论文总字数：43339字

摘 要

作为一种维护和改善人际关系的社会言语行为，恭维语已被广泛接受。恭维语的运用能使交流在和谐融洽的气氛中向前推进，缩短交际者之间的社会距离，继而维系并改善交际正常的人际关系，达到有效沟通的效果。然而，与国外对于恭维语的研究比较，国内对恭维语的研究起步较晚，且多是对英语恭维语研究成果的介绍，有关汉语恭维语的系统研究相对较少。为此，在前人研究的基础上，本文将从跨文化的角度比较分析英汉语中恭维语及其应答的异同，并探究出隐藏在差异后面的根源，以促进跨文化交流的顺利进行。

关键词：中国；西方；文化差异；恭维语及其应答;比较研究

Contents

1.Introduction 1

2.Literature Review 2

3.The Relationship Between Compliment Speech and Culture 4

3.1Cooperation principle 5

3.2Politeness principle 6

4.The Comparison Between Chinese and Western Compliment Speech Acts 7

4.1The similarities of compliment speech acts in different cultures 7

4.2The differences of compliment speech acts in different cultures 8

5.The Causes of Different Compliment Speech Acts 11

5.1Collectivism and individualism 12

5.2Introversion and extroversion 14

5.3Hierarchy and democracy 14

6.The Strategies of Confronting Different Compliment Speech Acts 15

6.1Having sufficient linguistic and pragmatic knowledge 15

6.2Recognizing their different cultural background 16

7.Conclusion 16

Works Cited 18

1.Introduction

In recent decades, compliment speech act has attracted a lot of attention. The western scholars, in particular, have done a lot of work. In 1981, after they had studied 686 pieces of compliments Manes and Wolfson found that there was a constant model to the American middle class when they use compliment speech act. Chinese scholars have also found some rules concerning Chinese compliments.

As one of the speech acts, compliments are said to be used by people who explicitly and implicitly attributes credit to the receiver. Holmes (1988:448) pointed out in 1988: “Compliments should function as positively affective speech acts and can be considered as phatic communion, a type of speech which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words.” Compliment often refers to something that is good and usually positively valued by the speaker and addressee, such as one’s beautiful appearance, enviable possession, and friendly personality. It is known that compliments exist in all kinds of social groups and different cultures, embodying the activities of people’s communication in distinctive degrees. It not only reflects the national history and cultural background but also the way of living and the pattern of thinking. This is why they serve as social lubricants, and are also said to grease the social wheels. Giving compliment is a positive and polite speech act which is frequently used in many situations to show the appreciation and admiration to others, and it is universally regarded as a kind of supportive and assessment action. When compliment speech act expresses a kind of appreciation or admiration, it not only has a close relationship with people’s daily life, but also aims at building a good relationship, even maintaining a long-term relationship and enhancing the solidarity of people. Culture has an effect on language, which leads to various compliment speech acts. What’s more, the differences of compliments in different languages may cause misunderstanding or even cultural conflicts in intercultural communication. Therefore, a comparative study on the similarities and differences of compliment speech act in China and western countries is absolutely necessary. Compliment speech act as a part of culture mirrors the national characteristics.

In English, compliments are positive, but in Chinese, compliments can not only be positive but also negative. So compliment can be translated to “称赞语” or “恭维语”. On some social occasions, people compliment others with special purpose and we often define that it is of derogatory sense, so in this paper, the writer translates it to “恭维语”.

2.Literature Review

Compliments are effective in getting people into conversation, reducing the tense of relationship and shortening the distance. What is more, it is encouraging, giving the hearer a happy mood. To achieve this purpose, compliments are often used. However, not all of us could use it in the right way, especially in cross-cultural communication.

