LV "Cross cultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English: conversational routines

-1- CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Language is the most effective and practical means of communication and it is really a master key in all fields of society In line with the ceaseless demand for English learning, our understanding of the nature of studying a foreign language has greatly expanded in recent years as a result of research into many dimensions of language and behavior that are still left unexplored Linguists have researched into the characteristics of language and turned it into a means of the most wonderful communication between people People from different cultures are studying languages of other cultures They meet and talk to native speakers and gradually they realize that it is easy to obtain the words but it is difficult to understand native speakers’ intention in communication In many cases, non-native speakers and native speakers fail to understand each other which causes unpleasant, offensive problems although they have good wills They cannot find a common language that is beyond the language they are speaking Previously, learners of English barely neglect the importance of conversational routines and language transfer, overlooking the fact that these matters always exist in the language, reflect the culture and participate in almost all community events The ignorance, therefore, limits remarkably the ability to use language and hinders the effectiveness of the learning process as well In present situation, because different cultures often have different conventions and competent learners are required to know not only the form -2- of the language but also how to use it appropriately in real communicative situations, so a contrastive analysis of cross-cultural aspects of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese are useful for Vietnamese learners of English This thesis is designed as a study on the effects of transfer of Vietnamese conversational conventions to the target conversational discourse It is also done with a hope to provide learners of English with a new way of access English conversational routines and the transfer of Vietnamese conversational norms into English In addition, there haven’t been any contrastive studies carried out thoroughly and particularly by linguistic researchers in this field For these reasons, I would like to choose this research topic "Cross-cultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English: conversational routines and other problems" in the hope of making a worthy contribution to the development of learners' speaking skills 1.2 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The study is designed to present a contrastive analysis of cross-cultural differences of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese The research aims to help Vietnamese learners to acquire conversational competence It means the ability to use language appropriately and to understand language in cross-cultural communication On the other hand, this study aims to raise Vietnamese learners’ awareness of the effects of transfer of native language conversational routines to the target language in order to help them to use correct routines in correct situations when using the English language in everyday interaction -3- 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY This investigation will focus on cross-cultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English The research attempts to study in a contrastive analysis of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese conversations The data source for this study is the feedback from a survey questionnaire completed by native speakers of English, native speakers Vietnamese and Vietnamese learners of English studying at University of Danang, Duy Tan University, Colleges of Transport and Communications No2 and Foreign Language Centers in Danang Within the limit of the thesis, the study will only deal with routines reflected in the speech acts of greeting, compliment-giving and responding, thank-giving and responding, and apology-giving and responding in English and Vietnamese conversations 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS What are cross-cultural differences in conventional usage of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese? What are causes of cross-cultural errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese learners of English? What are factors that affect conversational competence and language transfer of Vietnamese learners of English? How are the results of this research applied to teaching and learning English conversational routines to Vietnamese students? -4- 1.5 DESIGN OF THE STUDY The study is divided into five chapters as follows: Chapter one, entitled “Introduction”, presents rationale, the general purpose of the study, the scope of the study as well as the research question Chapter two, “Literature Review”, consists of two parts The first one is a review of previous studies related to the problem under investigation accompanied with a statement of unsolved problems The second one is some theoretical knowledge It is subdivided into smaller parts It mentions conversational analysis, conversational competence, conversational routines, language transfer and interference, speech acts and social interaction, and error analysis Chapter three, “Method and Procedure”, gives the aims and objectives of the study This chapter describes the research design, research methodology It gives us a description of process of data collection and data analysis as well as instruments for carrying out the study Chapter four, “Results and Discussions”, discusses the results of the investigation Chapter five, “Conclusion-Application-Limitations-Recommendations”, summaries the development of the study, mentions limitations of the study, implications for practical solutions, and gives some recommendations -5- CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter consists of two sections The first one is a