A Contrastive Study of Compliment Responses among Male & Female Nadya Nitiswari SPS UPI Abstract This study

investigates compliment responses (CR) among male & female Indonesian EFL learners. The data were collected through the use of written discourse completion tasks (DCT), with four situational settings (appearance, character, ability and possession). A total of 40 EFL learners fifth semester student of English Department Indonesia University Education participated in the study. The findings reveal that there are significant differences between women and men in their realization patterns of compliment responses. The study also reveals that in the micro levels, the female participants tend to Evade and Reject the compliment than accept the compliment. This seemed in line with modesty that is the females express appreciation for a compliment less and denigrate themselves more. For the female participants, an implicit approach is at least as desirable as explicit CR. On the other hand male group prefer using explicit CRs. The findings in this study hopefully could add a new dimension to the study of CR use.

key word: complement responses, contrastive study, gender

Introduction Compliment is an expression of adoring, praising or admiring toward someone. It can happen between people who have different social status, gender and age. Because of the differences, the act of giving compliments toward someone may vary. Holmes (1988) states that compliments are positively affective speech acts, the most obvious function they serve is to oil the social wheels, paying attention to positive face wants and thus increasing or consolidating solidarity between people. Compliment is often found in the conversation of everyday life within people in the society. People give compliment in order to establish and maintain a good social relationship. Whenever compliment is uttered, there must be the reply as the response toward the compliment. It is generally agreed that the polite thing to do is to accept

compliment. In practice, however, compliments are not always accepted. Pomerantz (1978) argued that this was because compliments place addressees in a difficult position: they had to juggle two conflicting conversational rules: Agree with the speaker and Avoid self praise. In the past decade, sociolinguistic studies have been increasingly conducted compliment responses from pragmatic perspective, empirical studies have been conducted and demonstrated that speaker of different languages and language varieties follow different patterns when responding to compliment (Daikuhara, 1986 in American English and Japanese; Holmes, 1988 in New Zealand English and Malay; Herbert, 1986, 1989, 1990, and Herbert and Straight, 1989 in American English and South African English; Chen, 1993 in American English and Mandarin Chinese; Gajaseni, 1994 in American English and Thai; Ensaif, 2005 cited in compliment behavior English and Arabic. However few data based studies have ever focused on L1 transfer of compliment responses (Han, 1992). Several studies have shown that there are some differences between males and females in their realization patterns of compliment responses. Two important studies that focus on gender differences in complimenting and responding to compliments are those by Holmes (1988) and Herbert (1990) in Zhihui ,(2002). Based on the discussion above, this study would like to find out the compliment response based on gender differences. The researcher wants to know compliment response from male and female

Literature Review A compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly gives credit upon the addressee for some possession, skill, characteristic, or the like, that is positively evaluated by the speaker and addressee. (Hobbs, 2003:249) To be heard as a compliment an utterance must refer to something which is positively valued by the participants and attributed to the addressee. (Holmes, 1988:454) Compliments are recognized as an important speech act in a socio-cultural context. Holmes(1988:462) states that compliments are positively affective speech acts, the most obvious function they serve is to oil the social wheels, paying attention to positive face

wants and thus increasing or consolidating solidarity between people. However, compliments may also be regarded as a threat to negative face, even while paying attention to positive face. CR is a response to a compliment. The speech acts of compliment and CR are conversational devices of interpersonal relationships in daily life. The use of CR as a may also play a particular role in maintaining the solidarity of interpersonal relationships and the harmony of social interaction. For example, during this study a female informant mentioned that her answer to a compliment on appearance (Hey, you look great! Youre really beautiful today) would be Thanx! So do you, even if the addressee was not good looking.

A. Compliment and CR Holmes (1988) states that a compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer. Doohan and Manusov (2004) in Cedar (2006) say that viewing compliments as important, relational speech acts situates them as cultural constructions that reflect agreed upon ways of behaving. It has long been recognized that compliment acts are important and serve a serious socio-cultural linguistic function. While a compliment may be regarded as a positive speech act, it may also be regarded as a face threatening act (FTA). Brown and Levinson (1987) point out that compliments may be significant FTAs in societies where envy is very strong and where witchcraft exists as an approval. Holmes (1988) remarks, compliments can be regarded as face threatening to the extent that they imply the complimentary envies the addressee in some way or would like to have something belonging to the addressee. Similarly, Yu (2003:1687) argues that due to the fact that compliments can be threatening to the addressees face as they, like criticisms, are an act of judgment on another person, many people feel uneasy, defensive, or even cynical with regard to the compliments they receive, and thus may have trouble responding to such compliments appropriately. Golatos (2005) empirical work, drawing on naturally recorded data on compliments and CRs in German,

