Collectivism and individualism in american and vietnamese print advertisements

ABSTRACT The present study seeks to identify the cultural values of individualism and collectivism reflected in print advertisements between Vietnam and America from three domains of li

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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TRẦN THỊ HUỆ

COLLECTIVISM AND INDIVIDUALISM

IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS

(Tính tập thể và tính cá nhân trong quảng cáo của Mỹ và Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01

Hanoi, 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

TRẦN THỊ HUỆ

COLLECTIVISM AND INDIVIDUALISM

IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE PRINT ADVERTISEMENTS

(Tính tập thể và tính cá nhân trong quảng cáo của Mỹ và Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Supervisor: Prof Nguyễn Hòa

Hanoi, 2019

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that this thesis, which is entitled “Collectivism and Individualism in American and Vietnamese Print Advertisements”, is created from my original work I have firmly declared the contribution of others to my thesis such as data analysis, practical strategies, and all other research that was employed or reviewed

in my thesis

This thesis is the result of my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Hanoi, 2019

Trần Thị Huệ

the Post-Graduate staff and my classmates at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for providing me with basic knowledge about how to structure a research project and the opportunity to improve my research knowledge and skills

my family for their wholehearted support and motivation

Without their support and collaboration, this thesis would have been impossible

ABSTRACT

The present study seeks to identify the cultural values of individualism and collectivism reflected in print advertisements between Vietnam and America from three domains of linguistic performance: first person pronoun use, communication styles (high vs low context communication, direct vs indirect communication styles, and self-contrual), and face & facework (self-face vs other-face concern, and negative

vs positive strategies) There are two hypotheses being put forward in the thesis: APAs are dominated by IDV (hypothesis1), and VPAs are dominated by COL (hypothesis 2)

In order to test these two hypotheses, qualitative case study is applied in the study to analyze the advertising samples in the aspects of COL and IDV

After the qualitative analysis of three linguistic domains, the following findings can

be concluded: Vietnamese print advertisements are more collectivistic Meanwhile, American print advertisements seem to employ both individualism and collectivism at the same level Besides, the data indicate that, in advertising context, print advertisements act as a means of communication, in which the advertisers- writers may employ both IDV and COL based on different situations The findings of the study are expected to be of help in better understanding the relationship between cultural values

of IDV/ COL and print advertising, and in better designs of print advertisements

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Characteristics of the independent -self and the interdependent-self 7

Table 2: Differences between individualistic communication styles & collectivistic

communication styles 21

Table 3: The frequency of first person pronoun in APAs and VPAs 30 Table 4: Average count of explicit and implicit messages in APAs and VPAs 32

Table 5: The percentages of direct vs indirect directive and commissive speech acts in

VPAs and APAs 38

Table 6: The frequency of “show off” words in VPAs and APAs 40

Table 7: The frequency of first-person pronoun and second-person pronoun in VPAs

and APAs 43

Table 8: Distribution of positive and negative politeness strategies in APAs and

VPAs 45

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Model of psycho- cultural linguistics 12

Figure 2: Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 60) model for politeness strategies 28

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Organization of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study……… …….3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEWS 4

2.1 Review of theoretical background for the study 4

2.1.1 Collectivism versus individualism 4

2.1.2 Attributes of Individualism and Collectivism 6

2.1.3 The self-concept 8

2.1.4 Advertisements and print advertisements 8

2.1.4.1 Definition and Function of Advertising 8

2.1.4.2 Classification of advertising 9

2.1.4.3 Components of advertising 10

2.1.5 Individualism and Collectivism in print advertisements 10

2.1.6 Individualism- collectivism in linguistics 11

2.1.7 Speech act……….13

2.2 Reviews of previous studies 15

2.3 Summary…….………16

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Design of the study 18

3.2 Data and Procedure 18

3.3 Analytical framework 19

3.3.1 First person pronoun use 19

3.3.2 Communication styles 20

3.3.2.1 High and low context communication 21

3.3.2.2 Direct and indirect communication styles… 23

3.3.2.3 Self-Contrual: self-enhancement & Self-effacement 24

3.3.3 Face and Facework 25

3.3.3.1 Self-face & Other-face concern 26

3.3.3.2 Negative and positive politeness strategies 27

3.4 Summary 29

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30

4.1 First person pronoun use 30

4.2 Communication styles 32

4.2.1 High and low context communication .32

4.2.2 Direct and indirect styles .36

4.2.3 Self- construal: Self-enhancement & self-effacement 39

4.3 Face and Facework 42

4.3.1 Self-face concern versus Other-face concern 42

4.3.2 Negative and positive politeness strategies 43

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 50

5.1 Recapitulations 50

5.2 Implications .51

5.3 Limitations and recommendations for further study 52

REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1 Vietnamese print advertisements I Appendix 2 American print advertisements XI

Table I: The frequency of first person pronouns XXI Table II : Number of explicit and implicit messages in VPAs XXI Table III: Number of explicit and implicit messages in APAs XXXIII Table IV: Distribution of direct and indirect speech acts in VPAs XLIV Table V : Distribution of direct and indirect speech acts in APAs XLIX Table VI: The frequency of “show off” words in in VPAs and APAs LV Table VII: The frequency of first-person pronoun and second-person pronoun LV Table VIII: Distribution of different types of politeness strategies in VPAs LV Table IX: Distribution of different types of politeness strategies in APAs LIX

