VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ***** HOANG TRA MY CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES (Mở thoại và kết thoại trong bối cảnh văn phòng: Nghiên cứu trên cứ liệu phim Mỹ và phim Việt) A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics HANOI – 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ***** HOANG TRA MY CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES (Mở thoại và kết thoại trong bối cảnh văn phòng: Nghiên cứu trên cứ liệu phim Mỹ và phim Việt) MAJOR: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 9220201.01 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Supervisor: Prof. Hoang Van Van HANOI – 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify my authority of the dissertation submitted entitled CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES In fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Vietnam National University, Hanoi Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the dissertation. Hoang Tra My HANOI, 2019 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratefulness and my sincere gratitude to many people without whose help the present dissertation could not have been completed. First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Prof.
Hoang Van Van, for his invaluable guidance, insightful comments, endless support and conscientious supervision. Throughout the course of this work, I wish to express my deep indebtedness to him for his kindness of giving me useful feedback and advice regarding the dissertation as well as his constant encouragement to help me to overcome obstacles in accomplishing my dissertation. I am also extremely thankful to Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, the Dean of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for his knowledgeable suggestions, support, understanding and kindness.
My gratitude also goes to all the lecturers and examiners for their value support and scholar knowledge that I benefited from their teachings and lectures at all levels of the research project. I particularly extend my warm thanks to Prof. Nguyen Hoa, Prof. Nguyen Quang, and Assoc.
Le Hung Tien for their insightful comments and suggestions to my dissertation. My sincere gratitude also goes to the personnel departments, administrators and language and informatics center of Mien Trung University of Civil Engineering for their generosity of creating all favourable conditions including time, financial supports, and permission for me to conduct the research. Also, I am indebted to my friends and colleagues who have encouraged me to finish this study. Lastly, I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my parents, my husband and my son for their support to help me overcome the obstacles and challenges during the process of accomplishing this study.
Also, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to my husband for his tolerance, endurance, patience, and supports for me as well as his devoted care for our little son when I am busy with this dissertation. Without his immense help, love, encouragement and sacrifice, this work could not have been completed. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Under the cross-cultural pragmatic perspective, this study aims at yielding insights into the way Americans and Vietnamese open and close a conversation in office settings. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to identify opening and closing structures formed with sequences as well as verbal strategies employed in each sequence.
In addition, the justification and interpretation of conversational opening and closing processes are primarily grounded on the cultural background of the two languages. Methodologically, the data are staff-manager conversations occurring in office settings and gathered in American and Vietnamese movies. Qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in the present study. The data are coded qualitatively and manually based on the concept-driven categories and data-driven categories.
Then, the recurrent patterns of conversational opening and closing sequences and strategies are quantified to assist the process of comparison and contrast between the two languages. The dissertation discloses meaningful and practical findings. Regarding the structures, conversational opening and closing sections in both languages are complete discourse structures. Sequentially, opening sections are constructed with four sequences including summons-answer, greeting, phatic communion and topic initiation whilst closing sections are formed with three sequences namely topic termination, pre-closing and terminal exchange.
In terms of strategies, opening and closing strategies are analyzed in each sequence. Totally, there are 26 opening strategies including three summons-answer strategies, four greeting strategies, 15 phatic communion strategies and four topic initiation strategies whilst there are 22 closing strategies including four topic termination strategies, 15 pre-closing strategies and three terminal exchange strategies. These findings indicate that the main part of English and Vietnamese opening and closing sections is phatic talk, functioning to assist the transition to and from a conversation smoothly and politely. In summary, from the findings of the study, significant applications and suggestions are given.
The close-knit relationship between language and culture as well as between language and power proved in the study suggests that language users need to acquire both linguistic and pragmatic input to master a target language. The findings of the study are beneficial to Vietnamese learners and users of English, learners of Vietnamese as a foreign language and teachers because they serve as guidance for teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship. iii Table of contents.
iv List of figures. ix List of tables. ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Aims and research questions of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the study. 6 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction.
The concept of conversation. Mundane and institutional conversations. Conversations in office settings. Conversational opening and closing.
The concept of conversational opening. The concept of conversational closing. Opening and closing sequences. The concept of phatic communion.
Phatic communion in office settings. Phatic communion in conversational opening and closing. Cross-cultural pragmatics. Pragmatics and politeness theory.
The concepts of face and politeness. Politeness theory in conversational opening and closing. 20 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. low context cultures.
Review of related studies. Previous studies on conversational opening. Telephone conversational opening. Opening of different types of conversations.
