Rationale for the study
This study was conducted because of several reasons In the first place, proxemics can be considered as one of the most prominent aspects to investigate the manifestation of nonverbal communication and to emphasize its significance in human life However, there has not been enough studies giving rise to proxemics findings In fact, none of the previous research has been performed to find out Vietnamese common conversational distance
In the second place, misbehavior in proxemics within cross-cultural communication, especially in multicultual or multinational working environment, might unexpectedly arise and entail misunderstanding then cultural shock, or even communication breakdown Thus, the reviewing of proxemics behaviors in other mutual cultures in that great success in communication can be necessary
Finally, nonverbal communication with attention is given to proxemics behaviour has been one of my interest as a researcher Hence, I am intending to explore and discuss conversational distances and how it affects human communication Apparently, the ways Vietnamese informants apply conversational distances will be explored and analysed The findings and results of this study would somehow expectedly raise the awareness that how important the nonverbal communication would be Also, the findings would focus on the preferred conversational distance of Vietnamese communicators and then provide recommendations to American speakers in order avoid culture shocks and misunderstandings while interacting with Vietnamese informants.
Aims of the study
This thesis is inspired by Hall‟s work He creates a framework which indicated a need for my study The purpose of this study is to find the factors that affect the proxemics behaviors between Vietnamese dyads, mainly: age, gender, marital status, power distance, living area, and character of the informants In addtion, it examines and explores the proxemic distances preferred by Vietnamese speakers during communication process.
Research questions
The study addresses the following research questions:
1 What are the factors that affect the conversational distance between Vietnamese dyads?
2 What is the proxemic distance preferred by Vietnamese speakers during communication process?
Scope of the study
This study focuses on only conversational distance, as one of the three areas of proxemics (including space, distance and territory) However, the researcher was delivering an overview of all aspects as listed
Specifically, this research particularly identified conversational distance in American-Vietnamese cross-cultural nonverbal communication The data of American informants would be supposed to be the baseline data, which will be gathered through previous studies related to this field That means, the data of English communicators would be secondary data in which the author tried to exploit the sources or materials from studies reported in researches, reports, professional journals and books The data of Vietnamese dyads, however, will be collected as primary one, those will be gathered for the first time and thus happen to be original in character.
Structure of the thesis
The study is divided into three main parts as follow:
Part A: Introduction covers the rationale for study, aims, research questions, the scope, and structure of the study
Part B: Development is organized around three chapters as follows:
Chapter I - Literature review provides the theoretical framework of the study related to different approaches of proxemics behavior in different cultures, mainly English and Vietnamese cultures In this chapter, the author intends to give explanations on the appropriate framework of proxemics that will be applied to the study
Chapter II - Methodology presents the context, the methodology of the research which states the research design, data instruments including and questionnaires, informal interviews as well as videotaped recordings in order to find the conversational distance between communicative dyads Also, one-way ANOVA and Independence Sample t-test became the appropriate statically formulas which helps the author analyze the data involved A brief description of the participants of the study, data collection procedure and summary of the methodology could be found in this chapter
Chapter III – Findings and Discussions describes and discusses the major findings involving the issues of what factors affect and which factor has the most influence on the conversational distances favored by Vietnamese talkers Still, the detailed explanation for the dissimilarities of preferable interpersonal distance of the two cultures will be addressed in this chapter
Part C: Conclusion offers a summary of the findings, from which recommendations, limitations, and future directions for further related studies can also be drawn out
LITERATURE REVIEW
Factors affecting conversational distances
It has been demonstrated that the distance depends on the age of the animals, their body size, sex and number of other factors (Hediger 1950, Tinbergen 1953, Hall 1966) Some authors preferred to use the term interpersonal distance, due to the fact that this expression clearly indicates that the interaction between individuals is involved (Aiello 1987, Bell et al 2001) There must be some variables which have our use of space such as age, gender, culture, social status, personality, states of mood, marital status and living areas
Cultural background is one of the most influential factors in nonverbal communication The main idea is that people from different cultures have different concepts of what constitutes one‟s “personal space” and that the way we use the space around us is generally shaped by our culture In other words, interpretations of personal space vary from cultures to cultures Therefore, it is crucial to understand the influence of culture diversity on nonverbal communication in order to reduce friction and confusion during the process of cross-cultural communication
Cultures can be divided into three types: high-contact culture, moderate- contact culture and low-contact culture In high-contact culture, people prefer higher sensory exposure while interacting; that means, people usually keep small distances among themselves
The culture people grew up has a tremendous effect on who people are as individuals, whether they like it or not One of the direct cultural influences is on the size of the individual personal proxemics distance
“Distant” cultures tend to keep more personal space and use less touching than other “warm” cultures By contrast, Asian cultures characterized by more accommodating accepting attitude when it comes to personal distance and the theory states that it‟s due to more crowded living conditions
Other cultures including American‟s are considered to be “warmer” by nature-touch and close proximity are more welcome and socially accepted
Obviously, generalizing this information is a big mistake The researcher doesn‟t intend to conclude that all Europeans are distant and Asians like to crowd, it‟s merely an overall cultural code
For the purposes of understanding how different people communicate non- verbally, Edward Hall separated cultures into two basic categories: contact and non- contact In contact cultures, physical touching and intimate space between acquaintances is permitted and even necessary for establishing interpersonal relationships For non-contact cultures, touching and personal space is reserved for only the most intimate acquaintances Examples include the U.S., Norway, Japan, and most Southeast Asian cultures
Women tend to be more sociable than men: they get social cues better, they are more emotionally expressive and they are even generally better than men when it comes to emotional communication It is quite natural that women will feel more comfortable being to each other than men One observational study of conversational distance found that pairs of woman stood closer than pairs of men
By contrast, men are more territorial and aggressive by nature and will keep more distance from other men, but when it comes to women, men usually prefer to get a little closer Willis (1966) stated that women are approached more closely by both two genders, men and women Burgoon (1991) found that photographed males were seen as more dominant at close than at norm or far distances; for females, there were no differences across distances Thus we might expect some gender differences associated with proxemic relational messages
What is more, distance between the dyads of the same sex if smaller than between those of the opposite sex Vrugt and Ketstra (1984) stated that “in interaction between strangers, the interpersonal distance between women is smaller than between men and women.”