review of previous studies related to the problem under investigation accompanied with a statement of unsolved problems The second one presents some theoretical knowledge of the study 2.1 PREVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES In the past, there were some valuable materials and writings which were cross-cultural, looking at the realization of the same speech acts The studies provide a body of information which will be of interest to us who work in the fields of discourse analysis and cross-cultural pragmatics Here is a description of what has been done in the past Florian Coulmas (1981) gave a brief description of routines He discussed the definition, some function and some characteristic of routine formulas He was also concerned about the vital important role of routines in our daily conversations He suggested that it was important for foreigners to master the use of routines in day-to-day interactions Based on London-Lund Corpus, Aijmer Karin (1996) provided a discoursal and pragmatic account of the more common expressions found in conversational routines, such as apologizing, thanking, requesting and offering Richards, J.C (1985) discussed the effects of transfer of native language conversational conventions into target language conversational discourse by examining several aspects of conversational competence and how these may be affected by transfer of native language conversational -6- norms This is a contrastive analysis of English and Thai conversational discourse Richards, J C (1983) argued that conversational competence was essential for language learners since it referred to the speaker’s knowledge of how speech acts were used in social situations It considered the effects of transfer of native language conversational conventions into target language conversational discourse The author also explored how conversational competence was affected by transfer of native language conversational norms Gabriele Kasper and Shoshana Blum-Kulka (1993) investigated how gratitude, apology, complaint, request, and correction were expressed by observing their use in natural contexts by native speakers and non-native speakers of English (Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Russian…) They also discussed the cross-cultural influence of native speakers’ norms on the speech act of gratitude, apology, complaint, request, and correction In summary, although much of this field has been studied, there remains a specific aspect which needs to be covered The research on cross-cultural aspects of conversational routines of Vietnamese learners of English is one of important and necessary problems in communication The study needs to be investigated to help Vietnamese learners of English use language correctly and effectively Therefore, in this paper I would like to take a further look at this topic -7- 2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2.1 Conversation Analysis According to Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistic (1995), Conversation analysis is the analysis of natural conversation in order to discover what the linguistics characteristics of conversation and how conversation is used in ordinary life Conversation analysis includes the study of: + how speakers decide when to speak during the conversation + how the sentences of two or more speakers are related + the different functions of the conversation is used for 2.2.1.1 Turn-taking In order to see how conversation is organized by turn-taking system, we should first know what a turn is A turn, according to Sacks et al [cited in 25], is seen as everything one person says before another speaker begins to speak In question-answer adjacency pair, the first speaker takes a turn to ask a question and the second one takes his turn to make a response A turn may be very short and consists of only one or two words, for example: (1) A: Did you like the movie? B: All right A: Who was in it? B: Shelly Long [42, p.69] A turn might sometimes be very long consisting of a series of sentences This is often required for a speaker to explain an opinion, describe something or tell a joke or a story -8- Since conversation is said to be based on the coordination of the speakers and is recognized with the appearance of adjacency pairs, it is preceded by a series of turn The management of this process is turn-taking According to Schegloff, a conversation can have two turns, the usual sequence is ababab where a and b are the parties of the conversation The observation of turn-taking system is that speaker-change always occurs, and a person does not continue talking indefinitely; instead one person stops talking and another begins [56, p.291] 2.2.1.2 Adjacency Pair Pairs of utterances in conversation are often mutually dependent An utterance made by one speaker is responded to by another utterance from anther speaker It is possible to state the requirements, in a normal conversation sequence, for many types of utterances, in term of what is expected as a response and what certain responses presuppose Some examples might be: Utterance Function Expected Response greeting greeting congratulation thanks apology acceptance inform acknowledge leave-taking leave-taking This kind of conversational organization is clearly captured by Schegloff and Sacks’ (1973) concept of adjacency pair The basic rule of this operation is: -9Given the recognizable production of a first pair part, on its first possible completion its speaker should stop and a next speaker should start and produce a second pair part from the pair type of which the first is [44, p.296] recognizably a member Hence, according to Schegloff and Sacks (1973), the mutual dependence of such utterance is underlined by the fact that we can only be absolutely sure of function of initiating utterance (the first pair part as it is usually called) when it is conceptualized with the response it gets (the second pair part), and vice versa Some types of adjacency pairs are best illustrated in question-answer sequence, a thanking-response, and a requestaccept (2) First part