Communication in family disputes: surveying American and Vietnamese movies = Giao tiếp trong tranh cãi gia đình (Khảo sát phim Mỹ và phim Việt). Degree of doctor of Linguistics: 62 22 15 01

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI VIET NGA COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY DISPUTES (SURVEYING AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES) GIAO TIẾP TRONG TRANH CÃI GIA ĐÌNH (KHẢO SÁT PHIM MỸ VÀ PHIM VIỆT) HANOI 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI VIET NGA COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY DISPUTES (SURVEYING AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES) GIAO TIẾP TRONG TRANH CÃI GIA ĐÌNH (KHẢO SÁT PHIM MỸ VÀ PHIM VIỆT) Field: English Linguistics Code: 62 22 15 01 A Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang HANOI 2015 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authority of the thesis submitted entitled COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY DISPUTES: SURVEYING AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES In fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgment in the text of the thesis Hanoi- 2015 Nguyen Thi Viet Nga ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my two supervisors, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do and Assoc Prof Dr Vo Dai Quang, for their valuable suggestions, guidance and encouragement throughout the course of this work, for their generous way of giving me time and constant willingness to help me with my thesis My gratefulness also goes to members of my committees at all levels of the research project (Prof Dr Nguyen Hoa, Prof.Dr Hoang Van Van, Prof Dr Nguyen Quang, Assoc.Prof.Dr Ngo Huu Hoang, Dr Huynh Anh Tuan) as they gave insightful comments and suggestions to my thesis I am also extremely thankful to Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, Former Dean of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for his knowledgeable suggestions, support, understanding and kindness without which I would not have finished this thesis I am greatly indebted to my colleagues at ESP Division, Faculty of International Affairs, Academy of Journalism and Communication for their ceaseless support and patience, creating all favourable conditions for me to the research Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents, my husband and my two sons who helped me endure many difficult times during the process of this study Without their constant love and encouragement, completion of this study would not have been possible ABSTRACT This thesis aims at yielding insights into the way American and Vietnamese people communicate during their family disputes, to find out similarities and differences between these two cultures in terms of disputing topics, escalation strategies and termination strategies Based on Hofstede’s (1990, 2001, 2010) theoretical framework of cultural dimensions, specifically Power distance, IndividualismCollectivism, Masculinity- Femininity, the study has identified impact of these dimensions on disputing stages between family members: initiation, escalation and termination “Dispute” in the thesis has been conceptualized as a dynamic interactional process which inaugurates with “arguable utterance- initial opposition” model, then progresses with mutual oppositions between disputants and ends with certain termination formats The thesis puts emphasis on analyzing two pairs of family relationships in American and Vietnamese movies: parent-child, and husband-wife They, in ages of 16-60, all live in urban areas Cross-cultural, cross-linguistic and discourse analysis approaches are combined to analyze data of movie dialogues Data analysis has been implemented on a revised and combined analytical framework suggested by Eisenberg & Garvey (1981), Maynard (1985), Hutchby (1996) and Vuchinich (1987,1990) From totally 4880 minutes of American movies and 5320 minutes of Vietnamese movies, the author categorized and selected 310 family disputes as samples Qualitative and quantitative methods are integrated to figure out a panorama of family disputes in two cultures The thesis has fulfilled the task of exploring the most common disputing topics and strategies that American and Vietnamese family members apply to achieve their goals in each disputing stage The language used for each strategy and cultural factors that affect strategies’ verbalization formats are also identified Hence, the similarities and differences between two languages and two cultures are disclosed Researching on family disputes provides a more comprehensive view of human communication, which is not only formed by consensus but also confrontation This thesis’s results, therefore, are beneficial to understand cultures and also have particular merit for cross-cultural studies and foreign language learning TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale New contributions and significance of the study Aims and research questions of the study Scope of the study Methodology Organization of the study PART CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Family defined 1.1.1 Family structurally defined 1.1.2 Family functionally defined 1.1.3 Family interactionally defined 1.2 Communication in family 11 1.2.1 Interpersonal communication 11 1.2.2 Strategies in communication 13 1.2.3 Communication and family relationships 15 1.3 Culture and family communication 17 1.3.1 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions 17 1.3.2 American culture 21 1.3.3 Vietnamese culture 23 1.4 Conceptualization of dispute 25 1.4.1 Related concepts to Dispute 26 1.4.1.1 Argument 26 1.4.1.2 Debate 27 1.4.1.3 Disagreement 28 1.4.1.4 Conflict 29 1.4.2 Dispute and family dispute 30 1.4.2.1 Concept of dispute 30 1.4.2.2 Dispute as one basic process in family communication 31 1.5 Reviewing related studies to disputes 33 1.5.1 Disputes among children 33 1.5.2 Disputes among adults 35 1.5.3 Disputes among family members 38 1.6 Summary 40 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 42 2.1 Research questions 42 2.2 Combined approach 42 2.3 Research methods 43 2.4 Data 45 2.4.1 Movie dialogues 45 2.4.2 Data selection criteria 48 2.4.3 Data collection procedure 49 2.4.4 Data description 49 2.5 Designing a framework for analysis 51 2.6 Coding system 54 2.7 Summary 58 CHAPTER 3: FAMILY DISPUTE INITIATION STAGE 59 3.1 Arguable utterances 59 3.2 Initial opposition 65 3.2.1 Recognizing initial opposition 65 3.2.2 Strategy of initial opposition 67 3.3 Concluding remarks 74 CHAPTER 4: FAMILY DISPUTE ESCALATION STAGE 76 4.1 Escalating strategies 76 4.1.1 Reprimanding…………………………………………… 77 4.1.2 Disassociating 84 4.1.2.1 Ignoring others 85 4.1.2.2 Denying common interest 86 4.1.2.3 Using inappropriate addressing forms 88 4.1.3 Swearing 95 4.1.4 Threatening 100 4.1.5 Challenging 103 4.1.6 Demanding 105 4.1.7 Interrupting 109 4.1.8 Sulking 112 4.2 Combination of escalating strategies 116 4.3 Concluding remarks 122 CHAPTER 5: FAMILY DISPUTE TERMINATION STAGE 124 5.1 Termination strategies 125 5.1.1 Solvable disputes 125 5.1.1.1 Submitting 125 5.1.1.2 Compromising 129 5.1.2 Unsolvable disputes 131 5.1.2.1 Standing-off 131 5.1.2.2 Withdrawing 135 5.2 Concluding remarks 136 PART 3: CONCLUSION 141 Recapitulation ….141 Major findings ….142 2.1 Similarities 142 2.2 Differences and cultural influences 144 Review on application of theoretical framework and analytical framework 146 Implications 148 Limitations of current study and suggestions for further research 150 REFERENCES APPENDICES APPENDIX iii APPENDIX iv APPENDIX v APPENDIX vi APPENDIX vii APPENDIX viii 10 ... OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI VIET NGA COMMUNICATION IN FAMILY DISPUTES (SURVEYING AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES) GIAO TIẾP TRONG TRANH CÃI... TRONG TRANH CÃI GIA ĐÌNH (KHẢO SÁT PHIM MỸ VÀ PHIM VIỆT) Field: English Linguistics Code: 62 22 15 01 A Thesis Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy... analyzing two pairs of family relationships in American and Vietnamese movies: parent-child, and husband-wife They, in ages of 16-60, all live in urban areas Cross-cultural, cross-linguistic and