VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ MAI AN AMERICAN –VIETNAMESE CROSS –CULTURAL STUDY OF INTERRUPTING AND ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION IN BUSINESS MEETINGS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa Việt-Mỹ về cách thức ngắt lời và yêu cầu làm rõ ý trong các cuộc họp kinh doanh) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ MAI AN AMERICAN –VIETNAMESE CROSS –CULTURAL STUDY OF INTERRUPTING AND ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION IN BUSINESS MEETINGS (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa Việt-Mỹ về cách thức ngắt lời và yêu cầu làm rõ ý trong các cuộc họp kinh doanh) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof. NGUYỄN QUANG, Ph.
HANOI – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I certify that the work presented in this research report has been performed and interpreted solely by myself. I confirm that this paper is submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the M. Degree and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification. Hanoi, 2016 Bùi Thị Mai i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This M.A thesis could not have been accomplished without the invaluable help, encouragement and support form a number of people who I would like to show my sincerest gratitude and appreciation.
To begin with, I would like to express my greatest and deepest thankfulness to Prof. Nguyen Quang, my supervisor, for his enthusiastic and precious guideline and advice throughout the duration of my thesis. Without his instruction and supervision, this thesis could not have reached the fulfillment. Additionally, I wish to send my special thanks to Mr.
Hoang Van Nam, a sales representative at Danko Logistic Company, for his wholehearted facilitation. Without his support, I cannot obtain emails for contacting American and Vietnamese businesspeople to ask for their participation in my study. Thus, my honest thanks also come to the American and Vietnamese businesspeople who passionately provide their responses to my DCT and MCQ. Last but not least, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family and relatives particularly my father, mother and brother who have always supported me and supplied the best conditions for me to complete this thesis.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This paper is carried out at endeavor of exploring the linguistic politeness strategies utilized by the Vietnamese and the American businesspeople in making interruption and asking for clarification in business meetings. From that, major similarities and differences between the two languages in this regard are revealed. On the basis of quantitative method, discourse completion task (DCT) is employed to collect data from participants including thirty Vietnamese native speakers and American ones who are currently working in business sector. The result reveals that the positive politeness strategy namely “minimizing imposition” is the most common strategy used by American businesspeople while their Vietnamese counterparts prefer “apologizing and minimizing imposition” in semiformal and informal business meetings.
Moreover, the speaker‟s ages, genders and positions have great influence on the choice of politeness strategy for Vietnamese businesspeople while those factors make no significant influence on the American ones. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration. iii Table of contents. iv List of abbreviations.vii List of tables.
viii List of figures. ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Significance of the study. Aims and objectives of the study.
Aims of the study. Objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Structure of the study.
3 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. Key concepts defined and discussed. Overview of American business culture. Overview of Vietnamese business culture.
Cross- culture and cross-cultural communication. Overview of cross-cultural pragmatics. Interrupting as a speech act. 9 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Definition of interrupting. Theory of speech act. Interrupting as a speech act. Politeness strategies in interrupting and asking for clarification.
Politeness and politeness strategies. Politeness super-strategies. Politeness strategies in interrupting and asking for clarification. Previous studies on interrupting and asking for clarification.
18 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. Data collection instruments. Multiple choice questionnaire. Discourse completion task.
Data collection procedure. Data analysis method. 23 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Comments on MCQ.
How do Vietnamese and American businesspeople interrupt and ask for clarification in business meetings?. In formal meetings. In semi-formal meetings. In informal meetings.
34 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The similarities and differences. Differences in semi-formal meetings. Differences in informal meetings.
Summary of main findings. Suggestions for further study. I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS DCT: Discourse completion task FTA: Face threatening act H: Hearer MCQ: Multiple choice questionnaire NPS: Negative politeness strategy PPS: Positive politeness strategy S: Speaker vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table III.1Vietnamese businesspeople and their American counterparts‟ responses in formal meetings Table III.2 Vietnamese businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in semiformal meetings Table III.3American businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in semiformal meetings Table III.4Vietnamese businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in informal meetings Table III.5American businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in informal meetings Table III. 6 Vietnamese businesspeople versus their American counterparts in the use of politeness strategies in semiformal meetings Table III.
