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1、韶 关 学 院毕 业 论 文 题 目：Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese and English Compliments and Responses: A Contrastive Study学生姓名： 学 号： 系院： 外语学院英语系专 业： 英 语班 级： 指导教师姓名及职称： 讲师 起止时间： 2005年11月2006年5月教务处制表FOREIGN LANGUAGES SCHOOL Shaoguan University Declaration of Academic IntegrityI promise that the thesis contai

2、ns no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any institutes of higher learning and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except when due reference is made in the text

3、of the thesis. I understand that to do so would mean that I had committed plagiarism, and that it is my responsibility to be aware of the Universitys regulations on plagiarism and their importance.Signed: Date: May 14, 2006Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese and English Compliments and Responses:

4、A Contrastive StudyAbstract: As a general rule, everyone in the world is in sympathy with compliment, which is like the lubricant in daily life. The Chinese culture, and English culture alike, has its own ways of expressing compliments. From the contrastive point of view, their forms, content, and r

5、esponses are greatly influenced by their own communicative cultures, understandings of politeness and other factors. China and Britain have begun to contact with each other for a long time. It is no doubt that the accommodation of compliments has become deeper and deeper. Further research on this to

6、pic is still certainly needed in future. The language and culture are changing, so, further contrastive study about the changes of compliments may have significant researching value. Keywords: compliment; response; linguistic characteristics; contrastive study; cross-cultural communication英汉称赞语与回应的语

7、言特征研究摘要：一般说来，每个人都对称赞语充满好感，它就像是日常生活中的润滑剂。对于称赞语，中英文化都有属于自己的表达方式。从比照分析的角度来看，受交际文化，对礼貌的理解的差异等其它因素的影响，中英称赞语的形式，内容和应答都有各自的一些规律，当然也不乏共同点。中英两国人民的交往由来已久，他们对彼此之间的称赞语也表现出越来越强的适应性。文化是不断开展、进步的，而语言作为文化的载体也一直在吸收新的元素，因此，对中英称赞语的研究有很高的使用价值和学术意义。关键词：称赞语；回应；语言特征；比照研究；跨文化交际Contents1. Introduction.12. Compliments.22.1 Th

8、e denotative and connotative meaning of compliment.22.2 Classifications of compliment.2 2.3 Communicative functions of compliment.33. Contrastive Study of Compliments.4 3.1 Commons.43.1.1 In form.43.1.2 In content.6 3.2 Differences.73.2.1 In form.73.2.2 In content.74. Contrastive Study of Responses8

9、4.1 Chinese compliment responses.84.2 English compliment responses.105. Current Developments of Compliments and Responses.115.1 Cultural background being understood deeper.115.2 Conceptualization of compliments refreshed.126. Analysis of Factors Leading to the Differences in Compliments136.1 Communi

10、cative culture.136.2 Politeness.136.3 Interlocutors relationship.147. Conclusion.14References.16Acknowledgements.171. IntroductionA compliment is a frequent speech act or an act sequence (Wolfson, 1989:1), and it is “a polite speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone oth

11、er than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristics, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer Holmess (1988:446). It follows naturally that compliment is important speech act that plays a vital role in peoples daily interaction. Infl

12、uenced by cultural background and other factors, however, the Chinese and the English have their own understanding of and attitudes towards compliments and compliment responses.In order to use Chinese and English compliments appropriately, we should pay attention to the relationship between culture

13、and language. Without exaggeration, language is the basic tool for peoples communication, on one hand, we learn about other people through the content they express and the way that they say; on the other hand, we learn about ourselves through the reaction given by our listeners. Culture is “that com

14、plex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Tyler, 1871:1), or “the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles

15、, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving (Samovar and Porter, 2000: 12). Language is a miniature of culture, and to some extent culture constrains languages dev

16、elopment (Sapir, 1949). In conclusion, culture and language are keenly related to each other. Such being the case, if the Chinese and the English want to communicate with each other without obstacles, they should have some knowledge of cultural connotations hidden behind the Chinese and English lang

