Vietnam national university, hanoi College of foreign languages Department of Postgraduate Studies HOÀNG THỊ MINH ÁNH An investigation of gender differences in responding to compliments (Sự khác biệt về giới trong cách tiếp nhận lời khen) M.A Thesis Minor program thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Hanoi – 2009 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Vietnam national university, hanoi College of foreign languages Department of Postgraduate Studies HOÀNG THỊ MINH ÁNH An investigation of gender differences in responding to compliments (Sự khác biệt về giới trong cách tiếp nhận lời khen) M.A Thesis Minor program thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60. HÀ CẨM TÂM Hanoi – 2009 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi Table of contents Certificate of originality of thesis ………………………………… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………. ii List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………. iv List of abbreviations and conventions……………………………… v Part 1: Introduction………………………………………………………….
Aims of the study……………………………………………………………. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………… 2 4. Method of the study…………………………………………………………. Organization of the study…………………………………………………….
4 Chapter 1: Literature Review………………………………………….1 Overview of speech acts…………………………………………………………… 4 1.2 Compliment and compliment responses………………………………………….1 Complimenting as a speech act…………………………………………….2 Function of compliment…………………………………………………….1 Definition of politeness……………………………………………………… 11 1.2 The face-saving view of politeness………………………………………….3 Politeness in complimenting and responding to compliments……………….4 Gender and politeness……………………………………………………….4 Previous studies of gender in compliment and compliment responses………… 17 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vii Chapter 2: The study………………………………………………………….1 The research designing…………………………………………………………….1 The research question……………………………………………………….2 Selection of informants……………………………………………………… 19 2.3 Data collection instruments………………………………………………….5 Data-collecting procedures………………………………………………….2 Analytical Framework…………………………………………………………… 22 Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion…………………………. Data analysis procedures……………………………………………………….1 Compliment response strategies by males of the topic dimension………….2 Compliment response strategies by females of the topic dimension……….3 Compliment response strategies by gender ………………………………… 28 3. Suggestions for further research………………………………………………. I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv List of Tables Table No.
TITLE PAGE 26 Table 3.1: Compliment response strategies by males 28 Table 3.2: Compliment response strategies by females Table 3.3: Compliment response strategies by genders 29 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com v List of abbreviations AT Appreciation Token App. Appearance CA Comment Acceptance CH Comment History D Disagreement DCTs Discourse Completion Tests FSA Face saving act FTAs Face threatening acts NA No Acknowledgement Per. Possession PU Praise Upgrade Qual. Return RI Request Interpretations SD Scale Down.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 1 Part 1: Introduction 1. Rationale In everyday life, there are a number of speech acts we can choose to show positive politeness, for example, greetings, hanks, friendly address terms and expressions of concern. ―A compliment is one of them, which notice and attend the hearer‘s interests, wants, needs, goods.‖ (Holmes: 1988) Since 1970s, linguists have attached the study of speech act, such as Apology, Request, Compliment & Compliment Response, Refusal and Complaint, etc. These studies show that, the social and situational factors, which will exert their influences on the use of the speech acts, include gender, age, level of education, social distance, social relationship, style, and ethnicity and so on.
Compliments, as a positive speech act, will be inevitably influenced by these social factors. Although pragmatists and sociolinguists have examined the relationship between gender and language for the last thirty years, there is little consensus about this relationship. As far as female speech is concerned, arguments continue to focus on whether or not female speakers express powerlessness in their speech or whether they express a form of speech only different from that of males by using, for example, more polite speech style. Of the social causes of gender differentiation in speech style, one of the most critical appears to be the level of education.
In all studies, it has been shown that the greater the disparities between educational opportunities for boys and girls, the greater the differences between male and female speech (Spolsky, 2000). The more recent feminist theory has focused on the social construction of gender, not exclusively in childhood but for a whole lifetime, and this seems to be more powerful in explaining gender differences in language use. Compliments are positive speech acts, which are sensitive to both social constraints and individual variables. Social factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, level of education, social status and social relationship between the interlocutors will inevitably influence the complimenting behavior of all interlocutors.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 Several studies have shown that there are some differences between males and females in their realization patterns of compliments and compliment responses. Two important studies that focus on gender differences in complimenting and responding to compliments are those by Holmes (1988) and Herbert (1990). They found that the syntactic patterns and lexical choice used by men and women were different. Based on the findings, they assumed that females use compliments for keeping solidarity while males regard compliments as potential face threatening acts (FTAs).
They examined kinds of topics and situations, as well as gender-based distributions. Although a lot of research has been carried out on compliments and compliment responses, the study on relationship between genders in compliment responses is still something new in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to examine the sociolinguistic characteristics of gender differences in compliment responses, in other words, whether the social variables of the interlocutors, namely, social status, gender and age, have any influence on the compliment response strategies the respondent may employ. Aims of the study This study examines the differences of linguistic strategies between British women‘s and men‘s compliment responding, exploring the function of the positive speech acts as positive strategies.
