This study is carried out to investigate the area of addressing terms between members in families in Vietnamese and English culture from major perspectives namely the common terms and the affecting factors on the choice of the terms. There are 200 people who are from different Vietnamese and English families take part in this study.
NGUYỄN THÙY LINH VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Thùy Linh ENGLISH LANGUAGE A STUDY OF THE USE OF ADDRESSING TERMS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FAMILIES MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSE: 2016 – 2018 HANOI, 2018 VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Nguyễn Thùy Linh A STUDY OF THE USE OF ADDRESSING TERMS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FAMILIES Field Code : English Language : 8220201 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D HANOI, 2018 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I hereby declare that this thesis was of my own composition except where proper use of quotes and references were indicated, and that this thesis has not been submitted for the award of any other degrees Author’s Signature Nguyễn Thùy Linh Approved by SUPERVISOR Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D Date:…………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe innumerable thanks to people who give me support and assistance in completing this research The first goes to my supervisor Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D, whose considerable encouragement and valuable feedback kept me from losing confidence when I got frustrated with my thesis My project could not have been completed without her great patience and sustained guidance I am deeply grateful to my family who always give me warmth and support Thanks also to my friends who helped me a lot with my data collection Thanks to all ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION BY AUTHOR i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT v LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE THESIS viii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Methodology 1.7 Structure of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Culture, language and communication 2.2 Relationship and solidarity in the family 2.3 Addressing terms 11 2.3.1 Definitions of addressing terms 11 2.3.2 Features of addressing terms 12 2.3.3 Addressing terms in English 14 2.3.4 Addressing terms in Vietnamese 19 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 34 3.1 Research question revisited 34 3.2 Selection of participants 34 3.3 Data collection instrument 34 3.4 Data collection procedures 35 iii CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 37 4.1 Results of the study 37 4.1.1 Vietnamese responses 37 4.1.2 English responses 42 4.2 Summary of the findings 46 4.2.1 About the results collected from Vietnamese participants 47 4.2.2 About the results collected from English participants 47 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 52 5.1 Recapitulation 52 5.2 Concluding remarks 53 5.3 Implications 54 5.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 58 REFERENCES 60 APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX BẢN ĐIỀU TRA IV iv ABSTRACT This study is carried out to investigate the area of addressing terms between members in families in Vietnamese and English culture from major perspectives namely the common terms and the affecting factors on the choice of the terms There are 200 people who are from different Vietnamese and English families take part in this study A questionnaire and an interview are chosen as the data collection instruments According to the results of the research, in Vietnamese the addressing terms used with the highest frequency in the mentioned relationship are “kinship term” There are many factors affecting the choice of addressing terms such as: “personality”, “occasion” and “mood” Additionally, “age gap” and “position” is also considered by the Vietnamese while the English pay attention to the “personality”, “occasion” and “mood” After analyzing and synthesizing the statistics, the researcher discussed and recommended some implications along with suggestions for further research Last but not least, it is much hoped to improve teaching language – not only in the field of addressing terms but also in any language field in general v LIST OF TABLES Page Table : Kinship terms as address terms 23 Table : Different ATs are used in the families 38 Table : Frequency of different ATs used in Vietnamese families 39 Table : Degree of influence of possible factors on the choice of addressing terms used in Vietnamese families 40 Table : Different ATs are used in the families 43 Table : Frequency of different ATs used in English families 44 Table : Degree of influence of possible factors on the choice of addressing terms used in English families Table : Major differences between Vietnamese and English with regards to popular addressing terms and categories 45 50 Table : Major differences between Vietnamese and English with regards to influential factors on the choice ATs between members in the families vi 51 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure : Vietnamese participants’ background information 37 Figure : English participants’ division 42 Figure : English participants’ information 42 