CONVERSATIONAL OPENING SEQUENCES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE CONVERSATIONS AT OFFICES

Abstract

This study is to construct and describe opening sequences of English and Vietnamese conversations. The data were 120 conversational opening sections (60 English and 60 Vietnamese) gathered from movies. The method of qualitative content analysis is applied to code the data manually to find out opening sequences. Then, the method of conversation analysis is resorted to in describing these sequences. The findings display that English and Vietnamese opening sections follow three sequences: summons-answer, greeting, and phatic communication. Generally, the summons-answer and phatic communication sequences are exploited fairly equally by both Vietnamese and English speakers whilst the greeting sequence is much more preferred by Vietnamese ones. However, in details, the structures of and the content said in each sequence are extremely different between the two languages. These differences reveal that conversational opening is mainly to increase the work efficiency by English subjects but both to increase the work efficiency and to rapport by Vietnamese ones.