MALAY ESL LEARNERS PREFERRED STRATEGIES

IN COMPLIMENT RESPONSES

NOR SUHARTI ABDUL KARIM

FAKULTI BAHASA

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KOD PENYELIDIKAN UPSI01-03-112-05

2007

CONTENTS

List ofTables and FiguresAbstractAbstrak

iiiii

l.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study1.2 Purpose of study1.3 Statement of problem

122

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 3

2.1 Speech Act2.2 Research on compliment responses

46

3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Instruments3.2 Sample3.3 Limitations of the Study

8810

4.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 10

4.1 Data Analysis ofCompliment Responses11

4.1.1 Data Analysis for Situation 14.1.2 Data Analysis for Situation 24.1.3 Data Analysis for Situation 34.1.4 Data Analysis for Situation 44.1.5 Data Analysis for Situation 5

1416192023

5.0 DISCUSSION 25

5.1 Agreement5.2 Non-Agreement5.3 Other Combinations5.4 Suggestions for future research

25262930

6.0 CONCLUSION 31

REFERENCES

APPENDIX 1

32

33

List of Tables and Figures

Table I: Herbert's Taxonomy of compliment responses 7

Table 2: Questionnaire Scenario AttributesTable 3: Discourse Completion Test ScenariosTable 4: Compliment responses among Malay ESL learner

and native speakers

99

12

Figures

Figure I: Compliment Responses among Malay ESL SpeakersFigure 2: Frequency Count of compliment responses for Situation I

Figure 3: Frequency Count ofcompliment responses for Situation 2

Figure 4: Frequency Count of compliment responses for Situation 3

Figure 5: Frequency Count of compl iment responses for Situation 4

Figure 6: Frequency Count ofcompliment responses for Situation 5

13151719

2123

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the features of the speech act of complimentresponses as produced by Malay ESL speakers and the cultural

values that influence them. Using Herbert's (1986) taxonomy of

compliment responses, the data was collected using a Written

Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) which gave five situations in

various settings with interlocutors of both equal and unequal status.It is revealed that Malay ESL speakers has the tendency to giveappreciation token, provide comment history, scale down and shift

the credit to someone else when accepting compliments. It reflectsthe Malay values of humility and modesty when acceptingcompliments. Discussions regarding differences between

Australian native speakers, which povided the baseline data, andthe Malay ESL speakers are also covered in this study along with

cross-linguistic similarities and differences between the present

study and previous studies on compliment responses.

ii

ABSTRAK

Kajian ini berfokus kepada ciri-ciri kata balas kepada kata pujian yang dihasilkan

oleh penutur-penutur Bahasa Inggeris Sebagai Bahasa Kedua berbangsa Melayu dan

nilai budaya yang mempengaruhi kata-kata tersebut. Dengan menggunakanTaksonomi Kata Balas Pujian Herbert (1986), data telah dikumpul menggunakansoalselidik yang merangkumi lima situasi dalam keadaan berbeza yang melibatkan

interlokutor berlainan status. Didapati bahawa penutur-penutur Melayu lebih

cenderung untuk memberi apresiasi, komen sejarah, mengurangkan pujian dan

mengelak secara memberi pujian kepada orang lain apabila menerima pujian. Inimenunjukkan nilai merendah diri dan kesederhanaan bangsa Melayu dalam

menerima pujian. Kajian ini juga membincangkan perbezaan di antara data yang telah

dikumpul dari penutur-penutur natif Bahasa Inggeris dari Australia dengan data

penutur-penutur Melayu. Diskusi mengenai persamaan dan perbezaan ciri-ciri

Iinguistik antara budaya di antara kajian ini dengan kajian yang lalu jugadisertakan dalam penyelidikan ini.

iii

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In many ESL programmes, students have limited opportunity to communicate

and student-teacher interaction is often limited to basic patterns. As a result, second

language learners maybe proficient in grammatical terms but will not necessary possess

comparable pragmatic competence (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Kasper, 1997). It is

insufficient to simply know the language because true meaning is often not embedded

in the actual words uttered but in a complex of social knowledge. Therefore, the

knowledge of speech acts and their functions play a fundamental role in second

language communication. The focus of this paper is to discuss one particular speech

act, namely compliment responses and how it affects social interactions. It also presents

findings on a preliminary investigation that features distinctive' trends of compliment

responses among Malay ESL learners. Studies such as this add to the existing empirical

studies that describe and compare the speech acts in a variety of cultures. In addition,

there is a dearth of research on the pragmatic awareness of Malaysian learners of

English that would help to reduce instances of intercultural miscommunication.

