Журнал «Восток (Oriens)»
Статьи
Compliment response in Russian and Chinese speech behavior
Аннотация
| DOI | 10.31696/S086919080031928-7 |
| Авторы | |
| Журнал | |
| Страницы | 224 - 239 |
| Аннотация |
Compliment response is one of the most studied speech strategies in modern pragmatics research. Early work on the speech behavior of the Chinese found that Chinese speakers in most cases reject the compliment. Researchers believe that this is due to the norm of modesty and respect for other people, as well as self-deprecation. Most researchers of Russian speech behavior note that in Russian communicative behavior a compliment often causes a feeling of self-consciousness, which can be explained by the modesty of Russian people, and entails either a negative reaction or an absence of any reaction whatsoever. The last years of work on the study of the speech behavior do not lose their relevance, especially since they give different results. However, there has not been a comparative study of Russian and Chinese speech tactics of compliment response. This study aims to answer the following main questions: What tactics of compliment response do native Russian and Chinese speakers favor in symmetrical communicative situations? And what are the main differences and similarities between Russian and Chinese speech behaviors in terms of tactics of compliment response? As part of this study, we conducted a semi-closed survey with the participation of 300 Russian and 300 Chinese students. The results showed that Russian and Chinese youth overwhelmingly accept compliments from other people, and do so mostly verbally. At the same time, Chinese people reject compliments almost twice as often as Russians, especially in the aforementioned situations, and Chinese men do it more often than women. |
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| Получено | 03.11.2024 |
| Дата публикации | |
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| Статья |
IntroductionCompliment tactic, being an effective emotionally attuning speech act, is certainly a culturally conditioned speech tactic, which represents a twofold formation: compliment and compliment response, whereby a compliment response is the closing part of this adjacent pair, an element of a basic frame that helps communicators signify the result of their analysis of each other's speech behavior [Naiman, 2015]. In terms of social behavior, compliments embody evaluation and appreciation of people, and reflect cultural norms and values of the society in which they exist [Li, 2007]. This article focuses on the compliment response tactic in particular because of its ability to form and reflect the emotional state of communicators, express national and cultural idiosyncrasies and national-psychological characteristics. In his classic work, devoted to the semantic and pragmatic analysis of compliments, Manes offers the following metaphor for this speech act – "a mirror of cultural values" [Manes, 1983]. Academic research on compliment response in a particular linguoculture has practical significance in foreign language training, because when learning another language, it is necessary to be aware and knowledgeable of the culture, history and other aspects of the evolution of the people of the target language. In order to use a language properly in the context of a certain cultural background, we should pay more attention to various aspects of cultural differences in training and intercultural communication [Li, 2007]. In this regard, Sternin notes that "a contrastive study of national idiosyncrasies of communication of different peoples gains special significance" [Sternin, 2002]. The use of compliments and compliment responses reflects the quality of the speaker's behavior and politeness norms. It is an external manifestation of the speaker's basic qualities and linguistic abilities. Moreover, it indicates their belonging to a certain region, nationality, and even reflects the social and cultural environment of the country, being a manifestation of the "linguistic function of cultural values" [Xin, 2018]. Therefore, studying the ways that native speakers pay compliments to one another, under what circumstances, and how they react to them, can help us better understand the national and cultural values of the country of the target language, as well as the country's social structure. Inclusion of findings of such studies in the curriculum of foreign language courses would help students gain speech competence more effectively. The success of intercultural communication depends on how well-formed this element of communicative competence is [Doronina, 2014]. To avoid communication faux pas it is necessary to "master the sociocultural component of a language unit content, which is learned through communication with native speakers and speech practice in language classes" [Shchukin, 2012]. Acquiring language abilities is not enough – students must also develop intercultural communication abilities [Ren, 2007], because a simple sociolinguistic transfer, which is understood as "the use of rules of speaking of one's own speech community or cultural group when interacting with members of another community or group" [Chick, 1996], in an intercultural communication can often result in communicative failures [Qu, Wang, 2005].Literature reviewFor several decades the speech act of compliment response has been the object of academic