Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS turn taking strategies in english and vietnamese casual conversations

Introduction

Rationale

In a recent study about turn-taking (2009:10587), Tanya Stivers, Steven Levinson, Makoto Hayashi and other linguists stated that ―informal conversation is where language is learned and where most of the business of social life is conducted A fundamental part of the infrastructure for conversation is turn-taking, or the apportioning of who is to speak next and when.‖ Actually, much research has been conducted to study the organization of turn-taking in English; however, little has been done about that in the Vietnamese language Also, I have queried a lot whether there is a universal set of rules governing the turn-taking system across cultures or that set varies culture to culture With that thinking in mind, I came up to carry out this research, which is about the turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations and comparing those to turn-taking strategies applied in English conversations More significantly, in the main course of doing the research, it became more practical when I looked at it from different perspectives

From a language teacher‘s point of view, one of the most important purposes of learning English is the communicative purpose English learners have so far been familiar to meaning, language in use, and so on, but not many of them realize that there are still other matters that may help them master conversations when they are actually involved in One

11 of those matters is turn-taking Actually, certain strategies are commonly used in English for taking, holding onto, and relinquishing the floor in conversations The problem is whether these strategies are used in the mother tongue of the English learners and whether they are aware of such strategies if there are certain differences between those used in the mother tongue and those used in English Thus, this paper seeks to examine different strategies employed during casual conversations by native Vietnamese speakers, to take, hold onto and relinquish the floor The strategies will then be compared with those used by English speakers in their native language, and some pedagogical implications for teaching conversation in English classes will be discussed

From a sociologist‘s stance, the following is worth mentioning The 21 st Century is marked as the information era or the computer age, in which Internet is conceived as a distributed network that could connect computers together and with the invention of World Wide Web, Internet truly became a global network Internet today has become the ultimate platform for accelerating the flow of information and is the fastest-growing form of media With the ease and convenience of exchanging information via Internet, people are more and more reliable on Internet and less on direct communication ―Staff sitting next to each other send email rather than speak‖ (Gascoigne, 2004) People find it easier to chat via Internet than meet in person These cause serious problems to direct communication in general, and to communication skills in particular Therefore, one purpose of this study is to improve learners‘ communication ability with the awareness of some turn-taking signals used in Vietnamese and English casual conversations

From the viewpoint of a technocrat, the study of a systematic turn-taking may make a little contribution to the robotic industry, which is to develop the turn-taking system in Vietnamese so as that the robot designers may find it useful in their creating robots closer to human beings, the new version of robots with ability to interpret both verbal and nonverbal languages.

Objectives and significance of the study

Turn-taking actually plays important role in everyday communication For the Vietnamese studying English and the people of other languages studying Vietnamese to

12 achieve smooth conversations in practice, it is a prerequisite to know how the turn-taking mechanism varies across cultures The research aims of this study, therefore, are to investigate:

- Turn-taking strategies used in Vietnamese casual conversations by native Vietnamese speakers

- The similarities and differences of turn-taking strategies used in English and Vietnamese

To achieve the above-stated objectives, the research questions should be designed so as that they cater for sufficient and relevant findings With such, the below questions will be dealt with:

(1) What turn-taking strategies are used in Vietnamese casual conversations?

(2) What are the differences and similarities between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese ones?

This study shall be of interest to those who are concerned with or have worked on Conversation Analysis, to the teachers and learners of English and of Vietnamese, who desire to develop a systematic conversation rules supporting in improving learners‘ interactional skills in the target languages, and to those who are struggling to improve their communication skills so as that they get involved in smooth and successful face-to- face conversations Specifically concerning Conversation Analysis, different researchers are recently paying much attention to turn-taking, under which two contradicted hypotheses are developed: (1) universal system hypothesis, which supports a universal set of rules governing the turn-taking mechanism across cultures, and (2) culture variability hypothesis, by which turn-taking is language and culture dependent This study will be of moderately-significant contribution in settling such controversy over turn-taking

The research focuses on the turn-taking strategies used in casual conversations in Vietnamese and compare and contrast them with those used in English

The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction, introducing the research topic, its rationale, aims, significance, scope, and the organization of the research

Chapter 2: Literature Review, discussing the theoretical background in the light of which the research matters will be discussed

Chapter 3: Methodology, describing the methods applied to investigate the research matters

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion, presenting the outcome of the study and providing answers to the research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications, summarizing the overall study, proposing some recommendations with regards to turn-taking in practice, and suggesting some forms of further studies on the field.

Organization of the study

The paper is divided into 5 chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction, introducing the research topic, its rationale, aims, significance, scope, and the organization of the research

Chapter 2: Literature Review, discussing the theoretical background in the light of which the research matters will be discussed

Chapter 3: Methodology, describing the methods applied to investigate the research matters

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion, presenting the outcome of the study and providing answers to the research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications, summarizing the overall study, proposing some recommendations with regards to turn-taking in practice, and suggesting some forms of further studies on the field

Literature Review

Conversation Analysis

Conversation analysis (CA) is a growing field of inquiry which has been enriched by contributions from a number of disciplinary perspectives including ―pragmatics, speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethno-methodology, the ethnography of communication, variation analysis, communication theory, and social psychology‖

(Markee, 2000:23) Generally speaking, ―conversational analysts are concerned with naturally occurring instances of everyday talk follow still another, separate academic tradition of inquiry, which concentrates on the actual discourse mechanisms that serve to allocate turns of speaking, to negotiate changes in focus and to manage and direct the flow of interaction.‖ (Gumperz, 1982:158)

Initially, CA researchers focused on describing the organizational structure of mundane, ordinary conversation, which may be defined as the kind of casual, social talk that routinely occurs between friends and acquaintances More specifically, researchers described this organizational structure in terms of sequences, turn-taking and repair practices The first researchers who set a foundation to CA are Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson, Pomerantz and some others Among them, Harvey Sacks and his co-researchers

15 are instrumental in studying the structural organization of everyday language use In their research program, they ―focus on conversations as the simplest instance of a naturally organized activity and attempt to study the process of conversational management without making any priori assumptions about social and cultural background of participants‖ (Gumpertz, 1982:158) Then, Hutchby and Wooffitt (2001:13) defines CA as ―the study of talk‖ and more specifically ―the study of talk-in-interaction‖ Overally,

CA is then the study of ―naturally occurring talk-in-interaction‖ (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2001:14)

Researchers also study the aim of CA Principally, it is to ―discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus being on how sequences of actions are generated.‖ (Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2001:14) To put it another way, the objective of CA is to uncover the tacit reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organized sequences of interaction The upshot of this all is that CA seeks to ―uncover the organization of talk not from any exterior, God‘s eye view, but from the perspective of how the participants display for one another their understanding of what is going on.‖

With such aim in mind, CA researchers have developed its characteristics, among which the ones set by Markee (2000:28) are mostly cited:

 CA is profoundly agnostic about the value of explanations that are derived from ethnic theories of social action because these explanations are not grounded in members‘ constructions of their own naturally occurring behaviors

 CA does not develop arguments about the structure of conversation on the basis of quantitative analysis of frequency data

 Conversation analysts use prototypical examples which give discursive form to phenomenon being analyzed

 Analyses must be subject to critical falsification That is, analysts must demonstrate that potential counterexamples and different accounts for the same data set have been anticipated and that other researchers can replicate findings with different transcripts

The Organization of Turn-taking

The organization of turns has attracted many linguistic researchers as well as researchers in other fields such as psychology Accordingly, definitions of turns vary significantly from study to study and are implicitly and explicitly presented in previous literatures

Turns can be defined into two types: mechanical definitions and interactional definitions

