Telephone conversation openings in english and vietnamese (from a language cultural perspective

Opening sequence in other cultures...17 2.2.2 Telephone openings in other cultures...18 Chapter 3: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS...21 3.1.. c

TRAN THI THANH HUONG

TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE (FROM A LANGUAGE-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE)

Mở đầu hội thoại qua điện thoại trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt

(Nhìn từ góc độ ngôn ngữ và văn hóa)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

HANOI - 2009

TRẦN THỊ THANH HƯƠNG

M.A MINOR THESIS

TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE(FROM A LANGUAGE-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE)

Mở đầu hội thoại qua điện thoại trong tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt

(Nhìn từ góc độ ngôn ngữ và văn hóa)

Major: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Assoc Prof.Dr Nguyễn Văn Độ

HANOI - 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 2

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Theoretical / practical significance of the study 3

5 Methodology 3

DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4 1.1 Language and culture 4

1.2 The historical development of telephone conversations 5

1.3 Conversation Analysis and Telephone Conversations 6

1.4.Culture and telephone conversations 8

Chapter 2: TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS AS COMMUNICATIVE ACTS 11

2.1 General structure of telephone conversation openings 11

2.1.1 Conversation opening structure 11

2.1.2 Telephone conversation openings 12

2.2 Cross-cultural Communication and Telephone Openings 17

2.2.1 Opening sequence in other cultures 17

2.2.2 Telephone openings in other cultures 18

Chapter 3: COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS 21

3.1 The receiver’s first turn - individual moves 21

3.1.1 Summon-answer sequence 21

3.1.2 Identification-recognition sequence 23

3.1.3 Greeting sequence 26

3.1.4 How-are-you sequence 27

3.2 The caller’s first turn - individual moves 29

3.2.1 Summon-answer sequence 29

3.2.2 Identification-recognition sequence 30

3.2.3 Greeting sequence 32

3.2.4 How-are-you sequence 33

CONCLUSION 35

1 Recapitulation 35

2 Concluding remarks 35

3 Implications for teaching English telephone conversation openings 37

4 Suggestions for further research 38

REFERENCE I

APPENDIX IV

The beginning of conversations has received much attention in the fields ofsociolinguistics, pragmatics, and conversation analysis Conversation analysis of telephoneconversations is a fairly well established area of investigation, beginning in the late 1960swith Schegloff dissertation on conversational openings Since that time, a numerousresearchers have advanced the study on telephone conversations (Godard, 1977; Schegloff,1979; Schegloff, 1986; Sifianou, 1989; Lindström, 1994; Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1991;Hopper, 1992) The study of conversation openings, particularly on the telephone, hasbecome prominent for the following particular reasons:

a) Openings are interactionally compact and brief (Schegloff, 1986:112)

b) Generally, at the beginning of a conversation, participants may utilize conversationalstrategies or “routines” to negotiate interpersonal relationships (Gumperz, 1982:142;Schegloff, 1986:113) This also counts for the beginnings of conversations on thetelephone, as co-participants have resources available to them to manage identification andrecognition of one another

c) Schegloff (1972, 1979, and 1986) describes telephone conversation openings inAmerican English in terms of an ordered set of four core opening sequences: (1) thesummons-answer sequence; (2) the identification-recognition sequence; (3) the exchange

of greeting tokens (Hi/Hi), and (4) the how-are-you sequence Accomplishing these tasks

or “routines” is the focus of the first utterances in telephone conversation openings

d) Another important feature of telephone conversation openings is that they have a

"perfunctory" character (Schegloff, 1986:113) In other words, in opening a telephoneconversation, participants go through these routines in a rather automated manner

However, in all the studies I have examined Vietnamese is absent in the literature.Gumperz (1982:166) notes that while speech activities exist in all cultures, there might bedifferences in the ways particular activities are carried out and signaled UsingConversation Analysis (CA) as the methodology, this study illustrates the culturalcharacteristics of the format and interactional routines of opening conversations on thetelephone in Vietnamese and English languages to determine to what extent this data fitswithin Schegloff‟s theoretical model of sequencing in telephone openings At the sametime it will illustrate how the cultural differences within telephone conversation openingsmay interfere with speaker‟s intentions and expectations when talking on the phone

