贊美是一種十分美妙的語言行為，他通常能夠得到信譽并且解決問題，獲得好的收益(比如在財產、性格、技巧等問題上），它是社會的“潤滑劑”，主要針對的是“感謝,鼓勵,問候,道歉,并支持或維護別人的尊嚴”，隨著經濟的發展,文化交流越來越頻繁,中國和西方國家之間的通信更加常見。因此贊美常常應用于社會交際。但是給予贊美和如何應對他們在言語方面似乎更重要。由于不同的文化背景,英語和中文在贊美時有一些差異，本研究旨在分析在語言形式、主題、回應和稱贊贊美方面的中英文的差異，美語中贊美有十分公式化的模式用法，但是中國文化中多含有隱形的恭維，美國贊美關注外表和財產的主題,而中國贊美的主題集中能力和成就。

A compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to the receiver, usually the person addressed or referred, for some ‘good’ (possessions, characteristic, skill, ect.). Complimenting, is said to be a social ‘lubricant’, which is primarily aimed at “thanking, encouraging, greeting, apologizing, and supporting or maintaining the addressee’s face”.

 

With the development of the economy, culture exchange becomes more and more frequent, and the communication between China and western countries is much common. Thus Compliments are frequently applied in social communication. But how to give compliments and respond to them seem more significant in speech community.

 

Owing to different cultural background，there are some differences existing in the compliments used in English and Chinese. This study was designed to analyze the differences of compliments in both English and Chinese in terms of linguistic forms，topics，responses and the factors influence of complimenting behaviors. American compliments are highly formulaic in semantic and syntactic patterns; while implicit compliments are plentiful in Chinese. American compliments focus on the topics of appearances and possessions, while Chinese compliments concentrate the topics of abilities and achievements.

 

Moreover, strategies of accepting and returning are more frequently used in American compliments, whereas more indirect responding strategies are used in Chinese compliments. These studies aim to provide a good understanding of how to perform and accept compliments properly in different cultural backgrounds. Taking the cultural differences into account can help one use compliments appropriately and avoid cultural conflict.

 

I. Introduction

 

A. Definition of Compliments

 

Compliments are a kind of linguistic communication that is important to human beings. Because of different cultural backgrounds, there’re differences existing in the compliments used in English and Chinese.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

The definition of compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to some one other than the speaker usually that person addressed, for some “good” (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer. (Holmes: 485) Holmes believed that a compliment is an intricate combination of positive evaluation display good feelings, implicit friendliness and half-admitted desire to please.

 

Two conditions for a compliment are specified: “(1) an expression of admiration on the part of the speaker, (2) concerning a possession, accomplishment, or personal quality of the addressee.” (Herbert: 485).

 

B. Significance of the Study

 

Compliments are said to be a social lubricant. How to give compliments and respond to them, therefore constitutes a part of the communicative competence of every member of a speech community, which is taken for granted by the speakers.

 

Therefore, this study is intended to provide a good understanding of how to perform and accept compliments properly in different cultural backgrounds. Taking the cultural differences into account can help one use compliments appropriately and avoid cultural conflict.

 

II. A Comparative Study of Compliments in Chinese and English

 

A. Different Linguistic Forms

 

1. Different Syntactic Patterns

 

There are three main typical sentence patterns in Chinese compliments (Jia Yuxin: 362):

 

1. NP+ADV+ADJ (48%)

 

e.g.你的這件衣服真漂亮!

 

2. 2ndperson pronoun+ V+ADV+ADJ (22%)

 

e.g.你說得真棒。

 

3. 2nd person pronoun+ NP+V+ADJ(9%)

 

e.g.你工作完成得不錯。

 

Analysis of all compliments in the corpus from Manes and Wolfson reveals that “almost eighty-five percent of them make use of only three syntactic formulas”, as shown in the following table:

 

Table 1: Three Syntactic Formula Used in Compliments (Holmes 1988, 496)

 

Syntactic Formula Percentage

 

1. NP {be/look} (Intensifier) Adja 53.6

 

e.g.: You look really lovely.

