Disagreeing in english and vietnamese
Assessment of socio-cultural parameters by respondents
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- 1.2.2.2. Comments
- 1.2.3. Assessment of situations by respondents
- 1.2.3.2. Comments
- 1.2.4. Summary
1.2.2. Assessment of socio-cultural parameters by respondents1.2.2.1. Data resultsThe informants were asked to rank 7 socio-cultural parameters age, length of time, manner, occupation, setting, gender and status in order according to their importance on a scale of 7, which represents the continuum of importance, where 01 is the most important and 07 is the least important. Below are the most significant cases. 
Chart 1 1: Assessment of Socio-cultural factors: Age of Co-conversants
Table 1 4: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Age of co-conversants Age: A close look at chart 1-1 and table 1-4 reveals the striking difference between the respondents of the two languages and cultures under study. Among 78 Vietnamese respondents who consider Age as a factor having influence on conversation, 49 (constituting 62.8%) rate it the most important. The rest also attach much weight to this factor: 12 rank it second, 10 rank it third and 4 rank it fourth. On the contrary, only 11 native Ss of English, accounting for 13.3%, give Age the greatest importance, 16 informants rank it second, 24 rank it third and 12 rank it fourth. The very high percentage among the Vietnamese informants reflects their socio-cultural perception of Age as a substantial value in social communication: old-aged people are respected and properly addressed to. In addition, Age is essential in choosing the right form of address terms in conformity to social norms of interactions, where the wrong use of person reference might be the potential source of misunderstanding or conflicts. 
Chart 1 2: Assessment of Socio-cultural Factors: Manner of Communication
Table 1 5: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Manner of communication Manner & Setting: Native Ss of English in North America are inclined to prefer factors Manner (chart 1-2, table 1-5) and Setting (chart 1-3, table 1-6) more than native Ss of Vietnamese in Hanoi: 31 mark Manner #1, 21 mark it #2, and 9 mark it #3, which accounts for more than 70%; and in regards to factor Setting, 19 rate it the most important, 18 rate it the second, and 15 rank it third, which constitute a high percentage of nearly 60. 
Chart 1 3: Assessment of Socio-cultural Factors: Setting
Table 1 6: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Setting In contrast, about 50% of the Vietnamese informants rank Manner first, second and third in the continuum of importance (vs. 70% of the English rating), and about 30% attach importance to Setting (vs. 60% of the English rating). It is also worth explaining that 08 in charts 1-2, 1-4 and tables 1-5, 1-7 (and in chart 1-5, table 1-8) represents other factors suggested by the respondents themselves such as education, topic, religion belief, relationship, intimacy, attractiveness and intellectual ability.
Table 1 7: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Gender of co-conversants 
Chart 1 4: Assessment of Socio-cultural Factors: Gender of Co-conversants Gender: The informants in chart 1-4 and table 1-7 seem to differ greatly in their evaluation of the role of Gender in social interactions. Whereas almost 50% of the Vietnamese respondents abide by columns 1, 2, and 3, only 15% of the English respondents opt for these columns. Presumably, it is not necessary for them to pay attention to Gender of their interlocutors when they disagree with the prior evaluative opinions. They would probably proffer the same disagreeing tokens to their interactants regardless of their gender. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese seem to take notice of this factor. “I would be less aggressive in my expressing of disagreement if I talked with representatives of the opposite gender,” said one of the Vietnamese respondents.
Table 1 8: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Social status Social Status: Chart 1-5 and table 1-8 show a really considerable difference in the respondents’ estimating Social Status. The majority of the Vietnamese informants (50 out of 68) adhere to the first four columns, constituting almost 70%. Contrary to this high proportion, only 31 English informants (almost equal 40%) mark these columns. It is worth taking notice of the Vietnamese consistent tendency to rate Status first and second in the continuum of importance. On the other hand, the high percentage among the English informants choosing columns 6 and 7 (14.3% and 22.2%, respectively) may reflect the low incidence of Status in social communication in Anglo-American culture. 
Chart 1 5: Assessment of Socio-cultural Factors: Social Status  
Chart 1 6: Assessment of Socio-cultural factors: Length of time you know your co-conversants Length of Time: Chart 1-6 and table 1-9, which demonstrate the output of the respondents’ assessment of factor Length of time (you know your co-conversants, i.e. familiarity), are intentionally selected although the sig. is 0.208, which is not worth paying attention to as regards statistics. Except for the difference in column 1, where 41.3% of the rating belongs to the group of English informants and the Vietnamese informants constitute only 22.5%, the total percentage of the first four columns shows a slight difference with 93.5% of the English respondents versus 87.4% of the Vietnamese respondents marking them. It is suggested that Ss of two languages and cultures are almost similar in their considering the influence of this factor, concerning the familiarity with their co-conversants when expressing negative responses to the first evaluations.
