1. 1
Productions of compliment responses: a contrastive study between
Chinese ESL students in the UK and native British speakers
by
Xi ZHU
A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance
with the requirements of the Degree of Master of Science in the
Graduate School of Education
September 2014
Word count: 13,220

2. 2
SYNOPSIS
This study investigated the similarities and differences of the compliment
responses production between Chinese ESL students in the UK and their native
British counterparts. The study was carried out in a top-ranking university in
southwest England where international students come from varied nationalities
and cultures, which inspired the research.
12 students for each group were asked to participate in a background
information questionnaire, a DCTs questionnaire, and a post-event semi-structured
interview (voluntarily). Every participant was asked to provide their responses to
each scenario in the DCTs questionnaire, and three from each group were
interviewed based on their consents as-well as the characteristics of their DCTs
responses. The interviews helped the researcher to readjust the DCTs data
interpretation and gain evaluative data about the social appropriateness of the
compliment responses data from each participant.
The results showed that the majority of the Chinese ESL and British
participants tend to accept the compliments, with the only exception for the
scenario for personality where both groups show a clear preference to evade from
the compliment. Chinese ESL respondents tend not to reject the compliments in
most situations, and they would rather choose an ambiguous way should they felt
necessary to do so. Also, both groups have presented a clear awareness about how
possibly the social relations and power differences with the complimenter would
impact on their responses. However, most of them are not sensitive to the gender
difference between the speakers, and some of them have indicated that the level of
formality of the conversation scenarios should also be considered.
Interesting further research could carry out a longitudinal design with the
purpose of exploring the second language learners’ pragmatic awareness
development, or otherwise the interrelationship between second language
learner’s L2 pragmatics ability with their learning experience in the language
community.

3. 3
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the help and support given to me in the Graduate
School of Education by my supervisor Dr. Helen Woodfield, and the library and
Programme staff. I am also very grateful to the Chinese international students
and British students who were very co-operative in this study. I am also mindful
of the great help my classmates have been in allowing me to discuss my project
with them.
Final thanks to my parents who have supported my study in the UK and made all
my achievements in this year possible.

4. 4
Declaration
I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the
regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original except where indicated by
special reference in the text, and no part of the dissertation has been submitted for any
other degree.
Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and in no way represent
those of the University of Bristol.
The dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination either in
the United Kingdom or overseas.
Signed ______________________ Date: _____________

5. 5
Contents
Chapter One Introduction ..............................................................................................................10
Chapter Two Literature Review...................................................................................................12
2.1. Theoretical frameworks.................................................................................................12
2.1.1 Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness Theory ...............................12
2.1.2 Leech (1983, 2007) Politeness Principles .......................................................15
2.2 Interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics research traditions .................18
2.3 Empirical studies on compliments (Cs) and compliment responses (CRs) 19
2.3.1 Compliments and compliment responses ...........................................................19
2.3.2 Pragmatic failure and its significance to Cs-CRs studies................................20
2.3.3 Cross-cultural studies of compliment responses..............................................22
2.3.4 Interlanguage studies of compliment responses..............................................24
Chapter Three Methodology and Procedures.........................................................................27
3.1 Sampling method...................................................................................................................27
3.2 Participants..............................................................................................................................29
3.3 Instruments .............................................................................................................................30
3.3.1 Written DCTs...................................................................................................................30
3.3.2 Retrospective interviews............................................................................................37
3.4 Data Collection Procedures................................................................................................38
3.4.1 Pilot study ........................................................................................................................38
3.4.2 Main data elicitation ....................................................................................................40
3.5 Ethical issues...........................................................................................................................43
Chapter Four Analysis and Findings...........................................................................................44
4.1 Analysis......................................................................................................................................44
4.1.1 Coding taxonomy...........................................................................................................44
4.1.2 General CRs categories................................................................................................47
4.1.3 CRs categories in each scenario...............................................................................51
4.1.4 Combination Strategies...............................................................................................60
4.1.5. Social appropriateness...............................................................................................62
4.1.6 Humorous CRs................................................................................................................64
4.2 Findings.....................................................................................................................................66
4.2.1 Cross-cultural similarities and differences in terms of modesty and

6. 6
agreement...................................................................................................................................66
4.2.2 Gender, social distance, and power difference...................................................67
Chapter Five Conclusion .................................................................................................................69
5.1 Research summary................................................................................................................69
5.2 Strengths and limitations ...................................................................................................71
5.3 Future research ......................................................................................................................73
References ............................................................................................................................................75
Appendices...........................................................................................................................................78
Appendix 1 Background Information Questionnaire......................................................78
Appendix 2 DCTs questionnaire..............................................................................................79
Appendix 3 Interview guide .....................................................................................................80

7. 7
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ESL: English as a Second Language
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
NSs: Native speakers
NNS: Non-native speakers
CR: Compliment responses
WDCTSs: Written Discourse Completion Tasks
FTAs: Face-threatening acts
GSP: Grand Strategy of Politeness
AmE: American English

8. 8
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Compliment contents and variables
Table 2: CRs categories
Table 3: Examples of Reject compliment responses
Table 4: Humourous CRs

9. 9
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Strategies for doing FTAs.
Figure 2: Macro CRs categories of both groups
Figure 3: Macro-level CRs in each group
Figure 4: CRs in macro level for appearance
Figure 5: CRs in micro level for appearance
Figure 6: CRs in macro level for personality
Figure 7: CRs in micro level for personality
Figure 8: CRs in macro level for achievement
Figure 9: CRs in micro level for achievement
Figure 10: CRs in macro level for possession
Figure 11: CRs in micro level for possession
Figure 12: Macro-level use of combination CRs
Figure 13: combination macro-level CRs
Figure 14: ‘most appropriate’ strategies in the macro-level
Figure 15: appropriateness of combined macro-level CRs

10. 10
Chapter One Introduction
Compared to other research areas of second language acquisition, pragmatics is
a relatively new area in that it has only developed systematically since the 1970s
(Schauer 2006: 270). A predominant research approach, since then, has been
contrastive which attempts to investigate how different language speakers differ in
their pragmatic production and comprehension (ibid.). Within this field, two
primary research perspectives are considered as interlanguage and cross-cultural
approaches. The main difference lies in the research purpose as-well as the
sociolinguistic identity of the participants. Cross-cultural research, on one hand,
draws comparative data from native speakers of two languages and examines their
pragmatic production and cultural implication. Interlanguage research, on the
other hand, is based on interlanguage data from native speakers and L2 learners,
and aims to investigate the NSs-NNSs difference as-well as learners’ acquisition
process.
The present study adopts an interlanguage approach. It aims to explore how
native British NSs and Chinese ESL learners differ in their compliment responses
(CRs) production and evaluation of social appropriateness. Participants are
required to produce CRs data in English and reflect on the influence of their native
culture as-well as second language culture that the learners are experiencing. The
definition of compliments is framed by Hobbs (2003: 249) as ‘a speech act which
explicitly or implicitly bestows credit upon the addressee for some possession, skill,

11. 11
characteristic, or the like, that is positively evaluated by the speaker and addressee’.
The concept of social appropriateness, in this study, is built on Gumperz’s (2009)
sociological interpretation, linking the linguistical acceptableness of an utterance,
the speakers’ social/cultural identity and speech intent, and context. Three social
factors – gender, social distance (D), power relations (P) – will be considered as the
variables of this construct. In light of this, investigation on the social/contextual
impacts on the pragmatic production of CRs will be included. The production and
evaluation data of the CRs will be elicited via written discourse completion tasks
(WDCTs) questionnaires and semi-structured face-to-face interviews.
Questionnaire and interview data will be analysed with a mixed-method focus on
the frequency of each CRs category (quantitatively) and the content of the
interviews (qualitatively).
On the basis of the research purpose, three research questions are put forward
as follows:
1. How do Chinese ESL learners and native British English speakers compare in
terms of their politeness strategies of CRs?
2. How do gender difference, social distance and power relations between the
interlocutors influence their choices of CRs?
3. How likely is it that the participants’ knowledge about modesty of their
culture influence their evaluative attitudes of the CRs social appropriateness?
The following chapters of this dissertation will be set out according to the

12. 12
research process and the analysis of the research finding. Chapter Two Literature
Review will provide the theoretical framework of the research design and reflect
on some published empirical studies of this area. Chapter Three Methodology will
describe the research procedures in detail, explaining the rationale of research
design, instrument adaption, data elicitation process, and demonstrate the ethical
concern and solution. Following this, the data analysis and discussion will be
presented in Chapter Five, drawing a mix-method approach and paying equal
attention to the quantitative CRs strategies frequency in each group and qualitative
rationale of the social/cultural interpretation of CRs appropriateness.
Chapter Two Literature Review
In this chapter, a brief review of the theoretical foundation and research
findings of several published empirical studies are demonstrated. Brown and
Levinson’s (1978, 1987) FTAs theory and Leech’s (1983, 2007) Maxim model are
introduced as the theoretical framework of the present study, each briefly critiqued
afterwards. Empirical studies on compliment responses (CRs) from both
cross-cultural and interlanguage perspectives are also reviewed.
2.1. Theoretical frameworks
2.1.1 Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) Politeness Theory
Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) politeness theory has been unanimously

13. 13
accepted as the most influential theory in interlanguage pragmatics research
(Dippold 2008: 133). This politeness theory adopts Goffman’s (1967) individual
perspective of face, placing emphasis on the addressee’s face gain and loss.
Specifically, this theory interprets face as ‘wants’, either positively oriented to seek
solidarity or negatively oriented to avoid being impeded. Within this frame, the
notion of intrinsically face-threatening acts (FTAs) is put forward, according to
which kind of face is threatened (positive or negative) and whose face is
threatened (the speaker’s or hearer’s) (Brown & Levinson 1987: 66). Compliments,
for example, are intrinsically threatening the hearer (H)’s negative face in that they
‘at least imply an element of envy and desire to have what the addressee possesses’
(Holmes 1995: 120). The acceptance of a compliment, on the other hand, makes
the speaker (S) obliged to downgrade or return a compliment, especially in some
‘debt-sensitive cultures’, and thus damages S’s positive face (Brown & Levinson
1987: 68). Furthermore, the dichotomy of positive and negative politeness
strategies is put forward as two main politeness strategies to soften the
face-threatening acts (ibid.: 69). They are distinct from each other in that the kind
of addressee’s face which is threatened is aimed to be minimized when the speaker
performs an illocution. As illustrated in Figure 1, they are inter-ranked in a
hierarchical order with the former more face-threatening to the addressee’s face
than the latter (Brown & Levinson 1987: 69).

