ISSN 1798-4769

Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 121-129, March 2010
© 2010 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.
doi:10.4304/jltr.1.2.121-129

A Study of Pragmatic Transfer in Compliment

Response Strategies by Chinese Learners of
English
Jiemin Bu
Foreign Languages School, Zhejiang Guangsha College of Applied Construction, Dongyang, Zhejiang, China
Email:bujiemin@126.com

Abstract—For decades, the first language culture influence on second language acquisition has fascinated
researchers. Based on Giao Quynh Tran’s classification, this paper uses the naturalized role-play to conduct a
research on pragmatic transfer in compliment responses strategies by Chinese learners of English. The data
collected through the naturalized role-play are analyzed quantitatively between the Chinese learner of English
and native English groups, and between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups. The
research has concluded that the strategies which have the statistically significant differences in terms of
compliment response strategy use between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups are those
strategies which have the close similarities in the respect of compliment response strategy use between the
Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups. This conclusion has proven that there is, to some extent,
pragmatic transfer in compliment response strategies by Chinese learners of English.

Index Terms—interlanguage pragmatics, pragmatic transfer, compliment response strategies, Chinese learner
of English

I. INTRODUCTION
Pragmatic transfer can be defined as the influence exerted by learners’ pragmatic knowledge of native language and
culture on their comprehension, production and learning of L2 pragmatic information (Kasper, 1992:207). Here
pragmatic knowledge is to be understood as referring to “ a particular component of language users’ general
communicative knowledge, Viz. knowledge of how verbal acts are understood and performed in accordance with a
speaker’s intention under contextual and discoursal constraints” ( Faerch & Kasper, 1984:214). As we can see, Kasper’s
approach to pragmatic transfer is (1) process-oriented; (2) allows the study of transfer in learning and in communication;
and (3) is comprehensive, in the sense that she talks of “influence” without explicit mention of the types of influence
referred to. However, in her study she gives examples of pragmatic transfer. Since an evidence of pragmatic transfer is
most likely to be identified in the production of English by Chinese learners of English, the focus of this paper is on
pragmatic transfer from Chinese into English.
Transfer of Chinese language pragmatic features into English may result in communication failure between Chinese
and native English speakers, which can be attributed to personality of Chinese learners of English and negatively
influence their presentation of self in English. In fact, such pragmatic failure can result in not only native English
speakers’ misinterpretation and misunderstanding of linguistic behavior of Chinese speakers of English, but also culture
shock of Chinese speakers of English in the English culture and society. Therefore, as Kasper said: “In the real world,
pragmatic transfer matters more, or at least obviously, than relative clause structure or word order” (Kasper, 1992:205).
It is also in pragmatics that the influence of the learners’ native culture affects their foreign language use. Moreover, the
learners’ pragmatic knowledge in foreign language use does not automatically increase with the increase of their
grammatical competence. It is thus necessary to investigate pragmatic transfer and provide the learners with knowledge
of this phenomenon in order to prevent them from experiencing its possible pragmatic transfer.
Despite many researches have been made on the nature of pragmatic transfer, it is still not fully understand. There has
been “highly diverse evidence for transfer” (Odlin, 2003: 437). Previous research findings about pragmatic transfer
have diverged as to whether transfer exists in the learners’ L2 use (See Tran, 2003d for a review). What is transferred
into L2 communicative act performance also requires further investigation. The question is particularly appealing when
it addresses pragmatic transfer from such an understudied L1 in interlanguage pragmatics as Chinese. Therefore, this
paper aims to explore pragmatic transfer in responding to compliments in Chinese-English interlanguage pragmatics
and shed new light on the unsettled literature on pragmatic transfer in replying to compliments.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCHES ON PRAGMATIC TRANSFER IN RESPONDING TO COMPLIMENTS

Pragmatic transfer is likely to occur when L1 and L2 cultural norms differ noticeably. There are some observable
differences in Chinese and English compliment responses. In Chinese culture, people often respond to compliments

