Phân tích chiến lược chào hỏi của người nước ngoài sử dụng tiếng anh nghiên cứu trên đối tượng sinh viên việt nam đang học tập tại trường đại học hải phòng)

Part One: Introduction
I. Rationale:
Many studies in recent years (Bouton, 1996; Kulka-Blum, 1989, etc.) have
shown that the practice and development of communication skills, particularly
speaking and listening, must come with advanced knowledge of social language if
the learner wants to enhance the ability to acquire these skills. According to the
research done by Blum-Kulka et al (1989), Kasper (1995) and some other scholars,
in daily communication, the indirect illocutionary act, is done more often than the
direct illocutionary act. Therefore, in addition to the difficulties of grammar,
structure, or pronunciation, foreign language learners also get difficulty in using
language appropriately related to the idioms and cultural differences, or to express
indirectness. According to Gumperz (1982, cited by Tam, 2005) “People in
different cultures may communicate in different ways. Differences in culture can
cause problems leading to failure in communication”. According to a study on
greeting of the American group by Eisenstein and colleagues conducted in 1996,
foreigners often apply some salutations not be suitable for native speakers, and this,
in some cases, causes people to be vulnerable, and may lead to congestion in
communication. One of the reasons is due to the influences or transfers from
Vietnamese.
When people approach the other party, they are entering his personal space.
Hence, this action causes a face-threatening action, which is proposed by Brown
Levinson. Therefore, people need a greeting to smoothen the interrelationship.
Based on the theory of politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987), this study
is designed to investigate greetings by Vietnamese learners of English.
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II. Aims of the study
The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategies of greeting used by
the 3
rd
year students of Foreign Language Department in Haiphong University in
order to answer three questions below:

1. How do Vietnamese students use English greeting in the studied
situations?
2. How do Vietnamese students use Vietnamese greeting in the studied
situations?
3. What are the similarities and differences involved in use of Vietnamese and
English in greeting by Vietnamese learners of English?
III. Scope of the study
This study focuses on the greeting strategies in both English and Vietnamese
by Vietnamese learners of English, which just relate to verbal communication.
In his research, Eisenstein found that humans in general often use eight
strategies to greet different people in different cases and each strategy they use depends
on the interaction of power (P), distance (D), and ranking of imposition (R).
However, this case study involving the students of Hai Phong University, P,
D and R are assumed to be very small.
VI. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts:
Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Development (contains 3 chapters)
Chapter I: Literature review
Chapter II: Methodology
Chapter III. Data Analysis
Part Three: Conclusion
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Part two: development
Chapter I: Literature review
1.1. Definition of communication and communication competence
1.1.1. Definition of communication
Communication is the process of transferring information from one source to
another. Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of
thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs". Communication

can be perceived as a two-way process in which there is an exchange and
progression of thoughts, feelings or ideas towards a mutually accepted goal or
direction.
1.1.2. Communication competence
Communicative competence is a linguistic term which refers, in this study, to
a learner's L2 ability. It not only refers to a learner's ability to apply and use
grammatical rules, but also to form correct utterances, and know how to use these
utterances appropriately. The term underlies the view of language learning implicit
in the communicative approach to language teaching.
The term was coined by Dell Hymes in 1966, reacting against the perceived
inadequacy of Noam Chomsky's (1965) distinction between competence and
performance. Hymes' ideas about communicative competence were originally
research-based rather than pedagogical. Specifically, to address Chomsky's abstract
notion of competence, Hymes (1972; 1977; 1994) discussed the ethnographic-
oriented exploration of communicative competence that included 'communicative
form and function in integral relation to each other. His research-oriented ideas
have undergone an epistemic transformation: from empirically oriented questions to
an idealized pedagogic doctrine' (Leung, 2005).
Chomsky's view of linguistic competence, however, was not intended to
inform pedagogy, but serve as part of developing a theory of the linguistic system
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itself, idealized as the abstract language knowledge of the monolingual adult native
speaker, and distinct from how they happen to use and experience language.
Hymes, rather than Chomsky,0 developed a theory of education and learning.
Canale and Swain (1980) defined communicative competence in terms of
four components:
1. Grammatical competence: words and rules
2. Sociolinguistic competence: appropriateness
3. Discourse competence: cohesion and coherence
4. Strategic competence: appropriate use of communication strategies