 

2.I(Intensifier){like/love}bNP 16.1

 

e.g.: I simply love that shirt.

 

3. Probea (Intensifier) Adj. NP 14.9

 

e.g.: That’s a really nice coat.

 

Total 84.6#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Note: NP = noun phrase; ADJ = adjective; Pro = pronoun.

 

a any semantically positive adjective.

 

b any verb of liking (e.g., admire, enjoy).

 

According to some linguists, both Chinese and English compliments reveal a degree of regularity on the syntactic level with some differences in the syntactic structure. In fact, most compliments fall into one of the three syntactic patterns in Chinese and English, lead to the conclusion that compliments are formulas. In addition, it can be concluded that “the formulaic nature of English compliments is even more evident on the syntactic level” (Wolfson, 1984:239). Similarly, in Chinese compliments, there are several major typical sentence patterns as English compliments. Syntactically, it is also not possible for Chinese compliments to be so restricted in sentence structures as English compliments. The following are the major ones:

 

Firstly, the pattern “NP+ be+ (ADV) + ADJ”, either in Chinese or English, plays a leading role in performing complimenting behaviors. However, in Chinese, it expresses the intention of “I want…” or “I hope…” instead of paying compliments, while in English, the pattern is always used to express the positive evaluation.

 

Secondly, the use of person pronoun as subjects can be distinguished between Chinese and English compliments. Many Chinese complimenting sentences start with the 2nd person pronoun such as “你” or “你的”, while the 1st person pronoun is seldom used. Differently, there are “over 16 percent sentences in English compliments that have the 1st person pronoun as their subjects” (Zhao Xiaohong: 10).

 

Thirdly, Comparative degree is regularly used in Chinese compliment, which is hardly used in English compliment. On the other hand, the superlative degree can be hardly found in Chinese compliments while it is frequently used in English compliments. This characteristic reflects different social values and beliefs. Chinese people tend to be less aggressive and more modest to others, whereas English people would like to show their own point of views directly and clearly.

 

Different to speech acts such as greeting and apologies, compliments are not clearly taught as part of linguistic etiquette. In fact, speakers are quite unaware of the formulaic nature of the compliments given and received. Yet, once the patterns are clear, its formulaic nature will serve in important ways to be identified and make meaning clear. Furthermore, when the expressions of admiration, approval and encouragement are considered as social strategies across different social groupings, the use of compliment formula makes good sense. Thus, speakers from different cultural backgrounds will easy to acquire the ability to give and interpret the compliments.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

2. Different Semantic Patterns

 

Data collected from Jia Yuxin (Jia Yuxin: 365) shows that adjectives (44%), adverbs (41%) and verbs (5%) carry the positive semantic load in Chinese compliments. Frequently occurred adjectives are “好、行、能干、乖” etc.. For example:

 

1. 你家房子大。

 

2. 你學習努力而且進步快。

 

3. 你對西方文化了解得不少啊!

 

With adjectives “大，快，不少”, sentences above have confirmed certain complimenting tone. However, when these adjectives are combined with adverbs such as “真、很” in the examples shown below, these sentences express a kind of intensified compliments.

 

1. 你家房子真大。

 

2. 你學習努力而且進步很快。

 

3. 你對西方文化了解得真不少啊!

 

Data from Wolfson (Wolfson: 236) have shown that 80% of all the compliments in the corpus depended upon an adjective to carry the positive semantic load. It is true that two thirds of all adjectival compliments made use of only five adjectives: nice (23%), good (20%), pretty (9.7%), beautiful (9.2%), and great (6.2%). Apart from the relatively few compliments that made use of an adverb (usually well) or a noun (e.g. genius) to express positive evaluation, most of the non-adjectival compliments in the corpus depend on a few semantically positive verbs. Like, love, enjoy, admire, and be impressed by are the only items found in this category and of the five, “like” and “love” alone accounted for 86 percent.

