This study examines the differences in compliment behavior and compliment response strategies in American English between males and females. The data were collected from the ten episodes in the first season of the American Comedy TVseries “Ugly Betty”. The analysis of 167 compliment exchanges showed that there were significant differences between males and females in giving compliments and using the response strategies. Nevertheless, they still shared some common features. Regarding compliment frequency, females tended to compliment other females more whereas males complimented females far more than they complimented other males. In this research, except for the topic of appearance, there was no significant statistic difference in the choice of others compliment topics between the two genders. It should be noted that male – female interactions complimenting on appearance took the first place. In terms of functions, females used compliments most often to establish, confirm or maintain solidarity while male compliments more often offered admiration. The findings of the differences in response type frequencies from the two groups revealed that there was more likelihood of non agreement than agreement. It might be due to the high frequency of no acknowledgement responses. In the light of these findings, several pedagogical implications were drawn. Most importantly, English foreign language teachers should show the learners how to appropriately compliment and respond in communicative situations.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ ÁNH NGỌC GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCES IN COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN THE AMERICAN COMEDY TV-SERIES “UGLY BETTY” Sự khác biệt cách thức khen tiếp nhận lời khen giới tiếng Anh qua phim truyền hình Mỹ “Ugly Betty” M.A. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Linguistics Major code: 60 22 15 Hanoi - 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ ÁNH NGỌC GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCES IN COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN THE AMERICAN COMEDY TV-SERIES “UGLY BETTY” Sự khác biệt cách thức khen tiếp nhận lời khen giới tiếng Anh qua phim truyền hình Mỹ “Ugly Betty” M.A. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Linguistics Major code: 60 22 15 Supervisor: Hanoi - 2011 Kiều Thị Thu Hương, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To complete this paper, I own indebtedness to many people for their assistance and encouragement during the conduct of my study. First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks and gratitude to my supervisor – Dr. Kiều Thị Thu Hương for her continual support, enlightening guidance, valuable advice and considerable encouragement, which are decisive factors in the completion of this paper. Besides, I would love to give my sincere thanks to all my teachers at the Faculty of PostGraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (ULIS - VNU) for their profound knowledge and outstanding teaching. I am also grateful to my family, my colleagues at ULIS - VNU and my friends, who have encouraged me throughout this research process. Last but not least, I am especially indebted to the authors whose materials have been used in the study. iii ABSTRACT This study examines the differences in compliment behavior and compliment response strategies in American English between males and females. The data were collected from the ten episodes in the first season of the American Comedy TV-series “Ugly Betty”. The analysis of 167 compliment exchanges showed that there were significant differences between males and females in giving compliments and using the response strategies. Nevertheless, they still shared some common features. Regarding compliment frequency, females tended to compliment other females more whereas males complimented females far more than they complimented other males. In this research, except for the topic of appearance, there was no significant statistic difference in the choice of others compliment topics between the two genders. It should be noted that male – female interactions complimenting on appearance took the first place. In terms of functions, females used compliments most often to establish, confirm or maintain solidarity while male compliments more often offered admiration. The findings of the differences in response type frequencies from the two groups revealed that there was more likelihood of nonagreement than agreement. It might be due to the high frequency of no acknowledgement responses. In the light of these findings, several pedagogical implications were drawn. Most importantly, English foreign language teachers should show the learners how to appropriately compliment and respond in communicative situations. INTRODUCTION The introduction states the problem and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper. Above all, it is in this chapter that the research questions are set out to work as the guidelines for the whole research. 1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study An effective language user is competent in not only linguistics but also pragmatics. As Yule (1996) put it, “nothing in the use of the linguistic forms is inaccurate, but getting the pragmatics wrong might be offensive” (p. 5-6). To be able to use a target language appropriately in terms of pragmatic competence, language users should employ a variety of speech acts. Complimenting is one of them. Compliments not only express sincere admiration of positive qualities, but they also replace greetings, thanks or apologies, and minimize face-threatening acts (henceforth FTAs), such as criticism, scolding, or requests (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Holmes, 1988a; Wolfson, 1983, 1989). Complimenting is a tool of establishing friendship that creates ties of solidarity in American culture. It is also an important social strategy that functions as an opener for a conversation, allowing meaningful social interactions to follow. Americans pay compliments so frequently that neglecting to so can even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989; Wolfson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Holmes & Brown, 1987). Each culture requires various kinds of speech act behavior. Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) found that “culturally colored interactional styles create culturally determined expectations and interpretative strategies, and can lead to breakdowns in intercultural and interethnic communication” (p. 30). In other words, when people from different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act strategies that reflect the culture’s distinctive interactional style. Complimenting is a particularly suitable speech act to investigate because it acts as a window through which we can view what is valued in a particular culture. Thus, it is essential for Vietnamese learners of English to know how to give appropriate compliments and responses in English. Complimenting is inevitably affected by social factors including gender. According to Tannen (1990), gender differences are parallel to cross-cultural differences. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study the interactions between men and women, men and men, or women and women exchanging compliments and responses. All those reasons stimulate the researcher to conduct a study on gender-based differences in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy TV-series “Ugly Betty”. The people in the TV series are not real people, but the actors are chosen to match the real ones in daily life. What can be assumed is that the data would bare resemblance to real life language. Hopefully, the study will make a contribution to the field which it is envisioned and fill the gaps in previous research. 2. Aims of the study First of all, the study sets out to investigate the gender-based differences in compliment behavior including the frequency of compliments, compliment topics and the functions of compliments. Secondly, the differences between males and females in compliments response strategies are explored. The findings will pave the way for several pedagogical and intercultural communication implications. 3. Research questions The research seeks the answers to the following research questions: Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior between males and females? Research question 2: What are the differences in compliment responses between males and females? 4. Scope of the study There are four seasons in this TV-series with the total of 85 episodes. However, due to the size and limitation of a preliminary research, the dialogues in the episodes one to ten in the first season are used with the development of the story. Every episode takes about 40 minutes. Totally, this study will analyze ten episodes of around 400 minutes. The compliments among 18 characters balanced in gender, females and males, are chosen. Some compliments are excluded from the present study: compliments to a place or an object that does not belong to interactants, compliments to speakers themselves or to a group of people, compliments from a group to a particular thing or a special person. Furthermore, a compliment may be sincere or insincere. Mills (2003) stated: The hearer might consider that the speaker is being insincere and is only complimenting because he/she wants something – i.e. that it is serving some longer term goal; or it might be interpreted as suggesting that the person does not look good at all, but the speaker is being kind. (p. 220) Also, compliments can have an ironic meaning (Holmes, 1995, p. 119). For instance, if the interlocutors are enemies, the compliments between them have ironic meanings. Within the scope of an M.A. thesis, only sincere compliments are analyzed. 5. Methodology Quantitative and qualitative methods are both used in this paper with priorities given to the quantitative one. In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are based on the analysis of the empirical studies and statistics processed on Stata 10, a software program commonly used in social sciences. In addition, such methods as descriptive, analytic, comparative and contrastive are also utilized to describe and analyze, to compare and contrast the database so as to find out gender-based differences in compliments’ frequency, topics and functions and types of compliment response strategies. 6. Significance of the study The present study is conducted to find out the influences of gender on compliment behavior and compliment response strategies in English. It will add to the research on compliments and second language acquisition. Regarding researchers who share the same interest in the topic, they could rely on this paper to get useful information for their future studies. Besides, the study could help Vietnamese learners of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragmatic competence. As for teachers of English, the findings from this paper may have crucial pedagogical implications for practice of teaching English as a foreign language. 7. Organization of the study After the Introduction, the rest of the paper includes the following parts: Chapter (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies. Chapter (The study) describes the procedures to conduct the research, presents, analyzes the results and discusses the findings the researcher obtained according to the two research questions. Conclusion summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, provides some implications and points out the limitations of the research as well as proposes several suggestions for further studies. Following this part are References and Appendix. CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental concepts related to the research topic are reviewed. Moreover, the overview of related studies is also taken into consideration. 