an investigation of gender differences in responding to compliments = sự khác biệt về giới trong cách tiếp nhận lời khen

Vietnam national university, hanoi
College of foreign languages
Department of Postgraduate Studies






HOÀNG THỊ MINH ÁNH

An investigation of gender differences
in responding to compliments

(Sự khác biệt về giới trong cách tiếp nhận lời khen)


M.A Thesis
Minor program thesis


Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15








Hanoi – 2009

Vietnam national university, hanoi
College of foreign languages
Department of Postgraduate Studies





HOÀNG THỊ MINH ÁNH

An investigation of gender differences
in responding to compliments

(Sự khác biệt về giới trong cách tiếp nhận lời khen)




M.A Thesis
Minor program thesis
Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15


Supervisor: DR. HÀ CẨM TÂM





Hanoi – 2009

vi

Table of contents

Certificate of originality of thesis …………………………………
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….
List of Tables …………………………………………………………………….
List of abbreviations and conventions………………………………

Part 1: Introduction………………………………………………………….
1. Rationale………………………………………………………………………
2. Aims of the study……………………………………………………………
3. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………

4. Method of the study…………………………………………………………
5. Organization of the study…………………………………………………….

Part 2: Development…………………………………………………………
Chapter 1: Literature Review…………………………………………
1.1 Overview of speech acts……………………………………………………………
1.2 Compliment and compliment responses………………………………………….
1.2.1 Complimenting as a speech act……………………………………………
1.2.2 Function of compliment……………………………………………………
1.2.3 Compliment responses………………………………………………………
1.3 Politeness …………………………………………………………………………
1.3.1 Definition of politeness………………………………………………………

1.3.2 The face-saving view of politeness………………………………………….
1.3.3 Politeness in complimenting and responding to compliments……………….
1.3.4 Gender and politeness………………………………………………………
1.4 Previous studies of gender in compliment and compliment responses…………

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Chapter 2: The study…………………………………………………………
2.1 The research designing…………………………………………………………….
2.1.1 The research question………………………………………………………

2.1.2 Selection of informants………………………………………………………
2.1.3 Data collection instruments…………………………………………………
2.1.4 Situation design………………………………………………………………
2.1.5 Data-collecting procedures…………………………………………………
2.2 Analytical Framework……………………………………………………………

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion………………………….
3.1. Data analysis procedures……………………………………………………….
3.2 Results……………………………………………………………………………
3.2.1 Compliment response strategies by males of the topic dimension………….
3.2.2 Compliment response strategies by females of the topic dimension………
3.2.3 Compliment response strategies by gender …………………………………

3.2.4 Summary……………………………………………………………………
3.3 Discussions………………………………………………………………………….

Part 3: Conclusion……………………………………………………………
1. Major findings…………………………………………………………………
2. Implications………………………………………………………………………
3. Suggestions for further research………………………………………………

References……………………………………………………………………
Appendix …………………………………………………………………………

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List of Tables


Table No.

Table 3.2.1:
Table 3.2.2:
Table 3.2.3:

TITLE

Compliment response strategies by males
Compliment response strategies by females
Compliment response strategies by genders

PAGE

26

28

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List of abbreviations

AT

App.
CA
CH
D
DCTs
FSA
FTAs
NA
Per.
Pos.
PU
Qual.

Ques.
Rea.
Ret.
RI
SD
.

Appreciation Token
Appearance
Comment Acceptance
Comment History
Disagreement

Discourse Completion Tests
Face saving act
Face threatening acts
No Acknowledgement
Performance
Possession
Praise Upgrade
Qualification
Question
Reassignment
Return
Request Interpretations

Scale Down








1
Part 1: Introduction

1. Rationale
In everyday life, there are a number of speech acts we can choose to show positive
politeness, for example, greetings, hanks, friendly address terms and expressions of
concern. ―A compliment is one of them, which notice and attend the hearer‘s interests,
wants, needs, goods ‖ (Holmes: 1988)
Since 1970s, linguists have attached the study of speech act, such as Apology,
Request, Compliment & Compliment Response, Refusal and Complaint, etc. These studies
show that, the social and situational factors, which will exert their influences on the use of
the speech acts, include gender, age, level of education, social distance, social relationship,
style, and ethnicity and so on. Compliments, as a positive speech act, will be inevitably
influenced by these social factors.
Although pragmatists and sociolinguists have examined the relationship between

gender and language for the last thirty years, there is little consensus about this
relationship. As far as female speech is concerned, arguments continue to focus on whether
or not female speakers express powerlessness in their speech or whether they express a
form of speech only different from that of males by using, for example, more polite speech
style. Of the social causes of gender differentiation in speech style, one of the most critical
appears to be the level of education. In all studies, it has been shown that the greater the
disparities between educational opportunities for boys and girls, the greater the differences
between male and female speech (Spolsky, 2000). The more recent feminist theory has
focused on the social construction of gender, not exclusively in childhood but for a whole
lifetime, and this seems to be more powerful in explaining gender differences in language
use.
Compliments are positive speech acts, which are sensitive to both social constraints

and individual variables. Social factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, level of education,
social status and social relationship between the interlocutors will inevitably influence the
complimenting behavior of all interlocutors.

