Nghiên cứu chiến lược khích lệ được sử dụng bởi ban giám khảo trong hai chương trình truyền hình thực tế american idol 2010 và vietnam idol 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER ENCOURAGING STRATEGIES BY JUDGING PANELS IN TWO REALITY SHOWS: AMERICAN IDOL 2010 & VIETNAM IDOL 2010 Supervisor: Lại Thị Thanh Vân, M.A Student: Nguyễn Thị Nga Class: 08.1.E14 HANOI - 2012 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC KHÍCH LỆ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG BỞI BAN GIÁM KHẢO TRONG HAI CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRUYỀN HÌNH THỰC TẾ: AMERICAN IDOL 2010 VÀ VIETNAM IDOL 2010 Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Lại Thị Thanh Vân Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Nga Khoá: 08.1.E14 HÀ NỘI - 2012 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Ms Lai Thi Thanh Van who suggested, commented, and guided me during the process of carrying out this study I would not be able to finish my study without receiving her enormous help Also, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my friends at University of Languages and International Studies for their encouragements Last but not least, I am grateful to my family, especially my brother, whose support and encouragements did play such an important role in the success of my study Nguyen Thi Nga ABSTRACT This graduation paper is a study of cross cultural study of using verbal encouraging strategies by judging panels in the two reality shows: American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010 It aims to investigate: What are the common strategies American & Vietnamese judging panels use to express verbal encouragement to the candidates in American Idol 2010 & Vietnam Idol 2010? What are the similarities and differences in the ways American & Vietnamese judging panels apply these strategies in the two reality shows? The author carried out this research based on eight galas of the two favorite realty shows: American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010, which were all shown on television as well as various internet sources The encouraging utterances employed by American and Vietnam panels were noted down and categorized into nine encouraging strategies The researcher then analyzed the collected data with the help of qualitative and quantitative methods The results of the study show that encouragement is a complex speech act, which is performed with a variety of strategies Due to the data analysis, the author can investigate some significant similarities as well as differences in the choices and frequencies of use of these strategies by two groups: American and Vietnamese examiners Hopefully, this study can be considered as a useful source of reference for related researches in the future TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………….…i Abstract…………………………………………………………………… … … ii Table of contents…………………………… ………………………… ………… iii List of tables……………………………………………………………………… vi List of figures…………………………………………………… ………….…… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………… 1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study……………… Research aims and research questions…………………………………… Significance of the study…………………………………………………… Scope of the study………………………………………………………… Organization…………………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………….…… Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………….……… 1.1 Cross- cultural communication……………………………………… 1.1.1 Culture ………………………………… ………………………… 1.1.2 Communication ……… …………………………………………… 1.1.3 Cross cultural communication…………………………………….… 1.2 Speech acts…………………………………………………………….… 10 1.2.1 Definition of speech acts…………………………………………… 10 1.2.2 Classifications of speech acts……………………………………… 11 1.2.3 Encouraging as a speech act…………………………………… … 13 1.3 Reality shows………………………………………………………… 14 1.3.1 Definition………………………………………………………… 14 1.3.2 Idols series………………………………………………………… 15 Chapter 2: METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 17 2.1 Research design……………………………………………………… …… 17 2.1.1 Selection of subjects………………………………………………… …… 17 2.1.2 Methods of the study……………………………………………………… 17 2.1.3 Procedures of data collection…………………………………………….… 18 2.1.4 Procedures of data analysis………………………………………………… 18 2.2 Analytical Framework…………………………………………………… 18 Chapter 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings………………………………………………………………… 24 3.2 Discussion……………………………………………………………… 30 PART C: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………… 42 Summary of findings…………………………………………………… 42 Implications …………………………………………………………… 43 Limitations of the study………………………………………………… 44 Suggestions for further studies………………………………………… 45 REFERENCES……………………………………………………….…… … 46 APPENDICES: Transcripts… ………………………………………….….… I Appendix A: American Idol 2010……………………………… … I Appendix B: Vietnam Idol 2010……………………………………….