a cross-cultural study on american-vietnamese verbal expressions in confirming and negating = nghiên cứu giao văn hóa việt-mỹ về cách diễn đạt khẳng định và phủ định

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE VERBAL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE

ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS IN

CONFIRMING AND NEGATING

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH DIỄN ĐẠT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE

ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON AMERICAN-VIETNAMESE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS IN

CONFIRMING AND NEGATING

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH DIỄN ĐẠT

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Five basic types of speech acts - Searl's (1976) 10

Table 2: The parameters of informants 17

Table 3: Realization of communicative strategies used to express confirmation and

negation 20

Table 4: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' age 28 Table 5: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' gender 29 Table 6: The choice of communicative strategies in terms of informants' area of living 31 Table 7: The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners in

terms of relationship with sister/ brother, mother/ father, close friend, and

someone you dislike 37

Table 8: The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners in

terms of relationship with colleague and boss 37

LIST OF DIAGRAMS AND FIGURE

Diagram 1: Branches of communication 5

Diagram 2: Forms of communication 6

Diagram 3: Types of verbal communication 7

Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTA 12

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality of study project report i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Abbreviations iv

List of tables v

List of diagrams and figures vi

Table of contents vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methodology 3

5 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Culture 4

1.2 Communication 4

1.2.1 Definition 4

1.2.2 Cross-cultural Communication 6

1.2.3 Forms of communication 6

1.3 Speech act theory 8

1.3.1 Speech act 8

1.3.2 Classification of speech act 9

1.4 Politeness theory 10

1.4.1 Definition of politeness 10

1.4.2 Politeness strategies 11

1.5 Confirmation and negation as a speech act 13

1.5.1 Confirmation as a speech act 13

1.5.2 Negation as a speech act 14

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Methods of the study 15

2.2 Data collection 16

2.2.1 Subjects of the study 16

2.2.2 Data collection instrument 17

2.2.3 Data collection procedures 18

2.4 Data analysis procedures 19

CHAPTER 3: EXPRESSING CONFIRMATION AND NEGATION IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE CULTURE 20

3.1 The realization of communicative strategies 20

3.1.1 Bald on record 20

3.1.2 Joking 22

3.1.3 Hedging 23

3.1.4 Advising 24

3.1.5 Asserting condition 25

3.1.6 Passing the ball to other(s) 26

3.1.7 Asking rhetoric questions 26

3.1.8 Don't do FTA 27

3.2 The choice of communicative strategies as seen from informants' parameters 28

3.2.1 Age 28

3.2.2 Gender 29

3.2.3 Area of living 31

3.3 The use of communicative strategies as seen from communicating partners' relationship 32

3.3.1 With sister/ brother 32

3.3.2 With mother/ father 33

3.3.3 With a close friend 33

3.3.4 With someone you dislike 34

3.3.5 With your colleague 34

3.3.6 With your boss 35

3.4 Summary 38

PART C: CONCLUSION 40

BIBLIOGRAPHY I APPENDIX IV

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

To our understanding, only humans have language and culture Language simultaneously reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it In the broadest sense, it is also the symbolic representation of a people, since it comprises their historical and cultural backgrounds, as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking People use language to communicate and express their thoughts to each others easier and faster

In communication, it is understood people are in the process of sharing or exchanging their thoughts verbally (ie in spoken or written form), or nonverbally The basis of communication is the interaction between people Verbal communication is one way for people to communicate face-to-face Brown (1994: 165) describes the relationship between language and culture as follows: „A language is a part of a culture and a culture is

a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two without losing the significance of either language or culture.‟ In a word, culture and language are inseparable However, there are cultural and language boundaries, such as the use of languages or the traditional customs between two cultures The lack of people's awareness of the similarities and differences between two cultures may cause culture shock, in turn, can result in communication breakdown

