1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE
ĐỖ THỊ PHƯƠNG THANH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON
AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS IN
CONFIRMING AND NEGATING NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH DIỄN ĐẠT
KHẲNG ĐỊNH VÀ PHỦ ĐỊNH

MINOR THESIS

FIELD : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

KHẲNG ĐỊNH VÀ PHỦ ĐỊNH

MINOR THESIS FIELD : ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE : 60.22.15
SUPERVISOR : NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH NGỌC, MA

HANOI - 2012
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ABBREVIATIONS

CCC: Cross-cultural Communication
VC: Verbal Communication
V: Vietnam/ Vietnamese
A: America/American
H: hearer
S: speaker
FTA: face threatening act
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LIST OF TABLES

List of tables v
List of diagrams and figures vi
Table of contents vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methodology 3
5. Design of the study 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Culture 4
1.2. Communication 4
1.2.1. Definition 4
1.2.2. Cross-cultural Communication 6
1.2.3. Forms of communication 6
1.3. Speech act theory 8
1.3.1. Speech act 8
1.3.2. Classification of speech act 9
1.4. Politeness theory 10
1.4.1. Definition of politeness 10
1.4.2. Politeness strategies 11
1.5. Confirmation and negation as a speech act 13
1.5.1. Confirmation as a speech act 13
1.5.2. Negation as a speech act 14

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15
2.1. Methods of the study 15

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BIBLIOGRAPHY I
APPENDIX IV
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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
To our understanding, only humans have language and culture. Language simultaneously
reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it. In the broadest sense, it is also the
symbolic representation of a people, since it comprises their historical and cultural
backgrounds, as well as their approach to life and their ways of living and thinking. People
use language to communicate and express their thoughts to each others easier and faster.
In communication, it is understood people are in the process of sharing or exchanging their
thoughts verbally (ie. in spoken or written form), or nonverbally. The basis of
communication is the interaction between people. Verbal communication is one way for
people to communicate face-to-face. Brown (1994: 165) describes the relationship
between language and culture as follows: „A language is a part of a culture and a culture is
a part of a language; the two are intricately interwoven so that one cannot separate the two
without losing the significance of either language or culture.‟ In a word, culture and
language are inseparable. However, there are cultural and language boundaries, such as the
use of languages or the traditional customs between two cultures. The lack of people's
awareness of the similarities and differences between two cultures may cause culture
shock, in turn, can result in communication breakdown.
Recently, there have been more and more foreigners from different countries coming to
live, study and work in our country. Especially, with the cooperation and exchange in a
number of fields between Vietnam and America, a great number of people from one
country work, study, live in the other country. With the help of English, an international
language, Vietnamese and American people can communicate with each other easily in
various aspects. So far, there have been a number of linguistic theses mentioning different

of strategies. Therefore, the analysis of the study is limited to the common strategies which
have the highest percentage of occurrence from the collected data. Amongst the various
kinds of relationship, the author only focuses on the certain kinds of relationship in
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communicating, i.e., between family members, friends, someone you dislike, colleagues,
and boss - employees.
The informants are 65 people from the North of Vietnam, and 58 people from the United
States. However, 52 Vietnamese informants and 52 American informants are selected for
the data analysis basing on their full-completeness in the questionnaires using similar
parameters of the informants about age, gender, and living area.
4. Methodology
The study is conducted basing on the followings. Firstly, available literature and relevant
publications are critically reviewed. Information from the Internet sites and previous
studies are also referred to. Secondly, the quantitative method is used in this study with the
help of the survey questionnaires. The data analysis is mainly based on the statistics
collected through the survey questionnaires with the illustration of tables. Finally,
consultation with the supervisor, discussion with colleagues, as well as the author‟s
observation in daily life and her own experience in cross-cultural communication are also
of great help in finding out the answers to the research questions.
5. Design of the study
The study contains three main parts. PART A: Introduction provides the rationale, the
aims, the scope, the methodology, the comments on the data and the organization of the
study. PART B: Development is the main part of the study and has three chapters. Chapter
1: Literature review points out the theoretical issues. Chapter 2: Methodology gives the
methods to collect and analyze the data. Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussions of the
findings presents and discusses similarities and differences in expressing confirming and
negating verbally by the Americans and the Vietnamese. PART C: Conclusion gives the
findings, implications for cross-cultural communication, limitations of the study, and
suggestions for further research.