research in the field of pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, as such it has become one of the most studied speech acts. Among the most significant studies of compliment response in English, Chinese, German and other languages are the works of Pomerantz, Herbert, Wolfson, Holmes, Chen, Yuan, Golato, Heritage and others. Among the scientists who have made singular contributions to the study of compliment and compliment response in Russian speech behavior, are Issers, who has analyzed the speech situation of compliment in general and the speech behavior of communicators in it, and Formanovskaya, who describes this twofold tactic as an important part of Russian speech etiquette. The scientists put a special emphasis on comparing cultures in their research. There have been empirical studies based on the material of various languages devoted to the comparison of compliment response tactics. Herbert studied the difference in compliment responses in the speech behavior of English-speaking Americans versus South Africans – he concluded that compliment acceptance in the speech behavior of the former was much rarer than in the speech behavior of the latter [Herbert, 1989]. Herbert also devoted a separate comparative study to the peculiarities of compliment and compliment response speech delivery in English and Polish speech behaviors [Herbert, 1991]. Golato has conducted empirical studies of compliment response tactics in American English and German, noting the greater tendency of American native speakers to express appreciation in response to a compliment compared to German speakers [Golato, 2002]. Some researchers have described existing gender-based differences in the speech acts of realizing compliment response. Herbert wrote that within the English linguoculture in many contexts women pay more attention to the personal than men [Herbert, 1990]. New Zealand linguist Holmes noted that there is a fundamental difference in the perception of compliments by women and men. For women, she argued, compliments are positive-affective speech acts that serve to "increase or consolidate solidarity between the speaker and the addressee" [Holmes, 1998], while men perceive compliments as face-threatening acts [Holmes, 1988]. In his article on the study of gender-based differences in compliment response in Chinese speech behavior, Chinese linguist Sun Zhihui posits that women tend to accept compliments, while men tend to avoid them, women also use nonverbal means to respond to compliments more often than men [Sun, 2006]. Researchers Yuan Xinmei and Cao Qinghui found that women tend to use explicit acceptance strategies more often than men, and when rejecting compliments they more often use indirect non-acceptance, whereas men, use more rejection strategies than women, and the proportion of those who use direct rejection is higher among men than among women [Yuan, Cao, 2011]. In addition, in her article on Chinese students' speech behavior, Chinese linguist Zhang Xiaoli pointed out that male students tend to accept compliments from other people explicitly, while female students practice inferred implicit acceptance [Zhang, 2010].Compliment responses in Russian and ChineseRussian linguists such as Karasik, Issers, Sternin, Popova, Larina, Formanovskaya and others have conducted studies devoted to compliment responses in Russian speech behavior. Serebryakova has conducted a contrastive study of compliment response in Russian and English speech behavior. According to Issers, the main perlocutionary effect that a speaker expects in response to their compliment is the compliment acceptance. As Issers notes, an indicator of acceptance can be both non-verbal (a smile, a grateful look) and verbal. In the linguistic material considered by Issers, verbal reaction was in the semantic field of appreciation and agreement with the speaker's evaluation as well as etiquette prescribed "disagreement". Moreover, stimulation to continue the speech act of compliment was noted as one of the positive reactions to a compliment [Issers, 2003]. Karasik’s offered a classification of compliment responses in his work, distinguishing response-agreement and response-disagreement, further dividing agreement into acceptance, motivation and reassignment, and disagreement into response and lack of response [Karasik, 1992]. In her research on Russian speech etiquette, Formanovskaya, pays much attention to compliment response – she notes that in a dialogical unity the first complimentary remark can be distributed horizontally through various kinds of supporting arguments and causal justification of what prompted the compliment. According to Formanovskaya, these phrases are so varied that they cannot be all accounted for in speech etiquette, and in the vertical structure of a dialog a response first and foremost contains appreciation [Formanovskaya, 1987]. Studying compliment responses among Russians and English people, Serebryakova noted that in Russian communicative behavior a compliment often causes a feeling of self-consciousness, which can be explained by the modesty of Russian people, and entails either a negative reaction or an absence of any reaction whatsoever [Serebryakova, 2002]. Serebryakova's findings are corroborated by such Russian researchers as Sternin and Popova [Popova, 2015]. A different notion is put forward in the work of Larina, who suggests that compliments are