Appraising and reappraising of compliments and the provision of responses

Abstract

The role of cognitive processes in compliment-response (CR) exchanges is an underdeveloped area of investigation. This article aims to probe whether Persian speakers’ responses to compliments change in line with their appraisals of the situation. To achieve this aim, Persian speakers’ responses to compliments are analysed based on their first and second appraisals of the event. In this study, with a focus on the CR exchanges, Persian speakers (N = 160) were observed and audio-recorded during everyday conversation. The results of this study manifest that Persian speakers have distinct (and even opposite) reactions based on their first and second appraisal of compliments. This suggests, therefore, that Appraisal 1 and Appraisal 2 undergo different sociocognitive processes that reflect automatic and non-automatic responses to compliments. It is concluded that the relation between Appraisal 1 and Appraisal 2 is mostly contradictory rather than confirmatory, in that the first compliment is mostly appraised as a politeness strategy (a social lubricant), whereas the second compliment is frequently appraised as purposeful or strategic praise. In addition, the first compliment is responded to automatically, whereas the second compliment is approached non-automatically.

Discourse markers in L2 learners' responses to teacher‐generated compliments during classroom interaction

“…This can indicate that responding to compliments is a cognitive reaction, besides being a social act. This is important because when it comes to the production and comprehension of speech acts, most researchers refer to sociocultural issues (Morady Moghaddam, 2019) while little is known about the cognitive processes. Learners not only consciously planned type of response, but also challenged the validation of compliments, through DMs such as “really,” which itself was used frequently among the learners.…”

“…However, the findings of the current study reveal that it was not necessarily employed by the students to disagree with teachers' compliments, but as a marker to mitigate the compliment or a request for further confirmation. Iranian culture is replete with instances of insincere compliments, which are made as a social lubricant or as a means to please the hearer (Morady Moghaddam, 2019). Hansen (1998, p. 247) states that “linguistic meanings are not the property of the individual language user, but rather of the linguistic community as a whole.” Therefore, to assess the pragmatic implication of compliments as sincere praise, the complimentee may ask for further confirmation.…”

From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, edited by Eva Ogiermann and Pilar G. Blitvich

“…On the one hand, Tzanne believes that Greek people tend to orient towards positive politeness as a strategic behaviour, and hence the bloggers' comments are expected to embrace closeness, collaboration and support (86 percent of the comments involved high praise), while on the other hand she claims that "the positive politeness strategies used in their construction are perhaps more naturally occurring than pre-planned, more spontaneous than strategic" (p. 64). The interlocutors' expectations convince me that the positive comments in her data should act as a social lubricant rather than genuine praise, for Greek people tend to orient towards positive politeness in a similar way to Persian speakers (see Morady Moghaddam, 2019Moghaddam, , 2021; hence it is safe to say that the Greek mindset is (culturally) preplanned to respect common interests, and the interactions in this food blog are no exception.…”