Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ trong hội thoại đàm phán kinh doanh trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

Graduation paper

A STUDY ON LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF
BUSINESS NEGOTIATION CONVERSATIONS IN
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

SUPERVISOR: MS. NGUYEN THI MAI HUU (MA)
STUDENT: QUACH TRUNG QUANG
YEAR OF ENROLMENT: QH2009

Ha Noi, May 2013
i


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHỐ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGƠN NGỮ TRONG HỘI THOẠI ĐÀM
PHÁN KINH DOANH TRONG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG
VIỆT

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Mai Hữu (MA)
Sinh viên: Quách Trung Quang
Khoá:QH2009

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2013
ii


ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I, Quach Trung Quang, group 09.F1.E25, a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Art
(TEFL), hereby state that I accept the requirements of the University relating to the
retention and use of Bachelor‘s Thesis deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the
Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance
with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction
of thesis.

Signature:

Date:

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper would not have been completed without the supports from many
people, to all whom I owe many sincere thanks and deepest gratitude.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai
Huu, M.A, for her whole-hearted support, precious advice and constant
encouragement to me, which all contributes greatly to the completion of this
study.
In addition, I also want to send my sincerest thanks to Mr. Nguyen Xuan

Thom, PhD, for his supports during the time I conducted this research.
Last but not least, I am truly grateful to my family and my friends for giving
me all the help I needed to complete this research paper.

ii


Abstract
This study has been conducted with the aim to provide an insight into the
pragmatic features presented in business NCs in English and Vietnamese, especially
functional features. The research was carried out using conversations collected
randomly from variable sources. It firstly aimed at discovering the frequency of
functions employed by the participants or negotiators. More than that, the study
attempted to identify similarities and differences of functional features utilized in
business NCs. And the study tried to uncover the reasons underlying negotiators‘
preferences in term of those functional features. Lastly, obstacles to the exploitation of
business NCs are also addressed. To fulfill these objectives, both qualitative and
quantitative methods were employed to analyze the functional features of business
NCs. Results showed that although both languages in business negotiation have similar
functions, differences inside each functions exist.

iii


TABLE CONTENTS

PAGE

Acceptance page

i

Acknowledgements

ii

Abstract

iii

List of figures, tables, and abbreviation

vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale

1

1.2. Aims and objectives

2

1.2.1. Aims

2

1.2.2. Objective

3

1.3. Research questions

3

1.4. Scope of the study

3

1.5. Significance of the study

3

1.6. Organization of the study

4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Theoretical background

5

2.1.1. Pragmatics

5

2.1.2. Speech act theory

5

2.1.3. Conversation

8

2.1.4 . Negotiation

10

2.2. Related studies

12

2.3. Summary

13

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOG Y
3.1. Data collecting method

14

3.2. Data analysis

15
iv


CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. The pragmatics features of business NCs in English

16

4.1.1. Surveying

17

4.1.2. Explaining

20

4.1.3. Confirming

22

4.1.4. Advising

24

4.1.5. Warning and threatening

26

4.1.6. Compromise

27

4.1.7. Persuading

28

4.1.8. Bargaining

30

4.2. The pragmatics features of business NCs in Vietnamese

33

4.1.1. Surveying

33

4.1.2. Explaining

35

4.1.3. Confirming

37

4.1.4. Advising

38

4.1.5. Warning and threatening

38

4.1.6. Compromise

39

4.1.7. Persuading

40

4.1.8. Bargaining

41

4.3. Similarities and differences of pragmatic presentation of business NCs in
English and Vietnamese

42

4.3.1. Similarities

43

4.3.2. Differences

43

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
5.1. Conclusion

44

5.2. Implication for the English language teaching and learning

45

5.2.1. Implication for learners

45

5.2.2. Implication for teachers

45
v


5.3. Limitation

46

5.4. Suggestions for further research

46

REFERENCES

47

APPENDIX

50

vi

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of Tables
Table 4.1

Frequency (%) of functional representation of business NCs in
English (EBNCs)

Table 4.2

Types of sentence structures in surveying function of EBNCs

Table 4.3

Declarative sentences performing explaining function in EBNCs

Table 4.4

Types of sentence structures in confirming function of EBNCs

Table 4.5

Types of sentence structures in compromise function of EBNCs

Table 4.6

Types of sentence structures in persuading function of EBNCs

Table 4.7

Types of sentence structures in persuading function of EBNCs

Table 4.8

Frequency (%) of functional representation of business NCs in
Vietnamese (VBNCs)