perceived by Russians with distrust and are taken as flattery [Larina, 2003]. As for the speech acts of compliment response in Chinese, it is worth noting that many studies in the late 20th century have noted a significant preponderance of compliment rejection tactics over compliment acceptance tactics in Chinese speech behavior. Chen Rong conducted a series of comparative studies of compliment response in American English and Chinese, in which he observed the predominance of compliment acceptance tactics in American English speech behavior and the exact opposite in Chinese speech behavior [Chen, 1993]. Yu Ming-chung has conducted a similar study comparing compliment response tactics among Chinese and American English speakers and found that Chinese speakers were more likely to express non-acceptance of a compliment than English speakers, whereas the latter were more likely to use acceptance strategies [Yu, 2003]. A comparative study by Chinese linguist Huang Wei also confirmed that "people from the West tend to accept compliments given by others, whereas Chinese are more likely to reject a compliment" [Huang, 2012]. Most of the researchers have noted that native Chinese speakers reject compliments because of the cultural norm of modesty and respect for others in Chinese society [Yu, 2003; Li, 1999; Wang, 2009], as well as the proclivity for etiquette prescribed self-deprecation in speech [Gu, 1990; Sun, Shi, 2023]. However, more recent studies show that there has been a significant shift in Chinese society in terms of the choice of tactics in response to compliments. For example, in Chen and Yang's 2010 follow-up study, the younger Chinese generation in Xi'an City tended to accept compliments (62.6%) rather than reject them (9.31%). According to the researchers, "they (the Chinese) have 'relinquished' much of their modesty" [Chen, 2010]. Yang Chunsheng's study conducted in 2020 asserted that compliments are more often accepted by the Chinese than rejected [Yang, 2020]. Among the reasons for the change in Chinese speech behavior, researchers cite China's socio-economic development, greater contact with the outside world and the influence of Western cultural values [Chen, 2010; Yang, 2020; Fang, 2008; Wen, 2012]. Another reason for this is that "the younger generation is more focused on themselves and shows more individuality" as a result of the abandonment of the "one family, one child" policy [Yan, 2016].Present studyThere has not been a comparative study of Russian and Chinese speech acts of compliment response, therefore, we have attempted to conduct a comparative study of compliment response in Russian and Chinese speech behavior. This study aims to answer the following main questions:1) What speech acts of compliment response do native Russian and Chinese speakers favor in symmetrical communicative situations? 2) What are the main differences and similarities between Russian and Chinese speech behaviors in terms of compliment response? 3) In symmetrical communicative situations, how do Russian and Chinese speech behaviors correlate in terms of frequency of using speech acts of compliment rejection and compliment acceptance? 4) What are the gender-based peculiarities of the Russian and Chinese compliment responses? In order to obtain more accurate data on the idiosyncrasies of the compliment response tactics in Chinese and Russian speech behaviors and the communicative moves that implement it, we have conducted a written survey. Due to the "duality" of the two speech acts — compliment and compliment response, in order to obtain reliable data on the frequency distribution of various communicative moves that implement the compliment response tactic, we asked each respondent to take on the role of an addressee of a compliment in eight different simulated communicative situations. Of six hundred respondents that took part in the survey there were three hundred Russian native speakers and three hundred Chinese native speakers. The respondents' age ranged from 18 to 25 years. All respondents were students of higher-educational institutions of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Among Russian respondents there were 58 men and 242 women. Among Chinese respondents there were 68 men and 232 women. In each of the eight communicative situations, Russian- and Chinese-speaking respondents were asked to respond to compliments regarding their appearance, skills, actions, and achievements, as if they were given to them by friends, colleagues, superiors, and neighbors. A total of 4,790 compliment responses were analyzed. The respondents were given several response options for each situation, as well as the opportunity to provide their own responses if none of the options suited them. The chosen methodology caused certain limitations of the study, which made the results preliminary leaving room for improvement. Some of the main limitations include: 1) the compliment responses were interpreted on the basis of the linguistic material received in written form only, without taking into account intonation and non-verbal reactions, which made it difficult to categorize some of the compliment responses; 2) in order to cover a large number of respondents and ask them more questions, the survey was semi-closed and characterized by certain limited representativeness of choice. When analyzing the survey results, we relied on the taxonomies of compliment responses