VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
 TRÂ
̀
N THI
̣
YÊ
́
N
COMPLIMENTING STRATEGIES
BY ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY
(CC CHIN LƯC KHEN NGI CA SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGNH
TIÊ
́
NG ANH TA
̣
I ĐA
̣
I HO
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C THA

4. Significance of the Study 2
5. Scope of the Study 2
PART B. DEVELOPMENT 3
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 3
2.1. Cross - Cultural Communication 3
2.1.1. Definition of Culture 3
2.1.2. Definition of Communication 3
2.1.3. Definition of Cross - Cultural Communication 3
2.2. Speech Act Theory 4
2.2.1. Definitions of Speech Acts 4
2.2.2. Types of Speech Acts 4
2.2.2.1. Austin‟s Classification 4
2.2.2.2. Searle‟s Classification 4
2.2.2.3. Leech‟s Classification 5
2.2.2.4. Bach and Harnish‟s Classification 5
2.2.2.5. Direct and Indirect Speech Acts 5
2.2.3. Speech Acts across Cultures 6
v 2.3. Politeness 6
2.3.1. What is Politeness? 6
2.3.2. Politeness Strategies 7
2.3.2.1. Maxim Approach 7
a) Grice‟s Cooperative Principle 7
b) Lakoff‟s Politeness Rule 7
c) Leech‟s Politeness Principle (PP) 8
2.3.2.2. Face-management Approach 8
a) Goffman‟s Conceptualization of Face 8
b) Brown and Levinson‟s Politeness Theory 9

4.1.3. Use of Complimenting Strategies 28
4.1.4. Interference from Vietnamese Culture to the English-major Students‟
Choice of Complimenting Strategies 29
4.2. Use of Complimenting Strategies with Respect to the Informants 30
4.2.1. American Informants 30
4.2.2. Vietnamese Informants and Vietnamese Learners of English 31
4.3. Use of Complimenting Strategies with Respect to the Communicating Partners 32
4.3.1. When the Communicating Partners are Male Classmates 32
4.3.2. When the Communicating Partners are Female Classmates 33
4.3.3. When the Communicating Partners are Male Teachers 34
4.3.4. When the Communicating Partners are Female Teachers 34
4.4. Use of Complimenting Strategies across Topics 36
4.4.1. Appearance/Possessions 36
4.4.2. Ability/Accomplishment 39
PART C. CONCLUSION 40
1. Summary of Major Findings 40
2. Conclusion 41
3. Pedagogical Recommendations 42
4. Limitation of the Study 43
5. Suggestions for Further Research 44
REFERENCES 45
APPENDIX A. DISCOURSE COMPLETION TEST (English Version) I
APPENDIX B. DISCOURSE COMPLETION TEST (Vietnamese Version) III
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AmE
American English
DCT

20
Table 2.
Types of expressions following the compliment
20
Table 3.
Categories of complimenting strategies
21
Table 4.
Combinations of basic complimenting strategies
22
Table 5.
Deviation in the frequency of complimenting strategies between groups
29 LIST OF FIGURES

Figures
Title
Page
Figure 1.
Choices of politeness strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
9
Figure 2.
Bach & Harnish‟s categorization of the speech act of complimenting
11
Figure 3.
Components of the response patterns
24
Figure 4.

39
1

PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Learning a language means more than knowing linguistic features such as the rules of
grammar or the vocabulary system. We must also know how to use a language in its social and
communicative contexts; however, EFL teachers do not often stress pragmatic knowledge in
their classrooms, focusing instead on linguistic knowledge. As a result, even with a high level
of language proficiency and goodwill, learners still have great difficulty making themselves
understood or interpreting properly what is said to them. They even find it extremely difficult
to produce or sometimes understand a speech act such as a compliment, an apology, a request
or a refusal. The mistaken messages they send or receive lead not only to breakdowns in
communication, but also to bad effects within social relationships.
This common problem can also be seen in Vietnamese learners of English. Although they
may have spent a long time studying English and done very well on exams, they can not
communicate effectively with native speakers. The barrier here is cultural awareness. They are
from different cultures, thus have different frames of reference. Failure in communication can
cause what we call “culture shock”. We do things with words as Austin (1962) states. In our
mother tongue and our culture, we face little or no difficulty in employing words appropriately
in order to achieve our aim because we unconsciously follow the norms and conventions of our
speech community.
The speech act of complimenting has been chosen as the topic of the present study
because this speech act is highly representative of face-threatening acts and the realization of