Research in sex differences in personal space indicates that the bubbles surrounding women are smaller than are those surrounding men For example, a study using unobtrusive observation of people in a public setting found that female pairs stood closer to each other than did male pairs In addition, this study found that male-female pairs stood closest of all Similarly, another study found that male and female pairs who were unacquainted differed in their interpersonal distance
Specifically, it was noted that female pairs sat closer to each other than male pairs in a waiting room situation Unequal space zones were also noted by Willis who found, in studying the initial speaking distance set by an approaching person, that women were approached more closely than were men by both men and women
Power distance refers to the degree of hierarchy and the way organigrams are set-up Power distance affects verbal and nonverbal communication People from individualistic cultures tend to have a small power distance whereas people from collectivist cultures have a bigger one Depending of the culture, power is distributed differently According to Altman & Vinsel (1977), dominant individuals command and were afforded more personal space than submissive or low status individuals
Social status produces a huge effect on the personal distance and demand
Accordingly, the higher the status, the more space communicators consider to be theirs It is believed that distance used between co-workers is distinctive to that between boss and worker, superior and inferior Hence, the first-class seats are bigger and have more space per individual When it comes to dominant-subordinate relationships it means that the high-status person can invade the space of the lower status person without too much resistance, and sometimes he is even encouraged to do so
Dominant individuals command and are afforded more personal space than submissive or low status individuals (Altman & Vinsel, 1977; Burgoon, 1987), and Burgoon et al (1984) found that among five immedacy cues, proximity was the biggest predictor of dominance interpretations Because dominant people are allowed to violate conversational distance norms, both close and far distances are associated with more dominance that are intermediate distanes (Burgoon, 1991;
Burgoon et al., 1984; Burgoon & Hale, 1988)
In general, children tend to stand closer to the subject That is, they are much more open in nature than adults, which can be explained by the fact that they lack some of the “social boundaries” Therefore, if a kid really like someone, he will even hug that person during the conversation Yet, at teenager or over, people begin having some awareness of gender difference, the distance especially in intimate and personal zone becomes further And at old age, we are found to interact in a closer distance, because we are assumed to receive the interaction subject‟s due to our being weak
METHODOLOGY
Data-collection instruments
The main contents of this section include participants of the study, the data collection instruments namely questionnaires, and interviews followed by the study procedure This study was conducted in the form of mixed research methods (both qualitative and quantitative approaches) Three key research instruments for data collection were exploited including questionnaires, interview and video recordings
Accordingly, a variety of method was used in order to test the theoretical predictions or assumptions about the proxemics behaviors as well as the factors that might leave impact on preferred interpersonal distance of Vietnamese However, each method has its own strengths and weaknesses that will be discussed later The implementation of questionnaires, video recordings and informal interviews seemed to be feasible
Questionnaires were selected as the first tool for the process of data collection Accordingly, I carefully studied the general features of questionnaires like the length, the layout, the topic; the main parts of questionnaire like the title, instructions, questionnaire items, additional information, and final “thank you”; questionnaire content; and types of questionnaire items
The survey was conducted within a group of Vietnamese people The
Hanoi and some other provinces mainly in the Northern areas of Vietnam
However, the participants would be assured that they would not be identified in any circumstances as they wished The questionnaires then were designed to address the issues in such factors affecting the conversational distances between the two selected cultures including age, gender, personality, social relationship, living areas, social status, mood and communication setting or areas It was the the author‟s intention to design the questionnaire in Vietnamese because of the fact that there would be no data needed from American speakers
The survey questionnaire (see the appendix) composed of two main parts with corresponding situations in which conversational distances were assigned to be a prominent subject These two main parts with part 2 consists of 20 closed-open items (see Appendix 1): I) a section on the subjects‟ individual information in terms of Age, Gender, Personality, Living Area, and Social Status This part aimed at helping frame the context for other data associated with the study;
II.A) a section (3 items) in which one item related to the preferable interpersonal distance of each communicator when having conversation to others; II.B) the next 17 items (5-Likert scale: from strongly disagree to strongly agree) related to the factors affecting the interpersonal distance of Vietnamese, which were mainly based on West & Turner (2009)
Meanwhile, the range of conversational distances of American culture will be considered as the comparative baseline hypothesis of the study The author tried to keep the 4 main zones (intimate zone, personal zone, social zone and public zone) as the general guidelines in the process comparing and contrasting with the Vietnamese‟s
There would be the involvements of human subjects during research process
Vietnamese and American speakers (as participants at baseline‟s) are selected because they are considered collectivistic and individualistic manifestations
What is more, the researcher has an intention of exploiting convenience sampling and explaining how they are selected All the members who are conveniently available are invited to participate in the study The participants will include 50 native Vietnamese living in the areas in the North of Vietnam, both rural‟s and urbans The characteristics of the study subjects, as I mentioned earlier, including age, gender, marital status, social status, living area and personality of the participants will be described
In order to get cooperation from these respondents, first I asked my acquaintances (my friends, my colleagues and my students) who are living and studying in Hanoi and some other provinces nearby Finally, 50 people agreed to participate in the survey questionnaires After completing the questionnaires, they were invited to participate in the interview and the video recording as well
First, data will be collected; then they will be analyzed and synthesized in order to find the shared points among documents Besides, the researcher will classify data into different categories following the guiding theory-based hypothesis according to their levels of importance and relations to the topic under investigation
Later, information would be presented in some kinds of comments, evaluations or arguments on the study which are mainly characterized by the figures of the survey questionnaires Below is the detailed description of the whole procedure
In order to collect valid data, survey questionnaires will be designed in both English and Vietnamese Moreover, the researcher tries to see how the questionnaire works in the process of data collection by piloting the questionnaires before delivering them to the participants
The first stage of data collection was questionnaires distribution 50 printed survey questionnaires (excluding back-ups) were distributed to Vietnamese native participants living both in rural and urban areas in the North of Vietnam Collecting the data started at the beginning of December, 2017 and intended to last about one month The convenience samplings were exploited: the researcher‟s students and colleagues and many acquaintances like the researcher‟s husband‟s colleagues were also invited to take part in the survey questionnaire
Apparently, the survey questionnaires will be conducted with the assistance of
50 native Vietnamese informants living in the North of Vietnam, consisting of three parts:
Part I: In this initial part, the informants involved might be asked to give personal information in case they do not find it disturbing Participants was required to complete demographic questions (age, sex, marital status, social status, living area and personality)
A In this main part, the informants will be asked about the distance at which they feel most comfortable when having conversation with the other communicators by marking on three graphic questions concerning their preferred conversational distance when having a conversation with others Especially, the questions will be based on some factors affecting conversational distances between Vietnamese dyads as gender, age, social power, and personality of the informants There will also be questions which are directly concerning to space violence Bases on the classic Hall‟s (1966) theory, we measured three separate categories of preferred interpersonal distances – distance to (a) stranger, (b) an acquaintance, and (c) a close person These measures reflected the previously defined categories of interpersonal distance: (a) social distance (1.2-3.7m), (b) personal distance (46cm- 1.2m), and (c) intimate distance (0-46cm) (Hall, 1966), respectively The author decided to use a very simple graphic task so that it will be easy for the participants to imagine the distance which they prefer during the process of communication
Then, the participants will be asked to imagine that he or she should be
Data analysis
The questionnaires and video recordings data were managed, coded and then analyzed through the IBM statistical analysis program, SPSS software, version (64 Bit) 20 SPSS is software that allows comparison of data across different groups
