Managing multiple identities
A new perspective on compliment responses in Chinese
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.38489Keywords:
Compliment response, identity, Chinese, naturally occurring, perspectiveAbstract
In this article, we offer an identity perspective on compliment responses (CRs). Our purpose is twofold: first, to enrich our understanding of CRs by addressing the bias in research towards CRs as an im/politeness phenomenon; second, to question the assumption of the correlation between CR strategies and identities and to challenge the essentialist view of identity implicit in previous studies. We propose a four-fold perspective on identity by incorporating cultural identity into the influential three levels of self-construal formulated by Brewer and her colleagues (e.g. Brewer & Gardner, 1996). We present it by illustrating the dynamic construction of individual identity, relational identity, group identity, and cultural identity through qualitative analyses of naturally occurring CRs in Chinese. We show that macro strategies (i.e. acceptance, refusal, and in-betweenness) and, by implication, micro strategies (e.g. upgrade) can all construct the above four identities depending on context. We argue that there is no such thing as a simple correlation between CR strategies and identities widely assumed in the existing literature.
References
Assmann, J., & Czaplicka, J. (1995). Collective memory and cultural identity. New German Critique, (65), 125-133.
Berry, J. W. et al (2002). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications, 2nd Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berzonsky, M. D. (2011). A social-cognitive perspective on identity construction. In In S. J. Schwartz, K. L. Vivian & L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 55-76). New York: Springer.
Billmyer, K. (1990). ‘I really like your lifestyle’: ESL Learners learning how to compliment. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics (WPEL), 6(2), 3.
Blitvich, P. G. (2013). Introduction: Face, identity and im/politeness. Looking backward, moving forward: From Goffman to practice theory. Journal of Politeness Research, 9(1), 1-33.
Brewer, M. B. & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this ‘we’? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 83-93.
Bucholtz, M. and Hall, K. (2005). Identity and interaction: A sociocultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies, 7(4-5), 585-614.
Cerulo, K. A. (1997). Identity construction: New issues, new directions. Annual Review of Sociology, 23(1), 385-409.
Chen, R. (2010). Compliment and compliment response research: A cross-cultural survey. In A. Trosborg (Ed.), Pragmatics across languages and cultures (pp. 79-101). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(1), 49-75.
Chen, R. & Yang, D. (2010). Responding to compliments in Chinese: Has it changed? Journal of Pragmatics, 42(7), 1951-1963.
Cheng, D. (2011). New insights on compliment responses: A comparison between native English speakers and Chinese L2 speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(8), 2204-2214.
Cheng, W. (2003). Intercultural conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Collier, M. J. (1997). Cultural identity and intercultural communication. In L. A. Samovar et al (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (14th ed.) (pp.53-60). Boston: Cengage Learning.
Creese, A. (1991). Speech act variation in British and American English. In: PENN Working Papers, Volume 7, Number 2/Fall 1991; see FL 020 001. p37-58. PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143)
Danziger, R. (2018). Compliments and compliment responses in Israeli Hebrew: Hebrew university in Jerusalem students in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 124, 73-87.
Davies, C. E. 2007. Language and identity in discourse in the American South: Sociolinguistic repertoire as expressive resource in the presentation of self. In Bamberg, Michael G. W., et al (Eds.), Selves and identities in narrative and discourse (p. 71-88). Amsterdam: Johan Benjamins.
De Fina, Anna. (2012). Discourse and identity. In The encyclopedia of applied linguistics.
Gao, G. & Ting-Toomey, S. (1998). Communicating effectively with the Chinese. California: Sage.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. New York: Basic Books.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books.
Golato, A. (2003). Studying compliment responses: A comparison of DCTs and recordings of naturally occurring talk. Applied Linguistics, 24(1), 90-121.
Golato, A. (2002). German compliment responses. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(5), 547-571.
