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Native and Nonnative English Speakers' Speech Act Production:Compliment and Compliment Response

Irandoost, Roja | 2013

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 45463 (31)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Languages and Linguistics Center
  6. Advisor(s): Alemi, Minoo; Khosravizadeh, Parvaneh
  7. Abstract:
  8. The present study, examined native English speakers and nonnative English learners in terms of Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP), more specifically intercultural variations in performing the two speech acts of compliments and compliment responses. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative analysis with regard to the research questions. First, the data was collected from 50 Americans and 50 Iranians through compliment and compliment response Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs). Then, patterns of strategies from natives and nonnatives productions, were extracted. Regarding compliments, 8 strategies were found including Appreciation or Admiration followed by Explicitness, Acknowledgement of the Object, Use of Titles, Noting Specific Points, Interjection, Asking for More Information and Implicitness respectively. With regard to compliment responses, applying Holmes’ (1988) model, Thanking and Explaining, Thanking Only, Thanking and Returning Compliment, Thanking and Expressing Gladness, Thanking and Agreeing, Explaining and Returning Compliment were extracted, respectively. This was followed by a quantitative analysis using SPSS .16 and determining the frequency and percentage of each strategy to find significant difference between natives and nonnatives’ productions of compliment and compliment responses. The results of chi-squares indicated significant difference between Americans and Iranians in both speech act productions. In terms of compliments, Americans employed Use of Titles significantly more than Iranians did. With regard to compliment responses, Americans used Thanking and Explaining and Thanking and Agreeing significantly more than Iranians, and Returning Compliment, Explaining and Offering Object significantly less than Iranians. Afterwards, a content analysis of the data was done to examine the effective factors on this significance in the participants’ performance. The significant differences between the two groups were described as consequences of their sociocultural discrepancies, specifically variations in definitions of politeness concepts that play pivotal roles in compliment and compliment response production
  9. Keywords:
  10. Strategy ; Interlanguage Pragmatics ; Compliment ; Compliment Rsponse ; Intercultural Difference

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