--

8 (2) 2018

An investigation into English language use in the Vietnamese hospitality industry: The language of money exchange


Author - Affiliation:
Vu Thi Hong Van - Ho Chi Minh City University of Education , Vietnam
Corresponding author: Vu Thi Hong Van - vuthihongvandhsp@yahoo.com

Abstract
Within the tourism and hospitality industry in Vietnam, English is now a dominant means of communication between staff and guests who come from different countries. The ability to communicate effectively in English is therefore an important attribute for those employed within the industry. Courses in English for Specific Purposes (ESP), such as English for Tourism and Hotel (English for Tourism Management/English for Hotel Management), are now part of English language programmes in Vietnamese educational institutions. These courses emphasise the importance of developing high-level English language communication skills for students. However, the teaching of these courses has mainly been conducted in the classroom environment, using textbooks which are written and published outside Vietnam. Given that recent research has focused on the need to teach language as it is used in authentic contexts, it is important for the teaching of ESP to understand how English is used in a real-life setting in the Vietnamese tourism and hospitality sector.
This paper reports on the findings from a study which obtained and analysed hundreds of examples of authentic English language used by guests and staff in four different hotels in Vietnam. For illustrative purposes, the paper focuses on the language of interactions related to currency exchange, and examines the implications of the study findings for the teaching of ESP in Vietnam.

Keywords
authentic materials; EFL; ESP; tourism and hospitality

Full Text:
PDF

References

Blue, G. M., & Harun, M. (2003). Hospitality language as a professional skill. English for Specific Purposes, 22(1), 73-91. doi:10.1016/s0889-4906(01)00031-x


Burns, A. (1998). Teaching speaking. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 18, 102-123.


Carter, R., & McCarthy, M. (1995). Grammar and the spoken language. Applied Linguistics, 16(2), 141-158. doi:10.1093/applin/16.2.141


Charles, M. (2007). Language matters in global communication. Journal of Business Communication, 44(3), 260-282.


Clifton, J. (2006). A conversation analytical approach to business communication. Journal of Business Communication, 43(3), 202-219.


Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global English. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.


Forey, G. (2004). Workplace texts: Do they mean the same for teachers and business people? English for Specific Purposes, 23(4), 447-469. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2004.01.003


Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (1998). Conversation analysis. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.


John, M. J. S. (1996). Business is booming: Business English in the 1990s. English for Specific Purposes, 15(1), 3-18. doi:10.1016/0889-4906(95)00023-2


Kirkpatrick, A. (2007). The communicative strategies of ASEAN speakers of English as a lingua franca. In D. Prescott (Ed.), English in Southeast Asia: Varieties, literacies and literatures (pp. 118-136). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.


Koester, A. J. (2002). The performance of speech acts in workplace conversations and the teaching of communicative functions. System, 30(2), 167-184. doi:10.1016/S0346-251X(02)00003-9


Nickerson, C. (2005). English as a lingua franca in international business contexts. English for Specific Purposes, 24(4), 367-380. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2005.02.001


Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation analysis: The study of talk-in-interaction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.


Pullin, P. (2010). Small talk, rapport & international communicative competence. Journal of Business Communication, 47(4), 455-476. doi:10.1177/0021943610377307


Rogerson-Revell, P. (2007). Using English for international business: A European case study. English for Specific Purposes, 26(1), 103-120. doi:10.1016/j.esp.2005.12.004


Schegloff, E. A., Koshik, I., Jacoby, S., & Olsher, D. (2002). Conversation analysis and applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 3-31. doi:10.1017/S0267190502000016


Seedhouse, P. (2004). Conversation analysis and language learning. Language Learning, 54(S1), 1-54.


Seedhouse, P. (2005). Conversation analysis and language learning. Language Teaching, 38(4), 165-187.


Vu, T. H. V. (2015). English as a lingua franca in the Vietnamese hotel industry: Communicative strategies and their implications for vocational education (Doctoral dissertation, Curtin University, Perth, Australia).


Vu, T. H. V., & Dunworth, K. (2013). “May I help you?”: Investigating English use in the hospitality industry in Vietnam. Danang University Journal of Science and Technology, 2(63), 125-132.


Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An introduction to sociolinguistics (6th ed.). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.


Wolvin, A. D. (1994). Communication in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 13(3), 195-199. doi:10.1016/0278-4319(94)90019-1


Wong, J. (2002). “Applying” conversation analysis in applied linguistics: Evaluating dialogue in English as a second language textbooks. International Review of Applied Linguistics, 40(1), 37-60.


Wray, A., & Aileen, B. (2013). Projects in linguistics and language studies. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Franis.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.46223/HCMCOUJS.soci.en.8.2.279.2018
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.