Studies on Compliment Responses

In an investigation of pragmatic transfer and the ability to produce target-like CRs, Al Falasi (2007) studied Emirati Arabic and English speakers through DCT tests and interviews. In an attempt to make their responses seem sincerer, the NNSs transferred some of their L1 pragmatic norms to L2 through the use of longer responses on the assumption that these are universal among languages rather than being language specific.

Tran (2007) investigated pragmatic and discourse transfer in CRs by Vietnamese speakers of English in cross-cultural interaction with Australians. The data were collected through naturalized role-plays. There were 60 role-play informants, including 20 Australian English NSs, 20 Vietnamese NSs, and 20 Vietnamese EFL learners, each of whom produced four CRs to compliments on skill, possession, appearance, and clothing. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative analysis of the semantic formulas and the content of the CRs in this investigation resulted in foundation of a new hypothesis (i.e., the CR continuum hypothesis), which can account for cross- cultural differences on the basis of universality. Along this continuum, evidence of pragmatic and discourse transfer was found in the frequency of use of the following CR strategies by the Vietnamese speakers of English: compliment upgrade, agreement, appreciation token, return, compliment downgrade, disagreement, expressing gladness, follow-up question, and opting out. So, out of the 13 CR strategies that accounted for all of the CR data in this study, nine were transferred.

Tang and Zhang (2009) investigated CRs among Australian English and Mandarin Chinese speakers. The data were collected through the use of a written DCT, with four situational settings (appearance, character, ability, and possession). A total 60 university-student informants participated in the study. The findings demonstrated a consistent tendency across the macro, micro, and combination levels for the Chinese participants to use fewer accept strategies and more evade and reject strategies, than their Australian counterparts, that is, the Chinese express appreciation for a compliment less and denigrate themselves more. For the Chinese participants, an implicit and detouring approach is, at least, as

desirable as an explicit CR. This is in line with modesty and collectivism—pillars of Chinese culture. Australians, on the other hand, preferred using explicit CRs. In addition, the Chinese participants used far fewer combination strategies than the Australians, indicating that the Australians made more effort when responding to the compliments. The variant linguistic manipulations of CRs shown in this study indicated that any universal CR model will fail because different cultures have different sets of protocols.

Bu (2010) has reported on pragmatic transfer in the use of the CR strategies by Chinese EFL learners based on the data collected through naturalized role-plays from three groups of ENSs, native Chinese speakers, and Chinese EFL learners. The footprints of pragmatic transfer are grounded in the significant difference, not only in CR strategy use between the native English group and the Chinese EFL group (frequent us of appreciation by the former and compliment downgrade by the latter), but also the similarities in the CR strategy use between the Chinese EFL group and the native Chinese group (use the compliment downgrade).

Collecting role-play data, Cheng (2011) explored the CRs produced by Chinese L2 speakers and the NSs of American English. A total of 45 participants, including 15 NESs, 15 Chinese ESL speakers, and 15 Chinese EFL speakers, were selected for this study. The naturalistic role-play used in this study was an adapted version of the one created by Tran (2007). Holmes’ (1988), Yu’s (2004), as well as Tang and Zhang’s (2009) categories of CR strategies were used as the initial coding schemes. The adapted CR strategy framework consisted of three macrostrategies (i.e., accept, evade, and combination) and 11 microstrategies. The results showed both L2 groups differed from the NSs in multiple ways in their impromptu responses to the compliments, carefully embedded in the role play task. Whereas almost all the L2 speakers knew how to say Thank you/Thanks to others’ compliments, a number of them, especially the EFL speakers, had difficulties in utilizing a variety of response strategies like credit- shifting (e.g., My pleasure/Thanks for having me over). These differences were demonstrated to be affected by not only the learners’ L1 culture but also their limited L2 proficiency, which was reflected by their common difficulties in coming up with more diverse linguistic choices in the CRs.

Allami and Montazeri (2012), in a cross-cultural study, examined the knowledge of the Iranian EFL learners in responding to compliments in English with a focus on the effect of educational background on pragmatic transfer. The data were collected through a 24-item English DCT to 40 EFL learners who were asked to provide short responses. The responses were coded following a modified version of two classification schemes suggested by Boori (1994), with categories derived from Herbert (1990) as well as Chiang and Pochtrager (1993). The classification scheme included a macro and a microlevel. The results showed that three CR categories (i.e., appreciation token, comment acceptance, and return) made up 60% of the corpus. Acceptance and positive elaboration responses also showed a high frequency of occurrence in the data that might be rooted in the attempt to avoid agreement with the compliment and, thus, the risk of self-praise because Iranian cultural assumptions reject the mere acceptance of a compliment as rudeness or impoliteness. Their almost full control over L2 helped the more proficient learners to simply transfer the sociocultural norms of their L1. This study confirmed that the cross-linguistic behavior of the Persian speakers is influenced by their culture-specific behavioral norms; due to lack of sufficient pragmatic knowledge, L2 learners frequently resort to parallel forms in their L1.

In a recent study, Talleraas (2014) investigated how Norwegian EFL learners respond to compliments when communicating in English in comparison to native American English speakers, and whether any potential signs of pragmatic failure due to L1 pragmatic transfer occur. Twenty-six Norwegian EFL learners and five native American English speakers answered to a written DCT with 10 situations. The data were analyzed based on Herbert’s CR categories. The findings revealed that the Norwegian EFL learners tended to use acceptance and nonacceptance strategies with a seemingly similar frequency to the American English control group. However, the choice of other strategies in addition to acceptance differed between the two groups, which indicated pragmatic transfer from the informants’ L1.

Although the literature on compliments and CRs is abundant, most studies have been conducted between English and languages such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Norwegian, and so on. Moreover, few studies have dealt with the use of compliments by EFL learners; yet, some parts of this puzzle have remained unsolved. Furthermore, the investigation of possible pragmatic failure records among Iranian EFL learners is still vague. Therefore, the researchers of this study chose compliments and

CRs to study in order to evaluate the development of the EFL learners’ ILP knowledge status and to hopefully fill this gap in the literature.

3. Methodology 3.1 Participants

For the purpose of this study, a group of 30 male and female PNSs, studying law at Shahrekord University, Iran, were randomly selected. Also, participating in the study were 30 male and female ENSs (17 students, aged 20-30, studying psychology at the University of South Australia, and 13 technicians, aged 24-33, working at Soft Layer, an IBM company in Quebec, Canada). Because the present study examined the L1 transfer among Persian L2 learners, 60 male and female senior and junior undergraduates in translation from Shahrekord University and 40 M.A. students in TEFL from the University of Isfahan and Shahrekord University, aged 20-30, were asked to take the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) to form a group of 30 homogenized L2 learners.