Telephone conversation openings in English and Vietnamese (from a language - cultural perspective)

Telephone conversation openings in English and
Vietnamese (from a language - cultural
perspective)



Trần Thị Thanh Hương



Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn Thạc sĩ ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Văn Độ
Năm bảo vệ: 2009


Abstract. The paper presents the results of a comparative study on how English and
Vietnamese speakers of different languages manage the opening of business and private
telephone calls. The communicative strategies speakers use in each language are analyzed
qualitatively and quantitatively, allowing a systematic comparison across cultures and languages.
The frame for comparative analysis is based on four fundamental moves that may be performed
in a telephone call opening: summons-answer, identification-recognition, greeting, how-are-you
sequence, (Schegloff, 1972, 1979, 1986; Hopper, 1992; Hatch, 1992). Implications are drawn for
cross-cultural research on interaction and for teaching English as a second language so that
Vietnamese learners of English would be able to open a phone call in an appropriate way.
Keywords. Kỹ năng nghe nói; Tiếng Anh; Hội thoại; Giao văn hóa; Tiếng Việt

Content
The beginning of conversations has received much attention in the fields of sociolinguistics,
pragmatics, and conversation analysis. Conversation analysis of telephone conversations is a
fairly well established area of investigation, beginning in the late 1960s with Schegloff

dissertation on conversational openings. Since that time, a numerous researchers have advanced
the study on telephone conversations (Godard, 1977; Schegloff, 1979; Schegloff, 1986; Sifianou,
1989; Lindström, 1994; Houtkoop-Steenstra, 1991; Hopper, 1992). The study of conversation
openings, particularly on the telephone, has become prominent for the following particular
reasons:
a) Openings are interactionally compact and brief (Schegloff, 1986:112).
b) Generally, at the beginning of a conversation, participants may utilize conversational
strategies or “routines” to negotiate interpersonal relationships (Gumperz, 1982:142; Schegloff,
1986:113). This also counts for the beginnings of conversations on the telephone, as co-
participants have resources available to them to manage identification and recognition of one
another.
c) Schegloff (1972, 1979, and 1986) describes telephone conversation openings in American
English in terms of an ordered set of four core opening sequences: (1) the summons-answer
sequence; (2) the identification-recognition sequence; (3) the exchange of greeting tokens
(Hi/Hi), and (4) the how-are-you sequence. Accomplishing these tasks or “routines” is the focus
of the first utterances in telephone conversation openings.
d) Another important feature of telephone conversation openings is that they have a
"perfunctory" character (Schegloff, 1986:113). In other words, in opening a telephone
conversation, participants go through these routines in a rather automated manner.
However, in all the studies I have examined Vietnamese is absent in the literature. Gumperz
(1982:166) notes that while speech activities exist in all cultures, there might be differences in
the ways particular activities are carried out and signaled. Using Conversation Analysis (CA) as
the methodology, this study illustrates the cultural characteristics of the format and interactional
routines of opening conversations on the telephone in Vietnamese and English languages to
determine to what extent this data fits within Schegloff‟s theoretical model of sequencing in
telephone openings. At the same time it will illustrate how the cultural differences within
telephone conversation openings may interfere with speaker‟s intentions and expectations when
talking on the phone. Finally, the relevance of my investigation for second language teaching and
learning will be highlighted.
1. Rationale

The telephone is the primary electronic medium for interpersonal communication and telephone
communication has an indispensable element of everyday life. Due to the lack of visual
communication, at least in the normal use of this medium, linguistic information is foreground.
Thus, telephone conversation is a challenge to anybody learning a foreign language and remains
a sensitive area in intercultural encounters, even for those who have mastered the basics of a
foreign language and culture.
Inexperience in dealing with live interactive telephone conversations in the target language can
also be a serious problem for some second language learners. They need opportunity to listen to,
interpret and sum up what they hear in a series of authentic recorded phone conversations. Their
listening can be greatly facilitated if they are exposed to authentic telephone conversations and
also taught the conversational structures and options as well as formulaic expressions.
Telephone call openings represent an ideal object of study for cross-cultural pragmatics research.
Since these social encounters are very specific and strongly constrained by technology, the range
of actions that can be performed in them is limited so that one can thus observe how different
cultures and languages vary in their realization of the same interactional routine. That is why this
paper chooses telephone conversation openings for the study.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims:
1) To find out standard formulas used in beginning telephone conversations among English and
Vietnamese speakers as suggested by Schegloff.
2) To discover how culture affects the ways English and Vietnamese start their telephone
conversations
3) To draw an implication in English teaching for Vietnamese students.
3. Scope of the study
I restrict my study on formal business telephone conversation openings and informal personal
ones which are used by people doing different jobs and at different ages.
4. Theoretical / practical significance of the study
In general, telephone conversation openings in both English and Vietnamese follow the same
routine as Schegloff suggested. However, there is slight difference between English and
Vietnamese. In English telephone openings there is higher formality, but Vietnamese language

has more variants which depend on age, power and relationship between speakers and people
from different backgrounds have different ways to start a telephone conversation.
5. Methodology
The research presented in this paper is based on data in English textbooks and 50 questionnaires
on telephone conversation openings. All questionnaires were made by 20 English and 30
Vietnamese speakers, ranging in age between 18 to over 60 years old. The telephone calls
include conversations between acquaintances, colleagues, relatives and friends. In doing so, the
participants were asked to fill in the questionnaires sent to them by e-mail and given in person. I
also did interview some of them.
The first descriptive stage of analysis led to the identification of recurrent patterns in the data and
the recognition of the most evident cross-cultural differences.
In a subsequent phase, systematic comparison across languages was carried out by a quantitative
analysis based on the core sequences framework presented above. It is through such cross-
cultural comparisons that the great relevance to second language learning will be realized.
Statistics is also used for this study to find out the differences between English and Vietnamese
languages using in telephone conversation openings.
For a better understanding of how the ritual “how are you” sequence in English and Vietnamese
telephone conversation openings, Conversation Analysis (CA) is used as the appropriate
method for investigation of foreign language interaction. The English translation is provided next
to the original talk.



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