developed by Pomerantz, Wolfson and Herbert. All the compliment responses obtained as a result of the survey were divided into two categories: verbal responses and nonverbal responses. Verbal compliment responses were further divided into strategies of verbal acceptance and verbal rejection of compliment. Compliment responses hereinafter referred to as "a game of obliviousness" were examined as a separate category. We included the nonverbal reaction to a compliment as the answer “I will smile/I will not answer at all,” which was included in the list of answer options for each situation. Upon analyzing compliment acceptance tactics, we identified explicit and implicit tactics. Among the tactics of compliment rejection we designated the following types: self-deprecation, downplaying personal achievements, attribution to good luck as well as various combinations of the aforementioned tactics. (Picture 1). Picture 1. Responses to Compliments
Findings
Table 1. Situation No.1 Responding to a compliment on skills The chart shows that the majority of Russian and Chinese respondents accepted a compliment on skills given by a friend in an informal setting. When verbally accepting the compliment, the overwhelming majority of Chinese respondents utilized the complex tactic of ‘appreciation + appeal to positive emotions’, whereas among Russian respondents' answers the following two complex tactics prevailed: ‘appreciation + appeal to positive emotions’ and ‘appreciation + agreement’. In terms of verbal rejection, the tactic of self-deprecation prevailed in Chinese speech behavior, and in Russian it was the ‘downplaying personal achievements’ tactic. There is an important distinction worth noting – the number of Chinese respondents who rejected the compliment was two times as high as the number of Russian respondents who did the same.
Table 2. Situation No.2 Responding to a compliment on skills In the situation when a compliment on skill came from a teammate, in Russian and Chinese speech behavior the tactic of return compliment prevailed. The second most popular tactic for both Russian and Chinese respondents was the complex tactic of ‘appreciation + appeal to positive emotions’. In this situation, as in the first situation, the Chinese rejected the compliment twice as often as the Russians.
Table 3. Situation No. 3 Responding to a compliment on appearance The table shows that, when complimented on appearance by an old acquaintance, Chinese and Russians responded very similarly: both groups of respondents utilized the tactic of returning the compliment most when accepting the compliment, and the complex tactic of ‘self-deprecation + praising interlocutor’ when rejecting it. Table 4. Situation No. 4 Responding to a compliment on appearance In this situation, the respondents again received a compliment on their appearance, however, unlike the previously described situation, this time the social roles of the participants of communication were different – the compliment was given to a subordinate by their superior. Two tactics prevailed in Russian speech behavior in this case and were used almost in equal measure: the tactic of appreciation and the complex tactic ‘appreciation + return compliment’. These two tactics also prevailed among Chinese respondents, but the complex tactic ‘appreciation + returned compliment’ was used by a larger number of respondents. It is worth noting that Chinese respondents rejected the compliment in this case almost five times more often than Russians.
Table 5. Situation No. 5 Responding to a compliment on actions In this case, the compliment was given to the respondents by an elderly neighbor. When interacting with an older person, the distribution of compliment acceptance and rejection appears to be somewhat different than in the previous situations: this time both Russian and Chinese respondents used verbal rejection tactics much more often than before. Although the verbal acceptance tactics still prevailed in Russian speech behavior. The tactic of appreciation without comments, the most common among Russian responses in this situation, was very rarely used by the Chinese (in less than 5% of responses). These findings confirm the relevance of the argument put forward by Tan Aoshuang in her work The Chinese View of the World: Language, Culture, Mentality that "traditional values of respect for elders and respect for family hierarchy are still firmly rooted in the public consciousness" [Tan, 2004]. Different tactics prevailed among Russian and Chinese respondents who rejected the compliment: the majority of Russian students rejected the compliment using the tactic of ‘downplaying personal achievements’, while the majority of Chinese students chose the complex tactic of ‘disagreement + self-deprecation’.
Table 6. Situation No.6 Responding to a compliment on achievements In the case of a colleague paying a compliment on achievements, the tactic of appreciation dominated in the responses of the Russian respondents and the tactic of return compliment was second most common. These two tactics also prevailed among Chinese respondents, but the ratio between these tactics was 21.67% to 24% compared to 48.76% to 17% for Russian respondents. In Chinese speech behavior, the ratio of verbal acceptance and verbal rejection was close to equivalent. In this case Chinese respondents rejected the compliment 3.5 times more often than Russian respondents.