interferences from Vietnamese culture to the choice of strategies when complimenting in
English by English-major students at Thai Nguyen University.
Practically, the study may reinforce these students‟ awareness of the interferences from
their culture to their choice of strategies when complimenting in English by investigating what
they have already known and what they have not and what proves to be difficult when they are
confronted with the complimenting situations, which may help them achieve a better
performance in cross-cultural communication.
Pedagogically, research in cross-cultural communication including this paper may help
teachers and educators understand the students‟ problems in order to evaluate textbooks and
other teaching materials as well as assessment procedures of language proficiency, to assess
the value of communicative language teaching practices, and to help learners develop
strategies to handle misunderstandings and other communication problems.
5. Scope of the Study
Due to limited time and experience, this study just focuses on verbal communication.
Other factors such as non-linguistic factors (facial expression, gestures, eye contact, etc.),
paralinguistic factors (intonation, pause, speed of speech, etc.) will not be taken into account.
3

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. Cross - Cultural Communication
2.1.1. Definition of Culture
Today, definitions of culture are multiple and diverse; however, in this paper, culture is
defined and classified for the purpose of the study related to communication. Therefore, out of
the many possible definitions examined, the following definition guides this study: “culture is
a set of shared and enduring meaning, values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, or
other groups and orient their behavior” (Mulholland 1991).
2.1.2. Definition of Communication
Communication can be defined as “the exchange and negotiation of information between
at least two individuals through the use of verbal and non verbal symbols, oral and

In their view, speech acts are a complex combination between utterances, locutionary,
illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Thus, the speech act schema, or SAS, is as follows,
where e is an expression, S the speaker, and H the hearer: “In uttering e [utterance act], S says
something to H [locutionary act]; in saying something to H, S does something [illocutionary
act]; and by doing something, S affects H [perlocutionary act]” (Bach & Harnish, 1979, p. 3).
Wierzbicka (1991) claimed that most of the early definitions of speech acts are
ethnocentric, and that thus they fail to take into consideration what she believed is one of the
most important characteristics of speech acts, namely cultural specificity. She says that, cultural
values and characteristics such as indirectness, objectivism, courtesy, and cordiality are reflected
in the way speakers produce speech acts.
This multitude of definitions also leads to a multitude of taxonomies. This study deals
with the most important classifications of speech acts in the following section.
2.2.2. Types of Speech Acts
2.2.2.1. Austin’s Classification
Austin (1975, p. 151) first classified speech acts into five categories:
- Verdictives provide us with findings and results.
- Exercitives are characterized by the description of powers, rights, and influences.
- Commissives commit the speakers themselves to some future action.
- Behabitives are actions that have to do with „social behaviors‟.
- Expositives develop views, conduct arguments and to clarify the use of references.
2.2.2.2. Searle’s Classification
Communicative approaches to speech act theory mostly categorize speech acts according
to what they communicate to the hearer. Thus, Searle (1976) proposed five types of speech
acts:
- Declarations change the world via their utterance.
- Representatives tell people how and what things are.
- Expressive express feelings and attitudes.
- Directives get someone to do something.
- Commissives commit the speakers themselves to some future action.
2.2.2.3. Leech’s Classification

