We will put all out thoughts from discussion on culture here.
Hopefully, this is the great place to share ideas.
The first entry will be about the two articles that we read on terms of person address and names in Vietnamese.
Here is the comments and discussion
- Christina Le: I think it is interesting how in Vietnamese when we say thank you that we must always put who we are addressing into our phrase. There is no such thing as "Thank you" in Vietnamese. Instead, it would be "Thank sir" or "thank miss" for example. Furthermore, I think it is very interesting how there are many different words to describe different people that you have relation to. For instance, how you refer to your father's brother and your mother's father is different.
- Elizabeth Hentschel: What
I found most interesting about the article on Vietnamese culture wasn’t
the fact that Vietnamese people are rarely emotionally neutral, but
their reasoning behind this lack of emotional neutrality. The article
states that Vietnamese people prefer to establish an emotional
relationship to whoever they’re talking to almost immediately. They
don’t want you to be just a random “you”, but rather an aunt, uncle,
friend, teacher, etc. Another interesting component that this article
stated was the fact that it’s appropriate for wives to call their
husbands “anh”, meaning older brother, and husbands in tern call their
wives “em”, or younger sister, which is a concept completely foreign to
Americans.
- Phu Ho: It is interesting to know that some of the Vietnamese terms for
addressing people are derived from French words, such as ba (Vietnamese)
from papa (French). After reading this article, I am more aware of the
terms of address when I refer to my aunt (dì = mother’s sister), uncles
(cậu = mother’s brother), and grandparents (ông nội / bà nội =
grandparents on father’s side and ông ngoại / bà ngoại = grandparents of
mother’s side).
There are about one hundred Vietnamese family names (last names). Family names have no meaning. Given names have meanings and parents choose them to reflect aspirations for their children. Middle names have a variety of functions: to differentiate a man from a woman, distinguish family between generations, and add more meaning to the given name.
I googled translated my name and I got “Phú = rich.” I really hope google translate isn’t messing with me.
There are about one hundred Vietnamese family names (last names). Family names have no meaning. Given names have meanings and parents choose them to reflect aspirations for their children. Middle names have a variety of functions: to differentiate a man from a woman, distinguish family between generations, and add more meaning to the given name.
I googled translated my name and I got “Phú = rich.” I really hope google translate isn’t messing with me.
- Hy Doan: Words can shape the way we think. So if Vietnamese language is eager to
establish a relationship between two people communicating, perhaps two
Vietnamese people have a stronger bond than two people who speak a
language that does not establish a relationship between two people. This
can result in a bolstering of a sense of nationality and make people
more helpful to each other rather than being anonymous to each other.
This past summer, while my family was in Vietnam, there were many times
we would be lost and my dad would approach a stranger and greet him with
"chao anh". Greeting a total stranger with "hello brother"
(establishing a family-like relationship) is certainly an effect way to
persuade a stranger to help you. From my experiences, Vietnamese people
may have a stronger sense of camaraderie, which may be due to the
eagerness of the Vietnamese language to create relationship.