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of five main parts: rationale, aims of the study, scope of the

study, organization and significance of the study

1.1 Rationale

With the development of economy and social culture, advertising is of paramount importance, because advertisements not only reflect the orientation of the economy, but also manifest cultural values It can be said that people live in an advertising environment and an advertising time Television and print are traditional media that have been usually used for implementing advertising In spite of the fact that social media has recently become very common, prints (newspapers and magazines) still remain important media for advertising because prints are still perceived as one of the most believable and trustworthy sources of information and accessibility to local and ethnic audiences (Nyilasy et al 2011) Moreover, print advertisements are regarded as special discourses with their own characteristics, as well as products of cultures and languages

There are similarities as well as differences between Vietnamese and American advertising These differences derive from their respective cultures Hofstede‟s studies reveal that western nations such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, etc present high level of IDV, conversely eastern countries like China, Japan, Vietnam tend to be collectivistic When it comes to IDV & COL reflected in print advertisements, there are many researches concentrating on this theme Yet, these previous researches‟ samples are rarely Vietnamese print advertising, and most of those studies are based on cultural-psychology analysis Furthermore, economic development and the process of globalization can be considered to be the forces driving cultural values to change In general, different values could make different languages, different cultures and other things between those cultural value

systems Thus, from the perspective on cultural values, people can study very well the print advertisements, so do a better understanding of a country's culture

These phenomena interest me a great deal I come up with a question: In the age

of globalization and cross-cultural communication, VPAs and APAs manifest either individuaism or collectivism or both of them It is this question that inspires and motivates me to do research on this theme

1.2 Aims of the study

IDV and COL are considered to be primary cultural values across cultures Conventionally, it is believed that American culture pertains to IDV, but Vietnamese culture is a collectivistic culture This conventional thinking might be still suitable or no longer appropriate according to different contexts Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test the following hypotheses in the case of print advertisements:

Hypothesis 1: APAs are dominated by IDV

Hypothesis 2: VPAs are dominated by COL

1.3 Scope of the Study

To limit the scope of the study, this thesis focuses on the linguistic manifestations

of cultural patterns in the aspect of COL/ IDV in 43 APAs and 43 VPAs The

research‟s data is collected from American magazines such as The economist, Forbes, Women‟s health, and from Vietnamese newspapers and magazine namely Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam, báo Phụ nữ and Forbes Việt Nam

1.4 Organization of the study

This thesis is organized into five chapters: Chapter 1- Introduction, chapter 2- Literature reviews, chapter 3: research methodology, chapter 4: findings and discussion, chapter 5: conclusion This introductory part presents the rationale, aims

of the study, scope, and organization of the study Next, chapter 2 introduces the related literature reviews In this chapter, the author gives the brief introduction to theoretical background related to COL vs IDV, the self- concept, attributes of IDV and COL, advertisements & print advertisements, IDV & COL in print advertisements, and IDV & COL in linguistics The author also reviews some previous studies Chapter 3 explains the research methodology It deals with the design of the study, data collection & procedure, and analytical framework Chapter

4 reports the findings and dicussion The thesis ends with chapter 5- Conclusion, which discusses recapitulations, the possible implications It also presents some limitations of the study and recommendations for further research

1.5 Significance of the study

This study is hoped to explore and discover the interrelation of cultural values

of IDV&COL and print advertisements Theoretically, this study provides a support

to theories of IDV&COL manifested in linguistics From the analysis of three domains of language (first person pronoun use, communication styles and face & facework) when approaching the theme, IDV & COL might be found behind words Practically, this study is carried out with the expectation of giving some suggestions for advertisers, which may contribute to their advertising success Besides, this paper may also give the fresh angle for cross-culture learning and teaching

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEWS

This chapter is made up of three main parts Firstly, it will start with critically reviewing the concepts of COL versus IDV, self-concept, attributes of COL and IDV, advertisements and classification, components of advertising, and IDV and COL in print advertisements and linguistics Secondly, it will review and discuss previous studies related to IDV & COL in advertisements in order to identify the gap in the literature Finally, this chapter ends with summary

2.1 Review of theoretical background for the study

2.1.1 Collectivism versus individualism

In the book “Cultural Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values” by Geert Hofstede, IDV & COL were proposed as two poles of a one-

dimensional construct to explain societal differences in social behavior at cultural level (Hofstede, 1980) According to Hofstede, IDV pertains to societies in which the ties between individuals are loose, everyone is expected to look after himself and his or her immediate family COL as its opposite pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout people‟s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty ( Hofstede, 1998:346)

Hofstede‟s definition reads IDV/ COL is a bipolar dimension, with IDV on one end and COL on the other In cultures that tend toward IDV, an “I” consciousness prevails: competition rather than cooperation is encouraged; personal goals take precedence over group goals; people tend not to be emotionally dependent on organizations, while in cultures that tend toward COL, a “ we” consciousness prevails: identity is based on the social system, the individual is emotionally dependent on organizations and institutions, the culture emphasizes belonging to organizations, organizations invade private life and the clans to which individuals belong; and individuals trust group decisions and institutions; and every individual

has right to his or her private property, thoughts, and opinions (Samovar et al, 2000: 68) When put in a situation that demands a decision, people from cultures that stress IDV are often at odds with people from collectivistic cultures While the former take the latter as ignorant to democracy, not respecting personal views, the latter see the former as so arrogant like the loudest bird as to be shot first

IDV-COL is the major dimension of cultural variability used to explain intercultural differences and similarities in communication across cultures It is also the dimension with the clearest individual- level equivalents of the cultural- level tendencies (Gudykunst and Kim, 1997: 56)

