1

Productions of compliment responses: a contrastive study between

Chinese ESL students in the UK and native British speakers

by

Xi ZHU

A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance

with the requirements of the Degree of Master of Science in the

Graduate School of Education

September 2014

Word count: 13,220

2

SYNOPSIS

This study investigated the similarities and differences of the compliment

responses production between Chinese ESL students in the UK and their native

British counterparts. The study was carried out in a top-ranking university in

southwest England where international students come from varied nationalities

and cultures, which inspired the research.

12 students for each group were asked to participate in a background

information questionnaire, a DCTs questionnaire, and a post-event semi-structured

interview (voluntarily). Every participant was asked to provide their responses to

each scenario in the DCTs questionnaire, and three from each group were

interviewed based on their consents as-well as the characteristics of their DCTs

responses. The interviews helped the researcher to readjust the DCTs data

interpretation and gain evaluative data about the social appropriateness of the

compliment responses data from each participant.

The results showed that the majority of the Chinese ESL and British

participants tend to accept the compliments, with the only exception for the

scenario for personality where both groups show a clear preference to evade from

the compliment. Chinese ESL respondents tend not to reject the compliments in

most situations, and they would rather choose an ambiguous way should they felt

necessary to do so. Also, both groups have presented a clear awareness about how

possibly the social relations and power differences with the complimenter would

impact on their responses. However, most of them are not sensitive to the gender

difference between the speakers, and some of them have indicated that the level of

formality of the conversation scenarios should also be considered.

Interesting further research could carry out a longitudinal design with the

purpose of exploring the second language learners’ pragmatic awareness

development, or otherwise the interrelationship between second language

learner’s L2 pragmatics ability with their learning experience in the language

community.

3

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the help and support given to me in the Graduate

School of Education by my supervisor Dr. Helen Woodfield, and the library and

Programme staff. I am also very grateful to the Chinese international students

and British students who were very co-operative in this study. I am also mindful

of the great help my classmates have been in allowing me to discuss my project

with them.

Final thanks to my parents who have supported my study in the UK and made all

my achievements in this year possible.

4

Declaration

I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the

regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where indicated by

special reference in the text, and no part of the dissertation has been submitted for any

other degree.

Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and in no way represent

those of the University of Bristol.

The dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination either in

the United Kingdom or overseas.

Signed ______________________ Date: _____________

5

Contents

Chapter One Introduction .............................................................................................................. 10

Chapter Two Literature Review ................................................................................................... 12

2.1. Theoretical frameworks ................................................................................................. 12

2.1.1 Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness Theory ............................... 12

2.1.2 Leech (1983, 2007) Politeness Principles ....................................................... 15

2.2 Interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics research traditions ................. 18

2.3 Empirical studies on compliments (Cs) and compliment responses (CRs) 19

2.3.1 Compliments and compliment responses ........................................................... 19

2.3.2 Pragmatic failure and its significance to Cs-CRs studies ................................ 20

2.3.3 Cross-cultural studies of compliment responses .............................................. 22

2.3.4 Interlanguage studies of compliment responses .............................................. 24

Chapter Three Methodology and Procedures ......................................................................... 27

3.1 Sampling method ................................................................................................................... 27

3.2 Participants .............................................................................................................................. 29

3.3 Instruments ............................................................................................................................. 30

3.3.1 Written DCTs ................................................................................................................... 30

3.3.2 Retrospective interviews ............................................................................................ 37

3.4 Data Collection Procedures................................................................................................ 38

3.4.1 Pilot study ........................................................................................................................ 38

3.4.2 Main data elicitation .................................................................................................... 40

3.5 Ethical issues ........................................................................................................................... 43

Chapter Four Analysis and Findings ........................................................................................... 44

4.1 Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 44

4.1.1 Coding taxonomy ........................................................................................................... 44

4.1.2 General CRs categories ................................................................................................ 47

4.1.3 CRs categories in each scenario ............................................................................... 51

4.1.4 Combination Strategies ............................................................................................... 60

4.1.5. Social appropriateness ............................................................................................... 62

4.1.6 Humorous CRs ................................................................................................................ 64

4.2 Findings ..................................................................................................................................... 66

4.2.1 Cross-cultural similarities and differences in terms of modesty and

6

agreement ................................................................................................................................... 66

4.2.2 Gender, social distance, and power difference ................................................... 67

Chapter Five Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 69

5.1 Research summary ................................................................................................................ 69

5.2 Strengths and limitations ................................................................................................... 71

5.3 Future research ...................................................................................................................... 73

References ............................................................................................................................................ 75

Appendices ........................................................................................................................................... 78

Appendix 1 Background Information Questionnaire ...................................................... 78

Appendix 2 DCTs questionnaire .............................................................................................. 79

Appendix 3 Interview guide ..................................................................................................... 80

7

LIST OF ACRONYMS

ESL: English as a Second Language

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

NSs: Native speakers

NNS: Non-native speakers

CR: Compliment responses

WDCTSs: Written Discourse Completion Tasks

FTAs: Face-threatening acts

GSP: Grand Strategy of Politeness

AmE: American English

8

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Compliment contents and variables

Table 2: CRs categories

Table 3: Examples of Reject compliment responses

Table 4: Humourous CRs

9

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Strategies for doing FTAs.

Figure 2: Macro CRs categories of both groups

Figure 3: Macro-level CRs in each group

Figure 4: CRs in macro level for appearance

Figure 5: CRs in micro level for appearance

Figure 6: CRs in macro level for personality

Figure 7: CRs in micro level for personality

Figure 8: CRs in macro level for achievement

Figure 9: CRs in micro level for achievement

Figure 10: CRs in macro level for possession

Figure 11: CRs in micro level for possession

Figure 12: Macro-level use of combination CRs

Figure 13: combination macro-level CRs

Figure 14: ‘most appropriate’ strategies in the macro-level

Figure 15: appropriateness of combined macro-level CRs

10

Chapter One Introduction

Compared to other research areas of second language acquisition, pragmatics is

a relatively new area in that it has only developed systematically since the 1970s

(Schauer 2006: 270). A predominant research approach, since then, has been

contrastive which attempts to investigate how different language speakers differ in

their pragmatic production and comprehension (ibid.). Within this field, two

primary research perspectives are considered as interlanguage and cross-cultural

approaches. The main difference lies in the research purpose as-well as the

sociolinguistic identity of the participants. Cross-cultural research, on one hand,

draws comparative data from native speakers of two languages and examines their

pragmatic production and cultural implication. Interlanguage research, on the

other hand, is based on interlanguage data from native speakers and L2 learners,

and aims to investigate the NSs-NNSs difference as-well as learners’ acquisition

process.

The present study adopts an interlanguage approach. It aims to explore how

native British NSs and Chinese ESL learners differ in their compliment responses

(CRs) production and evaluation of social appropriateness. Participants are

required to produce CRs data in English and reflect on the influence of their native

culture as-well as second language culture that the learners are experiencing. The

definition of compliments is framed by Hobbs (2003: 249) as ‘a speech act which

explicitly or implicitly bestows credit upon the addressee for some possession, skill,

11

characteristic, or the like, that is positively evaluated by the speaker and addressee’.

The concept of social appropriateness, in this study, is built on Gumperz’s (2009)

sociological interpretation, linking the linguistical acceptableness of an utterance,

the speakers’ social/cultural identity and speech intent, and context. Three social

factors – gender, social distance (D), power relations (P) – will be considered as the

variables of this construct. In light of this, investigation on the social/contextual

impacts on the pragmatic production of CRs will be included. The production and

evaluation data of the CRs will be elicited via written discourse completion tasks

(WDCTs) questionnaires and semi-structured face-to-face interviews.

Questionnaire and interview data will be analysed with a mixed-method focus on

the frequency of each CRs category (quantitatively) and the content of the

interviews (qualitatively).

On the basis of the research purpose, three research questions are put forward

as follows:

1. How do Chinese ESL learners and native British English speakers compare in

terms of their politeness strategies of CRs?

2. How do gender difference, social distance and power relations between the

interlocutors influence their choices of CRs?

3. How likely is it that the participants’ knowledge about modesty of their

culture influence their evaluative attitudes of the CRs social appropriateness?

The following chapters of this dissertation will be set out according to the

12

research process and the analysis of the research finding. Chapter Two Literature

Review will provide the theoretical framework of the research design and reflect

on some published empirical studies of this area. Chapter Three Methodology will

describe the research procedures in detail, explaining the rationale of research

design, instrument adaption, data elicitation process, and demonstrate the ethical

concern and solution. Following this, the data analysis and discussion will be

presented in Chapter Five, drawing a mix-method approach and paying equal

attention to the quantitative CRs strategies frequency in each group and qualitative

rationale of the social/cultural interpretation of CRs appropriateness.

Chapter Two Literature Review

In this chapter, a brief review of the theoretical foundation and research

findings of several published empirical studies are demonstrated. Brown and

Levinson’s (1978, 1987) FTAs theory and Leech’s (1983, 2007) Maxim model are

introduced as the theoretical framework of the present study, each briefly critiqued

afterwards. Empirical studies on compliment responses (CRs) from both

cross-cultural and interlanguage perspectives are also reviewed.

2.1. Theoretical frameworks

2.1.1 Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness Theory

Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) politeness theory has been unanimously

13

accepted as the most influential theory in interlanguage pragmatics research

(Dippold 2008: 133). This politeness theory adopts Goffman’s (1967) individual

perspective of face, placing emphasis on the addressee’s face gain and loss.

Specifically, this theory interprets face as ‘wants’, either positively oriented to seek

solidarity or negatively oriented to avoid being impeded. Within this frame, the

notion of intrinsically face-threatening acts (FTAs) is put forward, according to

which kind of face is threatened (positive or negative) and whose face is

threatened (the speaker’s or hearer’s) (Brown & Levinson 1987: 66). Compliments,

for example, are intrinsically threatening the hearer (H)’s negative face in that they

‘at least imply an element of envy and desire to have what the addressee possesses’

(Holmes 1995: 120). The acceptance of a compliment, on the other hand, makes

the speaker (S) obliged to downgrade or return a compliment, especially in some

‘debt-sensitive cultures’, and thus damages S’s positive face (Brown & Levinson

1987: 68). Furthermore, the dichotomy of positive and negative politeness

strategies is put forward as two main politeness strategies to soften the

face-threatening acts (ibid.: 69). They are distinct from each other in that the kind

of addressee’s face which is threatened is aimed to be minimized when the speaker

performs an illocution. As illustrated in Figure 1, they are inter-ranked in a

hierarchical order with the former more face-threatening to the addressee’s face

than the latter (Brown & Levinson 1987: 69).

14

Figure 1. Strategies for doing FTAs. From Brown and Levinson (1987) Politeness:

Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69.

In terms of the speakers’ choice of politeness strategies, Brown and Levinson

(1978, 1987) present three sociological variables: the social distance (D) between

the interlocutors, their power relations (P), and the ranking (R) of the imposition

in the particular culture. Albeit admitting the existence of other relevant factors,

Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that these three factors are inclusive of the

others as they are the most effective in this process (Brown & Levinson: 1987: 80).

The weightiness (Wx) of an FTA is the sum of these three variables, representing

the cognitive process of the speaker’s decision-making of how to perform the FTA.