Second part a A: What time is it? B: About eight-thirty b A: Thanks B: You’re welcome c A: Could you help me with this? B: Sure [60, p.77] Not all first parts receive their second part immediately, however It often happens that a question-answer sequence will be delayed while another question-answer sequence intervenes The sequence will then take the form of Q1-Q2-A2-A1 with Q2-A2 being called an insertion sequence This pattern is illustrated as follow: (3) Agent: Do you want the early flight? (Q1) Client: What time does it arrive? (Q2) Agent: Nine forty (A2) Client: Yeah- that’s great (A1) [60, p.78] - 10 - An insertion sequence is one adjacency pair within another It is one of the strategies for delaying in response Delay in response symbolically marks potential unavailability of the immediate expected answer Delay represents distance between what is expected and what is provided In order to see how delay is locally interpreted, we need some analytic terms for what is expected within certain types of adjacency pairs 2.2.1.3 Conversational Maxim Conversational maxim is an unwritten rule about conversation which people know and which influences the form of conversational exchanges For example in the follow exchange: (4) A: Let’s go to the movies? B: I have an exam in the morning [45, p.88] B’s reply might appear not to be connected to A’s remark However, since A has made an invitation and since a reply to an invitation is usually either an acceptance or a refusal, B’s reply is here understood as an excuse for not accepting the invitation (i.e refusal) B has used the “maxim” that speakers normally give replies which are relevant to the question that has been asked The philosopher Grice (1975) has suggested that there are four conversational maxims: a The maxim of quantity: give as much information as is needed b The maxim of quality: speak truthfully c The maxim of relevance: say things that are relevant d The maxim of manner: say things clearly and briefly - 61 - Another instance of Overgeneralization of speech act routines can be seen in question and (table 4.6) Table 4.6 Summary of apology-giving routines made by Vietnamese learners Question Excuse me, is this your pen? Sorry, is this your pen? Others Question I’m sorry I don’t know Pardon I don’t know anything about it S 33 66% 12 24% 10% S 42 84% 16% A 30 60% 17 34% 6% A 47 94% 6% S1 18 72% 20% 8% S1 20 80% 20% S2 15 60% 28% 12% S2 22 88% 12% The data show that most of learners made use of appropriate routines in apology-giving 84% of S in comparison with 94% of A were successful in taking the routine “I’m sorry I don’t know” to express regret Only few of learners (16% of S versus 6% of A) overgeneralized how to express regret and make excuse with the routine “Pardon” in an inappropriate context For this function, there are many ways to express, for instance, “Excuse me”, “I beg you pardon”, “Pardon”, “I’m so sorry” or “Sorry” However, their usages are at variance “I’m so sorry” or “Sorry” is used to express mild regret, disagreement, or refusal and apologies and excuses, e.g “Sorry Did I tread on your toe?” “Excuse me” is also an attention getting device when a speaker wants to intrude on someone else’s privacy and interrupt his concentration From above data, 24% of S compared to 34% of A made use of the routine “Sorry” instead of “Excuse - 62 - me” to get attention from the person walking front Consequently, error of overgeneralization occurred Others forms of apologies are used for asking someone to repeat what he has said when the speakers can not hear, i.e “Pardon?” or “I beg you pardon?” In this case, “Sorry?” is also sometimes used in British English and “Pardon me?” or “Excuse me?” in American English Overgeneralization of the above mentioned linguistic forms may cause inappropriacy in context and misunderstanding between interlocutors For example, when hearing the utterance “Pardon I don’t know anything about it.” to the question for direction, the hearer might repeat his request with an emphatic tone which might annoy the other interlocutor by his insisting on asking The same error is employed by the learners in question In order to express their wishes on a birthday occasion, the learners overapplied the routine “Congratulations!” beyond its limit, unaware of the fact that this expression as an interjection is used to evaluate high achievements of success only All the data from question 7, 8, and 10 suggest that there is not much difference between S and A in making errors of Overgeneralization However, there is a considerate difference among S in comparison with their errors of Transfer Both S1 and S2 produced predominantly interlingual errors (caused by Native Transfer), although intralingual errors (caused by Overgeneralization) were more frequent with S1 (intermediate learners) than with S2 (elementary learners) The findings are quite in agreement with Taylor’s assumption (1975,122): - 63 “Errors which appear to be attributable to Overgeneralization or more common among intermediate speakers than they are among elementary speakers” He goes on to explain the claim made: “ because the elementary target language learner knows less of the target language than a more advanced learner, the elementary learner will need to rely more heavily on his native language As he learns more about the target language, his reliance on his native language will decrease, and errors attributable to target language syntactic overgeneralization will increase.” In other words, the difference between intermediate learners and elementary learners in levels of English proficiency results in a difference in their errors of conversational routines Intermediate learners seem to rely less heavily on the native language than elementary learners so that error of Native Transfer appears more preferable to elementary ones Contrarily, as intermediate learners learn more about the target language, Overgeneralization is more likely to be on their own responses As for young learners and adult learners, however, the evidence from the data analysis suggests there