IDV-COL is an important theme of the area of cross-cultural psychology Hofstede is given credit for contributing greatly to clarifying the concepts of IDV and COL, which are most widely quoted Although Hofstede's work was concerned primarily with cultural differences, subsequent researchers have become interested

in IDV -COL at the individual level as well (Kim, 1994; Triandis, 1994) There are

a number of ways to measure IDV and COL, and these measures (Triandis, McCrusker, and Hui, 1990) suggest the existence of “cultural syndromes” (Triandis, 1993) – defined as shared attitudes, beliefs, norms, roles and self-definitions, and values, centered around a theme found among those who speak similar dialect, and live in the same historical period and geographic region

An individualistic culture is described as one in which the goals and needs of the individuals take precedence over in-groups such as extended family, community, work organizations etc., whereas individuals in a collectivistic culture view personal goals and needs as subordinate to the goals and needs of these in-groups However,

it has been noted that differences exist within individualist or collectivist cultures Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk and Gelfand (1995) made a further distinction between IDV and COL, arguing that both IDV and COL may be either horizontal- that is emphasizing equality or it may be vertical- that is emphasizing hierarchy

Basically, IDV emphasizes the importance of individual identity over group identity, individual rights over group rights, and individual needs over group needs IDV promotes self-efficiency, individual responsibilities and personal autonomy In contrast, COL emphasizes the importance of “we” identity over “I” identity, group rights over individual rights, and in-group-oriented needs over individual wants and desires COL promotes relational interdependence, in-group harmony, and in-group collaborative spirit

2.1.2 Attributes of IDV and COL

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in COL and IDV since Hofstede‟s study (1980) Definitions and attributes of COL and IDV are also differently offered by many researchers According to Waterman (1984), IDV and COL share four features: the first one is personal identity; the second one is freedom of choice relating to freedom of others; the third one is personal responsibility for happiness and misery; and the last one is universality, which refers to respect for others‟ principles Ho and Chiu (1994) point out some principal constituents of IDV and COL such as personal liability, value of the individual, independence and individual triumph

The defining attributes of IDV and COL suggested in the Triandis (1995) monograph were as follows: First, the self-conception (our views of ourselves) is one of four main attributes of IDV & COL Collectivists define themselves as parts

or aspects of a group; individualists focus on self-concepts that are autonomous from groups Thus the contrast between interdependent and independent selves (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) is one of the defining attributes

Table 1: Characteristics of the independent-self and the interdependent-self

The second attribute is the goal of individuals and group Collectivists have personal goals that overlap with the goals of their in-groups, and if there is a discrepancy between the two sets of goals, they consider it obvious that the group goals should have priority over their personal goals Individualists have personal goals that may or may not overlap with the goals of their in-groups, and if there is a discrepancy between the two sets of goals, they consider it obvious that their personal goals should have priority over the group goals (Schwartz, 1990)

The third one is behavior determinant Among collectivists, social behavior is best predicted from norms and perceived duties and obligations (Bontempo & Rivero, 1992; Miller, 1994) Among individualists, social behavior is best predicted from attitudes and other such internal processes as well as contracts made by the individual

The last one is maintenance of relationships Among collectivists, relationships are of the greatest importance, and even if the costs of these relationships exceed the benefits, individuals tend to stay with the relationship Among individualists, when the costs exceed the benefits, the relationship is often dropped (Kim, Triandis, Kagitcibasi, & Yoon, 1994)

Based on some attributes of IDV/ COL that all co-act and co-occur in a culture, components and functions of advertisements, I will investigate the cultural values of

COL & IDV that are expressed in print advertisements via the analysis of three domains namely first personal pronoun use, communication styles and face & facework These 3 domains are used to build up the analytical framework which will be discussed in greater detail in chapter three

2.1.3 The self-concept

Baumeister (1999) defines the self-concept as "the individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is" It can be understood that the term self-concept is used to refer to how someone thinks about, evaluates or perceives themselves According to Carl Rogers (1959), the self- concept is made of the following three different constituents The first constituent is self-image which is the view you have of yourself It concludes physical description, social role, personal traits, and existential statements The second one is self-esteem

or self-worth which involves a degree of evaluation and we may have either a positive or a negative view of ourselves The last one is ideal-self which refers to what you wish you were really like If there is a mismatch between your self-image and your ideal-self, this is likely to affect how much you value yourself

2.1.4 Advertisements and print advertisements

2.1.4.1 Definition and Function of Advertising

There are some kinds of definitions of advertising According to the American Marketing Association (1948), the “advertising is any paid from of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor” Besides, Albert Davis Lasker, father of modern advertising, said that advertising was “salesmanship in print” Today, one of the most popular definitions of advertising which is widely cited was put forward by Courtland L.Bovee and William F.Arens in 1989 That is “Adverting is the non- personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about the products,

services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media” (Frith, Katherine T & Wesson, David, 1991, p 217- p 223)

From these above definitions advertising can be defined as a carrier of culture which embodies distinctive cultural attributes and meanings Advertising spreads all kinds of messages, knowledge, and concepts It provides people with a reference system of value, impacting on our thoughts and judgments The advertisers make the most of their own total image, especial the product image, in order to gain the public understanding, trust, and support, so they use a series of persuasion and influence route of transmission KroeberRiel (1993) enumerates the functions of advertisements in some groups as follows: Firstly, advertisements provide information source about products and services Secondly, they motivate consumers

to buy products Thirdly, they strengthen purchasing motivation Furthermore, they provide socialization function Lastly, they provide entertaining function

2.1.4.2 Classification of advertising

Advertising can be classified into various categories according to different criteria Generally, according to Vestergaurd and Schroder (1985), there are two kinds of advertising, commercial advertising and non-commercial one “If taken media as the standard of classification, the advertising can be classified into three major categories, namely, broadcast media advertising (television/ radio advertising), print media advertising (newspapers/ magazines advertising), and other media advertising (billboards/ cinema/ transit/ direct mail advertising) (Mueller, 1998, p.173)