Table 4.9

Frequency (%) of functional representation of business NCs in
English and Vietnamese

Table 4.10

Types of sentence structures in surveying function of VBNCs

List of abbreviations
NCs: negotiation conversations
EBNCs: English business negotiation conversations
VBNCs: Vietnamese business negotiation conversations

vii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the research problem and rationale for the study as well as
its scope and significance. The three research questions are clearly stated
accordantly to the aims and objectives of the study. The chapter concludes with an
overview of the rest of the research paper.

1.1 Rationale
In the past few years, although being faced with a lot of difficulties,
especially experiencing the global financial crisis, the world economy has been
taking steps to recover gradually and has good signals in growth. Nevertheless,
in each country, the firms‘ business operations still have a trend of business
cooperation, technology improvement, diversification of products and services
and new potential market seeking. In larger scale, the globalization is an
ineviTable trend that requires firms to be well-prepared and be ready to
encounter the challenges of this trend. The question posed here is how to
achieve agreements and sign the valued contracts. Obviously, the business
negotiation is namely the key to answer such an interesting question.
Truly, it can be easily recognized that ―Negotiating‖ is a technical term
used a great deal nowadays, in newspapers, on television, on radio and in many
other kinds of communication in our society. Each day, human beings frequently
have to negotiate, even though they may not realize it. Certainly, in business,
negotiation is an indispensable activity that helps firms to achieve targets. It can
also be known as ―a lubricant‖ for any company‘s operation and lies at the heart
of any diplomatic policy. The art and science of negotiation are fully employed
to promote companies‘ image, advance stakeholders‘ benefits in business areas.
Negotiation is also a key for parties (government, enterprises, nongovernmental
organizations, etc) to open more doors of success.
In both international and domestic business, the skillful use of negotiation
can advance a party‘s interests and help companies to avoid a less attractive
alternative, e.g., trade wars, litigation, or protracted dispute settlement
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procedures under the WTO.

An effective negotiation process can lead to

positive outcomes that can result in the promotion of important objectives
including economic development, business interests, environmental protection,
labor rights, and political stability, all of which can minimize the adverse
impacts of poverty that can lead to violence and war. Depending on the subject
matter of a negotiation, different skills must be employed and options exercised
to achieve agreement between or among parties. However, negotiation is not as
easy as pie and not a single utterance but a more complicated conversation. To
be successful in negotiation, a negotiator needs to have a well-prepared
strategies and knowledge of how to organize a negotiation besides good capacity
of language communication.
In reality, there are a large volume of studies relating to these issues of
negotiation, techniques and negotiation strategies but very few researches
exploit the field of linguistic features of business negotiation conversation.
Hence, a Study on Linguistic Features of Business Negotiation
Conversations (NCs) in English and Vietnamese is hoped to provide some
insights highlighting the way of linguistic features preformed in business
negotiation. At the same time, the similarities and differences between business
NCs in English and Vietnamese in terms of functional features are also revealed
through the study. This one is not a research about the techniques and strategy of
negotiation; however, its results can be utilized to enhance the professional
techniques in business negotiation.
1.2 Aims and objectives
1.2.1 Aims
The research aims to investigate the pragmatic features in business NCs
in English and Vietnamese. To be more accurate, the research exploits and
analyzes its functional features. In addition, the similarities and differences in
NCs in English and Vietnamese in terms of the mentioned aspects are detected.

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1.2.2 Objectives
The objectives of this research are:
- To study the pragmatic features of business NCs in English and
Vietnamese.
- To find out and justify the similarities and differences between business
NCs in English and Vietnamese in terms of pragmatics.
- To suggest some implications for negotiators in business
- To facilitate students in translating collocations and understanding
conversational implicatures.
1.3 Research questions
These afore-mentioned aims are specified into the three following
research questions:
- What are the functional features of business NCs in English?
- What are the functional features of business NCs in Vietnamese?
- What are the similarities and differences in functional features of
business NCs in English and Vietnamese?
1.4 Scope of the study
This research focuses on investigating the functional features in business
NCs in English and Vietnamese. Because the functional features of the
negotiation are very complicated and varied; as well as the limitation of time
and the ability of the researcher, the paper just analyses the functional features
of business NCs. The thesis does not examine the Paralinguistic (the aspects of
spoken communication that do not involve word; for example, body language,
gestures, facial expressions, tone and pitch of voice, etc); extra-linguistic factors
in NCs. Moreover, the study only exploited data from printed sources, not NCs
from audios or videos.
This study only concerns about the functional features of linguistics in

face-to-face negotiation. It does not aim at researching linguistic phenomenon of
commercial letters, contracts, etc and does not mention the negotiation through