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negatively or reject the compliments to show modesty. In English, a simple compliment response — “thank you” — is
preferred as described in Johnson’s etiquette book (1979). The preference for a “thank you” in replying to compliments
is demonstrated in American English (Barnlund and Araki, 1985; Herbert, 1986, 1989; Knapp et al., 1984; Saito and
Beecken, 1997), British English (Herbert, 1986), New Zealand English (Holmes, 1986) and Australian English
(Soenarso, 1988). Specifically, the percentages of acceptances out of the total number of compliment response studied
were 66% versus 88% for Americans and South Africans (Herbert, 1989), 61% for New Zealanders (Holmes, 1986) and
58% for Americans (Chen, 1993). Therefore, although there might be exceptions, Herbert’s (1989) generalization about
English compliment responses apparently holds true: “Virtually all speakers of English, when questioned on this matter
in general (e.g. “What does one say after being complimented?”) or particular (e.g. “What would you say if someone
admired your shirt?”) terms, agree that the correct response is thank you.” (Herbert, 1989: 5).
Previous studies have also been made on pragmatic transfer of certain compliment response strategies in the western
countries. Saito and Beecken (1997) find that in the interlanguage of American learners of Japanese, there is pragmatic
transfer of certain compliment strategy strategies, (e.g. nonuse of avoidance). Baba (1996, 1999) shows that in
performing the communicative act of responding to compliments in the L2, both Japanese learners of English, and
American learners of Japanese, transfer their L1 pragmatic norms, especially in the family category, using their L1
responding strategies. In the self variable, however, American learners of Japanese did not transfer their positive
strategy in responding to compliments. Accordingly, interlanguage pragmatics studies in compliment responses present
contradictory results concerning pragmatic transfer. Such a contradiction generated this study. This paper investigates
pragmatic transfer from Chinese into English in compliment responses by Chinese learners of English because there
have been no existing cross-cultural pragmatic studies of native Chinese speakers’ English compliment responses.
Pragmatic transfer in compliment responses has seldom been investigated in Chinese- English interlanguage pragmatics.
As little is known about Chinese communicative act realization in general and compliment responses in particular in
English, still less an analysis of pragmatic transfer of compliment responses in Chinese-English interlanguage
pragmatics, this study aims to contribute to the literature of interlanguage pragmatics about compliment responses in
English by Chinese learners of English.

III. RESEARCH DESIGN

A. Research Questions
This paper attempts to answer the following two questions:
① Is there pragmatic transfer in the communicative act of responding to compliments in English by Chinese learners
of English?
②If there is a transfer, what is transferred?
The first research question is answered through the investigation of the following two assumptions:
①There are significant differences in strategy use in responding to compliments by native English speakers and by
Chinese learners of English as a foreign language.
②These differences can be explained by the similarities in strategy use in responding to compliments by Chinese
learners of English as a foreign language and by native Chinese speakers.
If these two assumptions are confirmed, a positive answer can be offered to the first research question. Because it is
impossible to answer the question: “Is there pragmatic transfer?” without knowing “What is transferred?”， these
questions are considered and answered simultaneously in data analysis.
B. Subjects
There are thirty subjects who consist of ten native English speakers, ten Chinese learners of English and ten native
Chinese speakers. All of them were university students, ranging in age from nineteen to twenty years old. So they show
homogeneity in terms of age, education and profession. All subjects give consent for their data to be used for this
research purpose by signing the consent form prior to data collection.
C. Instruments
In this study, the naturalized role-play is a data collection tool providing the corpus of data for analysis. The concept
of “the naturalized role-play” is proposed by Giao Quynh Tran in 2003 (Giao Quynh Tran,2003b) At the core of the
naturalized role-play is the idea of eliciting spontaneous data in controlled settings. In the naturalized role-play, subjects
are aware of being observed and studied in the whole procedure but are not aware of being observed in the moments
when they provide spontaneous data on a communicative act in focus. In order to realize this notion, the researcher
directs the subjects’ attention to a number of tasks that they perform during the role-play. These tasks are not relevant to
the communicative act in focus and their function is to distract the subjects’ attention from the research focus. As
interaction proceeds and when the subjects are absorbed in the given tasks, the researcher will lead the conversation to
the point when the subjects produce the communicative act in focus spontaneously without being aware that the data
they produce in these instances is the focus of research. The process of the naturalized role-play is demonstrated in the
situational description (see the appendix). In order to avoid native Chinese speakers’ misunderstanding of what they are

