sociolinguistic competence in the complimenting act of native chinese and american english speakers: a mirror of cultural value

ming-chung yu

"The present study examines sociolinguistic features of a particular speech act, paying compliments, by comparing and contrasting native CHinese and native American speakers' performances...this apper aims at illuminating the fact that, in cross-cultural communication, foreign langauge speakers have to pay close attention to sociolinguistic rules of the target language in addition to structure and discourse rules to meet the needs of linguistic accuracy and fluency."

"Complimenting is chosen in that this speech act, while seemingly common and simple at first glance, is often considered so complex as to cause a great deal of troble in intercultural encounters (e.g., Wolfson, 1989)."

"The issue of universality versus culture-speciicity in speech act studies is still hotly debated."

"It has been argued that the main function of compliments is to establish solidarity between speaker and addressee (e.g., Herbert, 1989;...)"

"...people frequently offer praise to reinforce or encourage the desired behavior in specific situations, such as teaching and learning. Another possible function compliments may serve is to strengthen or replace other speech acts like aplogizing, greeting, reprimanding, or thanking, or to soften acts such as criticism, or even to serve as acts like sarcasm or a conversation opener 9Wolfson, 1983, pp. 86-93)."

"American compliments serve to negotiate social solidarity, South African praise functions non-negotiatively, probably as a way to affirm such solidarity." (Herbert and Stright, 1989)

"complimenting can also be seen as...action that attends to the addressee's positive face by including him or her in the group...complimenting itself can also be deemed as a face-threatening act." both "positive politness device as well as face-threatening act"

"each field worker was asked to note as soon and as accurately as possible the exact compliment exchange and relevant contextual information he or she observed in his or her everyday life right after each exchange had taken place."

"two-year data collecting period" "audio-tape the observed spoken exchanges."

"In the Chinese data, 356 participants produced 410 compliments, while in the Americna ENglish data, 636 participants produced 789 compliments."

"Direct compliments, which refers to remarks including linguistic forms that dircetly and unambiguously frame these comments as compliments, such as, "Isn't the food great!"

"Indirect compliments, which refers to remarks which would be seen as compliments by the addressee, althought he positive semantic carrier generally assoicated with complimenting is missing at the level of the linguistic form...."Wow, I hope I'll have a coat like this.""

"(a) that complimenting frequency is much lower for CHinese speakers than for English speakers, (b) that direct complimenting was the most often adopted strategy for both speaker groups, and (c) that CHinese speakers used indirect compliments proportionately more than Americans did."

Direct: CHinese: 334. American: 719
Indirect: CHinese: 76. 18.5% Americans: 70 8.9%

"there were more Chinese speakers than expected who complimented indircetly, and fewer American English speakers who did so."

"there seem to be conceptual differences of directness/indirectmess between Chinese and English speakers."

"many Chinese speakers believe that the Chinese tend to consider these strategies equally direct when presented as single utterances."

Chinese compliments: "You must have put a lot of thought into it. That's a very clever idea." To Yuanyuan, the first part seems indirect and the second part seems direct. "You smell great. What kind of perfume are you wearing?" small talk and compliments overlap. The second sentence of the 2nd example here, "when ocurring on its own, can be considered a core compliment."

"...for native CHinese speakers, supportive moves and/or small talk are likely to be found before the core request in seemingly high imposition situations, whereas for American English speakers, they usually occur after the core request (Yu 1999b)."

Chinese: "Hi, I stood in line right behind you, so I got a chance to see you play. Do you often come here? Maybe we cna practice together some day. I think you play pretty well." long
American: "Nice shot! Wanna play together sometime?" short

"whereas the complimenting utterances of Americans were mostly so straightforward that few supportive moves or little small talk were used, Chinese speakers employed such moves or talk much more frequently so that many of their complimenting sequences tended to be longer, as we can see above in Examples (9) and (10). In practice, native CHinese speakers' use of small talk and/or supportive moves has to do with a socio-cultural convention that embraces a communicative style valuing reciprocal face work very highly."