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telephones, letters and other communication means. It just researches the
negotiation conversation in business, not politics or other fields.
1.5 The significance of the study
With the aim to make a study on functional features of NCs in English and
Vietnamese, the study will be able to provide useful knowledge to enable better
use of NCs in cross – cultural communication and negotiation in English and
Vietnamese. The findings of the study can be the potential source for the
teaching and learning of business and business negotiation in general and NCs
in English and Vietnamese in particular as foreign languages.
1.6 Organization of the study
The rest of this paper consists of following chapters

Chapter 2: Theoretical background
Chapter 3: Methodology
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion
Chapter 5: Conclusion
The References and Appendix include a list of references that researcher used for
the research and data of business conversation

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CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter provides a literature background to support the development of the

research paper. Basic concepts related to the study such as conversation,
pragmatics, negotiation or business negotiation and will be compiled and
presented, and previous studies will be critically reviewed for a better
understanding of the research problems.
2.1 Theoretical background
2.1.1 Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the study of meaning of words, phrases and full sentences,
but unlike semantics which deals with the objective meanings of words that can
be found in dictionaries, pragmatics is more concerned with the meanings that
words in fact convey when they are used, or with intended speaker meaning as it
is sometimes referred to.
A subfield of linguistics developed in the late 1970s, pragmatics studies
how people comprehend and produce a communicative act or speech act in a
concrete speech situation which is usually a conversation (conversation analysis).
It distinguishes two intents or meanings in each utterance or communicative act
of verbal communication. One is the informative intent or the sentence meaning,
and the other the communicative intent or speaker meaning (Leech, 1983;
Sperber and Wilson, 1986). The ability to comprehend and produce a
communicative act is referred to as pragmatic competence (Kasper, 1997) which
often includes one's knowledge about the social distance, social status between
the speakers involved, the cultural knowledge such as politeness, and the
linguistic knowledge explicit and implicit.
Compared to grammar which deals with the internal structure of various
linguistics forms of the language system, pragmatics is truly different.
Pragmatics is more concerned with the function of the linguistic forms,
particularly the function of sentences in linguistic communication, that is, the
understanding or interpretation of utterances. Without either grammatical or

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pragmatic knowledge we cannot really understand or interpret the nature of
language.
Sentence function basically indicates the purpose of a sentence, rather
than sentence form that indicates how it is put together. There are four major
types of sentence functions. Declarative sentences are the most common and
basic function and express an idea or statement of fact, while interrogative
sentences are those that ask a question. An exclamatory sentence has the
sentence function of making an exclamatory statement that is not necessarily
aimed at anyone else, and an imperative sentence is one in which the statement is
a command or instruction.
With regard to pragmatic features, particularly functional features,
surveying, confirming,

explaining,

advising,

warning

and

threatening,

compromise, persuading and bargaining are key functions which play a truly
vital role in conversation. These functions are mentioned in a M.A thesis of Thu
Huong (2011). The utterances or sentences contribute to form a conversation.
Each utterance can possess one kind of functional feature and serve for a fixed
purpose. The study is about pragmactic features of business negotiation
conversations. The researcher wished to dig out the application of pragmatic

features.
2.1.2 Speech Acts Theory
2.1.2.1. Speech Acts
Speech act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The
contemporary use of the term goes back to J. L. Austin's discovery of performative
utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts.
According to Searl (1969) and Crystal (1985), a speech act is an act that a speaker
performs when making an utterance, including the following:


A general act (illocutionary act) that a speaker performs, analyzable as

including the uttering of words (utterance acts), making reference and
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predicating (propositional acts) and a particular intention in making the
utterance (illocutionary force).


An act involved in the illocutionary act, including utterance acts and
propositional acts



The production of a particular effect in the addressee (perlocutionary act)
Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as promising, ordering,
greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.

