Tài liệu A cross cultural study on expressing satisfaction in american english and vietnamese

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON EXPRESSING SATISFACTION IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT- MỸ TRONG CÁCH THỨC DIỄN TẢ SỰ HÀI LÕNG) M.A. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Hanoi, 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDY NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH A CROSS- CULTURAL STUDY ON EXPRESSING SATISFACTION IN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO THOA VĂN HÓA VIỆT- MỸ TRONG CÁCH THỨC DIỄN TẢ SỰ HÀI LÕNG) M.A. MINOR THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD Hanoi, 2013 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis entitled: “A cross- cultural study on expressing satisfaction in American English and Vietnamese”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, is the result of my own work. I have provided fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other formal course of study. Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh Hanoi, 2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr. Huynh Anh Tuan, PhD, my supervisor, for his valuable guidance, his instructive comments and his dutiful supervision, without which this thesis would be far from completed. I would also like to give my sincere gratitude to all of the lecturers at HULIS- VNU, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm in their lectures. During the process of implementing the research, they have created the favorable conditions for me, not only in terms of accessing to essential materials but also by the heart-warming encouragement. I also take this opportunity to express my immense thankfulness to my friends and classmates, who have always stayed by my side, given me constructive comments and perked me up every time I need. Particularly I want to say a special thanks to two friends of mine, who are all living and studying in the U.S. for their invaluable help in distributing the survey questionnaire. They are Le Huong Ly and Nguyen Thi Lien Huong. I cannot forget to acknowledge the important contributions of both Vietnamese and American informants, whose names cannot be mentioned in the thesis. Finally, I would like to express my enormous debt to my parents for their continual encouragement and immeasurable support. ii ABSTRACT Based on the theoretical background of cross- cultural communication, this study aims at investigating the similarities and differences in expressing satisfaction towards different co- interactants in the Vietnamese and American language and culture. It focuses primarily on:  The popularity of strategies of expressing satisfaction employed  The use of directness and indirectness in expressing satisfaction To succeed in doing such a research, the author of the study takes informants’ social parameters such as age, sex, marital status, living area, and knowledge of foreign language(s) into consideration. Besides, their survey responses are carefully analyzed to build a frame, a common set of strategies in the field. The conclusion is drawn from data analysis and findings are presented and compared in a brief and concise way. Some common expressing satisfaction patterns in both Vietnamese and American cultures from the data are also presented and illustrated with the hope of partially helping avoid cultural conflicts or communicating breakdowns. iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1:The five general functions of speech acts (Yule) Table 2: Number of informants with their status parameters Table 3:D-ID in the situations under study (in Vietnamese) Table 4: Use of D-ID as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟ parameters Table 5:D-ID in the situations under study (in American) Table 6:Use of D-ID as seen from American communicating partners‟ parameters Table 7:Use of D-ID as seen from Vietnamese informants‟ parameters Table 8:Use of D-ID as seen from American informants‟ parameters Table 9:Use of strategies as seen from Vietnamese communicating partners‟ parameters Table 10:Use of strategies as seen from American communicating partners‟ parameters Figure 1: Ferrando‟s diagram of culture Figure 2: Nguyen Quang‟s diagram of components of communication Figure 3: Areas of language knowledge (Bachman and Palmer, 1996:68) Figure 4:: Bach and Harnish‟s classification of speech acts (1979) Figure 5 : Possible strategies for doing FTAs Figure 6: Nguyen Quang‟s schema of possible strategies for doing FTAs Figure 7: Kaplan‟s diagram iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale ................................................................................................................. 1 2. Aims of the study .................................................................................................... 2 3. Scope of the study ................................................................................................... 3 4. Methods of the study ............................................................................................... 3 5. Design of the study.................................................................................................. 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review ....................................... 5 I. Theoretical background ........................................................................................... 5 1. Culture and communication .................................................................................... 5 1.1. Culture .................................................................................................................. 5 1.2. Communication .................................................................................................... 9 1.3. Culture- communication correlation .................................................................. 12 1.4. Cross- cultural communication .......................................................................... 13 1.5. Communicative competence .............................................................................. 16 2. Cross- cultural pragmatics..................................................................................... 19 3. Speech acts ............................................................................................................ 21 3.1. The notion of speech acts ................................................................................... 21 3.2. Classification of speech acts .............................................................................. 22 3.3. Expressing satisfaction as a speech acts ............................................................ 25 4. Politeness............................................................................................................... 26 4.1. Face and politeness ............................................................................................ 