Complimenting as a speech event has been one of the major areas on which linguists have focused their attention and drawn insights into the phenomenon of linguistic politeness in the last two decades. Linguists researching on compliment aimed at coming up with their own points on compliment meaning, compliment function, application and so on. Pomerantz (1978) defines compliment as a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually that person addressed, for some “good” which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer. From them, we know that compliment speech act is a way to express a good feeling, friendliness and half-admitted desire to please somebody. A compliment response is conditionally and sequentially dependent on the compliment, that is to say, compliment response always accompanies compliment. Thus, the compliment speech act is “a two-unit turn in which utterance 1 and utterance 2 are linked by both temporal and relevant conditions” (Herbert, 1990). This suggests that compliment and compliment response are dependent on each other and cannot be separated. And they also depend on the circumstance that the compliment is expressed. Manes and Wolfson (1989) find that compliments are remarkably formulaic speech acts and point out that the primary function of compliments is “the reinforcement or creation of solidarity” between the speaker and addressee. “Compliments, as a kind of expression off linguistic communication, are generally formulaic in its structure”. Data collected from American middle class by Manes and Wolfson have demonstrated that there exists a considerable amount of patterning at both syntactic and the lexical level. Meanwhile, Holmes (1988) holds the similar view that compliments function as “social lubricants” which “increase or consolidate the solidarity” between interlocutors. Compliments are often used to express encouragement in English-speaking counties. “Good job”, “Well done” are often heard to encourage the students or employees. Unlike the case of compliment, the definitions of compliment response given by famous scholars are rare. Nelson (1996) has given a definition of compliment response: “A compliment response is a verbal acknowledge-ment that the respondent of the compliment heard and reacted to the compliment”. .

Many Chinese scholars also do research on the compliments. According to. He Mingzhi(2002), compliment is to express positive feeling of approval of the hearer for something. It do not necessarily relate to something done by the hearer, because people could compliment someone on his intelligence, ability. His definition indicates two things, one is that compliment shows the speaker’s sincere expressions of positive feelings to the hearers and the other is that compliment is a kind of face-to-face verbal interaction. Hu Chao (2006) thinks when a compliment is given, a response to it is expected. Compliment response occurs with compliment. A compliment response is conditionally and sequentially dependent on the compliment. The two parts have been viewed as a whole in the literature. Thus, the compliment speech act is “a two-unit turn in which utterance 1 and utterance 2 are linked by both temporal and relevant conditions.” Chen Xinren(2007) regards compliment as a positively affective speech act, and it is a complex sociolinguistic skill, saving people’s faces, increasing or consolidating the solidarity between the speaker and the listener and creating or maintaining rapport. He thinks thanks, apologies and greetings are often found to appear together with compliments. For example, “Thanks for the dinner. We really like it”. Meanwhile, people may also employ compliments to soften criticism, especially when the interactants are in a relationship in which the maintenance of harmony is required. Another example is like this, “It’s very good. I really like the way that you deliver your speech. However, if you slow it down a bit, it will be much better”.

An appropriate compliment can gain the opponent’s good impression and trust, and decrease their negotiation distance. Thus the research of the compliments is indispensable and essential. But for people from different countries, different cultural may lead them to misunderstanding of the compliments. Especially in cross-cultural business negotiations, successful compliments can play a significant role in the relationship-building and maintaining relationship, which can make the negotiations proceed smoothly. All in all, the author concludes that compliments are positive politeness strategies that create or reinforce solidarity. In addition, compliments can be used to strengthen or even to replace other speech act formulas, and it is common to find complimentary expressions in one’s extending gratitude, apology and greetings.

3.The Relationship Between Compliment Speech and Culture

Compliment speech act functions as an important and fundamental tool to maintain people’s social interactions. It has attracted the attention of linguists for decades of years. Wolfson(1989:110) declared: “a speech act or act sequence, whether it be apologizing, thanking, scolding, complimenting, inviting, greeting or parting, or even the telling of a story, has important cultural information embedded in it.”

According to Wolfson, we can safely say that language and culture are closely connected with each other despite of the differences between them. On one hand, the spreading of material and spiritual culture is both by the help of language. For example, we use language to tell our history, custom, and other kinds of cultures to our younger generations. What’s more, the formation and propagation of material and spiritual culture depend largely on language and words as well. Certainly, compliment speech is a part of language, and language is also a part of culture. The experience of the older generations is stored in languages, words and cultures. Culture reflects different people’s views toward the world and records the changes of a nation and the whole society. So when we learn a nation’s language we also learn the nation’s culture and its custom. There’s no doubt that compliment speech act has its root in culture. Spiritual culture and material culture are therefore passed down from one generation to another through people’s acquisition and interpretation of their language, words and culture. On the other hand, language and words are dependent on culture. Language is one of the most fundamental tools in our society which helps us to communicate with others and spread the different cultures. The use of language is a reflection of the culture. A kind of language stores special outlooks and values of life, different ways of living and unique mode of thinking. Different nations have their own culture and code of language. However, sometimes the same words have completely different meanings in different countries. For instance, shaking head in our country expresses disagreement, but in India it means agreement. So it is no time to delay to learn enough basic knowledge of a target culture which we are inevitable to contact.