… XXX LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: The five general functions of speech acts (following Searle 1979)……………………………………………………………………… ……… 13 Table 3.1: Use of encouraging strategies by the American panel in American Idol 2010 ………………………………………………………………………………… 30 Table 3.2: Use of encouraging strategies by the Vietnamese panel in Vietnam Idol 2010………………………………………………………………………………… 32 Table 3.3: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel………………………………………………………………….……………… 35 Table 3.4: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel…………………………………………………………………….…………… 35 Table 3.5: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel………………………………………………………………….……………… 36 Table 3.6: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel………………………………………………………………….……………… 36 Table 3.7: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel…………………………………………………………………….…………… 37 Table 3.8: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel……………………………………………………………………….………… 37 Table 3.9: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel………………………………………………………………… …………… 38 Table 3.10: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel…………………………………………………………………………… … 38 Table 3.11: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel…………………………………………………………………… ………… 38 Table 3.12: Frequency of preferred encouraging strategies for American and Vietnamese panels………………………………………………………………………………… 41 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Diagram of components of communication (Nguyen Quang, 2001: 9)…………………………………………………………………………………… Figure 3.1: Use of encouraging strategies by the American panel in American Idol 2010……………………………………………………………………………… 30 Figure 3.2: Use of encouraging strategies by the Vietnamese panel in Vietnam Idol 2010……………………………………………………………………… ……… 33 Figure 3.3: Use of encouraging strategies by American panel and Vietnamese panel…………………………………………… ………………………………… 34 Figure 3.2: Use of encouraging strategies by the Vietnamese panel in Vietnam Idol 2010 (Note: Strategy = Alleviating hearer’ hard feeling, Strategy = Offering help or reward, Strategy = Giving advice, Strategy = Predicting bright prospect, Strategy = Complimenting hearer, Strategy = Showing understanding and sympathy, Strategy = Reminding hearer’ responsibility, Strategy = Suggesting things to do, and Strategy = Stating facts.) Here are some typical examples: - Em làm tơi hài lịng Em vừa phải từ cách hát đến cách biểu diễn em biết nhấn nhá để hát hay ( Siu Black – Studio Round 3: Un Linh) - Tơi thích em số tất thí sinh (Quốc Trung – Studio Round 3: Trung Quân) - Tôi thích thí sinh biết lên bậc, em thí sinh (Siu Black – Gala 1: Đinh Vương Linh) - Riêng em, anh thấy em có tiến anh thích cách em chọn hát (Quang Dũng – Gala 2: Bích Phương) - Em hát tiến qua vòng (Quốc Trung – Gala 3: Lân Nhã) - Em làm tốt.( Siu Black – Gala 4: Văn Mai Hương) - Em hát hay (Quốc Trung – Gala 5: Uyên Linh) - Em thông minh em chọn hát (Siu Black – Gala 6: Đăng Khoa) Following is the figure illustrating the use of the nine encouraging strategies by American and Vietnamese examiners: Figure 3.3: Use of encouraging strategies by American panel and Vietnamese panel (Note: Strategy = Alleviating hearer’ hard feeling, Strategy = Offering help or reward, Strategy = Giving advice, Strategy = Predicting bright prospect, Strategy = Complimenting hearer, Strategy = Showing understanding and sympathy, Strategy = Reminding hearer’ responsibility, Strategy = Suggesting things to do, and Strategy = Stating facts.) In general, both American and Vietnamese judges try to use different ways to verbally encourage the contestants Surprisingly, they are fond of employing strategy 5, strategy 3, strategy and strategy most Moreover, strategy is employed by neither American nor Vietnamese examiners However, there are still some significant differences in the ways they apply these encouraging strategies The author now specifically analyzes their use of each strategy as follows:  Strategy 1: Alleviating hearer’s hard feelings Table 3.3: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.12% (1/796) 0.92% (4/435) As illustrated in the table above, when encouraging the contestants, both the American and Vietnamese judges just make a little use of strategy The frequency of this strategy accounts for quite a low percentage in the distribution with just about 0.1% by the American panel It also accounts nearly 0.9% by the Vietnamese ones  Strategy 2: Offering help or reward Table 3.4: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.00% (0/796) 1.15% (5/435) At first glance, it can be seen clearly from table that while this strategy is not used by the American panel, its frequency of use by the Vietnamese one is nearly 1.2% Although this percentage is not high, it shows evidence that Offering help or reward is among one of the options that the