(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a cross cultural stydy of pauses and time fillers in some american and vietnamese films

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS IN
SOME AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE FILMS
(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về việc sử dụng các quãng lặng và các yếu tố
khỏa lấp trong một số bộ phim Việt Nam và Mỹ)

M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60 22 15

HA NOI - 2010


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS
IN SOME AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE FILMS

(Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa về việc sử dụng các quãng lặng
và các yếu tố khỏa lấp trong một số bộ phim Việt Nam và Mỹ)

M.A. MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60 22 15
SUPERVISOR: Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Quang

HA NOI - 2010


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES
ABBREVIATIONS
Part A. INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale .............................................................................................................................1
II. Scope of the study .............................................................................................................2
III. Aims of the study .............................................................................................................2
IV. Methodology ....................................................................................................................2
V. Design of the study ...........................................................................................................3
Part B. DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I. Theoretical preliminary
1.1. Language, culture and communication ...............................................................4
1.1.1. Language and communication .............................................................4
1.1.2. Language and culture ...........................................................................5
1.1.3. Communication ....................................................................................5

1.2. High-context culture vs. low-context culture ....................................................9
1.2.1. Definitions and main differences .........................................................9
1.2.2. Entering high and low context situations ..........................................10
1.3. Non-verbal communication ..............................................................................12
1.4. Paralanguage .....................................................................................................13
Chapter II. Silence/ Pauses and Time-fillers
2.1. Silence/ Pauses ..................................................................................................15
2.2. Time-fillers .......................................................................................................17
Chapter III. Findings and discussion
3.1. Research methods .............................................................................................19
3.1.1. Subjects ..............................................................................................19
3.1.2. Research questions .............................................................................20
3.1.3. Research method and data collection instruments .............................20


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3.2. Findings and discussion ....................................................................................21
3.2.1. Vietnamese findings ..........................................................................21
3.2.1.1. Availability .....................................................................................21
3.2.1.2. Proportionality ................................................................................23
3.2.1.3. Manifestability ................................................................................25
3.2.2. American findings ..............................................................................27
3.2.2.1. Availability .....................................................................................27
3.2.2.2. Proportionality ................................................................................29
3.2.1.3. Manifestability ................................................................................32
3.2.3. Concluding remark ............................................................................34
Part C. CONCLUSION
I. Summary of major findings ..................................................................................35
II. Limitations ..........................................................................................................36

III. Suggestions for further study .............................................................................36
References .................................................................................................................37


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LIST OF TABLES

Vietnamese findings:
Table 1: Number of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues)
Table 2: Number of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee)
Table 3: Number of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss)
Table 4: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee)
Table 5: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss)
Table 6: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues)
American findings:
Table 7: Number of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues)
Table 8: Number of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee)
Table 9: Number of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss)
Table 10: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (between colleagues)
Table 11: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (boss to employee)
Table 12: Duration of pauses and time-fillers (employee to boss)


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ABBREVIATIONS

SP

Social Power

HC

High Context

LC

Low Context

NVC

Nonverbal Communication

TF(s)

Time-filler(s)

(---)

Pause


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PART A. INTRODUCTION

I. RATIONALE
At the beginning of the 21st century, it is beyond question that English has
become the lingua franca, the language used for communication across territorial and

cultural borders. Crystal (2003: 120) states that “English has become a global language
because it has been at the right place at the right time”. English is considered the
universal language and its contribution towards such fields as business, international
communications, entertainment, tourism, trade and technology, is undeniable‟.
People learning and using English are increasing dramatically in number
worldwide. It can be seen that, because of the heavy demand of cross-cultural interaction,
the development of telecommunications, and the appearance of communicative
approaches in language teaching and learning, the study of speech acts in
communication appears inevitable.
The last few decades have witnessed a great change for the better in the
relationship between Viet Nam and the US. Many cross-cultural activities have been
performed between the American and the Vietnamese. However, it is observed that, in
cross-cultural interaction, people tend to focus much more on linguistic factors than on
cultural factors. For example, it is customary for the Vietnamese to extend such
greeting routines as „Bác/ cô/ chú/ anh/ mày đang làm gì đấy?‟, „Bác/ cơ/ chú/ anh/
mày đang đi đâu đấy?‟; so, when communicating with their Anglophone friends, they
simply transfer their cultural practices into „What are you doing?‟ or „Where are you
going?‟. In the English-speaking cultures, such greeting routines are considerably
embrassing, especially in the initial meeting. The lack of appropriateness in language
use may lead to misinterpretation, misunderstanding and miscommunication.
Communication breakdown might very much be the case. Therefore, the study of
Vietnamese-American cross-cultural differences in speech acts is obviously necessary.
Silence/Pauses and time-fillers exist in all social interactions in any culture. They
are used to show respect, anger, hostility, disinterest, or any other emotions. However,


