Criticizing behaviors by the Vietnamese and the American: topics, social factors and frequency

Abstract

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.