Katrina S. Nacar M.A. Ed.

ELT

ELT 503 Contrastive Analysis Prof. Irish C. Sioson Compliment and Compliment Responses in Kunming Chinese by Yi Yuan

Introduction In the field of empirical pragmatics research, a lot of attention has been given to the exploration of pragmatic norms of different speech acts in different languages (e.g. refusals, apologies, requests, complaints, compliments and compliment responses). Compliments and compliment responses have attracted particular attention from researchers because they give insights into the rules of language use in a speech community show the value system of individual speakers as well as the community (cf. Knapp et al., 1984; Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1984). Serious research on the speech act of compliments began with a series of work by Wolfson and Manes on compliments in American English. Based on almost 700 naturally occurring compliments by middle class Americans, Manes and Wolfson (1980) found for the first time that this speech act was highly formulaic in American English at the syntactic, semantic, and lexical levels. This formulaicness was later found to be true in other varieties of English and other languages. Apart from the formulaicness of compliments found across cultures, some differences have also emerged. Herbert (1991) found that while compliments in English had a rather even distribution of first, second, and third person / impersonal focus, compliments in Polish had a predominant second person focus. The topic of compliment also varies (e.g. personal appearance, possession, personality and performance). Compliments have also been studied in relation to such social factors as gender, age, and social distance. More and lengthier compliments were given between acquaintances of equal status than between total strangers or intimates. Women have been found to give and receive compliments than men do, especially on their appearance. Compliments also occur more often between interlocutors of the same gender, especially in female female interactions. Women tend to use more personal references (both first and second person) and more intensifiers than men do to express deference (admiration). In general, cultures differ in terms of the extent to which they accept or reject a compliment.

Compliments and Compliment Responses in Mandarin Chinese In spite of the vast body of literature, compliments and compliment responses in Chinese have been studied less. The 2 major studies to date are Chen (1993) and Ye (1995). In Ye (1995), the author designed a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) questionnaire, collected 768 compliments from 96 informants and examined the linguistic forms of compliments and compliment responses, their relations to context and gender, and their functions. Out of the 768 compliments, only slightly over half were explicit. The other half consisted of implicit compliments, opt outs, and non-complimentary remarks. Performance was the preferred topic of compliments in Mandarin Chinese. At the syntactic level, one characteristic of Chinese compliments was the high frequency of adjectives / stative verbs (54.5%) and low frequency of verbs (2.3%). This forms a sharp contrast with American English, which makes use of verbs to a greater extent (16%, Manes & Wolfson, 1980). Chen (1993) explores different politeness strategies used by Chinese and Americans in responding to compliments. She finds that the culturally valued Modesty Maxim leads the Chinese to denigrate (degrade) themselves and elevate others by rejecting compliments they receive while the Agreement Maxim prevails over other considerations when Americans respond to compliments.

While these studies provide some insights into compliments and compliment responses in Mandarin Chinese, we have to bear in mind that the term Chinese embraces numerous dialects and speech communities both within and outside China. Differences among these dialects and speech communities are bound to exist. We therefore need to look at different dialects or speech communities to gain a thorough understanding of the culture.

Compliments and Compliment Responses in Kunming Chinese The study was designed to provide a comprehensive description of the compliment event in Kunming Chinese. The author examined the semantic formulas used in forming compliments and compliment responses and the syntactic patterns of compliments in the two types of data.