Vietnamese judges consider when giving verbal encouragement  Strategy 3: Giving advice Table 3.5: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 6.15% (49/796) 27.59% (120/435) As can be seen from table 6, there exist a contrast between the American panel and the Vietnamese panel in the use of this strategy when just about 6.2% of American utterances are giving advice, in comparison with nearly 27.6% of Vietnamese ones To put it in another way, Vietnamese judges use this strategy nearly five times as often as American ones  Strategy 4: Predicting bright prospect Table 3.6: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 4.90% (39/796) 7.58% (33/435) Table shows significant differences in the use of strategy between American panel and Vietnamese panel In spite of being chosen by both groups, the percentage of strategy applied by the Vietnamese panel considerably exceeds that by the American panel This strategy is used by the Vietnamese judges totally 33 times out of 435 utterances, which accounts for approximately 7.6% Meanwhile, it is less favored by American judges, with only 4.9%  Strategy 5: Complimenting hearer Table 3.7: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel American panel Vietnamese panel Strategy 87.95% (700/796) 58.62% (255/435) It can be seen from table that strategy is the most favored by both groups of judgment However, there is a little bit difference between the American panel and Vietnamese one in applying this strategy Table reveals that nearly 60% of Vietnamese utterances are Complimenting hearer In the meantime, this percentage in the American panel is as high as approximately 88%  Strategy 6: Showing understanding ad sympathy Table 3.8: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.63% (5/796) 3.91% (17/435) As shown in the table above, strategy is used with different frequencies between the two groups Just about 0.6% of American encouraging utterances use this strategy, whereas it is much more favored by Vietnamese panel, (nearly 3.9%) In other words, the Vietnamese panel members use this strategy approximately six times as frequently as the American group  Strategy 7: Reminding hearer’s responsibility Table 3.9: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.00% (0/796) 0.00% (0/435) As can be seen in Figure 4, strategy is the only one which is not employed by both the American panel and the Vietnamese one  Strategy 8: Suggesting things to Table 3.10: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.25% (2/796) 0.00% (5/435) The figure from the table shows that only the American judges apply strategy 8, which accounts for nearly 0.3% when encouraging the contestants It proves that Vietnamese judges are not interested in using this strategy while American ones pay a little attention to it  Strategy 9: Stating facts Table 3.11: Use of strategy by American panel and Vietnamese panel Strategy American panel Vietnamese panel 0.00% (0/796) 0.23% (1/435) As for strategy 9, only the Vietnamese examiners take it into consideration with approximately 0.2% By contrast, this strategy is not exploited by the American panel 3.3 Concluding remarks about major cross cultural similarities and differences From the comparison in the prevalence of the use of encouraging strategies by the American and Vietnamese panels in the previous part, some significant similarities and differences between the two groups in the ways they employ encouraging strategies are now distinguished As indicated in the data analysis above, the Vietnamese panel make use of more strategies than the American one when of strategies are used by the Vietnamese group while the American one not employ strategy (Offering help or reward), strategy (Reminding hearer’s responsibility) and strategy (Stating facts) Interestingly enough, strategy (Complimenting hearer), strategy (Giving advice), strategy (Predicting bright prospect) and strategy (Showing understanding and sympathy) are the most, second most, third most and forth most frequently used strategies respectively in both the American and Vietnamese groups Moreover, both groups are not fond of strategy (Reminding hearer’s responsibility) when encouraging the contestants However, as a coin has both sides, some differences could be investigated in the use of encouraging strategies by the American panel and the Vietnamese panel First and foremost, American examiners tend to give more encouraging utterances in each performance night than Vietnamese ones On average, each American panel member uses or utterances when encouraging a contestant while the number of utterances fluctuates from to for a Vietnamese one Secondly, there is a big gap between the frequencies of strategy (Offering help or reward), strategy (Suggesting things to do) and strategy (Stating facts) in the American group and those in its counterpart While strategy and strategy are not used by the