1.1 Background of Study

Most language programmes are overly concerned with teaching grammatical

and phonological accuracy with less emphasis in assisting students to communicate

effectively in various situations. As a result, second language learners maybe proficient

in grammatical terms but will not necessary possess comparable pragmatic competence.

Intercultural miscommunication often develops as speakers who are of different first

language backgrounds adopt with them different value systems to that of the second

language. The variations in value systems are often reflected in speech acts with

different interpretations causing misunderstanding of the speaker's intention.

1.2 Purpose of study

The purpose of this study is to examine how Malay ESL speakers in Malaysia

use speech acts based on different situations of compliment responses. It also serves

to explain the Malay speakers' preferred patterns and style in responding to

compliments in English. As the baseline data is collected from Australia, this study

would be able to compare native and non-native speakers' production of compliment

responses although not quantitatively. The findings of this study will provide useful

data for describing Malay speakers variation in English compliment responses and

language use in a different contexts. The findings may also be used in research on

politeness and speech act realization.

1.3 Statement of problem

Because of the apparent lack of pragmatic awareness, communication

breakdown often occurs when interlocutors try to communicate across linguistic and

cultural boundaries. Speakers who are of different first language backgrounds adopt

with them different value systems which are constructed based on each speaker's Ll

cultural group (Chick, 1996; David, 2003). The variations in value systems are often

reflected in speech acts with different interpretations causing misunderstanding of the

speaker's intention. As such, serious miscommunication could occur that could lead to

total breakdown and in worse cases, stereotypical labelling of the second language user

2

as people who are insensitive, rude, or inept (Thomas 1983; Bardovi-Harlig, et.al

1991 ).

The scope of this study is limited to investigating the level of pragmatic

awareness of compliment responses using the theoretical framework suggested by

Herbert (1990). Compliment response is chosen because there has not been many

studies on this speech act In addition, there have been a dearth of studies related to

this speech act using Malay ESL learners as samples.

Therefore, with these problems in focus, this study seeks to address the

following questions:

1. How different do Malay ESL learners and Australian native speakers of

English respond to compliments?

2. To what extent do Malay ESL learners reflect their Ll behaviours when

responding to compliments in English?

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

This section explains the briefly the theory of speech acts and a brief literature

review on previous research conducted in the area of compliment responses.

2.1 Speech Act

Speech Act theory was first introduced by the philosopher John Austin in an

attempt to explain how particular utterances function within natural language. The

interest of this theory, according to Austin (1962) was to view how words carry actions

and not simply to provide information and facts. In a communication, a speech act is a

3

functional aspect that is important to an utterance. Utterances have a propositional

meaning or a literal meaning, for example, "I think someone hasn't submitted his

assignment" as uttered by a lecturer before he starts his class. In addition, utterances

also have a functional or illocutionary meaning or the effect the utterance or written

text has on the reader or the listener. Much of what we say means quite different from

the words and grammar used. Austin (1962) stressed the functions of speech as a way

of 'doing things with words'. A proposition may convey many different meanings. As

given in the example above, the lecturer's statement could serve as a reminder or a

warning to the student to submit the assignment.

Searle (1969,1979) further developed the theory of speech acts. In a similar

stance to Austin, Searle, et.a!. (1980) stete, "the theory of spe�ch acts starts with the

assumption that the minimal unit of human communication is not a sentence, but rather

the performance of certain kinds of acts." he introduced a broad classification of speech

types that we use to express our communicative intent and purpose in speaking:

• representatives - basic assertions made by the speaker which contain truth-value on

the proposition. If someone says, "I state that the moon is square", an assertion has

been made, although the statement is false.

• directives - utterances made in an attempt by the speaker to get the hearer to do

something for him. These directives may be expressed in different forms, such as in

question form or in command form like "Wouldyou mind buying me a pen?" or "Buy

me apen". In either case, the speaker wants the hearer to buy him a pen.

• commissives - these actions commit the speaker to some future event or action. These

4

also express what the speaker intends to do, such as promising, threatening, or

swearing, i.e. "1 promise to wash the dishes in the morning". In using the

commissives, the speaker is making an understood contract with the hearer that the

task will be carried out.