1.1. Speech act theory 1.1.1. Austin’s speech act theory Austin, with a pivotal work in the field of linguistics How to Do Things with Words (1962), was one of the first modern scholars recognizing that words are in themselves actions. According to Austin, in saying something the speaker does something (1962). Austin stated that there are three related acts in the action of performing an utterance: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act. Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression. The second dimension, the illocutionary act, is performed by uttering some words, such as complimenting, commanding, offering, promising, threatening, thanking, etc. In other words, it is the communicative force of an utterance. The third part is the perlocutionary act, which is the actual result of the locution. The perlocution is defined by the hearer’s reaction. Let us consider the following example: A: “Give me some cash.” The locutionary act is the sound A makes when he says the utterance. The illocutionary act is that A performs the act of requesting B to give him some cash. It may or may not be what the speaker B wants to happen but it is caused by the locution. 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. Of these three dimensions, the illocutionary force is the most discussed. The term “speech act” is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance. The illocutionary force of an utterance is what it “counts as”. Austin distinguishes the locutionary and illocutionary acts by stating that the interpretation of the locutionary act is concerned with meaning and the interpretation of the illocutionary act with force. He later proposed a tentative classification of explicit performative verbs. He divided them into five categories based on the notion of illocutionary force. They are verdictives, exercitives, commissives, behabitives and expositives. Compliment can be categorized into the group of behabitives to express one’s attitude towards something. 1.1.2. Searle’s speech act theory Searle (1975) wrote that Austin’s classification needed to be seriously revised because it contained several weaknesses. One problem is that the same utterance can potentially have different illocutionary forces. The speaker will find it hard to assume whether the intended illocutionary force will be recognized by the hearer. Searle (1976) attempted to explain the notion of the illocutionary act by stating a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the performance of a particular kind of the illocutionary acts. He reclassified it and proposed so-called direct and indirect speech act. To be exact, a declarative used to make a statement is a direct speech act, but a declarative used to make a request is an indirect speech act (Yule, 1996). Searle’s taxonomy of speech acts includes five types: 1) Declarations (“bringing about changes through utterances”): These kinds of speech acts change the world via their utterance. E.g.: declaring, christening. 2) Representatives (“telling people how things are”): These speech acts, which represent a state of affairs, have a word-to-world fit. In other words, the speaker’s intention is to make words fit the world. E.g.: asserting, disagreeing. 3) Expressives (“expressing our feeling and attitudes”): These kinds of speech acts state what the speaker feels. They express psychological states and can be statements of pleasure, pain, likes, dislikes, joy, or sorrow. Based on this classification, compliment belongs to “Expressives”. 4) Directives (“trying to get people to things”): The speakers use these kinds of speech acts to get someone else to something. They express what the speaker wants. E.g.: commands, orders, requests. 51 35 30 25 20 Female Male 15 10 Figure 2-2: Interaction between compliment function and gender of participants According to the data in the table above, for females, the highest portion in their compliments was the function of making solidarity (31.82%), and the second place was admiration (29.55%). This means that females usually tended to show their solidarity and admiration as part of their politeness. With regard to males, the situation was reversed. Male compliments more often offered admiration, 25.32% of the time and less offered solidarity, 20.25%. This finding showed the similarity with Herbert’s (1989). 2.2.2. The differences in compliment responses between males and females In the total of 167 compliments, 130 compliments were given to someone present. Thus, the responses to these 130 compliments were analyzed. The distribution from the four perspectives is illustrated in Table 2-12. 52 Table 2-12: The distribution of compliment responses By gender of interactants F-f 31 F-m 30 M-m 19 F M By gender of complimenter 61 69 By gender of addressee 81 49 Total M-f 50 130 Compliment responses were classified mainly according to Herbert (1989)’s perspective. Slightly different from Herbert’s categorizations, the responses in this study were categorized into: Agreement, Non-agreement and Combination. The responses which combined more than one strategy were labeled as Combination, for example: Combination: Appreciation token + Return: (133): Amanda: You look totally… radiant. Seriously. Betty: Well, thank you. You, too. No Request Interpretation strategy was found in the data obtained for this study. Thus, it was excluded. The distribution of compliment response strategies is shown in Table 2-13. 