Conversational openings and closings in office settings: A study based on American and Vietnamese movies

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ***** HOANG TRA MY CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES (Mở thoại kết thoại bối cảnh văn phòng: Nghiên cứu liệu phim Mỹ phim Việt) A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics HANOI – 2019 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES ***** HOANG TRA MY CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES (Mở thoại kết thoại bối cảnh văn phòng: Nghiên cứu liệu phim Mỹ phim Việt) MAJOR: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 9220201.01 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoang Van Van HANOI – 2019 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify my authority of the dissertation submitted entitled CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS: A STUDY BASED ON AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE MOVIES In fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Vietnam National University, Hanoi Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the dissertation Hoang Tra My HANOI, 2019 i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deep gratefulness and my sincere gratitude to many people without whose help the present dissertation could not have been completed First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Prof Dr Hoang Van Van, for his invaluable guidance, insightful comments, endless support and conscientious supervision Throughout the course of this work, I wish to express my deep indebtedness to him for his kindness of giving me useful feedback and advice regarding the dissertation as well as his constant encouragement to help me to overcome obstacles in accomplishing my dissertation I am also extremely thankful to Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, the Dean of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies for his knowledgeable suggestions, support, understanding and kindness My gratitude also goes to all the lecturers and examiners for their value support and scholar knowledge that I benefited from their teachings and lectures at all levels of the research project I particularly extend my warm thanks to Prof Dr Nguyen Hoa, Prof Dr Nguyen Quang, and Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien for their insightful comments and suggestions to my dissertation My sincere gratitude also goes to the personnel departments, administrators and language and informatics center of Mien Trung University of Civil Engineering for their generosity of creating all favourable conditions including time, financial supports, and permission for me to conduct the research Also, I am indebted to my friends and colleagues who have encouraged me to finish this study Lastly, I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my parents, my husband and my son for their support to help me overcome the obstacles and challenges during the process of accomplishing this study Also, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to my husband for his tolerance, endurance, patience, and supports for me as well as his devoted care for our little son when I am busy with this dissertation Without his immense help, love, encouragement and sacrifice, this work could not have been completed ii ABSTRACT Under the cross-cultural pragmatic perspective, this study aims at yielding insights into the way Americans and Vietnamese open and close a conversation in office settings Specifically, the purpose of this study is to identify opening and closing structures formed with sequences as well as verbal strategies employed in each sequence In addition, the justification and interpretation of conversational opening and closing processes are primarily grounded on the cultural background of the two languages Methodologically, the data are staff-manager conversations occurring in office settings and gathered in American and Vietnamese movies Qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in the present study The data are coded qualitatively and manually based on the concept-driven categories and data-driven categories Then, the recurrent patterns of conversational opening and closing sequences and strategies are quantified to assist the process of comparison and contrast between the two languages The dissertation discloses meaningful and practical findings Regarding the structures, conversational opening and closing sections in both languages are complete discourse structures Sequentially, opening sections are constructed with four sequences including summons-answer, greeting, phatic communion and topic initiation whilst closing sections are formed with three sequences namely topic termination, pre-closing and terminal exchange In terms of strategies, opening and closing strategies are analyzed in each sequence Totally, there are 26 opening strategies including three summons-answer strategies, four greeting strategies, 15 phatic communion strategies and four topic initiation strategies whilst there are 22 closing strategies including four topic termination strategies, 15 pre-closing strategies and three terminal exchange strategies These findings indicate that the main part of English and Vietnamese opening and closing sections is phatic talk, functioning to assist the transition to and from a conversation smoothly and politely In summary, from the findings of the study, significant applications and suggestions are given The close-knit relationship between language and culture as well as between language and power proved in the study suggests that language users need to acquire both linguistic and pragmatic input to master a target language The findings of the study are beneficial to Vietnamese learners and users of English, learners of Vietnamese as a foreign language and teachers because they serve as guidance for teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of figures ix List of tables ix CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and research questions of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Research methodology 1.6 Organization of the study CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction 2.1 Theoretical concepts 2.1.1 Conversation 2.1.1.1 The concept of conversation 2.1.1.2 Mundane and institutional conversations 2.1.1.3 Conversations in office settings 10 2.1.2 Conversational