VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES *********************** VI THỊ THU HẰNG INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS LETTERS (TÍNH CÁ NHÂN VÀ TÍNH TẬP THỂ TRONG THƢ TÍN THƢƠNG MẠI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 HANOI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES *********************** VI THỊ THU HẰNG INDIVIDUALISM AND COLLECTIVISM IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE BUSINESS LETTERS (TÍNH CÁ NHÂN VÀ TÍNH TẬP THỂ TRONG THƢ TÍN THƢƠNG MẠI TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 02 01 Supervisor: Nguyễn Hòa, Prof. HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify the thesis entitled “Individualism and Collectivism in English and Vietnamese business letters” as my own work in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Hanoi, 2017 Vi Thị Thu Hằng i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to a number of people who have assisted my research work. First, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyễn Hòa, for his enthusiastic and careful guidance as well as his encouragements. Second, I am extremely grateful to Assoc.
Huỳnh Anh Tuấn for his suggestions and Prof. Nguyễn Quang for hisexplanations that have enlightened my research path. Last but not least, I would like to give my great thanks to all my teachers at Faculty of Post-Graduated Department at University of Languages and International Studies for their devotion and their useful lectures. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the manifestations of Individualism and Collectivism in English and Vietnamese business letters by analyzing how they play out in the use of pronouns (I vs.
We); communication styles (High vs. low context communication and direct vs. indirect communication styles); self-construal (self- enhancement vs. self-effacement); and face (self-face vs.
others-face concern) and facework (positive and negative politeness strategies). The results appear to contradict the general perception that Vietnamese culture is valued toward Collectivism and British and American culturesare valued toward Individualism. Although manifestations of both Individualism and Collectivism are indentified in EBLs and VBLs, EBLs tend to incline towards collectivistic values and VBLs leans towards individualistic values. The data indicates that, in business context, business letters act as a channel of communication, in which, the writers are representatives of their company.
Thus, their behavior is adjusted to be appropriate for specific context to pursue certain purposes. The writer varies from Individualism to Collectivism and vice versa.This study indicates that cultural assumptions about individual characteristics based on where she or he comes from should be treated as reference, not confirmed truths. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABBREVIATIONS BLs Business letters COL Collectivism EBLs English business letters FTAs Face threatening acts H Addressee IDV Individualism S Speaker VBLs Vietnamese business letters iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: The key difference between Collectivist and Individualist Societies 7 Table 2.1: The frequency of first person pronouns in EBLs and VBLs 21 Table 2.2: The percentages of speech acts used for giving offer, promises and 31 threats or making orders, requests, and commands.3: The frequency of “show off” words in EBLs and VBLs 34 Table 2.4: The frequency of using person pronouns “I/ We/ You” in EBLs and VBLs 37 Table 2.5: The address forms in EBLs 43 Table 2.6: The address forms in VBLs 44 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: IDV/ COL Index Scores 9 Figure 1.2:The relationships in business letters 11 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iv LIST OF TABLES .v LIST OF FIGURES.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study .1 Definition of Individualism and Collectivism .2 Two opposite poles or two separate dimensions .3 Attributes of IDV and COL .5 Individualism and Collectivism in Business letters .1 Data and Procedure .3 Self-Construal: Self-enhancement& Self-effacement .4 Face and Facework. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .23 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Low- and High-context communication .2 Direct and Indirect styles .3 Self-Construal: Self-enhancement and Self-effacement.4 Face and Facework .1 Self-face concern vs. Other-face concern.
2 Negative and positive politeness strategies .4 Suggestions for further studies. I viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Rationale IDV and COL are two of the cultural dimensions beside Power distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity and Femininity, Long- versus Short-Term Orientation, and Indulgence versus Restraint which are added in 2010 by Geert Hofstede (1997, 1980, 1983, 2001, 2010)– a famous Dutch social psychologist. Hofstede‘s studies showed that European countries like the United States of America, Britain, France, Denmark, etc have high IDV Index and countries likeChina, Russia, Singapore, and Vietnam have low IDV Index.
In 1995, Triandis published a book named ―Individualism and Collectivism‖ which explored the constructs of IDV and COL. He drew an important conclusion that no society is ―purely‖ individualist or collectivist (1995:27). He also indicated that we get full distribution of these both values in every culture. There are people who act more like collectivists in the individualist society and vice versa, there are people who act like individualists in the collectivist society.