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when and how to use time-fillers or silence/pauses are not the same in different
languages and cultures. Therefore, the study of similarities and differences of using

silence/pauses and time-fillers in interaction would help not only for the success of
American-Vietnamese cross-cultural communication but also in communicative
language teaching/learning.
II. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Although intralinguistic (vocabulary, grammatical rules, phonetic rules...) and
extralinguistic (facial expressions, postures, proximity...) factors, to a great extent, play a
vitally important role in communication, they are beyond the scope of this study. This
study only focuses on pauses and time-fillers in some American and Vietnamese films
for the discovery of major similarities and differences between the two groups.
This research is confined to studying only the factor of power [colleague to
colleague (equal); boss to employee (high to low); and employee to boss (low to high)]
that are readily manageable and lend themselves to quantitative analyses.
Similar plots, characters and scenes that involve similar communicative events/
situations are intentionally chosen for contrastive analysis.
III. AIMS OF THE STUDY
The aims of the study are:
- To investigate the use of silence/pauses and time-fillers under the variables of power in
chosen situations in some American and Vietnamese films.
- To find out major American- Vietnamese cross-cultural differences and similarities in
using silence/pauses and time-fillers in the situations under investigation.
IV. METHODOLOGY
The main method of this study is the quantitative one. All the considerations,
remarks, interpretations, comments and assumptions given in the study are largely based
on data analysis with due reference to publications.
The data were collected from four American and four Vietnamese sociopsychological films. The instrument to construct validation is used to tap individual
assessment of social power (SP).


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V. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The study consists of three parts:
Part I. Introduction, which provides the rationale, scope, aims and methods of the sudy.
Part II. Development, which consists of three chapters.
Chapter 1. Theoretical preliminaries. This chapter covers the relationship
between language and culture, language

and communication, cross-cultural

communication, high-context and low-context culture, non-verbal communication and
paralanguage.
Chapter 2. Silence/pauses and Time-fillers. This chapter reviews the issues
relevant to the study including silence/ pauses and time-fillers. Then the notions of
silence/ pause and time-filler definitions and usages are discussed.
Chapter 3. Findings and Discussions. The strategies of using silence/pauses and
time-fillers are identified and major cross-cultural differences and similarities discussed.
Part III. Conclusion, in which the main findings are reviewed, the implications for crossculture interactions, the limitations of the study pointed out and suggestions for further
research offered.


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PART B. DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1. Theoretical preliminaries

1.1. Language, culture and communication
1.1.1. Language and communication
By age four, most humans have developed an ability to communicate through
oral language. By age six or seven, most humans can comprehend, as well as express,
written thoughts. These unique abilities of communicating through a native language

clearly separate humans from all animals.
In 1994, in Time magazine, an article appeared titled „How man began‟. Within
that article was the following bold assertion:
“No single, essential difference separates human beings from other animals”.
Yet, in what is obviously a contradiction to such a statement, all evolutionists admit that
communication via speech is uniquely human - so that it often is used as the singular,
and most important, dividing line between humans and animals.
In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution, Jones, Martin, and
Pilbeam (1999) concede that there are no non-human languages, and then go on to
observe that language is an adaptation unique to humans, and yet the nature of its
uniqueness and its biological basis are notoriously difficult to define. In his book, The
Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrance Deacon (1997)
notes:
In this context, […], consider the case of human language. It is one of the most
distinctive behavioral adaptations on the planet. Languages evolved in only one
species, in only one way, without precedent, except in the most general
sense. And the differences between languages and all other natural modes of
communicating are vast.
Language is the development of the basic form of communication between human
beings, and in a society. And just as it is the basic form, it is also the most developed.
We can not communicate in any real sense without language, other than through


