Compliment Response Strategies in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract

本研究探討台灣地區大學生在兩種不同社會情境如何使用國語回應讚美的策略，研究採言談問卷填寫(Discourse Completion Test)實驗方式，內容描述常見的日常生活讚美情境，60位學院大一學生寫下他們認為適當的回應讚美方式，所填寫的語料依單一策略(見Holmes, 1988)及組合策略加以分類，並利用卡方檢定分析策略頻率分布異同。研究顯示，大致而言，台灣地區大學生傾向接受讚美，不過讚美者相對地位的高低會造成回應策略的不同，包括策略的比重、有接受意涵策略的使用頻率、及回讚讚美者使用的策略頻率等，研究結果亦間接印證Wolfson(1983)的論點，讚美傾向＂由上而下＂，本文同時進一步比較跨語言及華語區語言間回應讚美策略的異同。

This study investigated compliment response strategies used by Mandarin Chinese speakers in Taiwan in two situations, one in which the complimenter was of equal status, and the other of higher status relative to the responder. The study was carried out through the use of Discourse Completion Tests (DCT), in which 8 daily life events were described, 4 for each situation. Sixty college students were asked to provide more than one compliment response they found socially appropriate. Their responses were categorized by single super strategy following Holmes (1988), and combined super strategy, calculated for frequency occurrences, and analyzed by Chi-square tests. The results indicated that although Mandarin Chinese speakers in Taiwan tended to accept rather than reject compliments, there were, however, variations across the situations, in terms of the weight each strategy carried, the frequency occurrences of the Accepting strategy in general and the Returning strategy. The findings of the present study revealed that compliment response strategy varied as a function of social status relationships, and indirectly lent support to Wolfson’s (1983) claim that compliments tended to go “downwards.” The paper also discusses cross-linguistic as well as intra-lingual similarities and differences between the present study and previous studies on compliment response.