Telephone conversation openings in english and vietnamese (from a language cultural perspective

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES TRAN THI THANH HUONG TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (FROM A LANGUAGE-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE) Mở đầu hội thoại qua điện thoại tiếng Anh tiếng Việt (Nhìn từ góc độ ngơn ngữ văn hóa) M.A MINOR THESIS Major: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 HANOI - 2009 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ THANH HƯƠNG M.A MINOR THESIS TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (FROM A LANGUAGE-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE) Mở đầu hội thoại qua điện thoại tiếng Anh tiếng Việt (Nhìn từ góc độ ngơn ngữ văn hóa) Major: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Assoc Prof.Dr Nguyễn Văn Độ HANOI - 2009 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 2 Aims of the study Scope of the study Theoretical / practical significance of the study Methodology DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Language and culture 1.2 The historical development of telephone conversations 1.3 Conversation Analysis and Telephone Conversations 1.4.Culture and telephone conversations Chapter 2: TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS AS COMMUNICATIVE ACTS 11 2.1 General structure of telephone conversation openings 11 2.1.1 Conversation opening structure 11 2.1.2 Telephone conversation openings 12 2.2 Cross-cultural Communication and Telephone Openings 17 2.2.1 Opening sequence in other cultures 17 2.2.2 Telephone openings in other cultures 18 Chapter 3: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS 21 3.1 The receiver’s first turn - individual moves 21 3.1.1 Summon-answer sequence 21 3.1.2 Identification-recognition sequence 23 3.1.3 Greeting sequence 26 3.1.4 How-are-you sequence 27 v 3.2 The caller’s first turn - individual moves 29 3.2.1 Summon-answer sequence 29 3.2.2 Identification-recognition sequence 30 3.2.3 Greeting sequence 32 3.2.4 How-are-you sequence 33 CONCLUSION 35 Recapitulation 35 Concluding remarks 35 Implications for teaching English telephone conversation openings 37 Suggestions for further research 38 REFERENCE I APPENDIX IV INTRODUCTION The beginning of conversations has received much attention in the fields of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversation analysis Conversation analysis of telephone conversations is a fairly well established area of investigation, beginning in the late 1960s with Schegloff dissertation on conversational openings Since that time, a numerous researchers have advanced the study on telephone conversations (Godard, 1977; Schegloff, 1979; Schegloff, 1986; Sifianou, 1989; Lindström, 1994; Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1991; Hopper, 1992) The study of conversation openings, particularly on the telephone, has become prominent for the following particular reasons: a) Openings are interactionally compact and brief (Schegloff, 1986:112) b) Generally, at the beginning of a conversation, participants may utilize conversational strategies or “routines” to negotiate interpersonal relationships (Gumperz, 1982:142; Schegloff, 1986:113) This also counts for the beginnings of conversations on the telephone, as co-participants have resources available to them to manage identification and recognition of one another c) Schegloff (1972, 1979, and 1986) describes telephone conversation openings in American English in terms of an ordered set of four core opening sequences: (1) the summons-answer sequence; (2) the identification-recognition sequence; (3) the exchange of greeting tokens (Hi/Hi), and (4) the how-are-you sequence Accomplishing these tasks or “routines” is the focus of the first utterances in telephone conversation openings d) Another important feature of telephone conversation openings is that they have a "perfunctory" character (Schegloff, 1986:113) In other words, in opening a telephone conversation, participants go through these routines in a rather automated manner However, in all the studies I have examined Vietnamese is absent in the literature Gumperz (1982:166) notes that while speech activities exist in all cultures, there might be differences in the ways particular activities are carried out and signaled Using Conversation Analysis (CA) as the methodology, this study illustrates the cultural characteristics of the format and interactional routines of opening conversations on the telephone in Vietnamese and English languages to determine to what extent this data fits within Schegloff‟s theoretical model of sequencing in telephone openings At the same time it will illustrate how the cultural differences within telephone conversation openings may interfere with speaker‟s intentions and expectations when talking on the phone Finally, the relevance of my investigation for second language teaching and learning