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required to do in the naturalized role-play, the description of the naturalized role-play situations and the cards given to
them are translated into Chinese. In the present study, each subject participating in the naturalized role-play produces
four responses to compliments on skill, possession, appearance and clothing. The total number of compliment responses
collected is forty compliment responses in English by native English speakers, forty compliment responses in Chinese
by native Chinese speakers and forty compliment responses in English by Chinese learners of English.
D. Classification of Compliment Response Strategies
The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the content of the compliment responses in this study needs a framework
of compliment response strategy categories. The framework developed by Giao Quynh Tran (2003c) can be used for
this purpose. This classification framework consists of a continuum of compliment response strategies from acceptance
to denial strategies and a continuum of avoidance strategies .The framework of compliment response categories is
proposed because there are two reasons. First, previous studies about compliment response have suggested various
frameworks of compliment response categories (Baba, 1999; Chen, 1993; Farghal and Al-Khatib, 2001; Gajaseni, 1994;
Golato, 2002, 2003; Golembeski and Yuan, 1995; Herbert, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1991; Herbert and Straight, 1989; Holmes,
1986; Jeon, 1996; Lorenzo-Dus, 2001; Pomerantz, 1978, 1984; Saito and Beecken, 1997; Yu, 1999; Yuan, 1996, 2001;
etc.), but none of these frameworks individually explain well the data in this study. Moreover, there has not been any
documented framework of compliment response categories in Chinese- English interlanguage pragmatics. Therefore,
this framework can be used to categorize data here. Second, the compliment receiver is sometimes in the dilemma of
whether he/she agrees with the complimenter to be polite or to disagree with the complimenter to avoid self-praise. The
notion of “continuum”, which can be understood as “the strategies in between”, is suggested to solve such a kind of
compliment receiver’s dilemma.
The compliment response strategies developed by Giao Quynh Tran(2003c) are used in my classification framework,
which are placed on the acceptance to denial continuum with compliment upgrade at one end and disagreement at the
other (see Table 1). In addition, avoiding strategies form the avoidance continuum with the ones at the right end
showing avoidance more clearly than those at the left end (see Table 2). The strategies along my two continua vary in
terms of the degree to which they agree or disagree with the complimentary force, or the degree to which they avoid the
praise.
The following are the proposed continua together with the definition and example of each strategy. They are among
the collected data. The underlined words in each example represent the compliment response strategy that the example
illustrates. In the examples, A represents the complimenter and B the complimentee.
TABLE 1
THE ACCEPTANCE TO DENIAL CONTINUUM

①Compliment Upgrade: The complimentee agrees with and increases the complimentary force.
A: Nice T.V set!
B: Thanks. Brand new.
②Agreement: The complimentee agrees with the complimentary force by providing a response which is
semantically fitted to the compliment.
A: Hey you’re looking really beautiful today.
B: Yeah I’m happy to say that that’s correct.
③Appreciation: The complimentee shows appreciation for the interlocutor’ s previous utterance as a compliment.
A: What a lovely dress!
B: Oh. Thank you. I am glad you say so.
④Return: The complimentee reciprocates the act of complimenting by saying the compliment back to the
complimenter.
A: You’re looking good.
B: Thanks. So are you.
⑤Compliment Downgrade: The complimentee qualifies or downplays the compliment force
A: It’s a really nice car.
B: Oh no. It looks like that but actually it has a lot of problems.
⑥Disagreement: The complimentee thinks the compliment is overdone, and therefore directly disagrees with it.
A: You’re looking brilliant .
B: Oh. No, I don’t think so.
TABLE 2
THE AVOIDANCE CONTINUUM
Expressing Gl -up Question→