Nevertheless, this has been frequently critiqued by subsequent research, claiming

that other factors are influential as well, such as the interlocutors’ age, gender,

relative social status, occupation, etc. (Holmes 1986, 1988, 1995; Herbert 1990;

Wolfson 1981). In the study of British and Spanish speakers’ compliments and

compliment responses for example, Lorenzo-Dus (2001) argues that the topic of

compliment (e.g. appearance) and the interlocutors’ gender are equally important

Do the FTA

on record

1. without redressive

action, baldly

with redressive action

2. possitive politeness

3. negative politeness

4. off record

5. Don't do the FTA

15

as the D, P and R (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 110).

Apart from this, another aspect of Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory that

has been critiqued and relates to the present study is the dichotomy of

‘intrinsically’ positive/negative FTAs. This can be problematic in that it puts

cross-cultural distinction to some neglect. Simply put, whether a certain act is

face-threatening depends on specific social and contextual circumstances. For

example, as a positive politeness strategy, compliments are described as to anoint

the hearer (H)’s face by indicating that the speaker (S) favours or would like

something of the hearer’s. However, retrospective data of compliments and

compliment responses – either from the western culture where self-determination

is appreciated (e.g. Lorenzo-Dus 2001) or from the eastern culture where collective

image is given more importance (e.g. Chen 1993, Gu 1990) – have evidenced that

compliments in certain contexts may become an FTA for H’s negative face. That is, a

compliment may offend H’s negative wants of maintaining interpersonal territory

and not being constrained to return a compliment.

2.1.2 Leech (1983, 2007) Politeness Principles

Another cornerstone of the politeness studies is Leech’s (1983, 2007)

politeness principles. Drawn from the assumption of Grice’s (1975) cooperative

principle, Leech (1983) also argues that speakers strive for maintaining an

interpersonal harmony and cooperative atmosphere (Leech 1983: 82). Focusing on

16

the addressee’s wants, six maxims are introduced in pairs in Leech (1983): tact,

generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement and sympathy; each one can be found

in certain typical types of speech acts. This set of maxims operationalizes his

definition of the politeness principle - minimizing ‘the expression of impolite

beliefs’ about the addressee or other related third parties whilst maximising ‘the

expression of polite beliefs’ (Leech 1983: 81, cited in Ruhi 2006: 62). In his later

work, Leech (2007) replaces the term ‘maxim’ with ‘pragmatic constraints’, and

thus introduces the Grand Strategy of Politeness (GSP) as a super-constraint to

subsume the six maxims. Components of the GSP incorporate the high or low levels

of value placed on the interlocutors in the process of the communication. For

example, Approbation is explained as placing a high value on other’s (not the

speakers) wants, and its counterpart Modesty represents a low value on the

speaker’s wants and is often seen in speaker’s self-devaluation. The attempt of

striking a balance between the two ends is typical in such speech acts and

behaviours as compliments and compliment responses (Leech 2007: 182).

Like Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory, Leech’s maxims/constraints

model has also been widely critiqued, especially his book length publication

Principles of Pragmatics (1983). First, it hardly pays any attention to the

psychological motivation of interlocutors in a speech event. Although in the form of

motivations, the maxims in this approach are merely associated with their

semantic meanings, while the speakers’ psychological motivations are excluded as

17

‘irrelevant to the pragmatics of politeness’ (Leech 2003, cited in Ruhi 2006: 68).

Thomas (1995: 168) argues that they are better comprehended as

socio-psychological constraints influencing people’s interactive behaviours. This

stance is probably accepted by Leech himself, as in his 2007’s work he revises the

term ‘maxim’ into ‘constraint’ in the sense that the former is easily misunderstood

as ‘rules for good behaviour’.

Second, the assumed correlation between some CRs categories and the maxims

is over-simplified. Based on the link between self-devaluation and modesty in this

model, most of the studies on linguistic politeness of compliment responses (e.g.

Chen 1993) associate compliment disagreement with the Modesty Maxims. They

adopt Pomerantz’s (1978) dilemma and ascertain that the deflection/evasion

response is due to the speaker’s efforts to strike a balance between agreeing with

the complimenter and avoiding self-praise. However, with little understanding

about the possible discrepancy between the interlocutors’ real psychological

motivation and their actual utterance, researchers might have given an unfair

interpretation of the hearer’s responses to an illocutionary act and thus weaken

the research reliability. Examples can be seen in the CRs data of Ruhi’s (2006)

study elicited from 830 compliment exchanges in Turkish. This study finds that

respondents do not associate disagreement to a compliment with modesty –

especially when they trust that the addressee is worth being complimented – and

they question the complimentee’s sincerity when he/she disagrees with or evades

18

the compliment (Ruhi 2006: 68).

2.2 Interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics research traditions

As defined by Kasper (1998), interlanguage pragmatics is a field of research

that ‘is concerned with how non-native speakers comprehend and produce action

in an L2 as well as with how that ability develops’ (Kasper 1998, cited in Dippold

2008: 131). Its research focus has been traditionally laid on the L2 learners’

pragmatic competence to use the target language to convey the right message, both

linguistically and so that it is socially appropriate in certain contexts. It mainly

deals with ‘the study of NNSs’ use and the acquisition of linguistic action patterns

in a second language’ and has recently included the impact of intercultural styles

on interlanguage use and strategies (Kasper and Blum-Kulka, 1993, cited in Allami

& Montazeri 2012: 466). Learners’ cognitive and productive processes of the

acquisition of the second language is analyzed through two essential concepts:

pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence, which is in

accordance with the distinction of communicative competence in Bachman’s (1990)

model. Goffman’s (1967: 5) interpretation of face as individual’s ‘positive self value’

claimed by the person is adopted as the grounding concept in some interlanguage

pragmatics studies, and this concept is further pursued by Brown and Levinson

(1978, 1987) in their politeness theory from the same perspective.

In comparison, cross-cultural pragmatics research focuses on multilingual and

19

multicultural communications and on speakers from diverse racial, national and

ethnic backgrounds (Wierzbicka 2008: 13). It involves individuals ‘who have

different cultures, different conceptualizations, and different first languages, and

who use a grammatically common language or lingua franca (such as English), but

‘a pragmatically highly diversified instrument of communication representing not

only different cultures, but also different norms and values’ (ibid.). In other words,

cross-cultural pragmatics research values the existence of cultural difference

between speakers from different backgrounds and considers it as the underlying

cause of intercultural pragmatical divergence. Unlike interlanguage pragmatics,

there is no identity setting of native and non-native speakers for the research

objectives; different groups of participants are seen as culturally and linguistically

independent and comparable.

2.3 Empirical studies on compliments (Cs) and compliment responses (CRs)

2.3.1 Compliments and compliment responses

The speech acts of compliments and compliment responses are regarded as an

adjacency pair linked by both temporal and relevance conditions (Schegloff &

Sacks 1973; Herbert 1990). They are a well-researched pair of speech acts, and

their interrelations and illocutionary functions may vary according to different

temporal circumstances. As mentioned above, compliments are generally viewed

as a positive politeness expression with an aim of solidarity. However, it can also

20

serve as an expression of sarcasm, envy, or request for the complimented object

(Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 109).

Research of this speech acts pair has witnessed a fruitful progress both in the

field of cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics. With different research

designs using culturally varied contexts and participants, researchers have been

interested in the relationship between L2 learners’ pragmatic productions and

their cultural values, particularly the effects of cross-cultural difference in the

learners’ production and evaluation of compliments and compliment responses in

the target language. Literature from both cross-cultural and interlanguage

perspectives are equally important for the design of this study. In the following

section, I will first explain the reason in the light of their combined influence on the

emergence of pragmatic failure between cross-cultural and interlanguage speakers,

and then provide a brief review of studies on compliments and compliment

responses in both perspectives.

2.3.2 Pragmatic failure and its significance to Cs-CRs studies

As already mentioned, a complimenting behaviour can be face-threatening to

the hearer’s negative face in certain contexts by putting the addressee in a debt and

making him/her feel obliged to return a compliment. In specific cultures,

compliments may even be misunderstood – either by native speakers or language

learners – due to conflicting perceptions of the intended illocutionary force of a

21

complimenting utterance between different language communities. Kasper and

Rose (1999) define this characteristic as pragmatic failure, which is a consequence

of learners’ misunderstanding the target language pragmatic rules and resorting to

their own L1, in other words, pragmatic transfer (Kasper and Rose, 1999, cited in

Allami & Montazeri 2012: 466). Pragmatic transfer has been an important issue for

both interlanguage pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics researchers as it

might cause communication breakdown between native and non-native speakers

and leave the latter helpless. Therefore, the present study, which aims to contrast

the compliment responses produced by Chinese ESL learners’ with those by native

British English speakers, is of utter importance. This is in the sense that it attempts

to detect the presence of potential L1 influence and future possibility to be

extended to the interlanguage pragmatics perception and competence

development of Chinese learners of English learners in the study abroad context.

Both interlanguage and cross-cultural empirical studies on compliments and

compliment responses are important as they collectively provide a fuller frame for

researchers to decode the underlying inter-social and inter-cultural reasons of

pragmatic failure. As Holmes (1986) states, mere knowledge of acceptable topics of

the target language community is far from enough to demonstrate the speaker’s

interlanguage pragmatic competence; the underlying values should also be kept in

mind in order to avoid cross-cultural friction (Holmes 1986: 503). Compliments on

possession, for example, are usually acceptable for most cultures and thus often

22

regarded as a ‘safe’ way to commence a conversation. However, it is likely that

different cultures incorporate different values in their definitions of possession –

based on the worth and cultural meaning of the appreciated items – and native

speakers may nevertheless feel awkward being complimented. For example, a

complimenter from an eastern culture (where extensive family is often linked with

wealth and family harmony) compliments a New Zealander by saying ‘what a big

family you have!’ is misunderstood as a criticism by the complimentee who comes

from the culture where people prefer small families (Holmes and Brown, 1987:

527). The unexpected response ‘yes, but it has its advantages, too’, to some extent,

demonstrates that this compliment has caused face-damage on the recipient and

cross-cultural misunderstanding, so to speak.

2.3.3 Cross-cultural studies of compliment responses

With the cross-cultural lens, research on CRs has been focused on the

similarities and differences of CRs strategies in participants’ own languages as-well

as their understanding about linguistic politeness in their own culture. A

distinctive characteristic is that they draw data from two distinctive identities of

language speakers, either native speakers of their own languages or one of them as

foreign language learners of the other. For example, in Tang & Zhang’s (2009) study

on compliment responses in four situational settings, participants are a group of

Australian English speakers and a group of Chinese Mandarin speakers. The CRs

productions of both groups are elicited through written DCTs and then categorized

23

into macro levels (e.g. Accept, Reject, Evade) and micro levels, such as the

sub-categories under Accept: Appreciation token, Agreeing utterance,

Downgrading, Returning. In Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) contrastive study, for another

example, compliment responses from British English speakers are juxtaposed with

their Spanish counterparts, and British participants are then found to tend to

question the true value of the compliments and the relational solidarity of the

complimenter. Specifically, British respondents are found to fail to interpret some

ironic upgraders as the Spanish intended, which result in the characterization of

the Spanish as ‘exceedingly confident and boastful’ (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 122).

