C-E-P-S Journal | Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 89 The Use of Compliment Response Strategies among Iranian Learners of English: Researching Interlocutors' Relative Power and Gender Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa'd1 ^^ This article reports on a study that set out to investigate how Iranian EFL learners respond to compliments in English. The data were collected using a discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of a variety of situations that required the participants, 26 EFL learners (13 males and 13 females) to respond to compliments directed at them. The data were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. To this end, the participants' responses were coded according to a coding scheme adopted from Yu (2004) which identified six compliment response strategies (CRSs). The findings indicated that, regardless of or concerning gender and power (-P and =P), the first three most frequent CR strategies included "Acceptance", "Combination" and "Amendment". These findings were then analyzed in light of previous similar studies that revealed that the participants had followed their first cultural norms not only in using the strategies mentioned above but also in employing very infrequently such strategies as "Face Relationship", "No acknowledgment", and "Non-acceptance". As regards the role of gender, a Chi-square test was run which showed that males and females differed significantly in their use of CRSs. Furthermore, males used more CR strategies compared to females. The qualitative analysis of the semantic formulas of the CR strategies also revealed that, by accepting a compliment, Iranian EFL learners sought agreement and consequently relied on positive politeness to foster rapport and solidarity. Keywords: Compliment response strategies, EFL learners, politeness, pragmatic competence 1 Urmia University, Urmia and Iran Language Institute (ILI), Iran; shtamimi90@gmail.com 90 THE USE OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES AMONG IRANIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Uporaba strategij odzivanja na pohvale iranskih učencev angleščine: raziskovanje sogovornikove relativne moči položaja in spola Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa'd ^^ V prispevku je predstavljena raziskava o odzivanju iranskih učencev angleščine kot tujega jezika na pohvale v angleščini. Podatki so bili zbrani s pomočjo diskurza zaključevanja nalog; naloge so vključevale različne situacije z neposrednimi pohvalami, na katere so se morali udeleženci -26 učencev angleščine (13 moških in 13 žensk) - odzvati. Podatki so bili obdelani kvantitativno in kvalitativno. Odzivi udeležencev so bili kodirani na podlagi kodirne sheme, povzete po Yuju, ki identificira šest strategij odzivanja na pohvale. Izsledki kažejo, da ne glede na spol in moč položaja (- P in = P) tri najpogosteje uporabljene strategije vključujejo »sprejemanje«, »kombinacije« in »spremembe«. Ugotovitve so bile nadalje analizirane glede na predhodne podobne raziskave. Pokazalo se je, da so udeleženci sledili njihovi primarni kulturni normi, in to ne samo pri uporabi že omenjenih strategij, ampak tudi pri zelo redki uporabi strategij, kot so: »neposredni odnos«, »brez potrditve« in »nesprejema-nje«. Vpliv spola je bil preverjen s hi-kvadrat preizkusom, ki je pokazal, da se med moškimi in ženskami pojavljajo statistično pomembne razlike pri uporabi strategij odzivanja na pohvale. Poleg tega so moški tudi več uporabljali strategije kot ženske. Kvalitativna analiza semantičnih formul strategij je prav tako pokazala, da so s sprejetjem pohvale iranski učenci angleščine iskali strinjanje in se posledično zanašali na to, da s pozitivno vljudnostjo spodbujajo trdnejši odnos in solidarnost. Ključne besede: strategije odzivanja na pohvale, učenci angleščine kot tujega jezika, vljudnost, pragmatične kompetence C-E-P-S Journal | Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 91 Introduction Communicative competence has been long an inevitably necessary part of language teaching, with sociolinguistic competence occupying an overwhelmingly important position (Wolfson, 1981). In this regard, the way that different speech acts, such as requests, refusals, complimenting, and so on are encoded in various and, more importantly, the problems that confront language learners in their attempt to encode or decode those speech acts have attracted the attention of a myriad of researchers (Ahar & Eslami-Rasekh, 2011; Al-Khateeb, 2009; Cheng, 2011; Golato, 2002; Huth, 2006; Jucker, 2009; Nelson, Al-Batal, & Echols, 1996; Nelson, E1 Bakary, & Al Batal, 1996; Olshtain, 1993; Wolfson, 1981, to name only a few). Language learners' production of different speech acts and the demands on the learners that may prevent them from approximating native-speaker norms of realizing those speech acts have long been extensively investigated (Olshtain, 1993). Paying compliments has been evidenced to be a problematic aspect of language learning for second language (L2) learners, which justifies a consideration of this speech act in detail. Holmes and Brown (1987), for instance, stated, "Knowing whether a compliment is appropriate at all, as well as which linguistic strategy to select to express it, is part of the communicative competence learners need to acquire" (p. 528). There is little doubt that studying speech act behaviour and, therefore, research on this aspect of interaction can be beneficial to our understanding of their nature. CR strategies have a special position in this regard. As Yu (2003) asserted, "Compliment responses are worthy of study because they are ubiquitous, yet frequently problematic speech acts. The fact that compliments are easily heard in everyday conversations indicates that responding to compliments is a common feature of discoursal activities" (p. 1687). According to Morkus (2009), compliments preserve the speaker's positive face, which is defined as "a person's need to be treated as an equal or insider" (Verschueren, 2003, p. 45). Two decades earlier, Holmes (1988) had referred to the same fact; that is, compliments are positive politeness strategies. Reviewing the literature on compliments, Yu (2004) identified six mutually exclusive ways of responding to compliments. Some of these six strategies consist of some sub-strategies in which the super-strategies are carried out. The compliment response (CR) strategies are as follows (adapted from Yu, 2004): Acceptance Strategies According to Yu (2004, p. 118), "utterances that recognize the status of a preceding remark as a compliment" are called Acceptance Strategies, and the 92 THE USE OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES AMONG IRANIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH following subcategories are subsumed under this main strategy: - Appreciation Token: Utterances showing gratitude and appreciation as in the following example: Thank you. - Agreement: Utterances showing the complimentee's agreement to the complimenter's utterance: Yeah, I know that. - Pleasure: Utterances indicating that the complimentee is pleased with the complimenter's utterance: I'm so glad about that. - Association: Utterances that include more than one subcategory mentioned above. I'm so happy you liked it. Thank you. (Pleasure + Appreciation Token) Amendment Strategies In this kind of CR strategy, the speaker tries to amend the complimentary force of the compliment offered. This might be done in the following ways: - Return: Utterances that reciprocate the act of complimenting by offering or returning praise to the complimenter as the following examples show: You're doing a great job as well. - Downgrade: Utterances that reduce or scale down the complimentary force of the praise. Consider the following examples: ...but it wasn't that good, come on! - Upgrade: Utterances that increase the complimentary force of the praise. For example: It's always like that. - Question: Utterances that query the genuineness, appropriateness, or sincerity of the compliment. Really? - Comment: According to Yu (2004, p. 188), this is a feature of those utterances that, "while accepting the force of a given compliment, do not accept credit for the accomplishment or attitude that is praised. Rather, the speaker impersonalizes the force of that compliment". I always ask good questions. - Transfer: Utterances that redirect or switch the force of the compliment to the complimenter. Actually, you helped me a lot. - Association: Utterances that include one or more of the Amendment subcategories mentioned above. Really? But I think it was not that good. (Question + Downgrade) Non-acceptance Strategies Speakers might sometimes prefer to "deny, question, or joke about the content of the compliment or avoid responding directly to the praise" (Yu, 2004, p. 119). Non-acceptance strategies include the following subcategories: - Disagreement: Responses that do not agree with the statement of the C-E-P-S Journal | Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 93 compliment or show that the compliment is excessive, uncalled-for, or unjustified. For instance: No, that's not true. - Question: Utterances that call into question the quality of the compliment and do not agree with its full complimentary force. Consider the following example: You're pulling my leg?! - Diverge: Utterances that pose other acts and call into question the quality of the compliment this way. Anyway, I did it haphazardly. - Association: Utterances that include one or more of the Amendment subcategories mentioned above. I don't believe it. Are you pulling my leg? (Disagreement + Question) Face Relationship-related Response Strategies These include strategies that do not appear to, as in the above main strategies, accept, amend, or reject the compliment. Rather, they deal with the compliment within the interaction, not with the prepositional content of the compliment. Yeah, that's what one is supposed to do in such situations. Combination Strategies These constitute two or more of the compliment response strategies mentioned above. For example: Thank you. But I don't think so. (Acceptance + Disagreement) No acknowledgment Finally, speakers might choose to not respond to the compliment offered to him or her. This study aimed to explore the complimenting behaviour of Iranian university EFL learners. More specifically, the present study set out to answer the following research questions: 1. What are the most and least frequent compliment response strategies by Iranian university EFL learners? 2. Do males and females differ in their use and choice of types of compliment response strategies? 3. Is there any significant difference between males and females in their frequency of use of compliment response strategies? 4. What compliment response strategies do individuals use in each power status; that is, in -P and =P? 94 THE USE OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES AMONG IRANIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH Theoretical Background Compliments are among the most frequently studied speech acts in pragmatic research (Yu, 2003). A large number of researchers have systematically investigated this speech act from various aspects and in different contexts (e.g., Ahar & Eslami-Rasekh, 2011; Al-Khateeb, 2009; Chen & Yang, 2010; Cheng, 2011; Golato, 2002; Holmes, 1988; Holmes & Brown, 1987; Huth, 2006; Johnson, 1992; Jucker, 2009; Mustapha, 2012; Nelson et al., 1996; Nelson et al., 1996; Rees-Miller, 2011; Tang & Zhang, 2009; Wolfson, 1981; Yu, 2003, 2004). In this connection, in an early study, Wolfson (1981) examined the cross-cultural differences in realizing compliments, with a particular attention to American English as the starting point of comparison, concluding that, from a cross-cultural perspective, "Speech acts differ cross-culturally not only in the way they are realized but also in their distribution, their frequency of occurrence, and in the functions they serve" (p. 123). In the same vein, realizations of compliments that are said to vary from one culture to another have been examined. Holmes and Brown (1987), for instance, provided examples of how different culture realized compliments differently and, at times, this led to misunderstandings in cross-cultural communication. Comparative studies of CR as utilized by speakers of different languages also abound. Nelson et al. (1996), for example, compared the realizations of compliment responses in English and Arabic and found that both the American and Syrian subjects of their study employed "Acceptance" strategies most frequently and "Rejection" strategies least frequently. The teaching of complimenting behaviour, whether explicitly or implicitly, has also been an area of research. Huth (2006), for instance, investigated the effect of teaching culture-specific compliments to American learners of German. Huth found that L2 learners are aware of the structural organization of compliments and apply their cultural norms when complimenting. Huth (2006) concluded that this "the inherently social nature of L2 interaction in the context of foreign language teaching" (p. 2025). Rees-Miller's (2011) study took gender as the departure point to compare men and women's ways of complimenting and the different settings in which they paid compliments. Recently, Mustapha (2012) attempted, by means of studying 1200 compliments in Nigerian English, to identify the defining characteristics that can be of help to those researching on compliments. Ahar and Eslami-Rasekh (2011) examined the effect on the gratitude of social status and the size of imposition among Iranian EFL learners and American native speakers. The results of their study indicated that the two variables mentioned above made Iranian EFL learners oversensitive, leading to pragmatic failure. C-E-P-S Journal | Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 95 Studying compliments, especially if this is done in academic settings, can be of considerable significance as these are among the most common speech acts used on a daily basis. Furthermore, it has been found troublesome for L2 learners to appropriately pay compliments in an L2 (e.g., Holmes & Brown, 1987). As will be seen below, the focus of the current study was the interactants' relative power (P), and it was attempted that a full picture of how this factor can influence the utilization of CRs to be depicted. The participants' gender was also taken into account to examine how both genders respond to compliments. Method Participants Participants of the current study included 26 Iranian BA language learners (13 males and 13 females) studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at Urmia University, Urmia, Iran. Their age range was 19 to 22 years. For a better comparison of the results, the number of male and female participants was equal. Instrument Research into the pragmatic areas of language has witnessed an extensive use of Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT) as the main data collection tool (Kasper & Dahl, 1991), although this method not been without critics (see e.g. Chaudron, 2005). Therefore, the data for this study were obtained by use of a DCT that consisted of 8 situations in which the complimentees were either inferior or equal to the complimenter and that dealt mainly with everyday academic life. To realize the interlocutors' relative power, the complimentees