①Expressing Gladness: The complimentee does not address the compliment assertion itself, but expresses his/her

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gladness that the complimenter likes the object of the compliment.

A: I read that article you published last week. It was very good.
B: Well, great.
②Follow-up Question: The complimentee responds to the compliment with a question which is intended to gain
specific information about the worthiness of the object being complimented.
A: You know I just I just read your article that you published last week. I thought it was excellent.
B: Thanks a lot. What do you find interesting about it?
③Doubting Question: The complimentee responds to the compliment with a question which expresses his doubt
about the sincerity / motives of the complimenter.
A: (Referring to B’s article published last year) Fantastic actually.
B: Really?
④Opting out: The complimentee responds to the compliment with laughter or filler.
A: I was just reading your paper, that paper you submitted to the journal the other day. It was really good.
B: Uhm.
E. Data Analysis
Data is analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. In the qualitative analysis, compliment response data is coded
according to the strategies selected to reply to compliments. In the quantitat applied to each
compliment response strategy across groups in order to evaluate whether the differences in the use of each strategy
between groups are statistically significant. Fisher’s test can specify where the difference exists and indicate how
significant the difference is.
To answer the first research question of whether or not there is pragmatic transfer in English by Chinese learners of
English, compliment responses by the native English speaker ,Chinese learner of English and native Chinese speaker
groups are compared. The purpose of the comparison is to find out whether there are significant differences between
them in terms of strategy selection. If there are significant differences in compliment response strategy use by the native
English speaker group and by the Chinese learner of English group, and if there are significant similarities in
compliment response strategy use by the Chinese learner of English group and by the native Chinese speaker group
which can account for the differences between the native English speaker group’s and the Chinese learner of English
group’s data, it can be said that there is pragmatic transfer in the communicative act of responding to compliments in
the interlanguage of Chinese learners of English.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. Differences in the Frequency of Compliment Response Strategies Used Between the Chinese Learner of English
and Native English Groups
Fisher’s test is made to calculate the frequency of each compliment response strategy used by the Chinese learner of
English, native English and native Chinese groups. For the purpose of Fisher’s test, data is rearranged in terms of how
many members of each group do or do not use each compliment response strategy as shown in Tables 1 and 2.
The Fisher’s P-values are also calculated for the comparison of frequency of use of each strategy between groups.
The statistical results are shown in Table 3.
TABLE 3
STATISTICAL COMPARISON OF FREQUENCY OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES USED BETWEEN THE CHINESE LEARNER OF ENGLISH AND NATIVE
ENGLISH SPEAKER GROUPS
Chinese Learners of English Native English Fisher’s
P- Value
use not use use not use
Compliment 0 10 4 6 0.001
Upgrade
Agreement 1 9 7 3 0.001
Appreciation 6 4 9 1 0.032
Return 1 9 4 6 0.008
Compliment 7 3 1 9 0.001
Downgrade
Disagreement 6 4 1 9 0.000
Expressing 0 10 2 8 0.108
Gladness
Follow-up Question 0 10 2 8 0.242
Doubting Question 3 7 2 8 0.998
Opting out 4 6 0 10 0.001

Table 3 indicates that the frequency of use of the compliment response strategies by the Chinese Learner of English
and native English groups is considerably different. The strategy that is used most frequently by the native English
group is “Appreciation” whereas the most common strategy used by the Chinese learner of English group is