supports this argument. She states that what really makes a compliment a compliment is the context within which it is uttered. She demonstrates that the same utterance can be compliment, interruption, reproach, sarcasm or tease. Whether a compliment is a positive or negative speech act depends upon a number of factors, including context, cultural protocols and individual interpretation. The findings of this study will provide some indication regarding the nature of compliments in the eyes of the participants: positive, negative, both or neither. In terms of classification of CRs, Holmes (1988, 1993) categorizes the CR strategies into three main acts: Accept Reject and Deflect/Evade; each strategy has further subdivided strategies (see Table 2 below for details). This study adapts Holmes (1988, 1993) three-way classification as shown in Table 1 below, as it suits both male and female data with its clear and comprehensive coverage.

B. Gender Difference in Language The last several decades have seen an explosion of research on the natural and existence of differences between men and women. One particularly popular question gas been the extent to which men and woman use language differently (Newman et.al, 2008). This popularity stems can provide insight into how men and women approach their social worlds. According to Trudgill (1974), men and women do not speak different languages, but they speak different varieties of the same language. This fact is more or less affected by the social role they have in the society. Several studies have shown that there are some differences between males and females in their realization patterns of compliment responses. Two important studies that focus on gender differences in complimenting and responding to compliments are those by Holmes (1988) and Herbert (1990) see in Zhihui ,(2002). They found that the syntactic patterns and lexical choice used by men and women were different. Based on the findings, they assumed that females use compliments for keeping solidarity while males regard compliments as potential face threatening acts (FTAs) or actual assertions of praise. Other important studies done in Chinese were by Ye (1995) and Jia (1997) cited in Zhihui,(2002).,

which investigated compliment and compliment response realization patterns in Chinese context. They examined kinds of topics and situations, as well as gender-based distributions. Although Yes study does not take gender as the major variable, it offers the framework and analytical methodology for the present study. Jia also devoted greatly to the study of compliments, whose studies covered lexical choices, sentences patterns, and topics etc. He concludes that compliments in Chinese context is as highly formularized as that in English context, and that the most popular topic of compliments are related to the two aspects, one is appearance and possessions; the other is achievements and abilities. In this study, the gender factors involved in the manipulation of CRs will be examined for any impact on the linguistic behaviors of the two groups. The present study differs from previous studies on compliments and CRs in that it conducts a contrastive study of CRs using data from male and female, focusing on gender differences on the use of CRs by the two groups.

Table 1 Holmess CRs Categories Macro Level CR Micro Level CR Appreciation Accept (A1) Agreeing (A2) Downgrading Qualifying (A3) Return (A4) Good utterance I know; I am glad you think so; I did realize I did that well;Yeah, I really like it Its nothing; It was no problem; I Utterance enjoyed doing it; I hope it was OK; I still only use it to call people; Its not bad. Complement Youre not too bad yourself; Your child was an angel; Im sure you will be great; Yours was good too. Disagreeing utterance Reject (R1) Nah, I dont think so; I thought I did badly; Nah, its nothing special; Its not; Dont say so. Examples Token Thanks; Thank you; Cheers; Yes;

Question (R2)

Accuracy Why?; Its right; really? Stop lying; Dont lie; Dont joke about it; You must be kidding; Dont, come on. Thats what friends are for; Youre polite; No worries; My pleasure. It wasnt hard; You can get it from (store name); Its really cheap. reassurance Really?

Challenging Sincerity (R3)

Shift Credit Evade (E1) Informative Comment (E2) Request (E3)

In this study, the gender factors involved in the manipulation of CRs will be examined for any impact on the linguistic behaviors of the two groups. The present study differs from previous studies on compliments and CRs in that it conducts a contrastive study of CRs using data from male and female, focusing on gender differences on the use of CRs by the two groups.

Research Question The specific research question of this study is: How do male and female Indonesian speakers use CR strategies at macro and micro levels, with respect to four situational settings?

Methodology This study aimed to investigate compliment response by male and female in context of Indonesian culture. For validity and reliability the researcher applies Discourse Completion Test (DCT) following the work of Heidari et al. (2009) and Blum-Kulka et al. (1984, 1989). In the DCT, four situational settings relating to four different topics were employed: appearance, character, ability and possession. The situation was about the events that commonly take place in real life in Indonesian society. Under the description of each

situation, there was a blank space saved from writing down what our subjects would say in each situation.

