English vietnamese cross cultural nonverbal communication

The objective of the present study was to find out the preferred social, personal and intimate distances of Vietnamese communicators as a case of proxemics behavior.. Independent Samples

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HOÀNG PHƯỢNG

ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL NONVERBAL

COMMUNICATION: UNDERSTANDING PROXEMICS IN DIFFERENT

CULTURES (Giao tiếp phi ngôn từ Anh-Việt: Sự lĩnh hội về khoảng cách trong các nền văn

hoá khác nhau)

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8020201.01

HANOI – 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HOÀNG PHƯỢNG

ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL NONVERBAL

COMMUNICATION: UNDERSTANDING PROXEMICS IN DIFFERENT

CULTURES (Giao tiếp phi ngôn từ Anh-Việt: Sự lĩnh hội về khoảng cách trong các nền văn

hoá khác nhau)

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8020201.01

Supervisor: Prof NGUYỄN HÒA

HANOI - 2018

DECLARATION

I hereby certify the thesis entitled “English-Vietnamese cross-cultural

nonverbal communication: understanding proxemics in different cultures” as my

own work in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Hanoi, 2018

Hoàng Phượng

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To be able to complete this thesis, I have been whole-heartedly supported by many people to whom I would like to express my sincere thanks for their valuable contribution

First of all, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to my beloved supervisor, Prof Nguyễn Hòa He was the one who advised, supported, encouraged, supervised, and inspired me throughout the realization of this thesis I highly appreciate his valuable advice, detailed comments, enthusiastic and careful guidance as well as his great patience throughout this process

Second of all, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to my respectful lectures in Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies for their devotion and their fascinating, and informative lectures which have provided me useful information to fulfill this thesis

What is more, I would like to give my great thanks to my colleagues and my students for their willingness to participate in this project Without them, this study would have been impossible

Last but not least, I owe particular thanks to my family and my friends who have enthusiastically assisted and encouraged me to finish this thesis

ABSTRACT

Conversational distance has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies However, the conclusions of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited, especially the conclusions on Vietnamese‟s preferable proxemic distance were also restricted due to some certain problems of research methodologies The objective of the present study was to find out the preferred social, personal and intimate distances of Vietnamese communicators as a case of proxemics behavior This study also indicated the factors which have influence on interpersonal distance of Vietnamese communicators, in which a number of research methods were exploited The values of preferred conversational distance, then, can be used as a reference in related future research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

PART A 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Research questions: 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Structure of the thesis 2

PART B 4

DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 What is communication? 4

1.2 What is nonverbal communication? 4

1.3 Areas of Proxemics 6

1.4 Factors affecting conversational distances 11

1.4.1 Culture 11

1.4.2 Gender 13

1.4.3 Social Status – Power Distance 14

1.4.4 Age 14

1.4.5 Personality 15

1.4.6 Marital Status 15

1.4.7 Living Area 16

1.4.8 Relationship 16

1.4.9 Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures: 17

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Data-collection instruments 21

2.1.1 Survey questionnaires 21

2.1.1.1 Participants 22

2.1.1.2 Procedure 23

2.1.2 Personal observation-video recordings: 25

2.1.2.1 Participants 25

2.1.2.2 Procedure 26

2.1.3 Informal interviews: 27

2.1.3.1 Participants 27

2.1.3.2 Procedure 27

2.2 Data analysis 29

2.2.1 Quantitative analysis 29

2.2.2 Qualitative analysis 30

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 32

3.1 Research question 1: What are the factors that affect the conversational distance between Vietnamese dyads? 32

3.1.1 Age 32

3.1.2 Gender: 37

3.1.3 Marital status 39

3.1.4 Social Status 41

3.1.5 Living Area 42

3.1.6 Personality 44

3.2 Research question 2: What is the proxemic distance preferred by 48

Vietnamese speakers during communication process? 48

3.3 Discussions: 57

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 60

1 Summary of major findings 60

2 Implications 62

3 Limitations of the study 63

4 Suggestions for further study 64

REFERENCES 65

APPENDENCES 68

APPENDIX 1 68

APPENDIX 2 72

APPENDIX 3 77

APPENDIX 4 78

APPENDIX 5 79

APPENDIX 6 82

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 ANOVA descriptions of data on conversational distance measured for three

age-groups 33

Table 2 Test of Homogeneity of Variances of Age-Factor 34

Table 3 ANOVA results of statistical analyses of different relationships 35

Table 4 The Post hoc tests result of the three different age groups 36

Table 5 The Robust Tests of Equality of Means of Different Relationships 37

Table 6 Group Statistics of data on conversational distance measured for Gender 38

Table 7 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance measured by male and female communicators 38

Table 8 Group Statistics of data on conversational distance measured for Marital Status 40

Table 9 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance measured by married and single communicators 40

Table 10 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance measured by high and low social status communicators 42

Table 11 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance with living areas as an effecting factor 43

Table 12 Independent Samples Test of data on conversational distance measured by introvert and extrovert informants 45

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

This study was conducted because of several reasons In the first place, proxemics can be considered as one of the most prominent aspects to investigate the manifestation of nonverbal communication and to emphasize its significance in human life However, there has not been enough studies giving rise to proxemics findings In fact, none of the previous research has been performed to find out Vietnamese common conversational distance

In the second place, misbehavior in proxemics within cross-cultural communication, especially in multicultual or multinational working environment, might unexpectedly arise and entail misunderstanding then cultural shock, or even communication breakdown Thus, the reviewing of proxemics behaviors in other mutual cultures in that great success in communication can be necessary

Finally, nonverbal communication with attention is given to proxemics behaviour has been one of my interest as a researcher Hence, I am intending to explore and discuss conversational distances and how it affects human communication Apparently, the ways Vietnamese informants apply conversational distances will be explored and analysed The findings and results of this study would somehow expectedly raise the awareness that how important the nonverbal communication would be Also, the findings would focus on the preferred conversational distance of Vietnamese communicators and then provide recommendations to American speakers in order avoid culture shocks and misunderstandings while interacting with Vietnamese informants

