1. Full name: Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh                                

2. Sex: Female

3. Date of birth: October 1st, 1988        

4. Place of birth: Haiphong

5. Admission decision number: 283/QĐ-ĐHNN issued by the President of VNU University of Languages and International Studies, dated on January 15th, 2016

6. Changes in academic process: Revising the thesis title

7. Official thesis title: A cross-cultural study of Responding to Compliments in American English and Vietnamese (Nghiên cứu giao văn hóa trong việc hồi đáp lời khen trong tiếng Anh Mỹ và tiếng Việt)

8. Major: English Linguistics           

9. Code: 9220201.01

10. Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Quang

11. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:

It has been found that the Americans generally perceive compliments as speech acts that are positive and with good intentions produced, and as a consequence, they typically experience them with the same attitude. Therefore, a compliment response constituting acceptance has been discovered to be mostly used. The results of the American data set have empirically confirmed that "thank you" or "thanks" is the official response and that this kind of response does suffice when a response to a compliment is to be given, as proposed by Johnson (1979, p.43-44). Other findings that have taken into consideration factors of gender, social distance and topic, suggest that the ways the Americans answered compliments vary, which results in the detection of certain tendencies and preferences of this group when it comes to strategies of compliment responses. However, overall, the acceptance compliment responses still prevail in all types of interaction i.e., interactions in which a complimenter and a complimentee show both differences and similarities concerning gender and social status and across four different topics of compliments.

By and large, findings of Vietnamese compliment responses bear a high degree of divergence with the findings of American compliment responses. Contrary to the predominant use of acceptance strategy, the Vietnamese respondents react more diversely. Their choices of combination in the role-play situations are recorded at such a high frequency. The more elaborate findings of influences of gender, status, and topic also indicate a certain degree of differences in the American and Vietnamese compliment responses.

12. Practical applicability, if any:

The newly employed CR taxonomy could also be perceived as a contribution to the pragmatics field. It consists of a number of well-categorized strategies used by informants of both languages. It could also form a base for creating a simple, clear and extensive coding scheme for other studies investigating the speech act of compliment response in other cultures.

In light of the current language teaching and learning trends, which give more attention to communicative language instruction including pragmatic competence, and the evidence that language learners may lack mastery of communicative act, the present findings could be a paramount importance to English and Vietnamese learners. The findings of this study may be beneficial in broadening the learners’ knowledge about aptness in the target language and thus increase their understanding of their own culture as well as other’s. The findings could enrich the language learners’ repertoire of what expression they can use, who responds to compliments and to whom, how and their contextual and social correspondence improves our understanding of a person’s social and cultural meaning and values in a certain community.

13. Further research directions, if any:

As we have seen, this study's American and Vietnamese participants show that the compliment response strategies they have employed are relatively similar, and the slight differences, noticed on a deeper level, may explain particular cultural distinctions. Hence, it may be speculated that interaction between American and Vietnamese native speakers may trigger misunderstandings and communication breakdowns, which could be debated to have their roots in those assumed cultural differences. This speculation is a potential issue worth further exploration.

14. Thesis-related publications:

Journal articles  

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2015). Expressing satisfaction in American English and Vietnamese (as Seen from the Categorical Dimension of Directness- Indirectness). VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 31 (4), 25-36.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2019). Research methods in Intercultural communication. A practical guide. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 35 (6), 154-157.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2020). Investigating Compliment response strategies in American English and Vietnamese under the effect of Social status. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 36 (4), 1-10.

Conference proceedings:

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2017). Expressing satisfaction in American English and Vietnamese. Proceeding of “2017 Graduate Research Symposium”, ULIS-VNU, 349-360.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2018). A study on politeness strategies manifested in expressing satisfaction in American English and Vietnamese. Proceedings of “4th International Conference: Interdisciplinary research in Linguistics and Language Education”, Hue University-University of Foreign Languages, 934-947.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2018). Politeness strategies in expressing satisfaction. Proceeding of “2018 International Graduate Research Symposium”, ULIS-VNU, 365-379.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2019). A contrastive study of Responding to compliments in American English and Vietnamese. Proceeding of “2019 International Graduate Research Symposium”, ULIS-VNU, 427-437.

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh, (2020). The influence of compliment topics on the choices of compliment responding strategies in American English and Vietnamese. Proceeding of “2020 International Graduate Research Symposium & 10th East Asia Chinese Teaching Forum”, ULIS-VNU, Vol. 1, 36-50.