2
Several studies have shown that there are some differences between males and females in
their realization patterns of compliments and compliment responses. Two important studies
that focus on gender differences in complimenting and responding to compliments are
those by Holmes (1988) and Herbert (1990). 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). They examined kinds of topics and

situations, as well as gender-based distributions.
Although a lot of research has been carried out on compliments and compliment
responses, the study on relationship between genders in compliment responses is still
something new in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to examine the sociolinguistic
characteristics of gender differences in compliment responses, in other words, whether the
social variables of the interlocutors, namely, social status, gender and age, have any
influence on the compliment response strategies the respondent may employ.

2. Aims of the study
This study examines the differences of linguistic strategies between British women‘s
and men‘s compliment responding, exploring the function of the positive speech acts as
positive strategies. The study provides an analysis concerning the differences between the

same genders and the different genders in compliment responds strategies. The reason why
men and women differ in language use is that they often different role in society.

3. Scope of the study
The study focuses on the differences of linguistic strategies between British male and
female subjects in the workplace in responding to compliments in some daily situations in
terms of linguistic strategies. The data we can obtain from the Discourse Completion Tests
will show us only nonverbal.
Gender is the main variable in the present study. There are four types of compliment
situations with regard to the gender of complimenters and respondents: male – male, male-
female, and female - male, female - female. In each of the situations designed in the
questionnaires, there are two possibilities of the gender group. That is to say, the two

3
interlocutors in each situation might be of the same gender or might be of different
genders. This may influence the production or selection of compliment response strategies.
The study is based on the analytical framework established by Herbert (1986), but
modified by the author for the present study.

4. Method of the study
This study focuses mainly on analysis of the data collected from the survey
questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed to elicit the informants‘ compliment
responses in the situations under study. The data collection of this research is done by
using the Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs). It is believed that DCTs constitute

important starting points for further research since they facilitate the collection of large
amount of data. Each discourse sequence presented a detailed description of the situation,
specifying the gender and social status of the complimenter. The participants‘ task was
supply the responses to the situation given. The data we can obtain from the DCTs will
show us only ―discourse in written form‖.

5. Organization of the study
This research includes three parts. Part 1 introduces the rationale, the aims, the scope
and the method of the study. Part 2 is the development of the study. There are four
Chapters in this part. Chapter one will review briefly the related theories, such as speech
acts, politeness, review of the studies on compliments and compliment responses. Chapter
two discusses the methodology of the study, which includes the research questions, design

of the study, the selection of subjects, instruments, situation design, analytical framework
and the procedures of data collecting and analyzing. In Chapter Three, this paper will show
the results of the study. In Chapter Four, this paper will give discussions and the major
findings of the results obtained in the research. And finally in Part 3, this paper will briefly
summarize the major discoveries of this study, indicate the limitations and implications of
the study and point out the directions for further research.



4
Part 2: Development
Chapter 1: Literature Review

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research.
These theories include theories on speech act, politeness. The theories will build up the
theoretical framework of this study.

1.1 Overview of speech acts
Although many theories have studied speech act theory, generally all of them share
the common theme that speech acts are the actions that are involved when some one says
something.
According to Searle (1969:24), language is part of a theory of action, and speech acts
are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and requesting that one perform in
speaking.
George Yule (1996:47) defines that actions performed via utterance are generally

called speech acts, and in English, are commonly given more specific labels such as
apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request. The circumstances in
which actions are performed via utterances are called the speech events. In many ways, it
is the nature of the speech event that determines the interpretation of an utterance as
performing a particular speech act. For example, on a wintry day, the speaker reaches for a
cup of tea, believing that it has been freshly made, takes a sip, and produces the utterance
“This tea is really cold”. This utterance can be interpreted as a complaint. Changing the
circumstances to really hot summer day with the speaker being given a glass of iced tea by
the hearer, taking a sip and producing the same utterance “This tea is really cold”. This
utterance is likely to be interpreted as praise. If the same utterance can be interpreted as
different kinds of speech act, then obviously no simple one utterance to one action
correspondence will be possible. It also means that there is more to the interpretation of a

speech act than can be found in the utterance alone.
According to Austin (1962), the action performed by producing an utterance will
consist of three related acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.