Canale and Swain's definition has become canonical in applied linguistics.
A more recent survey of communicative competence by Bachman (1990)
divides it into the broad headings of "organizational competence," which includes
both grammatical and discourse (or textual) competence, and "pragmatic
competence," which includes both sociolinguistic and "illocutionary" competence.
Through the influence of communicative language teaching, it has become
widely accepted that communicative competence should be the goal of language
education, central to good classroom practice (e.g. Savignon 1998). This is in
contrast to previous views in which grammatical competence was commonly given
top priority. The understanding of communicative competence has been influenced
by the field of pragmatics and the philosophy of language concerning speech acts as
described in large part by John Searle and J.L. Austin.
1.2. Speech Act Theory
According to Searle (1969, p.24) language is part of theory of action, and
speech acts are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and greeting that
one performs in speaking. On this view, minimal unit of human communication are
not linguistic expression, but rather the performance of certain kinds of acts, such as
making statements, asking questions, giving directions, apologizing, thanking
greeting and so on. These acts are called illocutionary acts (Searle, 1969).
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The notions of illocutionary acts, illocutionary force, direct and indirect
speech acts are central to speech act theory. Searle (1969,p.23) claims that the term
“ illocutionary act refers to an utterance with a communicative force”. For instance,
when one says, “I promise I won’t do it again” this is an act of promising. Similarly,
when one say “hi! Jim” or “Hello, Peter! How have you been these days?” these are
acts of greeting. Thus, a speaker performs illocutionary acts by expressing his/her
intention to promise something, to greet some body, to start the conversation, etc.,
in such a way that the listener can recognize the speaker’s intention.
Related to the notion of illocutionary act is the concept of illocutionary point.
The concept of the illocutionary point refers to the point or purpose of illocution

(Searle, 1990a, p351). Based on the purposes of acts Searle (1990a, p351) identifies
five illocutionary points namely assertive, comissive, directive, declarative, and
expressive. Thus, requests such as “Hi, there!”, “Hello!” or “Good morning sir!” all
have directive illocutionary point. However, they are different in illocutionary
forces. While the first and second examples are considered as less formal greeting,
the third is a formal one. A distinction is made between the illocutionary point and
illocutionary forces of an act which claims that “while the illocutionary point of
informal/less formal/ formal greeting: all are attempts to get hearers to know the
speaker is greeting, their illocutionary forces are different” (Searle, 1990a, p.351).
In his terminology, force is equal to strength. For instance, in comparing “I suggest
we go to the movies” with “I insist that we go to the movies”, Searle argues that
they have the same illocutionary point, i.e. an attempt to get the interlocutor to go to
the movies, but the same illocutionary point, i.e. an attempt to get the interlocutor to
go to the movies, but the same illocutionary point is presented with different
strength or force. The force of an utterance is related to the status or position of the
Speaker and Hearer. Also it reflects the assumption or the presupposition about the
Speaker’s relative power over the Hearer in the communicative context.
Searle argues that each type of illocutionary act requires certain conditions
for the successful and effective performance of that act and these he calls felicity
5
conditions. Searle identifies four different kind of felicity conditions. These
conditions relate, on the one hand, to the beliefs and attitudes of the speaker and the
hearer, and, on the other, to their mutual understanding of the use of the linguistic
devices for communication.
All things considered, the Speaker has to choose among his repertoire of
linguistic forms the form which s/he could successfully use to get the Hearer to
know his/her action. Thus, s/he has to decide whether to say it using the on-record
or off-record strategy and/or what kind of redress would best serve his purpose etc.
In speech act theory, direct speech acts and indirect speech acts are
distinguished from each other. Indirectness is defined as “those cases in which one

illocutionary act is performed indirectly by way of performing another” Searle
(1975, p.60). Thus, in direct speech acts the speaker says what s/he means, while in
indirect speech acts the speaker means more than s/he says (Searle, 1980, p.viii),
i.e., speakers perform one illocutionary act implicitly by way of performing another
illocutionary act explicitly. For instance, instead of saying “hello, how have you
been” the speaker may say “Son, Where have you been? ”. In this case the direct act
is asking for the hearer’s information, but the indirect act is that of greeting the
hearer. Thus, the act of asking about the hearer’s information is performed
explicitly while the act of greeting the hearer is performed implicitly.
1.3. Politeness Principle
Politeness has been discussed and well developed by several scholars such as
Lakoff, Leech and Brown & Levinson etc. In the following section, a brief
discussion on different views of politeness will be presented. It then will be
followed by a discussion on the social factors affecting the choice of linguistic
politeness strategies in communication with special reference on greeting.
In reference to politeness Lakoff (1973, cited in Green, 1989) asked why it is
that it is considered polite for an English speaking hostess to greet a guest with (a)
“Hello, what do you need?”, that if she used (b) “Good morning sir, How can I help
6
you?” it would be counted as familiar, for the same purpose would be considered
downright rude.
Green comments that participants in a conversation can choose to be polite
avoid being rude, or they can choose to do as they please conversationally
regardless of others’ feeling and wishes. They can exploit their knowledge of the
principles of politeness to be intentionally rude. Thus, Lakoff describes three
different rules a speaker might follow in choosing to be polite: (1) Don’t impose;
(2) Offer options; (3) Encourage feelings of camaraderie.
The first one, don’t impose, is the most formal politeness rule, which is
appropriate to situations in which there is an acknowledged difference in power and
status between participants. For instance an employee and a boss, a worker and the

