on CRs in English.
Role-play conductors
There were ten role-play conductors including six Australian English NSs (three men and three women) and four Vietnamese NSs (two men and two women). They role-played with informants of the same gender. Australian English speaking conductors role-played in English with Australian English NSs and with Vietnamese speakers of English in Australia, which means each of them conducted role-plays with two to three E role-play informants and two to three VE role-play informants. Vietnamese speaking role-play conductors role-played in Vietnamese with Vietnamese NSs in Vietnam, which means each of them conducted role-plays with five V informants.
In this study, the Naturalized Role-play vi is the main tool of data collection providing the major corpus of data for analysis. The Naturalized Role-play (Tran, 2004a, 2004d, 2006a, 2006b) is a new methodology I created for my doctoral research from which this article stems. This methodology has proven to be an effective means of resolving the lasting controversy that the methodological issue vii in this field has engendered.
At the core of the Naturalized Role-play is the idea of eliciting spontaneous data in controlled settings. In the Naturalized Role-play, informants are not aware of the research focus during their role-play performance. They are conscious of being observed and studied in the whole procedure but not in the moments when they provide spontaneous data on a communicative act in focus.
The process of the Naturalized Role-play is demonstrated in the situational description and notes to participants in Appendix A. The description of the Naturalized Role-play situations and the cards given to Vietnamese informants were translated into Vietnamese.
In the present study, each informant participating in the Naturalized Role-play produced four CRs to compliments on skill, possession, appearance and clothing. The total number of CRs collected was eighty CRs in English by Australian English NSs, eighty CRs in Vietnamese by Vietnamese NSs and eighty CRs in English by Vietnamese speakers of English.
Data analysis
Data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. In the qualitative analysis, CR data was coded according to the strategies selected to reply to compliments. The qualitative analysis was based on the content of CRs. In the quantitative analysis, the frequency of occurrence of CR strategy combination patterns was calculated to show the numeric differences between CR strategy combination in English and in Vietnamese as well as the similarities in CR strategy combination in Vietnamese and in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics.
Findings and discussion
This section presents results of data analysis and answers to the research questions stated above.
The qualitative analysis of the semantic formulas and content of the CRs in this investigation resulted in a new framework of CR categories. This framework consists of two continua of CR strategies: the continuum of CR strategies from acceptance to denial strategies and the continuum of avoidance strategies (See Appendix B). 
Differences in the combination of CR strategies between the VE and E groups
Detailed analysis of the content of Naturalized Role-play CR data from the VE and E groups yielded some different patterns of strategy combination. The following are the differences in terms of CR strategy combination between the VE and the E groups.
“Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade”
In the VE group, “Disagreement” often occurred with “Compliment Downgrade” as in examples (1) and (2). The frequency of occurrence of this type of strategy combination is relatively high in the VE Naturalized Role-play data. Out of the total of twenty-five “Disagreements” in the VE data, eleven “Disagreements” were used with “Compliment Downgrades”.
(1) EFCviii2: Very nice car actually.
VEFIix8: Oh I don’t think so. Uhm It’s very cheap. It’s alright but sometimes it has problems.
In example (1), the “Disagreement” (“I don’t think so”) was followed by two “Compliment Downgrades” (“It’s very cheap. It’s alright but sometimes it has problems”) which downplayed the object of the compliment.
(2) EMCx1: Nice looking car.
VEMIxi4: Heh heh. Oh no. It’s just a normal car.
In example (2), the “Disagreement Token” (“No”) co-occurred with a “Compliment Downgrade” (“It’s just a normal car”) which qualified the compliment assertion.
In English, however, no occurrence of the “Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade” combination was found. “Disagreement” or “Compliment Downgrade” also rarely occurred among the English data. When the strategy of “Compliment Downgrade” occurred as in example (3), it was used with “Appreciation Token”.
(3) EMC3: That’s a nice suit you’re wearing.
EMIxii8: Thank you. Not much I think.
“Appreciation Token” and other strategies
The combination of “Appreciation Token” and other strategies exhibited another pattern. In the VE data, “Appreciation Token” occurred less than in the E data (i.e. 19 “Appreciation Tokens” in the VE data versus 49 ones in the E data). When “Appreciation Token” occurred in VE CRs, it was often by itself whereas in E CRs, it was usually used with other strategies such as “Agreement”, “Return”, “Explanation”, etc. Statistical data about the combination of “Appreciation Token” and other strategies supported the above-mentioned difference between the VE and the E groups. In the VE data, only four out of the total number of nineteen “Appreciation Tokens” (i.e. 21.05%) were used with other strategies. In the E data, twenty-eight out of forty-nine “Appreciation Tokens” (i.e. 57.14%) were used with other strategies. The following are some examples.