SPSS can handle data flexibly and perform statistic procedures accurately The data obtained from the dyads were entered into SPSS The factors such as Age, Gender, Marital Status, Social Status, Living Area, and Personality of the communicators were entered as independent variables, and Conversational Distances were entered as dependent variables
After all the data were entered, I conducted some formulas to obtain the information needed Firstly, I calculated the means obtained each case of communication to identify the means of conversational distance measured for each group respectively This helps to determine which hypothesis best predict the preferred interpersonal distance and the factor which has the most influence on distance in each case of communication Accordingly, I intended to use an Independent-Samples t-Test to assume if two variables of each factor like Gender, Living Area, Social Status, Marital Status and Personality are independent of each other or not
Also, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between the means of group differences with more than three variables such as Age This would help to identify whether the preferred interpersonal distance of the three age-groups differ statistically
Qualitative analysis was conducted with the one-to-one interviews with the colleagues of the researcher considering as the main method of data collection The whole process, therefore, involved asking questions, listening to and recording answers from an individual (data collection); interpretation of data, transcribing and checking (data analysis and management); and data synthesis Specifically, based on participants‟ responses, I worked out whether their experience would fit the ways they selected particular answers of interpersonal distance in the survey questionnaires or not That means, I tried to figure out if there were common patterns related to how they selected particular answers and how they would do it in the real-life situations
The data collection process involved audio-recording, which would be then transcribed accurately before data analysis began The participants‟ perspective then would be interpreted and reported on for other to read and learn from Still, this paper data was managed, analyzed, and presented in an appropriate order The interpretation of the data seemed to depend on the theoretical points chosen by the researcher This can be explained by the fact that such theories help the researcher focus and direct to the participant‟s related viewpoint
For the purposes of this paper it was assumed that interviews was audio- recorded As I mentioned above, transcribing was a difficult process in which I had to convert the spoken word to the written word for later analyses Then, the transcript would be rechecked by the interviewees so that the misunderstandings could be thoroughly avoided For instance, the researcher had to correct spellings or other errors, or some details must be anonymized so that the participant cannot be identified in any cases
Video recordings are an excellent source of data that can be used to assess relationships between behaviors that occur in close temporal proximity to one another In order to ensure the reliability of behavioral data obtained via video recording, I tried to exploit some certain techniques and strategies during the process That means, I managed to capture naturally ocurring proximic behaviour of participants.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Research question 1: What are the factors that affect the conversational
Questionnaires were distributed to participants so that the interpersonal distances between communicators can be measured Then, in order to explore the conversational distance among Vietnamese dyads, an SPSS (version 20.) analysis was used, including the one-way ANOVA and the Independent Sample T-test The calculations were analyzed in terms of age, gender, marital status, social status, living areas and personality of the informants who responded to the questionnaires
The participants were divided into three different age groups: the group of people who are under 20, the group from 20 to 40 and the group of above-40 participants It means that there were three groups that would be tested to check if they differ statistically or not Therefore, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was exploited in order to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between the means of three independent age-groups Before conducting the one-way ANOVA, which would test the probability that the three age-groups are different from each other, some assumptions are made using the SPSS The table below consists of descriptive statistics of the interpersonal distance chosen by the three groups when they are communicating with different types of informants
Stranger under 20 11 2.1818 40452 12197 1.9101 2.4536 2.00 3.00 from 20 to 40 23 2.6522 57277 11943 2.4045 2.8999 2.00 4.00 above 40 16 2.7500 44721 11180 2.5117 2.9883 2.00 3.00
Acquaintance under 20 11 2.0000 00000 00000 2.0000 2.0000 2.00 2.00 from 20 to 40 23 2.0000 30151 06287 1.8696 2.1304 1.00 3.00 above 40 16 1.8125 40311 10078 1.5977 2.0273 1.00 2.00
Close_person under 20 11 1.4545 52223 15746 1.1037 1.8054 1.00 2.00 from 20 to 40 23 1.7391 54082 11277 1.5053 1.9730 1.00 3.00 above 40 16 1.5000 51640 12910 1.2248 1.7752 1.00 2.00
Table 1 ANOVA descriptions of data on conversational distance measured for three age-groups
The table above provides some very useful descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation and 95% confidence intervals for the dependent variable for the three groups of communicators A look at sample size in the first column, all the participants expected were included There are 11 speakers who are under the age of 20, 23 of participants range from the age of 20 to the age of 40, and 16 people are recorded to be more than 40 years old taking part in the survey The minimum of subjects was 11, who were under the age of 20 It can be noticed that the data has equal numbers of participants in each age group (Ellis and Yuan, 2004).
Test of Homogeneity of Variances
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig
Table 2 Test of Homogeneity of Variances of Age-Factor
The table above shows the result of the test of Homogeneity of variances
The null hypotheses were that there existed equality among the interpersonal distance preferred by the three groups of participants at different ages when they communicate with strangers, their acquaintance and their close relationship It can be seen that the Levene Statistic of interpersonal distances measured when different age groups have communication with Stranger and Acquaintance, has the significance value of 0.041 and 0.005, respectively These values are less than 0.05, while the significance of that with Close-relationship communicators is 0.685, which is greater than 0.05, providing a good reason to make a comparison between three groups of age of this communication category There are two assumptions to be worked on:
The first assumption underlies the conversation distance between strangers and acquaintances As the results generated by the SPSS, the value of significance of these two are less than 0.05, which means that null hypotheses can be rejected In other words, the variances are not all equal There must be differences of favorite interpersonal distance when people of various ages have conversations with people considered as strangers and acquaintance Thus, it can be concluded that the favorite interpersonal distance between these dyads will vary within three groups of age as mentioned
The second assumption is the interpersonal distance when three different age family members, their close friends or their spouses It is quite clear that the value of significance is more than 0.05 means that the null hypothesis that the groups have equal variances can be assumed, which means the assumption of homogeneity can be met This leads the author use the ANOVA results which follows:
Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig
Table 3 ANOVA results of statistical analyses of different relationships
The above table shows the output of ANOVA analysis and whether there is a significant difference between the groups‟ means The null hypotheses of conversational distance of different age between acquaintances and close relationship can be accepted, due to the fact that the significance value of the two cases are greater than 0.05 In other words, there would be no difference in interpersonal distance between the communicators of different ages when they are talking to their acquaintances and close people
Meanwhile, the p-value (the significance value) of stranger is 0.015 (p=.015) which is lower than 0.05) and, therefore, there is a statistically significant difference in the mean of conversational distance between the communicators as strangers among the three-different age-groups Besides, the highest mean scores on the case of stranger compared to the other two cases affirm that the communicators of this case require the furthest distance when having conversations It is clear that the main effect of each group was statistically different There must be the difference between the three groups of age while deciding the favorite interpersonal distance during the communication with strangers A post-hoc analysis using the Test of Homogeneity of Variances was performed A look at the test as seen in the table
40 under 20 47036* 18410 036 0248 9159 above 40 -.09783 16349 822 -.4935 2978 above 40 under 20 56818* 19670 016 0921 1.0442 from 20 to 40
40 under 20 00000 11264 1.000 -.2726 2726 above 40 18750 10003 157 0546 4296 above 40 under 20 -.18750 12035 274 -.4788 1038 from 20 to 40
Close person under 20 from 20 to 40 -.28458 19400 316 -.7541 1849 above 40 -.04545 20727 974 -.5471 4562 from 20 to
40 under 20 28458 19400 316 -.1849 7541 above 40 23913 17227 355 -.1778 6561 above 40 under 20 04545 20727 974 -.4562 5471 from 20 to 40
* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level
Table 4 The Post hoc tests result of the three different age groups
The Post hoc tests show the results between the age groups and the group of strangers of communication There exist highly significant results, which are 0.036
This means that there would be a statistically significance in difference between distance preferred by groups of under-20-informants and groups of 20-to-40- communicators while they are talking to a stranger Similarly, the difference must occur between the under-20-group and the over-40 group However, the significance value of the case between the group of 20 to 40 years old and the group of people above 40 years old accounts for 0.822, which explains for the fact that there would be the same interpersonal distance favored by these two groups
