VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ XUÂN AN AMERICAN-VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF HAND GESTURES, BODY MOVEMENTS AND POSTURES OF TEACHERS IN CLASS NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CỬ CHỈ TAY, CHUYỂN ĐỘNG CƠ THỂ VÀ TƯ THẾ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC (M. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS) Field: English Linguistics Major Code: 60220201 HA NOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ XUÂN AN AMERICAN-VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF HAND GESTURES, BODY MOVEMENTS AND POSTURES OF TEACHERS IN CLASS NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CỬ CHỈ TAY, CHUYỂN ĐỘNG CƠ THỂ VÀ TƯ THẾ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC M. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Major : English Language (1st Program) Major Code: 60220201 Supervisor: PROF. NGUYEN QUANG (Ph.) HA NOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Acknowledgments I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof.
Nguyen Quang, without whose valuable comments and guidance, my thesis would not have been accomplished. My special thanks go to my dad and my mum. And I am immensely grateful to my husband who helps me a lot. My sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of the department of Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps.
Thanks to their lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the study. Finally, I should acknowledge my indebtedness to all my friends for their assistance during the process of preparing for this research. Tran Thi Xuan i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT It can be said that creating and sustaining an interaction through verbal communication skills is not enough to be successful. Non-verbal communication is believed to play a vital role in transferring meaning in communication.
Heraclitus once said “One’s eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears”. Nowadays, more and more researchers believe that communication without spoken and written words can also help people understand other’s behaviors. Non-verbal behaviour occurs before verbal communication because individuals depend first on non-verbal means to present themselves. This natural character of non-verbal behaviour is important in interaction because before a sentence is conveyed, the hearer follows the body gestures and facial expressions of the speaker, trying to find out these symbolic messages.
They are trustable because they are mostly spontaneous and parts of every-day behaviour. As cultures collide, it is essential for all of us to become more aware of the hand gestures, body movements and postures surrounding us. Specially, when we cross over cultural borders, it would be fitting to understand more about the effective nonverbal communication. This study is conducted to raise Vietnamese students’ awareness of cross-cultural differences in the use of body language in class for avoidance of culture shock.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Design of the study. 2 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND .1 Definition of communication .2 Types of communication .3 Cross-cultural communication.4 Non-verbal communication .1 Definition of nonverbal communication .3 Means of nonverbal communication. Hand gestures, body movements and postures.
Previous related studies. In the world. Method and procedure. 16 iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Data collection instruments .2 The survey questionnaires. Data analysis method. 18 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .2 Similarities and differences .2 Similarities and differences .2 Similarities and differences. Suggestions for further study.
37 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale According to Negi(2009, page 101) “Communication, which is used in everyday life from greeting a stranger to touching a lover, is an ongoing process of sending and receiving messages that enables human to share knowledge, ideas, thoughts, information, feelings, emotions, and attitudes”. There are two kinds of communication: Verbal communication and non-verbal communication which are simultaneously used in interaction. In the past, linguists focused more on studying verbal communication.
However, nowadays non-verbal communication is considered to be equally important for effective face to face interaction. Non-verbal communication uses wide diversities of non-linguistic cues such as hand gestures, body movement, postures simultaneously with linguistic ones. Clearly, hand gestures, body movements, postures of teachers in class play an important role in the support of teaching content and skills. People in various cultures have same understanding of non-verbal cues; however, the total meaning of speech can be culturally determined and differ in diverse countries.
Therefore, misinterpretations of non-verbal cues may happen. American and Vietnamese teachers have different hand gestures, body movements and postures in class in order to make an effective lesson. As a result, the research “An American-Vietnamese cross-cultural study of hand gestures, body movements and postures of teachers in class” is conducted to help Vietnamese students avoid culture shocks and communication breakdown. Aims of the study The thesis aims to point out the similarities and differences in the performance of hand gestures, body movements and postures of American and Vietnamese teachers in the classroom.
In addition, the researcher wishes to find out the frequency of hand gestures, body movements and postures performed by American and Vietnamese teachers in class. Scope of the study The study is confined to only hand gestures, body movements and postures performed by American and Vietnamese teachers in class. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methodology This study uses quantitative method based on data analysis to generate reliability.