Sample The subjects of this study were from fifth semester undergraduate students Indonesia University of Education which consist of 20 students. The average age of both groups is 20, which is categorized as young adult. The subject was divided into two groups 10 students from male and 10 students are female.

Data Analysis The Response types were categorized based on Holmes (1988), The frequency of occurrence of each type was quantified, then simple table and graph is used in the result.

Findings 1. General Pattern of Complement Response Table 2 below gives examples of participants complement Table 2 example Accept Reject Male No problem; Dont mention it teasing me! Evade Dont mention it; It is so so its not a big problem Female thats ok, thanks

No, I dont think so, Stop No, nothing special about it

2. Compliment Response on Appearance Table 2 Frequency distribution of Indonesian Compliment responses on Appearance Macro Level CR Appreciation Token Accept Agreeing utterance 4 2 Micro Level CR Male Femal e 4 1 Male (%) 40% 20% Female (%) 40% 10%

Downgrading Qualifying Utterance Return Complement Disagreeing utterance Reject Question Accuracy Challenging Sincerity Shift Credit Evade Informative Comment Request reassurance Total 2 10 3 10 20% 100% 30% 100% 2 2 20% 20%

Figure 1 below shows that both groups opted more for Accept strategies than the other two strategies (Reject and Evade) and there is no females who rejecting the complement. In the micro levels, both group mostly using appreciation token and agreeing utterance.

3. Compliment Response on Character Table 3 Frequency distribution of Indonesian Compliment responses on Character Macro Level CR Appreciation Token Accept Agreeing utterance Downgrading Qualifying Utterance Return Complement Disagreeing utterance Reject Question Accuracy Challenging Sincerity Shift Credit Evade Informative Comment Request reassurance 4 4 40% 40% 2 1 20% 10% 1 3 5 30% 50% Micro Level CR Male Femal e Male (%) Female (%)

Total

10

10

100%

100%

Figure 3 shows that both groups still preferred accept as their first preference. This macro level pattern for both groups is remarkably similar to the general macro-level pattern in Figure 1. Figure 4 implies that at micro level, when receiving a compliment relating to character, both groups would be more likely to use Downgrading utterance and Shift credit, which is a self-praise avoidance strategy. Moreover, male group used more Downgrading than females.

4. Complement Response on Ability Table 4 Frequency distribution of Indonesian Compliment responses on Character Macro Level CR Appreciation Token Accept Agreeing utterance Downgrading Qualifying Utterance Return Complement Disagreeing utterance Reject Question Accuracy Challenging Sincerity Shift Credit Evade Informative Comment Request reassurance Total 10 10 100% 100% 4 2 40% 20% 2 2 1 3 1 20% 20% 10% 30% 10% 2 Micro Level CR Male Femal e 3 Male (%) 20% Female (%) 30%

Figure 5 shows the most frequently used CRs are again accept strategies, followed by Evade and Reject. This indicates that both male and female speakers would likely be happy to accept compliments on their abilities. Figure 6 displays at micro level that females used

more Appreciation token and return compliment than males, whereas males used more Informative Comment than their counterparts.

5. Complement Response on Possession Table 5 Frequency distribution of Indonesian Compliment responses on Appearance Macro Level CR Appreciation Token Accept Agreeing utterance Downgrading Qualifying Utterance Return Complement Disagreeing utterance Reject Question Accuracy Challenging Sincerity Shift Credit Evade Informative Comment Request reassurance Total 10 10 100% 100% 3 4 30% 40% 1 2 10% 20% 2 2 2 Micro Level CR Male Femal e 4 Male (%) 20% 20% 20% Female (%) 40%

Figure 7 shows that the majority of males again followed the usual macro-pattern to accept compliments straight away, but females thought differently about compliments on possession. They used Evade most and equally Reject and Accept strategies. It shows that females were less comfortable taking compliments on their possession than they were, for instance, on appearance. Figure 8 demonstrates that Appreciation token, disagreeing utterance and Informative comment are the three preferred strategies for females. However, for males Downgrading utterance as well as Informative comment is mostly preferred.

10

Discussion Having presented findings of CR strategies used by male and female groups, further discussion in this section aims to interpret the above findings. As shown in figures above, the general tendency is for both groups to follow the order of Accept, Evade and Reject as preferred strategies. Females used less Accept and more Evade and Reject than their counterparts. The findings in this study is in line with the study done by Heidari et.al (2009), whom further stated that the findings also indicate that females use an indirect communication pattern of modest acceptance, and their no response means yes which demonstrates consideration and politeness toward others. This study shows that male prefer the use of the Accept response as a direct communication of acknowledgement. All these may indicate that females consider that implicit CRs are as desirable, if not more desirable, than explicit CRs. According to (Heidari et al, 2009), these tallies with the well known dance ritual: people saying no, but meaning the opposite.

