The Use of Compliment Response Strategies among Iranian Learners of English: Researching Interlocutors' Relative Power and Gender

Sa’d, Seyyed Hatam Tamimi

doi:10.26529/cepsj.118

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…That is, females tended to accept compliments more often when compared to males who tended to reject them 1 . This finding supports previous work in the L2 literature (e.g., Cheng, 2011;Yousefvand, 2010;Tamimi, 2015). This implies that females could probably be submitting to the agreement maxim whereas males might be sacrificing the modesty maxim.…”

Section: Discussion Conclusion and Suggestionssupporting

confidence: 91%

“…EFL learners across genders could meet the culturally appropriate norms in responding to compliments in English and those in Persian (Sharifian, Chalak, & Dehkordi, 2019). Male Persian EFL speakers are found to use more CR strategies when compared to females who were inclined to accept the compliments to build solidarity and rapport with the interlocutor (Tamimi, 2015). Morales (2012) investigated the role of gender in the CRs of Filipino EFL learners of high-schoolers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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More than ‘thanks’: Responding to compliments in a second language

GECKİN

2023

E-Kafkas Eğitim Araştırmaları Dergisi

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This study aims at investigating the use of macro and micro strategies used to respond to compliments in a second language. For this aim, advanced level Turkish learners of English as a foreign language were given a written discourse completion task (24 items) and were asked to give metapragmatic judgements of their responses on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 meant not appropriate at all and 5 meant highly appropriate. The study specifically addresses the role of gender on (i) the strategies used to respond to compliments in a foreign language and (ii) metapragmatic judgements of the appropriateness of these responses. The utilized response strategies to the compliments were coded in terms of the categories proposed by Boori (1994). Overall, the findings showed that the female participants tended to accept the compliments whereas the males preferred to reject them as macro level strategies. Micro level strategies such as an appreciation token, a comment and returning the given compliment were used more often by both groups. The findings revealed that females statistically significantly differed from males in their responses to the compliments received on a possession and on their looks. What is more, the perceived pragmatic appropriacy of the responses to the compliments was statistically significantly higher for females than for males when the participants were required to respond to a compliment on their skills. The findings suggest that gender plays a role in compliment responses and their perceived appropriateness.

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Section: Discussion Conclusion and Suggestionssupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than ‘thanks’: Responding to compliments in a second language

GECKİN

2023

E-Kafkas Eğitim Araştırmaları Dergisi

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“Gender and social power dynamics in compliment responses: A cross-cultural pragmatic study of university students in Indonesia and Pakistan”

Bibi,

Sartini

2023

Cogent Arts & Humanities

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Compliments in Persian-Speaking Communication: Universal and Ethnospecific

Mazepova

2023

BOLL

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Background. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to develop the appropriate sociocultural competence of students studying Eastern languages in Ukrainian universities. Compliment is one of the ethno-specific speech acts (SA) functioning in the Persian linguistic and cultural area. Discovering the strategies which Persian speakers apply when giving and receiving compliments will help to understand the specific features of the cognitive mechanisms underlying their communicative behavior, and to make certain conclusions about their axiological world's image. Methods. (i) Comparative – to analyze the views of Western and Iranian researchers on the nature of compliments and responses to them; (ii) discourse analysis – to identify various social, mental, cultural, etc. factors that influence the complementary behavior of Persian speakers; (iii) intent analysis – to identify actual, explicitly non-expressed intentions of participants in Persian-speaking complimentary interaction. Results. It has been established that the compliment SA in Persian-speaking communication is closely related to the cultural schemes šekastenafsi 'modesty' and ša'n 'dignity' – integral components of the Persian politeness system ta'ārof. When responding to a compliment, Iranians tend to downplay the object of the compliment, raising the status of the initiator of the compliment instead. Also they apply this strategy when communicating in English, which demonstrates how valuable it is and how deep it is rooted in the Persian linguistic consciousness. Conclusions. In both English-speaking and Persian-speaking communicative behavior there is one common element – the desire to respond positively to a compliment, yet avoiding self-praise. Functioning of Persian-language compliments demonstrates its ethno-specific nature in the following cases: 1) when the reaction to a compliment on a thing of the addressee becomes a counteroffer to accept that thing as a gift; 2) when women are complimented on their appearance or personal qualities by men they don't know well; due to cultural restrictions, such compliments are perceived as insincere comments or even sarcasm, so they are ignored or regarded with disapproval.

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The Use of Compliment Response Strategies among Iranian Learners of English: Researching Interlocutors' Relative Power and Gender

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

More than ‘thanks’: Responding to compliments in a second language

More than ‘thanks’: Responding to compliments in a second language

“Gender and social power dynamics in compliment responses: A cross-cultural pragmatic study of university students in Indonesia and Pakistan”

Compliments in Persian-Speaking Communication: Universal and Ethnospecific

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