Mechanically, turns are viewed as units of talks in interaction and exclude any interpretations that regard social context Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) deliberately avoid defining turns by calling them basic units of utterance, ―unit types‖ or

―turn-constructional units‖ (TCU) and state that the types of units in English vary from sentence to clause, phrase and word Duncan and Fiske (1977) also view turns as interactional units ―with an end boundary marked by turn-claiming responses from the auditor.‖

Interactionally, Goffman (1981:23) defines turns as ―an opportunity to hold the floor, not what is said while holding it.‖ Furthermore, turns in these interactional definitions concern the speaker‘s right/ obligation to talk, as well as the concept of floor, i.e who has the privilege to hold the floor Edelsky (1993:207) defines turns as ―on-record speaking behind which lies an intention to convey a message that is both referential and functional‖ and she defines floor as ―what is going on within a psychological time/space‖ (1993:209)

She then audio-records interaction of five committee meetings with five female and four male participants When analyzing the data, she classifies the floors into two types, (1) singly developed floor, which is characterized by monologues and single party control, and (2) collaborative floor, which is a more informal and cooperative venture

All in all, the definition of turn, which is most and preferably cited by researchers, is the one stated by Levinson (1983:295) ―A turn is a time during which a single participant speaks, within a typical, orderly arrangement in which participants speak with minimal overlap and gap between them.‖

The first model for the organization of turn-taking in conversation was proposed by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) They (1974: 703-705) suggested that turn changes be fundamentally decided by one of two processes:

(a) the current speaker selects the next speaker; or (b) the next speaker selects themselves

The turn-taking organization first of all involves the definition of minimal units out of which a turn can be formed, referred to as turn-constructional units (TCUs) An important characteristic of the units is their projectability as a unit, i.e there are features of the unit which allow participants to anticipate or predict where an instance of the unit will come to an end The first possible point at which a turn-constructional unit is hearably complete is called a transitional-relevance place (TRP) This is a juncture where turn-transfer or speaker-change may potentially occur, though it does not need to take place at the first transition-relevance place

The following is a set of rules which operate over the transition-relevance places (TPRs) of turn-constructional units on a turn-by-turn basis to co-ordinate the allocation of turns

1 Supposing that the current speaker has initiated a current turn, the following rules apply at the initial turn-constructional unit‘s first TRP, consecutively in the order listed:

(a) If the current speaker selects the next speaker in the current turn, then the next speaker has sole rights and obligations to speak next, transfer occurring at the first TRP after the next speaker has been selected

(b) If (a) has not been applied, i.e the current speaker has not selected the next speaker in the current turn, then any other party may or may not self- select, with the first starter gaining sights to a turn, transfer occurring at that place

(c) If neither (a) the current speaker selects the next speaker nor (b) another party has self-selected, then the current speaker may, but need not, continue, thereby claiming rights to another turn-constructional unit

2 At the initial turn-constructional unit‘s first TRP, if rules (1a) and (1b) have not operated, and (1c) has been applied, then at the next TRP, rules (1a-c) reapply, and recursively at each subsequent TRP, unit speaker-change occurs

In any conversation, Sacks et al (1974: 700) observe that there is a general model, which should be accommodating the following grossly apparent facts:

1) Speaker-change recurs, or at least occurs

2) Overwhelmingly, one party talk at a time

3) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief

4) Transitions with no gap and no overlap are common Together with transition characterized by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions

5) Turn order is not fixed, but varies

6) Turn size is not fixed, but varies

7) Length of conversation is not specified in advance

8) What parties say is not specified in advance

9) Relative distribution of turns is not specified in advance

10) Number of parties can vary

11) Talk can be continuous or discontinuous

12) Turn-allocation techniques are obviously used A current speaker may select a next speaker (as when he addresses a question to another party); or parties may self-select in starting to talk

13) Various turn constructional units are employed; e.g., turns can be projectedly ―one word long‖, or they can be sentential in length

14) Repair mechanisms exist for dealing with turn-taking errors and violations; e.g., if two parties find themselves talking at the same time, one of them will stop prematurely, thus repairing the trouble

Sacks et al (1974:716) further classify turn-allocation techniques into six groups namely adjacency pairs, repair techniques, recompleters, social identities, appositionals, and supersession However, Sacks et al (1974:729) also state that ―different speech exchange systems lie on a continuum with respect to how turns are allocated to different speakers.‖

Accordingly, the rules for turn-taking may differ from one community to another as they do from one type of speech event (e.g a conversation) to another (e.g an oral test)

Within the scope of this study, the turn-taking techniques studied are those used in casual (ordinary and informal) English and Vietnamese conversations.

Turn-taking strategies in English conversations

A large body of research has been conducted to examine the turn-taking strategies applied in English conversations including Duncan (1973), Sacks et al (1974), Levinson (1983), Hayashi (1996), Markee (2000), and others

According to Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson's seminal framework for English conversation (1978), turns may consist of various turn-constructional components such as sentential, clausal, phrasal and lexical units The end of each turn construction unit, which can be projected by the participants in the conversation, constitutes a point where speakers may change This possible completion point is called a 'transition relevance place', or TRP (Sacks et al., 1978:12) In order to detect a TRP, participants look out for changes in the pitch or volume of the voice, the end of a syntactic unit, a momentary silence, or some sort of body motion Also in their study (Sacks et al., 1978:13), the following rules for turn allocation account for a transfer of speakership, which is most applied by researchers:

 The use of the "current speaker selects next technique" results in a speaker change Having reached a TRP, the current speaker chooses the next party him/herself

 If the turn-so-far does not involve the use of a "current speaker selects next technique", any speaker may claim the next turn This second rule usually compels

20 the other participants to start quickly, and may thus lead to difficulties for slower participants, particularly in intercultural communication

 The third rule applies if the next turn is neither allocated by the current speaker nor by self-selection The current speaker may, but need not, continue until transfer is affected at one of the next TRPs

Conversational turn-taking is both locally managed and interactionally managed by the participants Whether which rule is applied, the turn allocating techniques are divided into two groups of verbal and nonverbal strategies The verbal turn-taking strategies comprise adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, interruptions, and syntactic cues The nonverbal turn-taking strategies include paralinguistic factors (prosodies, and pause), and extralinguistic factors (kinesics, gaze and facial expressions, and posture.)

In order to detect TRP, participants may look out for verbal patterns to project the end of a turn, to relinquish a turn, to keep a turn or to take a turn in English The following verbal cues are studied in much research: adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, interruption, and syntactic cues

When the current speaker wants to select the next speaker adjacency pairs are used That the current speaker uses the first part of an adjacency pair means s/he wants to relinquish the floor to the next speaker (Sacks et al., 174:717) Richards et al (1992:7) define an adjacency pair as ―a sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers The second utterance is always a response to the first.‖ Conversation requires a certain degree of predictability (Nunan, 1999: 133-135 and 201-204) This is partly facilitated by adjacency pairs where, according to Shortall (1996:131), the initial utterances restrict the

21 possible number of responses, and Burns (2001:134) concludes they enable speakers to

―anticipate certain types of forms and meanings from one utterance to the next.‖ Burns (2001:133) also observes that question-and-answer is one of the most common forms of adjacency pairs, but recognizes there are many others, such as requesting and granting (or denying) the request, expressing gratitude and acknowledging it (Sacks et al., 1974) The most widely used adjacency pairs indicate thanking-response, request acceptance, apology-minimization, and question-answer sequences Whilst Richards et al provide a narrow definition of an adjacency pair, Craig (1996) observes it can be expanded by an insertion sequence, which may be of varying complexity and include a number of turns

