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In English, compliments are positive, but in Chinese, compliments can not only be positive but also negative. So compliment can be translated to “称赞语” or “恭维语”. On some social occasions, people compliment others with special purpose and we often define that it is of derogatory sense, so in this paper, the writer translates it to “恭维语”.
2.Literature Review
Compliments are effective in getting people into conversation, reducing the tense of relationship and shortening the distance. What is more, it is encouraging, giving the hearer a happy mood. To achieve this purpose, compliments are often used. However, not all of us could use it in the right way, especially in cross-cultural communication.
Complimenting as a speech event has been one of the major areas on which linguists have focused their attention and drawn insights into the phenomenon of linguistic politeness in the last two decades. Linguists researching on compliment aimed at coming up with their own points on compliment meaning, compliment function, application and so on. Pomerantz (1978) defines compliment as a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually that person addressed, for some “good” which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer. From them, we know that compliment speech act is a way to express a good feeling, friendliness and half-admitted desire to please somebody. A compliment response is conditionally and sequentially dependent on the compliment, that is to say, compliment response always accompanies compliment. Thus, the compliment speech act is “a two-unit turn in which utterance 1 and utterance 2 are linked by both temporal and relevant conditions” (Herbert, 1990). This suggests that compliment and compliment response are dependent on each other and cannot be separated. And they also depend on the circumstance that the compliment is expressed. Manes and Wolfson (1989) find that compliments are remarkably formulaic speech acts and point out that the primary function of compliments is “the reinforcement or creation of solidarity” between the speaker and addressee. “Compliments, as a kind of expression off linguistic communication, are generally formulaic in its structure”. Data collected from American middle class by Manes and Wolfson have demonstrated that there exists a considerable amount of patterning at both syntactic and the lexical level. Meanwhile, Holmes (1988) holds the similar view that compliments function as “social lubricants” which “increase or consolidate the solidarity” between interlocutors. Compliments are often used to express encouragement in English-speaking counties. “Good job”, “Well done” are often heard to encourage the students or employees. Unlike the case of compliment, the definitions of compliment response given by famous scholars are rare. Nelson (1996) has given a definition of compliment response: “A compliment response is a verbal acknowledge-ment that the respondent of the compliment heard and reacted to the compliment”. . 源'自:751-'论.文'网"]www.751com.cn
Many Chinese scholars also do research on the compliments. According to. He Mingzhi(2002), compliment is to express positive feeling of approval of the hearer for something. It do not necessarily relate to something done by the hearer, because people could compliment someone on his intelligence, ability. His definition indicates two things, one is that compliment shows the speaker’s sincere expressions of positive feelings to the hearers and the other is that compliment is a kind of face-to-face verbal interaction. Hu Chao (2006) thinks when a compliment is given, a response to it is expected. Compliment response occurs with compliment. A compliment response is conditionally and sequentially dependent on the compliment. The two parts have been viewed as a whole in the literature. Thus, the compliment speech act is “a two-unit turn in which utterance 1 and utterance 2 are linked by both temporal and relevant conditions.” Chen Xinren(2007) regards compliment as a positively affective speech act, and it is a complex sociolinguistic skill, saving people’s faces, increasing or consolidating the solidarity between the speaker and the listener and creating or maintaining rapport. He thinks thanks, apologies and greetings are often found to appear together with compliments. For example, “Thanks for the dinner. We really like it”. Meanwhile, people may also employ compliments to soften criticism, especially when the interactants are in a relationship in which the maintenance of harmony is required. Another example is like this, “It’s very good. I really like the way that you deliver your speech. However, if you slow it down a bit, it will be much better”.