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Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic
expression.
Illocutionary act is performed by uttering some words, such as commanding,
offering, promising, threatening, thanking, etc. For example, when A says: “Give me some
cash” to B, the locutionary act is the utterance he makes when he says the sentence; the
illocutionary act is that A performs the act of requesting B to give him some cash.
The third part is the perlocutionary act, which is the actual result of the locution. It

may or may not be what the speaker B wants to happen but it is caused by the locution. For
example, A‘s utterance may have any of the following perlocutions: A persuaded B to give
him the money; B refused to give him the money; B was offended; etc. In a word, the
perlocution is defined by the hearer‘s reaction.
Of these three dimensions, the most discussed is illocutionary force. Indeed, the term
―speech act‖ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of
an utterance.
Austin classifies illocutionary acts into five types, i.e., verdictives, exer- citives,
commissives, behabitives, and expositives. Austin‘s classification is best seen as an
attempt to give a general picture of illocutionary acts: what types of illocutionary act one
can generally perform in uttering a sentence. One can exercise judgment (Verdictive),
exert influence or exercise power (Exercitive), assume obligation or declare intention

(Commissive), adopt attitude, or express feeling (Behabitive), and clarify reasons,
argument, or communication (Expositive). ―Compliment‖ can be categorized into the
group of bahabitives to express one‘s attitude towards something.
John Searle (1969) divides the illocutionary act into five types of general functions.The
five-category classification of illocutionary acts is representatives, directives, commissives,
expressives and declarations.
Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes
to be the case or not. Statements of fact, assertions, conclusions, and descriptions, for
example: ―The earth is flat.‖ or ―It was a rainy day‖, representing the world as he or she
believes it is.
Directions are those kinds of speech acts that speakers used to get somebody else to
do something. They express what the speaker wants. They can be positive or negative, for

example: ―Don‟t smoke!” or ―Give me a cup of tea!” They may be very modest attempts

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as inviting or suggesting, or they may be very fierce attempt as insisting, ordering, or
commanding.
Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to commit themselves
to some future course of action, such as promises, threats, refusals, pledges etc. They can
be performed by the speaker alone, or by the speaker as a member of a group. For
example, ―I will be back”. or, ―We will not do that”.
Expressives is to state what the speaker feels. They express psychological state and
can be statements of the speaker‘s attitude, feelings and emotions, for example, pleasure,
pain, likes, dislikes, joy, sorrow, complaints, apologies and compliments etc.

Declaratives is the speech act which changes the world with their utterance, such as
command, declaration, etc. For example: ―We find the defendant guilty!”
The theory of speech acts is not only useful illustrating the kinds of things we can do
with words but also necessary for identifying some of the conventional utterance forms we
use to perform specific actions. However, a more extended interaction should be taken into
consideration in order that we could understand how those actions are carried out and
interpreted with speech events. The following part will discuss complimenting as speech
acts and the relevance of compliments.
On the previous section, the paper mentioned speech acts And as we all know, many
researchers explored the actual forms and their functions of speech acts in languages. The
next section will discuss complimenting as speech acts.

1.2 Compliment and compliment responses
1.2.1 Complimenting as a speech acts
Recent studies of such speech acts as apologies, directives, expressions of
disapproval and compliments have rich implications (Wolfson, 1984). The compliment
speech event has been a subject of careful sociolinguistic investigation in recent years.
However, studies of compliments have shown that this small speech event is actually far
more complicated than it appears, in terms of the relation between language, society and
culture (Pomerantz, 1978; Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson & Manes, 1981; Holmes, 1986;
Holmes (1988), Herbert (1989)).

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Complimenting is a kind of speech act belonging to the category of Expressives

(Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels. They express
psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or
sorrow.), based on Searle‘s (1979) classification. According to Brown and Levinson
(1987), complimenting is a positive politeness strategy aiming to praise the addressees for
a past or present action. In other words, compliments are prime examples of speech acts
that notice and attend to the hearer‘s interests, wants, needs, and goods. A frequent
denotation is Holmes‘s (1988:446) definition: “A compliment 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”. She defines a compliment as a speech act
that is accomplished either explicitly or implicitly to express admiration or approval for
some good of the addressee. In such a situation, explicit compliments are those whose

meaning is understood literally, as in a direct speech act, for example, ―you look nice in
blue”. Similarly, implicit compliments account for indirect speech acts whose meaning can
be inferred among participants, for instance, “I wish I could play the piano like you do”
(Cordella, Large and Pardo 1995).
In an early study, Manes and Wolfson (1981), examining a corpus of compliments
uttered in daily conversation in American English, discovered that there exists a large
amount of patterning at both the syntactic and the semantic levels. They found that five
positive evaluative adjectives—nice, good, pretty, beautiful, and great—accounted for
two-thirds of the adjectives that complimenters used. By the same token, the two verbs like
and love accounted for 86 percent of the positive evaluative verbs. They concluded that
compliments are highly formulaic, both in their syntactic form and in the lexical items that
carry the positive evaluation. Subsequent studies in this vein of research (e.g., Holmes

