Part 1: introduction rationale
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- Điều hướng trang này:
- Colleague (same age/ same sex – opposite sex)
- Acquaintance (about 10 years older than you/ 5 years younger than you)
- 3.2.4.2. In terms of informants’ parameter Table 5: Informants’ parameters
- Urban Rural
- 3.2.5. Cross-cultural similarities and differences 3.2.5.1. Similarities
- PART 3 : CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION IN TEFL 3.1. Conclusion 3.1.1. Main similarities
- 3.2. Implication for teachers and learners 3.2.1. Teachers as a means of learning a second culture
- 3.2.2. Suggestions for learners
- 3.3. Suggestions for further research
The one you dislike 
To make a comparison between two charts about “best friend” and “the one you dislike”, it is easy to realize that how contrary it is. ENSs are determined to ignore the person they dislike or if they have no other way to inform the news, the greatest selection for them will be not to hedge the news and sometimes they will attach some more exclamation words. For example:
Colleague (same age/ same sex – opposite sex) 
As can be observed from the comparative chart between colleague at same age but different sex, the percentage of hedging strategy is also different too. At first, in terms of strategy 1, no English informants use it to inform the bad news to the colleague with opposite sex but it can be done to the colleague with the same sex demonstrating up to 31%. They often hedge as follows:
Regarding strategy 3, the use of this strategy points out that S only wants to deliberately and implicitly flatter H’ status but the H in this situation has opposite sex with the S (46.5%) in order to decrease threats to H, hence not to make H hurt when hearing the following negative news from S:
Next, strategy 4 and 5 are divided relative equivalently for colleague regardless different sex appearing on the percentage 13.5%-12% and 15%-17%. Nevertheless, strategy 10 with colleague opposite sex has a rate (58%) which outweighs one about same sex (42%). This prove to a fact that the English informants feels more difficult to inform the news to H who has opposite sex so the best thing they can do is to keep silent. Therefore, “gender” has also had a chief influence on the way people hedge before giving the bad news. Besides, most of English people asked to answer the given situations on paper said to the thesis author that the situations to those people on paper are so too personal that they had better keep silent, they would not give the news because the people should do instead are H’s doctor, teacher and boss. Acquaintance (about 10 years older than you/ 5 years younger than you) 
In this parameter, the number of strategies in the chart has revealed evidence that ENss informants are sure to be less direct to give the bad news to the acquaintance 10 years older than to the acquaintance about 5 years younger. Particularly, S use strategy 2, 3 to hedge before giving such bad news to the former more than to the latter with the percentage 17% compared with 15% or 13%. For instance, they always hedge as the following sentences:
Additionally, strategy 6 and 8 are more frequently used to inform the news to the acquaintance about 10 years older.
However, English informants prefer to apply strategy 1 and 5 to give the bad news to the acquaintance about 5 years younger than them because right after “I think, I hope, I wonder if, could you please…” is the bad news or they also has confidence and courage to suggest and offer the H some options.
Although there is difference in hedge strategy to acquaintance about 10 years older and about 5 years younger, there is huge similarity in English informants’ keeping silent in the given situations. The reason they have pointed out is equivalent to other communicating partners, i.e. those bad news are not dealt with by them as they are too personal and individual. Boss – Employee 
It can be realized from the chart that English informants tend to hedge according to strategy 3(60%) and 5 (32%) to give bad news to their boss.
In contrast, English informants would prefer to use strategy 6 and say directly to employee
Nonetheless, the most preferable strategy in this parameter is strategy 10 – keeping silent. Plainly, as for the boss, nobody wants to inform bad news and in terms of employee, no boss wants to interfere to his/ her personal life. In general, silence is the best. 3.2.4.2. In terms of informants’ parameter Table 5: Informants’ parameters
If compared with the number of Vietnamese informants, it can be concluded that the socio-cultural factors such as: age, gender, marital status, occupation and living area have little influence on the ways English hedge before giving bad news because after the analysis on communicating partners’ parameter, it should be summarized as follows: regardless of age, gender, marital status, occupation and living area, the English informants especially prefer keeping silent to using other hedging strategies. Hardly can they feel comfortable to be too curious about one’s personal life. 3.2.5. Cross-cultural similarities and differences 3.2.5.1. Similarities Both VNSs and ENSs are partly influenced by the communicating partner pairs. As regards with social distance, they apparently give bad news in a direct way to the one they dislike or they keep silent and ignore them. To the colleague whose gender is opposite with them, the informants usually find it difficult to inform the news, hence, S wants to deliberately and implicitly fatter H’s status to reduce threats to H. Moreover, the age of partners make S inform the bad news more indirectly and not dare to give the older advice or offer option. Above all, S always feels unconfident and ambiguous to communicate face-to-face with the people who is more powerful so the most preferable strategy is 3, 8, and 10. In contrast, to the inferior, S tends to be more direct in giving bad news by using mostly strategy 1, 5, 6, or even no hedging. 