Recently, there have been more and more foreigners from different countries coming to live, study and work in our country Especially, with the cooperation and exchange in a number of fields between Vietnam and America, a great number of people from one country work, study, live in the other country With the help of English, an international language, Vietnamese and American people can communicate with each other easily in various aspects So far, there have been a number of linguistic theses mentioning different cross-cultural perspectives, however confirming and negating expressions made by American and Vietnamese people have not been studied thoroughly Therefore, it is essential to raise the awareness of Vietnamese people's difficulties when communicating with people from America in cultural aspect Thus, the differences between the Americans

and Vietnamese in expressing confirming and negating verbally have been considered valuable in communication

2 Aims of the study

This research aims to:

 provide an overview of confirming and negating in American and Vietnamese verbal communication,

 find major similarities and differences in how American and Vietnamese express confirming and negating verbally,

 raise awareness of cultural differences in CCC in order to help people avoid misunderstandings in communication

The research questions can be addressed as follows:

i What are the common ways of expressing confirming and negating in American English and Vietnamese?

ii What are the similarities and differences in American and Vietnamese verbal expressions of confirmation and negation?

3 Scope of the study

This study is confined to the verbal communication of expressing confirmation and negation This study is limited to a number of American and Vietnamese informants who are asked to complete the survey questionnaire on ways of showing confirmation and negation verbally in two socially differentiated situations Hence, other aspects of communication, such as paralinguistic features (body language, gestures, facial expressions, and tone and pitch of voice), environmental factors, and mood factors are not mentioned in the study The author has realized that there have been a number of different strategies which can be used to communicate; however, it is very hard to examine all kinds

of strategies Therefore, the analysis of the study is limited to the common strategies which have the highest percentage of occurrence from the collected data Amongst the various kinds of relationship, the author only focuses on the certain kinds of relationship in

communicating, i.e., between family members, friends, someone you dislike, colleagues, and boss - employees

The informants are 65 people from the North of Vietnam, and 58 people from the United States However, 52 Vietnamese informants and 52 American informants are selected for the data analysis basing on their full-completeness in the questionnaires using similar parameters of the informants about age, gender, and living area

4 Methodology

The study is conducted basing on the followings Firstly, available literature and relevant publications are critically reviewed Information from the Internet sites and previous studies are also referred to Secondly, the quantitative method is used in this study with the help of the survey questionnaires The data analysis is mainly based on the statistics collected through the survey questionnaires with the illustration of tables Finally, consultation with the supervisor, discussion with colleagues, as well as the author‟s observation in daily life and her own experience in cross-cultural communication are also

of great help in finding out the answers to the research questions

5 Design of the study

The study contains three main parts PART A: Introduction provides the rationale, the

aims, the scope, the methodology, the comments on the data and the organization of the

study PART B: Development is the main part of the study and has three chapters Chapter 1: Literature review points out the theoretical issues Chapter 2: Methodology gives the methods to collect and analyze the data Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions of the findings presents and discusses similarities and differences in expressing confirming and negating verbally by the Americans and the Vietnamese PART C: Conclusion gives the

findings, implications for cross-cultural communication, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Culture

The term "culture" is widely used in our daily life with different meanings There is a famous definition:

"Culture consists in those patterns relative to behavior and the products of

human action which may be inherited, that is, passed on from generation to

generation independently of the biological genes"

Parson, T (1949: 8)

Culture is also defined as something that a person learns from his family and surroundings, and is not ingrained in him from birth Culture is a complex tool which every individual has to learn to survive in a society It is the means through which people interact with others in the society It acts in a subconscious way and whatever we see and perceive, seems to be normal and natural Every society has a different culture, where people share a specific language, traditions, behaviors, perceptions and beliefs Culture gives them an identity which makes them unique and different from people of other cultures as being stated by Triandis, H (1994:23).