The study provides an analysis concerning the differences between the same genders and the different genders in compliment responds strategies. The reason why men and women differ in language use is that they often different role in society. Scope of the study The study focuses on the differences of linguistic strategies between British male and female subjects in the workplace in responding to compliments in some daily situations in terms of linguistic strategies. The data we can obtain from the Discourse Completion Tests will show us only nonverbal.
Gender is the main variable in the present study. There are four types of compliment situations with regard to the gender of complimenters and respondents: male – male, male- female, and female - male, female - female. In each of the situations designed in the questionnaires, there are two possibilities of the gender group. That is to say, the two TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3 interlocutors in each situation might be of the same gender or might be of different genders.
This may influence the production or selection of compliment response strategies. The study is based on the analytical framework established by Herbert (1986), but modified by the author for the present study. Method of the study This study focuses mainly on analysis of the data collected from the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed to elicit the informants‘ compliment responses in the situations under study.
The data collection of this research is done by using the Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs). It is believed that DCTs constitute important starting points for further research since they facilitate the collection of large amount of data. Each discourse sequence presented a detailed description of the situation, specifying the gender and social status of the complimenter. The participants‘ task was supply the responses to the situation given.
The data we can obtain from the DCTs will show us only ―discourse in written form‖. Organization of the study This research includes three parts. Part 1 introduces the rationale, the aims, the scope and the method of the study. Part 2 is the development of the study.
There are four Chapters in this part. Chapter one will review briefly the related theories, such as speech acts, politeness, review of the studies on compliments and compliment responses. Chapter two discusses the methodology of the study, which includes the research questions, design of the study, the selection of subjects, instruments, situation design, analytical framework and the procedures of data collecting and analyzing. In Chapter Three, this paper will show the results of the study.
In Chapter Four, this paper will give discussions and the major findings of the results obtained in the research. And finally in Part 3, this paper will briefly summarize the major discoveries of this study, indicate the limitations and implications of the study and point out the directions for further research. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 4 Part 2: Development Chapter 1: Literature Review This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research. These theories include theories on speech act, politeness.
The theories will build up the theoretical framework of this study.1 Overview of speech acts Although many theories have studied speech act theory, generally all of them share the common theme that speech acts are the actions that are involved when some one says something. According to Searle (1969:24), language is part of a theory of action, and speech acts are those verbal acts such as promising, threatening and requesting that one perform in speaking. George Yule (1996:47) defines that actions performed via utterance are generally called speech acts, and in English, are commonly given more specific labels such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise, or request. The circumstances in which actions are performed via utterances are called the speech events.
In many ways, it is the nature of the speech event that determines the interpretation of an utterance as performing a particular speech act. For example, on a wintry day, the speaker reaches for a cup of tea, believing that it has been freshly made, takes a sip, and produces the utterance “This tea is really cold”. This utterance can be interpreted as a complaint. Changing the circumstances to really hot summer day with the speaker being given a glass of iced tea by the hearer, taking a sip and producing the same utterance “This tea is really cold”.
This utterance is likely to be interpreted as praise. If the same utterance can be interpreted as different kinds of speech act, then obviously no simple one utterance to one action correspondence will be possible. It also means that there is more to the interpretation of a speech act than can be found in the utterance alone. According to Austin (1962), the action performed by producing an utterance will consist of three related acts: locutionary act, illocutionary act, and perlocutionary act.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 5 Locutionary act is the basic act of utterance, or producing a meaningful linguistic expression. Illocutionary act is performed by uttering some words, such as commanding, offering, promising, threatening, thanking, etc. For example, when A says: “Give me some cash” to B, the locutionary act is the utterance he makes when he says the sentence; the illocutionary act is that A performs the act of requesting B to give him some cash. The third part is the perlocutionary act, which is the actual result of the locution.
It may or may not be what the speaker B wants to happen but it is caused by the locution. For example, A‘s utterance may have any of the following perlocutions: A persuaded B to give him the money; B refused to give him the money; B was offended; etc. In a word, the perlocution is defined by the hearer‘s reaction. Of these three dimensions, the most discussed is illocutionary force.
Indeed, the term ―speech act‖ is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance. Austin classifies illocutionary acts into five types, i., verdictives, exer- citives, commissives, behabitives, and expositives. Austin‘s classification is best seen as an attempt to give a general picture of illocutionary acts: what types of illocutionary act one can generally perform in uttering a sentence. One can exercise judgment (Verdictive), exert influence or exercise power (Exercitive), assume obligation or declare intention (Commissive), adopt attitude, or express feeling (Behabitive), and clarify reasons, argument, or communication (Expositive).
―Compliment‖ can be categorized into the group of bahabitives to express one‘s attitude towards something.