manager are considered as having different power and status. Imposing on someone
means impeding one’s desire to act as s/he pleases, refraining from imposing on
someone means not to impede these desires. Therefore, a speaker who wishes to be
polite according to this rule will avoid imposition, but mitigate, or ask permission or
apologize for making the addressee do anything, which s/he does not want to do.
Not imposing means not giving or seeking personal problems, habits, and the like.
More particularly, not imposing means avoiding earthly, slangy, emotional
language, and also topics which are taboo, considered too personal to discuss in
public. Thus, love, sex, politics, religion, economic difficulties, the human body etc.
are inappropriate to discuss in public.
The second rule, offer options, is a more formal politeness one which is
appropriate to situations in which the participants have approximately equal status
and power, but are not socially close, for example, the relationship between a
businessperson and a new client, two strangers sharing a compartment on a train.
It is believed that utterances in English are phrased in a pragmatically
ambiguous way so as to give H a graceful out if s/he prefers not to do the act
comply with this rule of politeness.
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The third rule, encourage feeling of camaraderie, for friendly or intimate
politeness, is appropriate to intimates or close friends. In intimate politeness, almost
any topic of conversation is fair game, assuming that with a close friend; one should
be able to discuss anything. Concerning this rule, Green explains very clearly that to
speak indirectly means that interlocutors do not know each other well enough,
implying that intimate politeness is not appropriate because they do not have close
relationship. On the contrary, informal politeness not only shows S’s interest in the
other by asking personal questions and making personal remarks but also trusts and
regard by being open about one’s own experiences and feelings.
Regarding politeness issue, Grice’s concept of CP (Cooperative Principle)
has also been amply documented in literature. However, this position has been
claimed to be insufficient as an explanation of the relation between sense and force.

In an attempt to supplement Grice’s CP, Leech (1983) proposes Principle of
Politeness (PP). According to Leech, the PP might be formulated in a general way
as ‘minimize (other things being equal) the expression of polite beliefs’. Different
kinds and degrees of politeness are called for in different situations. Leech claimed
that politeness is essentially asymmetrical, which means that what is polite with
respect to H or to some third party will be impolite with respect to S, and vice versa.
Base on this position he suggests the most important kind of politeness in English –
speaking society is covered by the operation of the Tact Maxim. The Tact Maxim is
said to be applicable to Searle’s directive and commissive categories of functions,
which refer, in their propositional content X, to some action to be performed,
respectively, by the hearer or the speaker. This action is called A, and may be
evaluated in terms of what S assumes to be its cost or benefit to S or H. On this
basic, X’s utterance such as (‘you will find me the document’, etc.) may be placed
on a cost-benefit scale.
In his explanation, at some rather indeterminate point on this scale
(depending on the context) the relevant value becomes ‘benefit to H’ rather than
‘cost to H’. In addition, another way of obtaining a scale of politeness is using a
8
more and more indirect kind of illocution. Indirect illocutions tent to be more polite
because they because they increase the degree of optionality, and as his states, the
more indirect an illocution the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be.
In fact, the point of strategy of indirectness is to phrase the impositives more and
more towards the negative choice, so that it provides more ways out and becomes
easier for H to say no. In particular, the more options out given to H the more
appropriate the illocution tends to be. As such, the cost – benefit scale brings with
an implicit balance sheet of S’s and H’s relative standing, and there also seems to be
an assumption that a maintenance of equilibrium is desirable (Leech, 1983).
One important point Leech makes clear about the maxims is that they are
observed up to a certain point, rather than absolute rules. Thus, knowing how far we
can go with each maxim is very important and very language and culture specific.

