1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS IN CONFIRMING AND NEGATING NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH DIỄN ĐẠT KHẲNG ĐỊNH VÀ PHỦ ĐỊNH MINOR THESIS FIELD : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE : 60.15 HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON AMERICAN-VIETNAMESE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS IN CONFIRMING AND NEGATING NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH DIỄN ĐẠT KHẲNG ĐỊNH VÀ PHỦ ĐỊNH MINOR THESIS FIELD : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE : 60.15 SUPERVISOR : NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC, MA HANOI - 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 ABBREVIATIONS CCC: Cross-cultural Communication VC: Verbal Communication V: Vietnam/ Vietnamese A: America/American H: hearer S: speaker FTA: face threatening act LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Five basic types of speech acts - Searl's (1976). 10 Table 2: The parameters of informants. 17 Table 3: Realization of communicative strategies used to express confirmation and negation. 20 Table 4: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' age.
28 Table 5: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' gender. 29 Table 6: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' area of living. 31 Table 7: The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners in terms of relationship with sister/ brother, mother/ father, close friend, and someone you dislike. 37 Table 8: The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners in terms of relationship with colleague and boss.
37 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND FIGURE Diagram 1: Branches of communication. 5 Diagram 2: Forms of communication. 6 Diagram 3: Types of verbal communication. 7 Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTA.
12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality of study project report. iv List of tables. v List of diagrams and figures. vi Table of contents.
vii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the study.
4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Cross-cultural Communication. Forms of communication. Speech act theory.
Classification of speech act. Definition of politeness. Confirmation and negation as a speech act. Confirmation as a speech act.
Negation as a speech act. 14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Methods of the study. Subjects of the study.
Data collection instrument. Data collection procedures. Data analysis procedures. 19 CHAPTER 3: EXPRESSING CONFIRMATION AND NEGATION IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CULTURE.
The realization of communicative strategies. Bald on record. Passing the ball to other(s). Asking rhetoric questions.
Don't do FTA. The choice of communicative strategies as seen from informants' parameters. Area of living. The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners' relationship.
With sister/ brother. With mother/ father. With a close friend. With someone you dislike.
With your colleague. With your boss. 40 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. IV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale To our understanding, only humans have language and culture. Language simultaneously reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it. In the broadest sense, it is also the symbolic representation of a people, since it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. People use language to communicate and express their thoughts to each others easier and faster.
In communication, it is understood people are in the process of sharing or exchanging their thoughts verbally (ie. in spoken or written form), or nonverbally. The basis of communication is the interaction between people. Verbal communication is one way for people to communicate face-to-face.
Brown (1994: 165) describes the relationship between language and culture as follows: „A language is a part of a culture and a culture is a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.‟ In a word, culture and language are inseparable. However, there are cultural and language boundaries, such as the use of languages or the traditional customs between two cultures. The lack of people's awareness of the similarities and differences between two cultures may cause culture shock, in turn, can result in communication breakdown. Recently, there have been more and more foreigners from different countries coming to live, study and work in our country.
Especially, with the cooperation and exchange in a number of fields between Vietnam and America, a great number of people from one country work, study, live in the other country. With the help of English, an international language, Vietnamese and American people can communicate with each other easily in various aspects. So far, there have been a number of linguistic theses mentioning different cross-cultural perspectives, however confirming and negating expressions made by American and Vietnamese people have not been studied thoroughly. Therefore, it is essential to raise the awareness of Vietnamese people's difficulties when communicating with people from America in cultural aspect.
Thus, the differences between the Americans LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 and Vietnamese in expressing confirming and negating verbally have been considered valuable in communication. Aims of the study This research aims to: provide an overview of confirming and negating in American and Vietnamese verbal communication, find major similarities and differences in how American and Vietnamese express confirming and negating verbally, raise awareness of cultural differences in CCC in order to help people avoid misunderstandings in communication. The research questions can be addressed as follows: i. What are the common ways of expressing confirming and negating in American English and Vietnamese? ii.