17、uages, especially their compliments customs and linguistic characteristics. This thesis is thus motivatedly a contrastive study of Chinese and English compliments from cultural distinctions.2. Compliment The denotative and connotative meaning of complimentEach lexical word and phrase has its denotat

18、ive meaning and connotative meaning. Denotative meaning, or literal meaning, is generally defined in the dictionary. Therefore it is readily found, in Websters Dictionary of the English Language (1979) that the denotative meaning of compliment is “to praise, to flatter by expressions of approbation,

19、 esteem or respect, to congratulate or pay a compliment. Here, “to praise in English and“表扬，称赞 in Chinese both stand for laud with a commendatory sense; in contrast, both “to flatter in English and“恭维，奉承，阿谀in Chinese represent adulation with a derogatory senses. From this point of view, the denotati

20、ve meanings of Chinese and English compliments have similarities.Denotative meaning is the basis of understanding and it is generally stable. Compared with it, connotative meaning is affected by some objective factors, such as peoples educational level, attitudes towards life and the world. To recap

21、, connotative meaning is culturally biased, reflecting not only particular cultural background of one nation but also its psychologically cultural tendency, and finally determining the nations communication behaviors. When it comes to compliments connotative meaning, in terms of Chinese and English

22、compliments, traditionally and simply speaking, the English tend to accept compliments with grace, because their strategies are characterized by acceptance which is governed by Leechs Agreement Maxim; whereas the Chinese are likely to deny compliments out of modesty, for their strategies are charact

23、erized by compliment rejection and self-denigration which are motivated by Leechs Modesty Maxim (Wang and Tsai, 2003:127). Classifications of complimentAs said above, a compliment is a speech act that is accomplished either explicitly or implicitly to express admiration or approval for some good of

24、the addressee. Therefore, compliment is not monotonous but diversified. Based on the honesty aspect, compliments can be classified into two groups, one is sincere compliment, and the other is insincere compliment (Li, 1999:62). To a great extend, the former is agreeing reasonably; furthermore, it is

25、 a kind of appreciation which comes from heart. For example, “You work was outstanding! “You really did a good job! However, the later disobeys the Truth Principle. That means, one uses the compliment in order to achieve a certain or unknown purpose. For example, “How marvelous the meal you cooked!

26、The implication of this statement is that: What an awful meal you cooked. Of course, we can sort the compliment from other respects, and I will give a more detailed study in the following length of writing.2.3 Communicative functions of compliment.It is generally assumed that compliment is one of th

27、e most frequently polite speech acts in daily verbal interaction, and its vital communicative functions are beyond doubt. Compliments establish solidarity with the interlocutors by the speakers praising some features relevant to the listener (Wolfson and Manes, 1981:115-132). That is, compliments ca

28、n be treated as positively affective speech acts directed to the addressee that serve to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and listener. To recap, compliments appeared to be functionally complex speech acts which served as solidarity signals, commenting on friendships, atten

29、uating demands, smoothing ruffled feathers and bridging gaps created by otherwise offenses (Holmes, 1988:464). In addition, the functions of complimenting are varied. From the ethnographic point of view, the function of compliments varies from culture to culture, community to community. But no matte

30、r what functions do compliments have, they are generally described as positive politeness strategies serving to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and addressee. We use compliments because we intend to make others feel good and then have good interactions with them.Specifical

31、ly speaking, for interpersonal relations, compliments can promote friendship and understanding, raise communication effects; for countries, proper use of compliments may be a key to certain diplomatic issue. Just as Wolfson said, compliments have been said to cream the social wheels and thus to serv

32、e as social lubricant that create or maintain rapport (Wolfson, 1983:89).3. Contrastive Study of ComplimentsAccording to Shihs (1986:35) study on a comparison between the ways compliments function in English and in Chinese, complimenting behavior is quite similar across languages except that the com

33、plimented items may differ somewhat according to what is highly valued in the culture. With the fast development of communication and contact between people of different nations and regions, contrastive study become more and more meaningful and important in academic sense as well as in daily interac