14. 14
Figure 1. Strategies for doing FTAs. From Brown and Levinson (1987) Politeness:
Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69.
In terms of the speakers’ choice of politeness strategies, Brown and Levinson
(1978, 1987) present three sociological variables: the social distance (D) between
the interlocutors, their power relations (P), and the ranking (R) of the imposition
in the particular culture. Albeit admitting the existence of other relevant factors,
Brown and Levinson (1987) claim that these three factors are inclusive of the
others as they are the most effective in this process (Brown & Levinson: 1987: 80).
The weightiness (Wx) of an FTA is the sum of these three variables, representing
the cognitive process of the speaker’s decision-making of how to perform the FTA.
Nevertheless, this has been frequently critiqued by subsequent research, claiming
that other factors are influential as well, such as the interlocutors’ age, gender,
relative social status, occupation, etc. (Holmes 1986, 1988, 1995; Herbert 1990;
Wolfson 1981). In the study of British and Spanish speakers’ compliments and
compliment responses for example, Lorenzo-Dus (2001) argues that the topic of
compliment (e.g. appearance) and the interlocutors’ gender are equally important
Do the FTA
on record
1. without
redressive
action, baldly
with redressive
action
2. possitive
politeness
3. negative
politeness
4. off record
5. Don't do the
FTA

15. 15
as the D, P and R (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 110).
Apart from this, another aspect of Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory that
has been critiqued and relates to the present study is the dichotomy of
‘intrinsically’ positive/negative FTAs. This can be problematic in that it puts
cross-cultural distinction to some neglect. Simply put, whether a certain act is
face-threatening depends on specific social and contextual circumstances. For
example, as a positive politeness strategy, compliments are described as to anoint
the hearer (H)’s face by indicating that the speaker (S) favours or would like
something of the hearer’s. However, retrospective data of compliments and
compliment responses – either from the western culture where self-determination
is appreciated (e.g. Lorenzo-Dus 2001) or from the eastern culture where collective
image is given more importance (e.g. Chen 1993, Gu 1990) – have evidenced that
compliments in certain contexts may become an FTA for H’s negative face. That is, a
compliment may offend H’s negative wants of maintaining interpersonal territory
and not being constrained to return a compliment.
2.1.2 Leech (1983, 2007) Politeness Principles
Another cornerstone of the politeness studies is Leech’s (1983, 2007)
politeness principles. Drawn from the assumption of Grice’s (1975) cooperative
principle, Leech (1983) also argues that speakers strive for maintaining an
interpersonal harmony and cooperative atmosphere (Leech 1983: 82). Focusing on

16. 16
the addressee’s wants, six maxims are introduced in pairs in Leech (1983): tact,
generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement and sympathy; each one can be found
in certain typical types of speech acts. This set of maxims operationalizes his
definition of the politeness principle - minimizing ‘the expression of impolite
beliefs’ about the addressee or other related third parties whilst maximising ‘the
expression of polite beliefs’ (Leech 1983: 81, cited in Ruhi 2006: 62). In his later
work, Leech (2007) replaces the term ‘maxim’ with ‘pragmatic constraints’, and
thus introduces the Grand Strategy of Politeness (GSP) as a super-constraint to
subsume the six maxims. Components of the GSP incorporate the high or low levels
of value placed on the interlocutors in the process of the communication. For
example, Approbation is explained as placing a high value on other’s (not the
speakers) wants, and its counterpart Modesty represents a low value on the
speaker’s wants and is often seen in speaker’s self-devaluation. The attempt of
striking a balance between the two ends is typical in such speech acts and
behaviours as compliments and compliment responses (Leech 2007: 182).
Like Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory, Leech’s maxims/constraints
model has also been widely critiqued, especially his book length publication
Principles of Pragmatics (1983). First, it hardly pays any attention to the
psychological motivation of interlocutors in a speech event. Although in the form of
motivations, the maxims in this approach are merely associated with their
semantic meanings, while the speakers’ psychological motivations are excluded as

17. 17
‘irrelevant to the pragmatics of politeness’ (Leech 2003, cited in Ruhi 2006: 68).
Thomas (1995: 168) argues that they are better comprehended as
socio-psychological constraints influencing people’s interactive behaviours. This
stance is probably accepted by Leech himself, as in his 2007’s work he revises the
term ‘maxim’ into ‘constraint’ in the sense that the former is easily misunderstood
as ‘rules for good behaviour’.
Second, the assumed correlation between some CRs categories and the maxims
is over-simplified. Based on the link between self-devaluation and modesty in this
model, most of the studies on linguistic politeness of compliment responses (e.g.
Chen 1993) associate compliment disagreement with the Modesty Maxims. They
adopt Pomerantz’s (1978) dilemma and ascertain that the deflection/evasion
response is due to the speaker’s efforts to strike a balance between agreeing with
the complimenter and avoiding self-praise. However, with little understanding
about the possible discrepancy between the interlocutors’ real psychological
motivation and their actual utterance, researchers might have given an unfair
interpretation of the hearer’s responses to an illocutionary act and thus weaken
the research reliability. Examples can be seen in the CRs data of Ruhi’s (2006)
study elicited from 830 compliment exchanges in Turkish. This study finds that
respondents do not associate disagreement to a compliment with modesty –
especially when they trust that the addressee is worth being complimented – and
they question the complimentee’s sincerity when he/she disagrees with or evades

18. 18
the compliment (Ruhi 2006: 68).
2.2 Interlanguage and cross-cultural pragmatics research traditions
As defined by Kasper (1998), interlanguage pragmatics is a field of research
that ‘is concerned with how non-native speakers comprehend and produce action
in an L2 as well as with how that ability develops’ (Kasper 1998, cited in Dippold
2008: 131). Its research focus has been traditionally laid on the L2 learners’
pragmatic competence to use the target language to convey the right message, both
linguistically and so that it is socially appropriate in certain contexts. It mainly
deals with ‘the study of NNSs’ use and the acquisition of linguistic action patterns
in a second language’ and has recently included the impact of intercultural styles
on interlanguage use and strategies (Kasper and Blum-Kulka, 1993, cited in Allami
& Montazeri 2012: 466). Learners’ cognitive and productive processes of the
acquisition of the second language is analyzed through two essential concepts:
pragmalinguistic competence and sociopragmatic competence, which is in
accordance with the distinction of communicative competence in Bachman’s (1990)
model. Goffman’s (1967: 5) interpretation of face as individual’s ‘positive self value’
claimed by the person is adopted as the grounding concept in some interlanguage
pragmatics studies, and this concept is further pursued by Brown and Levinson
(1978, 1987) in their politeness theory from the same perspective.
In comparison, cross-cultural pragmatics research focuses on multilingual and

19. 19
multicultural communications and on speakers from diverse racial, national and
ethnic backgrounds (Wierzbicka 2008: 13). It involves individuals ‘who have
different cultures, different conceptualizations, and different first languages, and
who use a grammatically common language or lingua franca (such as English), but
‘a pragmatically highly diversified instrument of communication representing not
only different cultures, but also different norms and values’ (ibid.). In other words,
cross-cultural pragmatics research values the existence of cultural difference
between speakers from different backgrounds and considers it as the underlying
cause of intercultural pragmatical divergence. Unlike interlanguage pragmatics,
there is no identity setting of native and non-native speakers for the research
objectives; different groups of participants are seen as culturally and linguistically
independent and comparable.
2.3 Empirical studies on compliments (Cs) and compliment responses (CRs)
2.3.1 Compliments and compliment responses
The speech acts of compliments and compliment responses are regarded as an
adjacency pair linked by both temporal and relevance conditions (Schegloff &
Sacks 1973; Herbert 1990). They are a well-researched pair of speech acts, and
their interrelations and illocutionary functions may vary according to different
temporal circumstances. As mentioned above, compliments are generally viewed
as a positive politeness expression with an aim of solidarity. However, it can also

20. 20
serve as an expression of sarcasm, envy, or request for the complimented object
(Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 109).
Research of this speech acts pair has witnessed a fruitful progress both in the
field of cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics. With different research
designs using culturally varied contexts and participants, researchers have been
interested in the relationship between L2 learners’ pragmatic productions and
their cultural values, particularly the effects of cross-cultural difference in the
learners’ production and evaluation of compliments and compliment responses in
the target language. Literature from both cross-cultural and interlanguage
perspectives are equally important for the design of this study. In the following
section, I will first explain the reason in the light of their combined influence on the
emergence of pragmatic failure between cross-cultural and interlanguage speakers,
and then provide a brief review of studies on compliments and compliment
responses in both perspectives.
2.3.2 Pragmatic failure and its significance to Cs-CRs studies
As already mentioned, a complimenting behaviour can be face-threatening to
the hearer’s negative face in certain contexts by putting the addressee in a debt and
making him/her feel obliged to return a compliment. In specific cultures,
compliments may even be misunderstood – either by native speakers or language
learners – due to conflicting perceptions of the intended illocutionary force of a