 

From the discussion above on compliments on semantic level, some conclusions can be drawn:

 

1. Adjectives are more frequent used in English compliments than in Chinese compliments. As for adjectives in Chinese compliments, it seems that everything can be described with the adjective “好”, which is similar in meaning to one of the frequently-used adjective “good” in English compliment. Besides, in contrast to the fact that the great majority of English adjectival compliments make use of only five different adjectives, there is a wider variety of the lexical choice in Chinese adjectival compliments. Further more, there are more culture-based ritualized phrases used in Chinese compliments.

 

2. Verbs show a lower occurrence frequency in Chinese compliments. Chinese people tend to give more indirect compliments, so they rarely use verb to show their praises for others. The most frequently used verb is “適合” (fit), which is specifically related to topics of appearance and possession, is rarely used by Chinese to express admiration. On the other hand, English people like to compliment with verbs, especially the two verbs “love” and “like”.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

3. Adverbs, as carriers of the positive semantic load, are widely used in compliments of Chinese, or sometimes, as intensifiers when combined with adjectives or verbs in the compliment sentence. This phenomenon rarely occurs in compliments of English.

 

4. Nouns are employed in both Chinese and English compliments as the positive semantic load carrier. But nouns are used less frequently in Chinese compliments than in English compliments. In fact, there are very limited nouns in Chinese compliments such as “一把手” “高手” “好手” ect equivalent to English noun phrase “a good hand” or “an expert”. Many nouns in English compliments are in fact their adjective variations.

 

5. Even though deictic elements are used frequently both in Chinese and English compliments, the occurrence frequency is higher in English compliments. Another remarkable difference lies in the pronoun used at the beginning of compliments. Pronouns “你/你的” or “這” are more frequently used to start Chinese compliments while most English compliments begin with the pronoun “I”, such as “I like your shirt”.

 

B. Different Topics

 

According to the studies, the vast majority of compliments refer to just a few topics: appearance, ability or performance, possession. “Appearance” refers to one’s looks, including haircuts, clothing, and ornament such as necklace, etc. “Ability” refers to the “quality of something produced through the addressee’s skill or effort: a well-done job, a skillfully played game; a good meal”. “Possession” refers to homes, furniture, automobiles, and other material possessions as well as children or other relatives. (Manes: 101)

 

1. Appearance

 

In China, women’s personal appearance is a topic of complimenting, but to give such compliments is highly restrained. They usually appear between women. Men’s compliment of female’s looks are usually considered as inappropriate, except for jokes among acquaintances. If a boy dares to compliment a strange girl on her appearance, he will be regarded as vulgar and harboring no good intentions.

 

But personal appearance is an important topic of complimenting in English, other people’s change in appearance deserves to be paid much attention to for showing interest or respect. Among them, especially female’s looks, no matter about their age, social, status and profession, is always a common topic. For example:

 

1. You look so pretty when you smile.

 

2. That’s a very elegant dress.

 

For English women, they will not feel abashed when receiving such compliments. On the contrary, they feel pleased. If their friend or relatives fail to notice the changes in their appearance and give a proper compliment, women will feel annoyed or even exasperated.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

2. Ability

 

People also pay much attention to each other’s talents.

 

In Chinese compliments, more compliments are related to ability than appearance. It reveals the fact that people are cautious of hierarchy of social rank in China. The purpose of complimenting their superiors is to win their favors. Among family members, compliments are also largely given to males on their performances in order that they will be more confident of their future success. For example:

 

1. 小明，你的書法真不錯!

 

2. 誰不知道您啊，您比電影明星還出名呢!

 

In English compliments, topics on ability emphasize on the result which can be seen everywhere, for example:

 

1. You’ve done a good job, my dear!

 

2. You are such a wonderful singer.

 

From the examples, we can see that compliments concerning ability are usually from the superordinate who seems have the qualification to make judgment to the subordinate in western country in order to keep a good term with others, which is downwards. While in China, the situation is just the opposite. Based on Jia Yuxin’s (Jia Yuxin:366) data, 33 percent of Chinese do not compliment other’s working ability and achievement, but about 58 percent of Chinese young men perform compliments to their superordinate in order to get appreciation from them.