34、tion. For the Chinese and the English, contrastive study of compliments can expand their view, enable them to respect and understand each others culture, because cultural elements are the constituent parts of cross-cultural communication; and finally help them achieve better cross-cultural communica

35、tion. Therefore, it is significant to make a contrastive study of compliments between Chinese and English.3.1 CommonsAlthough China and UK and other western countries have different cultural backgrounds, customs, ways of living, patterns of thought, verbal languages, concepts of value, behaviors and

36、 personal beliefs, some similarities can be found in Chinese and English compliments. 3.1.1 In FormAccording to a corpus of 320 examples from some conversational Chinese textbooks which was collected by Shi Jaiwei (2000:42-43), there are three major sentence structures in Chinese compliments.(1) PRO

37、N (NP) (ADV) ADJ 你的手艺真不错。/ 你的书写很工整。(2) PRON (NP) v/is (ADV) ADJ 你的棋下得真好。/你的课讲得真好。(3) PRON (NP) (ADV) v/is ADJ (NP) 他真有运动细胞！/你真是今天的稀客啊！In Mr. Shis collection, there are only six kinds of compliments are highly patterned as fixed formulas, besides the three above, the rest are:(4) (ADV) ADJ 好！/ 太美了！(5

38、) PRON (NP) Prep. Phrase (ADJ) 小强比以前乖巧多了。(6) (ADV) (V/is) ADJ NP 好聪明的孩子啊！As for English, Wolfson & Manes (1981:115-132) pointed out that compliments are noticeably formulaic speech acts in that a very small number of lexical items and syntactic patterns account for the great majority of them in thei

39、r corpus. In their opinion, there were nine types of compliments with fixed forms. (7) NP is/looks (really) ADJ His handwriting is clear.(8) I (really) like/love NP I really appreciate your hard work.(9) PRON is (really) an ADJ You are a nice person.(10) You V (NP) (really) ADJ NP You gave me a big

40、hand.(11) You V (NP) (really) ADV Youve really finished the work successfully.(12) You have (a) ADJ NP You have a warm heart!(13) What (a) ADJ NP What a good job you did!(14) ADJ+NP Good job!(15) Isnt NP +ADJ? Isnt your chair comfortable?To sum up, both Chinese and English compliments have some fixe

41、d sentence structures, and most of them are similar, which provide convenience for peoples communication.3.1.2 In ContentContent are the most important component of communication, let alone the usage of compliments. Appropriate content can shorten communicators psychological distance (Hu, 2002). Tho

42、ugh content changes with circumstances, there are some common points between Chinese and English. Outlooks, dressing, personal ability, and the persons/things that relate to communicators, etc. are popular complimentary topics in Chinese and English.Compliment ContentChinese English(16) Personality你

43、很健谈！ You are a good talker!(17) Personal ability 你的发音很地道！ Your pronunciation is quite native!(18) Outlooks and dressing 你这个新造型真好看！Your new look is really beautiful!(19) Persons or things relate 你妈妈烧的菜好吃! Your mothers cooking is delicious.to Communicator (20) Personal appearance 你的举止端庄! Your behavior

44、 is dignified andmagnanimous! (21) Achievement 你的表演大获成功！Your performance was successful!Besides the structures above, there are also lexical items in common. For example, correspondent to Chinese positive adjectives“好，漂亮，可爱, in English “nice, good, beautiful, pretty, great are items most frequently

45、used to show praise; and adverbs of degree such as “really, “extremely and so forth in English and their Chinese equivalents“很，非常, etc. are also favorably used in both languages. In conclusion, Chinese and English compliments share a lot of similarities.3.2 DifferencesSince it is recognized that com

46、pliments may differ quite remarkably across languages and cultures, compliments in Chinese may differ from those in English.3.2.1 In FormChinese and English compliments have fixed sentences to follow. Based on Wolfson & Maness investigation, the total number of English compliments is nine, but the r

47、esults of Shi Jiaweis collection show there are only six sentence structures in Chinese compliments, this is the difference in number.Therefore, we should pay attention to the form differences when translating Chinese compliment into English or English into Chinese. For example, “Your watch is beaut

