FACTORS AFFECTING CONVERSATIONAL OPENINGS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Tóm tắt

The Vietnamese often confront countless obstacles when communicating in English, especially in opening a conversation. In view of helping learners of English overcome these difficulties, this article aims at finding out similarities and differences in elements which exert influence on conversational openings by the English and the Vietnamese. As a contrastive analysis, the article restores the quantitative method to collect data by conducting a survey questionnaire. From the statistics and analysis, some significant and practical conclusions are reached:(1) the English are more active in approaching others than the Vietnamese; (2) when choosing a partner for conversational openings, the English only pay attention to familiarity while the Vietnamese regard lots of issues related to familiarity, gender, age and social status; (3) The English seem to be more reluctant to begin a conversation in particular situations than the Vietnamese; (4) both of them think of conversational openings as a way to be more social and friendly and particularly, the Vietnamese also learn and benefit from this process; (5) while the English often lack topics for talking and are afraid of interfering others’ privacy; the Vietnamese mainly lack ways to attract others’ attention.