Vietnam national university College of foreign languages Postgraduate department ----------------**0**---------------- Cao ThÞ HËu Hiding bad feelings in daily conversations in American and vietnamese (Che giÊu nh÷ng c¶m xóc kh«ng vui trong c¸c cuéc héi tho¹i hµng ngµy ë ng-êi Mü vµ ng-êi ViÖt Nam) PROGRAM I M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Hanoi, 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Vietnam national university College of foreign languages Postgraduate department ----------------**0**---------------- Cao ThÞ HËu Hiding bad feelings in daily conversations in American and vietnamese (Che giÊu nh÷ng c¶m xóc kh«ng vui trong c¸c cuéc héi tho¹i hµng ngµy ë ng-êi Mü vµ ng-êi ViÖt Nam) PROGRAM I M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: §ç ThÞ Mai Thanh, M. Hanoi, 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1: Introduction.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methodology of the study. The survey instrument.
Design of the study. 6 Chapter 1: Theoretical background. Language, communication, and culture. Language and communication.
Language and culture. Hiding bad feelings used as a face saving act. Previous researches on subject matters related to hiding feelings. 8 Chapter 2: Verbal communication and hiding bad feelings.
Ways of using verbal language to hide bad feelings. 11 Chapter 3: Results and Discussions. Ways to express different strategies to hide bad feelings in American English and Vietnamese. Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in American and Vietnamese in particular social groups.
Different strategies used by American and Vietnamese in hiding bad feelings. Communication in university. Communication in family. Communication in business.
24 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used by different gender of two groups - as seen from gender perspective. Hiding bad feelings used by Vietnamese females vs. Hiding bad feelings used by American females vs.
Some suggestions for successful communication. Suggestions for further study. 43 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS Table 1: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of age. 17 Table 2: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of gender.
18 Table 3: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of marital status. 18 Table 4: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of living area. 19 Table 5: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of occupation. 19 Table 6: Frequency of verbal hiding bad feelings in terms of language acquisition.
20 Chart 1: Different strategies used by American and Vietnamese in hiding bad feelings. 21 Chart 2: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings in communication in university used by native speakers of Vietnamese and native speakers of English. 22 Chart 3: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings in communication in family used by native speakers of Vietnamese and native speakers of English. 23 Chart 4: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings in communication in business used by native speakers of Vietnamese and native speakers of English.
24 Chart 5: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used by different gender of two groups: Vietnamese females vs. 26 Chart 6: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in university by Vietnamese females vs. 27 Chart 7: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in family by Vietnamese females vs. 28 Chart 8: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in business by Vietnamese females vs.
30 Chart 9: Different purposes of Vietnamese males and females in hiding bad feelings. 31 Chart 10: Different bad feelings hidden by Vietnamese males and females. 32 Chart 11: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used by different gender of two groups: American females vs. 34 Chart 12: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in university by American females vs.
35 Chart 13: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in family by American females vs. 36 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii Chart 14: Different strategies of hiding bad feelings used in communication in business by American females vs. 37 Chart 15: Different purposes of American males and females in hiding bad feelings. 39 Chart 16: Different bad feelings hidden by American males and females.
40 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS SPSS = Statistical Package for the Social Sciences FTA = Face threatening act FSA = Face saving act Stra = Strategy Uni = University Fami = Family Busi = Business A = Always S = Sometimes N = Never MS = Marital status LA = Living area Pur = Purpose F = Feeling LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 Part 1: Introduction 1. Rationale Language, according to Schmidt & Richard (1980, p. 161), is used to ‚build bridges, to consolidate political regimes, to carry on arguments, to convey information from one person to another, to entertain – in short, to communicate.‛ When the function ‚to communicate‛ flows successfully, a social relation has been established, reinforced and maintained. Thus, successful communication requires not only pure linguistic competence but also knowledge of social norms, social status, social values, and relations between individuals known as communicative competence - the ability to use the language correctly and appropriately.
Successful communication needs the correct interpretation by an addressee of a speaker’s/ writer’s intent in performing a linguistic act. The lack of this pragmatic competence as well as linguistic competence may lead to impoliteness, misinterpretation, culture shocks, or even communication breakdown. Hiding bad feelings is chosen for investigation in this study not accidentally. First, communicative functions are not only language – specific, they are culture – specific as well.
