VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ************ NGUYỄN THI ̣ HOÀ NG MY AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION OF U.S AND VIETNAMESE CULTURES IN CONTRAST THROUGH EVERYDAY CONVERSATIONS (BƯỚC ĐẦU NGHIÊN CỨU ĐỐI CHIẾU VĂN HÓA MỸ - VIỆT THÔNG QUA CÁC CUỘC ĐỐI THOẠI HÀNG NGÀY) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi, 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale of the study 1 2. Aims and Objectives of the study 2 4.
Scope of the study 2 5. Methodology of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5 1.1 A brief overview on Contrastive Analysis 5 1.2 Macro-linguistic Contrastive Analysis 6 1.2 A brief overview on Conversation Analysis 6 1.3 Language and Culture 8 1.1 What is Language? 8 1.2 What is culture? 9 1.3 The relationship between language and culture 10 1.4 An overview on Friendship 12 1.1 Definition 12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 Types of friendships 12 1.3 Friendship in the U.4 Friendship in Vietnam culture 15 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 16 2.1 Data collection instruments 16 2.3 The procedure of data collection and analysis 18 2.2 Audio tapes 18 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20 3.1 Data analysis of the survey questionnaire 20 3.2 Data analysis of the audio tapes 26 3.3 Situation 3 28 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Discussions 31 CHAPTER III: CONCLUSION 33 1. Limitations of the study 35 4.
Suggestions for further study 36 REFERENCES APPENDICES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF TABLE AND FIGURES TABLES Table 1: Answers for question1 of Vietnamese students and American students Table 2: Answers for question 2 of Vietnamese students and American students Table 3: Answers for question 3 of Vietnamese students and American students Table 4: Answers for question 4 of Vietnamese students and American students Table 5: Analysis of conversations for situation 1 Table 6: Analysis of conversations for situation 2 Table 7: Analysis of conversations for situation 3 Table 8: Analysis of conversations for situation 4 Table 9: Summary of Vietnamese-American contrasts FIGURES Figure 1: Iceberg model of Culture Figure 2: Answers for question 1 of Vietnamese students and American students Figure 3: Answers for question 2 of Vietnamese students and American students Figure 4: Answers for question 3 of Vietnamese students and American students Figure 5: Answers for question 4 of Vietnamese students and American students LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY Human beings have been endued with a powerful engine to assist them in the process of expressing their thoughts, feelings and transmitting emotions as well as information to others: language. However, there is a question remaining: “Why are misinterpretation, communication breakdown and cultural conflicts still inevitable?” Hymes, D. (1966) coined those in one term: “communicative competence” which literally denotes the capability of using one language appropriately under any circumstances.
The fact is that language and culture are so closely interlaced, which means the impossibility of separating them. The focus of the study is on conversations upon everyday topics, which will, to some extent, raise an awareness of cultural similarities as well as differences among speakers, aiming for a successful and fruitful interplay, or at least a reduction in the effect of discrepant socio-cultural factors. The study on everyday conversations, specifically the topic of friendship, made by American and Vietnamese students, has been selected to investigate as it was one of the great interests to the researcher and of great help to language insiders and outsiders. It is undeniable that how American native speakers react on friendship-related situations in everyday life is far different from how Vietnamese people, second- language speakers, do.
Thereupon, a contrastive analysis of the ways American and Vietnamese deal with disparate cases is regarded practical, necessary and worthy for a mutual understanding. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The present study focused on the contrast of American and Vietnamese cultures through everyday conversations, particularly the topic of friendship, within the framework of contrastive analysis, conversation analysis as well as the looks at the relationship between culture and language. Therefore, the study was aimed at pointing out the answers for the two questions: (1) What are the similarities between American culture and Vietnamese culture reflected through the topic “Friendship” in daily conversations? (2) What are the differences between American culture and Vietnamese culture reflected through the topic “Friendship” in daily conversations? 3.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY This study was aimed at promoting communicative competence through everyday conversations between the U.S and Vietnamese cultures, which was done based on the theoretical background of contrastive analysis, conversation analysis and the points of view of language-culture tie. Thereupon, the main objective of this study was to analyze and reflect the similarities as well as differences between the two targeted cultures. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Since theoretical background is vital to the processes of data analysis, the writer expected to deal with a variety of sets of theories concerning contrastive analysis, conversation analysis and viewpoints on culture-language relationship, etc. Due to the constraint of time and personal ability, the writer had no ambition for covering a wide range of everyday conversations; instead, some featured situations related to Friendship were chosen to take into consideration.
This study was intended LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 to discover how university students of American and Vietnamese cultures reacted to the same circumstances. The database of this study consisted of elicited written questionnaires and audio-tapes of natural conversations. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY The study has been carried out based on a combination of different methods of quantitative and qualitative approach which are as follows: - Document; - Synthesize; - Analyze and contrast. Questionnaires and audio tapes of native American and of Vietnamese university students were adopted to collect the data for analysis and discussion.