Finally, the relevance of my investigation for second language teaching and learning will

be highlighted

1 Rationale

The telephone is the primary electronic medium for interpersonal communication andtelephone communication has an indispensable element of everyday life Due to the lack ofvisual communication, at least in the normal use of this medium, linguistic information isforeground Thus, telephone conversation is a challenge to anybody learning a foreignlanguage and remains a sensitive area in intercultural encounters, even for those who havemastered the basics of a foreign language and culture

Inexperience in dealing with live interactive telephone conversations in the target languagecan also be a serious problem for some second language learners They need opportunity tolisten to, interpret and sum up what they hear in a series of authentic recorded phoneconversations Their listening can be greatly facilitated if they are exposed to authentictelephone conversations and also taught the conversational structures and options as well

as formulaic expressions

Telephone call openings represent an ideal object of study for cross-cultural pragmaticsresearch Since these social encounters are very specific and strongly constrained bytechnology, the range of actions that can be performed in them is limited so that one canthus observe how different cultures and languages vary in their realization of the sameinteractional routine That is why this paper chooses telephone conversation openings forthe study

2 Aims of the study

The study aims:

1)To find out standard formulas used in beginning telephone conversations among Englishand Vietnamese speakers as suggested by Schegloff

2) To discover how culture affects the ways English and Vietnamese start their telephone conversations

3) To draw an implication in English teaching for Vietnamese students

3 Scope of the study

I restrict my study on formal business telephone conversation openings and informal personal ones which are used by people doing different jobs and at different ages

4 Theoretical / practical significance of the study

In general, telephone conversation openings in both English and Vietnamese follow thesame routine as Schegloff suggested However, there is slight difference between Englishand Vietnamese In English telephone openings there is higher formality, but Vietnameselanguage has more variants which depend on age, power and relationship between speakersand people from different backgrounds have different ways to start a telephoneconversation.

5 Methodology

The research presented in this paper is based on data in English textbooks and 50questionnaires on telephone conversation openings All questionnaires were made by 20English and 30 Vietnamese speakers, ranging in age between 18 to over 60 years old Thetelephone calls include conversations between acquaintances, colleagues, relatives andfriends In doing so, the participants were asked to fill in the questionnaires sent to them bye-mail and given in person I also did interview some of them

The first descriptive stage of analysis led to the identification of recurrent patterns in thedata and the recognition of the most evident cross-cultural differences

In a subsequent phase, systematic comparison across languages was carried out by aquantitative analysis based on the core sequences framework presented above It is throughsuch cross-cultural comparisons that the great relevance to second language learning will

DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Language and culture

Language can be included in our primary needs It seems that we can not live without alanguage, because it can make our life easier Talking about a language we have to connect

it with communication, because by uttering language we have made communication withother people

„Language is the most sensitive indicator of the relationship between an individual and agiven social group; it permeates our thinking and way of viewing the world‟ (Kramsch1998: 77) Language can be defined as form of individual competence, in actual dialogues

or discourses, among groups or individuals, as a cultural system, and in numerous otherways (Humphrey Tonkin, Language and Society, No 178 2003- 2004) According toLevinson (1977; 22), language helps us to express our emotion and attitudes, to getinformation, to build relationship with other people, to complain, to give solution, etcetera.There are many interpretations of culture It can be examined from a point of view of manydisciplines: anthropology, linguistics, sociology, communication, fine arts, etc

The term culture refers to the customs and expectations of a particular group of people;particularly it affects their language use Tylor defined culture as „that complex wholewhich include knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and other capabilities and habitsacquired by man as a member of a society‟ (Tylor 1871:1 in Heather Joan Bowe, KylieMartin 2007: 2)

The relationship between language and culture has long been a major concern in bothanthropology and applied linguistics The work of North American anthropologists EdwardSapir (e.g 1947), and later Benjamin Whorf (1956), and their stories of how the languages

of particular language communities mirror their particular views of reality, have wielded,and in many quarters continue to wield, considerable influence on debates in the socialsciences on the nature of such a relationship There have been questions on whether and towhat extent language reflects and determines the world-view of a particular culture Later,Gumperz writes that speakers of the same language may find themselves separated by deepcultural gaps, while others who speak distinct languages share the same culture (Holliday,Hyde, Kullman; 2005: 74-75)

„Language and culture do not drive each other, but co-evolve in the same relationship‟ (M.