"the use of linguistic devices that serve functions like supportive moves or small talk plays a very important role in CHinese politeness behavior and face concerns."

"compliments have been found to occur in a much wider variety of speech situations in AMerican culture than in other cultures (e.g. Wolfson, 1989."


this is unusual for the Chinese; they usually won't say this to a stranger: "Hi, we were just sitting near each other. By the way, I think you look great in this dress."
B: "So so!" A normal response
A: Do you come here often? How do you like the food here?"
B: Just so so!
A: Maybe we can get together again."
B: We'll see. I've been very busy recently. We'll probably meet again at school." this means I don't want to see you again. An exmaple that complimenting a stranger doesn't work with the CHinese

"In these two exchanges, compliments appear to function primarily as a conversation opener for the speaker to try to establish some rapport with the addressee."

"Not only is this behavior generally considered inappropriate, but also the addressee may think that the speaker is in effect contriving something."


"Given that the Chinese tend to offer fewer compliments in everyday discoursal activities than Americans, the question arises whether the Chinese have less of a need to establish solidarity than native ENglish speakers."

American-democratic
South AFrican-elitist
"...comliments in American culture function primarily as a vehicle to negotiate solidarity between speaker and hearer, wheeas compliments in South Afrucan society serve mainly as an instrument to show the speaker's admiration."

"Oliver (1971) argued that Chinese society traditionally legitimizes a hierarchical class structure that places a high value on subordination to and respect for authorities."

"
Therefore, compliments in CHinese culture, like those in South African society, may be primarily used to display the speaker's positive assessment of some object or concern relevant to the addressee instead of offering solidarity." Compliemts in South African and CHinese cultures "may serve a more restricted set of functions and are thus more limited in discourse."

"cultural norms play an important role in determining language behavior."

"In Chinese culture, the speaker is generally expected to employ compliments as assertions of admiration."

"In American culture, however, it is common practice for the speaker to employ compliments to establish solidarity or rapport."

"...compliments could also serve to replace other speech acts such as aplogizing, greeting, or thanking, and so forth, and both speaker groups employed compliments this way."

"compliments in AMericna ENglish mostly fall into two main categories: (a) appearance and/or possessions; and (b) ability and/or performance."

"The Chinese speakers' tendency to compliment on ability and/or performance can be accounted for by the fact that the Chinese traditionally tend to emphasize the virtues and qualities of individuals, and thus do not regard good looks or possessions as having great social value (Yang, 1987)."

"First...the act of explicitly admiring a person's appearance and/or possessions will usually be regarded as uncultivated...Second, physicla appearnce in Chinese socio-cultural contexts traidtionally has a sexual implication, and is, therefore, seen as taboo in social intercation.

"...newness is very highly valued in American society. Thus, offering a compliment is appropriate whenever an acquaintance is seen with something new (Wolfson, 1989)."

Recipient is higher in status: Chinese: 4.9%. American 15%

"For both speaker groups, the great majority of compliments occur in interactions between people of equal status."

"...Chinese socio-cultural convention...legitimizes a vertical class structure following Confucian political philosophy that places special emphasis on respect for and subordination to the authorities."

..."in American culture...the asymmetric power relations in conversational dyads are often not recognized."

"...where status is concerned, there were more compliments downwards than upwards for Chinese speakers, whereas there were more compliments upwards than downwards for Chinese speakers."

"for both speech groups, the great majority of compliments occur in interactions between interlocutors who are casual friends, co-workers, non-intimates, and acquaintances rather than intimates or total strangers."

In CHinese culture, complimenting a close friend or intimate is considered distancing.

Recipient is a close friend or intimate: Chinese 7.8% American 16.4%

"social distance appears to be seen as an easily surmountable boundary to everyday interactions in American culture, while in CHinese culture, a vertical social class structure is still observed."



"this Chinese word, due to its stronger semantic force, is employed in indirect requesting more often than in complimenting; in contrast, "like" in ENglish, due to its stronger complimentary force, is used in complimenting much more frequently than in requesting."