The concern of this thesis is the print commercial advertising This is because print advertising has a broad reach (great number of readers), and great possibility

of secondary readability Meanwhile, a business advertisement is one which is made for commodities or services Its purpose is to make a profit As it is the time for commodity economy, business advertising plays a very important role both in business circle and people‟s daily life As a result, it would be more meaningful and

attributive to our society to study print commercial advertising Two main printed media are the newspapers and magazines, which transmit topic information at certain time

2.1.4.3 Components of advertising

In general, an advertisement is constituted of different components; they are either verbal or non-verbal The verbal components include the headline, sub-headline, the body copy, slogan and trademark (including brand name, corporate name and visual symbol) Pictures, illustrations, color, advertising music, advertising sounds and layout belong to the nonverbal elements Of course, each element plays an important part in successful advertising For example, the headline attracts reader's attention, make take buying action However, an advertisement has no need to include all the normal elements Sometimes, an advertisement only includes a few elements in started on the elements A complete print advertisement is usually composed of headline, body copy, slogan, illustrations, pictures, colors, trademarks The present study examines the extent to which IDV and COL are reflected in the language of the print advertisements After analysis of collected print

advertisements, the author finds that the headline, slogan and body copy are more

convenient to interpret and analyze, and thus these three elements are employed in the present study Advertising master David Augwei once said: “Advertising is the life of the words” In other word, language is the essential element of advertising, as

a tool of communication, and it can inject the enthusiasm and soul in the decisive role in advertising

2.1.5 Individualism and collectivism in print advertisements

Advertising is one kind of social action, cultural fruit, and the crystallization of human wisdom Nowadays, with the rapid development economic and fierce market competition, advertising is indispensable tool for business enterprise, and it acts as vanguard of sale In cultural environment, advertising reflects certain culture That

is to say, culture offers the background for advertising In advertising, a lot of information involves just like the cultural knowledge, moral ideas, consumption concept, as well as enterprise culture So advertisements have culture features and sense Therefore, making advertisement process is also affected by different cultural factors which consist of IDV and COL IDV&COL are extremely significant to contemplate while creating messages of every advertisement Living in an individualistic or collectivistic culture also strongly influences the individual‟s comprehension and perception of advertising message The reason is that individuals grow up in a particular culture and become accustomed to that culture‟s indigenous value system, belief, and perception process Consequently, individuals exposed to an advertising message corresponding with their culture are likely to comprehend it better and possibly empathize with it, this comprehension and empathy could lead to persuasion, including the decision to buy the advertised products As mentioned above, IDV and COL illustrate the ties between individuals and with their group or society Meanwhile, advertisements are considered to be a means of communication between product suppliers and customers A successful advertisement is created when an appropriate relationship between suppliers and customers is established through the messages in advertising These messages should be created by people who deeply understand customers‟ culture, because the way they use language, communication styles (high-low context communication or direct- indirect communication), the way they express politeness strategies, as well

as writing style will have important impacts on customers‟ perception of advertisement

2.1.6 Individualism and collectivism in linguistics

Fasold (1984) stated that a national language encourages the development of social identity Furthermore, there is a causal linkage of language influencing beliefs, derived from the Whorf (1940) (or Sapir-Whorf) hypothesis that language influences cognition Another feasible connection between language and cultural

values is offered by Triandis (1972) in the analysis of subjective culture He shows that values are created from basic cognitive structures that come from lower-level abstractions of language, such as words, morphemes, and phonemes

Nguyễn Hòa (2018) in his study “cultural values: some implications for related linguistic research and intercultural communication” indicates that many current cultural studies use quantitative methods to conduct empirical researches, they pay less attention to linguistic functions He also suggests a model of psycho- cultural linguistics that expresses the relation between three disciplines: cultural anthropology, linguistics and social psychology (Nguyễn Hòa, 2018: 08)

culture-Figure 1: Model of psycho- cultural linguistics

Based on the above model, a pragmatic framework for analyzing language in use

is offered by Nguyễn Hòa, including a three-step procedure: Describing, interpreting and explaining (proposed by Fairclough) His framework considers speech acts to be the minimal unit of analysis, focusing on the following items and their linguistic realizations such as speech acts (asserting, defining, or redefining, modifying, challenging and/or supporting identities), implicature (indirect speech acts), textual organization of speech acts into larger units of discourse (moves, exchanges, and discourse), the use of pronouns (I versus We cultural identity) and modality

Cultural anthropology:

Cultural values

Social p sychology:

Communication , behaviors Linguistics:

Language in use

E.S.Kashima and Kashima (1998) and Y.Kashima and Kashima (2003) concentrated on the linkage between personal pronouns and IDV They proposed that explicit use of pronouns in a language places actor in the limelight, conversely, drop of pronouns de-emphasizes the actor and stresses contextual implications It means that the concentration on actors rather than context illustrates a characteristic

of IDV (Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002) Therefore, there is an intimate relationship between pronoun usage and individualistic manifestation in process of communication

2.1.7 Speech act

Speech act theory is put forward by John Austin in the late 1950s A speech act is

an utterance that has performative function in language and communication (Austin, 1962) In general, speech acts are acts of communication To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act that is performed corresponds

to the type of attitude being expressed For example, a statement expresses a belief,

a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses regret As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the hearer identifies, in accordance with the speaker‟s intention, the attitude being expressed