About the classification of speech acts, there are two typical ways to category:

a. Austin‘s Classification


In the book ―How to do things with words‖, Austin classified speech acts
into five categories: verdictives, exercitives, commissives, expositives and
behabitives.

b. Searle‘s Classification


On the basis of the felicity conditions for different speech acts, Searl e
came up with the taxonomy of speech act types: representatives or assertive,
directives, commissives, expressives, declaratives.

2.1.2.2. Felicity Conditions
"Felicity conditions are conventions that speakers and addressees use as a code to
produce and recognize actions. Speakers use the felicity conditions for actions as a
device for encoding their actions into sentences with a particular linguistic
structure that speakers then utter (i.e. they produce the appropriate utterance unit).
Hearers, in turn, use the same set of felicity conditions for actions as a device for
decoding the speaker's actions from the linguistic structure of the sentences the
speaker produced (i.e. from the speaker's utterance units)."
(Turnbull, 2003)
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In pragmatics, the conditions that must be in place and the criteria that must be
satisfied for a speech act to achieve its purpose.
Several kinds of felicity conditions have been identified, including:
(1) an essential condition (whether a speaker intends that an utterance be acted

upon by the addressee);
(2) a sincerity condition (whether the speech act is being performed seriously and
sincerely);
(3) a preparatory condition (whether the authority of the speaker and the
circumstances of the speech act are appropriate to its being performed successfully).
(Austin, 1962)
2.1.3 Conversation
Conversation has been defined by Cook in the following way:
•

It is not primarily necessitated by a practical task.

•

Any unequal power of participants is partially suspended.

•

The number of participants is small.

•

Turns are quite short.

•

Talk is primarily for the participants and not for an outside

audience.
(Cook, 1990:51)

2.1.3.1 The concept of conversation
As Eric Miller (1999) demonstrated, the English word, conversation, is
made up of a combination of two Latin roots, 'con,' and 'vers.' 'Con' means: with,
together. 'Vers' means: to turn about in a given direction. Thus, to engage in
conversation literally means, to turn about with others.
And also in his research, the informational and the phatic are two
elements that form conversation. The term, phatic--from the Greek word, to
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speak--was introduced into the English language by Bronislav Malinowski
(1923): "Phatic communion...is a type of speech in which ties of union are
created by a mere exchange of words... Words in phatic communion...fulfill a
social function and that is their principal aim." In other words, "Phatic
communication is used to establish social relationships rather than impart
information."
Conversation seems to appear everywhere, in every field in our life. In
business negotiation, the conversation is the core factor and the fix condition that
makes a negotiation occur.
Conversations are social creations. They are produced one step at a time
as people carry out certain joint activities. A joint activity is one in which two or
more people have to coordinate with each other to succeed (Clark, 1996).
To be suiTable for the aim of this study, the definition by Finegan et.al is
preferred more. Conversation can be viewed as a series of speech acts – greetings,
enquiries, congratulations, comments, invitations, requests, …To accomplish the
work of these speech acts, some organization is essential: we take turns to speak,
answer questions, mark the beginning and end of conversation, and make
corrections when they are needed.‖
2.1.3.2. Features of conversation
Graham Williamson (2009) has given his opinion about the characteristic

of conversation and claimed that conversation is a unique human activity and
there are several defining characteristics:
- ―No predetermined cognitive map‖. The possibility of predicting the
actual utterances accurately is zero when two or more people converse. Further,
we cannot predict the size of these utterances, their order of occurrence or their
relative distribution amongst the participants. When entering a conversation, we
have no predetermined cognitive map of how the conversation will unfold. An
idea of what we would like to talk about, what messages we would wish to
convey, and so on, may appear in our mind but there can be no guarantee that we
will fulfill such aims.
-9-


-

―Collaboratively

achie ved‖.