of different criteria.
2.2.3. Speech Acts across Cultures
Speech acts like greeting, complimenting, requesting, thanking or giving advice and so
on are present in almost all cultures. In principle, these speech acts can be fulfilled in any
language, but they are performed in different manners and by different means. Sharing the
same point of view, Hymes (1964) and Saville-Troike (1982) state that there is a close
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connection between language, society and culture and that all speech acts and speech behaviors
are governed by social norms. That explains why Wierzbicka (1985, p. 146) observes,
“Cultural norms reflected in speech acts differ not only from one language to
another, but also from one regional and social variety to another.” What is more,
“Every culture has its own repertoire of characteristic speech acts and speech
genres.”
(Wierzbicka, 1991, p. 149)
Hence, governed and conditioned by our culture and though the contact with other
members in our cultural environment, everyone sets own “cultural schemata” that helps
him/her interpret what is wrong and what is right. These standards are appropriate in our
community, but when coming into contact with a new culture, if we interpret other‟s behavior
according to these standards, there may be arise some cross-cultural problems in our own
communication that potentially lead to cultural conflict.
Therefore, the study on speech acts across cultures is believed to be essential or vital for
not only a person who expects to survive in a new environment, but also for a learner of a
foreign language who expects to succeed in communication.
2.3. Politeness
2.3.1. What is Politeness?
The notion of politeness has been largely discussed. Lakoff sees politeness as “a system
of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for
conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange” (Eden 2001, p. 2). Leech (1983)
defines it as “strategic conflict avoidance, which can be measured in terms of the degree of

Quality:
1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
Relation:
1. Be relevant.
Manner:

Be perspicuous
1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)
4. Be orderly.
b) Lakoff’s Politeness Rule
Grice‟s cooperative principle served as the starting point of Lakoff‟s “Politeness Rule”.
The more you seek to communicate your message directly to achieve full clarity, the more you
move away from an expression of politeness; hence, clarity and politeness were seen as
opposites in her rule. Lakoff introduces the interpersonal rule “be polite” to supplement CP.
Her interpersonal politeness rule consists of three sub-rules: (1) do not impose, (2) give
options, and (3) make the addressee feel good.
c) Leech’s Politeness Principle (PP)
Leech chooses to discuss politeness within the framework of “Interpersonal Rhetoric”.
Interpersonal Rhetoric is related to a speaker‟s social goals (what social position a speaker
takes) rather than illocutionary goals (what a speaker tries to convey through a speech act).
Within this domain, Leech (1983) establishes six -paired- maxims associated with the
Politeness Principle:
 Tact maxim: Minimize cost to other. Maximize benefit to other.
8

 Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self. Maximize cost to self.
 Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other. Maximize dispraise of self.

suggesting, threatening, warning, offering, promising, complimenting).
(ii). Acts threatening to the hearer‟s positive face by indicating (potentially) that the
speaker does not care about the addressee‟s feeling, wants, etc. – that in some important
9

respect, he does not want hearer‟s wants (e.g. disapproving, contempting, complaining,
criticizing, disagreeing, accusing and raising taboo topics).
(iii). Acts threatening to the speaker‟s negative face (e.g. accepting an offer, accepting
thanks, excusing, promising unwillingly).
(iv). Acts threatening to the speaker‟s positive face (e.g. apologizing, accepting
complimenting, and confessing).
Brown and Levinson (1987) also present five super-strategies of politeness illustrating
different levels of politeness in connection to the FTA and redress (attempts to counteract the
potential face damage of the FTA) made, if any. This is explained visually below: Figure 1. Choices of politeness strategy (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
Another important key concept for their theory that needs to be introduced is
“weightiness” which is related to three sociological variables. Assessing the seriousness of
certain illocutionary acts that can damage a persons face, FTAs, involves making an
assessment of the social parameters related to:
(i) Social distance (D) of S and H; the degree of familiarity and solidarity they share.
(Leech‟s “horizontal distance”)
(ii) Relative power (P) of S and H; the degree to which the speaker can impose will on
the hearer. (Leech‟s “authority”)
(iii) Ranking of imposition (R) attached to the speech act in the culture; the degree of
expenditure of goods and services by the hearer; the right of the speaker to perform the act; and the
degree to which the hearer welcomes the imposition. (Leech‟s “costliness”)
2.4. The Speech Act of Complimenting
2.4.1. Definition of Compliments

The speech act of complimenting appears in Austin‟s classification under the class of
„behabitives‟. Austin describes this class as reactions “to other people's behaviour and
fortunes,” embodying "expression of attitudes to someone else's” conduct or qualities (1962, p.
159). More specifically, he views compliments as a means of expressing sympathy along with
congratulations, condolences and felicitations.
Later descriptions in Speech Act Theory follow the same line. Bach and Harnish, for
example, group complimenting as a subcategory of congratulations along with condolences
and felicitations (1979, p. 52). They thus fall under their class of acknowledgements, which
express some positive or negative attitude towards others (see Figure 1).

