VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CU[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE (SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP PHÂN TÍCH LIÊN TƯỞNG THEO NHĨM NHẰM NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC GIẢ ĐỊNH VĂN HÓA ẨN CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT) MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE (SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP PHÂN TÍCH LIÊN TƯỞNG THEO NHÓM NHẰM NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC GIẢ ĐỊNH VĂN HÓA ẨN CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT) MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Hạnh, PhD HANOI – 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT I hereby certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled “Using Associative Group Analysis to Investigate Underlying Cultural Assumptions” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Hanoi 2017 Phạm Ngọc Liên i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Best of thanks to all those who helped along the way ii ABSTRACT This paper investigates the influences of intercultural exposure on schema, or more specifically, underlying cultural assumption shifting by applying Associative Group Analysis on three groups of Americans, Vietnamese students in a group called Hanoikids in Hanoi with frequent international exposure and Vietnamese students in Lao Cai province with little to none exposure The results show that although there are a few similarities between Hanoikids and the other groups, those are not systematic and/or can be explained by factors other than cultural identity It suggests that people from the same culture or country might have distinctive schema on even everyday concepts Thus, assumptions about a person based on where he/she comes from might prove to be misjudgments To avoid that, it is advisable that we also pay attention to the aspect of individuality on top of cultural identity in intercultural situations iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES Table 1.1: Numbers of words and total weighted scores of the three groups for each theme word 41 FIGURES SEMANTOGRAPHS Figure 1.1: Semantograph for the theme “Graduation” 15 Figure 2.1: Semantograph for the theme “A Good Job” 19 Figure 3.1: Semantograph for the theme “Ambition” 22 Figure 4.1: Semantograph for the theme “Moving out” 25 Figure 5.1: Semantograph for the theme “Parents” 29 Figure 6.1: Semantograph for the theme “Happiness” 31 Figure 7.1: Semantograph for the theme “Freedom” 34 Figure 8.1: Semantograph for the theme “LGBT” 36 Figure 9.1: Semantograph for the theme “Travel Around the World” 39 WORD CLOUDS Word cloud 1.1 & 1.2: Word clouds for the theme “Graduation” from Hanoikids and American respondents 16 Word cloud 2.1 & 2.2: Word clouds for the theme “A Good Job” from Hanoikids and American respondents 20 Word cloud 3.1 & 3.2: Word clouds for the theme “Ambition” from Hanoikids and American respondents 23 Word cloud 4.1 & 4.2: Word clouds for the theme “Moving out” from Hanoikids and American respondents 27 Word cloud 5.1 & 5.2: Word clouds for the theme “Parents” from Hanoikids and American respondents 30 iv Word cloud 6.1 & 6.2: Word clouds for the theme “Happiness” from Hanoikids and American respondents 32 Word cloud 7.1 & 7.2: Word clouds for the theme “Freedom” from Hanoikids and American respondents 35 Word cloud 8.1 & 8.2: Word clouds for the theme “LGBT” from Hanoikids and American respondents 37 Word cloud 9.1 & 9.2: Word clouds for the theme “Travel Around the World” from Hanoikids and American respondents 40 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vi INTRODUCTION 1 Identification of the problem and rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methodology CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Literature review 1.1.1 Culture and intercultural competence 1.1.2 Schema and underlying cultural assumptions 1.2 Previous Studies CHAPTER ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS: METHOD AND PROCEDURE 10 2.1 Research groups 10 2.2 The Associative Group Analysis method and procedure 10 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 15 3.1 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Graduation” 15 3.2 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “(A) Good Job” 18 3.3 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Ambition” 22 3.4 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Moving out” 25 3.5 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Parents” 28 3.6 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Happiness” 31 vi 3.7 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Freedom” 33 3.8 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “LGBT” 36 3.9 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Travel Around the World” 38 3.10 Finding Summary and Discussion 40 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 46 4.1 Findings 46 4.2 Implications 47 4.3 Limitations 47 4.4 Suggestions for further studies 48 REFERENCES 49 APPENDICES I Appendix English Survey Form I Appendix Vietnamese Survey Form II vii INTRODUCTION Identification of the problem and rationale Terms such as “the American culture”, “the Vietnamese culture” or “the Japanese culture” are ubiquitous in our daily life and even research articles These terms seem to indicate that each country has only one uniform culture, which, if not everyone, then at least the majority of people in it would share This kind of assumption often appears in intercultural situations, such as the one below between two Hanoikids members, the students who work as free tour guide in Hanoi, and their American guests The audio was recorded in an attempt to gather data for this research exclusively American (A1): Russians, they’re not that nice They're really cold Hanoikids (H1): Yes, as cold as their weather A1: And then Vietnamese are as warm as their weather (both laugh) H1: Yeah, so Africans are the most… the friendliest in the world A1: Uhm I think so We've been there a few months, they're very friendly H1: I went to the south, Nha Trang and Phan Thiet That's the place in Vietnam where there're many Russian tourists A1: Really? H1: Because they have a straight flight from Russia to the city [ ] H1: So for Russians - they're really beautiful but they're not that friendly, uhm, so I went there, not during the summer vacation - I just took some days off Hanoikids (H2): To Nha Trang? H1: Yeah, I went travelling but after that we had a kind of tourism presentation so we conducted a kind of survey to ask the tourists and ask if they could record But when we different groups, the research employed the method of Associative Group Analysis (hereby referred to as AGA) The Associate Group Analysis (AGA) method was originally developed by Szalay and Deese (1978) to identify differences in cross-cultural perception, then further adapted by Linowes et al (2000) for a more visually interpretation of these differences The general procedure can be described as followed Participants from the two first groups were contacted first by an email asking for their acceptance to join the research by means of filling in the survey form Then, the survey, embedded with a note of consent, was sent to their email address The note of consent was also embedded in the printed form for the last groups Each participant was presented with a survey form consisting of two parts: the first part is a demographical questionnaire to collect his or her basic personal information, as well as their frequency of international exposure and their level of English in communication, and the second is a list of theme words with spaces to write his or her free associations of the given theme words The first and second groups (Americans and Hanoikids) were presented with the theme words in English in an online survey, while the last one (Vietnamese) were shown the Vietnamese equivalent in the printed form This was for the convenience of collecting responses, as the first and second groups could only be reached via online survey due to geographical distance, whilst the last group study in the same class; even though it may create discrepancies in reply patterns as the last group sit close with each other, leaving a chance for them to copy each other’s responses Originally, there were nine theme words employed in the research Those were “Graduation” (“Tốt nghiệp”), “A Good Job” (“Một công việc tốt”), “Ambition” (“Tham vọng”), “Moving out” (“Chuyển riêng”), “Parents” (“Phụ huynh”), “Happiness” (“Hạnh phúc”), “Freedom” (“Tự do”), “LGBT” (“Đồng tính nam, đồng tính nữ, song tính chuyển giới (LGBT)”), “Travel around the world” (“Du 11 ... and attitude towards the same concepts of subjects from different groups, to be more exact, the schemata of one group of Americans and two of Vietnamese 1.1.2 Schema and underlying cultural assumptions. .. UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AMERICAN. .. CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT I hereby certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled ? ?Using Associative Group Analysis to Investigate Underlying Cultural Assumptions? ??