Nghiên cứu về giao tiếp liên văn hóa: Việc đáp lại lời than phiền giữa người Việt Nam và người Anh

Nghiên cứu này nhằm mục đích điều tra các chiến lược ưa thích mà người Anh và người Việt Nam sử dụng để đáp lại lời than phiền. Hơn thế nữa, bài viết còn nhằm tìm hiểu sự khác biệt khi người giao tiếp sử dụng những chiến lược trong những tình huống khác nhau và những người đối thoại khác nhau.

1 INTRODUCTION

At present, cross-cultural communication is

one of the most significant current discussions

which must be considered immediately in order

to avoid misunderstandings and arguments among

communicators Language, in fact, cannot exist

independently but closely integrate with context

it belongs to, which is clearly seen in the Levine’s

iceberg theory with language considered as the

“exposed part” of culture (Levine & Bigg, 2008)

Thus, it seems that linguistic knowledge and cultural

DIÊM THỊ THU THỦY *

* Đại học Thái Nguyên, ✉ diemthuthuy.sfl@tnu.edu.vn

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ GIAO TIẾP LIÊN VĂN HÓA:

VIỆC ĐÁP LẠI LỜI THAN PHIỀN

GIỮA NGƯỜI VIỆT NAM VÀ NGƯỜI ANH

background which are under mutual influences integrate with each other to serve communication purposes Similarly, complaints and responding to complaints which relate to both communication and culture are inevitable part of our daily life This is surprising because so often are these remarks and expressions of dissatisfaction that we do not notice how much these expressions are used In fact, responding

to complaints is an area the researchers have not considered though people sometimes complain and also frequently respond to others’ complaints

TÓM TẮT

Trên nền tảng lý thuyết của hành động lời nói, lời than phiền là một phần tất yếu trong cuộc sống

hàng ngày của chúng ta và trong môi trường đa văn hóa hiện nay Quan trọng hơn là chúng ta

cần trau dồi cho những người giao tiếp từ những nền văn hóa khác nhau với những kiến thức

cần thiết về việc giải quyết như thế nào với lời than phiền Nghiên cứu này nhằm mục đích điều

tra các chiến lược ưa thích mà người Anh và người Việt Nam sử dụng để đáp lại lời than phiền

Hơn thế nữa, bài viết còn nhằm tìm hiểu sự khác biệt khi người giao tiếp sử dụng những chiến

lược trong những tình huống khác nhau và những người đối thoại khác nhau Với mục đích điều

tra kỹ lưỡng các chiến lược đáp lại lời than phiền, phương pháp định tính và định lượng được áp

dụng trong quá trình phân tích dữ liệu Kết quả cho thấy, có 13 chiến lược ưa thích được sử dụng

khi người Việt Nam và người Anh đáp lại lời than phiền và thực sự có nhiều sự khác nhau trong

việc lựa chọn chiến lược của họ Có thể kết luận rằng, một số lưu ý về văn hoá đã được gợi ý cho

những người đang sinh sống, học tập và làm việc trong môi trường đa văn hóa bao gồm cả Anh

và Việt Nam

Từ khóa: đáp lại lời than phiền, môi trường đa văn hóa, người Anh, người Việt.

In addition, Vietnamese people’s strategies in

responding to complaints are different from those the

British do This is because the ways in which a given

function is realized may differ from one language to

another, although communicative functions appear

to exist across languages This is also the reason

why we do not understand the different cultures in

communication language and we easily destroy the

whole relationship, especially when responding to

complaints which is apparently a sensitive issue

With her deep concerns about this situation through

this study and desire to fill the gap in the theoretical

field, the researcher attempts to cast a closer look

at Vietnamese and British culture to partly discover

strategies that are used mostly to respond complaints

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Speech act of complaining

According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary (2010, p 305), complaining is defined as

expressing dissatisfaction, or annoyance about the

state of affairs or that someone has already done,

failed to do or is in the state of doing something

wrong Therefore, complaining is considered to be the

most frequently occurring communication acts and

particularly, it involves something taken to feeling

sorry for one-self

According to Boxer (1993), Hatch (1992), people

often complain to:

1) Share a specific negative evaluation, obtain

agreement, and establish a common bond between the

speaker and addressee “trouble sharing”, “trouble talk”

For instance: I can’t believe I couldn’t get an A on

this paper I worked so hard!