21. 21
complimenting utterance between different language communities. Kasper and
Rose (1999) define this characteristic as pragmatic failure, which is a consequence
of learners’ misunderstanding the target language pragmatic rules and resorting to
their own L1, in other words, pragmatic transfer (Kasper and Rose, 1999, cited in
Allami & Montazeri 2012: 466). Pragmatic transfer has been an important issue for
both interlanguage pragmatics and cross-cultural pragmatics researchers as it
might cause communication breakdown between native and non-native speakers
and leave the latter helpless. Therefore, the present study, which aims to contrast
the compliment responses produced by Chinese ESL learners’ with those by native
British English speakers, is of utter importance. This is in the sense that it attempts
to detect the presence of potential L1 influence and future possibility to be
extended to the interlanguage pragmatics perception and competence
development of Chinese learners of English learners in the study abroad context.
Both interlanguage and cross-cultural empirical studies on compliments and
compliment responses are important as they collectively provide a fuller frame for
researchers to decode the underlying inter-social and inter-cultural reasons of
pragmatic failure. As Holmes (1986) states, mere knowledge of acceptable topics of
the target language community is far from enough to demonstrate the speaker’s
interlanguage pragmatic competence; the underlying values should also be kept in
mind in order to avoid cross-cultural friction (Holmes 1986: 503). Compliments on
possession, for example, are usually acceptable for most cultures and thus often

22. 22
regarded as a ‘safe’ way to commence a conversation. However, it is likely that
different cultures incorporate different values in their definitions of possession –
based on the worth and cultural meaning of the appreciated items – and native
speakers may nevertheless feel awkward being complimented. For example, a
complimenter from an eastern culture (where extensive family is often linked with
wealth and family harmony) compliments a New Zealander by saying ‘what a big
family you have!’ is misunderstood as a criticism by the complimentee who comes
from the culture where people prefer small families (Holmes and Brown, 1987:
527). The unexpected response ‘yes, but it has its advantages, too’, to some extent,
demonstrates that this compliment has caused face-damage on the recipient and
cross-cultural misunderstanding, so to speak.
2.3.3 Cross-cultural studies of compliment responses
With the cross-cultural lens, research on CRs has been focused on the
similarities and differences of CRs strategies in participants’ own languages as-well
as their understanding about linguistic politeness in their own culture. A
distinctive characteristic is that they draw data from two distinctive identities of
language speakers, either native speakers of their own languages or one of them as
foreign language learners of the other. For example, in Tang & Zhang’s (2009) study
on compliment responses in four situational settings, participants are a group of
Australian English speakers and a group of Chinese Mandarin speakers. The CRs
productions of both groups are elicited through written DCTs and then categorized

23. 23
into macro levels (e.g. Accept, Reject, Evade) and micro levels, such as the
sub-categories under Accept: Appreciation token, Agreeing utterance,
Downgrading, Returning. In Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) contrastive study, for another
example, compliment responses from British English speakers are juxtaposed with
their Spanish counterparts, and British participants are then found to tend to
question the true value of the compliments and the relational solidarity of the
complimenter. Specifically, British respondents are found to fail to interpret some
ironic upgraders as the Spanish intended, which result in the characterization of
the Spanish as ‘exceedingly confident and boastful’ (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 122).
Another feature of cross-cultural studies on the speech act of compliment
responses is that researchers tend to resort to an established ‘standard’ within the
contrasted ends of the culture scale. Pomerantz’s (1978) dilemma is often used to
explain the speakers’ socio-psychological motivations of using culturally different
politeness strategies when responding to a compliment in their languages. For
example, studies in the native English speaking communities evidence that in spite
of speakers’ efforts to retain a balance between agreeing with the complimenter
and avoiding self-praise, acceptance of a compliment is concerned as the ‘model’ or
‘standard’; other behaviours such as rejection and downgrading are considered
‘deviant’ and ‘puzzling’ (Pomerantz 1978: 80). Herbert (1986) also claims that in
American English corpus, the best response to a compliment is ‘thank you’. To
contrast, studies in the East tend to highlight the social and cultural value on

24. 24
modesty and collectivism whilst analyzing the eastern CRs production and
evaluation (e.g. Gu 1990). To explain the Chinese philosophy of politeness and
underlying social value, Gu (1990) refers to the hierarchy system in old Chinese
society, taking the standard of Confucian sense of li (politeness), and states that it
is necessary to determine an individual’s social roles and status before restoring
politeness (Gu 1990: 238).
2.3.4 Interlanguage studies of compliment responses
Recent studies of interlanguage politeness have paid close attention to the L2
learners’ compliment responses production in the ESL context. From the
interlanguage perspective, studies on CRs production and evaluation draw data
from native and non-native speakers, and investigate the similarities and
differences in between, i.e. those that are contrastive. When dealing with data
relevant to pragmatic failure, the non-native participants’ own cultural
backgrounds are often considered an influential factor in their L2 pragmatic
production and the development of their awareness of L2 pragmatics. Contrastive
studies on Chinese ESL learners in native English countries, for example, often take
into account the NNSs’ high value on modesty and self-devaluation, especially in
the interaction with interlocutors who are socially distant and in unequal status
(e.g. Cheng 2011).
Not only in cross-cultural data, Pomerantz’s (1978) constraint dilemma is also

25. 25
referred to in interlanguage pragmatics studies on compliment responses. Most
compliment recipients – not only for native speakers, but also non-native speakers
of the target language – are found to respond to a compliment with an ‘in-between’
level of appropriateness (Pomerantz 1978: 81). This indicates that the recipient of
a compliment always encounters a dilemma between avoidance of self-praise and
agreeing with the complimenter. In short, this is a conflict between modesty and
agreement. To do these at the same time, recipients of a compliment will either 1)
shift the credit to others, 2) slightly downgrade the value of the complimented
object, 3) indicate the achievement is easily obtained, or 4) emphasize hard-work
rather than natural talent (Pomerantz 1978: 81-82). This explains why combined
strategies, such as ‘acceptance + evade’ in the macro-level strategies category and
‘appreciation token + credit shifting’ in the micro level (Holmes 1988, 1993), are
often spotted in interlanguage data of compliment responses.
Leech’s (1983, 2007) Modesty Maxim and Gu’s (1990) analysis of Chinese
politeness are often adopted to interpret the NNSs’ not-accepting responses to
compliments in English. In this regard, Chen (1993) is a very important piece of
work as it provides empirical evidence about the feasibility of using these theories
to explain non-native CRs strategies. Unlike Tang & Zhang(2009), this study
collects data from Chinese non-native speakers (Ch. NNSs) and American English
native speakers (AmE. NSs). This differs from Cheng (2011) in that the Chinese
non-native speakers are university students in China, i.e. are ESL speakers. Using

26. 26
DCT questionnaires, this study shows that the Ch. NNSs’ CRs strategies are
tremendously different from the native norms as seen in the AmE. NSs’ data and in
Brown and Levinson (1978). Five macro CRs strategies are found in Chinese
speakers of English: 1) disagreeing & denigrating, 2) expressing embarrassment, 3)
explaining after disagreement, 4) thanking & denigrating, and 5) thanking (only).
The first four categories are regarded as Rejecting in terms of the illocutionary
force of their responses, taking a surprisingly high volume of the total amount
(95.73%). At the other end of the spectrum, only 1.03% of the non-native corpus
provides Accepting responses to complimenting utterances in English. On the
contrary, only 12.7% of the AmE. NSs’ data accounts for the Modesty Maxim. This
dramatic difference is explained by the differing sociological definitions of
politeness and self-image in Chinese and American cultures. More importantly, this
study shows that Leech’s (1983) model of pragmatic maxims is more suitable than
Brown and Levinson (1978, 1987) to explain cross-cultural linguistic politeness.
Also, it indicates that Chinese EFL speakers are still dramatically influenced by the
oriental social value about modesty when encountering a compliment.
Another inspiring study of interlanguage pragmatics strategies of compliment
responses is Cheng (2011). Instead of the DCTs, role-plays are used in this study to
elicit CRs data and retrospective interviews are conducted afterwards to justify the
researchers’ interpretation. This enables the researchers to obtain participants’
real-world answers and subjective explanation which might not be revealed

27. 27
through the use of written questionnaires. Three groups of English speakers take
part in the study: 15 native English speakers, 15 Chinese ESL speakers, and 15
Chinese EFL speakers. Role-play transcript is coded using Holmes (1988, 1993), Yu
(2004), and Tang and Zhang (2009) categories of CRs as coding system, and the
interviews are recorded and translated from Chinese to English. An interesting
finding suggests two possible factors may have influenced Chinese NNSs' CRs
expression: their familiarity/unfamiliarity with each other in the process of group
elicitation, as-well as their L2 proficiency. The present study takes advantage of
this finding and takes into account the social familiarity between the interlocutors
and English proficiency of the Chinese ESL group in the process of DCTs
questionnaire development.
Chapter Three Methodology and Procedures
This chapter includes detailed explanations as to the research design, sampling
method, data collection procedures and finally key ethical issues. Rationale for the
choice of sampling principle and target participants is in accordance with the
research purpose with an upmost effort to attain reliability.
3.1 Sampling method
With respect to the sampling approach, this study adopts qualitative sampling
methods followed by mixed methods analysis. According to Mertens (2005), mixed

28. 28
methods are expected to allow the researcher to probe into the substantial issue
submerged in a complicated educational or social phenomenon, which meets the
research purpose of this study. The choice of qualitative samplings is based on the
consideration about one of its essential features which ‘provide illumination and
understanding of complex psychosocial issues’, and ‘are most useful for answering
humanistic “why?” and “how?” questions’ (Marshall 1996: 522). To be succinct, this
research is to investigate how Chinese ESL and British participants differ in
responding to compliments, how likely they are to be influenced by different
sociological factors, and how appropriate they believe their responses are. In light
of this, this study explores some parameters of a phenomenon by comparing two
selected groups of participants, instead of drawing a representative sample for the
CRs production and rational for the whole population. This means that the result of
studying these samples only applies for the specific characteristics of participants
within specific contexts.
In terms of qualitative sampling, a judgment sampling method is primarily used
in order to avoid the possibility of wasting time in collecting poor quality data.
According to Marshall (1996), this is probably one of the most commonly used
qualitative sampling methods, as it enables the researcher to control the practical
knowledge of the participants and optimize the data quality within the fixed period
of time. This is particularly advantageous for the researcher of the present study as
some of the participants are known by the researcher; their age, social status,