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“Compliment Downgrade”. Table 3 also shows that the Chinese learner of English group uses strategies on the left of
the acceptance to denial continuum, (i.e. from compliment upgrade to return) less frequently than the native English
group. However, the native English group uses strategies on the right of the acceptance to denial continuum ((i.e. from
disagreement to compliment upgrade) less frequently than the Chinese learner of English group. Table 3 also indicates
that no Chinese learner of English informants use strategies on the left half of the avoidance continuum. In other words,
strategies on the left half of the avoidance continuum (i.e. “Expressing Gladness” and “Follow-up Question”) are used
by more native English informants than Chinese learner of English ones. In contrast, strategies on the right half of the
avoidance continuum, (i.e. “Doubting Question” and “Opting Out”), are used by more Chinese learner of English
informants than native English ones.
According to Table 3, there are statistically significant differences (p ＜ 0.05) between the Chinese learner of
English and native English groups as regards the strategies of “Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Compliment
Downgrade”, “Disagreement”, and “Opting out”. Noticeable differences between these two groups are also found in
terms of “ Appreciation”, “Expressing Gladness” , “Follow-up Question” and “doubting question” although the
differences were not statistically significant (P＞0.05).
A close analysis of Table 3 reveals that on the acceptance to denial continuum, no Chinese learner of English
informants use “Compliment Upgrade” whereas four out of ten native English informants use it (p < 0.05).
“Agreement” is used by only one out of ten Chinese learner of English informants but by seven out of ten native
English informants (p < 0.05). Ten Chinese learner of English informants use “Appreciation” much less frequently than
their English counterparts (p < 0.05). The frequency of use of “Return” in the Chinese learner of English group is
significantly lower than that in the English group (p < 0.05). Towards the right end of the acceptance to denial
continuum, “Compliment Downgrade” is used by seven out of ten Chinese learner of English informants but by only
one out of ten English informants (p < 0.05). Six out of ten Chinese learner of English informants use “Disagreement”
whereas only one out of ten English informants did (p < 0.005).
On the avoidance continuum, “Opting out” shows the statistically significant difference between the Chinese learner
of English and native English groups (p < 0.05). “Opting out” is found in the strategy use of Chinese learners of English
but no instance of its use is recorded in native English informants’ data. Table 3 also indicates that the Chinese learner
of English group never selects the avoidance strategies of “Expressing Gladness” and “Follow-up Question” but the
native English group did.
B. Similarities in the Frequency of Compliment Response Strategies Used between the Chinese Learner of English
and Native Chinese Speaker Groups
Results of the statistical analysis and comparison of frequency of compliment response strategy used between The
Chinese Learner of English and the native Chinese groups presented in Frequency of strategy use are calculated on the
basis of the number of informants who did or did not use each strategy in each group.
TABLE 4
STATISTICAL COMPARISON OF FREQUENCY OF COMPLIMENT RESPONSE STRATEGIES USED BETWEEN THE CHINESE LEARNER OF ENGLISH AND
NATIVE CHINESE SPEAKER GROUPS
Chinese Learners of English Native Chinese Fisher’s
P- Value
use not use use not use
Compliment 0 10 0 10 1
Upgrade
Agreement 1 9 0 10 0.225
Appreciation 6 4 2 8 0.049
Return 1 9 2 8 0.603
Compliment 7 3 8 2 0.730
Downgrade
Disagreement 6 4 6 4 1
Expressing 0 10 0 10 1
Gladness
Follow-up Question 0 10 0 10 1
Doubting Question 3 7 3 7 1
Opting out 4 6 6 4 0.529