26 4.1.1. Face ................................................................................................................. 26 4.1.2. Politeness ......................................................................................................... 28 4.2. Positive politeness strategies .............................................................................. 30 4.3. Negative politeness strategies ............................................................................ 33 v 5. Directness and indirectness ................................................................................... 35 5.1. Directness and indirectness defined ................................................................... 35 5.2. Levels of indirectness ......................................................................................... 37 5.3. Directness and indirectness in correlation with politeness ................................ 39 5.4. Social factors influencing the use of directness and indirectness in human interaction .................................................................................................................. 41 Chapter 2: Methodology........................................................................................... 44 1. Research questions ................................................................................................ 44 2. Data collection instruments ................................................................................... 44 2.1. The questionnaire ............................................................................................... 44 2.2. The informants ................................................................................................... 46 3. Data collection and analysis method ..................................................................... 47 Chapter 3: Data analysis: Findings and discussion ............................................... 48 1. Data analysis of D- ID in expressing satisfaction ................................................. 48 1.1. D-ID strategies in expressing satisfaction .......................................................... 48 1.2. Use of D- ID as seen from communicating partners’ parameters ...................... 50 1.2.1. Vietnamese findings ........................................................................................ 50 1.2.2. American findings ........................................................................................... 51 1.2.3. Similarities and differences ............................................................................. 53 1.3. Use of D-ID as seen from informants’ parameters ............................................ 55 1.3.1. Vietnamese findings ........................................................................................ 55 1.3.2. American findings ........................................................................................... 56 1.3.3. Similarities and differences ............................................................................. 57 2. Data analysis of strategies in expressing satisfaction (SES) ................................. 59 2.1. Strategies in expressing satisfaction .................................................................. 59 2.2. Realization of SESs in Vietnamese .................................................................... 60 2.2.1. Realization of SESs in Vietnamese as seen from co- interactants’ parameters ................................................................................................................. 60 2.2.2. Realization of SESs in Vietnamese as seen from informants’ parameters ..... 71 2.3. Realization of SESs in English .......................................................................... 76 vi 2.3.1. Realization of SESs in English as seen from co- interactants’ parameter ...... 76 2.3.2. Realization of SESs in English as seen from informants’ parameters ............ 85 2.4. Similarities and differences ................................................................................ 90 PART C: CONCLUSION 1. Summary of the study ........................................................................................... 93 2. Limitations of the study ........................................................................................ 95 3. Suggestions for further study ................................................................................ 96 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 97 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale With the great speed of developing and expanding, English has emerged as the most powerful international language all over the world. Starting from its use gradually turning into colossal, plus the characteristics of convenience, English on those days can be said to be the “golden key to every door”. In the Vietnamese context, as a result of the open policies and a lot of encouragement and support from society, the needs of learning English have also been magnified. However, for the sake of examination, the real purpose of learning English has been somehow distorted. A long time ago, the method of English teaching at school was Grammar- Translation Method with the stress on grammatical points. Up till now, thanks to the attentive researches from language teachers and educators, the pendulum of English language teaching has swung to communicative approach. Acquiring a new language means a lot more than the manipulation of syntax and lexicon. Language is not just a system of sounds, words and grammatical structures in isolation, yet it is seen as a system of communication existing in a community. The goal of language teaching is, therefore assumed to be learners’ ability to communicate in the target language. As a matter of fact, to attain the good command of communication, culture learning apparently becomes indispensable. Brembeck (1977) noted that, “To know another‟s language and not his culture is a way to make a fluent fool of oneself”. It is the same in the case of teaching and learning English. In order to help learners achieve communicative competence, we have to pay close attention to culture awareness and acquisition. That dialectical connection has always been a concern of researchers and from time to time it has received more and more agreement. Thomas (1983) states that the lack of socio linguistic competence results in rudeness, miscommunication or even communication breakdown because non native speakers’ inappropriate use of cultural norms and conventions are considered 1 as manifestation of “impoliteness or unfriendliness” due to “boorishness or ill will” rather than lack of pragmatic knowledge. Accordingly, culture learning no longer remains humble and unnecessary in the syllabus. In contrast, it needs to be taken in great consideration and concentration. Succeeding this point of view, Nguyen Quang (1998) came to the conclusion that, “One cannot master a language without profound awareness of its cultural background and in both verbal and non-verbal communication, culture makes itself strongly felt.” A learner can truly master English only when he is able to hold a good understanding of the intertwined relationship between culture and language. Recognizing the intertwined relationship between culture and language, the researcher would like to carry out a small-scale study on Expressing satisfaction as a speech act, which is viewed in the light of Politeness (Positive politenessnegative politeness) in English and Vietnamese. Due to the limit of the paper, she would not be able to deal with all aspects but draw some differences and similarities in expressing satisfaction in the two languages. It is hoped that the study may contribute some help to learners to avoid culture shock and failures in expressing satisfaction as well as in inter-cultural communication. 