opening and closing 11 2.1.2.1 The concept of conversational opening 11 2.1.2.2 The concept of conversational closing 12 2.1.2.3 Opening and closing sequences 13 2.1.3 Phatic communion 15 2.1.3.1 The concept of phatic communion 15 2.1.3.2 Phatic communion in office settings 16 2.1.3.3 Phatic communion in conversational opening and closing 17 2.2 Cross-cultural pragmatics 18 2.2.1 Pragmatics and politeness theory 18 2.2.1.1 Pragmatics 18 2.2.1.2 The concepts of face and politeness 18 2.2.1.3 Politeness theory in conversational opening and closing 20 iv 2.2.2 Workplace cultures 21 2.2.2.1 High vs low context cultures 21 2.2.2.2 Power distance 22 2.2.2.3 Individualism-collectivism 23 2.3 Review of related studies 24 2.3.1 Previous studies on conversational opening 24 2.3.1.1 Telephone conversational opening 24 2.3.1.2 Greetings 25 2.3.1.3 Opening of different types of conversations 29 2.3.2 Previous studies on conversational closing 32 2.3.2.1 Conversational closing 32 2.3.2.2 Closing of different types of conversation 34 2.3.2.3 Face-to-face conversational closing 38 2.3.3 Previous studies on conversational opening and closing 40 2.3.3.1 Openings and closings of different types of conversation 40 2.3.3.2 Openings and closings of face-to-face conversations 43 2.4 Theoretical framework: concept-driven categories 45 2.4.1 Conversational opening sequences and strategies 45 2.4.2 Conversational closing sequences and strategies 47 2.5 Summary 51 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY Introduction 53 3.1 Research questions 53 3.2 Research methods 54 3.3 Data collection 55 3.3.1 Review of data collection methods 55 3.3.2 Justification for collection of scripted conversations 57 3.3.3 Justification for collection of data in office settings 58 3.3.4 Data selection criteria 59 3.3.5 Data collection procedures 61 3.3.6 Data description 61 3.4 Data analysis 63 3.4.1 Phases of content analysis 63 3.4.2 Pre-coding 64 v 3.4.3 Coding 65 3.4.3.1 Qualitative content analysis 65 3.4.3.2 Coding with concept-driven categories 66 3.4.3.3 Coding with data-driven categories 68 3.4.4 Analytical procedures 69 3.5 Summary 70 CHAPTER IV: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS IN OFFICE SETTINGS Introduction 71 4.1 English and Vietnamese opening structures in office settings 71 4.1.1 English and Vietnamese opening sequences in office settings 71 4.1.2 English and Vietnamese opening structures formed with sequences 75 4.1.2.1 English and Vietnamese one-sequence opening structure 76 4.1.2.2 English and Vietnamese two-sequence opening structure 79 4.1.2.3 English and Vietnamese three-sequence opening structure 84 4.1.2.4 English and Vietnamese four-sequence opening structure 87 4.1.2.5 The disorder of English and Vietnamese opening sequences 89 4.1.2.6 Concluding remarks 90 4.2 English and Vietnamese opening strategies in office settings 91 4.2.1 English and Vietnamese summons-answer strategies 93 4.2.1.1 Knocking on the door 94 4.2.1.2 Calling the other‟s address term 97 4.2.1.3 Using attention-getting tokens 100 4.2.1.4 Concluding remarks 100 4.2.2 English and Vietnamese greeting strategies 101 4.2.2.1 Using greeting verb 103 4.2.2.2 Calling the other‟s address term 108 4.2.2.3 Using time-bound greeting 111 4.2.2.4 Using greeting proper 112 4.2.2.5 Concluding remarks 112 4.2.3 English and Vietnamese phatic communion strategies 113 4.2.3.1 Referring to the other's state 116 4.2.3.2 Referring to the current situation/ work 117 4.2.3.3 Referring to previous task/ action 117 vi 4.2.3.4 Asking confirmation question 118 4.2.3.5 Inviting the other to sit down 119 4.2.3.6 Referring to oneself‟s state 120 4.2.3.7 Referring to personal life at home 121 4.2.3.8 Inviting the other to come in 122 4.2.3.9 Offering a drink 122 4.2.3.10 Expressing surprise 124 4.2.3.11 Referring to external circumstances/ objects 124 4.2.3.12 Expressing pleasure, expressing apology and expressing thanks 125 4.2.3.13 Asking/ checking for the other‟s availability for talking 126 4.2.3.14 Concluding remarks 126 4.2.4 English and Vietnamese topic initiation strategies 127 4.2.4.1 Asking for the reason of the talk 128 4.2.4.2 Telling the reason of the talk 129 4.2.4.3 Using disjunct markers 130 4.2.4.4 Using topic initiation devices 131 4.2.4.5 Concluding remarks 132 4.3 Summary 133 CHAPTER V: ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONAL CLOSING IN OFFICE SETTINGS Introduction 135 5.1 English and Vietnamese closing structures in office settings 135 5.1.1 English and Vietnamese closing sequences in office settings 135 5.1.2 English and Vietnamese closing structures formed with sequences 138 5.1.2.1 English and Vietnamese one-sequence closing structure 138 5.1.2.2 English and Vietnamese two-sequence closing structure 141 5.1.2.3 English and Vietnamese three-sequence closing structure 144 5.1.2.4 Concluding remarks 145 5.2 English and Vietnamese closing strategies in office settings 145 5.2.1 English and Vietnamese topic termination strategies 147 5.2.1.1 Using agreement tokens 147 5.2.1.2 Using disjunct markers 149 5.2.1.3 Asking for any further topic 150 5.2.1.4 Informing the ending of the conversation 150 vii 5.2.1.5 Concluding remarks 151 5.2.2 English and Vietnamese pre-closing strategies 151 5.2.2.1 Giving summaries/ results of the contact 153 5.2.2.2 Referring to future contact/ actions 154 5.2.2.3 Expressing gratitude/ thanks/ acknowledgement 155 5.2.2.4 Informing the other of the need to leave (reasons/ excuses) 156 5.2.2.5 Referring to external circumstances/ objects 157 5.2.2.6 Giving wish expressions 158 5.2.2.7 Expressing apology 159 5.2.2.8 Referring to the other‟s state 160 5.2.2.9 Referring to oneself‟s state 161 5.2.2.10 Assigning the other tasks/ actions 162 5.2.2.11 Allowing/ asking the other to leave 163 5.2.2.12 Paying the other a compliment 164 5.2.2.13 Undertaking a task 165 5.2.2.14 Reassuring the other 166 5.2.2.15 Encouraging the other 167 5.2.2.16 Concluding remarks 168 5.2.3 English and Vietnamese terminal exchange strategies 169 5.2.3.1 Saying goodbye 170 5.2.3.2 Asking the other‟s permission for leaving 171 5.2.3.3 Informing the other of the leaving 171 5.2.3.4 Concluding remarks 172 5.3 Summary 172 CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSIONS 6.1 Recapitulation 174 6.2 Conclusions 176 6.3 Implications 179 6.4 Limitations and suggestions for further research 181 REFERENCES 183 APPENDIX 201 viii