will be highlighted Rationale The telephone is the primary electronic medium for interpersonal communication and telephone communication has an indispensable element of everyday life Due to the lack of visual communication, at least in the normal use of this medium, linguistic information is foreground Thus, telephone conversation is a challenge to anybody learning a foreign language and remains a sensitive area in intercultural encounters, even for those who have mastered the basics of a foreign language and culture Inexperience in dealing with live interactive telephone conversations in the target language can also be a serious problem for some second language learners They need opportunity to listen to, interpret and sum up what they hear in a series of authentic recorded phone conversations Their listening can be greatly facilitated if they are exposed to authentic telephone conversations and also taught the conversational structures and options as well as formulaic expressions Telephone call openings represent an ideal object of study for cross-cultural pragmatics research Since these social encounters are very specific and strongly constrained by technology, the range of actions that can be performed in them is limited so that one can thus observe how different cultures and languages vary in their realization of the same interactional routine That is why this paper chooses telephone conversation openings for the study Aims of the study The study aims: 1) To find out standard formulas used in beginning telephone conversations among English and Vietnamese speakers as suggested by Schegloff 2) To discover how culture affects the ways English and Vietnamese start their telephone conversations 3) To draw an implication in English teaching for Vietnamese students Scope of the study I restrict my study on formal business telephone conversation openings and informal personal ones which are used by people doing different jobs and at different ages Theoretical / practical significance of the study In general, telephone conversation openings in both English and Vietnamese follow the same routine as Schegloff suggested However, there is slight difference between English and Vietnamese In English telephone openings there is higher formality, but Vietnamese language has more variants which depend on age, power and relationship between speakers and people from different backgrounds have different ways to start a telephone conversation Methodology The research presented in this paper is based on data in English textbooks and 50 questionnaires on telephone conversation openings All questionnaires were made by 20 English and 30 Vietnamese speakers, ranging in age between 18 to over 60 years old The telephone calls include conversations between acquaintances, colleagues, relatives and friends In doing so, the participants were asked to fill in the questionnaires sent to them by e-mail and given in person I also did interview some of them The first descriptive stage of analysis led to the identification of recurrent patterns in the data and the recognition of the most evident cross-cultural differences In a subsequent phase, systematic comparison across languages was carried out by a quantitative analysis based on the core sequences framework presented above It is through such cross-cultural comparisons that the great relevance to second language learning will be realized Statistics is also used for this study to find out the differences between English and Vietnamese languages using in telephone conversation openings For a better understanding of how the ritual “how are you” sequence in English and Vietnamese telephone conversation openings, Conversation Analysis (CA) is used as the appropriate method for investigation of foreign language interaction The English translation is provided next to the original talk DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Language and culture Language can be included in our primary needs It seems that we can not live without a language, because it can make our life easier Talking about a language we have to connect it with communication, because by uttering language we have made communication with other people „Language is the most sensitive indicator of the relationship between an individual and a given social group; it permeates our thinking and way of viewing the world‟ (Kramsch 1998: 77) Language can be defined as form of individual competence, in actual dialogues or discourses, among groups or individuals, as a cultural system, and in numerous other ways (Humphrey Tonkin, Language and Society, No 178 2003- 2004) According to Levinson (1977; 22), language helps us to express our emotion and attitudes, to get information, to build relationship with other people, to complain, to give solution, etcetera There are many interpretations of culture It can be examined from a point of view of many disciplines: anthropology, linguistics, sociology, communication, fine arts, etc The term culture refers to the customs and expectations of a particular group of people; particularly it affects their language use Tylor defined culture as „that complex whole which include knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society‟ (Tylor 1871:1 in Heather Joan Bowe, Kylie Martin 2007: 2) The relationship between language and culture has long been a major concern in both anthropology and applied linguistics The work of North American anthropologists Edward Sapir (e.g 1947), and later Benjamin Whorf (1956), and their stories of how the languages of particular language communities mirror their particular views of reality, have wielded, and in many quarters continue to wield, considerable influence on debates in the social sciences on the nature of such a relationship There have been questions on whether and to what extent language reflects and determines the world-view of a particular culture Later, Gumperz writes that speakers of the same language may find themselves separated by deep cultural gaps, while others who speak distinct languages share the same culture (Holliday, Hyde, Kullman; 2005: 74-75) „Language and culture not drive each other, but co-evolve in the same relationship‟ (M K Halliday 1992: 11) Each language is adapted to a unique cultural and social environment, with striking differences in usage patterns (Bauman & Sherzer 1974) Through language culture affects the way we think (Gumpezs and Levison, 1996: 1) Language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives When it is used in contexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways First, the words people utter refer to common experience They express facts, ideas or events that are communicable as they refer to knowledge about the world that other people share Words also reflect their authors‟ attitudes and beliefs, their points of view But members of a community or social group not only express experience; they also create experience through language They give meaning to it through the medium they choose to communicate with each other, for example, speaking on the telephone or face-to-face, writing a letter or sending an e-mail message, reading the newspaper or interpreting a graph or a chart The way in which people use the spoken, written, or visual medium creates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through a speaker‟s tone of voice, accent, conversational style, gestures and facial expressions Language is also a system of signs that have a cultural value Speakers identify themselves and others through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of their social identity (Kramsch 1998: 3) In other words, there is a strong relationship between language and culture 1.2 The historical development of telephone conversations Robert Hopper states in his book “Telephone conversation” (1992: 25) that the history of the telephone is tied to our rediscovery of human speaking During the first decade of the twentieth century, Ferdinand de Saussure, based on previous philologists and grammarians‟ research on ancient written texts, found a new science describing facts of speech And today we reverse Saussure‟s lectures as a turning point in the history of thought, a moment of rediscovery The basic technology of human speaking may not have changed very much since we became humans We discovered speech communication a very long time ago But the certain features of telephone experience remained mysterious to us until 1960s, when the founders of conversation analysis combined the telephone with the tape recorder There are reflexive relationships between our understanding of speech communication and developments in telephone technology Telephone experience creates a new consciousness about spoken language and the telephone teaches us that communication happens when speech travel between pairs of individuals (Hopper, 1992: 24) 1.3 Conversation Analysis and Telephone Conversations Historically, conversation analysis began in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a sub discipline of sociology CA researchers focused on describing the organizational structure of mundane, ordinary conversations, which may be defined as the kind of casual, social talks that routinely occurs between friends and acquaintances, either face-to-face or on the telephone (Markee, 2000: 24) Conversation analysis is the study of talk More particularly, it is the systematic analysis of the talk produced in every day situations of human interactions or talk-in-interaction It is to discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turn at talk, with a central focus being on how sequences of actions are generated (Hutchby Ian and Wooffitt Robin, 1998: 13-14) Conversation analysis describes and explains the ways in which conversations work to answer the question “how is it that conversational participants are able to produce intelligible utterances, and how are they able to interpret the utterances of others?” Analysis of conversations is the interest of many scholars as conversation is probably the basic form of communication According to Levinson (1983: 282), „conversation is clearly the prototypical kind of language use, the form in which we are all first exposed to language – the matrix for language acquisition.