2 Aims of the study

This thesis is inspired by Hall‟s work He creates a framework which indicated a need for my study The purpose of this study is to find the factors that affect the proxemics behaviors between Vietnamese dyads, mainly: age, gender, marital status, power distance, living area, and character of the informants In

addtion, it examines and explores the proxemic distances preferred by Vietnamese speakers during communication process

3 Research questions:

The study addresses the following research questions:

1 What are the factors that affect the conversational distance between Vietnamese dyads?

2 What is the proxemic distance preferred by Vietnamese speakers during communication process?

4 Scope of the study

This study focuses on only conversational distance, as one of the three areas

of proxemics (including space, distance and territory) However, the researcher was delivering an overview of all aspects as listed

Specifically, this research particularly identified conversational distance in American-Vietnamese cross-cultural nonverbal communication The data of American informants would be supposed to be the baseline data, which will be gathered through previous studies related to this field That means, the data of English communicators would be secondary data in which the author tried to exploit the sources or materials from studies reported in researches, reports, professional journals and books The data of Vietnamese dyads, however, will be collected as primary one, those will be gathered for the first time and thus happen to be original

in character

5 Structure of the thesis

The study is divided into three main parts as follow:

Part A: Introduction covers the rationale for study, aims, research questions, the

scope, and structure of the study

Part B: Development is organized around three chapters as follows:

Chapter I - Literature review provides the theoretical framework of the study

related to different approaches of proxemics behavior in different cultures, mainly English and Vietnamese cultures In this chapter, the author intends to give

explanations on the appropriate framework of proxemics that will be applied to the study

Chapter II - Methodology presents the context, the methodology of the research

which states the research design, data instruments including and questionnaires, informal interviews as well as videotaped recordings in order to find the conversational distance between communicative dyads Also, one-way ANOVA and Independence Sample t-test became the appropriate statically formulas which helps the author analyze the data involved A brief description of the participants of the study, data collection procedure and summary of the methodology could be found in this chapter

Chapter III – Findings and Discussions describes and discusses the major findings

involving the issues of what factors affect and which factor has the most influence

on the conversational distances favored by Vietnamese talkers Still, the detailed explanation for the dissimilarities of preferable interpersonal distance of the two cultures will be addressed in this chapter

Part C: Conclusion offers a summary of the findings, from which

recommendations, limitations, and future directions for further related studies can also be drawn out

PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the theoretical issues related to the topic of the current study This part will present a variety of definition and type of nonverbal communication

1.1 What is communication?

Communication occurs when we intentionally use symbols – words or

non-spoken symbols – to create meaning for others (Jandt, 2015) There have been

numerous definitions of “communication” since it is one of the most basic

perceptions of humans According to Nguyen Quang (1994), the word

“communication” can be simply defined as “the process of sharing meaning

through verbal and non-verbal behavior.”

Hybels, S and Weaver, R (1992:5) identified that “communication is any

process in which people share information, ideas and feelings that involve not only the spoken and written words but also body language, personal mannerisms and style, the surrounding and things that add meaning to a message.”

According to Jandt (2015), communication has two critical functions:

 Communication is the means by which individuals learn appropriate behaviors and the means by which those behaviors are regulated

 Communication is the means by which individuals having one group identity interact with individuals with other group identities and on a more general level the means by which the groups interact with one another as formal groups

1.2 What is nonverbal communication?

In the study of communication, nonverbal behavior has been observed to possess significant meaning Nonverbal messages consist of eye contact and gaze,

facial expression, touching, posture, posture and gesture, proxemics, and nonverbal vocalization (Argyle, 1988; Shulman & Penman, 1981) According to Jandt (2015), messages sent without using words are nonverbal communication Culture determines nonverbal meanings within a society, or, the same nonverbal signal can mean different things to different people in different cultures In actuality, nonverbal communication has been defined in various ways by different scholars The most common definition is that nonverbal communication comprises all behaviors that are not words (cited in Laura & Kory, 2006) However, some scholars define nonverbal communication more narrowly Burgoon, Buller and Woodall (1996) conceptualized nonverbal communication as subset of nonverbal behavior Also, Hall (1959) stated that culture itself serves as a means of communication That is, culturally determined behaviors associated with verbal communication affect that communication

Simply defined, nonverbal communication is the way of expressing meaning

or feeling without words In other words, messages sent without using words are

nonverbal communication According to Levine and Adelman (1993), “nonverbal

communication is the “silent” language, including the use of gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, and conversational distance.”

Hall (1965) stated nonverbal communication as “culture hides much more

than it reveals, and strangely enough, what is hides, it hides most effectively from its own” Nonverbal cues can be meta-messages that affect the decoding of spoken

message Nonverbal can reinforce the underlying meaning of verbal message

Some scholars preferred to define nonverbal communication in indirect ways, in which they focus on what is included within the study of nonverbal communication Leathers (1997) conceptualized nonverbal communication in terms

of “three major interacting systems: the visual communication system, the auditory communication system, and the invisible communication system” (p.13) According

to Leathers (1997), the visual communication system tends to produce the most shared meaning within face-to-face interaction This system includes kinesics (e.g.,

body movement, gestures, eye behavior, and facial expression), proxemics (e.g., space, distance, and territory), and artifacts (e.g., physical appearance, clothing, adornment such as jewelry or briefcase)

Also, nonverbal communication can be defined by types The types of nonverbal communication given the most attention can be proxemics, kinesics, chronemics, paralanguage, silence, haptics, artifactual communication, and territoriality In the following chapter I intend to discuss more in details about one type of nonverbal communication – proxemics