29. 29
cultural backgrounds, and framework of knowledge in the researched topic are
potentially influential to the data, and thus contributed to the researchers’ initial
design of the research subjects. Moreover, another important qualitative sampling
approach that Marshall (1996) mentions - ‘snowball sampling’ – is also used to
supplement the judgment sampling during the latter stage. Subjects are
encouraged to recommend potential candidates who are likely to take part in the
study and provide quality data, and this contributes to the sampling efficiency and
quality to a large extent.
3.2 Participants
A sum of 24 university students (11 male, 13 female) from varied academic
subjects took part in this study, including one group of 12 Chinese international
students (i.e. ESL learners of English) and the other of 12 native British students.
The average age of the participants is 26 years old, ranging from 22 to 46. The
Chinese ESL group are exclusively postgraduate students in a well-known British
university, having had a minimum 9-month residence in UK and currently doing
their Master’s studies. The average age of their English learning outset is 10 years
old, and the average IELTS Academic score is overall 7.0. This is a result of the
pre-screening questionnaire, aiming to ensure that the L2 learners are capable to
provide a linguistic range of responses. The group of British students, on the other
hand, contains 2 undergraduate, 6 postgraduate and 4 doctoral students from
three universities. Most of them are born and raised in England, with British

30. 30
English as their mother tongue apart from other European languages as their
foreign or second languages; the only one exception holds a dual British-German
nationality with English as his native language.
3.3 Instruments
In terms of data collection methods, this study adopts written DCTs (Discourse
Completion Tasks) questionnaires as the main elicitation approach, complemented
by follow-up retrospective interviews. Prior to the DCTs, a background
questionnaire is delivered (see Appendix 1). The use of two different collection
methods is a concern for data diversity and triangulation, which, according to
Brown and Rogers (2002), will improve the research creditability and validity.
Data collection lasted for a month from the end of May till the middle of July,
including a background information screening, a DCTs questionnaire, and
follow-up interviews with voluntary participants from each group. After gaining
consent, participants are selected based on their cultural background, English
proficiency, age, etc. The purpose of the interviews is to adjust researcher’s
interpretation of DCTs data and gain access to participants’ evaluative opinion on
CRs appropriateness at the same time.
3.3.1 Written DCTs
The production data of compliment responses (CRs) is collected by the means

31. 31
of written DCTs questionnaires (see Appendix 2). Although frequently critiqued on
instrument validity (e.g. Cummings & Clark 2006, Rose 1994, Bardovi-Harlig &
Hartford 1993), DCTs are a reasonable choice for this particular study in that they
enable the researcher to collect a large sum of data within a very limited period of
time; meanwhile, the method has proven effective in controlling sociological
variables across different complimenting scenarios.
For each DCTs sheet, four scenarios where people are most likely to receive
compliments are given to the participants. All participants are required to imagine
being situated in these scenarios (i.e. on appearance, personality, achievement,
possession), and write down in English as many socially appropriate responses as
possible. Meanwhile, they are asked to appoint the most appropriate one in each
scenario based on their own understanding of social appropriateness. However,
participants are not required to rate the appropriateness of their responses in a
scale, as the self-rating correctness by participants from different age ranges and
cultural background cannot be guaranteed to be valid or comparable. Also, the
piloting result demonstrates that few ESL learners have the capability to give a fair
rating of the social appropriateness of their own L2 expressions. Instead,
paralinguistic information (e.g. facial expression, simultaneous action, etc.) is
encouraged to be given when necessary at the end of each response, with a clear
instruction about the format shown on the DCTs. This is a purposeful design in
order to readjust the researcher’s interpretation, and compensate for the

32. 32
frequently critiqued limitation of DCTs that hardly any realistic non-verbal and
paralinguistic data could be collected (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001: 111).
Sociological scenarios design
The four scenarios are designed with specific attention to reach varied types of
CRs samples in the occasions where the social distance (D) and power relations (P)
between the interlocutors are differentiated and likely to be influential. As Brown
and Levinson (1987) state in their politeness theory, three sociological factors are
presumed most influential in speakers’ choice of politeness strategies: the social
distance (D) between the interlocutors, their relative power relations (P), and the
ranking (R) of the imposition in the particular culture. In the process of designing
the DCTs, these factors are taken into consideration with the attempt to investigate
to what extent could these factors possibly influence the two groups of participants’
CRs production. The R is strictly controlled in this study as all participants receive
the same compliment contents on the questionnaires. However, the D and P
between the interlocutors are set in a wide range. See Table 1 below for the setting
of compliment contents in each scenario, and the variables of power relations
as-well as social distance between the complimenter and the complimentee.

33. 33
Table 1 Compliment contents and variables
Compliment content Power
relations
Social
Distance
Scenario 1 Outward
appearance
Smart dress/suit = +
Scenario 2 Personality Helpful & patient = 0
Scenario 3 Achievement Essay success  ++
Scenario 4 Possession New
high-technology
mobile phone
 0
Notes = equal power between the interlocutors; complimenter is in a higher power level;
+/++ social distance between the interlocutors; 0 no social distance between the interlocutors.
As shown from the table, the complimenters include the recipient’s new
workmate who has D with the complimentee and yet little P, close friends who has
little D and little P, university tutor and student who presumably only have a
professional relationship and thus have strong D and strong P, and the parent of the
recipient who is not supposed to be socially distant with the recipient at home.

34. 34
Scenario 1: Appearance
You are dressed up for a social dinner with some of your new colleagues, and
when you arrive there, one of them says: “Wow, you look very smart in this
dress/suit! Very good taste indeed!” You reply:
The relationship between the complimenter and complimentee (the participant)
in this situation is presumably socially distant as they are new colleagues who only
see each other in a normal working environment. However, this compliment takes
place in a less formal situation where the primary goal of attendance is to allow the
work mates to socialize. Therefore, the social distance (D) between the speakers
may still exist yet in an equal power (P) level. The object of this compliment is
clothes, which is different from natural appearance in that it requires effort.
Scenario 2: Personality
You have spent a whole weekend helping a close friend moving to a new flat,
and at the end of the day, he/she says: “Thank you so much! You are the best friend
anyone would ask for – always so helpful and patient!” You reply:
In this scenario, the participant needs to imagine being complimented by one of
his/her close friends who have presumably known the participant for years. The
object of this compliment is the complimentee’s helpful personality and good
patience in helping the complimenter moving house. The complimenting

35. 35
expression in this specific situation therefore consists of a thanking and a slightly
exaggerated praise, which, however, is understandable and natural in this situation.
Scenario 3: Achievement
You have been working really hard on your subject essays, and one of them has
just got a distinction. One day you run into the tutor in the school, and after a short
greeting he/she says: “By the way, congratulations! You’ve done a really good job
on that essay!” You reply:
The compliment in this situation takes place in a school environment which is
probably the most usual venue for a conversation between university tutors and
students. With this respect, the social distance (D) between the interlocutors is
expected as professionally acquainted, although the tutor may customarily occupy
a higher power level than the student in such an institutional setting. A short
greeting may come in advance to the compliment, and the compliment is presumed
sincere as the achieved good grade is a result of the student’s consistent hard
working.
Scenario 4: Possession
You have just bought a new phone. Your parent sees it when you are answering
a phone call. After you showing him/her some smart functions, he/she says: “That’s
a really nice one, isn’t it?” You reply:

36. 36
Social distance between the interlocutors in this scenario is less salient as they
are parents and adult children. However, higher power status may be traditionally
expected on the parents. Meanwhile, this is the only scenario that does not
incorporate researcher’s consideration of interlocutors’ gender difference. Also,
the first sentence is designed to convey an implication that the complimentee is a
finally independent adult independent in finance and has the ability to make
decision and purchase an expensive item without asking for his/her parents’
permission.
Special consideration for gender difference
One aspect of the research design is to test whether the participants would
respond to the same compliment in different ways when they were being
complimented by the same and opposite genders. Example studies on the impact of
gender on the compliment responses can be viewed in Herbert 1990 and Holmes
1988, where comparisons of the production of CRs are conducted between men’s
and women’s. Likewise, a more recent study between British and Spanish CRs is
completed by Lorenzo-Dus (2001), which concludes that cross-gender difference
in CRs are found in both groups – especially in the Spanish one – which indicates
the existence of ‘traditional gender stereotyping’ in both cultures (Lorenzo-Dus
2001: 114).
However, this study is not purposefully designed to investigate in what way the

37. 37
gender difference between interlocutors influence the speakers’ CRs production in
English. More precisely speaking, the analysis does not focus on how gender
difference between the interlocutors diversifies the participants’ use of
compliment response strategies. Instead, to operate the interviews, the researcher
paid exclusive attention to the fact whether or not the subjects claim to be
influenced whilst working on the questionnaire. And in the questionnaire, unlike
the work of Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001), participants are given explicit instruction that
they are complimented by the opposite gender, with the exception of the fourth
situation where either father or mother would count. The purpose of such design is
to examine whether the participants have the awareness of the cross-gender
compliments, of possible impacts of cross-gender compliment on their
appreciation, and how different they would ultimately respond to the compliment
as taking into consideration the gender difference, and how they evaluate the
appropriateness of their CRs. In short, this study looks at whether the participants
claim to be influenced by gender, not necessarily how the gender difference may
have had a profound influence, which explains the slightly different research focus
in the second research question.
3.3.2 Retrospective interviews
As a supplement to the DCTs questionnaires, three participants from each
group are face-to-face interviewed within no more than three days after their
questionnaire completion. The interviews serve for the researcher’s interpretation

38. 38
of the CRs function and readjustment of categorization, especially in the
circumstances where cross-cultural misunderstanding might occur and jeopardize
the research validity. Interviewees are chosen based on agreed consent, with the
typical/atypical characteristics of their DCTs questionnaire responses taken into
account. All interviews are semi-structured and recorded as a source of qualitative
data of the study. All questions are designed to elicit the participants’ subjective
explanations of the reason why they replied to the given compliments in such ways
(see Appendix 3). In order to avoid linguistic misunderstanding, the Chinese
participants reserved the right to speak their mother tongue during the interviews,
and their Chinese utterances were translated into English by the researcher1.
3.4 Data Collection Procedures
3.4.1 Pilot study
Conducting a pilot study is an essential procedure to ensure every aspect of a
study goes as intended (Oppenheim 2000: 47). In order to test the two
questionnaires and interview structure, two flatmates of the researcher and two
classmates of the TESOL programme were invited to pilot the study. To gain
referential pilot data, the same criteria of the selection of participants were
adopted (see 3.2 Participants). All of the four participants took part in the testing
for the background questionnaires and the DCTs, and three of them (2 Chinese ESL
1 In attempt to do theme analysis, the researcher used free translation method with no bound to certain
linguistic structures (see Chen 1993 for an example).