 

3. Possessions

 

In Chinese compliments, people often choose somebody’s kids, houses, cars, cloths, even jobs and salary as topics of possession. Sometimes, personal experiences are also selected. For example:

 

1. 人家在外企工作，一個月好幾千塊錢呢。

 

2. 瞧人家的孩子多有禮貌啊!

 

Topics on possessions show low frequency in English compliments. Possessions as topics include one’s bags, clothes, cars, pets, and even kinfolks such as children, parents, boyfriends or girlfriends.

 

1. What a very elegant button this is!

 

2. What a delightful meal you!

 

The difference exists in that it’s not always safe to praise other’s possessions in China, especially between people in close relationship with each other. The reason lies in that the compliment will be probably considered as a request for the possessions and result in an embarrassment between the speaker and the hearer. But it’s natural to compliment other’s possession in western country.

 

From above comparison, we can find that Chinese and English compliments share similarities. However, when we make an intensive study, we find that differences do exist between them. Chinese seem to value natural attractiveness, but English people more often compliment personal appearance which is the result of deliberate effort. As for compliments on “ability”, there exist a number of compliments directed upwards in Chinese. But English compliments usually direct downwards and tend to put emphasis on the results.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Moreover some totally different topics, such as weight loss, age, and educational background, are discussed and explanations for these differences are advanced which have to do with different value profiles for the two cultures.

 

C. Different Responses

 

1. Definition of Compliment Response

 

Compliment responses are an interesting object for study since there is relatively strong agreement within the speech community as to what form constitutes a “correct response”.

 

Compliment response occurs with compliment. A compliment response is conditionally and sequentially dependent on the compliment. The two parts have been viewed as a whole in the literature. Thus, the compliment speech act is “a two-unit turn in which utterance 1 and utterance 2 are linked by both temporal and relevant conditions” (Herbert: 53). This can be seen in the following example:

 

A: That’s a beautiful sweater.

 

B: Thanks, my sister made it for me.

 

Speaker B is conditionally relevant and sequentially dependent on speaker A. One may schematize the general structure of the compliment speech event as: “A compliments B and B responds/ acknowledges that A has spoken” (Herbert: 53).

 

Few definitions of compliment response have been discussed by linguists, compared with the case of compliment. In this paper, the definition is as follows: “A compliment response is a verbal acknowledgement that the respondent of the compliment heard and reacted to the compliment”. (Nelson: 413)

 

2. Response Types

 

Pomerantz (Pomerantz: 81-82) claimed that two universal conversational principles govern the act of responding to a compliment:

 

A. agree with the speaker

 

B. avoid self-praise

 

Herbert distinguished 12 types of compliment responses, and these may be described as (Herbert: 208-209)

 

1. APPRECIATION TOKEN. A verbal or nonverbal acceptance of the compliment is not tied to the specific semantics of the stimulus (e.g. Thanks, thank you, [nod]).

 

2. COMMENT ACCEPTANCE-SINGLE. Addressee accepts the complimentary force and offers a relevant comment on the appreciated topic (e.g. Yeah, it’s my favorite, too).

 

3. PRAISE UPGRADE. Addressee accepts the compliment and asserts that the compliment force is insufficient (e.g. I’m really a great cook).

 

4. COMMENT HISTORY. Addressee offers a comment (or series of comments) on the object complimented; these compliments differ from (2) in that the latter are impersonal, that is, they shift the force of compliment from the address (e.g. I bought if for the trip to Arizona).#p#分頁標題#e#

 

5. REASSIGNMENT. Addressee agrees with the compliment assertion, but the complimentary force is transferred to some third person (e.g. My brother gave it to me) or to the object itself (It really knitted itself).

 

6. RETURE. As with (5) except that the praise is shifted (or returned) to the first speaker (e.g. So’s yours).

 

7. SCALE DOWN. Addressee disagrees with the complimentary force, pointing to some flaw in the object or claiming that the praise is overstated (e.g. It’s really quite old).

 

8. QUESTION. Addressees question the sincerity or the appropriateness of the compliment (e.g. Do you really think so?).

 

9. DISAGREEMENT. Addressee asserts that the object complimented is not worthy of praise: the first speaker’s assertion is in error (e.g. I hate it).

