CONDOLENCE STRAGIES USED BY AMERICAN SPEAKERS OFENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISHIN OFFICE SETTING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDY FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION BA THESIS CONDOLENCE STRAGIES USED BY AMERICAN SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH IN OFFICE SETTING Supervisor: Lai Thi Thanh Van, M.A Student: Nguyen Ban Mai Course: QH-2008 HA NOI – 2012 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA TIẾNG ANH SƯ PHẠM KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP CHIẾN LƯỢC CHIA BUỒN BẰNG NGÔN NGỮ ANH CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT TRONG BỐI CẢNH VĂN PHÒNG Giáo viên hướng dẫn: ThS Lại Thị Thanh Vân Sinh viên: Nguyễn Ban Mai Khóa học: QH-2008 HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2012 RENTENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Ban Mai, 08.1.E15, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Nguyễn Ban Mai May 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Lại Thị Thanh Vân, MA for her continuously support, patience, encouragement and valuable and thorough feedback I would also like to send my heartfelt thanks to my close friends and my classmates at University of Language and International Studies, who have stayed by my side and supported me every time I need I also wish to express my special thanks to Ms Lê Thị Huyền and her friends and family, who have helped me in delivering the questionnaires to American speakers I cannot forget to acknowledge the important assistances of both Vietnamese and American participants, whose names cannot be mentioned in the thesis Their contributions are highly appreciated Finally, I owe an enormous debt to my family for their continuous support and unfailing love and encouragement ABSTRACT Based on the theoretical background of cross-cultural communication, this study aims at investigating the similarities and differences in condolence offering strategies used in office setting by Vietnamese English speakers and American English speakers It focuses primarily on the popularity and preference of condolence strategies in different situations To succeed in doing such research, the author of the study takes informants’ social parameters such as age, sex, marital status, living area, and occupation into consideration Besides, their surveyed responses are carefully analyzed to build a frame, a common set of strategies in the field The conclusion is drawn from data analysis and findings are presented and compared in a brief and concise way Some common examples of condolence extending strategies used by both VSE and ASE from the data are also presented and illustrated with the hope of partially helping avoid cultural shock and communicating breakdown TABLE OF CONTENTS RENTENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS…………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………… iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES…………………………………………… vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS………………………… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study…………………………………………………… Aims and objectives of the study………………………………………… Scope of the study………………………………………………………… Significance of the study………………………………………………… Organization of the study………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review………………………………………… 1.1 Communication and Cross-cultural Communication…………………… 6 1.1.1 Communication…………………………………………………………… 1.1.2 Cross-cultural communication…………………………………………… 1.2 Speech acts………………………………………………………………… 1.2.1 Definition of Speech acts………………………………………………… 1.2.2 Classifications of Speech acts…………………………………………… 10 1.3 12 Politeness………………………………………………………………… 1.3.1 Definition of Politeness…………………………………………………… 12 1.3.2 Politeness principles……………………………………………………… 13 1.3.3 Politeness strategies……………………………………………………… 14 1.4 19 Definition of Condolence ………………………………………………… 1.5 Realization of politeness strategies in extending condolences to the relative of the deceased in office setting………………………………… 19 Chapter 2: Methodology………………………………………………… 23 2.1 Research methods………………………………………………………… 23 2.2 Participants and participant selection method…………………………… 23 2.3 Data collection instruments……………………………………………… 24 2.4 Procedure………………………………………………………………… 27 2.5 Data analysis procedure…………………………………………………… 28 Chapter 3: Results and Discussions…………………………………… 3.1 29 Realization of condolences extending strategies in American English and Vietnamese English……………………………………………………… 3.1.1 Realization of condolences extending strategies in American English…… 29 3.1.2 Realization of condolences extending strategies in Vietnamese English… 37 3.2 Major similarities and differences………………………………………… 47 3.2.1 Similarities………………………………………………………………… 47 3.2.2 Differences………………………………………………………………… 48 PART C: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………… 51 29 Review of the major findings…………………………………………… 51 Limitations of the study ……….………………………………………… 52 Suggestions for further research………………………………………… 52 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………… 54 APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………… I LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table The five general functions of speech acts (Yule, 1996: 55) Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by ASE toward the boss Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by ASE toward the colleague Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by ASE toward the employee Table Use of strategies as seen from American participants’ parameters Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by VSE toward the boss Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by VSE toward the colleague Table The percentages of condolence strategies used by VSE toward the employee Table Use of strategies as seen from Vietnamese participants’ parameters Table 10 Comparison of preferences of strategy between American and Vietnamese informants Figure Diagram of communication process (Shukla, 2011: 2) Figure Nguyen Quang’s table of communication