1.3 Areas of Proxemics

Edward Hall (1914-2009) was an American anthropologist who developed the concepts of Proxemics He made a great number of researches, intercultural studies and observations about how people divide their personal distance, how it is affected by cultures and what is the difference between personal space and territory Proxemics is labeled as one type of culturally determined behaviors in the field of nonverbal communication According to Hall, spatial communication is important

in conversation Proxemics, the study of how communication is influenced by space and distance, is historically related to how people use, manipulate, and identify their space

The term given to the study of our use of personal space is proxemics

Proxemics is a word Hall coined in reference to “interrelated theories of man’s use

of space as a specialized elaboration of culture” (Hall, 1966) In “The Hidden

Dimension”, Hall established theories about spatial relationships Distances people establish between themselves and their fellow humans communicate meaning In other words, meaning attached to certain spatial behaviors is culturally determined

Hall (1959) demonstrated that cultures differ substantially in their use of personal

space How much space we each want between ourselves and others depends on our cultural learning, our upbringing in our families, the specific situation, and our relationship with the people to whom we are talking For instance, in the United States people assume that when one-person places himself close to another person,

he is doing so because he knows that person well Americans are not likely to stand, voluntarily, as close as twelve inches from a stranger Therefore, physical distance and partitions of space serve to establish a setting for communication It would be expected that spatial relationships, a variable in the communication setting, would affect communication between people

Hall (1963) defined proxemics “the study of how man unconsciously

structures micro-space – the distance between men in the conduct of daily transactions, the organization of space in his houses and buildings, and ultimately the layout of his towns.”

Hall (1964) also stated that proxemics was the study of the ways in which

man gains knowledge of the content of other men‟s minds through judgments of behavior patterns associated with varying degrees of [spatial] proximity to them

In reference to the model of communication, personal space is defined as a form of nonverbal communication which describes the boundaries of intimacy between people (Hall 1966, Porteous 1977) Hall (1959) also defined four dimensions of personal space (among Americans), based on the level of intimacy

between the communicators Intimate distance corresponds to a high level of

intimacy between two persons Intimate distance covers the distance that extends from one communicator to around 46 cm/ 18 inches This spatial zone is normally reserved for those people with close relationships – for example, close friends, romantic partners, and family members

Personal distance is the distance between two persons who know each other

with a relative intimacy, such as friends, brothers, and sisters The personal distance varies between 46 cm (18 inches) and 122 cm (4 feet) This is the space most people use during conversations This distance allows the speaker to feel some protection from other who might wish to touch The range in this distance type allows those at the closest range to pick up physical nuances (such as dry skin, acne, body odor or breath odor) However, we are still able to conduct business with those at the far range – which Hall (1959) calls “arm‟s length” – but any signs of nonverbal

closeness are erased Examples of relationships accustomed to personal distance are

casual friends or business colleagues (West, R & Turner, L.H, 2009)

Social distance corresponds to a more superficial and impersonal form of

communication or business relation; for example, the interactions among workers with a boss or at a social gathering or public event This is the spatial zone which reserved for professional or formal interpersonal encounters Some office environments are arranged specially for social distance rather than intimate distance

co-or personal distance The range is from 122cm to 210cm and can extend to 210 cm

to 370 cm in more formal settings

Finally, public distance is when there is no intimacy between the speakers,

and the space varies from 370 cm to 760 cm or more in a formal setting This spatial zone allows listeners to scan the entire person while he or she is speaking The classroom environment exemplifies public distance Most classrooms are arranged with a teacher in the front and rows of desks or tables facing the teacher This setup can vary, but many classrooms are arranged with students more than twelve feet from their teacher Public distance is also used in large settings, such as when we listen to speakers, watch musicals, or attend television show tapings

Hall (1966) believed that proxemics is “the study of man‟s transactions as he

perceives and uses intimate, personal, social and public space in various settings”

In other words, proxemics investigates how people use and organize the space they share with others to communicate, typically outside conscious awareness, socially relevant information such as personality traits (e.g., dominant people tend to use more space than others in shared environments), attitudes (e.g., people that discuss tend to sit or stand in front of the other, whereas people that collaborate tend to seat side-by-side), etc These distances are proved to be very culturally specific For some cultures, these distance zones may be compressed, for others they may be expanded When involved in cross-cultural communication, understanding these variations of distance zones is essential to maintain effective communication The description of each concentric space can be summarized as below:

Distance Description Voice Intimate Touching to

18 inches

Private situations with people who are emotionally close If others invade this space, we feel threatened

Soft voice

Casual/

Social

4 feet to 12 feet

The lower end is the distance salespeople and customers and between people who work together in business

Hall (1959) also suggested that in most co-cultures in the United States,

people communicate with each other at a specific distance, depending on the nature

of the conversation Starting with the closest contact and the least amount of personal space, and moving to the greatest distance between communicators, the four categories of personal space are intimate distance, personal distance, social distance and public distance (See Figure below)

Figure 1 Edward T Hall’s four types of personal distance (West, R & Turner, L.H, 2009)

Hall (1959) divided the personal distance people keep from other into 4 main

zones These zones serve as “reaction bubbles” – when entering in a specific zone, some certain psychological and physical reactions in that person will be automatically activated

Proxemics can be divided into categories: space and distance Proxemics reveals that people handle space differently, depending on the type of culture they come from If personal space is violated, people from individualistic cultures may react actively while people from collectivist culture may adopt a passive stance It is crucial for informants to understand more about how physical space is dealt with in different cultures if they do not want to experience feelings of exclusion for instance

Knowing some proxemics cues is important to increase people‟s comprehension and expression Personal space is the space surrounding a person into which intruders may not come This space is different according to the culture Personal space is the distance we put between ourselves and others We carry informal personal space from one encounter to another; think of this personal space

as a sort of invisible bubble that encircles us wherever we go Our personal space provides some insight into ourselves and how we feel about other people For instance, some research shows that happily married couples stand closer to one another (11.4 inches) than those who are martially distressed (14.8 inches) (Crane,

