Using associative group analysis to investigate underlying cultural assumptions of American and Vietnamese

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE (SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP PHÂN TÍCH LIÊN TƯỞNG THEO NHĨM NHẰM NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC GIẢ ĐỊNH VĂN HÓA ẨN CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT) MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI – 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES - - PHẠM NGỌC LIÊN USING ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS TO INVESTIGATE UNDERLYING CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE (SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP PHÂN TÍCH LIÊN TƯỞNG THEO NHÓM NHẰM NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC GIẢ ĐỊNH VĂN HÓA ẨN CỦA NGƯỜI MỸ VÀ NGƯỜI VIỆT) MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Hạnh, PhD HANOI – 2017 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT I hereby certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled “Using Associative Group Analysis to Investigate Underlying Cultural Assumptions” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Hanoi 2017 Phạm Ngọc Liên i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Best of thanks to all those who helped along the way ii ABSTRACT This paper investigates the influences of intercultural exposure on schema, or more specifically, underlying cultural assumption shifting by applying Associative Group Analysis on three groups of Americans, Vietnamese students in a group called Hanoikids in Hanoi with frequent international exposure and Vietnamese students in Lao Cai province with little to none exposure The results show that although there are a few similarities between Hanoikids and the other groups, those are not systematic and/or can be explained by factors other than cultural identity It suggests that people from the same culture or country might have distinctive schema on even everyday concepts Thus, assumptions about a person based on where he/she comes from might prove to be misjudgments To avoid that, it is advisable that we also pay attention to the aspect of individuality on top of cultural identity in intercultural situations iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES Table 1.1: Numbers of words and total weighted scores of the three groups for each theme word 41 FIGURES SEMANTOGRAPHS Figure 1.1: Semantograph for the theme “Graduation” 15 Figure 2.1: Semantograph for the theme “A Good Job” 19 Figure 3.1: Semantograph for the theme “Ambition” 22 Figure 4.1: Semantograph for the theme “Moving out” 25 Figure 5.1: Semantograph for the theme “Parents” 29 Figure 6.1: Semantograph for the theme “Happiness” 31 Figure 7.1: Semantograph for the theme “Freedom” 34 Figure 8.1: Semantograph for the theme “LGBT” 36 Figure 9.1: Semantograph for the theme “Travel Around the World” 39 WORD CLOUDS Word cloud 1.1 & 1.2: Word clouds for the theme “Graduation” from Hanoikids and American respondents 16 Word cloud 2.1 & 2.2: Word clouds for the theme “A Good Job” from Hanoikids and American respondents 20 Word cloud 3.1 & 3.2: Word clouds for the theme “Ambition” from Hanoikids and American respondents 23 Word cloud 4.1 & 4.2: Word clouds for the theme “Moving out” from Hanoikids and American respondents 27 Word cloud 5.1 & 5.2: Word clouds for the theme “Parents” from Hanoikids and American respondents 30 iv Word cloud 6.1 & 6.2: Word clouds for the theme “Happiness” from Hanoikids and American respondents 32 Word cloud 7.1 & 7.2: Word clouds for the theme “Freedom” from Hanoikids and American respondents 35 Word cloud 8.1 & 8.2: Word clouds for the theme “LGBT” from Hanoikids and American respondents 37 Word cloud 9.1 & 9.2: Word clouds for the theme “Travel Around the World” from Hanoikids and American respondents 40 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS vi INTRODUCTION 1 Identification of the problem and rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methodology CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Literature review 1.1.1 Culture and intercultural competence 1.1.2 Schema and underlying cultural assumptions 1.2 Previous Studies CHAPTER ASSOCIATIVE GROUP ANALYSIS: METHOD AND PROCEDURE 10 2.1 Research groups 10 2.2 The Associative Group Analysis method and procedure 10 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 15 3.1 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Graduation” 15 3.2 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “(A) Good Job” 18 3.3 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Ambition” 22 3.4 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Moving out” 25 3.5 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Parents” 28 3.6 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Happiness” 31 vi 3.7 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Freedom” 33 3.8 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “LGBT” 36 3.9 Main features of the three groups’ responses