11

According to Bach & Harnish‟s classification, the communicative illocutionary act of
complimenting is categorized as follows:
Figure 2. Bach & Harnish‟s categorization of the speech act of complimenting
Even though Searle (1976) does not mention complimenting in his categories of
illocutionary acts, they would probably be grouped under „expressives‟, which communicate
the speaker‟s attitude to a certain state of affairs. While compliments have been grouped with
congratulations, little comparison has been made between the two acts. Searle (1969, p. 67)
describes congratulations as expressing the speaker‟s pleasure regarding some event related to
the hearer (cf. also Bach and Harnish 1979). While the same positive reaction is also relevant

appearance and/or possessions, and those which have to do with ability and/or
accomplishments. "Appearance", in this sense, refers to one's looks, including clothing,
haircuts, ornaments, and so on. "Possessions" refers to material possessions such as furniture,
automobiles. "Ability" refers to the "quality of something produced through the addressee's
skill or effort: a well-done job, a skillfully played game, a good meal (Manes, 1983, p. 101)".
"Accomplishments" refers to one's acquired skill.
2.4.5. Complimenting Strategies
2.4.5.1. Basic Complimenting Strategies
(i) Admiration expression is an expression containing a positive evaluation either
explicitly (e.g. You are beautiful) or implicitly (e.g. You have to tell me the secret of your new
look).
(ii) Appreciation expression is an expression which shows the gratitude towards the
others (e.g. Oh. Thank you. I really appreciate it).
(iii) Feeling expression is an expression of feelings towards the others such as happiness,
prayer, kindness, wishing to keep in touch and being proud (e.g. I‟m proud of you).
2.4.5.2. Modifications of Basic Complimenting Strategies
(i) Intensity of a compliment or compliment response is realized by intensifiers such as
very, by combinations and by repetition of the same strategy.
(ii) Expansion is realized by proverb, promise, invitation, comments, assurance by
swearing, negation or imperatives.
(iii) Emotional is realized by interjections (e.g., Oh!) or invocations (e.g., God!),
exclamation (e.g., Wow) or endearment such as Dear!.
2.4.5.3. Direct and Indirect Strategies in Complimenting
Direct compliments are expresses to the person being complimented.
E.g. Mm, you‟ve got a new jumper. It‟s beautiful!
Indirect compliments are “overtly addressed to one person but actually compliment
another party who is present.”
E.g. Your friend seems very nice, dear. (Holmes, 1988, p. 486)
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Lexical distribution has been investigated by Manes and Wolfson (1980). It was reported
that 80% of all compliments were the adjectival type in which the two most frequently used
adjectives were nice and good, accounting for 42%. The other three most frequent adjectives
were beautiful, pretty, and great. Two verbs, like and love, accounted for 90% of the
compliments where a verb was used. In Holmes‟s New Zealand data (1987), the five most
frequently used adjectives were nice, good, beautiful, lovely, and wonderful; and the verbs like,
love, enjoy, admire and be impressed by accounting for 80 % of the data.
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More recent research has looked at gender differences. Wolfson (1983, p. 92) mentioned
“women appear both to give and receive compliments much more frequently than men do”.
Holmes (1988) examined compliments given by New Zealand people. The research focused on
gender differences in complimenting. Data consisted of 488 compliments and compliment
responses which were collected from naturally occurring exchanges. The hypothesis was that
there were differences in the way women and men gave compliments. Holmes also pointed out
that women gave and received more compliments than men did, and both women and men
complimented women more than they did men. With respect to topics of compliments, Holmes
showed that women tended to compliment each other on appearance whereas men tended to
compliment on possession.
Regarding status of compliment givers and compliment receiver, research results have
shown that most compliments occur between status equals. As Wolfson (1983, p. 91) puts it,
“the overwhelming majority of all compliments are given to people of the same age and status
as the speaker”. Many researchers have reported the same pattern (Knapp, Hopper and Bell
1984; Holmes 1988; Herbert 1990). However, in New Zealand data, Holmes (1986) found that
higher status females were twice as likely to receive compliments as higher status men, and
that men were even more likely to compliment women of higher status than women were. This
is further support for the view that it is more acceptable to compliment high status women than
high status men. This interpretation of the patterns observed is consistent with the suggestion
that higher status women are perceived as more receptive to compliments than their male
counterparts are, because in society as a whole, women are generally regarded as socially

