Outline for a Critical review on Responding to Compliments: British and Chinese

Evaluative Judgements
Introduction
Compliments are usually intended to have a positive effect on interpersonal relations; as
Holmes points out, they are typically social lubricants which create or maintain rapport
(1995:118).
- Here are the examples of acceptance responses:
A: You look so beautiful today
B: Thank you
However, if the compliment is interpreted negatively (for example, because the
compliment is interpreted negatively (for example because the compliment is clearly untrue, the
effect on interpersonal relation is naturally less positive.
- Here are the examples of rejection responses:
A: You cleaned the house well
B: You did a great job to clean up the house
Taxonomies of compliment response strategies
Pomerantz (1978), in her classic study of compliment responses, drew attention to the dilemma
faced by complimentees: on the hand, there is pressure to agree with the compliment; on the
other hand. There is pressure to avoid self-praise. In other words, recipients of compliments face
conflicting constraints. According to Pomerantz (1978) and Holmes (1995), the range of
strategies can be usefully divided into three broad categories: (a) acceptance, (b)
rejection/deflection, and evasion/self-praise avoidance.
Compliment responses in Chinese and English
Studies have explored compliment responses in English and founded that English speaker
rarely reject or disagree with a compliment and that acceptance is much more common.
Examples of compliment responses in English
A: You have done a good job today. Keep it up
B: Thank you.
The best response to compliments in Chinese is traditionally thought to be a rejection or
denial. According to Ye (1995), a denial is the routinized response in Chinese.
Examples of compliment responses in Chinese:
A: What a beautiful haircut
B: Im embrassed
Evaluating non-balanced responses
Responses that are neither clear acceptances nor clear rejections are common in both English and
Chinese are common in both English and Chinese. They offer an acceptable balance between the

pressures to agree and to be modest. The other types of responses to compliments are common in
English and Chinese.
Research Procedure
The subjects in this study were University students in Britain, HK and Mainland China.
The number of Students who completed the questionaires were: 172 British, 168 Mainland
Chineses, and 158 HK Chinese. The questionnaire comprised five scenarios. There were two
acceptance responses, two rejection responses, and one deflection response. First, the students
were asked to complete the questionnaire. Second, each of the responses were evaluated in term
of appropriateness, conceit, and impression conveyed. The acceptance responses used the British
stereotypical rejoinder thank you.. Then, some explanatory comments were added by the
respondents, if they had rated any of the responses negatively. The research was analyzed
quantitatively to analyze the number of University students who completed the questionnaires in
terms of acceptance, rejection, and deflection responses. Meanwhile, qualitative method is used
to analyze some explanatory comments if the students had rated any of the responses negatively.
The scenarios and the responses were modified by using the decentring process suggested by
Brislin (1976).
The Results of Acceptance Responses
Quantitative Results
The research was analyzed quantitatively to analyze the number of University students.
Each of compliment responses for appropriateness, conceit, and impression were evaluated by
the respondents. It can be seen from the figures in the table that all of the groups of respondents
evaluated the acceptance responses fairly positive. As can be seen from the figures in table 5.4,
all of the groups respondents evaluated responses fairly positively.

There were 302 respondents (89 British, 138 Mainland Chinese and 75 HK Chinese) on
their questionnaires. The respondents were asked to evaluate the acceptance responses. Then,
they evaluated and added more acceptance response. Mainland, Chinese and HK Chinese
evaluated thank you response. They stated that it showed a lack of involvement because of the
brevity of the response.
The Results of Rejection Responses

Quantitative Results
Quantitative results of rejection responses were used to analyze data by rating based on
evaluations of rejection compliment responses. Respondents were also asked to evaluate each of
the rejection compliment responses for appropriateness, conceit, and impression conveyed.
British and Mainland Chinese respondents judged them to be somewhat inappropriate, whereas
the HK respondents had more neutral opinions. The analysis of variance results showed that
nationality differences are very significant. Rejection responses were judged negatively by the
British respondents but the Mainland Chinese respondents judged them fairly neutrally on all
three scales. For acceptability, 38 per cent of the variance is attributable to nationality; for
conceit, 27 per cent of the variance is attributable to nationality and for impression, the figure is
35 per cent.
Qualitative Results
There were 243 respondents (60 British, 129 Mainland Chinese, and 54 HK Chinese) who
commented on one or more of disagreement responses. British respondents responded on
disagreement responses by making remark such as the following:
British:
- He thought it went well so he should admit it
There were 120 Mainland and 29 HK Chinese disagreed to the response, by making remark such
as the following:
Mainland Chinese
:
- Excessive modesty equals conceit
HK Chinese
:
- Theres no need to denigrate yourself in front of people who are close to you.

Evaluations
The Modesty of Maxim
A number of authors stressed the importance of modesty in Chinese. Based on Confucian
philosophy, modesty is one of four essential elements of the Chinese concept of politeness. There
are two components of modesty maxim. They are minimization of self-praise and maximization
of self-dispraise. None of the group respondents evaluated any of the acceptance responses as
conveying conceit. The RR response (which is typically regarded as a strategy for conveying
modesty) was evaluated by the British as tending towards conceit. The rejection responses were

not regarded with the modesty at all by British respondents. According to Leechs (1983),
maximize dispraise of self implies that the more one dispraises oneself, the more one upholds the
Modesty Maxim. But Chinese commented excessive modesty seems false and insincere and it is
interpreted as conveying conceit rather than modesty. However, an appropriate degree of
modesty and an excessive degree of modesty can be clearly determined socially. Therefore, the
results of responses questionnaire is not in appropriate with Leechs theory.
The Agreement Maxim
According to Both Pomerantz (1978) and Leech (1983) there is a potential conflict between the
Modesty Maxim and the Agreement Maxim. But, based on the results experiments, only a
relatively small number expressed concern over the effect of a rejection response on the other
persons feelings. Interpretation among those respondents was not common because of the strong
influence of the self-denigration component of the Modesty Maxim among Chinese respondents.
The scenarios of research had done genuinely well but it still needs to find what types of
strategies are regarded as appropriate compliment responses in different context.
In my opinion, the good things of this article is that it provided complete data about qualitative
and quantitative results. I agreed with them because the results of responses questionnaire is not
in appropriate with Leechs theory. They admited that the results of responses is not appropriate
in previous study.
Conclusion
The range of strategies can be usefully divided into three broad categories: (a)
acceptance, (b) rejection/deflection, and evasion/self-praise avoidance. The best response to
compliments Chinese is traditionally thought to be a rejection or denial.