Appreciation Token in VE data:
(4)EMC1: It’s a really nice shirt you’re wearing.
VEMI2: Thanks.
Or
(EFC3 was referring to VEFI10’s car)
(5)EFC3: It’s beautiful.
VEFI10: Thank you.
Appreciation Token and Return in E data:
(6) EFC1: You’re looking good.
EFIxiii2: Thanks. So are you.
The combination of “Appreciation Token” and “Return” as in example (6) was found mostly in female E CR data.
Appreciation Token and Explanation in E data:
(7) EMC2: I like your tie. It suits you well.
EMI4: Thanks.Mom bought it for me. She likes to buy me nice ties now and again.
In the above example, the “Appreciation Token” was followed by two “Explanations” (“Mom bought it for me. She likes to buy me nice ties now and again”).
The strategy that was used the most often in combination with “Appreciation Token” in the VE data was “Compliment Downgrade”, which was a strategy towards the denial end on the acceptance to denial continuum of CR strategies. Three out of four “Appreciation tokens” that occurred in a strategy combination in the VE data were used with “Compliment Downgrades”. Example (8) illustrates this type of strategy combination.
(8) EMC2: I just uhm I just read your article you published last week. I thought it was excellent.
VEMI5: Oh really? Thanks about that but I do think it’s just OK.
In this example, after the “(Doubting) Question” (“Oh really?”), the appreciation “Thanks about that” was combined with a “Compliment Downgrade” (“But I do think it’s just OK”).
The strategies with which “Appreciation Tokens” were often combined in the E data were “Agreement”, which is a strategy towards the acceptance end on the acceptance to denial continuum of CR strategies, “Return” and “Explanation”. Specifically, the ratio of occurrence of “Appreciation Tokens” and “Agreements” to the total number of “Appreciation Tokens” in the E data was eight to forty nine. The ratio of occurrence of “Appreciation Tokens” in combination with “Returns” to the total number of “Appreciation Tokens” was also eight to forty nine and that with “Explanation” was six to forty nine. Examples (6) and (7) illustrate the combination of “Appreciation Token” and “Return” as well as the combination of “Appreciation Token” and “Explanation” respectively in the E CRs. Example (9) demonstrates the combination of “Appreciation Token” and “Agreement” in the E data.
(9) EMC3: I like your car. It’s very good.
EMI8: Oh yeah, thanks. It’s not bad.
In example (9), the “Appreciation Token” (“Thanks”) was used with the full “Agreement” consisting of the agreement token (“Yeah”) and the scaled-down agreement (“It’s not bad”).
“Return” by itself or preceded by “Appreciation Token”
Another difference in strategy combination in the VE and the E data is the use of “Return” by itself or with an “Appreciation Token” before it. In the VE data, “Return” occurred only once and it was used in isolation.
(10) EFC2: OK. Oh. That’s a very nice dress.
VEFI6: (Laughter). Actually your dress looks much nicer.
In the E data, however, there were ten “Returns” and only two of them occurred by themselves whereas eight of them followed “Appreciation Tokens”.
(11) EFC2: You’re looking really good.
EFI6: Thanks. You, too.
It was noticeable in examples (10) and (11) that the way the “Return” was formed by the E informant differed from that by the VE informant. While the E informant’s “Return” was the paying back of the same compliment to the complimenter, the VE informant’s “Return” consisted of a comparison between the complimentee’s object of compliment and that of the complimenter. Such a comparison is often heard in Vietnamese “Returns”. It is often made in order to assert a stronger complimentary force in return to the complimenter.
Combination of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial continuum
The important finding about the combination of strategies in the VE and E data is that in the English data, strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum, (e.g. “Return”, “Explanation”, “Reassignment”), were often used with strategies at the acceptance end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation Token”) whereas in the data by Vietnamese speakers of English, strategies in the middle of this continuum were often combined with strategies at the denial end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”).