is not much difference in their responses 4.3 FACTORS AFFECTING CONVERSATIONAL COMPETENCE OF VIETNAMESE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Learning to speak a foreign language requires more than knowing its grammatical and semantic rules Learners must also acquire the knowledge of how native speakers use the language in the context of structured interpersonal exchange, in which many factors interact Therefore, it is difficult for learners of English to speak the target language fluently and appropriately In order to provide effective guidance in developing - 64 - competent speakers of English, it is necessary to examine the factors affecting conversational competence of learners, which effectively help learners develop their abilities to communicate in the target language 4.3.1 Level of English proficiency As analysed and discussed in the above parts, at a low level of English proficiency, many learners have difficulty in making conversations with foreigners They not know how to use appropriately their verbal repertoires in communication and they even not master the conventional rules of speaking in particular situations The very conclusion that more competent language learners tended to have better ability to use different linguistic forms to achieve the various language functions The better language knowledge learners have, the more confidence they gain in communication Once language learners become confident of their own language ability, they can express what they want to say, what they like to get others to with their own words 4.3.2 Lack of knowledge of English routines In the course of learning a foreign language, there are a number of recurrent communication problems For example, the learner will often be in a situation where he wants to learn something rather specific about the language, where he wants to express his gratitude to his partner’s flavor, or where he wants to give his partner an excuse for something, etc These are important learning strategies whose routinization can greatly accelerate the learning process It is, therefore, important for the learner to acquire or develop routines allowing him to carry out these strategies at minimal effort and maximal effect I don’t understand Thank you for inviting me How you do? How are you?, I’m really sorry, etc are all stock phrases which - 65 - foreign speakers may use as chucks repeatedly without variation Fixed as they are, their use involves no combinatorial difficulties, and they prove very useful in reaching the intended communication goals The same holds true for regular language use in day-to-day interaction For the speaker it is important to master the use of everyday routines, because they are what provides speech with a “natural” and proficient flavor Obviously, a rich stock of conversational routines is very useful for language learners to be successful in daily communication with foreigners Because conversational routines can help learners define speech situations and their appropriate use is a vital component of learners’ conversational competence Therefore, the more successful mastery of routines learners have the more competent they are in making conversations 4.3.3 Lack of experience and practice in making conversations in English This is an important problem that occurs to most of the learners, even to those who speak English fluently and know a lot of words or expressions Because the conversations taught to them are rather classroom-specific They not have much chance of exposing to real life situations, so their way of expressing their massage may sound unnatural Many of the learners not really know what they should say in a certain situation The following story is given as an example: A student of professional English at College of Foreign Language in Danang, told me that he once met and talked to an English engineer at his friend’s birthday party It was really a good chance for him to practice his English But he was completely embarrassed and didn’t know how to respond when the engineer gave him the compliment “Your English is pretty - 66 - good” To his surprise, the engineer asked “Why, you don’t think so?” The student replied “Oh, no I don’t” This caused the engineer unpleasant Consequently, communicative failure occurred In fact, if the English engineer had been his teacher or classmate, he would have fluently responded to the above situation But it was the foreigner talking to him, so he wanted to say something very interesting and accurate As a result he could not say anything, even could not respond to a very simple question Due to learners’ lack of practice, many conversations in English are made in a Vietnamese manner Thus, the most prominent error of Vietnamese learners of English is the transference from Vietnamese to English, which is widely seen in the greeting questions as openers of conversation As analysed and discussed in the above parts, English conversations are not often started with greeting questions Whereas, Vietnamese conversation is in favour of this type; these openings only sound right in Vietnamese The translation for English openings in this case may confuse English speakers if they have a chance to talk to these students For example: [90] A: Hello, Van Where are you going? [91] A: Oh, Teacher You also go to the library? What you go here for? [26] In daily communication, conversational routines of this type can be well understood by the hearer, the other learners or even native speakers Yet, they not sound English, and then should not be performed by people who learn English as their major - 67 - 4.3.4 Lack of knowledge of cultural differences in English and Vietnamese Each person is the product of his/her own culture He/She are brought up in an environment where certain customs, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours are considered acceptable and normal He/She learns these cultural values and priorities in the same way he/she learn his/her mother tongue But when he/she communicates with someone from another culture, even if they share a common