A Vietnamese – Filipino cross cultural study on greetings and responses

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES CHU THỊ NGỌC A VIETNAMESE – FILIPINO CROSS CULTURAL STUDY ON GREE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

CHU THỊ NGỌC

A VIETNAMESE – FILIPINO CROSS CULTURAL STUDY

ON GREETINGS AND RESPONSES

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT NAM – PHI-LÍP-PIN

TRONG CÁCH CHÀO HỎI VÀ ĐÁP LỜI

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

CHU THỊ NGỌC

A VIETNAMESE – FILIPINO CROSS CULTURAL STUDY

ON GREETINGS AND RESPONSES

NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT NAM – PHI-LÍP-PIN

TRONG CÁCH CHÀO HỎI VÀ ĐÁP LỜI

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D

HANOI – 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS i

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research problem and rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Significance 2

1.4 Scope 3

1.5 Organization 3

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

2 1 Cross-culture communication 4

2.1.1 Culture 4

2.1.2 Communication and Cross-cultural communication 5

2.2 Definitions of greetings 5

2.3 Functions and use of greetings 9

2.3.1 Function of greetings 9

2.3.2 Use of greetings 10

2.4 Review of studies on greetings in English and Vietnamese 14

2.5 Factors affecting choice of greetings 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research design 18

3.2 Participants 18

3.3 Data collection 19

3.3.1 Data collection instrument 19

3.3.2 Sending consent form and designing questionnaires 19

3.3.3 Delivering questionnaires 21

3.4 Data analysis 21

3.4.1 Data analysis instrument 21

3.4.2 Data analysis procedure 22

4.1 For the first dimension: power distance 23

4.1.1 For question number 1: Greetings and responses to a director/ manager 23

4.1.2 Question number 2: Greetings and responses to the staffs 24

4.1.3 For question number 3: Greetings and responses to a „VIP‟ guest of the company 25

4.1.4 For question number 4: Greetings and responses to a cleaner/ guard of the company 26 4.2 Dimension gender 27

4.3 Dimension age: Greetings and responses to an older or a younger student 29

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 35

5.1 Major findings of the study 35

5.1.1 Greetings and responses to director/ manager 35

5.1.2 Greeting and responses to the staffs in the company 35

5.1.3 Greetings and responses to a cleaner/ guard 36

5.1.4 Greetings and responses in other cases 36

5.2 Limitations 38

5.3 Suggestions 38 APPENDIXES I APPENDIX B III LIST OF COMPANIES PARTICIPATING IN THE STUDY III APPENDIX C IV QUESTIONNAIRES FOR IV VIETNAMESE – FILIPINO CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON GREETINGS AND RESPONSES

IN BUSINESS IV

DECLARATION

I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research, and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution

Hanoi, November 2016

Signature

Chu Thi Ngoc

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ph.D To Thi Thu Huong, who gave me enthusiastic instructions, patient guidance and precious comments throughout the process of carrying out this study Had not been for her valuable support and her encouragement, I would not have finished my research

My sincere thanks are also to those working in companies in The Philippines as well as in Vietnam for their constructive comments as well as their participation which was essential to the completion of the study

Last but not least, I want to send my gratefulness to my family and my friends who have encouraged and support me during the process of doing this study

ABSTRACT

This research focuses on finding out what Filipino and Vietnamese working in companies often say to greet and respond in daily conversations The framework used in this study was built mainly based on Hofstede‟s but with some adaptation; therefore, only four dimensions were applied to gain data The four dimensions applied were power distance, gender, age, and acquaintance Despite some minor differences, there were mostly similarities were found between answers from participants in two countries in particular situations

LIST OF FIGURE AND DIAGRAM

Figure 1: Hofstede‟s cultural dimensions

Diagram 1: Laver‟s diagram of the Factors that Constrain the Choice of Formulaic Greeting Phrases in British English