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gestures; we do communicate through some non-verbal forms like the visual arts painting and sculpture - and through dance, but the culmination of true, articulate,
communication is through language. It could naturally take a number of forms. It could
be unvarnished, workaday prose, it could be poetry, it could be drama; but all of these
are forms of language, written, spoken and read. The way in which the language is being
used is making it pretty. Thus, a successful communicator must own a good command of

language at first.
1.1.2. Language and culture
Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate”) is
a term that has different meanings. And, the word “culture” is most commonly used in
three basic senses:


excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture



an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends
upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning



the set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an
institution, organization or group.
( />
Of all aspects of culture, it is a fair guess that language was the first to receive a
highly developed form and that its essential perfection is a prerequisite to the
development of culture as a whole.
1.1.3. Communication
Communication is a process of transferring information from one entity to
another. Communication processes are sign-mediated interactions between at least two
agents which share a repertoire of signs and semiotic rules.
All communication is cultural - it draws on ways we have learned to speak and
give nonverbal messages. We do not always communicate the same way from day to day,
since factors like context, individual personality, and mood interact with the variety of
cultural influences we have internalized that influence our choices. Communication is

interactive, so an important influence on its effectiveness is our relationship with others.


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The relationship between communication and culture is a very complex and
intimate one. First, cultures are created through communication; that is, communication
is the means of human interaction through which cultural characteristics - whether
customs, roles, rules, rituals, laws, or other patterns - are created and shared. It is not so
much that individuals set out to create a culture when they interact in relationships,
groups, organizations, or societies, but rather that cultures are a natural by-product of
social interaction. In a sense, cultures are the “residue” of social communication.
Without communication and communication media, it would be impossible to preserve
and pass along cultural characteristics from one place and time to another. One can say,
therefore, that culture is created, shaped, transmitted, and learned through
communication. The reverse is also the case; that is, communication practices are largely
created, shaped, and transmitted by culture.
To understand the implications of this communication-culture relationship, it is
necessary to think in terms of ongoing communication processes rather than a single
communication event. For example, when a three-person group first meets, the members
bring with them individual thought and behavioral patterns from previous
communication experiences and from other cultures of which they are, or have been, a
part. As individuals start to engage in communication with the other members of this
new group, they begin to create a set of shared experiences and ways of talking about
them. With any culture; communication shapes culture, and culture shapes
communication.
Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from
differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among
themselves, and how they endeavor to communication across cultures. The study of
cross-cultural communication is fast becoming a global research area.

One factor that is believed to contribute to successful communication in general
and cross-cultural communication in particular is communicative competence.
Communicative competence is a term in linguistics which refers to a language user's
grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology and the like, as well as social


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knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately. The term was coined by
Hymes (1966), reacting against the perceived inadequacy of Chomsky's distinction
between competence and performance. To address Chomsky's abstract notion of
competence, Hymes undertook ethnographic exploration of communicative competence
that included communicative form and function in integral relation to each other. The
approach pioneered by Hymes is now known as the ethnography of communication.
The notion of communicative competence is one of the theories that underlies the
communicative approach to foreign language teaching. Canale and Swain (1980: 1-47)
define communicative competence in terms of four components:
1. Grammatical competence: including vocabulary, word formation, sentence
formation, pronunciation, spelling and linguistic semantics;
2. Sociolinguistic competence: addressing the extent to which utterances are
produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending
on contextual factors such as status of participants, purposes of the interaction, and
norms or conventions of interaction;
3. Discourse competence: concerning mastery of how to combine grammatical
forms and meanings to achieve a unified spoken or written text in different genres.
4. Strategic competence: composed of mastery of verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies that may be called into actual situations or to sufficient
competence in one or more of the other areas of communicative competence and to
enhance the effectiveness of communication.
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.
The understanding of communicative competence has been influenced by the field of
pragmatics and the philosophy of language concerning speech acts.