From the views of the different definitions about culture, it can be inferred that all of the elements of culture such as values, attitudes, and beliefs among people in a society influence our interactions to the world

1.2 Communication

1.2.1 Definition

Communication is defined as a process by which we assign and convey meaning in an attempt to create shared understanding This process requires a vast repertoire of skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal processing, listening, observing, speaking, questioning, analyzing, and evaluating Use of these processes is developmental and transfers to all

areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond It is through communication that collaboration and cooperation occur Other definitions are developed by the following writers

A conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which

feelings and ideas are expressed in verbal and nonverbal messages It

occurs in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public levels Human

communication is dynamic, continuous, irreversible, interactive and

contextual

Hybels, S and Waever, R (1992)

Communication is any process in which people share information, ideas and

feelings that involve not only the spoken and written words but also body

language, personal mannerisms and style, the surrounding and things that

add meaning to a message

Adler, R.B & Rodman, G (1998)

To sum up, communication refers to the process of man being responding to the face symbolic behavior of other persons Communication includes three branches as follows:

face-to-Diagram 1: Branches of communication

Communication

Intra-cultural

communication

Inter-cultural communication

Cross-cultural communication

1.2.2 Cross-cultural Communication

This study mainly focuses on the third branch of communication - Cross-cultural Communication For that reason, this section will give the definition for that branch The phrase “Cross-cultural Communication” is the process of sending and receiving messages between people whose cultural background could lead them to interpret verbal and non-verbal signs differently Cross-cultural communication tries to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural anthropology and established areas of communication Its core is to establish and understand how people from different cultures communicate with each other Its charge is to also produce some guidelines with which people from different cultures can better communicate with each other Cross-culture is based on knowledge of many factors, such as the other culture's values, perception, manners, social structure, and decision-making practices, and understanding of how members of the group communicate, verbally or non-verbally, in person, in writing, or in various business and social contexts

1.2.3 Forms of communication

In reality, there are two kinds of code or symbol used in communication are verbal (spoken and written) and nonverbal (unspoken) The following diagram illustrates these forms of communication:

Diagram 2: Forms of communication

It is through language that we communicate the thoughts that are in our minds to the minds

of others and they use language to communicate their thoughts back The language that is used to communicate can only represent the meaning or thought that we intended Indeed

Communication

DeVito (1989, 160) defines the human language system as a "productive system capable of displacement and composed of rapidly fading, arbitrary, culturally transmitted symbols"

1.2.3.1 Verbal communication

Man lives in a world of words To those who can use words so as to influence the rest of us we give society's great rewards To the combinations of ideas which have been worked out in words, we owe changes that have later been wrought out in things

Clow, F R (1920:147)

The term "verbal communication" seems almost self-explanatory; however, verbal communication is far more complex than simply talking Verbal communication refers to the use of sounds and language to relay a message It serves as a vehicle for expressing desires, ideas and concepts and is vital to the processes of learning and teaching Verbal communication includes not only oral discussion, but also written messages as being demonstrated below:

Diagram 3: Types of verbal communication

1.2.3.2 Non-verbal communication

Beside the use of written or spoken language, nonverbal communication is another important process of communication

Nguyen Quang (2006:23) presented detail definitions of nonverbal communication as “all

the components of the message that, when taken together, constitute the communication which is not verbally coded but both vocally and non-vocally channeled Nonverbal communication is composed of paralinguistic factors (nonverbal - vocal channel), such as rate, volume, etc., and extra-linguistic factors (nonverbal - non-vocal channel), such as body language (gestures, postures, facial expressions…) object language (including clothing, jewelry…) and environmental language (proxemics, settings…)”

Lustig (1996:187-188) pointed out, when some meaning is attached to a nonlinguistic behavior, whether by message transmitter or perceiver, that behavior becomes part of communication process

To sum up, while body language and other forms of communication give us significant advanced in use, verbal communication continues to be the most important aspect of our interaction with other people Moreover, in combination with nonverbal forms of communication, verbal communication acts as the primary tool for expression between two

or more people Verbal communication is the most effective way of explaining intangible concepts, as problem areas can be readily addressed and explained Therefore, the author wants to study this most basic communication in term of written expressions