Additionally, contrastive analysis is also employed. All the information, comments and findings in this thesis are followed by the following methods: Reference to relevant home and foreign publications in both primary and secondary research, Survey questionaries, Statistic, descriptions, and analysis of the collected and selected data, Personal observations and experience, Consultations with supervisor Discussions with Vietnamese and foreign colleagues. Design of the study The study is designed with five chapters: The first chapter introduces the study. The second chapter involves 2 parts: Part one is related to the theoretical background of culture and nonverbal communication.
The definitions, features and classification of body movements, hand gestures and postures are provided in part two. In addition, similarities and differences in the performance of hand gestures, body movements and postures in different cultures and their causes are also discussed. A detailed description of typical gestures is also made. Chapter 3 mentions the methodology of the study.
Chapter 4 involves the results of the survey and the detailed comparison of using hand gestures, body movements and postures between Vietnamese and American teachers. The last chapter is the conclusion which summarizes the study. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. Culture As Harrison and Huntington note, the term “culture” of course, has had different meanings in different disciplines and different contexts” (Harrison and Huntington, (2000:xv).
By stating “culture is human - made part of environment,” Lonner and Malpass (1994: 7) contrast culture and nature. In their ideas, things in environment will never become cultural without the “human touch”. According to Triandis (1994:23) “culture” is a set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past increased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and this became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place “The subjective elements of cultures here are elements such as values, attitudes, beliefs, orientations and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society”. All of these elements act as a framework that influences your interpretation of the world and interactions in it.1 Definition of communication There have been many definitions of “Communication” with different aspects.
Larry Porter and McDaniel (2006: 12) select the all-encompassing definition of human communication as “the process through which symbols are transmitted for purpose of eliciting a response” Lustig (1996: 29) defines communication as “a symbol” which may be “a word, action or object” containing thoughts, perceptions or feelings a person wants t communicate with others. It is clear in the definition of Hybels, and Weaver (1992: 5) that “communication is any process in which people share information, ideas and feelings that involve not only the spoken and written words but also body language, 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com personal mannerisms and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message.” Among the above definitions of “communication”, the one by Hybels and Weaver (1992) is the most comprehensive and persuading. As Nguyen Quang (F: 29), believes that it indicates the action, interaction and transaction nature of communication; specifying the characteristics of communication, the means to carry our communication and various levels of communication.2 Types of communication People communicate with each other in a number of ways that depend upon the message and its context in which it is being sent. Choice of communication channel and your style of communicating also affects communication.
So, there are variety of types of communication. Types of communication based on the communication channels used are: Verbal Communication Nonverbal Communication 1.3 Cross-cultural communication The relationship between culture and communication is often related to the bond between the voice and the echo. From culture and communication, there are three branches of communication as follows: Intra-cultural communication is the communication between people who live in the same country and come from the same cultural background. Inter-cultural communication is the communication between people who live in the same or different countries and come from different cultural backgrounds.
Cross-cultural communication is the study of communication by different people who come from different cultural backgrounds.4 Non-verbal communication 1.1 Definition of nonverbal communication According to Lustig(1996: 187-188) “nonverbal communication is a multi-channeled process that is usually performed simultaneously. Nonverbal 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com behaviors can become part of the communication process when someone intentionally tries to convey a message or when someone attributes meaning to nonverbal behavior of another, whether or not the person intends to communicate a particular process.” Nguyen Quang (2004) defined: “all the components of the message that, when taken together, constitute the communication which is not verbally coded but both vocally and non-vocally channeled. Nonverbal communication is composed of paralinguistic factors (nonverbal - vocal channel), such as rate, volume, etc., and extra-linguistic factors (nonverbal - non-vocal channel), such as body language (gestures, postures, facial expressions,…) object language (including clothing, jewelry…) and environmental language (proxemics, settings…)”.2 Significance of nonverbal communication Argyle, in “Bodily Communication,” points out five crucial roles of non-verbal communication: to express emotions, communicate interpersonal relationships, support verbal interaction, reflect personality and perform rituals, such as greetings and goodbyes. Altheimer(2008) identifies how non-verbal communication interacts with verbal communication.
“We can reinforce, contradict, substitute, complement or emphasize our verbal communication with non-verbal cues such as gestures, facial expressions and vocal inflection. For example, as you 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com tell someone you love them but you avoid eye contact, it is a contrast. If you have a bright smile when you say congratulations, this reinforces the sincerity of your words.