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Research results from contrastive analysis of discourse and acts such as
compliment, apology... indicate that appropriateness in a particular situation in one
culture may not become the same in another culture. So acquiring sociolinguistic norms
is actually acquiring the culture in which the language is used.
Savignon (1997) adds that there exists the interrelation among the four
components in increasing communicative competence.
1. Linguistic knowledge (verbal and non-verbal elements, patterns of elements in
particular speech event, range of possible variants, meaning of variants in particular
situations)
2. Interacting skills (perception of salient features in communicative situations;
selection and interpretation of forms appropriate to specific situations, role and
relationship; norms of interaction and interpretation; strategies for achieving goals)
3. Cultural knowledge (social structure, values and attitudes, cognitive
map/schema, enculturation processes)
Nguyen Quang (2001: 68) states that communicative competence is the shared
part of the three components mentioned above.
Despite the disagreement among scholars about its components, all researchers
postulate the existence of communicative competence.
A popular cultural framework was proposed by Hall (1973, 1990), in which he

states that all cultures can be situated in relation to one another through the styles in
which they communicate. In some cultures, such as those of North America and much of
Western Europe, communication occurs predominantly through explicit statements in
text and speech, and they are thus categorized as low-context cultures. In other cultures,
such as Asia, much of the Middle East, Africa, and South America, messages include
other communicative cues such as body language and the use of silence, and thus,
known as high-context cultures. Essentially, high-context communication involves
implying a message through that which is not uttered. This includes the situation,
behavior, and para-verbal cues as integral parts of the communicated message. These


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terms such as “high-context and low-context culture”, “non-verbal communication” and
“paralanguage” will be investigated in the following sections.
1.2. High-context culture vs. Low-context culture
1.2.1. Definitions and differences
High-context (HC) culture and the contrasting low-context (LC) culture are
terms presented by Hall in his book Beyond Culture (1976). Hall states that HC
transactions feature pre-programmed information that is in the receiver and in the setting,
with only minimal information in the transmitted message. LC transactions are the
reverse. Most of the information must be in the transmitted message in order to make up
for what is missing in the context.
High-context culture refers to a culture's tendency to use high-context messages
over low-context messages in routine communication. This choice of communication
styles translates into a culture that will cater towards in-groups; an in-group being a
group that has similar experiences and expectations, from which inferences are drawn.
In a high-context culture, many things are left unsaid, letting the culture explain. Words
and word choice become very important in higher context communication, since a few
words can communicate a complex message very effectively to an in-group (but less
effectively outside that group), while in a lower context culture, the communicator needs

to be much more explicit and the value of a single word is less important.
LC culture refers to a culture‟s tendency to cater towards in-groups. Low context
cultures, such as Germany or the United States make much less extensive use of such
similar experiences and expectations to communicate. Much more is explained through
words or verbalization, instead of the context.
Viet Nam and most Asian countries are classified as HC cultures. The U.S.A and
Canada, along with Northern European countries, are classified as LC. This is, of course,
an oversimplification. Within a LC culture, we'll find ourselves in high-context
situations and vice-versa. For example, within a LC American culture, communications
among family members are generally HC because of the high level of shared experience.
For our purposes, though, we will rely on the broad-brush definition.


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High Context cultures are considered:


Less verbally explicit communication, less written/formal information



More internalized understandings of what is communicated



Multiple cross-cutting ties and intersections with others



Long term relationships



Strong boundaries- who is accepted as belonging vs. who is considered an
"outsider"



Knowledge is situational, relational.



Decisions and activities focus around personal face-to-face relationships, often
around a central person who has authority.

For examples: Small religious congregations, a party with friends, family gatherings,
expensive gourmet restaurants and neighborhood restaurants with a regular clientele,
undergraduate on-campus friendships, regular pick-up games, hosting a friend in your
home overnight.
Different from a high-context culture, a low-context can be seen as:


Rule oriented, people play by external rules



More knowledge is codified, public, external, and accessible.



Sequencing, separation - of time, of space, of activities, of relationships



More interpersonal connections of shorter duration



Knowledge is more often transferable



Task-centered. Decisions and activities focus around what needs to be done,
division of responsibilities.

For examples: large US airports, a chain supermarket, a cafeteria, a convenience store,
sports where rules are clearly laid out, a motel.
While these terms are sometimes useful in describing some aspects of a culture,
one can never say a culture is "high" or "low" because societies all contain both modes.
"High" and "low" are therefore less relevant as a description of a whole people, and
more useful to describe and understand particular situations and environments.
1.2.2. High and low context situations


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Every culture and every situation has its high and low aspects. Often one
situation will contain an inner HC core and an outer LC ring for those who are less
involved.