‟ (David Nunan: 84) Conversation analysis is the outstanding empirical tradition in pragmatics, because its data remain open to any investigator inspection Any reader may test the claims by inspecting the transcriptions and recordings used as exemplars (Hopper, 1992:10) From the very beginning, conversation analysis has been closely linked to the analysis of telephone conversations Conversation analysis focuses on the common, everyday competencies that make everyday social interaction possible The general strategy in conversation analysis is to examine actual verbal interactions and recorded telephone conversations were much used (Holtgraves, 2001: 92) Conversation analysis is especially applicable to the study of telephone speech and telephone conversation is among the easiest interaction to tape record The participants English speakers identify a little more than Vietnamese with varying proportions (90%) of the times in English and (86%) of Vietnamese Frequency of identification is in table 24 Vietnamese people working in offices always identify themselves as well as the name of their business if they are at work The percentage here is 43% 27% of those who work as teacher or have their own business sometimes give identification about their names Students and shop owners rarely give identification And 14% of those who are old aged pensioners never identify themselves (Table 1) However, language used for identification depends on situations whether they use mobile or table telephones and recognize the number or not, and relationship between speakers, and the work they or in other words, their status 3.1.3 Greeting sequence Another frequently occurring move in the receiver‟s first turn is greetings whose lexicalization and meaning differ in various ways For example, while in English the greeting must be appropriate to a specific time of the day (good morning, good afternoon, good evening) Vietnamese just „Chào‟ for the whole period of day While good morning in English is valid until noon, and is then followed by good afternoon Furthermore, while English includes a generic and relatively informal greeting such as hallo or hello, which can also be heard as a channel opener, Vietnamese greet each other in various ways which depend on their relationship (Good morning uncle/ brother/ sister (Chào bác, anh, chị, em ); or asking a question is also a kind of greeting „Anh à? Chị à? (Is that you?) English The figure reported for English includes only 10% of greetings such as good morning and good afternoon Hello/hi raises the proportion of turns with greetings 90% (see table 1) In English the greeting must be appropriate to a specific time of the day (good morning, good afternoon, good evening) Receiver: Good morning Laporta Caller: Mr Laporta? This is Stephanie Strahl Thank you very much for your quote for the Literatura furniture I‟d like to place an order Receiver: Shifali Mane Caller: Good morning, Mrs Mane This is Peter Brien Receiver: Good morning Mr Brien How can I help you? Caller: I‟m calling about our appointment 25 (Hollett Vicki, 1996:186) The greeting Good morning can be followed after the receiver‟s answer Receiver: Hello Rosalind Any mail this morning? Caller: Good morning, Tony Yes, there is – a letter from our head office in (Grant David and McLarty Robert, 2001:168) Greeting sometimes can be the first utterance without summons-answer and identification as the speakers use mobile telephone Receiver: Hi, Dad Caller: Hello, Matt How are you? Receiver: I‟m fine, thanks We‟re in Bolivia now (Hutchinson Tom, 1999:124) Vietnamese Receiver: Mẹ à, (Mom, this is me) Caller: Hương hả? Con đâu đấy? (Is that Huong? Where are you?) In Vietnamese language greetings are various in different situations and relationship between the speakers After recognizing who is at the other end of the phone, the receiver greets him/her differently depending on the relationship with each other 43% of participants greet the caller by asking a question „Is that (caller‟s name and title) 18% greet the caller „Good morning Mr.Mrs (chào anh/ chị)‟ 17% greet the caller „Good morning Mr/Mrs (Chào anh/ chị) How are you?‟ Another 18% use „This is A‟ and then greet the caller 7% just ask „What are you doing?