VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

VU THI NGOC QUYNH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON COMPLAINTS

MADE BY VIETNAMESE AND ANGLICIST IN THE
WORKPLACE

SUMMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

HANOI - 2010
 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

VU THI NGOC QUYNH

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY ON COMPLAINTS

MADE BY VIETNAMESE AND ANGLICIST IN THE
WORKPLACE

SUMMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

SUPERVISOR: DAO THU TRANG, M.A.

HANOI - 2010
 ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Vu Thi Ngoc Quynh, class 061E2, being an

candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements
of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation
Paper deposited in the library.

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper

deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and
research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the
librarian for the care, loan and reproduction of the paper.

Signature
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dao Thu

Trang, M.A for her valuable and insightful comments, suggestions and kind
guidance throughout my research.

I would like to thank my teachers at Vietnam National University,

Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies for their lectures
which enlighten the arguments in the study.

I take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to my friends

Nguyen Thi Thanh Loan and Le Yen Anh for giving me great support and
precious help with the material collecting.

I must also acknowledge my debt to my classmates in class 061E2,

VNU-HULIS, for their constant supports and concern while the work was in
progress.

My special thanks also go to my beloved family members. Without

the whole hearted encouragement from my parents and my sister, I would
not be able to accomplish this study.

Last but not least, I am indebted to all those who have kindly advised
and helped me towards the completion of my research.
 ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on cross cultural communication by examining

complaints made by Anglicist and Vietnamese in the workplace. Specifically,
it studies the advisability of making complaints and the choice of complaint
strategies of Anglo-American and Vietnamese white-collar workers.
Subjects of the study were Anglicist and Vietnamese who are working in the
office in Vietnam and other countries. The data were collected via the
questionnaire including two parts. The first part consisted of alternative
questions to investigate the advisability of making complaints as perceived
by Anglicist and Vietnamese. The second part employed the Discourse
Completion Task (DCT) to elicit the verbal complaints made by Anglicist
and Vietnamese in the workplace. All the situations were validated before
being included in the questionnaire. The two groups of participants differed
in their choice of advisability of making complaints and complaints forms
with respect to social factors and modality markers. The study suggests that
Vietnamese officers working in a multicultural environment should be
attended to politeness strategies to have more effective communication.
TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………i
Abstract……………………………………………………………………..ii
List of tables, figures and abbreviations……………………………………iii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale………………………………………………………………...1
1.2. Aims of the study and research questions………………………………2
1.3. Significance of the study…………………………………………….….3
1.4. Scope of the study………………………………………………………3
1.5. Organization of the study……………………………………………….4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Culture…………………………………………………………………..6
2.2. Communication…………………………………………………………7
2.2.1. Cross-cultural communication…………………………………….8
2.2.2. Communication at workplaces…………………………………….9
2.3. Politeness………………………………………………………………10
2.3.1. Definition of politeness…………………………………………..10
2.3.2. Politeness strategies……………………………………………..11
2.4. Speech acts…………………………………………………………….14
2.4.1. Definition of speech acts…………………………………………14
2.4.2. Classification of speech act………………………………………15
2.4.3. Complaint as a speech act………………………………………..17
2.5. Complaint strategies…………………………………………………...19
2.5.1. The directness level of complaint………………………………...19
2.5.2. Complaint strategies……………………………………………..20
2.5.3. Internal modifications……………………………………………24
2.5.4. External modifications…………………………………………...25
2.6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..26
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………27
3.2. Research design……………………………………………………… 27
3.3. Selection of subjects…………………………………………………..27
3.4. Data collection instrument…………………………………………….28
3.5. Data collection procedures……………………………………………30
3.6. Data analysis procedure………………………………………………30
3.7. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..31

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………32
4.2. Findings and discussion……………………………………………….32
4.2.1. Research question 1……………………………………………...32
4.2.2. Research question 2……………………………………………...39
4.3. Conclusion……………………………………………………………..48

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

5.1. Introduction……………………………………………………………50
5.2. Summary of the research………………………………………………50
5.2.1. Similarities and differences in the advisability of making
complaints………………………………………………………………….50
5.2.1. Similarities and differences in the choice of complaint strategies 51
5.3. Implication for Vietnamese officers - Research question 3…………...51
5.5. Suggestions for further study………………………………………….53
5.4. Limitations of the study………………………………………………..53

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………….54

APPENDICES……………………………………………………………...57
 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 The five functions of speech acts (Searle, 1979)

Figure 1 Possible strategies for making FTAs (Brown & Levinson,

1987)
Table 2 The advisability of making complaints with respect to lower
power

Figure 2 The advisability of making complaints in Sit.2

Table 3 The advisability of making complaints with respect to equal

power

Figure 3 The advisability of making complaints in Sit.6

Table 4 The advisability of making complaints with respect to higher

power

Figure 4 The advisability of making complaints in Sit.8

Table 5 The choice of complaint strategies with respect to lower power

Table 6 The choice of complaint strategies with respect to equal power

Table 7 The choice of complaint strategies with respect to higher power

 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

DCT Discourse Completion Task

E.g For example
FTAs Face Threatening Acts
i.e. That is to say
No. Number
SUA Socially Unacceptable Act
Sit. Situation
Str. Strategy
% Percent
& and
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale

In recent decades, English has been in great use in Vietnam thanks to

the open policy of the government providing the opportunity for foreigners
to come to the country to work and communicate with each other. However,
in order to maintain effective communication, the ability to speak the
language is not enough as Wardwaugh states in his book “An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics” (2002): “when we teach a language like English to
speakers who already know another language, we must be aware that we
have to teach more than new sounds, words, and grammatical structure…”
Also, it can be seen that people when communicating, have to both produce
grammatically correct sentences and apply them in the right combination of
context at the same time. That means communicative competence involves
the understanding of culture, social knowledge and other skills of interaction.

Although English has been taught in Vietnam for many years, learners
of English mostly obtain linguistic competence rather than the socio-
linguistic one. They often find it difficult to communicate appropriately in
English although their reading or writing skills are quite good. With an effort
to improve the communicative competence of Vietnamese, many cross-
cultural studies has been carried out on the usage of common used speech
acts such as inviting, thanking or requesting. Among them, complaining is
considered as a socially complex and culturally specific act for the fact that
it is one of the face threatening acts. Some previous studies have been
focused on the speech act of complaining, and in most of them, the
researchers view complaining as a routined act in general settings such as at
home, at school and in public places. Others concentrate on the relationship
of politeness and indirectness in Anglo and Vietnamese’s complaint.
However, in this paper, the researcher would like to have a more detailed
view on the complaint made by a specific group of people in a particular
setting, who are white collar workers at workplaces. As mentioned above,
because complaining is a complex act so when, where, and how to complain
are some difficult questions to answer. Especially, in an environment which
requires high level of communicative skills like the workplace, the way to
complain politely and effectively is very essential for the workers to obtain.
Those reasons have urged the researcher to conduct “A cross-cultural study
on complaints made by Vietnamese and Anglicist in the workplace”.

1.2. Aims of the study and research questions

The main purpose of this paper is to identify the major similarities as

well as differences in complaints made in workplace by Anglicist and
Vietnamese. Moreover, the study aims at finding a better orientation for
Vietnamese people to have successful communication in the international
working environment.

In order to achieve the above aims, this research paper is conducted to

answer the questions as follows:

1. What are the major similarities and differences in the advisability

of making complaints as perceived by Anglicist and Vietnamese in
the workplace?
 2. What are the major similarities and differences in the choice of
complaint strategies made by Anglicist and Vietnamese in the
workplace?
3. How can Vietnamese officers have better communication in the
workplace?

1.3. Significance of the study

After being finished, this research could bring about some noticeable
benefits. Firstly, the research can highlight some major similarities and
differences between the verbal complaints made by Vietnamese and Anglo
people in the workplace. Thus, it can helpfully contribute to mutual
understanding between people from different countries working in a multi-
cultural working environment. Second, the study suggests some strategies
which would help Vietnamese and Anglicist deal with unwanted situations
in their working office. Moreover, the research is expected to serve as a
previous reference for any cross-cultural studies on speech acts in general
and studies on complaints in particular.

1.4. Scope of the study

This research mainly works on the comparison and contrast between

Anglicists’ and Vietnamese’ complaints. However, due to the small scale of
the study as well as the limitation of time, this paper only focuses on the
verbal communication when making complaints rather than non-verbal one.

Also, the participants in the study’s survey questionnaire are restricted

to approximately 30 Vietnamese and 30 Anglo people aged from 22 to 59
years old, which means those who are in working age at the time of
conducting the research. The extracts in the paper are taken from different
sources like the Internet, English textbooks and especially those are
suggested by the native speakers.

Besides, the target groups making complaints in the study are

Vietnamese and Anglo people who are currently working. Therefore, the
situations in the questionnaire are those typically happens in the working
environment in which the Speaker may be in higher, equal or lower power
than the Hearer.

1.5. Organization of the study

The study consists of six chapters in total, namely Introduction,

Literature review, Methodology, Findings and discussions, and Conclusion
and Implication, of which major contents are as follows:

Chapter I describes the rationale to carry out the study, the aim and
the research questions of the study, scope, significance and organization of
the study.

Chapter II provides the background of the study, including definitions

of key concepts and the categorization of complaint which is used as the
analytical framework of the study.

Chapter III of methodology aims at outlining the research methods

applied in the study and demonstrating how these methods were really
implemented to conduct the research.