Speech act theory broadly explains the utterances as having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts A locutionary act is the act of uttering something containing literal meanings from syntactic, lexical, and phonological aspect An illocutionary act is the act performed in saying something, which means we say something when we do it A perlocutionary act is the effect or the consequence of saying something (Austin, 1962)

Types of speech acts can be distinguished on the basis of structure and general function A fairly simple structural distinction between three general types of speech acts is provided, in English, by the three basic sentence types There is an easily recognized relationship between the three structural forms (declarative,

interrogative, imperative) and the three general communicative functions (statement, question, command/request) “You wear a seat belt” (declarative), “do you wear a seat belt?” (interrogative), “Wear a seat belt!” (imperative) (Yule 2008:54) Apart from distinguishing speech acts according to their general function, they can also be distinguished with regard to their structure A speech act can be direct or indirect speech act

Direct speech act

A speech act is seen as a direct speech act when there is a direct relationship between the structure and the communicative function of the speech act, or there is

a direct congruence between locutionary and illocutionary forces For example: Communicative function Structural form Example

Indirect speech act

Searle (1979) introduced the idea of indirect illocutionary act which also known

as indirect speech act This is speaker's act of communicating with hearer more than what is actually said It relies on the knowledgeable background information about the conversation shared by both speaker and hearer In other words, indirect speech acts is the act of conducting an illocutionary act indirectly For example:

Communicative function Structural form Example

dishes

Command/ request Declarative I would like you to wash the dishes

Interrogative Can you wash the dishes?

2.2 Reviews of previous studies

Firth and Wesson (1991) evaluated the content of print advertising from the United States and England with regard to manifestation of cultural values The study‟s result showed that magazine advertisements in the United States employed more individualistic factors than British advertisements However, social class differences are more obvious in British advertisements than that in American advertisements From the research‟s findings, it has conclusively been suggested that it would be inefficient to make standardized international advertising

Han and Shavitt (1994) investigated American and Korean advertising and realized that individualistic appeals are used more in American advertisements than

in Korean advertisements In contrast, collectivistic features are employed more in Korean advertisements than in American ones This finding is similar to the prediction and congruent with each country‟s culture since Korea is considered to

be a collectivistic culture The study revealed that Koreans considered individualistic messages to be more persuasive than collectivistic messages for some products, while Americans found individualistic messages were considered to

be more persuasive than collectivistic messages by for all products These findings make people consider whether the cultural value of COL may be giving way to IDV,

at least within some product categories and among young adults in Korea Moreover, these findings could offer motivation to study more to deeply understand advertising content in both individualistic and collectivistic cultures, as well as the shift in cultural values in societies and advertisements

In 2014, Nguyen Anh Loan conducted a study entitled “Cultural values and advertising appeals in international advertising- a comparison of Finland and Vietnam print advertising” The research‟ framework is based on Pollay‟s concept

of values applied to Hofstede‟s cultural framework to analyze of 36 VPAs and 36 Finish print advertisements from eight product categories with regard to the relationship between advertising appeals and cultural values The researcher found that Finnish advertising‟s analysis indicates that uniqueness is the most found appeal that represents individualistic values, as well as the findings disclose that the appeals related to IDV are dominant in Finnish results while only popularity which

is one of the most found appeals demonstrates collectivistic values On the other hand, Vietnam is a collectivistic culture; thus family is the most common appeal in this cultural dimension Furthermore, the results reveal value paradox on both Finnish and Vietnamese cases, especially Finnish results provide value paradox on four cultural dimensions, namely, masculinity – femininity, power distance, and long – short-term orientation Yet, Vietnam only has one value paradox phenomenon on uncertainty avoidance dimension This study implies that the cultural values in advertising should be paid more attention to, and it gives more insights for international advertiser to plan their marketing and advertising strategy

2.3 Summary

So far the literature reviews have shown that, there are a diverse range of viewpoints related to IDV&COL, and they have been already existed for a long time Based on those long standing beliefs, Americans should be individualists, but Vietnamese should be collectivists Besides, it can be seen that most previous researches are based on the perspective on IDV&COL in a bipolar continuum After

taking all those points into consideration, I was persuaded to conduct the present study in order to test whether those long standing beliefs are appropriate for APAs

& VPAs or not

Furthermore, recent studies has points out that in spite of the fact that there have been many studies that examined cultural values including IDV&COL manifested

in advertisements with a comparison between two or more than two countries, it is still insufficient because there are so many countries which have not been covered yet, especially in Southeast Asian countries which have been growing so fast recently Asian countries were also opted for conducting cross-cultural studies with the purpose of comparing Western and Easter cultural characteristics, or exploring distinct traits in either Asian culture or Western culture According to Nyilasy and his partners (2011), Japan and China were investigated most frequently, followed by Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and so forth Furthermore, Nyilasy et al (2011) also disclosed that Southeast Asia countries were regularly chosen for study because of their fast development of economy recently However, there have been not many researches that focus on print advertising in Vietnam in terms of the cultural dimensions of IDV & COL manifested in advertising from the aspect of linguistic study; instead, most of previous studies mainly based on cultural- psychology analysis Therefore, this study addresses these gaps and extends previous studies by examining IDV&COL reflected in print advertisements and makes a comparison between APAs and VPAs The next chapter presents the methodology for this study and explains why such methodology is used to examine the IDV- COL in APAs and VPAs