‟ 3.1.4 How-are-you sequence This move is found almost exclusively in the British corpus How-are-you is the question usually asked after recognition of the caller and the called English Receiver: Hello Is that David? Caller: Yes, speaking Is that Monique? Receiver: Yes Hello David How are you? Caller: I‟m fine In another situation, a colleague phones Piera on the Moday after her trip He asks her about it 26 Receiver: Hi Piera, this is Charle How are you? Caller: Fine, thanks Receiver: When did you get back from Washington? This move can also consist in the receiver stating their availability to the caller‟s requests, as in „(How) can I help you?‟ English is the language in which this move is most often produced, being present in receivers‟ first turns Examples like the following are uttered in a variety of offices and businesses, of various sizes and in different areas of the United Expressions like „(How) can I help you?‟ seem to be not just stereotyped routines, frozen politeness formulas, but rather a way of actually expressing the receiver‟s orientation towards the caller‟s needs This can be seen quite clearly in the following example Receiver: HK Oil and Gas How can I help you? Caller: Could I speak to Dian Wong, please? Or in the following example „How can I help‟ can be expressed in a little different formula but with the same meaning Receiver: Hello Mr Stephansson This is Natasha Hall again Caller: Hello, Ms Hall What can I for you? (Grant David and McLarty Robert, 2001:167) Receiver: Health Helpline, how can I help? Caller: Yeah, I‟m not feeling very well I wonder if you might be able to help me (Cunningham and Moor; 2005: 170) „How are you‟ is somewhat a formula using to ask people‟s health and is considered as greeting Among 30 people who did the questionnaire and whom I interviewed 15% said they always say „How are you‟ in their conversation 45% sometimes ask and 30% ask only when necessary The smallest number 10% rarely say „How-are-you‟ Vietnamese However Vietnamese language does not have the equivalence of the formula „(How) Can I help you?‟ In some cases people who such services like in the reception desk of some certain companies they may say „Tơi giúp ạ?‟ which is the translation of „(How) 27 Can I help you?‟, but this does not sound common to Vietnamese speakers Instead they just identify themselves: „ABC Company listening – Công ti ABC xin nghe ạ‟ Some people always ask the caller „Dạo em nào? (How are you these days); Có khỏe khơng? (Are you well?) Cơng việc nào? (How is your recent work?) The percentage is (27%) of the participants But in other cases, they sometimes ask or only when necessary (see table 1) 3.2 The caller’s first turn - individual moves After having examined how receivers answer the phone, in the next sections I will focus on callers‟ first turns, beginning with an analysis of individual moves followed by the description of the most common turn formats in English and Vietnamese languages which are summarized in table 3.2.1 Summons-answer sequence In both English and Vietnamese, callers usually take the second turn in telephone conversations The callers speak first only when there is no answer at the other end of the line Speaker of different language have different ways for summons-answers English has words that can be used both as channel openers and greetings, namely Hello/Hi Their basic function is that of an informal greeting, which was subsequently extended to the role of signal in phone conversations Receiver: Hello, sales Caller: Hello, I‟m interested in your video cassette recorders (Bruce Kay, 1987: 62) Summons-answer Hello/Hi may be used on its own (80%) or in combination with another greeting formula, which is usually a more formal and explicit greeting (20%) as you can see in table However in some situation summons-answer is omitted, especially in business calls people sometimes go directly to their purpose of the call: Receiver: Powerglide Systems Caller: I‟d like to speak to Emma Wood, please/ Receiver: Who‟s calling please? (Hollett Vicki, 1994:161) Vietnamese language is quite complicated in using pronouns and making telephone openings 28 The summons-answer is usually „Alo‟ (60%) Summons can be followed by identification in the first turn of the caller: „Alo, A nghe (Alo, I‟m listening (24%) or „Alo Excuse me, is that A?‟ which is (10%) In Vietnamese the summons may be „Dạ‟ (Yes) This utterance is often used by those who are younger in the family They say „Da‟ to their parents, older sisters or brothers, and even to anyone they know who are older than them Some people are so strange to start the conversation as the caller with „Ai (ạ)‟ (Who is it/ who is speaking‟ which I myself often receive When I pick up the phone and say „Alo‟ the other person ask me „Who is it?‟ They say that perhaps because they not recognize the person they call after hearing the summons „Mẹ à?‟ (Mom?), „Đây rồi‟ (this is me), „Mai hả?