Vietnamese, and at the same time examines the influence of students‟ mother tongue and
culture on the target language speech act performance. Its aim is to provide Vietnamese
learners of English with sociolinguistic information which will enable them to compliment in
the target language. Data were collected through questionnaire and role play. The population
from the subjects are drawn include Australian native speakers of English, Vietnamese
informants of English in Vietnam and Vietnamese students in Canberra.
Le Phuong Binh (2008) in “A Vietnamese-English Cross-Cultural Study of Positive
Politeness and Negative Politeness in Complimenting” points out the use of Positive Politeness
and Negative Politeness strategies in complimenting by English native speakers and
Vietnamese ones.
The most famous in-depth research was carried out by Nguyen Van Quang (1999) under
the title “Some Cross Cultural Differences in Vietnamese and American Ways of
Complimenting and Responding to Compliments”. The research investigated some major
differences in giving and responding to compliments in intercultural Vietnamese-American
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communication with the main focus on compliment topics, responding strategies, addressing
forms, directness vs. indirectness, and modality.
From the above literature review, we can see that although there have been many studies
investigating the speech act of complimenting in Vietnam, none of them has focused on
cultural interference and especially, none of them was carried out in Thai Nguyen. It is hoped
that this study will make a contribution to this area of inquiry based on insights derived from
the literature and the data obtained from the questionnaires.
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CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter is concerned with the selection of subjects and the instruments of collecting
data. It describes in some detail the design of the instruments and the descriptive quantitative
procedures that were undertaken for analysis of the data.
2.1. Subjects of the Study

teachers.
(iv) Social Distance: in all the situations the interlocutors are familiar with each
other, i.e. they know each other very well.
(v) Interlocutors‟ gender: male and female.
These characterizations are necessary to provide useful information for analyzing and
comparing the data for the purposes of this study.
2.3. Data Gathering Procedure
The procedure of gathering data for this study follow three steps:
First, the DCT in English is pilot-tested with a group of ten native English speakers at St,
John‟s University (Pilot Group). The goal of the pilot test was to establish the contextual
appropriateness of the items in eliciting the speech acts under study, i.e. to check whether the
completion items indeed elicit requests and apologies. Dialogues that do not prove to be
sufficiently delimited contextually are slightly changed. The resulting DCT questionnaires will
be then ready for the data collection.
Secondly, the resulting version is administered to another 15 American native speakers of
English who are studying at St. John‟s University, New York (Group 2). Then, the DCT is
administered to 30 Vietnamese learners of English at TNU (Group 1).
Thirdly, the DCT is translated into Vietnamese, and then delivered to 30 native
Vietnamese speakers (Group 3) to fill in with compliments in Vietnamese.
2.4. Data Analysis
In analyzing complimenting strategies in English and Vietnamese, the researcher
computes the frequency of use of these strategies.
The major discussion focused on the preferred strategies by English-major students at
Thai Nguyen University when complimenting in English and the interferences from
Vietnamese culture to the students‟ choice of the strategies.
2.5. Research Methods
The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the data.
Qualitative method involves the referring of relevant materials such as books, articles, website,
and the review of previous studies. Quantitative method refers to the statics of the data
collection and analysis basing on certain situations with participants of the study.

expressions preceding the compliment can be listed with examples for each type as shown in
Table 1.