Specifically, in English, “Return” was used most often with “Appreciation Token”. Eight out of the total number of ten “Returns” in the E data co-occurred with “Appreciation Tokens”. When being in a combination in the English CRs, “Explanation” was used the most frequently with “Agreement”, “Appreciation Token” and sometimes with “Compliment Upgrade”. The use of the “Explanation” strategy occurred fifteen times in the E data and it was in combination with “Agreement” eight times, with “Appreciation Token” six times, and with “Compliment Upgrade” once. Moreover, there were four instances of use of “Reassignment” in the E data. One “Reassignment” was combined with “Agreement” and another with “Appreciation Token”.
When occurring in a combination of strategies in CRs by Vietnamese speakers of English, “Explanation” and “Reassignment” were combined the most frequently with “Compliment Downgrade” and “Disagreement”. “Return” occurred only once and it was not used in combination with any other strategy. Being used ten times in total, “Explanation” was combined with “Compliment Downgrade” four times, with “Disagreement” twice and by itself three times. In addition, the use of “Reassignment” occurred six times. It co-occurred with “Compliment Downgrade” three times and with “Disagreement” four times.
The following are some examples showing the differences in the combination of CR strategies along the acceptance to denial continuum in the E and the VE data.
An example of the combination of “Explanation” and “Compliment Upgrade” in English:
(12) EMC2: Hey you’ve got a nice car.
EMI5: Yeah. Uhm well I just bought this car a few months ago. And yeah I was fortunate to have a car like this.
In (12), the “Explanation” (“I just bought this car a few months ago”) was combined with a “Compliment Upgrade” (“I just bought this car a few months ago”) and an “Agreement” which was expressed through “Agreement Tokens” (“Yeah”, “Yeah”).
An example of the combination of “Explanation” and “Compliment Downgrade” in the data by Vietnamese speakers of English:
(13) EMC2: You’ve got a really nice car.
VEMI6: Well uhm just a second hand one. I bought it last week. It’s quite cheap, only uhm two thousand Australian dollars.
The “Explanation” (“I bought it last week”) in (13) was used with “Compliment Downgrades” (“Just a second hand one” and “It’s quite cheap, only uhm 2000 Australian dollars”).
An example of the combination of “Reassignment”, “Explanation” and “Agreement” in English:
(14) EMC3: I like your suit as well.
EMI7: Yeah. Yeah. It’s actually not mine. It’s actually my dad’s. I haven’t had one.
The “Agreement”, which was expressed through “Agreement Tokens” (“Yeah. Yeah”), preceded the “Reassignment” (“It’s actually not mine. It’s actually my dad’s”), which reassigned the credit of the compliment to an absent third person, and a further “Explanation” (“I haven’t had one”).
An example of the combination of “Explanation” and “Disagreement” in the data by Vietnamese speakers of English:
(15) EMC3: That’s a nice jumper you’re wearing. I like that.
VEMI10: I just bought it in the mall. It’s not so nice.
The “Disagreement” (“It’s not so nice”) was used in combination with the “Explanation” (“I just bought it in the mall”).
So a noticeable difference in the way CR strategies are combined in English and in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics is that strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum are usually combined with those at the acceptance end by English NSs but are often used with those at the denial end by Vietnamese speakers of English.
Similarities in the combination of CR strategies between the VE and V groups
Close analysis of Naturalized Role-play data from the VE and V groups revealed similar patterns of strategy combination that can explain the differences in strategy combination between the VE and the E groups. In that way, the following points of similarity in terms of strategy combination between the VE and V CRs provide evidence of pragmatic and discourse transfer.
“Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade”
As stated above, the combination of “Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade” was often found in the VE data but it was not recorded in the E data. In the V data, this combination was also commonly found as in the following examples.
(16) VMCxiv1: Ê có cái áo sơ mi mới phải không? Trời ơi áo này đẹp ghê nghe.
“Hey, got a new shirt? Gosh it looks good”.
VMIxv1: Có đâu anh ơi. Áo này cũ mặc luôn ấy mà.
“It’s not good. It’s just an old shirt”.
In (16), the “Disagreement” (“It’s not good”) co-occurred with a “Compliment Downgrade” (“It’s just an old shirt”) which downplayed the object of the compliment.
(17) VFCxvi2: Chậc chậc. Cái áo của bạn thiệt là hết sẩy.
“Wow. Your dress is really fancy”.
VFIxvii9: Đâu có. Coi vậy chứ mình hàng dỏm lắm. Giá cũng rẻ rề hà.
“It’s not. It looks like that but the material is very bad. The price is
also very cheap”.
The “Disagreement” (“It’s not”) in (17) co-occurred with two “Compliment Downgrades” (“It looks like that but the material is very bad. The price is also very cheap”).