Table 7. Situation No.7 Responding to a compliment on skills When it came to compliments on skills from their friends, almost 70% of all Russian respondents chose a tactic of appreciation with a comment. In Chinese speech behavior the most predominant tactics were ‘appreciation + appeal to positive emotions’, return compliment, and ‘appreciation + agreement’. It is worth noting that in Russian speech behavior in this case the tactic of return compliment was one of the least common, while in Chinese speech behavior it was the second most common.
Table 8. Situation No.8 Responding to a compliment on achievements As the table shows, when a compliment was given during an official event by a professional praising their achievements, the majority of Russian respondents accepted the compliment using the tactic of ‘appreciation + appeal to positive emotions’, and roughly one and a half times less Russian respondents accepted the compliment using the tactic of return compliment. Among Chinese respondents, the same two tactics prevailed, almost in equal measure. At the same time, it is worth noting that the share of Chinese respondents who rejected the compliment was almost three times higher than the share of Russian respondents who did that.DiscussionThe results of the survey showed that, by and large, Russian and Chinese youth tend to respond to compliments verbally: in eight situations, on average, the share of nonverbal responses to a compliment among Russian youth amounted to only 8.2%, and to 4.8% among Chinese youth. The largest share of responses with nonverbal reactions among Chinese respondents was observed when they were complimented on appearance (7.3%) by their superiors and on a job well done (8%) by their colleagues, whereas among Russian respondents – when complimented by an elderly neighbor (14%) and when complimented on a job well done by colleagues (12%). The smallest share of nonverbal responses among Russians was noted after they received a compliment on appearance from an old acquaintance (only 2.3%), and among Chinese – after they received a compliment on an interesting report at a conference (1.7%). Russian respondents twice as often as the Chinese resorted to nonverbal reactions in almost all cases, and only then they responded to a compliment for a job well done, Russian and Chinese respondents responded nonverbally in almost equal measure. The survey also demonstrated that Russian and Chinese youth of today rarely reject compliments. The lowest share of rejection among Chinese and Russian respondents occurred when they were given compliments on their appearance by their superiors, with Russians in this case rejecting the compliment even less often than the Chinese (Russians: 96% acceptance rate, 2.5% rejection rate; Chinese: 75.7% acceptance rate, 11.3% rejection rate). Moreover, in each of the eight cases, the share of Russian respondents who accepted a compliment was significantly higher than the share of those who rejected it, whereas among Chinese respondents in two of the eight situations (responding to a compliment from a neighbor thanking them for help and to a compliment on a well-done job from colleagues) the share of those who accepted a complement and those who rejected it was almost equal. In verbal acceptance, depending on the situation in which the compliment was made, either the complex tactics of appreciation and ‘appreciation + comment’ or the tactics of return compliment and ‘appreciation + return compliment’ prevailed. In Chinese speech behavior, the overwhelming majority of Chinese respondents chose the complex tactics of appreciation and ‘appreciation + comment’ in the following three situations: when complimented by friends on a delicious meal, when complimented by a neighbor for their help, and when complimented by their guests on a beautiful home. The tactics of return compliment and appreciation with return compliment were used by the majority of respondents in the following two situations: being complimented on appearance by an old acquaintance and complimented on appearance by a superior. Approximately equal numbers of Chinese respondents chose the complex tactic of appreciation (‘appreciation + comment’) and the tactic of return compliment (‘return compliment + appreciation’) when responding to a compliment on excellence in sports, on a job well done, and on an interesting presentation. The overwhelming majority of Russian respondents chose the complex tactic of appreciation and ‘appreciation + comment’ in five out of the eight situations, specifically when complimented on a delicious meal, for their help by an elderly neighbor, on a job well done, on a skillful home renovation, and for a conference presentation. The tactics of return compliment and ‘appreciation + return compliment’ were used by the majority of respondents in three cases: when they were complimented on excellence in sports, on appearance by an old acquaintance and on appearance by a superior. Therefore, in both Chinese and Russian speech behavior, the tactic of return compliment is the predominant response to a compliment on appearance, and in the case of Russian youth it is also a predominant response to a compliment on achievements (namely, for a game well-played), whereas the majority of Chinese youth choses the complex tactic of gratitude and ‘gratitude + comment’ in this situation. In all other cases, although sometimes by