Clearly, there must be not any difference existing among three age groups since they are talking to their acquaintance and close person, as I mentioned above in the ANOVA test‟s interpretation In other words, the distance measured by the three groups of age when they communicating with their acquaintances and close relationships do not differ statistically
Robust Tests of Equality of Means b
Close Person Welch 1.448 2 25.703 254 a Asymptotically F distributed b Robust tests of equality of means cannot be performed for Acquaintance because at least one group has 0 variance
Table 5 The Robust Tests of Equality of Means of Different Relationships
The result of the above Robust Tests revealed that there are the informants of different ages will have the different favorite interpersonal distance when talking to a very stranger However, there is not any differences of preferable distance when the three groups having conversations with their Acquaintance and Close person
I intend to exploit Independent-Samples t-Test to generate the results of gender The Independent-Samples t-Tests were essentially performed in order to see whether there were any differences of conversational distance preferred on which gender the communicators belong to
Gender N Mean Std Deviation Std Error
Table 6 Group Statistics of data on conversational distance measured for Gender
The table above shows descriptive statistics of data on preferred interpersonal distance measured for Gender as a factor affecting the distance The communicators were divided into three groups of interaction‟s relationships:
Stranger‟s, Acquaintance‟s and Close-Person‟s There were 27 (n') males had a conversation with 23 (n#) females as a stranger, an acquaintance and a close person
Levene‟s-Test for Equality of
Variances t-test for Equality of Means
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Stranger Equal variances assumed 2.483 122 -3.267 48 002 -.45572 13950 -.73619 -.17524 Equal variances not assumed
Close person Equal variances assumed
Table 7 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance measured by male and female communicators
Table 7 has the results of two different tests on gender (male and female)
There are two columns labeled and represented Sig (Sig and Sig (2-tailed)) I do not have any intention of interpreting the first significance level as this is Levene‟s test for equality of variances It can be seen that the Independent Samples Test table has two rows – one assuming that variances are equal, and another assuming they are not The Levene‟s test for equality of variances would indicate whether I can use the line labeled “Equal variances assumed” In this case, the p-value is greater than 05, so I must use the first line
Accordingly, the output in Table 7 shows that the p-value for the Levene’s test of stranger is p = 122, which means that the variances of the two groups are not equal, which means that the variance of conversational distance between male and female when talking to strangers can be said to differ Therefore, it can be concluded that there would exist the difference in preferred interpersonal distance between male and female informants when having conversations with strangers
Research question 2: What is the proxemic distance preferred by
The results of video recordings can offer the possible answer to the above question As mentioned earlier, 40 pairs of informants were asked to participate in the project The researcher intended to exploit the convenience sampling who would be the students, the colleagues and the acquaintances of hers 80 participants were associated in pairs; therefore, 40 dyad trials were produced in total On being recorded, the participants were briefed that the requirement of the study was for them to talk to the other naturally One of the dyads would be asked to stand still while the other adjusted the distance himself so that both of them could feel comfortable in the coming conversation
After subjects had been talking to each other for a few minutes, observations were begun by observing and recording The author tried to film the informants for at least five minutes for each conversation Distance were subsequently converted into centimeters for data analyses and presentations Accordingly, distance between the two informants was measured with a tape measure, marking spots at 45 cm and
120 cm, denoting the intimate and social conversational distance zones (Hall,
1966) The conversational distance measured, then, would be the distance between the two shoes‟ tips (see the figure below)
The data analysis examined the preferred interpersonal distance by Vietnamese and its relationships with gender, social status and age range
Figure 2 Conversational distance measured for Dyads within each variable group
A detailed look at the bar graph reveals that the preferable distance between strangers was entirely social distance None of the participant chose to be closer
Strangers Acquaintance/Colleagues Teacher-Student/Manager-Inferior
Conversational Distance measured for Dyads within each variable group
Social Distance Personal Distance Intimate Distance than 120 cm to the person they met for the first time For an acquaintance and colleagues‟ relationships, more than 80 percent of these informants preferred to be in personal distance zone, while nearly 16 percent of them chose to stand less than
45 cm from each other when the conversation occurred
The situation was somehow more complicated when one of the informants was in higher social status than the other In that case, more than a half of these dyads loved to keep a distance of 45 cm to 120 cm from the person he or she was talking to, and about one-third had social distance as they were having conversation with their managers or inferiors Only 8.5 percent of the communicators felt comfortable at intimate zone when talking to their managers or inferiors
The researcher filmed some pairs of close friends - about 12.5 percent of the participants was 2-4 years being close friends It can be found out that 80 percent of close friends agreed to stand within 45-120 cm close to each other, and the distance varied depends mostly on the gender of the participants That is, the distance between the female informants can be smaller than that of the opposite gender
None of the people who had intimate relationships chose social distance as the preferred interpersonal distance
The data below reports the percentage of Vietnamese informants deciding their favorite proxemic space during the communication with different relationships
3.2.1 Conversational distances in Vietnamese nonverbal communication between Strangers:
The table suggests that the difference in gender is decisive among Vietnamese strangers, and the number of people choosing social distance when talking to another person for the first time is almost twice that of male-female relationship Specifically, social zone was the most preferred in this situation while intimate and personal distance was chosen by none
3.2.2 Conversational distances in Vietnamese nonverbal communication between Acquaintances:
Intimate Distance Personal Distance Social Distance
None of informants chose social space when conversing with people who was of acquantaince relationship with them The highest percentage was on the personal distance for same-sex communication Vietnamese acquaitances did not prefer intimate distance when in contact with someone who was of their opposite sex, with only 5% of informants required intimate space when taking to an opposite sex acquaitance
3.2.3 Conversational distances in Vietnamese nonverbal communication between a Superior and an Inferior:
Intimate zone was the least frequently chosen space with only 2.0 % of different-sex informants required the space between them and their superior or inferior However, personal space was the most preferred with 40% of same-sex dyads stayed within this zone in communication with their superiors or inferiors at work or at school
3.2.4 Conversational distances in Vietnamese nonverbal communication between Close Persons:
Social distance is completedly ignored in this situation; whereas personal zone was choosen by 60% of same-sex informants in communication with their close-person Only 20% of people preferred to be in intimate zone when having conversation with those of the same sex, while almost none of them choose to be intimately close with their opposite-sex close friend or family member
3.2.5 Proxemics Distance preferred by Vietnamese and Major cross-cultural similarities and differences:
The proxemic distance of Vietnamese dyads, then, shares some certain similarities and also reflects some differences to that of American dyads As I mentioned, Hall described the interpersonal distance of man (the relative distance between people) in four distance zones: (1) intimate space, (2) personal space, (3) social space, and (4) public space, which can be summarized as below:
Distance Description Intimate Touching-18 inches
Private situations with people who are emotionally close If others invade this space, we feel threatened
The lower end is handshake distance – the distance most couples stand in public
The lower end is the distance salespeople and customers and between people who work together in business
Situations such as teaching in a classroom or delivering a speech
Clearly, Vietnamese people preferred social distance (more than 120 cm) while talking to strangers This preference tended to be the same in American culture A 2017 study found that personal space with respect to strangers was recorded as more than 120 cm
The proxemic distance between Vietnameses acquaintance and colleagues‟ relationships ranged from 45 cm to 1.2 meters, which is considered personal distance zone This proxemic distance differed from that of American culture The distance between colleagues at work was measured more than 120 cm That means, American informants require more space than that of Vietnamese dyads in this case
Meanwhile, Vietnamese tended to divide the conversational distance with higher-social-status person into three zones: nearly 60% chose to use personal distance (60 cm to 1.5 meters), about one-third of Vietnamese dyads conversed in social distance (more than 120 cm) and only less than 10% stood in intimate distance when talking to someone who was inferior to them