The general picture that Table 4 gives is that the frequency of strategy use by the Chinese learner of English and
native Chinese groups is remarkably similar. The most common strategy in both the Chinese learner of English and
native Chinese groups is “Compliment Downgrade”. As shown in Table 4, both the Chinese learner of English and
native Chinese groups use strategies on the acceptance side of the continuum (i.e. from “Compliment Upgrade” to
“Return” ) less frequently than the native English group. Moreover, like the Chinese learner of English group, the native
Chinese group uses strategies on the denial side of the continuum (i.e. “Compliment Downgrade” and “Disagreement”)
more often than the native English group. Table 4 displays more similarities between the Chinese learner of English and
native Chinese groups in terms of strategy use. Neither the Chinese learner of English group nor the native Chinese
group use strategies on the left half of the avoidance continuum (i.e. “Expressing Gladness” and “Follow-up Question”),

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while the native English group does. However, both the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups use
strategies on the right half of the avoidance continuum (i.e. “Doubting Question” and “Opting out”) more frequently
than the native English group.
The similarities in the use of strategies between the native Chinese group and the Chinese learner of English group
can explain the statistically significant differences between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups’
use of “Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation”, “Return”, “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”,
and “Opting out”. According to Table 4, in both the native Chinese group and the Chinese learner of English group, no
informants use “Compliment Upgrade”. That explains why the difference in frequency of use of this strategy between
the Chinese learner of English and native English groups is statistically significant. This strategy does not occur in
compliment responses in English by Chinese learner of English group because it also does not occur in compliment
responses in Chinese by the native Chinese group. Moreover, no instance of use of “Agreement” is found in the native
Chinese group data from the naturalized role-play. As a result, the Chinese learner of English group uses “Agreement”
at a statistically lower level of frequency compared to the native English group. Therefore, the statistically significant
differences in the use of “Compliment Upgrade” and “Agreement” between the Chinese learner of English and native
English groups as well as the similarities in the use of these strategies between the Chinese learner of English and the
native Chinese groups provide an evidence of pragmatic transfer in compliment response in English by Chinese learners
of English. It can be seen from table 4 that only two out of ten native Chinese use “Appreciation”. That can explain why
this strategy is used less frequently in the Chinese learner of English group than in the native English group.
It is worth emphasizing that “Appreciation” is the strategy that obtains a significant difference (p < 0.05) between the
Chinese learner of English and native English groups. Therefore, Pragmatic transfer from Chinese language can only
partially explain the difference between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups with reference to the
use of this strategy.
“Appreciation” is rarely used by native Chinese group and consequently used less frequently in English by Chinese
learners of English compared to native English groups. However, since the Chinese learner of English group also uses
“Appreciation” significantly more frequently than the native Chinese group (p < 0.05), it could be inferred that the
Chinese learner of English informants adopt the L2 routine of saying “Thank you” to compliments in English. This
reduced the amount of pragmatic transfer with reference to this strategy. A possible reason for limited transfer in the use
of this strategy is because the routine is short and relatively easy to pick up compared to other target language pragmatic
norms.
With reference to “Return”, two native Chinese informants and one Chinese learner of English informant use this
strategy but four native English informants do. The similarity in the frequency of use of this strategy in the Chinese
learner of English and native Chinese groups may explain the unnoticeable difference in the use of this strategy between
the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups (p ＞0.05). In addition, the use of “Compliment Downgrade”
and “Disagreement” shows a further evidence of pragmatic transfer in Chinese-English interlanguage pragmatics. The
differences between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups in terms of the use of these strategies are
statistically significant (p < 0.05). However, as shown in Table 4, there are striking similarities in the use of these
strategies between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups. Seven out of ten Chinese learner of
English informants and eight out of ten native Chinese ones use “Compliment Downgrade”; Six out of ten Chinese
learner of English informants and six out of ten native Chinese ones use “Disagreement”. Because these strategies are
frequently used in Chinese, the Chinese learners of English transfer them into their compliment responses in English,
and result in a remarkably higher frequency of use of these strategies than that by native English speakers.
Regarding the strategies on the avoidance continuum, the Chinese learner of English group considerably differs from
the native English group with reference to the use of “Opting out”. However, the Chinese learner of English group
behaves similarly to the native Chinese group. Six out of ten native Chinese informants opt out and four out of ten
Chinese learner of English informants do (See Table 4). The frequency of use of this strategy by the native Chinese
group accounts for the use of it by the Chinese learner of English group and the difference between the Chinese learner
of English and the native English groups. Moreover, none of the Chinese informants use “Expressing Gladness” and
“Follow-up Question” in the naturalized role-play. As a result, these strategies are also not used by the Chinese learner
of English informants whereas they are used by the native English informants. Because the difference between the
Chinese learner of English and native English groups in “Expressing Gladness” and “Follow-up Question” are
statistically significant （Ｐ＜0.05) , the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups with reference to these
strategies can be viewed as a strong evidence of pragmatic transfer from Chinese language.
Results from the data analysis have demonstrated that there are not only significant differences in compliment
response strategy use between the native English group and the Chinese learner of English group, but also the
similarities in compliment response strategy use between the Chinese learner of English group and the native Chinese
group. These research results provide a positive answer to the first question. There is pragmatic transfer in the use of
compliment response strategies by Chinese learners of English as a foreign language.
With reference to the second research question of what is transferred, the answer has been integrated into the answer
to the first question of whether there is pragmatic transfer because it is impossible to provide an evidence of pragmatic
transfer without simultaneously describing what is transferred. As discussed above, the compliment response strategies