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE THESIS ATs : addressing terms FN : first name LN : last name T : title TLN : title with last name viii conservation, Vietnamese usually appreciate “age” so “position” is the most influential factor on the choice of Ats Mmembers in English families like to use “terms of endearments” to call each other In addition, they always use “short names”, “nicknames”, “last name” on the choice of Ats England are equal country, English people not appreciate “age gap” or “position” when having conservation “Personality” is the most influential factors on the choice of Ats The similarities of the two cultures are illustrated through the agreement on the three most influential factors namely “personality”, “occasion”, “mood”, “financial power” and “age gap” Besides, when the charactersitic of situation change, both English and Vietnamese members in the families tend to remain their common and preferred Ats in communicating with the partner In brief, these findings have proved that when the cultural basements are different, language and the use of language, accordingly, cannot avoid differences However major or minor these differences are, the nature of such a special relationship as wife and husband, children and parents are always revealed either explicitly or implicitly across cultures through expressive mediums, one of which is the addressing term 5.2 Concluding remarks The aim of the thesis is to find out the use of addressing terms between members in Vietnamese and English families In order to collect the data from a large number of people, a survey questionnaire and interviews were used for the purpose of this thesis 53 The survey showed that the most factor which affects the choice of using addressing terms The results of the research also indicate that the “position” and “financial power” are the most common affecting in Vietnamese families In contrast, “personality” is the most popular affecting choice in English families In Vietnamese family, members often use kinship terms to call each other, meanwhile, “last name”, “short name” and “nicknames” are frequently used In conclusion, I would like to state that investigating the use of addressing terms in Vietnamese and English families in this thesis had made great contributions to my professional development as a teacher of English I hope that this study will also be useful for other teachers in teaching English more and more effectively 5.3 Implications It is undeniable that ATs used between members in the family are merely a modestly narrow in language and language teaching particularly Fully aware of this, the researcher would propose some pedagogical implications for teaching English in a broader sense, covering not only the field of ATs between members in the families but also their superordinate’s domain, which is ATs in general To make it short and simple, this section is to make some suggestions, especially for teaching translation with regards to ATs in general and ATs used between members in the families The first and foremost point to make clear herein is the current state of English teaching in Vietnam Many previous studies as well as the teaching and learning reality revealed through the textbook and the general curriculum have pointed out a fact that in Vietnam, what to be taught and learnt are purely the linguistics competence, that is to say, Vietnam English teaching 54 puts too much focus on improving such linguistic aspects as lexis and syntax, with the support of the tradition grammar – based teaching approach As a result, Vietnamese students of English may show a high linguistic competence At the same time, they appear greatly hesitated at communicating in English and awkward at translating naturally a conversation from English to Vietnamese and vice versa There are two reasons that can account for this Firstly, the Vietnamese teaching and learning environment is non – native and the learners not have urgent communicative needs, which does not permit language learners to expose with real life communication Secondly, the materials being in use mainly are self – adapted to suit Vietnamese belief and values, which sometimes causes cultural biases In fact, many communicative behaviors illustrated in the current textbooks are found strange or uncommon to English native speakers The result of the two facts is that several Vietnamese learners of English are called “bookish language learners” who speak English “well” but “not well enough” The question arising is “what actually are Vietnamese learners of English lacking in?” That is the so – called “cultural competence”, which Hymes (1972) calls the knowledge of when and how to use specific language items in each culture Let’s move to the specific field of ATs at this point As commented before, ATs are the first and foremost effective tool to initiate, maintain and end a conversation, thus, if touched upon superficially like “I” refers to the st 55 person, “you” are the 2nd person…, ATs sooner or later are a big puzzle to the language learners Take the following sentence as an example: -I call you This sentence or utterance can be made by English native speakers in any situations to any interlocutors, however, when translated into Vietnamese, it is not easy at all for the language learners to find the appropriate equivalents to the terms “I” and “you” here, In