American panel, both of them are paid attention to by the Vietnamese one By contrast, although strategy is one of the most common strategies utilized by the American judges, the Vietnamese ones not use this strategy to give verbal encouragement Last but not least, strategy (Alleviating hearer’ hard feelings), despite being taken into consideration by both groups, still presents the remarkable differences Evidently, the frequency of applying this strategy between the two groups is different when the percentage by the Vietnamese group is higher than that by its counterpart Besides, the way the Vietnamese panel members alleviate the contestants’ hard feelings is likely to be more flexible than the other group In brief, the overall use of strategies including similarities as well as differences can be shown in the following table: Table 3.12: Frequency of preferred encouraging strategies for American and Vietnamese panels American panel Strategy Percentage (5)Complimenting 87.95 hearer Vietnamese panel Most preferred Strategy Percentage (5)Complimenting 58.62 hearer (3)Giving advice 6.15 (3)Giving advice 27.59 (4)Predicting 4.9 (4)Predicting 7.58 bright prospect (6)Showing bright prospect 0.63 (6)Showing 3.91 understanding and understanding and sympathy sympathy (8)Suggesting 0.25 (2)Offering things to (1)Alleviating 1.15 or reward 0.12 (1)Alleviating hearer’s hard hearer’s feelings feelings (2)Offering help help 0.92 hard 0.00 (9)Stating facts 0.23 0.00 (7)Reminding 0.00 or reward (7)Reminding hearer’s hearer’s responsibility (9)Stating facts 0.00 Least preferred (8)Suggesting 0.00 things to PART C: CONCLUSION This study is carried out with the aim of finding out how the American and Vietnamese panels verbally encourage the contestants in the two reality shows named American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010 More specifically, its purpose is to find out the answers to the two following research questions: What are the common strategies American & Vietnamese judging panels use to express verbal encouragement to the candidates in American Idol 2010 & Vietnam Idol 2010? What are the similarities and differences in the ways the American & the Vietnamese judging panels apply these strategies in the two reality shows? The main findings, the implications, limitations of the research paper as well as suggestions for further studies will be presented in this part Summary of the main findings The study investigates the ways the American and Vietnamese panels verbally encourage the contestants, based on the nine main encouraging strategies given by Van (2010: 30): Alleviating hearer’ hard feeling, Offering help or reward, Giving advice, Predicting bright prospect, Complimenting hearer, Showing understanding and sympathy, Reminding hearer’ responsibility, Suggesting things to do, and Stating facts In general, the American and Vietnamese panel members have nearly the same set of strategies used to verbal encouragement However, the preference for each strategy is culturally different There are two typical similarities between American and Vietnamese panels in their use of encouraging strategies In fact, strategy (Complimenting hearer), strategy (Giving advice), strategy (Predicting bright prospect) and strategy (Showing understanding and sympathy) are the most favorite ones employed by American and Vietnamese panels when encouraging the contestants It may be due to the fact that these strategies are the most powerful and energetic ones to encourage hearers Moreover, during the process of the contestants’ competition, both the panel groups might discover the contestants’ increased awareness of their responsibilities It could be the reason why the two cultures share the same point of view in not applying strategy 7(Reminding hearer’ responsibility) In terms of distinctions, some interesting facts are investigated First and foremost, American panel give more encouraging utterances to the contestants than Vietnamese one What is more, the findings are persuasive enough for the researcher to conclude that American panel members give compliments more frequently than Vietnamese ones in particular and Eastern people in general In addition, Vietnamese examiners tend to pay more attention to the weakness of the contestants to give advice than American ones Also, Vietnamese ones are likely to be more future-oriented and sympathetic with higher frequency of use of Predicting bright prospect and Showing understanding and sympathy than American ones Last but not least, that American panel members not employ strategy 2, and strategy when encouraging the contestants might be due to the fact that American people tend to devote to individualism and privacy They are trained to be independent and self-supporting in any cases so offering help or reward and stating facts may not be highly appreciated In summary, encouraging is