Methodology To gather data, the author made use of DCT (Discourse Completion Task) questionnaires and natural observations. The DCT is a written questionnaire that contains a number of hypothetical scenarios or situations used to elicit a certain speech act. Respondents are required to supply, in writing, what they would say in real life if similar situations happen to them. Ex. You are sitting in a large lecture hall during class. The professors voice is so low that you cannot hear it clearly. If you asked the professor to speak a little louder, what would you say? (Rose and Ono, 1995) The DCT questionnaire used for the study was designed based on a large amount of observational notebook data collected by the researcher herself before the study was carried out. This was done to ensure that the DCT situations were as authentic and as close to life as possible. Topics (child, ability, appearance, attire, possession and whole person) The author created two separate DCT situations so that the two genders were equally represented for each topic. The social relationship between interlocutors was kept constant at the equal status level between acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues, or friends. The DCT questionnaire had two parts. Part I consisted of 12 situations; respondents were expected to pay a compliment to the interactant in a normal situation. Part II had 12 dialogue-type situations with compliments; respondents were asked to respond or react to these compliments. Each situation in the DCT contained a gender-specific name of the imagined DCT interlocutor, the relationship between the DCT interlocutor and the respondent, and the scenario that calls for a compliment or a response to a compliment. Respondents were given an opportunity to opt out if they thought they would not say anything in a given situation.

The Subjects and The Data-Collection Procedure Altogether, 175 informants (90 males and 85 females) responded to the DCT questionnaire. The informants were selected by the method of judgment sampling. In particular, Milroys (1980) methodological framework of social network was used to establish initial contacts, through whom more informants were identified and contacted until the desired number of informants from different age, gender, and educational groups were recruited. The written DCT questionnaire was filled out by 88 (46 males and 42 females) of the 175 informants at their own pace and in a place of their own choice. Another 87 informants (44 males and 43 females) responded to the DCT questionnaire orally. 51 (24 males and 27 females) informants were interviewed right after their oral DCT sessions to find out why they thought they complimented people and whether there was anybody they would not feel comfortable complimenting under certain circumstances. Such interviews should provide insights into informants perceptions of and opinions about the compliment event in the speech community.

A data pool of 256 occurrences of compliments were also penned down in notebooks by the researcher at the research site of Kunming during the 4 months of her field work. She wrote down, either right after a compliment exchange or at the end of the day, all the compliments that occurred around her, with or without her participation. Relevant contextual information and interlocutors relationship to each other as well as their age and gender were recorded in the notebook whenever such information was available. The purpose of collecting the 3 different types of data was to give a full and complementary picture of the compliment pragmatics in Kunming Chinese, as each form of data may provide different perspectives on the same subject of compliment in terms of linguistic forms and theoretical methodological implications.

Data Coding The compliment event in Kunming Chinese will be described in terms of the semantic formulas used and the syntactic structure of the compliments. Semantic formula is defined as those parts of a reply / utterance that represent the means by which a particular speech act is accomplished in terms of the primary content of an utterance, such as reason, an explanation, or an alternative (Hartford & Bardovi-Harlig, 1992). The following semantic formulas are used to categorize compliments and compliment responses in the data pool: Compliments Unbound Semantic Formulas Explicit Compliment Implicit Compliment Bound Semantic Formulas Explanation Information Question Future Reference Contrast Advice Request Non- Complimentary Replies Non-Compliment Opt Out Unbound and Bound Semantic Formulas Unbound Semantic Formulas / Explicit Compliment utterance with at least one explicit positive semantic carrier Wow this house of yours is beautiful. (beautiful = positive semantic carrier) Implicit Compliment no positive semantic carrier is used; the complimentary force can be induced from the utterance itself in a situation where something good or positive is obvious and a compliment is normally expected. You notice that your friend is wearing a nice new dress and say to her: Where did you buy your dress? I want to buy one myself. (Here, I want to buy one myself is coded as an implicit compliment as it implies that the speaker likes the dress since people only buy things they think are good.) Bound Semantic Formulas have to co-occur with one of the unbound semantic formulas to be interpreted as part of a compliment. Non-Compliments are either bound semantic formulas occurring by themselves or other replies that do not carry any positive meanings. Opt Outs are cases where informants do not say / supply anything in a situation where a compliment is usually expected. This child of yours is extremely good. As long as (ones) good looking, any hairstyle would look good. Wow, (its) beautiful. A house with a blue carpet like this (is) so comfortable. (You) dont want to go anywhere, but only want to stay home. Compliment Responses Acceptance Explanation Return Appreciation Upgrade Reassignment Suggestion Invitation Confirmation Question Downgrade Disagreement Opt Out