K Halliday 1992: 11) Each language is adapted to a unique cultural and socialenvironment, with striking differences in usage patterns (Bauman & Sherzer 1974).Through language culture affects the way we think (Gumpezs and Levison, 1996: 1).Language is the principle means whereby we conduct our social lives When it is used incontexts of communication, it is bound up with culture in multiple and complex ways.First, the words people utter refer to common experience They express facts, ideas orevents that are communicable as they refer to knowledge about the world that other peopleshare Words also reflect their authors‟ attitudes and beliefs, their points of view Butmembers of a community or social group do not only express experience; they also createexperience through language They give meaning to it through the medium they choose tocommunicate with each other, for example, speaking on the telephone or face-to-face,writing a letter or sending an e-mail message, reading the newspaper or interpreting agraph or a chart The way in which people use the spoken, written, or visual mediumcreates meanings that are understandable to the group they belong to, for example, through

a speaker‟s tone of voice, accent, conversational style, gestures and facial expressions.Language is also a system of signs that have a cultural value Speakers identify themselvesand others through their use of language; they view their language as a symbol of theirsocial identity (Kramsch 1998: 3) In other words, there is a strong relationship betweenlanguage and culture

1.2 The historical development of telephone conversations

Robert Hopper states in his book “Telephone conversation” (1992: 25) that the history ofthe telephone is tied to our rediscovery of human speaking During the first decade of thetwentieth century, Ferdinand de Saussure, based on previous philologists andgrammarians‟ research on ancient written texts, found a new science describing facts ofspeech And today we reverse Saussure‟s lectures as a turning point in the history ofthought, a moment of rediscovery

The basic technology of human speaking may not have changed very much since webecame humans We discovered speech communication a very long time ago But thecertain features of telephone experience remained mysterious to us until 1960s, when thefounders of conversation analysis combined the telephone with the tape recorder

There are reflexive relationships between our understanding of speech communication anddevelopments in telephone technology Telephone experience creates a new consciousnessabout spoken language and the telephone teaches us that communication happens whenspeech travel between pairs of individuals (Hopper, 1992: 24).

1.3 Conversation Analysis and Telephone Conversations

Historically, conversation analysis began in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a subdiscipline of sociology CA researchers focused on describing the organizational structure

of mundane, ordinary conversations, which may be defined as the kind of casual, socialtalks that routinely occurs between friends and acquaintances, either face-to-face or on thetelephone (Markee, 2000: 24)

Conversation analysis is the study of talk More particularly, it is the systematic analysis ofthe talk produced in every day situations of human interactions or talk-in-interaction It is

to discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turn at talk,with a central focus being on how sequences of actions are generated (Hutchby Ian andWooffitt Robin, 1998: 13-14)

Conversation analysis describes and explains the ways in which conversations work toanswer the question “how is it that conversational participants are able to produceintelligible utterances, and how are they able to interpret the utterances of others?”Analysis of conversations is the interest of many scholars as conversation is probably thebasic form of communication According to Levinson (1983: 282), „conversation is clearlythe prototypical kind of language use, the form in which we are all first exposed tolanguage – the matrix for language acquisition.‟ (David Nunan: 84)

Conversation analysis is the outstanding empirical tradition in pragmatics, because its dataremain open to any investigator inspection Any reader may test the claims by inspectingthe transcriptions and recordings used as exemplars (Hopper, 1992:10)

From the very beginning, conversation analysis has been closely linked to the analysis oftelephone conversations Conversation analysis focuses on the common, everydaycompetencies that make everyday social interaction possible The general strategy inconversation analysis is to examine actual verbal interactions and recorded telephoneconversations were much used (Holtgraves, 2001: 92)

Conversation analysis is especially applicable to the study of telephone speech andtelephone conversation is among the easiest interaction to tape record The participants

stay at one location and speak into a device that can be easily connected to a tape recorder.Conversation analysts describe empirical details by participants to one another Evidencefor analyses includes details displayed in recordings and transcriptions Recordings andtranscriptions are incomplete copies of actual talk but they are relatively rich andreplayable representations of many speech details Recordings of telephone conversationstherefore are audible and available The current volume‟s descriptions of telephoneconversations follow the paradigm and method of conversation analysis This method isparticularly appropriate for telephone speaking (Hopper 1992: 18-22).