Same here She doesn’t give away A’s very easily,

that’s for sure.

2) Vent anger or anxiety/let off steam

3) Open and sustain conversations

Sharing with the same ideas, Wierbicka (2003) provides in-depth analysis of the group which owns complaining such as moaning, exclaiming, protesting, objecting, bemoaning, and lamenting People often complain to:

1) Say that something bad is happening: I say something bad is happening to me

2) Express the feelings caused by this: I feel something bad because of that

3) Appeal for something like pity or sympathy:

I want someone to feel sorry for me because of that

While a variety of definitions of complaining have suggested, the researcher will follow the definition introduced by Olshtain and Weinbach (1993) to design the complaining situations used in the questionnaire Complaining in this study does not refer to moaning

or exclaiming (which express self-pity) but an act

to express “displeasure, annoyance, blame, censure, threats or reprimand”

2.2 Responding to complaints

Dealing with complaints is a kind of complimentary speech act: it follows the act of complaint In other words, complaining and responding to complaints might be considered an adjacency pair, in which the complaint comes first and then the response follows

As listed in conversational openings, Schegloff (1972) proposes complaints and denial or complaints and apology are adjacency pairs

However, the researcher has a desire to broaden the pair of complaint – denial or complaint – apology

to a larger scale in this study Not only denial and apology can sustain the conversation which begins with a complaint, the responses to one complaint,

we do not just deny or apologize, we can employ and combine more than one specific act such as explaining, promising or threatening to show our attitudes, feelings or reaction to the complainers Someone complains when he/she is displeased, disappointed or may be depressed Therefore, using

appropriate speech acts to please the complainers is

very essential

3 THE STUDY

3.1 Research questions

The study aims to answer the following questions:

1) What are strategies that Vietnamese people

mostly use to respond to complaints?

2) What are strategies that British people mostly

use to respond to complaints?

3) What are the similarities and differences

between Vietnamese and British people’s strategies

when responding to complaints?

4) What are suggestions for Vietnamese and

British communicators in responding to complaints in

order to avoid misunderstandings?

3.2 Research design

Throughout the process of data analysis and

finding discussion, all selected participants were

mentioned neither in real names or pseudonyms

The population of the research was the British and

Vietnamese The first group consisted of 30 British

people aging from 21 to 42 They are currently living

and working in Britain The second group – 30

Vietnamese whose ages fluctuated from 20 to 43 are

presently living in Vietnam Participants of the two

groups are doing different kinds of work By choosing

participants of different careers, ages and are living in

their motherland, the researcher has a desire to collect

the most valid and reliable data for investigation 30

native people for each country are not a very large

number but those people are of various backgrounds,

they can provide a generalization of their culture

The study was conducted by carefully collecting

materials from various reference sources to have

full-blown information of using complaint response

strategies Furthermore, the Discourse Completion

Test (DCT) was used to collect the data in the study

with the aim of investigating the complaint response strategies mostly used by the Vietnamese and British authentically and reliably In addition, such methods

as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive were also utilized to describe and analyze, to compare and contrast the data base in order to bring out similarities and differences in strategies to respond to complaints of Vietnamese and British people

DCT is defined as any pragmatic measure that obliges examinees to read a written situation description and then write what they would say next in the situation For instance, a DCT which consists of different situations is followed by an open-ended response