1987, cited in West, R & Turner, L.H, 2009)

Distance proxemics, or also called conversational distance can be considered

a culturally sensitive communication symbol The distances between people reserved for categories of acquaintance will vary depends on the cultural interpretation of the distance As I mentioned, Hall distinguishes four types of informal distances: public (with unknown people), social (professional and unofficial social occasions), personal (between friends) and intimate distance (with close relationships) Once again, each culture has its body boundaries and the space

bubble or body language can be misinterpreted Axtell (1997, p.40) classifies

cultures as follow: “high contact” are touching cultures (Middle East, Latin American, …), “moderate contact” are middle ground (France, China, Ireland, …) and “low contact” do not touch or stand to close to the others (Japan, US, England,

…) Therefore, conversational dyads need to be sensitive to these differences since

a body gesture can appear personal or intimate depending on the culture of the person

A theoretical model can help us understand the differences in distance between people The expectancy violations theory (Burgoon, 1978) states that we expect people to maintain a certain distance in their conversations with us If a person violates our expectations (if, for instance, a work colleague stands in our intimate space while talking with us), our response to the violation will be based on how much we like that person That is, if we like a person, we‟re probably going to allow a distance violation We may even reciprocate that conversational distance If

we dislike the person, we will likely be irritated by the violation and perhaps move away from the person According to this theory, the degree to which we like someone can be based on factors that include our assessment of their credibility and physical attractiveness Personal space violations, therefore, have consequences on our interactions

1.4 Factors affecting conversational distances

It has been demonstrated that the distance depends on the age of the animals,

their body size, sex and number of other factors (Hediger 1950, Tinbergen 1953, Hall 1966) Some authors preferred to use the term interpersonal distance, due to

the fact that this expression clearly indicates that the interaction between individuals

is involved (Aiello 1987, Bell et al 2001) There must be some variables which

have our use of space such as age, gender, culture, social status, personality, states

of mood, marital status and living areas

1.4.1 Culture

Cultural background is one of the most influential factors in nonverbal communication The main idea is that people from different cultures have different

concepts of what constitutes one‟s “personal space” and that the way we use the space around us is generally shaped by our culture In other words, interpretations

of personal space vary from cultures to cultures Therefore, it is crucial to understand the influence of culture diversity on nonverbal communication in order

to reduce friction and confusion during the process of cross-cultural communication

Cultures can be divided into three types: high-contact culture,

moderate-contact culture and low-moderate-contact culture In high-moderate-contact culture, people prefer

higher sensory exposure while interacting; that means, people usually keep small distances among themselves

The culture people grew up has a tremendous effect on who people are as individuals, whether they like it or not One of the direct cultural influences is on the size of the individual personal proxemics distance

“Distant” cultures tend to keep more personal space and use less touching than other “warm” cultures By contrast, Asian cultures characterized by more accommodating accepting attitude when it comes to personal distance and the theory states that it‟s due to more crowded living conditions

Other cultures including American‟s are considered to be “warmer” by nature-touch and close proximity are more welcome and socially accepted Obviously, generalizing this information is a big mistake The researcher doesn‟t intend to conclude that all Europeans are distant and Asians like to crowd, it‟s merely an overall cultural code

For the purposes of understanding how different people communicate verbally, Edward Hall separated cultures into two basic categories: contact and non-contact In contact cultures, physical touching and intimate space between acquaintances is permitted and even necessary for establishing interpersonal relationships For non-contact cultures, touching and personal space is reserved for only the most intimate acquaintances Examples include the U.S., Norway, Japan, and most Southeast Asian cultures

By contrast, men are more territorial and aggressive by nature and will keep more distance from other men, but when it comes to women, men usually prefer to

get a little closer Willis (1966) stated that women are approached more closely by

both two genders, men and women Burgoon (1991) found that photographed males were seen as more dominant at close than at norm or far distances; for females, there were no differences across distances Thus we might expect some gender differences associated with proxemic relational messages

What is more, distance between the dyads of the same sex if smaller than

between those of the opposite sex Vrugt and Ketstra (1984) stated that “in

interaction between strangers, the interpersonal distance between women is smaller than between men and women.”

Research in sex differences in personal space indicates that the bubbles surrounding women are smaller than are those surrounding men For example, a study using unobtrusive observation of people in a public setting found that female pairs stood closer to each other than did male pairs In addition, this study found that male-female pairs stood closest of all Similarly, another study found that male and female pairs who were unacquainted differed in their interpersonal distance Specifically, it was noted that female pairs sat closer to each other than male pairs

in a waiting room situation Unequal space zones were also noted by Willis who found, in studying the initial speaking distance set by an approaching person, that women were approached more closely than were men by both men and women

1.4.3 Social Status – Power Distance

Power distance refers to the degree of hierarchy and the way organigrams are set-up Power distance affects verbal and nonverbal communication People from individualistic cultures tend to have a small power distance whereas people from collectivist cultures have a bigger one Depending of the culture, power is distributed differently According to Altman & Vinsel (1977), dominant individuals command and were afforded more personal space than submissive or low status individuals

Social status produces a huge effect on the personal distance and demand Accordingly, the higher the status, the more space communicators consider to be theirs It is believed that distance used between co-workers is distinctive to that between boss and worker, superior and inferior Hence, the first-class seats are bigger and have more space per individual When it comes to dominant-subordinate relationships it means that the high-status person can invade the space of the lower status person without too much resistance, and sometimes he is even encouraged to

do so

Dominant individuals command and are afforded more personal space than submissive or low status individuals (Altman & Vinsel, 1977; Burgoon, 1987), and Burgoon et al (1984) found that among five immedacy cues, proximity was the biggest predictor of dominance interpretations Because dominant people are allowed to violate conversational distance norms, both close and far distances are associated with more dominance that are intermediate distanes (Burgoon, 1991; Burgoon et al., 1984; Burgoon & Hale, 1988)