Personal distance zone, from 46 to 120 cm, was reserved for 80% of Vietnamese close-relationship communicators, whereas 20 % enjoyed the intimacy zones when having conversations which close friend or family members These distance facts remained similar to that of American culture Accordingly, personal distance zone was used for talking with family and close friends
Hence, the proxemic distance preferred by a majority Vietnamese speakers can be summarized as below:
Superiors-Inferiors 60 cm – 150 cm (Personal)
Close Persons 45 cm – 120 cm (Personal)
The results of video recordings and questionnaires seemed to match each other Both videotaped and quesstionnaire data showed that the proxemic distance between strangers was always social distance zone and that was affected by certain factors such as age, gender, marital status, social status, living area and perrsonality of Vietnamese dyads Howerver, the proxemic distance varied when the dyad relationships was not changed as the converstion occurred between close- relationship informants and the proxemic distance in this case was not affected by any factors, either
Discussions
The strong explanations for all the significant differences in interpersonal distance preferences can be the influences of high context (HC) and low context (LC) cultures The researcher tries to base all the explanations on Edward T Hall‟s concepts (1959, 1966, 1976, 1983) of high context (HC) and low context (LC) cultures, which is complemented with Hofstede‟s (2008) collectivism-individualism dimension
High-context (HC) communication relies mainly on the physical context or the relationship for information, in which a large emphasis is on nonverbal code, while in Low-context (LC) culture, people rely mainly on explicit codes to look for the meaning That means, in HC culture like Vietnamese, the culture information will be integrated with many other factors including noverbal cues Still, the nonverbal communication of HC culture will be much dependent on the situation, environment, context and many other determinants
Hence, it is my intention to focus on culture constructs, high-context and low-context culture to explain the differences on interpersonal distance of the two selected cultures Hall (1976) suggested the categorisation of cultures into high context versus low context cultures in order to understand their basic differences in communication style and cultural issues Communication style refers to ways of expressing on-self, to communication patterns that are understood to be “typical” of
Cultural issues also include Hofstede‟s (2008) individualism vs collectivism dimension That is, the high context or low context culture context can affect how people prefer the interpersonal distance Vietnamese culture, rooted as high context culture, is very stable and slow to change Vietnamese people tend to rely on their story, their status, their relationships, and many other factors to assign and adjust themselves to an event, both verbal and nonverbal meaning In Vietnamese culture, space is communal People tend to stand close to each other and share the same space The results of this study reveal that Vietnamese speakers tend to keep a further distance to the opposite-sex entities than that of a same gender For instance, a man will keep himself a further distance to a strange woman than that of the distance when talking to a strange man, and it is also proved to be true in the opposite order
Additionally, the situation would be somehow the same regarding marital status between the informants Specifically, Vietnamese people tend to keep a constant distance to a married person This space can be smaller once the two entities are still single This can also be explained by the fact that Vietnam belongs to the non-contact culture in which communicators try to avoid being too close the opposite sex dual communicators
One of fundamental cultural differences is the degree of individualism as opposed to collectivism This cultural dimension determines the way people live with each other (alone, in a family, or in a tribe), their values, and their relations
Western culture is an individualistic culture, whereas American culture emphasizes homogeneity and relationship among people and between people and nature Those in favor of individualism consider it as the basis of liberalism, democracy, free will, and economical motivation, and a protective factor against cruelty On the other hand, individualism has been criticized for alienating people from each other, causing loneliness, egoism, and proud People in individualism cultures isolate from each other whereas in collectivist cultures, they have relations with each other, and as a result, their work, entertainment, life, and other activities all happen at a closer distance from each other
A culture‟s individualism or collectivism affects nonverbal behaviors in a number of ways For instance, informants in individualistic cultures including United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, etc are more likely to be distant proximally Vietnamese culture, as one of a typical collectivism, in contrast, seems to be more interdependent That means, Vietnamese tend to depend on each other
This can be explained by the fact that Vietnamese like to work, play, live and sleep in close proximity to one another Consequently, the conversational distance between Vietnamese communicators would be less distant proximally This can be clearly seen in a variety of situations when Vietnamese have conversations to different communicators For instance, Vietnamese would never choose intimate spaces or zones when they are having conversations with a person who has a higher social-status or an older person It is believed that collectisictic countries including Vietnam, tend to display a higher social concerning level, that means the collectivists would adjust their nonverbal communication depending on various norms and factors such as power distance, relationship, gender, age, marital status, etc
This part gives a summary of the main findings, recommendation, limitations and suggestion for further study.
Summary of major findings
The aim of the study is to investigate the preferred interpersonal distance of Vietnamese informants In order to achieve these aims, the researcher used mixed research methods, in which data was collected from questionnaires, video recordings and interviews Based on what have been conducted and analyzed, it can be concluded that the Vietnamese tended to use personal distance (45-120 cm) most frequently in normal conversations
Also, the focus of the study is conversational distance, one of the three main areas of proxemics This research has been conducted in order to figure out the factors which have impact on the interpersonal distance of Vietnamese communicators Differences in distancing within dyads are likely to be affected by a variety of sources of preferences, and for many factors such as the ages of the speakers, acquaintance level of the speakers, or sex roles Specifically, the typical factors of Age, Gender, Marital Status, Social Status, Living Areas, and Personality have been examined and investigated in this study
It is seen from the findings of the study that among the factors mentioned above, Age can have the influence on the interpersonal distance adjusted by the Vietnamese communicators at a particular range of age It was concluded that there must be not any difference in conversational distance existing among the three age groups when they have conversations with their acquaintances and close relationships However, the above-40-communicators would require the furthest distance when they are talking to strangers
Also, the findings from questionnaires and interviews reveal that Gender can be considered a factor that affects the distance between communicators At this edge of research, it is explored that Vietnamese may have some standards for appropriate public distance that complete with sex-related tendencies Vietnamese people are found to be often intimately close with communicative partners of the same sex
Accordingly, there would exist the difference in preferred interpersonal distance between male and female informants when having conversations only with strangers
Marital Status of the speakers can be of value to the conversational distance between them As can be found, the married and unmarried have different interpersonal distance to the strangers However, there would be the same preference of conversational distance between the single and the married when they are talking to their acquaintances and their close relationships such as their friends, their family members or their spouse
Next, the Social Status as one of the factors affecting conversational distance was also presented in the interview data, which were the same to the findings from questionnaires parallel to the video recordings That is, the managers and the employees or in other words, the high-status and low-status people do not have the same preference in choosing their own interpersonal space when talking to strangers However, this tendency would change in the case of acquaintances and close-relationships Both high and low-social-status communicators would not have different preferable bubble around them when communication processes between them and their acquaintances and their close-relationships
Also, there stands the dissimilarity in the way of nonverbal communication of citizens and rural residents to strangers It is assumed that these two types of communicators would have the same interpersonal distances when they are having conversations with acquaintances and close people
The interview and questionnaire findings show that the personality of the communicators can be one of the greatest influences on their conversational distance Sometimes, the extroverts prefer smaller distance when they are talking to a stranger than the introverts It is also concluded that the interpersonal distances of introverts and acquaintances or close people do not differ from the one between extroverts and these types of speakers as mentioned
Based on these findings, it shows that, communicators have a tendency of choosing the same distance of conversations as talking to the people who they know personally, or the people they have close relationships with their intimate people; while there would be some adjustment of distance as they talking to strangers, especially for the first time.