For instance, he goes on explaining that in making a greeting for a second hearer in
English, it is slightly more polite if H’s role as potential benefactory is suppressed,
thus “Good morning sir, how can I help you?” is more polite than “Hello, what do
you need?” In this instance, the Generosity maxim appears to be effective and is
supported by the observation that an impositive can be softened, and thereby made
it more polite, by omission of reference to the cost to H.
The following section will discuss the social factors that most influence the
choice of politeness strategies in speech.
As has been discussed earlier, politeness strategies are viewed as ways to
perform FTAs to appropriately attend to H’s face through the assessment of these
factors. The choice of appropriate polite expressions in a given context depends on
a number of factors, which Brown & Levinson (1987) have subsumed into a simple
formula. They postulate three independent variables that have a systematic effect on
the choice of polite strategies: the relative power (P) between the Speaker and the
Hearer, the social distance (D) between them and the absolute ranking (R) of the
imposition in the particular culture. Each of these has an independent effect on the
strategic choice of polite expressions. The weightiness of an FTA is related to these
9
variables. While they are not the only factors affecting speech act formulation,
Brown & Levinson claim that they subsume all others (egg. status, authority,
occupation, ethnic identity, friendship, situational factors, etc.)
The power (P) variable in Brown & Levinson’s (1987, p.77) terms is an
asymmetrical social dimension of relative power. The relative power (P) that the
speaker has over the hearer is defined as the degree to which the speaker can
impose his or her own plans and his self-evaluation (face) at the expense of the
hearer’s plans and self-evaluation. These are two sources of P, either of which may
be authorized or unauthorized: material control (over economic distribution and
physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others, by virtue of
metaphysical forces subscribed to by those others). Searle (1990a, p. 354) argues
that “some acts require extra-linguistic institutions for their performance and some

do not”. For instance, an employee may request the manager to allow some money
for buying some equipment for the office, but the manager may not request this of
the employee, because the manager is in authorized control of material, in this case,
money. Or an armed robber in his possession of a gun may order, as opposed to
request, a victim to raise their hands. The robber’s power in this case is not an
unauthorized one because it derives from his possession of a weapon (Searle,
1990a, p.355). In England, for instance, the naming of a new ship is only performed
by the Queen of England. Obviously, in most cases an individual power is drawn
from either of these sources, which may overlap.
Unfortunately, in cross-linguistic and interlanguage research in speech act
behavior the notion of P has not always been defined precisely enough (Spencer-
Oatey, 1996). While Brown & Levinson (1987) and Brown & Gilman (1972) view
power as control of another person’s behavior, Cansler and Stiles (1981, pp. 459-
460) focus on social rank. Leichty and Applegate (1991) interpret power in yet
another way: the legitimate right to exert influence. Along with ‘power’, the most
popular name used for this dimension, the terms ‘social power’, ‘status’,
‘dominance’ and ‘authority’ are also used, although ‘dominance’ and ‘authority’
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and only used occasionally. The problems with these terms as pointed out by
Spencer-Oatey are that while several terms are used by different authors, only a few
of them give explicit definitions of the terms they use.
According to Brown and Gilman (1972, p.225), one person may be said to
have power over another in the degree that he is able to control the behavior of the
other. Power is a relationship between at least two persons, and it is nonreciprocal
in the sense that both cannot have power in the same area of behavior. There are
many bases of power-physical strength, wealth, age, sex, and institutionalized role
in the church, the state, the army or within the family.
However, Cansler and Sstile (1981, pp. 459-460) see P as follows:
A person’s status, or social rank, may be construed both absolutely in a stable social
hierarchy (e.g. an academic department, a business organization, an army, a street

gang, or a neighborhood) and in relation to another member with whom he/she is
currently interacting. Thus one’s relative status is high in a conversation with a
subordinate and low in a conversation with a superior, but one’s absolute status is
the same in both conversations.”
We assume that people implicitly weigh many personal and social factors to
estimate their own and others’ status. Different hierarchies probably use different
weights. For example, among the students and faculty of an academic department,
we would expect age, academic rank (egg. freshman, advanced graduate students,
full professor), academic degree, and knowledge and expertise in that field to be
important determinants, whereas physical size and ancestry might be less important
than in some other settings.”
Clearly, Cansler and Stiles’ (1981) interpretation of power is different from
the other two pairs of authors. While Cansler and Stiles focus on social rank, others
emphasize control of another person’s behavior.
The dimension “distance” or “ social distance” has been referred to
differently by different authors. For instance, Brown & Gilman (1972) use
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solidarity, Brown Levinson (1978) use distance to refer to the dimension, while
Slugoski &Turnbull (1988) and Trosborg (1987) use the term intimacy to refer to
the same dimension. Different researchers conceptualize the ‘horizontal’ dimension
of interlocutor’s relations in slightly different ways. Similar to power, researchers
have been criticized for not giving explicit interpretation of the term they use.
Wierzbicka (1991, p.70) makers the following point: “… researchers in cross-
cultural pragmatics try to explain differences in the ways of speaking in terms of
values such as ‘directness’ or ‘indirectness’, ‘solidarity’… ‘intimacy’, ‘self-
expression’, and so on, without explaining what they mean by these terms, and
using them as if they were self-explanatory. But if one compares the ways in which
different writers use these terms, it becomes obvious that they don’t mean the same
thing for everyone.” In her review of the term ‘distance’ used in various research,
Spencer-Oatey (p.3) concludes that “in fact, only two of them discuss it in

