A cross-cultural study on differences in expressing
annoyance between English and Vietnamese
Nguyễn Thị Minh Thương Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Đỗ Thị Mai Thanh
Năm bảo vệ: 2009 Abstract. Based on the solid theoretical background of pragmatics and cross-cultural
pragmatics, this thesis is conducted with an attempt to investigate the act of expressing annoyance in
Vietnamese and English language and culture. Cross-culturally compared and contrasted, the data has
uncovered some major similarities and differences in choosing politeness strategies to express
annoyance. It is the similarities and differences recognized that hopefully contribute to the avoidance
of cultural conflicts leading to communication breakdown. .
Keywords. Giao tiếp; Giao văn hóa; Tiếng Anh

Content
I. RATIONALE
Cross-cultural Communication describes the ability to successfully form, foster, and improve
relationships with members of a culture different from one’s own. It is based on knowledge of many
factors, such as the other culture’s values, perceptions, manners, social structure, and decision-making
practices, and an understanding of how members of the group communicate- both verbally and non-
verbally, in person, in writing or in any other kind of communication.
Miscommunication is today’s greatest workplace hazard. And with the world becoming smaller and
more diverse, miscommunication seems to be happening more and more. People from different

(1) What are different strategies of expressing annoyance verbally in English and in Vietnamese?
(2) What are similarities and differences in the choice of strategies in verbal expressions of
annoyance in English and Vietnamese culture?
III. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study is limited to the data obtained from the survey questionnaire on ways of expressing
annoyance in English and Vietnamese. The answers from informants in the survey questionnaire and
direct interviews are used as linguistic inputs. Due to the limited time and the scope of a Minor Thesis,
only 50 English (out of 65) and 50 Vietnamese (out of 80) informants were chosen for data analysis.
The study is also restrained to verbal aspects of the act of expressing annoyance only. No matter how
important non-verbal aspects such as paralanguage and extra-language are, they are excluded within
the study.
Only Vietnamese Northern dialect and English native speakers are chosen for contrastive analysis. By
English native speakers, the author means those who speak English as their mother-tongue.
The study just focuses on social relationship and ignores the kinship between the informants
(Speakers) and the communicative partners (Hearers) as it is pre-supposed that in family relationship,
annoyance is seemed to be expressed more directly and frequently.
The informants were asked to express their annoyance to a certain person only, not a thing or object.

IV. METHODOLOGY
The survey is carried out with the following tools:
(i) Relevant publications
(ii) Survey questionnaire
(iii) Statistics, description and analysis of the collected data
(iv) Consultation with supervisor
(v) Interview friends and colleagues
(vi) Personal observation
V. COMMENTS ON THE DATA
The survey questionnaire is designed to collect information for data analysis in the form of hand-outs
and direct interviews. The questionnaire includes 2 main parts:
Part 1 was for getting general information on the informants, including nationality, age, gender,

Bell, R.T. 1991. Translation and Translating. Theory and Practice. New York. Longman.
Blum-Kulka, S. 1987. Indirectness and politeness in requests: Same or different? Journal of
Pragmatics, ii, 131-146.
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge
University Press.
Brown, R. and Gilman, A.1962. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity. America Anthropologists.
Contrill, L. 1991. Face, Politeness and Indirectness. University of Canberra.
Cutting, J. (2002). Pragmatics and Discourse. London and New York: Routledge.
Crystal, D.1992. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages. England:
Blackwell.
Downnes, W. 1984. Language and Society. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Đỗ, Thị Mai Thanh. 2000. Some English-Vietnamese Cross-Cultural Differences in Requesting. MA
Thesis VNU-CFL.
Fraser, B. 1990. Perspectives on politeness. Journal of Pragmatics 14: 219-236. North-Holland.
Geis, M.L. (1995). Speech acts and conversational interaction. CUP.
Goddard, A. and Patterson, L.M. (2000). Language and Gender. London and New York: Routledge.
Green, G.M. (1989). Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding. New Jersey: LEA
Grundy, P. (2000). Doing pragmatics. London: Arnold.
Hatim, B. and Marson, I.1990. Discourse and the Translator. New York: Longman.
Hervey, S. and Higgins, I. 1992. Thinking Translation. New York: Routledge.
Holliday, A: Hyde, M. and Kullman, J. (2004). Intercultural Communication. London and
New York: Routledge.
Holmes, J. (1995). Women, Men and Politeness. New York: Longman.
Hymes, D. 1964. Language in Culture and Society. Harper and Row. New York.
Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and Culture. Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, R.1977. What can you do with words: Politeness, pragmatics and performatives. In Roger,
Andy, Wall, Bob and Murphy, John (Eds), Proceedings of the Texas Conference.
Larsen, D. Freeman. 2002. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. OUP.
Larson, M.L.1984. Meaning-based translation. University Press of America, Inc.
Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London and New York: Longman