The types of adjacency pairs which are most commonly used are greeting-greeting, invitation-acceptance/ decline, complaint/ denial, compliment/ rejection, challenge/ rejection, request/ grant, offer-accept/ reject, question-answer, and instruct-receipt (Sacks et al 1974:716)

Besides adjacency pairs, the next speaker may be nominated by name (or title), especially in conversations involving more than two interlocutors who do not have good eye- contact, name nomination may help to avoid confusion This social conditioning may find application in casual conversations as well as formal situations, such as meetings, lectures, and presentations

Recompleters (also named post-completers in different books) refer to a class that supplies one major source of the talk done when rule 1c (―if the turn so far is so constructed as not to involve the use of a current speaker selects next technique, then the current speaker may, but need not continue, unless another self-selects‖) is applied (Sacks et al., 1974:704,718) Tag questions like ―You know?” “Don’t you agree?” etc are examples ―The availability of ―tag questions‖ as affiliable to a turn‘s talk is of special importance, for it is the generally available ―exit technique‖ of a turn‖ (Sacks et al.,

1974:718) That is, when a current speaker has constructed a turn‘s talk to a possible transition relevance place without having selected the next, and he finds no other self- selecting to be next, he may, employing his option to continue, add a tag question for example, selecting another as the next speaker upon the tag question‘s completion, and thereby exiting from the turn

Appositionals are ―turn entry devices or pre-starts‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:719)

Appositionals like “well”, “but”, “and”, “so” are common in English Appositionals are used by a participant when he wants to apply the self-selection technique to take a turn, which may satisfy the constraints of beginning Together with tag questions, appositionals are heavily used in English and ―are to be understood as devices with important turn-organizational uses.‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:720)

Both Sacks et al (1974) and Duncan (1973) mentioned syntax as a cue to indentify transition relevance place in turn-taking organization in English conversations Sacks et al (1974:720) identify ―the types of turn constructional units as sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical, i.e syntactically‖ The next turns can occur when current turns show them to occur at possible completion points, which ―turn out to be the possible completion points of sentences, clauses, phrases‖ (Sacks et al., 1974:720) According to Duncan (1973:287) syntax signal refers to ―the completion of grammatical clause, involving subject-predicate combination‖ This means the ends of sentence, clause, or phrase can indicate the ends of turns, when the next turns can start

One way to take a turn is to interrupt the current speaker, which leads to the coining of the terms ―overlap‖ and ―interruption‖

Overlap occurs when a listener begins speaking before the first speaker completely finishes his/her turn The model for turn-taking suggested by Sacks et al (1074) is based on an underlying rules in American English conversation, namely that ―(1) Overwhelmingly, one party talks at a time; (2) Occurrences of more than one speaker at a time are common, but brief; (3) Transitions with no gap and no overlap are common

Together with transition characterized by slight gap or slight overlap, they make up the vast majority of transitions.‖ Thus, in Anglo-American culture, smooth transitions from one speaker to the next tend to be valued Although participants generally conform to the rules of the turn-taking system, brief overlap may occur when two or more participants compete for the floor When a self-selecting listener overlaps with the current speaker at a TRP, for instance, one of them may drop out, thereby acknowledging the other's right to the turn (Nofsinger 1991:97-98)

While overlap is considered to be supportive and does not violate the turn-taking norms, interruptions which "refer to simultaneous talk that does not occur at or near a TRP" (Nofsinger 1991:102) constitute a threat to the speaker's face, the term interruption often has negative connotations

2.3.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies

Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese conversations

Different Vietnamese linguists have mentioned turn-taking in their studies about conversation analysis and pragmatics Turn-taking, in these studies, is examined systematically; however, the details are still inadequately described The hereinafter is compiled from studies about turn-taking in Vietnamese

In Nguyen Thien Giap‘s ―Dung hoc Viet ngu‖ (Vietnamese pragmatics), certain verbal cues are described when he mentions the turn-taking system in Vietnamese They are adjacency pairs Adjacency pairs are studied in full and details in Vietnamese by Nguyen Thien Giap, Do Huu Chau, and Do Viet Hung In their studies, adjacency pairs are sequences/ parts of a dialogue (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:73), and in one pair, ―the first turn acts the function of direction or guiding for the second turn‖ (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:70) This means the first part of an adjacency pair is the signal to show the end of a turn and the next turn is expected to be the second part of the pair Question – answer is a typical function of adjacency pairs in Vietnamese For example, ―A: Cháu mấy tuổi rồi?

B: Cháu ba tuổi ạ.‖ or ―A: Ông yêu em thật chứ? B: Thật, tôi yêu em.‖ (Nguyen Thien Giap, 2009:70)

2.5.2 Non-verbal turn-taking strategies

The importance of non-verbal strategies is a focus in the studies about conversations carried out by different Vietnamese linguists (Nguyen Quang, Nguyen Thien Giap, and others) The non-verbal activities include two groups: paralanguage and extralanguage

The linguists have stressed that vocal fillers, vocal qualities, and pause, as well as body motions function well in conversations; nevertheless, except for intonation, their function as turn-taking cues have not been studied in details The role of intonation in communication was studied systematically in Do Tien Thang‘s work of ―Ngữ điệu tiếng

Việt – Sơ khảo‖ (Vietnamese Intonation – A Fundamental Study) published in 2009

In his research, Do Tien Thang presented systematically the ―tone‖ aspect of Vietnamese

With regards to turn-taking, he stressed ―intonation of the current turn supports in the interaction of the current turn and the next turn‖ (2009:292) and ―the defaulted intonation of a turn functions as a turn-end signal‖ (2009:309) The defaulted intonation is different from the undefaulted intonation The latter is normal, standardized, and preset; while the former is flexible, reformed, and context-based He mentioned five types of defaulted intonation of the current turn that may relate to turn-taking They are rising tone (―cao giọng‖; identified by high key), falling (―thấp giọng‖; identified by low key), lengthening

(―dài giọng‖; identified by long key), shortening (―giọng nhanh‖; identified by short key), and rise-fall/fall-rise (―đay giọng‖; identified by mid key) These five different intonation patterns function differently in various contexts (Do Tien Thang, 2009:277-278)

Methodology

Research questions

1) What turn-taking strategies are used in Vietnamese casual conversations?

2) What are the differences and similarities between turn-taking strategies used in English casual conversations and those used in Vietnamese ones?

Research methods

In order to study the turn-taking strategies used in Vietnamese, the researcher would go to the places where people naturally engage in actual conversations, the casual conversations as restricted in the scope of the study, and recording the conversations for further observation and analysis The methodology used in this research is what might be called

―video ethnography.‖ Video ethnography combines classic ethnographic methods with digital video technology

There are a number of advantages when using video recording for data collection One advantage is the density of data that a visual recording provides (Grimshaw, 1982) In an ethnographic approach to research, we seek to study real people in real situations, doing real activities Video recorded data can provide us with more contextual data than can audio recorded data (Gass & Houck, 1999; Iino, 1999) They can give us a more complete sense of who the people are, and acquaint us with the setting in which the people function and the types of activities they engage in from day-to-day as well as the nature of these activities themselves In language studies, not only does video recording enable us to accurately identify who is speaking, but it also provides information about posture, gestures, clothing, and proxemics Gestures, facial expressions, and other visual interactional cues also provide important information both on the negotiation of meaning and the negotiation of affect Furthermore this kind of visual information can help us to disambiguate verbal messages by narrowing down the possible number of accurate interpretations (Iino, 1999) Finally, the visual information in videos also provides information on directionality and intensity of attention, which can be particularly useful in determining the levels of comfort and involvement of the interlocutors (Gass & Houck,

1999) These kinds of visual contextual information, then, can enrich our data base in many ways