What are the similarities and differences in American and Vietnamese verbal expressions of confirmation and negation? 3. Scope of the study This study is confined to the verbal communication of expressing confirmation and negation. This study is limited to a number of American and Vietnamese informants who are asked to complete the survey questionnaire on ways of showing confirmation and negation verbally in two socially differentiated situations. Hence, other aspects of communication, such as paralinguistic features (body language, gestures, facial expressions, and tone and pitch of voice), environmental factors, and mood factors are not mentioned in the study.
The author has realized that there have been a number of different strategies which can be used to communicate; however, it is very hard to examine all kinds of strategies. Therefore, the analysis of the study is limited to the common strategies which have the highest percentage of occurrence from the collected data. Amongst the various kinds of relationship, the author only focuses on the certain kinds of relationship in LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail., between family members, friends, someone you dislike, colleagues, and boss - employees. The informants are 65 people from the North of Vietnam, and 58 people from the United States.
However, 52 Vietnamese informants and 52 American informants are selected for the data analysis basing on their full-completeness in the questionnaires using similar parameters of the informants about age, gender, and living area. Methodology The study is conducted basing on the followings. Firstly, available literature and relevant publications are critically reviewed. Information from the Internet sites and previous studies are also referred to.
Secondly, the quantitative method is used in this study with the help of the survey questionnaires. The data analysis is mainly based on the statistics collected through the survey questionnaires with the illustration of tables. Finally, consultation with the supervisor, discussion with colleagues, as well as the author‟s observation in daily life and her own experience in cross-cultural communication are also of great help in finding out the answers to the research questions. Design of the study The study contains three main parts.
PART A: Introduction provides the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methodology, the comments on the data and the organization of the study. PART B: Development is the main part of the study and has three chapters. Chapter 1: Literature review points out the theoretical issues. Chapter 2: Methodology gives the methods to collect and analyze the data.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions of the findings presents and discusses similarities and differences in expressing confirming and negating verbally by the Americans and the Vietnamese. PART C: Conclusion gives the findings, implications for cross-cultural communication, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 15 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Culture The term "culture" is widely used in our daily life with different meanings.
There is a famous definition: "Culture. consists in those patterns relative to behavior and the products of human action which may be inherited, that is, passed on from generation to generation independently of the biological genes" Parson, T. (1949: 8) Culture is also defined as something that a person learns from his family and surroundings, and is not ingrained in him from birth. Culture is a complex tool which every individual has to learn to survive in a society.
It is the means through which people interact with others in the society. It acts in a subconscious way and whatever we see and perceive, seems to be normal and natural. Every society has a different culture, where people share a specific language, traditions, behaviors, perceptions and beliefs. Culture gives them an identity which makes them unique and different from people of other cultures as being stated by Triandis, H.
From the views of the different definitions about culture, it can be inferred that all of the elements of culture such as values, attitudes, and beliefs among people in a society influence our interactions to the world. Definition Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating. Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 16 areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond.
It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur. Other definitions are developed by the following writers. A conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are expressed in verbal and nonverbal messages. It occurs in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public levels.
Human communication is dynamic, continuous, irreversible, interactive and contextual. (1992) 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, personal mannerisms and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message. (1998) To sum up, communication refers to the process of man being responding to the face-to- face symbolic behavior of other persons. Communication includes three branches as follows: Communication Intra-cultural Inter-cultural Cross-cultural communication communication communication Diagram 1: Branches of communication LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Cross-cultural Communication This study mainly focuses on the third branch of communication - Cross-cultural Communication. For that reason, this section will give the definition for that branch. The phrase “Cross-cultural Communication” is the process of sending and receiving messages between people whose cultural background could lead them to interpret verbal and non- verbal signs differently. Cross-cultural communication tries to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural anthropology and established areas of communication.