48、iful. In Chinese, we say“你的手表很漂亮, where“是“is should be omitted. Furthermore, most of Chinese compliments begin with the second person “you, and “your, while English compliments tend to begin with the first person “I. The difference in language forms can be attributed to the two different cultures. P

49、eople cultivated in English culture tend to believe that each person has his own respectable personality, but people reared in Chinese culture pretty respect interpersonal relation and teamwork.3.2.2 In ContentApart from the common topics of Chinese and English compliments mentioned above, there are

50、 some differences. The Chinese would like to compliment on peoples relationship, intelligence, and the like. For example:(22) 你俩真亲热。 (You are a devoted couple.)(23) 你真聪明。 (You are very clever.)The topics that have something to do with privacy such as age, family life, marriage, salary should not be

51、raised in English compliments. When encountering an old Chinese man who is over 90 and you praise him for his solid body at this age, he will feel proud of himself. But if you say this to an old English man, he may think he is of no use any longer. “Fat is another sensitive word in English, and you

52、should avoid mentioning it when talking with the English.4. Contrastive Study of ResponsesCompliment responses are essential parts of the whole compliment interlocution. They make up adjacent pairs with compliments. Generally speaking, the Chinese are more likely to reject compliments from others; i

53、n contrast, the English accept them gladly. The similarities and differences in compliment response are the reflection of their personal cultural backgrounds, social values and so on.4.1 Chinese compliment responsesIn communication, the Chinese people mainly follow the Modesty Maxim, and the complim

54、ent responses can fully reflect this characteristic. The followings are some types of responses.A. Thanking but adding some comments to show self-effacingThese responses are in accordance with the Chinese culture. First, the addressee accept the praise given by the speaker, and then he add some nega

55、tive opinions with “but, “enough, “though to show his modesty, which is in line with Chinese moral. For example: (24) a. 你的字写得真好！ (Your handwriting is very good!)b. 谢谢，我只是依样画葫芦。(Thanks. But I just imitate others.)(25) a. 十分美味的事物！ (How delicious the food is!)b. 谢谢，但我觉得味淡了点。(Thank you. But I feel it i

56、s a little tasteless.)B. Reassigning of the complimentThese responses are used when the addressee feel ashamed of the compliments. In doing so, he shifts the focus of the compliments to others. For example: (26) a.干得好！ (Well done!)b. 没有妈妈的帮助，我哪能完成得了啊。 (I could not have finished it withoutMothers hel

57、p.)C. Return of the complimentThe addressee praises the speaker as well. For example:(27) a. 这毛衣打得真好！ (What a nice sweater youve knitted!) b. 你要干，肯定比我好。 (You could do it better than me.) D. Questioning.These responses can function as either agreement or rejection. In doing so, the addressee needs th

58、e speakers further sincere reconfirmation to the addressees satisfaction (or the speakers negation/withdrawal of his/her own previous utterance as a mere adulation, which the addressee aversively dislikes sometimes). For example: (28) a. 你干得真出色！ (You really did a good job!) b. 真的吗？ (Really?)(29) a.

59、你的新自行车不错。 (Your new bike is good!) b. 你不觉得这个款式有点旧？ (Dont you think its style is outdated?)E: Scaling downThese responses point out the defects of the things or persons praised. The addressee wants to show agreement to the speaker, but constrained by the Modesty Maxim, so he applies downgrade as his

60、best choice. For example: (30) a. 你穿这件新夹克真精神。 (You look so great in this new jacket.)b. 廉价货，大降价时买的。 (Its cheap. I bought it just on sale.)The five kinds of responses above are called Acceptance with Amendment (Ye, 1975:207-295).They are the most favorable ones in actual communication. Apart from tho

61、se above, there are some fixed expression to serve as compliment responses, such as “承蒙夸奖I am indebted to you for a compliment，“多谢恭维(many thanks for complimenting me)，“哪里哪里(Far from it)，“不敢当(I really dont deserve it)，“过奖了(You flatter me)， etc. All in all, according to Leech 1983, the Chinese people treat the Modesty Maxim as the overridi