An Expanded Study of Compliment Responses in Chinese

Abstract

This study is an expanded investigation of compliment responses (CRs) in Chinese. Participants' CRs were elicited through a discourse completion task (DCT), supplemented by a retrospective interview. An analysis of the CRs obtained through the DCT showed that more compliments are accepted than rejected across locations in China. The retrospective interview revealed that a range of factors affect actual CRs, such as culture protocols, interlocutors, contexts and individual differences. This study largely supports the findings in recent studies on Chinese CRs, showing that CRs may change in tandem with social and economic changes in a culture. It was suggested that future CR studies should focus more on actual use of CRs as well as individual case studies, and include more diverse populations.

Keywords

Compliment response / Chinese / accepting / rejecting / modesty / discourse completion task / retrospective interview

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