components (2004:292) Figure Possible strategies for doing the FTAs (Brown & Levinson, 1978: 65) Figure Nguyen’s schema of possible strategies for doing the FTAs Figure Questionnaire’s extract Figure Frequency of strategies used by ASE in terms of age Figure Frequency of strategies used by ASE in terms of gender Figure Frequency of strategies used by ASE in terms of marital status Figure Frequency of strategies used by ASE in terms of residence Figure 10 Frequency of strategies used by ASE in terms of occupation Figure 11 Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of age Figure 12 Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of gender Figure 13 Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of marital status Figure 14 Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of residence Figure 15 Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of occupation LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ASE: American speakers of English CP: Communicating Partner FSA: Face-saving Act FTA: Face-threatening Act H: Hearer S: Speaker Soc-ser: Social & services Str: Strategy Sit : Situation Tech-sci: Technical & scientific TEFL: Teaching English as a foreign language VSE: Vietnamese speakers of English PART A INTRODUCTION 10 Figure 13: Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of marital status Note: (1) Formal Condoling, (2) Comforting/Encouraging, (3) Expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased, (4) Giving Advice and Reminding Responsibility, (5) Showing Concern, (6) Offering Help, (7) Expressing Surprise/ Regret/ Grief, (8) Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness, (9) Using poems, saying, proverbs At first glance, it can be easily seen that both the singles and married offer formal condolences equally There is a surprising finding in this category: the single informants apparently use strategy (praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness) the most Strategies and are also the popular ones that are used by single informants, whereas giving advices or reminding responsibility (strategy 4) is the least used strategy That very strategy, though, is most utilized by married informants This finding can be understood that the single CP pay more attention on the social etiquette and have less experience in expressing condolences than the married ones Residence 51 Figure 14: Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of residence Note: (1) Formal Condoling, (2) Comforting/Encouraging, (3) Expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased, (4) Giving Advice and Reminding Responsibility, (5) Showing Concern, (6) Offering Help, (7) Expressing Surprise/ Regret/ Grief, (8) Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness, (9) Using poems, saying, proverbs In terms of rural respondents’ choices, all of the strategies have been used but only strategy (showing concern) and (offering help) are chosen more than the urban ones The other strategies are outnumbered by the urban respondents It might be the case that, the rural participants have lived in an environment in which the sense of community is a bit higher than the urban ones Thus, they tend to care more about other's private problems than the ones who come from urban It is not that the rural ones cannot use other condoling strategies, but that their rate of choices is quite modest compared to their urban counterparts, who have a variety of choices which can change flexibly and effectively to suit the context and CP Occupation 52 Figure 15: Frequency of strategies used by VSE in terms of occupation Note: (1) Formal Condoling, (2) Comforting/Encouraging, (3) Expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased, (4) Giving Advice and Reminding Responsibility, (5) Showing Concern, (6) Offering Help, (7) Expressing Surprise/ Regret/ Grief, (8) Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness, (9) Using poems, saying, proverbs In this case, as for the tech-sci informants, they outweigh the other one in only strategy (giving advices and reminding responsibility) while leaving the remains being outnumbered by soc-ser informants However, it is quite an obvious results since the soc-sers’ work is dealing with social affairs, working together with a great number of people; hence, their communication skills are also more tactful and flexible than the other ones That is the reason why, they can have a diversity of strategy choices which is switched effectively to deal with any types of people and circumstances 3.2 Major similarities and differences 3.2.1 Similarities 53 After a detailed discussion of strategies used to extending condolences by both Vietnamese and American participants, several common points between the two groups can be concluded as follow: • There are strategies employed by both the two groups: formal condoling, comforting/encouraging, expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased, offering help and expressing surprise/grief/regret • The most utilized strategies used at the highest rate by both Vietnamese and American respondents are strategy 1: formal condoling • When being asked about the differences between three same-sex communicating partners (boss, colleague and employee) and three opposite ones when extending condolences, both the two groups state that there are hardly any differences in verbal condolence Instead, what distinguishes the same-sex communicating partners from the opposite ones is nonverbal behaviours, specifically, the gestures of Ss when offering consolation to the bereavements • Generally, both groups of participants are not much in favored of using poems, saying, proverbs and giving advices and reminding responsibility in the act of condoling • Moreover, there is a commonality in gender affecting the strategy choices of the two groups In both cases, the male’s choices of strategy are often outnumbered by female’s This result, therefore, leads to the typical supposition: women are more sensible, better at words and they can express their own emotions in a variety of way 3.2.2 Differences • Vietnamese