Because of the wide difference of the cultural heritage, manners, outlooks, values and custom, Chinese and western people live and think in their own mode. They pursue differently, with the result that they present compliments and compliment responses in different ways. Complimenting is rather universal across different languages and culture. The paper will compare western and Chinese ways to express compliments and compliment responses from the perspective of culture.

3.1Cooperation principle

In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperation principle describes how people interact with one another. Paul Grice (1975: 41-58) states, “Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” The principle has phrased as a prescriptive command, which it is intended as a description of how people normally behave in conversation.

When people communicate with others, it is believed that the listeners and speakers must speak cooperatively and accept one another mutually to be understood in a particular way, which is totally opposite to Chinese style to refuse others compliment. The rules conform to the cooperation principle that describes how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations in western countries. For example, English conversation is not a mess because people take turns talking and cooperate with others to accept the compliment.

The cooperation principle describes specific rational principles observed by people who obey the principle, which enable effective communication. A less obvious, yet equally ubiquitous, pattern is that people cooperate with each other, in terms of quality, quantity, relevance, and manners of their conversational contribution. These dimensions form the basis of a general principle named the Cooperation Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. (陈新仁,2007: 163)

Linguists indicate that people who obey the cooperation principle in their language use will make sure that what they say in a conversation furthers the purpose of that conversation. Of course, the requirements of different types of conversations will be different.

3.2Politeness principle

The Politeness Principle can be defined in terms of some maxims: the modesty maxim (minimize praise of self; maximize dispraise of self), the sympathy maxim (minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy between self and other), the generosity maxim (minimize benefit to self; maximize cost to self); the approbation maxim(minimize dispraise of others; maximize praise of others), the agreement maxim (minimize disagreement between self and others; maximize agreement between self and others) and tact maxim (minimize cost to others; maximize benefit to others). (陈新仁，2007:166)

Politeness strategies are developed to maintain “self-esteem” in public or in private situations, trying to avoid embarrassing the other person, or making them feels uncomfortable. Pomerantz (1978:81) points out that compliment responses are constrained by two seemingly contradictory conditions: the first one is that to agree with the complimenter and the second one is to avoid self-praise. In most cases, when being complimented, western people would readily accept the compliment by saying something like “Thank you” or “I’m so glad you like it…” to show their appreciations to the praise, but oppositely, Chinese people often refuse the given praise by saying “No.”, even when they know they deserve the credit or recognition that awarded them. Obviously, such answers disobey the maxim of “Quality” but it also meets Chinese tradition of being humble and reserved.

4.The Comparison Between Chinese and Western Compliment Speech Acts

Expressing compliment and understanding others’ compliment speech acts are important parts of human communication, which can make our life rich and colorful. Sometimes, complimenting people who are from within or outside our borders in different culture brings immense economic benefits. Whenever we interact with a person from a different culture we carry with our assumptions and impressions of that group of persons, only through intercultural communication can we ever get to know the person as an individual. Meanwhile, compliment speech act is an important part of communication. For example, when we do business with people from different cultures or different countries, we need to communicate with them and change views about the business in the matter of information. What’s more, appropriate compliment speech acts can make business go easily. Through proper compliment speech act, people can successfully work together and achieve goals that benefit everyone, regardless of group or culture, including the global community in the home or neighborhood. So it is inevitable to compliment others. For instance, your English teammate is in a beautiful skirt and you express your compliment to her; she may be very happy and think that you are kind and easy to get along with. She will show her kindness to you on some occasions in the future. It is helpful to you to better work together and benefit a lot. So we can safely say that expressing compliments and compliment responses in a proper way is a very important kind of communication and people should try to avoid pragmatic failures because of the differences of compliment speech act in different countries. To avoid pragmatic failures and cultural conflicts, the writer holds that it is critical to catch the similarities, differences, and the causes of the differences of compliment speech acts. The paper focuses more on the differences. The purposes are to get more knowledge of different compliment speech act and avoiding pragmatic failures and misunderstanding which are caused by ignoring the differences in different situation.