Table 1: A summary of greetings and responses to a director/ manager

Table 2: A summary of greetings and responses to the staffs

Table 3: A summary of greetings and responses to a „VIP‟ guest

Table 4: A summary of greetings and responses to a cleaner/ guard

Table 5: A summary of greetings and responses to an older colleague

Table 6: A summary of greetings and responses to a younger colleague

Table 7: A summary of greetings and responses to a male colleague

Table 8: A summary of greetings and responses to a female colleague

Table 9: A summary of greetings and responses to a first meeting colleague

Table 10: A summary of greetings and responses to a well-known colleague

Table 11: A summary of commonly used topics

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims to provide with the most general information about what is included in the study and how it is carried out

1.1 Research problem and rationale

Nowadays, the tendency of studying abroad is becoming more and more popular Many Vietnamese students have been taking courses in famous universities in English-speaking countries like England, The United States, and Australia There also appears a trend of coming to some Asian countries where English is spoken as

an official language such as Singapore, The Philippines

As a country of the Southeast Asian area, The Philippines is the country that has quite a close relationship with Vietnam Especially, in the globalization trend and the process of building an Asian Economic Community, the understanding of the countries in this area is really necessary However, The Philippines has been familiar with most of Vietnamese only through some films or occasionally-held cultural exchanging programs Although English is spoken widely in The Philippines, the ways the Filipino use English may be different from that people in other English speaking countries due to distinguished cultural features Besides, there have not been many studies on relationship between the Vietnamese and the Filipino culture Deep understanding is even more essential for students who want

to learn and people who want to do business in The Philippines and work with the Filipino, and vice versa Ferraro & Briody (2006) also cited what had been proved

by other scholars about the importance of cultural understanding that „failures in the global business setting – including partnerships and joints ventures – most frequently result from an inability to understand and adapt to foreign ways of thinking and acting rather than from technical or professional incompetence‟ (Black, Gregersen, and Mendenhall (1992), Adler (2002); Thomas (2007); Maurer and Li (2006))

From those above mentioned reasons, the study was conducted under the title ‘A

Vietnamese – Filipino cross – cultural study on greetings and responses’ with the

hope to find out the similarities as well as the differences in greetings and responses frequently used in these two languages, which is the very first cultural matter people should know when trying to understand a country and a culture This study paid more attention on how people working in companies greet each other verbally from the cultural approach

1.2 Aims of the study

This study is conducted with the hope to make some comparisons between the ways Vietnamese and Filipino people greet each other, especially among those working

in companies Main focus is going to be put on verbal language in the business circumstance The results of this study may be useful for any Vietnamese student who wants to take a business course in The Philippines; or for the Filipino who want to study, travel or do business in Vietnam Besides, the findings in this study can be used as a reference for other researchers who have interest in language or culture field

To implement these aims, these three following questions will be used:

1 What are the common greetings and responses in English used by Filipino businessman in the company?

2 What are the common greetings and responses in Vietnamese used by Vietnamese businessman in the company?

3 What are similarities and differences in greetings and responses in these two languages?

1.3 Significance

This study, on the one hand, hopes to provide the Vietnamese students‟ knowledge

of the greetings and responses that the Filipino and the Vietnamese working in companies often use in their everyday business contacts; therefore, they can not

only widen their background knowledge but also make a careful preparation for their learning abroad and future working plans

On the other hand, enterprises probably find the findings of the study useful in their plan of doing business in Vietnam or in The Philippines

Moreover, as there has not been any research in investigating this issue yet, the research wishes to bring Filipino and Vietnamese people closer through their deeper understanding in culture Hence, people from these two countries can get benefits in educational, economic and cultural exchanges

1.4 Scope

The study is going to compare the phrases of Vietnamese and Filipino greetings made by businessmen and staffs in their companies to see the similarities as well as the differences Here, the Filipino greetings and responses are delivered in English while Vietnamese is used in Vietnam

1.5 Organization

The main body of this thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction: presents the rationale, the aims, the significance, the

scope and the design of the study The research questions are also raised in this chapter

Chapter 2: Theoretical background: provides the definition of major related

concepts and reviews the related works that compose the theoretical background of the study