Gu, Y. (2010). Modern Chinese politeness revisited. In F. Bargiela-Chiappini & D. Kádár (Eds.), Politeness across cultures (p.128-148). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gu, Y. (1990). Politeness phenomena in modern Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics, 14(2), 237-257.
He, Y. (2012a). Politeness in contemporary Chinese: A postmodernist analysis of generational variation in the use of compliments and compliment responses (Unpublished PhD dissertation). Loughborough University, UK.
He, Y. (2012b). Different generations, different face? A discursive approach to naturally occurring compliment responses in Chinese. Journal of Politeness Research 8(1), 29-51.
He, Y. (2018). Applied (im)politeness research: How (im)politeness studies could inform teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language. Presented at The 11th international conference on im/politeness, 4-6 July 2018, Valencia. Spain.
Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19(2), 201-224.
Herbert, R. K. (1989). The ethnography of English compliments and compliment responses: A contrastive sketch. In W. Oliksy (Ed.), Contrastive pragmatics (pp. 3-35). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Herbert, R. K. (1986). Say ‘thank you’ - or something. American Speech, 61(1), 76-88.
Holmes, J. (1988). Paying compliments: A sex-preferential politeness strategy. Journal of Pragmatics 12(4): 445-465.
Holmes, J., & Brown, D. F. (1987). Teachers and students learning about compliments. TESOL Quarterly, 21(3), 523-546.
Holmes, J. (1986). Compliments and compliment responses in New-Zealand English. Anthropological Linguistics, 28(4), 485-508.
Hong, Y. et al. (2010). Multicultural identities. In Shinobu Kitayama and Dov Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (p.323-345). New York: Guilford Press.
Huth, T. (2006). Negotiating structure and culture: L2 learners’ realization of L2 compliment-response sequences in talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(12), 2025-2050.
Irvine, J. and Gal, S. (2009). Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In A. Duranti (Ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 402-434). Oxford: Blackwell.
Jenkins, R. (2009). Social identity, 3rd Ed. London: Routledge.
Jensen, I. (2004). The practice of intercultural communication. Journal of Intercultural Communication, (6).
Jucker, A. H. (2009). Speech act research between armchair, field and laboratory: The case of compliments. Journal of Pragmatics 41(8), 1611-1635.
Kasper, G. (1995). Routine and Indirection in Interlanguage Pragmatics. In Bouton, L. F. & Kachru, Y.(Eds.). Pragmatics and language learning (vol. 5). Urbana: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Division of English as an International Language.
Kim, Y. Y. (2007). Ideology, identity, and intercultural communication: An analysis of differing academic conceptions of cultural identity. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 36(3), 237-253.
Lee, C. (1990). Cute yaw haiya-nah! Hawai’i Creole English compliments and their responses: Implications for cross-cultural pragmatic failure. University of Hawaii.
Lee, C. L. (2009). Compliments and responses during Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore. Pragmatics, 19(4), 519-541.
Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.
Lin, C. et al. (2012). Compliments in Taiwan and Mainland Chinese: The influence of region and compliment topic. Journal of Pragmatics, 44(11), 1486-1502.
Locher, M. A. (2008). Relational work, politeness and identity construction. In Gerd Antos, Eija Ventola & Tilo Weber (Eds.), Handbooks of applied linguistics. Vol.2: Interpersonal communication (pp. 509-540). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lorenzo-Dus, N. (2001). Compliment responses among British and Spanish university students: A contrastive study. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(1), 107-127.
Manes, J. (1983). Compliments: a mirror of cultural values. In N. Wolfson and E. Judd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (pp. 96-102). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Manes, J. & Wolfson, N. (1981). The compliment formula. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized communication situations and prepatterned speech (pp.115-32). The Hague: Mouton.
Mills, S. (2011). Discursive approaches to politeness and impoliteness. In LPRG (Ed.), Discursive approaches to politeness (pp. 19-56). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Nelson, G. et al. (1996). Arabic and English compliment responses: Potential for pragmatic failure. Applied Linguistics, 17(4), 411-432.
Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 79-112). New York: Academic Press.
Rose, K., & Kwai-fun, C. (2001). Inductive and deductive teaching of compliments and compliment responses. In K. Rose & G. Kasper (Eds.), Pragmatics in language teaching (pp. 145-170). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ruhi, S. (2006). Politeness in compliment responses: A perspective from naturally occurring exchanges in Turkish. Pragmatics 16(1), 43-101.
Ruhi, S. (2007). Higher-order intentions and self-Politeness in evaluations of (im)politeness: The relevance of compliment responses, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 27:2, 107-145.
Ruhi, S & Dogan, G. (2001). Relevance theory and compliments as phatic communication: the case of Turkish. In A, Bayraktaroglu & M, Sifianou (Eds.). Linguistic politeness across boundaries: The case of Greek and Turkish. (pp. 341-390) Amsterdamk: John Benjamins.
Sedikides, C. and Brewer, M. B. (2016). Individual self, relational self, and collective self: Partner, opponents, or strangers? In C. Sedikides and M. B. Brewer (Eds.), Individual self, relational self, collective self (pp. 1-4). Ann Arbort, MI: Psychology Press.
Sharifian, F. (2005). The Persian cultural schema of shekasteh-nafsi: A study of compliment responses in Persian and Anglo-Australian speakers. Pragmatics & Cognition, 13(2), 337-361.
Sharifian, F. (2008). Cultural schemas in L1 and L2 compliment responses: A study of Persian-speaking learners of English. Journal of Politeness Research, 4(1), 55-80.
Sifianou, M. (2001). Oh! How appropriate! Compliments and politeness. In A. Bayrtaktaroglou & M. Sifianou (Eds.), Linguistic politeness: The case of Greece and Turkey (pp. 391-430). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Simon, B. (2008). Identity in modern society: A social psychological perspective. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Spencer-Oatey, H. (2007). Theories of identity and the analysis of face. Journal of Pragmatics 39(4), 639-656.
Spencer-Oatey, H. et al. (2008). Responding to compliments: British and Chinese evaluative judgments. In H. Spencer-Oatey (Ed.), Culturally speaking: Culture, communication and politeness theory (2nd ed.) (pp. 98-120). London: Continuum.
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Ruhi, S. (2007). Editorial: Identity, face and (im) politeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(4), 635-638.
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Ng, P. (2001). Reconsidering Chinese modesty: Hong Kong and mainland Chinese evaluative judgements of compliment responses. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 11(2), 181-201.
Tang, C. H., & Zhang, G. Q. (2009). A contrastive study of compliment responses among Australian English and Mandarin Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(2), 325-345.
Tracy, K. (1990). The many ‘faces’ of facework. In H. Giles & W. P. Robinson (Eds.), Handbook of language and social psychology (pp. 209-226). Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Vignoles, V. L. et al. (2011). Introduction: Toward an integrative view of identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. L. Vivian & L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 1-27). London: Springer.
Wolfson, N. (1983). An empirically based analysis of complimenting in American English. In N. Wolfson & E. Jodd (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition (p.82-95). Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.
Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. New York: Newbury House.
Ye, L. (1995). Complimenting in Mandarin Chinese. In G. Kasper (Ed.), Pragmatics of Chinese as native and target language (pp. 207-295). Honolulus: University of Hawaii.
Yu, M-C. (2003). On the universality of face: Evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(10-11), 1679-1710.
Yu, M-C. (2004). Interlinguistic variation and similarity in second language speech act behavior. The Modern Language Journal, 88(1), 102-119.
Yuan, Y. (2002). Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese. Pragmatics 12(2), 183-226.
Yuan, Y. (2001). An inquiry into empirical pragmatics data-gathering methods: Written DCTs, oral DCTs, field notes, and natural conversations. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(2), 271-292.