“You say… ” (Blum-Kulka, 1982) According to Tran

(2008), this term is developed by Blum-Kulka (1982) and used by such researchers as Olshtain and Cohen

in their study of apologies in Hebrew and English DCT was chosen as the data collection method

in this study, as it proved to bring some outstanding advantages over other methods such as ethnographic, role-play First of all, the DCT enables the researchers

to elicit data from the large sample of subjects easily, using the same situations where contextual variables are controlled Second, it is an effective means of creating an initial classification of semantic formulas and strategies that will occur in natural speech (Cohen,

1996, p 25)

The three social variables claimed by Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) – the relative power (P), the social distance (D) and the absolute ranking of imposition (R) have a systematic effect on the choice

of an appropriate polite expression in performing a FTA (FTAs – acts which threaten the face wants of the speaker, the hearer, or both of them) (Brown & Levinson,1987) in a given context As a result, a questionnaire of 6 real-life situations was designed to elicit responses to complaints

Situation 1: You receive a complaint about

your messy room or desk How would you verbally respond to the complaint if the complainer is one of the followings?

Situation 2: You receive a complaint because

you make noise (loud music, loud talking…) which

annoys the people around How would you verbally

respond to the complaint if the complainer is one of

the followings?

Situation 3: You are going out of the room but

accidentally bumped into someone on the door step

and receive a complaint from them How would you

verbally respond to the complaint if the complainer is

one of the followings?

Situation 4: You receive a complaint because

you are too late in a luxurious party How would you

verbally respond to the complaint if the complainer is

one of the followings?

Situation 5: You receive a complaint because you

break down a cup of tea How would you verbally

respond to the complaint if the complainer is one of

the followings?

Situation 6: You receive a complaint because

you see his/her diary by accident How would you

verbally respond to the complaint if the complainer is

one of the followings?

The different communicating partners in each

situation are:

Your parent – The hearer has greater power then the

speaker, and they are familiar with each other (P+; D-)

Your friend – The speaker and the hearer are equal

in power; they are familiar with each other (P=; D-)

Your younger sister/younger brother – The hearer

has lower power than the speaker, they are familiar

with each other (P-; D-)

Your boss – The hearer has greater power than the

speaker, and they are unfamiliar with each other (P+; D+)

Your colleague – The speaker and the hearer are equal

in power; they are unfamiliar with each other (P=; D+)

Your subordinate – The hearer has lower power than

speaker; they are unfamiliar with each other (P-; D-)

3.3 Procedures of data collection

The data collection procedure consists of three main steps, each of which is taken according to a designed timeline The three steps are listed as follows

Step 1: Preparing In this step, the researcher

prepared and designed the DCT questionnaire by referring to the colleague’s consultancy and other research related to the same issue

Step 2: Piloting The researcher provided with all

information related to study for participants before administering questionnaire After that, it was greatly important to select the appropriate sample because

it played a decisive role in the result of the data collection procedure Participants were convinced that the data would be treated confidentially before given clear instructions to complete the questionnaire

Step 3: Administering The questionnaire was

delivered via gmail or via social network to British respondents because of time and distance The researcher’s cousin and his family are currently living

in the UK and he helped the researcher deliver the questionnaire to his British friends at school, and

to his neighborhood Face to face questionnaire administration method was employed for Vietnamese participants who are the researcher’s friends, colleague in many fields It took 5 days to administer the questionnaire In total, 60 copies of questionnaire were given out

3.4 Data analysis

The entire collected data from the questionnaire was analyzed in using qualitative and quantitative methods Descriptive statistics was employed The data obtained from the questionnaire was calculated and transferred into numerical form and after that presented in tables and graphs

4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Findings from data collected

