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AN AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS OF DISAPPOINTMENT
CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THE STUDY PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED ENTITLED AN AMERICAN - VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS OF DISAPPOINTMENT IS MY OWN STUDY IN THE FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS. Ha Noi, 2009 Bùi Hải Sơn i Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the following people for their great supports during my three-year time for the MA course. First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ms. Phan Thị Vân Quyên, my supervisor, for her clear guidance, insightful comments and dutiful supervision. I would like to give my sincere thanks to all the lecturers at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Ha Noi (HULIS-VNU) for their knowledge, experience and enthusiasm in their lectures, from which I have acquired valuable knowledge and inspiration to fulfill this minor thesis. My deep thanks also go to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Quang whose interesting lectures on Cross-Cultural Communication with perspectives on cultural variety have inspired me to do this cross- cultural study. I would like to express my gratitude to my family, to many of my friends and colleagues, for their valuable sharing and encouragements. I wish to acknowledge the important contribution of both Vietnamese and American informants, whose names I cannot mention here for the completion of my study. ii AN AMERICAN – VIETNAMESE CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS OF DISAPPOINTMENT ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the most common nonverbal expressions of disappointment used by American and Vietnamese people in the field of facial expressions, gestures and postures. Another aim was to find out the similarities and differences between their ways of expressions. Finally, the influential factors affecting the expressions of disappointment were also examined in the study. The quantitative method was applied in the research. The survey inspected American nonverbal expressions of disappointment through Vietnamese informants’ perception and Vietnamese nonverbal ways of expressing disappointment through American informants’ observation. 30 questionnaires were sent out and 30 responses were received. One result of the study was that disappointment seemed to be a universal emotion of which American and Vietnamese people shared most the expressions. It was also discovered that the informants’ length of stay or work with native people and cultural knowledge had great influence on their perception of communicating partners’ emotional states. Additionally, the results of the study revealed that the choice of expressing disappointment depended much on the communicating partners and communicating situations. The principal conclusion was that people would communicate better when understanding more about the host culture. One different conclusion was that the successful cross-cultural communication did not only depend on length of stay or work with people of another culture. iii TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS NVC: Nonverbal Communication ELT: English Language Teaching CE: Communication Event CA: Communication Act VN: Vietnam/ Vietnamese AM: America/American iv List of tables Table 1: Informants’ parameters Table 2: American and Vietnamese common expressions of disappointment Table 3: Amount of expressiveness in American and Vietnamese cultures Table 4: Amount of expressiveness as seen from informants' length of stay Table 5: Amount of expressiveness as seen from the informants' cultural knowledge Table 6: Influence of communicating partners on amount of expressiveness in American and Vietnamese cultures Table 7: Influence of comunicating situations on amount of expressiveness in American and Vietnamese cultures List of charts and graphics Chart 1: Importance of Nonverbal Communication Diagram 1: Classification of Nonverbal Communication Chart 2: Amount of expressiveness in American and Vietnamese cultures v TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION .1 i. Rationale 1 ii. Aims of the study 1 iii. Scope of the study 2 iv. Methods of the study 2 v. Organization 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 of Communication .4 1.2.2. Forms of Communication 5 1.2.3. Components of Communication 5 1.2.4. Cross-cultural communication 6 1.3 NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION .6 1.3.1 Definition of nonverbal communication 6 1.3.2 Importance of nonverbal communication 7 1.3.3. Differences between Nonverbal Communication and Verbal Communication .8 1.3.4 Classification of nonverbal communication .8 1.3.5. Nonverbal communication across culture .9 1.4. DISAPPOINTMENT AND ITS NONVERBAL EXPRESSIONS .10 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY .18 2.1. COMMENTS ON THE SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES AND DATA COLLECTION METHOD: .18 2.2. COMMENTS ON THE INFORMANTS .19 2.3. THE PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION .20 vi 2.4. DATA ANALYSIS METHOD 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS .21 3.1. DATA ANALYSIS: .21 3.1.1. Most common expressions of disappointment used by Vietnamese and American people 21 3.1.2. Amount of expressiveness in American and Vietnamese cultures .23 3.1.3. Amount of expressiveness in Vietnamese and American cultures as seen from informants’ parameters .24 3.1.3.1. Length of stay or work with native people .24 3.1.3.2. Cultural knowledge 25 3.1.4. Influential factors on the amount of expressiveness .26 3.1.4.1. Communicating partners 26 3.1.4.2. Communicating situations 27 3.2. DISCUSSIONS OF THE FINDINGS: 28 PART C: CONCLUSION 31 1. SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS 31 2. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION 31 3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 32 APPENDICES .33 BIBLIOGRAPHY 34 vii . which I have acquired valuable knowledge and inspiration to fulfill this minor thesis. My deep thanks also go to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Quang whose interesting. cultural knowledge had great influence on their perception of communicating partners’ emotional states. Additionally, the results of the study revealed