Chapter IV begins with the presentation of data collected from the

survey questionnaires. After the information collecting procedure is
described, raw data is filtered and analyzed in depth in order to ascertain
important findings about the topic.

Chapter V recommends the ways to improve the communicative skills

in terms of complaining for Vietnamese people working with Anglicist. This
chapter also summarizes the main issues covered or discussed so far in the
paper, the limitations of the research as well as some suggestions for further
studies.

The following parts are the Appendices and Bibliography of the whole
research.
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Culture

“Culture” is considered as such a broad and complex concept that it

has hundreds of definitions. According to Robert Murphy (1986:14),
“Culture means the total body of tradition borne by a society and transmitted
from generation to generation. This refers to the norms, values, and
standards by which people act, and it includes the ways distinctive in each
society of ordering the world and rendering it intelligible. Culture is a set of
mechanism for survival, but it provides us also with a definition of reality.
It’s the matrix into which we are born, it’s the anvil upon which our persons
and destinies are forged”. If Murphy defined culture in the prospective of
social anthropology, O. Sullivan, in his book “Understanding ways:
Communicating between cultures” (1994) tried to make it simpler by
explaining that culture is simply the ways people agree to be.

Meanwhile, sharing the idea that culture is closely related to the sense
of community, both Riddell (1989) and Fernando (1996) concluded that
“Culture includes all aspects of human life that are learned and shared by
members of a society” and “Culture is everything that people have, think and
do as a member of a society” respectively.

Another widely-accepted definition of culture is the one provided by

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). In which, culture “comprises the whole context of distinctive
spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a
society or social group. It includes not only the art and letter, but also modes
of life, the fundamental rights of human being, value systems, traditions and
beliefs.”

It can be seen that there are many elements that culture contains, but
not all of them are easily to recognize. Therefore, sometimes, culture is
compared with an iceberg which has a visible section above the waterline
and a larger, invisible section below the water line. Similarly, culture has
some aspects that are observable but the rest which occupy a larger part can
only be suspected, imagined, or intuited.

(Levine - 1993)

In conclusion, it can be said that culture is what people from the same
social groups create themselves, then learn from each other and share with
each other. Its elements are various, from the way people eat or dress, to
how they think and believe. It is also what helps to differentiate people of
one society from another and human from animals.

2.2. Communication

Communication is no longer an unfamiliar concept to people. When

talking about communicating, people often link it with the act of
transmitting information, opinions or ideas by speech or writing. To have a
more precise definition, Saundra Hybels and Richard L Weaver (1992:5)
conclude that: “Communication is any process in which people share
information, ideas and feelings, that process involves not only the spoken
and written word, but also the body language, personal mannerism and style,
the surroundings – anything that adds meanings to a message”. Having
similar idea, in a shorter way, Levine and Adelman (1993) state that it is
“the process of sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal behaviour”.

From those definitions, it can be seen that there is always a message to

be exchanged in the process of communication. Also, it is the message that
links the people involved in the process, as Richards (1997:64) clarifies
“Communication is the exchange of ideas, information, etc. between two or
more persons. In an act of communication there is usually at least one
speaker or sender, a message, which is transmitted, and a person or persons
whom this message is intended (the receiver). The study of communication
is central to sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and information theory”.

2.2.1. Cross-cultural communication

Obviously, the need to communicate is not limited among people

having the same backgrounds. When people from different cultures want to
communicate with each other, there forms the concept of cross-cultural
communication. According to Levine and Andelman, it is “the process
whereby one’s culture affects interaction with a person from another
culture”. It can be deduced that the culture of somebody has a great impact
on how they communicate with other people. This is also what Nguyen
Quang proposes in his book Intercultural Communication: “Cross-cultural
communication is the communication (verbal and non-verbal) between
people from different cultures: communication that is influenced by actual
values, attitudes and behavior; the influence of culture on people and
reactions and responses to each other” (1998:3).

2.2.2. Communication at workplaces

For the fact that a large part of our life is spent working, there is no
doubt that communication at workplaces is extremely essential in
everybody’s life. Communication at workplaces, or also called business
communication has been the topic for discussion of experts both in
linguistics and in business industry. According to Harcourt, Krizan and
Merrier (1991: 3), business communication can be defined as “the
transformation of information within the business environment.” In the same
opinion with these authors, R. Rudlow (cited in Kushal, 2009:4) defines
business communication as process of transfer of information and
understanding between different parts and people of a business organization.
He thinks that it consists of various modes and media involved in
communication interchanges. Meanwhile, as quoted by Dr Heinz Goldmann
(Kushal, 2009:4), "business communication is an effective communication
which needs to be built around a simple foundation and realization.
Communication is a dialogue between two people and not a monologue. In
fact, communication is more concerned with a dual listening process."

That is to say, business communication includes all contacts among

individuals both inside and outside organizations, to perform two main
functions: internal functions and external functions. All the communication
occurs while conducting a work within a business organization is called
internal, which may flow upward, downward or horizontal (2009:4). In this
type of functions, there is both formal and informal communication taking
place that is essential for the development and maintenance of human
relationships in the workplace. While the former is business-related one,
consisting of memos, written reports, and oral communication which is
planned by the organization, flows in all directions and is essential for the
operation of the business, the latter mostly involves personal issues.
(Nguyen, 2007:21)

The work-related communicating that a business does with people and

groups outside the business is called external functions. Most businesses
need people and groups outside it to be successful. Those can be customers,
suppliers, competitors, government, the media and the general public. Like
internal communication, external one is also very vital to a business.

2.3. Politeness

2.3.1. Definition of politeness

In language study, many studies have been carried out to concern the
concept of politeness. It is defined as “(a) how languages express the social
distance between speakers and their different roles in their relationships; (b)
how face work, that is, to attempt to establish, maintain, and save face
during conversation, is carried out in a speech community” in “New
interchange” by Richards, J.C. (1997). While in Brown and Levinson’s
viewpoint, the model of politeness is based on the redress of potentially
threatening acts. Different degrees of politeness in terms of their directness
and some of the factors affecting politeness are discussed in the theory. In
this theory, they also proposed the notion of face, which they referred to as
“the public self image that every member wants to claim for himself”
(1987:61). Face is something that is emotionally invested, and that can be
lost, maintained, or enhanced, and must be constantly attended to in
interaction. It consists of both positive and negative face, which gives rise to
different politeness strategies. Generally speaking, positive face is the
positive self-image of the interactant, including the desire that this self-
image be appreciated and approved of by others. Negative face is the desire
for autonomy, the basic territorial claim of the individual and his or her
“freedom to action and freedom from imposition” (1987:66). Thus,
politeness becomes a means to address the interactant’s need to maintain or
remove threat to positive and negative face.

This idea is also strongly supported by Yule (1996:60). Yule claims

that face is the public self-image of a person and refers to the emotional and
social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else recognize.
From that, Yule develops his own concept of politeness as “the means
employed to show awareness of another person’s face”. In this sense,
politeness can be accomplished in situations of social distance or closeness.

2.3.2. Politeness strategies

Brown and Levinson (1987) believe that when interacting people

would protect their face if threatened and then they tend to threaten other
people’s face. Therefore, the interactants would try to maintain each other’s
face and cooperate in maintaining face in interaction. However, if some acts
intrinsically threaten face, the public self-image person seeks to preserve,
they are referred to as face threatening acts (FTAs) (1987:60). They include
acts such as complaints, requests, refusals, or orders, etc.

As mentioned above, most people would try to maintain each other’s

face, which means they will have to find ways to avoid these FTAs or at
least employ certain strategies to mitigate the threat for a person’s face.
Brown & Levinson (1987: 69) has set up a basic model with five sets of
politeness strategies for doing FTAs as shown in Figure 1

In the context of the mutual vulnerability of face, the Speaker has two
options: He/she may seek to avoid the face threatening act (Don’t do the
FTA) or may decide to “Do the FTA”. If the Speaker decides to do the FTA,
he/she can either go off record in which case there is more than one
ambiguously attributable intention so that the Speaker is seen not to commit
him/herself to his/her particular intent, or the Speaker can go on record,
expressing his/her intention clearly, unambiguously. In the latter case, the
Speaker may express his/her intentions without redressive action, i.e. baldly
on record, entailing at doing the most clear, unequivocal; or the Speaker may
choose to employ strategies to minimize the face threat referred to as
redressive action, “giving face” to the Hearer in an attempt to counteract the
face damage of the FTA with some modifications or additions. Redressive
strategies may involve either Positive Politeness or Negative Politeness.

2.3.2.1. Positive politeness

Positive politeness is oriented towards preserving the positive face of

other people. The Speaker considers the Hearer to be in important respects
“the same” as he is, with the same rights, duties and expectations. When
using positive politeness, the Speaker tends to show his/her concerns the
Hearer or let the other know they have a common goal. Thus, he or she tends
to use speech strategies that emphasize the solidarity with the Hearer, such
as informal pronunciation, shared dialect or slang expressions, nicknames,
more frequent reference to Speaker and Hearer as “we”, and requests which
are less indirect. For example: “Hey, buddy, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me
use your pen” (Yule, 1996:64).

