Speech acts as minimal unit of discourse analysis have been the focus of a large body of
research as they do not only represent language form but also reflect cultural values of the people
who perform them. Like most other speech acts, the realization of the speech act of criticizing is
influenced by a number of social and situational factors, the perception of which might vary greatly
across cultures. In addition, cultures may also differ in their common topics and frequency of
criticism their people make in everyday life. This paper report a cross-cultural study on criticizing
behaviors by the Vietnamese and American people focusing on three aspects: the topics of critics,
factors affecting criticizing behavior, and the frequency of criticism. Responses to questionnaire
items by 102 Vietnamese and 102 Americans reveal both similarities and differences between the
two groups of people in all the three investigated aspects. Although the results of the study are
inconclusive, it is hoped that they could be used as reference for further investigation into criticism
performance by the Vietnamese and Americans.