Implications
Nonverbal aspects of communication differ from cultures to cultures Each culture has their own ways of interacting nonverbally This section will discuss some main nonverbal implications for communicators
Firstly, the findings of this paper can be somehow useful to foreigners who visit Vietnam for the first time In other words, foreigners who want to avoid cultural shock can apply these findings when having conversations with Vietnamese speakers Some of my British colleagues at my English center where I am employed as a part-time teacher of English for secondary students once told me that they were extremely surpised when they saw women walking in the streets hands in hands each others like they were having some particularly special relationships They also claimed that these could be something quite unusual and even considered a taboo in their country Then, I have to say, this study can be effective if they tried to look for some nonverbal-commnuncation suggestions to avoide culture shocks once they settle down or work in Vietnam, more or less
Secondly, it my suggestion that this paper might be helpful to people who have experience in multinational or multiculture workplaces in which the conflicts can be produced once the mutual understandings are being missed or leaked The cooperation amongst various nations or cultures can somehow create the misunderstandings or even communication breakdowns among colleagues and co- workers due to the fact that every culture is believed to never be the same Both Vietnamese and foreigners can find themselves interested in the findings of conversatinal distances preferred by the two different cultures then some implementations can be made to reduce the misunderstanding to the lowest level.
Limitations of the study
Besides the objectives were achieved in the current study, there are two existing limitations as under:
1 This paper has examined the factors affecting the conversational distances of
Vietnamese dyads, and found out which factors can be considered as the most dominant one However, researches on conversational distance as an area of proxemics can be massive that this study hardly covers all aspects related Due to limited personal knowledge, mistakes are completely unavoidable and shortcomings can be inevitable Therefore, I would appreciate if the weaknesses of this study can be identified All remarks, comments, suggestions and contributions are always welcomed
2 The study was conducted in the form of mixed research method but there are a limited number of participants, only 5 teachers were willing to participate in the interview, resulting in a small sample size Therefore, if there are more participants in the study, the results might have been more reliable then the reliability of results can be likely increased What is more, it could be tested how reliably the sample like ours represents the conversational distance on the worldwide cultural level in future researches
3 The videotape-recording as a data collection method can bring some disadvantages to this research, that is, the investigator must be aware of some limitations concerning A major limitation in the use of videotape technique must be its technical problems and its negative influence on participants‟ behaviour as it might concern personal privacy Accordingly, being observed and video-recorded may alter the behaviour of the participants during the recording process, and it possible that the people who are video-recorded could be influenced by the presence of the camera then they can change their behaviour during the recording process
Sequentially, the validity of the research findings can be affected
4 Another difficulty that I have encountered during the qualitative data collection process must be the ways to complement interview audio-recordings As I stated in the methodology part, the one-to-one interviews were conducted via Skype, a communication tool which allows users make free video calls and chat Hence, the participants‟ impressions, environmental contexts, participants‟ behaviors and a number of nonverbal cues would not be captured and identified through this method of data collection Although the researcher tried to exploit “field notes” to take some important cues as listed above, the limitation of this method seemed to unexpectedly emerge.
Suggestions for further study
light of the study findings, the researcher also gives a recommendation for other related studies It is suggested that further studies should explore the perceptions space in proxemics A specific suggestion for further research concerns Vietnamese territory proxemic behaviour And I do suggest the data should be reported upon the use of larger samples If a larger sample of territory proxemic behaviour would be observed, a naturalistic environment might be emphasized Despite its limitation as already mentioned in earlier parts of this study, I wish that this paper can be resourceful material for any other studies relevant to the issues of proxemics
1 Nguyễn Hoà, (2010) Khác biệt văn hóa Đông-Tây và giao tiếp liên văn hóa
Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHQGHN, Ngoại ngữ 26 (2010) 69-76 Retrieved from: http://luanvan.co/luan-van/khac-biet-van-hoa-dong-tay-va-giao-tiep-lien-van- hoa-49749/
2 Nguyễn Hòa, (2011) Phân tích giao tiếp liên văn hóa Tạp chí Khoa học ĐHQGHN, Ngoại ngữ 27 (2011) 77-87 Retrieved from: http://js.vnu.edu.vn/index.php/FS/article/viewFile/1466/1430
3 Nguyễn Hòa, (2009) Một số đối lập giá trị văn hóa và quan niệm phổ biến trong giao tiếp liên văn hóa Tạp chí Ngôn ngữ Số 5 2009 Retrieved from: http://tailieuso.udn.vn/bitstream/TTHL_125/1351/1/NN_0060.pdf
4 Nguyễn Quang, (2002) Giao tiếp và giao tiếp giao văn hóa NXB Đại học
5 Nguyễn Quang, (2003) Giao tiếp nội văn hóa và giao tiếp giao văn hóa NXB Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội
6 Nguyễn Quang, (2008) Giao tiếp ngôn từ và giao tiếp phi ngôn từ qua các nền văn hóa NXB Đại học Quốc gia
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2 Beamer, L & Varner, I (2010) Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace McGraw-Hill Education
3 Beisler, F., Scheeres, H., & Pinner, D (1997) Communication Skills 2 nd
4 Judee K Burgoon & Jerold L Hale (1987) Validation and measurement of the fundamental themes of relational communication, Communication Monographs, 54:1, 19-41, DOI: 10.1080/03637758709390214
5 Jandt, F E (2015) An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community 8 th Edition SAGE Publications
6 Hall, E.T (1959) The Silent Language Garden City New York: Doubleday
7 Hall, E.T (1963) Proxemics–The Study of Man’s Spacial Relations and Boundaries In Man‟s Image in Medicine and Anthropology, pp 422-45 New
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9 Hall, E.T (1968) Proxemics In Current Anthropology, 9, pp 83-108
10 Hall, E.T (1976) Beyond Cultural Garden City New York: Doubleplay
11 Hall, E.T (1988) The Hidden Dimensions of Time and Space in Today’s World Cross-cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication Ed Fernando
Poyatos Germany: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