1986, 1988; Herbert 1990) have tended to corroborate Manes and Wolfson‘s general
findings, focusing on the gender difference in compliment forms. Both Holmes and
Herbert found that women used the I like/love NP formula much more than men, and that
women‘s compliments were more personal in focus, while men complimented on ability
and performance.
Manes and Wolfson (1981) and Wolfson (1983) observed that compliments seem
to fall naturally into two general categories—those which focus on appearance and/or

8
possessions, and those which have to do with ability and/or accomplishments. With respect
to the first category, in addition to compliments on apparel, hairstyle, and jewelry, it is
very common for Americans to compliment one another on such seemingly personal

matters as weight loss. Favorable comments on the attractiveness of one‘s children, pets,
and even husbands, boyfriends, wives, or girlfriends seem to fall within this same category,
as do compliments on cars and houses. Compliments assigned to the second category
include those referring to the addressee‘s skill or performance, e.g. a well-done job, a
skillfully played game, a good meal. According to Manes and Wolfson‘s (1981) and
Wolfson‘s (1983) studies on compliments in American English, the greatest number of
appearance/possession compliments are given and received by acquaintances, colleagues,
and casual friends, especially by females. Upper-status males rarely received compliments,
and these were nearly never associated with appearance. By contrast, women are the
recipients of the great majority of compliments on appearance/possession. In this case,
however, the status of the woman seems to have little if any effect, since she can be
complimented on her appearance by virtually anyone. Similarly, Holmes (1986) suggests

that there is agreement between the New Zealand and American norms at this very broad
level concerning appropriate/acceptable topics of compliments. In another study examining
the distribution of compliment topics by gender, Holmes (1988) pointed out that there is a
clearly observable tendency for women to receive compliments on their appearance and to
compliment each other on their appearance.
In addition, studies of compliments have focused on the following areas: function,
and compliment responses. Most of the studies have concentrated on complimenting in
different varieties of English.
1.2.2 Function of compliment
The functions of complimenting are varied. People may compliment one another to
maintain or re-establish a social relationship, to reinforce a desired action (e.g., teacher-
student interaction), or to soften a speaker‘s discourse before uttering a face threatening act

(FTA) (Holmes 1986; Brown and Levinson 1987). Wolfson maintains that the major
function of a compliment is to ―to create or maintain solidarity between interlocutors‖ by
expressing admiration or approval (1983:89). Holmes essentially agrees with this view by
treating compliments as ―positively affective speech acts directed to the addressee which

9
serve to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and addressee‖
(1988a:486). Holmes (1988: 464) also maintained that 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
possible offenses‖. Compliments are usually intended to make others feel good. The
primary function of a compliment is most obviously affective and social, rather than

referential or informative. They are generally described as positively affective speech acts
serving to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and addressee.
However, compliments have other functions too. Wolfson points out that they are
used to reinforce desired behavior, for example in a classroom situation. They often serve
to strengthen or to replace other speech acts such as apologies, thanking, and greetings.
They are also frequently used to soften criticism. Thus, compliments may be followed by
“but” or “though” and a criticism. Compliments are also used to open a conversation and
they may even be used as sarcasm, e.g., “You play a good game of tennis-for a woman.”
(Wolfson, 1983:86-93)
While the primary function of compliments is most obviously affective, it is possible
that some compliments are intended to convey and perceived as having a stronger
referential message than are others. Johnson and Roen (1992) argue that the compliments

they analyzed in written peer reviews simultaneously conveyed both affective (or
interpersonal) meaning and referential (or ideational) meaning. In some contexts,
compliments may function as praise and encouragement. Herbert (1990) suggests, based
on an analysis of American compliments, which some compliments serve as expressions of
praise and admiration rather than offers of solidarity. Thus, the relationship between
participants is crucial in accurately interpreting the functions of a compliment.
1.2.3 Compliment responses
One major focus of research on complimenting events has been on compliment
responses. Pomerantz (1978) pointed out that responses represent the recipient‘s resolution
of conflicting conversational constraints. In any conversational exchange, she suggested,
the preferred second part will present an agreement with the previous utterance. There is,
thus, pressure on the recipient to agree with the complimenter and accept the compliment.