Chapter 3: Methodology: gives a more detailed description of methodology used

Who took part in, which method was used to collect and analyze data

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion: demonstrates the results after analyzing the

collected data and gives brief summary answer for the research questions

Chapter 5: Conclusion: summarizes the whole research, gives some implications,

and discusses the limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter introduces the different definitions of greetings and its functions

Moreover, this chapter will provide a deeper insight into the common greetings and

responses used by Vietnamese and Filipino

2 1 Cross-culture communication

2.1.1 Culture

There are hundreds of definitions of culture from different approaches The writer found that Mahadi (2012) cited a series of different definitions of culture He quoted Roohul-Amini‟s definition (1989) that "culture has multifarious meanings Culture meant farming" (p 15) From the sociological perspective, culture is the total of the „inherited and innate ideas, attitudes, beliefs, values, and knowledge, comprising or forming the shared foundations of social action‟ Likewise, from the anthropological and ethnological senses, culture „encompasses the total range of activities and ideas of a specific group of people with common and shared traditions, which are conveyed, distributed, and highlighted by members of the group‟ (Collins English Dictionary 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003) Edward Sapir (1956) considered culture as „a system of behaviors and modes that depend

on unconsciousness‟ Whereas, Rocher (1972, 2004), an anthropologist, believes that „culture is a connection of ideas and feelings accepted by the majority of people in a society‟ (p 142) Undeniably, culture is learned and shared within social groups and is conveyed by non-genetic ways (The American Heritage, Science Dictionary 2005)

On the other hand, Hofstede‟s opinion of culture (2005) stated that „culture consists

of the unwritten rules of the social game It is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishing the members of a group or category of people from others‟ (p.3) He also claimed the elements of cultures consist of values, beliefs, and material products

2.1.2 Communication and Cross-cultural communication

According to Business dictionary, „communication is a two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share meaning‟ In other words, communication is considered as a means of connecting people or places In business, it is „a key function of management – an organization cannot operate without communication between levels, departments and employees‟

According to Krauss (2002), verbal communication often used signs and symbols and it was the symbolic content of verbal communication that decided the extraordinary effectiveness He also stated that language is only one of the symbol systems which are employed in human communication

Cross-cultural communication, also known as intercultural communication, is „the sending and receiving of messages across languages and cultures It is also a negotiated understanding of meaning in human experiences across social systems and societies‟ (cited by Arent (2009)) In the globalization, awareness of cultural diversity become more and more necessary to help people avoid misunderstanding and achieve communication purposes

2.2 Definitions of greetings

Greetings are an important part of the communicative competence for being a member of any speech community „They are often one of the first verbal routines learned by children and certainly; one of the first topics introduced in foreign language classes‟ (Duranti (1997, p.188) There are numerous definitions of greetings from different approaches such as ethnology, linguistics, sociology and

ethnography, some of which were mentioned in this study

In the Cambridge dictionary, greeting is „something friendly or polite that you say

or do when meet or welcome someone‟ In plural, it is „a message that says you

hope someone is well, happy, etc.‟

Being investigated by another researcher, Firth‟s viewpoint as cited in Li‟s study (2010), greetings were „a system of signs that convey other than overt messages‟

This can be understood that when greeting a person, the speaker can use both verbal and non-verbal language to convey the message

In one linguistic journal, Duranti (1997) reintroduced the definition of greetings by Firth (1972) and Goffman (1971) in ethological field that greetings in all societies were about continuity of relationships, but they said that the representation, conceptualization, and perception of continuity by humans seemed to be more complex than that found in other species

In another way of accessing definition of greetings, Williams (2001) reviewed on greeting exchanges from three perspectives: at micro level was linguistic aspect which focused on linguistic behavior, from sociolinguistic aspect which looked more at social interaction and at a broader level which interpreted the linguistic behavior of greetings along with interaction as representing culture

As being cited by William (2001), from the first point of view, linguistic definition introduced by two linguists, Schegloff and Sacks (1973), saw greetings as „a speech

event composed of two parts side by side, serial, and sequential‟ such as

Greeting-Greeting: (A: Hi B: Hi) Or greeting- request for information (A: Hi B: Do you have a class today?)