39. 39
learners, 1 British native speaker) were interviewed thereafter. As the main data
collection process, piloting interviews were also recorded and transcribed
afterwards.
The pilot study helps the researcher in two aspects. First, it allows the
researcher to examine the reliability of the target two groups of participants in
giving honest, valid and in-time response. The researcher is therefore able to make
alternative plan to prevent inaccessible participants and unsmooth communication.
Second, some quality feedback from the piloting interviewees has contributed to
improve the DCTs questionnaire. With respect to the compliments in the first
(appearance) and second (personality) scenarios, for example, 75% of the
participants suggested that for these kind of compliments, they feel a debt as being
complimented on fancy outfits and helpful characteristics, and slightly
embarrassed to respond properly. This finding then encouraged the researcher to
make the compliments more exaggerated on purpose, in the hope of reducing the
illocutionary force of ‘thank you’ in the first half and reinforcing the complimenting
utterance. The reason of such improvement is that it has been suggested that the
overwhelming illocution of ‘thank you’ and the syntactic structure of ‘S+V+very ADJ’
might have caused the simplicity of the CRs, meaning that most of the CRs for this
scenario could be categorised as Shifting Credits (e.g. You are welcome). As one of
the British piloting participants explains, ‘I put “you’re welcome” because it said
“thank you so much”; “thank you” “you’re welcome” is the usual response’ (piloting

40. 40
interview transcript).
3.4.2 Main data elicitation
The data collection process of this present study follows a sequence of
pre-screening, DCT elicitation and interviews. Once they had signed the consent
form, the participants needed to decide whether to complete the questionnaires
online or via emails, with the instructions and contents ensured indifferent. Every
participant was required to complete two questionnaires, including a
pre-screening background questionnaire and the DCTs as the main instrument. The
aim of the pre-screening is to filter the respondents through the set criteria (see
3.2 Participant), and thus the questions are designed to elicit essential information
that differentiate the two groups of participants, such as personal information,
lengths of learning English, lengths of UK residence, current subject in the
university, English proficiency level (IELTS Academic score), native and foreign
languages, etc. However, the version for English participants only focused on
personal information.
Following the background questionnaire, proper candidates who successfully
meet the sampling criteria for English language proficiency (for Chinese) and
native language in British English (for English) will carry out the DCTs
questionnaire. The instruction and contextual inputs about the scenarios on the
DCTs are written in English, and participants are expected to give responses in

41. 41
English as well. In order to see the effects of gender on compliment responses,
participants receive explicit instructions on the questionnaire that their
interlocutor is of the opposite gender. The inspiration of this design stems from the
study of Lorenzo-Dus (2001); the purpose is to see whether the gender of
interlocutors will influence the participants’ uses of positive/negative politeness
strategies and CRs as they did in Lorenzo-Dus’s research. However, in order to
obtain varied and honest responses, no instruction on the differentiated setting of
social distance (D) and power relation (P) is given to the participants, either prior
to or during their completion of the DCTs. The hypothesised effects of such social
factors were only probed through interview questions regarding the participants’
perception and evaluation of the appropriateness of the CRs.
After collecting all DCT data, selected participants were interviewed on the
basis of their initial consent and the quality of their DCT responses. Three of each
group took part in the interviews, with each taking approximately 20 minutes. The
questions are semi-structured, designed in an attempt to draw on the respondents’
subjective consideration of why they answer in such ways and how they define
‘social appropriateness’ for each case of compliments. Considering the language
barrier for low-proficiency ESL learner interviewees, it was permitted and
suggested that they speak their mother languages. This is to serve a purpose that
all of their explanations make sense semantically. Also, the piloting study indicates
that such Chinese participants would feel it more natural to explain their native

42. 42
culture in their own languages. For the purpose of qualitative analysis, all
interviews were recorded and transcribed afterwards by the researcher. Where
translation was needed, the researcher applied Gao’s (1985) method of free
translation, focusing on the content rather than words, as this study does not
concern the linguistic structure of the interviewees’ utterance. Chen (1993)
provides a sound basis for such practice of the method, and thus this study just
follows the track.
Considering the semi-structured nature of the interviews, the questions were
formulated around several key themes, including the participants’ comments on
the survey (i.e. the background questionnaire and the DCTs), their consideration of
gender, P and D of the complimenter as doing the DCTs, and their evaluative
opinions regarding the appropriateness of each way of responding to the
compliments for a particular person and in particular circumstances. Most of the
semi-structured questions focused on the phenomenon of cross-cultural diversity
and the influence of it on the participants’ specific reasons of making such
compliment responses. For example, from different perspectives, they may refer to
their understanding about modesty, face-saving strategies in socialising, level of
familiarity with politeness within English or their own language communities,
understanding about cross-cultural difference in linguistic politeness, and
definition of face, etc.

43. 43
3.5 Ethical issues
Ethical issues are essential parts of the study design during the whole research
process. As stated by Oppenheim (2000: 83), it is the researcher’s ethical
responsibility to ensure the safety and welfare of the participants. As a part of the
Background Questionnaire, written consents for different levels of participation is
achieved prior to DCTs and interviews. The reason of not using a separate consent
form is due to the consideration of overall questionnaire filling-in pressure that
participants may feel and thus avoid taking part in.
Although the power difference between the researcher and participants is
ideally equal as all participants are adults, participants reserve the highest rights to
keep their personal information and provided data confidential and anonymous,
and withdraw at any point of the research. This principle applies not only in the
collection process, but also through the entire analysis and writing-up procedure.
All data is destroyed immediately after the study, and the participants are
welcomed to acquire an electronic copy of the final dissertation.

44. 44
Chapter Four Analysis and Findings
4.1 Analysis
4.1.1 Coding taxonomy
After the collection of DCTs questionnaires and interviews, the CRs data on the
questionnaire was categorized based on the taxonomies of Herbert (1990) and
Holmes (1988, 1993). Meanwhile, Yu’s (2003) combination strategies of CRs are
also adapted for this study to look at the usage of combined macro-level CRs.
Herbert (1986), for the first time, put forward the 12 types of micro-level
compliment responses based on their pragmatic function, including 1)Appreciation
Token, 2)Comment Acceptance, 3)Praise Upgrade, 4)Comment History,
5)Reassignment, 6)Return, 7)Scale-down, 8)Question, 9)Disagreement,
10)Qualification, 11)No Acknowledgement, and 12)Request Interpretation (see
examples and explanation in Herbert 1986: 85). The 12 types are further
summarized into 3 macro levels of Agreement, Non-agreement and Request
interpretation. This taxonomy was continuously used in his later work of 1990, and
has been adopted as the main reference frame in many comparative studies on the
speech acts of compliments and compliment responses, e.g. Lorenzo-Dus (2001).
Albeit this taxonomy was claimed to apply exclusively for American English corpus,
as Herbert (1986: 86) explained due to the different social, linguistic and cultural
facts between different language communities, it has been proved capable to

45. 45
accommodate to non-American contexts by Lorenzo-Dus (2001). That is, by using
this framework, Lorenzo-Dus (2001) compared the similarities and differences of
compliment responses between British and Spanish university students and thus
demonstrated the feasibility of using this frame to categorise the compliment
responses in British English and Spanish.
Likewise, this particular study also adapts the CRs taxonomy in Holmes (1988,
1993) to code the CRs data. One of the advantages is that this taxonomy divides the
Non-agreement compliment responses into Reject and Evade from the macro level,
on which basis the slightly varied functions of non-agreement compliment
responses could be dealt witn more precisely. The three macro-level categories of
CRs of Holmes (1988) are also used in this study, namely Accept, Reject, and Evade,
apart from the independently-calculated combination patterns of macro-level
strategies adapted from Yu (2003). Several micro-level categories within the three
macro-level categories are adapted according to the actual DCTs data, and the
interview transcripts are used as a readjusting method should ambiguous
interpretation happen. Half of the coding is examined by a second coder, and the
intra-researcher reliability is approximately 87%. See Table 2 for CRs categories:

46. 46
Table 2 CRs categories (adapted from Herbert 1990, Holmes 1988, 1993, and Yu 2003)
Macro
level CRs
Micro level CRs Examples
Accept 1. Appreciation token ‘Thanks’ ‘Thank you’ ‘Cheers’
2. Accepting utterance ‘I’m really happy/surprised’ ‘I’m glad you think so’ ‘yeah I know’
3. Downgrading ‘Well, it is kind of fun’ ‘It wasn’t too expensive’ ‘This is not usual for
me’
4. Upgrading ‘I did work hard on it’ ‘It was a good find!’
5. Return ‘You’re looking lovely too’ ‘Thank you for the quality of your feedback’
Evade 6. Shifting credit ‘You’re welcome’ ‘No worries’ ‘Anytime’ ‘all in a day’s work’ ‘You’d do
the same for me’ ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’
7. Informative comment ‘I got it from…’ ‘I bought it recently’ ‘It was the highest grade I got’
8. Qualification2 ‘It was quite unexpected’ ‘I can’t really get excited about phones’
9. No acknowledgement3 ‘I must make sure I don’t lose it’ ‘Fingers crossed it’ll last a couple of
years’
10. Request
assurance/accuracy
‘Really?’ ‘You like it?’
11. Request interpretation ‘You should get one if you are thinking of getting a new phone’ ‘I’ll
know who to call when I’m moving’
Reject 12. Disagreeing utterance ‘I used to think it is too tight for me’ ‘I really don’t believe I could get a
distinction’
13. Challenge sincerity ‘I’m flattered’ ‘Can I have that in writing?’
As shown from the table, three macro-level CRs categories are Accept, Evade,
and Reject. Thirteen micro-level CRs categories are found in the DCTs data from the
two groups of participants, and the definitions of each category is borrowed from
the original taxonomies with slight adaptation. For example, unlike Herbert (1990)
and Holmes (1988, 1993), only the semantic forms of ‘thanks’ ‘thank you’ ‘cheers’
etc. count for ‘Appreciation tokens’ in this particular study as they are often seen
followed by an Agreeing Utterance and the latter has more pragmatic force.
‘Upgrading’ – which is regarded in the range of ‘Agreeing utterance’ in Holmes
2 Defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘in which the speaker merely qualifies original assertion’ ‘like
Disagreement but weaker’.
3 Defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘which the speaker gives no indication of having heard the compliment
either responding with an irrelevant comment or no response at all’.