The results from the questionnaire and interview

has presented preferred strategies of British and

Vietnamese people in responding to complaints

such as Apologizing, Explaining, Promising, Asking

for help, Accepting, Rejecting, Complaining back,

Threatening back and other combination strategies

Meanwhile, some examples were given to illustrate

for each strategy and to compare between two

examined groups

Moreover, the researcher analyzed favored

strategies in responding to complaints by two

perspectives thoughtfully The overall trend of British

and Vietnamese respondents was shown through the

data of chart 1 Among thirteen strategies, Rejecting

is the most favored strategy for British participants

with 21%, while for Vietnamese participants the most

favored one is Apologizing and Showing concern

which accounts for 17.22%

In contrast, Vietnamese participants rarely use

Rejecting (2.98%) which is a FTA or Apologizing

(3.01%) which is too short and brief, in their opinion In

terms of British participants, Explaining and Showing

concern is used least among thirteen strategies with

only 2.34% It is interesting to note that none of British

participants uses strategy 4 – Asking for help while

Vietnamese participants used this strategy frequently

with 11.53% Surprisingly, British participants seem

to be more open to Threatening back strategy as it

account for 8.43%; meanwhile, the same strategy

is not used at all among Vietnamese participants In addition, Vietnamese participants have a general trend

of combining strategies more than British participants From this table, all five strategy combinations are favored by Vietnamese participants with much higher percentage (8.52% to 16.77% compared to 5% to 2.34% to 5%) When being interviewed, Vietnamese participants explain that the longer and more detailed the utterances are the more sincere and repentant the complainers think about them

Strategies

1 Apologizing

2 Explaining

3 Promising

4 Asking for help

5 Accepting

6 Rejecting

7 Complaining back

8 Threatening back

9 Apologizing and Showing concern

10 Explaining and Showing concern

11 Apologizing and Explaining

12 Apologizing and Promising

13 Explaining and Promising

The findings from the DCT questionnaires reveal that the following strategies are used by British and/or Vietnamese respondents

Strategy 1: APOLOGIZING: The British speaker uses expressions such as “sorry”, “excuse”, “forgive”, or

interjections such as “oh”, “oops” to apologize for their wrong – doings Among data collected, here come some typical examples from the participants’ responses

Table 1: Examples of Apologizing strategy

- Sorry

- Chị xin lỗi

- Xin lỗi sếp

Strategy 2: EXPLAINING: Explaining is the act of describing the situation which caused the Speaker to

misbehave By doing so, the Speaker intends to win sympathy from the Hearer For instance:

Table 2: Examples of Explaining strategy

- Music makes work faster

- I’m sorting my stuff - Ở bừa bộn thế tao mới chơi được với mày

- Chị vẫn chưa xem được gì mà

- Dạo này em lười quá sếp ạ

Strategy 3: PROMISING: Searle (1969) defines the act of promising as an act that puts the Speaker under

obligation Using Promising strategy when responding to complaints contemporarily eases the Hearer’s tension

or anger Here are some typical examples collected from participants’ responses

Table 3: Examples of Promising strategy

- OK, I’ll turn it down

- I guess I could turn it down a little bit

- I’ll sort it out later

- Con sẽ dọn dẹp và thu xếp lại ngay

- Tớ tắt bây giờ

- Con sẽ dọn gọn gàng trong vòng 5 phút thôi mẹ ạ, ^^

Strategy 4: ASKING FOR HELP: This is a surprising response collected from respondents’ answers because

the participant eases complainers’ anger or displeasure by asking for a favor from the complainer Therefore, the complainer might feel he/she is important to the Speaker since the Speaker seeks for their help The following are some examples:

Table 4: Examples of Asking for help strategy

None - Anh bận lắm, em rảnh dọn giùm anh

- Hehe, giúp anh một tay nhé

- Mày hộ tao cái

Strategy 5: ACCEPTING: By using an expression of acceptance, the Speaker shows that he/she is aware of

his/her behaviors and acknowledges or agrees with the complaints Some typical examples are:

Table 5: Examples of Accepting strategy

- I see

- OK I see

- Con hiểu rồi

- Cám ơn bạn đã nhắc

Strategy 6: REJECTING: On the contrary to accepting, some respondents choose Rejecting as their responding

strategy When using this strategy, the Speaker does do a FTA towards the Hearer by ignoring, turning the complaints down or telling that the Hearer is wrong Here are some typical examples of Rejecting strategy:

Table 6: Examples of Rejecting strategy

- Are you my mother or something?

