Sociocultural influences on british and vietnamese personal names

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ……………………………………………………………. i ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………. ii LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………... iii LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………. iii PART A: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................1 Rationale ........................................................................................................................1 Aims of the study...........................................................................................................2 Research Questions........................................................................................................2 Method of the study .......................................................................................................2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT..................................................................................................3 CHAPTER I. REVIEW OF LITERATURE......................................................................3 1.1. Language, thought and culture................................................................................3 1.2. Culture ....................................................................................................................4 1.3. How to compare two cultures .................................................................................4 1.4. British and Vietnamese cultural identities ..............................................................5 1.5. Definitions of personal names and name components............................................9 1.6. Previous researches on the subject........................................................................12 CHAPTER II. SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPACTS ON NAMING CUSTOMS WITHIN BRITISH AND VIETNAMESE COMMUNITIES ........................................................14 2.1. The procedure and data collection ........................................................................14 2.2. Data analysis .........................................................................................................15 2.3. Discussion.............................................................................................................24 2.4. Findings ................................................................................................................25 2.5. Table of popular British and Vietnamese personal names and their meanings ...29 PART C. CONCLUSIONS AND APPLICATIONS ON LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING.........................................................................................................................32 1. Summary and implication in learning and teaching English ...................................32 2. Suggestions for further study...................................................................................33 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................35 In English.....................................................................................................................35 In Vietnamese ..............................................................................................................36 Survey Questionnaire 1 (Vietnamese version) …..………………..……………………. I Survey Questionnaire 2 (English version) ………………………………....................... III 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale In every language, personal names are linguistic objects and complex representations. In addition, personal name is considered as one aspect of culture. Many people believe that personal names reflect beliefs, thought of people about the world around them. In fact, there have been some scientific experiments which support these beliefs. Besides, personal names reflect the concerns and values of a society. This is particularly true in many cultures around the world. People form a name by exploiting the richness and inventiveness of their language, adapting, combining and re-combining nouns, adjectives and verbs to create new forms reflecting features of their landscape, and the values of their religious, cultural and political life. Especially, a personal name is used to identify individuals, to distinguish sex, to perform aesthetic function, and so on. In many cultures, the selection of a child’s name and the presentation of the child to the community are important events. Naming children is of great importance to everyone. Almost parents take the choosing of names for their children very seriously. They want the name they choose to have special significance. Because some people believe that a child's name can influence his or her future, it is not only identification, but a way of expressing aspirations and expectations. So a name's meaning, how it sounds, and what it suggests to others are all important considerations. However, the idea of personal name varies from country to country, and from person to person. Take Vietnamese and British personal names as example, when we learn English and its culture, we can find clearly that there are some differences between Vietnamese and English personal names. From my experience and observations, it’s these differences that cause many difficulties to our students. To some extent, the study of personal names can be fascinating and personal name has been an interesting topic for many researchers so far. Therefore, these are the reasons I am so interested in personal names and have been studying on naming traditions in Vietnamese and English culture. And SOCIO- CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON BRITISH AND VIETNAMESE PERSONAL NAMES has been chosen as the topic of my study. 2 Aims of the study The purposes of the research study could be clearly identified as following: - To provide an interesting picture of the differences and similarities between Vietnamese and English personal names which is considered as one part of culture. - To investigate the influences of socio-cultural factors on English and Vietnamese personal names. - To draw out cross - cultural implication for Vietnamese learners of English when using personal name in formal communication and in learning English. Research Questions In this study, the following questions are mainly focused on: 1. What are the differences and similarities between British and Vietnamese personal names from socio-cultural perspectives? 