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter introduces the research methodology for this study Design of the

study, data and procedure, and analytical framework are explained

3.1 Design of the study

This research combined both quatitative and qualitative case study to investigate the cultural dimension of IDV-COL in the APAs and VPAs A qualitative method with inductive approach is appropriate to address the investigated issue for two reasons First, the object of analysis is text from print advertising, this kind of written text is clear for the researcher to observe and describe data throughout the research Denzin and Lincoln (1994) disclosed that qualitative meth1od is a common approach to address issues, and it has gotten favor of most of linguists when choosing the linguistic research method In order to investigate the linguistic manifestation of IDV and COL in the advertising, some basic linguistic aspects will

be examined through qualitative method such as grammatical structures, vocabulary, and textual factors Second, qualitative research, on the other hand, uses the inductive approach that seeks to trace general principles, theories or truth from the data (Muharttoyo, 2007) Meanwhile, this research also takes the first step in examining the linguistic demonstrations in print advertising with regard to the cultural dimensions of IDV and COL, after that some certain conclusions could be given In this study, the case is 43 VPAs and 43 APAs, and the boundaries of the case are their IDV and COL embedded in linguistic features

3.2 Data and procedure

In order to compare the depiction of IDV- COL in American and Vietnamese advertising, samples of national print advertisements from newspapers and magazines in each country were randomly collected between 1st March 2018 and

25th May 2019 The Forbes, The Economist and The Women‟s Health were selected for the American sample; Forbes Việt Nam, Thời báo kinh tế Việt Nam and báo Phụ

nữ were selected for the Vietnamese sample These newspapers and magazines can

be considered to be main streams of information in both countries After sorting all commercial advertisements out and leaving out non-commercial advertisings, a total

of 86 magazine and newspaper advertisements were drawn with 43 advertisements from each country

A four-phase study was planned for the investigation In order to examine the data correctly and drive the study on track, it is of paramount importance to deeply understand the core notions such as IDV, COL, print advertising Therefore, at the first phase, all these concepts are reviewed based on the previous studies At the second stage of the study, an attempt is to be made to create an appropriate theoretical framework according to the attributes of IDV, COL, functions and components of print advertising In the third step, I make a close observation of the advertising texts, and apply descriptive method to explore linguistic features reflecting IDV and COL from collected data in agreement with the theoretical framework Then collected data are analyzed honestly by the author Finally, after collecting and analyzing the data, conclusions, limitations and some implications for further study will be indicated

3.3 Analytical framework

As was pointed out in chapter two, according to the attributes of IDV/ COL, print advertising‟s functions and characteristics, I decided to conduct this research with linguistics-based analytical framework which includes the following 3 domains: First person pronoun use, communication styles and face & facework

3.3.1 First person pronoun use

Language is often described as the mirror of culture, in international business, language is important for information gathering and evaluation The culture- language relationship can be looked at in two ways: language influences culture, and language is an expression of culture The first perspective shows that the

worldview of people depends on the structure of language they speak and its characteristics The second one indicates that language reflects culture Which language a person speaks is part of the culture which he or she grew up in, and the language reflects all manifestations of culture, expressions and values These values cannot be easily translated because words expressing values have abstract meanings Words must be seen as labels of values The present research focuses on the rate at which first person pronouns used in texts of print advertising and its manifestation

of IDV & COL Several researchers have found that the use of first person singular pronoun (“I”) within a particular language manifests the independent or individualistic self, meanwhile the use of the first person plural pronoun (“We”) represents the interdependent or collectivist self (e.g., Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 199; Na & Choi, 2009) In this research, I will count the presence of first person singular pronouns (I, my) and first personal plural pronouns (we, our) in each country‟s advertisements, so that the level of IDV and COL will

be represented respectively

3.3.2 Communication styles

According to Norton (1978), „„the way one verbally and paraverbally interacts to signal how literal meaning should be taken, interpreted, filtered, or understood‟‟ pertains to different communication styles (p 99) More specifically, in 2011 Martin and Nakayama examined the communication style with regard to several features of communication process, they started the study with analyzing high- and low-context styles After that, they investigated direct/ indirect styles, elaborate/ exact/ succinct styles, personal/ contextual styles, and instrumental/affective styles The constructs of IDV vs COL lead to the differences between communication styles (Ting-Toomey, 1999; Triandis, 1995) as follows: (Nguyễn hòa, 2019)

Table 2: Differences between individualistic communication styles & collectivistic

communication styles

IDV Low-context Direct Self-enhancement Person-oriented Talk COL High-context Indirect Self-effacement Status-oriented Silence

Connecting the above communication styles with the purposes and characteristics

of print advertisements, low- high context, direct-indirect, self-enhancement versus self- effacement are identified numerous differences in communication styles from culture to culture

3.3.2.1 High and low context communication

One of the primary differences between cultures has been the concept of high- and low-context cultures, proposed by Edward.T Hall He says, „„I have observed that meaning and context are inextricably bound up with each other‟‟ (Hall, 2000: 36)

He also recommends that the meaning, context and the code (the words themselves) should be considered all together when communicating in order to deeply understand communication

Hall explains high context and low context in the following way: “A high context communication or message is one in which most of the information is already in the person, while very little is in the coded, explicitly transmitted part of the message A low context communication is just the opposite (i.e., the mass of the communication

is vested in the explicit code).” (Hall & Hall, 1990, p.6) It can be understood that the notion of high and low context served as a means of realizing various cultural tendencies Hall maintains that although all cultures contain some characteristics of both high and low variables, most can be placed along a scale showing their ranking

on this particular dimension

Cultures that have extensive information networks among family, friends, colleagues and clients and who are involved in close personal relationships are high-context cultures, while low-context people compartmentalize their personal relationships, their work, and many aspects of day-to-day life, consequently, each time they interact with others they need detailed background information (Hall&Hall 1990 p.7) Take Vietnam and the United States for example, In high- context cultures such as Vietnam, people do not require or expect much in-depth, background information, they tend to be more aware of their surroundings and their environment and do not rely very much on verbal communication as their main information source The context of the message is well understood by both sender and receiver This is because they keep themselves informed about everything which has to do with people who are important in their lives The meaning is not necessarily contained in words In high-context cultures, information is provided through gestures, the use of space, and even silence Meaning is also conveyed through status (age, sex, education, family background, title, and affiliations) In Vietnam, communication between people is to a large extent dependent on the context, it is unnecessary to verbalize everything On the other hand, in low-context cultures such as America, people tend to compartmentalize interpersonal contacts The Halls (1990) say this lack of a large pool of common experiences means that