- Go away

- Shut up and get out

- It’s none of business

- Kệ tao

- Có thế thôi mà mày cũng phải làm toáng lên

- Im, cái đứa này chả biết cảm thụ âm nhạc là thế nào cả

Strategy 7: COMPLAINING BACK: This is also a FTA and the Speaker chooses this strategy to save his/her

face, nevertheless, by doing so, he/she threatens the Hearer’s face For example:

Table 7: Examples of Complaining back strategy

- Your table is a mess rather than mine

- Don’t be a nuisance

- I’m sure your bedroom in way worse

- Too bad, you don’t seem to mind when it‘s

you playing loud music, eh?

- Có sao đâu mà mày phiềnthế

- Cái gì?? Thế này mà bừa bộn á?

- Đi đứng thế à? ^^

- Lần sau cẩn thận chứ

Strategy 8: THREATENING BACK: The name of this strategy has described its characteristics It is also a

Face Threatening Act Using this strategy, the Speaker shows his/her displeasure towards the Hearer in a higher level than Complaining back or Rejecting By doing so, the Speaker directly threatens the Hearer’s face The following examples will clarify this strategy:

Table 8: Examples of Threatening back strategy

- Fired!

- Do you want to keep your job?

- Go playing or I’II kick your ass None

It is interesting to note that showing concern strategy is not used alone, but it is used together with other strategies These are the most commonly used combinations as follows

Strategy 9: APOLOGIZING AND SHOWING CONCERN: the Speaker uses apologizing expressions and

show his/her care for the Hearer as in some examples below

Table 9: Examples of Apologizing and Showing concern strategy

- Sorry, are you ok?

- Oops, sorry Didn’t it hurt?

- Hey, are you alright?

- I’m sorry Are you ok?

- Con xin lỗi ạ, bố có sao không ạ?

- Xin lỗi em có sao không?

- Tao xin lỗi, mày có đau không?

Strategy 10: EXPLAINING AND SHOWING CONCERN: the Speaker describes the situation that caused

them to commit the wrong doings and expresses their care for the Hearer For instance:

Table 10: Examples of Explaining and Showing concern strategy

- I don’t know my music is bothering

you Is it ok now?

- I did not notice Are you alright?

- Mình đang vội bạn có sao không?

- Em sơ ý quá sếp có sao không ạ?

- Ừ đang vội tí, có sao không?

Strategy 11: APOLOGIZING AND EXPLAINING: the Speaker uses apologizing expressions along with

explaining the reasons for their wrong behaviors

Table 11: Examples of Apologizing and Explaining strategy

- Sorry about that boss man! I’ll tidy it up toot

sweet!

- Yep, sorry I’m a bit snowed under

- Em xin lỗi, em không cố ý đâu

- Xin lỗi nhé, vội quá

- Xin lỗi nhé, hôm nay đi về mệt chưa kịp dọn

Strategy 12: APOLOGIZING AND PROMISING: the Speaker uses apologizing expressions and eases the

Hearer’s discomfort by promising or offering a remedy for their wrong doings

Table 12: Examples of Apologizing and Promising strategy

- I apologize, I will make sure it’s tidied

straight away

- I’m sorry, I’ll move to another place

- I’m sorry, I’ll adjust the loudness

- Xin lỗi sếp, tí em dọn ngay

- Xin lỗi thủ trưởng, lần sau thủ trưởng đến là sẽ đâu vào đấy ngay ấy mà

- Con xin lỗi, con tắt nhạc ngay đây ạ

Strategy 13: EXPLAINING AND PROMISING: the Speaker, on one hand, describes the reasons for their

wrong doings and using promising expressions to ease the Hearer’s tension on the other hand