a small margin, the largest number of Russian and Chinese respondents chose the complex tactic of appreciation and ‘appreciation + comment’. In this context, the tactic of "a game of obliviousness" should be reviewed separately. Answers such as "Really? You like it?", "Really?! You think so?", "Really? You mean it?", "Really?" were attributed to this category. Without a broader context and eye contact with the respondents it was impossible to accurately identify such responses either as compliment acceptance or rejection, therefore we counted them separately. The share of such answers was extremely small and averaged 4.1% for Chinese respondents and 2.3% for Russian respondents across the eight situations. Chinese respondents chose this response the most when responding to the compliment on appearance from an old acquaintance whom they had not seen for a long time – 7% to be exact, whereas 7.3% Russian respondents responded this way to the compliment on a deliciously prepared meal. The analysis of the linguistic material also revealed some gender specifics of compliment response in Russian and Chinese speech behavior. In Russian speech behavior, in each of the eight communicative situations, more women accepted a compliment than rejected it. Same with Russian men: in each situation, there were more men who accepted a compliment than those who rejected it. In Chinese speech behavior, we observed a similar prevalence of compliment acceptance among women in all the given situations, whereas among men this wasn’t the case: in two out of eight communicative situations, Chinese men who rejected a compliment outnumbered those who accepted a compliment. In four situations, the number of Chinese male students who accepted and rejected a compliment was approximately equal, whereas among Chinese female students, in each case, a compliment was accepted more often than rejected. In six situations, the share of Russian men who accepted a compliment was on average three times higher than the share of those who rejected it, while among Russian women, in all but one situation (receiving a compliment from an elderly neighbor after helping her), the share of those who accepted a compliment was seven or more times higher than the share of those who rejected it. The findings demonstrate that in all the examined communicative situations, female Russian respondents accepted a compliment much more often than rejected it. The same was observed in the speech behavior of Russian men, but to a lesser degree in comparison with women – with a less significant quantitative difference between accepting and rejecting. As for the speech behavior of Chinese men, in half of the communicative situations we noted an almost equal ratio of those who rejected a compliment and those who accepted it, with a certain prevalence of the latter. In two situations there was a prevalence of the share of Chinese men who rejected a compliment over those who accepted it, which wasn’t observed in the speech behavior of Russian men in any of the given communicative situations. Although in the majority of the situations Chinese women accept a compliment, the share of those who accepted it was typically not as high as among Russian women.ConclusionThe study confirmed that Russian and Chinese youth overwhelmingly accept compliments from other people, and do so mostly verbally. At the same time, Chinese people reject compliments almost twice as often as Russians, especially in the aforementioned situations, and Chinese men do it more often than women. A summary of the results of the survey is presented in Table 9.
Table 9. Results of the survey We would like to stress the importance of teachers developing their students' linguistic and sociopragmatic competences in the course of foreign language teaching. In addition to being told about current trends in the country of the target language, its values, linguocultural idiosyncrasies, etc., students should receive information experientially through communication with native speakers, reading literature, watching movies, etc. This paper is the author’s preliminary study of compliment responses in the comparative context of Russian and Chinese cultures. For a more in-depth study, such as a gender-based analysis, men's responses to compliments from men or women, and women's responses to compliments from men or women should be examined separately. In order to compensate for the shortcomings of the current study, in their future studies we plan to conduct a questionnaire survey of respondents representing all age groups, with different social status and various degrees of education. Moreover, a questionnaire with fully open-ended responses, as well as an oral questionnaire that allows to record the respondents' non-verbal reactions can further alleviate the limitations of the choice representativeness. Additionally, a separate study can be conducted on compliment responses in communicative situations, in which three or more people are involved, thus necessitating consideration of all the communicators and the relationships and distance between them as well as other variables. It could also be interesting to study compliment response tactics in computer-mediated communication, and to conduct a comparativist analysis of compliment responses of rural and urban dwellers, for example. These are some of the ways that this study can be improved upon in the future. |