Another feature of cross-cultural studies on the speech act of compliment

responses is that researchers tend to resort to an established ‘standard’ within the

contrasted ends of the culture scale. Pomerantz’s (1978) dilemma is often used to

explain the speakers’ socio-psychological motivations of using culturally different

politeness strategies when responding to a compliment in their languages. For

example, studies in the native English speaking communities evidence that in spite

of speakers’ efforts to retain a balance between agreeing with the complimenter

and avoiding self-praise, acceptance of a compliment is concerned as the ‘model’ or

‘standard’; other behaviours such as rejection and downgrading are considered

‘deviant’ and ‘puzzling’ (Pomerantz 1978: 80). Herbert (1986) also claims that in

American English corpus, the best response to a compliment is ‘thank you’. To

contrast, studies in the East tend to highlight the social and cultural value on

24

modesty and collectivism whilst analyzing the eastern CRs production and

evaluation (e.g. Gu 1990). To explain the Chinese philosophy of politeness and

underlying social value, Gu (1990) refers to the hierarchy system in old Chinese

society, taking the standard of Confucian sense of li (politeness), and states that it

is necessary to determine an individual’s social roles and status before restoring

politeness (Gu 1990: 238).

2.3.4 Interlanguage studies of compliment responses

Recent studies of interlanguage politeness have paid close attention to the L2

learners’ compliment responses production in the ESL context. From the

interlanguage perspective, studies on CRs production and evaluation draw data

from native and non-native speakers, and investigate the similarities and

differences in between, i.e. those that are contrastive. When dealing with data

relevant to pragmatic failure, the non-native participants’ own cultural

backgrounds are often considered an influential factor in their L2 pragmatic

production and the development of their awareness of L2 pragmatics. Contrastive

studies on Chinese ESL learners in native English countries, for example, often take

into account the NNSs’ high value on modesty and self-devaluation, especially in

the interaction with interlocutors who are socially distant and in unequal status

(e.g. Cheng 2011).

Not only in cross-cultural data, Pomerantz’s (1978) constraint dilemma is also

25

referred to in interlanguage pragmatics studies on compliment responses. Most

compliment recipients – not only for native speakers, but also non-native speakers

of the target language – are found to respond to a compliment with an ‘in-between’

level of appropriateness (Pomerantz 1978: 81). This indicates that the recipient of

a compliment always encounters a dilemma between avoidance of self-praise and

agreeing with the complimenter. In short, this is a conflict between modesty and

agreement. To do these at the same time, recipients of a compliment will either 1)

shift the credit to others, 2) slightly downgrade the value of the complimented

object, 3) indicate the achievement is easily obtained, or 4) emphasize hard-work

rather than natural talent (Pomerantz 1978: 81-82). This explains why combined

strategies, such as ‘acceptance + evade’ in the macro-level strategies category and

‘appreciation token + credit shifting’ in the micro level (Holmes 1988, 1993), are

often spotted in interlanguage data of compliment responses.

Leech’s (1983, 2007) Modesty Maxim and Gu’s (1990) analysis of Chinese

politeness are often adopted to interpret the NNSs’ not-accepting responses to

compliments in English. In this regard, Chen (1993) is a very important piece of

work as it provides empirical evidence about the feasibility of using these theories

to explain non-native CRs strategies. Unlike Tang & Zhang(2009), this study

collects data from Chinese non-native speakers (Ch. NNSs) and American English

native speakers (AmE. NSs). This differs from Cheng (2011) in that the Chinese

non-native speakers are university students in China, i.e. are ESL speakers. Using

26

DCT questionnaires, this study shows that the Ch. NNSs’ CRs strategies are

tremendously different from the native norms as seen in the AmE. NSs’ data and in

Brown and Levinson (1978). Five macro CRs strategies are found in Chinese

speakers of English: 1) disagreeing & denigrating, 2) expressing embarrassment, 3)

explaining after disagreement, 4) thanking & denigrating, and 5) thanking (only).

The first four categories are regarded as Rejecting in terms of the illocutionary

force of their responses, taking a surprisingly high volume of the total amount

(95.73%). At the other end of the spectrum, only 1.03% of the non-native corpus

provides Accepting responses to complimenting utterances in English. On the

contrary, only 12.7% of the AmE. NSs’ data accounts for the Modesty Maxim. This

dramatic difference is explained by the differing sociological definitions of

politeness and self-image in Chinese and American cultures. More importantly, this

study shows that Leech’s (1983) model of pragmatic maxims is more suitable than

Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) to explain cross-cultural linguistic politeness.

Also, it indicates that Chinese EFL speakers are still dramatically influenced by the

oriental social value about modesty when encountering a compliment.

Another inspiring study of interlanguage pragmatics strategies of compliment

responses is Cheng (2011). Instead of the DCTs, role-plays are used in this study to

elicit CRs data and retrospective interviews are conducted afterwards to justify the

researchers’ interpretation. This enables the researchers to obtain participants’

real-world answers and subjective explanation which might not be revealed

27

through the use of written questionnaires. Three groups of English speakers take

part in the study: 15 native English speakers, 15 Chinese ESL speakers, and 15

Chinese EFL speakers. Role-play transcript is coded using Holmes (1988, 1993), Yu

(2004), and Tang and Zhang (2009) categories of CRs as coding system, and the

interviews are recorded and translated from Chinese to English. An interesting

finding suggests two possible factors may have influenced Chinese NNSs' CRs

expression: their familiarity/unfamiliarity with each other in the process of group

elicitation, as-well as their L2 proficiency. The present study takes advantage of

this finding and takes into account the social familiarity between the interlocutors

and English proficiency of the Chinese ESL group in the process of DCTs

questionnaire development.

Chapter Three Methodology and Procedures

This chapter includes detailed explanations as to the research design, sampling

method, data collection procedures and finally key ethical issues. Rationale for the

choice of sampling principle and target participants is in accordance with the

research purpose with an upmost effort to attain reliability.

3.1 Sampling method

With respect to the sampling approach, this study adopts qualitative sampling

methods followed by mixed methods analysis. According to Mertens (2005), mixed

28

methods are expected to allow the researcher to probe into the substantial issue

submerged in a complicated educational or social phenomenon, which meets the

research purpose of this study. The choice of qualitative samplings is based on the

consideration about one of its essential features which ‘provide illumination and

understanding of complex psychosocial issues’, and ‘are most useful for answering

humanistic “why?” and “how?” questions’ (Marshall 1996: 522). To be succinct, this

research is to investigate how Chinese ESL and British participants differ in

responding to compliments, how likely they are to be influenced by different

sociological factors, and how appropriate they believe their responses are. In light

of this, this study explores some parameters of a phenomenon by comparing two

selected groups of participants, instead of drawing a representative sample for the

CRs production and rational for the whole population. This means that the result of

studying these samples only applies for the specific characteristics of participants

within specific contexts.

In terms of qualitative sampling, a judgment sampling method is primarily used

in order to avoid the possibility of wasting time in collecting poor quality data.

According to Marshall (1996), this is probably one of the most commonly used

qualitative sampling methods, as it enables the researcher to control the practical

knowledge of the participants and optimize the data quality within the fixed period

of time. This is particularly advantageous for the researcher of the present study as

some of the participants are known by the researcher; their age, social status,

29

cultural backgrounds, and framework of knowledge in the researched topic are

potentially influential to the data, and thus contributed to the researchers’ initial

design of the research subjects. Moreover, another important qualitative sampling

approach that Marshall (1996) mentions - ‘snowball sampling’ – is also used to

supplement the judgment sampling during the latter stage. Subjects are

encouraged to recommend potential candidates who are likely to take part in the

study and provide quality data, and this contributes to the sampling efficiency and

quality to a large extent.

3.2 Participants

A sum of 24 university students (11 male, 13 female) from varied academic

subjects took part in this study, including one group of 12 Chinese international

students (i.e. ESL learners of English) and the other of 12 native British students.

The average age of the participants is 26 years old, ranging from 22 to 46. The

Chinese ESL group are exclusively postgraduate students in a well-known British

university, having had a minimum 9-month residence in UK and currently doing

their Master’s studies. The average age of their English learning outset is 10 years

old, and the average IELTS Academic score is overall 7.0. This is a result of the

pre-screening questionnaire, aiming to ensure that the L2 learners are capable to

provide a linguistic range of responses. The group of British students, on the other

hand, contains 2 undergraduate, 6 postgraduate and 4 doctoral students from

three universities. Most of them are born and raised in England, with British

30

English as their mother tongue apart from other European languages as their

foreign or second languages; the only one exception holds a dual British-German

nationality with English as his native language.

3.3 Instruments

In terms of data collection methods, this study adopts written DCTs (Discourse

Completion Tasks) questionnaires as the main elicitation approach, complemented

by follow-up retrospective interviews. Prior to the DCTs, a background

questionnaire is delivered (see Appendix 1). The use of two different collection

methods is a concern for data diversity and triangulation, which, according to

Brown and Rogers (2002), will improve the research creditability and validity.

Data collection lasted for a month from the end of May till the middle of July,

including a background information screening, a DCTs questionnaire, and

follow-up interviews with voluntary participants from each group. After gaining

consent, participants are selected based on their cultural background, English

proficiency, age, etc. The purpose of the interviews is to adjust researcher’s

interpretation of DCTs data and gain access to participants’ evaluative opinion on

CRs appropriateness at the same time.

3.3.1 Written DCTs

The production data of compliment responses (CRs) is collected by the means

31

of written DCTs questionnaires (see Appendix 2). Although frequently critiqued on

instrument validity (e.g. Cummings & Clark 2006, Rose 1994, Bardovi-Harlig &

Hartford 1993), DCTs are a reasonable choice for this particular study in that they

enable the researcher to collect a large sum of data within a very limited period of

time; meanwhile, the method has proven effective in controlling sociological

variables across different complimenting scenarios.

For each DCTs sheet, four scenarios where people are most likely to receive

compliments are given to the participants. All participants are required to imagine

being situated in these scenarios (i.e. on appearance, personality, achievement,

possession), and write down in English as many socially appropriate responses as

possible. Meanwhile, they are asked to appoint the most appropriate one in each

scenario based on their own understanding of social appropriateness. However,

participants are not required to rate the appropriateness of their responses in a

scale, as the self-rating correctness by participants from different age ranges and

cultural background cannot be guaranteed to be valid or comparable. Also, the

piloting result demonstrates that few ESL learners have the capability to give a fair

rating of the social appropriateness of their own L2 expressions. Instead,

paralinguistic information (e.g. facial expression, simultaneous action, etc.) is

encouraged to be given when necessary at the end of each response, with a clear

instruction about the format shown on the DCTs. This is a purposeful design in

order to readjust the researcher’s interpretation, and compensate for the

32

frequently critiqued limitation of DCTs that hardly any realistic non-verbal and

paralinguistic data could be collected (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001: 111).

Sociological scenarios design

The four scenarios are designed with specific attention to reach varied types of

CRs samples in the occasions where the social distance (D) and power relations (P)

between the interlocutors are differentiated and likely to be influential. As Brown

and Levinson (1987) state in their politeness theory, three sociological factors are

presumed most influential in speakers’ choice of politeness strategies: the social

distance (D) between the interlocutors, their relative power relations (P), and the

ranking (R) of the imposition in the particular culture. In the process of designing

the DCTs, these factors are taken into consideration with the attempt to investigate

to what extent could these factors possibly influence the two groups of participants’

CRs production. The R is strictly controlled in this study as all participants receive

the same compliment contents on the questionnaires. However, the D and P

between the interlocutors are set in a wide range. See Table 1 below for the setting

of compliment contents in each scenario, and the variables of power relations

as-well as social distance between the complimenter and the complimentee.