7 Vietnamese businesspeople versus their American counterparts in the use of politeness strategies in informal meetings viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure II.1 Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown/Levinson, 1987:60) Figure II.2 How to get a pen from someone else (following Brown/Levinson 1987) (Yule, 1996:66) Figure III.1Vietnamese businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in semiformal meetings Figure III.2 American businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in semiformal meetings Figure III.3 Vietnamese businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in informal meetings Figure III.4American businesspeople‟s use of politeness strategies in informal meeting Figure III.5Vietnamese businesspeople versus their American counterparts in the use of politeness strategies in semi-formal meetings Figure III.6Vietnamese businesspeople versus their American counterparts in the use of politeness strategies in informal meetings ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Language has become an indispensable part in the development and civilization of human beings. Language is not only for communication but also for cultural exchange among nations. The close association between language and culture is undeniable.
Hence, it is very difficult for an individual to acquire a language without studying and understanding its culture. Cross-cultural communication is an interesting and attractive field to find out the similarities and differences between languages and cultures in various situations in terms of speech acts and politeness strategies. Many studies regarding the speech acts of requesting, giving and receiving compliments, promising and soon have been carried out in Vietnam and in other countries where learners of English are of different language backgrounds. However, „interrupting and asking for clarification‟ in conversations in general and in the context of business meetings in particular is one of the areas that is not paid much attention to.
There are different ways to interrupt and ask for clarification in Vietnamese and in American English. However, how to interrupt politely and get effectiveness of clarifying are by no means easy. People often have difficulties selecting appropriate and polite ways to interrupt another person in another language and in different contexts. This leads the author to the decision to conduct research into “An American – Vietnamese cross-cultural study of interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings” to find out the similarities and differences in how businesspeople interrupt and ask for clarification in these situations in the two different languages and cultures.
Significance of the study Finding out the similarities and differences in interrupting and asking for clarification between Vietnamese and American entrepreneurs in the context of business meetings is expected to make a significant contribution to cross-cultural 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com pragmatics in theory, and effective communication in practice. Therefore, Vietnamese businesspeople can be more confident when communicating and attending business meetings with American counterparts. Aims and objectives of the study 3. Aims of the study In the light of cross-cultural pragmatics, this study aims at comparing and contrasting linguistic politeness strategies in the speech acts of interrupting and asking for clarification employed by American businesspeople and their Vietnamese counterparts in business meeting context.
Objectives of the study The study is designed: firstly, to investigate ways of interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings in Vietnamese and American English; secondly, to compare and contrast the use of politeness strategies in the ways the Vietnamese and American businesspeople interrupt and ask for clarification in business meetings 4. Scope of the study The English-speaking informants to be surveyed are all American businesspeople and their Vietnamese-speaking counterparts are all Northern Vietnamese. The study only focuses on the verbal aspects of interrupting and asking for clarification. The analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaire concentrates on the ways the American and Vietnamese businesspeople of different ages, genders and positions interrupt and ask for clarification in business meetings.
This would mean major similarities and differences between the two cultures would be drawn out from the analysis of the use of negative politeness and positive politeness strategies. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research questions To fulfill the objectives above, the answers to the following research questions are sought: 1. What politeness strategies are used by American and Vietnamese businesspoeple in interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings? 2.
What are the major similarities and differences in interrupting and asking for clarification in terms of politeness strategies between the Vietnamese and American businesspeople? 6. Research method The main method of this study is quantitative. All the considerations, remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in this study are based largely on the analysis of statistic data with reference to publications. The practical access includes: conducting survey questionnaires, studying relevant publications, discussing with American and Vietnamese colleagues, and consulting with the supervisor.
Survey research is the method of gathering data from respondents supposed to be representatives of some population. In this survey, the author samples a population. Since populations can be quite large, the researcher directly questions only sample of the population. Therefore, this method allows the researcher to gain potential generalizability.
Besides, survey research tends to be reliable method if questionnaires are well-constructed and standardized, (Blackstone, 2012).That is the reason why survey method is employed in this study. Structure of the study The thesis consists of the followings: Chapter I: INTRODUCTION This chapter includes the rationale, aims, objectives and scope of the study. Chapter II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Such key concepts as culture, cross-culture, speech acts, and politeness are defined, and politeness principles, politeness strategies in interrupting and asking for clarification are critically discussed. Also, a review of related studies will be presented.
Chapter III: METHODOLOGY This chapter provides a methodological framework for collecting and analyzing data. Chapter IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS In this chapter, data analysis and findings of the study are presented with the illustration of tables and charts. Chapter V: CONCLUSION Summary of the major findings and suggestions for further research are presented in this part. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.
Key concepts defined and discussed 1. Culture There are probably as many conceptions of culture as there are researchers in the field. Traditionally, culture has either been seen as a set of symbolic meanings located in the minds of people or been defined as a context variable.