HOW DO THE ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE EXPRESS ANGER?

Tóm tắt

With the advent of the global economic system, there is an increasing degree of
communication across various cultures, which is, by defnition, problematic, for cultures are systems of
symbolic meanings. Consequently, “to know another’s language and not his culture is a very good way to
make a fluent fool of one’s self” (https://123docz.net/document/305152-)
Undoubtedly, language, an integral part of culture is a means to convey what we want to express. In
communication, people’s need to express emotional issues and feelings verbally is of high frequency and
complexity. Accounting for this point, Levine and Baxter (1987: 56) have shown that during the process
of learning a new language, “ understanding the new culture and learning the rules to communicate
comfortably in it are as important as learning the rules of the language”.
Thus, English language teaching and learning should carry with it the culturally appropriate factors
embedded in the target language or else culture shock can occur as natural and inevitable consequence of
cultural clashing of values.
In an attempt to promote mutual understanding about Anglicist and Vietnamese cultures, this paper focuses
on one of very subtle aspects in daily communication that is the speech of act of expressing anger.
In the light of cross-cultural pragmatics, the author has emphasized the politeness in anger expression and
strategies to express anger by the English and Vietnamese.