53 Table 2-13: Compliment response interaction data Agreement Acceptance APPRECIATION TOKEN COMMENT ACCEPTANCE PRAISE UPGRADE Non-acceptance COMMENT HISTORY REASSIGNMENT RETURN Non-agreement SCALE DOWN DISAGREEMENT QUALIFICATION QUESTION NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT Combination Total F-f F-m M-m M-f 3 -- -- 20 --- -1 -1 -- ---- -2 18 -2 --21 --1 -9 -4 13 31 30 -19 50 The three broad categories of compliment responses are summarized as follows: Table 2-14: Three broad categories of compliment responses Agreement Non-agreement Combination 46 81 (35.38%) (62.31%) (2.31%) As it can be seen from Table 2-14, AGREEMENT responses accounted for 35.38%, only slightly over one-third of the data. This is different from Herbert’s (1989) result that agreement accounted for about two-thirds of the American data; and Holmes’ (1988b) finding that both genders were most likely to accept with an agreeing comment. Table 2-15: ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT responses a. By gender of complimenter b. By gender of addressee a χ2 = 13.3092, p = 0.000 F 10/61 (16.39%) 30/81 (37.04%) M 32/69 (46.38%) 12/49 (24.49%) 54 While AGREEMENT responses accounted for 35.38% of the data, the subcategory of agreement, i.e., ACCEPTANCE (APPRECIATION TOKEN, COMMENT ACCEPTANCE, and UPGRADE) occurred in 32.31% of the interactions. It was not the case that these ACCEPTANCE responses were equally distributed across interaction types. In particular, compliments offered by males were more likely to be accepted than compliments offered by females (p < 0.001), especially if offered to a female addressee. It was not the case that females simply accepted more compliments than males: compare the roughly 42.11% acceptance rate in male – male interactions with the 19.35% acceptance rate in female – female interactions (See Table 2-13). It was the gender of the person offering the compliment that served as a better predictor of compliment acceptance. Table 2-16: APPRECIATION TOKEN responses F M a. By gender of complimenter 6/61 (9.84%) 25/69 (36.23%) b. By gender of addressee 23/81 (28.4%) 8/49 (16.33%) a χ2 = 12.4221, p = 0.000 In respect of APPRECIATION TOKEN responses, the paradigm case of compliment acceptance (Herbert, 1989), Table 2-16 reveals that the predictor of this response type was the male gender of the complimenter, with 36.23% of male compliments receiving this “textbook” response in comparison with only 9.84% of compliments by females (p < 0.001). Female complimentees offered this response 28.4% as often as male complimentees (16.33%). It can be generalized that male compliments were accepted, one way or another, particularly by female recipients. 55 Table 2-17: AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE) responses F-f a. By gender of interactants 7/31 (22.58%) F-m 6/30 (20%) M-m 9/19 (47.37%) F 13/61 (21.31%) 31/81 (38.27%) b. By gender of complimenter c. By gender of addressee χ2 = 10.0021, p = 0.019 b χ2 = 9.9553, p = 0.002 c χ2 = 0.7834, p = 0.376 a M-f 24/50 (48%) M 33/69 (47.83%) 15/49 (30.61%) Considering simultaneously the two broad subcategories of AGREEMENT (i.e., Acceptance and Non-acceptance), in Table 2-17, we can see that the interaction type in which there was the greatest likelihood of AGREEMENT is male – female (48%) interactions, which as noted earlier, is the preferred interaction type for ACCEPTANCE responses. Male compliments were generally more likely to meet with AGREEMENT responses (See Table 2-17 (b)). Agreements occurred in slightly more than one-third (35.38%) of the compliment exchanges. The remaining two-thirds were comprised of the large category of NONAGREEMENT (62.31%), in which the compliment recipient avoided agreeing with the content of the compliment, and the smaller category of COMBINATION (2.31%). Table 2-18: NON-AGREEMENT responses By gender of interactants a a F-f F-m M-m M-f 23/30 10/19 25/50 23/31 (74.19%) (76.67%) (52.63%) (50%) χ2 = 10.7322, p = 0.013 According to the table above, the least likely scenario for NON-AGREEMENT occurred in the male – female interaction type, whereas, female compliments, especially those addressed to males were more likely to meet with this sort of NON-AGREEMENT. Regarding to the subtype of non-agreement, i.e., NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses, it is surprising that topic shift and silence accounted for 75.31% of NON-AGREEMENT responses. There was a significant difference between the genders in choice of this strategy (p = 0.001) (See Table 2-19). While this category accounted for only 3.13% of Holmes’ (1988b) data and 5.08% of Herbert’s (1989) Binghamton corpus, it occurred in a high frequency (46.15%) in the present study. Holmes (1988b) found a slightly stronger preference for these responses from men (5.3%) than women (2.4%). Herbert (1989) also concluded that this response type was most common in male – male interactions. In contrast, analyzing the present data according to gender of participants, it can be seen that this strategy was most common in female – male interactions and that there was a significantly greater likelihood of this response type from male addressees (Table 2-19 (c)). Table 2-19: NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses F-f a. By gender of interactants 18/31 (58.06%) b. By gender of complimenter c. By gender of addressee χ2 = 16.7502, p = 0.001 b χ2 = 13.3539, p = 0.000 c χ2 = 6.4583, p = 0.011 a F-m 21/30 (70%) F 39/61 (63.93%) 31/81 (38.27%) M-m 9/19 (47.37%) M-f 13/50 (26%) M 22/69 (31.88%) 30/49 (59.18%) The above analysis showed that, on the whole, there were significant differences between males and females in giving compliments and using the response strategies. Nevertheless, they still shared some common features. 