Conversation

requires

the

active

participation of at least two attentive people, each performing intentional acts
designed to cause some effect in the other. The participants thus collaborate to
construct a cohesive and coherent conversation. (Williamson. G, 2009)

- ―Managed on a turn-by-turn basis‖. As indicated, conversation usually
proceeds on an ‗I say something – you say something‘ scheme, with one
participant taking up a turn at talk immediately following the talk of the previous
speaker. Thus, the roles of listener and speaker will continually alternate. The
structure of the talk with basic pattern ―I speak-you speak-I-speak-you-speak‖ is
also mentioned in Yule‘s pragmatics book (1996) as performance of interaction.
This similarity makes his opinion become more trustworthy.
- ―One-at-a-time talk‖. A general feature of conversation is that only one
participant talks at any one time. This is true of most people in Europe and North
America. However, there is some evidence to suggest that one-at-a-time talk may
not be universal (Reisman, 1974). It would appear, however, that the general
likelihood is that conversational participants talk one at a time.
- ―Highly coordinated‖. When one speaker stops talking another takes
over with little overlap and an extremely short pause between turns. This socalled interturn gap between one speaker finishing his or her turn at talk and
another participant beginning their turn at talk is almost imperceptible: it is so
short that it has to be measured in microseconds.
2.1.4 Negotiation
2.1.4.1 Negotiation
Christopher W. Moore, Ph.D. has said that negotiation is one of the most
common approaches used to make decisions and manage disputes. It is also the
major building block for many other alternative dispute resolution procedures.
Negotiation occurs between spouses, parents and children, managers and
staff, employers and employees, professionals and clients, within and between
organizations and between agencies and the public. Negotiation is a problemsolving process in which two or more people voluntarily discuss their differences
- 10 -


and attempt to reach a joint decision on their common concerns. (According to
Moore)
It is a process by which the involved parties or group resolve matters of

dispute by holding discussions and coming to an agreement which can be
mutually agreed by them. It also refers to coming to closing a business deal or
bargaining on some product.
According to Dwyer (2000) ―Negotiation is a process in which two or
more parties try to resolve differences, solve problems and reach agreement.
Good negotiation meets as many interests as possible with an agreement that is
durable‖.
The formal negotiation process is divided into three stages: Pre negotiation, Negotiation and Post-negotiation.
2.1.4.2 Distinguish several negotiation strategies
Each negotiation has a specific purpose to reach agreement and it does not
always achieve this aim, consider the differences between the following four
strategies.
a. Win-win strategies
Win-win outcomes occur when each side of a dispute feels they have
won. Since both sides benefit from such a scenario, any resolutions to the
conflict are likely to be accepted voluntarily. The process of integrative
bargaining aims to achieve, through cooperation, win-win outcomes. (Spangler,
Brad, 2003)
b. Win-lose strategies or lose-win strategies
Win-lose situations result when only one side perceives the outcome as
positive. Thus, win-lose outcomes are less likely to be accepted voluntarily.
Distributive bargaining processes, based on a principle of competition between
participants, are more likely than integrative bargaining to end in win-lose
outcomes--or they may result in a situation where each side gets part of what he
or she wanted, but not as much as they might have gotten if they had used
integrative bargaining. (Spangler, Brad, 2003)
- 11 -


c. Lose-lose strategies

According to Spangler and Brad (2003), lose-lose means that all parties
end up being worse off. An example of this would be a budget-cutting
negotiation in which all parties lose money.
2.1.4.3 Business negotiation
Today, along with the advancement in technology and the development
in transportation, the economic relationships between people are closer,
economic communications are more frequent, and the harmonization of
economic interests is also more complicated. Therefore, amongst all types of
negotiations in today‘s society, business negotiation is increasingly taking centre
stage.
Business is an economic activity, which is related with continuous and
regular production and distribution of goods and services for satisfying human
wants.
Business has many definitions, one of which is trade. Business negotiations
are activities in which people discuss and consult with one another to achieve the
objective of trade (Cheng, 1991). Here, business negotiation has two layers of
meaning. One is business, the other is negotiation. Adachi (1996) mentions the
former establishes the objective of actions and the nature of the content, the latter
establishes the process and the method of action. During business negotiations, the
specific objectives of negotiations and the nature of the content cannot be
established without business, and the process of business as well as the method of
activity cannot be established without negotiation. Therefore, as Bangert (1993)
states business negotiation can be defined as an activity in which both parties
discuss and consult with one another to trade off conditions in order to achieve the
objective of trading of commodities.