areas of life: home, school, community, work, and beyond. It is through communication
that collaboration and cooperation occur. Other definitions are developed by the following
writers.
A conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which
feelings and ideas are expressed in verbal and nonverbal messages. It
occurs in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public levels. Human
communication is dynamic, continuous, irreversible, interactive and
contextual.
Hybels, S. and Waever, R. (1992)
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.
Adler, R.B & Rodman, G. (1998)
To sum up, communication refers to the process of man being responding to the face-to-
face symbolic behavior of other persons. Communication includes three branches as
follows:

Diagram 1: Branches of communication

Communication
Intra-cultural
communication
Inter-cultural
communication
Cross-cultural
communication
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1.2.2. Cross-cultural Communication


DeVito (1989, 160) defines the human language system as a "productive system capable of
displacement and composed of rapidly fading, arbitrary, culturally transmitted symbols".
1.2.3.1. Verbal communication
. . . Man lives in a world of words. To those who can use words so as to influence
the rest of us we give society's great rewards. To the combinations of ideas which
have been worked out in words, we owe changes that have later been wrought out in
things.
Clow, F. R (1920:147)
The term "verbal communication" seems almost self-explanatory; however, verbal
communication is far more complex than simply talking. Verbal communication refers to
the use of sounds and language to relay a message. It serves as a vehicle for expressing
desires, ideas and concepts and is vital to the processes of learning and teaching. Verbal
communication includes not only oral discussion, but also written messages as being
demonstrated below:

Diagram 3: Types of verbal communication
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1.2.3.2. Non-verbal communication
Beside the use of written or spoken language, nonverbal communication is another
important process of communication.
Nguyen Quang (2006:23) presented detail definitions of nonverbal communication as “all
the components of the message that, when taken together, constitute the communication
which is not verbally coded but both vocally and non-vocally channeled. Nonverbal
communication is composed of paralinguistic factors (nonverbal - vocal channel), such as
rate, volume, etc., and extra-linguistic factors (nonverbal - non-vocal channel), such as
body language (gestures, postures, facial expressions…) object language (including
clothing, jewelry…) and environmental language (proxemics, settings…)”.
Lustig (1996:187-188) pointed out, when some meaning is attached to a nonlinguistic

perform a certain kind of action by itself, we call them speech acts. In English, speech acts
are labeled commonly as apology, compliment, complaint, promise or negation. Generally,
speech act perform different functions in communication. To communicate is to express a
certain attitude, and the type of speech act performs corresponds to the type of attitude
which is expressed by Bach, K. (2011).
1.3.2. Classification of speech act
According to Austin (1962), locutionary act, illocutionary act and percutionary act are the
three related functions in a single speech act.
The act of performing a meaningful expression (i.e, verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects)
is considered as locutionary act. That is a basic part of speech act. The illocutionary act
conveys the function of what the speaker has in mind, i.e, real and intended meaning:
promise, threat, inform, question, or confirmation. On the other hand, the percutionary act
produced actual effects. For example:
Don’t go into the kitchen.
This utterance contains the locutionary act with distinct phonetic, syntactic and semantic
features. It also warns you not go into the kitchen (the illocutionary act), and it shows the
perlocutionary act in persuading you not go into the kitchen.
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Sharing the same view point, Bach & Harnish (1973:3) state that the three acts related
ultimately in a meaningful utterance, “S says something to H; in saying something to H, S
does something; and by doing something, S affects H”.
Searl (1976:10-16) classified speech acts into 5 basic types:
Commissives
commit a speaker to some future
course of action
e.g. promising, threating,
negating or offering
Declaratives
change the word by bringing about