4.1The similarities of compliment speech acts in different cultures

Firstly, compliments often have a similar function which is used as a kind of social lubricant, because they are expressions of positive evaluation, which are offered by the speakers to produce or to reinforce a feeling of solidarity with the receiver and used to make others feel good. Meanwhile, both westerner and Chinese show their politeness, solidarity and harmony.

Secondly, both Chinese and westerners value ability very highly and personal ability is the most common topics when complimenting.

Thirdly, compliment acts in both China and western countries have the special purpose that may be encouraging, catching attention, starting a topic, apologizing, thanking, greeting, or even the telling of a story.

Fourthly, as the development of society, different cultures learn and assimilate mutually, and there are more and more similarities in different cultures. More and more western people learn Chinese culture in Confucius Institutes. Culture as a soft power plays a very important role in fierce international competition. Due to the modernization of the society and the influence of western culture, Chinese people in the present day also compliment other’s appearance quite often. For example, we hear this kind of compliments as “你今天真漂亮（You are beautiful today）” more often than before. When we refer to the subjects such as geometry, chemistry, physics, Chinese are also influenced by western cultures, as we didn’t have these subjects before Qing Dynasty. Although we talk about the differences of culture, there is no “good” or “bad” culture and the process of development is just learning and assimilating each other.

4.2The differences of compliment speech acts in different cultures

Chinese and western cultures of compliment speech sometimes are at polar opposites. There are many differences in compliment contents, compliment responses, pragmatic principles of compliments, and the pragmatic principles of compliment responses. The following will introduce these differences.

4.2.1The different compliment contents

As a speech act, different social values cause the different social evaluations and the different contents of compliment. In Chinese tradition, one’s ability is usually emphasized more than his or her appearance. Appearance was considered something superficial, while ability could lead one to succeed in China. For example, Chinese often compliment like that: “你女儿成绩真好,上个好大学肯定没问题(your daughter is so outstanding that she can go to a key university.).” Although both Chinese and westerners praise others for beautiful appearance, western people pay more attention to appearance than Chinese people do, because people show their respect or interest in others by paying attention to others’ changes on their appearances, whereas Chinese may emphasize “inherent beauty” more. In western countries, the contents of compliment are more concentrated on appearance, clothing and so on, because they are more extroverted and direct who pay more attention to the changes of surface. Therefore, especially the comments of clothing and hairstyle have had the most important and prominent parts in the contents of compliment. For example, if a Grade 1 student in University has a perm one day, the foreign teacher who is from England may praise: “you look more beautiful than ever!” while Chinese people focus more on people’s natural beauty such as skin, because of the different cultural background that Chinese are introverted. They value the internal and inborn features more than external appearance.

The contents of compliment should be chosen carefully because some of them which are regarded as polite and acceptable may be inappropriate and impolite in another. For instance, fat is not a good word in western countries but not bad in Chinese culture. When we say someone put on weight, it means his/her life is easy and comfortable. So “You have put on quite a lot.” is a sentence often used to compliment others in China. In China, we call “ put on weight” “fa fu(发福)”, which means good fortune. In contrast to that, western people often use “You’ve lost a lot of weight.” to complement others. Because the westerners always desire to keep their figures and dislike to be thought fat by others, which is different from Chinese who think fatness stands for wealth and high social status.

The female members also should be avoided complimenting in China. When a western female is complimented that she is sexy, she will be very happy. But in China, she may be very angry. Similarly, Chinese also avoid complimenting other’s wife, or you will be identified as a dirty person.

Another misunderstanding is age; Chinese often compliment the old for his/her longevity, whereas westerners may hold the idea that old implies useless. For instance, westerners call the old “senior citizen” politely, the same as “golden age” for “old age”. Chinese believe that old means sagacious. “Old” is a term of respect in China. For example, Chinese call teachers “lao shi” to show that the teachers are senior and express the respect to them.

Income is also a common compliment topic which easily leads to misunderstanding in different cultures. When a Chinese asks an English about his/her income, the English may think the Chinese is impolite and may tell him/her angrily to mind his/her own business. As income is very private in western, while asking about income is to show one’s deeply concern to others in China.