1.3 Speech act theory

1.3.1 Speech act

While people communicate, they use utterances to express what they have in their mind toward the H Utterance produced by the S does not only function to explain the S's mind toward the H but also means to show the relationship between them When we want to know people‟s relationship through their utterance, we can see it from speech act There is

a growing awareness that linguistic theories are relevant for the design of information systems, particularly for communication supporting systems Austin (1962), a British

philosopher, put forward the notion of "speech act" by assuming that language not only functions as stating and describing things but also as performing acts Speech act theory then was further developed by many other philosophers like Grice (1957, 1975), Hymes (1964), Searle (1969, 1979), Levinson (1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Thomas (1995) and Yule (1996) According to Yule (1996:47), the actions that are produced via utterances to communicate are called speech acts These speech act theorists share their common assumption that speech acts and language functions have a close link Even the minimal unit of human communication is not only a sentence or other expression, but also an action

performance For instance, the utterance "I will turn the TV off" can be seen as an act of

promising

Thus, when utterances are not only used to describe a situation or state some facts, but also perform a certain kind of action by itself, we call them speech acts In English, speech acts are labeled commonly as apology, compliment, complaint, promise or negation Generally, speech act perform different functions in communication To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act performs corresponds to the type of attitude which is expressed by Bach, K (2011)

1.3.2 Classification of speech act

According to Austin (1962), locutionary act, illocutionary act and percutionary act are the three related functions in a single speech act

The act of performing a meaningful expression (i.e, verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects)

is considered as locutionary act That is a basic part of speech act The illocutionary act conveys the function of what the speaker has in mind, i.e, real and intended meaning:

promise, threat, inform, question, or confirmation On the other hand, the percutionary act

produced actual effects For example:

Don’t go into the kitchen

This utterance contains the locutionary act with distinct phonetic, syntactic and semantic features It also warns you not go into the kitchen (the illocutionary act), and it shows the perlocutionary act in persuading you not go into the kitchen

Sharing the same view point, Bach & Harnish (1973:3) state that the three acts related

ultimately in a meaningful utterance, “S says something to H; in saying something to H, S

does something; and by doing something, S affects H”

Searl (1976:10-16) classified speech acts into 5 basic types:

Commissives commit a speaker to some future

course of action

e.g promising, threating,

negating or offering

Declaratives change the word by bringing about

or altering the state of affairs

e.g dismissing, naming,

Expressives indicate a speaker‟s feelings or

attitudes about something

e.g greeting, thanking or complaining

Representatives describe a state of affairs e.g asserting, claiming or

affirming

Table 1: Five basic types of speech acts - Searl's (1976:10-16)

From the view of Wardhaugh (1992: 287), Austin‟s (1962) classification differs from Searle‟s (1976) classification in the Ss' and Hs' intentions While Austin emphasizes the ways the Ss realize their intentions in speaking, Searle puts forward on how the Hs' responds to an utterance

1.4 Politeness theory

1.4.1 Definition of politeness

Politeness shows social consideration, and it is an important element of interpersonal communication In our daily life, we have the awareness of what is a polite action or not For instance, to offer your seat to an elderly on a bus is considered as a polite behavior; to cut in line without asking for permission is considered as an impolite behavior

Politeness can also be regarded as a restraint apart from being a means to an end, some kinds of social norm imposed by the conventions of the community Yule (1996:60)

defines politeness as “a number of different general principles for being polite in social

interaction within a particular culture”

Politeness plays a significant role in human interaction Language is naturally used to reflect politeness; therefore, different languages express politeness differently Richards (1992:281) gives general ideas of politeness as follows:

 how language express the social distance between speakers and their different role relationships

 how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during conversation, is carried out in a speech community

1.4.2 Politeness strategies

Brown and Levinson (1987) proposed an approach to politeness that the concept "face" is the root of their notion of "politeness" There are two kinds of Face: positive face and negative face Positive face provides status of a person as an autonomous, independent, free agent On the other hand, negative face describes a person‟s immunity from outside interference and excessive external pressure In clarity, positive face is the need to be connected while negative face is the need to be independent

