A Contrastive Analysis of Compliment Responses from Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Abstract

In learning a second language, not only linguistic conventions but also communicative competence of the target language is considered very important. Without knowing native speakers' rules of speaking, it might cause misunderstanding or even misinterpretation. This paper aims to investigate compliment responses from Western and Asian cultural perspectives. Comparing the results is the incipient stage to get a sociolinguistic knowledge. In the main study, 62 Western subjects and 57 Asian subjects are participated in DCT (Discourse Completion Test) format Questionnaire. Western subjects come from 4 countries and Asians are consisted of 7 countries. The questionnaire of the current survey is made up of two different situations on each of four topics. The responses of DCT were coded according to the framework of responses. To confirm the correlation of encoding, inter-rater and intra-rater reliability was tested. The DCT coded response data were analyzed by Chi-square test. Major findings of the investigation include that Western and Asian speakers show a remarkable difference with regard to compliment response strategies. Westerners easily accept compliments while Asians are more likely to deflect as a token of being modest.