For instance, a PTA (parent-teacher association) is usually a low-context
situation: any parent can join, the dates of the meetings, who is president, what will be
discussed, etc. are all explicitly available information, and it is usually fairly clear how
to participate in the meetings. However, if this is a small town, perhaps the people who
run the PTA all know each other very well and have many overlapping interests. They
may "agree" on what should be discussed or what should happen without ever really
talking about it, they have unconscious, unexpressed values that influence their
decisions. Other parents from outside may not understand how decisions are actually
being made. So the PTA is still low-context, but it has a high-context subgroup that is in
turn part of a high-context small town society.
When we enter a HC situation, it does not immediately become a LC culture just
because we came in the door. It is still a high-context culture and we are just ignorant.
Also, even low context cultures can be difficult to learn: religious dietary laws, medical
training, written language all take years to understand. The point is that that information
has been made conscious, systematic, and available to those who have the resources to
learn it.
High contexts can be difficult to enter if we are an outsider (because we do not
carry the context information internally, and because we can not instantly create close
relationships). Low contexts are relatively easy to enter if we are an outsider (because
the environment contains much of the information we need to participate, and because
we can form relationships fairly soon, and because the important thing is accomplishing
a task rather than feeling our way into a relationship).
Many researchers have found that people in high-context cultures tend to be
more implicit in verbal codes, perceive highly verbal persons less attractive, tend to be
more reliant on and tuned into non-verbal communication, and expect to have more nonverbal codes in communication.


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1.3. Non-verbal communication

Communication is the transfer of information, ideas and emotions from one
person to another. Most of us spend about 75 percent of our waking hours
communicating our knowledge, thoughts, and ideas to others. However, most of us fail
to realize that a great deal of our communication is of a non-verbal form as opposed to
the oral and written forms.
The last decades have seen a tremendous upsurge in research and popular interest
in the phenomena of nonverbal communication. In its narrow and accurate sense,
nonverbal behavior refers to actions as distinct from speech. It thus includes facial
expressions, hand and arm gestures, postures, positions, and various movements of the
body or the legs and feet. It may also include the way we wear our clothes or the silence
we keep. Therefore, we can say that silence/pauses are considered as one of non-verbal
behaviors.
In his book, Nonverbal communication, Albert Mehrabian (1972) states that
nonverbal communication (NVC) is the act of imparting or interchanging thoughts,
opinions, or information without the use of spoken words. Nonverbal communication is
used as a key variable to determine people's attitudes, values, and beliefs. For example,
an observer watching a focus group will pay special attention to the nonverbal cues of
group interaction, such as body language, facial expressions, and eye contact, to identify
group members' true feelings about an issue.
In The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, nonverbal communication is defined
as communication without the use of spoken language.
Many scholars indicate that NVC is usually understood as the process of
communication through sending and receiving wordless messages. NVC can be
communicated through gestures and touch, by body language or posture, by facial
expressions and eye contact. NVC can be communicated through object communication
such as clothing, hairstyles or even architecture, symbols and inforgraphics. Speech
contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, emotion
and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress.

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Dance is also regarded as a nonverbal communication. Likewise, written texts have
nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the use
of emoticons.
As can be seen from many definitions shown above, paralanguage and body
language are considered as NVC; however, object language and environmental
language, which are very important and can not be denied in communication, have not
been clearly pointed out by those researchers. Therefore, the author prefers the definition
given by Nguyen Quang (2008):
NVC is all the constituents of communication which are not verbally coded, but

vocally and/or nonvocally channeled. It includes paralanguage (nonverbalvocal) such as: speed, volume, vocal flow, and extra-language (nonverbalnonvocal) grouped into body language such as gestures, postures, facial
expressions, object language such as clothes, jewellery, and environmental
language as conversational distance, setting.
The proverb “Actions speak louder than words” underscores the importance of
nonverbal communication. NVC is especially significant in cross-cultural situations.
Probably nonverbal differences account for typical difficulties in communicating.
1.4. Paralanguage
Paralanguage refers to the vocal and nonverbal elements of communication used to
modify meaning and convey emotion. Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or
unconsciously, and it includes the pitch, volume, and, in some cases, intonation of
speech. Sometimes the definition is restricted to vocally-produced sounds. The study of
paralanguage is known as paralinguistics.
The term „paralanguage‟ is sometimes used as a cover term for body language,
which is not necessarily tied to speech, and paralinguistic phenomena in speech. The
latter are phenomena that can be observed in speech but that do not belong to the
arbitrary conventional code of language.
Paralanguage is part of the nonverbal communication and convey emotions and
attitudes. It may not only be expressed consciously or unconsciously but also include

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vocalizations such as hissing, hushing, and whistling, as well as speech modifications
such as quality of voice or hesitations and speed in talking. Some examples of
paralanguage are laughing, crying, whispering, snoring, sucking, sneezing, sighing, etc.
Tone of voice plays a fundamental role in telephone interactions.
According to Robbins and Langton (2001), Paralanguage is communication that goes
beyond the specific spoken words. It includes pitch, amplitude, rate, and voice quality of
speech. Paralanguage reminds us that people convey their feelings not only in what they
say, but also in how they say it.
Literature has shown that it is possible to convey the full gamut of emotions in text.
The real problem is that it takes a long time and a lot of talent to do this. Consequently,
it is not that text does not have emotional clues, but it is so difficult to put them in. To
that end, with text, paralinguistic clues are:


Explicit: Emoticons, cartoons, call-out descriptions.



Style: Typography, layout, color, location.



Implicit: Rhetoric, rhythm, sound, flex, vocabulary.

The paralinguistic properties of speech play an important role in human speech
communication. There are no utterances or speech signals that lack paralinguistic

properties, since speech requires the presence of a voice that can be modulated. This
voice must have some properties, and all the properties of a voice as such are
paralinguistic. However, the distinction “linguistic vs. paralinguistic” applies not only to
speech but to writing and sign language as well, and it is not bound to any sensory
modality. Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties
that can be seen and even felt.
In text-only communication such as email, chatrooms and instant massaging,
paralinguistic elements can be displayed by emoticons, font and color choices,
capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters. Nonetheless,
paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face
conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings.


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CHAPTER II. SILENCE/PAUSES AND TIME-FILLERS

2.1. Silence/ Pauses
According to Clark (1996), pauses are powerful cues for what is happening in a
conversation. To use them as a basis for analyzing culture-specific behavior, we
first have to check carefully what purposes pauses may serve in conversations and how
the usage differs across cultures. As we want to build a computational model for
American English and Vietnamese, those two cultures are of special interest.
In the book of Conversational organization – Interaction between speakers and
hearers, Charles Goodwin (1981) describes his research on gaze behavior and
manipulation. According to him, gaze is used to manage turn taking and to signal
understanding or attentiveness. If attention signals of the listener are missing, pauses are
used by the speaker to regain attention. In this case the duration of the silence is
dependent from the nonverbal signals of the hearer. Pauses in speech can be used for the
following purposes:



cognitive processing



control mechanism



acceptance / refusal



turn taking

Most of the studies dealing with silence/pauses have pointed out that during a pause,
time-filler sounds like “uhmm”and “ahhm” might

occur

as well

as nonverbal

behaviors like head nods or gestures. And, pauses are generally considered to have two
particular functions:
(a) pauses signal some word choices, and
(b) may reflect decisions at major constituent boundaries
In addition, a third function is the semantic decision-making. The matter of

content and the function of pauses for the speaker are examined. Until that point, the
speaker is simply a language generator which pauses either in the course of normal
decision-making operations or because of disruptions in those operations. However


16

the speaker can be seen as a participant in the social act of speech. Pauses and
other phenomena of spontaneous speech should be functionally related to changes
in the interpersonal situation and/or to changes in the responsiveness of the speaker,
given a constant interpersonal situation.
In addition, the functional significance of pauses is considered in terms of cognitive,
affective-state, and social interaction variables. Two sorts of social interaction
variables are found to influence pauses in spontaneous speech:


Mediating variables: e.g. changes in the audience situation and predispositional
responsiveness to listeners, and



Control variables: e.g. the number of potential speakers and the individual desire
to speak.

Pauses in speech can either be used as control mechanism to control the flow of the
conversation, as well as for cognitive processes, as decision making.
Another usage of pauses is described in the book Politeness: Some universals
in language use by Brown and Levinson (1987), where politeness
constituted

as

an

aspect of

social interaction.