• expressives - these speech acts express psychological states within the speaker and tell

how the speaker feels. Examples of expressives are statements of happiness"Yahoo! 1

made it!", thanking someone "Thanks a lot", apologizing "I'm sorry", dislikes "1 hate

if' and pain "Ouch! It hurts!". Needless to say, these expressions must be context

dependent because the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts may be interpreted

differently in alternative environments.

• declaratives - these are statements made by authority which c�use immediate action

from the utterance. These are only effective when stated by the appropriate authority.

For example, " I hereby sentence you to 10 years prison" can only take effect if

declared by ajudge.

For this study, the Searle taxonomy will be used especially when focusing on

the speech act of compliment responses which lie under expressives. A pragmatic

approach will be taken in this study, placing the utterance within context. In addition,

as much as there are similarities, there are also different styles and important

differences in the selection, distribution and in the realizations of speech acts across

cultures. For instance, Hebrew speakers are more direct than American speakers when

making requests (Blum-Kulka 1982). Similarly, German speakers utter more direct

requests than British speakers (House and Kasper 1981 ).The next section presents some

research that have been conducted on compliment responses.

5

2.2 Research on compliment responses

The pragmatic perspective on compliment responses was first introduced by

Pomerantz (1978) in which he categorized compliment responses in three broad

categories namely accepting, mitigating and rejecting. In general people face a dilemma

when responding to compliments in that they are expected to both agree with the

complimenter and also to avoid self-praise.

Since his breakthrough study, empirical studies have been conducted and

demonstrated that speakers of different languages and language varieties follow

different patterns when responding to compliments. For instance in American society,

there is a pressure for a speaker to give compliments and to politely accept them. As a

consequence, this social expectation makes people pay compliments they do not mean

and accept compliments they do not agree with. (Golato 2002). Among Arabic speakers

compliments act as a tool to build solidarity ties and rejecting compliments may well be

detrimental to relationships. (Nelson, et. AI 1996). On the other hand, Chen (1993)

discovered that most Chinese speakers prefer to reject compliment so as to minimize

self-praise and appear modest. Similarly, Lorenzo-Dus (1999) indicated that Spanish

speakers choose to redirect the compliment and provide a history of the object so that

they can avoid self-praise.

Compliment response (CR) was selected for this study for the following

reasons. First, although pragmatic transfer in other speech acts is well established by

now, little empirical research, if any, has been conducted that addresses how ESL

learners reflect their L I behaviours when responding to compliments in English. The

second reason is a dearth of empirical research in the study of compliment responses

6

and even for other speech acts that uses Malay ESL speakers apart from Holmes

(1988). However, this study differs to that of Holmes (1988) because its population

consist of students who are living in Malaysia whereas Holmes' sample are students

who have studied in New Zealand for at least I year.

This study applies the framework suggested by Herbert (1986, (990) who gave

a three-category, twelve-type taxonomy of compliment response by speakers of

American English as in Table I:

Table 1

Herbert's Taxonomy of compliment responses

Response Tvpe ExamplesA. I. AcceptancesAgreement

1. Appreciation Token Thanks; Thank you;[smile]2. Comment Acceptance Thanks, it's my favourite, too.3. Praise Upgrade Really brings out the blue in my

eyes, doesn't it?

II. Comment History I bought for the trip to Arizona.

III. Transfers

I. Shift My brother gave it to me.

CreditlReassignment So's yours.2. Return Compliment

7

B. Non- I. Scale Down It's really quite old.agreement

II. Question Do you really think so?

III. Nonacceptances

1. Disagreement I hate it.2. Qualification It's all right, but Len's is nicer.

IV. No acknowledgement [silence]c. Other

interpretation I. Request You wanna borrow this one too?

3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Instruments

Data was collected using Written Discourse Completion Questionnaire (WDCT)

which incorporates five scenarios that mirrors the discourse completion task (OCT)

format structured by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989). The scenarios incorporate

a range of interlocutors from two contexts (family and school). In addition to the

student as participant, there were a total of five additional participants: peer, father,

neighbour and lecturer. A tentative indication of the status relations between the two

are listed along with the participants for each scenario as given in Table 2:

8

Table 2

Questionnaire Scenario Attributes

Situations Settinf! Speaker, Hearer Compliment topic1 College Student = Classmate Possession

(new handphone)2 College Student = Classmate Act (Presentation)3 Family Student < neighbour's mom Act (cooked meal)4 Family Student < Father Character-ability

(housekeeping)5 College Lecturer> Student Possession ( computer)

The scenarios given in the OCT are given in Table 3:

Table 3

Discourse Completion Test Scenarios

Situation 1: Your classmate, Rina, has just bought a brand new handphone which has allthe latest hi-tech features. You have complimented her on her new handphone. How do

you think she would respond?Situation 2: You are at the university. Your classmate, Ahmad, gave a good presentationin class. You compliment him on his presentation. How do you think he would respond?