47. 47
(1988) and Tang & Zhang (2009) – is normally stronger in force than the ‘Agreeing
utterance’ in both cases of British and Chinese ESL corpora in this study, and thus
is categorized as an independent type in the realm of ‘Accept’. The most adapted
micro-level CR category – compared to Herbert (1986) – is Type 11 ‘Request
interpretation’. This type of CRs strategy was defined by Herbert (1986: 78) as ‘a
request rather than a simple compliment’, meaning the addressee simply
understands the compliment as a request. In this particular study, ‘Request
interpretation’ is categorized as Evade in the macro-level, as the complimentee
feels that the complimenter shows interests in the object of the compliment, wants
or is jealous at the complimentee (e.g. ‘You should get one if you are thinking of
getting a new phone’), or very bizarrely the complimenter is actually offering a
request (e.g. ‘I’ll know who to call when I’m moving’). This is a special instance of
‘Request interpretation’ as the complimentee interprets the compliment in the way
that the complimenter is asking to be asked for help next time.
4.1.2 General CRs categories
Overall 377 compliment responses are collected through the DCTs
questionnaires from the two groups of respondents. In the macro level, 219
compliment responses are categorized into the three main types: Accept, Evade,
and Reject, and 159 as combined strategies (see 4.1.4 Combined Strategies). Figure
2 shows the ratio of each macro categories of CRs:

48. 48
Figure 2 Macro CRs categories of both groups
This graph shows that the two groups of participants in this study apparently
prefer to accept the compliments of the four situations in general. The use of Evade
is the second common choice, although only counts for less than half of the use of
Accept, by comparison. Surprisingly, only four ‘Reject’ responses are found across
the two groups, which demonstrates that refusing the force of a compliment is the
least preferred choice for all researched participants. The trend of using these
three general categories (i.e. Accept, Evade, Reject) is consistent with most of the
previous comparative studies with native English speakers (e.g. Holmes 1988) and
Chinese EFL learners (e.g. Tang & Zhang 2009), although inconsistent with one of
the implications of Holmes’s (1986) study that among Malaysian ESL learners in
New Zealand – a context where Asian English learners in a native speaking country
are studied – the use of Reject, particularly ‘disagreeing utterance’, seems most
often when the Malaysian students encountered a compliment in similar situations.
Accept
67%
Evade
31%
Reject
2%
Overall macro-level CRs

49. 49
Nevertheless, the high percentage of using Accept strategies in this study accounts
for an important finding as it shows that to accept a compliment is still the most
common type of compliment responses.
Even so, comparison on the macro level shows that British participants seem to
have provided more appropriate compliment responses through the four scenarios
than their Chinese counterparts do, even for the use of rejections. This is contrary
to one of Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) findings that ‘British respondents found it
generally more difficult to provide more than one or two socially appropriate CRs
for each of the nine situations’ (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 553). See Figure 3 below for
statistic illustration of the distribution of the macro categories of the CRs in each
group:
Figure 3: Macro-level CRs in each group
This graph illustrates that British respondents use more Accept, more Evade,
Accept Evade Reject
British 86 38 3
Chinese ESL 61 30 1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Macro-level CRs categories
British
Chinese ESL

50. 50
and more Reject than the Chinese do for all the complimenting scenarios. This is an
interesting finding for this particular interlanguage study as it appears to have
shown that Chinese hold different preference of using Evade and Reject when
being seen as second language learners and native Mandarin speakers. To explain,
a few previous studies such as Chen (1993) and Tang & Zhang (2009) have
demonstrated that of the three major categories, Reject seems to be used more by
Mandarin speakers than native English speakers, albeit less than Accept or Evade.
The new data of this study, however, shows the trend of Chinese English learners
generally using less than the native English speakers in all three main categories of
CRs. Examples of Reject CRs are listed in Table 3:
Table 3: Examples of Reject compliment responses
British: B3: CR 2.3 ‘Haha I’m not sure that I’m always that helpful and patient’
B8: CR 2.4 & B11: CR 2.2 ‘Don’t mention it’
Chinese
ESL:
C4: CR 1.2 ‘I’m flattered’
Noticeably, all of the three British Reject responses appear in the Scenario 2
Personality, which indicates that the British participants tend not to reject a
compliment unless it is something related to their innate characteristics. It appears,
to these British participants, that being complimented on their own personalities is
the least comfortable and they might have struggled to find a proper way to
respond it. This reaction seems inconsistent with Pomerantz’s (1978) statement of

51. 51
the dilemma between a) accepting the compliment and b) avoiding self-praise that
most people face in the situation of being complimented. Comparing to the British
utterances, the Chinese ESL Reject ‘I’m flattered’ appears to be more linguistically
polite considering the first-person perspective.
4.1.3 CRs categories in each scenario
CRs for appearance
The Figure 4 shows the use of the three general CRs patterns between the two
groups of participants to the compliment on appearance in Scenario 1.
Figure 4: CRs in the macro level for appearance
Data for the CRs amount in this scenario indicates the overwhelming use of
Accept (44/53) for the compliment on appearance for both groups of participants.
Only one Reject utterance is found in the Chinese ESL group, against none in the
British one. This implicates a genuinely more positive reaction to compliments on
Accept Evade Reject
British 27 5 0
Chinese ESL 17 3 1
27
5 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
British
Chinese ESL

52. 52
appearance of the British English speakers than their ESL counterparts from China
do. Specific patterns of CRs for appearance in a micro level are shown below:
Figure 5: CRs in the micro level for appearance
By comparison across the two groups of subjects, an interesting finding out of
this data shows that a total of 5 uses of Challenge Sincerity, Request Interpretation,
and Disagreeing Utterance are found in Chinese ESL data, which appears
surprisingly high against the non-existent use of such patterns in the British
English speakers. Also, no Downgrading pattern is found in the Chinese ESL’s
responses to compliments on appearance. Comparatively, 10 uses of such strategy
are seen in the British corpus. Such a high rate of using Downgrading as a strategy
of accepting a compliment on appearance could probably be related to the
reserved-ness of British culture, explained by a British respondents as ‘culturally
inappropriate’ to say ‘I’m great’:
‘yeah you would accept it, but I don’t think you could ever say “oh thanks”
Appr
eciati
on
Toke
n
Agre
eing
Utter
ance
Dow
ngra
ding
Shifti
ng
Credi
ts
Retu
rn
Upgr
ading
Infor
mati
ve
Com
ment
Requ
est
Assu
ranc
e
Requ
est
for
accur
acy
No
ackn
owle
dgem
ent
Chall
enge
Since
rity
Rqeu
est
Inter
preta
tion
Disag
reein
g
Utter
ance
British 29 1 10 3 8 2 4 1 1 2 0 0 0
Chinese ESL 21 1 0 3 7 1 1 3 0 1 2 2 1
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
British
Chinese ESL

53. 53
and that’s it, maybe for my wife I would. But I can’t just go… if someone says “you
look amazing”, if I say “thank you” that means I think I look amazing, which is
weird because I’m socially not allowed to think that. Coz it’s arrogant.’ (interview
transcript quotation)
Contrary to the varied use of micro-level strategies, Chinese ESL learners are
found to have a tendency to use ‘thank you’ as a ‘safe answer’ in such situations.
That is, instead of using direct evasion or followed with another choice, they are
likely to simplify the whole response into a short Appreciation Token, such as
‘thank you’ and ‘thanks’. One respondent confirms that ‘safe answer is my point’
and remarks that such a short response could become the start of a casual
conversation:
‘if a new colleague say this kind of thing, I would say “thank you” and maybe we’ll
then start a conversation, and maybe I’ll praise him back later, but not
immediately’ (interview transcript)
CRs for personality
Figure 6 presents the use of macro-level CRs strategies for the compliment on their
helpful personality after doing a favour for a close friend.