2.3.2.2. Negative politeness

Negative politeness, on the other hand, is oriented towards preserving

the negative face of other people. The realizations of negative politeness
strategies consist in assurances that the Speaker recognizes and respects the
Hearer’s negative face wants and will not interfere with the Hearer’s
freedom of action. In other words, negative politeness is related to the use of
mechanisms, which leaves the Hearer and “out” or permit him/her to feel
respected. Thus, when the Speaker use negative politeness, he or she tends to
employ speech strategies that emphasize deference for the hearer.
Nicknames, slang and informal pronunciation are to be avoided and requests
tend to be more direct and impersonal. Negative politeness also involves
more frequent use of other mitigating devices, expressions that ‘soften the
blow’, like “please”, “might”, “I am sorry but…”, etc. For example: “I am
sorry to bother you, but can I ask you for a pen or something?” (Yule,
1996:64).

Above are some major issues on the theory of politeness. Since

politeness is universal and variable in different languages and cultures, when
we study a language, it is essential to take into account the concept of
politeness in the society that the language is used.

2.4. Speech acts

2.4.1. Definition of speech acts

The theory of speech acts has been studied and defined by many
experts in pragmatics such as Austin (1962), Grice (1975), Searle (1969),
Levinson (1983), Yule (1996) and others. All of them share a common idea
that speech act is a unit of speaking and each unit performs certain functions
in interaction such as request, invitation, complaint, compliment, prohibition,
etc.

According to Searle (1969:24), language is a part of theory of action

and speech acts are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening, and
refusing that one performs in speaking. While in Yule’s words (1996:47),
actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts, and in
English, are given more specific labels, such as apology, request, complaint,
invitation, etc. Also, the circumstances in which actions are performed via
utterances are called the speech events. In many ways, it is the nature of the
speech that determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a
particular speech act. For example, on a freezing day, the Speaker takes a sip
from a glass of water and says “The water is so hot”. This utterance is likely
to be interpreted as a praise. However, if the circumstance is changed into a
hot humid summer day, the thirsty Speaker hurriedly takes a random glass of
water for a sip and produces the same utterance ““The water is so hot”. Then
it tends to be interpreted as a complaint.
 According to Austin (1962) and Searle (1969), a speech act is always
consists of three related acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and
perlocutionary act.

The first one is the act of producing an utterance, actually the act of
articulating a recognizable grammatical utterance in the language, e.g. “How
many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?” In addition, mostly,
we form an utterance with some kind of function in mind, which is the
second dimension, the illocutionary act. It is performed through the
communicative functions of an utterance. For instance, by saying “How
many times do I have to tell you to clean your room?” (1), the Speaker
means that “I am complaining about your dirty room”. Also, the intention of
complaining in this act is termed as the illocutionary force. What is more,
we do not simply create an utterance with a function without intending it to
have an effect on the Hearer. This is the third dimension, the perlocutionary
act. Depending on the circumstances, by saying (1), the Speaker wants the
Hearer to recognize the effect the Speaker intended: to clean the room.

2.4.2. Classification of speech act

There are thousand of possible illocutionary acts and various attempts

have been made to classify them into small number of types. According to
Searle (1969), there are five types of speech acts based on the Speaker’s
intention. They are declaratives, representatives, expressives, directives and
commisives.

Declaratives are illocutionary acts that bring about the state of affairs
or the changes in the world through their utterance they refer to, such as
declaring, blessing, and arresting. For instance, “You are fired”, “I now
pronounce you man and wife”.
 Representatives are illocutionary acts that undertake to represent a
state of affair, such as stating, claiming, hypothesizing, describing, telling, or
swearing that something is the case. For instance, “It’s a rainy day”, “No one
makes a better cake than me”.

Expressives are illocutionary acts that express only the speaker’s

psychological attitude towards some state of affairs like congratulating,
thanking, greeting. For example, “I’m terribly sorry”, “That’s great!”

Directives are illocutionary acts that the Speaker uses to get the Hearer
to do something or carry out some actions, like requesting, inviting, pleading,
prohibiting and so on. For example, “Could you lend me your pen?”, “Clean
your room!”

Commisives are illocutionary acts that the speakers use to commit

themselves to some future action, such as promising, threatening or refusing,
etc. For example “I’ll give you some money”, “I won’t do it again”.

In addition to Searle’s classification of illocutionary acts, Yule

(1996:55) presents a table showing each type’s key features as follows

S = Speaker ; X =
Speech Act Type Direction of fit
Situation

Commissive Make the world fit words S intends X

Directive Make the world fit words S wants X

Declarative Words change the world S causes X

Representative Make words fit the world S believes X

Expressive Make words fit the world S feels X

Table 1: The five general functions of speech acts (Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. OUP)
 In short, speech act is the act we carry out daily when speaking. The
usefulness of speech act analysis is in illustrating the kind of things we can
do with words and identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we
use to perform specific actions.

2.4.3. Complaint as a speech act

In everyday conversation, different speech acts are performed and

complaining is one of those. As we can see from the above classification of
speech acts, complaining is an expressive illocutionary act. Complaining is
defined in New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998:375) as expressing
dissatisfaction, annoyance, or moral judgment about the states of affairs or
that someone has already done, failed to do, or is in the state of doing
something wrong. According to Trosborg (1995), complaint is defined as an
illocutionary act in which the Speaker (the complainer) shows his/her
disapproval, negative feelings, etc. to an event and by which he/she asks the
Hearer (the complainee) for either direct or indirect responsibility.

With those features above, complaint is viewed as a face-threatening

act, according to Brown-Levinson (1978). Having similar idea, Edmonson-
House (1981:45) claims: “in making a complaint a speaker potentially
disputes, challenges, or bluntly denies the social competence of the
complainee”. That means if a verbal complaint is made, the speaker is likely
to take the risk of rejecting social relationships during interaction, and of
breaking ties of mutual support and co-operation (Nguyen, 2003:11).

Anne Wierzbicka (1987:241) claims that the act of complaint has the
following meaning:

- I say: something bad is happening (to me).

 - I feel something bad because of that.

- I say this because I want to cause someone to know about it and to

do something because of that, which would cause me to feel better.

She also believes that complaint has a close relation with other
expressive acts like moaning or exclaiming though they differ from each
other by the fact that complaining often calls for either sympathy or actions,
or both. A lone person might moan or exclaim by himself but would be
unlikely to complain. It is for the fact that there is no one there to hear and
sympathize with him so it is no point for him to complain.

In discourse, complaints can be realized in various linguistic structural

forms like imperatives, declaratives, interrogatives, exclamatives, etc. For
instance:

- Don’t make noise, girl! (imperative)

- Psss! You know what time it is. (declarative)

- Honestly, couldn’t you have been more respectful? (interrogative)

- What terrible noise! (exclamative)

(Nguyen, 2003:12)

In conclusion, complaint is one kind of speech act used commonly in

interaction. It is a face-threatening act and can be expressed in different
forms. To gain the social goal of polite interaction, the choice of particular
form should be considered together with various factors like social variables
and politeness realization.
2.5. Complaint strategies

2.5.1. The directness level of complaint

According to Brown and Levinson (1987:66), the speech act of

complaining implies that the Speaker has a negative evaluation of some
aspect of the Hearer’s positive face. From the Speaker’s point of view, the
following preconditions are needed in order for the speech act of
complaining to take place:

1. H performs a socially unacceptable act (SUA) which is contrary to

a social code of behavioral norms shared by S and H.

2. S perceives the SUA as having unfavorable consequences for

him/herself, and /or for the general public.

3. The verbal expression of S relates post facto directly or indirectly

to the SUA, thus having the illocutionary force of censure.

(Olshtain & Weinbach, 1993)

When those preconditions are met, and complaints are made, they also
can be expressed at different levels of directness, from hints and mild
disapprovals to severe challenges in which the Hearer is explicitly held
responsible or declared incompetent and irresponsible (Trosborg, 1995:314).
Trosborg also claims that by choosing a particular stage of directness, the
Speaker (the complainer) is able to decide on the conflict potential of the
complaint. To decide the level of directness of a complaint, there are three
criteria to be taken into consideration: the Propositional content
(complainable), the Complainer, and the Accused (the complainee).
Together with these criteria, five factors determining the directness level of
complaint have been established by Trosborg as follows:
 1. The complainable is or is not expressed directly

2. The complainable’s negative evaluation of the affair is implicitly

or explicitly expressed.

3. The agentive involvement of the complainee is implicitly or

explicitly expressed.

4. The complainer’s negative evaluation of the complainee’s

behaviour is implicitly or explicitly expressed.

5. The complainer’s negative evaluation of the complainee as a

person is implicitly or explicitly expressed.

(Trosborg, 1995:315)

2.5.2. Complaint strategies

There have been several attempts on establishing a categorization of

complaint strategies by different linguistics. One of the popular
classifications of complaint strategies was provided by Olshtain and
Weinbach (1987) when they studied the speech act of complaint as produced
by native and non-native speakers of Hebrew. These researchers developed
five categories of speech acts that were based on severity of the complaint
for a specific scenario, in which one colleague had waited for another
colleague, who arrived late to a scheduled appointment. The five categories
were: (1) below the level of reproach, “No harm done, let’s meet some other
time;” (2) disapproval, “It’s a shame that we have to work faster now;” (3)
complaint, “You are always late and now we have less time to do the job;”
(4) accusation and warning, “Next time don’t expect me to sit here waiting
for you;” and, (5) threat, “If we don’t finish the job today I’ll have to discuss
it with the boss”
 Tanck (2002:7) classified the complaint into four components,
especially in native speakers’ production of complaints. These components
are: (1) excusing self for imposition: “Excuse me for interrupting,” (2)
establishing context or support: “I placed an order last week,” (3) a request:
“Can you please look for it?” and (4) conveyance of a sense of urgency: “I
need it right away.”