‟ (Is that Mai?), „Ơi, em à‟ (Yes, is that you‟, etc are also common summons-answers among Vietnamese speakers 3.2.2 Identification-recognition sequence When it comes to identification, considerable differences emerge among the two languages, as can be seen in table English callers not often give identification Only 20% say they always identify themselves when making a phone call 80% say that they sometimes identify in certain situations and in certain situation with certain person English not self-identify, if receiver has identified her/himself Receiver: Powerglide Systems Caller: I‟d like to speak to Emma Wood, please The principle that comes into play is that even if they not know each other, speakers need to introduce themselves before starting to talk about anything Receiver: Bob Shaw Caller: Hello, Bob This is Victoire I‟m just phoning about your presentation next week (Hollette Vicki, 1994: 163) In this specific instance the caller gives her identity because she is calling to communicate his presentation next week Although her identification will be explicitly requested by the receiver later in the call, the caller also provides it spontaneously in her first turn Here the caller‟s self-identification may also be seen as prompting recognition from the interlocutor 29 Apart from these more specific cases, it seems that English callers don‟t find lack of selfidentification particularly accountable In these contexts an asymmetry is produced whereby the receiver‟s identification is preferred and required, while that of the caller can normally be omitted In other words, callers are automatically and implicitly recognized by their interlocutors as (possible) customers and this seems to be taken as sufficient for the conversation to proceed Receiver: Hello 87549 Caller: Hello, Marcia Receiver: Hello, darling This is a nice surprise (Hutchinson Tom, Lifelines Intermediate, 1997: 141) Identification can be followed by a request: Caller: Hello, could I speak to Mario Maleta Please? It‟s Chirs Stutton Receiver: Hello, Mr Sutton I‟m sorry, but Mr Maleta isn‟t here today here In some situation when callers know exactly who they are calling identification is not necessary (Mary rings and Alan picks up the phone) Caller: When can we get together to discuss a few things, Alan? Receiver: Just a minute, let me get my diary Right This week? Caller: OK We need about two or three hours Vietnamese usually identify when making a phone call 30% of the participants agree that they always give identification when making a phone call Receiver: Alo Caller: Alo, Hương Mẹ à? (This is Hương Mom?) People who run their business and work in offices always identify themselves and their place of work Receiver: Alo Caller: Alo, Lợi Khách sạn Thanh Ngân (Alo, I‟m Loi Thanh Ngan Hotel speaking) Generally people identify themselves when necessary (50%) They say that it is not polite if you not give identification when start a telephone conversation Only 7% of the 30 participants say they never identify themselves as they always know the person they call and the other person also recognize them, so identification is not necessary 3.2.3 Greeting sequence Greetings are a very frequent move in callers‟ first turns When the second greeting form is also produced, it reinforces the greeting made in the first form, so that its main role is that of channel opener In English Hello is used with another greeting form, which can be seen in table English callers seem to be quite uniform in their behavior They often (20%) ask „Hello/ Hi How are you?‟ or after hello/hi they mention their name with the figure I gathered is 30% The formula „Hello, receiver‟s name‟ and „Good morning/ afternoon/ evening‟ are equally used with 20% „Hi (caller‟s name) How are you doing?‟ takes only 10% In fact, the most common turn format by far is a greeting directly followed the reason for call Otherwise, in other cases, greetings may be omitted and the caller begins by simply stating their request This however occurs only after a receiver‟s offer of availability, which in a certain way urges the caller to rush to the request, as in the following example Receiver: Hello, Sales Caller: I‟d like to speak to Helena Steiner, please (Hollette, 1996: 182) Vietnamese greet each other differently depending on their ages and relationship They the same in telephone conversations „Is that receiver‟s name and title (anh, chị )‟ is often used (27%) as a greeting, not identification If they recognize the receiver they just greet the receiver (chào anh/ chị + (name) whose percentage is 23% Receiver: Alo? Caller: Alo Cháu chào chú/ Chào A (Hi uncle) 17% of the callers may greet receivers with (Chào anh/ chị ) and then ask „How are you?