Title: Different strategies in compliment responses between Vietnamese learners
of English and English native speakers
Author: Nguyen Tien Dung,
Faculty of Foreign Languages,
Ba Ria – Vung Tau University
Vietnam
ABSTRACT: This paper aim is to find out different strategies in compliment responses
among Vietnamese learners of English and English native speakers in order
to suggest acceptable ways to Vietnamese students when they communicate in English.
The results present that 46.65 % of Vietnamese learners accept compliments whereas this
number of native English speakers is 86.67%. Another result also shows that
33.3 % of Vietnamese learners reject compliment, and 20% of them deflect the when
complimented while these proportions for native English speakers are 13.3% and 0%
respectively.
Key words: Different strategies, compliment responses
Introduction
People often give compliments for each other. When we are complimented, we have to
respond to the compliments. There are various ways for us to reply to the compliments. In many
instances, it is not easy to give an appropriate response. For example, when I learn English and
speak English to my teachers, I receive a lot of compliments from them but I do not know how to
respond to the compliments effectively. I often think that my knowledge of English is not good
enough to respond to their compliments. However, when I come to study English at Hawaii
Pacific University, I find that people use variety strategies to give and respond to compliments.
Giving compliments to praise interlocutors and responding to compliments appear in daily life.
According to Nelson (1996),“knowing how to compliment is important, but it is equally important
to know how to respond to a compliment” (p. 413). Furthermore, Billmyer (1988) mentioned that
“learning to compliment and reply to compliments appropriately and effectively may assist
learners in creating their own opportunities to engage in meaningful social interaction with native
speakers” (p. 33). Some other researchers such as Wolfson and Holmes believe that for non native
speakers of English in the United States, appropriate responding to compliments is more important
than complimenting because of the frequency with which Americans compliment (as cited in
Gaylel Nelson 1996, p. 413). This statement may reveal that when people study in English
speaking countries, they will receive more compliments. Therefore, they should know how to
responding to compliments because responding to compliments can affect the successful or failure
of interactions. I notice that people from different cultures may have different ways to respond to
the compliments. Therefore, in this research, I will try to examine the different strategies using to
respond to compliments between Vietnamese speakers of English and the English native speakers.
At the same time, I wish to look for any evidence that whether the first language has influence on
the way people speak the second language.
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Literature review of previous researches on compliment responses
Generally, in Vietnamese culture people usually respond to compliments negatively or
reject the compliments to show their modesty (Tran, 2006). In contrast, in English, a common
compliment response is “thank you.” Johnson (1979) stated that when you are complimented, the
only response necessary is thank you. Don’t disparage yourself. If someone admires your dress,
don’t say: This is old thing. I got it at a bargain basement sale. A simple thank you is sufficient (p.
43-44). In fact, the preference of saying “thank you” in English has been examined widely by
many researchers. Such as, Pomerantz (1978) studied about American English and Herbert (1986)
did research in American English, South African English and British. Pomerantz is considered as
the first person to write about compliment responses among native speakers of English in the
United States. She pointed out that in Americans, compliment responses cause a dilemma for the
recipient in that they involve two conversational principles that place potential conflict. She
classified compliment responses into four categories. They are acceptances, agreements, rejections
and disagreements. Herbert (1988) did research on comparing the compliment/compliment
response interchanges between American university students and South African university
students. He categorized compliment responses as agreeing, non-agreeing, and requesting
interpretation. In his research, he found that about 66 per cent of the American responding to
compliments belonging to agreements, 31 per cent as non-agreements and 3 per cent as request
interpretations. In the 66 percent of agreements, 7 percent was grouped as compliment acceptances
and 29 percent as appreciation tokens. On the other hand, in the South African compliment
responses, agreements with compliments accounted for 88 percent and 43 percent of these
acceptant were clarified as comment acceptances. In addition, Holmes (1988) did research on
compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand. She found that 61 percent of the
responses were acceptances, 29 percent as deflections and 10 percent as rejections. In the study of
compliment responses by Chinese and American, Chen (1993) found that 39.28 percent of the
American compliment responses were categorized as acceptances, 18.50 percent as compliments
returns, 29.50 percent as deflections and 12.70 percent as rejections. In contrast, he found that the
Chinese speakers used 95.73 percent of rejections, 3.41 percent for thanking and denigrating, 1.03
percent for thanking only. Tran Giao Quynh (2008), in her study of pragmatic and discourse
transfer of combination of compliment response strategies in second language learning and usage
between Vietnamese and Australian in English, she found that in Vietnamese English data, 21.05
percent of appreciation tokens were combined with other strategies and in English data, 57.14
percent were used with other strategies.
Research questions
This study attempts to answer the following two questions
1. What are the strategies used to respond to compliments by Vietnamese speakers of English as a
second language and English native speakers?
2. Is there any discourse transfer from L1 to L2 when Vietnamese speakers responding to
compliments?
The first research question is answered though the examination of the following two assumptions:
a, There are differences in strategy using in responding to compliments between Vietnamese
speakers of English as a second language and native English speakers.