Another categorization was made by Trosborg (1995), based on her

own directness level of complaint. In this classification, four main categories
of complaint strategies, comprising eight sub-strategies are set up: no
explicit reproach, expression of disapproval, accusation and blame. This one
is also the model for this paper’s theoretical framework to make a
comparison on complaints made by Vietnamese and Anglicist in the
workplace. To analyze the obtained data in this study, the researcher use the
classification that comprises 5 main ones and a number of sub-categories.
Altogether, 10 sub-categories were established, strategy 1 being the most
indirect, strategy 10 the most direct.

COMPLAINT STRATEGIES
No explicit reproach
Category I
Strategy 1. Hint
Expression of approval
Category II Strategy 2. Annoyance
Strategy 3. Consequences
Accusation
Category III Strategy 4. Indirect accusation
Strategy 5. Direct accusation
 Blame
Strategy 6. Modified blame
Category IV
Strategy 7. Explicit condemnation towards Action
Strategy 8. Explicit condemnation towards Person
Directive acts
Category V Strategy 9. Request for repair
Strategy 10. Threat

* Strategy 1. Hint

In order to avoid conflict, the complainer may not mention the SUA.
However, as the complainer does not indirectly inform that something is bad,
the complainee does not know about the offence and whether he/she holds
responsibility or not. E.g: “All right, don’t see much of you these days, do
I?” (Trosborg, 1995: 339)

* Strategy 2. Annoyance

A complainer can express his/her annoyance, dislike, disapproval

involving a particular state of affairs he/she believes bad for him/her. With
that expression in the presence of the complainee, without mentioning
him/her as a guilty person, the complainer holds the complainee responsible.
E.g: “I don’t like dust, I’m allergic to dust, don’t you know that?” (Trosborg,
1995: 316)

* Strategy 3. Consequence

The complainer can also avoid hurting the complainee by showing the
ill consequences resulting from an offence for which the complainee is
regarded implicitly responsible. E.g: “It will take hours to rearrange these.”
(Author’s data)
* Strategy 4. Indirect accusation

The complainer can ask the Hearer questions about the situation or
assert that the Hearer was in some aspect concerned with the offence. By
doing this, the complainer tries to declare the Hearer as a potential agent of
the complainable source. E.g.: “You borrowed my car last night, didn’t
you?” (Trosborg, 1995: 319)

* Strategy 5. Direct accusation

Contrary to strategy 4 where the complainee is only implied to be

guilty, in strategy 5, the complainer makes an explicit accusation in terms of
questions or pieces of information. E.g.: “Did you happen to spill the ink on
my paper?” (Author’s data)

* Strategy 6. Modified blame

The complainer believes that the complainee is guilty of the offence so

he/she passes value judgement on the complainee. However, he/she does not
want to break the social relationship so he/she just expresses modified
disapproval or state a preference for an alternative action not taken by the
complainee. E.g: “Couldn’t you been more careful?” (Trosborg, 1995: 319)

* Strategy 7. Explicit condemnation towards Action

An explicit statement is given about the bad action for which the
complainee is held responsible. E.g: “Oh, no. Look at what you have done!”
(Author’s data)

* Strategy 8. Explicit condemnation towards Person

The complainee is directly declared as a non-responsible social

member. E.g.: “Bloody fool! You’ve done it again” (Trosborg, 1995: 319)
* Strategy 9. Request for repair

The complainer may request to pay for the damage or a kind of

compensation action. E.g.: “I presume your insurance will cover the
damage” (Trosborg, 1995: 321)

* Strategy 10. Threat

If a polite request for repair is taken no weight, a complaint can issue

threats instead. E.g.: “Now, come to class earlier or I won’t let you in”
(Nguyen, 2003:37)

2.5.3. Internal modifications

Apart from those complaint strategies above, there are some elements
that can soften or strengthen the impact of the utterance on the Hearer.
Those are called internal modifications. According to Trosborg (1995), there
are two main categories of internal modifications: downgraders and
upgraders.

Downgraders are internal modifiers which serve to mitigate the

circumstances under which an offence was committed and consequently
reduce the blame on the complainee. On the other hand, upgraders increase
the impact of the complaint on the Hearer by aggravating the complaint. 9
sub-categories are set up from these two main groups as follows:

Downgraders

1. Downtoners: are adverbials that express tentativeness: just, simply,

maybe, etc.

2. Understaters: are modifiers that under-present the state of affairs: a

little, a second, not very much, etc.
 3. Hedges: are used to avoid mentioning presise propositional
specification: kind of, sort of, somehow, etc.

4. Subjectivizers: are modifiers that the complainer uses to show

his/her own opinion to the offence: I think, I’m afraid, in my view,
etc.

5. Cajolers: are used to restore harmony between two interactants:

you know, you see, etc.

6. Appealers: are the discourse elements which intend to elicit a

response from the complainer, appealing to his/her understanding:
right, don’t you think, etc.

Upgraders

7. Intensifiers: are adverbials or adjectives intensifying part of a

proposition: such as, so, very, quite, etc.

8. Commitment upgraders: are sentence modifiers expressing a

special commitment towards the proposition: I’m sure, it’s obvious,
etc.

9. Lexical intensification: are used to revealing the complainer’s

attitude: what’s the hell, bloody fool, etc.

2.5.4. External modifications

To justify the accusation and make the complaint more “convincing”,

the complainer may use some elements which are called external
modifications. These modifications are also helpful in providing face
savings arguments. In this study, only the main category of external
modifiers, i.e. supportive moves is mentioned. The sub-categories of
supportive moves are obtained at the structural level of discourse
(preparators), at the interpersonal level (disarmers), and at the content level.

Preparators

Since it is important to “prepare” for issuing a complaint instead of

just go up to the complainee and start accusing right away, preparators are
used to break the ground or warn the complainee about a forthcoming
complaint. E.g.: “Well, look, I might as well start right out” (Trosborg,
1995:330)

Disarmers

A complaint that is too face threatening to the complainee is what

most complainers try to avoide. Therefore, “disarming strategies” are
employed to save the complainee’s face and also the complainer’s own face.
E.g.: “Look, I don’t want to be horrible about it.” (Trosborg, 1995:330)

Providing evidence

To make the complaint more effective, a complainer must prove that

the SUA was actually performed by the complainee. E.g.: “It’s not a copy.
Look, I signed it, the signature is in ink, see” (Trosborg, 1995:330)

2.6. Conclusion

This chapter has provided some selective theoretical background of

the issue including the concept of culture and communication, the theory of
politeness and speech act, as well as the categorizations of complaint
strategies. In the following chapter, the research questions, the study design
and the methodology of the present study will be outlined.
 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction

In the previous chapters, the aims and objectives of the study have
been described as well as the literature on the research topic has been briefly
reviewed. For this chapter, the methodology applied in the study will be
discussed in more details. The participants, the instruments and the
procedure of data collection and analysis which are all aimed at achieving
the major aims of the study will be introduced.

3.2. Research design

To address the three research questions that are mentioned in the first
chapter of the study, a comparison study concerning the phenomenon is
supposed to be conducted. This kind of design is suitable for this research
for two main reasons. Firstly, when there are two or more situations studied,
a comparison design is considered one of the best choices. Secondly, the
nature of this study suggests that a comparison one is preferred as it would
help discover the similarities and differences between the complaints
produced by Anglo and Vietnamese.

3.3. Selection of subjects

In order to find out the differences in Vietnamese and Anglo people’s

complaints made in the office, the participants for this study are defined to
be both Vietnamese and Anglicists who are working in offices in either
Vietnam or in an Anglo-American country.

The data for the study is conducted from the sample of 60 participants
from both Vietnam and Anglo-American countries. They are chosen
randomly with the age ranged from 22 to 59. In terms of gender, 30 people
are male and 30 are female. In terms of nationality, there are 30 Vietnamese
and 30 Anglicist people participating in the survey. For the Anglo people,
they come from different residential areas like Britain, USA, Australia, etc.
Some of them are working in their own country and the rest are working in a
multicultural environment here in Vietnam. Much alike, most of the
Vietnamese participants have often interaction with their foreign colleague
while the minor of the group do not.

In addition, to make the collected data valid and reliable enough, those
white-collar workers are chosen from different occupations, from
businessman, journalists, executive directors to teachers.

3.4. Data collection instrument

The main instrument for this research is survey questionnaire. This

method is chosen for two reasons. First, they help collect a large amount of
information without much time consumed. Second, they could be applied
successfully with different people in a range of situations targeting various
topics (cited in Nguyen, 2007, p 31.). Therefore, it suits the aim of finding
out the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and Anglicists’
complaints of the study, which requires large number of participants from
variable settings.
 The questionnaire will consist of two main parts which are expected to
answer the first two research questions. The first part is designed to find out
the differences and similarities in the advisability of making complaints
between people from different cultures. This part contains 9 alternative
questions, in which the subjects are asked to choose whether it is advisable
or not to complain for a certain situation. These nine questions are
intentionally grouped in three different categories. The first one includes
those situations in which the participants have lower status than the
complainee. On the other hand, in the next two categories, the speakers have
greater and equal power than the hearer respectively.