4.2.2The different modes of compliment responses

Chinese and westerners differ greatly in compliment, the same to the modes of compliment responses. He declares that there are three kinds of compliment responses: acceptance, acceptance with amendment, and non-acceptance ( 何明智，2002:41-46).

Chinese people tend to adopt indirect non-acceptance strategies, including refusing, such as “no acknowledgement” to respond others’ compliments. On the contrary, western people are inclined to choose direct acceptance strategies, which refer to adopting, such as “appreciation token” to reply to others’ compliments. Western people like to accept the compliments to show their politeness while Chinese people prefer to show their modesty by refusing others’ compliments. Humility is a revered virtue in Chinese culture. For example, if a hostess is complimented for her cooking skill, the western people and Chinese people will give different responses. A western hostess is likely to say,” Oh, I am so glad that you liked it. I cook it especially for you.” A Chinese hostess will apologize for giving you “Nothing”. She will say “I just made some dishes casually and they are not very tasty.” From the example, we can see that the westerners are “straight forwardness”, while the Chinese take pride in “modesty”. In response to compliments, Chinese tend to efface themselves in words or refuse it and the success of one’s business or personal life is downplayed, although they do feel comfortable about the compliments. As we all know, Confucianism has deeply influenced Chinese way of thinking, which is no recognition of others’ compliment speech to show modesty and politeness. It is quite different from westerners and hard for western people to interpret the cultural connotation of the Chinese modesty. Most western people will readily accept the compliment by responding “Thank you” or “Thanks” to show his or her appreciation of the praise when he or she is complimented. Successes are lauded in western countries. It is the western convention that is totally different from that of Chinese. As a Chinese, he or she will say “没有没有（No.）” or “ 过奖过奖（You flatter me.）”. For example, when Chinese and westerner hear the same praise as that what a beautiful dress you have on today, Chinese may answer: “ Oh，it’s just an ordinary dress I bought in China (胡超，2006:48), while the western people may say: “I’m happy to hear that!” What’s more, the westerners always believe that Chinese are impolite and lack of confidence. Most westerners consider humility a sign of weakness.

4.2.3The different pragmatic principles of compliment speech acts

Compliment is of great social functions. Concerning compliments and compliment responses, the pragmatic rules vary from culture to culture. In the western culture, the topic of compliments can be varied. Their response to compliments is positive. Chinese people are shy to compliment others and also shy to accept compliments. They comply with different pragmatic principles of compliment speech act.

5.The Causes of Different Compliment Speech Acts

Different culture backgrounds are the root reason that makes the compliment act different in China and western countries. China and Western countries are totally different in many parts of their cultures. It is not only because of different social structures, but also cultural backgrounds, which form their own cultural values, ways of thinking and cultural statutes. China is a country with five-thousand-year’s history and culture, which is a traditional agricultural country. Because of that background, Chinese culture is based on morals of farming civilization. So we Chinese often regard the nature as a whole harmony. What’s more, we claim the integration between human beings and the whole universe, which forms the ideology of “Nature and Humanity" and the values based on groups. Chinese values a “public spirit” very high, just as Confucius said more than two thousand years ago: “A public spirit should rule everything under the sun and a gentleman should put others’ interests above his own when the Great Way prevails (大道之行，天下为公).

The following discusses three aspects: first, in China, importance has been attached to collective interests, while western priority has been given to developing individual potentialities, realizing individual objectives and seeking individual interests. Second, Chinese culture is introvert-oriented, whereas western culture is extrovert-oriented. Third, China has a long history of hierarchy; however, western is the headstream of democracy.

5.1Collectivism and individualism

Everyone knows that Chinese is a typical collectivistic country since Chinese people are group-oriented who like to say “da jia(大家)” , and we highly value duties and obligations. We Chinese consider others more than ourselves, so we are more sensitive to our living environment. We are accustomed to cooperating with others and relying on each other, thus we are not so independent. For example, you can see students in groups everywhere in Chinese schools, especially girls. They go to classes together, and even go to the washroom together. As for collectivism, Triandis (1990: 52) provides the concept is “Greater emphasis in the views, needs, and goals of the group rather than oneself; social norms and duty defined by the in-group rather than behavior to get pleasure.” He (Triandis, 1990: 52) also said: “beliefs shared with the in-group rather than beliefs that distinguish self from in-group rather than beliefs that distinguish self from in-group; and greater readiness to cooperate with in-group members.” The definition tells that collectivistic culture greatly emphasis on teamwork and harmony, and they hold the opinion that they shoulder responsibilities for the whole group even the whole society. Chinese has a famous saying that everybody is responsible for the fate of his country(天下兴亡，匹夫有责). Another saying is that union is strength(团结就是力量). These sayings all emphasize “collectivism”.

