Last September, the Lambert Academic Publishing Company produced a book entitled “Communicating Vietnamerican”, by Dr Jim Schnell, a lecturer at Ohio State and Ohio Dominican University in the USA, and Ms. Le Thi Khanh Lam and Ms. Tran Thi Tho, lecturers in the DTU Faculty of Foreign Languages.
Dr. Jim Schnell
Dr. Schnell has been a Social Scientist for 40 years. He has traveled widely and has an extensive knowledge of cultural communication in many countries.
In China and Cambodia, he unexpectedly found out about the special cultural identity and communicative strategies of the Vietnamese, which he started researching. DTU invited him to lecture on English and American Culture and Dr. Schnell then suggested that Ms. Lam and Ms. Tho work with him to compile and publish a book.
Ms. Tho, in the purple shirt, and Ms. Lam
The book has four main parts: Basics of interpersonal communication; Verbal and nonverbal elements of interpersonal communication; Processes of interpersonal communication and Factors influencing interpersonal communication.
The book explains the origins of communication culture, changes in communication through time; similarities and differences in communicative behavior between Vietnamese and Americans; issues of social conflict, competition and disagreement, and their impact on Vietnamese and American society; the traditional moral values in each country, views on right and wrong, honesty and dishonesty, sincerity and deviousness; and comparative moral standards.
“The book was published economically and concisely at the request of our readers,” Dr. Jim Schnell explains. “Communicating Vietnamerican” is the first book about Vietnam of the 42 titles I’ve published. Our work will provide the reader with a deeper understanding of the communication methods, differences and similarities between the Vietnamese and American cultures, elaborating on past and current relations between us. During my time in Vietnam, working at DTU, I was extremely interested in your country, your people and your university. The staff and lecturers there are very dynamic, which is shown by their focus on educational and research partnerships with other well-known universities internationally, including American ones. I found an opportunity to teach and conduct research at DTU and work closely with my two colleagues Ms. Lam and Ms. Tho, who enthusiasticly supported me in the timely publication of our book.”
Dr. Schnell chose LAP, a leading scientific publisher, specializing in theses and research works globally, particularly, over the past fifty years, in Vietnamese-American relations.
“In addition to transferring curricula from foreign partners, DTU has recently been encouraging lecturers to work with them to collect the latest textbooks and other documentation to update our materials at DTU,” explained Ms. Lam and Ms. Tho. “This is why we were so happy when Dr. Schnell’s proposed that we co-author a book. This is the first book to be published on the parallel viewpoints on Vietnamese and American culture and serves as an academic reference for students, postgraduate researchers and Ph.D. candidates in the social sciences. The book is now available in the DTU library and compiling it was a really valuable experience for us, as we learned so much and, at the same time, broadened our academic research capabilities.”
For more information on education in the social sciences at DTU, see: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.
(Media Center)