Politeness Strategies in Thai Graduate Research Paper Discussions: Implications for Second/Foreign Language Academic Writing

Getkham, Kunyarut

doi:10.5539/elt.v7n11p159

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…A number of literature reviews were conducted, research on language politeness was conducted by. Research conducted by [2]) in Thailand reveals that someone who asks politely will tend to get polite answers to the questions they ask. These findings support the statement [3] in Canada.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realization of politeness in Ermato Tolantang Sansai novel

Ismail¹,

Nurizati²,

Azmi³

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Language, Literature and Education, ICLLE 2019, 22-23 Aug

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The purpose of this study is to provide a description of the realization of politeness in Ermanto Tolantang's novel Sansai in expressing the principle of courtesy in the use of language. This research is a qualitative descriptive study which is the object of this research is a form of speech in the form of the polite maxim in the novel Sansai by Ermanto Tolantang. Collecting data in this study by grouping using polite maximal analysis tables. The results of the discussion can be concluded that the realization of politeness in the novel Sansai by Ermanto Tolantang uses the principle of courtesy, namely Maximum Wisdom (Tact Maxim) totaling twelve data, Generosity Maxim totaling eight data, Appreciation Maxim seven data, Maxims of modesty seven data, Maximum praise of seven (Data) hearts (Modesty Maxim) nine data Maksim agreement (Agreement Maxim) sixteen data and Maksim sympathy (Sympathy Maxim) eleven data. So the data most often found in the realization of politeness in Ermanto Tolantang's Sansai novel is an agreement maxim. This result shows the use of courtesy in 63 Ermanto Tolantang's novels of Sansai and is included in the "good enough".

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Realization of politeness in Ermato Tolantang Sansai novel

Ismail¹,

Nurizati²,

Azmi³

et al. 2019

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Language, Literature and Education, ICLLE 2019, 22-23 Aug

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“…The analysis of textual and interpersonal subcategories demonstrates that transition markers and hedges are the most predominant metadiscourse features in New Zealand and Thai theses and make the largest contribution to the density of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse in this study. The heavy use of the two subcategories in thesis writing is similar to Mirshamsi and Allami's (2013) knowledge that research writing, particularly in discussion and conclusion parts, is more than presenting certain facts but also opinions or unproved justification towards key findings (Ädel & Erman, 2012;Getkham 2014;Hyland, 2004). The hedging strategy can be seen as a cautious way in which novice research students show their attempt to give plausible reasons for their findings and also their awareness of some limitations restraining them not to overstate the findings and reasoning.…”

Section: Chapter Summarymentioning

confidence: 57%

“…The academic writing instruction in this context only focuses on textual features, coherence and cohesion, leading to Thai teachers' and students' greater familiarity with the concept of coherence and cohesion than interpersonal features in academic writing. Moreover, Thai students have been taught to write academic texts like research articles and theses in a very formal and impersonal way but are rarely taught to politely engage with readers in the texts (Getkham, 2014). The Thai informants mentioned that even though some students are conscious that it is more acceptable than in the past to include interpersonal features such as self-mentions and engagement markers in academic texts, they still favour the traditional style of academic writing because they are concerned that other readers who take a traditional approach to writing may find such interpersonal markers inappropriate to be included in the theses.…”

Section: Chapter Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As discussed in the Methodology Chapter, although should has both epistemic and deontic modal meanings (Coates, 1987), this study included only the one denoting epistemic necessity of a proposition. The high incidence of should in the Thai corpus can be explained by its pragmatic function; it not only literally expresses students' evaluation of necessity of propositions but also shows their politeness to mitigate confrontation with readers (Getkham, 2014). May appears to be the most prominent hedging marker in many studies (Hardjanto, 2016;Nguyen Thi Thuy, 2018) because of its overt epistemic meaning of tentativeness and possibility and its frequent appearance in the academic genre rather than other genres (Coates, 1987).…”

Section: Types Of Interpersonal Markersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As for attitude markers, New Zealand students are more likely to make greater use of lower frequency attitude markers when compared to Thai students. Thai students have a heavy reliance on a small cluster of attitude markers and do not make frequent use of the attitude markers to express their personal sentiments in theses (Getkham, 2014). Important, interesting, valuable, and significant are the most salient attitude markers which are shared across the four subcorpora.…”

Section: Types Of Interpersonal Markersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Metadiscourse in postgraduate writing