for the theme “Travel Around the World” 38 3.10 Finding Summary and Discussion 40 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 46 4.1 Findings 46 4.2 Implications 47 4.3 Limitations 47 4.4 Suggestions for further studies 48 REFERENCES 49 APPENDICES I Appendix English Survey Form I Appendix Vietnamese Survey Form II vii INTRODUCTION Identification of the problem and rationale Terms such as “the American culture”, “the Vietnamese culture” or “the Japanese culture” are ubiquitous in our daily life and even research articles These terms seem to indicate that each country has only one uniform culture, which, if not everyone, then at least the majority of people in it would share This kind of assumption often appears in intercultural situations, such as the one below between two Hanoikids members, the students who work as free tour guide in Hanoi, and their American guests The audio was recorded in an attempt to gather data for this research exclusively American (A1): Russians, they’re not that nice They're really cold Hanoikids (H1): Yes, as cold as their weather A1: And then Vietnamese are as warm as their weather (both laugh) H1: Yeah, so Africans are the most… the friendliest in the world A1: Uhm I think so We've been there a few months, they're very friendly H1: I went to the south, Nha Trang and Phan Thiet That's the place in Vietnam where there're many Russian tourists A1: Really? H1: Because they have a straight flight from Russia to the city [ ] H1: So for Russians - they're really beautiful but they're not that friendly, uhm, so I went there, not during the summer vacation - I just took some days off Hanoikids (H2): To Nha Trang? H1: Yeah, I went travelling but after that we had a kind of tourism presentation so we conducted a kind of survey to ask the tourists and ask if they could record But when we Word cloud 9.1 & 9.2: Word clouds for the theme “Travel Around the World” from Hanoikids (left) and American respondents (right) The word clouds give us another perspective While the top replies for Hanoikids are money (nine times), free and dream (six times each), the Americans’ are exciting as well as learn(ing) (six times each), and Vietnamese’s are go abroad (ten times) and fun (nine times) From the above analysis, we can conclude that the three groups view the act of travelling around the world under different lights The U.S residents in this research appear to consider it to be an exciting experience to learn and explore, as well as enjoy freedom Hanoikids members also share this mindset, but with more worry about financial matters regarding the trip, as well as stronger yearning to go The Vietnamese surveyed just express their excitement to go abroad, away from their regular residence 3.10 Finding Summary and Discussion For all nine themes, the weighted score per respondent order does not change: Hanoikids’ takes the top, succeeded by the Americans’, and the Vietnamese’s takes the last place 40 Ambition U.S HNKs VN Graduation U.S HNKs VN A good job U.S HNKs VN Number of words 61 93 22 Number of words 57 82 18 Number of words 62 60 25 Total weighted score 348 426 215 Total weighted score 389 401 311 Total weighted score 373 409 318 Weighted score per respondent 10.9 13.3 6.7 Weighted score per respondent 12.2 12.5 9.7 Weighted score per respondent 11.7 12.8 9.9 Parents U.S HNKs VN Happiness U.S HNKs VN Freedom U.S HNKs VN Number of words 63 80 28 Number of words 56 87 16 Number of words 60 99 18 Total weighted score 377 432 310 Total weighted score 375 418 133 Total weighted score 348 407 215 Weighted score per respondent 11.8 13.5 9.7 Weighted score per respondent 11.7 13.1 4.2 Weighted score per respondent 10.9 12.7 6.7 Travel around the world U.S HNKs VN LGBT U.S HNKs VN Moving out U.S HNKs VN Number of words 63 76 24 Number of words 58 79 13 Number of words 44 80 20 Total weighted score 372 410 222 Total weighted score 369 422 179 Total weighted score 370 428 247 Weighted score per respondent 11.6 12.8 6.9 Weighted score per respondent 11.5 13.2 5.6 Weighted score per respondent 11.6 13.4 7.7 Table 1.1: Numbers of words and total weighted scores of the three groups for each theme word One notable feature of the table is that the weighted score per respondent of both groups of Hanoikids and the Americans not have a large fluctuation range (for Americans: 10.9 to 12.2, for Hanoikids: 12.5 to 13.5, both not exceeding 1.3 points), whereas the last group does (4.2 to 9.9: 5.7 points) This means that the level of association varies for the Vietnamese group more than it does for the other two To be more exact, this group scores higher in less abstract items (“Parents”, “Graducation” and “A good job”) while substantially lower in more abstract items (“Happiness”, “Freedom”, “Ambition”) or relatively foreign/recently introduced 41 concepts, at least to the Vietnam society (“LGBT”, “Moving out” and “Travel around the world”), while the same pattern does not seem to occur to the two remaining groups The degree of vocabulary diversity also differs for