CRs in four settings The findings show that both groups preferred most Accept strategies in almost all four situations; however, females preferred most Evade strategies when receiving compliments for possession Moreover, the diversity shown between males and females suggests that we must not simplify and over-generalize compliment responses among speakers, because there may be differences among the two genders. It seems that they viewed a compliment more as a positive speech act than an FTA, because the majority of CRs produced accepted compliments. There were some rejections in the data, but they were not necessarily a result of participants considering a compliment as FTA; these could have been using the Reject strategy as a phatic expression. Even considered as real rejections, these were small in number. The assertion that compliments in this study is viewed as positive speech acts is therefore valid.

11

Conclusion The compliment and compliment response patterns of the subjects are analyzed according to the coding scheme used by Holmes (1988). In this study compliment responses are studied mainly in terms of the strategies used by the respondents while responding to compliments. Focusing on the gender variable, this study explores characteristics of compliments and compliment responses in Indonesian context. The findings of this study provide a basis for understanding of this speech act from Indonesian context. Two types of CRs were used in this study: explicit and implicit. Appreciation token and Agreeing utterance are typical explicit CR strategies, and Shift credit and Informative comment are typical implicit strategies. They have different socio-linguistic functions and serve different purposes, and can also be combined to complement each other. The choice of explicit or implicit CRs or a blend of the two CRs is underpinned by gender differences, and a good understanding of all these is the key to successful communication. Different preferences (explicit and/or implicit) between male and female represent different cultural norms, conventions and beliefs. The findings in this study confirm that female speakers tend to the view that an implicit acceptance of a compliment is at least as desirable as an explicit CR: that is, an indirect acceptance may show modesty and self-praise avoidance, in line with modesty and subordination which are, although not openly expressed, expected from females by the mostly male-dominated society. For females, strategies like Evade are viewed as self-effacement and therefore virtuous. This is not necessarily the case with male group, which demonstrates a more positive, powerful self-image when responding to compliments.

12

REFERENCES Al Falasi, Hessa. 2007. Just Say Thank You: A Study of Compliment Responses. Linguistic Journal volume 2 issue 1. Cedar, Payung. 2006. Thai and American Responses to Compliment in English. The

Linguitic Journal, June 2006, vol.2. Davies, Briallen. 2008. Ah, excuse meI like your shirt: An Examination of Compliment Responses Across Gender by Australians. Griffith Workking Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication 1,2.76-78. Gajaseni, Chansongklod. 1994. Available How American and Thai Response in Compliment. on

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/ 80/13/9b/4b.pdf Golato, A. (2003). Studying compliment responses: a comparison of DCTs and recordings of naturally occurring talk. Applied Linguistics 24 (1), 90121. Han, Chung-hye. 1992. A Comparative Study of Compliment Responses: Korean Females in Korean Interactions and in English Interactions. University of Pennsylvania. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, v8 n2 p17-31 Fall 1992 Heidari et. Al. (2009). A Contrastive Study of Compliment Responses among Male Female Iranian Teenage EFL Learners. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture 29 Holmes, J. (1988). Paying compliments: a sex preferential positive politeness strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 12 (3), 445-465. Thomas, J. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Longman Group Limited. Yu, Rui, et al. 2007. Contrastive Analysis of Compliment between English and Chinese. Intercultural Communication Studies XVI:1.

13

Zhihui, Sun. 2002. A study of gender differences in compliments and compliment responses in Chinese context. A Thesis of Master degree in Linguistic.

Appendix Direction: There are four situations in which you receive a compliment are described below. Please imagine that you are in these situations and write down what you are most likely to answer in each situation. Situation 1 You are in your friends birthday party and youve dressed up for the party. As you arrive at the party, one of your friends says: Wow, you look awesome! Youre really handsome/ beautiful tonight. You answer: Situation One of your friends is going to move to another city. S/he asks you to help him/her pack. After you are helping him/her and you are about to say goodbye, your friend says:Thank you! You are really kind and helpful. You answer: Situation 3 You have given an oral presentation in the class. After the class, your classmate says: Hey that is brilliant, I hope I can do it the way you did. You answer: Situation 4 You have bought a new laptop. Your friend notices and looked at it and tried some functions, s/he says: Wow, how great! My laptop does not have such functions. It is really great! You answer:

14

15