2. Aims of the study The study focuses to achieve the following aims: - To have a thorough examination in the similarities and differences in directness and indirectness strategies of expressing satisfaction by Vietnamese and English informants, whereby to find out some similarities and differences in politeness strategies of expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese. - to find out factors that affects the choice of politeness strategies when expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese. - to raise awareness of cross-cultural factors in expressing satisfaction and help learners of English avoid cultural shock in -cultural communication. 2 3. Scope of the study The paper investigates expressing satisfaction as a speech act in English and Vietnamese. Expressing satisfaction will be analyzed in accordance with verbal cues. And the study focuses on the dimension of Politeness (Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness), as well as Directness- Indirectness. Due to the limitation of time and material, the study only concentrates on investigating strategies of expressing satisfaction in English and Vietnamese in some certain situations together with some typical socio- cultural factors among various ones governing the choice of politeness strategies. Besides, the number of informants is limited: 30 informants from the U.S and 30 informants from Vietnam (Northern Vietnam). 4. Methods of the study Within the length of this study, quantitative method will be primarily deployed. Qualitative remarks, assumptions and conclusions of the study will be mainly based on the quantitative contrastive analysis of data. With a view to the data collection methods, the one and only tool that helps the researcher get hold of the statistics and responses is questionnaires. Specifically, there are two questionnaires delivered to Vietnamese and American informants, one is Metapragmatic Questionnaire (MPQ) and another is Discourse Completion Task (DCT). One one hand, MPQ is designed to test the validity and reliability of 12 situations in 3 activity areas: at home, at work and in public places. . On the other hand, DCT which was logically and emperically valiadated before it is used as a data collection instrument is employed as the tool to analyze negative and positive strategies as well as the use of directness/ indirectness in some certain situations. 5. Design of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: 3 Part A: Introduction The rationale, aims, scope of the study, methods are presented in this part. Part B: Development This is the main part of the study which is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1: Theoretical background Chapter 2: Literature review Chapter 3: Methodology Chapter 4: Data analysis: Findings and Discussions In the first chapter, in order to lay the basis for the study, some definitions and theories about culture, communication and speech acts will be covered. Following is the methodology of the research in which the author has in-depth discussions about the questionnaires and the informants. After that, the second chapter follows the thread with the contrastive analysis of data. Part 3: Conclusion In this part, the major findings are summarized, conclusions drawn and suggestions for further study made. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review I. Theoretical background 1. Culture and communication 1.1. Culture The term “culture” has been defined by many scholars from time to time. It may not be an exaggeration to say that there are nearly as many definitions of culture as there are fields of inquiry into human beings. In its simplest meaning, culture is thought to be something non-natural or ordinaryit is the everyday life, something people think, wear, eat or speak, etc. However, the definition of culture is wider than those above, as seen from the scientific view. Richards (1993: 94) defines culture as “the total set of beliefs, attitudes, customs, behaviors, social habits, etc. of the members of a particular society.” Culture in its broad sense covers all aspects of human life. It includes both material culturephysical artifacts or objects like “ao dai”, vases, pagodas and nonmaterial cultureabstract creation like symbols, norms, customs or values. However, it must be noted that “the essence of culture is not its artifacts, tools or other tangible culture elements but how the members of the group interpret, use and perceive them.” (Banks, 1999). Therefore, Ferraro (1995:16) (cited in lecture notes by Nguyen Quang) gives the definition: “Culture is everything that people have, think or do as a member of a society.” 5 Figure 1: Ferrando‟s diagram of culture Thus, culture refers to the patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting. People within a culture usually interpret the meaning of symbols, artifacts and behaviors in the same ways. In other words, culture provides the fabric that enables human beings to interpret their experiences, and guides their actions. Culture gives them a common framework of meaning and, hence, allows them to know what they can expect of others and what others can expect of them. For example, in the Vietnamese culture, when a compliment is given, a denial is expected. Meanwhile, in America, a “thank you” is expected. Within the limitation of the paper, the definition offered by Levine and Adelman (1993) is chosen to be the most appropriate one. Culture is a shared background (for example, national, ethnic, religious) resulting from a common language and communication style, customs, beliefs, attitudes and values. As condensed and precise it turns out, this definition emphasizes the importance of language in the way that it is the chief vehicle by which people communicate ideas among each other and the principal means by which human beings have created culture and transmit it from generation to generation. 6 In order to gain a deeper understanding towards culture, it is useful to examine more closely its characteristics. 