54. 54
Figure 6: CRs in macro level for personality
A total of 36 British CRs and 23 Chinese ESL CRs are collected for this scenario.
It can be seen that Evade is apparently more preferred for both groups, with 21
CRs from the British group and 18 from Chinese. A further indication of this is that
only in this scenario would the two groups of participants choose to evade from the
force of the compliment more than accepting or refusing it. On the contrary, Reject
is the least popular choice, as the data demonstrates, and no Reject CR has been
found from Chinese ESL participants for the complimenting utterance in Scenario 2.
This is compliant with Gu’s (1990) self-denigrating strategy which is proved more
preferable than on-bald reject by Chinese.
Further details regarding the micro-level CRs categories used by the two groups
of participants are presented below in Figure 7. An outstanding ratio of using
Shifting Credits in this scenario is found in both groups, showing that the
Accept Evade Reject
British 12 21 3
Chinese ESL 5 18 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
British
Chinese ESL

55. 55
addressees accept the compliment assertion at first, but then try to transfer the
force of the compliment to a third party or the object itself, thus striving for a
balance between agreement and not self-praising. Apart from this, some CRs
categories are not found in either group, such as Informative Comment, Request
Assurance/Accuracy, and the using of a few other categories are exclusively
applicable for British CRs, including No Acknowledge, Challenge Sincerity, Request
Interpretation, and Disagreeing Utterance.
Figure 7: CRs in micro level for personality
CRs for achievement
The below Figure 8 shows how the two groups of participants in this particular
study use Accept, Evade and Reject strategies to respond to the compliment from a
tutor on their good essay result.
Appre
ciatio
n
Token
Agree
ing
Uttera
nce
Down
gradi
ng
Shifti
ng
Credit
s
Retur
n
Upgra
ding
Infor
mativ
e
Com
ment
Reque
st
Assur
ance
Reque
st for
accur
acy
No
ackno
wledg
ement
Challe
nge
Sincer
ity
Rqeue
st
Interp
retati
on
Disag
reeing
Uttera
nce
British 3 3 9 20 1 2 0 0 0 1 1 1 5
Chinese ESL 1 2 5 23 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
British
Chinese ESL

56. 56
Figure 8: CRs in macro level for achievement
This graphs illustrates that nearly 95% of the responses for compliments on a
satisfying essay performance is Accept, with only three exceptions of Evade (1
British, 2 Chinese ESL). No Reject usage of compliment responses are found in
terms of this scenario, meaning that the participants of this study tend not to
refuse the complimenting behaviour on their academic achievement in which they
have made great efforts. One British participant has explained the reason of
choosing to accept such compliments as:
‘I suppose because a good grade represents having achieved something,
something which was hopefully difficult otherwise everyone would have good
grades, so yes I would ACCEPT it’ (interview transcript quotation)
Accept Evade Reject
British 27 1 0
Chinese ESL 25 2 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
British
Chinese ESL

57. 57
Figure 9: CRs in micro level for achievement
The micro-level CRs data for the Scenario 3 shows that the majority of the
respondents from both groups prefer to either show their appreciation of the
compliment (41%) or return the complimenting force to the speaker (15%). The
high percentage of Return, e.g. ‘Thank you for the quality of your feedback’,
demonstrates that the participants of this study would very likely accept the
compliment by acknowledging the help from the speaker. One of the surprising
findings for this scenario is the total of 5 Disagreeing Utterance, for example, ‘I
thought it was terrible’ (B2) and ‘I really don’t believe I could get a distinction’ (C4).
However, Disagreeing Utterances are invariably found as a component of a
combination, which explains why they are not coded as Reject in the macro lens.
CRs for possession
Like the data shown above of the CRs for Scenario 3, no demonstration of Reject
Appre
ciatio
n
Token
Agree
ing
Uttera
nce
Down
gradi
ng
Shifti
ng
Credit
s
Retur
n
Upgra
ding
Infor
mativ
e
Com
ment
Reque
st
Assur
ance
Reque
st for
accur
acy
No
ackno
wledg
ement
Challe
nge
Sincer
ity
Rqeue
st
Interp
retati
on
Disag
reeing
Uttera
nce
British 28 8 3 4 6 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 4
Chinese ESL 18 8 0 3 11 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
British
Chinese ESL

58. 58
CRs are found in either group of participants for compliments on their new-bought
mobile phone in this study. Illustration of the use of macro-level CRs can be found
below in Figure 10:
Figure 10: CRs in macro level for possession
This graph shows that to accept or evade the force of a compliment on a new
possession is the most common choice for both British and Chinese ESL
respondents, with Accept slightly more than Evade for each. Specific use of the
micro-level strategies is shown below:
Accept Evade Reject
British 20 11 0
Chinese ESL 14 7 0
0
5
10
15
20
25
British
Chinese ESL

59. 59
Figure 11: CRs in micro level for possession
Apart from the overwhelming use of Agreeing Utterance, one noticeable use of
the micro-level CRs strategies for this scenario is Qualification, defined by Herbert
(1986: 78) as ‘weaker than Disagreement: addressee merely qualified the original
assertion’. The mere instance in this study can be found as ‘It was quite unexpected’
(B3) as a follow-up response after ‘Thank you’. By saying this, the complimentee
acknowledges the assertion of the unexpectedness of her good performance on
behalf of both the tutor and herself, nevertheless accepting the compliment at first.
Therefore, the force of this speech act of CRs is weaker than a rejection and more of
an evasion in the macro level.
Another finding of CRs for possession that is worth noting is the high rate of
using Request Interpretation in the Chinese ESL group. The participants tend to
either offer the subject being complimented (e.g. ‘I’ll buy you one if you like’), carry
Appr
eciati
on
Toke
n
Agre
eing
Utter
ance
Dow
ngra
ding
Shifti
ng
Credi
ts
Retur
n
Upgr
ading
Infor
mativ
e
Com
ment
Requ
est
Assur
ance
Requ
est
for
accur
acy
No
ackn
owle
dgem
ent
Chall
enge
Since
rity
Rqeu
est
Inter
preta
tion
Disag
reein
g
Utter
ance
Quali
ficati
on
British 4 18 5 5 0 4 4 0 0 2 0 4 0 1
Chinese ESL 2 19 0 1 0 5 4 0 0 0 0 10 1 0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
British
Chinese ESL

60. 60
on a further conversation about the function of the possession (e.g. ‘If you are
interested in these functions, I can teach you’), or suggest the complimenter buy
one as well (e.g. ‘maybe you and dad should consider changing the old one’). The
common use of such strategy is also mentioned in Cheng’s (2011) study with the
Chinese group, explained in the way of Chinese cultural influence (see Chen 2011:
2210).
4.1.4 Combination Strategies
Figure 12 illustrates the overall use of combination strategies of CRs across the
two groups of participants in this study.
Figure 12: Macro-level use of combination CRs
Overall 43 combination strategies are found in the macro-level compliment
response, coded as Accept + Evade, Accept + Reject, Reject + Evade, Evade + Accept,
and Reject + Accept. The most common combination pattern is Accept + Evade
Accept+Reject
14%
Accept+Evade
49%
Reject+Accept
7%
Evade+Accept
28%
Reject+Evade
2%
Accept+Reject
Accept+Evade
Reject+Accept
Evade+Accept
Reject+Evade

61. 61
(49%), meaning that the sequence of accepting a compliment first and then
pushing down the compliment force is most favourable and polite way in the cases
where the complimentees feel that more than one CR is needed. As explained by a
British respondent, the reason for evading the compliment force after accepting it
at first is related to the his consideration of being humble, ‘not to show that you are
uncomfortable, but just not to highlight the compliment too much’ (quoted from an
interview transcript).
Figure 13: combination macro-level CRs
The demonstration of macro-level combination CRs strategies between the two
groups is shown above in Figure 13. For British, Accept + Evade (13/20) is still the
most commonly seen pattern as in the general comparison, whereas their Chinese
counterparts seem to have used more Evade + Accept (11/23) in the same
scenarios. This discrepancy is in accordance with one of Tang and Zhang’s (2009)
statements that Chinese ‘reserves and consideration’ and ‘pay more attention to
Accept+
Reject
Accept+
Evade
Reject+
Accept
Evade+
Accept
Reject+
Evade
British 3 13 3 1 0
Chinese ESL 3 8 0 11 1
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
British
Chinese ESL

62. 62
“facework”’ (Tang & Zhang 2009: 338).
4.1.5. Social appropriateness
Apart from providing all possible responses on the questionnaires, the
respondents of the two groups are also required to decide one out of the four4
responses as the most socially appropriate answer in such situation. No
pre-instructions are given regarding the definition of ‘social appropriateness’ in
order to reduce the researchers’ impacts on participants’ own judgment.
Figure 14: ‘most appropriate’ strategies in the macro-level
A stark contrast between the uses of single and combined CRs strategies is
demonstrated from the above chart. In the macro level, short CRs with only one
strategy is the most preferred pattern that participants from both groups believe as
‘the most appropriate’, with an overwhelming percentage of 87%. A comparatively
low percentage (13%) goes to combination strategies, showing that CRs with two
4 Ideally but not compulsorily four responses should be given for each scenario.
single
strategies
87%
combinat
ion
strategies
13%

63. 63
distinctive strategies are less likely to be assumed appropriate. Comparative data of
using combination strategies between the two groups are shown as follow:
Figure 15: appropriateness of combined macro-level CRs
From this graph, it is worth noting that no Reject strategy in any form is found
in the selected ‘most appropriate’ patterns for both groups. This is a naturally
understandable finding from the perspectives of Co-operative and Agreement
Principles. Also, only utterances led by an Accept (i.e. Accept + Evade) are
interpreted as appropriate; no Evade + Accept strategy is regarded so by the native
British speakers. Such an agreement-priority attitude confirms Lorenzo-Dus’s
(2001) statement that British people generally consider it inappropriate to
verbalize their disagreement in an irredressive way due to the risk of offending the
hearer’s negative face wants (Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 115). On the flip side, Chinese
ESL participants seem more tolerant with evading a compliment force before
accepting it implicitly.
British Chinese ESL
Accept+Evade 2 4
Evade+Accept 0 6
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Accept+Evade
Evade+Accept