 

10. QUALIFICATION. Weaker than (9): addressee merely qualifies the original assertion, usually with “though”, “but”, “well”, etc., (e.g. It’s all right, but I want to retake some pictures).

 

11. NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Addressee gives no indication of having heard the compliment: The addressee either (a) responds with an irrelevant comment (i.e. topic shift) or (b) gives no response.

 

12. REQUEST INTERPRETATION. Addressee, consciously or not, interprets the compliments as a request rather than s simple compliment. Such responses are not compliment responses since the addressee does not perceive speech act as a compliment (e.g. You want to borrow this one too?).

 

3. Contrastive Analysis of Compliment Responses

 

By making use of a questionnaire, Chen Rong collects the data on compliment responses in Chinese. Her questionnaire was designed containing three conversational situations, having to do with appearance, ability and possessions. This can be shown from Table 2 as below:

 

Table 2: Percentage and Response Types of Chinese Compliment (Chen Rong: 26)

 

Response Type Number Percentage

 

Rejecting

 

Disagreeing and Denigrating 148 50.70

 

Expressing Embarrassment 76 26.10

 

Explaining 55 18.83

 

Thanking and Denigrating

 

Thanking and Denigrating 10 3.42

 

Accepting

 

Thanks only 3 1.03

 

Total 292 100

 

According to Herbert, the occurrence for the various response types in English are presented below in Table 3:

 

Table 3: Frequency and Distribution of Response Types in English Compliments (Herbert: 80)

 

Response Type Number Percentage

 

Agreement

 

Appreciation Token 312 29.38

 

Comment Acceptance 70 6.59

 

Praise Upgrade 4 0.38

 

Comment History 205 19.3

 

Reassignment 32 3.01

 

Return 77 7.25

 

Non-agreement

 

Scale Down 48 4.52

 

Question 52 4.99

 

Disagreement 106 9.98

 

Qualification 70 6.59

 

No Acknowledgement 54 5.08

 

Request Interpretations 31 2.92

 

Through the comparison of the compliment responses in Chinese and English (see tables 2 and 3), it can be generalized that there are two major categories of compliment responses both in Chinese and English. One is the category Agreement and the other is Non-agreement. Though there are main similarities of the compliment responses both in Chinese and English, however there are highly significant statistical differences of them between the two languages (see Table 4).

 

Table 4: Statistical Differences of Agreements and Non-agreements

 

in Chinese and English Compliment Responses:

 

English Compliment Responses % Chinese Compliment Responses %

 

Non-agreements 331 31.16 279 95.73

 

Agreements 700 65.91 13 4.44

 

From the above Tables, we can see that:

 

First, Chinese emphasize rejection and negation due to different cultural backgrounds, values and social norms. While English people tend to put more stress on “agree with the speaker”.

 

Secondly, praise upgrade, as a response type, does not find its place in Chinese compliments, while return strategy shares a high frequency in Chinese compliments.

 

The differences of response in Chinese and English compliments reflect that Chinese people give priority to the principle “avoid self-praise” over the principle “agree with the speaker”. The increasing proportion of Acceptance in Chinese nowadays can be said to derive from the model response of accepting compliments in English.

 

III. Factors that Influence the Complimenting Behaviors

 

The selection of appropriate topics and the use of compliments to perform additional functions depend on factors which are relevant to developing competence. Culture beliefs and social values become the major focus, however, who compliments whom in which contexts and on what topics cannot be ignored. Wolfson (Wolfson: 87) notes that social factors such as culture background, position should be carefully considered when analyzing compliments.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

A. Culture

 

Language is a historical and cultural production which simultaneously shapes its culture. Culture is a crucial factor influencing the changes of a language. The differences between Chinese and English compliments are mainly caused by their difference in culture.

 

1. Collectivism

 

The Chinese culture is sometimes referred to as a collective or “we” culture where the basic unit of the society is the family, not the individual.