The difference in the ways in which languages realize the same function seems to make it problematic for language learners to say the right thing at the right time. It seems to be dangerous when the exposure of negative feelings may insult or loose face of the interlocutors. Knowing how to hide the bad feelings and response appropriately is very necessary, especially for cultural outsiders. Second, a number of studies concerning speech acts such as thanking, advising, requesting, apologizing, disagreeing, etc.
have been carried out in this college. Some of the researches on hiding feelings have already done at under- graduate level, but none has been carried out at higher levels. Thus, I would like to continue exploring this topic in my M. Moreover, a comparison of hiding bad feelings between American native speakers of English and native speakers of Vietnamese is considered to be valuable to the teaching and learning of spoken English in Vietnam.
That is why the thesis is named ‚Hiding bad feelings in daily conversations in American and Vietnamese‛. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Aims of the study The very first aim of this study is to find out the ways to express different polite strategies to hide bad feelings in American English and Vietnamese. The second purpose is to compare the different strategies of hiding bad feelings used by different gender of two ethnic groups: Vietnamese females vs.
males, and American females vs. Thanks to these findings, some suggestions for successful communication will be given. The study is, therefore, conducted with the hope of contributing to the socio-cultural aspects of spoken English communication for the avoidance or at least the reduction of communication failures in terms of sociolinguistic. The following questions guided the research: 1.
What are ways to express different polite strategies to hide bad feelings in American English and Vietnamese? 2. Does gender difference affect the ways of hiding bad feelings of American and Vietnamese? 3. Scope of the study Although the author is fully conscious of the role of non-verbal factors in real life communication, they are beyond the scope of this study. The study is only confined to the verbal aspect of the communication of hiding bad feelings.
And the study focuses on some specific situations in business, university and family. The Vietnamese northern dialects and American English are chosen for contrastive analysis. By American English, the author means the English spoken by those who have American nationality and speak English as their native language. Although such sociological factors such as relative power, ranking of impositions and social distance are crucial, they are kept neutral and constant.
The study especially focuses on the effects of different genders on the ways of hiding bad feelings of native speakers of Vietnamese and American. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methodology of the study 4. The survey instrument The survey instrument, a three-page questionnaire, was devised to work out hiding bad feelings in daily conversations in American and Vietnamese.
The questionnaire was divided into three sections. The first section contained demographic questions in order to gain information about the participants’ nationality, age, gender, marital status, area where they spend most of their time, occupation, acquisition of language(s) other than their mother tongue. The second section consisted of three questions. Respondents were asked: ‚How often do you hide your bad feelings? What is your purpose when you hide your bad feelings? What bad feelings do you often hide?‛ This section dealt with the basic concept of hiding bad feelings in order to review the subjects’ understanding of hiding bad feelings.
The third section related to seven situations, including 3 situations in university, 2 situations in family, and 2 situations in business. In this section, informants were asked to be in specific positions to produce practical strategies of hiding bad feelings. They can choose one of the appropriate answers given or express their own ideas. The subjects in this study were divided into two groups: Vietnamese people and American people.
The Vietnamese group included 20 females and 20 males, who were native speakers of Vietnamese living in the Northern part of Vietnam. The American group included 20 females and 20 males who were native speakers of English living in the USA. The questionnaires were delivered to many people of two groups from different professions and social status. Their ages range from 18 to 60 years.
Due to research requirement seen from gender perspective, the survey was distributed almost evenly in number of female and male respondents in both of the two groups. The number of females respondents accounts for 50% and male respondents 50%. This balance will affirm valid findings of the study. Two different methods were used for data collection.
First, while visiting some places like travel agencies, restaurants, hotels, cafeterias, libraries, classrooms, and at home in February, March and April of 2009, the researcher contacted 44 foreigners and 55 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 Vietnamese people and asked them to answer the questionnaire. A total of 75 participants, including 35 foreigners and 40 Vietnamese people, completed the survey giving a response rate of 79. Next, written questionnaires were mailed to 10 Americans and 12 Vietnamese people. Out of 22, a total of 18 questionnaires from 8 Americans and 10 Vietnamese people were returned, giving a response rate of 80%, 83.
The large gap of response rates in data collection may be the result of the two different approaches for data collection, namely visiting or mailing. After all the data had been collected, the answers were kept and referred to when analyzing the findings. To understand the basic knowledge about the theme, such materials as textbooks, reference books, newspapers, sources from internet were consulted. The research is mainly relied on the survey questionnaires.
The data was coded and entered onto Microsoft Excel sheets, and then analyzed statistically, using percentage and reliability values, via the computerized program called SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Based on the collected information from the questionnaires, all the discussions, comments, and conclusions are inductively made. The quantitative method is mainly employed in the investigation with the illustration of tables, and graphs.