Video recording also provides us with denser linguistic information than does field note taking, for ideally it allows us to record every word When taking field notes, the researcher is limited to writing down the gist of what the interlocutors said, or recording only brief interactions consisting of a few short turns because of constraints on memory and the inherently slower speed of writing as compared with speaking (Beebe and Takahashi, 1989)

Another advantage of video recording is permanence (Grimshaw, 1982), which allows us to experience an event repeatedly by playing it back With each repeated viewing, we can change our focus somewhat and see things we had not seen at the time of taping or on previous viewings (Erickson, 1982, 1992; Fetterman, 1998) Replaying the event also

33 allows us more time to contemplate, deliberate, and ponder the data before drawing conclusions, and hence serves to ward off premature interpretation of the data Even a rare event, when captured on tape, can be replayed repeatedly for a thorough analysis so that it can still be studied intensively Real time observation does not have this advantage (Erickson, 1992)

Nevertheless, the amount of information contained in ethnographic footage, the unedited videotaped material of a particular event (Crawford, 1992), is necessarily limited, and we need to bear these limitations in mind First, the information is limited in that the videotape itself tells us nothing about statistics, that is, how typical this event is Is it a frequent event or an unusual event or a unique event? That kind of information must be supplemented by the ethnographer, who has spent sufficient time in the field as a participant-observer, triangulating with other methods of data collection in order to know something about the frequency (as well as other characteristics) of the event being recorded (Corsaro, 1982; Erickson, 1992; Hastrup, 1992; Heider, 1976)

Second, a video is limited because it can capture only what is observable The unspoken thoughts and feelings of a participant cannot be seen or heard on the tape They might be guessed at or inferred, but if a participant is successful at dissembling, the inference will not be accurate One advantage of video, however, is that it can be played back to the participants (Corsaro, 1982; Erickson, 1975, 1982; Erickson & Schulz, 1982; Iino, 1993;

1996) in order to attempt to get them to recall and describe their thoughts, feelings and reactions at different points in time during a given event, thus giving us information about the unobservable

Third, videotaping only allows the event to be experienced vicariously It does not allow for hypothesis testing in the way participant observation does With participant observation, one can test out emerging theories in the field by trying them out, thus giving an idea of what is acceptable (Erickson, 1992) Still, video data can also provide a means of hypothesis testing By showing clips to others, both cultural insiders and outsiders, and asking them pertinent questions about what was said or done, what ought to have been said or done, and how they assess or interpret the behavior, hypotheses can be developed and tested to some extent (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1989) Furthermore, modern video,

34 computer, and Web technologies have made it possible for many people to engage in collaborative theory construction in order to strengthen the findings of one researcher or a small group of researchers; this is what Goldman Segall (1995, 1998) refers to as configurational validity It is based on the belief that the collaborative construction of theory which results from the participation of many diverse persons in viewing and commenting on the video adds strength to a study by adding layers of interpretation and weaving a thicker description than could be accomplished by one analyst or a few analysts alone This is because each person's understanding is necessarily limited by his or her own experience; therefore multiple points of viewing help to offset those limitations and increase the validity or credibility of the study (Goldman-Segall, 1995, 1998; Iino, 1996)

Being aware of these limitations, the researcher hereof shall take careful steps in selecting the conversations to be recorded, the people involved in the conversations, and the researcher will self-record some of the conversations The other method which would be used in the research is stimulated recall This method is applied to Vietnamese data collection process with an aim to minimize the limits of video ethnography method as mentioned above

In 1953, Benjamin Bloom at the University of Chicago described a method that he named

―stimulated recall‖ (1953:161) Bloom and his colleagues audio-taped lectures at the university and then used them to stimulate students in the class to recall activities, gestures, and points made as part of the lectures He found ―as high as 95 per cent accurate recall of such overt, checkable events within two days‖ and describe this procedure as ―a method of reviving memories‖ (1953:162) and students‘ thoughts during lectures Since these initial studies by Bloom, stimulated recall has been used as a method for accessing cognition in a number of different activities including counseling, problem- solving, medical consultations, teaching, and researching Many researchers used stimulated recall as their primary data source for information (Marland: 1984)

Grass and Mackey (2000) studied the use of stimulated recall methodology in second language acquisition Stimulated recall is an introspective method in which participants are prompted (via some visual or oral stimulus such as a video/audio- taped event, or any other tangible reminder such as different drafts of a composition, etc) to recall thoughts they entertained while carrying out certain tasks or participating in certain events The method is superior to a simple post hoc interview in that the participant does not need to heavily rely on memory without any prompts Moreover, it has an advantage over thinking-aloud protocols because the participant does not need to go through a process of training in order to be able to perform a task and talk about it simultaneously

The stimulated recall procedure, in general, includes the following steps: videotaping, observations, stimulated recall, and field notes During stimulated recall stage, the participants together with the researcher view the videotape The videotape is stopped at points when s/he recalls thoughts or feelings that occurred during the conversations

Immediately following each contact with the participant, the researcher would complete field notes which are then used for analyzing data.

Data collection procedure

To get information for researching turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese, casual conversations among Vietnamese speakers shall be recorded by the researcher The researcher shall go to the places where interactions among people are happening to carry out recording The researcher shall try to take camera of as many casual conversations as possible, then select 10 proper clips for analysis Thus the researcher shall have to confirm the spontaneity and validity of the conversations There are arguments for such confirmation Firstly, the recorded conversations shall be spontaneous in so much as they are unscripted and conducted immediately after seeking the participants‘ permission

Furthermore, the conversations shall be created whilst they are in progress and are, therefore, spontaneous (Brazil, 1992: 4) In order to add validity to the transcripts, the participants shall be sent a final copy and requested to confirm that: a) the transcript is an accurate representation of the conversation; b) the conversation is not pre-planned or scripted, and therefore spontaneous In addition, they are asked for their feedback on

36 whether or not they feel their behavior changed and, if so, to what extent (as suggested by Swann, 2001) Stimulated recalls shall also be used at this stage to collect the participants‘ ideas on what is going on and to clarify the points that the researcher shall raise

There are also some criteria the researcher shall follow when recording the conversations:

1 The people participating in the conversations must all be native Vietnamese speakers;

2 The conversations should be casual, not too formal;

3 The setting of the conversations should be real, spontaneous (unstructured), the interactions should be natural;

4 The conversations should not be too long, less than half an hour per each conversation;

5 The quality of the video clips should meet analysis requirements, the pictures should be light, the voice should be clear.

Data transcription

The video recordings provide primary data for the analysis hereof One core step is, therefore, data transcription, which, according to Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998:73) is important in two respects: ―First, transcription is a necessary initial step in making possible the analysis of recorded interaction in the way that CA requires Second, the practice of transcription and production of a transcript represents a distinctive stage in the process of data analysis itself.‖ Realizing the importance of this step, the author surely and consistently follows the typical rules of transcribing data which include:

(1) CA transcripts do not predetermine what phenomenon is going to study CA transcripts routinely provide extremely detailed information about what people say and how they say it (Markee, 2005:55)

(2) Transcripts of talk-in interaction reflect four assumptions which govern CA work, which are: Conversation has structure; Conversation is its own autonomous context, that is, the meaning of a particular utterance is shaped by what immediately precedes it and also by what immediately follows it; There is no a prior justification for believing that any detail of conversation, however minute, is disorderly, accidental or irrelevant; The study of conversation requires naturally occurring data (Markee, 2000:40)

In CA, different systems of transcription conventions have been applied such as those introduced by Markee (2000), Hinkel (1999), Hutchby and Wooffitt (1998), Atkinson and Heritage (1984) The researcher hereof shall abridge and adapt the transcription conventions which are fully discussed in Atkinson and Heritage (1984) to support analysis.