The second part of the questionnaire is intended to elicit the linguistic

forms of complaining used in normal conversations at workplace. There are
3 situations involving common problems happening in the working
environment, for example, the complainee going late for business meeting.
For this kind of question, the Discourse Completion Task is mainly
employed. It is designed to elicit complaint forms from the subjects with a
regard to the social factor of power. To be more detailed, for each situation,
there is a short description about the communicating setting and the role
relationship between the interactants. Then the subjects are asked to
complete what he or she would say in this particular situation. This choice of
questionnaire questions are made as it is considered an effective means to
create the initial classification of semantic formulae and strategies that will
occur in natural speech. Also, it is a good way to study the stereotypically
perceived requirements for a socially appropriate response and gain insight
into social and psychological factors that are likely to affect speech and
performance (cited in Nguyen, T.H., 2003, p.24).
3.5. Data collection procedures

In the first step of building the questionnaire questions, the researcher

does a small survey to check whether the initial 20 situations are reliable or
not. This pilot survey will be taken among 3 Anglicists to ask them if they
often make complaints in such situations in real life. From that pilot survey,
3 situations which are considered as the most reliable ones will be selected
to be included in the second part of the questionnaire. Then another 6
reliable situations are added to make up the alternative questions for the first
part of the questionnaire. Also, in this phase of the data collection
procedures, the researcher will make all the necessary contacts for the
questionnaire delivery.

Next, the finished questionnaires will be delivered to the participants

either directly or via emails, especially to those who are working and living
in foreign countries for convenience. In addition, careful explanation from
the researcher will be provided to make sure that all the subjects can
understand the questionnaire clearly. Then, they will be given a certain
amount of time to finish all the questions.

3.6. Data analysis procedure

As mentioned above, the questionnaire is divided into two parts, the

alternative questions and the open-ended ones. In the first part, the results
will be summarized in tables and charts in order to compare, synthesize as
well as generalize the data about the advisability of making complaint as
perceived by Vietnamese and Anglicist. For the next one, a theoretical
framework of complaint strategies varied in the level of directness will be
used to categorise the subjects’ answers in the Discourse Completion Task.
Those answers will then be classified into different strategies in order to find
out Vietnamese and Anglicist’s choices when complaining in the workplace.
Tables, as well as charts and graphs are also used to summarise and analyse
the results of these questions.

3.7. Conclusion

This chapter has given a detailed description of the major research

methods used in this study in order to collect representative data for the
research. It also describes the two groups of participants involved in the
process of data collection, namely the Vietnamese and Anglo white-collar
workers. In addition, the instruments employed to collect necessary data
which is the survey questionnaire has been rationalized. The chapter was
concluded by a full account of the methods and procedures of data collection
and analysis.
 CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter, the methodology of this paper has been

clarified with the description of participants, the instruments as well as the
procedures of collecting and analyzing data. In chapter 4, the findings on the
advisability of making complaints and the choice of complaint strategies in
lower, equal and higher settings will be presented together with the
explanation for such research findings. It is also notable that the framework
outlined in chapter 2 will serve as an instrument for the analysis of data
collected from the Discourse Completion Task in order to answer the second
research question. The analytical framework was set up based on Trosborg’s
model (1995), comprising 5 main ones and a number of sub-categories with
strategy 1 being the most indirect and strategy 10 the most direct. In addition,
‘no strategies’ (keeping silence) was considered as another category 1
because it was widely used in the responses of all the participants, especially
the Vietnamese ones.

4.2. Findings and discussion

4.2.1. Research question 1: What are the major similarities and differences
in the advisability of making complaints as perceived by Anglicist and
Vietnamese in the workplace?

1
For the convenience of data analysis, “keeping silence” is called strategy No. 0
4.2.1.1. The advisability of making complaints in lower power settings

In Sit.1, Sit.2 and Sit.3, the Anglo subjects and the Vietnamese
subjects differ in their advisability of making complaints to their bosses or
superiors. Table 2 gives the results of the decisions of both groups for 3
situations.

Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3

Options

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

1 56.7% 13.3% 76.7% 13.3% 70% 23.3%

2 0 20% 0 0 10% 10%
3 43.3% 66.7% 23.3% 86.7% 20% 66.7%

1. Advisable 2. Yes and no 3. Unadvisable

Table 2: The advisability of making complaints with respect to lower power

The results show that when the Complainer is of lower power than the
Complainee, most of the Anglo subjects think they should complain to their
bosses. In the first situation, the majority of Anglicists (56.7%) find it
advisable to complain, while the rest think it is unadvisable. On the contrary,
only 13.3% of Vietnamese have the same idea with the majority of the first
group, while 66.7% think the opposite way. In the next two situations, the
proportion of Anglo American people agreeing to make complaint even gets
higher with 76.7% and 70% of them respectively. On the other hand, the
Vietnamese participants seem hesitant to complain to their boss as most of
them choose to keep silence.

As can be seen in the result for Sit.2, twenty three out of thirty Anglo
subjects (76.7%) decide to complain to their boss for an unfair review,
twenty six out of thirty Vietnamese subjects (86.7%) think complaining is
unadvisable. Meanwhile, Situation 2

the minorities of two

90.00%
groups choose the 80.00%
70.00%
opposite options with 60.00%
50.00%
each other, and none of 40.00%

both groups are unsure 30.00%

20.00%

about their choices. For 10.00%

0.00%
situation 3, the same Advisable Yes & no Unadvisable

Anglicist Vietnamese
pattern with the first two
situations is
repeated. Figure 2: The advisability of making complaints in Sit.2
70% Anglo participants
find they can complain with the boss about their salary while only 23.3%
Vietnamese ones think so. In both groups, 10% of the subjects are unsure
about whether they should complain or not.

Then, a big difference between the choices of two groups is found in

the results of three situations. Most of the Anglo American subjects think
that they should complain to their superior while such decision is not
preferred by the majority of Vietnamese subjects. This finding suggests that
in terms of making complaint to the people with higher power, the
Vietnamese still be heavily influenced by the their cultural context in which
their respect to their boss may prevent them from expressing their attitude. It
is also notable that Vietnamese subjects who choose the Advisable option in
these three situations mostly have occupations with frequent interaction with
Anglo people and their foreign languages acquisitions range from Fair to
Good. Therefore, it can be deduced that these Vietnamese participants have
been influenced by their working environment and the social communication
style of English.

4.2.1.2. The advisability of making complaints in equal power settings

Overall, the decisions to make complaint of the Anglo subjects and

the Vietnamese subjects are different from each other in the settings where
the Complainer and the Complainee are equal in power, or to be more
specific, they are colleagues (Sit. 4, 5 and 6). The results show that when
they are of equal power, most of the Anglo subjects think a complaint should
be elicited while the Vietnamese subjects do not have a prominent choice
out of three options. Table 3 below shows the result of both groups of
subjects for 3 situations with equal power settings (Sit.4, Sit.5, and Sit.6).

Situation 4 Situation 5 Situation 6

Options

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

1 43.3% 6.7% 73.4% 20% 56.7% 33.3%

2 26.7% 40% 13.3% 43.3% 20% 36.7%
3 30% 53.3% 13.3% 36.7% 23.3% 30%

1. Advisable 2. Yes and no 3. Unadvisable

Table 3: The advisability of making complaints with respect to equal power

Thirteen out of thirty Anglo people doing the survey (43.3%) think
that they should complain to their colleague for being late for the meeting
(Sit.4) while the proportion of people choosing not to complain and being
unsure about their choice are quite equivalent with 30% and 26.7%
respectively. For the Vietnamese subjects, most of them think that it is not
appropriate to complain to their colleagues in such cases since sixteen out of
thirty (53.3%) choose to keep silence. The subgroup with least percentages
in this situation consists of only two subjects (6.7%) who think it is fine to
complain. In situation 5, many Anglo-American subjects (73.4%) assume
the colleague should be complained for spilling ink on their important
document while the rest are divided into two groups of ‘being not sure’ and
‘keeping silence’ with 13.3% in each group. Meanwhile, it is interesting to
notice that the numbers of Vietnamese subjects choosing the three options
are approximately equal with one another. The group which has the highest
proportion (43.3%) consists of the ones who cannot make up their mind
whether to complain yet, while 20% think they should complain and 36.7%
who find it unadvisable to make any complaints in such situation.

Situation 6
As can be seen in Figure
3, for situations 6, the
60.00%
majority of Anglo
50.00%
subjects (56.7%) still
40.00%
choose to complain
30.00%
while the majority of
20.00%

10.00%
Vietnamese ones

0.00%
(36.7%) are unsure
Advisable Yes & no Unadvisable
about the decision. Only
Anglicist Vietnamese
ten out of thirty
Figure 3: The advisability of making complaints in Sit.6 Vietnamese subjects
(33.3%) want to raise
their voices when their colleagues making noises when they need to work
while nine out of thirty (30%) think they should keep silence and continue to
do the work despite the noise made by their coworkers. Having the same
idea with those nine Vietnamese ones are seven Anglo American people,
making up 23.3%.

Although the gap between the advisability of making complaints

between two groups of participants are not as big as in the first three
situations where the complainee is of higher power, the results for Sit.4,
Sit.5 and Sit.6 has, to some extent, shown that the Anglo American subjects
seem to be more decisive of making complaint to their colleagues than
Vietnamese ones. The majority of the Vietnamese subjects in these 3
situations are often the ones who are not sure whether to complain or not.