33

Table 1 Compliment contents and variables

Compliment content Power

relations

Social

Distance

Scenario 1 Outward

appearance

Smart dress/suit = +

Scenario 2 Personality Helpful & patient = 0

Scenario 3 Achievement Essay success ++

Scenario 4 Possession New

high-technology

mobile phone

0

Notes = equal power between the interlocutors; complimenter is in a higher power level;

+/++ social distance between the interlocutors; 0 no social distance between the interlocutors.

As shown from the table, the complimenters include the recipient’s new

workmate who has D with the complimentee and yet little P, close friends who has

little D and little P, university tutor and student who presumably only have a

professional relationship and thus have strong D and strong P, and the parent of the

recipient who is not supposed to be socially distant with the recipient at home.

34

Scenario 1: Appearance

You are dressed up for a social dinner with some of your new colleagues, and

when you arrive there, one of them says: “Wow, you look very smart in this

dress/suit! Very good taste indeed!” You reply:

The relationship between the complimenter and complimentee (the participant)

in this situation is presumably socially distant as they are new colleagues who only

see each other in a normal working environment. However, this compliment takes

place in a less formal situation where the primary goal of attendance is to allow the

work mates to socialize. Therefore, the social distance (D) between the speakers

may still exist yet in an equal power (P) level. The object of this compliment is

clothes, which is different from natural appearance in that it requires effort.

Scenario 2: Personality

You have spent a whole weekend helping a close friend moving to a new flat,

and at the end of the day, he/she says: “Thank you so much! You are the best friend

anyone would ask for – always so helpful and patient!” You reply:

In this scenario, the participant needs to imagine being complimented by one of

his/her close friends who have presumably known the participant for years. The

object of this compliment is the complimentee’s helpful personality and good

patience in helping the complimenter moving house. The complimenting

35

expression in this specific situation therefore consists of a thanking and a slightly

exaggerated praise, which, however, is understandable and natural in this situation.

Scenario 3: Achievement

You have been working really hard on your subject essays, and one of them has

just got a distinction. One day you run into the tutor in the school, and after a short

greeting he/she says: “By the way, congratulations! You’ve done a really good job

on that essay!” You reply:

The compliment in this situation takes place in a school environment which is

probably the most usual venue for a conversation between university tutors and

students. With this respect, the social distance (D) between the interlocutors is

expected as professionally acquainted, although the tutor may customarily occupy

a higher power level than the student in such an institutional setting. A short

greeting may come in advance to the compliment, and the compliment is presumed

sincere as the achieved good grade is a result of the student’s consistent hard

working.

Scenario 4: Possession

You have just bought a new phone. Your parent sees it when you are answering

a phone call. After you showing him/her some smart functions, he/she says: “That’s

a really nice one, isn’t it?” You reply:

36

Social distance between the interlocutors in this scenario is less salient as they

are parents and adult children. However, higher power status may be traditionally

expected on the parents. Meanwhile, this is the only scenario that does not

incorporate researcher’s consideration of interlocutors’ gender difference. Also,

the first sentence is designed to convey an implication that the complimentee is a

finally independent adult independent in finance and has the ability to make

decision and purchase an expensive item without asking for his/her parents’

permission.

Special consideration for gender difference

One aspect of the research design is to test whether the participants would

respond to the same compliment in different ways when they were being

complimented by the same and opposite genders. Example studies on the impact of

gender on the compliment responses can be viewed in Herbert 1990 and Holmes

1988, where comparisons of the production of CRs are conducted between men’s

and women’s. Likewise, a more recent study between British and Spanish CRs is

completed by Lorenzo-Dus (2001), which concludes that cross-gender difference

in CRs are found in both groups – especially in the Spanish one – which indicates

the existence of ‘traditional gender stereotyping’ in both cultures (Lorenzo-Dus

2001: 114).

However, this study is not purposefully designed to investigate in what way the

37

gender difference between interlocutors influence the speakers’ CRs production in

English. More precisely speaking, the analysis does not focus on how gender

difference between the interlocutors diversifies the participants’ use of

compliment response strategies. Instead, to operate the interviews, the researcher

paid exclusive attention to the fact whether or not the subjects claim to be

influenced whilst working on the questionnaire. And in the questionnaire, unlike

the work of Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001), participants are given explicit instruction that

they are complimented by the opposite gender, with the exception of the fourth

situation where either father or mother would count. The purpose of such design is

to examine whether the participants have the awareness of the cross-gender

compliments, of possible impacts of cross-gender compliment on their

appreciation, and how different they would ultimately respond to the compliment

as taking into consideration the gender difference, and how they evaluate the

appropriateness of their CRs. In short, this study looks at whether the participants

claim to be influenced by gender, not necessarily how the gender difference may

have had a profound influence, which explains the slightly different research focus

in the second research question.

3.3.2 Retrospective interviews

As a supplement to the DCTs questionnaires, three participants from each

group are face-to-face interviewed within no more than three days after their

questionnaire completion. The interviews serve for the researcher’s interpretation

38

of the CRs function and readjustment of categorization, especially in the

circumstances where cross-cultural misunderstanding might occur and jeopardize

the research validity. Interviewees are chosen based on agreed consent, with the

typical/atypical characteristics of their DCTs questionnaire responses taken into

account. All interviews are semi-structured and recorded as a source of qualitative

data of the study. All questions are designed to elicit the participants’ subjective

explanations of the reason why they replied to the given compliments in such ways

(see Appendix 3). In order to avoid linguistic misunderstanding, the Chinese

participants reserved the right to speak their mother tongue during the interviews,

and their Chinese utterances were translated into English by the researcher1.

3.4 Data Collection Procedures

3.4.1 Pilot study

Conducting a pilot study is an essential procedure to ensure every aspect of a

study goes as intended (Oppenheim 2000: 47). In order to test the two

questionnaires and interview structure, two flatmates of the researcher and two

classmates of the TESOL programme were invited to pilot the study. To gain

referential pilot data, the same criteria of the selection of participants were

adopted (see 3.2 Participants). All of the four participants took part in the testing

for the background questionnaires and the DCTs, and three of them (2 Chinese ESL

1 In attempt to do theme analysis, the researcher used free translation method with no bound to certain linguistic structures (see Chen 1993 for an example).

39

learners, 1 British native speaker) were interviewed thereafter. As the main data

collection process, piloting interviews were also recorded and transcribed

afterwards.

The pilot study helps the researcher in two aspects. First, it allows the

researcher to examine the reliability of the target two groups of participants in

giving honest, valid and in-time response. The researcher is therefore able to make

alternative plan to prevent inaccessible participants and unsmooth communication.

Second, some quality feedback from the piloting interviewees has contributed to

improve the DCTs questionnaire. With respect to the compliments in the first

(appearance) and second (personality) scenarios, for example, 75% of the

participants suggested that for these kind of compliments, they feel a debt as being

complimented on fancy outfits and helpful characteristics, and slightly

embarrassed to respond properly. This finding then encouraged the researcher to

make the compliments more exaggerated on purpose, in the hope of reducing the

illocutionary force of ‘thank you’ in the first half and reinforcing the complimenting

utterance. The reason of such improvement is that it has been suggested that the

overwhelming illocution of ‘thank you’ and the syntactic structure of ‘S+V+very ADJ’

might have caused the simplicity of the CRs, meaning that most of the CRs for this

scenario could be categorised as Shifting Credits (e.g. You are welcome). As one of

the British piloting participants explains, ‘I put “you’re welcome” because it said

“thank you so much”; “thank you” “you’re welcome” is the usual response’ (piloting

40

interview transcript).

3.4.2 Main data elicitation

The data collection process of this present study follows a sequence of

pre-screening, DCT elicitation and interviews. Once they had signed the consent

form, the participants needed to decide whether to complete the questionnaires

online or via emails, with the instructions and contents ensured indifferent. Every

participant was required to complete two questionnaires, including a

pre-screening background questionnaire and the DCTs as the main instrument. The

aim of the pre-screening is to filter the respondents through the set criteria (see

3.2 Participant), and thus the questions are designed to elicit essential information

that differentiate the two groups of participants, such as personal information,

lengths of learning English, lengths of UK residence, current subject in the

university, English proficiency level (IELTS Academic score), native and foreign

languages, etc. However, the version for English participants only focused on

personal information.

Following the background questionnaire, proper candidates who successfully

meet the sampling criteria for English language proficiency (for Chinese) and

native language in British English (for English) will carry out the DCTs

questionnaire. The instruction and contextual inputs about the scenarios on the

DCTs are written in English, and participants are expected to give responses in

41

English as well. In order to see the effects of gender on compliment responses,

participants receive explicit instructions on the questionnaire that their

interlocutor is of the opposite gender. The inspiration of this design stems from the

study of Lorenzo-Dus (2001); the purpose is to see whether the gender of

interlocutors will influence the participants’ uses of positive/negative politeness

strategies and CRs as they did in Lorenzo-Dus’s research. However, in order to

obtain varied and honest responses, no instruction on the differentiated setting of

social distance (D) and power relation (P) is given to the participants, either prior

to or during their completion of the DCTs. The hypothesised effects of such social

factors were only probed through interview questions regarding the participants’

perception and evaluation of the appropriateness of the CRs.

After collecting all DCT data, selected participants were interviewed on the

basis of their initial consent and the quality of their DCT responses. Three of each

group took part in the interviews, with each taking approximately 20 minutes. The

questions are semi-structured, designed in an attempt to draw on the respondents’

subjective consideration of why they answer in such ways and how they define

‘social appropriateness’ for each case of compliments. Considering the language

barrier for low-proficiency ESL learner interviewees, it was permitted and

suggested that they speak their mother languages. This is to serve a purpose that

all of their explanations make sense semantically. Also, the piloting study indicates

that such Chinese participants would feel it more natural to explain their native

42

culture in their own languages. For the purpose of qualitative analysis, all

interviews were recorded and transcribed afterwards by the researcher. Where

translation was needed, the researcher applied Gao’s (1985) method of free

translation, focusing on the content rather than words, as this study does not

concern the linguistic structure of the interviewees’ utterance. Chen (1993)

provides a sound basis for such practice of the method, and thus this study just

follows the track.

Considering the semi-structured nature of the interviews, the questions were

formulated around several key themes, including the participants’ comments on

the survey (i.e. the background questionnaire and the DCTs), their consideration of

gender, P and D of the complimenter as doing the DCTs, and their evaluative

opinions regarding the appropriateness of each way of responding to the

compliments for a particular person and in particular circumstances. Most of the

semi-structured questions focused on the phenomenon of cross-cultural diversity

and the influence of it on the participants’ specific reasons of making such

compliment responses. For example, from different perspectives, they may refer to

their understanding about modesty, face-saving strategies in socialising, level of

familiarity with politeness within English or their own language communities,

understanding about cross-cultural difference in linguistic politeness, and

definition of face, etc.

43

3.5 Ethical issues

Ethical issues are essential parts of the study design during the whole research

process. As stated by Oppenheim (2000: 83), it is the researcher’s ethical

responsibility to ensure the safety and welfare of the participants. As a part of the

Background Questionnaire, written consents for different levels of participation is

achieved prior to DCTs and interviews. The reason of not using a separate consent

form is due to the consideration of overall questionnaire filling-in pressure that

participants may feel and thus avoid taking part in.

