Most of politeness strategies are used by both English

and Vietnamese informants, of which, the SNP holds the top priority. Common utterances of SNP are “Congratulations”, “Congratulation on …” in English, and “Chúc mừng”, “Xin chúc mừng”, “Tôi  chúc mừng anh/chị đã …”, “Tôi rất vui vì chị được mẹ tròn con vuông.” in Vietnamese . As a result, the SNP responses are usually direct utterances, or conventional indirect ones.

One thing beyond our expectation is that the Vietnamese, believed to be collectivistic, are more SNP oriented than the English from any aspects of C.P relationship and informants’ parameters. This does not advocate our hypothesis that the Vietnamese are more PP than the English.

The SPP ranks the second, sometimes the third in some cases instead of the P-N COM. Common utterances used in English and Vietnamese in these strategies are:

-Well done

-I’m very proud of you / I’m happy for you.

-That’s so fantastic. Congratulations.

-Chúc mừng cậu nhé. (Congratulations.)

-Em khoẻ chưa? Cháu trông dễ thương lắm! (How are you doing? What a lovely baby!)

(cited from the DCT questionnaires)

P.COM is employed but not very frequently, especially by Vietnamese informants. Finally, the strategy rarely applied is the N.COM.

A notable thing is that with C.P as someone one dislikes, both lish and Vietnamese addressors tend not to do the FTA via negative silence (Eng: 28%, Viet: 22%), or tend toward on record without redressive action via such an utterance as “Congratulations” (Eng: 41.5%, Vie: 64%). This, anyway, is still regarded as NP. It is interesting that the on record without redressive action, which badly displays the distance, the unattentiveness, or out-group, is the most favorite congratulating strategy in the case of someone one dislikes. Just a few English and Vietnamese informants perform the COM. Similar is the case of non-blood C.P as neighbor; however, the negative silence is much lower used than it in the case of someone one dislikes. The result shows that the more distant the relation is; the smaller the numbered strategy (on Brown & Levinson’s chart) is resorted.

One strategy worthy mentioning is silence. Though silence (both non-verbal expression and non-expression) is beyond the scope of this study; it is, in fact, in use by both English and Vietnamese informants, especially with someone they dislike (negative silence ranks the second highest, just after the SNP). 

The study focuses on the influence of the following social factors:

-Social distance: close friend, someone one dislikes

-Relative power: colleague, boss, employee, and,

-Blood – Non-blood relations: neighbor and bro/sis.

A comparative and contrastive analysis is done between partners in the same group as well as among all groups.

It is obvious that each factor exercises its own impact

on the informants’ choice. An evident difference can be seen in congratulating two partners with close social distance (close friend) and far social distance (someone one dislikes). With close friend, both English and Vietnamese informants tend to extend the conversation, while they tend to shorten the conversation, or just simply say “Congratulations” as a social norm with someone they dislike. In addition, they prefer D to ID, NP to PP. These choices are in contrast to the ones in the case of close friend.

The similar result is for group of “blood - non-blood relation”. The way English and Vietnamese informants congratulate their bro/sis and close friend is alike; congratulating neighbor and someone they dislike is not significantly different.

Relative power shows the most preference for D and NP, as well as similar frequency of using D & ID strategies, PP & NP to each partner of the English group. However, this equality is less evident in the Vietnamese congratulating than in the English one. This supports the idea by Trần Ngọc Thêm [37, p.280] that the Vietnamese culture is hierarchic.

As a matter of course, the frequencies of strategies used for different partners are different in the two groups. With most of partners, the Vietnamese informants are more NP oriented than the English, except for the employee.