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b, The similarities in using strategies between Vietnamese speakers of English as a second
language and English native speakers.
These two research questions will be reviewed and answered at the same time with the data
analysis.
Methodology
1. Data collection
Participants: in this study, I will use both videotapes and field notes to collect data. I videotaped 5
conversations among some Vietnamese students who are studying in the United States and some
English native speakers. All of the participants are university students or lecturers, ranging in ages
from 25 to 40 years old. All of these participants give me permission to video-tape and use the data
for my research purposes. I focus on transcribing the part that I need for my analysis. In the
excerpt 1, there are three young ladies, two American English native speakers, one Vietnamese
speaker of English as a second language. They are at their break time at school, and at that time of
recording, they were talking about some pictures of the Vietnamese woman’s son. This excerpt is 5
minutes long, but I just center on transcribing the compliment responses part. In the excerpt 2, I
myself took part in a lunch with one of my American English native speaker at Hale Monoa where
I am staying. This is a 22:08 minute excerpt, but I paid attention to transcribe the first part of that
where compliment and compliment responses occur. In the third except, I joined a presentation in
Boston convention so I videotaped it. The presentation was about 45 minutes in length. I recorded
it at the end of the presentation. I gave her a compliment and then the presenter responded. The
fourth excerpt happened at a lunch time in Hale Monoa again. We were eating and talking about
food. In this excerpt, there are 3 American English native speakers, three Vietnamese speakers of
English and one Thai speaker of English. The last excerpt occurred in the classroom. On that day,
we talked about our posters. Therefore, I had chance to record it. The subtotal of compliment
responses for these excerpts is two times for Vietnamese speakers and 5 times for native English
speakers.
Because people often give compliments and reply to compliments during the day, it is
really difficult to know when they give the compliments to record. Therefore, I also take a lot of
field notes about the ways people give compliments and respond to compliments that naturally
happen in my classroom and in the kitchen at Hale Manoa, where I am staying (see the appendix
B). These two main sources of data will be used to for my analysis. The subtotal for the field notes
is 13 times for Vietnamese speakers and 9 times for native English speakers. Therefore, the total
number of compliment responses that I collected is 15 compliment responses from both
Vietnamese speakers of English and English native speakers.
2. Instruments
The participants talk to face to face, and English is used to communicate between
American and Vietnamese. All of these participants did not know the topic that I am writing about.
Therefore, they speak English in natural ways.
3. Analytical Approach
I transcribed the needed part of all the videotapes. Then I clarified the responses into
suitable types of responding to compliments. I collected all the Vietnamese speakers’ responses to
put in the Vietnamese speakers section, and similarly, I put all English native speakers’ responses
in the other section of one table so that I can see the differences or the same strategies that people
respond to compliments.
Data analysis
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The data in this paper is categorized based on the response types which were developed by
Holmes (1988). The frequency distribution of both Vietnamese speakers of English and English
native speakers compliment responses were quantified and put in the following table so as to
compare the results easier.
Table: Frequency and strategies of compliment responses between Vietnamese speakers of English
and English native speakers
Types of compliment responses Vietnamese speakers of English English Native Speakers
Number
Percentage
Number
Percentage
A Accept
1. Appreciation
2
13.3
9
60
2. Agreement
1
6.67
3
20
3. Downgrading
4
26.68
0
4. return
0
Subtotal
1
6.67
86.67
7
46.65
13
1. Disagree
3
20
0
2. Question accuracy
1
6.67
1
6.67
3. Challenge sincerity
1
6.67
1
6.67
5
33.3
2
13.3
Reject
Subtotal
Deflect/Evade
1. Shift credit
0
0
2. informative comment
0
0
3. Ignore
0
0
4. Legitimate evasion
0
0
5. Request Reassurance/
3
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0
595
Repetition
Subtotal
3
20
0
0
From the table above, we can see that there are many differences in the frequency of occurrence
types of compliment responses in both Vietnamese speakers of English and English native
speakers. In Vietnamese speakers of English column, the most frequency types that they respond
to compliments are accepting and rejecting which account for 46.65 percent and 33.3 percent
respectively of the total response to compliments. The less common response is found in the
deflecting with 20 percent of the total compliment responses. In English native speakers’ column,
we can see that, the most common type of responding to compliments is accepting with 86.76
percent of the total compliment responses. They seldom reject the compliment and do not reflect
the compliments.
The specific findings analysis: among the subtotal of accepting to compliment responses
category, downgrading occurred most frequently with 4 participants, accounting 26.68 percent and
appreciation 13.34 percent of the total responses. This finding proves that when Vietnamese speak
English, they try to immerge into English. However, they are influenced by their first language.
Among 33.3 percent of rejecting category, the number of participants disagree with
compliments is three, accounting 20 percent. The number of question accuracy and challenge
sincerity strategies is equal with 13.34 percent, collectively.