12 Hall, E.T (1988) Cross-cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication
13 Harrison, R.P (1973) Nonverbal Communication – Handbook of Communication Chicago: Rand McNally
14 Hybels, S & Weaver, R.L (1992) Communicating Effectively McGraw Hill
15 Knapp, M L (1972) Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc
16 Leather, D (1978) Nonverbal Communication Systems Boston: Allyn and
17 Levine, D.R., & Adelman, M.B (1982) Beyond Language – Intercultural Communication for English as a Second Language Prentice-Hall Inc.,
18 Lyons, J (1972) Nonverbal Communication Cambridge: Cambridge
19 Manusov, Valerie Lynn, and Miles L Patterson (2006) The SAGE Handbook of Nonverbal Communication Sage Publications, Inc
20 McCardle, E S (1974) Nonverbal Communication New York: Marcel
21 Nguyen Quang (1994) Intercultural communication Vietnam National
22 Nguyen Quang (1998) Cross-cultural Communication CFL-Vietnam National University – Hanoi
23 Nguyen Quang (2009) Cross-cultural Communication for ELT CFL-Vietnam
24 Saunders M., Lewis P & Thornhill A (2007) Research Methods for Business
Fourth edition Pearson Education Limited
25 Spencer-Oatey, H (2004) Cultural Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures A & C Black
BẢN CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT
Bản câu hỏi khảo sát này được thiết kế để làm cơ sở dữ liệu phục vụ cho đề tài nghiên cứu
“Tìm hiểu về khoảng cách tham thoại trong giao tiếp giao văn hoá Anh-Việt: Sự khác biệt về văn hoá phi ngôn từ” Chúng tôi rất biết ơn anh/chị đã dành thời gian trả lời bản câu hỏi này Chúng tôi xin cam kết rằng danh tính và thông tin cá nhân của người tham gia trả lời bản câu hỏi sẽ được giữ kín trong mọi trường hợp
Xin anh/chị cho biết thông tin về bản thân mình (bằng cách đánh dấu () vào ô thích hợp hoặc điền vào chỗ trống):
- Độ tuổi hiện nay: Dưới 20
- Tình trạng hôn nhân: Đã lập gia đình
- Nơi sinh sống chủ yếu: Thành thị
- Tính cách nổi bật: Sôi nổi, hướng ngoại
II Câu hỏi khảo sát:
A Anh/chị hãy tưởng tượng mình là A, và B đang tiến lại gần anh/chị để trò chuyện Hãy ước lượng vị trí mà B sẽ phải dừng lại (miễn sao anh chị có thể cảm thấy thoải mái nhất khi trò chuyện) bằng cách đánh dấu vào thước đo bên dưới hai hình minh hoạ A, B trong các trường hợp sau:
1 Anh/ chị là A và người lạ là B:
2 Anh/ chị A và người quen (đồng nghiệp, cấp trên, cấp dưới) là B:
3 Anh/ chị là A và người thân (thành viên trong gia đình, bạn thân) là B:
B Anh/ Chị đồng ý hay không đồng ý với những trường hợp dưới đây? (Hãy khoanh tròn vào đáp án mà anh/ chị thấy phù hợp nhất):
4 Giới tính quyết định đến khoảng cách giao tiếp 1 2 3 4 5
5 Khoảng cách giao tiếp không phụ thuộc vào không gian xung quanh
6 Khi tâm trạng tích cực, các đối tượng giao tiếp thường có xu hướng thu ngắn khoảng cách giao tiếp
7 Khoảng cách khi giao tiếp với các đối tượng có địa vị thấp thường có xu hướng ngắn hơn khoảng cách khi giao tiếp với các đối tượng có địa vị cao
8 Đối tượng giao tiếp sinh ra và lớn lên ở thành thị thường có nhu cầu về không gian giao tiếp rộng lớn hơn các đối tượng sinh ra và lớn lên ở nông thôn
9 Những đối tượng giao tiếp với tính cách hướng ngoại thường có xu hướng đứng gần hơn khi giao tiếp
1 2 3 4 5 so với những đối tượng giao tiếp có tính cách hướng nội
10 Khoảng cách giao tiếp tỉ lệ thuận với mức độ thân thiết của các đối tượng giao tiếp
11 Những người có ưu thế xứng đáng có được nhiều không gian giao tiếp hơn những người yếu thế
12 Những người có ưu thế thường được phép vi phạm các quy tắc thông thường trong khoảng cách giao tiếp
13 Mối quan hệ giữa các đối tượng giao tiếp là yếu tố quyết định nhất của khoảng cách giao tiếp
14 Các cặp giới tính nữ-nữ tương tác ở khoảng cách gần hơn so với các cặp đôi giới tính khác, đặc biệt là các cặp giới tính nam-nam
15 Người Việt Nam thường hạn chế khoảng cách thân mật khi giao tiếp với người lớn tuổi hơn mình
16 Duy trì một khoảng cách thân mật giữa các đối tượng giao tiếp cùng giới được cho là một điều cấm kỵ trong văn hoá Việt Nam
17 Đối với người Việt Nam, quyền lực đóng một vai trò quyết định trong việc lựa chọn các vùng khoảng cách khi giao tiếp
18 Khoảng cách xã hội dường như không ảnh hưởng đến khoảng cách giao tiếp
19 Nam giới thường sử dụng khoảng cách thân mật ít hơn và khoảng cách công cộng nhiều hơn so hơn nữ giới
20 Không gian càng đông thì khoảng cách giao tiếp càng bị thu hẹp
Xin chân thành cảm ơn sự giúp đỡ nhiệt tình của anh/chị!
This survey questionnaire is designed for the study in to “English- Vietnamese cross-cultural nonverbal communication: Understanding proxemics in different cultures” Your assistance in completing the following questionnaire is highly appreciated Your responses are invaluable and will be used for the completion of my MA thesis at University of Languages and International Studies
You can be confident that you will not be identified in any case
Thank you very much for your time!
I Personal information (for statistical purposes):
Please put a tick () where appropriate or answer the question:
A Imagine that you are person A Person B is approaching to have a conversation with you Rate how close a person B could approach, so that you would feel comfortable in a conversation with her or him You can mark the distance at which person B should stop on the scale below the figures in the following cases:
1 You are person A and person B is a stranger:
2 You are person A and person B is an acquaintance (colleague, superior, inferior):
3 You are person A and person B is a close person (family member, close friend):
B To what extend do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements?
(Please circle one answer in each line across):
4 The communicators‟ gender decides the distance of conversation
5 The conversational distance does not depend on the surrounding space
6 When people are in positive mood, they are likely to stand closer
7 People tend to stand closer to inferiors than to superiors
8 Those who were brought up in urban require more space than those in rural
9 Extroverted people are likely to stand closer than introverted people
10 The more intimate, the smaller the physical distance tends to be
11 Dominant individuals command more space than submissive individuals
12 Dominant people are allowed to violate conversational distance norms
13 Relationship is the most powerful determinant of conversational distance
14 Female-female dyads interact at closer distances 1 2 3 4 5 than do other sex-pairings, particularly male-male dyads
15 Vietnamese respondents refuse to choose intimate zone when communicating with older people
16 Maintaining an intimate distance between partners of the same sex is claimed to be a taboo in Vietnamese community
17 Power plays a decisive role in the choice of proxemic zones in Vietnamese communication
18 Social status is not seemingly influential to conversational distance
19 Males seem to use less intimate distance and more public distance than females
20 The more crowded it is, the closer distance people are at
If you are willing to participate in an interview after completing this questionnaire, please give me your name and your contact details:
Thank you very much for your cooperation!