Whereas, in the sociolinguistic approach, the famous sociolinguists Goffman (1971), saw greeting exchanges as „access rituals‟ consisting of two kinds, passing greetings and engaging greetings In general, greetings were defined as „consisting

of several interlinking behaviors: Verbal, non-verbal, term of address and social

context‟ Besides, greeting phenomenon was referred to as ritual with verbal form

(may be one of three linguistic units: question („How do you do?), interjection

(„Hello‟) or affirmation („Good morning‟)) and non-verbal form (composed of body

language)

Lastly, in anthropological linguistics approach, greetings were defined by Fieg and Mortlock (1989) as “ritualistic expressions” which are affected by social factors, particularly cross-cultural differences (as cited in Williams, 2001)

To sum up, each definition accessed to „greetings‟ from one aspect so that they gave

us multi-dimensional review on this concept Depend on the studying approach, particular ways of defining „greetings‟ should be applied The researcher finds the latest definition of Goffman (1971) the most suitable with what are going to be dealt with in this research Hence, the study will be able to investigate how people in two cultures greet each other using verbal language, based upon different social factors, especially among people in business context

In English, especially in business, people often use formal ways to greet each other There are some common ways like

- A: „How do you do‟ - B: I‟m doing well (very formal),

- A: „How have you been?‟ - B: talk about their current life (people who have already met)

- A: „It‟s nice to meet you‟ or „Pleased to meet you‟ (for the first time meeting) B: Me, too./ Pleased to meet you

- „Good morning/ good afternoon/ good evening‟

People can also use casual greetings like „hello/ hi‟ or use small talks:

- A: „How are you?/ how are things?‟… - B: Good/ not bad/ Fine, thanks, and you?

- A: „What‟s up?/ what‟s new?/ What‟s going on?‟,… - B: Nothing/ not much (more than asking about wellness) What‟s about you?

- A: How‟s it going? / How are you doing? – B: It‟s going well/ I‟m doing well How about you?

- A: Long time no see (what‟s new?) - B: Long time no see,

For The Philippines, they are the third largest group of English speaking people in the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom Nolan (1996) once claimed that the Filipino style and tone of business had much difference from that in New York or London although plenty of Philippine business practices follow international models

On the other hand, in a journal about this issue by Yaw Sekyi-Baidoo & Louisa A Koranteng (2008), the Achebe‟s (1976) and Owusu-Ansah‟s hypothesis (1994) was applied Those authors concluded that English general greetings used in a different (non-native) cultural context composed of not the same ethnographic factors perhaps resulted in different forms as well as pragmatic meanings from what belonging to native context Hence, it can be inferred that although English is used

in The Philippines as an official language, the use may be varied

In particular, Filipino also address superiors with the English „sir‟ or „ma‟am‟ in

business context and find uncomfortable with a more informal approach The word

„po‟ meaning „sir‟ is added when talking to a superior or to an elder no matter

which gender he or she is In spite of this, Filipino show their respect to all without concerning station, superior or subordinate relationship to address their partner Colleagues are said to be addressed by the first name Mr., Mrs., or Miss or the titles such as Dr (doctor), Engr (engineer) Those greetings may be accompanied with non-verbal greetings such as „a hug and kiss between close female friend, holding hand between male friends, making eye contact, raising and lowering their

eyebrows‟ („Cultural clues, do‟s and taboos: Communication guidelines for the

Philippines‟)

In Vietnam, greetings is considered an indispensable and important part in their everyday life Vietnamese greet each other not only to welcome but also to establish

and maintain relationship with people surrounding According to Vietnamese

dictionary (2013), to greet means to speak or use actions to show one‟s respect and

closed behavior There are two types of greetings in Vietnamese: direct and indirect

greetings

In the first type, direct greetings are used to open or to end a meeting to express

polite, modest and gentle behavior of speakers (Phạm Thị Thành, 1995) They often

have the structures such as

- Chào Sp2

- Chào Sp2 ạ!

