Language plays an important role in our life. Language is not only for communication
but also for cultural exchange among nations. It is difficult to imagine what our lives would be
like without language. Language is a sign that makes human different fromall other species in
the animal Kingdom. People use it to communicate their ideas and thoughts to express their
feelings, (anger, love, hate, or friendship) and to convey their hopes and dreams.
Cross-cultural communication is interesting and attractive field for us to find out the
similar and different language when studying speech acts such as: greeting, advising,
promising, among countries in the world.
There are many ways to make promises in Vietnamese and English. But to “promise”
in an effective way is by no means easy. People often have difficulties in making appropriate
promises in another language. It is exactly the case to many studentsof English in Vietnam,
especially students from the thesis author’s training institution.
This leads the author to the decision to conduct a research into “Vietnamese-English
cross-cultural study of Promising” to find out the similarities and differences in making
promises in Vietnamese and English.