A cross – cultural perspective of speech acts and its application to EFL classrooms

This study provides some insights into the use of speech acts by Vietnamese EFL learners from a cross-cultural perspective. It is suggested that the influence of culture has resulted in students’ common failures to understand and perform English speech acts. To minimize this kind of pragmatic failure, it is recommended that EFL teachers raise students’ awareness of some cultural issues in cross-cultural communication. Furthermore, it is necessary to incorporate speech acts into English language teaching with authentic input and lifelike communicative activities.
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A cross – cultural perspective of speech acts and its application to EFL classrooms AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> A CROSS – CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE OF SPEECH ACTS AND ITS APPLICATION<br /> TO EFL CLASSROOMS<br /> <br /> Nguyen Thi Nhat Minh1<br /> 1<br /> An Giang University, VNU - HCM<br /> <br /> Information: ABSTRACT<br /> Received: 16/01/2019<br /> Speech acts, the actions performed by utterances, play an important role in<br /> Accepted: 02/05/2019<br /> communication, particularly verbally. Speech act performance requires not<br /> Published: 11/2019<br /> only knowledge of the language, but also knowledge about the appropriate<br /> Keywords: use of that language in a certain situation within a particular culture. As a<br /> Cross-cultural perspective, result, cultural awareness constitutes an integral part of this important area<br /> illocutionary force, of pragmatics. This study provides some insights into the use of speech acts<br /> performative verbs, speech by Vietnamese EFL learners from a cross-cultural perspective. It is<br /> acts, utterances<br /> suggested that the influence of culture has resulted in students’ common<br /> failures to understand and perform English speech acts. To minimize this<br /> kind of pragmatic failure, it is recommended that EFL teachers raise<br /> students’ awareness of some cultural issues in cross-cultural<br /> communication. Furthermore, it is necessary to incorporate speech acts into<br /> English language teaching with authentic input and lifelike communicative<br /> activities.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 1. INTRODUCTION cultural perspective, and to explore some<br /> In order to achieve successful communication pedagogical issues related to common<br /> in a foreign language, people are required to pragmatic failure in terms of performance of<br /> understand what the speaker is saying and know English speech from which teachers of English<br /> how to respond appropriately. In can get some useful tools for their teaching.<br /> communication, people not only say things 2. AN OVERVIEW OF SPEECH ACT<br /> containing grammatical structures and words, THEORY<br /> but also perform actions via those utterances, Since introduced by Austin (1962) and further<br /> namely speech acts. However, for most developed by Searle (1969), the theory of<br /> language learners, it is difficult to understand speech acts has been growing over time with<br /> the intended meaning communicated by speech the contribution of numerous scholars. Within<br /> acts, or to produce a speech act appropriately in its scope, this paper presents some basic<br /> the target language because of the close tie concepts of speech acts, including definition of<br /> between speech acts and culture. This paper speech acts, the performative hypothesis and<br /> aims to present an overview of speech act speech act taxonomy.<br /> theory, to examine speech acts from a cross-<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> 53<br /> AGU International Journal of Sciences – 2019, Vol. 7 (1), 53 – 59<br /> <br /> 2.1 Definition of speech acts and three Yule (1996) also emphasized that of these three<br /> related acts dimensions, the most worthy discussed item is<br /> Yule (1996) defined speech acts as the actions illocutionary force. Indeed, the term “speech<br /> performed by utterances, and in English, these acts” is generally interpreted narrowly to mean<br /> actions are generally labelled as apology, only the illocutionary force of an utterance.<br /> complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or However, it is quite problematic that the same<br /> request, for instance, “Raise your hand!” utterance can potentially have different<br /> (request), “I’ll call you tonight,” (promise), illocutionary forces, for example, ‘I’ll see you<br /> “The tea is too cold.” (complaint) (p.48) later’ can be interpreted as a promise or a<br /> warning. How can speakers assume that the<br /> Cohen (2006) offered a similar definition that<br /> intended illocutionary force will be recognized<br /> speech acts are often (but not always) patterned,<br /> by the hearer? That question has been addressed<br /> routinized utterances that speakers use to<br /> by considering the Illocutionary Force<br /> perform language functions, such as thanking,<br /> Indicating Devic ...