Although the power difference between the researcher and participants is

ideally equal as all participants are adults, participants reserve the highest rights to

keep their personal information and provided data confidential and anonymous,

and withdraw at any point of the research. This principle applies not only in the

collection process, but also through the entire analysis and writing-up procedure.

All data is destroyed immediately after the study, and the participants are

welcomed to acquire an electronic copy of the final dissertation.

44

Chapter Four Analysis and Findings

4.1 Analysis

4.1.1 Coding taxonomy

After the collection of DCTs questionnaires and interviews, the CRs data on the

questionnaire was categorized based on the taxonomies of Herbert (1990) and

Holmes (1988, 1993). Meanwhile, Yu’s (2003) combination strategies of CRs are

also adapted for this study to look at the usage of combined macro-level CRs.

Herbert (1986), for the first time, put forward the 12 types of micro-level

compliment responses based on their pragmatic function, including 1)Appreciation

Token, 2)Comment Acceptance, 3)Praise Upgrade, 4)Comment History,

5)Reassignment, 6)Return, 7)Scale-down, 8)Question, 9)Disagreement,

10)Qualification, 11)No Acknowledgement, and 12)Request Interpretation (see

examples and explanation in Herbert 1986: 85). The 12 types are further

summarized into 3 macro levels of Agreement, Non-agreement and Request

interpretation. This taxonomy was continuously used in his later work of 1990, and

has been adopted as the main reference frame in many comparative studies on the

speech acts of compliments and compliment responses, e.g. Lorenzo-Dus (2001).

Albeit this taxonomy was claimed to apply exclusively for American English corpus,

as Herbert (1986: 86) explained due to the different social, linguistic and cultural

facts between different language communities, it has been proved capable to

45

accommodate to non-American contexts by Lorenzo-Dus (2001). That is, by using

this framework, Lorenzo-Dus (2001) compared the similarities and differences of

compliment responses between British and Spanish university students and thus

demonstrated the feasibility of using this frame to categorise the compliment

responses in British English and Spanish.

Likewise, this particular study also adapts the CRs taxonomy in Holmes (1988,

1993) to code the CRs data. One of the advantages is that this taxonomy divides the

Non-agreement compliment responses into Reject and Evade from the macro level,

on which basis the slightly varied functions of non-agreement compliment

responses could be dealt witn more precisely. The three macro-level categories of

CRs of Holmes (1988) are also used in this study, namely Accept, Reject, and Evade,

apart from the independently-calculated combination patterns of macro-level

strategies adapted from Yu (2003). Several micro-level categories within the three

macro-level categories are adapted according to the actual DCTs data, and the

interview transcripts are used as a readjusting method should ambiguous

interpretation happen. Half of the coding is examined by a second coder, and the

intra-researcher reliability is approximately 87%. See Table 2 for CRs categories:

46

Table 2 CRs categories (adapted from Herbert 1990, Holmes 1988, 1993, and Yu 2003)

Macro

level CRs

Micro level CRs Examples

Accept 1. Appreciation token ‘Thanks’ ‘Thank you’ ‘Cheers’

2. Accepting utterance ‘I’m really happy/surprised’ ‘I’m glad you think so’ ‘yeah I know’

3. Downgrading ‘Well, it is kind of fun’ ‘It wasn’t too expensive’ ‘This is not usual for

me’

4. Upgrading ‘I did work hard on it’ ‘It was a good find!’

5. Return ‘You’re looking lovely too’ ‘Thank you for the quality of your feedback’

Evade 6. Shifting credit ‘You’re welcome’ ‘No worries’ ‘Anytime’ ‘all in a day’s work’ ‘You’d do

the same for me’ ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’

7. Informative comment ‘I got it from…’ ‘I bought it recently’ ‘It was the highest grade I got’

8. Qualification2 ‘It was quite unexpected’ ‘I can’t really get excited about phones’

9. No acknowledgement3 ‘I must make sure I don’t lose it’ ‘Fingers crossed it’ll last a couple of

years’

10. Request

assurance/accuracy

‘Really?’ ‘You like it?’

11. Request interpretation ‘You should get one if you are thinking of getting a new phone’ ‘I’ll

know who to call when I’m moving’

Reject 12. Disagreeing utterance ‘I used to think it is too tight for me’ ‘I really don’t believe I could get a

distinction’

13. Challenge sincerity ‘I’m flattered’ ‘Can I have that in writing?’

As shown from the table, three macro-level CRs categories are Accept, Evade,

and Reject. Thirteen micro-level CRs categories are found in the DCTs data from the

two groups of participants, and the definitions of each category is borrowed from

the original taxonomies with slight adaptation. For example, unlike Herbert (1990)

and Holmes (1988, 1993), only the semantic forms of ‘thanks’ ‘thank you’ ‘cheers’

etc. count for ‘Appreciation tokens’ in this particular study as they are often seen

followed by an Agreeing Utterance and the latter has more pragmatic force.

‘Upgrading’ – which is regarded in the range of ‘Agreeing utterance’ in Holmes

2 Defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘in which the speaker merely qualifies original assertion’ ‘like Disagreement but weaker’. 3 Defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘which the speaker gives no indication of having heard the compliment either responding with an irrelevant comment or no response at all’.

47

(1988) and Tang & Zhang (2009) – is normally stronger in force than the ‘Agreeing

utterance’ in both cases of British and Chinese ESL corpora in this study, and thus

is categorized as an independent type in the realm of ‘Accept’. The most adapted

micro-level CR category – compared to Herbert (1986) – is Type 11 ‘Request

interpretation’. This type of CRs strategy was defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘a

request rather than a simple compliment’, meaning the addressee simply

understands the compliment as a request. In this particular study, ‘Request

interpretation’ is categorized as Evade in the macro-level, as the complimentee

feels that the complimenter shows interests in the object of the compliment, wants

or is jealous at the complimentee (e.g. ‘You should get one if you are thinking of

getting a new phone’), or very bizarrely the complimenter is actually offering a

request (e.g. ‘I’ll know who to call when I’m moving’). This is a special instance of

‘Request interpretation’ as the complimentee interprets the compliment in the way

that the complimenter is asking to be asked for help next time.

4.1.2 General CRs categories

Overall 377 compliment responses are collected through the DCTs

questionnaires from the two groups of respondents. In the macro level, 219

compliment responses are categorized into the three main types: Accept, Evade,

and Reject, and 159 as combined strategies (see 4.1.4 Combined Strategies). Figure

2 shows the ratio of each macro categories of CRs:

48

Figure 2 Macro CRs categories of both groups

This graph shows that the two groups of participants in this study apparently

prefer to accept the compliments of the four situations in general. The use of Evade

is the second common choice, although only counts for less than half of the use of

Accept, by comparison. Surprisingly, only four ‘Reject’ responses are found across

the two groups, which demonstrates that refusing the force of a compliment is the

least preferred choice for all researched participants. The trend of using these

three general categories (i.e. Accept, Evade, Reject) is consistent with most of the

previous comparative studies with native English speakers (e.g. Holmes 1988) and

Chinese EFL learners (e.g. Tang & Zhang 2009), although inconsistent with one of

the implications of Holmes’s (1986) study that among Malaysian ESL learners in

New Zealand – a context where Asian English learners in a native speaking country

are studied – the use of Reject, particularly ‘disagreeing utterance’, seems most

often when the Malaysian students encountered a compliment in similar situations.

Accept 67%

Evade 31%

Reject 2%

Overall macro-level CRs

49

Nevertheless, the high percentage of using Accept strategies in this study accounts

for an important finding as it shows that to accept a compliment is still the most

common type of compliment responses.

Even so, comparison on the macro level shows that British participants seem to

have provided more appropriate compliment responses through the four scenarios

than their Chinese counterparts do, even for the use of rejections. This is contrary

to one of Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) findings that ‘British respondents found it

generally more difficult to provide more than one or two socially appropriate CRs

for each of the nine situations’ (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 553). See Figure 3 below for

statistic illustration of the distribution of the macro categories of the CRs in each

group:

Figure 3: Macro-level CRs in each group

This graph illustrates that British respondents use more Accept, more Evade,

Accept Evade Reject

British 86 38 3

Chinese ESL 61 30 1

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Macro-level CRs categories

British

Chinese ESL

50

and more Reject than the Chinese do for all the complimenting scenarios. This is an

interesting finding for this particular interlanguage study as it appears to have

shown that Chinese hold different preference of using Evade and Reject when

being seen as second language learners and native Mandarin speakers. To explain,

a few previous studies such as Chen (1993) and Tang & Zhang (2009) have

demonstrated that of the three major categories, Reject seems to be used more by

Mandarin speakers than native English speakers, albeit less than Accept or Evade.

The new data of this study, however, shows the trend of Chinese English learners

generally using less than the native English speakers in all three main categories of

CRs. Examples of Reject CRs are listed in Table 3:

Table 3: Examples of Reject compliment responses

British: B3: CR 2.3 ‘Haha I’m not sure that I’m always that helpful and patient’

B8: CR 2.4 & B11: CR 2.2 ‘Don’t mention it’

Chinese

ESL:

C4: CR 1.2 ‘I’m flattered’

Noticeably, all of the three British Reject responses appear in the Scenario 2

Personality, which indicates that the British participants tend not to reject a

compliment unless it is something related to their innate characteristics. It appears,

to these British participants, that being complimented on their own personalities is

the least comfortable and they might have struggled to find a proper way to

respond it. This reaction seems inconsistent with Pomerantz’s (1978) statement of

51

the dilemma between a) accepting the compliment and b) avoiding self-praise that

most people face in the situation of being complimented. Comparing to the British

utterances, the Chinese ESL Reject ‘I’m flattered’ appears to be more linguistically

polite considering the first-person perspective.

4.1.3 CRs categories in each scenario

CRs for appearance

The Figure 4 shows the use of the three general CRs patterns between the two

groups of participants to the compliment on appearance in Scenario 1.

Figure 4: CRs in the macro level for appearance

Data for the CRs amount in this scenario indicates the overwhelming use of

Accept (44/53) for the compliment on appearance for both groups of participants.

Only one Reject utterance is found in the Chinese ESL group, against none in the

British one. This implicates a genuinely more positive reaction to compliments on

Accept Evade Reject

British 27 5 0

Chinese ESL 17 3 1

27

5 0 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

British

Chinese ESL

52

appearance of the British English speakers than their ESL counterparts from China

do. Specific patterns of CRs for appearance in a micro level are shown below:

Figure 5: CRs in the micro level for appearance

By comparison across the two groups of subjects, an interesting finding out of

this data shows that a total of 5 uses of Challenge Sincerity, Request Interpretation,

and Disagreeing Utterance are found in Chinese ESL data, which appears

surprisingly high against the non-existent use of such patterns in the British

English speakers. Also, no Downgrading pattern is found in the Chinese ESL’s

responses to compliments on appearance. Comparatively, 10 uses of such strategy

are seen in the British corpus. Such a high rate of using Downgrading as a strategy

of accepting a compliment on appearance could probably be related to the

reserved-ness of British culture, explained by a British respondents as ‘culturally

inappropriate’ to say ‘I’m great’:

‘yeah you would accept it, but I don’t think you could ever say “oh thanks”

Appreciati

onToke

n

AgreeingUtterance

Downgrading

Shifting

Credits

Return

Upgrading

Informati

veComment

Request

Assuranc

e

Requestfor

accuracy

Noacknowledgem

ent

ChallengeSincerity

Rqeuest

Interpretation

Disagreein

gUtterance

British 29 1 10 3 8 2 4 1 1 2 0 0 0

Chinese ESL 21 1 0 3 7 1 1 3 0 1 2 2 1

05

101520253035

British

Chinese ESL

53

and that’s it, maybe for my wife I would. But I can’t just go… if someone says “you

look amazing”, if I say “thank you” that means I think I look amazing, which is

weird because I’m socially not allowed to think that. Coz it’s arrogant.’ (interview

transcript quotation)

Contrary to the varied use of micro-level strategies, Chinese ESL learners are

found to have a tendency to use ‘thank you’ as a ‘safe answer’ in such situations.