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that are pragmatically transferred are “Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation”, “Return”, “Compliment
Downgrade”, “Disagreement”, “Expressing Gladness”, “Follow-up Question”, and “Opting out”.
All of the strategies that show significant differences (i.e. “Compliment Upgrade”, Agreement”, “Appreciation”,
“Return”, “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”, and “Opting out”) between the Chinese learner of English and
native English groups are also the strategies that display the close similarities between the Chinese learner of English
and native Chinese groups，and therefore they are the strategies that are transferred from Chinese into English by
Chinese learners of English.

V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this paper has studied pragmatic transfer and identified transferred pragmatic features from Chinese
into English by Chinese learners of English. Two new continua of compliment response strategies are used to analyze
the compliment response strategy data. The first continuum is the acceptance to denial continuum which consists of
“Compliment Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation”, “Return”, “Compliment Downgrade” and “Disagreement”. The
second continuum is the avoidance continuum which comprises “Expressing Gladness”, “Follow-up Question”,
“Doubting Question” and “Opting out”. Along these continua, an evidence of pragmatic transfer is found in the
frequency of use of the following compliment response strategies by Chinese learners of English: “Compliment
Upgrade”, “Agreement”, “Appreciation”, “Return”, “Compliment Downgrade”, “Disagreement”, “Expressing
Gladness”, “Follow-up Question” and “Opting out”.
The innovation of this study is the application of the naturalized role-play to collect data on pragmatic transfer, and
data analysis are made on the statistically significant differences in terms of compliment response strategy use between
the Chinese learner of English and native English groups and on the close similarities in the respect of compliment
response strategy use between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups.
Although there is a significant difference between the Chinese learner of English and native English groups in terms
of the use of “Appreciation”, the difference between the Chinese learner of English and native Chinese groups
regarding the use of this strategy is even greater than the difference between the Chinese learner of English and native
English groups (See Tables 3 & 4). An interpretation of this result is that the Chinese learners of English have used the
English routine of saying “Thank you” to compliments, so they use this strategy more frequently than the native
Chinese.
The patterns of research framework used in this study have laid the foundation of research methodology for a new
interlanguage pragmatic research, which can be used to explore pragmatic transfer of other speech acts by Chinese
learners of English.

APPENDIX A NATURALIZED ROLE-PLAY

Directions: The following two situations describe the role-play informants and the role-play researcher in certain
familiar roles. Please listen to the description of the situation and identify yourself with the character “you” in it. The
task of the researcher is to lead the conversation in a flexible and natural way. If you have any question, please feel free
to ask.