2.3. Discussion 2.3.1. Discussion of the findings on the differences in compliment behavior between males and females The investigation of 167 compliments and responses in the American corpus revealed that gender played a significant role in compliment behavior. It is not the case that frequency of the compliment act was similar in all gender-varied cell types. Similar to Wolfson’s (1984) finding, females received far more compliments than males. One explanation for this might be that women’ positive attitude to compliments is recognized by both women and men in these speech communities. Perhaps people pay more compliments to women because they know women value them (Holmes, 1995). One might focus on why people not compliment men as often as they women. As Holmes (1995) put it, “it appears to be much more acceptable and socially appropriate to compliment a woman than a man” (p. 125). Since compliments express social approval, one might expect more of them to be addressed “downwards” as socializing devices, or directed to the socially insecure to build their confidence (Holmes, 1995). Wolfson (1984) also took this view: women because of their role in the social order, are seen as appropriate recipients of all manner of social judgments in the form of compliments… the way a woman is spoken to is, no matter what her status, a subtle and powerful way of perpetuating her subordinate role in society. (p. 243) In other words, she suggested that compliments addressed to women have the same function as praise given to children, that is they serve as encouragement to continue with the approved behavior. They could be regarded as patronizing, socialization devices (Holmes, 1995). Herbert (1989) claimed that compliments from males occurred less frequently than compliments from females and that the “easiest” type of compliment to collect was female – female. However, in the present study, the highest frequency of compliment behavior was interactions between males and females. As Mills (2003, p. 221) put it, the two genders “do not always operate in globally different ways but that there may be patterns to the way that the genders behave according to context and the gender of the interactants.” With regard to the topic of compliments, Holmes (1988b) concluded that women complimented each other on appearance more than on any other topics and compliments on possessions were used significantly more often between males. In contrast, the present data revealed that men gave more compliments on appearance than women did. In addition, for both genders, the performance or ability or skill was the most preferred topic to compliment. “The tendency for men to compliment women on this topic may reflect women’s subordinate social status in the society as a whole” (Holmes, 1988b, p. 456). In the initial discussion of the function of compliment exchanges, it was suggested that compliments serve a number of functions in interactions. “As 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” (Holmes, 1988a, p. 462). Herbert and Straight (1989) argued that American compliments are vehicles for the (re)negotiation of solidarity. Investigating a corpus of 167 American compliments, the researcher found that women tended to use and perceive compliments as solidarity signals. This potential use of compliments has been recognized by virtually all researchers who have speculated about the function of compliments (Herbert, 1986; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1987; Manes & Wolfson, 1980; Norrick, 1980; Wolfson, 1988; Wolfson & Manes, 1980). Different from women, men were more likely to experience compliments as an expression of admiration. This finding may open a new look since in the previous research, male compliments served the function of minimizing FTAs (Holmes, 1988a). The evidence in support of this interpretation of male compliments offered by Holmes was the high frequency of possession compliments in male – male interactions: 25% versus an average of 9.32% in other interaction types. Possession compliments were the most likely FTA in the sense given here. Furthermore, the interaction types in Holmes’ sample were not equally represented, for example, there were 248 female – female interactions and 44 male – male. 2.3.2. Discussion of the findings on the differences in compliment responses between males and females Perhaps, the differences in compliment response type frequencies from males and females were more impressive than the differences in compliment topic and function. It is surprising that in contrast with the researcher’s prediction and the results in most previous research, there was more likelihood of non-agreement responses than agreement responses in the present study. Pomerantz (1978) when investigating compliment responses of Americans mentioned one similar case. Unlike other native speakers of English, a wife always downgraded or rejected the compliments of her husband, Perflexed, which hurt him: Husband: Gee, Hon, you look nice in that dress. Wife: …It’s just a rag my sister gave me. (Pomerantz, 1978, p. 87) Abby, Perflexed’s friend, explained that the wife negated compliments just because she lacks self-confidence. Pomerantz, however, proposed that her behavior deviated from the common standards of accepting compliments. In order to explain the high frequency of non-agreement responses, the researcher proposed a hypothesis that it might be due to the original culture of the analyzed characters because America is called “the country of immigrants”. However, after examining the background of the participants, the hypothesis was rejected since there are only two characters emigrating to the U.S.: Christina from Scotland, the U.K; and Ignacio from Mexico. Non-agreement responses occurred more than agreement responses may be due to the high frequency (46.92%) of NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses in the present data. It can be explained that, for most of the compliments receiving no response, right after the compliment, the complimenter changed the topic. Complimenting is a type of speech act that needs immediate responses, so in those cases, when a new topic arose, the recipient did not respond to the compliment but responded to the new topic instead. For instance: (127): Justin: I made the frame out of chenille sticks. Daniel: Cool! Where’s you find those? Compliment New topic Justin: Fabric store. Response to the new topic There is an important difference in the likelihood of