That is, instead of using direct evasion or followed with another choice, they are

likely to simplify the whole response into a short Appreciation Token, such as

‘thank you’ and ‘thanks’. One respondent confirms that ‘safe answer is my point’

and remarks that such a short response could become the start of a casual

conversation:

‘if a new colleague say this kind of thing, I would say “thank you” and maybe we’ll

then start a conversation, and maybe I’ll praise him back later, but not

immediately’ (interview transcript)

CRs for personality

Figure 6 presents the use of macro-level CRs strategies for the compliment on their

helpful personality after doing a favour for a close friend.

54

Figure 6: CRs in macro level for personality

A total of 36 British CRs and 23 Chinese ESL CRs are collected for this scenario.

It can be seen that Evade is apparently more preferred for both groups, with 21

CRs from the British group and 18 from Chinese. A further indication of this is that

only in this scenario would the two groups of participants choose to evade from the

force of the compliment more than accepting or refusing it. On the contrary, Reject

is the least popular choice, as the data demonstrates, and no Reject CR has been

found from Chinese ESL participants for the complimenting utterance in Scenario 2.

This is compliant with Gu’s (1990) self-denigrating strategy which is proved more

preferable than on-bald reject by Chinese.

Further details regarding the micro-level CRs categories used by the two groups

of participants are presented below in Figure 7. An outstanding ratio of using

Shifting Credits in this scenario is found in both groups, showing that the

Accept Evade Reject

British 12 21 3

Chinese ESL 5 18 0

0

5

10

15

20

25

British

Chinese ESL

55

addressees accept the compliment assertion at first, but then try to transfer the

force of the compliment to a third party or the object itself, thus striving for a

balance between agreement and not self-praising. Apart from this, some CRs

categories are not found in either group, such as Informative Comment, Request

Assurance/Accuracy, and the using of a few other categories are exclusively

applicable for British CRs, including No Acknowledge, Challenge Sincerity, Request

Interpretation, and Disagreeing Utterance.

Figure 7: CRs in micro level for personality

CRs for achievement

The below Figure 8 shows how the two groups of participants in this particular

study use Accept, Evade and Reject strategies to respond to the compliment from a

tutor on their good essay result.

Appreciatio

nToken

Agreeing

Utterance

Downgradi

ng

Shifting

Credits

Return

Upgrading

Informativ

eComment

Request

Assurance

Request foraccur

acy

Noacknowledgement

Challenge

Sincerity

Rqeuest

Interpretati

on

DisagreeingUttera

nce

British 3 3 9 20 1 2 0 0 0 1 1 1 5

Chinese ESL 1 2 5 23 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0

5

10

15

20

25

British

Chinese ESL

56

Figure 8: CRs in macro level for achievement

This graphs illustrates that nearly 95% of the responses for compliments on a

satisfying essay performance is Accept, with only three exceptions of Evade (1

British, 2 Chinese ESL). No Reject usage of compliment responses are found in

terms of this scenario, meaning that the participants of this study tend not to

refuse the complimenting behaviour on their academic achievement in which they

have made great efforts. One British participant has explained the reason of

choosing to accept such compliments as:

‘I suppose because a good grade represents having achieved something,

something which was hopefully difficult otherwise everyone would have good

grades, so yes I would ACCEPT it’ (interview transcript quotation)

Accept Evade Reject

British 27 1 0

Chinese ESL 25 2 0

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

British

Chinese ESL

57

Figure 9: CRs in micro level for achievement

The micro-level CRs data for the Scenario 3 shows that the majority of the

respondents from both groups prefer to either show their appreciation of the

compliment (41%) or return the complimenting force to the speaker (15%). The

high percentage of Return, e.g. ‘Thank you for the quality of your feedback’,

demonstrates that the participants of this study would very likely accept the

compliment by acknowledging the help from the speaker. One of the surprising

findings for this scenario is the total of 5 Disagreeing Utterance, for example, ‘I

thought it was terrible’ (B2) and ‘I really don’t believe I could get a distinction’ (C4).

However, Disagreeing Utterances are invariably found as a component of a

combination, which explains why they are not coded as Reject in the macro lens.

CRs for possession

Like the data shown above of the CRs for Scenario 3, no demonstration of Reject

Appreciatio

nToken

Agreeing

Utterance

Downgradi

ng

Shifting

Credits

Return

Upgrading

Informativ

eComment

Request

Assurance

Request foraccur

acy

Noacknowledgement

Challenge

Sincerity

Rqeuest

Interpretati

on

DisagreeingUttera

nce

British 28 8 3 4 6 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 4

Chinese ESL 18 8 0 3 11 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

British

Chinese ESL

58

CRs are found in either group of participants for compliments on their new-bought

mobile phone in this study. Illustration of the use of macro-level CRs can be found

below in Figure 10:

Figure 10: CRs in macro level for possession

This graph shows that to accept or evade the force of a compliment on a new

possession is the most common choice for both British and Chinese ESL

respondents, with Accept slightly more than Evade for each. Specific use of the

micro-level strategies is shown below:

Accept Evade Reject

British 20 11 0

Chinese ESL 14 7 0

0

5

10

15

20

25

British

Chinese ESL

59

Figure 11: CRs in micro level for possession

Apart from the overwhelming use of Agreeing Utterance, one noticeable use of

the micro-level CRs strategies for this scenario is Qualification, defined by Herbert

(1986: 78) as ‘weaker than Disagreement: addressee merely qualified the original

assertion’. The mere instance in this study can be found as ‘It was quite unexpected’

(B3) as a follow-up response after ‘Thank you’. By saying this, the complimentee

acknowledges the assertion of the unexpectedness of her good performance on

behalf of both the tutor and herself, nevertheless accepting the compliment at first.

Therefore, the force of this speech act of CRs is weaker than a rejection and more of

an evasion in the macro level.

Another finding of CRs for possession that is worth noting is the high rate of

using Request Interpretation in the Chinese ESL group. The participants tend to

either offer the subject being complimented (e.g. ‘I’ll buy you one if you like’), carry

Appreciati

onToke

n

AgreeingUtterance

Downgrading

Shifting

Credits

Return

Upgrading

Informativ

eComment

Request

Assurance

Requestfor

accuracy

Noacknowledgem

ent

ChallengeSincerity

Rqeuest

Interpretation

Disagreein

gUtterance

Qualificati

on

British 4 18 5 5 0 4 4 0 0 2 0 4 0 1

Chinese ESL 2 19 0 1 0 5 4 0 0 0 0 10 1 0

02468

101214161820

British

Chinese ESL

60

on a further conversation about the function of the possession (e.g. ‘If you are

interested in these functions, I can teach you’), or suggest the complimenter buy

one as well (e.g. ‘maybe you and dad should consider changing the old one’). The

common use of such strategy is also mentioned in Cheng’s (2011) study with the

Chinese group, explained in the way of Chinese cultural influence (see Chen 2011:

2210).

4.1.4 Combination Strategies

Figure 12 illustrates the overall use of combination strategies of CRs across the

two groups of participants in this study.

Figure 12: Macro-level use of combination CRs

Overall 43 combination strategies are found in the macro-level compliment

response, coded as Accept + Evade, Accept + Reject, Reject + Evade, Evade + Accept,

and Reject + Accept. The most common combination pattern is Accept + Evade

Accept+Reject 14%

Accept+Evade 49%

Reject+Accept 7%

Evade+Accept 28%

Reject+Evade 2%

Accept+Reject

Accept+Evade

Reject+Accept

Evade+Accept

Reject+Evade

61

(49%), meaning that the sequence of accepting a compliment first and then

pushing down the compliment force is most favourable and polite way in the cases

where the complimentees feel that more than one CR is needed. As explained by a

British respondent, the reason for evading the compliment force after accepting it

at first is related to the his consideration of being humble, ‘not to show that you are

uncomfortable, but just not to highlight the compliment too much’ (quoted from an

interview transcript).

Figure 13: combination macro-level CRs

The demonstration of macro-level combination CRs strategies between the two

groups is shown above in Figure 13. For British, Accept + Evade (13/20) is still the

most commonly seen pattern as in the general comparison, whereas their Chinese

counterparts seem to have used more Evade + Accept (11/23) in the same

scenarios. This discrepancy is in accordance with one of Tang and Zhang’s (2009)

statements that Chinese ‘reserves and consideration’ and ‘pay more attention to

Accept+Reject

Accept+Evade

Reject+Accept

Evade+Accept

Reject+Evade

British 3 13 3 1 0

Chinese ESL 3 8 0 11 1

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

British

Chinese ESL

62

“facework”’ (Tang & Zhang 2009: 338).

4.1.5. Social appropriateness

Apart from providing all possible responses on the questionnaires, the

respondents of the two groups are also required to decide one out of the four4

responses as the most socially appropriate answer in such situation. No

pre-instructions are given regarding the definition of ‘social appropriateness’ in

order to reduce the researchers’ impacts on participants’ own judgment.

Figure 14: ‘most appropriate’ strategies in the macro-level

A stark contrast between the uses of single and combined CRs strategies is

demonstrated from the above chart. In the macro level, short CRs with only one

strategy is the most preferred pattern that participants from both groups believe as

‘the most appropriate’, with an overwhelming percentage of 87%. A comparatively

low percentage (13%) goes to combination strategies, showing that CRs with two

4 Ideally but not compulsorily four responses should be given for each scenario.

single strategies

87%

combination

strategies 13%

63

distinctive strategies are less likely to be assumed appropriate. Comparative data of

using combination strategies between the two groups are shown as follow:

Figure 15: appropriateness of combined macro-level CRs

From this graph, it is worth noting that no Reject strategy in any form is found

in the selected ‘most appropriate’ patterns for both groups. This is a naturally

understandable finding from the perspectives of Co-operative and Agreement

Principles. Also, only utterances led by an Accept (i.e. Accept + Evade) are

interpreted as appropriate; no Evade + Accept strategy is regarded so by the native

British speakers. Such an agreement-priority attitude confirms Lorenzo-Dus’s

(2001) statement that British people generally consider it inappropriate to

verbalize their disagreement in an irredressive way due to the risk of offending the

hearer’s negative face wants (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 115). On the flip side, Chinese

ESL participants seem more tolerant with evading a compliment force before

accepting it implicitly.

British Chinese ESL

Accept+Evade 2 4

Evade+Accept 0 6

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Accept+Evade

Evade+Accept

64

Participants’ contemplation on the process of making such decision is inquired

during the retrospective interviews. The result shows that most participants

demonstrate a solid perception of the concept of ‘social appropriateness’, and they

consider this as the decisive power of giving responses and ‘shape what I can say’

(quote form an interview). ‘Formality’ and ‘circumstances’ are two frequently

mentioned words by the interviewees when being asked to explain their personal

understanding about ‘most socially appropriate’; they suggest that more

alternatives could have been made as a ‘more appropriate’ were different

contextual factors or different levels of formality seen in the conversation.