language, they may not understand each other because of their different cultural values and perceptions So when people share both language and culture, communication is achieved without major setbacks Communication failure may occur, however, between people from different cultural backgrounds when such knowledge is not shared Thus, to speak a language, one must know how the language is used in a social context It is well known that each language has its own rules of usage as to when, how, and to what degree a speaker may impose a given verbal behaviour on his/her conversational partner Due to the influence or interference of their own cultural norms, it is hard for non-native speakers to choose the forms appropriate to certain situations For instance, in Vietnamese culture, paying a compliment to someone obligates that person to give a negative answer such as "No It is not so good," and so on in order to show "modesty," whereas in English culture such a response might be both inappropriate and embarrassing It is obvious that culture plays an instrumental role in shaping speakers' conversational competence, which is related to the appropriate use of language (e.g., how native speakers make an apology and what kind of form the apology is to take) Generally, appropriateness is determined by each speech community In other words, it is defined by the shared social and - 68 - cultural conventions of a particular group of speakers Therefore, it is essential to recognize different sets of culturally determined rules in communication Just as Brown and Yule [24, p.40] say, "a great number of cultural assumptions which would be normally presupposed, and not made explicit by native speakers, may need to be drawn explicitly to the attention of speakers from other cultures." For Vietnamese learners, cross-cultural difference between English and Vietnamese is usually a great disadvantage for them to be successful in communication, although many of them have high level of English proficiency This is because they lack of knowledge of the English culture Therefore, they not know that their way of expressing their messages may be accepted, or even the conventional usage in the Vietnamese culture But in other cultures, in English in particular, this sometimes causes problems which make the listeners embarrassed, even feel much offended That is why pragmatic failures often occur in cross cultural communication For example, in Vietnamese culture, when people are first introduced, they often ask questions which sound very personal like: “Are you married?”, “How old are you?”, “Do you have any children? How many girls and boys?”, “How much you earn a month?”, etc This is because they simply want to show their concern to the others, with no more idea than facilitating and making the distance between interactants closer and friendlier; thus, enhancing solidarity In contrast, in English, people not always so Those questions can be considered too inquisitive, since they respect interactant’s privacy Thus, concerning questions about other’s age, family, earning, marital status, etc are not appropriate in the English initial conversation If Vietnamese learners really lack of awareness of the above cultural differences, what will happen to English and Vietnamese interactants - 69 - in this situation? “Communication breakdown” between them is surely unavoidable 4.4 SUMMARY This chapter has presented the findings of the research The analysis shows that there are differences in conventional usage of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese The data from the responses made by Vietnamese learners of English is analysed in contrast to find out some common errors of conversational routines of Vietnamese learners in communication Further more, I also deal with some factors affecting conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English through the comparison and discussion of the responses made by native speakers of English and of Vietnamese These factors are found to have considerable influence on conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English - 70 - CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION - IMPLICATIONS 5.1 REVIEW OF THE FINDING IN THE STUDY Learning foreign language for communication purpose nowadays has become a common need of people all over the world Knowing a foreign language is actually not knowing a number of words, how to make sentences with available vocabulary, and how to pronounce the words correctly It is in fact that knowing a foreign language is knowing how to converse and interact in a nativelike manner and to behave like a native speaker of that language Therefore, the study on “Cross-cultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English: Conversational routines and other problems” is of great necessity to help learners use the English language appropriately to communicate with each other more effectively and successfully The analysis of the data in English and Vietnamese has indicated that: The common errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese learners in English-learning phase is that they seem unable to accurately transfer the source language into the target one, given the viewpoint of crosscultural aspects They are often found to be affected by the native rules of speaking and cultures as well Frequently, they apply the Vietnamese-style conversations even when speaking English, neglecting that the Western-style conversations develop quite differently compared with the Vietnamese ones The ignorance, however, takes origin from the learners’ unawareness of the unwritten rules under which Western-style conversations might open, - 71 - continue and end As a result, in social interactions, learners keep trying to transfer whatever may come into their mind into English They usually impose their own language or behaviour on the target language In other words, they try to find out linguistic or cultural equivalence of their native language Another serious error made by Vietnamese learners is that they seem to completely overlook