The

authors

strategies
describe

are
some

parallelisms in the linguistic construction of utterances with which people express
themselves in different languages and cultures. One motive of these parallels is isolated –
politeness. They claim the existence of conversational structure sequences and with it
the intentional usage of pauses for politeness purposes. Note that a carefully located
pause can on the one hand mean acceptance and on the other hand refusal. In their
example (where A is a man, and W is his friend‟s new bride) the silence conveys
acceptance:
A: Do you sing?
W: (silence)
A: Hooray! Give us a song
Whereas silence can also be a polite refusal like in a situation, where A
asks B for a favor and B falls into silence. Thus, pauses can be used to express refusal or

acceptance in a polite way. But the interpretation of the pause remains a challenge to


17

the interlocutor. Another common use of pauses in conversations is to initiate turntaking behavior. It is one of the basic mechanisms in all types of dialogues and that it
is also a crucial mechanism in human system interaction.
2.2. Time-fillers
Time-fillers (TFs) are prevalent in Vietnamese and English spontaneous speech
and pose a major problem in Vietnamese and English speech recognition.
TFs are parts of speech which are not generally recognized as purposeful or
containing formal meaning, usually expressed as pauses such as uh, like and er, but also
extending to repair ("He was buying a black -- uh, I mean a blue, a blue shirt"), and
articulation problems such as stuttering. This is normally frowned upon in mass media
such as news reports or films, but they occur regularly in everyday conversations,
sometimes representing upwards of 20% of "words" in conversation. TFs can also be
used as a pause for thought, for example: “I need four um--oranges and mm--three
apples”.
In linguistics, a TF is a sound or word that is spoken in conversations by one
participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished
speaking. Different languages have different characteristics of TFs; in English, the most
common TFs are uh /u/, er /ə/ and um /əm/, "Like", "you know", "actually", and
"basically" are more prevalent among youths; in Vietnamese we can find: ừm, anh/chị
biết đấy, thực ra thì, kiểu như, đại loại là, nói thế nào nhỉ? (Nguyen Quang, 2001)
A TF occurs most often when a speaker is thinking. It is a time-filler in that the
speaker actually breaks off speech while continuing to articulate. However, the
articulation is neither a word, nor part of a word.
There are some of the common TFs that are found in most conversations. Even
though it is quite alright to use these TFs once in a while during informal conversations,
over a period of time they become a habit and finally are a part and parcel of our

speaking style and diction. In formal situations, especially, they can become quite
annoying to the listener, and the speaker could unknowingly become more and more
conscious and use these TFs to make up for the awkwardness he or she feels.


18
In an article of Time magazine, Rosenblatt (2001) writes “ The silent friendship
of men”:
Wordsworth goes to visit Coleridge at his cottage, walks in, sits down and does
not utter a word for three hours. Neither does Coleridge. Wordsworth then arises
and, as he leaves, thanks his friend for a perfect evening. (…)
Would the same “conversation” have taken place if Mr. Wordsworth and Mr.
Coleridge would have met? Or, if Wordsworth and Coleridge never met before? There
are differences in the usage of silence/ pauses in speech. But where do they come from?
Some are evoked by gender or age, others by personal relationships. The utilization of
pauses also varies across cultures.
When keyword outlines (not full-text, word-for-word) are used as speaking notes,
speakers do not have everything they want to say in front of them. Therefore,
silence/pauses in speaking may result while the speaker is processing the next thought in
his/her head. Because of the social token that seems to be attached to silence/ pauses,
speakers tend to fill the silence/ pauses with time-fillers.


19

CHAPTER III. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Much work has been devoted to the treatment of hesitations in
particular time-fillers. The way in which people hesitate may to some extent
be language-specific. This study will not only concentrate on silence/pauses
and time-fillers but also on their actual operations in some Vietnamese and

American films, in which TFs such as well, er (ừ, ờ); you see (anh/chị thấy
không); you know (anh/ chị biết không); oh/ er/ um let me see (ờ/ ừ/ ừm để
tôi xem) appear.
3.1. Research methods
3.1.1. Subjects
There are three social factors: relative power, social distance and the
ranking of imposition that relate to the data analysis procedure. But only the
second one is focussed on in the present study.
The subjects chosen for this study includes conversations in which
silence/ pauses and time-fillers are used by characters in 4 Vietnamese and
4 American films. The characters use silence/pauses and time-fillers in
similar settings and with similar conversational topics. Besides, all the
chosen subjects are American in American settings and Vietnamese in
Vietnamese settings. Relationships between subjects are chosen with the
factor of power in view, mainly focussing on the relationship between two
colleagues (equal), boss to employee (hing to low), and employee to boss
(low to high). The reasons for the author‟s choice are:
+ The films have similar themes (socio-psychological) with similar
conversational situations.