Data analysis

Although there are a number of ways to analyze video recordings of social activities, ethno-methodology and CA offer a unique form of qualitative analysis The method is not just to code events and then search for statistical patterns, but rather to search for patterns in the temporal unfolding of events in order to discover their internal, and often sequential structures Generally speaking, CA unpacks the structure of conversation by analyzing either single cases or collections of talk-in-interaction as Markee (2000:60) proposes that

―With single cases, the objective is to provide an in-depth analysis of a particular phenomenon that facilitates a deep understanding of how the phenomenon under study works Analyses based on collection of similar data enable the analyst to use whether the practices to which participants are thought to orient are robust to account for a broad range of data gathered in different conversational contexts.‖

By the nature of CA, this research is conducted as a qualitative study using video equipment to collect data In order to facilitate analysis of audio-visual data, detailed transcriptions are made of any talk involved in the event Transcripts are crafted so as to represent the temporal structure of events and many details of speech production They also sometimes contain descriptions of body movement and the manipulation of tools

Then, the transcripts and the video clips shall be shown to the participants for stimulated recalls The researcher shall use the transcripts and the ideas gathered from stimulated recalls in analyzing the turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese A comparison shall be made later on between turn-taking strategies in English and Vietnamese to come up with pedagogical implications for teaching English in Vietnam

This study, in any respects, follows strictly the CA purposes, therefore, the defining characteristics of CA specified by Markee (2000:60) are resorted to:

(1) It adopts a radically emic approach to research which avoids the use of secondary data

(2) It generally avoids all but the most basic forms of quantification

(3) It relies on analyzing prototypical examples of a particular phenomenon, using different kinds of text-internal, convergent evidence to establish the credibility of an analysis

(4) It seeks to demonstrate that potential counterexamples have been anticipated and encourage other researchers to replicate initial findings with different sources of data

Findings and Discussion

Analysis of the participants and the settings of the recorded conversations

Ten Vietnamese conversations were selected out of twenty ones recorded The total recorded time is about 250 minutes, out of which the total recorded time of the conversations selected for analysis hereof is 95 minutes After transcription, the total number of turns transcribed is 742, which are distributed differently in those ten conversations Whether or not the differences in ages, genders, intimacy, among the participants, and the settings of the conversations influence the findings of the study is examined as below

The people participating in the conversations are undergraduate and postgraduate students from Faculty of English Language Teacher Education - University of Languages and International Studies; College of Economics – Vietnam National University, Hanoi;

International School - Vietnam National University, Hanoi; and Hanoi National University

40 of Education Their ages are of from twenty to mid-thirty Therefore, the findings of the study can just represent the turn-taking strategies applied by the young Vietnamese The strategies applied by the Vietnamese of different age groups may differ slightly from the ones applied by the young

As for sex, the genders of the participants are distributed differently in seven conversations In four conversations, all participants are female In total, twelve male participants (account for twenty five percent) and thirty six female participants (account for seventy five percent) were involved in all ten conversations The difference in gender, thus, may affect the use of strategies in turn-taking

Table 1: Distribution of genders in ten conversations

Conversations Male participants Female participants

To study whether gender is accountable in the selection of turn-taking strategies, t-test was applied with results presented in Table 2 hereof T-test results show that there are significant differences between male and female Vietnamese participants in their use of turn-taking strategies named overlap and syntactic cues (p=0.076, p=0.057 respectively)

No significant differences are confirmed in the use of the other strategies between male and female Detailed analysis of such differences is presented in parts 4.2.1.5 and 4.2.1.6 hereinafter

Regarding relationship among the participants, the participants in eight conversations are friends who have known each other for at least one year The participants in two conversations have just known each other And more importantly, all the participants are of the same level of power Whether or not the difference in intimacy has influence on the ways the speakers used to take, hold on, or to relinquish turns is studied owing to t-test‘s results (see Appendix 1) The independent samples of t-test run on the findings of the study show that intimacy does influence the density of overlap (p=0.002) and the application of syntactic cues (p=0.076) in Vietnamese turn-taking The differences between the two groups studied with regards to the other strategies are insignificant

Detailed analysis of such differences is presented in parts 4.2.1.5 and 4.2.1.6 hereinafter

Figure 1: Sample picture of one recorded conversation

The conversations were spontaneous so much as they were unscripted and conducted immediately after seeking the participants‘ permission Furthermore, the conversations were formed whilst they were in progress and were, therefore, spontaneous (Brazil, 1992:4)

In order to add validity to the transcripts, the participants were sent a final copy and were requested to confirm that: a) the transcript is an accurate representation of the conversation; b) the conversation was not pre-planned or scripted, and therefore spontaneous;

In addition, they were asked for their feedback on whether they agreed or disagreed with the remarks of the researcher and whether or not they felt their behavior changed and, if so, to what extent.

Turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations

With the transcripts of the conversations and the results of stimulated recall, different strategies were confirmed when the Vietnamese speakers take the floor, hold onto the floor, or relinquish the floor Those strategies are grouped into two groups of verbal and non-verbal strategies The verbal strategies are sub-grouped into adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, syntactic cues, and overlap The non-verbal strategies include the paralanguage ones and the extralanguage ones Below is the detailed analysis

The Vietnamese speakers do rely on certain words and tactics to detect TRP They are named adjacency pairs, name nomination, recompleters, appositionals, syntactic cues and overlap

Observable in the transcripts are the adjacency pairs The below table 3 shows the number of adjacency pairs used in the conversations

When asked in stimulated recall sessions, the respondents all think when they utter these so-called first parts of the adjacency pairs, they were to await corresponding responses from the next speakers Actually, they are not familiar to the term ―adjacency pairs‖, but one said ―I am aware that when one makes a question, s/he is expecting an answer and this means s/he is passing her/his turn to the next speaker.‖ Thus, one rule can be drawn here in Vietnamese conversations is that the use of the first part of an adjacency pair can be a signal to denote the end of a turn and with that the next speaker can start his/her turn

Table 3: Distribution of adjacency pairs in the conversations

Conversations Number of adjacency pairs used

Also observable in the ten transcripts, almost all types of adjacency pairs were used The following are adjacency pairs extracted from the conversations:

G1: Khuê đi rồi thì cậu thấy Cát Bà thế nào B1: Cát Bà à theo tôi nghĩ thì Cát Bà cũng đẹp thôi nhưng ở đấy thì ít chỗ vui chơi giải trí lắm

G9: Đi Mai Châu không mọi người B2: Trước tớ từng đi Mai Châu rồi

G21: Tiện gần thì rẽ vào nhà tớ G22: Nhưng mà gần Côn Sơn còn một điểm nữa cơ mà

G2: Không Sapa lạnh lắm B1: Lạnh ở Sapa mới hay chứ

B1: Cậu cậu thể nào năm nay chẳng được học bổng

G1: Nhưng mà học bổng thì phải dùng vào việc khác chứ đi chơi thì tớ nghĩ bảy trăm hơi cao

While speaking, one simple but effective technique to select a next speaker is to nominate his/her name In the ten recorded conversations, the next speakers were selected by name nomination in five times When asked in stimulated recall sessions, these five name nominated persons said that their names were mentioned was the signal that they were to take their turn Also, those who named the next speakers said they did want to relinquish the floor when they called out the names of the other speakers Though name nomination was not applied much in these conversations, when asked in stimulated recall sessions, all the interviewees confirmed that this technique is quite popular and effective in Vietnamese dialogues The below extract is a typical example of name nomination in Vietnamses

G3: Thế Nga thì chọn mua hay chọn may G5: Chỉ đi mua thôi hầu như không may kiểu đi mua quần áo đã đủ mệt rồi hôm trước cái áo này tớ mới mua này hôm trước nữa đi lùng mua hai cái áo

