An american vietnamese cross cultural study of interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ MAI AN AMERICAN –VIETNAMESE CROSS –CULTURAL STUDY OF INTE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ MAI

AN AMERICAN –VIETNAMESE CROSS –CULTURAL STUDY

OF INTERRUPTING AND ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION IN

BUSINESS MEETINGS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa Việt-Mỹ về cách thức ngắt lời và yêu cầu

làm rõ ý trong các cuộc họp kinh doanh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONALSTUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ MAI

AN AMERICAN –VIETNAMESE CROSS –CULTURAL STUDY

OF INTERRUPTING AND ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION IN

BUSINESS MEETINGS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa Việt-Mỹ về cách thức ngắt lời và yêu cầu

làm rõ ý trong các cuộc họp kinh doanh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Prof NGUYỄN QUANG, Ph.D

HANOI – 2016

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DECLARATION

I certify that the work presented in this research report has been performed and interpreted solely by myself I confirm that this paper is submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the M.A Degree and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfillment of any other degree or qualification

Hanoi, 2016

Bùi Thị Mai

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This M.A thesis could not have been accomplished without the invaluable help, encouragement and support form a number of people who I would like to show

my sincerest gratitude and appreciation

To begin with, I would like to express my greatest and deepest thankfulness to Prof Nguyen Quang, my supervisor, for his enthusiastic and precious guideline and advice throughout the duration of my thesis Without his instruction and supervision, this thesis could not have reached the fulfillment

Additionally, I wish to send my special thanks to Mr Hoang Van Nam, a sales representative at Danko Logistic Company, for his wholehearted facilitation Without his support, I cannot obtain emails for contacting American and Vietnamese businesspeople to ask for their participation in my study Thus, my honest thanks also come to the American and Vietnamese businesspeople who passionately provide their responses to my DCT and MCQ

Last but not least, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family and relatives particularly my father, mother and brother who have always supported

me and supplied the best conditions for me to complete this thesis

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ABSTRACT

This paper is carried out at endeavor of exploring the linguistic politeness strategies utilized by the Vietnamese and the American businesspeople in making interruption and asking for clarification in business meetings From that, major similarities and differences between the two languages in this regard are revealed

On the basis of quantitative method, discourse completion task (DCT) is employed to collect data from participants including thirty Vietnamese native speakers and American ones who are currently working in business sector The result reveals that the positive politeness strategy namely “minimizing imposition” is the most common strategy used by American businesspeople while their Vietnamese counterparts prefer “apologizing and minimizing imposition” in semiformal and informal business meetings Moreover, the speaker‟s ages, genders and positions have great influence on the choice of politeness strategy for Vietnamese businesspeople while those factors make no significant influence on the American ones

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Language has become an indispensable part in the development and civilization

of human beings Language is not only for communication but also for cultural exchange among nations The close association between language and culture is undeniable Hence, it is very difficult for an individual to acquire a language without studying and understanding its culture

Cross-cultural communication is an interesting and attractive field to find out the similarities and differences between languages and cultures in various situations in terms of speech acts and politeness strategies Many studies regarding the speech acts

of requesting, giving and receiving compliments, promising and soon have been carried out in Vietnam and in other countries where learners of English are of different language backgrounds However, „interrupting and asking for clarification‟ in conversations in general and in the context of business meetings in particular is one of the areas that is not paid much attention to

There are different ways to interrupt and ask for clarification in Vietnamese and

in American English However, how to interrupt politely and get effectiveness of clarifying are by no means easy People often have difficulties selecting appropriate and polite ways to interrupt another person in another language and in different contexts This leads the author to the decision to conduct research into “An American – Vietnamese cross-cultural study of interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings” to find out the similarities and differences in how businesspeople interrupt and ask for clarification in these situations in the two different languages and cultures

2 Significance of the study

Finding out the similarities and differences in interrupting and asking for clarification between Vietnamese and American entrepreneurs in the context of business meetings is expected to make a significant contribution to cross-cultural

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pragmatics in theory, and effective communication in practice Therefore, Vietnamese businesspeople can be more confident when communicating and attending business meetings with American counterparts

3 Aims and objectives of the study

3.1 Aims of the study

In the light of cross-cultural pragmatics, this study aims at comparing and contrasting linguistic politeness strategies in the speech acts of interrupting and asking for clarification employed by American businesspeople and their Vietnamese counterparts in business meeting context

3.2 Objectives of the study

The study is designed:

business meetings in Vietnamese and American English;

ways the Vietnamese and American businesspeople interrupt and ask for clarification in business meetings

4 Scope of the study

The English-speaking informants to be surveyed are all American businesspeople and their Vietnamese-speaking counterparts are all Northern Vietnamese

The study only focuses on the verbal aspects of interrupting and asking for clarification The analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaire concentrates on the ways the American and Vietnamese businesspeople of different ages, genders and positions interrupt and ask for clarification in business meetings This would mean major similarities and differences between the two cultures would be drawn out from the analysis of the use of negative politeness and positive politeness strategies

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5 Research questions

To fulfill the objectives above, the answers to the following research questions are sought:

1 What politeness strategies are used by American and Vietnamese businesspoeple in interrupting and asking for clarification in business meetings?

2 What are the major similarities and differences in interrupting and asking for clarification in terms of politeness strategies between the Vietnamese and American businesspeople?

6 Research method

The main method of this study is quantitative All the considerations, remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in this study are based largely on the analysis of statistic data with reference to publications The practical access includes: conducting survey questionnaires, studying relevant publications, discussing with American and Vietnamese colleagues, and consulting with the supervisor

Survey research is the method of gathering data from respondents supposed to

be representatives of some population In this survey, the author samples a population Since populations can be quite large, the researcher directly questions only sample of the population Therefore, this method allows the researcher to gain potential generalizability Besides, survey research tends to be reliable method if questionnaires are well-constructed and standardized, (Blackstone, 2012).That is the reason why survey method is employed in this study

7 Structure of the study

The thesis consists of the followings:

Chapter I: INTRODUCTION

This chapter includes the rationale, aims, objectives and scope of the study

Chapter II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

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Such key concepts as culture, cross-culture, speech acts, and politeness are defined, and politeness principles, politeness strategies in interrupting and asking for clarification are critically discussed Also, a review of related studies will be presented Chapter III: METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides a methodological framework for collecting and analyzing data Chapter IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In this chapter, data analysis and findings of the study are presented with the illustration of tables and charts

Chapter V: CONCLUSION

Summary of the major findings and suggestions for further research are presented in this part

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