APOLOGIZING STRATEGIES BY VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH

  • Nguyễn Thùy Trang

Abstract

This research has investigated how twenty American working with Vietnamese and twenty Vietnamese working with Americans in Vietnam performed the speech act of apologizing in three given situations. A discourse completion task was employed to investigate their choices of apologizing strategies in light of apologizing strategies proposed by Cohen and Olshtain (1993) and Trosborg (1995). Findings of the apologizing strategy preferences have, firstly, strengthened the arguments of previous cross-cultural studies by Olshtain (1989) and Elli (1994) that apologizing strategies tend to be similar cross-linguistically when comparable contexts and the level of offense are given. Nonetheless, the most distinguishable
difference in the use of apologizing strategies by the participants is that the Americans often employed the strategy Offer of repair whereas Vietnamese subjects were more likely to show their Concern for the hearer through which the images of a sentimental Vietnamese culture and a rational American culture were sharpened. The features of individualism and collectivism were also found helpful in explaining this difference and above all, inspite of frequent contacts with one another, both the Vietnamese and American subjects were not affected by others’ communicating practices.
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Published
2017-06-14
Section
RESEARCH