PART A: INTRODUCTION
i. Rationale
“One’s eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears”
Heraclitus
To our understanding, language is a great heaven prize and treasure for human in order to
fulfill our vital needs as the social beings: communication. Language appeared, remains and
flourishes along with human history. With the seen development of language and language
studies at the moment, there is no need in proving the crucial and irreplaceable position of
language in human life.
However, there are now more and more researchers believing that communication without
spoken and written words, termed “nonverbal communication” (NVC), is of vital role. As
Heraclitus states above, people tend to rely on NVC and to base the partners’ message on the
nonverbal cues they receive. One more important thing is that even nonverbal
communication takes a big part in transferring meaning in communication; most people do
not know how to read other’s behaviors. Thus, the question is: what shape our behaviors and
decision? For a successful communication event, one possible answer is emotion.
Therefore, the studies into nonverbal expressions for internal emotions have been paid much
attention to. The primary emotional states studied include: surprise, fear, disgust, anger,
sadness and happiness. Nevertheless, disappointment, one of two primary emotions (together
with regret) that involve in decision-making – the success of a communication event, has not
been much concerned.
All of this leads the author to the research naming: “An American – Vietnamese cross-
cultural study on non-verbal expressions of disappointment”. This preliminary study
tries to feature out the most common nonverbal expressions for disappointment in order that
a successful communication event can be achieved between American and Vietnamese
communicators.
ii. Aims of the study
This research aims to:
- investigate the most common nonverbal expressions for disappointment used by Americans
and Vietnamese in cross-cultural communication.
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The study will be organized into the following structure:
Part A: INTRODUCTION outlines the rationale, the methodology, the aims, the scope, the
significance and the organization of the study.
Part B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW reviews the theoretical issues. It briefly presents and
discusses the theory of communication, NVC with more detailed discussion on facial
expressions, gestures and postures which are major parts of body language. Disappointment
as a human feeling and its nonverbal expressions are also discussed.
Chapter 2 METHODOLOGY describes the data collecting instrument, the informants and
research procedures.
Chapter 3 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS OF THE FINDINGS presents and
discusses similarities and differences in how to express disappointment nonverbally by the
American and the Vietnamese.
Part C: CONCLUSION
Summary of major findings
Conclusion and Implications for cross-cultural communication
Limitations of the study and Suggestions for further study.
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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. CULTURE
As Harrison and Huntington noted, “the term ‘culture,’ of course, has had different meanings
in different disciplines and different contexts”. By stating “culture is the human-made part of
the environment,” W.J.Lonner and R.S.Malpass (1994:7) contrast the culture and the nature.
In their ideas, things in environment will never become cultural without the “touch” of
human.
According to H. Triandis (1994:23), “Culture is a set of human-made objective and
subjective elements that in the past have increased the probability of survival and resulted in
satisfaction for the participants in a ecological niche, and this became shared among those
who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they

kinds of code or symbol are verbal (spoken and written) and nonverbal (unspoken). These
are referred to as forms of communication.
To get a better view, communication can be illustrated in the following diagram:
1.2.3. Components of Communication
The followings are components of communication according to Hymes: 1972.
- Situation: setting and sense
- Participants: speaker, presenter, hearer, receiver, narrator
- End: purpose, result or goal
- Act sequences: model or language content
- Key: Clues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act.
- Instrumentalities: channel, form or style
- Norms: norms of interpretation, norms of interaction
- Genres: kind of speech act or event
COMMUNICATION
VERBAL COMMUNICATION NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION
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Among these, the participants (speaker and hearer) and situation are prominent to the choice
of message coder (language or nonverbal cues used). The participants’ background impacts
much on the choice of the coder used. The background includes: age, sex, living place,
occupation… When discussing different participants and situations, the underlying effect of
power (P), social distance (D) and rank of imposition (R) have to be considered. With
combination of the three factors, the choice of message coder can be in diversity.
1.2.4. Cross-cultural communication
The relationship between culture and communication is often compared with the bond
between the voice and the echo. From culture and communication, there are three branches
of communication as follows:
Intra-cultural communication: is the communication between people who live in the same
country and come from the same cultural background.
Inter-cultural communication: is the communication between people who live in the same
country but come from different cultural background.

recognize his or her appearance, movements and gestures can tell one story while his or her
voice is telling another story.” (Cited in Nguyen Quang).
A number of researches, with different approach and methods have pointed out the
importance of NVC.
Albert Mehrabian found that the total impact of a message is about 7 percent verbal (words
only), 38 percent vocal (including tone of voice, inflection and other sounds) and 55 percent
nonverbal. (Pease, 1984:6)
Importance of nonverbal
communication - Mehrabian
7%
93%
Verbal
Nonverbal
Chart 1: Importance of Nonverbal Communication
It is easy to conclude that NVC is an indispensable and all pervasive element in human
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behavior. Perhaps its most obvious application is found in the fact that young children start
comprehending words at around six months of age yet understand NVC well before that
time. Hence, from the moment of birth to the end of life, NVC is an important symbol
system.
1.3.3. Differences between Nonverbal Communication and Verbal Communication
First of all, NVC seems to be more ambiguous than verbal communication. This is because
nonverbal cues can be intentional or unintentional. If an intentional behavior is perceived
and interpreted correctly, this can help to maintain good communication. Meanwhile, if an
unintentional behavior is interpreted as conveying meaning, it can cause the social
interaction to go wrongly or even stop. Additionally, the nonverbal cues can carry various
meanings. A silence can be interpreted as: agreement, disagreement, wondering, waiting for
other’s response, an indicator of surprise or happiness…
Secondly, NVC is continuous. Verbal communication only starts when people start to make
sounds in an organized order and stops when the sound chunks stop. However, NVC starts