4.1.6 Humorous CRs

Humorous expression of compliment responses in English from native speakers

and Chinese second language learners is another analyzing focus of this empirical

study. Although describing themselves as ‘negative’ and ‘reserved’, British

respondents in this particular study do provide more humorous CRs than the

Chinese do (i.e. 10 British, 3 Chinese ESL), both in terms of quantity and variety.

See Table 4 below for comparative data between the two groups and examples:

65

Table 4: Humourous CRs

CRs categories Scenario Utterance

British Downgrading 2 ‘Don't move again too soon!’

Downgrading 1 ‘Thank you, but I feel rather out of

place to be honest.’

Downgrading 3 ‘Yeah, don't really know how it

happened, but I won't complain.’

Disagreeing

Utterance

2 ‘Haha I'm not sure that I'm always

that helpful and patient.’

No

Acknowledgement

4 ‘I must make sure I don't lose it.’

Challenge Sincerity 2 ‘Can I have that in writing?’

Disagreeing

Utterance

2 ‘No, I'm just mad enough to spend

time with you.’

Upgrading 2 ‘I know, I'm amazing ain't I?’

Request

Interpretation

2 ‘Thanks, I'll know who to call when

I'm moving.’

Downgrading 2 ‘I'm not sure about patient, but I can

be useful sometimes.’

Chinese Upgrading 1 ‘Thanks, I totally agree with you!’

Upgrading 2 ‘Yes I indeed am.’

Agreeing Utterance 2 ‘You're welcome, though I'm tired…’

This table has evidenced that the compliment on personality in the second

scenario apparently generates more humourous CRs than other situations do.

Same as in Lorenzo-Dus (2001), British humourous CRs present two distinctive

semantic formats: 1) sincere appreciation token in attempt to avoid self-praise (e.g.

‘I feel rather out of place.’), and 2) ironic/challenging expression of criticism (e.g.

‘Can I have that in writing?’). Contrarily, only the first format is found in Chinese

ESL corpus, indicating that ironic response to a compliment in the four scenarios

seems linguistically challenging for Chinese English learners.

66

4.2 Findings

4.2.1 Cross-cultural similarities and differences in terms of modesty and

agreement

Pomerantz’s (1978) articulation of the pragmatic dilemma of compliment

responses between avoiding self-praise and agreeing with the complimenter

indicates a central notion of the relationship between modesty and agreement

principles. Through comparative analysis between the two groups, this study has

proved the existence of such a dilemma in both British and Chinese ESL

participants in replying to compliments on appearance, personality, achievement

and possession.

Despite the implication of previous comparative studies that both Chinese and

British cultures have been described to some extent as ‘reserved’ in terms of

politeness, against such other language communities as Spanish (e.g. Lorenzo-Dus

2001) and American English speakers (e.g. Tang & Zhang 2009, Cheng 2011), this

study indicates that different interpretations of modesty and agreement in the

researched two cultures may apply. On the one hand, the nature of British

politeness as ‘negative politeness’, avoiding blatant, and favourable to accept a

compliment gracefully (Hickey 1991, cited in Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 109; Sacks 1973,

cited in Chen 1993: 67). The new British data of this study supports this assertion

in regards to the high portion of the accepting-evading sequence of CRs strategies.

67

On the other hand, the Chinese ESL data of this study supports Gu’s (1990)

statement that Chinese modesty reflects the core concept of Chinese politeness in

self-denigrating. The more blatant Reject, less frequent Accept, as-well as the more

frequent Evade expressions in the Chinese ESL corpus echo the hypothesis that the

essential of Chinese modesty is to appear humble. However, no data of this study

shows the implication whether these Chinese participants necessarily believe they

do think positively of themselves whilst appearing so. Furthermore, this study

reflects that without instructional teaching of pragmatics, sorely daily exposure to

the target language have not substantively changed these Chinese students’

pragmalinguistic awareness of English, nor reshaped their understanding of the

sociopragmatic appropriateness of certain CRs expressions in their second

language.

4.2.2 Gender, social distance, and power difference

As shown in the research question, this study inserts the intension to test

whether the gender difference between the interlocutors actually influences the

complimentees’ responses. Through the DCTs and retrospective interviews, the

participants from both groups are found to show no particular intention to change

their responses to complimenters of or against their own gender. Most

respondents during the interviews, albeit acknowledging that they noticed the

opposite-gender setting for the first three scenarios, claimed that gender difference

had not influenced their responses. One British participant explained the reason

68

from the sociological perspective by saying that ‘assuming it’s still a friendship or a

working relationship, it’s a fairly similar interaction, whether it’s a man or woman’

(quoted from an interview). Only two Chinese female respondents admitted that

the compliment on appearance from male do influence their thinking process for a

proper response. Both of them used ‘flirtatious’ to describe their impression of

compliments on their look from male. This indicates that they both feel

embarrassed being complimented on their appearance by the opposite gender,

suggesting that females seem to pay more attention on the impression of their

outfit and who notices the change.

However, the DCTs production and retrospective data from both groups

demonstrate a clear indication that both groups have the impression of social

distance and power difference, which they claimed to have a shaping power on

how they respond to the compliments. The interviewees from each group

unanimously mentioned the term ‘self-denigrating’ as the reason of speaking in a

humble way to someone with a higher social status or distant social relationship.

When giving a rationale of appointing the most appropriate CRs, ‘depends on the

circumstance’ is the most frequented phrase that was used by both British and

Chinese ESL students; this also occurred when they were asked to explain using a

certain humorous expression whether to a close friend or a new work mate. This

shows that the participants are aware of the presumable social/contextual

influence that they may receive from the surrounding environment during the

69

complimenting-responding interaction, either in their mother tongue or second

language. More importantly, due to the often-mentioned term ‘formality’ during the

interviews, the date of this study echoes the statement that Brown and Levinson’s

(1978) FTAs theory should be a relative rather than absolute notion. With the same

level of imposition ranking (R), other determining variables than the social

distance (D) and power relations (P) should be taken into consideration when

calculating the pragmatic force of such FTA speech acts as compliments and

compliment responses. ‘It depends on how well I know him/he knows me’ is often

seen during the interviews as well, indicating that the participants have the

knowledge that their personal/professional relationship with the complimenter

may have influenced their choice of response in order to achieve both

pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic properness. Last but not least, an analysis

finding from the third scenario that most students display the awareness of

providing different CRs to the same tutor in school and casual occasions has

evidenced that the perceived power difference between the interlocutors do

change speech.

Chapter Five Conclusion

5.1 Research summary

With an interlanguage pragmatics research approach, this study has compared

70

and investigated the pragmatic usage of compliment responses strategies by native

British English speakers and Chinese ESL learners. In light of this, this study is a

small-scale piece of sociopragmatic work aiming to find out how valid Brown and

Levinson’s (1978, 1987) and Leech’s (1983, 2007) politeness theories can be

applied to describe the CRs from the researched groups.

Four complimenting scenarios were designed for the DCTs questionnaire in

order to draw pragmatic data of each group’s CRs production, and the social and

contextual impacts on certain CRs utterance and evaluation were probed through

qualitative interview transcript analysis. This mixed method is designed to resolve

such research questions as how native British speakers and Chinese ESL learners

differ regarding their politeness strategies of compliment responses, how

social/contextual factors (i.e. gender difference, social distance, power relations)

and their knowledge of pragmatic constraints (i.e. modesty, agreement) of their

native cultures are likely to navigate their choice of CRs and their understanding

about social appropriateness.

Results have been found in respect to the similarities and differences of CRs

strategies between the two groups and the underlying sociological knowledge

discrepancy about cross-cultural politeness. Specifically speaking, the research

findings can be summarized as:

1) British and Chinese ESL CRs differ in regard to linguistic categories and their

71

preference for designating appropriateness. Reason may vary from external

language proficiency to internal sociopragmatic awareness of the politeness in

English and Chinese cultures.

2) Both British and Chinese ESL participants tend to accept compliments in

general for the four situations, with the only exception for compliments on

personality where both groups used more Evade strategies. This indicates that

for most situations, people seem to give priority to agreement principle when

trying to strike a balance between agreeing and avoiding self-praise.

3) Chinese ESL learners do not tend to reject compliments on their personality,

achievement and possession, and when they feel necessary to reject, they

would rather choose a moderate self-denigrating way as ‘I’m flattered’ to shift

the complimenting subject away from themselves.

4) Both groups of participants have the knowledge of the possible impacts of their

social distance and power relations with the person who compliments, and

they suggest that the level of formality should be fairly considered instead of

the gender difference.

5.2 Strengths and limitations

As a small-scale comparative study, this research has demonstrated its own

strengths and weaknesses. Firstly, the use of questionnaire and the follow-up

72

retrospective interviews as the means of readjustment have improved the

instrument validity and reliability. Secondly, the research findings have supported

some cross-cultural findings by previous studies on British and Chinese people.

More importantly, this study has shown that modifications should be done on the

FTAs theory of Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) in order to better interpret

Chinese ESL learners’ understanding of face and the face-threatening acts in

English. Thirdly, compared to Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) study that used the same

sampling instruments, this study with new British data has illustrated that the

British young people nowadays have presented a more sincere attitude to

compliments; they have become less likely to linguistically refuse or challenge a

complimenting utterance.

A number of limitations of this study should also be noticed. The qualitative

design of the sampling and analysis determines the small scale of research and the

non-generalizability of the findings. That is, the findings of this particular study can

only apply to the researched crowds of participants, with certain requirements

about native languages, age, education background, and second language

proficiency (for the Chinese participants). The results cannot be generalized to

Chinese EFL learners out of Britain, or native English speakers of other

nationalities. Also, although originally designed for participants with the same

current higher education level at the same university, this study eventually

includes British participants from undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral

73

programmes from three different universities in the UK, in order to gain enough

and varied data.

5.3 Future research

This study is an experimental attempt to investigate the similarities and

differences of two distinctive language groups. Although no explicit cultural

influence of the L2 learning experience in the target language community can be

found on the particular Chinese respondents in this study, a longitudinal study can

be called for to fulfill this task. According to Kasper and Rose (2001: 4), a

noteworthy limitation of the current interlanguage pragmatics research lies on the

lack of systematic linkage between the research focus on the second language

learners’ target language pragmatics ability with their experience of learning

within the second language circumstance. The validity of instructional pragmatics

teaching should receive more research attention as it could probably explain the

pedagogical issue of pragmatics teach-ability to speakers of other languages.

Constrained by the limited time of research, the researcher uses DCTs

questionnaires as main data collection method, albeit the admitted shortage of

real-world interactional data that has been frequently critiqued by previous

studies (see previous discussion in 3.3.1). A problematic issue of using DCTs as a

substitute of real dialogues is that DCTs are generally considered more suitable for

studies of ‘what people think they will say’ rather than ‘what people actually do say’

74

(Golato 2003: 111). Also, a number of interlanguage pragmatics studies (e.g.

Fukushima 1990) have found that L2 learners are less context-sensitive to the

pragmatics knowledge of their L2 than their L1 (Kasper & Rose 2001: 6). In light of

this, conversational dialogues can be expected to be a better option of instrument

for future interlanguage research to investigate the sociological influence on L2

learners’ pragmatic ability acquisition.