Previous studies on conversational closing. Closing of different types of conversation. Face-to-face conversational closing. Previous studies on conversational opening and closing.
Openings and closings of different types of conversation. Openings and closings of face-to-face conversations. Theoretical framework: concept-driven categories. Conversational opening sequences and strategies.
Conversational closing sequences and strategies. 51 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY Introduction. Review of data collection methods. Justification for collection of scripted conversations.
Justification for collection of data in office settings. Data selection criteria. Data collection procedures. Phases of content analysis.
64 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Qualitative content analysis. Coding with concept-driven categories. Coding with data-driven categories.
70 CHAPTER IV: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS Introduction. English and Vietnamese opening structures in office settings. English and Vietnamese opening sequences in office settings. English and Vietnamese opening structures formed with sequences.
English and Vietnamese one-sequence opening structure. English and Vietnamese two-sequence opening structure. English and Vietnamese three-sequence opening structure. English and Vietnamese four-sequence opening structure.
The disorder of English and Vietnamese opening sequences. English and Vietnamese opening strategies in office settings. English and Vietnamese summons-answer strategies. Knocking on the door.
Calling the other‟s address term. Using attention-getting tokens. English and Vietnamese greeting strategies. Using greeting verb.
Calling the other‟s address term. Using time-bound greeting. Using greeting proper. English and Vietnamese phatic communion strategies.
Referring to the other's state. Referring to the current situation/ work. Referring to previous task/ action. 117 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Asking confirmation question. Inviting the other to sit down. Referring to oneself‟s state. Referring to personal life at home.
Inviting the other to come in. Referring to external circumstances/ objects. Expressing pleasure, expressing apology and expressing thanks. Asking/ checking for the other‟s availability for talking.
English and Vietnamese topic initiation strategies. Asking for the reason of the talk. Telling the reason of the talk. Using disjunct markers.
Using topic initiation devices. 133 CHAPTER V: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONAL CLOSING IN OFFICE SETTINGS Introduction. English and Vietnamese closing structures in office settings. English and Vietnamese closing sequences in office settings.
English and Vietnamese closing structures formed with sequences. English and Vietnamese one-sequence closing structure. English and Vietnamese two-sequence closing structure. English and Vietnamese three-sequence closing structure.
English and Vietnamese closing strategies in office settings. English and Vietnamese topic termination strategies. Using agreement tokens. Using disjunct markers.
Asking for any further topic. Informing the ending of the conversation. 150 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. English and Vietnamese pre-closing strategies.
Giving summaries/ results of the contact. Referring to future contact/ actions. Expressing gratitude/ thanks/ acknowledgement. Informing the other of the need to leave (reasons/ excuses).
Referring to external circumstances/ objects. Giving wish expressions. Referring to the other‟s state. Referring to oneself‟s state.
Assigning the other tasks/ actions. Allowing/ asking the other to leave. Paying the other a compliment. Reassuring the other.
Encouraging the other. English and Vietnamese terminal exchange strategies. Asking the other‟s permission for leaving. Informing the other of the leaving.
172 CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSIONS 6. Limitations and suggestions for further research. 201 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Locating small talk on the continuum.1: Preparation, organization and resulting phases in the content analysis process .1: English and Vietnamese conversational opening sequences .2: English and Vietnamese conversational opening structures .3: English and Vietnamese one-sequence opening structure .4: English and Vietnamese two-sequence opening structure .5: English and Vietnamese three-sequence opening structure .6: English and Vietnamese summons-answer strategies .7: English and Vietnamese greeting strategies .8: English and Vietnamese phatic strategies .9: English and Vietnamese topic initiation strategies .1: English and Vietnamese conversational closing sequences .2: English and Vietnamese conversational closing structures .3: English and Vietnamese one-sequence closing structure .4: English and Vietnamese two-sequence closing structure .5: English and Vietnamese topic termination strategies .6: English and Vietnamese pre-closing strategies .7: English and Vietnamese terminal exchange strategies .169 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Conversational opening sequences .2: Conversational closing sequences .3: Verbal pre-closing strategies .1: Number of selected extracts in the American movies .2: Number of selected extracts in the Vietnamese movies.3: Coding category of conversational opening structure .4: Coding category of conversational closing structure .5: Coding category of conversational closing strategies .1: English and Vietnamese opening strategies .1: English and Vietnamese closing strategies .146 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the process of teaching English for learners of different abilities, I have realized that the ways English and Vietnamese speakers communicate are different, especially the processes of opening and closing a conversation.
This stimulates my curiosity to know more about the ways English and Vietnamese speakers initiate and terminate a conversation.