the importance of conversational routines in intercultural communications They tend to emphasize on the knowledge of the target language in an attempt to make utterances grammatically correct and neglect all the cultural embedded factors Meanwhile, each language has its own conversational conventions as well as cultural ways of expressions under which everyday conversations are constituted The shortage of crosscultural knowledge in addition to the unsuccessful mastery of conversational routines may lead to an impression of fluency that the learners does not really have Thus, in order to have a good command of English, a rich stock of conversational routines is required The ability to use such routines has proved to be so helpful to learners as they are exposed to intercultural communications in any time 5.2 IMPLICATIONS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING Understanding a language demands more than teaching and learning its new words and its system of grammar It involves developing sensitivity to aspects of language that are usually not taught in language textbooks Through the investigation of Vietnamese learners’ errors of conversational routines in language communication, we would suggest some useful implications for teaching and learning English as a foreign language - 72 - 5.2.1 Implications for learners • Learners should make opportunities for practice by using English inside and outside the classroom Opportunities lie in their hands so learners should not blame for not having any language environment to use English They can make opportunities for practice, for example, practice with friends inside and outside the classroom; talk with native speakers whenever they possibly can to ask for help, or information; listen to and watch people making conversations in English programs on the radio or television; talk to themselves in English for practising • Speech acts are highly conventional so learners should learn lots of routines In order to communicate successfully with foreigners in general and with native speakers in particular, learners should know conversational routines It is very useful for learners to memorize whole utterances or speech acts that are commonly used, for example, “What a beautiful day!”, “Good morning How are you?”, etc Usually a good beginning makes a good ending Unconventional utterances such as “Where have you been?”, “How old are you?”, “How much you earn a month?”, “Where are you going?” as greetings might cause listeners offended, which might damage the whole subsequent flow of a dialogue Common structures, conversational phrases, polite expressions and other set formulas are widely used in everyday communication; therefore, it is necessary to learn them by heart in order to have a ready and available stock of conversational routines - 73 - • Learners should learn the culture of English Vietnamese learners of English should be aware of cultural differences in language use That is to say learning a foreign language should go hand in hand with learning its culture for there is neither good nor bad culture, each culture has its own values In addition, it is advisable for learners to integrate into the target language culture, in other words, they should consider themselves as members of that culture 5.2.2 Implications for teachers As we know, language is not only a system of signals which help to constitute grammar but, more important, a set of culturally transmitted behaviour patterns Hence, culture plays a very important part in learning and teaching a language In this modern time, the awareness of social and cross-cultural communication is an indispensable subject to consider in teaching a foreign language The final aim is to facilitate the process of learning and producing language in real communication and to avoid the socalled culture shock Therefore, while teaching a foreign language, teachers should pay much attention to cultural factors They need to create a teaching environment similar with that of target language so that their students can have real chances to integrate into that culture In order to that, teachers must be bicultural people, who not only possess good communication skill but also has extensive and intensive perception and understanding of the source and the target language Moreover, teachers should be generous and empathized with students’ limitation when they cannot put themselves perfectly in the target culture - 74 - since language learners often have the tendency to carry their own cultural elements in the target language In other words, to enable Vietnamese learners to be socially competent in English, it is necessary that the teachers make them aware of the potential cultural differences between Vietnamese and English As far as we know, language and culture are so inextricably linked, an awareness of cultural differences in communication is in fact one of the keys to understand not only another, foreign culture but also one’s own It is essential to supply learners with materials that must consist of cultural factors in order to help learners contrast what they read or hear with their own cultural patterns Shortly, every nation has a particular culture, traditional and specific styles in communication Speech acts are highly culture-specific They are governed by the rules of speaking features of particular speech communities So the transfer might easily happen when the speakers of different cultural backgrounds interact, which result in communication breakdown Therefore, in cross-cultural communication, we not only master linguistic norms but also know cultural background and the rules of conversational routines in other cultures 5.3 LIMITATIONS As I stated in the foregoing chapter, this research discussed crosscultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English It was limited to the cross-cultural differences of conversational routines reflected in greeting, compliment-giving and responding, thankgiving and responding, and apology-giving and responding in English and Vietnamese conversations With the