- Sp1 chào Sp2

- Sp1 chào Sp2 ạ!

They all include the word „Chào‟ and sometimes the word „ạ‟ at the end of the

greetings to show respect to the listener This structure is different from that in English in which greetings missing subject or modality On the other hand, this feature is created because Vietnamese want to create closed relationship between speakers

In the second type of greetings in Vietnamese, indirect greetings are represented by more forms and used more frequently Hence, this type shows Vietnamese typical features of traditional values Indirect greetings may use questions about health, family or hometown to greet, for instance:

„Khỏe không?‟ („How are you?‟) or „Công việc dạo này sao rồi?‟ (How‟s your

work?‟);

Indirect greetings can also use calling exclamations such as Ô, chị! („Oh, you‟!), A,

mẹ đã về! („Ah, you‟re here, Mom‟)

Or congratulation such as Chúc mừng bạn! („Congratulation!‟), or invitation like

„Mời bác vào xơi cơm ạ‟ (have lunch/ dinner with us‟); or even comments like „Ai

mà diện thế nhỉ?‟ (Who is this beautiful girl?‟)

In the cities nowadays, instead of asking like „bác đi đâu đấy?‟ (where are you

going?) or „bác ăn cơm chưa?‟ (have you had lunch?), people working in offices or

companies tend to greet their colleagues by asking about health or the status of job Responding to those greetings are answers from the listener Similar to situation in The Philippines, Vietnamese can simply perform non-behavior actions like nodding; handshaking or a question or thanking to the aforementioned greetings In some cases, the younger may bow to greet the older when greeting

2.3 Functions and use of greetings

2.3.1 Function of greetings

Greetings is the very first thing to appear in a conversation Greetings was considered as the first step to „establishing rapport‟ (Pachter, 2013) According to Li (2010), greetings was considered under different aspects First of all, when viewing

in pragmatic viewpoint, Li (2010) chose to follow the idea that greetings could be

regarded as illocutionary acts (Austin‟s theory and it belonged to category of

„expressive‟) This means that greetings should not be understood literally Besides,

Li (2010) treated greetings as linguistic routines of politeness From this viewpoint,

he chose to follow Brown and Levinson‟s politeness theory to explain the function and use of greetings According to the two authors, greetings were restricted by social factors (adapted from model of Laver J (1981) cited in Qian (1996)) and would be guided by polite norms in certain cultures

2.3.2 Use of greetings

2.3.2.1 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions

In business context, the Hofstede‟s cultural dimensions (1972) have been applied and cited in many studies especially ones in business marketing The six dimensions

he investigated were power distance, individuality, masculinity versus femininity, tolerance of uncertainty, and long term versus short term

Figure 1: Hofstede’s cultural dimension model (1972)

a Power distance

The power distance dimension can be defined as „the extent to which less powerful

members of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally‟ In

large power distance cultures, everyone has his or her rightful place in a social

hierarchy Further, „the colder the climate, the smaller the power distance‟

According to Hofstede‟s study result conducted originally in 1972, the Philippines got 94 points for power distance index (0 – 100 points) This means that in The Philippines, the awareness of power distance is quite obvious and they are a hierarchical society Similarly, in Vietnam, a hierarchy country (score of 70), the concept of power distance is also common among people Hofstede considered

hierarchy in an organization as a factor reflecting inequality, „subordinates are

supposed to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat‟

b Individualism

It can be defined as „people looking after themselves and their immediate

family only, versus people belonging to in-groups that look after them in exchange for loyalty‟ In other words, the fundamental issue addressed by this dimension is

„the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members‟

The Philippines got 32 points for this dimension It can be inferred that this country

is collectivism oriented This is manifested in a close long-term commitment to the member group, be that a family, extended family or extended relationships The relationship between employer and employee is recognized in moral terms (similar

to a family link), which to some extents, are the same as that practice in Vietnam society (score of 20)

c Masculinity

The dominant values in a masculine society are achievement and success; along with quality of life, caring for other people is the values which domain in a feminine society