4.2.1.3. The advisability of making complaints in higher power settings

In general, when the Complainer is of higher power than the

Complainee, the Anglo American and Vietnamese subjects tend to choose to
make verbal complain rather than to keep silence. Table 4 shows the results
of the decision of both groups of subjects for three situations with respect to
lower power (Sit.7, Sit.8, and Sit.9).

Situation 7 Situation 8 Situation 9

Options

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

1 56.7% 46.7% 43.3% 53.3% 83.3% 43.3%

2 10% 23.3% 26.7% 16.7% 16.7% 36.7%
3 33.3% 30% 30% 30% 0 30%

1. Advisable 2. Yes and no 3. Unadvisable

Table 4: The advisability of making complaints with respect to higher power

 The table above shows that for the seventh situation, the majority of
the English speaking participants (56.7%) choose to speak out their
complaint to their assistant when he or she often leaves home early without
reasons. Meanwhile, ten out of thirty Anglo American subjects do not think
so and they choose to keep silence, when the rest, who make up 10% are not
sure about the advisability of making complaint. Similarly, most of the
Vietnamese subjects think they should complain about the frequent leaving
home early of their assistant as 46.7% of them put a tick on the Advisable
column. Seven out of thirty (23.3%) are unsure about the decision when nine
of them (30%) find it inappropriate to make complaint to their assistant.

In situation 8, both the

Situation 8
majority of Anglicist and
60.00%
Vietnamese decide to
50.00%
complain to their
40.00%
assistant for losing the 30.00%

important document and 20.00%

the higher proportion 10.00%

0.00%
belongs to the latter Advisable Yes & no Unadvisable

group (53.3% to 43.3%). Anglicist Vietnamese

Also, 30% from both

Figure 4: The advisability of making complaints in Sit.8
groups choose to oppose
to the idea of making complaint. Meanwhile, the unsure people are eight
Anglo American subjects, making up 26.7% and five Vietnamese, making
up 16.7%.
 However, in the next situation, the pattern of choosing options among
Anglo American subjects seems to be more extreme than the Vietnamese’s.
Twenty five out of thirty Anglicists (83.3%) think they need to complain to
their inferiors while none of them want to keep silence. Only five of them
(16.7%) cannot decide whether to complain or not. For the Vietnamese
group, the subgroup that gets the highest proportion includes those who
chose to make complain. Nevertheless, the number of people who are not
sure about the decision is more than the number of those opposing the idea
of making complaints (36.7% to 30%).

In short, most of Vietnamese subjects think it is advisable to make

complaints to their inferiors like the majority of Anglo American ones. This
may be explained from the fact that in both cultures, people find it easier to
do a face threatening act like complaining to the one who has lower power
than them.

4.2.2. Research question 2: What are the major similarities and differences
in the choice of complaint strategies made by Anglicist and Vietnamese in
the workplace?

4.2.2.1. The choice of complaint strategies in lower power settings

In the setting where the Complainer is less powerful than the

Complainee, the Anglo American subjects and the Vietnamese subjects do
not differ much in terms of complaint strategies chosen. Table 5 below
shows the results of the choice of complaint strategies by both groups of
subjects for three situations with respect to lower power in Sit.10a, 11a and
12a. It can be seen that making complaints in lower power situations, in all
three situations, Anglo American and Vietnamese subjects tend to choose
Keeping Silence, Hint and Annoyance the most frequently among other
complaint strategies. Nevertheless, the frequency at which each strategy is
used in a certain situation is not really similar.

Situation 10a Situation 11a Situation 12a

Strategies

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

0 46.7% 73.3% 13.3% 80% 26.7% 63.4%

1 30% 13.3% 53.3% 13.3% 16.7% 10%
2 6.7% 3.3% 20%6 3.3% 53.3% 23.3%
3 13.3% 0 6.7% 0 0 0
4 0 3.3% 6.7% 3.4% 3.3% 0
5 0 3.3% 0 0 0 0
6 3.3% 0 0 0 0 3.3%
7 0 0 0 0 0 0
8 0 3.3% 0 0 0 0
9 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0 0

0. No strategies (keeping silence) 6. Modified blame

1. Hint 7. Explicit condemnation towards Action
2. Annoyance 8. Explicit condemnation towards Person
3. Consequence 9. Request for repair
4. Indirect accusation 10. Threat
5. Direct accusation
Table 5: The choice of complaint strategies with respect to lower power

In Situation 10a, when complaining to a boss coming late for meeting,

most of Anglicist and Vietnamese participating in the survey share the same
choice for complaint strategies. They often choose to Keep Silence or give
Hints to express their complaints in this situation. None of the subjects
choose such directive acts like Request for repair or Threat while just a
small number of Anglo American and Vietnamese complainers use other
strategies like Consequence or Indirect accusation. As can be seen from
Table 5, fourteen out of thirty Anglicists employ no strategies in situation
10a, or in other words, they choose to say nothing and continue with the
meeting. A large number of Vietnamese (73,3%) agree with those fourteen
Anglicists. In addition to the choice of opting out, two groups also use Hint
to make their complaints like “What was holding you up?” or “Is everything
ok?” Among the rest of the Anglicists, four choose to use Consequence
when complaining with such words like “I’m sorry and I know you have
things to do and are busy but so am I? I just lost 30 minutes of work time.”
and just one uses Modified blame. Similarly, the Vietnamese subjects hardly
choose other strategies apart from keeping silence or giving hints; just one or
two of them opt for other strategies like Str.2, 4, 5 and 8.

For situation 11a, to realize complaints, more than half of Anglo

American speakers (53.3%) choose Hint to complain when their boss spill
juice over their new suit. This, to some extent, means the most appropriate
form of complaints in this situation in English is Hint. The most usual
expressions of complaints in form of Hint by Anglicist in this situation is
“Oh my god! My new suit!” However, it is not really similar in the data of
the Vietnamese speakers since the most preferred strategy by Vietnamese
participants is Keeping silence as twenty four of them choose not to say
anything. Other strategies two groups employ for this situation include Str.3
and 4. From the fact that both Anglicist and Vietnamese choose the first five
strategies which are more indirect than the rest, we can see that both groups
try to avoid the threat of the complaint as a way to show their politeness to
their superiors.

To realize complaints in situation 12a, most of the Vietnamese

subjects (63.3%) once again choose to be silent when their boss making
noise while most of the Anglicists (53.3%) tend to show their Annoyance.
The most common expressions among Anglo American participants to show
their annoyance are “I’m sorry, but I’m working on something important” or
“Sorry, I need a few minutes of silence to finish this thing up.”. In addition,
there is also a number of Vietnamese subjects (26.7%) choose to employ the
this strategy by saying similar expressions in Vietnamese like “Xin l?i s?p
nhung em dang làm vi?c” (“Sorry boss, I’m working here”). The less
preferred strategies in this situation by both groups include Hint, Indirect
accusation and Modified blame while strategies number 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and
10 are hardly used.

In conclusion, most Vietnamese subjects choose to employ no

strategies, i.e. they tend to keep silence when they are in lower position than
their complainees. Meanwhile, a number of the Anglo American subjects
seem to employ the first and second strategies, namely Hint and Annoyance
more frequently. It is noted that Hint may be used as “soft” complaints or as
a strategy to prepare for more severe complaints (Trosborg, 1995:339).
Therefore, in such situations when the complainees are their superiors, the
complaints made by Anglo American people seem indirect yet they can be
more effective than the silence created by Vietnamese subjects.
4.2.2.2. The choice of complaint strategies in equal power settings

Overall, the choices of complaint strategies of Anglo American

subjects and Vietnamese subjects are quite different from each other in the
settings where the speaker and the hearer are in equal power. The results
show that when the complainer and complainee are of equal power, both
groups choose a range of different strategies, as can be seen in Table 6
below.

Situation 10b Situation 11b Situation 12b

Strategies

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

0 13.3% 40% 0 6.7% 0 0

1 20% 6.7% 36.7% 23.3% 13.4% 3.3%
2 23.3% 0 23..3% 10% 73.3% 60%
3 3.3% 23.3% 16.7% 6.7% 3.3% 6.7%
4 3.3% 3.3% 3.3% 3.3% 6.7% 0
5 26.7% 3.3% 0 3.3% 0 0
6 6.7% 16.7% 13.3% 43.3% 0 20%
7 0 0 6.7% 0 3.3% 10%
8 3.3% 6.7% 0 3.3% 0 0
9 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 0 0 0 0 0 0

0. No strategies (keeping silence) 6. Modified blame

1. Hint 7. Explicit condemnation towards Action
2. Annoyance 8. Explicit condemnation towards Person
3. Consequence 9. Request for repair
4. Indirect accusation 10. Threat
5. Direct accusation

Table 6: The choice of complaint strategies with respect to equal power

 To realize complaints in Sit.10b, where an officer complains to a
colleague for coming late for meeting, the Anglo American subjects have
employed different strategies. Eight out of thirty, making up 26.7% choose
Direct accusation such as “You come late!” or “Why are you late?” while
only one Vietnamese (3.3%) choose this. There are also seven Anglicists
(23.3%) show their annoyance towards their colleague and six (20%) tend to
give hints when complaining. The rest of the Anglo American subjects
choose either to remain silence or some more direct strategies such as Str. 5,
6 or 8. Meanwhile, nearly half of Vietnamese speakers, making up 40%,
choose to be silent, similar to the lower setting case when four out of thirty
Anglicist agree with them. Another 16.7% of Vietnamese subjects choose to
complain in form of Modified blame, e.g. “L?n sau ph?i d?n dúng gi? hon
d?y.” (“Could you try to be more on time next time?”) while 6.7% of
Anglicist have the same strategy with similar expression like “Try to come
on time.”