Table 13: Examples of Explaining and Promising strategy

- It’s organized chaos I know where my stuff is

I promise I’ll give it a clean later on this week

- I’ve been too busy, but I will do it soon

- I was tied up with few works, but will arrange

it today

- Mấy hôm nay bận quá, tớ dọn ngay bây giờ đây

- Dạo này lười lắm đi, để cuối tuần sẽ dọn ngay

- Con không để ý, con sẽ tắt ngay đây ạ

From the afore – mentioned findings, it can be easily recognized some similarities in the way Vietnamese and British participants respond to other’s complaints Regarding non – verbal communication, like other speech acts such as greeting, apologizing, showing sympathy, and so on, people also can respond to complaints without using words On the other hand, they can keep silent, use gestures, facial expressions or body language Examining examples collected from the DCT, we can see that both Vietnamese and British respondents used emotional icons such as 

or ^^ (DCT – B2) to imply that they would smile to show their attitude in some situations when being complained Clearly, responding to other’s complaints exists in every culture but it is recognized that carrying on a certain complaint response strategy may be appropriate in this country but can appear to quite in appropriate in another one From the data collected, the most essential difference of British and Vietnamese respondents is that the

British would directly reveal their discomfort when being complained by Rejecting the complaints such as “Are you my mother or something?” or even Threatening back the complainers such as “Do you want to keep your job?” while the Vietnamese would admit their mistakes and combine several strategies to ease the complainers’ anger such as “Con xin lỗi, bố có sao không ạ?” or feel free to ask the complainers to help them such as “Em rảnh dọn giùm anh nhé!”

Six daily life situations were given in the survey to elicit verbal responses from two examined groups In each situation, the researcher had the participants communicate with total six types of interlocutors to see whether the social status or the relationship between communicators affect their choice of language

1) When the Hearer has greater power than the Speaker, and they are familiar with each other (P+, D-): Complaints from parent.

The use of responding strategies when dealing with parents’ complaints

Complaining back 0% 0%

From the table we can see that, with the complainers are parents, British participants tend to use all strategies except for Asking for help, complaining back and threatening back, but Vietnamese ones prefer to combine several strategies together This way makes their apology more sincere and repentant to the Hearer Similarly, Vietnamese ones do not use strategies Asking for help, Complaining back and Threatening back Nevertheless, they neither use Accepting and Rejecting as well

Interestingly, in spite of higher power of parents, British ones still reject the complaints which accounts for 16.32% while Vietnamese ones do not reject the complaints from their parents at all Some British ones when being asked for the reason answered that when they are grown up, they want their privacy and individual to be respected and even parents can not tell them what they should do, they just do what they want On the contrary, as

a tradition of Vietnamese people, parents are among the most important people of one’s life and one should respect their parents’ advice That is the reason why they use several strategies to make their parents feel respectful Vietnamese respondents do not use Apologizing strategy does not mean they hardly admit their mistakes but they tend to combine Apologizing with other strategies to make their responses more courteous As can be seen from the table, Apologizing and Showing concern, Apologizing and Explaining or Apologizing and Promising are those of the highest percentages among thirteen strategies with respectively 22.17%, 19.12% and 19.67% Explaining and Promising is mostly used among Vietnamese respondents with 23.8% while the same strategy is used at only 10.37% for British ones

The most common utterance of Vietnamese respondents in this case is “Con xin lỗi, con sẽ dọn dẹp ngay ạ” (DCT – A1) or “Con không để ý ạ, bố có sao không ạ?” (DCT – A3) which sounds respectful and courteous

In other words, British ones even have “It’s none of your business” or “Leave me alone” (DCT – A3) when

responding to their parents

2) When the Speaker and the Hearer are equal in power; they are familiar with each other (P=, D-): Complaints from friends

The use of responding strategies when dealing with friends’ complaints