A Contrastive Study Of Chinese And English Compliment Responses

The social phenomenon of compliment behavior exists in various societies and linguistic cultures. The compliment behavior can not only enhance the relationship between communicators but also consolidate and strengthen the solidarity among communicators. Thus, the compliment behavior operates like social lubricant. Compliment responses in Chinese and English have different characteristics because they are influenced by different social factors. Consequently, the study on compliment has been paid extensive attention to.This thesis aims at investigating the characteristics of compliment responses in Chinese and English, comparing their differences and attempting to analyze the reasons which lead to the differences. Most of previous studies abroad and in China focus on the syntax and the topic of compliment behavior itself. Studies on compliment responses are very few. And the results of compliment responses from few researchers are different. At the same time, studies of compliment from the aspect of pragmatics are limited in number. Therefore, this thesis explores and analyzes compliment responses from a new perspective-- based on Verschueren's Adaptation Theory.In this thesis, the quantitative method and the qualitative method are adopted. It collects materials from college students, doctors, and company staff with questionnaire and classifies the compliment responses by Herbert's (1987) classification on compliment responses. Then it analyzes the data and summarizes the different characteristics on compliment responses in Chinese and English. Finally, it explains the differences on the Verschueren's Adaptation Theory.The major findings of this study are as follows:(1) Most of the English speakers tend to accept compliments. Moreover, they often offer series of comments on the object complimented when they accept compliments. They usually express their disagreement directly when they reject compliments. In addition, English speaker use some combined strategies to express their responses to compliment.(2) Most of Chinese people tend to reject compliments. When they accept compliments, Chinese people often transfer the eompliment to some third person or to the object itself. Besides, Chinese speakers have one more strategy—Determination Expression to respond to compliment. They tend to express their determinations when they meet compliment from persons who have higher status. In addition, Chinese speakers employ more diverse sub-strategies to respond to compliments than English speakers. Finally, More Chinese speakers tend to give no response when they meet compliments than English speakers.(3) Chinese college students tend to accept compliments much more frequently than other people. The reason lies in students' adaptation to the change of culture which results from social development and the influence of foreign cultures.(4) The reason of all these differences can attribute to their adaptation to different social worlds, which include different traditional values, different politeness principles, different realization of face, and influence of western culture.The study has some significance. Firstly, this study helps us understand differences between Chinese and English compliment responses. Thus, pragmatic mistakes in the cross-cultural communication can be avoided. Secondly, this study also gives the analysis of the Chinese compliment responses which enables more foreigners to know and accept Chinese communication criterions. Thirdly, this study analyzes the difference between Chinese and English compliment responses from a new dynamic aspect--the Adaptation Theory. A new inspiration can be given to other researchers. Lastly, this study gives foreign language teaching and learning some useful suggestions.