Telephone call openings have been the object of a considerable amount of cross-culturaland intercultural pragmatic research The first systematic investigation in this area datesback to Schegloff‟s (1968) analysis of telephone calls openings in the United States Thisand much of subsequent research was carried out within the Conversation Analysis (CA)paradigm, which implies careful observation of the details of interactions in order touncover how social order is created and reproduced in everyday life The fundamentalanalytic units are moves and sequences

Schegloff‟s interest was in how participants coordinate their entry into interaction at the very beginnings of telephone calls He studied 500 examples of telephone openings He found the organization of telephone openings in which „answerer speaks first‟ However one case in his collection of 500 did not fit this pattern because the caller spoke first: (Police make a call Receiver is lifted and there is a one-second-pause)

1 Police:

2 Answerer:

3 Police:

(Schegloff, 1968 in Hutchby Ian and Wooffitt Robin, 1998: 95-96)

Schegloff then concludes that openings of telephone conversations have a form ofadjacency pair called summon-answer sequences He suggests that whatever the answerersays in their first turn is an answer to the summons issued by the telephone‟s ring, and it istherefore the caller‟s first turn (that is, the second utterance of the call) that, typically,represents a first greeting

1.4 Culture and telephone conversations

Researchers have shown that conversational dynamics and the performance of speech actsdiffer from language to language and culture to culture Also people from different cultures

have different types of background knowledge, and this can impede communication Inaddition to different speech acts, there are cultural differences in conversationalmanagement Politeness, levels of formality, and the acceptability of stretches of silence allvary from culture to culture, and may have an important influence on the success orotherwise of a particular interaction (David Nunan: 94-96).

Different cultures have different degrees of tolerance for silence between turns, overlap inspeaking, and competition among speakers (Hoang Van Van: 113)

Some cross-cultural studies on telephone conversation openings in various speechcommunities (France, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Taiwan) have addressed thequestion of what is universal and what is culturally specific in such openings (Godard,1977; Levinson, 1983; Sifianou, 1989; Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1991; Lindström, 1994;Pavlidou, 1994; Hopper & Chen, 1996) Some of these studies use the telephone openingsequences in American English described by Schegloff (1972, 1979, 1986) as a template inorder to explore how telephone conversation openings in other cultures are carried out(Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1991; Lindström, 1994; Pavlidou, 1994; Hopper & Chen, 1996).Their analysis illustrates that although there are similarities in the opening sequences oftelephone conversation, some cultural variations exist as well

Godard (1977) explored the organization of telephone openings in French and suggests thatsome differences exist between summons-answer sequences in French versus Americantelephone openings According to Godard, Americans interpret the answer to summons as

an indication that the channel of communication is open; the French see it as an indication

of the answerer's availability to be interrupted in the middle of what s/he was doing, not ofher or his availability as a partner in the conversation French callers thus provide anapology in the opening sequence

Levinson (1983) agreed that in telephone calls we can recognize the typical components of

an opening section: the telephone rings, and upon picking up the receiver, the person at thereceiving end almost invariably speaks first, either with station identification (name of thefirm, telephone number, etc), or a plain Hello, whereupon the caller produces a Hello, with

a self-identification If the call is between two close friends or acquaintances we mayexpect the exchange of How are you Then at that point we expect some announcementfrom the caller of the reason for the call Thus telephone conversations have recognizableopenings

In an investigation of Greek telephone openings, Sifianou (1989) found that there is agreater variety of linguistic options for answering the phone in Greek In choosing aparticular response type, Greeks can develop a personal style in answering the telephone.Thus, the answer to a summons may provide the caller with resources for identifying theanswerer.