comparative detail: the classic studies of Brown and Gilman (1972[1960]) and
Brown & Levinson (1987 [1978]). These two sets of authors use different terms for
the dimension (solidarity and distance respectively), but both emphasize social
similarity/difference as a key determinant of levels of distance”.
In reference to the ranking of imposition (R), unlike the other two
dimensions, this one does not seem to so much debate over the nature of the
dimension. This variable relates to how troublesome or how difficult an act is in a
particular context in a particular culture. Brown &Levinson (1987, p.78) argue that
for face threatening acts, the rank of imposition of an act involves an assessment of
the amount of pain given to H’s face, based on the discrepancy between the hearer’s
own desired self-image and that presented in the FTA.
In conclusion, the notions of power, social distance and rank of imposition
are used widely in linguistics, and much research within sociolinguistics,
pragmatics has examined their effect on the production and interpretation of
language. A large number of empirical studies have provided evidence for an
association between language and the variables of power, social distance and rank
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of imposition. It is these factors that determine the degree of politeness and
indirectness needed to communicated in particular interaction.
1.4. Politeness and Indirectness
In reference to indirectness/ directness, Brown & Levinson (1987) propose
the politeness strategy built on the basis of the illocutionary transparency, which the
face – threatening act (FTA) is carried out. Their proposed strategic acts of
politeness are classified as bald-on-record, on record with redress, and off-record,
encompassing a range of different degrees of politeness. On this view, two kinds of
redress, negative and positive are distinguished. While positive redress is related to
‘give face’ by indicating in some way solidarity with the hearer (‘positive
politeness’), negative redress is related to the use of mechanisms which leave the
hearer an ‘out’ and permit him or her to feel non-coerced and respected (‘negative
politeness’) thereby more polite than the positive redress.

Directness or indirectness is calculated on the basis of the assessment of the
three parameters: P, D, R. This means that the amount of ‘face-work’, or in this case
the degree of indirectness needed to be achieved in the production of any face-
threatening act, depends on the Speaker’s assessment of the three parameters
discussed in the previous section viz.: power differential between speaker and
interlocutor; social distance between speaker and interlocutor; and the degree of
imposition represented by the face-threatening act including obligations and degree
of compliance on the part of the hearer. And the choice of redress is made
accordingly.
However, Leech’s (1983, p.108) argues that one can increase the degree of
politeness by increasing the degree of indirectness of the illocution while keeping
the same propositional content. He claims “indirect illocutions tend to be more
polite (a) because they increase the degree of optionality, and (b) because the more
indirect an illocution is, the more diminished and tentative its force tends to be”.
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Thus, in Leech’s (1983) view the more optionality that the Speaker allows for the
Hearer the more polite the Speaker sounds.
For instance in asking about the time, one can say:
(1) “Tell me the time!”
(1) “ Can you tell me the time?”
In Brown and Levinson’s terminology (1) is a bald on record strategy and
(2) is termed on record with redress. In Leech’s terms, in saying (1) the Speaker
does not allow that the Hearer has any choice in the matter, no options for the
hearer. According to Brown and Levinson, (2) is on-record with redress because it
asks the Hearer to do A, but in an indirect way, by asking superficially about the
Hearer’s ability to do A. According to Leech, (2) provides more optionality because
by asking about the Hearer’s ability to do A it gives the Hearer and ‘out’. Which
means that the Hearer can refuse “to do A on the grounds of being unable to do so”
(Leech, 1983). In other words, it gives the Hearer a way to justify himself by
saying, “ unless I am able to do A, I cannot be responsible for failing to bring it