2. How do the socio-cultural factors affect the ways of naming a newborn in British and Vietnamese cultures? Method of the study To achieve the aims stated, a contrastive analysis (CA) and descriptive method are carried out throughout the study. The sources of information include my knowledge, experience based on being a Vietnamese native; my knowledge of Vietnamese and English language and cultures. I also make use of some works on personal names from Internet and reference books from the library because they are important source that provide comprehensive look at the study. Consultation from the supervisor and other lecturers is the important input for the research. Discussion with Vietnamese natives in daily conversation can get more information and more knowledge of the topic. The questionnaire is carried out with English native speakers, Vietnamese native speakers and Vietnamese learners of English. Multiple choice and open questions are exploited in the survey. Personal interview, mail collection, daily discussions and delivered questionnaires are adopted so that it could help to provide understandings how and why there are differences and similarities in socio-cultural influences on naming a child within the two cultures through. Inductive method can be considered the basis for the analysis of the study. 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 1.1. Language, thought and culture There is no doubt that language, culture and thought are closely related to each other, the most obvious influence of language and culture on thought is that of vocabulary. One of the best examples to illustrate this relation is the use of word in naming people in different cultures. Therefore, it is necessary to look at the relation between language, culture and thought. People who live in different areas of the world have different cultural backgrounds and use different languages. Language and culture appear on the surface to be two distinct fields, but they have an intertwined relationship and affect each other mutually. Gleason (1961) indicated that languages are not only the products of cultures, but also are the symbols of cultures. The development of a language frequently affects its associated culture, and cultural patterns of cognition and custom are often explicitly coded in language. We also know that our ability to use language and our ability to think and conceptualize develop at the same time and these abilities depend on each other. Firstly, it is obvious that language is a tool for expressing human thought. Each language has a characteristic worldview. It reflects the way people think and view the world around them. According to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, “language, culture and thought are all mirrors of each other”. In fact, language and thought are derivatives of cultures. Thought itself differs across languages and cultures because languages clearly differ from each other. Through language, we can understand people’s thought and language is clearly the representation of human thought. Secondly, does language affect human thought? The answer is yes. According to George Yule (1996- 246), we can only think in the categories which our language allows us to think. Take the example, if two languages seem to have very different ways of describing the way the world is, it is possible that when you learn one of those language, the way your language is organized will determine how you perceive the world being organized. 4 1.2. Culture According to Condon (1973), culture can be defined as a way of life. No matter where people live, their behaviors and thoughts follow and are generally based on their own cultures. Culture has many different dimensions. It includes ideas, customs, skills, arts and tools that characterize group of people in a given period; it is also the beliefs, values, and material objects that create our way of life. Culture establishes a context of cognitive and affective behavior for each person. It influences individual estimation and attitudes, and can have an effect on practical aspects of life such as hobbies. Culture is also a matter of habit, and it is habit that becomes tradition and tradition that gives rise to culture. Local people begin with habitual actions and go on to create common stereotypes. Condon further explained that stereotypes assign group characteristics to individual purely on the basis of their cultural membership. The cultural stereotypes affect how people think, speak, act, and interact with one another. Samovar, Porter, and Jain (1981) also stated that culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what, and how the communication proceeds, but also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted. In a word, culture is the foundation of communication. Without culture, we cannot understand the lives and motivations of others and connect with their concerns and interests. Culture is inherent in our being and a powerful human tool to develop our society, add to our knowledge, and establish the relationships between people. However, culture is fragile. The traits of culture are constantly changing and easily lost. If we do not value it, we will lose it eventually. Learning about culture is absolutely enriching. The more one knows others, the more she sees her own culture more clearly.” By learning about contrasts, we can better understand how culture influences individuals and their communication with others” (Nguyen Quang, p 5). 1.3. How to compare two cultures According to Robert Lado (1957), we cannot hope to compare two cultures unless we have more accurate understanding of each of the cultures being compared. We must be able to eliminate the things we claim to do but actually don't do. We must be able to 5 describe the things we do without being conscious of doing them, and we must make sure we are able to describe practices accurately, not haphazardly or ideally. And we must be able to describe the situations in which we do what we do. The author of Linguistics across cultures also gave a definition of culture that can be useful in guiding cultural comparisons. It is stated that, “Cultures are structured systems of patterned behavior” (p. 40) that “have form, meaning, and distribution” (p. 41). This definition acknowledges that cultural patterns are systematic and shared, that they express culture-specific meaning and that they differ according to such variables as gender, age, ethnicity, race, education, power, income, religion, region, and other social and geographic variables, and that cultural patterns can change over time. When comparing a linguistic phenomenon in terms of culture, we do not only mention or present it but also analyze the similarity as well as the differences between them so as to understand, and then use the language the most appropriately. CA in cultures aimed to compare culture phenomenon in languages, which are English and Vietnamese personal names in this study. 