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defines politeness as “a number of different general principles for being polite in social
interaction within a particular culture”.
Politeness plays a significant role in human interaction. Language is naturally used to
reflect politeness; therefore, different languages express politeness differently. Richards
(1992:281) gives general ideas of politeness as follows:
 how language express the social distance between speakers and their different role
relationships
 how face-work, that is, the attempt to establish, maintain, and save face during
conversation, is carried out in a speech community
1.4.2. Politeness strategies
Brown and Levinson (1987) proposed an approach to politeness that the concept "face" is
the root of their notion of "politeness". There are two kinds of Face: positive face and
negative face. Positive face provides status of a person as an autonomous, independent, free
agent. On the other hand, negative face describes a person‟s immunity from outside
interference and excessive external pressure. In clarity, positive face is the need to be
connected while negative face is the need to be independent.
Politeness has been closely related to the behavior typical of a certain social location and a
certain social group in the English-speaking culture. To be polite, means to live up to a set
of conventionalized norms of behavior.
Brown and Levinson (1987:60) give a set of five strategies for avoiding a face threatening
act (FTA) (to minimize risk of losing face corresponding to the degrees of face-threat) as
in the following figure:
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Negative
politeness (3)
Do the FTA
Don't do the FTA (5)
On-Record
Off-Record (4)
Without redressive action, badly (1)
With redressive
action
Positive
politeness (2)
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action that is directed to the hearer's positive face is "positive politeness" (Brown and
Levinson, 1987: 70).
According to Brown and Levinson (1987:103-210), and data collection, the following
strategies: Bald on-record, Joking, Hedging, Advising, Asserting condition, Passing the
ball to other(s), Asking Rhetoric Questions, and Don't do FTA are used as parameters of
the communicative strategies which are expressed by American-Vietnamese confirming
and negating expressions.
1.5. Confirmation and negation as a speech act
1.5.1. Confirmation as a speech act
Confirmation can be defined as the act of supporting a fact or a statement by evidence.
(Longman Dictionary). In classifying of illocutionary acts, Searle (1976: 10-16) states that
confirming is an act of declaratives, an act of confirming strengthening; an act of
establishing, ratifying, or sanctioning; as, the confirmation of an appointment. In his
works, DeVito (1989:191) finds out that confirmation contains almost of the following
criteria:
 Acknowledge the presence of the other verbally or non-verbally.
 Acknowledge the contributions of the other by either supporting or taking issue with

agree in straightforward cases. The alternative view would say one can only deny
something by using a sentence that has its meaning independently of any act of denial.
Negation is a central means of conveying information in verbal communication. Negative
expressions allow the S to state explicitly that a particular property does not hold for the
state of affairs under consideration. Conveying information about what is not the case is
often as useful as, and sometimes even more useful than, conveying information about
what is the case. Negation has been a topic of much research in linguistics and philosophy,
but psycholinguistic studies of the processing of negative expressions are relatively rare.
Brown and Levinson (1987:65-67) conclude that confirming and negating, which are post-
event acts, are also seen as face-threatening acts. In everyday communication, confirmation
and negation take place so frequently. They may damage both the H's and the S's positive
face and the H's negative face as well.
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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter aims to provide an overview of the methodological approaches and research
design selected for the study on American-Vietnamese verbal expressions in confirming
and negating.
2.1. Methods of the Study
This study follows the quantitative approach because it is objective, generalizable and
reliable (Creswell, 2003:18). The data information in this study is collected through self-
administered questionnaires distributed personally by the researcher. To obtain the data for
the study, the following steps are used:
Step 1: Determine the Research Topic
Being aware of the relationship between language and culture during the process of
interacting among people in America and Vietnam, the researcher has decided to carry out
the study on the topic of confirming and negating expressions in the light of CCC.
Step 2: Determine and Define the Research Questions
The researcher begins with a review of the relevant literature to determine what prior
studies have determined about this issue and uses the literature review to define the

negating verbally. These conclusions are based mostly on the data analysis. After that,
some suggestions for further research have also been given.
2.2. Data collection
2.2.1. Subjects of the study
The researcher lives in Thai Nguyen which is located in the North of Vietnam. The survey
is mostly carried out in this region for it is more convenient for the author to contact the
participants. 65 Vietnamese and 58 Americans are invited as the participants for this study.
The Vietnamese informants are the researcher's colleagues, friends and relatives; some of
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them study and work in America for at least two years. Two thirds of the American
informants are living and working in Vietnam, the rest are living in the United States.
Some of the Americans are the author's old teachers, colleagues who work for English
Institution in Vietnam (an institute teaching English in Vietnam). Others are
recommended by her friends studying in Oklahoma, America. In the end, 52 Vietnamese
informants and 52 American informants who fully complete the questionnaires are chosen
for data analysis. The parameters of the informants are arranged in the following table:

Parameters
Informants
Vietnamese
American
Total number of informants
52
52
Age
Below 30
31
35
Above 30