compliment ACCEPTANCE that depended most directly on the gender of the person giving the compliment. Compliments from females would most likely not be accepted, while compliments from males would, especially by male recipients. The increased frequency of ACCEPTANCE responses to male compliments by female addresses may be the manifestation of the linguistic consequences of status differences apparent in cross-gender interactions (Herbert, 1989). In the present study, it is also noticeable that American speakers accepted only slightly more than one-third of the compliments offered (33.84%). Similarly, Herbert (1989) considered differences in compliment behavior between American South African English speakers and noted that compliment acceptance was far less common among the former and the latter, 36.35% in comparison with 76.26%. This difference may be tied to “cultural value profiles” of the two groups (Herbert, 1989). CONCLUSION This chapter aims to encapsulate the main findings, draw out some intercultural and pedagogical implications, evaluate the limitations of the paper and propose recommendations for further studies. 1. Summary of the findings The purposes of this study were to investigate the differences in compliment behavior and compliment responses between men and women. The analysis of 167 compliments and compliment responses revealed the following results. Firstly, females made more compliments than males, but the difference was slight. This finding is different from Holmes’s study (1988a) arguing that women complimented far more than men. Regarding the objects of the compliments, both genders preferred to make compliments to the ones who were present. However, females gave more compliments to absent people than males did, which can be explained by their gossip-oriented personality. Folk linguists usually claim that females like to gossip more (Coates, 2004). Jones (1980) also stated that “Gossip is essentially talk between women in our common role as women (p. 195). Jones argued that gossip arises from women’s perception of themselves as a group with a great deal of experience in common. Thus, they discuss others behind their backs and express their feelings more than males. Secondly, females tended to compliment other females more whereas males complimented females far more than they complimented other males. Compliments between males and males were the fewest. In respect of the addressees, females received much more compliments than males. Thirdly, both genders complimented others’ performance or ability or skill most. This result is different from the former views. Some previous studies found that females tended to compliment others’ appearance, while males focused on possessions (Wolfson, 1983; Manes, 1983 and Holmes, 1988a). Besides, in this research, there was no significant statistic difference in the choice of the two topics: Possession and Personality between females and males, except for the topic of Appearance. Holmes (1988a) reported that there was the highest likelihood of compliments on appearance occurring in female – female interactions. Differently, from the present data, it is interesting to find that male – female interactions complimenting on appearance accounted for the highest frequency. Fourthly, similar to Herbert’s finding (1989), females used compliments most often to establish, confirm or maintain solidarity while male compliments more often offered admiration. Fifthly, in terms of compliment responses, different from most of the findings in previous studies, there was more likelihood of non-agreement than agreement in this research. It may be due to the high frequency of NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses. In particular, the interactions between males and females accounted for the highest percentage of AGREEMENT. With a view to ACCEPTANCE responses, compliments offered by males were more likely to be accepted than compliments offered by females. Considering Appreciation Token responses, the predictor of this type was the male gender of the complimenter. The results also revealed that the least likely scenario for NONAGREEMENT occurred in the male – female interaction type while female compliments, especially those addressed to males were more likely to meet with this sort of NONAGREEMENT. 2. Implications 2.1. Intercultural communication According to Mills (2003), “compliments are risky for both males and females as it is very easy for them to be misinterpreted; whilst they may be intended as positive politeness, they may be interpreted as face-threatening, for example, as overly familiar, intrusive, and impolite” (p. 221). Additionally, the discrepancies in perception and realization of compliments in English and other languages are likely to result in inevitable misunderstanding, unintended impressions, embarrassment, miscommunication, and cultural conflicts when, for example, non-native English speakers transfer their native cultural values and beliefs into English linguistic forms of compliments. Furthermore, the results of this study showed that there were gender-based differences in compliments and CR strategies. Thus, in an attempt to minimize potential misunderstanding, communication breakdown or culture shock, non-native English speakers should be aware of the differences in compliment behavior and CR strategies between genders in interactions with native English speakers. 