Houtkoop-Steenstra (1991) found that in Dutch telephone openings, Dutch speakersoverwhelmingly self-identify by name in answering the phone The caller in the subsequentturn also overwhelmingly self-identifies Furthermore, the callers use a voice sample aloneonly if the caller is the spouse or a close relative of the person called In doing so, thecallers display intimacy Houtkoop- Steenstra also suggests that in Dutch society not self-identifying in answering the home telephone is considered impolite

In her study of Swedish telephone conversation openings, Lindström (1994) describes howSwedes use a variety of responses when answering the phone According to Lindström, themost common answer to summons in the Swedish data is self-identification followed by aphone number Swedes self-identify by first and/or last name, greeting and self-identification, station identification (i.e phone number) and "hello" In Swedish telephoneconversation openings, greetings are closely linked to the identification-recognition issue.Pavlidou (1994) compared Greek and German telephone conversation openings, inparticular the utterances occurring between summons-answer sequence and the first topic.Her study suggests that Greeks and Germans use the expression “how are you” in differentways This expression in Greek telephone conversation serve the purpose of enhancing theinterpersonal relationship aspect of communication, whereas Germans seem to use theexpression “how are you” to reduce a face threat that is connected with the reason forcalling

Hopper and Chen (1996) investigated telephone conversation openings in Taiwan Theyexplain that summons/answer, identification/recognition, and greeting sequences intelephone conversation in Taiwan seem to be similar to the American English However,there seems to be some cultural variation in the greeting In general, Hopper and Chensuggest that speakers in Taiwan use three distinctive greeting tokes and relative formality

of address terms for family members In doing so, speakers display their orientation to theirinterpersonal relationship

The preceding overview suggests that, speakers in the studied cultures go through thetelephone opening sequences described by Schegloff (1986) and that there are somecultural variations.

Chapter 2: TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OPENINGS AS COMMUNICATIVE ACTS

2.1 General structure of telephone conversation openings

2.1.1 Conversation opening structure

Conversations are opened in socially recognized ways Before beginning their firstconversation of the day, we normally greet each other, as two office workers meet in themorning

Jeff: Morning, Stan!

Stan: Hi How‟s it going?

Jeff: Oh, can‟t complain, I guess Reading for the meeting this afternoon?

Stan: Well, I don‟t have much choice

Greetings exemplify openings sequences, utterances that ease people into a conversation.They convey a message “I want to talk to you.”

Greetings are usually reserved for acquaintances, who have not seen each other for a while,

or as opening sequences for longer conversations between strangers Some situations donot require a greeting, as with a stranger approaching in the street to ask for the time:Excuse me, sir, do you know what time is it? The expression Excuse me, sir serves as anopening sequence appropriate to the context Thus, greetings are not the only type ofopenings sequences

Very few conversations do not begin with some type of opening sequences, even ascommonplace as the following:

Eric: Guess what

Jo: What?

Eric: I broke a tooth

Conversationalists also use opening sequences to announce that they are about to invadethe personal space of their interlocutors Here, two friends are talking on a park bench next

to a stranger; at a pause in their conversation, the stranger interjects:

Stranger: Excuse me, I didn‟t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn‟t help hearingthat you were talking about Dayton, Ohio I‟m from Dayton

(Conversation then goes on among the three people.)

It is not surprising that opening sequences take the form of an apology in such situations Finally, opening sequences may serve as a display of one‟s voice to enable the interlocutor

to recognize who is speaking, especially at the beginning of telephone conversations Here,the phone has just rung in Alfred‟s apartment

Alfred: Hello?

Helen: Hello!

Alfred: Oh, hi, Helen! How you doin?

In the second turn, Helen displays her voice to enable Alfred to recognize her In the thirdturn, Alfred indicates his recognition and simultaneously provides the second part of thegreeting adjacency pair initiated in the previous turn (Finnegan, 2004:312)

2.1.2 Telephone conversation openings

Hatch (1992:8) states that in all communication, there must be ways to show thatcommunication is about to begin and then begins and this also happens in telephoneconversations These channel open signals will differ according to the channel (e.g., phonecalls, letters, meetings, classrooms)

Telephone conversation openings are different from other kinds of openings because the caller knows whom they are calling, although they actually may not know the person who actually answers Because the answerer does not know who is calling, they both have the problem of identifying each other, as well as producing some means for each to achieve a possible recognition of the other (George Psathas; 1995:27) Telephone conversations have quite formalized openings:

Marcia: Hi Tony

Tony: How are you?