(18) VMC1: Ủa mà xe anh đó hả? Trời ơi xe đẹp quá há. Xe xịn ghê đó nhe.
“Oh is it your motorbike? Gosh it’s cool. It’s very good”.
VMI4: Ưm cũng chẳng xịn gì đâu. Cũng bình thường thôi.
“Uhm it’s not good. It’s just normal”.
In (18), the “Disagreement” (“It’s not good”) preceded the “Compliment Downgrade” (“It’s just normal”) which qualified the praise force.
The ratio of occurrence of “Disagreement” with “Compliment Downgrade” to the total number of “Disagreements” in the V data is ten to twenty seven, which is closely similar to this ratio in the VE data (i.e. 11 to 25). The way “Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade” were used in Vietnamese also resembled the way they were used in English by Vietnamese speakers. A comparison of examples (16), (17) & (18) of Vietnamese CRs and the examples (19) & (20) of CRs in English by Vietnamese informants justifies this observation.
(19) EMC1: Oh nice jumper you wear in there. You look stylish today.
VEMI4: Oh no. It’s cheap anyway though. Heh heh heh.
or
(20) EFC2: It’s a really nice car.
VEFI6: Oh no. It looks like that but actually it has a lot of problems.
The difference between the VE and E data as well as the similarity between the VE and V data concerning the use of “Compliment Downgrade” and “Agreement” combination showed another example of pragmatic and discourse transfer in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics.
“Appreciation Token” and other strategies
Another difference in the co-occurrence of strategies among the VE and E data was that “Appreciation Token” often co-occurred with other strategies (e.g. “Agreement”, “Return” and “Explanation”) in the E data but often occurred by itself or with “Compliment Downgrade” in the VE data. Pragmatic and discourse transfer can account for that because when “Appreciation Token” occurred among the V data, which was rare (i.e. four “Appreciation Tokens” in total), it was also by itself (one occurrence), with a “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement” or “Doubting Question” (one occurrence per each type of combination).
Example of the use of “Appreciation Token” by itself in the V data:
(21) VFC1: A VFI5xviii, hôm bữa VFC1xixcó nghe thầy nói là VFI5 có cái bài đăng trên tờ tạp chí trong khoa đó, kế VFC1 có tìm VFC1 đọc. VFC1 thấy bài đó VFI5 viết hay quá trời. Thấy nể quá!
“Ah, VFI5, I heard from our lecturer that you had a paper published in the departmental journal. I looked for it to read. I found it so well-written. It’s admirable!”
VFI5: Ồ cám ơn VFC1 há.
“Oh thank you”.
Example of the use of “Appreciation Token” and “Disagreement” in the V data:
(22) VFC2: Ê kỳ tuần rồi đó mình đọc cái bài báo. Trời ơi mình thấy bài của VFI7 đăng. Bài viết hay dễ dễ sợ luôn.
“Hey last week I read a journal. Gosh I found your article. It’s very
very good”.
VFI7:Hổng có gì. Cám ơn bạn nhiều.
“It’s not. Thank you very much”.
In Vietnamese, “Appreciation Token” was not combined with the same strategies (e.g. “Agreement”, “Return” and “Explanation”) as in English. As a result, “Appreciation Token” in VE CRs was not used with such strategies. Since both the VE and the V data showed the combination of “Appreciation Token” and “Compliment Downgrade”, such patterns of combination demonstrated pragmatic and discourse transfer. Moreover, Vietnamese speakers combined “Appreciation Token” with other strategies in their English CRs much less frequently than English NSs did probably because the former rarely used “Appreciation Token” in Vietnamese. That can also be associated with pragmatic and discourse transfer.
“Return” by itself instead of being preceded by “Appreciation Token”
In the V data, there were only three “Returns” in total. “Return” occurred by itself twice and with “Compliment Downgrade” once. That explained why “Return” also occurred by itself and less frequently in the VE data compared to the E data (i.e. one “Return” by itself in the VE data versus ten “Returns” including eight ones in combination with “Appreciation Tokens” in the E data). Therefore, the use of “Return” by the VE group is another example of pragmatic and discourse transfer. “Returns” are similar in the VE and V data both in terms of the occurrence of “Return” by itself and in terms of its content. Examples of the similarity of a “Return” in Vietnamese in the V data to a “Return” in English in the VE data are (10) and (27).