On the other hand, there is strong pressure on speakers to avoid or minimize self-praise.

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Her American data reveal that a large number of compliment responses deviate from the
model responses of accepting compliments, and actually show a prevalence of
disagreements and rejections. According to her analysis, the prevalence of disagreements
and rejections is an outcome of yet another system of constraints which co-operates along
with the other systems on compliment responses. That system involves speaker‘s
minimization of self-praise (Pomerantz 1978:81).
Likewise, in a series of studies on compliments, Holmes (1986, 1988) developed
three main categories of compliment responses, based on the credit attribution component
of compliments: Accept, Reject, and Deflect or Evade. She analyzed complimenting

behavior in terms of Brown and Levinson‘s (1987) Politeness Theory and considered
compliments to be, on the one hand, positively affective speech acts, and on the other,
potentially face-threatening acts, which account for the variety of compliment responses.
Her data indicated that in New Zealand, by far the most frequent response to a compliment
was Accept (1986, 1988). She further examined gender characteristics in the interaction
between the gender of complimenter and complimentee and found that males will ignore
or legitimately evade a compliment more often than women will (Holmes 1986). The
results of her study reveal the existence of sex-preferential strategies for compliment
responses. Specifically, New Zealand men tend to interpret compliments as FTAs more
readily than their female counterparts, with the latter usually treating them as strategies for
maintaining solidarity. In a study on Polish compliments and their alleged solidarity
function, Jaworski (1995) suggests a refinement to Holmes‘ remark in the sense that whilst

females tend to exchange compliments to achieve relational solidarity, males often use the
procedural solidarity function of compliments in order to negotiate in-group power
relation. Herbert (1990) has noted differences in the use of compliments and compliment
responses between females and males, such as fewer instances of compliments being
returned or of disagreeing compliment responses by the former, together with a higher
tendency to question or fail to acknowledge the compliment by the latter
Based on the previous work of Pomerantz (1978), Herbert (1986a) provides a
quantitative analysis of compliment responses in American English. Herbert classified
compliment responses strategies into the following twelve categories: 1. appreciation
token, 2. praise upgrade, 3. comment acceptance, 4. comment history, 5. reassignment, 6.
return, 7. questioning, 8. scale down, 9. qualification, 10. disagreement, 11. non-

11
acknowledgement, 12. request for interpretation. And Herbert noticed that 66% of
Americans responded to compliments with agreement and only 0.4% responded with
disagreement.
Herbert conducted a contrastive study on American and South African compliment
responses spoken by college students (1989, 1990). His data suggested that Americans
exhibit a high frequency of compliment-expression but a low frequency of compliment-
acceptance; South Africans exhibit a low frequency of compliment-expression but a high
frequency of compliment-acceptance. He explained the contrast in terms of ideological
differences between Americans and South Africans. That is, the high frequency of
compliments and the low rate of acceptance in the U.S. data reflect American notions of
equality and democratic idealism, whereas the low frequency of compliments and the high

rate of acceptance are tied to elitism in South Africa.
We have mentioned complimenting as speech act and compliment responses. The
next section will discuss notions of politeness and face.

1.3 Politeness
This section deals with an overview on politeness theory, the face-saving view of
politeness, politeness in compliment and compliment responses, and gender and politeness.
1.3.1 Definition of politeness
Politeness has been the focus of attention of a number of linguists for more than a
quarter of a century. During that time numerous and various attempts have been made to
define politeness. Politeness is viewed as one of major social constraints on human
interaction, which regulate participants‘ communicative behavior by constantly reminding

them to take into consideration other people‘s feelings. .
Lakoff (quoted in Yule,1996:106) defines politeness as ―A system of interpersonal
relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential conflict and
confrontation inherent in all human interchange”. This author connected politeness with
Grice‘s Cooperative Principle, which is based on the assumption that people are
cooperative and aim to be as informative as possible in communication.
Yule (1996:60) states that “it is possible to treat politeness as a fixed concept, as in
the idea of “polite social behavior”, or etiquette, within a culture”.

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Leech (quoted in Thomas, 1995:158) s argues “politeness as crucial in explaining
“why people are often so indirect in conveying what they mean”. Especially, in face-

threatening act (FTA) where either speakers‘ face or hearers‘ face or both parties‘ face can
be threatened. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow,
it‟s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and
turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so. Holmes noted that
compliments may function as face threatening acts. They may imply that the complimenter
would like to possess something, whether an object or skill, belonging to the addressee
(1988a:487). She also points out that even when a compliment appears to refer to a third
person, it may well be indirectly complimenting the addressee. She provides this example:
Recipient‘s old school friend is visiting and comments on one of the children‘s manners.
Complimenter: What a polite child!
Recipient: Thank you. We do our best.
We have just mentioned different definitions of politeness. Here, we will discuss the

face-saving of politeness.