64. 64
Participants’ contemplation on the process of making such decision is inquired
during the retrospective interviews. The result shows that most participants
demonstrate a solid perception of the concept of ‘social appropriateness’, and they
consider this as the decisive power of giving responses and ‘shape what I can say’
(quote form an interview). ‘Formality’ and ‘circumstances’ are two frequently
mentioned words by the interviewees when being asked to explain their personal
understanding about ‘most socially appropriate’; they suggest that more
alternatives could have been made as a ‘more appropriate’ were different
contextual factors or different levels of formality seen in the conversation.
4.1.6 Humorous CRs
Humorous expression of compliment responses in English from native speakers
and Chinese second language learners is another analyzing focus of this empirical
study. Although describing themselves as ‘negative’ and ‘reserved’, British
respondents in this particular study do provide more humorous CRs than the
Chinese do (i.e. 10 British, 3 Chinese ESL), both in terms of quantity and variety.
See Table 4 below for comparative data between the two groups and examples:

65. 65
Table 4: Humourous CRs
CRs categories Scenario Utterance
British Downgrading 2 ‘Don't move again too soon!’
Downgrading 1 ‘Thank you, but I feel rather out of
place to be honest.’
Downgrading 3 ‘Yeah, don't really know how it
happened, but I won't complain.’
Disagreeing
Utterance
2 ‘Haha I'm not sure that I'm always
that helpful and patient.’
No
Acknowledgement
4 ‘I must make sure I don't lose it.’
Challenge Sincerity 2 ‘Can I have that in writing?’
Disagreeing
Utterance
2 ‘No, I'm just mad enough to spend
time with you.’
Upgrading 2 ‘I know, I'm amazing ain't I?’
Request
Interpretation
2 ‘Thanks, I'll know who to call when
I'm moving.’
Downgrading 2 ‘I'm not sure about patient, but I can
be useful sometimes.’
Chinese Upgrading 1 ‘Thanks, I totally agree with you!’
Upgrading 2 ‘Yes I indeed am.’
Agreeing Utterance 2 ‘You're welcome, though I'm tired…’
This table has evidenced that the compliment on personality in the second
scenario apparently generates more humourous CRs than other situations do.
Same as in Lorenzo-Dus (2001), British humourous CRs present two distinctive
semantic formats: 1) sincere appreciation token in attempt to avoid self-praise (e.g.
‘I feel rather out of place.’), and 2) ironic/challenging expression of criticism (e.g.
‘Can I have that in writing?’). Contrarily, only the first format is found in Chinese
ESL corpus, indicating that ironic response to a compliment in the four scenarios
seems linguistically challenging for Chinese English learners.

66. 66
4.2 Findings
4.2.1 Cross-cultural similarities and differences in terms of modesty and
agreement
Pomerantz’s (1978) articulation of the pragmatic dilemma of compliment
responses between avoiding self-praise and agreeing with the complimenter
indicates a central notion of the relationship between modesty and agreement
principles. Through comparative analysis between the two groups, this study has
proved the existence of such a dilemma in both British and Chinese ESL
participants in replying to compliments on appearance, personality, achievement
and possession.
Despite the implication of previous comparative studies that both Chinese and
British cultures have been described to some extent as ‘reserved’ in terms of
politeness, against such other language communities as Spanish (e.g. Lorenzo-Dus
2001) and American English speakers (e.g. Tang & Zhang 2009, Cheng 2011), this
study indicates that different interpretations of modesty and agreement in the
researched two cultures may apply. On the one hand, the nature of British
politeness as ‘negative politeness’, avoiding blatant, and favourable to accept a
compliment gracefully (Hickey 1991, cited in Lorenzo-Dus 2001: 109; Sacks 1973,
cited in Chen 1993: 67). The new British data of this study supports this assertion
in regards to the high portion of the accepting-evading sequence of CRs strategies.

67. 67
On the other hand, the Chinese ESL data of this study supports Gu’s (1990)
statement that Chinese modesty reflects the core concept of Chinese politeness in
self-denigrating. The more blatant Reject, less frequent Accept, as-well as the more
frequent Evade expressions in the Chinese ESL corpus echo the hypothesis that the
essential of Chinese modesty is to appear humble. However, no data of this study
shows the implication whether these Chinese participants necessarily believe they
do think positively of themselves whilst appearing so. Furthermore, this study
reflects that without instructional teaching of pragmatics, sorely daily exposure to
the target language have not substantively changed these Chinese students’
pragmalinguistic awareness of English, nor reshaped their understanding of the
sociopragmatic appropriateness of certain CRs expressions in their second
language.
4.2.2 Gender, social distance, and power difference
As shown in the research question, this study inserts the intension to test
whether the gender difference between the interlocutors actually influences the
complimentees’ responses. Through the DCTs and retrospective interviews, the
participants from both groups are found to show no particular intention to change
their responses to complimenters of or against their own gender. Most
respondents during the interviews, albeit acknowledging that they noticed the
opposite-gender setting for the first three scenarios, claimed that gender difference
had not influenced their responses. One British participant explained the reason

68. 68
from the sociological perspective by saying that ‘assuming it’s still a friendship or a
working relationship, it’s a fairly similar interaction, whether it’s a man or woman’
(quoted from an interview). Only two Chinese female respondents admitted that
the compliment on appearance from male do influence their thinking process for a
proper response. Both of them used ‘flirtatious’ to describe their impression of
compliments on their look from male. This indicates that they both feel
embarrassed being complimented on their appearance by the opposite gender,
suggesting that females seem to pay more attention on the impression of their
outfit and who notices the change.
However, the DCTs production and retrospective data from both groups
demonstrate a clear indication that both groups have the impression of social
distance and power difference, which they claimed to have a shaping power on
how they respond to the compliments. The interviewees from each group
unanimously mentioned the term ‘self-denigrating’ as the reason of speaking in a
humble way to someone with a higher social status or distant social relationship.
When giving a rationale of appointing the most appropriate CRs, ‘depends on the
circumstance’ is the most frequented phrase that was used by both British and
Chinese ESL students; this also occurred when they were asked to explain using a
certain humorous expression whether to a close friend or a new work mate. This
shows that the participants are aware of the presumable social/contextual
influence that they may receive from the surrounding environment during the

69. 69
complimenting-responding interaction, either in their mother tongue or second
language. More importantly, due to the often-mentioned term ‘formality’ during the
interviews, the date of this study echoes the statement that Brown and Levinson’s
(1978) FTAs theory should be a relative rather than absolute notion. With the same
level of imposition ranking (R), other determining variables than the social
distance (D) and power relations (P) should be taken into consideration when
calculating the pragmatic force of such FTA speech acts as compliments and
compliment responses. ‘It depends on how well I know him/he knows me’ is often
seen during the interviews as well, indicating that the participants have the
knowledge that their personal/professional relationship with the complimenter
may have influenced their choice of response in order to achieve both
pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic properness. Last but not least, an analysis
finding from the third scenario that most students display the awareness of
providing different CRs to the same tutor in school and casual occasions has
evidenced that the perceived power difference between the interlocutors do
change speech.
Chapter Five Conclusion
5.1 Research summary
With an interlanguage pragmatics research approach, this study has compared

70. 70
and investigated the pragmatic usage of compliment responses strategies by native
British English speakers and Chinese ESL learners. In light of this, this study is a
small-scale piece of sociopragmatic work aiming to find out how valid Brown and
Levinson’s (1978, 1987) and Leech’s (1983, 2007) politeness theories can be
applied to describe the CRs from the researched groups.
Four complimenting scenarios were designed for the DCTs questionnaire in
order to draw pragmatic data of each group’s CRs production, and the social and
contextual impacts on certain CRs utterance and evaluation were probed through
qualitative interview transcript analysis. This mixed method is designed to resolve
such research questions as how native British speakers and Chinese ESL learners
differ regarding their politeness strategies of compliment responses, how
social/contextual factors (i.e. gender difference, social distance, power relations)
and their knowledge of pragmatic constraints (i.e. modesty, agreement) of their
native cultures are likely to navigate their choice of CRs and their understanding
about social appropriateness.
Results have been found in respect to the similarities and differences of CRs
strategies between the two groups and the underlying sociological knowledge
discrepancy about cross-cultural politeness. Specifically speaking, the research
findings can be summarized as:
1) British and Chinese ESL CRs differ in regard to linguistic categories and their

71. 71
preference for designating appropriateness. Reason may vary from external
language proficiency to internal sociopragmatic awareness of the politeness in
English and Chinese cultures.
2) Both British and Chinese ESL participants tend to accept compliments in
general for the four situations, with the only exception for compliments on
personality where both groups used more Evade strategies. This indicates that
for most situations, people seem to give priority to agreement principle when
trying to strike a balance between agreeing and avoiding self-praise.
3) Chinese ESL learners do not tend to reject compliments on their personality,
achievement and possession, and when they feel necessary to reject, they
would rather choose a moderate self-denigrating way as ‘I’m flattered’ to shift
the complimenting subject away from themselves.
4) Both groups of participants have the knowledge of the possible impacts of their
social distance and power relations with the person who compliments, and
they suggest that the level of formality should be fairly considered instead of
the gender difference.
5.2 Strengths and limitations
As a small-scale comparative study, this research has demonstrated its own
strengths and weaknesses. Firstly, the use of questionnaire and the follow-up

72. 72
retrospective interviews as the means of readjustment have improved the
instrument validity and reliability. Secondly, the research findings have supported
some cross-cultural findings by previous studies on British and Chinese people.
More importantly, this study has shown that modifications should be done on the
FTAs theory of Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) in order to better interpret
Chinese ESL learners’ understanding of face and the face-threatening acts in
English. Thirdly, compared to Lorenzo-Dus’s (2001) study that used the same
sampling instruments, this study with new British data has illustrated that the
British young people nowadays have presented a more sincere attitude to
compliments; they have become less likely to linguistically refuse or challenge a
complimenting utterance.
A number of limitations of this study should also be noticed. The qualitative
design of the sampling and analysis determines the small scale of research and the
non-generalizability of the findings. That is, the findings of this particular study can
only apply to the researched crowds of participants, with certain requirements
about native languages, age, education background, and second language
proficiency (for the Chinese participants). The results cannot be generalized to
Chinese EFL learners out of Britain, or native English speakers of other
nationalities. Also, although originally designed for participants with the same
current higher education level at the same university, this study eventually
includes British participants from undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral