Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese and English Compliments and Responses A Contrastive Study.doc

Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese and English Compliments and Responses: A Contrastive StudyAbstract: As a general rule, everyone in the world is in sympathy with compliment, which is like the lubricant in daily life. The Chinese culture, and English culture alike, has its own ways of expressing compliments. From the contrastive point of view, their forms, content, and responses are greatly influenced by their own communicative cultures, understandings of politeness and other factors. China and Britain have begun to contact with each other for a long time. It is no doubt that the accommodation of compliments has become deeper and deeper. Further research on this topic is still certainly needed in future. The language and culture are changing, so, further contrastive study about the changes of compliments may have significant researching value. Keywords: compliment; response; linguistic characteristics; contrastive study; cross-cultural communication英汉称赞语与回应的语言特征研究摘要：一般说来，每个人都对称赞语充满好感，它就像是日常生活中的润滑剂。对于称赞语，中英文化都有属于自己的表达方式。从对比分析的角度来看，受交际文化，对礼貌的理解的差异等其它因素的影响，中英称赞语的形式，内容和应答都有各自的一些规律，当然也不乏共同点。中英两国人民的交往由来已久，他们对彼此之间的称赞语也表现出越来越强的适应性。文化是不断发展、进步的，而语言作为文化的载体也一直在吸收新的元素，因此，对中英称赞语的研究有很高的使用价值和学术意义。关键词：称赞语；回应；语言特征；对比研究；跨文化交际Contents1. Introduction.12. Compliments.22.1 The denotative and connotative meaning of compliment.22.2 Classifications of compliment.2 2.3 Communicative functions of compliment.33. Contrastive Study of Compliments.4 3.1 Commons.43.1.1 In form.43.1.2 In content.6 3.2 Differences.73.2.1 In form.73.2.2 In content.74. Contrastive Study of Responses84.1 Chinese compliment responses.84.2 English compliment responses.105. Current Developments of Compliments and Responses.115.1 Cultural background being understood deeper.115.2 Conceptualization of compliments refreshed.126. Analysis of Factors Leading to the Differences in Compliments136.1 Communicative culture.136.2 Politeness.136.3 Interlocutors relationship.147. Conclusion.14References.16Acknowledgements.17iii1. IntroductionA compliment is a frequent speech act or an act sequence (Wolfson, 1989:1), and it is “a polite speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristics, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer” Holmess (1988:446). It follows naturally that compliment is important speech act that plays a vital role in peoples daily interaction. Influenced by cultural background and other factors, however, the Chinese and the English have their own understanding of and attitudes towards compliments and compliment responses.In order to use Chinese and English compliments appropriately, we should pay attention to the relationship between culture and language. Without exaggeration, language is the basic tool for peoples communication, on one hand, we learn about other people through the content they express and the way that they say; on the other hand, we learn about ourselves through the reaction given by our listeners. Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tyler, 1871:1), or “the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar and Porter, 2000: 12). Language is a miniature of culture, and to some extent culture constrains languages development (Sapir, 1949). In conclusion, culture and language are keenly related to each other. Such being the case, if the Chinese and the English want to communicate with each other without obstacles, they should have some knowledge of cultural connotations hidden behind the Chinese and English languages, especially their compliments customs and linguistic characteristics. This thesis is thus motivatedly a contrastive study of Chinese and English compliments from cultural distinctions.2. Compliment2.1 The denotative and connotative meaning of complimentEach lexical word and phrase has its denotative meaning and connotative meaning. Denotative meaning, or literal meaning, is generally defined in the dictionary. Therefore it is readily found, in Websters Dictionary of the English Language (1979) that the denotative meaning of compliment is “to praise, to flatter by expressions of approbation, esteem or respect, to congratulate or pay a compliment”. Here, “to praise” in English and“表扬，称赞” in Chinese both stand for laud with a commendatory sense; in contrast, both “to flatter” in English and“恭维，奉承，阿谀”in Chinese represent adulation with a derogatory senses. From this point of view, the denotative meanings of Chinese and English compliments have similarities.Denotative meaning is the basis of understanding and it is generally stable. Compared with it, connotative meaning is affected by some objective factors, such as peoples educational level, attitudes towards life and the world. To recap, connotative meaning is culturally biased, reflecting not only particular cultural background of one nation but also its psychologically cultural tendency, and finally determining the nations communication behaviors. When it comes to compliments connotative meaning, in terms of Chinese and English compliments, traditionally and simply speaking, the English tend to accept compliments with grace, because their strategies are characterized by acceptance which is governed by Leechs Agreement Maxim; whereas the Chinese are likely to deny compliments out of modesty, for their strategies are characterized by compliment rejection and self-denigration which are motivated by Leechs Modesty Maxim (Wang and Tsai, 2003:127).2.2 Classifications of complimentAs said above, a compliment is a speech act that is accomplished either explicitly or implicitly to express admiration or approval for some good of the addressee. Therefore, compliment is not monotonous but diversified. Based on the honesty aspect, compliments can be classified into two groups, one is sincere compliment, and the other is insincere compliment (Li, 1999:62). To a great extend, the former is agreeing reasonably; furthermore, it is a kind of appreciation which comes from heart. For example, “You work was outstanding!” “You really did a good job!” However, the later disobeys the Truth Principle. That means, one uses the compliment in order to achieve a certain or unknown purpose. For example, “How marvelous the meal you cooked!” The implication of this statement is that: What an awful meal you cooked. Of course, we can sort the compliment from other respects, and I will give a more detailed study in the following length of writing.2.3 Communicative functions of compliment.It is generally assumed that compliment is one of the most frequently polite speech acts in daily verbal interaction, and its vital