1.3.2 The face-saving view of politeness
Perhaps, the most profound thought of the concept of face is that of Brown and
Levinson (1978). They put forward that people engage in rational behavior to achieve
satisfaction of certain wants. The wants related to politeness are the wants of face.
According to Brown and Levinson (1978), there are two kinds of faces. One is
“negative face”, the need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be
imposed on by others. It is essentially the want that others do not impede your actions. The
other is “positive face”, the need to be accepted, even liked by others, to be treated as a
member of the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others. Simply
speaking, negative face is the need to be independent and positive face is the need to be

connected.
In Brown and Levinson‘s comprehensive analysis of politeness and face, two other
concepts are also mentioned. They are face threatening act and face saving act. If a speaker
says something that represents a threat to another individual‘s expectations regarding self-
image, it is described as a face threatening act (FTA). For example, requests threaten the

13
hearer‘s negative face because the speaker is trying to make the hearer act to his own
benefit, and therefore is depriving the hearer of his right to freedom of action, etc.
Oppositions threaten the hearer‘s positive face because the speaker is stating there is
something wrong with the hearer‘s beliefs. Offers threaten the Speaker‘s negative face
because the speaker is giving up his right to freedom of action for the benefit of the hearer,

and apologies threaten the speaker‘s positive face because speaker is confessing he has
done something that cannot be approved. Alternatively, given the possibility that some
action might be interpreted as a threat to another‘s face, the speaker can say something to
lessen the possible threat. This is called a face saving act (FSA). Pridham (2001:52)
explains that ―you challenge someone‘s face in two ways: either by telling them what to
do, which implies you have rights over them, or by showing you disagree with or do not
appreciate their values and beliefs‖. By challenging other people‘s faces, one is said to be
making a “face-threatening act”. To avoid face-threatening or minimize the degree of
face-threatening, there are various strategies one can employ such as saying something
with a delay or saying something with hedges that indicate hesitation. This is called a face-
saving act (FSA).
The interlocutor takes to preserve both positive and negative faces for themselves and

the people they interact with essentially add up to politeness. They further suggest that
when people interact with others they must be aware of both kinds of face and therefore
have a choice of two kinds of politeness. A face saving act which is concerned with the
person‘s positive face will tend to achieve solidarity through offers of friendship, for
example, the use of compliments. Brown and Levinson (1978) outline four main types of
politeness strategies: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and indirect
strategy.
First, bald on record strategies do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer‘s
face. This strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their audience.
With the bald on record strategies there is a direct possibility that the audience will be
shocked or embarrassed by the strategy. For example, a bald on record strategy might be to
tell your sister to ―do the dishes. It‘s your turn.‖

The second strategy is positive politeness and this strategy attempts to minimize the
threat to the hearers face. This strategy is most commonly used in situations where the
audience knows each other fairly well. Quite often hedging and attempts to avoid conflict

14
are used. For an American speaker, giving a friend or co-worker the compliment, “Your
hair looks nice today,” would be one example of positive face.
The third strategy is negative politeness which presumes that the speaker will be
imposing on the listener. The potential for awkwardness or embarrassment is greater than
in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to
remain autonomous. Thus, a request without consideration of the listener‘s negative face
might be uncomfortable. For an American speaker, an example of negative face would be

responding to the question, “Do you like my new haircut?” with, “It looks great,” even
though the speaker‘s true opinion is that the haircut looks horrible.
The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect strategy.
This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to being
imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it‟s
getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn
up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so.
We have just discussed face. In the next part, politeness in complimenting and
responding to compliments will be mentioned.
1.3.3 Politeness in complimenting and responding to compliments.
Compliments are communicative behaviors. People make compliments in order to
start a conversation, smooth an interaction, strengthen an emotional exchange and enhance

the mutual understanding and friendship of the people who are involved in the
conversation. When people make compliments, they consider showing politeness in the
first place.
Compliments are face-threatening acts which threatens the face of both the hearer
and speaker. According to Brown and Levinson (1978), when a speaker offers a
compliment, it threatens the hearer‘s negative face because the hearer may feel a need to
protect his or her goods or give the goods to the speaker. On the other hand, as a
compliment is considered a gift to the hearer, it threatens the speaker‘s negative face if the
gift of compliment is not accepted. A compliment also damages the hearer‘s positive face
because upon receiving a compliment, the hearer is constraint to accept or return the
compliment. In addition to that, a compliment also puts the speaker‘s positive face at risk
because by complimenting the hearer, the speaker will give an impression that he or she