1.4. British and Vietnamese cultural identities British cultural identities Britain is a country with defined boundaries, a recognizable landscape, a long history, and a position in the various international economic, social, and political league tables. It is comprised of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It is important not only to be aware of these geographical distinctions, but also the strong sense of identity and nationalism felt by the populations of these four nations. The terms 'English' and 'British' do not mean the same thing. 'British' denotes someone who is from England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. 'English' refers to people from England. People from Scotland are 'Scots', from Wales ‘Welsh’ and from Northern Ireland ‘Irish’. In the past few decades, people from varied backgrounds have had greater access to higher education, wealth distribution is changing but the British class system still exists although in a more subconscious way. Class is no longer simply about wealth or where one lives; the British are able to find out someone’s class through a number of complex 6 variables including the way a person behaves towards others, their accent, manners and attitudes… The British Isles has over-time incorporated other cultures into their own. The British Isles has traditionally been colonized by immigrants, though it has not been invaded for approx. a thousand years. The sights of many of their major towns were decided by the Romans as were our roadways. The judicial system of twelve jurors and a judge comes from Northern Europe. The Celtic romantic image comes from a body of people who invaded these shores before the Romans. The pageantry they have was probably brought by the Normans. Some of the best music they have was brought by mixing with and listening to the Caribbean rhythms and American-African blues. The English language is a hybrid of Latin, Greek, French, Flemish and Germanic tongues… Moreover, since World War II, the UK has been an ethnically diverse country with people from various origins because of a large number of immigrant populations, particularly from its former colonies such as India, Pakistan and the West Indies. The mixture of ethnic groups and cultures make it difficult to define “Britishness” nowadays. According to Storry, M.(1997), nationality is a matter of allegiance and cultural affiliation. It has also been argued that nationality is no longer a powerful force in Britain, that it is simply a matter of circumstance, and that today it is far less significant than local or global identities: relatives, friends, and communities are more important to them and so is transnational culture. Christianity is the major religion with many Christian churches, denominations, and groups. Many other religions have also established a presence in the UK , mainly through immigration, though also by attracting converts. After Christianity and the irreligious those religions with the most adherents are various forms of Islam and Hinduism. Other faiths include Jedi, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, Rastafarianism and Neopaganism. There are also organizations which promote rationalism, humanism, and secularism. The British are very reserved and private people. Privacy is extremely important. They rarely want to express their feelings, emotions to strangers. Especially they would prefer to keep silent in the public areas; they never talk on the bus, the train and so on. Another typical characteristic of the British is modesty, they don’t like to show off themselves and modesty is highly appreciated. The British also have the sense of humor and they hate to 7 laught at others’ mistakes. The British are exeptionally famous for their country ethos “England was at heart a rural country which had a country ethos” (J.B. Priesley) Vietnamese cultural identities Vietnamese culture is the fruit of thousands of years of creative labor and the indomitable struggle for national construction and protection by the multi-ethnic Vietnamese community. It is also the result of our exchanges with and inheritance from world culture. Vietnamese culture has built the soul, character, and abilities of the Vietnamese people. It has helped to glorify our national history. The Vietnamese’s typical characteristics include: a strong hearted patriotism, closeness to their homeland (especially as home, village and country); collectivism; diligence and industriousness; good patience; good relationship with their surroundings; flexible behavior, good adaptability and integration. The salient characteristic of the Vietnamese is sentimentalism in relationships between people and people, people and nature; the behavior and responsibility towards the next generation is expressed in their involvement in charitable causes. The majority Vietnamese live on wet rice cultivation, therefore agriculture is of utmost importance in the traditional social structure or in the culture of community organization. To Vietnamese people, family tradition is very important. A traditional family is one in which the home is tidy and relations are hierarchical. All members of a family have to respect each other, the young respecting the old and the old making concessions to the young. Everybody always gets along well with each other. Children must be well behaved, have good characteristics, and set a good example for and be loved by other members of their families and communities. Today, this traditional pattern continues to be transmitted from one generation to the next. For many years, Vietnamese people believe that family is the social microcosm from which people originate the "cradle of peace" that is a foundation for all future interactions. Without a traditional family hierarchy or force of nation, society would risk losing its order and structure. The role of a mother in a family is t