limited data for the analysis, there certainly remains some other problems that the research has not covered - 75 - One of the limitations of the study is the source of data for the analysis which was mainly collected from linguistic books, course books, novels and short stories Moreover, all the informants’ responses were put into written form when they answered the survey questionnaire and thus could be slightly different from ones in real communication The results, therefore, are not somewhat adapted for the communicative purpose of the study The responses in real-life situations may need more consideration Were there more recorded conversations in real life, the analysis and results should be better and more lively Although the above limitations are inevitable, it is hoped that the findings from this study might be a small contribution to developing learners’ ability to use language appropriately in communication 5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCHES If the research is permitted to further, the following ideas need more consideration and investigation: - Cross-cultural study on attitudinal routines (Routines express the speaker’s attitudes or emotions) in English and Vietnamese - Cross-cultural study on routines in English and Vietnamese telephone conversations or public speeches [...]... from a set of questionnaire in English and one in Vietnamese developed and delivered to native speakers of English and native speakers of Vietnamese and Vietnamese learners of English The result of this source of data helps to analyse common errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese learners of English and to find out factors affecting conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English... cross -cultural differences of conventional usage of routines in greeting, complimenting, thanking and apologizing in English and Vietnamese It helps Vietnamese learners to realize the culture shock and learners misunderstandings of other people in communication The objectives are : - to analyze errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese learners of English - to find out factors affecting conversational. .. College of Transport and Communications II in Danang or adults working in Danang After selecting the pieces of survey questionnaire carefully, I choose 25 native speakers of English, 50 Vietnamese learners of English and 25 native speakers of Vietnamese The informants of both English and Vietnamese language are in the range of 19 and 56 years of age For the objectivity of this research, Vietnamese learners. .. require the use of conversational routines as do the majority of speech acts Associated with the everyday round of activities that constitute the lives of all of us is the use of language in predictable ways Conversational routines help define speech situations, and their appropriate use is a vital component of social competence in a language The ability to use routines contributes to the sense of naturalness... learners of English - to find out factors affecting conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English - to put forward some useful implications for teaching and learning English conversational routines to Vietnamese learners 3.2 METHOD OF THE STUDY This study is executed in a contrastive analysis of conversational routines in English and Vietnamese Data were quantitatively analysed and expressed... analysis and discussion of this paper is based on two sources of data The first source is 50 samples of conversational routines in English and 50 ones in Vietnamese which were collected from linguistic books, course - 35 - books, novels, short stories and taken from movies and videos This source of data is expected to facilitate the analysis of English conversational routines of Vietnamese learners The second... speech Speakers of a language appear to know hundreds of them and the situation when their use is required For Vietnamese learners of English, such routines of the target language are often acquired before their function is fully understood They are picked up as “canned utterances”, and their use may lead to an impression of fluency that the learner does not really have A stock of routines may even... differential competence • heterogeneous speech communities • involving diglossia = the use of different languages • or varieties of the same language • in different domains of use • limitations of sentence-level grammar Hymes expands the Chomskyan notions of grammatically (= competence) and acceptability (= performance) into four parameters subsumed under the heading of communicative competence The notion of. .. be made between grammatical competence and conversational competence According to Richard (1985, p.129) grammatical competence describes a speaker’s knowledge of the underlying systems of vocabulary, morphology, and syntax that are required to construct grammatical sentences in a language The sentence is the unit of description for grammatical competence Conversational competence, however, is defined... language learning process Learners of English, therefore, should be aware that “for a non-native speaker, any conversational exchange with a native speaker of the target language is a form of cross -cultural encounter” (Richards and Sukwiwat, 1986:129) Consequently, in conversation with a native speaker, any failure in transferring language of learners of English may create risks of communicative breakdown ... choose this research topic "Cross- cultural aspects of conversational competence of Vietnamese learners of English: conversational routines and other problems" in the hope of making a worthy contribution... cross -cultural errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese learners of English? What are factors that affect conversational competence and language transfer of Vietnamese learners of English?... speakers of English and native speakers of Vietnamese and Vietnamese learners of English The result of this source of data helps to analyse common errors of conversational routines made by Vietnamese