Prommas¹

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<p>This thesis investigates metadiscourse in master’s theses and the relationship between metadiscourse frequencies and quality of thesis writing. Metadiscourse has been a major research focus in various genres and contexts, but only a small proportion of this work has compared metadiscourse in postgraduate writing across educational contexts and disciplines. While previous studies of metadiscourse have reported a positive correlation between metadiscourse frequencies and writing quality, all of these studies focused on undergraduate writing. Little is known about the relationship between metadiscourse frequencies and quality of thesis writing. This thesis includes two main studies to address the gaps in literature. Study 1 examined use of metadiscourse (i.e., frequencies, types, and functions) in master’s thesis discussion and conclusion chapters written in English by New Zealand and Thai postgraduates in the disciplines of English language teaching and business administration. Four subcorpora with a total of 116 thesis samples were compiled: 26 New Zealand students’ theses in English language teaching (NZ-ELT), 30 New Zealand students’ theses in business administration (NZ-BA), 30 Thai students’ theses in English language teaching (TH-ELT), and 30 Thai students’ theses in business administration (TH-BA). Hyland’s (2005) metadiscourse taxonomy was adopted for this study. Study 2 explored the relationship between metadiscourse frequencies and quality of thesis writing. Forty eight theses (twelve theses with highest and lowest frequencies of metadiscourse markers in each of the four subcorpora in Study 1) were selected for this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty four disciplinary supervisors in New Zealand and Thailand in order to investigate supervisors’ attitudes towards and expectations of good thesis writing in their disciplines. This information was used to design a rating scale specifically for thesis quality assessment. Two New Zealand and Thai raters in English language teaching and business administration, four raters altogether, rated twenty four discussion and conclusion chapters in their own disciplines. The findings of Study 1 reveal a higher frequency of metadiscourse in New Zealand theses than Thai theses. While both New Zealand and Thai students use more textual metadiscourse than interpersonal metadiscourse, New Zealand students show a greater reliance on the use of interpersonal metadiscourse (all interpersonal subcategories, except for boosters) than Thai students. By contrast, Thai students show a greater reliance on the use of textual metadiscourse (especially transition markers and frame markers) than New Zealand students. With regard to disciplinary variation, English language teaching students use more metadiscourse than business administration students, in both textual and interpersonal metadiscourse categories. Transition markers and hedges are the most prominent metadiscourse features, contributing the preponderance of textual and interpersonal metadiscourse in this study. Despite palpable differences in frequencies, the analysis of individual types across the four subcorpora reveals similarities of New Zealand and Thai students in the two disciplines. They use similar markers, rely heavily on a small cluster of high frequency markers, and make scarce use of lower frequency ones in all subcategories. The functional analysis indicates that there are six subcategories whose functions contribute to differences between New Zealand and Thai theses, namely transition markers, frame markers, evidentials, attitude markers, engagement markers, and self-mentions. The findings of Study 2 reveal a positive correlation between metadiscourse frequencies and thesis quality scores in both English language teaching and business administration disciplines. However, a major difference between the two disciplines is that in business administration, the frequency of textual metadiscourse is more highly related to the quality scores when compared to interpersonal metadiscourse. In English language teaching, the frequency of interpersonal metadiscourse is more closely related to the quality scores. In the comparison of quality scores between high and low frequency groups, a statistically significant difference is found in business administration, but not in English language teaching. Insights gained from this study are that (1) business administration raters are likely to focus more on textual features which directly affect readers’ comprehension, while English language teaching raters seem to have more expectations towards interactional features (e.g., explicit expression of students’ attitudes towards their own research propositions), (2) not all metadiscourse subcategories affect thesis quality scores, and (3) apart from frequencies, factors such as appropriate use of a wide variety of markers in different subcategories may contribute to better quality scores. Based on these findings, this thesis also provides theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications, laying out a framework for postgraduate writing instructors in developing English for Postgraduate Academic Writing lessons and materials based on actual language use and expectations of members in specific disciplinary communities and educational contexts in order to improve postgraduate writing quality.</p>

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Positive and Negative Politeness in Nonverbal Communication Contexts: An Examination into Driving Behaviors in Europe

AlAfnan¹,

MohdZuki²

2023

SMC

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This study examines politeness as a nonverbal politic behavior in 29 European countries and territories using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. The examination looked into the nonverbal acts of ‘following road signs and speed limit’ and ‘giving signals before changing lanes’ as they reflect (1) negative politeness in the form of avoiding imposition and reducing face-threatening-acts and (2) positive politeness in the form of noticing and appreciating other drivers’ wants and interests to drive without imposition respectively. The examination looked into four variables that are the gender of drivers, age of drivers, level of education of drivers and their country of origin. The study found that European drivers are generally polite and they tend to use the positive politeness act (giving signals) of noticing and appreciating other drivers more often than the negative politeness act (following sigs and speed limits) of reducing imposition and avoiding face-threatening acts. The study also found that the level of education did not play a significant role in the adherence to the driving politic behavior. However, this study found a positive coloration between the age of drivers and their adherence to the driving politic behavior as older drivers follow the driving politic behavior more often than young drivers. This study also found that female drivers in Europe are more polite than male drivers as they notice and appreciate other drivers (positive politeness). This study also revealed that Danish (female), British (male and female), Irish (male), Finish (male), Dutch (male and female), Belgium (female), Austrian (female), Greek (female) and Spanish (male) drivers have the highest frequency of adherence to the driving politic behavior. The study also found that Portuguese male and female, Croatian male and female, Macedonian male and female, Scottish male and female, Albanian male, Norwegian male, Czech male, Austrian female, Romanian male and Swedish female drivers have the lowest frequency of adherence to the driving politic behavior in Europe. The study also found that Cypriot (male), Catalonian (female), French (male and female), German (male and female), Hungarian (male and female), Italian (male and female), Polish (male and female), Russian (male and female), Serbian (male and female), Slovakian (male and female), and Turkish (male and female) drivers’ adherence to driving politic behavior is relatively moderate to high.

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Politeness Strategies in Thai Graduate Research Paper Discussions: Implications for Second/Foreign Language Academic Writing

Cited by 7 publications

References 26 publications

Realization of politeness in Ermato Tolantang Sansai novel

Realization of politeness in Ermato Tolantang Sansai novel

Metadiscourse in postgraduate writing

Positive and Negative Politeness in Nonverbal Communication Contexts: An Examination into Driving Behaviors in Europe

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