were supposed to be inferior to the complimentee in four of the situations (1, 3, 5 and 7) and equal to the complimentee in the four other situations (2, 4, 6, and 8). Following Jalilifar, Hashemian, and Tabatabaee (2011), relative power (P) was shown using -P for asymmetrical power relationships, for example a university professor and a student (where most often a professor is often deemed to be more powerful than a student), and =P for equal interlocutors, for example two university students (who are considered equal in terms of social power). Table 1 summarizes the information about the DCT. The DCT appears in Appendix A. 96 THE use of compliment response strategies among IRANIAN LEARNERs oF ENGLisH Table 1. Description of Compliment Response Situations No. Situation Power 1 Student's essay returned by professor 2 Class presentation 3 Student asking for exam postponement 4 Students attending an academic seminar -P Speaker < Hearer =P Speaker = Hearer -P Speaker < Hearer =P Speaker = Hearer -P Speaker < Hearer =P Speaker = Hearer -P Speaker < Hearer =P Speaker = Hearer 5 Classroom project accomplished successfully -P 6 School conference coordinated well 7 Professor asking for a PowerPoint presentation -P 8 Proposal outline presented in class Procedure and data analysis To collect the data, the researchers distributed the purpose-built DCTs among 26 EFL learners and required them to imagine themselves in the DCT's scenarios and to respond to the compliments as realistically, appropriately, honestly, and immediately as possible. The data were analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. First, to identify the compliment response strategies employed by the participants in this study, the coding scheme was based on those CR strategies as identified by Yu (2004). These include six mutually exclusive strategies that can be used to respond to compliments in a socio-culturally appropriate way in various situations. This coding scheme along with examples of each strategy taken from the participants' responses appears in the Introduction above. The quantitative phase consisted of descriptive statistics elaborated on further below. The current study set out to investigate the complimenting behaviour of Iranian university EFL learners with the participants' gender and interlocutors' power status in focus. The findings are presented in this part. Quantitative Results Compliment Response Strategy Use The first research question addressed the CR strategies employed most and least frequently by the participants. Figure 1 provides the answer to this question. Results C-E-P-S Journal | Vol.5 | No4 | Year 2015 97 114 (54.8%) Figure 1. Compliment response strategy use Figure 1 shows that the total number of CR strategies is 208 and that the first three most frequent CR strategies are "Acceptance" (114), "Combination" (56), and "Amendment" (22). Overall, these three strategies accounted for 92.2 per cent of the total number of strategies employed. This figure also shows that the least frequent CR strategies are "Amendment" and "Non-acceptance", both employed with the same frequency (3). Compliment Response Strategy Use: Gender in Focus The role of gender, the subject of the second research question, was also considered in this study, and males and females were compared with regard to how they responded to compliments. The distribution of CRs across gender is presented in Figure 2. Figure 2. Compliment response strategy use across gender 98 THE USE OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES AMONG IRANIAN LEARNERS OF ENGLISH As shown in Figure 2, both males and females used "Acceptance", "Combination", and "Amendment" CR strategies most frequently of all strategies. Furthermore, it can be seen that males outnumber females in all these three strategies. Males, as seen from Figure 2, used more strategies than females did (114 versus 94) and females used more "No Acknowledgment" strategies than males did (8 versus 2). Females also employed the "Face Relationship" strategy that males did not use at all. As regards the role of gender in the use of CR strategies, addressed in the third research question, a Chi-square analysis was run which showed that there is a significant relationship between gender and the CRs employed, x2 (3.208) = 12.33, p = .03. The results are presented in Table 2. Table 2. Chi-square analysis of the role of gender in compliment response strategy use Value df Sig. Chi-square 12.33 3 .03 p < .05 Critical Value: 7.81 Qualitative Results Compliment Response Strategy Use: Power and Gender in Focus The CR strategies were also examined in light of the individuals' status; that is, the relative power status they have. This was dealt with in the fourth research question. In this connection, it was attempted to determine which CR strategies are used with what status and how frequently. Since the DCT used in the present study realized two power statuses of individuals (i.e., -P and =P), then the CR strategies employed in these two statuses were identified and reported in Tables 3 and 4. Table 3. Participants' CRS Use across Gender and for Unequal Status (S