15
desires to possess the hearer‘s goods. People in the west will respond to others
complimenting happily with “thank you” to satisfy the conplimenter‘s positive face. When
a person says to a female colleague, for example, that “I like your earrings”, he is
indicating the effort she has made to improve her appearance and that he shares her values
of what constitutes a pair of beautiful “earrings”. By doing so, he makes her ―feel good‖,
since appearance is an important component in the self-image of females almost all over
the world. Still, as far as compliments are concerned, sometimes, the complimentee will
feel their positive face being threatened. Under this situation, they will try to be indifferent
or avoid to answer it directly, to save their faces. For example, A: How efficient of you to
get this done on time. B: It is nothing.

Brown and Levinson argue that nearly all speech acts are so-called FTAs, in which
faces of the interlocutors tend to be threatened in language interaction. For example,
compliments may themselves threaten the addresser‘s negative face, and compliment
responses may threaten the speaker‘s positive face (Holmes, 1988). In order to avoid
FTAs, interlocutors will employ certain strategies to minimize the threat and save their
faces. The speaker should employ the appropriate strategy in order to protect others and
ensure smooth interaction. Accordingly, the positive politeness strategies and negative
politeness strategies are taken to keep hearer‘s positive face and negative face from being
threatened. Compliment response may be a positive or a negative politeness strategy
depending on the speech act selected. The best way is to use polite language.
In the next part, some issues about gender and politeness will be discussed. With
this part, we aim to see how the previous find out about men‘s and women‘s languages.

1.3.4 Gender and politeness
It is widely accepted that it is difficult to make global and hence abstract statements
about men‘s and women‘s language. People engaging in the same community of practice
will have something in common, for example, ways of communicating.
A number of studies on language and gender have been devoted to identifying, and
trying to explain, differences in the speech styles of men and women. And one of the main
differences has been found in the area of linguistic politeness.
According to Homes (1995), `polite people‘ as those who `avoid obvious face-
threatening acts they generally attempt to reduce the threat of unavoidable face

16
threatening acts such as requests or warnings by softening them, or expressing them

indirectly; and they use polite utterances such as greetings and compliments where
possible.‟ (Holmes, 1995:5) However, this view of `polite people‘ does not relate those
polite acts to a community which judges the acts and the people as polite, and thus is again
an example of the disembodied, abstract analysis which is often determined by the use of a
Brown and Levinson framework.
Drawing on Brown and Levinson's work, Janet Holmes argues that in general women
are more polite than men: `Most women enjoy talk and regard talking as an important
means of keeping in touch, especially with friends and intimates. They use language to
establish, nurture and develop personal relationships. Men tend to see language more as a
tool for obtaining and conveying information.‟ (Holmes, 1995:2). She states that women
are more likely than men to express positive politeness and to use mitigating strategies to
avoid or minimize threatening their interlocutor‘s face. For example, women tend to

interrupt less in conversation and “to be more attentive listeners, concerned to ensure
others get a chance to contribute” than men (Home, 1995:67). They also interpret and use
certain speech acts differently to men. For instance, not only do women use more
apologies than men but their apologies serve more often than men‘s “as remedies for
space and talk offences-areas of interaction where women are particularly vulnerable and
where they may have developed a greater sensitivity” (Home, 1995:185).
Holmes (1988 and 1995) focused her study on gender difference in complimenting in
everyday speech in New Zealand. Through analysis, she found there existed a number of
differences between male and female in complimenting. One of the important findings was
that women gave and received more compliments than men did. This conclusion was
based, in part, on the fact that data collectors found it much more difficult to gather
compliments from men than from women in natural settings.She also found that women

complimented women more than they did men. Men also complimented women more than
they did men. Holmes suggested that women tended to view compliments as expressions
of positive effect, while men were more likely to be embarrassed by them and/or to view
them as face-threatening acts.
We have just discussed the notion of politeness. In next section, the paper will
mention gender in compliment and compliment responses