communicative functions are beyond doubt. Compliments establish solidarity with the interlocutors by the speakers praising some features relevant to the listener (Wolfson and Manes, 1981:115-132). That is, compliments can be treated as positively affective speech acts directed to the addressee that serve to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and listener. To recap, compliments appeared to be functionally complex speech acts which served as solidarity signals, commenting on friendships, attenuating demands, smoothing ruffled feathers and bridging gaps created by otherwise offenses (Holmes, 1988:464). In addition, the functions of complimenting are varied. From the ethnographic point of view, the function of compliments varies from culture to culture, community to community. But no matter what functions do compliments have, they are generally described as positive politeness strategies serving to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and addressee. We use compliments because we intend to make others feel good and then have good interactions with them.Specifically speaking, for interpersonal relations, compliments can promote friendship and understanding, raise communication effects; for countries, proper use of compliments may be a key to certain diplomatic issue. Just as Wolfson said, compliments have been said to cream the social wheels and thus to serve as social lubricant that create or maintain rapport (Wolfson, 1983:89).3. Contrastive Study of ComplimentsAccording to Shihs (1986:35) study on a comparison between the ways compliments function in English and in Chinese, complimenting behavior is quite similar across languages except that the complimented items may differ somewhat according to what is highly valued in the culture. With the fast development of communication and contact between people of different nations and regions, contrastive study become more and more meaningful and important in academic sense as well as in daily interaction. For the Chinese and the English, contrastive study of compliments can expand their view, enable them to respect and understand each others culture, because cultural elements are the constituent parts of cross-cultural communication; and finally help them achieve better cross-cultural communication. Therefore, it is significant to make a contrastive study of compliments between Chinese and English.3.1 CommonsAlthough China and UK and other western countries have different cultural backgrounds, customs, ways of living, patterns of thought, verbal languages, concepts of value, behaviors and personal beliefs, some similarities can be found in Chinese and English compliments. 3.1.1 In FormAccording to a corpus of 320 examples from some conversational Chinese textbooks which was collected by Shi Jaiwei (2000:42-43), there are three major sentence structures in Chinese compliments.(1) PRON (NP) (ADV) ADJ 你的手艺真不错。/ 你的书写很工整。(2) PRON (NP) v/is (ADV) ADJ 你的棋下得真好。/你的课讲得真好。(3) PRON (NP) (ADV) v/is ADJ (NP) 他真有运动细胞！/你真是今天的稀客啊！In Mr. Shis collection, there are only six kinds of compliments are highly patterned as fixed formulas, besides the three above, the rest are:(4) (ADV) ADJ 好！/ 太美了！(5) PRON (NP) Prep. Phrase (ADJ) 小强比以前乖巧多了。(6) (ADV) (V/is) ADJ NP 好聪明的孩子啊！As for English, Wolfson & Manes (1981:115-132) pointed out that compliments are noticeably formulaic speech acts in that a very small number of lexical items and syntactic patterns account for the great majority of them in their corpus. In their opinion, there were nine types of compliments with fixed forms. (7) NP is/looks (really) ADJ His handwriting is clear.(8) I (really) like/love NP I really appreciate your hard work.(9) PRON is (really) an ADJ You are a nice person.(10) You V (NP) (really) ADJ NP You gave me a big hand.(11) You V (NP) (really) ADV Youve really finished the work successfully.(12) You have (a) ADJ NP You have a warm heart!(13) What (a) ADJ NP What a good job you did!(14) ADJ+NP Good job!(15) Isnt NP +ADJ? Isnt your chair comfortable?To sum up, both Chinese and English compliments have some fixed sentence structures, and most of them are similar, which provide convenience for peoples communication.3.1.2 In ContentContent are the most important component of communication, let alone the usage of compliments. Appropriate content can shorten communicators psychological distance (Hu, 2002). Though content changes with circumstances, there are some common points between Chinese and English. Outlooks, dressing, personal ability, and the persons/things that relate to communicators, etc. are popular complimentary topics in Chinese and English.Compliment ContentChinese English(16) Personality你很健谈！ You are a good talker!(17) Personal ability 你的发音很地道！ Your pronunciation is quite native!(18) Outlooks and dressing 你这个新造型真好看！Your new look is really beautiful!(19) Persons or things relate 你妈妈烧的菜好吃! Your mothers cooking is delicious.to Communicator (20) Personal appearance 你的举止端庄! Your behavior is dignified andmagnanimous! (21) Achievement 你的表演大获成功！Your performance was successful!Besides the structures above, there are also lexical items in common. For example, correspondent to Chinese positive adjectives“好，漂亮，可爱”, in English “nice, good, beautiful, pretty, great” are items most frequently used to show praise; and adverbs of degree such as “really”, “extremely” and so forth in English and their Chinese equivalents“很，非常”, etc. are also favorably used in both languages. In conclusion, Chinese and English compliments share a lot of similarities.3.2 DifferencesSince it is recognized that compliments may differ quite remarkably across languages and cultures, compliments in Chinese may differ from those in English.3.2.1 In FormChinese and English compliments have fixed sentences to follow. Based on Wolfson & Maness investigation, the total number of English compliments is nine, but the results of Shi Jiaweis collection show there are only six sentence structures in Chinese compliments, this is the difference in number.Therefore, we should pay attention to the form differences when translating Chinese compliment into English or English into Chinese. For example, “Your watch is beautiful”. In Chinese, we say“你的手表很漂亮”, where“是”（“is”） should be omitted. Furthermore, most of Chinese compliments begin with the second person “you”, and “your”, while English compliments tend to begin with the first person “I”. The difference in language forms can be attributed to the two different cultures. People cultivated in English culture tend to believe that each person has his own respectable personality, but people reared in Chinese culture pretty respect interpersonal relation and teamwork.3.2.2 In ContentApa