Explicit Compliment Implicit Compliment Explanation

Information Question Future Reference Contrast Advice

Gosh, this carpet is so pretty. Where did you buy it? Quite capable! There shouldnt be any problem (for you) to get a Ph.D. in the future. This child of yours is so good, not at all like mine, (who) doesnt come home until midnight. When (I) ask her to do something, (she) bargains. (Shes) not obedient at all. This house of yours is very well-renovated. The money was well spent. (One) should enjoy (life) when one has money. Money is lifeless. (It) doesnt change if you just let it sit there. (We) should spend (it) when we have (it). This dress of yours is good looking. Lend it to me and let me wear it for a couple of days. Why are you so stupid, thinking about others all the time! (You) should think about yourself. No response

Request Non-Compliment Opt Out

Compliment responses are defined as anything that follows a compliment, verbal or non-verbal. Im very glad you said so too. This TV has a big screen, which makes TV-watching comfortable and enjoyable. Your house is cleaner than mine. Thanks. I look even more beautiful at other times. Its all because the teacher / coach did a great job. Go and buy one yourself. Ask Da Li to come and play often. Is it? Its just friends helping each other out. Nothing worth mentioning. Not clean at all! (No reply or just a smile)

Acceptance Explanation Return Appreciation Upgrade Reassignment Suggestion Invitation Confirmation Question Downgrade Disagreement Opt Out Results and Discussion Compliments DCT Data

Among the 2100 replies, 1745 or 83.1% are Explicit Compliments (120 replies or 5.71% Implicit Compliments), indicating that people prefer to issue a clear positive statement when they pay compliments. This means that people compliment in almost 90% of the complimenting situations created in the DCT. However, the fact that Non-Complimentary Replies have a relatively high frequency (7.76% Non-Compliments + 3.43% Opt Outs = 11.19%) shows that not everybody compliments in a situation where a compliment is called for. 72 of the 2100 responses decided not to say anything in a given situation. This may be because some people do not feel comfortable complimenting people face-to-face. In other words, even though sometimes someone may feel something positive about the interlocutor, he / she may still refrain from complimenting that person. Based on the distribution of semantic formulas in the DCT data, it is evident that Explicit Compliments account for a majority of them (58.58%). About half of the Explicit Compliments co-occur with one or more of the bound semantic formulas.

Implicit Compliments, on the other hand, tend to occur by themselves most of the time. In summary, respondents of the DCT questionnaire often compliment overtly. Occasionally, however, they may make general references or non-complimentary remarks, or they may even prefer not to say anything.

Natural Observation Data Percentage of Implicit Compliment remains roughly the same in the natural data as in the DCT data (a little over 5%). The ratio of Explicit Compliment increases to almost 95% from the 83.10% of the DCT. This increase results from the no show of Non-Complimentary Replies (Non-Compliments and Opt Outs) understandably because the researcher only noted down utterances that fit her definition of compliments, i.e. utterances that contained at least one positive semantic carrier or utterances with an induceable positive meaning. This difference between the natural data and the DCT data highlights the possibility that natural observations may not capture cases where people prefer not to say anything about something positive or nice.

Some Differences between the DCT Data and the Natural Data All the Implicit Compliments occur by themselves in the natural data whereas 7.5% of them co-occur with one or more bound semantic formulas in the DCT data. The semantic formula of Contrast appears more frequently in real life than in the DCT situations (10% vs 3.56%) whereas Information Question is more common in DCT than in real life (6.18% vs 3.59%). The bound semantic formulas of Advice and Request do not appear at all in the natural data. Future Reference only appears once in the natural data but it appears a few times in the DCT data. The natural data contain the use of Conversation Openers, Address Terms, and Appreciation Tokens that do not exist at all in the DCT data. The finding of the use of Conversation Openers and Address Terms with compliments in natural settings highlights the fact that compliments are part and parcel of real life conversations and therefore do not always occur by themselves, as some studies based on DCT data alone might unintentionally suggest.