informants use all strategies whereas their American counterparts use only out of strategies: formal condoling, 54 comforting/encouraging, expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased, offering help and expressing surprise/grief/regret • Showing concern and giving advice/reminding responsibility are not chosen by any of American informants since these two strategies may somewhat violate other’s privacy Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness and using poems, saying, proverbs are also excluded in American participants’ choice list They state that these two strategies are probably used to offer consolation to their relatives or friends rather than their boss, colleague or employee • Giving advice/reminding responsibility strategy is only used by Vietnamese respondents in Situation which is the case that the colleague’s or the employee’s spouse has suddenly died • The American participants use strategy (Expressing Surprise/ Regret/ Grief) less than Vietnamese ones in any situations • Whenever American respondents use offering help strategy (strategy 6), they use it more than Vietnamese participants do; though, the latter use it to all communicating partners while the former only use it to their colleague and employee • In short, the differences can be observed in the following table: ASE Strategies Formal Condoling % Most preferred 36.5% VSE % Strategies 32.8% Formal Condoling 55 Comforting/Encouraging Expressing Regret/ Grief Surprise/ Offering Help Expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased Giving Advice Reminding Responsibility 28.2% 27.1% 18.9% 18.6% 10.6% 9.4% Expressing Regret/ Grief Surprise/ Comforting/Encouraging Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness Offering Help 8.5% 4.2% and 0% 3.8% Expressions of positive feelings and compliments about the deceased Showing Concern 0% 2.9% Showing Concern Praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness 0% 1.3% Giving Advice and Reminding Responsibility Using poems, proverbs 0% 0.6% Using poems, proverbs saying, Least preferred saying, Table 10: Comparison of preferences of strategy between American and Vietnamese informants PART C: CONCLUSION 56 Review of the major findings On the theoretical background of speech act, politeness and in the light of cross-cultural communication, the researcher has conducted an investigation into Vietnamese and American informants’ choices of strategies to extend condolences in English The investigation shows that the two groups of informants have similarities and differences in choosing strategies when offering condolences The differences proceed from the specific features of the two cultures in general, and politeness norms and communication styles in particular The similarities illustrate that between the two, there exist some commonalities, which lay basic foundation for cross-cultural communication as well as for cultural exchange and integration In terms of politeness strategies in extending condolences to the bereavements, the study has grouped and investigated condolence strategies that the American and Vietnamese informants might use Of these suggested strategies, formal condoling, comforting/encouraging and expressing grief/regret/surprise are the most popular ones; though, while American respondents prefer comforting/encouraging strategy to expressing grief/regret/surprise, their Vietnamese counterparts use the latter strategy more Offering help and expressing positive feelings/compliments about the deceased are also often used by American, but Vietnamese use them with a lower frequency Giving advice/reminding responsibility, showing concern, praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness and using poems, saying, proverbs are the strategies which American not choose to employ in office setting since the two first strategies may disturb others’ privacy and the latter two are not suitable when offering condolence to their boss, colleague or employee Vietnamese, on the other hand, use all the four strategies They often use praying for God’s mercy and forgiveness strategy but rarely use giving advice/reminding responsibility and showing concern strategy, and scarcely use using poems/saying/proverbs strategy in the act of condoling in office setting 57 It can be obviously seen from these findings that Vietnamese use more condolence strategies than American Besides, the social factors such as age, gender, marital status, residence and occupation have a significant influence towards Vietnamese on the choice of condoling strategies in specific situations; nevertheless, they have little control over American’s choices of condolence strategies Limitations of the study First of all, there are some shortcomings in terms of informant in this paper Because of the lack of time and difficulty in accessibility, the researcher can only conduct the survey on a limited number of participations (35 Vietnamese and 32 American) and collect a limited number of valid survey (29 surveys done by VES and 25 surveys done by AES) Besides, the number of female participants is outnumbered the number of male ones The same situation is occurred in terms of respondents’ marital status: the single respondents are outnumbered the married ones Finally, the fact that the author only used one data collecting instrument (questionnaire) is also another limitation of this study The participants might not want to write down what they would say in real life since the time allowed to the survey is quite short (around 10 to 15’) Suggestions for further research This study is only a partial study on the act of extending condolences to the relatives of the deceased in office setting Many aspects still remain unanswered; hence, it would be interesting if the following studies on the act of condoling are conducted in terms of: • Cross-cultural dimensions: high context-low context, hierarchyequality, etc • Intra-linguistic factors: addressing forms, etc • Para-linguistic factors: rate, pitch, volume, etc 58 • Extra-linguistic factors: body language, object language and environmental language • Other settings: at the cemetery, at the deceased’s home, etc REFERENCES 59 Austin, J.L (1962), How to Do Things with Words, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press Brown, P & Levinson, S (1978, 1987), Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: CUP Carey, J W (1989), Communication as culture: Essays on media and society Boston: Unwin Hyman Clarke & Sanchez (2001), Cross-cultural Communication Retrieved Dec 10th 2011 from http://mainweb.hgo.se/amnen/interkommunikation.nsf/%28$all %29/94AA36B775E65F1DC125726600527731?OpenDocument Crystal, D (1985), A dictionary of 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New York: Basil Blackwell Dorn, R.I, (?), The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Retrieved Dec 10, 2011 from http://www.k12.wa.us/curriculuminstruct/communications/default.aspx Fania, M (2011), “May God forgive his sins”: Iranian strategies in response to an obituary note, Research Paper, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia Hall, E (1959), The silent language, Doubleday, New York Hannerz, U (1996), Trans-national connections London: Routledge Lakoff, R (1977), What you can with words: Politeness, pragmatics and performatives In R Rogers, R Wall & J Murphy (Ed.), Proceedings of the Texas Conference on Performatives, Presuppositions and Implicatures, , (pp 79–106) Arlington, Va.: Center for Applied Linguistics Lakoff, R (1990), Talking Power Basic Books Leech, G (1983), Principles of Pragmatics London & New York: Longman 60 Levine, R.L & Adelman, M.B (1993), Beyond language (2nd ed.), Prentice Hall, INC Martin, J N & Nakayama, T K (2010), Intercultural communication in contexts New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc Mills, S (2003), Gender and Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Quang, N (2006), Lecture-notes on Cross-cultural Communication CFL-VNU, Hanoi Searle, J R (1969), Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Searle, J R (1975), A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts, Günderson, K (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis, vol Shulka, I (2011), Importance of Communication Retrieved Jan 23, 2012 from: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importance-of-communication.html Spencer-Oatey, H (2008), Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory (2nd ed.) London: Continuum International Publishing Group Thơm, N (2005), A Vietnamese-American cross-cultural study on extending condolences to the relatives of the deceased – in office setting, MA Thesis, CFL-VNU, Hanoi Trang, N (2010), Apologizing strategies by American speakers of English and Vietnamese speakers of English, MA Thesis, CFL-VNU, Hanoi Vân, L (2010), A Vietnamese-American cross-cultural study of encouraging, MA Thesis, CFL-VNU, Hanoi Yule, G (1996), Pragmatics, UK: OUP Vietnamese 61 Quang, N (2002), Giao tiếp giao tiếp giao văn hóa, NXB Đại Học Quốc Gia Hà Nội Quang, N (2004), Một số vấn đề giao tiếp nội văn hóa giao văn hóa, NXB Đại Học Quốc Gia Hà Nội Quang, N (2005), Các chiến lược lịch dương tính giao tiếp ngơn từ Việt Anh, Đề tài nghiên cứu khoa học cấp Đại Học Quốc Gia Hà Nội APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE 62 This survey is designed for the study: “Condolence strategies used by American speakers of English and Vietnamese speakers of English in the office setting” Since the topic of this research is quite sensitive, your assistance in responding to the following questions is highly appreciated and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data The purpose of this questionnaire is to find out what you would say in each situation listed below In completing these questions, please choose the answers by putting a tick () or expressing your ideas in where appropriate Thank you very much for your support! Nationality: Your age: Your occupation: Gender: Male  Female  Highest level of education: High school Other   University  Your marital status: Married  Single   Rural  Your native language: Area where you spend most of the time: Urban SITUATION 1: How would you extend your condolences to the following person whose father/mother has suddenly passed away? a Your boss: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… b Your colleague: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… c Your employee: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… SITUATION 2: His/her father or mother has been ill for a long time and has just passed away How would you extend your condolences to that person if s/he is: 63 a Your boss: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… b Your colleague: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… c Your employee: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… SITUATION 3: How would you extend your condolences to the following person whose husband/wife has suddenly died of a fatal disease or accident? d Your boss: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… e Your colleague: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… f Your employee: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… SITUATION 4: How would you extend your condolences to the following person whose only child has been killed in an accident? a Your boss: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… b Your colleague: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… 64 c Your employee: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… SITUATION 5: His/her relative (uncle, aunt, cousin, etc.) has just passed away How would you extend your condolences to that person if s/he is: a Your boss: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… b Your colleague: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… c Your employee: - (your sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… - (your opposite sex): ………………………………………………………………………………… (Adapted from Nguyen T., 2005, A Vietnamese-American cross-cultural study on extending condolences to the relatives of the deceased – In office setting, MA Thesis, Vietnam National University) Thank you very much for your assistance! 65