To contribute to the investigation of L2 learners’ pragmatic ability development,

further research on the acquisition of pragmatic awareness of the second language

learners should receive more attention (Schauer 2006: 270). Unlike the pragmatic

production studies that have been done recently (e.g. Barron 2003, Schauer 2004,

Achiba 2003, etc.), studies of the interrelationship between L2 learners’ acquisition

of pragmatic and grammatical awareness extend the research focus to the delicate

acquisition process of L2 learners’ pragmatics ability (ibid.), and thus provide a

new perspective of native-learner comparison.

75

References

Achiba, M. (2003). Learning to request in a second language. Clevedon, UK:

Multilingual Matters.

Allami, H., & Montazeri, M. (2012). Iranian EFL learners' compliment responses.

System, 40(4), 466-482.

Bachman, L.F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Bardovi-Harlig, K., & Hartford, B. S. (1993). Refining the DCT: Comparing Open

Questionnaires and Dialogue Completion Tasks.

Barron, A. (2003). Acquisition in interlanguage pragmatics: Learning how to do

things with words in a study abroad context (Vol.108), Amsterdam:

Benjamins.

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1978). Universals in language usage: Politness

phenomena.

Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language.

Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Brown, J. D., & Rodgers, T. S. (2002). Doing second language research. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: a contrastive study of politeness

strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of

Pragmatics, 20(1), 49-75.

Cheng, D. (2011). New insights on compliment responses: A comparison between

native English speakers and Chinese L2 speakers. Journal of Pragmatics,

43(8), 2204-2214.

Cummings, L. M. B. M. C., & Clark, B. M. (2006). Natural speech act data versus

written questionnaire data: How data collection method affects speech act

performance. In Speech Acts Across Cultures: Challenges to Communication in a

Second Language, 11, 65.

Dippold, D. (2008). Reframing one’s experience: Face, identity and roles in L2

argumentative discourse. In Developing Contrastive Pragmatics:

Interlanguage and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, 131-153.

Fukushima, S. (1990). Offers and request: Performance by Japanese learners of

English. World Englishes, 9, 317-25.

Gao, Xiongya. (1985). Equivalency in translation. Unpublished M.A. thesis, Xi’an

Foreign Language University, China.

Golato, A. (2003). Studying compliment responses: A comparison of DCTs and

recordings of naturally occurring talk. Applied linguistics, 24(1), 90-121.

Grice, H. Paul, 1975. Logic and conversation. In Cole, P., Morgan, J.L. (Eds.), Syntax

and Semantics, vol. 3. Academic Press, New York, 41–58.

Goffman, E. (1967). On face-work. Interaction Ritual, 5-45.

Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics,

76

14(2), 237-257.

Gumperz, J. J. (1968). The speech community. In Duranti, A. (Ed.). (2009). Linguistic

anthropology: a reader (Vol.1). John Wiley & Sons. 43-52.

Herbert, R. K. (1986). Say" thank you"-or something. American Speech, 76-88.

Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in

Society, 19(02), 201-224.

Hickey, L. (1991). Comparatively polite people in Spain and Britain. Journal of the

Association of Contemporary Iberian Studies, 4.2-6.

Hobbs, P. (2003). The medium is the message: Politeness strategies in men's and

women's voice mail messages. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(2), 243-262.

Holmes, J. (1986). Compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand English.

Anthropological linguistics, 485-508.

Holmes, J. (1988). Paying compliments: A sex-preferential politeness strategy.

Journal of Pragmatics, 12(4), 445-465.

Holmes, J. (1993). New Zealand women are good to talk to: An analysis of

politeness strategies in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(2), 91-116.

Holmes, J. (1995). Women, men, and politeness. Longman, London.

Holmes, J. & Brown, D. F. (1987). Teachers and students learning about

compliments. TESOL Quarterly, 21, 523-546.

Kasper, G. (1998). Interlanguage Pragmatics. In Learning Foreign and Second

Languages: Perspectives on Research and Scholarship. Heidy Byrnes (Ed),

183-208. New York: Modern Language Association.

Kasper, G., & Rose, K. (1999). Pragmatics and second language acquisition. Annual

Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, 81-104.

Kasper, G., & Rose, K. R. (Eds.). (2001). Pragmatics in language teaching. Ernst Klett

Sprachen.

Kasper, G., Blum-Kulka, Sh, (1993). Interlanguage pragmatics: an introduction. In

Interlanguage Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3-18.

Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics (Vol. 285). London: Longman.

Leech, G. (2007). Politeness: is there an East-West divide?. Journal of Politeness

Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 3(2), 167-206.

Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2001). Compliment responses among British and Spanish

university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(1),

107-127.

Marshall, MN. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family Practice, 13,

522-525.

Mertens, D.M. (2005). Research methods in education and psychology: Integrating

diversity with quantitative and qualitative approaches. (2nd Ed.) Thousand

Oaks: Sage.

Oppenheim, A.N. (2000). Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude

measurement. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the co-operation of

multiple constraints. Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction,

7, 112.

77

Rose, K. R. (1994). On the Validity of Discourse Completion Tests in Non-Western

Contexts1. Applied Linguistics, 15(1), 1-14.

Ruhi, S. (2006). Politeness in compliment responses: A perspective from naturally

occurring exchanges in Turkish. Pragmatics, 16(1), 43.

Sacks, Harvey, 1973. Lecture notes. Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ann Arbor, MI.

Schauer, G. A. (2004). May you speak louder maybe? Interlanguage pragmatic

development in requests. In S. Foster-Cohen & M. Sharwood-Smith (Eds.),

EUROSLA Yearbook (Vol. 4). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Schauer, G. A. (2006). Pragmatic awareness in ESL and EFL contexts: Contrast and

development. Language Learning, 56(2), 269-318.

Schegloff, E. A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 8(4), 289-327.

Tang, C. H., & Zhang, G. Q. (2009). A contrastive study of compliment responses

among Australian English and Mandarin Chinese speakers. Journal of

Pragmatics, 41(2), 325-345.

Thomas, J. (1995). Meaning in interaction: An introduction to pragmatics. London:

Longman.

Wierzbicka, A. (2008). A conceptual basis for intercultural pragmatics and

world-wide understanding. In Pütz, M., & Neff-van Aertselaer, J.

(Eds.). Developing contrastive pragmatics: Interlanguage and cross-cultural

perspectives (Vol. 31). Walter de Gruyter. 3-45.

Wolfson, N. (1981). Compliments in Cross-cultural Perspective. TESOL Quarterly,

15(2), 117-124.

Yu, Ming-Chung. (2003). On the universality of face: evidence from Chinese

compliment response behaviour. Journal of Pragmatics, 35 (10–11), 1679–

1710.

78

Appendices

Appendix 1 Background Information Questionnaire

Pre-screening Background Questionnaire

Researcher: Xi ZHU (MSc TESOL, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol)

Dissertation supervisor: Helen Woodfield

Name of Respondent: ______________

Note: This questionnaire aims to collect participants for my Master’s dissertation

research on how British and Chinese university students differ in compliment responses.

A Discourse Completion Tasks questionnaire and interviews will follow as the main data

elicitation form. The access of the research data is exclusive to the researcher and the

supervisor, and all information will be kept confidential and secure under the principle

of Data Protection Act.

*ALL CAPITAL LETTERS PLEASE

Personal information

1. Age _____

2. Gender: Male ☐ Female ☐

3. Nationality: UK ☐ China ☐ Others ☐ ________

4. Expected degree: Bachelor’s ☐ Master’s ☐ Doctor’s ☐

5. Subject: ___________

6. Lengths of residence in UK ________

7. English learning method: naturalistic ☐ academic ☐

For Chinese respondents ONLY:

7. English level (e.g. IELTS academic score) _______

8. Age of English study start: _______

For British respondents ONLY:

9. Birth place _____________

10. Native language ___________

11. Other languages ___________

Thank you for your kindest cooperation! ;)

For further instrument:

If the research interests you, please circle below the level of your consent to take part

in the formal dissertation study and leave your Email address. Your participation will be

79

appreciated. Note that you have the right to withdraw your consent at any point of the

research in the future.

Questionnaire (a Discourse Completion Task questionnaire) ☐

Interview (tape-recorded) ☐

Email: ____________________________________

Appendix 2 DCTs questionnaire

Guidance: First of all thank you very much for giving up some of your time. Below

are four compliments that you’re likely to receive in everyday life. How would you

respond? Please write down all socially appropriate answers in the given lines, the

more varieties the better. In the square bracket, please tick the most appropriate

response. The whole questionnaire will take approximately 20 minutes.

Example: “1) your response []”

Note:

1. Imagine that you are complimented by the opposite gender (except the

fourth scenario).

2. If necessary, you may add non-verbal comments within a bracket, e.g.

“your response (winking at him/her; smiling; shrugs; etc.)”.

3. You don’t have to fill in all blanks if you are out of your ideas.

Appearance

You are dressed up for a social dinner with some of your new colleagues, and when

you arrive there, one of them says: “Wow, you look very smart in this dress/suit!

Very good taste indeed!” You reply:

1) ____________________________________[ ] 2) _________________________________________[ ]

3) ____________________________________[ ] 4) _________________________________________[ ]

Personality

You have spent a whole weekend helping a close friend moving to a new flat, and at

the end of the day, he/she says: “Thank you so much! You are the best friend

anyone would ask for – always so helpful and patient!” You reply:

1) ____________________________________[ ] 2) _________________________________________[ ]

3) ____________________________________[ ] 4) _________________________________________[ ]

Achievement

You have been working really hard on your subject essays, and one of them has just

got a distinction. One day you run into the tutor in the school, and after a short

greeting he/she says: “By the way, congratulations! You’ve done a really good job

on that essay!” You reply:

80

1) ____________________________________[ ] 2) _________________________________________[ ]

3) ____________________________________[ ] 4) _________________________________________[ ]

Possession

You have just bought a new phone. Your parent sees it when you are answering a

phone call. After you showing him/her some smart functions, he/she says: “That’s

a really nice one, isn’t it?” You reply:

1) ____________________________________[ ] 2) _________________________________________[ ]

3) ____________________________________[ ] 4) _________________________________________[ ]

Thank you for your cooperation!

Appendix 3 Interview guide

1. How do you think of the questionnaires? Have you got any difficulty regarding

the compliments, scenario descriptions, and understanding what you were

supposed to be doing?

2. General ‘why’ questions for all responses:

(in the order of the four settings) why do you think your answers are

appropriate to this person in such a situation? (generally including all the

responses for each scenario)

Possible prompts in case of silence:

e.g. What was your main consideration when you were trying to

answer a compliment like these?

3. specific ‘why’ questions: (focused on specifically

interesting/noticeable/atypical/non-idiomatic responses)

a) e.g. Why did you say that? What were you thinking when you gave this

response?

b) Why do you think .... is the most appropriate answer for this

compliment?/more appropriate than the others?

Possible prompts in case of silence:

Have you learned about this at school before? / When/where

have you learned about this response? (only for Chinese ESL

group)

81

c) Were you aware of the gender difference when you were answering this

compliment? Would you give the same response were you being

complimented here by the same gender?

d) OR: Would you give the same response if that person was an old/new

friend/colleague/tutor? (with hypothesised questions changing the social

distance and power relations between the interlocutors)

4. (only for Chinese ESL group) (focused the compliments embedded in cultural

awareness difference)

e.g. Would you give the same response in Chinese? If no, why not? (leading to

cultural awareness and L1&L2 difference)