The Syntactic Patterns of Compliments in Kunming Chinese 85% of compliments in American English fall into the following three Syntactic patterns (Wolfson, 1981) NP [is / looks] (really) ADJ I (really) [like / love] NP PRO is (really) (a) ADJ NP (53.6%) (16.1%) (14.9%)

In Kunming Chinese, about 94% of both the DCT and the natural compliments fall into one of four syntactic structures and the similarities between the DCT and natural data are extremely striking: DCT Natural

(NP) (Intensifier) ADJ / VERB (Object) (61.45%) (64.06%) The obligatory element of this structure is the predicate, which can be either an adjective / stative verb or a verb, with or without an intensifier. An object may be optionally present if the predicate is a verb. An NP denoting an agent or an object may or may not appear in the subject position.

Her boyfriend

very handsome

(21.82%) (19.14%) (NP) V Complement The structure involves an NP subject, present or absent, followed by a verb accompanied by the complement particle with an obligatory complement. This complement functions very much like an adverbial in English.

(very)

Ex. Your daughter sings

Ex.

 

(ta de nan peng you hen shuai)

(ni de nu er chang de hao)

well

NP (7.02%) (NP) {Agent} (Intensifier) The structure involves positive semantic carriers that are nouns.

You truly

are (a) genius

(3.65%) (NP) {Agent} (Intensifier) NP The structure has a stative verb with a noun as the positive semantic carrier.

You (very) have courage Compliment Responses

Explanation is the predominant semantic formula of all in that it accounts for over 43% of all the semantic formulas used. Explanations can imply acceptance of a compliment even though the respondent does not necessarily state so overtly. The fact that Explanations account for nearly half of the semantic formulas used (7% of the responses are explicit acceptances), suggests that speakers of Kunming Chinese are more ready to accept compliments than cultural stereotypes have assumed them (Chinese in general) to be, although they probably prefer to do so implicitly, such as with Explanations. In contrast, the 2 rejection semantic formulas of Downgrade and Disagreement account for only about 29% of all the compliment responses.

Some Differences between the DCT Data and the Natural Data There is a lower frequency of Explanations in the natural data than in the DCT data (15.63% vs 43.28%) and a higher acceptance rate (15.63% vs 7%). Appreciations, Reassignments, and Suggestions which have been found in the DCT data are not found at all in the natural data. This suggests that subjects may write down in the DCT questionnaire something which they think they may say in a certain situation but which they do not actually say in real life situations. It has been reported that saying Thank you in response to a compliment is the standard norm in American culture (Herbert, 1986), but it is something not usually found in Kunming Chinese. The most noticeable result is the very high frequency of Opt Outs in the natural data as compared to the DCT data (25.4% vs 3.72%). What is more, all the Opt Outs in the natural data are accompanied by a smile. This is a very important strategy speakers of this dialect use. Maybe smiling away a compliment one receives can resolve the conflict of being modest and disagreeing with the interlocutor. The virtue of being modest in the Chinese tradition requires one to deny a compliment one receives, but in order to achieve this goal, one has to disagree with the compliment one receives, thus threatening the complimenters positive face (Brown and Levinson, 1987). An Opt Out with a smile allows the complimentee to accept the compliment gracefully without risking the complimenters face.

Cross-Cultural Variation and Implication Compliments tend to be highly formulaic syntactically across different cultures, indicating that the speech act of compliment may have become highly routinised in different cultures (Ye, 1995). Some differences have also emerged across different cultures. The specific syntactic patterns used in each culture may vary. What is valued in one culture is not always valued in another. The way compliments are responded to also differs from culture to culture. Compliment pragmatics not only varies across different cultures, but also across different dialects of the same language. Such cross-cultural and cross-dialectal variations are very important information for people to learn to avoid misunderstandings in inter- and intra-cultural communications.

Ex.

 
6

Ex.



(5.86%)

! 

 

(ni zhen shi ge tian cai)

(4.69%)

(ni hen you yong qi)