1.4.4 Age

In general, children tend to stand closer to the subject That is, they are much more open in nature than adults, which can be explained by the fact that they lack some of the “social boundaries” Therefore, if a kid really like someone, he will even hug that person during the conversation Yet, at teenager or over, people begin having some awareness of gender difference, the distance especially in intimate and

personal zone becomes further And at old age, we are found to interact in a closer distance, because we are assumed to receive the interaction subject‟s due to our being weak

It is examined that children are used to closer and more intimate proxemics,

or, children are used to closer and more intimate proxemics Children have a strong need to be around those who they feel can protect them, and who provide for them Independence is a big issue in the study of all proxemics, and children are the perfect example of how much of a non-factor proxemics are with no sense of independence However, as children grow older their need to be close to parents

decreases and their want to be near playmates or friends decreases (Burgess, 1982)

It is also studied that when people age into adulthood, they develop social skills to understand and manage their own proximity As people grow older they desire independence and social control which greatly affect their proxemics

1.4.5 Personality

According to T Davies (1976:74), the image of one person was also affected

by the levels if extroversion or introversion of his or her personality When it comes

to personality, extrovert people naturally tend to keep less distance than introverts That is, extroverts will get along fine with other extroverts and probably annoy the introverts In short, extroverts have a strong outer reality whereas introverts have a strong inner reality Extroverts may well avoid self-analysis and feel uncomfortable spending a great deal of time on their own, they tend to stand closer to the partners Meanwhile, introverts may well avoid the intimate behaviors, thus they tend to stand far from the partners However, people do not fall neatly into one category or the other A person who is extrovert by nature may also have an introverted side at certain time and in certain situations, and vice versa Most people are mixture, though one tendency usually dominates

1.4.6 Marital Status

Marital relationship has some effects on personal space Berman and Lief

(cited in Hill, R D., 1982), suggested that two “critical dimensions” of the marital

relationship are level of intimacy and degree of inclusion or exclusion of others, and that both have potential impact on personal space needs Since a high degree of intimacy is expected to occur within the marital relationship and preferable interpersonal distance is generally considered socially appropriate, it is likely that personal space needs among married couples would be relatively small Furthermore, since sexual interaction and between a married person and an opposite-sexed non-spouse is generally considered inappropriate in both American and Vietnamese cultures, it is likely that personal space needs between a married person and an opposite-sexed non-spouse would be relatively large, even though the combination would represent a mixed-sex dyad Specifically, it was hypothesized that personal space needs would be smallest between married person to each other, somewhat greater between a married person and same-sexed stranger, and greatest between a married communicator and an opposite-sexed stranger

1.4.7 Living Area

According to Allan Pease (1993:34), the amount of interpersonal distance

required by an individual was related to the population density of the area in which that person was born and brought up Those who were brought up in sparsely polluted areas (rural areas) require more space than those raised in densely polluted capital cities (urban areas)

There‟s also a difference between country living culture and the urban city lifestyle – country people are used to live in a vast and mildly populated areas while city dwellers are more used to crowding This meant that city dwellers will usually have a smaller distance than country people due to this habit of density

1.4.8 Relationship

Relationship is one of the very important factors influencing conversational distances The more intimate the communicators are, the smaller the physical distance will tend to be when communicating Public space maintained between audiences and speakers Social space is used for conversations among acquaintances such as friends and colleagues Friends, family members and relatives come to the

personal space And intimate space is ruled by lovers, couples, spouses, sometimes

by close friends and family members In other words, relationship has some effect

on distinction on conversational distances

In Manusov and Patterson‟s text, they pointed out the fact that people are

more likely to sit closer to a romantic partner than their own friends (Manusov and Patterson, 265) One term in particular that is crucial in understanding the

proxemics in relationships is the term interpersonal distance This term is defined as the physical space between two people The closeness or distance between two people can directly reflect the relationship between the two people If two people are very close then their interpersonal distance will be an indicator of this because they will close the space between themselves But, if two people are very distance then it can almost always be assumed that they are not close in their relationship Proxemics are very important in a relationship because research has shown that being close to one another can have a positive effect on the relationship In romantic relationships, one can also observe differences between couples that have recently come together versus couples that have been dating for a substantially longer amount of time When relationships begin to break down and a couple is headed for

a break up, the proxemics of the relationship changes dramatically

1.4.9 Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures:

The style of nonverbal communication commonly employed by a specific ethnic group depends on several dimensions of cultural variability In the broadest sense, cultural variability can be viewed in terms of two extremes: individualism

and collectivism (Gudykunst & Lee, 2002)

Dimensions of cultural variability and barriers have to be considered since individualist and collective cultures shape people differently Individualism is “the opposite of collectivism; together they form on of the dimensions of national cultures Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only.” Collectivism “stands for a society 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, 1994,

p.126) However, proximity does not obey global rules Territoriality, Contact, interpersonal distance, touch, sensory involvement can differ from one culture to another one It has been theorized that the relations with other people depends on the culture (individualistic or collectivist), the power distance (hierarchical or democratic), they are neutral or convey emotion High-context communication often corresponds with communitarian settings, while low-context communication often occurs in individualist settings

Gudykunst and Kim (2003, p.235) explain that “close” and “far” mean

different things depending of the culture: a high-contact culture will consider more

closeness as something positive Mehrabian (1971) defines “immediacy” as “the

evaluative dimension of meaning, and it involves judgements of close-far, negative, and good-bad” all these things are used to indicate psychological closeness to others Immediacy is associated with: close conversational distance, direct body orientation, forward lean, direct gaze, positive facial rein-forcers, postural openness, frequent gesturing and touch

positive-Individualism value privacy; collectivists do not value it as much and often find being alone frightening Related to these points are differences in the way personal space is used Collectivists do not respect the personal space of other as

much as do individualists (Triandis, 1995)