The main issue in this dimension is „what motivates people, wanting to be the best

(Masculine) or liking what you do (Feminine)‟

For this dimension, the score of the Philippines is 64 scores It can be inferred from this rank that this society is a masculine society Whereas, Vietnam scores 40 on this dimension and was said to be a „Feminine‟ country according to Hofstede‟s

definition In such masculine countries, Hofstede pointed out that people „live in

order to work‟ People in such kind of society emphasize equity, and solve

competition, performance and conflicts by fighting them out On the contrary, in

feminine countries like Vietnam, people „work in order to live‟; therefore, instead of

being decisive and assertive, managers in a feminine society strived for agreement and equality Besides, Vietnamese are thought to pay more attention in solidarity and quality

d Uncertainty avoidance

This dimension can be defined as „the extent to which people feel threatened by

uncertainty and ambiguity and try to avoid these situations‟

According to the statistic, The Philippines got 44 points while Vietnam got 30 so that those two countries were considered having low preference for avoiding uncertainty, which meant that they remained a more relaxed attitude in which practice outweighed principles and in some cases could deviation from norms be accepted Hofstede clarified that schedules in organizations were flexible, hard

work was undertaken when necessary but not for its own sake, „precision and

punctuality do not come naturally, innovation is not seen as threatening‟

e Long term orientation

This is a dimension which tells us „how every society has to maintain some links

with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and future‟

The Philippines got very low score on this dimension with 27 scores, which means

that „they are more normative than pragmatic‟ Filipino were considered to have

great emphasis on traditions and tend to pay little attention to save for the future In contrast, with the score of 57, Vietnam was ranked as a pragmatic culture In Vietnam‟s society, people had a belief that the truth depended much on situation, context and time

f Indulgence

Hofstede defined „indulgence‟ as „the extent to which people try to control their

desires and impulses‟ based on the way they were raised

With quite low score on this dimension, The Philippines got 42 scores and Vietnam got 32 scores, these two countries were said to have tendency of considering their actions to be restrained by social norms As being claimed by Hofstede, people in two countries was pointed out to have the thought that it was wrong to indulge themselves

2.3.2.2 Laver’s diagram (1981)

There is also another models including social factors affecting greetings that is Laver‟s diagram (1981) of factors constraining the choice of formulaic greeting phrases (Quoted in Qian (1996: 37) These factors can be illustrated in the following diagram

Diagram 1: Laver’s Diagram of the Factors that Constrain the Choice of Formulaic

Greeting Phrases in British English (quoted in Qian, 1996: 37)

In this diagram, from the top to the bottom, the expressions of greeting on the right side were ranked from the most to the least polite According to different variables

of social factors, the speakers would not make the same decision of greeting It can

be seen that the social influence may be listed as age, kinship, power, setting, and dispensation

From these two models, the author chose to adapt and combine both of them to

make a framework to build situations where greetings would be investigated in two cultures

He

2.4 Review of studies on greetings in English and Vietnamese

There have been various researchers spending their interests in greetings in different languages in the world In particular, some students have conducted contrastive studies to find out the same and different features in Vietnamese and English greetings from cultural perspectives

Tam (2009) has focused on different situations in which people would greet each other in not the same ways She mentioned seven situations including:

1 The first situation: (friends) (the equal relationship) Two friends meet each

other on the street Both of them are in a hurried…they say…

2 The second situation: (friends) (the equal relationship) Two friends meet

each other on the street Both of them go to the party but they do not hurry They have time to chat They say…

3 The third situation: (friends) (the equal relationship) A person is invited to

his or her friend‟s birthday party His or her friend opens the door for him or hers They say…