each group To be precise, the order is the same with that of the weighted score per respondent: Hanoikids’ answers are remarkably diverse in terms of vocabulary (averagely 81.8 words/terms per theme), followed by the Americans’ (58.2), whereas the Vietnamese group’s is considerably lesser (20.4) This suggests a greater degree of uniformity in association for the Vietnamese group However, this could well be a result of the different survey collection method: while the other groups completed the survey by means of an online survey form, which confirms their individuality in answering the survey; the Vietnamese group completed the paper form in close proximity with each other, which means they could have copied each other’s answer As regard to the nine proposed themes, each of the three groups does show distinctive traits The U.S residents in this survey demonstrate the tendency to relate to the aspect of achievements and advancements in their associations Hanoikids are more for the materialistic aspects: words like money, rich, expensive appear in almost all themes, not to mention they occupy quite some space in the word clouds The last group – the Vietnamese, displays inclination to mention family relationship, even in theme words not directly linked to this kind of relationship like “A good job” The aforementioned three traits appear in other groups but to a much lesser degree This can be interpreted as the differentiating priority/readiness to come to mind of each group As has been stated in the detailed analysis of each theme word, there is almost no clear resemblance in the association patterns of the three groups Even in items where Hanoikid’s seems to resemble that of the Americans or the Vietnamese, the degree of association (judged by weighted scores and percentages) is not entirely the same, or could be offered an alternative explanation rather than the cultural 42 factors To illustrate this point, among the similar concerns they share with the Vietnamese groups and not the Americans are family relationship (theme “Moving out”) and the concern for a degree (theme “Graduation”) The similarity here can be accounted for by the fact that the age groups of the two’s respondents are closer two each other (averagely 19.41 for Vietnamese, 23.12 for Hanoikids compared to 32.63 of the Americans), both belonging to the group of adolescences bordering on young adults This is the age in which most people are still in college or have just finished it, thus explains the concern for degrees The same goes for the association of family relationship – these young people are still more or less dependent on their parents for their living, therefore might have closer bonds with their families than the older, more independent Americans This might also be the case for the American – Hanoikids similarities: rather than cultural influences, there may be another factor interfering with the results For instance, these two groups share a supportive stand regarding the LGBT community, however, it does not necessary mean an influence of the American culture on Hanoikids members One feasible explanation is that because Hanoikids acquire better English skills and/or live in a big city, where lots of activities and movements surge, leading to first, the access of more LGBT supportive materials, which is not abundant in Vietnamese and second, the exposure to the LGBT community itself via movies, music or direct contact (not necessarily from the U.S.) that the Vietnamese group, being much less of urbanists, does not enjoy The influence on the supportive viewpoint of Americans could be totally different: the U.S has been rather accepting and sympathetic towards the LGBT community for quite some time, dating back to the hippie movements of the 70s Still, such similarities are slight and unsystematic There is no clear indication of Hanoikids being a transition between the American and the Vietnamese groups: as has been explained, any group-to-group similarities are more demographical rather than cultural, and are rare and not quite significant (Hanoikids does score a middle value in some categories, but most of those are the general ones like “judgments”, 43 “attributes” or “feelings”, which means that while the significance of association is indeed in the middle, the association itself can be contradicting to the other groups, as both positive and negative associations are branded under the same category) Indeed, Hanoikids, as noted above, has their own priorities and associations particular to their group – hence, they are not really a transition between the other two groups, but a distinctive, unique group with their own characteristics, which cannot be linearly inferred by matching the other two and assigned the midpoint Putting aside the group-to-group comparisons, in-group responses to each theme also prove diverse, or even opposing In most response pools, there could be negative and positive judgments in the same group’s responses Take the theme “Happiness” for example: in Americans’ responses there are both positive judgments like good or essential, and negative ones like overrated or commercialized Even within the group of highest uniformity, the Vietnamese one, there are dividing opinions, such as the attitude and judgments regarding the LGBT community: not discriminate or agree versus disgusting, terrible All in all, whilst the analysis relies on the idea of common schemata for each research group, it shows just the opposite: the complexity and diversity in the mindset of the individuals It is a commonly accepted assumption that people from a certain culture should think and behave in a certain way, which pictures culture as a single-colored, irresistible force with absolute power on individuals The result suggests just the opposite While culture unarguably exerts a powerful impact on people, it is only one among many factors that affect an individual’s mindset, way of thinking, beliefs, behaviors and priorities Exposure to international, and thus, intercultural experiences does not essentially make homogeneous impacts on different individuals – the outcome depends on various individual and environmental factors Hence, it is more accurate to say that rather than belonging to a country, or a certain geographical unit, cultures vary according to different factors, including demographical traits, individual characteristics and living 44 experiences, which interplay with each other to create different outcomes Each person takes up more than one set of cultural values at once, and these manifest differently in each individual 45 CHAPTER CONCLUSION The research was constructed to investigate how geographical residency, native cultures and intercultural experiences influence an individual’s underlying cultural assumptions To be more specific, it seeks to answer the following questions: a, To what extent people from each nation share the same culture? How does this culture affect its people in terms of underlying cultural schemata? b, How would exposure to international and/or intercultural situations impact individuals? 4.1 Findings The data collected and analyzed by the AGA method offers insights into the problems raised in the first section of the thesis, which are culture, identity and the impact of intercultural exposure Firstly, from the case of two groups from Vietnam, namely the Hanoikids group and the Vietnamese group, where their association patterns differ greatly despite their shared nationality, and as often inferred, shared culture While a national culture is still possible, this suggests that cultures might not be bordered by nations only This contradicts the generalization previous studies often made, that is the result of studying a group might be employed to draw the inferences for all people in the same culture, not to mention the same country In fact, people from the same country, even with the same intake of culturally specific materials, still have diverse backgrounds and experiences, thus unique interpretations of the materials, which might explain the differences demonstrated in this study On the same line of thoughts, the striking oppositions of responses in the same group also disprove of the idea that a specific culture would exclusively define individuals’ values, beliefs and mindsets It is safer to say that culture is just one among many factors that shape the personal identity 46 Intercultural exposure is also one of the mentioned factors Its degree of impact might be said to not be linear to its frequency: the Hanoikids group, who enjoys a significantly greater degree of intercultural exposure than its Vietnamese counterpart, does not demonstrate any clear inclination to resemble the Vietnamese group’s priority in terms of associations, nor does it to the foreign group of Americans One might argue that Hanoikids could have been exposed to other cultures which affect their responses as well, and that would explain the deviation from both remaining groups – however, if that is the case, then it proves even more that intercultural exposure’s impact is volatile and unpredictable, rather than definite, as even with relatively equal degree of exposure, any two persons could hardly experience the same intercultural situations, leading to possibly erratically different results To conclude, to judge a person based on his or her nationality or culture could possibly bring great misconceptions, since cultures as we define belong to groups, and each person can belong to various groups and develop his or her own unique set of personal values which are not quite encapsulated in any single culture In other words, one of the key characteristics of culture should be individuality 4.2 Implications Culture plays an important part in our time of globalization While it cannot be denied that cultural assumptions might work to some degree, such assumptions might as well prove to be incorrect in specific contexts, as they not apply to every individual from that culture They should only serve as a source of reference rather than