Asian groups including Vietnamese have commonly been identified as collectivistic They have interdependent self-construal, which lead them to act in certain ways based on their relation with their communication partner in a specific

context (Markus & Kitayama, 1998) That is, they expect to maintain harmony in their high context communication According to Lewis (1999), interpretations of

personal space vary from culture to culture People in South American countries, such as Brazil, require little personal space in an interaction Arabs, Hungarians, and African similarly reduce conversational distance In general, people from

individualistic cultures (for examples, United States, Germany, Canada) require more space than do those from collectivistic cultures The personal space requirements of people from collectivistic cultures can be partially explained by the fact that people from those cultures tends to work, sleep and have fun in close proximity to one another (Andersen, 2003)

Context, as one of the influential dimensions of culture differences, was presents by Hall (1976) He defined context as the information that surrounded an event and classified people into high-/low-context (HC/LC) communication systems Context is inextricably bound with the meaning of that events: “The

cultures of the world can be compared on a scale from high to low context” (Hall & Hall, 1990, 6)

Hall (1976) also proposed that cultures can be identified based on the

messages people in a given culture prefer to use, and he defined these as High Context (HC) or Low Context (LC) cultures, which are considered one framework for approaching intercultural communication Cultures cannot be categorized as

“high context” or “low context” However, cultures can be on the two ends of a continuum Some cultures tend to be at the higher end while others are at the lower end of the continuum (Hall, 1976) American culture reflects LC values; Americans

are open, direct, and more confrontational (Chua & Gudykunst, 1987; Gudykunst

& Nishida, 1986) while Vietnamese culture historically values HC communication;

Vietnamese are more introverted and indirect Generally, cultures in which little of the meaning is determined by the context because the message is encoded in the explicit code are labeled low context Cultures in which less has to be said or written because more of the meaning is in the physical environment or already shared by people are labeled high context

A high-context culture relies on implicit communication and nonverbal cues Gestures are also considered important within high context communication with nonverbal communication used frequently during information exchanges Asian, African, Arab, central European and Latin American cultures are generally

considered to be high-context cultures In high-context culture, space is communal People tend to stand close to each other and share the same space

In low context cultures nonverbal communication is considered less important in which many external and surrounding factors can be classified In other words, a low-context culture relies on explicit communication Cultures with western European roots, such as the United States and Australia, are generally considered to be low-context cultures In low-context cultures, nonverbal elements are not significant and space is compartmentalized It means that privacy is important, so people stand farther apart when communication processes

In reference to collectivist and individualist cultures, which we have seen to

be closely linked to high and low context cultures (Ting-Toomey, 1994), Triandis

(2010, p.149) noted that collectivists sample the context of communications more than individualists This results in them „paying more attention to gestures, eye contact, level of voice, the direction of the two bodies, touching and the distance between the bodies Such paralinguistic cues can open the opportunity for

misinterpretation and error (Triandis, 2010)

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the research methodologies selected in the study In the sections below information about the context and the subjects of the study, the research questions, the data collection instruments, the data collection procedure, and the data analysis procedure will be presented

2.1 Data-collection instruments

The main contents of this section include participants of the study, the data collection instruments namely questionnaires, and interviews followed by the study procedure This study was conducted in the form of mixed research methods (both qualitative and quantitative approaches) Three key research instruments for data collection were exploited including questionnaires, interview and video recordings

Accordingly, a variety of method was used in order to test the theoretical predictions or assumptions about the proxemics behaviors as well as the factors that might leave impact on preferred interpersonal distance of Vietnamese However, each method has its own strengths and weaknesses that will be discussed later The implementation of questionnaires, video recordings and informal interviews seemed

to be feasible

2.1.1 Survey questionnaires

Questionnaires were selected as the first tool for the process of data collection Accordingly, I carefully studied the general features of questionnaires like the length, the layout, the topic; the main parts of questionnaire like the title, instructions, questionnaire items, additional information, and final “thank you”; questionnaire content; and types of questionnaire items

The survey was conducted within a group of Vietnamese people The participants included 50 native Vietnamese living both in rural and urban areas in

Hanoi and some other provinces mainly in the Northern areas of Vietnam However, the participants would be assured that they would not be identified in any circumstances as they wished The questionnaires then were designed to address the issues in such factors affecting the conversational distances between the two selected cultures including age, gender, personality, social relationship, living areas, social status, mood and communication setting or areas It was the the author‟s intention to design the questionnaire in Vietnamese because of the fact that there would be no data needed from American speakers

The survey questionnaire (see the appendix) composed of two main parts with corresponding situations in which conversational distances were assigned to be

a prominent subject These two main parts with part 2 consists of 20 closed-open items (see Appendix 1): I) a section on the subjects‟ individual information in terms of Age, Gender, Personality, Living Area, and Social Status This part aimed at helping frame the context for other data associated with the study; II.A) a section (3 items) in which one item related to the preferable interpersonal distance of each communicator when having conversation to others; II.B) the next 17 items (5-Likert scale: from strongly disagree to strongly agree) related to the factors affecting the interpersonal distance of Vietnamese, which were mainly based on West & Turner (2009)

Meanwhile, the range of conversational distances of American culture will

be considered as the comparative baseline hypothesis of the study The author tried

to keep the 4 main zones (intimate zone, personal zone, social zone and public zone) as the general guidelines in the process comparing and contrasting with the Vietnamese‟s

2.1.1.1 Participants

There would be the involvements of human subjects during research process Vietnamese and American speakers (as participants at baseline‟s) are selected because they are considered collectivistic and individualistic manifestations

