Luận văn gender based differences in compliments and compliment responses in the american comedy tv series ugly betty

6, Significance of the study ‘The present study is conducted to find out the influences of gender on compliment behavior and compliment response stratepies in English It will add to the

TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration

Statement of the problem and rationale for the study -—

Aims of the study—~

a Organization of the study-

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW -

1.1 SPEECH ACT THEORY -

LLL Austin’s speech act theory

1.1.2 Searle's speech acl theory

1.2 POLITENESS AND FACE THEORY -

1.2.1, Notion of politeness and face

1.2.2.2 Leech’s politeness principh

1.4 COMPLIMENT RESPONSES -

1.5 GENDER AND LANGUAGE

1.5.3 Explanations for gender-based differences in language usc -

1.6 GENDER AND POLITENESS

1.7 RELATED STUDIE

1.7.1 Review of the studies on compliments and compliment responses —

1⁄72 Review of the studies on gender-based differences in compliments and

2.3 DISCUSSION

2.3.1 Discussion of the findings ơn the differences in compliment behavior between

2 Implications

2.1, Intercultural communication -

2.2 Pedagogical implications -~

3 Limitations of the study

4, Suggestions for further research-

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 Jonger 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)

Als , complimnents can have an ironic meaning (Iolmes, 1995, p 119) For instance, ifthe

interlocutors are enemies, the compliments between them have ironic meanings Within the scope of an M.A thesis, only sincere compliments are analyzed

5 Methodolagy

Quantitative and qualitative methods are both used in this paper with priorities given to the

quantitative onc In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are bascd 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 ani contrastive arc also ulilived lo 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 stratepies in English It will add to the rescareh on compliments and second language acquisition Regarding researchers who share the same interest in the Lopic, they could rely on this paper lo gel usefull information for their filure shudics.

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

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 Jonger 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)

Als , complimnents can have an ironic meaning (Iolmes, 1995, p 119) For instance, ifthe

interlocutors are enemies, the compliments between them have ironic meanings Within the scope of an M.A thesis, only sincere compliments are analyzed

5 Methodolagy

Quantitative and qualitative methods are both used in this paper with priorities given to the

quantitative onc In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are bascd 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 ani contrastive arc also ulilived lo 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 stratepies in English It will add to the rescareh on compliments and second language acquisition Regarding researchers who share the same interest in the Lopic, they could rely on this paper lo gel usefull information for their filure shudics.

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

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 Jonger 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)

Als , complimnents can have an ironic meaning (Iolmes, 1995, p 119) For instance, ifthe

interlocutors are enemies, the compliments between them have ironic meanings Within the scope of an M.A thesis, only sincere compliments are analyzed

5 Methodolagy

Quantitative and qualitative methods are both used in this paper with priorities given to the

quantitative onc In other words, all the conclusions and considerations are bascd 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 ani contrastive arc also ulilived lo 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 stratepies in English It will add to the rescareh on compliments and second language acquisition Regarding researchers who share the same interest in the Lopic, they could rely on this paper lo gel usefull information for their filure shudics.

4

Besides, the study could help Vietmamese leamers of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragnratic competence Ax for leachers of English, the findings trom 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 1 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies

Chapter 2 (The surly) describes the procedurcs 1o conduel the research, prescnls, 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 sludics, Following this parl are Refercneas and Appendix

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental cancepis related to the rescareh topic are reviewed Moreover, the overwiew of related studies is also taken into

consideration.

Interruptions in cross-sex conversations (Zimmerman 4 West, 1975) Female characters

Male characters The distribution of compliments to someone present and someone absent by gender of complimenter

The number of compliments in the overall cpisodes

Compliments by gender of participants Interaction between compliment, lopie and gender of participants

Compliments on Appearance

Compliments on Possession Compliments on Performance/ability/skill Cornplitnents on Personality

Interaction between compliment function and gender of participants

‘The distribution of compliment responses

Compliment response interaction data Three broad categories of compliment responses ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT responses

APPRECIATION TOKEN responses AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE) responses NON-AGREEMENT responses

NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses

worthwhile to study the interactions between men and women, men and men, or women

cullural differences Therefore, il is

s are parallel lo cre

and women exchanging compliments and responses

All those reasons stimulate the rescarcher to conduct a study on gender-based differences

in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy 'TV-series “Ugly Betty” ‘Ihe people in the ‘'V series are not real people, but the

aclors a1

s chosen to match the real ones in daily Hf, Whal can bo assured is thal the dala would bare resemblance to real life language Hopefillly, 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 frequoney of compliments, compliment topies and the functions of compliments, Secondly, the differences between males and females in compliments response strategies are explored ‘I'he Endings will pave the way for several pedagogical

and infercultural communication implications

3 Research questions

The research secks the answers to the following rescarch questions:

Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior between males

Interruptions in cross-sex conversations (Zimmerman 4 West, 1975) Female characters

Male characters The distribution of compliments to someone present and someone absent by gender of complimenter

The number of compliments in the overall cpisodes

Compliments by gender of participants Interaction between compliment, lopie and gender of participants

Compliments on Appearance

Compliments on Possession Compliments on Performance/ability/skill Cornplitnents on Personality

Interaction between compliment function and gender of participants

‘The distribution of compliment responses

Compliment response interaction data Three broad categories of compliment responses ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT responses

APPRECIATION TOKEN responses AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE) responses NON-AGREEMENT responses

NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses

worthwhile to study the interactions between men and women, men and men, or women

cullural differences Therefore, il is

s are parallel lo cre

and women exchanging compliments and responses

All those reasons stimulate the rescarcher to conduct a study on gender-based differences

in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy 'TV-series “Ugly Betty” ‘Ihe people in the ‘'V series are not real people, but the

aclors a1

s chosen to match the real ones in daily Hf, Whal can bo assured is thal the dala would bare resemblance to real life language Hopefillly, 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 frequoney of compliments, compliment topies and the functions of compliments, Secondly, the differences between males and females in compliments response strategies are explored ‘I'he Endings will pave the way for several pedagogical

and infercultural communication implications

3 Research questions

The research secks the answers to the following rescarch questions:

Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior between males

Interruptions in cross-sex conversations (Zimmerman 4 West, 1975) Female characters

Male characters The distribution of compliments to someone present and someone absent by gender of complimenter

The number of compliments in the overall cpisodes

Compliments by gender of participants Interaction between compliment, lopie and gender of participants

Compliments on Appearance

Compliments on Possession Compliments on Performance/ability/skill Cornplitnents on Personality

Interaction between compliment function and gender of participants

‘The distribution of compliment responses

Compliment response interaction data Three broad categories of compliment responses ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT responses

APPRECIATION TOKEN responses AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE) responses NON-AGREEMENT responses

NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses

4

Besides, the study could help Vietmamese leamers of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragnratic competence Ax for leachers of English, the findings trom 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 1 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies

Chapter 2 (The surly) describes the procedurcs 1o conduel the research, prescnls, 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 sludics, Following this parl are Refercneas and Appendix

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental cancepis related to the rescareh topic are reviewed Moreover, the overwiew of related studies is also taken into

consideration.

worthwhile to study the interactions between men and women, men and men, or women

cullural differences Therefore, il is

s are parallel lo cre

and women exchanging compliments and responses

All those reasons stimulate the rescarcher to conduct a study on gender-based differences

in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy 'TV-series “Ugly Betty” ‘Ihe people in the ‘'V series are not real people, but the

aclors a1

s chosen to match the real ones in daily Hf, Whal can bo assured is thal the dala would bare resemblance to real life language Hopefillly, 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 frequoney of compliments, compliment topies and the functions of compliments, Secondly, the differences between males and females in compliments response strategies are explored ‘I'he Endings will pave the way for several pedagogical

and infercultural communication implications

3 Research questions

The research secks the answers to the following rescarch questions:

Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior between males

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

worthwhile to study the interactions between men and women, men and men, or women

cullural differences Therefore, il is

s are parallel lo cre

and women exchanging compliments and responses

All those reasons stimulate the rescarcher to conduct a study on gender-based differences

in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations through the American Comedy 'TV-series “Ugly Betty” ‘Ihe people in the ‘'V series are not real people, but the

aclors a1

s chosen to match the real ones in daily Hf, Whal can bo assured is thal the dala would bare resemblance to real life language Hopefillly, 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 frequoney of compliments, compliment topies and the functions of compliments, Secondly, the differences between males and females in compliments response strategies are explored ‘I'he Endings will pave the way for several pedagogical

and infercultural communication implications

3 Research questions

The research secks the answers to the following rescarch questions:

Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior between males

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

4

Besides, the study could help Vietmamese leamers of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragnratic competence Ax for leachers of English, the findings trom 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 1 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies

Chapter 2 (The surly) describes the procedurcs 1o conduel the research, prescnls, 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 sludics, Following this parl are Refercneas and Appendix

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental cancepis related to the rescareh topic are reviewed Moreover, the overwiew of related studies is also taken into

consideration.

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

Cooperative principle

Compliment response Discourse Completion Test Face-saving act

Face-threatening act Fernale

Male

Politeness principle

4

Besides, the study could help Vietmamese leamers of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragnratic competence Ax for leachers of English, the findings trom 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 1 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies

Chapter 2 (The surly) describes the procedurcs 1o conduel the research, prescnls, 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 sludics, Following this parl are Refercneas and Appendix

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental cancepis related to the rescareh topic are reviewed Moreover, the overwiew of related studies is also taken into

consideration.

TNTRODUCTION

The introduction states the problom and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, scope, methodology, the significance and the organization of the whole paper Above all, it isin this chapler thai the research questions are sel oul 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 usc a targct 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 sinecre admization 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, Tolmnes, 19884; Wolfson, 1983, 1989) Complimenting is a tool of establishing fliendship 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 sacial interactions to fallow Americans pay compliments so frequently that naglooting 1o da so an even be interpreted as a sign of disapproval (Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1989, Woltson & Manes, 1980) and a wrong use of compliments may cause embarrassment and offense (Dunham, 1992; Llolmes & 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 fom different cultures interact, breakdowns in communication may happen due to signaling different speech act stratcgics that refcct the culturc’s distinctive interactional stylc

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

Interruptions in cross-sex conversations (Zimmerman 4 West, 1975) Female characters

Male characters The distribution of compliments to someone present and someone absent by gender of complimenter

The number of compliments in the overall cpisodes

Compliments by gender of participants Interaction between compliment, lopie and gender of participants

Compliments on Appearance

Compliments on Possession Compliments on Performance/ability/skill Cornplitnents on Personality

Interaction between compliment function and gender of participants

‘The distribution of compliment responses

Compliment response interaction data Three broad categories of compliment responses ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT responses

APPRECIATION TOKEN responses AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE) responses NON-AGREEMENT responses

NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses

4

Besides, the study could help Vietmamese leamers of English to be aware of sociolinguistic aspects of English and thus to improve their pragnratic competence Ax for leachers of English, the findings trom 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 1 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study including the definitions of key concepts and the discussions of related studies

Chapter 2 (The surly) describes the procedurcs 1o conduel the research, prescnls, 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 sludics, Following this parl are Refercneas and Appendix

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, theoretical preliminaries and fundamental cancepis related to the rescareh topic are reviewed Moreover, the overwiew of related studies is also taken into

consideration.