“each time they interact with others, they need detailed background information.” In low-context cultures, most of the information are contained in the verbal message, and very little is embedded in the context or within the participants In America, people are more prone to making very explicit statement and have little capability with nonverbal forms of expression

After that, in 2000, Hall stated that there might be no culture only belonging to one pole of the context construct ( only IDV or only COL), and features of both high- and low-context communication are embedded in most cultures in different contexts, or even within the same contextual situation Consequently, with the aim

of exploring level of IDV and COL in American and Vietnamese advertising

through low versus high context communication, I will focus on explicit and implicit meanings in both countries‟ print advertisements With conventional wisdom, explicit messages involve IDV; on the contrary, implicit messages involve COL A few characteristics have been identified as typical high or low context attributes when examining advertising content These can be used when conducting research within the subject Marieke de Mooij (2005) has presented a framework for categorizing high and low context advertisements Low context advertisements contain more factual information about the product, often accompanied by a visual presentation or explanation of facts about the product or brand, called product messages The message often includes product name, company, brand logo, ingredients, price, availability, discounts/ reward, contacts and news about the product The message needs to be clear, unambiguous, direct and denotative By contrast, high context commercials include implicit messages whose meanings should be identified in certain context and metonymy‟s messages (De Mooij, 2005)

3.3.2.2 Direct and indirect communication styles

One of the most important and most studied distinctions between collectivistic and individualistic cultures is the indirect/direct dichotomy Simply put, direct communication refers to that much of the message is stated directly rather than implied Direct communicators are expected to be straightforward, concise, and efficient in telling what action is expected Contrarily, in indirect communication, much can be assumed and inferred People communicate in subtle, indirect ways that are often missed by people from direct cultures As often is the case, indirect communication is closely related to high-context cultures and direct communication

to low-context cultures

There are many researches highlight how individualists prefer direct communication while collectivists prefer indirect communication From Hofstede‟s view of point, people from collectivistic cultures favor indirect communication style,

on the contrary, Gudykunst (1996) states that individualists favor direct

communication partly because they can assert control over their relationships As mentioned above, print advertisements are written documents that are regarded as means of communication between advertised products‟ sellers and customers Searle states that all linguistic communication involves linguistic (speech) acts In other words, speech acts are the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication

So that when investigating the cultural values of IDV and COL in terms of direct and indirect styles, I will focus on analyzing directness and indirectness of speech acts used for motivating customers to buy products ( requesting, promise, inviting, offering and suggesting acts) in advertising text

3.3.2.3 Self-contrual: self-enhancement & self-effacement

Markus and Kitayama (1991) frame self-construals as what people „„believe about the relationship between the self and others, and, especially, the degree to which they see themselves as separate from others and as connected with others‟‟ (p 226) The view of self as connected to others is an interdependent self-construal, while a belief in a self-separate and distinct from others is an independent self-construal Kim, Aune, Kim, and Watanabe (1999) argue that self-construals are a mediating process between culture and communication behavior

It was predicated that independent self and interdependent self would differently affect the evaluation of self-enhancing presentation and self-effacing presentation Markus and Kitayama (1991) proposed that two types of self-construals, independent-self and interdependent-self, are dominantly developed in individualistic culture and collectivistic culture, respectively People with independent-self tend to view themselves as separate from others and self-sufficient Because the norm for independent self is to achieve uniqueness and self- actualization, people with independent-self strive to know themselves and to express their own unique strengths Both self-enhancement and self-effacement serve to maintain a positive self-image, and they are often used as communication strategies in interpersonal relations

Miller etal (1992) proposed that three types of self-presentation messages are especially often used by individuals to enhance the self in communication They include bragging, and positive and negative presentations People who use bragging presentations often use superlatives like „best‟ versus „good‟, compare themselves with others, show less surprise on their accomplishment, and attribute success to hard work less People who use bragging presentations also often exaggerate that they are outstanding individuals and they deserved their outcomes People using positive presentations use expressions that imply their achievements, but they typically emphasize their own efforts than ability, stress their responsibilities of the job, and attribute the success to others‟ help In contrast, those who use negative presentations typically emphasize their lack of ability or talents and express a feeling of embarrassment about a particular performance

According to Ting- Toomey (1991), in the self-enhancement style, it is important

to draw attention to or exaggerate one's credentials, outstanding accomplishments, and special abilities In the self-humbling style, it is important to downplay oneself via modest talk, restraint, hesitation, and self-deprecation concerning one's performance or effort Individualistic culture such as the U.S may encourage its members to be loud and proud, to sell themselves and boast about their achievements Collectivistic culture like Vietnam, however, seems to be not comfortable with the idea of selling oneself.

