A comparative study of compliment responses among Thai and Japanese speakers
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Abstract
This study investigates cross-cultural compliment responses (CR) among Thai and Japanese speakers. The data were collected using the Discourse Completion Task (DCT) method. The DCT is in the form of an electronic questionnaire comprising four situational settings involving friend-to-friend compliments, – compliments about appearance, character, ability and possession – and requires an informant to type their response to each compliment situation in the quotationized answer box ("---"). A total of 40 informants (20 for each nationality, and 10 for each gender) participated in the study. The findings demonstrate a consistent corresponding tendency across macro compliment response strategies used by Thai and Japanese speakers in the four situational settings, i.e. ‘Accept’ most, ‘Evade’ fewer, and ‘Reject’ least. However, the two language cultures differ in their use of micro compliment response strategies in each situation. A thorough investigation of the use of combination strategies (use of more than one strategy) reveals that although Thai and Japanese speakers vary in the use of combination patterns, they commonly utilize some of the same micro strategies, i.e. appreciation, agreement, and downgrading/qualifying compliments, as major elements in the combination patterns. The manipulation of these three micro strategies reflects two of Leech's (1983) Politeness Principle maxims: The Agreement Maxim and the Modesty Maxim, which are the philosophical foundations to the compliment response strategies of both Thais and Japanese, with oriental culture in common.
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