3。2 The form of compliment 5

3。2。1 Different parts of speech 5

3。2。2 Different sentence pattern 6

3。3 The function of compliment 7

4。 The Implications for Cross-cultural Communication 8

5。 Conclusion 9

Works Cited 11

1。 Introduction

Since the initiation of reform and opening in late period of 1978, the communication and cooperation between China and other countries have become increasingly frequent。 As a widely using speech act, compliment plays a crucial role in daily communication。 In addition, performance error will lead to breakdowns in cross-cultural communication。 Therefore, it has become an important and urgent task to contrast and study the compliments in Chinese and English。 

Generally speaking, since language reflects a nation’s culture, there is no denying that compliment indicates cultural traditions and values。 If we neglect the cultural traditions and values, it may cause compliment failure even breakdown in international communication。 And it is well-known that one of the effective ways in foreign language teaching and learning is producing a contrasting study of two languages。 

This thesis contrasts the content and form of compliments in Chinese and English, including compliment topic, application and choice of words。 Through these comparisons we can get the Enlightenment: in order to achieve the effect of cross-cultural communication, we should pay attention to and understand the cultural differences behind the language。

     The purpose of this thesis is hoping that by contrasting the content and form of compliments to arouse people to pay more attention to the cultural conflicts in cross-cultural communication, and through analyzing the correct use and pragmatic failure of compliments in cross-cultural communication to understand and respect the cultural differences between the two sides, to achieve embracing inclusiveness when people exchange and learn between national cultures。 We neither blindly praise highly our national culture, nor impose our national culture on others or take on all things for the foreign culture。 Only in this way, can we achieve successful cross-cultural communication to make our cross-cultural communication meaningful。

2。 Literature Review论文网

Compliment is considered as “grease the social wheels”, and thus it serves as “social lubricants” (Wolfson 89)。 We all give compliments and receive them occasionally。 Compliments are primarily aimed at “maintaining, enhancing, or supporting the addressee’s face” (Goffman 34)。 

Compliment is often defined as an expression of approval, admiration, etc, either in words or by action。 Daikuhara investigated the speech act of compliment from the perspective of actual speech communication, and wrote that “Compliment is used to express positive feeling of approval of the hearer for something。 Compliment does not necessarily relate to something done by the hearer, since we may compliment someone on his intelligence, ability, for which he is not responsible, as well as on his act of courage for which he is responsible” (Daikuhara 188)。 From the description, we can see that compliment is a face to face verbal interaction in communication。 And the definition of compliment quoted in this thesis is made by Holmes: “A compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some ‘good’ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc。) which if positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (Holmes 485)。 Herbert pointed out that most of the definitions specified two conditions: first, expression of admiration on the part of the speaker; second, concerning a possession, accomplishment, or personal quality of the addressee (Herbert 256)。 According to Herbert, compliments were either explicit or implicit, corresponding in part to the distinction between direct and indirect speech act。 However, other study such as amplification is still insufficient which give us enough room to do this kind of research。