Cross-cultural pragmatics: compliments and compliment responses in English and Chinese

Language and culture are distinctly interdependent;one reflects the other.In cross-cultural communications,it is critical for language users to use and understand the language appropriately in a certain socio-cultural context.This paper aims to compare the similarities and differences of compliments and compliment responses in English and Chinese from the cross-cultural pragmatic perspective.The implications for teaching are also discussed so as to bridge the gap caused by cultural differences and minimize the occurrence of potential cross-cultural pragmatic failures.

Do Backhanded Compliments Always Insult

The backhanded compliment is a special language phenomenon. A backhanded compliment is a compliment on its appearance, but its implication meaning may be an insult. The reason why speakers do not adopt direct insult instead of using this kind of ambiguous expression is that backhanded compliments can serve two main social functions such as: being humor and acting as a face-saving strategy to mute the meaning of insult.

A Comparative Analysis of English and Chinese Compliments

Compliment as a speech act is a tool for establishing friendship that creates ties of solidarity in different cultures.This paper introduces the background theories concerning studies of the speech act of complimenting.It makes comparison about making compliments in English and in Chinese from the perspectives of topics,semantic and syntactic structures followed by discussing differences and similarities in performing compliments in two cultures.Moreover,implications of the study to foreign language teaching and learning are provided and the significance of integrating culture teaching to enhance learner’s pragmatic competence and smooth their cross-cultural communication is emphasized.

New trends of Chinese Compliments and Compliment Responses——Studied With Gender and Age

Through comparing the data collected in different time, this paper explores the changes of Chinese compliments and compliment responses during the recent fifteen years, and also studies the differences of compliments and compliment responses among different genders and generations as well as different cultures in order to have a better communication and to better adapt in these rapidly developed world.

On Unwanted Compliments in FTA - from a Cultural Perspective

Compliments are always sweet to ears,but sometimes,they are burdensome and unwanted.Due to cultural differences,people in different countries have different reactions towards compliments.Facing the unwanted compliments which will cause embarrassment and constitute a FTA(Face-threatening act),interpreters have to take several strategies to deal with them,so as to save faces and images for both the primary interlocutors and themselves and thus make a contribution to the cross-cultural exchanges.

Is the Game of Flattery Compliments Praiseworthy?

There is a new craze among young people—flocking to so-called kuakuaqun, or flattery groups, on the Internet, where they praise one an other, at times even paying to be exaggeratedly complimented.

A Tentative Study on the Formula of English Compliment

Praising or compliment is a communicative behavior shared by people of different languages. However, due to the influence of unique culture and different society, the language of compliment differs greatly. The author of this essay is trying to analyze the formula of English compliment shared by all the English speaking nations, esp. in the United States.

Negative Pragmatic Transfer in Compliment Responses by Chinese College-level English Learners

The purpose of this empirical study is to investigate the employment of the strategies among the Chinese college-level English learners in responding to compliments and the negative pragmatic transfer involved in their responses. The results show that the subjects tend to apply "Accepting" strategy in their responding to compliments and there does exist negative pragmatic transfer.

Research on English Pragmatics Competence: A Comparative Study of Compliment Behavior between Chinese EFL Students, Chinese ESL Students and English Native Speakers

The present study investigated the linguistic features of a special speech act,compliments produced by two groups of Chinese learners of English,one living in China's Mainland(EFL)and the other in Malaysia(ESL).This study compared and con-trasted the performance of the learner groups with that of native English speakers,aiming to determine how they employ compli-ment strategies in different situations and whether the exposure to target language(L2)community was helpful in pragmatic acquisi-tion.

Research on Cultural Differences of China and the United States From the Perspective of Difference of Compliment Responses

In all the culture of the world, compliment is always one kind of communicative applications, which is quite frequently used, we see compliment both in China and the United States. By reason of the culture difference of different countries, Chinese and American often have diverse responses and attitudes toward the compliment, which directly cause their different responses when they make reactions to the compliment.[1]From study, we see the difference is mainly in the following, on one hand, the Chinese are often very implicative toward the compliment and they respect all other people while they are quite humble when in the communication, on the other hand, the American are much more public, although they also respect other people, they are not keeping humble at the same time.

Living in another country:who considers what as impolite?

Having long been recognized as the primary research area where the politeness and impoliteness phenomena are examined,studies of speech acts including compliment,thanks and apologies provide insights into politeness norms in different speech communities,and seek to define social variables that conduce to impoliteness in the intercultural contexts.This paper is intended to present a sophisticated illumination of how the concepts of impoliteness differentiate between cultures,and further discuss distinct cultural expectations and social values shared by western and eastern societies.

On the Differences of Compliment and its Response in English and Chinese

Compliment and its response is a special speech act which is broadly used in interpersonal communications. It is used to maintain and enhance the addressee’s face or support the addressee’s opinion. Compliments are rich in both English and Chinese. However, affected by cultural differences, social status, gender, age, etc., there are many differences of compliment and its response between English and Chinese. Therefore, this paper tries to compare and analyze these differences.

Pragmatic Transfer in the Speech Act of Compliment among Chinese EFL Learners

This article reviews the notions of transfer and its subcategories of positive transfer as well as negative transfer.This article also considers the research on pragmatic transfer in the speech act of compliment in first language as well as second and foreign language contexts.In addition,it further explores three research questions concerning pragmatic transfer in compliment among Chinese EFL(English as a foreign language)learners.