Marcia: OHhhh hh I‟ve got a paper b-the yearly paper due tomorrow

Tony: How about that

Marcia: heheheh hh I can tell you a lot ab(h)out th(h)at

This example shows the four basic parts of phone conversation openings described bySchegloff (1968) which are stated in Hatch (1992) and Hopper (1992):

1)Summons – answer sequence, consisting of the telephone ring and the first thing said by the answerer indicating that the communication channel is open;

2) Identification – recognition sequence, i.e parties identify themselves and/or recognize each other;

3) Greeting sequence, which can be produced by one party or both; consisting of an

exchange of greeting token „Hi‟;

4) How-are-you sequence and their answer, which may constitute themselves the mainobject of the conversation or may be preliminaries leading to the „reason for call‟

Summons-answer:

Telephone calls begin not with speech, nor with visual pre-beginning, but with a noise such as a ring The telephone summons repeat every few seconds until somebodyanswers, or till the caller gives up The summons should be answered by a brief item such

summons-as “Hello” If the person answering know ahead of time to expect a call, the response may

be a “hi” or “yeah” Self-identification responses such as “Acme Computers” or “Dr.Jones‟s office” more often mark the communication as business rather than personal Ifyou were trained to answer the phone as “Smith residence” or whatever, you will object tothis last statement But, if you monitor your calls, you will find that the precedinggeneralizations are true for most American phone calls Summons-answer sequences arenecessary to telephone conversation openings because of the blind character of themedium

Identification – recognition:

We speak mainly to those persons whom we recognize Therefore, we mutually displayrecognition at the beginning of each encounter (Hopper, 1992: 58) In telephone openingsrecognition and identification work cannot precede the summons-answer, and parties mustidentify each other within speech The answerer, by saying „Hello‟, announces that he or

she is possible called When the caller answers with second „Hello‟, this is not a greeting, but an answer to the summons, establishing their availability for interaction.

Hatch (1992: 9-10) argues that we are often able to identify the caller or the answerer fromminimal voice samples A caller who recognizes the answerer by the initial „hello‟ mayshow that recognition has taken place to invite a reciprocal recognition by simplyanswering „hi.‟

S: MOM-my, you‟re home

Caller may give an immediate self-identification

(phone ringing)

E: Hello

S: Hi mom, it‟s me

According to Schegloff (1979), these resources for identification are graded in Americanphone conversations so that identification from the voice sample aloe is “preferred.” If aname is given, a first name rather than first and last name is “preferred.” It appears that theless information needed for identification, the better When identification falters even for

an instant, however, self-identification is forthcoming, often in the second turn

Greetings are usually the first utterances in face-to-face encounters If somebody says

„Hello‟ to you, you return the greeting immediately with a similar greeting However,telephone greetings, unlike face-to-face ones, are not first utterances Summons- answerand identification / recognition speech pushes the greeting back into the encounter Thisperhaps helps explain the durability of „Hello‟ as a telephone answering turn An initial

“hello” may retain some greeting function or survive as a vestige of beginning anencounter with a greeting token (Hopper, 1992: 60)

Hatch (1992) also agrees that much of the work of the identification sequence can beaccomplished by an exchange of greetings However, these opening exchanges do notnecessarily constitute a greeting In the following exchange, the first set is part of theidentification sequence, and the second set forms the greeting

In telephone talk, greetings are relevant to previously-acquainted parties However,telephone calls between strangers may omit greetings; and telephone openings betweenintimates omit almost everything but greetings Therefore greetings in telephone openingsstill perform their traditional function of indicating previous acquaintance (Hopper, 1992:60)

How-are-you sequence

Finally, the opening many include a “how-are-you” sequence The default response isusually “okay” or “fine” A neutral response allows the caller to conclude the openings andprovides and anchor point for introduction of the topic or reason for the call If the default

is not used, the how-are-you sequence expands and may become the first topic ofconversation if it was not the reason for the call

(phone ringing)

E: Huh-lo?

S: He-LO!

E: Hi Sue, How are yuh

S: Fine, how‟re you

E: hhh Oh, not so good I had a run-in with B

These inquiry-response exchanges do not carry heavy literal content, but they set thedirection for a telephone call In other words, the how-are-you gives the answerer theopportunity to capture the first topic of conversation In some instances, the answer to thequestion leads to a multitude of sequences and to a closing before the caller gets around tothe real reason for the call (Hatch, 1992:11)

These four basic parts of telephone conversation openings can be seen in the followingextract:

J: Hi, Mary This is John (Greeting + identification)M: Oh, hi John How‟s everything? (Greeting + How-are-you)J: I‟m in a very good condition How are you? (How-are-you)