The culture pattern is situation specific. It would be erroneous to assume that any culture is exclusively IDV or COL; IDV and COL should be viewed as two cultural orientations. Hofstede (2001) referred to the report of Leung and Bond (1984) on two laboratory experiments with psychology students in Hong Kong and the United States about sharing a reward with an unreal working partner.In the experiments, subjects imaginarily did more or less than their partner andthen chose the way of reward allocation that could be equity based on performance or equality based on equal sharing. The collectivist Hong Kong Chinese chose equality when their choices were public, but equity when they were kept private; The choice of the Hong Kong students also differed for in-group and out-group members while the American students‘ choices were stable, they chose equity more often than equality.
The experiments concluded that―Chinese behavior was much more context dependent than the American behavior‖ (Hofstede, 2001, p. It was the 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com experiments that inspired me to investigate Vietnamese behavior and American behavior in business settings. With the globalization of world economy, business communication is becoming increasingly important. Business letters, being a major form of communication in the commercial world, play a significant role in the administration and operation of a business.
They are special discourses with their own properties; however, they are still products of language and culture. The arising questions are, in the age of information technology, with easy access to various information sources and high intercultural exchange frequency, how IDV and COL are manifested in EBLs and VBLs; and which cultural orientation is dominant in VBLs and EBLs. In order to seek answers for those questions, the research is conducted by analyzing 45 business letters in English and 45 letters in Vietnamese. Aims of the study The assumption of the study: it is generally believed that Vietnamese culture is toward Collectivism while British and American cultures are toward Individualism.
The study aims at testing this assumption in the case of business letters. It attempts to provide a better understanding of these two cultural values and examine how they operate in specificbusiness situations. The study also investigates similarities and differences between EBLs and VBLs in term of IDV and COL. I hope the findings of the study will assist intercultural communication andoffer suggestions for teachers‘ choices of teaching approaches and for students when they teach and studybusiness letters.
Research questions The study is conducted to offer answers for the following questions: 1. How are IDV and COL manifested in EBLs and VBLs? 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Which cultural pattern, IDV or COL, is dominantin VBLsand in EBLs? 4. Scope of the study In today‘s world, business letters are used more and more commonly as an effective means of transaction.
Business letters convey messages of not only the writers but also the organizations they stand for, which are directly affected by cultural values of the writers, their organizations, and their countries. In order to deeply understand business letters, the readers should examine cultural values and how these factors affect business letters. Due to limited resources and within the frame of a minor thesis, the research focuses on investigating only 45 business letters in English and 45 business letters in Vietnamese. Datawere collected mainly from the internet and some private companies.
The collected data includes different types of business letters such as sales letters, order letters, complaint letters, responses to complaint letters, adjustment letters, and thank you letters. With such a small number of reference letters, this study may be treated as a case study. Thus, the results of the study might not be generalized to all kinds of business letters in all situations. Methodology As mentioned in the previous part, the study may be conducted as a case study in order to test the assumption that Vietnamese culture is COL and American culture is IDV in the case of business letters.
The study starts at analyzing linguistic manifestations in business letters based on markers ofIDV and COL andthen drawing conclusions; thus the approach to the study is inductive. The study is qualitative and descriptivesince linguistic studies are observable and regarded as humanities. Qualitative method, which is viewed as a general 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com approach to explore problems, has been preferred by most linguists as the linguistic research methodology (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994). Qualitative method will be used to examine and access the effects of linguistics aspects such as vocabulary, sentence structures, grammatical properties (pronouns, modality, and so on), and textual features.
The descriptive method has been adopted for the investigation and presentation of data throughout the research. Thus, the research based on a fair amount of description, presenting letters as they are. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Definition of Individualism and Collectivism Cultural variation in terms of IDV versus COL is considered one of the most well known cultural continuums (Hofstede, 1997, 1980, 1983, 2001, 2010; Kim, Sharkey, & Singelis, 1994, Triandis, 1995; Hui & Triandis, 1986). The terms IDV and COL are employed to explain cultural differences in different parts of the world; however they are given various meanings (Triandis, 1995).
Hofstede (2001) gives one-line definitions of IDV and COL viewed as two poles of a dimension of national culture. According to Hofstede, in individualist cultures, the relationships between individuals are loose; thus, people tend to look after themselves and their nuclear family. In collectivist cultures, on the other hand, individuals closely link with their groups like their nuclear family, their extended family, the village society, and the tribe. Triandis (1995) based on the relationship between individuals and their group provides the definitionof these constructs.
He defines COL as a social pattern consisting of closely linked individuals and IDV as a social pattern consisting of loosely linked individuals. He explains that collectivists view themselves as parts of collectives who are motivated by the social norms, duties, and obligations and individualists view themselves as independent of collectives who are motivated by their own pleasures or personal advantages, needs, rights, and the contracts they have established with others.