- Vocal
characteristics
+ Pitch
+ Volume
+ Rate
+ Vocal quality
- Types of vocal
flow
- Vocal
interferences
- Silence…
Body language/
Kinesics
Object language/
Artifacts
Environmental
language
- Eye contact
- Facial
expressions
- Physical
characteristics
- Gestures
- Postures
- Body
movements
- Touch/ Haptics/
Tactile
…
- Clothing

we planted which never grew into plants. Anyone who has hopes or dreams may be waited
by some disappointment. When their hopes or dreams can not become true. Alexander Pope
wrote “Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed”.
Disappointment is a problem which transcends economics. We can be well-off financially
and still have all kinds of disappointment. We can be disappointed with our family members,
disappointed with our friends, with our marriage, or jobs for not reaching whatever goals we
have set for ourselves. We can be disappointed because our life lacks meaning and direction.
Let us consider a situation described by David E. B. (Jan-Feb. 1985): your boss tells you he
is delighted with your performance over the past year and is giving you a $5000 bonus. Are
you pleased? If you were not expecting a bonus, you would be delighted. If you were
expecting a $10,000 bonus, you would be disappointed. He (David E. Bell) claims that
“Disappointment is, then, a psychological reaction to an outcome that does not match up to
expectations”.
In a broader view, Loralea Michaelis states “Disappointment is a characteristic feature of
our shared condition as mortal creatures subject to the experiences of failure and
frustration: our plans may go awry, our actions may have unwanted consequences, our
expectations may be frustrated and, in a more general sense, we are rarely the kind of
people we would like to be.”
It is stated in a sermon in St. Ansgar’s Lutheran Church that “in the simplest terms,
disappointment is unmet positive expectation. The word positive here is important. There
are some unmet expectation which bring us joy and satisfaction and not disappointment. For
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example you might go to see a physician with the expectation that your symptoms will lead
to a diagnosis of terminal cancer. You will not be disappointed if that expectation proves to
be false. Disappointment occurs when we expect a certain good thing to take place and it
doesn’t.”
The same idea can be seen from Levering Bas “The question is whether expectation is a
sufficient condition for disappointment. Do unfulfilled expectations by definition lead to
disappointment? When a negative expectation is nourished, that is, when I expect something
I would rather not see happen, and in fact it does not happen, then I feel relief instead of

- Lack of trust.
- Destruction of relationship
- Changing our perceptions to life, people and things we do.
According to many researchers and the author’s personal observation, expressions of
disappointment is highly-culture-controlled. In most Oriental countries, people, especially
women, are taught not to express their emotional states, especially ones like disappointment,
in social interaction in order to maintain the harmony in the community. However, at many
points during the communication process, disappointment is intentionally expressed, not
verbally but non-verbally, in order to let the partners to know our own emotional state.
From the author’s own observation and analysis of videos and photos searched on the
Internet, the most popular expressions for disappointment are as follows:
Facial expressions:
When disappointed, people seem to have abnormal head positions which include: side-tilted
(left or right side), head-down (tilted forward) or face-up (to the ceiling). The side-tilted
position can be found mostly when people are sitting while head-down and face-up is often
found with standing postures.
The eyes of disappointed people tend to lower down or to aim at nothing. Many cases are
found with frowning eyes – eyebrows are pushed together. Another popular cue is the curve-
up of eyebrows with frowning forehead. In addition, the disappointed gaze is not very often
straight. It is often down-looking with lowered eyelids, sometimes up-looking or side-
looking, especially, when people try to control the disappointment, they tend to move eye
sight from side to side, avoiding eye contact with communicating partners.
With mouth, there are some popular cues including: contorted (pushed to one side), pouting
(upper and/or lower lip pushed up). Sometimes, the stiff lips are also found with hard-
pressed lips and jaws making lips thinner than in normal state. There are still cases in which
people have smirks – or contorted smiles.
For gestures, it is the most common to find hand-with-face gestures and hand-with-head
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gestures. They can be: one palm covering one eye and/or cheek, one palm covering forehead,
both hands covering face, one or both hands touching or pulling hair. With sitting postures,

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Head position: The head is often in straight position.
Facial cues: Both upper and lower eyelids fall down while inner
corners of eyebrows are raised making a frowning forehead. The eye
gaze is often a little down The lips are in normal state
Gesture: Both hands are straight, holding cheeks
Head position: The head is often bent forward and/or little tilted.
Facial cues: The lower eyelids are pulled down with eyebrows
curving up making the forehead frowning. The eye gaze is often fixed
at a low position.
Gesture: One hand supports the chin and covers the mouth with
fingers close.
Posture: This is a sitting posture with bending-down back, one elbow
putting on the thighs.
Facial cues: Both upper and lower eyelids are pulled down with
eyebrows being pushed together. The eye gaze is fixed on the floor or
a very low position. The lower lip is a bit pushed up making the area
between lower lip and chin like a hollow.
Head position: The head is straight or little forward-leaning.
Facial cues: This face seems to have nothing “abnormal” except a
little frown on the forehead made by the little raise and drawing-
together of the inner corners of eyebrows. The eyes are expressive
with low eye gaze which does not focus. Lips, chin and nose are in
neutral states.
Head position: The head is often straight or little tilted.
Facial cues: Both upper and lower eyelids are pulled down while the
inner corners of eyebrows are raised, making the curving lines on the
forehead. The lower lip is raised whereas the lips corners are pulled
down shaping the mouth into a reversed “u”. The muscles below lip
corners are pulled down while the area between lower lip and chin is