17
1.4 Previous studies of gender in compliment and compliment
responses
Some researchers (e.g., Herbert 1990; Holmes 1988) claim that male and female

compliments in American English serve different functions. Two important studies that
emphasize gender differences in complimenting are those by Holmes (1988) and Herbert
(1990). Explicit and precise analyses involved in these studies produced some findings on
gender differences in complimenting. For example, Holmes found that women gave and
received more compliments than men did, and Herbert suggests that female compliments
rely heavily on solidarity, while males focus on assertion of praise. Holmes (1988b) reports
that in New Zealand men compliment women far more frequently than they compliment
other men. She suggests that compliments are not a preferred male strategy for expressing
friendship; therefore, men use them less frequently. At the same time, when men are
complimented, she says that they tend to ignore or evade a compliment more than women
do. She claims that men seem to avoid a verbal response altogether by ignoring the
compliment or responding to other topics or to the focus of the previous utterance

Herbert (1990) argued that male and female compliments in American English
served different functions in discourse. He suggested that for women compliments were
primarily offers of solidarity, while for males they functioned more often as actual
assertions of praise. Herbert (1990) found that compliments offered by males to females
are more likely to be accepted. On the other hand, those offered by a female to another
female are more likely to be rejected. He suggests that the same gender of the
complimenter tends to be a good predictor of the form compliment responses will take.
Like Wolfson, Herbert claims that compliments from males occur less frequently than
from females, and the ―easiest‖ type of compliment to collect is female-female. Similar
observations were also made by data collectors working with speakers of South African
English (Herbert, 1989).
With regards to gender-based differences in compliments and their responses,

Wolfson (1983, 1984) contends that women appear to offer and receive compliments much
more frequently than men. The same pattern has also been found in a comparable New
Zealand study by Holmes (1988b). The findings are particularly true of compliments
concerning appearance. Wolfson (1983) indicates that it holds true across compliment

18
types that women are far more likely to be recipients of appearance-based compliments
than men are. She contends that when appearance is the topic of a compliment, the
addressee is hardly ever male. In addition, there seems to be rather strong constraint
against the giving of appearance-related compliments to higher-status males. However, the
same is not true for women who receive compliments on their appearance from both men
and women of the same, higher, and lower status. Wolfson (1984) examined the

compliment behavior of Americans and found that the way a woman was spoken to was,
no matter what her status, a subtle and powerful way of perpetuating her subordinate role
in society. Women used compliments more often to other women than they did to men or
than men did to each other. Furthermore, compliments on appearance were the dominant
topic for women, whereas men complimented on possessions.
Ye (1995) also examined gender-based differences in compliments and compliment
responses. He classified the compliment strategies employed by respondents into four
categories: Explicit Compliment, Implicit Compliment, Non-Compliment and No
Response. Results showed that both males and females gave the same order of rank in their
preference of compliment strategies. However, statistical analysis showed that there was a
significant difference between genders using these four compliment strategies. Male and
female respondents were found to use positive semantic carriers differently in adverbs and

nouns. Males used nouns more often than females, while females used more adverbs (Ye,
1995). According to Ye‘s study, the distribution of compliment responses also showed that
male and female respondents adopted different strategies. Specifically, males chose Non-
Acceptance more often them females, whereas females showed a much stronger tendency
to Acceptance. In short, women are likely to view compliments as expression of positive
affects whereas men tend to be embarrassed by compliments and/or consider them face-
threatening acts.
In conclusion, in this chapter we have reviewed the major issues of speech act,
politeness, theories on gender differences and some the previous studies on gender-based
differences in compliments and compliment responses. In the following chapter, it will
demonstrate the experiment design concerning dissecting of research questions and
hypothesis, methods of data collection and data analysis.

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Chapter 2: The study

This chapter presents the research questions, the informants of the study, data
collection instruments, data collection, the analytical framework and finally data analysis.

2.1 The research designing
1.1 The research question
The objective of this study is to examine the gender-based differences in compliment
responses. This study tries to answer the following questions:

1. Are there any differences of linguistic strategies between British male and
female in responding to compliments?
2. Are female speakers more polite than male speakers?

2.1.2 Selection of informants
The data for this study were collected from British officers working in the different
offices. The number of subjects is 10, with 5 males and 5 females. Their ages range from
35 to 45, and all of them have high levels of education. The interlocutors know each other
very well. Status between the interlocutors can be considered to be equal.

2.1.3 Data collection instruments
There are several methods that have been used to collect data for this area, such as

multiple choices, observation and conversation recording method. But the data of this
study will mainly be carried by using written DCTs (Discourse Completion Tests). It is
believed that DCTs constitute important starting points for further research since they
facilitate the collection of large amounts of data. DCTs are widely used as controlled
elicitation tools to collect written discourse for discourse analysis. With DCTs, one can
easily control the contextual variables that are significant for this study. The controlled
variables about a given context in production questionnaires make it possible to look into
the effect of the variables. Nevertheless, the data we can obtain from the DCTs will show
us only ―discourse in written form‖.