fact, the language learners have to be equipped fully with certain settings given beforehand so as to understand the progress of the conversation and to express the ideas exactly Supposing that this utterance is of a grandchild to the grandmother, the Vietnamese translation should be: - Cháu yêu bà of a male to his lover: -Anh yêu em of a female to her beloved: -Em yêu anh And so on Another example is the greeting “Good afternoon” said by Anh to her husband As for the English, the greeting is quite common and no way does it show any negative connotation Nevertheless, when this utterance is translated into Vietnamese as “Xin chào anh”, “em chào bố ạ” or “Anh yêu đâu đấy”, it turns out to be unacceptable This is because in Vietnamese culture, hierarchy and order are of great account A child is not permitted to 56 greet parents without “the involvement of any addressing forms So, instead of merely “xin chào” or “chào”, the appropriate way is: -Con chào bố/ mẹ Or at least: -Chào bố mẹ The two examples above hopefully have helped to point out the important role of cultural context in improving cultural competence, from then, bettering linguistic competence of the language learners So, in order to provide learners with a panorama of ATs in general and ATs between members in the families in particular so that they can employ these terms naturally in real conversation, three suggestions are proposed Firstly, lessons on ATs should present the different forms of address incorporated with their pragmatic meaning and usage For example, “honey” is an AT showing affection of the speaker towards the hearer (→ feature) It can be used to address a person one likes or loves (→ usage) It appears most often between wife and husband, children and parents relationship (→usage) Next, the teaching materials as well as tasks and texts should be adapted to be authentic or near authentic, in which real life situations are demonstrated and can effectively present the focused language items In addition, socio – cultural factors must also be noticed in teaching ATs These factors assist learners to explain reasonably the selection of a specific form in a specific situation or make clear how to understand the interlocutors concerning feelings, attitudes, emotion and the like 57 In short, teaching language, specifically teaching English as a foreign language – not only in the field of ATs but also in any language field in general – must go hand – in – hand with teaching cultures This enables language learners to compare and contrast the source language to the target language, hence, they can raise consciousness about the language in use 5.4 Limitations and suggestions for further studies The area of ATs used between members in the families may and should be regarded as a very interesting one that can cover many aspects not only of language and culture but also of social studies Hopefully, all attempts to operate and solve the issue have been acknowledged through the entire study, and the findings of the study have partly satisfied scientific requirements towards the subject issue However, due to time restrain and a restriction in experience of the researcher, the study cannot avoid certain limitations First is the small population of the study which results in the fact that the corresponding conclusions can, to some extent, only represent for the two grandiose and long – established cultures Second, though all research questions have been made clear, the answers, especially about affecting factors, have just been given out in the form of listing (the “what”), not in detail analysis (the “how” and “why”) Third, it is the complicated nature of the topic that prevents the study from operating the subject from the view of different groups of participants but from the angle of the whole of participants To put it another way, the topic has been dealt with merely horizontally, not yet vertically Finally, being one of the very first one on the subject, the study cannot deny clumsiness and the ambition to cover many related points, which forces the researcher to 58 admit that some of the points herein have not yet been touched as thoroughly as expected As said before, there have been few studies on the same field, which leaves large room for further studies, which are hoped to fill up all gaps and improve all shortcomings of this specific paper, more importantly, to investigate the subject in a deeper level Other researchers can refer to some suggestions described as follows for future papers -Connotative meanings of addressing terms between members in the families and the specific level of affection connoted through these terms - Detail explanations on the decisive factors (affecting the choice of members in the families addressing terms) with regards to the origins and meanings, from the perspective culture - More comprehensive comparison and contrast between two (or more than two) cultures in terms of ATs used between members in the families (considering from the basic units to the general elements) 59 REFERENCES Foreign authors Brown, R & Gilman, A (1960) The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity American Anthropologists Cooke, J (1968) The Pronominal Reference in Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese, Brekley: University of California Press (p 125) Hofstede, G (2001) Culture’s