A Cross-Linguistic Comparison on Compliment Responses in Turkish-English Bilinguals

Authors: Elifcan Oztekin

Abstract:

Compliment response strategies in cross-linguistic contexts have received a considerable amount of interest in sociolinguistic research in various language settings. In this respect, a common finding of these studies indicates that speakers of different languages employ different patterns in strategies to respond to compliments. This has triggered varying theoretical approaches to compliment responses within theories of politeness and the universality of speech acts. In the light of previous studies, the present study investigates compliment response strategies that Turkish-English bilingual university students use in English and Turkish response conditions through a cross-linguistic discourse completion task and interviews. Data were analyzed using Holmes’ (1988) taxonomy and the results indicate a similar pattern to what has been observed in Turkish compliments responses in previous research. Turkish-English comparisons also display noticeable similarities in macro-level strategies, while subtle differences in micro-level strategies were also observed.

Keywords: compliment response strategies, cross-cultural differences, bilingualism, sociolinguistics