SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATIONS IN ATTITUDES TOWARD THE USE OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS WHEN TALKING TO/ABOUT THE SPOUSE AMONG VIETNAMESE COUPLES

Abstract

A common assumption in past studies in Language and Gender is that women tend to be more polite than men. Three actual personal pronouns in
Vietnamese are the pair tao - mày (I - you) and nó (he/she). These pronouns are genderless and hierachical. They mark either solidarity and intimacy or authority
and inferiority. The assumption is assumed to be evident in a patrilineal Vietnamese society where females are supposed to use of polite language towards males
more than males toward females. This attitude can be seen in the Vietnamese literature published in the early 1900s; however, the assumption has never been
statistically tested. Pham and Pham [22] surveyed the usage of three personal pronouns, tao - mày ‘I - you’ and nó ‘he/she’, among couples in southern Vietnam.
The findings show that participants consider personal pronouns significantly more acceptable when used by men talking about/to women than when used by
women talking about/to men. Furthermore, the study shows that contexts, levels of education, and subcultures are important in acceptability of personal
pronouns usage among couples. This paper presents results from the survey of personal pronouns among couples living in Hanoi, compared to Southern couples.
The findings show that a) Northerners and Southerners, regardless of sex, consider it is more acceptable when the husband uses personal pronouns toward his
wife than vice versa; b) the use of these pronouns is more acceptable during conflict situations than in con-conflict situations; c) unlike Southerners, Northerners
consider personal pronouns are more acceptable when used by younger couples than older couples; and d) unlike Southerners, for Northerners, career and levels
of education show no significance toward the use of personal pronouns.