Table 1 9: Assessment of socio-cultural factors: Length of time you know your co-conversants 1.2.2.2. CommentsThe respondents of English and Vietnamese give almost the same weight to factor Length of time (you know your co-conversants), and this might be a manifestation of the same psychological feature in human beings. People seem to be more relaxed when talking with someone they know for long, and they often have a feeling of inhibition conducting talk with strangers, let alone having to state their disagreements. The empirical results also exhibit remarkable differences pertaining to factors Age, Status, Manner and Setting. The Vietnamese respondents attach great importance to Age (with 62% of the informants rating it #1) and Status (with 25%), while their English counterparts highly value Manner and Setting (with 36.5% and 23.8%, respectively). The Vietnamese significant preference for the socio-cultural determinants Age and Status can be a reflection of the strictly hierarchical order of the Vietnamese socio-cultural life, where old-aged people are socially given respect to, and social subordinates are subjected to superior personae. On the contrary, factors Manner and Setting are estimated of primary concern by the English informants. This result has testified the assumption that native Ss of English in North America live in a less hierarchical society, where Age and Status are recognized but slighted in interpersonal communicative interactions. All in all, the native Ss of English and Vietnamese are empirically proved to differ in terms of the relative weight given to socio-cultural parameters governing their linguistic choice in expressing disagreeing responses. In the following section, the data results concerning the informants’ assessment of social situations are examined to bring out the shared or unshared features between the two languages and cultures under investigation.
1.2.3.1. Data resultsFour groups of social situations, each contained four sub-situations, are introduced to the respondents to see if they are differently conceived by the native Ss under study. The informants consider the situations and decide how to construct their disagreements on the continuum ranging from Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Not Sure, Implicitly Disagree, and Silent. The most significant cases are taken for further discussion. A substantial difference in how to display disagreeing tokens by native Ss of English and Vietnamese is found in table 1-10. While 85% of the English informants choose to insinuate their disagreement by either implicitly disagreeing (15%) or being silent (70%), only 56% of the Vietnamese informants are inclined to do so (32% and 24%, respectively). Only 5 English Ss prefer to directly assert their negative evaluations, whereas 30 Vietnamese Ss overtly claim their disagreements.
Table 1 10: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. A1. Praise on Nice-looking Spouse In contrast with the Vietnamese tendency to be direct in objecting to the prior Ss (5% strong disagree and 28% disagree), 33 % of the English respondents in Sit. A2 (table 1.11) avoid sounding too critical in their proffering disagreements (vs. 31% of the Vietnamese respondents) by adhering to ‘Implicitly disagree’ and 35% of them opt for silence (vs. Vietnamese 24%), and only 10% of them provide apparent disagreements. It is clear that the Vietnamese informants in situations A1 and A2 appear to be more direct than their English counterparts in performing the act of disagreeing.
Table 1 11: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. A2. Self-praise on New Hairstyle
Table 1 12: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. A3. Disparagement of New Italian Shoes The output of situation A3 is given in table 1-12 reveals a reverse trend of expressing disagreements compared to that of the two previous ones. While over 60% of the English informants overtly exhibit their claim of disagreement with 19% strong disagree and 44% disagree, only 17% of the Vietnamese strongly disagree with their interlocutors and 27% disagree. The Vietnamese informants seem to minimize occurrences of explicitly articulated disagreements by frequently abiding by the last two columns: Implicitly Disagree and Be Silent: 30% and 21%, respectively.
Table 1 13: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. A4. Miss X Is Getting Too Fat Despite having similarity in column 3 of table 1-13, the two groups of informants display a great difference in their ways of proffering disagreements. 76 out of 100 English informants make explicit their disagreeing tokens, while only 55 Vietnamese informants choose to do so. However, it is worth noting that 36 of the English informants boldly assert their opposite stance, whereas only 13 Vietnamese Ss strongly exhibit their disagreements. The number of those who soften their disagreeing or cancel doing the act verbally is greater in the Vietnamese group (20 and 16 informants, respectively) than in the English group (11 and 5 informants, respectively).
Table 1 14: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. B2. Bigger Pensions A high distribution of directness in expressing disagreements is found in both two groups in situation B2. Bigger Pensions, fluctuating from 20% to 46%. The number of Ss delivering negative and outright answer in English and Vietnamese is almost the same: 22% and 20 % respectively. The percentage slightly rises in the second column with 46% in English and 32% in Vietnamese. The low level of difference between the two groups of informants in Not Sure and Implicitly Disagree is statistically negligible. However, the striking difference is in Be Silent: the number of Vietnamese Ss who refuse to perform the act of disagreeing is almost 6 times greater than that of English Ss. Silence on the part of second Ss may provide a hint of implicit disagreement (Yule 1996; Mey 1993, 2001).
Table 1 15: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. C1. Mr. Y's Promotion Table 1-15 exhibits similarities between the informants in columns 1, 2 and 5. The distinction in percentage is clearly seen in columns 4, where 9% of the English informants choose to indirectly provide their disagreements in contrast with 24% of their Vietnamese counterparts. Possibly, this is the consequence of the high percentage of the English informants who are not sure of how to deliver the disaffiliative force of their disagreeing responses. The situation, involving the promotion of the S’s inferior to a higher position than his/hers, is considered quite sensitive and subtle. By and large, the informants can be reported to act in nearly the same way in this situation in spite of the difference found in column 4.