‟ Receiver: Alo? Caller: Chào anh A Anh khoẻ không? (Hello Mr A How are you) 31 They sometimes (20%) give identification „This is (caller name) and then greet the receiver Receiver: Alo? Caller: Em Hương Em chào thầy (This is Huong speaking Good morning teacher) Some people greet the other by asking a question Receiver: Alo? Caller: Đang làm đấy? (What are you doing) 3.2.4 How-are-you sequence English people usually say „how are you‟ after they recognize the people they call Monique calls David: Caller: Hello Is that David? Receiver: Yes, speaking Is that Monique? Caller: Yes Hello David How are you? Receiver: I‟m fine In real life conversations, the four steps of a typical may be expressed in the first turn of a caller like in the following example: A colleague phones Piera on the Monday after her trip and asks her about it Caller: Hi Piera, this is Charles How are you? Receiver: Fine, thanks (Grand and McLarty, 2001:165) In other cases, how-are-you sequence is not just asking the other about their health but showing the availability to talk Receiver: Good morning, AA insurance My name‟s Carol How can I help you? Caller: Hello I‟d like a quotaton for car insurance (Hutchinson, 1997:132) Upon hearing „How can I help you?‟ callers have two competing motivations in producing their first turn They might reciprocate the greeting, which was however produced quite a while before in the receiver‟s first turn, but they also have to provide a second pair part to the request to formulate how they wish to be helped, which is the most recent move in the 32 interaction It is thus not surprising that this latter format may somehow push them to skip greetings in order to answer as soon as possible the receiver‟s question When asked people said they sometimes ask „how are you‟ in their telephone conversation, see table Vietnamese people ask about other people‟s health only when necessary (43%) 27% say that they always ask „How are you‟ when call someone Receiver: Alo? Caller: Alo, Nam à? Dạo có khỏe khơng? (Is that Nam How are you?) How are you sequence is common in Vietnamese telephone conversation because Vietnamese people often take great care of other people in their family, their friends, neighbours In dayily conversations they also often ask others about their health It is considered as an indespensible character in Vietnamese culture 33 CONCLUSION Recapitulation I examined the data by doing a simple count of how many of the categories for openings (Schegloff 1968) appeared in the data, and in what combinations to get an idea of how closely my information fit with the extant theories of universal functions I found examples of all four of the opening sequences suggested by Schegloff in my data In the table below, I summarize the number of occurrences of each sequence found in all 50 samples of telephone conversations If we look at the number, there appears to be a strong fit with Schegloff‟s suggested categories which are summons-answer, identification, greeting and how-are-you sequence 90% of the English samples include summons-answer sequence Vietnamese summons are a bit different with 13% of the receivers who start their telephone calls without summonsanswer „Alo‟ The callers use summons „Alo‟ in most cases (84%) However, they use other speeches such as „This is (caller name) speaking‟, „Excuse me, is that ‟, „Yes‟ or just greet the other person using appropriate pronouns according to their relationship After the counting step, I returned to look more closely at the actual text to find examples in support of both concordances and differences between the data and the current theories It is through this textual approach that specific cultural idiosyncrasies can be identified, and this will provide the most useful information for application to second language learning and teaching After all, highlighting similarities and differences between one‟s own culture and another bring them to conscious awareness Once someone is consciously aware of something, it is much easier for him/her to learn and remember that information and to have it consciously accessible when it is needed Concluding remarks Although telephone call openings appear at first sight to be a relatively simple and invariable routine, there is actually great variation in the way they are realized across languages, institutions and individuals Every time we open a phone call, we must find an appropriate way to various contextual variables These constraints are weaker on the receiver‟s side, as his or her first turn is not dependent on previous talk, which explains the lesser variety found in these turns 34 However, even such cases may exhibit a degree or variation; depending on how close one is to the phone, on the activities one may be engaged with when the phone is ringing, on the calls that were made in the preceding seconds or minutes, and so on The caller‟s task is more complex, as his or her turn is contingent upon previous talk by the receiver and must be tailored to the variety of requests to be made Even among speakers of the same language there is thus a high variability in the way telephone calls begin The present study has shown that there are no single ways in which speakers of a language open a telephone call English language performs higher formality whereas Vietnamese has more variants which depend on age, power and the relationship between speakers Vietnamese people answer the phone with a simple „Alo‟, a format that is virtually