Combination of CR strategies on the acceptance to denial continuum
The most striking finding about the combination of strategies in the VE and V data is that both in the V and the VE data, as opposed to the E data, strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum, (e.g. “Return”, “Explanation”, “Reassignment”), were often combined with strategies at the denial end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”).
Specifically, there were three “Returns” in the V data. “Return” occurred by itself twice and with “Compliment Downgrade” once. Out of twenty-four “Explanations” in the V data, fifteen were by themselves. When it occurred in combination with other strategies, “Explanation” was used the most frequently with “Disagreement” (four times) and less frequently with “Compliment Downgrade” (once). Moreover, among seven instances of use of “Reassignment” in the V data, “Reassignment” was combined the most often with “Disagreement”. “Reassignment” co-occurred with “Disagreement” four times and with “Compliment Downgrade” once. So like VE data, V data showed that except when strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum occurred by itself, they were usually in combination with strategies at the denial end of the continuum. The following examples illustrate the similarities in strategy combination between the VE and V data, which account for the differences in strategy combination between the VE and E data.
As found in the VE data, the same combination of “Explanation” and “Compliment Downgrade” was found in Vietnamese [c.f. example (13) of this combination in the VE data].
(23) VMC2: Hời ơi ngưỡng mộ anh VMI6 lắm nhe. Hôm bữa ơ đọc cái bài viết của anh đăng trên báo của khoa đó. Trời ơi cái bài đó hay ghê vậy đó.
“My goodness I really admire you. Uhm I read your article in
the departmental journal the other day. Gosh that paper was
really good”.
(24) VMI6: Mình nghĩ cũng bình thường thôi. Ơm cái ý đó là xuất phát từ cái hòan cảnh thực tế, mình ghi lên báo. Thế thôi.
“I think it’s just normal. Uhm that idea came from reality and I
wrote about it in the article. That’s it”.
In this combination, the “Compliment Downgrade” (“I think it’s just normal”) preceded the “Explanation” (“That idea came from reality and I wrote about it in the article. That’s it”).
Like the VE data, V data also exhibited the pattern of “Explanation” and “Disagreement” combination [c.f. example (15) of this combination in the VE data].
(25) VFC1: Trời ơi mặc áo đầm đẹp quá!
“Gosh what a beautiful dress you’re wearing!”
VFI6: Đẹp gì! (Cườixx). Mới mua đó (Cười)
“It’s not beautiful! (Smile). I just bought it (Smile)”.
The “Explanation” (“I just bought it”) in (25) followed the “Disagreement” (“It’s not beautiful”).
The combination of CR strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum with those at the left end of it in the E data contrasted with the combination of strategies in the middle of the continuum with those at the right end of it in the VE and V data. However, the way strategies were combined in the VE and V data was the same. This exemplified pragmatic and discourse transfer in the way strategies were combined in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics.
Patterns of pragmatic and discourse transferxxi
Evidence of pragmatic and discourse transfer of combination of CR strategies indeed fell into patterns. The Vietnamese-English interlanguage patterns of CR strategy combination differ greatly from the English pattern but resemble the Vietnamese ones. CR strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum, (e.g. “Return”, “Explanation”, “Reassignment”), often occur with those at the acceptance end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation Token”), in (Australian) English whereas strategies in the middle of the continuum are often combined with those at the denial end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”), in Vietnamese. As a result, Vietnamese speakers of English transferred these Vietnamese patterns of CR strategy combination into their CRs in English.
Conclusion
In conclusion, pragmatic and discourse transfer was evident in the way strategies were combined in VE informants’ CRs. It was significantly different from the way strategies were combined in English CRs but closely resembled how Vietnamese speakers combined CR strategies. The CR strategy combinations that were found to be transferred from Vietnamese into Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics included “Disagreement” and “Compliment Downgrade”, “Appreciation Token” by itself or with “Compliment Downgrade”, “Return” by itself, and strategies in the middle of the acceptance to denial continuum occurring with strategies at the denial end of the continuum, (e.g. “Compliment Downgrade” and “Disagreement”).
In addition to the findings herein, further evidence and more patterns of pragmatic and discourse transfer led to my formulation of the CR Continuum Hypothesis and account for cross-cultural differences on the basis of universality (Tran, 2004d, 2006a, 2007a).
This study has yielded original findings about pragmatic and discourse transfer of combination of CR strategies in Vietnamese-English interlanguage pragmatics. These findings contribute to current knowledge of pragmatic and discourse transfer and, accordingly, effective cross-cultural interaction.
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