4 The fourth situation: (boss and employee) (the unequal relationship) An

employee is called by his boss They meet each other and say…

5 The fifth situation: (boss and employee) (the unequal relationship) The boss

goes across employee‟s room He enters with some reasons They meet and say…

6 The sixth situation: (two strange people) Two unacquainted students sit

beside each other in the first day of the new school year They say…

7 The seventh situation: (two strange people) At the party, a person recognizes

another to be friendly (same gender) They meet and say……

In addition, Hang (2009) focused on forms and topics to make a contrastive study in

greeting between two cultures In term of form, she cited the results of a research

which showed that English greetings can be divided into eight forms: the greetings

on the run (between two people who have a close relationship), the speedy greetings

– common for colleagues,), the chat – similar to the speedy greeting but enclosed

with a topic, the long greetings – to warm up the relationship after a long time, the

intimate greeting – between two people who know each other well, the all-business greeting – between people who have non-social relationship, the introductory greeting – between people who meet at the first time and the re-greeting – when

you see a person many times during the day Whereas, Vietnamese greetings, based

on the presence of performative verbs, were divided into two kinds: locutionary and

illocutionary greetings (or direct and indirect greetings) The unique feature in

Vietnamese greetings she has found is that the speaker can express his or her

emotion toward the listener through a politeness intensifier „ạ‟

In this study, Hang (2009) found some main differences between English and Vietnamese greetings First of all, in term of forms, English salutation was simpler and more standard than Vietnamese one thanks to its informality Second, addressee forms in English were proved not to be as complicated as ones in Vietnamese Also, these two cultures shared some common features like accompanying with a gesture (kissing, hugging or hand shaking), using the form of question (usually in informal settings) Secondly, when investigating topics, in English greetings, such personal matters were not talked about while in Vietnamese, people tended to show care about what the addressers were doing

Whereas, Hanh (2010) gave a contrastive comparison between English and Vietnamese greetings in term of strategies and topics In the first part of her study, she discussed about the different ways to greet in two cultures When accessing to Vietnamese greetings, she based on two criteria: presence of performative verbs (direct and indirect greetings) and hierarchical order (greeting to senior partner, greeting to junior partner and greeting to equal partner) In English, she used time and formality to classify English greetings Based on time, English greeting can be categorized into greeting at any time of the day (hello, Hi, how are you?), greeting

at specific time (specific in a day, on special days or in ceremonies,…) while based

on formality, she conveyed situations such as meeting at the first time, have known each other

Then Hanh (2010) made a comparison to compare Vietnamese and English greetings based on strategies (as eight one mentioned above) Apart from comparing and contrasting based on strategies, Hanh (2010) pointed out some additional differences in topics due to differences in culture like English greetings contained more neutral and impersonal topics than Vietnamese (weather, food, sport) This might cause some problems when Vietnamese learners tried to translate Vietnamese greetings into English

To sum up, all the studies mentioned above gave quite detailed description on greeting in two cultures such as forms, situations, topics; however, they have not focused on studying greetings in any specific field but mentioned in general Therefore, this study hope to give a clearer and detailed description about greetings

in business circumstance in Vietnam and in The Philippines

The results of those research will be taken as a reference for the researcher to build

a framework

2.5 Factors affecting choice of greetings

As mentioned above, the framework will be built mainly based on Hofstede‟s cultural dimensions (2001) combined with Laver (1981) model and to build situations for investigating the ways the Filipino use English and Vietnamese businessman greet each other Moreover, the researcher will pay more attention to verbal language rather than non-verbal language or combination of both when people greet

From the Laver‟s diagram, some factors were investigated when finding out social factors affecting greetings including kinship, well-acquainted, age, and position (dispensation of rank) When referring to Hofstede‟s framework, such factors as power distance and individualism, gender, were applied, combined with age, acquaintance dimensions to collect data As phrases of greetings were the only concern in this study, other factors including uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, and indulgence related to the behavior during working process would not be exploited

a Power distance

In this research, the way the manager/ director/ team leader and the staffs greet each other will be investigated

d Acquaintance

Situations when people meet at the first time, or when they have known each other are going to received specific concern In those cases, how people greet each other will be examined

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is written with the purpose of specifying how the research will be conducted It consists of four main parts: Participants, instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