1. Situation 1:
①To the role-play informants:
You are one of the best students in your class. You have recently been awarded the first prize for the English
Speaking Contest in your university. There is a newcomer to your class. Your two know each other’s name and but
have not yet had a chance to talk much.
It is now around 6 pm and you are leaving school for home. You walk in the campus towards your new bicycle. That
new classmate approaches you and says some greetings. Your two talk while you walk together. The social talk should
include the following points (See the card for role-play informants below).
②In the card for the role-play informants:
- (When being asked) Please give him/her directions to get to the bookshop
- (When being asked) Please tell him/her when the bookshop is closed today.
Please make the conversation as natural as possible. Speak as you would in real life.
③To the role-play researcher:
You are a newcomer to a class. One of your new classmates is a very good student with the first prize recently
awarded for the English Speaking Contest in your University. Your two know each other’s name but have not yet had a
chance to talk much.
It is now around 6 pm and you are leaving school. You want to stop by a bookshop and have heard that there is one
bookshop not far from the university but you do not know where it is. You pass by the parking lot and see that new
classmate. You approach him/her and say some greetings. Your two talk while you walk together. The talk should
include the following points (See the card for role-play researcher below).
④In the card for the role-play researcher:

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128 JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND RESEARCH

- Please ask for directions to get to the bookshop.

- Please ask him/her what time the bookshop is closed today.
- When it is most natural during the talk, compliment him/her on:
his / her excellent oral English performance at the English Speaking Contest in your university
his / her bicycle
Please make the conversation as natural as possible. Speak as you would in real life. It is very important that you
compliment naturally and make your compliments a part of the normal social talk. Do not make it obvious that the
compliments are among the tasks listed in the card for you.

2. Situation 2:
①To the role-play informants:
About a week after that situation, you are invited to a dinner party at that new classmate’s house. When he/she invites
you to come over, he/she gives you a printed map showing where to park your bicycle. Today is the day of the party.
You dress up for the event and ride your bicycle there. Now you are at his/her doorstep. Your two say some greetings
and talk while he/she leads you to the living room. The social talk should include the following points (See the card for
role-play informants below).
②In the card for the role-play informants:
- (At the door and after some greetings) Please check with him/her whether you have parked your bicycle in the right
place.
- (After he/she has put your coat in the hall for you) Please ask if he/she is all right/ feeling better now (because you
did not see him/her at the class seminar a few days ago and were told that he/she was not well).
Please make the conversation as natural as possible. Speak as you would in real life.
③To the role-play researcher:
About a week after that situation, you invite this new classmate to a dinner party at your house. Today is the day of
the party. You greet him/her at the door. Your two talk while you lead him/her to the living room. The social talk should
include the following points (See the card for role-play researcher below).
④In the card for the role-play researcher:
- (When being asked) Please assure him/her that he/she has parked in the right place.
- Please respond to his/her question expressing concern about your health (which is asked because he/she did not see
you at the class seminar a few days ago and they said you were not feeling well).
- When it is most natural during the talk, compliment him/her on:
his / her appearance that day
his / her clothing (e.g. her dress or his tie)
Please make the conversation as natural as possible. Speak as you would in real life. It is very important that you
compliment naturally and make your compliments a part of the normal social talk. Do not make it obvious that the
compliments are among the tasks

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Jiemin Bu received his M. A degree in English language and literature from Shanghai International Studies
University, Shanghai, China. He is currently an associate professor of English in the foreign languages school,
Zhejiang Guangsha College of Applied Construction, Zhejiang , China.
Over the past 16 years he has been teaching English as a foreign language to Chinese students and doing
research in the field of linguistics, applied linguistics and pragmatics. He has published more than 20 papers
in journals. His current research focuses on interlanguage pragmatics of Chinese learners of English.

© 2010 ACADEMY PUBLISHER