Sample 1

Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) focuses on how and why individuals

interpersonally accommodate their speech styles to each other to enhance the understanding
of interpersonal and intergroup communication (Giles, 1973; Gallois & Giles, 1998). The
purpose of CAT is to accentuate or decrease social differences between speakers and their
interlocutors (Gallois et al., 2005). Specifically, two central concepts of CAT are
convergence and divergence (Soliz & Giles, 2014). According to Giles & Ogay (2007),
converging strategy entails individuals’ adaptation of communicative behaviors concerning
linguistic factors, paralinguistic features and non-verbal communication to have similarity
with interlocutor’s behaviour. This gives rise to effective communication and better mutual
comprehension (Gudykunst, 1995). On the contrary, divergence emphasizes communicative
distinctiveness between self and the others (Giles & Ogay). With respect to the mobility of
convergence and divergence, both could move in upward and downward direction (see, Giles,
1973).
Recently, I have watched a piece of news about the visit of President Nguyen Xuan
Phuc to a jail for prisoners’ amnesty on the occasion of Vietnam National Day. Remarkably, I
see the difference between his speech style in giving his speech in front of wardens and
inmates and in communicating with criminals. In the speech, the style was definitely formal
speaking and political manner through the presentation of national amnesty decisions.
Meanwhile, in the conversation between the president and a criminal granted the amnesty,
because of the pandemic, they all wore masks and practiced social distancing; however, I
easily recognized the friendliness and solidarity through language use.
Chủ tịch nước: Tên cháu là gì? Cháu quê ở đâu? Có vợ con chưa?
The president: What is your name? Where is your hometown? Are you married?
Phạm nhân: Thưa Chủ tịch nước, cháu tên là Nguyễn Văn Hợp. Quê cháu ở Thái Bình.
Cháu đã có vợ và hai cháu nhỏ ạ.
The male prisoner: Dear President, my name is Nguyen Van Hop. My hometown is in
Thai Binh province. I have a wife and two children.
The president shifted to a less formal speech style and used the kinship term cháu which has
the same meaning as nephew to mitigate the social distance and status between him and the
prisoner. The topic of the interaction was about the prison’s background information. From
my point of view, as the status of the sender is higher than the receiver (Giles, 1973), the
president downwardly converged the speech in this particular context to express solidarity
and social equality. For the prisoner, his upward convergence was presented with formal
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speech style through the use of two Vietnamese honorific words including thưa (‘dear’) and ạ
(no meaning), clear and simple sentences to show his respect and politeness to the president.
To sum up, in communication accommodation theory, concerning communicative contexts
and purposes, speakers make communicative adjustments in relation to speech styles to
increase similarity and solidarity or individual identity and distinctiveness from
conversational partners.
482 words

Sample 2

There are approximately 7000 spoken languages in the world (Hazen, 2014), however
how these languages are formed are significantly distinctive. Siegel (2008) considered
pidgins and creoles as new languages which evolved through language contact for
communication purposes among those who do not have the same language with their
interactional partners. The main difference between the two terms is that creoles involve
native speakers. (Horobin, 2016). Romaine (2001) included that compared to other
languages such as French, Spanish, and Dutch, English-based pidgins and creoles are
outnumbered owing to the dominance of the British Empire.
With respect to pidgin language, Horobin (2016) mentioned English pidgin as lingua
franca language used in trade and business. In the stage of Early modern English, in relation
to traded commodities, some words from Italian (e.g. parmesan), Spanish (e.g. anchovy) were
adopted (Horobin). McWhorter (2021) exemplified Russenork as an instance of pidgin
language. Specifically, he indicated the combination of languages that Russian and
Norwegian people communicated for fish transaction resulted in Russenork. Holmes &
Wilson (2017), Hall (1966, as cited in Taylor & Hall, 1967) described features of pidgins,
which are simplified structures, narrow vocabulary items, small phonological and syntactic
options. For this reason, pidgin language is limited in its status or prestige due to the
mentioned poor range of functions (Holmes & Wilson).
In terms of creole language, Hall (1966, as cited in Taylor & Hall, 1967) classically
defined it as the pidgin language used as the mother tongue of descendants of pidgin
speakers. In other words, when pidgins are completely developed and widely used in many
aspects, they become creole languages (Holmes & Wilson, 2017).To my knowledge,
Colloquial Singapore English (Singlish) is a typical example for English-based creole
language (Leimgruber, 2011). Among Malay, Mandarin or Tamil, English is one of four

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official languages in this Asia developed country. In comparison with Standard Singapore
English (the H variety), the existence of Singlish (the L variety) is controversial. Leimgruber
supposed two opposing sides concerning Singlish. Accordingly, Singlish on the one hand
potentially plays a key role in the establishment of a national identity and in negotiating and
maintaining interpersonal relationships. On the other hand, it may negatively influence the
learning of standard English and competitive performance of the nation. In the same vein,
Singaporean former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is not a supporter of Singlish because
of its less intelligence and weak standardization (Yoong, 2010). In my opinion, as language is
a means of communication, it is crucial to be appropriately expressed in certain contexts and
purposes to achieve best effects.
425 words
Sample 3
Several definitions of politeness have been proposed. Remarkably, Brown & Levinson
(1987, as cited in Bouchara, 2009) referred politeness to the alleviation of face-threatening
acts. They proposed negative politeness and positive politeness among politeness strategies to
alleviate face-threatening acts. Particularly, Brown & Gilman (1989, as cited in Bouchara,
2009) presented the sub strategies of these two types of politeness as discussed below.
To illustrate distinctiveness in polite expression of genders, I employ the talk between
Jimmy Fallon (JF) and his two female guests, Taylor Swift (TS) and Emma Watson (EW). In
the first show, TS coped with the embarrassment when her mother sent the funny video of her
post laser eye surgery for broadcasting in the Tonight show (The Tonight Show Starring
Jimmy Fallon, 2019). The following extract happens when TS found out how the video was
sent to JF and JF asked if she was fine to reveal the songs she performed in the show.
4:29: JF: Yeah, I have asked for your mom's number.
4:32: TS: Oh, well, you know, news to me. That is great.
4:37: JF: What songs are you doing on SNL? Can you say? Have you said?
4:40: TS: Yeah, I am fine with saying.
In the interaction, TS used epistemic modal item (e.g. expression you know) as effective
meaning rather than modal meaning to indicate politeness and protect the addressees’ face
(Holmes, 1995, as cited in Freed, 1997). In addition, she was optimistic about the video by
supposing it great and minimizing the imposition by supposing the event as news. Therefore,
TS protected her own face and at the same time, gave deference and respect to the
addressees’ face. In other words, TS used positive and negative politeness sub strategies of
Brown & Gilman (1989, as cited in Bouchara, 2009).
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 The next conversation represented the politeness sub strategies use of a male person, JF
when EM mistook him for Jimmy Kimmel, who was also a host for a comedy live (The
Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, 2017)
0:57: EM: I died inside.
1:01: JF: I do not mind. I get that all the time. I get Jimmy Kimmel all the time.
EM appreciated JF for letting her reshoot again. When she sat down, he asked her
1:15: Are you a big fan of late night TV?
While TS used hedging for her positive politeness, JF expressed sympathy and understanding
for Emma’s mistake by saying that he did not mind this regular thing. He also joked to help
her feel at ease and thanked EM for coming back to join the show. These belong to both
positive and negative politeness sub strategies but in a different way from TS’s. To my
knowledge, two examples are given to simply demonstrate that politeness varies according to
sub strategies use of politeness concerning each gender.
468 words

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References
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