Consequence: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organization Across Nations 2nd Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication (p 10) Hymes, Dell H (1967) Models of interaction of language and social setting Journal of Social Issues 23/2 Koul, O N (1995) Personal Names in Kashmiri In: Koul, O N Sociolinguistics South Asian Perspectives New Delhi Oyetade, Solomon Oluwole (1995) A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Address Forms in Yoruba, Language in Society, 515 – 535 Poynton, C (1989) Terms of address in Australian English, Australian English, ed By Peter Collins and David Blair, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press Pride, J B (1971) Formal and Informal Language An inaugural address Wellington Richards, J.C., Platt, J and Platt, H (1999) Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistic, Longman, London Samovar, L.A (2007) Communication Between Cultures 6th ed Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 16, 23, 40 60 Wardhaugh, R (1986) An introduction to Sociolinguistic Brasil Blackwell Oxford Vietnamese authors Dương Thị Nụ Ngữ nghĩa nhóm từ quan hệ thân tộc tiếng Anh tiếng Việt Luận án tiến sỹ Hà Hải Hồng (2003) A cross – cultural study on using kinship terms as address forms in English and Vietnamese Khóa luận tốt nghiệp Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà (2009) Personal pronouns in Vietnamese and American English (from cultural perspective) Luận văn thạc sỹ Nguyễn Phương Sửu (1990) Across – cultural study of greeting and address terms in English and Vietnamese Luận văn thạc sỹ Nguyễn Quang (1998) Intercultural Communication Hanoi: VNU press 3,9 Nguyễn Quang (2002) Giao tiếp giao tiếp giao văn hóa Nxb Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội, 146 Nguyễn Văn Khang (1996) Ứng xử Ngơn ngữ Giao tiếp Gia đình Người Việt Nxb Văn hóa thơng tin Nguyễn Văn Khang (1999) Ngôn ngữ học xã hội vấn đề NXB Khoa học xã hội 61 APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE The contents of this form are absolutely confidential and are used for scientific purpose only It is intended to investigate how members in family address each other in English Any information you give be appreciated and will be treated confidentially so that you will not be identified My name is Nguyen Thuy Linh, from English Department, GASS I am conducting a research survey for the MA thesis entitle: “The study on the Use of Addressing Terms in English and Vietnamese families” Your completion of the survey is highly appreciated Please feel free to express your opinion as they are what the paper really stresses on Thank you for your co – operation Please fill in the blanks and put a tick(√) where appropriate: Age: …………………………………………… Gender: Male Female Occupation: ………………………………………… 1.Please specify at least different addressing terms (ATs) that you may use in the families? ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… I 2.There are 07 addressing terms below According to you, how often are those addressing terms be used? Frequency ATs categories Very Often Sometimes Rarely Never often Title Title proper names Kinship terms with first name Middle and first name Nicknames Terms of endearments Demonstrative words II According to you, which of factors affect the choice of ATs in the family? Influence degree Factors Much Not much Age gap (between persons) Education Financial power Mood Occasion Occupation Personality Purposes Position THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! III Little APPENDIX BẢN ĐIỀU TRA Nội dung câu hỏi bảo mật tuyệt đối sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu, thơng tin người tham gia khơng tiết lộ hình thức Tôi Nguyễn Thùy Linh, đến từ khoa Ngôn ngữ Anh, Học viện khoa học xã hội, thực câu hỏi khảo sát cho luận văn tốt nghiệp có tiêu đề “Nghiên cứu cách sử dụng từ xưng hơ gia đình Việt – Anh” Tôi mong nhận hợp tác quý vị cách hoàn thành câu hỏi Đừng ngại đưa quan điểm riêng quý vị điều mà nghiên cứu tơi quan tâm Vui lòng điền vào chỗ trống đánh dấu tích (√) thích hợp Tuổi: …………………………………………… Giới tính: Nam Nữ Nghề nghiệp: ………………………………………… Hãy liệt kê từ xưng hô mà anh/ chị sử dụng gia đình? ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… ……………………………………… IV Có loại từ xưng hơ bảng Theo anh/ chị mức độ sử dụng thường xuyên loại nào? Mức độ thường xuyên Danh mục Rất thường xuyên Chức danh Chức danh kèm tên riêng Từ thân tộc Tên kèm tên đệm Biệt danh Từ âu yếm Đại từ định V Thường Thỉnh xuyên thoảng Không Hiếm Theo anh/ chị yếu tố sau ảnh hưởng đến việc lựa chọn từ xưng hô gia đình? Mức độ ảnh hưởng Yếu tố Nhiều Khơng nhiều Chênh lệch độ tuổi Trình độ Năng lực tài Tâm trạng Dịp Nghề nghiệp Tính cách Mục đích Địa vị xã hội CẢM ƠN VÌ SỰ HỢP TÁC! VI Hầu không ... It is aimed at making sense of complex and abstract thought and that also without any confusion Language plays a vital role in establishing and maintaining what we call culture, including conventions,... social factors Addressing is also a product of culture and history In Vietnam, especially in the Vietnam family, all of the members in the family are usually aware of the fact that a suitable address... the study To investigate major similarities and differences in using addressing terms in English and Vietnamese and the factors which affect the choice of addressing terms between members in Vietnamese