3.2.5.2. Differences Following are the typical differences in using the hedging strategies by both groups of informants. At the first glance, the Vietnamese informants have used variously more hedging strategies than the English ones (10/10 vs. 8/10). As far as “showing tentativeness and mitigation” and “keeping silent” are concerned, the distribution of these two strategies in the VNSs and ENSs informants are greatly dissimilar from each other. While the Vietnamese informants would rather use strategy 1, the ENSs ones rarely apply this strategy. In addition, VNSs tends to use much strategy 5 “suggesting/ offering option” before giving bad news whereas ENSs does not. Then “keeping silent” is mostly operated by ENSs in all the situations because the given ones are considered to be too personal apart from the fact that the communicating partner is their best friend whose individual life can be intervened by them. Therefore, in case of being forced to be the bearer of the bad news, English informants probably apply the same sentence stems such as “I regret to inform…”, “I’m sorry but I think ….”, “it is difficult but I think…” However, among the hedging strategies used by ENSs, strategy 3 “talking up” is more popular, thus, there is a trend that the S wants to flatter the person whose sex is opposite with him/ her or position is higher than. This fact has proved that cross-cultural similarities and differences at times are interwoven each other so difficultly that ELT and ELL always find it the most complicated to understand about one country’s culture. In conclusion, to raise Vietnamese learners’ awareness of these cross-cultural similarities and differences is really important in TEFL in order to avoid culture shock and communication breakdown. PART 3: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION IN TEFL 3.1. Conclusion 3.1.1. Main similarities To conclude, in learning a second foreign language, beside the necessity of language skills and professional knowledge, cross-cultural awareness is truthfully crucial to all language learners. In this study, the major characteristics of hedges in general and hedges as well as hedging strategies employed before giving bad news in particular have been discussed. In the first place, some main similarities are mentioned. To begin with, both VNSs and ENSs use hedges to lessen the degree of directness whenever they wanted to inform bad news. Moreover, they all also want to make the bad news less unpleasant and shocking to H to minimize the FTAs. Next, situation 4 “Her/ his relative just had a terrible accident” and situation 8 “The book s/he needs cannot be found anywhere” are highly popular to both Vietnamese and English informants’ choice to convey the bad news advisably. In terms of situation 9 “Her/ his assignment gets bad mark”, they clearly show their tentativeness and mitigation when choosing the column Yes/ No. It is observed that the communicating partners’ parameter including age, gender, distance and power has a great effect on the choice of hedging strategies of both ENSs and VNSs. As regards with social distance, they apparently give bad news in a direct way to the one they dislike or they keep silent and ignore them. Gender and the age of partners make S inform the bad news more indirectly and not dare to give the older advice or offer options. Above all, S always feels unconfident and ambiguous to communicate face-to-face with the people who is more powerful so the most preferable strategy is 3, 8, and 10. In contrast, to the inferior, S tends to be more direct in giving bad news by using mostly strategy 1, 5, 6, or even no hedging. 3.1.2. Main differences Nevertheless, the findings have revealed the contradictory trends between Vietnamese and English people. Most of the situations given in the survey questionnaire such as three situations belonging to home affair, situation 5 and 6 of social life, and situation 7, 10 as well are fundamentally considered to be too personal or vulnerable by ENSs so it is said not to be advisable to give the news in the above listed situations. In contrast, VNSs tend to show their high agreement in the act of bearing bad news in the same above situations. The opposite percentage between ENSs and VNSs is a mirror reflecting the different culture and mind about giving such bad information which helps communicators avoid culture shock and communication breakdown. In addition, informants’ age, gender, marital status, occupation, and living area have, to various degrees, affected the ways VNSs hedge before giving bad news whereas these factors do not seem to interfere with ENSs’ hedging strategies. It is also worthy to note that the respect for individuality and privacy seems to make most of the informants decide to keep silent (strategy 10) except for giving the news to their best friend. Therefore, to be effective cross-cultural communicators, in the first place, they must have basic background knowledge of the target culture and be aware of cross-cultural differences in ELT and ELL. 3.2. Implication for teachers and learners 3.2.1. Teachers as a means of learning a second culture With the aim of helping students appropriately use language in general and hedging strategies in particular, teachers should make their students be aware of cross-cultural differences in communication. Nevertheless, the awareness has not been put much emphasis on yet by some teachers. Rivers (1968: 17) argues that: “Any authentic use of the language, any reading from original texts (as opposed to those fabricated for classroom use), any listening to the utterances of native speakers, will introduce cultural concomitants into the classroom whether the teacher is conscious of them or not. By not acknowledging their presence and not making them explicit, the teacher allows misconceptions of the culturally-determined bases for the reactions and behavior of the foreign people can develop in the students’ concept for and hostility towards the S of the language they are learning”. To put it in another way, teaching goals should include developing cultural knowledge. Politzer (1959: 14) suggests: “As language teachers, we must be interested in the study of culture…If we teach language without teaching at the same time the culture in which it operates, we are teaching meaningless symbols or symbols to which students attaches the wrong meaning” Teachers should incorporate cultural knowledge into language teaching. Following suggestions are recommended:
3.2.2. Suggestions for learners It should be born in mind that: “our culture influences our way of thinking and acting. To learn another language, we need to learn to appreciate the culture of which the language is a part. We can’t really learn a second language or more precisely, learn the use of that language unless we learn about culture because many of the meanings constructed in the language are culture specific.” (Pollock, 1990: 39). Therefore, students are recommended to:
3.3. Suggestions for further research For better understanding and more effective use of hedges before giving bad news, it is suggested that
(ii) more detailed data analysis be made to bring more light to the area under investigation, thus, arriving at more convincing conclusions The thesis has been completed with the author’s greatest efforts and to the best of her knowledge and understanding. However, it is obvious that shortcomings and inadequacies are unavoidably there. The author wishes with sincere gratitude to receive constructive and insightful comments from the readers. Thank you very much! 
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