about” (Leech, 1983, p.120). Thus in the view of Brown & Levinson and Leech,
indirectness is closely related to politeness in speech acts. The more tentative the
act, the more politeness is communicated.
However, the parallel relationship between politeness and indirectness
suggested by the arguments of politeness theory by Searle (1975), Leech (1983) and
Brown & Levinson (1987) has been challenged. Researchers such as Ervin-Tripp
(1976), Ide (1989), Blum-Kulka (1987) Wiersbicka (1985), and Xhang (1995) argue
that indirectness does not always imply politeness. Ervin-Tripp (1976) and Blum-
Kullka (1987) find that the most indirect requesitive strategy is not perceived by
language users as the most polite one. House (1986) finds that native speakers of
British English and German perceived the most indirect strategy (Non-
conventionally Indirect) to be less polite than Conventionally Indirect Strategy.
Nevertheless, Yeung (1997), Fraser (1990a), Kasper (1990) and Ide (1989) affirm
14
that indirectness is important for politeness in other languages, especially non-
western ones, is questionable.
Concerning the structures underlying politeness in requests, , Lakoff (1977,
p.100) provides a basic order of imperative /declarative/interrogative mood. In her
explanation, in making requests, imperatives are less polite than declaratives, which
are in turn less polite than questions. The scale is based on the claim that increasing
freedom of the addressee to refuse the request correlates with increasing politeness
(Lakoff, 973, p.56-57).
We have seen throughout the discussion in this section that politeness and
means to achieve politeness communication as set out by Brown & Levinson’s and
Leech’s theories. It is, therefore, useful to understand how these means in English
are manipulated in speech act formulation including greeting.
1.5. Deixis and Politeness
Related to the issue of indirectness and politeness is the notion of deixis.
Levinson (1983, p.54) argues that deixis “concerns the ways in which languages
encode or grammatical features of the context of utterance, or speech event”. Koike

(1992) argues that the “framing” of the utterance to reflect the addressee’s versus
the speaker’s perspective is one of several ways in which the deictic system is used
to convey politeness. Further, Koike (1992, p.71) maintains that in English “the
shift in focus from the deictic center in time frame and person reference are
strategies commonly used to convey degrees of politeness”.
1.6. Eisenstein’s research
In their research, Eisenstein and colleagues have found the communicators
do not always use the greeting formulas. Results of the study showed that greeting
may be divided into some kinds of strategy as follows:
1. Greetings on the run
2. Speedy greeting
15
3. The chat
4. The long greeting
5. The intimate greeting
6. The all-business greeting
7. The introductory greeting
8. The re-greeting
As can be seen in table below:
STT Strategy Example in English
Example in
Vietnamese
1 Greetings on the run A: Hi, how is
everything today?
B: Hi! It’ OK. Gotta
run, I’m late for a
dating. See you!
A: Hà, đâu đấy
B: Ừ chào. Tớ đi đằng
này có chút việc. Gặp

sau nhé.
2 Speedy greeting A: Hi, how’ve you
been?
B: Not bad. ‘N you.
A: Busy.
B: Me, too.
A: Oh well, I must be
off. See you.
B: Bye. Take care.
A: Này, đâu đấy? Dạo
này thế nào rồi?
B: Không tệ lắm. Cậu
thì sao?
A: Cũng vậy thôi
B: Chết. Nhỡ hẹn rồi.
Đi đây. Gặp sau nhé.
3 The chat A: Hi!
B: Hi!
A: How have you
been?
B: All right – pretty
A: Chào
B: Chào
A: Dạo này cậu thế
nào?
B: Ổn. khá tốt. À, tìm
16
STT Strategy Example in English
Example in
Vietnamese

good.
Oh, found my rings.
Left in the bath
room. I thought I had
lost it.
A: Wow! That’s
great. That’s pretty
good
B:Look, I’ll see you
later.
A:Okay. Bye.
thấy khuyên tai rồi, để
ở nhà tắm. Tưởng mất
rồi cơ cuối cùng cũng
tìm được.
A: Thế hả? Tốt quá.
B: Thôi chết mấy giờ
rồi? Gặp nhau sau
nhé.
A: Ừ đi cẩn thận
4 The long greeting A. Cẩm!
B. Dung!
A. Where’ve you
been? I haven’t seen
you around. B. I was
away together with
my family. We just
got back. What’s
new with you?
What’s up to you

here?
A. (Dung reports on
her classmate news
in detail). It’s so nice
to see you. Where
did you go?
B. ( Cẩm described
her vacation in
A. Cẩm!
B. Dung!
A. Mày biến đi đâu
thế mà mấy bữa nay
không thấy đâu cả?
B. Đi nghỉ hè cùng
với gia đình. Vừa mới
về tới. Có gì mới
không?
A. (A kể đôi chút về
mọi việc diễn ra với
cô). Mày về thì hay
rồi. Này mày và gia
đình đã đi đâu thế?
B. (Cẩm kể cho bạn
nghe về kỳ nghỉ).
……………….
B.
17
STT Strategy Example in English
Example in
Vietnamese

detail)
A. Well, I’m glad
you’re back. It’s so
nice to see you. I
have many things to
tell you.
B. Aw. Well, we’re
back! How have you
been doing?
5 The intimate
greeting
A. Well?
B. Good!
A. Great. What will
you do next?
…………
A. Thế nào?
B. Cũng được.
A. Hay đấy. tiếp theo
là gì?
………………
6 The all-business
greeting
Client: Mr. Matone?
Joe Matone: Yes?
Clien: I want to talk
to you about Puerto
Rico
Joe Matone: Oh?
Come in. What about