Situation 3: You have just finished having dinner at your neighbour's house that was

prepared by Pn Sarah (the mother). You told her that it is one of the best meals you'vehad for a long time. How do you think she would respond?

Situation 4: Your father always keep the house clean and tidy even when your mother is

away to visit your grandmother for a week. You compliment him on his housekeepingability. How do you think he would respond?

Situation 5: You are at the university and class has just ended. While you were puttingaway your computer notebook, your lecturer notices it and says that she or he likes it.How would you respond?

Although some critics of OCT states that this instrument do not represent actual

language use, they do provide preliminary overview on how the participants may

interact using compliment responses and also their knowledge and attitudes regarding

9

the use of compliment responses.

3.2 Sample

A total of 78 Malay undergraduates who are taking courses in Mathematics,

Biology and Music took part in this study. The participants were in intact classes

making this a sample of convenience All of them speaks English as their second

language. This is important so as to eliminate the influence of a third language into the

pragmatic production of the compliment responses. Based on their SPM's English

language and MUET results, their level of English competency ranges between

intermediate to lower advanced.

At this preliminary stage and given the scope of this study, these groups

completed the Written Discourse Completion Questionnaires (WDCT) which consist of

5 situations for them to respond. The baseline data was collected from 23 Australian

undergraduate taking courses in Nursing, Occupational Therapy and Arts degrees.

They were also given the same questionnaires. The reason for the collection of baseline

data from Australia is to provide data on how English native speakers respond to

compliments in their native language and not in so much as to provide a quantitative

comparison to the Malay ESL data.

3.3 Limitations of the Study

As the research design shows, the comparisons are made possible by controlling

other variables. In so doing, this study limits its generalizability. One cannot conclude

that all Malay ESL learners demonstrate their Ll behaviours when responding to

10

compliments in English although the results from this study show this tendency. Even

the same participants may perform differently if the target of the compliment was

different.

I would also like to limit the scope of the study as it is. Instead, I would

encourage further studies with different populations, different types of compliments,

different amounts of prior exposure to English, etc. It is my belief that an accumulation

of future research like this will capture the whole picture of compliment response as a

reflection of L2 learners' pragmatic transfer.

4.0 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Data Analysis of Compliment Responses

A total of 412 compl iment responses were collected and the distribution of each

type is summarized in Table 4:

11

Table 4

Compliment responses amongMalay ESL learners and native speakers

Response Type Malay AustralianN % N %

A. Agreement 1. Acceptances

I. Appreciation Token 69 16.6 13 13.12. Comment Acceptance 74 18.3 27 27.33. Praise Upgrade 32 7.2 15 15.2

Il. Comment History 57 14.1 8 8.1

III Transfers

I. Shift 25 6.1 4 4.0

CreditlReassignment2. Return Compliment 3 0.8 4 4.0

B. Non- I. Scale Down 48 11.4 9 9.1

agreement

II. Question 19 4.4 2 2.0

Ill. Nonacceptances

I. Disagreement 7 1.3 2 2.02. Qualification 4 1.0 2 2.0

IV. No acknowledgement 3 0.8 0 0

C. Other

interpretation I. Request 0 0 0 0*D. Other Various combinations 71 18.4 13 13.1CombinationsTOTAL 412 100 99 100• This is not featured in Herbert's taxonomy

The graph in Figure 1 shows the frequency count ofeach type of compliment responses

produced by the population.

12

Figure 1. Compliment Responses among Malay ESL Speakers

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 TOTAL

Situations

1 � Appreciation token

i_Comment acceptancei0 Praise upgradei0 Comment history

I_ Shift credit,

i � Return compliment !

I_ Scale down io Questioning/Reassurance I_ Disagreement

I

_ Qualification IIII Silence/No response i10 Interpretation as a request!�rcombinatio�_:

As shown in both Table 4 and Figure I above, the most utilized type of compliment

response is comment acceptance which constitutes 18.3% of the overall responses.