As mentioned above, recompleters or ―turn-exit devices‖ refer to the words and phrases that the current speakers may use when s/he has constructed a turn‘s talk to a possible transition relevance place without having selected the next, and s/he finds no other self- selecting to be next By that moment, s/he may, employing his option to continue, add a word or phrase, selecting another as next speaker upon the sentence‘s completion, and thereby exiting from the turn The words of the same function were found in the ten Vietnamese conversations studied They are ―đúng không‖, ―được không‖, ―à‖, ―á‖, ―hay là thế nào‖, ―nhớ‖, ―nhé‖, ―chứ gì‖, ―chứ‖, ―cơ mà‖, ―nhỉ‖, ―còn gì‖, ―còn gì nữa‖, ―chứ còn gì nữa‖, ―, ―ý‖, ―đâu”, which were used repeatedly, in 87 turns out of 742 turns, accounting for 12 per cent When recalling, those who used the above words said that they often use these words to end their speaking turns These words, in their opinions, function as question markers (―đúng không‖, ―được không‖, ―hay là thế nào‖, ―à‖, ―á‖,), affirmation markers (―chứ còn gì nữa‖, ―chứ‖, ―còn gì‖, ―còn gì nữa‖, ―ý‖), and request markers (―nhớ‖, ―nhé‖), and these words are often used by the end of turns A participant said in some particular moments, she used ―nha‖ instead of ―nhớ‖ and ―nhé‖ Also in her words, she learned the word ―nha‖ when she talked to the people from the South of Vietnam The other speakers when hearing the above recompleters realize that it is time to take their turn Accordingly, the recompleters are used in Vietnamese turn-taking system as signals to relinquish the floor (of the current speakers) and to take the floor (of the next speakers) The following is extracted from a studied conversation:

G2: Hình như gần đây có Cát Bà đúng không G1: Cát Bà Hải phòng

B1: Đâu Cát Bà Cát Bà Hải Phòng đi cũng say G2: Nhưng mà Cát Bà có vẻ gần hơn các địa điểm kia còn gì

In these sequences, ―đúng không‖ is used to make a question, and ―còn gì‖ is used to make an affirmation

Appositionals are ―turn entry devices or pre-starts‖ (Sacks et al, 1974:719) Appositionals are used by a participant when s/he wants to apply the self-selection technique to take a turn, which may satisfy the constraints of beginning In the ten studied conversations, the words ―không‖, ―đâu‖, ―nhưng‖, ―nhưng mà‖, ―thế‖, ―thì‖, ―thế thì‖, ―thế thì bây giờ‖,

―đúng rồi‖, ―ừ‖, ―à‖, ―chẳng qua‖, ―chẳng qua là‖, ―căn bản‖, ―căn bản là‖, ―cho nên‖,

―đấy‖, ―tức là‖, ―nói chung là‖ are used in high density, in 96 turns out of 740 turns, accounting for approximately 13 per cent The following is an example:

G1: Bây giờ phải sắp xếp lại G3: Nhưng mà mình đã thống nhất làm với nhau như thế nào đâu mà mình có thể đưa ra đánh giá

G2: Thì đây mình đanh bàn với nhau xem sắp xếp thứ tự thế nào đây G5: Thì mình xem nên sắp xếp thứ tự và đưa nó vào như thế nào

In this extract, ―nhưng mà‖ and ―thì‖ were used as appositionals, and thus the next speaker took the turn of the current speaker All the participants when recalling memory, said they often use the words mentioned above to start a turn, especially when they are thinking of what words or sentences to utter Therefore, one conclusion is that when communicating in Vietnamese the interlocutors can use the above-listed appositionals to start a turn, and the current speakers may surrender their turns when hearing those words

Sacks et al (1974:720) identify ―the types of turn constructional units as sentential, clausal, phrasal, and lexical, i.e syntactically‖ The next turns can occur when current turns show them to occur at possible completion points, which ―turn out to be the possible completion points of sentences, clauses, phrases‖ (Sacks et al, 1974:720) According to Duncan (1972:287) syntax signal refers to ―the completion of grammatical clause,

48 involving subject-predicate combination.‖ This means the ends of sentence, clause, or phrase can indicate the ends of turns, when the next turns can start

In the ten Vietnamese conversations studied, 7 persons out of 48 ones (account for 14.5 per cent) start their turns smoothly without overlapping or interrupting the previous speakers These seven persons, when asked, mentioned some reasons for their smooth turn-starting, among which is they predict the end of the previous talks One person says she starts talking by the moment she sees the others‘ utterances are grammatically and semantically complete The others agree that the completion of the utterances is a possible explanation for their prediction It can be drawn here that the Vietnamese participants do rely on the syntactic factors to start their turn, though they cannot explain their act linguistically

Also noticeable in the transcripts, of the seven persons mentioned hereinabove, three (out of twelve) are male and four (out of thirty six) are female T-test results (t=1.81; p=0.076) show significant difference in the use of this strategy between male and female Vietnamese participants When interviewed, all those seven persons have no comment or idea about the reason for such a difference It is merely alleged that the Vietnamese men are more technically oriented and more tranquil in responding to other speakers than the Vietnamese women Nevertheless, one tail hereby is that gender does have influence on how smoothly turns are exchanged in Vietnamese informal conversations

As aforementioned, overlap and interruption are two different terms denoting respectively positive and negative behaviors toward simultaneity in communication However, it is overlap, not interruption, which was observed in the studied conversations Also, the overlaps counted are those which function as turn-claiming acts in the conversations

Those which function as backchannels were not counted In the ten Vietnamese conversations, overlaps were observed in 189 turns out of 742 turns (account for 25.5 per cent) and were uttered by 41 interlocutors out of 48 ones (account for 85.5 per cent)

These figures show that almost all Vietnamese participants studied do initiate their talks

49 prior to the end the others‘ turns The following table sums up overlaps in these ten conversations

Table 4: Overlaps by gender and intimacy

Total turns Overlap T test p =TRP* T test p ≠ TRP** T test p

* The current speaker surrenders the turn when overlapped (overlap =TRP)

** The current speaker keeps the turn when overlapped (overlap ≠ TRP)

Two types of overlaps were observed in the conversations The first type is overlap taken near or by TRP, in which the current speakers surrender their turns when interrupted by other speakers The following extract is a typical illustration of this type:

B1 : Đi Hạ Long thì hay là…

G2: [Đi Hạ Long] thì nói chung thì kinh phí nó cũng vừa phải này…

B1: [Hạ Long thì] đi hai ngày ba đêm

Similarities and differences between turn-taking strategies used in English casual

As stated by Stivers et al (2009), ―Informal verbal interaction is the core matrix for human social life A mechanism for coordinating this basic mode of interaction is a system of turn-taking that regulates who is to speak and when Yet relatively little is known about how this system varies across cultures.‖ Actually, certain researchers (Susanna Kohonen, Makoto Hayashi, Phillip Brown, Yvette Murdoch, Gina-Anne Levow, and others) have compared and contrasted the sets of rules governing the turn- taking mechanism in different languages (French, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, German, etc.), yet whether or not such set of rule is universal or disparate is still controversial

When studying the turn-taking strategies used in Vietnamese casual conversations, comparing them to the ones applied in English, I identified that a same basic set of strategies governing turn-taking was established in English and in Vietnamese; nevertheless, how the strategies are applied varies significantly from one language to the other

As afore-mentioned, the same set of strategies governing turn-taking was found in English and in Vietnamese Such strategies include both the verbal and the non-verbal ones

With regards to the verbal aspect of both English and Vietnamese, certain similarities were accrued in not only lexical and syntactic features, but also in pragmatic patterns