3.3.3 Face and Facework

Face is a social construct to describe the public image of one's self that results from the communicative strategies used to create, maintain, or challenge such an image Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) identify two types of face that people try to maintain in interaction Negative face deals with the desire for autonomy: not to be imposed on by others Positive face encompasses the desire to be accepted and have what one wants approved by others Lim and Bowers (1991) expanded on the idea

of positive face, proposing that there are two distinct positive face wants: the desire

to be included (fellowship face) and the desire to be respected (competence face) Facework is broadly defined as the actions taken to deal with the face-wants of one or another It involves the enactment of verbal and nonverbal moves, self- presentation acts, impression management interaction and face strategies which can

be used to diffuse, manage, enhance, or downgrade self or others face It concerns a set of communicative behaviors that people use to regulate their social dignity and

to support or challenge the other‟s social dignity (Ting-Toomey, 1994) Face work theory provides a means of understanding the context of interaction and the ways in which advertisers choose speech patterns based on perceptions efface needs, face threats, and contextual features of power, culture, and social distance Models of face work as face concern, politeness are presented to illuminate how IDV and COL are expressed

3.3.3.1 Self-face & Other-face concern

Face-negotiation theory emphasizes three face concerns Self-face is the concern for one‟s own image, other-face is the concern for another‟s image, and mutual-face

is concern for both parties‟ images and/or the “image” of the relationship Toomey & Kurogi, 1998) Oetzel et al.(2003) found that the independent self- construal correlated positively with self-face and interdependent self-construal positively correlated with other-face Language and cultural values are inextricably linked According to Kashima and Kashima 1998, Pronoun-drop is a linguistic phenomenon in which person deixis, the pronouns that index writer and reader such

(Ting-as „I/ WE‟ and „you‟, are omitted in verbal communication without interrupting the flow of interaction Kashima and Kashima (1998, 2005) predicted that the linguistic practice of pronoun-drop should be linked to the cultural practice of discouraging the speakers from highlighting and emphasizing oneself as a prominent figure against the contextual background (including the listener) Accordingly, Kashima and Kashima (1998, 2005) reasoned that the writers of pronoun-drop language

would be oriented towards COL, while the speakers of non-pronoun-drop language would be oriented towards IDV (i.e., scoring high on Hofstede IDV scale)

Based on the theory of self-face concern vs other- face concern and pronoun dropping, writing style of advertisers will express their intention of more concerning either themselves or readers via the way they use writer- oriented style (with I/We approach) or reader-oriented style (with You approach) The present research focuses on a grammatical feature of language and face concern Specifically, it is suggested that the rate at which particular personal pronouns (I,

We, You) are used in a language and levels of face concern are rated

3.3.3.2 Negative and positive politeness strategies

Naturally, business communication is very persuasive One important element of persuasive language is the employment of politeness strategies that are in line with the need of market People who encounter polite linguistic elements which display respect or consideration for others are more willing to pay attention to that polite language Therefore, since it is of critical importance for advertisers to attract readers‟ attention and to maintain social and emotional relationships with their customers, they are expected to employ politeness strategies with much care in their advertisements

Lakoff (1975) holds the view that politeness has been developed to reduce friction

in communication, and Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki, and Ogino (1986, p 349) define

it as “one of the constraints on human interaction, whose purpose is to consider others‟ feelings, establish levels of mutual comfort, and promote rapport” In everyday interaction, a large extent of polite strategies is exchanged among people

in order to maintain effective communication The crucial point in every interaction then can be studied by the amount and type of politeness strategies used by writers and readers in order to construct appropriate interpersonal relationships (Woods, 2006)

In their theory which is widely known as the most comprehensive and influential model in pragmatic politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987) believed to base their notion of „face‟ on that of Goffman (1955) For them, the two types of desires which are attributed by one interactant to the other, that is, “the desire to be unimpeded in one‟s actions (negative face) and the desire to be approved of (positive face)” are the components which mainly compose the notion of face (cited

in Johnstone, 2008, p.146) According Brown and Levinson (1987: 60), writers want to maintain each other‟s face in interaction However, sometimes the writer is forced to make „face-threatening-acts (Acts that threat someone‟s face) in order to get what he/she wants Even though face-threatening-acts cannot be sometimes avoided, there are certain strategies to minimize the threat Brown and Levinson list five options a speaker can choose from in case a face threatening act should be performed; each strategy requiring a different amount of face saving effort

Figure 2: Brown and Levinson’s (1987: 60) model for politeness strategies

The risk of face loss grows the further down from politeness strategy 1 to 5 First, Bald- on record: Direct speech acts contain the imperative without any mitigating devices, follow Grice‟s Maxims of Cooperation, are relevant, brief and

avoid ambiguity and do not communicate more than is required and thus no concern for face wants is expressed When urgency or efficiency is necessary, a face- threatening act can also be done without redress Second, positive politeness: Brown and Levinson (1987) list 15 positive politeness strategies With first eight of the strategies, the writer claims common ground, “indicating that writer and reader belong to the same set of persons who share specific wants, including goals and values” (p 103) The latter strategies are used to convey that speaker and hearer are co-operators and have the same goals Consequently, if speaker requires something from the hearer, he can use the strategies to hint that by attending to the speaker, the hearer is acting in his own interest as well Third, in terms of negative politeness, Brown and Levinson list following 10 strategies that make use of negative politeness Fourth, off-record strategy is applied by giving hints, providing contradiction, irony, metaphor, understate or overstate, and also providing ambiguity, vagueness, overgeneralization and ellipsis Moreover, writers choose avoidance strategy to avoid doing face threatening acts In Brown and Levinson‟s opinion, negative politeness is considered more polite and formal than positive politeness

3.4 Summary

As mentioned before, qualitative case study method was chosen to explore IDV

& COL between APAs and VPAs The data collection and procedure were presented in detail Finally, analytical framework of this study involves three

domains namely first person pronoun use, communication styles, and face & facework In the next chapter, the study‟s findings and discussion will be

represented