Politeness has been closely related to the behavior typical of a certain social location and a certain social group in the English-speaking culture To be polite, means to live up to a set

of conventionalized norms of behavior

Brown and Levinson (1987:60) give a set of five strategies for avoiding a face threatening act (FTA) (to minimize risk of losing face corresponding to the degrees of face-threat) as

in the following figure:

Figure 1: Possible strategies for doing FTA

From Figure 1, the possible strategies for doing FTA are explained as the following:

 On record: our needs or intention will address directly to the others "Bald on-record"

is mentioned as a direct, clear unambiguous and concise approach which is doing a bad act without redressive

 Off record: do an act indirectly Brown and Levinson (1987) list a linguistic realization of off-record including metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions understatement, tautologies, and all kinds of hints as to what the S wants or means to communicate (ie Asserting condition, Passing the ball to other(s), and Asking Rhetoric Questions)

 Redressive action: the action that "gives face" to the addressee, and that is the attempts to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA by doing in such modifications or additions (ie Joking, Hedging and Advising)

 Don't do the FTA: is just to keep silent, without performing any speech act; or there

are times when something is potentially so face threatening that we do not say it (Vo

Dai Quang, 2004:52)

These strategies range from avoiding a given FTA altogether, to performing it with or without "redressive action", to going "off record" by yielding "more than one unambiguously attributable intention" (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 68-69) Redressive action that is addressed to the hearer's negative face is "negative politeness", and redressive

Positive politeness (2)

action that is directed to the hearer's positive face is "positive politeness" (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 70)

According to Brown and Levinson (1987:103-210), and data collection, the following strategies: Bald on-record, Joking, Hedging, Advising, Asserting condition, Passing the ball to other(s), Asking Rhetoric Questions, and Don't do FTA are used as parameters of the communicative strategies which are expressed by American-Vietnamese confirming and negating expressions

1.5 Confirmation and negation as a speech act

1.5.1 Confirmation as a speech act

Confirmation can be defined as the act of supporting a fact or a statement by evidence (Longman Dictionary) In classifying of illocutionary acts, Searle (1976: 10-16) states that confirming is an act of declaratives, an act of confirming strengthening; an act of establishing, ratifying, or sanctioning; as, the confirmation of an appointment In his works, DeVito (1989:191) finds out that confirmation contains almost of the following criteria:

 Acknowledge the presence of the other verbally or non-verbally

 Acknowledge the contributions of the other by either supporting or taking issue with what the other person is saying

 Make non-verbal contact with the other by eye contact, touching or some other demonstration

 Engage in Dialogue

 Demonstrate understanding

 Reflect back the other person‟s feelings to demonstrate understanding of these feelings

 Ask questions of the other person concerning both thought and feelings

 Praise the other person

 Acknowledge the other person‟s requests, answer their questions, and return phone calls

 Encourage the other to express their thoughts and feelings

 Give responses that are relevant to what the other person says

 Respond directly and exclusively to what the other says

1.5.2 Negation as a speech act

The term "negation" is used in different meanings depending on the aim of each study It can be (i) the sentence process which transfers a positive sentence into negative; (ii) the denial of the truthfulness of a proposition (in logic); and (iii) the act of saying that something does not exist, the absence of something, the denial of something, the opposite

of something (Nguyen Quang, 1998:12-13) In this study, the author mainly focuses on the last meaning of "negation", that is the act of saying the disappearance, the absence, and the denial of something

Searle and Vanderveken (1985:152-153) use the "negation" notion in speech act to show

an 'illocutionary negation' The difference of such an 'illocutionary negation' to a

'propositional negation' can be explained by reference to the difference between "I do not

promise to come" and "I promise not to come" The first is an illocutionary negation - the