3.1 Research design

From cross-cultural viewpoint, this survey research belongs to descriptive design Specifically, it is a survey research which uses questionnaires to find out what people in business environment say to greet and respond to each other

Survey research was proved to be suitable for applied social research because it could fulfill the tasks of a short paper-and-pencil feedback form or an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview (Trochirn, 2006)

3.2 Participants

Due to the aim of this study, the researcher recruits 86 participants from companies

in The Philippines and the same amount of respondents in Vietnam Since the study has to be conducted to find out different ways of greeting and responding that staffs

in these companies use to greet each other, the fields in which Filipino companies investigated is the same as that in which Vietnamese companies chosen In particular, the companies chosen in two countries are doing business on fields such

as information technology, housing and serviced apartment providing, and calling service They are companies agreed to join in the research and they are enterprises

in The Philippines where Vietnamese students are working This choice also helps

the researcher make parallel comparisons in analyzing process

The number of companies joining in this study was only four in each country because of some limitations Firstly, they are the enterprises who agreed to answer the survey questions although the researcher sent the consent form to many companies in advance Secondly, the study just focuses first on such majors that Vietnamese students are learning in the Philippines, which affects choosing assistants for the researchers; and another main problem that affects the research

much is transportation The travelling in the Philippines is not as convenient as that

in Vietnam due to its mountainous geographic feature Hence, the amount of respondents to the questionnaires were limited as well

In addition, the staffs in each company were chosen diversely They can be the director, the manager, the office employees or even the cleaner or the guard so that the requirements of this study would be fulfilled It could also increase the authentic

of the data collected

3.3 Data collection

3.3.1 Data collection instrument

As having mentioned in the first part, the main kind of instrument to have been used

to collect data from conversations between staffs in chosen companies was questionnaires

In fact, at first, the researcher had a plan to conduct observation through video recording However, the researcher could not get permission from those companies due to security reason That was the reason why survey questions were finally used Questionnaires with available answers were designed to find out what people often say to greet and respond each other in different specific situations This instrument was chosen because they were said to be easy to construct, extremely versatile,

„process-able‟ and “can be used successfully with a variety of people in a variety of situations targeting a variety of topics” (Zoltán Dörnyei , 2003, p.1, p.9-10) These

features are suitable with this research Besides, due to limitation of time, effort as well as financial problems when conducting a research in two far distant countries, questionnaires helped to minimize those difficulties (Zoltán Dörnyei , 2003) Therefore, in a short time, one researcher can gain information from many participants

3.3.2 Sending consent form and designing questionnaires

The researcher sent a consent form in advance to some companies to have their permission to join in the survey In this consent form, all the necessary information

about the researcher as well as the study was clearly informed so that the

participants could know both the advantages and the risks they may face when

participating

Then, after reading the literature review and regarding the framework built,

multiple-choice questionnaires were designed to collect data Before answering the questions, the respondents need to provide their gender To answer the three research questions, the survey questionnaires were designed in English and in Vietnamese, and in turn, delivered to Filipino and Vietnamese businessmen and company staffs

The researcher paid attention to such factors as: power distance, gender, age and acquaintance, from which different situations were divided in detail Before answering the questions, the participants had to say which gender they were The order of questions in two versions was the same to make the analyzing process convenient

In part 1, for the first dimensions, power distance, the questions from number 1 to

number 4 were used to gain information About how the director/ the manager/ leader – employees/ other team members greet each other, how the staffs greet a

„VIP‟ guest of their company and how they greet the cleaner or the guard in their company

For the second dimension, gender, question number 5 and 6 focused on it What

they use to greet a female or male colleague was investigated

The third dimension, age, was made clear with the question number 7 and 8, what

they say to greet an older and a younger colleague than them

The two last questions in part 1 studied the last dimension, acquaintance, which

depended on the closeness of two staffs First time meeting and well- acquainted colleagues greeting each other similarly and differently was the focus of these questions

For the answers given in advance, they were written according to level of formality, using small talks and some were added the word „po‟ at the end This is taken from the researcher‟s experience, it had been observed that Filipino tended to use the