- 12 -


2.2 Related studies

Although negotiation and business negotiation language have long received great
attention internationally, particularly at the University of Languages and
International studies, its prominence has not been fully recognized. There has been
no graduation paper or lecture‘s research on this issue. In higher level; however,
there was doctoral dissertation (2001) of Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thom PhD about
linguistic features of international trade negotiation conversation in English and
Vietnamese (written in Vietnamese). The dissertation gives a new theoretical
framework; consider negotiating discourse on both the macro level (the interaction
with context) and micro level (internal organization of discourse), taking account
of the professional and cultural characteristics of characters and object in
communication. Yet, the above research is not truly related to this study because it
is deeper in other field of negotiation conversation. Besides, a M.A thesis also
mentions the linguistic features of negotiation conversation (2011) but mainly
research the syntactic features of negotiation conversation in general.
To address this major gap, the researcher has carried out a study on the pragmatic
feature of business negotiation conversation which will be elaborated more vividly
in next chapters.
2.3 Summary
In this chapter, theoretical backgrounds for the research have been provided, from
basic concepts of pragmatics and conversation, negotiation and business
negotiation to the definition, classification functional features. Related studies
have been pointed out, and a literature gap in Vietnam‘s context has also been
revealed.

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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOG Y
This research aims to finding out the similarities and differences in the
pragmatic features of collected modals. A descriptive method is used to describe

the NCs in the two languages. The quantitative and qualitative methods are
resorted to analyzing the data collected. Then a contrastive analysis is conducted
to find out the similarities and differences between English and Vi etnamese Ns in
terms of the aspects mentioned in the aims and objectives.
The researcher utilized following data collecting method, data analysis
method and procedure to find answers for three research questions.
3.1 Data collecting method
This study is a kind of the secondary research that data of research are
available and already published. The researcher tried to collect qualitative data
from reliable sources. The data will be mainly collected 125 samples of business
NCs in English and 120 samples business NCs in Vietnamese from books,
famous stories (short stories, folk joke) and novels. For data from books, the
research mainly employed conversations in transcripts of listening parts from
English books for student learning business such as Market Leader, English for
Business, etc. Other conversations from stories, novels need to be related the
business. The researcher will not mention the literature value of these
conversations in works. Similarly, Vietnamese business NCs are picked up from
books of negotiation and business.
Criteria for selecting conversations are:
- Conversations should be 3-4 sentences or more in length and be placed in a
specific context.
- Conversations that simply introduce simple greeting or introducing are not
selected
- The selected conversations should contain certain functions and clear purposes
related to business.
3.2 Data analysis

- 14 -

The data are grouped into categories depending on their structures, the
types of function that NCs performing so that we can draw out the similarities
and differences in English and Vietnamese for the discussion section. The
frequency of structures used for NCs was totalized basing on the quantitative
analysis. The pragmatic features of NCs were then summarized in some Tables.
The contrastive method was applied in to analyze the similarities and differences
in the pragmatic features of NCs in the two languages.

In general, the collected data are analyzed following the below steps:
Step 1: Collecting the data in negotiation from different sources in
Vietnamese and English.
Step 2: Finding out the functions of negotiation they belong and perform
then put them into distinctive groups.
Step 3: Analyzing and discussing the results.
Step 4: Comparing the similarities and differences of the issues in both
languages.
Step 5: Suggesting some implications for teaching and learning language
for avoidance of culture shocks in negotiations

- 15 -


CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this chapter, all collected data will be thoroughly analyzed and discussed to
provide the answers for the research questions. Moreover, previous literature
backgrounds will be related to the findings in attempt to reveal the underlying
reasons behind the patterns. Last but not least, suggestions for an effective
exploitation of NCs will be provided.

4.1 THE PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF BUSINESS NCS IN ENGLISH

The study focuses on the functional features of business NCs in English
with 8 main functions which are surveying, explaining, confirming, advising,
warning & threatening, compromise, persuading and bargaining.
In business NCs, there are many signals to find out the sentences with
functions in which the types of sentence by purpose are one of the convenient
ways to figure out appearances‘ functions. Those four types are declarative,
interrogative, e xclamatory, imperative sentences. Those types of sentences will
contribute to form conversations and when they are used in business NCs;
certainly, those types convey and perform functional features of business NCs.
The study will research on these signals to make functional features of business
NCs more meaningful and useful.
The following Table 4.1 will show frequency of functional representation
of business NCs in English with figures which the researched analyzed. The
analysis of numbers in Table will be integrated into each part of functions.

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