DESIGN OF THE STUDY The study is comprised of three parts: Part I, “Introduction”, includes the rationale, objectives of the study, research questions, research methods, the scope and the design of the study. Part II, “Development”, consists three chapters: - Chapter 1 – Theoretical background - presents the preliminary knowledge of some basic theories and a review of related literature to the study. - Chapter 2 - Methodology - describes the research method, data collection instruments, and detailed information about the research procedures. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 - Chapter 3 - Findings and Discussions - analyzes the initial data collected and interviews.
The chapter mainly focuses on contrasting the similarities and differences between the two mentioned cultures through the analysis of conversations made by American and Vietnamese university students. Part III, “Conclusion”, a recapitulation of the research including the theoretical frameworks, methodology and major findings, together with the limitations and suggestions for further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 A brief overview on Contrastive Analysis 1.1 Definition In an attempt to minimize the problems that foreign language learners encounter on their acquisition process, linguists proposed the conceptual theory of contrastive analysis. The term „Contrastive Linguistics‟ was first suggested by Whorf (1941), meaning of „a comparative study which emphasizes on linguistic differences‟.
However, not until the publication of „Linguistics Across Cultures‟ by Lado, R. (1957) was the in-depth excavation into this field commenced. Later on, the original term changed to „Contrastive Analysis‟ (CA) as we know it today. As Fisiak (1981:1)‟s redefinition, CA is „a sub discipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them.‟ In other words, CA is the systematic study of a pair or more of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities.
The goal of CA is to find out the differences between the first language and the target language; simultaneously, via contrastive analysis, problems can be predicted and considered. Robert Lado (1957) noted: „Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 culture- both productively and when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture and receptively when attempting to grasp and understand the language and culture as practiced by natives.2 Macro-linguistic Contrastive Analysis In a way, CA can be perceived from different perspectives: micro-linguistically or macro-linguistically. While micro-linguistic CA lays emphasis on describing the language elements without any recourse to external factors, macro-linguistic CA is a field of study concerned with language in its broadest sense. Macro-linguistic CA is a formal description of how people communicate, including cultural and behavioral features associated with languages based on the interrelationships.
Macrolinguistics in CA can be characterized by: (i) A concern for communicative competence rather than linguistic competence. (ii) An attempt to describe linguistic events within their extra-linguistic settings. (iii) The search for units of linguistic organization larger than the single sentence. (1980:101) paraphrased six variables first mentioned by Hymes (1974) into „who says what to whom, where and when, how and why.‟ It can be interpreted that macro-linguistic CA looks at discourse analysis, the study of text and conversational interaction, as one of its concerning disciplines.
Therefore, the theory of conversation analysis is closely related to macro-linguistic CA in particular and in this contrastive study in general. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 An brief overview on Conversation Analysis 1.1 Conversation Making conversations is one of the daily bases activities of human beings. It is apparent that all of us get involved in conversational interaction, also, on which living human societies depend to function properly. Goodwin and Heritage (1990:283), social interaction was elucidated as „the primordial means through which the business of the social world is transacted, the identities of its participants are affirmed or denied, and its cultures are transmitted, renewed and modified.‟ Undoubtedly, like an indispensable part, conversations help people socialize and develop and nourish their mutual relationships.2 Conversation Analysis Studies have shown that when people converse, their communication is more than just the systematic use of linguistic items; that is, something else other than language itself.
„Conversation Analysis‟ is seen as a unique way of analyzing language and social interaction. This kind of study on talk-in-interaction has long been a phenomenon of great interest for researchers of a wide range of fields. Conversation analytic approach has become most influential for its contributions to provide deep insights that can unravel many linguistic problems (Levinson 1983: 364). It takes, as one of its subjects, the study of mundane social interaction in naturally occurring settings on the basis of rigorous and systematic methods.
The assumption that social actions are meaningful, and are produced and interpreted as such, leads to the desire to discover, describe and analyze their natural organization or order, which constitutes and constructs this orderliness. Conversation analysis, therefore, licitly investigates all areas of socially motivated talk. 2007:17) Its primary concern is the discovery, description, and analysis of how conversation is produced and understood. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 In order to provide real-life data from different subjects, audio taping technologies have been employed to record naturally occurring actions in real-world settings, combined with direct observation and notes by researchers.
This gives rise to an extensive analysis of the rules and orders of talk. New approaches to the study of language and communication with respect to culture focusing on meanings-in-context, natural classification systems by members of a culture, their perceptions and conventions also brought about changes in conversation analysis.3 Language and Culture 1.1 What is „language‟?