confirmed truths 4.3 Limitations There are several limitations to the study due to the researcher’s limited resources First, as has been stated in the methodology section, the different methods of data collection (online surveys and printed forms) as well as the different languages used 47 in the questionnaires (English and Vietnamese) could affect the results Ryan (2010) points out that a word or phrase in a language might not be entirely translatable to other languages due to the possibility of it carrying unique nuance In addition, the Hanoikids group has to answer the survey in English, which is not their native language – this might lead to misunderstandings and limitations in vocabulary choices English is also not the native language of the researcher, thus, occasional misinterpretations are unavoidable Another notable point is that the implication that associations represent underlying cultural schemata could prove to be faulty under certain circumstances As the meaning of a word can vary in different contexts, a respondent, at the point of writing the responses, could possibly be under the influence of a specific event that temporarily changes the way his or her normally would picture the given concept (Bovasso et al., 1993) This and the phenomenon of polysemy would also lead to questionable validity of the categorizing of words, especially in case of ambiguous denotations 4.4 Suggestions for further studies As the research is only limited to two small groups of Vietnamese and one groups of the U.S residents, further researches may investigate more groups and diversify their background and level of intercultural exposure for a more conclusive results The number of theme words may also be increased to emphasize the distinctive trends of associations, and thus, underlying cultural assumption traits of each group It is also advisable that further researches should include specific contexts and theme for the whole study, i.e., the theme words should belong to a certain theme and the participants should also possess a degree of understandings about the theme This would allow the researchers to make sense of the responses and categorize them with higher accuracy 48 REFERENCES Arasaratnam, L A., & Doerfel, M L (2005) Intercultural communication competence: Identifying key components from multicultural perspectives International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29, 137-163 Bartlett, F C (1932) Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Bloom, B S (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook I: The cognitive domain New York: David McKay Bovasso, G., Scalay, L Boase, V., & Stanford, M (1993) A graph theory model of the semantic structure of attitudes Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 22, pp 411-425 Byram, M (1997) Teaching 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Yes/No Nationality: Age: Gender: Male/Female/Other: Have you ever had any international experiences? (International experiences/situations count as any kind of interaction you exchange with a person from another culture/country (exchanging conversations, working, befriending etc.) Yes/No If the answer to the above question is yes, please estimate the frequency of which you get exposed to international situations (as defined above) in the last five years, or as of recently Only one or twice in total About once or twice in a year About once or twice a quarter About once or twice a month More often than all options above Other: Please list out the first words (about THREE - FIVE single words) you think of when you hear/read each of the word below Please not change your answers once they have been typed out A sample answer: [given word] Animal cat, cute, friendly, pet, feed, etc Graduation: A good job: Ambition: I Parents: Moving out: Friendly: Happiness: Freedom: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT): Travel around the world: Appendix Vietnamese Survey Form Tiếng Việt có phải ngơn ngữ mẹ đẻ anh/chị khơng? Có/Khơng Nếu câu trả lời cho câu hỏi có, anh chị giao tiếp (nghe - nói) mức tiếng Anh khơng? Có/Khơng Quốc tịch: Thành phố anh/chị sống: Tuổi: Giới tính: Nam/Nữ/Khác: Anh/chị có trải nghiệm liên văn hóa chưa? Trải nghiệm quốc tế/liên văn hóa tính tất hoạt động tương tác với người đến từ quốc gia hay văn hóa khác (nói chuyện, làm việc, kết bạn, vân vân) Có/Chưa Nếu câu trả lời cho câu hỏi có, mức độ thường xun tương tác liên văn hóa mà anh/chị trải nghiệm năm năm nay, thời gian gần đây, bao nhiêu? Tổng cộng - hai lần Một - hai lần năm Một - hai lần quý Một - hai lần tháng II Thường xuyên đáp án Khác: Hãy liệt kê từ anh/chị nghĩ tới (khoảng NĂM từ) anh/chị nghe thấy/đọc từ ngữ sau Xin vui lịng khơng thay đổi câu trả lời sau anh/chị hồn thành Một câu trả lời ví dụ sau: [từ cho] Động vật mèo, dễ thương, thân thiện, vật nuôi, cho ăn, vân vân Tốt nghiệp: Một công việc tốt: Tham vọng: Phụ huynh: Chuyển riêng: Thân thiện: Hạnh phúc: Sự tự do: Đồng tính nam, đồng tính nữ, song tính chuyển giới (LGBT): Du lịch vòng quanh giới: III