It is commonly admitted that most western countries belong to a more individualistic culture. In the west, individualism is undoubtedly a positive core value, therefore they emphasize “I” more than Chinese do, and competition and independence are highly valued. Personal space is highly valued in the west. Goleman (1990:40）defines that: “people’s personal goals take priority over their allegiance to group like the family or the explorer the loyalty of individualists to given group is weak.” He indicated that individualists feel they belong to many groups and are apt to change their membership as it suits them, switching churches, for example, or leaving one employer for another（Goleman, 1990:40）. It manifests that people from individualist culture prefer personal and fresh living conditions, which is totally different from Chinese, because Chinese people fear to change and don’t like unstable. And four generation under one roof(四世同堂) is the pursuit of Chinese. But the ties between individuals are loose that everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family.

The definition reflects the fact that people from individualistic cultures focus on feelings of themselves rather than others, or they emphasize himself/herself more, and they regard them as separated individuals in the world, they believe that they are not quite related with others. For instance, Chinese often have a big family, the grandparents, parents and the children often live together, especially in the past time. This is not the case with western people. The children will have their own family when they grow up, because they pursue freedom and emphasize privacy, and they are loyal to their true feelings. Moreover, they are usually independent and rely on themselves rather than others.

From above all, the conclusion can be drawn that people in collectivistic culture pay more attention to group, while the citizens from individualistic culture emphasize on individuality.

To some extent, compliment speech act is influenced by individualism and collectivism culture. For example, western people highly emphasize independence, dignity and freedom. So when they compliment others, they tend to be frank and loyal to their true feelings. While Chinese mainly pay attention to social harmony, and are usually modest and show respect to others, so we are used to complimenting people of higher social status, even they are not the truth or not their true feelings. For example, Chinese people use such words like “令尊(your father)”,“令嫒(your daughter)” to show their respect, but use “鄙人(I)”and “犬子(my son)” to be modest. Sometimes they are even inclined to flatter others in order to keep the social relationship solid. For example, they may flatter their boss like this : “您真是太英明了！” Therefore, they are not as frank as people in western countries when paying compliment.

5.2Introversion and extroversion

Chinese are introverted so that the Chinese way of compliment is more implicit. A famous story goes that“A teacher blamed his student for flattering others.” The student answered: “My dear teacher, the other people are not as noble and unsullied as you. Most of them like to be flattered.” The teacher was very happy and agreed to what the student had said. From the story, we can see Chinese compliment speech is roundabout. Because of the introverted character, the one who is complimented is often so shy that he/she often refuses the compliment to show modesty and politeness. While the western people are totally different, they are extroverted and explicit. They compliment others in a direct way and express the true feelings, and the one who is complimented will say “Thanks” to accept it. You may find that it is common that westerners praise a girl for her sex appeal, but it is not appropriate in Chinese, as Chinese is introvert-oriented. The reasons which lead to this result may be summarized as follow: Firstly, China is an agricultural country, which provided a good foundation for the formation of an agrarian economy of self-reliance and self-support, encouraging inactivity. While western culture originates from ancient Greek and Roman cultures as well as Hebrew culture, which are developed on the basis of sea trade, transportation, and colonization. Secondly, the Confucianism advocates introversive activities such as self-cultivation and self-criticism. On the contrast, Christianity has endowed westerners with a strong sense of mission—spreading God’s message across every corner of the world, which makes westerners more extrovert-oriented (祝吉芳，2010：151-156) .

