| One of the purposes of human interaction is to establish and maintain solidarity among people. Compliments, speech acts widely employed in a diversity of social situations, are one means for reinforcing solidarity. Giving compliments as well as responding to compliments might be different in view of cultural norms and social factors. Hence, for learners of a second language (SL), the learning environment may also influence the way they employ compliments in their second language. For example, learners who acquire a language in foreign language settings may be more influenced by their first language culture, while learners who are acquiring a second language in the target language context may resemble native speakers more closely.;This study aimed to investigate the compliment responses of Chinese second language speakers of English in view of their length of stay in the US and topic of the compliment, i.e. appearance, clothes, performance and possession. Four participant groups were involved: a US group, and three Chinese ESL groups with different length of stay in the US (less than 6 months, 1 to 2 years, and 3 years above). Particularly, 27 US college students and 45 Chinese ESL students with 15 students in each group were selected from a US college campus.;The instrument included a written questionnaire with four complimenting scenarios. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, repeated measures ANOVA and content analyses. Both quantitative and qualitative results showed that all groups shared a similar tendency to employ compliment responses. Particularly, the Chinese ESL groups, regardless of their stay in the US, displayed no significant differences between themselves and in comparison with the US group. The qualitative analysis further confirmed the results of the statistical analyses. Although some differences were found in how participants formulated their responses, overall the four groups were rather homogeneous. The implication of these results is that there may be a new concept of culture developing, which is not bound to geographic location and first language. |