considered as a complex speech act, which is performed with a variety of strategies In spite of using a lot of similar strategies, American and Vietnamese panels are different in the preference for certain strategies over the others Implications The findings of this study aims to build readers’ greater awareness of encouraging strategies that encouraging is a common but complex speech act which may be conceived by the nine different strategies and employed in different ways by the American and Vietnamese panels in the two reality shows American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010 The study, therefore, is expected to provide for viewers, especially Vietnamese ones who are interested in these two reality shows, a critical look into the cultural factors leading to these differences Moreover, the author carries out this research with high expectation that it contributes to help English learners master how to encourage others in their real lives Last but not least, this study can be considered as a useful source of reference for related researches in the future Limitations of the study Despite of working hard to conduct this study, the author still has to complete it with some following ineluctable limitations To begin with, due to limited time and restricted sources of information, the author can only carry out the research mainly based on eight episodes/galas of each reality show As a result, it is just persuasive enough for the researcher to make reasonable assumptions, according to corroborative evidences, instead of coming to any absolutely right conclusion In addition, Vietnam Idol is one of various versions coming from the famous reality show called Pop Idol which was created by Simon Fuller However, versions of Vietnam Idol are mainly based on American Idol which is well known all over the world As a result, Vietnamese reality show makers have to make certain adaptations so that it becomes more suitable for Vietnamese viewers It, therefore, partly affects the employment of encouraging strategies by the Vietnamese panel, which is far away from my level of understanding Also, because of limited time, the author can only focus on verbal encouragement but not nonverbal ones In fact, encouragement is also expressed by a variety of aspects in communication such as paralanguage (tones of voice…), extralanguage (body language…) Suggestions for further studies In fact, this study only focuses on verbal encouraging strategies by the American and Vietnamese panels If there is another chance, the author will take nonverbal encouraging behaviors, which are as important as verbal encouraging ones, into serious consideration Therefore, it is expected for me as well as other researchers who are interested in this topic to carry out some further studies For instance: - The use of nonverbal encouraging strategies by the judging panels in the two reality shows: American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010 Besides, both American Idol and Vietnam Idol have made many significant changes up to now Therefore, there are more interesting ideas for researchers to put some recent versions of the two reality shows under investigation REFERENCES Austin, J L (1962) How to Do Things with Words Cambridge: Harvard University Press Beisler, F., Scheeres, H., & Pinner, D (1997) Communication Skills 2nd Edition Longman Berko, R.M., Wolvin, 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L T (2010) A cross cultural study on expressing verbal encouragement in English and Vietnamese MA thesis CFL- VNU, Hanoi 14 Thuy, P T N (2011) Commenting strategies by judging panels in two reality shows: America’s Next Top Model and Vietnam’s Next Top Model MA thesis CFL- VNU, Hanoi 15 Van, L T T (2010) A Vietnamese-American cross cultural study of encouraging MA Combined Programme Thesis CFL-VNU, Hanoi 16 Retrieved December 1st, 2011 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reality+show 17 Retrieved December 1st , 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_television 18 Retrieved November 29th, 2011 from http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/encouragement 19 Retrieved November 29th, http://www.livinglifefully.com/encouragement.htm 2011 from ... ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC KHÍCH LỆ ĐƯỢC SỬ DỤNG BỞI BAN GIÁM KHẢO TRONG HAI CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRUYỀN HÌNH THỰC TẾ: AMERICAN IDOL 2010 VÀ VIETNAM IDOL 2010 Giáo viên hướng dẫn:... the American and Vietnamese judging panels in the two reality shows: American Idol 2010 and Vietnam Idol 2010 The study, therefore, could identify potential distinctions between American and Vietnamese... (http://www.youtube.com/), the official website of American Idol 2010 (www.americanidol.com/), and the official website of Vietnam Idol 2010 (www.vietnamidol.com.vn/) From the author’s point of view,