I am indebted to many people without whose help the present thesis could not have been completed. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van Que for their invaluable guidance, insightful comments and endless support.
I wish to express my deep indebtedness to Prof. Dr. Luong Van Hy, the chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada for his brilliant scholarship, demanding teaching and supervision. His unending help greatly encouraged me before and during my one-year study at this university. I am most grateful to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sidnell, who worked at UCLA for some time with Schegloff, one of the founders of conversation analysis, for his productive course of conversation analysis, his kindness and generosity in providing naturally occurring data and responding literature.
I am deeply thankful to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang for his invaluable suggestions, and helpful advice. I have greatly benefited from his scholarship, encouragement and generosity. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoa for his discerning comments, knowledgeable suggestions and kind-heartedness. My sincere thanks go to all my teachers at CFL – VNU for their profound knowledge and outstanding teaching during my long study at the Department of Graduate Studies (DGS) from 1998 to 2005.
My special thanks are due to Ms Sandra Harrison, the country director of ELI Vietnam for her kind support and valuable correction of all this work in manuscript. But for her, I would not have had any access to ELI teachers working in Vietnam.