Appreciation token appears in most of the responses (16.6%) and the comment history

type of compliment response produced 14.1% of the total responses. It is also

interesting to note that the subjects in this study prefer to use the scale down type of

response (11.4%). However, none of the participants interpreted any of the

compliments as a request and only a few (0.8%) of them gave return compliments to

the speakers. But the most interesting finding is that a considerable number of

participants use a combination of compliment responses (18.4%) with a high

occurrence of the scale down strategy.

In comparison with the Australian native speakers of English, it is found that

comment acceptance strategy of compliment responses accounts for 27.3% of the total

13

responses. However, the praise upgrade is also a preferred strategy used by the

Australian subjects. Similar to the findings discovered for the Malay ESL speakers, the

combination of strategies is also being widely used among the subjects.

4.1.1 Data Analysis for Situation 1

Figure 2 shows the frequency count of compliment responses produced by

Malay ESL speakers for Situation 1. For Situation I, most of the participants prefer to

provide comment history (N=18) and shift the credit (N=13) of buying the handphone

to someone close (mainly father or brother) and boyfriends:

• This is a present from my father at my birthday.• My boyfriend got it for me.

• Actually, it's from my father for my success in the last exams.

• Thanks. My brother gave it to me last week. It's a birthday present.• It's not so expensive• I bought it at discounted price.

14

Figure 2

Frequency Countfor Compliment Responsesfor Situation 1

Situation 1

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Types of responses

It is clear that the Malay subjects may want to appear modest about their possession in

that they did not buy it from their own pocket money but someone else has bought it for

them. Not many of the respondents gave praise upgrade (N=II) as their responses.

Even when some responses were in the form of a combination (N=14), they still try to

avoid self-praise:

• Thanks, my dad bought it for me. Your handphone is nice, too.(Appreciation token + shift credit + return compliment)

15

• Thank you. Not very expensive. My father bought it for me.(App.token + scale down + shift credit)

• Thank you so much, but this is a simple one. I buy it in the Pacific.

(App. Token + scale down + comment history)

• It's not really that cool. Ayu's is better.

(Disagreement + Qualifications)

However, most ofAustralian subjects (N=5) prefer to praise upgrade their handphones

by stating "how cool it is", "yeah, there's a camera, too" and "it's got cool features"

with only a few shifting the credit (N=2). This shows a difference in response in that

Australian subjects are happy to receive compliments about their possessions and feels

confident about showing them off to the complimenters.

4.1.2 Data Analysis for Situation 2

Figure 3 displays the results for the frequency count of compliment response among

Malay ESL speakers. For Situation 2, most respondents (N=15) will accept the

compliments by giving appreciation token such as "Thank you", "Thanks", etc. Apart

from providing a comment history ( " I just got it from the Internet", " I took a lot of

time and effort", etc.) there were some instances when the Malay subjects (N=5) tend

to question the complimenter regarding their presentation:

• Really? I hope so.

• Are you sure? I don't believe you.

• You think so?

16

Figure 3

Frequency Countfor Compliment Responses for Situation 2

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The question strategy reflects a need for reassurance by the speaker and also a strategy

to mitigate the positive compliments. Scaling down the compliments is also another

feature that is widely used for this situation:

• I think I'm not the best from the others

• Thank you, I don't think so. There are many other our classmate doing betterthan me.

• But I think I have somebody more good presentation than me.

17

This may create a sense of frustration among native speakers because as discovered

through the Australian data (N=23), all of the subjects tend to accept the compliment

without questions:

• Thank you, I did study hard so hopefully it showed.

• Oh thanks, yeah, I worked hard on that.

• Thanks, just pulled a few things together last night.• Thanks, not too bad. I was pretty nervous.

However, there were some combination responses that reflect self-praise:

• I've been preparing for weeks! It's really hardwork but I think today has paid for

it all.

(Comment history + praise upgrade)• Thanks. It's nothing. If you are well-prepared, you can do anything.

(App. Token + praise upgrade)• I don't think my presentation is good but now I get strength to do very well for

next presentation.

(Disagreement + praise upgrade)

This may indicate that some of the subjects are at an advanced level of the

interlanguage stage whereby they try to produce responses similar to native speakers.

On the other hand, It could also reflect a sense of competition between the subjects in

terms of academic performance. As they wish to portray themselves in a positive light,

more self-praises are produced. Even so, the Malay subjects tend to be very careful

when doing this as they will not put it forward directly. Rather, they will downplay the

self-praise with either a comment history or a disagreement first.

18