Table 1 16: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. C4. Voting for Mr. X The informants in C4 (table 1-16) show the same trend as in C1. They seem to act in almost the same ways in columns 1, 2, and 5. Although more English Ss choose to strongly disagree with their interlocutors (28 English Ss vs. 21 Vietnamese Ss), the total number of those who tend to overtly deliver their disagreements (concerning columns 1 & 2) in the two languages is the same: 50 and 50. The high percentage of Vietnamese implicit disagreements may be the result of the low percentage in column 3.
Table 1 17: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. D1. Car Expert Table 1-17, presenting the output of Sit. D1. Car Expert, displays a striking difference between the two groups: 42% of the Vietnamese informants are in favor of the direct expression of disagreements (with 16% strongly disagree and 27% disagree), whereas only 14% of the English informants prefer overt disagreeing responses (with 2% strongly disagree and 12% disagree). Even though more English informants choose to implicitly disagree rather than be silent (27% vs. 19%) and more Vietnamese informants prefer silence over implicit disagreement (23% vs. 17%), the distinction in the informants’ choice of Implicitly Disagree and Be Silent appears to be inconsiderable.
Table 1 18: Assessment of Social Situations - Sit. D2. Favorite Team's Failure To defend their favorite teams, the respondents in Sit. D2. Favorite Team’s Failure act in the same way. Half of each group chooses to forthrightly disclose their opposition to the prior critical opinion: 24 English and 31 Vietnamese strongly disagree, 37 English and 35 Vietnamese disagree with the prior Ss. In addition, they are similar in their ways of expressing disagreements in columns 4 and 5 in spite of the Vietnamese higher percentage, which can be explained by the greater number of Not Sure English Ss. 1.2.3.2. CommentsAs aforementioned, the 12 sub-situations concerning several fields of socio-cultural life are assessed and evaluated by the informants and 8 of them are selected for further investigation to highlight the common and specific features in the ways to perform disagreeing tokens. The English and Vietnamese Ss under study exhibit similarities in the direct expression of their opposite stances by either strongly disagreeing or disagreeing in 3 situations: B2- Mr. Y’s Promotion, C4 - Voting for Mr. X and D2- Favorite Team’s Failure. On the other hand, the English Ss show a high consistency in the avoidance of sounding too direct by implicitly disagreeing or being silent in such situations as A1- Praise on Nice-looking Spouse, A2- Self-praise on New Hairstyle, and D1- Car Expert. On the contrary, the Vietnamese Ss tend to overly manipulate their disagreements as regards these situations. The converse tendency occurs in situations A3- Disparagement of New Italian Shoe and A4- Miss X Is Getting Too Fat. While the Vietnamese abide by implicitly disagreeing or being silent, the English demonstrate their forthright disclosure of disagreements. All in all, the informants provide quite a rich set of ways to voice their disagreeing responses. They seem to act in a similar way in some social situations, but they are observed to be greatly different in their demonstration of disagreements in other situations. In some cases, the English respondents overtly state their negative evaluations. In others, however, they avoid being too aggressive by either alluding to their opposite stances or canceling performing the act with words altogether. To obtain an overall view of how the respondents express their disagreements in all situations chosen for the database, the empirical findings are represented in chart 1-7 and table 1-19 below.
Table 1 19: General Assessment of All Situations by Respondents Chi-Square Tests
Chart 1 7: General Assessment of All Situations The sig. in the chi-square ‘.000’ indicates that the difference between the two groups of informants is of paramount importance. Almost all of the English informants do not deliver outright disagreements: 3 of them choose column #1 and 2 – column #2. Instead, 70% of them opt for silence and 15% abide by implicitly disagreeing. Quite conversely, 24% of the Vietnamese Ss are silent and 32% of them would rather imply their disagreements. The percentage of Vietnamese choosing ‘Strongly disagree’ and ‘Disagree’ is 11% and 19% respectively, much higher than that of English. 1.2.4. SummaryThe findings in this section have empirically proved the hypotheses of differences between native Ss of English and Vietnamese in assessing socio-cultural parameters and social situations and confirmed Brown & Levinson’s hypothesis (1987[1978]) that cultures may differ in the relative weight given to social factors in determining behavioural variation. While the English attach significant importance to Manner, Setting and Length of time the Vietnamese highly value Age, Status and Length of time. The Vietnamese focus on Age and Status might be a manifestation of the social ideology in the target culture which appreciates ethics and hierarchy. Anglo-American culture which places greater emphasis on freedom from intrusion may provide good grounds for its stress on Manner and Setting. Length of time is of almost the same importance to the English and Vietnamese respondents, which suggests the existence of some shared features in human psychology. The English are inclined to implicitly disagree when the Vietnamese may resort to overt/less overt disagreements and vice versa. The differences in the Ss’ assessment of social factors and situations may lead to the differences in their choice of strategies.
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