1 Theo anh/chị thế nào là khoảng cách giao tiếp (khoảng cách vật lý)?
2 Theo anh/chị, những yếu tố nào có ảnh hưởng đến khoảng cách giao tiếp (Văn hoá, độ tuổi, giới tính, mối quan hệ, tình trạng hôn nhân, địa vị xã hội, tính cách, nơi sinh sống chủ yếu và nghề nghiệp)? Và yếu tố nào, theo anh/chị, có ảnh hưởng nhiều nhất đến khoảng cách giao tiếp?
3 Anh/Chị có thể chia sẻ kinh nghiệm về khoảng cách giao tiếp của anh chị khi tiếp với những người đến từ các nền văn hoá khác (nếu có)? Anh/chị hãy cho biết mình sẽ phản ứng hoặc giải thích như thế nào khi một người nước ngoài phàn nàn với anh chị về việc người Việt Nam thường đứng quá xa/gần đối phương khi giao tiếp?
4 Anh/Chị có cho rằng giao tiếp phi ngôn từ (ví dụ như khoảng cách giao tiếp) có thể gây xung đột về văn hoá? Tại sao?
5 Ở Việt Nam có quy tắc nào về khoảng cách giao tiếp không, nếu có, mọi người thường áp dụng những quy tắc ấy khi giao tiếp như thế nào? Bản thân anh/chị có quy tắc riêng nào muốn chia sẻ không?
6 Anh/ Chị sẽ cảm thấy như thế nào khi một người lạ đứng quá gần (dưới 40 cm) khi giao tiếp với anh/chị? Anh chị sẽ phản ứng như thế nào?
7 Khoảng cách giao tiếp với người thân trong gia đình (bố, mẹ, vợ, chồng, người yêu) của anh/chị có thay đổi khi không gian giao tiếp thay đổi không (ví dụ như khi ở trong nhà và khi đến những nơi công cộng?
8 Anh chị đã từng học tập hoặc sinh sống ở nước ngoài chưa? Nếu có cơ hội học tập và sinh sống ở nước ngoài một thời gian đủ dài, anh chị có muốn tìm hiểu trước về khoảng cách giao tiếp thông thường hoặc những nguyên tắc bất thành văn về khoảng cách giao tiếp của đất nước đó không? Tại sao?
The general aims of my study is to explore the conversational distances which can occur when individuals from high context cultures interact and how these distances differ to that of the communicators from low context cultures
1 What, according to you, is conversational distance (physically)?
2 What factors have the influence on conversational distance (Cultures, age, gender, relationships, marital status, social status, personality, living area and occupation)? Which factors do you think have the most influence on conversational distance?
3 Would you mind sharing you first-hand experience on your favorite conversational distance which occurs when you interact with the people coming from different countries? How will you react or explain when foreigners complain that the Vietnamese tends to stand too far or too close during the communication, which can make them upset
4 Do you think that nonverbal communication (conversational distance – as mentioned) can be one of the causes leading to the cultural conflict?
5 Is there any rule of conversational distance in Vietnam? If any, how can Vietnamese informants apply these rules during communication? Do you have any your own rules?
6 How would you feel and react when being approached too closely (less than 40 cm) by a stranger?
7 Will the conversational distance between you and your spouse (husband, wife, lover) change since the communication setting changes (home setting and public place setting)?
8 Have you ever been abroad? If you had a chance, would you spend time exploring about conversational distance in that country? Why?
Date of interview: 10/06/2018 Location: Online Skype Interview Interview length: 10 minutes Researcher: Hoang Phuong Participant: T (she is the researcher‟s colleague at workplace) Researcher: I would like to interview you seven questions related to conversational distance which I am doing a research on Can we start right now?
Researcher: Ok What, according to you, is conversational distance, physically?
T: Well, it‟s quite hard to define… In my opinion, conversational distance will be something like the barrier which makes the commucation become more difficult
This barrier can occur during the communication when there exists the too large age-gaps between the informants or the communicators‟ viewpoints vary significantly Once, the distance might appear as interaction operates
Researcher: Great! What factors have the influence on conversational distance (Cultures, age, gender, relationships, marital status, social status, personality, living area and occupation)?
T: From my own experience, all the factors mentioned can have the influence on conversational distance
Researcher: So which factors do you think have the most influence on conversational distance?
T: Well, I think it is the personality of the communication that weighed strongly with interpersonal distance
Researcher: Ok Can you tell me how will the personality affect the conversational distance?
T: Err… For example, there would be less space between extroverted communicators and vice versa
Researcher: Oh, I see your point Would you mind sharing you first-hand experience on your favorite conversational distance which occurs when you interact with the people coming from different countries?
T: Let‟s me see Yes There are two types of foreigners whom I had chance to communicate with: the people who are older than me, they can be the experts in education or some other related field The other group can be the people at the same age, they can be overseas students or tourists Well, when interacting with the the first type, I tend to talk about some…
Researcher: Sorry to interrupt but what I wish to focus on is not the verbal, I am only keen on nonverbal…
T: Oh, alright, I see… So, I almost hardly see any difference, just the feeling What
I mean is that I would feel somehow more comfortable when interacting with foreigners, in compare to the interaction with Vietnamese
Researcher: Is that the distance will be somehow closer when you have conversations with foreigners?
T: Yes, that‟s what I mean At least I can feel that It seems that they are more open to talk to…
Researcher: OK, how will you react or explain when foreigners complain that the Vietnamese tend to stand too far or too close during the communication, which can make them upset?
T: Well, I have chance to study on cross-cultures so the distance created by the two communicators might be a matter to me I mean, I am a kind of open-minded and flexible When being complained, I will try to explain so that they can have more understanding For example, I can tell them that the way Vietnamese culture work, and the people who are not Vietnamese can not do anything but adapt it and get used to it It is not something like the Vietnamese do not like the foreigners…”
Researcher: Ok I see Do you think this issue can be considered cultural breadown or conflict? For example, the foreigners can be shoecked when they have the first time communicate with Vietnamese, just because Vietnamese always keep a considerable distance whiling having conversations, which never happen in their culture Then, there can be misunderstanding leading to misinterpretation…
T: Yes, I agree There would be, as you have mentioned Then, they, the people who do not know anything about Vietnamese culture, can misinterpret negatively
Researcher: Have you known that there are any unwritten rules of conversational distance when Vietnamese communicate?
T: Yes, there arre For example, the distance between females can be smaller than that between males, or the distance between male teacher and female teacher to students can vary
Researcher: Do you have anything more you would like to add?
T: No, that‟s all experience that are relevance for you I think
Researcher: Thank you very much for your time I really appreciate your help.