5.3Hierarchy and democracy

China is a hierarchical society. In ancient China, due to the impact of traditional education, great importance is attached to the doctrine of “lower oneself to show respect to others”. While western countries don’t have such a long history, especially the United States, which is relatively a short history country with multi-ethnic and multi-cultural capitalist rule. In order to keep away from the shackles and oppression of feudal tradition, the early immigrants came to the North American continent to find a new life. Therefore, such sentences were written in Declaration of Independence that all men are equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The principle that “All men are born equal” has become every American’s pursuit, and it is deeply rooted in their hearts. So from this point of view, this principle is based on the typical western culture. Their value is mainly based on the individual. So the westerners care little about the concept of hierarchy and the thought of respecting the noble. It is common to see those of various social levels socializing and knowing each other. There are very few lines that socially are not allowed to be crossed. So when communicating with people, they often adopt the “strategy of seeking the same” in order to maintain equality with each other, while Chinese are often compliment the higher status.

6.The Strategies of Confronting Different Compliment Speech Acts

As the writer has mentioned, expressing compliment and understanding others’ compliment are important parts of human communication.Culture differences and conflicts can be issues that hurt inter-cultural relations. Compliment as an expression of approval is just one general description. However, as discussed above, communication strategies can vary according to the values of the society in which they are performed.

6.1Having sufficient linguistic and pragmatic knowledge

To avoid the cultural conflicts in compliments and compliment responses, the most important thing is that the speaker should have sufficient linguistic and pragmatic knowledge to fully understand the correct meaning of the speakers. During intercultural communication, first, we have to remember that the complimenting strategies we often use in usual may not be effective to persons from other cultures. Thus, we have to learn to adapt and adjust our compliment style. Second, we have to recognize that we will make mistakes in unfamiliar cultural circumstance. Third, do not fear to make mistakes, just learning from them, adapting and moving on.

6.2Recognizing their different cultural background

A good beginning point is to recognize that people from different cultures are different—not better or worse, but simply different. They grow up in different cultural background. And they have different beliefs. We should be sensitive to comments and actions in the presence of another culture. Once we are able to do this, we can adjust and adapt our verbal and nonverbal messages accordingly and become competent interactions. For example, there are different ways of responding to compliments. A typical Chinese reaction is to show modesty and humility by saying such words as: 不好（ not good）or 差得远（far from being good）.However, British people respond by “Thank you.”In cross-cultural communication, we need not be too worried about cultural differences .Remember there are also similarities, mutual adjustment and tolerance between people from different cultures. Both differences and similarities exist. What complimentors say are affected greatly by their values, social regulations and cultural backgrounds.

7.Conclusion

People often say that language is a mirror of society, which has a close relation to culture that truly reflects all aspects of society. As an important part of language and culture, compliment speech act study is necessary, especially the intercultural compliment study. It is very natural that the different cultures, values and outlooks will cause cultural conflict. Although there are differences in Chinese and western cultures, they are not incompatible as fire and water. As a matter of fact, Chinese culture and western culture just like the palm and the back of the hand and the knowledge of Chinese culture and western culture is complementary and both of them are needed.

There is no doubt that people who have a comprehensive knowledge of different compliment speech act and the people who can take proper strategies to avoid pragmatic failures and misunderstanding will benefit a lot not only materially, but also spiritually. Expressing compliment in a proper way can attract more interests for people. It is useful to establish relationships with people from different cultures and will lead to a whole host of benefits, such as increased international, national, and local commerce. What’s more, through cross-cultural exchange, we can learn about other countries’ way of life, understand their industrial structure and advanced technology, and thus we can do commercial exchanges and academic communication with them. If you express compliment in a sincere and proper way, the communication will be easier and has fewer barriers, so there will be less conflicts between people of different cultures.

As the integration of world economy, intercultural communication becomes more and more important in our life nowadays. Therefore, studying the cultural differences of different countries is necessary. In order to do well in Chinese and western communication, we should pay more attention to gain knowledge of each other’s culture, study the differences and find the causes of the differences. By studying the similarities and differences of compliments and compliment responses between China and western countries, the paper advances strategies and advices to avoid cultural conflicts when Chinese communicate with western people. During the communication, it is inevitable to compliment others when someone intends to achieve his or her objectives. Compliment speech act is a social lubricant on most occasions, as it can melt embarrassment or please the receivers and that it also used to greet, thank, encourage, and apologize in communication. It is hoped that the study can help people understand the differences in Chinese and western compliments and help to improve culture teaching and culture learning in different countries.

Works Cited

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