Puerto Rico
(sited by Tâm)
Nhân viên: Chào anh!
Thủ trưởng: Vào đi.
Có chuyện gì thế?
Nhân viên: Mấy bữa
nay nóng quá anh nhỉ.
Thủ trưởng: Vào hạ
rồi.
Nhân viên: Mẹ em bị
ốm anh ạ. Bà cụ có
một mình ở dưới quê.
Anh cho em xin nghỉ
mấy ngày về thăm cụ
mang cho cụ ít tiền
thuốc men nhé?
Thủ trưởng: Mấy
ngày?
18
STT Strategy Example in English
Example in
Vietnamese
Nhân viên: 3 ngày
thôi anh ạ. Đi về đã
mất 01 ngày rồi.
Thủ trưởng: Ừ, thôi
về đi. Nhớ đúng hẹn
đấy.
Nhân viên: Cám ơn
anh. Em đi đây. Chào

anh ạ.
Thủ trưởng: Ừ, đi đi.
À mà này cho mình
gửi lời hỏi thăm bà cụ
nhé.
Nhân viên: Vâng
7 The introductory
greeting
A: Eh. Hà? Where
are you from?
B: Yes. Vĩnh Phúc.
and you?
A: Uh, My name
Hoa. Hải Phòng. B:
…….
A: ………
A. Này. Nghe nói bạn
tên Hà? Quê ở đâu
thế?
B. Ừ. Vĩnh Phúc. Bạn
ở …?
A. Mình tên Hoa. Hải
Phòng.
B.………………
A………………
8 The re-greeting A: Hey, feel better?
B: A little hurt.
…….
A: Đỡ chưa?
B: Vẫn thấy hơi đau

…………
Chapter II: Method o l o gy
2.1. Design research
19
The data were collected via questionnaires which designed in English and
Vietnamese with open ended questions. Sixty sheets (50% in Vietnamese and 50%
in English) were delivered to 30 students (33.3% male, 66.7% female) and 60 sheets
received back by e-mail.
Questionnaire includes three parts:
Part 1 is designed to get parameters
Part 2 is designed to find informants’ frequency of using English.
Part 3 is designed to review greeting strategies in different situations (six
situations mentioned which the informants meet regularly).
2.2. Informants
Participants are 30 Vietnamese learners of English, third year students of
English at Haiphong University. They are classmates and the male accounts for
33.3% and female accounts for 66.7% of the population. The English acquisition of
informants varies much from very limited into groups of excellent, good, fair and
poor language competence. They are all third year student of English at Haiphong
University; average age is 20, lowest 19 and highest is 23.
Most of the students had studied English for seven years at high school. At
the time of the test, the students of Year 1, Year 2 had not attended the survey
because of their language acquisition, the students of Year 4 had to take part in
many activities to complete their course at university. It means that students of Year
4 have no time for the survey. And finally, the students of Year 3 had completed
some important subjects like English – Vietnamese translation, cross-culture …, so
that the students of Year 3 can be suitable for the survey. The distribution of
informants can be seen in the table below:
20
Male Female

Language Acquisition
Excellent Good Fair Poor
33.3% 66.7% 10.0% 46.7% 33.3% 10.0%
Table 2.1. Participants distribution on gender and language acquisition
2.3. Data collection methods
2.3.1. Data collection procedure
Step 1 (Pilot): Questionnaires (in both English and Vietnamese) are delivered
to a small group of Vietnamese students. And then the questionnaires are checked
again depending on the pilot’s results and revised.
Step 2 (Official): Open ended questions were designed in English and
Vietnamese. Sixty sheets (50% in Vietnamese and 50% in English) were delivered
to 30 students (33.3% male, 66.7% female) and 60 sheets received back by e-mail.
Participants will complete 2 surveys; survey one three days before survey
two in order to ensure truthfulness, consistency and accuracy in the surveys.
2.3.2. Data analytic methods:
Finding frequency distribution as seen from parameters by using quantitative
method.
Qualitative method is used to review the strategies sections.
21
Once the findings are available, a hypothesis is formulated, and then is tested
against the facts through an oral interview.
2.4. Situations used in the study
Situations used in English:
Sit 1: Assuming that you and your friend(s) suddenly see each other when you
are in hurry, both of you would say (in case: power and distance are zero).
Sit 2: You and your friend(s) see each other when both are on the way to an
appointment but not in hurry, you have some time to have small talk to your
friend(s), both of you would say (in case: power and distance are zero)
Sit 3: You are invited to your friend(s)’ party at his/her house. Your friend(s)
open the door, both of you would say (in case: power and distance are zero)