What is more, the researcher has an intention of exploiting convenience sampling and explaining how they are selected All the members who are conveniently available are invited to participate in the study The participants will include 50 native Vietnamese living in the areas in the North of Vietnam, both rural‟s and urbans The characteristics of the study subjects, as I mentioned earlier, including age, gender, marital status, social status, living area and personality of the participants will be described

In order to get cooperation from these respondents, first I asked my acquaintances (my friends, my colleagues and my students) who are living and studying in Hanoi and some other provinces nearby Finally, 50 people agreed to participate in the survey questionnaires After completing the questionnaires, they were invited to participate in the interview and the video recording as well

2.1.1.2 Procedure

First, data will be collected; then they will be analyzed and synthesized in order to find the shared points among documents Besides, the researcher will classify data into different categories following the guiding theory-based hypothesis according to their levels of importance and relations to the topic under investigation Later, information would be presented in some kinds of comments, evaluations or arguments on the study which are mainly characterized by the figures of the survey questionnaires Below is the detailed description of the whole procedure

In order to collect valid data, survey questionnaires will be designed in both English and Vietnamese Moreover, the researcher tries to see how the questionnaire works in the process of data collection by piloting the questionnaires before delivering them to the participants

The first stage of data collection was questionnaires distribution 50 printed survey questionnaires (excluding back-ups) were distributed to Vietnamese native participants living both in rural and urban areas in the North of Vietnam Collecting the data started at the beginning of December, 2017 and intended to last about one month The convenience samplings were exploited: the researcher‟s students and

colleagues and many acquaintances like the researcher‟s husband‟s colleagues were also invited to take part in the survey questionnaire.

Apparently, the survey questionnaires will be conducted with the assistance of

50 native Vietnamese informants living in the North of Vietnam, consisting of three parts:

Part I: In this initial part, the informants involved might be asked to give

personal information in case they do not find it disturbing Participants was required

to complete demographic questions (age, sex, marital status, social status, living area and personality)

as gender, age, social power, and personality of the informants There will also be questions which are directly concerning to space violence Bases on the classic Hall‟s (1966) theory, we measured three separate categories of preferred

interpersonal distances – distance to (a) stranger, (b) an acquaintance, and (c) a

close person These measures reflected the previously defined categories of

interpersonal distance: (a) social distance (1.2-3.7m), (b) personal distance 1.2m), and (c) intimate distance (0-46cm) (Hall, 1966), respectively The author

(46cm-decided to use a very simple graphic task so that it will be easy for the participants

to imagine the distance which they prefer during the process of communication

Then, the participants will be asked to imagine that he or she should be

Person A The participant will also be asked to rate how close a person B could

approach to her/ him, so that he or she would have the most comfortable feeling in a

conversation with person B The participant will be required to mark the distance at

which person B should stop on the scale below the figures Thus, it is ideal that the

questionnaires should be completed by paper and pencil

B The author designs 17 questions in which the participants will have to

circle one answer in each line across to show their degree of agreement with each statement These questions are designed to collect the participants‟ general opinions about the conversational distance and the factors which can leave some certain influence on the preferred interpersonal distance of the communicators

When all the questionnaires were collected, the researcher started to access, examine, and analyze the data Next, the responses from questionnaires were coded and then entered into SPSS (version 20.) and descriptive statistics including frequency, mean and standard deviation were calculated and interpreted for each item

2.1.2 Personal observation-video recordings:

Most proxemics research is conducted through author‟s personal observation, either indoor or in a natural setting During observation, the actual subjects‟ distance maintained between each other was intentionally measured However, the data used in this study will be collected by video recordings That is, all the convenient sampling will be unconsciously recorded so that the conversational distances between these dyads will be objectively measured Then, these dyads will

be questioned: “Are these physical distances, according to you, generally accepted?” and the researcher then measured the distance between the objects according to the given scale The results might be expected to be tested randomly based on the hypotheses Furthermore, the hypotheses can be used to interview the other informants if possible (This kind of instrument will be presented in details later) Accordingly, the results must be tested again if there is any mismatchings in the number or the data collected

2.1.2.1 Participants

The researcher tries to exploit the convenience sampling such as her acquaintances (friends and colleagues), her students and her family members

Participants were almost volunteers who most participated in a dyadic interaction, for a total of 50 cases varying from strangers‟ relationship to people of intimate relationships

2.1.2.2 Procedure

Participants were unconsciously discussing some certain familiar or daily life topics and then they were recorded by the researcher The standing conversations would be prioritized, which seemed to be an ideal scenario, not only because this kind of conversations offer excellent examples of proxemics behavior, but also because they allow one to work at the crossroad between close-observation technologies, often applied to monitor the behavior of people in public spaces, and domains like social signal processing that focus automatic understanding of social behavior

All discussions were videotaped and last no more than five minutes for each Distance, which is based on Hall‟s method (1966), was measured with a tape measure, marking spots at 18 inches and 4 feet, denoting the intimate and social conversational distance zones The actual measurement was between the two closest tips of toes of the two communicators, which was measured thanks to the assistance

of one of the researcher‟s colleague or student The communicators, at the end of the discussion, would be intentionally informed that they had been being recorded and the distance between them was being measured if they wouldn‟t bother The researcher then tried to ask the communicators to reveal their relationship except for the stranger-stranger‟s

Since all the data of video recordings were collected, the researcher started to access, examine, and analyze the data Next, the distance measured for each case would be coded and categorized Still, the collected data would be performed and then interpreted in bar-chart, which was believed that the difference in interpersonal space would be easier to visualized