For situation 11b, while the majority of Anglo American subjects

choose to use Hint, the most indirect strategy, most of Vietnamese subjects
tend to employ more direct strategies, especially strategy 6. With greater use
of direct strategies, the Vietnamese subjects seem to be more direct
complainers than the Anglo American one with complaints like “Ph?i c?n
th?n ch?!” (“You should be more careful”). There are also 23.3% of Anglo
American participants prefer Annoyance with expression such as “Now I
need to have it cleaned!” while only three out thirty (10%) of Vietnamese
ones do so. It is also noted that none or just a small number of subjects from
both groups choose strategies such as strategy number 8, 9 and 10.
 As shown in Table 6, in situation 12b, the two groups of subjects
share some similarity in choosing the second strategy Annoyance. Many of
the Anglicists often employ such expressions as “I need a few minutes of
silence to finish this thing up; could you maybe move to another room or
something?” “Sorry, I’m concentrating on my work, please be quiet.”
Besides, there are also a few Anglo American participants choose such
strategies as Str. 3, 4 and 7. Meanwhile, it is noted that some of the
Vietnamese subjects tend to choose directive strategies when complaining
like Str.6 and 7 as illustrated in “? n quá d?y nhé.” (“You are making so
much noise”). Another thing should be regarded here is the use of politeness
markers, downgraders or preparing and disarming strategies by Anglo
American subjects to soften their complaints like: “I hope I’m not bothering
you, but could you please be a little quieter, I’m working on something” or
“Help me with your quietness, please”. Nevertheless, the data collected
from Vietnamese subjects reveal the opposite tendency as they use such
upgraders like too or so much as in “? n quá d?y nhé.” (“You are making so
much noise”).

Generally speaking, in a situation where the Complainer and the

Complainee are of equal power, the Anglo American speakers and
Vietnamese speakers seem to be different in the level of directness regarding
to their choice of complaint strategies. The Anglicists tend to choose the first
two strategies Hint and Annoyance among others while the Vietnamese
either choose to keep silence or some more direct strategies like Direct
accusation and Modified blame.
4.2.2.3. The choice of complaint strategies in higher power settings

In general, the Anglo American and the Vietnamese subjects have

some similarities in their choice of strategies for their complaints when the
Complainer has higher power than the Complainee. Table 7 gives the results
of complaint strategies by both groups of subjects for three situations 10c,
11c and 12c. The results show that in such situations most Anglicist choose
direct strategies such as Direct accusation or Modified blame and the
Vietnamese also share the agreement with them.

Situation 10c Situation 11c Situation 12c

Strategies

Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese Anglicist Vietnamese

0 0 0 0 0 3.3% 0
1 0 16.7% 23.4% 10% 3.3% 13.3%
2 13.4% 3.3% 13.3% 16.7% 46.7% 60%
3 3.3% 0 16.7% 6.7% 6.7% 3.3%
4 13,3% 0 0 0 6.7% 0
5 46.7% 6.7% 6.7% 3.3% 6.7% 0
6 6.7% 60% 33.3% 43.3% 16.7% 6.7%
7 3.3% 0 0 20% 6.6% 16.7%
8 0 0 3.3% 0 3.3% 0
9 10% 0 3.3% 0 0 0
10 3.3% 13.3% 0 0 0 0

0. No strategies (keeping silence) 6. Modified blame

1. Hint 7. Explicit condemnation towards Action
2. Annoyance 8. Explicit condemnation towards Person
3. Consequence 9. Request for repair
4. Indirect accusation 10. Threat
5. Direct accusation

Table 7: The choice of complaint strategies with respect to higher power

 In situation 10c, where the speaker complained to his or her assistant,
the choice of complaint strategies by both groups differ as most of the
Anglicists choose to employ Direct Accusation as illustrated in “You are
late. What’s your reason?” whereas the majority of Vietnamese tend to use
Modified blame like “L?n sau d?ng di mu?n d?y” (Don’t be late next time).
None of both groups choose to Keep silence or choose Explicit
condemnation towards Person. There is also none of the Anglo American
subjects choose to give Hint, but six out of thirty Vietnamese speakers
employ this strategy. Another point should be taken into account here is the
use of directive acts like Threat by some Anglicists and Vietnamese with
expression like: “There is no excuse for being late and if you keep it up, you
will be replaced” or “Anh l?n sau nên d?n dúng gi? n?u không thì co quan
s? có hình th?c ph?t dành riêng cho ngu?i di mu?n” (You should be on time
next time or else there will be penalty for you”).

For the next situation when the assistant spills the juice on the new
suit of the speaker, the choice of complaint strategies by both groups of
speakers is nearly similar. As can be drawn from Table 7, the majority of
both groups opt for Modified blame to express their complaints in Sit. 11c
with similar expressions like “Be careful next time” or “Ph?i c?n th?n
ch?!” (You should be more careful.”) None of both groups choose to Keep
silence or to Threat and only a small number of two groups (from one to five
people) use Str.3, 5, 8 and 9. Though they have the same choice in complaint
strategies, the frequencies which they use them are not really similar as
33.3% of Anglicists choose Str.6 while 43.3% of Vietnamese share the
agreement. There are also 23.4% Anglo American subjects who use Hint,
whereas only three out of thirty (10%) Vietnamese choose this strategy.
 For the last situation of the survey, the two groups of participants once
again share their agreement as the majority of them choose to employ the
second strategy Annoyance. In addition, there are also a number of Anglo
merican subjects tend to use Str.6 and 7, namely Modified blame and
Explicit condemnation towards Action with some downgraders and
disarming strategies and as illustrated in “Could you lower your voice a little
bit?” or “Why you are making noise? Look, I can’t focus on my work.”
Meanwhile the Vietnamese also use these strategies but without those
“softening” devices, e.g. “Tr?t t? d? ngu?i khác làm vi?c, gi? này là gi? nói
chuy?n à?” (Keep silence to let others work, this is not time for chatting).

In a nutshell, through the data provided by two groups of subjects,

many Vietnamese show their agreement with Anglo American speakers in
their choice of complaint strategies in high power situation. However, the
utilities of internal and external modifications by these two groups are quite
different. While downgraders and disarming strategies appear in many
complaints made by Anglicists, they are not preferred by Vietnamese.

4.3. Conclusion

In this chapter, the advisability of making complaints and the choice

of complaint strategies made by Anglicist and Vietnames have been
presented. After analyzing the data of the two groups of subjects, we find out
that Anglicist and Vietnamese have quite different ideas about the
advisability of making complaints in the workplace. Also, both groups
employ a great variety of strategies in the complaints but the frequencies of
each strategy used by each group are different.
 With respect to the lower power settings, most of the Anglo American
subjects think that they should complain to their superior while such
decision is not preferred by the majority of Vietnamese subjects. For the
choice of complaint strategies, while the Anglicists often choose such
indirect strategies like Hint or Annoyance, the Vietnamese tend to say
nothing to complain, which has been reflected to some extend in their choice
of advisability of making complaints. In equal power situations, most of the
Vietnamese speakers seem to be unsure about the advisability of making
complaints while the majority of Anglicists think they need to complain in
such situations. The strategies the Anglicists tend to choose for such settings
are once again the first two strategies Hint and Annoyance. Meanwhile the
Vietnamese either choose to Keep silence or some more direct strategies like
Direct accusation and Modified blame. In the last category of situations,
where the Complainer is of higher power than the Complainee, the data
collected has showed that both Vietnamese and Anglo American subjects
think it is advisable to make complaints to their inferiors. In addition, they
also share agreement in employing some strategies like Direct accusation
and Modified blame.

The findings also reveal some differences between two groups of

subjects in their use of internal and external modifications. Anglo American
subjects tend to add such downgraders as a bit, a little, please, etc. as well as
some preparatory and disarming strategies to their complaints, whereas
Vietnamese subjects often include upgraders like too, much, etc. while they
complain. These similarities and differences above suggest some interesting
implications for Vietnamese officers to have better communication in terms
of complaining in the workplace, especially in a multicultural one.
 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

5.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter, the data collected from the survey

questionnaire has been carefully analyzed to show the similarities and
differences in the advisability of making complaints as well as the choice of
complaint strategies of Vietnamese and Anglo American subjects. In the
final chapter of the study, a brief summary of the research findings will be
presented. Moreover, the implications for Vietnamese officers to
communicate better in a multicultural working environment is the main part
of the chapter. Besides, the limitations of the research and suggestions for
future research are also included.

5.2. Summary of the research

The present study highlights the similarities and the differences in the
complaints Vietnamese and Anglo-American officers made during their
working time. With the careful analysis of the data, the research reveals the
following major findings:

5.2.1. Similarities and differences in the advisability of making complaints

Vietnamese and Anglicist share the agreement that they should

complain to their inferiors when they make mistakes. However, Vietnamese
officers are unsure whether to complain to their colleague or not; and they
often keep silence in front of their superiors. On the contrary, in both cases,
the Anglicists think they should make complaints even the complainees are
of equal or higher power than them.