Sit 4: This is the first time you come to a new language class. You have a
seat next to a new classmate, you find that (s)he an old one, both of you would say
(in case: power and distance are zero)
Sit 5: You see a close classmate after a long time you haven’t seen each
other. Both of you would say (in case: power and distance are zero)
Sit 6: You suddenly see a close classmate. Both of you would say (in case:
power and distance are zero)
The same situations used in Vietnamese:
Tình huống 1: Bạn và 01 bạn cùng lớp đi về phía nhau. Cả hai đều rất vội. Các
bạn nhìn thấy nhau và nói:
22
Tình huống 2: Bạn và 01 bạn cùng lớp đi về phía nhau. Cả hai đều đang đi tới
chỗ hẹn nhưng không vội lắm. Hai người có thời gian để trò chuyện với nhau. Các
bạn nhìn thấy nhau và nói:
Tình huống 3: Bạn được mời đến dự tiệc của 01 bạn cùng lớp. Người bạn đó
ra mở cửa. Các bạn nhìn thấy nhau và nói:
Tình huống 4: Bạn và một bạn cùng lớp học mới ngồi cạnh nhau trong buổi
học đầu tiên. Bạn quay sang và phát hiện đó là 01 tên bạn cũ. Bạn nói:
Tình huống 5: Bạn nhìn thấy cô bạn cùng lớp khá thân thiết sau một thời gian
dài không gặp. Các bạn sẽ nói:
Tình huống 6: Bạn bất chợt gặp cô bạn thân cùng lớp. Các bạn sẽ chào nhau:
Chapter III. Data An a l y s i s and discussions
3.1. The Vietnamese students’ choice of language when greeting
23
As stated previously in “Methodology of the Study”, the data were collected
in connected writing questionnaires (in English and Vietnamese) of 30 students of
English at Haiphong University and were reckoned up. The statistical data were
analyzed by methods of analyses (both relational and independent). This task
consisted of identifying which greeting strategies the students choose and how
many students choose the same strategy, how many males/ females students accounted

for. The distribution can be seen in the following table:
Total Male Female Total Male Female
Total
30 10 20 30 10 20
St1
9 5 4 7 5 2
St2
15 3 12 16 3 13
St3
4 1 3 4 1 3
St4
2 1 1 3 1 2
St5 0 0 0 0 0 0
St6 0 0 0 0 0 0
St7 0 0 0 0 0 0
St8 0 0 0 0 0 0
Strategy
Sur in En
Sur in Vn
In order to test the findings, a hypothesis is formulated. All utterances were audio-
recorded using portable Panasonic RN 202 micro cassette recorder. Recordings were made
onto SONY MC-60 cassette tapes. The micro cassette was placed approximately 20.32 to
30.48 centimeters in front of the informants to make the recordings clearer and accurate.
Because of the limited time, transcriptions became impossible, however, recordings are
well-kept.
3.1.1. General view
24
Table 3.1. Vietnamese students’s choice of strategies
The chart below shows the frequency of which third year students of
Department for English Languages and Literature at Haiphong University greet

their classmates in English.
55.6%
18.5%
0.0%
25.9%
often
sometimes
rarely
never
Figure 3.1: Vietnamese students’ frequency of greeting in English
As can be seen from the chart, most Vietnamese students sometimes greet
their classmates in English while no student never chooses to do that. It is obvious
seen that more students (25.9%) often greet their classmates in English than ones
rarely do (18.5%).
3.1.2. As seen from gender
The table below shows the choice of greeting strategies under the influence
of gender. It is seen in the table that more male than female students choose to greet
their classmates with strategy 1 in both English and Vietnamese. However, the
difference between them is of not much quantity. Whereas women seem to choose
strategies 2 and 3 more frequently than men, the number of male and female
students choose strategy 4 are equal.
That is to say, female students seem to use longer ways of greeting than male
ones, especially in Vietnamese.
25