 

In Chinese tradition, collectivism restriction is laid much stress on individual and individual is not expected to stand out, thus explicit agreement and acceptance will be regarded as inappropriate when compliment is offered. This cultural value of weakening self-image has imposed on the members of the Chinese community the expectation of rejecting compliment. The avoidance of explicit agreement with the compliment proposition utterance is consistent with collectivism upheld by Chinese culture. Triandis (Triandis: 269-289) offers an excellent summary of this situation “The Chinese individual is not expected to stand out but remain within the social or collective restriction. Therefore, Acceptance runs the risk of showing off.” Compared with English, Chinese speakers are more likely to reject compliment than to accept them.

 

2. Individualism

 

The fact that Acceptance is the most preferred for responding to compliments in Western countries. This may be linked to the dominant Western cultural pattern----Individualism. The individual is the single most important unit in any social setting and the uniqueness of each individual is of paramount value.

 

In western cultures, which are based on individualism, the language is the tool for extending one’s own influence and for changing others. The main function of language and speech is to persuade and change others in the clearest, the most accurate and the most logical way.

 

In giving compliments, the English like to use the sentence pattern like “I love/like…” while Chinese tend to put the second pronoun at the initial position of the compliment. This is a strong proof that the two peoples have different understanding of the identity of oneself.

 

B. Position

 

1. Hierarchy

 

One of the characteristics of the Chinese culture is hierarchy, and everyone is expected to behave according to his or her social status.

 

In a hierarchical culture, people are comfortable with an unequal distribution of power and thus do not try to bring about a more nearly equal distribution. Through the Chinese history, people have shown respect for age, seniority, rank, maleness, and family background, from which hierarchy is clearly seen. This is why people concentrate on topics of ability and achievement. Accordingly, while being complimented, Chinese tend to choose the strategy of Non-acceptance and Non-agreement. Such utterances as “沒什么，這是我應該做的”(it’s nothing, it’s my obligation to do that.) and “哪里，哪里，過獎了”(it’s not so good as you said.)are often used by Chinese to decline the compliments.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

In China, participants with lower status are more likely to use compliments to flatter or manipulate. According to Jia Yuxin (Jia Yuxin:366), 58% of all Chinese compliments data are used to compliment the superiors in order to win their favor, which may be considered as matter of opinion as well as differences of cultures.

 

2. Equality

 

In contrast with the Chinese culture, the concept of everybody born equal is deep-rooted in English’s mind and equality is English people’s vital goals of life.

 

In English, each person is described an irreducible value because of his humanness. Interpersonal relations are typically horizontal, conducted between presumed equals. In America where social equality prevails, everyone is treated alike with little differentiation for personal and social characteristics. When a personal confrontation is required between two persons of different hierarchical levels, there is an implicit tendency to establish an atmosphere of equality.

 

To compliments, it is interesting to find in English data that compliments to the superiors were fewer than those to the inferiors. Compliments to the superiors tend to occur only when the participants know each other well and the compliments to someone of superior status seem to require some confidence on the part of the complimenter. It is the person in authority who has the right to encourage, guide, and judge the behavior of subordinates. That is why in the actual choice of responding strategies, they prefer the Agreement category to the Non-agreement category.

 

IV. Conclusion

 

The main purpose of this paper is to study the differences of Chinese compliments and English compliments from aspects of linguistic forms, topics, responses, and analyzes the differences between them based on factors such as culture, position and sex.

 

First, this paper reveals that compliments in English are formulaic in nature and lack originality in terms of syntactic structures and lexical items while those in Chinese are much more specific and original, being realized in a wide variety of lexical terms and structures.

 

Secondly, the topics of compliments can be classified into three major types: (1) appearance, (2) ability, and (3) possessions. Though the first two are more frequently referred topics in both languages, there are some differences in the distributional pattern of these topics between the two languages.

 

Thirdly, regarding compliments responses, English speakers are ready to accept the credit offered by compliments while Chinese are more likely to reject or deflect the credit, trying to be modest. The English speakers’ strategies are mostly motivated by Leech’s Agreement Maxim, whereas the Chinese speakers’ strategies are motivated by his Modesty Maxim.#p#分頁標題#e#