Firstly, with reference to lexicology, name nomination is commonly perceived as a method to select the next speaker Besides, recompleters and appositionals are used in both languages as turn-end markers and turn-beginning devices In English, the expressions like ―you know‖ and ―don’t you agree‖ are commonly used by the end of utterances; whilst, ―đúng không‖ ―được không‖ ―hay là thế nào‖ are present at the end of many Vietnamese utterances The words like ―but‖ ―so‖ ―well‖ are found starting English utterances; meanwhile, in Vietnamese the words of such function are ―ừ‖ ―nhưng‖ ―thế‖

―thì‖ and so on Secondly, from syntactic perspectives, in both languages, the completion points of sentences, clauses, or phrases are perceived as possible completion points of turns, and thus, the next turns can occur Thirdly, under pragmatics‘ scope, similar features of adjacency pairs and overlap were found In both languages, the first part of an adjacency pair is understood as a turn passing signal Also, all types of adjacency pairs used in English were realized in Vietnamese Besides, overlap is perceived as a turn- requesting technique in both languages

With regards to the non-verbal aspect of both English and Vietnamese, similarities were found in the use of turn-taking strategies in terms of not only paralinguistic features but extralinguistic features as well Firstly, inter-turn space is regarded as a turn-yielding signal in both languages Secondly, the variation of pitch has its role in turn-taking in terms of rising and falling contours in both English and Vietnamese Thirdly, gaze is seen to be of powerful function in face-to-face communication in general and in turn-taking in particular in both languages, in which it functions as turn-yielding and turn-avoiding techniques rather than as turn-requesting technique Moreover, hand raise is applied as a turn-requesting strategy; whilst, changes of posture and head movements are found to be of certain association to turn-taking in both languages

As Carroll (2000: 105) commented ―participants from other cultures engaged in casual conversations orient to the same basic rules of turn-taking as do, say, Americans, British English speakers or Australians‖, similarities in turn-taking strategies applied by speakers of both English and Vietnamese are basically apparent Nevertheless, the detailed application of such same set of rules varies from language to language, of

71 which English and Vietnamese are typical examples The following part will present the disparities in the use of turn-taking strategies in English and Vietnamese casual conversations

Cook (1989:52-53) stated ―Turn-taking mechanisms, the way in which speakers hold or pass the floor, vary between cultures and between languages….These mechanisms cannot simply be lifted from one society (and thus from one language) to another‖ When studying the turn-taking strategies in English and Vietnamese casual conversations, though a same basic set of rules was identified, certain disparities in the use of such rules were accumulated in terms of both verbal and non-verbal aspects

The first and rather obvious difference was identified in the use of lexical devices as turn- passing and turn-requesting strategies in English and Vietnamese As compared to the ones applied in English, the ones applied in Vietnamese outnumber and are more profuse

One reason is the types of sentences in Vietnamese are not formed grammatically but lexically Thus, the density in the use of functional markers in Vietnamese is observable

If in English about ten recompleters and appositionals (you know, don’t you know, don’t you agree, the “tags” in tag questions, but, so, well, and, yeah) are in use, about fifty words and phrases of the same functions are found in Vietnamese They are plentiful not only in number but in meaning as well, such as ―đúng không‖, ―được không‖, ―à‖, ―á‖,

―hay là thế nào‖, ―nhớ‖, ―nhé‖, ―nha”‖, ―chứ gì‖, ―chứ‖, ―cơ mà‖, ―nhỉ‖, ―còn gì‖, ―còn gì nữa‖, ―chứ còn gì nữa‖, ―ý‖, ―đâu”, or ―không‖, ―đâu‖, ―nhưng‖, ―nhưng mà‖, ―thế‖,

―thì‖, ―thế thì‖, ―thế thì bây giờ‖, ―đúng rồi‖, ―ừ‖, ―à‖, ―chẳng qua‖, ―chẳng qua là‖,

―căn bản‖, ―căn bản là‖, ―cho nên‖, ―đấy‖, ―tức là‖ Incontestably, it seems easier for the Vietnamese participants to identify the TRPs of turns by using lexical devices when involving in any corpus of dialogues

Secondly, the Vietnamese speakers tend to overlap/ interrupt the current speakers more often than the English speakers As shown in Table 2 hereinabove, overlaps (which function as turn-taking signals other than back-channels) account for about 25.4 per cent

72 of the turns studied, whereas according to Sack et al (1974), the English speakers tend to minimize gaps and overlaps between turns Interruptions which refer to simultaneous talk that does not occur at or near a TRP are even perceived to have negative connotation in English, while interruptions are common in Vietnamese and are rarely regarded as negative interlocutory acts

Thirdly, certain discrepancies were found in prosodic features in terms of pitch variation, intensity, tempo and duration

Concerning pitch, pitch in English is of vital important role in general, and of turn-taking signals in particular In English, Sacks et al (1974:721-722) stressed the importance of

‗sound production‘ in turn-taking organization Rising intonation may indicate a question, as opposed to confirmation or emphasis accompanied by falling intonation A rising intonation during a turn will indicate that a turn is unfinished, as opposed to a falling intonation to signal its end Goshgaria with ―Exploring Language‖ (2003) pointed out ―it is also possible to have a fall-rising pitch and a rise-falling pitch‖ On the contrary to English, in Vietnamese, the variation of pitch plays less important role in turn-taking

Rising contour was found to be of turn-requesting technique; however, other techniques (lexicons or intensity of sound) are required to supplement the rising pitch in a same situation Vietnamese is a tone language, thus, pitch varies with every word of an utterance, which makes listeners difficult to identify any abnormal pitch variation patterns Thus, the Vietnamese speakers are less reliable on intonation than the English speakers are

Conclusion and Implications

Summary

From the scope and objectives of the study, turn-taking strategies in Vietnamese casual conversations were studied using transcripts of ten conversations and notes of stimulated recall sessions Then a comparative analysis was conducted to obtain the similarities and differences between the strategies used in Vietnamese conversations and the ones used in English conversations, which were compiled from reviewing literature The findings are briefly presented as below:

In order to smoothly and successfully acquire a turn, a speaker should identify the signals ending the current turn and inform himself or ferself of the common techniques applied to request a turn The turn-end signals in English are name nomination, the application of the first part of an adjacency pairs, the use of lexical devices (recompleters), the gaze direction of the current speaker, the long pause, the falling intonation, gesturing, the decrease of voice volume, and the body movement The turn-requesting techniques often applied by the English speakers are the use of lexical devices (appositionals), overlapping and interrupting the current speaker, the realization of completion points of utterances, hand raise, the increase in sound volume, and the changes of body posture

The Vietnamese often rely on the following techniques to relinquish or to request a turn:

Adjacency pairs: The application of the first part of an adjacency pair is perceived as a turn-yielding technique in Vietnamese Almost all types of adjacency pairs are found to be in use in Vietnamese conversations

Name nomination: The current speaker may call out the name of another speaker to select him/her as the next speaker

Lexical devices: A large amount of words and phrases are often used at the end or beginning of Vietnamese sentences Being aware of such words may help in both detecting the end of a turn and in acquiring a turn

Syntactic features: Possible completion points of phrases, clauses, or sentences are interpreted to be the completion points of turns, and thus are perceived as a turn-end signal The male Vietnamese speakers seem to be more responsive to such completion points than the females

Overlaps: Overlaps are used to acquire a turn by the Vietnamese speakers There are two types of overlaps observed in overlaps near TRPs and overlaps away from TRPs Besides, the female Vietnamese speakers tend to overlap more often than the males, and overlaps between intimates are of higher frequency than those between casuals