2.2. Pedagogical implications Kiều (2006) stated Not all native speakers who gain in-born communicative capability in the context of their mother tongue through the process of language socialization are successful in communication in their native language and culture, let alone cultural outsiders who lack knowledge of the local socio-cultural norms. (p. 199) Unfortunately, the teaching of second/foreign languages is mostly left ‘unrelated to sociocultural context’ (Stern, 1983, p. 253). This is quite true in the context of Vietnam, where the teaching of English is essentially based on grammar patterns. Therefore, linguistic as well as pragmatic input should be included in textbooks and syllabus (Richards, 1983). The findings of this study may be a reminder for textbook writers and syllabus builders, and a guide for teaching English as a foreign language to the Vietnamese. For example, teachers should show the learners how to compliment and appropriately respond to an English compliment through communicative activities such as mini-projects, role plays or mingling activities. Mini-projects Firstly, the teacher can involve students in a mini-project, in which groups of students have to observe and analyze compliment and compliment response patterns used by English native speakers and Vietnamese native speakers in authentic situations. This project can be done via movie watching, like this study, or interviews. Students may categorize what they observe into the patterns shown in the present research, and then discuss the similarities and differences they can find. Thanks to this activity, students can learn not only to better their English comprehension but also to capture the culture associated with it. Role plays Savignon (1997) noted the benefits of role plays in the second language classroom since they give language learners the ability to interpret and focus on the meaning and not just the form of the utterance (p. 191). Role plays allow learners to experience situations, albeit hypothetical, that they would not normally encounter in the classroom. According to Lorenzo-Dus, role plays “yield authentic, real language from the learners” (p. 80). This authentic, real language could include equally authentic example of common CRs made by native English speakers. These scenarios could deal with a number of speech act situations, such as complimenting behavior. Students may work in groups of four, and play roles in those situations. Supervision and feedback should be available for the students. This activity helps students learn to think, act, and observe their peers’ interactions. Small rewards for the best actor and the best actress selected by the audience may be offered in order to encourage all students to work harder and to intentionally watch the plays. Mingling activities According to Richards (1985, p. 90), “communication as interaction” is “aimed largely at the need of speaker and hearer to feel valued and approved of”. It is the reason why the meaning-crossed mingling activity is mentioned. Through this activity, learners will have a chance to acquire the interactional skills other than transactional skills. In this activity, students are divided into two equal groups to perform some kind of information gap activity. The learners in the first group are given a cue card each and are thus assigned to respond to the compliments with a certain strategy. The numbers of strategies used are echoing the true occurrences of them in the American CRs retrieved. The second group of students are to move around and compliment on people in the first group. As long as the learners in the second group identify the right strategy used by pointing without speaking and approved by the compliment recipient, he or she gets a sticker from the compliment recipient. The learner with the most stickers becomes the winner. This activity is recommended to be played three to four times with different topics complimented, including appearances, performance or ability or skill, possessions and personality. The first group and the second group take turn playing the roles of complimenters and compliment recipients. This activity gives students chances to practice praising and responding to a compliment. 3. Limitations of the study Despite considerable efforts of the researcher, certain limitations are unavoidable in this preliminary research due to time constraint and other unexpected factors. First of all, although the primary materials from a TV-series can avoid the limitation of eliciting data outside of context as using DCT, they are not totally the same as real life. Secondly, the corpus chosen for the study is based on only ten episodes, which remains relatively small. Therefore, the results, to some extent, cannot reflect the behavior of a larger population. In spite of the aforementioned shortcomings, the researcher’s flexibility, serious work and justified data collection as well as research methodology well maintained the validity and reliability of the results. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that these above limitations should be taken into consideration when further studies are carried out. 4. Suggestions for further research With regard to compliment behavior, many other questions may arise, such as the offer of compliments and responses based on genders with different ages, different relationships, or different status. Thus, those factors should be taken into account in further research. Future studies might also concern the compliment behaviors between groups of English native speakers from different countries or even regions of the United States. Since it cannot be assumed that all English speakers compliment and respond to compliments in the same way, a study that compares compliment behavior and CRs by the users of the same language, but different regions and cultures would give more thorough understanding of this complicated speech act. Furthermore, a cross-culture study can be conducted to find out the differences in compliment behavior and compliment responses between English native speakers and nonEnglish native speakers. Last but not least, since the characters in a TV-series are fictional ones, it is highly recommended that further research should collect materials from naturally-occurring situations with the help of other methods such as conversation analytic approach. The marvelous and systematic methods used in conversation analysis (CA) are of great help in exploring the strategies concerning organization and development of on-going talk, as well as the usage of linguistic devices in certain structural organizations. According to Levinson (1983), it is CA with its elaborate techniques for the analysis and explanation of conversational mechanisms that can provide substantial insights into these matters, simply because conversation is the very place where people ‘do things with words’ together, and ‘the prototypical kind of language use’ (p. 284). Seeing the sound reason for CA to be applied to the study of speech acts, Levinson (1983) proposed: Nearly all the pragmatic concepts … claimed to tie in closely with conversation as the central or most basic kind of language usage … the proper way to study conversational organization is through empirical techniques, this suggests that the largely philosophical traditions that have given rise to pragmatics may have to yield in the future to more empirical kinds of investigation of language usage. (p. 285) (as cited in Kiều, 2006, p. 201) Therefore, the synthetic approach of CA could be adopted to investigate the speech act of compliments within and across languages and cultures. [...]... study 1.5 Gender and language 1.5.1 Gender and sex The English-language distinction between the words sex and gender was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s by British and American psychiatrists and other medical personnel work with intersex and transsexual patients Since then, the term gender has been increasingly used to distinguish between sex as biologically and gender as socially and culturally... differences, these differences are exaggerated and extended in the service of constructing gender (p 13) This study focuses on gender as a social construction – as the means by which society jointly accomplishes the differentiation that constitutes the gender order In particular, it analyzes the differences between males and females in complimenting and responding to compliments 1.5.2 Gender- based differences. .. “I” The findings concerning compliment formulas indicate that compliments are readily recognizable items of discourse They reduce the possibility of misunderstanding between the speaker and hearer Investigating the different ways in which Vietnamese compliments are expressed, Q Nguyễn (1998, p 183-185) suggested a range of lexico-modal markers commonly deployed by Vietnamese speakers in giving compliments: ... gave many minimal responses expressing interest (e.g., mm-hm) during their husbands’ speaking turns, while husbands’ withholding of minimal responses to their wives functioned to express lack of interest and to control topic development In groups, the recognized expert may exert control by saying little, thus withholding approval and forcing others to attend to subtle nonverbal cues to assess the expert’s... role-expectation in the given situation These findings about compliment topics suggest that it is important for nonnative speakers to know not only proper topics for compliments in the target language but also the underlying value of the target culture With regard to compliment responses, several researchers indicated that American speakers exhibit great ingenuity in avoiding the simple acceptance of compliments. .. done on time B: It is nothing (Cited in Brown & Levinson, 1987, p 48) 1.3 Compliments 1.3.1 The definition of compliments In the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2004, p 98), compliments have three kinds of meanings: they are remarks that express admiration of someone or something; they are remarks that show that we trust someone else and have a good opinion of them; they are remarks that express... emphasize the importance of the other’s time or concerns, and even include an apology for the imposition or interruption This is also called negative politeness (Yule, 1996) The negative politeness often leads to indirectness, and formality in language use In Brown and Levinson’s opinion, complimenting is a kind of positive politeness strategy that addresses the hearer’s positive face It signals the complimenter’s... realized in the use of verbal skills and transferred to other behavioral skills Using data from studies in Detroit and Belfast, from Japan and the Middle East, Chambers argued for a sex -based analysis of variability Although pointing to the tentative nature of this explanation he claimed that “female precocity in verbal skills beginning in infancy predisposes them to apply their verbal skills to all kinds... Sex differences findings can never enter the scientific discourse neutrally Rather, they are interpreted within the context of deeply held beliefs about women’s [and men’s] natures In accounting for their results, researchers cannot avoid being influenced by the sociocultural discourse of gender, because “facts” about sex differences have no meaning outside that discourse What “counts” as an interesting... within a community of practice, its is essential to analyze gender at both the local and the structural level, especially in its relation to the production and interpretation of politeness (p 235) 1.7 Related studies 1.7.1 Review of the studies on compliments and compliment responses For applied linguistics concerned with language acquisition and with intercultural communication, the insights gained . conduct a study on gender-based differences in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy TV- series Ugly Betty . The people in the TV series are not. of the American Comedy TV- series Ugly Betty . The analysis of 167 compliment exchanges showed that there were significant differences between males and females in giving compliments and using. LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ ÁNH NGỌC GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCES IN COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN THE AMERICAN COMEDY TV- SERIES UGLY BETTY Sự