absent English service calls Other differences are less evident, and only a careful analysis can make them apparent Other areas of non obvious differences concern the linear order in which various moves occur within turns In English there is a strong tendency for greetings to occur at the beginning of the receiver‟s first turn, a format that is much rarer in Vietnamese where greetings are produced at the end of the turn or in any case after uttering the place and/or receiver‟s identity Such findings may influence intercultural communication training programs in several ways First, one should acknowledge the fact that there is no standard way of answering the phone Even a relatively widespread pattern - identifying and greeting - is realized in the reverse order in at least English From this follows the dubious validity of training programs based on literal translations of materials originally written in other languages An opening like „good afternoon ABC company „Can I help you?‟, which is quite natural in the UK and uttered even in small businesses, becomes not natural when it takes the Vietnamese form “Tơi giúp ạ?” which strongly contrasts with the usual patterns for that language, characterized by very short turns in the opening phase Students study English should thus be made aware of the peculiarities of the pragmatic routines in each of the languages spoken, including their own native language This would make them realize what is unmarked appropriate behavior and what might be seen as more or less sanctionable deviations from such standards, both on the receiver‟s and the caller‟s end Opening a telephone call is just one small communicative ritual in professional daily life, although a frequent and important one There are hundreds, thousands, of similar 35 rituals which display such cross-cultural variation, and it would be virtually impossible to provide in-depth training for each one of them However, taking one exemplar case like telephone calls and unraveling all of its complexity might be a way to sensitize workers to the fine details of cross-cultural variation in communicative rituals Implications for teaching English telephone conversation openings to Vietnamese learners Wolfson (1989: 96) emphasizes the importance of knowing different cultural norms when one is learning a foreign language: “This little rule, as insignificant as it may seem, is extremely important to the learner who might, if not shown how two frames work, use the wrong one and thereby be misunderstood.” Such knowledge feeds into a learner‟s communicative and pragmatic competence in the target language and cultures, as noted above Such studies provide concrete information to teachers who must teach the norms of daily English and Vietnamese usage to their learners Although there are some small tasks in the listening parts in many English textbooks are telephone conversations, at a pragmatic level, communicative competence on telephone is something that is not currently emphasized in most English education curricula This data could also be used as a comparative tool to teach English to Vietnamese learners, if it is used in a supplementary, comparative or contrastive fashion conjunction with the English data they need to learn A final possible use of such studies is to provide a practical example of an every day situation which all students encounter, as a springboard to a lesson on differences and similarities between the native culture and the target culture The above are just some possible implications of telephone conversation openings Clearly it is an open-wide field, and I believe researchers and educators can and should find ways to explore and apply it in all its variety inside and outside the classroom Suggestions for further research I realize that there are limitations to my own work The most significant of these is the small size of my data samples Due to the small sample, my conclusions can be considered suggestive rather than conclusive Because it is such a preliminary work, I fell it is important to study more on Vietnamese language in making telephone openings as Vietnamese is lacking in literature Additionally, it is hoped that my own contribution will 36 offer some ideas for other researchers to follow, so that they may design more crosscultural studies which include Vietnamese language ... between English and Vietnamese languages using in telephone conversation openings For a better understanding of how the ritual “how are you” sequence in English and Vietnamese telephone conversation. .. openings appear at first sight to be a relatively simple and invariable routine, there is actually great variation in the way they are realized across languages, institutions and individuals... the matrix for language acquisition.‟ (David Nunan: 84) Conversation analysis is the outstanding empirical tradition in pragmatics, because its data remain open to any investigator inspection Any