Information about the thesis "The Act of 'Invitation' in Vietnamese Communication: Some Issues Regarding Teaching the Act of Invitation to Foreigners" by graduate student Tran Thi Mai Huong, majoring in Linguistics.1. Student's Full Name: Tran Thi Mai Huong 2. Gender: Female 3. Date of Birth: October 27, 1983 4. Place of Birth: Thai Nguyen City 5. Decision No. 2551 dated November 2, 2007, of the Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 6. Changes during the training process 7. Thesis Title: The Act of "Inviting" in Vietnamese Communication: Some Issues Regarding Teaching the Act of Inviting to Foreigners 8. Major: Linguistics 9. Code: 60 22 01 10. Scientific Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Do Viet Hung 11. Summary of Thesis Results: In Vietnamese communication culture, Vietnamese people invite each other both indirectly and directly. Indirect invitations are preferred (accounting for 68.4%). When applied to teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language, the effectiveness of teaching and learning will be highly rated if learners know how to create and use indirect invitations. Vietnamese speakers use and utilize pronouns extensively in invitations. Invitations without pronouns are not common. The presence or absence of pronouns creates different semantic nuances for invitations. Vietnamese speakers use a wide range of structures in invitations. Some structures have unique grammatical and semantic characteristics specific to invitations; some expressions, as permitted by the communication situation, can also become invitations; and some "typical" ways of speaking in "typical" communication situations, such as inviting someone to eat or drink, also become invitations. The communication situation plays a crucial role in the study of the act of inviting. The communication situation generates invitations and dictates the phonetic, vocabulary, and grammatical organization in the process of creating an invitation. The most frequently encountered situation in the survey was the interaction between "host" and "guest"... This demonstrates and confirms the strong spirit of cultural exchange within the Vietnamese community. By proposing to teach Vietnamese as a foreign language based on the application of speech acts, we hope to contribute to the general methodology of language teaching. Teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language using speech acts as a basis is communicative teaching. This is a learner-centered teaching method – focusing on the learner's communicative competence. It requires teachers to prepare many diverse but practical communication situations that enable students to apply, use, and create good speech acts in general to participate in Vietnamese communication. Teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language based on the act of inviting helps them proactively create invitation statements in specific situations to participate in Vietnamese invitation activities; thereby helping them better understand the Vietnamese culture of invitation. 12. Practical applications: Adding to the methods of teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language.
INFORMATION ON MASTER'S THESIS
1. Full name : TRAN THI MAI HUONG 2. Sex: Female 3. Date of birth: October 27, 1983 4. Place of birth: Thai Nguyen City 5. Admission decision number: 2551 Dated November 2, 2007 6. Changes in academic process 7. Official thesis title: The “invitation” speech act in the Vietnamese communication: Some issue on teaching invitations to foreigners 8. Major: Linguistics 9. Code: 60 22 01 10. Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Dr Do Viet Hung 11. Summary of the findings of the thesis: In the culture of communication, the Vietnamese invites another both indirectly and directly. The indirect way of invitation is preferred in usage (68.4%). When applying that into the teaching and learning of Vietnamese as a foreign language, the learners will reach an advanced level if they know how to create and use the indirect invitations. The Vietnamese have and use a maximum of personal pronouns in their invitations. There are not many invitation expressions without personal pronouns. The presence or absence of personal pronouns in different invitations makes different meanings. The Vietnamese use an unlimited number of structures in their invitations. There are structures that have the special grammatical and semantic characteristics of the invitation expressions. There are special expressions becoming invitations because the situations of the communication allow. There are also special expressions in “typical” situations of communication such as offering somebody something to eat and to drink… that can become invitation expressions. Situations of communication play an important role in the study about invitations. Situations of communication create invitation expressions and define the phonological, vocabular and grammatical organizations of an invitation expression's establishment. The situation of communication between the “subject” and the “object” is the most popular situation in our investigation. This could prove and confirm the strong intercultural interest within the Vietnamese community. With a recommendation about using speech act in teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language, we would like to contribute to enrich the method of teaching languages. Using speech act as a basis for teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language is a communicative teaching approach. This method considers the learners the center of the teaching, which focuses on the communication competence of the learners. It requires the teachers to prepare a variety of “real” communication situations so that the students will be able to apply them, use them and establish good speech acts in communicating with the Vietnamese. Teaching Vietnamese based on teaching invitations will help the learners become active in establishing their invitation expressions in specific situations when they would like to invite the Vietnamese; through which, they will understand more about the Vietnamese culture. 12. Practical applicability: Suggest a new method of teaching Vietnamese as a foreign language