After this very adjacency pairs, sequences of identification (self- and other- identification,either by name or telephone number), greeting and counter-greeting usually follow.Sometimes, when the caller and called already know each other, ritual inquiries like „Howare you?‟ may appear before the partners proceed the main section of the call In otherwords, the opening sections of a telephone call comprises a number of basic or constitutivesequences, which, however, may vary in their realization from context to context (e.g.workplace versus home setting, business call versus private call, etc.) and from culture toculture (Helen Spencer-Oatey, 2000: 124)

2.2 Cross-cultural Communication and Telephone Openings

2.2.1 Opening sequence in other cultures

English conversations are often started with the conventional phrase „How are you?‟which is a greeting, not a question However, in fact „How are you?‟ is a kind of crossbetween a greeting, a question, and an invitation for the addressee to say something abouttheir current state – something that is expected to be short and „good‟ rather than long and

„bad‟ While „How are you?‟ is considered as a conventional conversational opening inEnglish language, there are also expressions such as „Good morning‟, „Hello!‟ and „Hi!‟The responses to these phrases are not similarly conventionalized (Wierzbicka, 2003:132-134) In many cultures, the opening sequence appropriate to a situation in which twopeople meet after not having met for a while is an inquiry about the person‟s health, as inthe American greeting „How are you?‟ Such inquiries are essentially formulaic and notmeant literally Indeed, most speakers respond with a conventional upbeat formula „I‟mfine or Fine, thanks‟ even when feeling terrible In other cultures, the conventional greetingmay take a different form Traditionally, Mandarin Chinese conventionalists ask „Have youeaten rice yet?‟ When two people meet on a road, they ask „Where is your going directedto?‟ These greetings are as formulaic as „How are you?‟

In formal contexts, or when differences of social status exist between participants, manycultures require a lengthy and formulaic opening sequence In Fiji, when an individualvisits a village, a highly ceremonial introduction is conducted before any other interactiontakes place This event involves speeches that are regulated by a complex set of rulesgoverning what must be said, and when, and by whom This ceremony serves the samepurpose as opening sequences in other cultures (Finnegan, 2004: 313)

In Vietnamese conversation openings differ depending on whom you are addressing Chào(said with a falling tone); Xin chào (polite); Chào anh (hello to boy/brother); Chào chị(hello to girl/sister); Chào ông (hello to man/old grandfather); Chào bà (hello to woman/oldgrandmother); Chào con (hello child/son/daughter); Chào cháu (helloneice/nephew/grandchild); Chào em (hello to one younger than yourself); Chào bác (helloaunty/uncle) However, on the telephone or loudspeaker Vietnamese do say 'Allo, Allo‟

To greet a partner it is important to use use an appropriate greetings depending on therelationship between the speakers

2.2.2 Telephone openings in other cultures

Alexander Graham Bell spoke through a wire to his colleague Thomas Watson in 1876.

"Come here," he said, the first command uttered on a telephone Around the world,different cultures have developed characteristic phone manners since Bell's day

In telephone conversation in the United States, opening sequences serve primarily toidentify speakers and solicit the interlocutor‟s attention In France, opening sequences fortelephone conversations normally include an apology for invading someone‟s privacy

Person called: Allô?

Person calling: Allô? I‟m terribly sorry for disturbing you Can I speak toMarie-France?

In an American telephone conversation, an opening sequence is not customary Thus, intwo relatively similar cultures, the role played by the opening sequence in a telephone call

is different As a result, the French can find Americans intrusive and impolite on thetelephone, while Americans are puzzled by French apologetic formulas, which they findpointless and exceedingly ceremonious (Finegan, 2004: 313)

No people open a call with more effusive hospitality than the Arabs Arabs greet each otherwith profuse politeness Whatever the subject of the conversation, it begins with what seems like five minutes of generally meaningless but absolutely essential greetings A ringing phone is answered:

"May your morning be good."

"May your morning be full of light," the caller responds

"Praise God, your voice is welcome."

"Welcome, welcome."

"How are you?"

"Praise God."

"Praise God."

"What news? Are you well? Your family well?"

"Praise God How are you?"

"All is well All is well Welcome Welcome."

Only then might the reason for the call be mentioned And the goodbyes will take almost aslong and are again excruciatingly polite