2.1.3 Informal interviews:

Face-to-face semi-structured interviews are essential to the flexible, informal nature of this study and therefore, where possible, this is the preferred interview technique However, online interviews will be carried out via Skype due to geographical distance between the interviewer and the interviewees It seemed to

me that the online technique somehow advantageous thanks to the fact of the ability

to take notes without seeming impolite and of the replies which can be recorded without embarrassment to respondents The interview length varied from 20-30 minutes on average With the permission of the participants, the interviews were recorded so as to increase accuracy and to enable a more detailed analysis of the qualitative data The names of the interviewees are not revealed in order to maintain anonymity These following sections will discuss about detailed materials and methods for collecting data from interviews

2.1.3.1 Participants

I had an intention of conducting numerous informal interviews with the assistance of 5 Vietnamese informants Specially, convenient sampling such as colleagues, friends and students will be exploited so that information and feedbacks will be highly exchanged and controlled

2.1.3.2 Procedure

I intended to provide participants with knowledge of the themes before

semi-structured interviews take place According to Saunders (2007), this promoted

validity and reliability, enabling the interviewee to consider the aims and goals of the interview In interviewing, there will be turn-taking between the interviewer and the interviewees, that is, one person asks a question and the other replies Particularly, information interviews will be conducted in order to get information about the conversational distances

All the informants involved will be asked to answer the question: “At which

distance would you feel most comfortable when communicating with the others?”

Also, the questions about the factors affecting conversational distances will also be asked during the interview process

Since it is important for interviewees to feel relaxed and open to discussion of their experience, the technique was relatively informal A convenience sampling technique is chosen due to the accessibility to the researcher‟s colleagues and close people Interviews were chosen as a flow-up step after questionnaires to help the researcher gain an in-depth data about their perceptions and their challenges, which could be missed from questionnaires In order to construct the interview questions, the researcher based on Hall‟s framework The researcher took the advantage of these “open and fairly loosely

structured interviews” (Watson, 1970, p.60) allowed me to come to the

interview with guiding questions and meanwhile remain open to “following the leads of informants and probing into areas that arise during interview

interactions” (Hatch, 2002, p 94)

Besides, in order to facilitate the process of interviews and to make the respondents not misunderstand questions, interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and then translated into English Besides, due to the long distance between the researcher and some of the subjects, almost of the interviews were conducted via Skype Responses from these participants will assist with answering research question 2

During the interviews an attempt were also made to find if there consist any rules about proxemics behavior in Vietnam and how these rules were exploited in the daily life All interviews were supposedly tape recorded in which the subjects were allowed to respond freely to the questions outlined in Appendix 4

Question 1 and 2 (Appendix 4) were attempts to get the participants to supply their own definitions of conversational distance and their views on the factors which have influence on interpersonal distance Question 3 tried to collect information about the participants‟ first-hand experience on their favourite conversational distance which occurs when they interact with people coming from

different countries Question 4 exploited interviewees on the underlying reasons of culture conflicts, meanwhile the next question tests whether communicators can aware of conversational rules in Vietnam The 4 other questions gathered speakers‟ opinions about some specific case in which they have to decide how and why they choose their own suitable conversational distance such as their reaction when being approached too closely, the distance between they and their closet people or their experience personal distance in a foreign country

The researcher, then, analyzed the qualitative data gathered from interviews After the interviews were transcribed, rechecked, and the responses were categorized from the aspects of project work explored in the questionnaires

2.2 Data analysis

2.2.1 Quantitative analysis

The questionnaires and video recordings data were managed, coded and then analyzed through the IBM statistical analysis program, SPSS software, version (64 Bit) 20 SPSS is software that allows comparison of data across different groups SPSS can handle data flexibly and perform statistic procedures accurately The data obtained from the dyads were entered into SPSS The factors such as Age, Gender, Marital Status, Social Status, Living Area, and Personality of the communicators were entered as independent variables, and Conversational Distances were entered

as dependent variables

After all the data were entered, I conducted some formulas to obtain the information needed Firstly, I calculated the means obtained each case of communication to identify the means of conversational distance measured for each group respectively This helps to determine which hypothesis best predict the preferred interpersonal distance and the factor which has the most influence on distance in each case of communication Accordingly, I intended to use an Independent-Samples t-Test

to assume if two variables of each factor like Gender, Living Area, Social Status, Marital Status and Personality are independent of each other or not

Also, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between the means of group differences with more than three variables such as Age This would help to identify whether the preferred interpersonal distance of the three age-groups differ statistically

2.2.2 Qualitative analysis

Qualitative analysis was conducted with the one-to-one interviews with the colleagues of the researcher considering as the main method of data collection The whole process, therefore, involved asking questions, listening to and recording answers from an individual (data collection); interpretation of data, transcribing and checking (data analysis and management); and data synthesis Specifically, based

on participants‟ responses, I worked out whether their experience would fit the ways they selected particular answers of interpersonal distance in the survey questionnaires or not That means, I tried to figure out if there were common patterns related to how they selected particular answers and how they would do it in the real-life situations

The data collection process involved audio-recording, which would be then transcribed accurately before data analysis began The participants‟ perspective then would be interpreted and reported on for other to read and learn from Still, this paper data was managed, analyzed, and presented in an appropriate order The interpretation of the data seemed to depend on the theoretical points chosen by the researcher This can be explained by the fact that such theories help the researcher focus and direct to the participant‟s related viewpoint

For the purposes of this paper it was assumed that interviews was recorded As I mentioned above, transcribing was a difficult process in which I had

audio-to convert the spoken word audio-to the written word for later analyses Then, the transcript would be rechecked by the interviewees so that the misunderstandings could be thoroughly avoided For instance, the researcher had to correct spellings or

other errors, or some details must be anonymized so that the participant cannot be identified in any cases

Video recordings are an excellent source of data that can be used to assess relationships between behaviors that occur in close temporal proximity to one another In order to ensure the reliability of behavioral data obtained via video recording, I tried to exploit some certain techniques and strategies during the process That means, I managed to capture naturally ocurring proximic behaviour of participants