Developing a Preliminary Codebook for Simplified English Practices in Tourism Service Encounters:
An Archival and Secondary-Data Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60087/ijls.vol3.n3.005Keywords:
English-based pidgins, linguistic features, tourist communication, Vietnamese tourism discourseAbstract
This study develops a preliminary, source-sensitive codebook for analysing simplified English practices in tourism service encounters in Ho Chi Minh City. It reanalyses archival material from an earlier field study together with a separate set of published hotel currency-exchange extracts. The analytical corpus comprises 32 source-linked evidence records: 17 observational excerpts, six report-level interview units, and nine secondary validation extracts. The codebook covers three domains: linguistic-form practices, interactional and pragmatic practices, and reported perceptions and limitations. Each code is operationally defined and linked to identifiable evidence. The reanalysis shows recurring formal simplification in the archival excerpts, particularly copula omission, simplified negation, and non-reference word order. The interactional data indicate that reduced linguistic forms did not necessarily lead to communication breakdown. Contextual support, repetition, clarification, and reformulation helped participants maintain or restore service-task progression. The surviving interview evidence presents mixed evaluations, including perceived usefulness and reduced effort as well as difficulty, irritation, misunderstanding, and reluctance to make social judgments. These findings do not establish the prevalence of particular forms or support classifying the observed practices as a stable pidgin. Instead, the study demonstrates how incomplete historical material can be organised transparently through a codebook that distinguishes what the available sources can support from claims that require fuller prospective data.
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