5.2.1. Similarities and differences in the choice of complaint strategies

Overall, the Vietnamese and Anglo American subjects appear to be

nearly similar in their choice of complaints strategies in higher power
settings as the majorities of both group tend to employ two strategies Direct
accusation and Modified blame.

Nevertheless, they show their differences in the choice of strategies

used in equal and lower settings. When the Complainee is their colleague,
Vietnamese subjects choose either to Keep silence or direct strategies like
Direct accusation and Modified blame where as Anglo American subjects
employ less direct strategies like Hint or Annoyance. In situations with lower
setting, a great number of Vietnamese subjects tend to keep silence instead
of complaining to their bosses. In contrast, many Anglicist still choose to
complain but they use some indirect strategies like Hint or Annoyance.
Another difference between Anglicist and Vietnamese found in the data
analysis is their choice of using internal and external modifications.
Downgraders are preferred by the latter while the former tend to include
upgraders in their complaints.

5.3. Implication for Vietnamese officers - Research question 3: How can

Vietnamese officers have better communication in the workplace?

The research results would have some significant implications to

improve the effectiveness of Vietnamese officers’ complaints in particular
and to enhance their communication skills in the workplace in general.
 The results of the research reveal that Vietnamese white-collar
workers often hesitate to make direct complaints to their colleagues or their
superiors. Although it is understandable that complaining is a face threaten
act and most Vietnamese people want to avoid it, the silence they keep can
become disadvantageous in some situations. Therefore, it is suggested that
Vietnamese officers can apply the Anglo American perception of making
complaints’ advisability by choosing to complain not only to their assistants
but also their colleagues and bosses.

The study also suggests some strategies that can make a complaint
more polite and effective. For the fact that Vietnamese officers often either
keep silence or employ some strategies with high level of directness, it is
necessary for them to be aware that in making complaints, the complainer
appears the less face-threatening the better. Also, while being less face-
threatening, the complainer also tries to be more indirect, which reflects the
idea of giving more way out to the complainee. The suggested strategies for
Vietnamese officers here are some indirect ones like Hint or Annoyance.
Also, the use of internal modifications like downgraders and external
modifications like preparatory and disarming strategies are also encouraged
in order to “soften” the complaints.

In a broader view, to better communicate in the workplace, especially

in a multicultural one, the Vietnamese officers should be aware of and learn
more about the cultural differences to avoid communication failure.
Moreover, it is suggested that they should pay more attention about
politeness strategies and try to use it appropriately and effectively.
5.4. Limitations of the study

Due to the limited time and the researcher’ little experience in

conducting a research, this study inevitably encounters some limitations as
follows. For the study’s instrument, the questionnaires can not fully elicit the
verbal complaints made by the subjects. Besides, they were conducted in a
short time, which may have brought about possible affective factors on the
attitude and perception differences among the participants. Furthermore, due
to the scope of the research, this study could only be conducted within a
small population of participants, thus, the result might not be representative
enough, which should be improved in further research.

5.5. Suggestions for further study

Although the research can be useful in some ways as mentioned,

there are still many undiscovered sub-areas which provide a ground for
further studies. Firstly, as mentioned above, a larger number of subjects
should be invited to participate in the study as thirty subjects in each group
seem not be sufficient enough. Secondly, since complaint is considered as a
socially complex and culturally specific act, the hidden social reasons
explaining for the differences between two groups of subjects have not been
carefully investigated. Therefore, it would be very interesting to examine the
causes behind them. Last but not least, this study only focus on the
complaints made by Anglicists and Vietnamese white-collar workers which
may leave an option for other researchers to investigate the speech act of
responding to the complaints.
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 APPENDICES
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

My name is Vu Th? Ng?c Qu?nh. I am currently taking the degree of Bachelor of Arts
(TEFL) offered by the English Department, Hanoi University of Languages and
International Studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU). My graduation paper
is titled “A Cross-cultural study on complaints made by Vietnamese and Anglicist in
the workplace”. I am conducting this study in order to identify the major similarities as
well as differences in complaints made in workplace by Anglicist and Vietnamese. This
questionnaire will only be used for the purposes of the research. Should you take part in
this study, your confidentiality is ensured in any circumstances.

I. Please tick (v ) where appropriate:

Your nationality: …………………………………

Your age: 20 - 30 30 - 40 40 - 50 50 - 60

Your gender: Male Female

Your occupation: …………………………………

Your acquisition of language(s) other than your mother tongue:

Excellent Good Fair Poor

II. Do you think it is advisable to complain someone in the following situation?

Please tick (v ) in the appropriate column

Situations Advisable Yes & no Unadvisable

1. You have worked in a department of a large

office for a number of years. You are satisfied
with the job. Your manager is introducing a new
working schedule that you feel unhappy with.

2. Every year, your boss writes a review of your

job performance. This year, you find out that
your boss is giving you a bad review which you
think is not fair.

3. Your salary is cut down some percents

without any reason.

4. Your colleague comes late for the group

meeting.

5. Your colleague spills ink on the document that

you are going to give the employer.

6. Your colleague is making noise while you

need to finish an important work in quietness.

7. Your assistant has left the office much earlier

recently.

8. Your assistant lost one page of your

company’s confidential documents.

9. You ask your assistant to type a report for you.

When you get back the finished product, it is full
of errors.

III. How would you verbally complain in the following situation?

10. How would you verbally complain to the following person when he/she came late for
the appointment?

a. Your boss

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

b. Your colleague

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

c. Your assistant

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

11. How would you verbally complain to the following person when he/she spilled juice
on your new suit?

a. Your boss

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

b. Your colleague

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

c. Your assistant

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

12. How would you verbally complain to the following person when he/she is making
noise while you need to finish an important work in quietness?

a. Your boss

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

b. Your colleague

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

c. Your assistant

You’d say: ………………………………………………………………………………….

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

 CÂU H? I KH? O SÁT

Chúng tôi l?p b?n kh?o sát này nh?m ph?c v? cho d? tài “Nghiên c? u giao van hóa v?
l?i phàn nàn c?a ngu?i Vi?t và ngu?i Anh-Mi noi công s?”. Xin quý v? b?t chút th?i
gian tr? l?i giúp chúng tôi nh? ng câu h?i này. Chúng tôi xin b?o d?m r?ng s? không ti?t
l? danh tính c?a quý v? trong b?t c? hoàn c?nh nào. Chúng tôi xin chân thành c?m on.

I. Xin quý v?dánh d?u (v ) vào nh? ng ch? phù h?p

Noi sinh: ………………………………

Nhóm tu?i: 20 - 30 30 - 40 40 - 50 50 – 60

Gi?i tính: Nam N?

Ngh? nghi?p: …………………………

Trình d? ngo?i ng? c?a quý v?:

Gi?i Khá Trung bình Y?u

II. Theo quý v?, trong nh? ng tru?ng h?p sau dây, có nên dua ra l?i phàn nàn hay
không? Xin hãy dánh d?u (v ) t?i ô mà quý v?cho là phù h?p

Tình hu?ng Nên Trung tính Không nên

1. Quý v? dã làm t?i m?t công ty l?n trong th?i

gian khá lâu. Quý v? th?y hài lòng v?i công
vi?c c?a mình. Giám d?c c?a quý v? v? a dua ra
m?t k? ho?ch làm vi?c m?i mà quý v? không
v? a ý.

2. Hàng nam c?p trên c?a quý v? d?u vi?t m?t

b?n nh?n xét v? thành tích trong công vi?c c?a
quý v?. Nam nay, c?p trên c?a quý v? dua ra
m?t b?n nh?n xét mà quý v? cho là b?t công.

3. Ti?n luong c?a quý v? b? c?t gi?m không rõ

lí do.

4. Ð?ng nghi?p c?a quý v? d?n mu?n trong

bu?i h?p.

5. Ð?ng nghi?p c?a quý v? làm d? m? c lên tài

li?u mà quý v? chu?n b? n?p cho giám d?c.

6. Ð?ng nghi?p c?a quý v? làm ?n trong khi

quý v? dang c?n yên tinh d? hoàn thành m?t
công vi?c quan tr?ng.

7. G?n dây c?p du?i c?a quý v? thu?ng xuyên

xin v? s?m.

8. C?p du?i c?a quý v? làm m?t m?t trang

trong tài li?u m?t c?a công ty.

9. Quý v? giao cho c?p du?i c?a mình dánh

m?t b?n báo cáo. Khi h? dua l?i b?n báo cáo,
quý v? nh?n ra nó có r?t nhi?u l?i.

III. Quý v?hãy d?c nh? ng tình hu?ng sau dây và dua ra nh? ng l?i phàn nàn phù
h?p:

10. Quý v?s? phàn nàn nhu th? nào n?u có ngu?i d?n mu?n bu?i h?p?

a. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p trên c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

b. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p d?ng nghi?p c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

c. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p du?i c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

11. Quý v?s? phàn nàn nhu th? nào n?u có ngu?i d? nu?c trái cây lên b? qu?n áo m?i
c?a quý v??

a. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p trên c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

b. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p d?ng nghi?p c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

c. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p du?i c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

12. Quý v?s? phàn nàn nhu th? nào n?u có ngu?i làm ?n trong khi quý v?c?n yên tinh d?
làm vi?c?

a. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p trên c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

b. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p d?ng nghi?p c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

c. N?u ngu?i dó là c?p du?i c?a quý v?

Quý v? nói: …………………………………………………………………………………

XIN CHÂN THÀNH C? M ON