Flourishing Creativity & Literacy - A Comparative Study on the Use of Compliment Response Strategies by Persian and English Native Speakers

Oct 15, 2026

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The study examines pragmatic knowledge and politeness strategies through compliment response behavior among Persian and English native speakers. Communication breakdowns in EFL contexts are linked to limited pragmatic awareness, motivating an analysis of accept, evade, and reject strategies. Using a Discourse Completion Task with Iranian and Canadian English college students, the research applies two-way ANOVAs to compare groups and assess gender effects on strategy use. Results show a significant cross-cultural difference, while the most common strategy is accept and gender does not yield statistical significance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1. Introduction

2. Method (implied)

3. Results (implied)

4. Discussion and Implications (implied)

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 6 No. 5; October 2015 Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Flourishing Creativity & Literacy A Comparative Study on the Use of Compliment Response Strategies by Persian and English Native Speakers Mansour Shabani English Language Department, University of Guilan, Iran [E-mail: mansour_shabani225@yahoo.com](E-mail: mansour_shabani225@yahoo.com) Maryam Zeinali (Corresponding author) University Campus 2, University of Guilan, Iran E-mail: [ailinzeinali25@gmail.com](ailinzeinali25@gmail.com) Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.5p.58 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.5p.58](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.6n.5p.58) Received: 06/05/2015 Accepted: 15/07/2015 Abstract The significance of pragmatic knowledge and politeness strategies has recently been emphasized in language learning and teaching. Most communication failures originate in the lack of pragmatic awareness which is evident among EFL learners while communicating with English native speakers. The present study aimed at investigating compliment response strategies, as a sub-category of politeness strategies, used by a group of Persian and English native speakers, and examining the effect of gender on the use of strategies to respond to compliments. To these ends and with the use of convenient sampling, thirty Iranian native speakers (15 females and 15 males) in Iran and 26 English native speakers (13 females and 13 males) in Canada, all college students with age range of 17-30, participated in this study. In order to collect a corpus of compliment responses, a researcher-made questionnaire in the form of a Discourse Completion Task was distributed among the participants. Using two-way ANOVAs, the findings indicated that there is a significant difference between Persian native speakers and Canadian English speakers (p < .05) with respect to the compliment response strategies investigated in this study namely, accept, evade, and reject. Moreover, it was found that the most widely used compliment response strategy among both Iranian and English participants is accept. Regarding the effect of gender on the use of compliment response strategies by the participants, the results did not reveal a statistically significant difference between the two groups (p> .05) .Considering the findings of the present study, materials developers and textbook writers can make more space in EFL textbooks for exercises about compliments (responses); and help in highlighting the significance of this aspect ofpragmatic knowledge. Keywords: pragmatics, politeness, compliment, compliment response, EFL 1. Introduction The significance of pragmatic knowledge has been greatly emphasized in language learning in recent years. Acquiring pragmatic competence is particularly challenging for non-native speakers. If non-native speakers transfer their pragmatic knowledge or cultural norms to the target language, it can cause misunderstanding for hearer and they cannot achieve their goal. Yule (2003, p.4) defined pragmatics as “the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms" . In other words, pragmatics studies knowledge which enables us to understand other peoples’words and what they intend to do with the words (Cook, 2003, p. 5 1) . Yule (2003) also believed that in order to figure out what is said in an interaction, we need to consider external and internal factors related to social distance and closeness. These factors influence not only what we say, but also how we interpret it. The investigation of this influence is normally carried out in the area ofpoliteness theory. Green (1996; as cited in Bloomer, Griffiths, & Merrison, 2005) claimed that politeness refers to the means which are employed to display consideration for your addressee’s feelings (or face), without reference to the social distance between the addressee and the speaker. As Farashaiyan

FAQs

What is the main focus of the study?

The study investigates compliment response strategies as a subset of politeness strategies used by Persian and English native speakers, and examines whether gender affects strategy use.

Which compliment response strategies are analyzed?

The research evaluates accept, evade, and reject as the compliment response strategies under investigation.

What do the results indicate about cultural differences and gender?

There is a significant difference between Persian native speakers and Canadian English speakers regarding the examined strategies, while gender does not show a statistically significant difference between the two groups.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Terk