Prosodies: Four patterns of prosodies were found to be of close link to turn- taking: sound intensity, sound duration, tempo, and pitch, among which the Vietnamese rely more on the three former patterns than on the latter pattern

Concerning sound intensity, high intensity is interpreted to be of turn-holding and turn-acquiring functions, whereas relatively low sound is perceived as a way to pass a turn As of sound duration, the longer sound produced may be seen as either turn-requesting or turn-ending techniques High tempo in Vietnamese sometimes takes the functions of turn-passing The last prosodic pattern studied is pitch Pitch variation is of relatively less important turn-taking functions as

76 compared to other techniques Rising contour by beginning of an utterance can be a turn-request signal, whereas falling contour by TRP is interpreted a turn-passing strategy

Silence: On the whole, the Vietnamese speakers tend to minimize pauses within a turn and gaps between turns A rather long pause (of more than one second in length) is attributed to a turn-end signal, yet the Vietnamese seem to tolerate long silence between turns

Gaze directions: Two patterns of gaze direction were noticed in the Vietnamese casual conversations: turn-yielding gaze and turn-avoiding gaze The former is attributed to the current speaker, and the latter is of the other parties involved in the conversation

Gestures: The Vietnamese people sometimes raise their hand to self-select them as the next speaker Besides, gesturing in some particular case is understood as a turn-yielding signal

Head movements: Head nod is a turn-taking technique, while head shake takes the function of turn-avoiding

Postures: Leaning backward is to surrender a turn, while leaning forward is considered as a way to request a turn

Turn-taking, which used to be considered as being unstructured and spontaneous, is actually systematic and can be encoded The above strategies, which were accrued from examining ten Vietnamese casual conversations within a rather small range of participants, may thereby be a practical illustration Similar studies with a wider range of participants, if conducted, would carter for a more valid set of strategies, which in so doing better represent the typical patterns of turn-taking in Vietnamese

5.1.3 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese turn-taking strategies

On the whole, the strategies applied by the Vietnamese are identical to those applied by the English speakers, with which the findings of the research support the ―universal system hypothesis‖ of universal set of rules governing turn-taking mechanism in different cultures (languages) Such identical strategies are the use of name nomination, lexicons, syntactic features, overlap, intonation, gaze direction and other body movements in turn- taking

Nonetheless, with a close look at how such same set of rules works in practice, certain disparities were captured between the turn-taking strategies used in Vietnamese informal conversations and those used in English informal conversations Such disparities to some extent are in line with the ―cultural variability hypothesis‖, by which turn-taking is language and culture dependent The differences between turn-taking strategies used in the two languages are related to the use of lexicons as turn-end and turn-beginning signals, the level of overlaps in conversations, the application of prosodic features, and the silence between turns

With regards to lexicons, the Vietnamese speakers rely on lexicons more often than the English speakers do to detect turn-end positions and to request a turn Practically, the words and phrases which function as recompleters and appositionals in Vietnamese outnumber those in English This may be resulted from the fact that the Vietnamese sentences are formed lexically rather than grammatically, with which the English sentences are formed

In terms of overlaps, the Vietnamese tend to overlap in a higher frequency than the English do According to Sack et al (1974), the English speakers tend to minimize gaps and overlaps between turns, interruptions which refer to simultaneous talk that does not occur at or near a TRP are even perceived to have negative connotation in English, whereas interruptions are common in Vietnamese and are rarely regarded as negative interlocutory acts

Implications

As commented by Tarone and Yule (1989) ―There are few, if any, materials available at present which teach learners how to use communication strategies when problems are encountered in the process of transmitting information.‖, this situation is still attributive to the existing materials found in ELT environment in Vietnam Besides, from my own experience of working in intercultural environment and of teaching English in Vietnam,

79 the Vietnamese learners of English encounter problems when involving in intercultural conversations Such problems partly relate to turn management and the use of intonation in turn management It seems that the Vietnamese speakers tend to apply the Vietnamese conversation patterns when they speak English (for example, the hesitation fillers of ―um‖ and ―ah‖), which makes them fail to get the floor and causes conversation breakdown

Besides, the Vietnamese tend to interrupt more often in some situations and pause in long duration in others Moreover, the intonation patterns of the Vietnamese speaking English seem to be awkward and ―Vietnamese like‖, causing misunderstandings among people involved in a conversation To cope with the above-mentioned problems, the below are recommended:

(1) Turn-taking mechanism and rules should be presented in an integral part of EFL/ESL materials For example, learners may need more exposure to various examples of English treatment of hesitation or postponement techniques while involving in conversations so as that they can minimize gaps when communicating in English Thus, the materials designers, when designing ELT materials, incorporate a part namely Turn-taking or Turn Mechanism or even Conversation Skills, under which the most common English fillers are introduced in one lesson

(2) ELT materials should be authentic, with which the natural turn-taking mechanism will automatically be included in any corpus of dialogues utilized in the materials

The authenticity in materials development has actually been the concerns of different researchers (Gilmore, Moore, Tomlinson, and others) and the recent materials developers have taken into consideration the authenticity when designing materials The set of Market Leader course books is one typical example, yet turn-taking mechanism in general and turn-taking strategies in particular are not introduced in this series

(3) EFL teachers, especially those who are focusing on teaching listening and speaking skills, should be responsive to the importance of turn-taking when designing syllabi For example, regarding English intonation, a lesson in which intonation patterns functioning as turn-taking signals should be included in the

80 syllabus, with which the learners will be aware of such functions of intonation in English, and thereby improve their own knowledge on the field

(4) EFL teachers should be flexible in applying a practical set of teaching methods

McCarthy (1998:67) suggested that the traditional ―three Ps‖ Presentation- Practice-Production be replaced by ―three Is‖ Illustration- Interaction-Induction

This means learners and teachers should involve in particular discourse patterns so as that the learners‘ English proficiency is improved practically With reference to turn-taking, in L1 context, it is relatively easy and natural to know who is to speak, when, and for how long Nonetheless, this skill is not automatically transferred to L2 or FL context To smoothly participate in intercultural communication, the English learners need to furnish themselves with sufficient knowledge of turn-taking mechanism, rules, and strategies present in the target language Thus, when delivering lessons, the EFL teachers should introduce the learners with the English turn-taking system, and differences in turn-taking practice between English and Vietnamese speakers

(5) Audio-visual aids should be equipped and applied in all EFL classrooms The application of an audio-visual aids system in EFL classrooms has been studied and proved to be of efficiency by different researchers The lessons introducing turn- taking strategies, especially the non-verbal cues will be more effective with the support of audio-visual aids

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies

The focus of this study is on building a systematic set of turn-taking signals applied in informal Vietnamese conversations Nevertheless, the findings of the study would have been more attributed to the Vietnamese language if the participants of a wider range of age groups, and of different accents (those who are from the Center and the South of Vietnam) had involved in the conversations recorded Therefore, similar studies with participants from different regions of Vietnam and of a wider age range are advisable so as that a more valid set of turn-taking rules will be developed

In terms of contrastive analysis, the two sets of turn-taking strategies between English and Vietnamese are compared and contrasted, yet the English data are secondary, which are incompatible to the primary Vietnamese data Thus, the findings of contrastive analysis are limited and less valid Accordingly, similar studies with the recording of English informal conversations will cater findings of higher level of validity and applicability

For better pedagogical implication, studies with data collected reflecting the Vietnamese speakers speaking English will look at turn-taking in a different standpoint The findings of such studies will be more practical to the EFL teachers and materials developers

In addition, when studying the prosodic features of turn-taking in Vietnamese, different tools were applied to measure the intonation and stress patterns Such tools shall work when they are applied to systematically study Vietnamese intonation and stress patterns

To end with, any critical comments and further contributions to the paper will be highly appreciated

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