'not' negates the promise The second is a propositional negation

Negation is analyzed in terms of a special kind of linguistic activity, negating or denying;

for example, "It's not raining" may indeed be a denial that it is raining as anyone would

agree in straightforward cases The alternative view would say one can only deny something by using a sentence that has its meaning independently of any act of denial

Negation is a central means of conveying information in verbal communication Negative expressions allow the S to state explicitly that a particular property does not hold for the

state of affairs under consideration Conveying information about what is not the case is

often as useful as, and sometimes even more useful than, conveying information about

what is the case Negation has been a topic of much research in linguistics and philosophy,

but psycholinguistic studies of the processing of negative expressions are relatively rare

Brown and Levinson (1987:65-67) conclude that confirming and negating, which are event acts, are also seen as face-threatening acts In everyday communication, confirmation and negation take place so frequently They may damage both the H's and the S's positive face and the H's negative face as well

post-CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the methodological approaches and research design selected for the study on American-Vietnamese verbal expressions in confirming and negating

2.1 Methods of the Study

This study follows the quantitative approach because it is objective, generalizable and reliable (Creswell, 2003:18) The data information in this study is collected through self-administered questionnaires distributed personally by the researcher To obtain the data for the study, the following steps are used:

Step 1: Determine the Research Topic

Being aware of the relationship between language and culture during the process of interacting among people in America and Vietnam, the researcher has decided to carry out the study on the topic of confirming and negating expressions in the light of CCC

Step 2: Determine and Define the Research Questions

The researcher begins with a review of the relevant literature to determine what prior studies have determined about this issue and uses the literature review to define the questions for the study The two research questions solved in this study are:

 What are the common ways of expressing confirming and negating in American English and Vietnamese?

 What are the similarities and differences in American and Vietnamese verbal expressions of confirmation and negation?

Step 3: Build the framework for the study

A number of books and studies related to the theories of cross-cultural communication in general and the theories of confirmation and negation in particular are collected The

author studies thoroughly the selected theories to set up the theoretical framework for this

study Although there are a lot of different opinions or views of scholars and researchers on confirmation and negation, the theories of Brown and Levison (1987) are regarded as the basic one to follow

Step 4: Collect the Data

The data will be collected after the framework is built The researcher follows some main steps The first step is to contact the participants to inform them about the questionnaires of the research The next step is to arrange a timetable for designing the survey questionnaires Another step is to deliver and collect the questionnaires The questionnaires are delivered directly or through e-mails The last step is to classify the data into categories which will be used in analyzing process

Step 5: Analyze the Data

The researcher studies tables which present the percentage of communicative strategies used by two groups of informants to express confirmation and negation Each table is analyzed basing on the percentage of each type with illustrations, and then some comments

on the common features of the communicative strategies which are used by the Americans and Vietnamese are drawn out

Step 6: Give Conclusions and Suggestions

The researcher draws some conclusions upon the overall picture of communicative strategies used by American and Vietnamese informants in expressing confirming and negating verbally These conclusions are based mostly on the data analysis After that, some suggestions for further research have also been given

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1 Subjects of the study

The researcher lives in Thai Nguyen which is located in the North of Vietnam The survey

is mostly carried out in this region for it is more convenient for the author to contact the participants 65 Vietnamese and 58 Americans are invited as the participants for this study The Vietnamese informants are the researcher's colleagues, friends and relatives; some of

them study and work in America for at least two years Two thirds of the American informants are living and working in Vietnam, the rest are living in the United States Some of the Americans are the author's old teachers, colleagues who work for English Institution in Vietnam (an institute teaching English in Vietnam) Others are recommended by her friends studying in Oklahoma, America In the end, 52 Vietnamese informants and 52 American informants who fully complete the questionnaires are chosen for data analysis The parameters of the informants are arranged in the following table:

2.2.2 Data collection instrument

The questionnaires are chosen as data collection instruments because of their strengths in collecting data quickly All the participants are encouraged to provide an openness feedback The questionnaires are both a paper-based and an electronic survey form designed to elicit information that can be obtained through the written responses of the informants