1. Culture is learned Culture is non- natural; people have to learn to get it. In other words, people are not born with culture but become culture bearer by learning it. Children learn it from adults; the following generation learns it from the previous one. Through exposure, observation and imitation, they take in culture elements and internalize them. 2. Culture is transmissible In all cultures, symbols act as the physical existence of cultural elements and they are the means by which culture is passed along from generation to generation. Symbols include objects, words and acts which have come to be socially accepted as standing for something else; people use symbols to spread culture, and thanks to this, culture is learned. Through day-to-day interaction, people learn and transmit culture. The more people acquire knowledge of culture, the more widely and deeply culture is transmitted. Herein, it is observable that the first characteristic of culture leads to the second one. 3. Culture is dynamic All cultures are inherently predisposed to change. They never remain static. Within each culture, there are dynamic processes operating that encourage the acceptance of new things and ideas together with the omission of no-longer-useful ones. For example, white complexion used to be considered a criterion of beauty but tan is now admired. Women used to be confined to the role of housewives, yet now they can join in various social activities and pursue their own careers. From this point of view, O’ Neilstates: “All culture knowledge does not perpetually accumulate. At the same time that new cultural traits are added, some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful”. 7 (http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_2.htm, Retrieved 31 December, 2012). That is, processes leading to change include invention and cultural loss. Invention brings new items while cultural loss seems to be an inevitable result of old patterns being replaced by the other new ones. It is noted that new cultural traits are added not only due to the invention or discovery of absolutely new tools, practices or concepts but also due to the diffusion of traits. Diffusion occurs when the influence of one culture is spread to one another. 4. Culture is selective According to Clinfford Geertz (1973), culture is a set of standardized orientation to recurrent problems and a mechanism for the normative of behavior. That is, each culture selects a configuration of dos and don’ts, rights and wrongs. It defines the limit of behavior patterns and, therefore, distinguishes one human group from another based on the typical features of each. For example, American people appreciate individualism while Vietnamese people are group- oriented. Obviously, the selectivity of culture makes up the uniqueness in each one. Actually, the selectivity is carried out every time, everyday and throughout the whole history of culture whenever a certain thing or perception is created, accepted, changed or left behind. 5. Facets of culture are interrelated As culture is a complex whole, cultural elements do not exist separately. They are integrated and interdependent. Within a culture, when one thing is touched, everything else is affected. For instance, when women in some Muslim countries are allowed to go out with no veil, they have more chances to contact the outside world and improve their knowledge. They can take part in social activities, thus, their status in society is improved. 8 6. Culture is ethnocentric Ethnocentrism is the viewpoint that one’s ethnic group is the centre of everything, against which all other groups are judged. More specifically, one group sees it as superior and rates others based on its own measures. Ethnocentrism leads people to reject alien ideas or things as addressed unnatural. It is normal that a group considers its way of life the only right one and somehow unleash scorn for the others’ ways. Take the following case as an example. Asian people find it unacceptable for Western ones to leave their parents in old- aged institutions. In contrast, Western people regard children upbringing in Asian countries as spoiled and negative because it does not give children much independence to grow. Ethnocentrism therefore is a factor of resistance to change. It maintains ethnic lines despite transculturation. To some extent, this characteristic seems to be on the contrary to the third one. However, conflict propels life and it is their co-existence that ensures the equilibrium of the development of culture. To sum it up, human life and culture are inextricably connected. Our ways of life form culture and culture affords use a kind of map for finding our way about life. 1.2. Communication From the dawn of human civilization till now, communication has been playing the primary role in our lives. It takes places in almost every human action and accounts for most of our lifetime. Recognizing that phenomenal function of communication and how broad the term denotes, a lot of researchers have attempted to reason the definition of it. At the first glance, there is the definition from S. Hybels and Weaver (1992), which proposes: “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 mannerism and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message.” 9 It is understood that communication refers to the process of exchanging information. During that process, information is enclosed in a package and is channeled and imparted by a sender to a receiver via a medium. Herein, “medium” covers not only verbal means such as speech, song, tone of voice, etc. but also nonverbal means such as body language, sign language, touch, eye contact and even writing. Going further, Williams (1989: 10) defines communication in more details: “Communication refers to: (1). The exchange of symbols, common messages, information (2). The process of exchange between individuals through a common system of symbols (3). The art of expressing ideas (4). The science of transmitting information” Generally, communication can be viewed as “the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behavior” (Levine and Adelman, 1993). To attain a closer look at communication and its system, the diagram designed byNguyen Quang (2002) as stated following may serve a great help. 10 Figure 2: Nguyen Quang‟s diagram of components of communication Communication Nonverbal communication Verbal communication Paralanguage Intralanguage - Vocabulary - Grammatical rules - Phonetic rules - Rules of language use - Vocal characteristics: pitch, volume, rate, vocal quality, types of vocal flow - Vocal inferences - silence Body language Objective language (action language, kinesics) (artifacts) - Eye contact - Facial expressions - Gestures - Postures - Physical characteristics - Body movement - Touch/ haptics/ tactile -… Extralanguage - Clothing - Jewelry - Make- up - Artificial scents - Flowers -… 11 Environmental language - Setting - Conversational distance/ proxemics - Time/ chronemics - Lighting system - Color - Heat -…