In the deflecting strategies, only requesting reassurance occurs with 20 percent. In contrast,
in the subtotal of 86.67 percent of accepting category, English native speakers prefer to appreciate
the compliments with 60 percent. They also often agree with the compliments or sometimes they
return the compliments. They tend not to downgrade to the compliments. Furthermore, in the
subtotal 33.3 percent of rejecting category, they do not disagree with the compliments. They may
ask for accuracy and challenge for sincerity. Nonetheless, they do not deflect or evade when they
are complimented.
Compare with the previous studies
In my study, I find that the accept category in English native speakers accounts for 86.76
percent of the total responses. This result is higher than all previous studies. For example, in
Herbert study 66 percent, Holmes 61 percent and Chen 57.85 percent, respectively. The highest
frequency of compliment responses is appreciation with 60 percent. This percentage is much
higher than 15.3 percent of the study on New Zealand compliment responses by Holmes (1988a, p.
495), and the 29.38 percent in the study on American compliment responses by Herbert (1986a, p.
80) as well as 29.50 percent by Chen’s (1993, p. 54) study of compliment responses by Chinese
and American. In addition, in my English data, the English native speakers do not use defecting
category to respond to compliments. This phenomenon is very different from the previous studies
by Chen and Holmes with 29.50 percent and 29 percent, each. However, in the category of
rejecting (13.3%), my study has almost the same result as Chen’s and Holmes’ studies with 12.70
percent and 9.98 percent, respectively.
Discussion
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From the result shown in the table above, there is a sharp difference between Vietnamese
speakers of English and the English native speakers. Mostly, English native speakers accept the
compliment responses by appreciating, such as “thanks,” “thank you” and “thank you very much”
in the excerpt number 1 and 5 (see the appendix A). They never downgrade when they accept the
compliments. Whereas, most of the instances in Vietnamese speakers of English data, when they
accept the compliments, they often downgrade the compliments. For example, in a classroom with
poster session (see the appendix B), A is an American female giving a compliment to B, a
Vietnamese male.
A: Your poster looks so nice!
B: Thank you. But actually, I did not complete it yet. I need to decorate it. In this compliment
response, B thanks A and then he downgrades himself. When Vietnamese speak English, they
often reply to compliments by downgrading. Whereas, native speakers of English do not lower
themselves in responding to compliments as Vietnamese speakers do. Therefore, Vietnamese
speakers downgrade themselves may lead the English native speakers to misunderstanding or
miscommunication.
From the English native speakers’ data, it is clear that they tend not to disagree or repeat
the compliments, but Vietnamese speakers of English reply to compliments by disagreeing or
requesting reassurance with 6 out of 15 participants. For example, in the field notes 6:
A: Your English pronunciation is very good!
B: No, I don’t think so!
In this situation, A disagrees with B’s compliment. Or as in the field note 7:
A: You are very handsome!
B: Really?
After being complimented, B requested to make sure that whether the compliment is true or
not. Thus, I think that in order to be successful in interaction with the English native speakers,
Vietnamese learners of English should not disagree when they are complimented by English native
speakers. Furthermore, from my field note data, I see that the word “really” happens three times
and they have functions to keep the conversation ongoing. Though in my collect data, English
native speakers do not use “really” to answer compliments, I believe that the word “really” does
not affect the conversations among people. Hence, this word may be used to react to the
compliments. In addition, when respond to compliments we may combine some strategies together
(Tran, 2008) as mentioned in the introduction.
Evidence for pragmatic transfer from Vietnamese language into English
As I mentioned in the introduction, in Vietnamese culture, when they are complimented,
they often respond negatively or rejecting so as to show their modesty. According to my data, the
Vietnamese speakers of English also highly accept the compliments, but they often add some more
information in their reply to lower the function of the compliments. While they downgrade when
being complimented, the English native speakers do not downgrade their accepting to
compliments. Moreover, the Vietnamese people often reject the compliments as shown in the
table. These differences show the evidence of pragmatic transfer. Vietnamese speakers still use the
ways they respond to compliments in their first language to respond to compliments in English.
When teaching or learning English, Vietnamese people should try to avoid using ways they
speak their first language to speak English because if they keep speaking the ways that they speak
their mother tongue, the misunderstanding will occur. People have a proverb saying that:
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“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Therefore, it will be great if Vietnamese people
can speak English without being affected by their mother tongue.
Limitations of the study
The data that I collected to this study is very limited in both quality and quantity. For some
videotapes, I put the camera quite far from the participants. Therefore, the sound is not very clear.
Additionally, the participants in both types of data are not various, and also the rage of my study is
very narrow. In my study, I did not mention much about culture, gender and the ages that the
Vietnamese speakers started to learn English. Consequently, a study about those issues may be
useful to understand more about the ways Vietnamese people respond to compliments.
Conclusion
In short, compliment responses are variety between Vietnamese speakers of English and English
native speakers. The different strategies of replying to compliments may cause problems for
interlocutors. Normally in English, the best ways to respond to compliments are saying “thanks”,
“thank you” or “thank you very much.” However, in real conversations, many Vietnamese
speakers downgrade, request reassurance, or even often disagree with the compliments. As a result,
they may lead to miscommunication. Therefore, to be more successful in communicating, it is
necessary to use the same strategies of people that we are interacting.
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References
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