The questionnaires consist of both ended and open-ended questions In the ended questions, the informants are required to put a tick to either of the two options provided In the open-ended questions, the informants are asked to respond to the questions

closed-in their own words with more details

The questionnaires are in both English and Vietnamese for the two groups of informants (see the Appendix) There are two sections in the questionnaire: section A and section B

Section A aims at gaining personal information, such as age, gender, and area of living This information is used as the parameters of the informants that can assist the researcher when interpreting the results It is obvious that the best way to get a clearer result is to study these parameters in two situations From the author's opinion, in Vietnamese culture, the age is considered important when confirming or negating something It can be assumed that when one gets older, he/ she is more likely to be respected by those who are younger than him/ her From that assumption, old people can easily negate straightly toward the young Gender factor also affects on the decisions of confirming and negating There might

be differences in the two sex groups from the two cultures

Section B focuses on determining the communicative strategies used by American and Vietnamese people to express confirmation and negation in the 2 situations which, in the author's opinion, might occur a quite frequently in reality:

Situation 1: You have a close relationship with a travel agent so that you can book air

tickets with a reasonable price Last week, X asked you to book a return air ticket for his/her business travel next month and you did it Now, X asks you whether you have done

it for him/her How would you verbally confirm that information?

Situation 2: It's a rumor that you quit your current job to work for another company (It is

not true because you have a good job and you like it) X asks you about the information How would you verbally negate that information?

The informants have to show their confirmation and negation verbally with the following communicating partners: a family member, a friend, a colleague, a boss, and someone they dislike

2.2.3 Data collection procedures

The researcher collects the data after deciding the research topic, research questions,

and designing the study framework The descriptive and statistical methods have been

used to list, number and describe the data collected The questionnaires are personally distributed to the informants to complete Two weeks before the questionnaires are sent out, the author contacts the informants to ask for their acceptance to take part in the survey The informants are asked to complete the questionnaire in two days After gathering the survey questionnaires, the author classify the expressions in confirming and negating according to the types of communicative strategies that are used, ie Bald On-Record, Joking, Hedging, Advising, Asserting condition, Passing the ball to other(s), Asking Rhetoric Questions, and Don't do FTA, together with the numbers of the occurrence of each type These communicative strategies will be illustrated and

described in Chapter 3

2.3 Data analysis procedures

After the data is collected, it is organized and analyzed by using analytical method This step is regarded as the most important since it is the source for discussion and suggestion parts For analysis of closed-ended questions, a computer programme called Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) is used Data is analyzed by using descriptive statistics The open-ended questions are analyzed through quantitative content analysis by the researcher with the aim of quantifying emerging characteristics and concepts Tables are used to show the data collection In the process of analyzing each table, the author uses the percentage of frequent used communicative strategies and then some discussions are stated

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF

THE FINDINGS

This thesis, as being stated in the introduction, aims at studying the communicative strategies used in American and Vietnamese verbal expressions in confirming and negating Thus, this section is to provide a description of the strategies and to point out the similarities as well as the differences of verbal expression in confirming and negating used by 52 American and 52 Vietnamese informants (basing on the data collected) The eight politeness strategies for doing FTAs developed by Brown and Levinson (1987) are used as parameters of the communicative strategies

3.1 The realization of communicative strategies

The strategies employed by the two groups of informants to express their confirmation and negation are illustrated in table 3:

No

Information Strategies

6 Passing the ball to other(s) 15.4 9.6 7.7 7.7

7 Asking Rhetoric Questions 9.6 11.5 13.5 13.5

8 Don't do FTA 5.8 9.6 9.6 5.8

Table 3: Realization of Communicative Strategies used in expressing confirmation and negation

(The figures are given in percentage)

3.1.1 Bald On-Record

In the view point of Brown and Levinson (1987), bald-on-record is the most direct, clear, unambiguous and concise strategy; it is also treated as a high FTA From the data