Compliment response patterns among speakers of Nigerian English

Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 1335–1348

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Compliment response patterns among speakers of Nigerian English Abolaji Samuel Mustapha * Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 2 August 2006 Received in revised form 22 October 2010 Accepted 25 October 2010 Available online 3 December 2010

Many studies of compliment responses of many speech communities especially, native English speakers (Pomerantz, 1978; Holmes, 1986; Herbert, 1989) reveal not only their preferred response patterns but also some vital information about their social values and norms. However, it does not appear (based on the limited knowledge of the author) that a similar study (barring Yuan, 1996) has been done among non-native speakers of English, especially ESL speakers. In this paper, 1200 compliment responses that were ethnographically collected among speakers of Nigerian English (ESL variety) in Lagos are analyzed in order to show their compliment response patterns and compare it with what has been reported in the other English speaking communities. My findings suggest areas of both convergence and divergence. The diverging patterns underline cultural differences in responding to compliments, information that might be necessary for cross-cultural communication. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Compliment responses Semantico-pragmatic analysis Nigerian English Response pattern Cultural differences

1. Introduction 1.1. Compliments and compliment responses Downes (1998:285) defines a compliment as a supportive action, akin to offers, gifts, and congratulations, which sequentially implies an acceptance or rejection as second pair part. This definition suggests that there are two main parts of the speech act – proffering compliments and responding to proffered compliments. Herbert (1990:201) captures this structure when he describes the compliment event as ‘‘a two-unit in which Utterance I and Utterance II are linked by both temporal and relevancy conditions such that B is conditionally relevant and sequentially dependent on A’’. This is illustrated in Example (1) (emphasis mine). (1)

A:

That’s a beautiful sweater.

B:

Thanks, my sister made it for me. (Source: Herbert, 1990:201)

A’s intention for the speech act of complimenting is arguably a prerequisite to understanding or interpreting B’s response. This does not mean that the context and what is contained in the response are less important when interpreting responses. However, a preliminary understanding of what compliments do or why complimenters proffer compliments is necessary for understanding responses. What does the compliment do as a speech act? In other words, why do people compliment one another? In what follows, I identify three primary functions although many more have been identified in the literature.

* Tel.: +234 8029756898. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.025

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I assume that compliments are speech acts or performative utterances that perform certain social actions and that these actions leave conventional effects when issued in the appropriate circumstances. By social actions, I mean those actions that fall within speech acts in Sbisa’s (2002:421) definition of social actions. Sbisa writes that a social action is any action whose agent and patient are members of a society, but also, more intriguingly, any action whose performance needs a social environment. Hitting somebody may be a social action in the former sense, offending somebody is a social action also in the latter. According to her, she is concerned here with considering speech acts as social actions in the latter sense. The literature on compliments suggests that the speech act is first and foremost a social lubricant: ‘‘compliments operate within the scheme of conversational postulates such as MAKE HEARER FEEL GOOD, and their formulaic nature limits the possibility that a hearer will misinterpret the speaker’s intention to offer solidarity and good will’’ (language specific) (Goody, 1978; cited in Herbert, 1990). In other words, this operation of compliments is restricted to language use in phatic communication. The second function according to Holmes (1986), is that the compliment explicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed (the respondent) for some ‘good’. Thus in Example 1, B appreciates the verbal gift and says, Thanks, but also shifts the credit to B’s sister, who made the sweater. This second element appears crucial to interpreting responses to compliments. The third function relates to the semantic import of the compliment, which Barnlund and Akari’s (1985:12) definition underscores. They define a compliment as ‘‘any expression of positive evaluation concerning the qualities or behavior of another person without manipulative intent’’. Although compliments are sometimes used as pre-acts or gambits, consequently performing other functions in the speech events, the point that the above definitions stress appear fundamental to understanding compliments and interpreting their responses. This position has been stressed in the literature. For example, Pomerantz (1978:81, 82) points out that recipients of compliments are under the influence of two conflicting constraints which are ‘‘concurrently relevant but not concurrently satisfiable’’. The first constraint stems from the fact that compliments can be seen as assessments in that the speaker is (positively) evaluating some state of affairs, some object, or some action. Thus, in Example (2), A’s assessment of the organ music is re-assessed by B in the affirmative. (2)

A:

The organ music came out so beautifully in it.

B:

I thought it did too. (Pomerantz, 1978:85)

As mentioned earlier in this paper, I do know from the other studies on compliments (Wolfson, 1983; Golato, 2005; Mustapha, 2010) that compliments might be used to perform actions such as requesting, thanking, initiating conversation and relationships, greeting, mending sour relationships, reducing face threatening act effects and the others. However, these other functions appear to me to be secondary. In other words, the use of compliments to perform those actions might be seen as pre-act (gambits). This is illustrated in Example (3). (3)

A:

I like your person.

B:

Thank you.

A:

Your answer is too short.

B:

What else? (Leaves)

In Example (3), a male complimenter meets B, a woman at a business centre and tries to open a conversation with her. A uses a compliment as a pre-act to initiate a conversation and because B isn’t interested, she first acknowledges the compliments briskly. Then, when A comments on the brevity, she realizes the secondary intention (What else?) and leaves. In this case, ‘‘the primary function of the compliment is acknowledged and the appropriate response is given. This is similar to what we have in Example (4). (4)

A:

You’re all a great asset to this company.

B:

Thank you. We’ve enjoyed working here.

In Example (4), the boss at an end of the year party with his employees uses the compliment to make the employee feel good and at the same time to thank them. It seems to me that the literature on the compliment strongly supports these three primary functions of the compliment. Thus Holmes (1986:485) defines the compliment as ‘‘a positive face politeness which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some ‘good’ (possession, characteristics, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer’’. Herbert’s (1990:201) careful observation that rules of interpretation may be necessary in order to identify the relevance of B’s response to a compliment received from A a complimenter, seems to apply in Example 1. In addition, I propose that the three preliminary functions of the compliment offer an understanding of the speech event which may form the initial basis of interpreting responses to compliments. These functions are: (i) the supportive role of the compliment or its function as a

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positive politeness strategy, (ii) its attributive function and (iii) its semantic role as an assessment of other people’s actions or qualities. These might be termed the semantico-pragmatic functions of the compliment. In light of this, the present study investigates compliment responses among native speakers of Nigerian English in Nigeria. The author borrows largely from previous works’ frameworks to analyze the data using three different taxonomies in order to account for what compliment receivers are doing in their responses. Thereafter I compare their pattern with what has been reported in the other national English varieties in the literature. Finally, I draw attention to certain implications for cross-cultural communication and analysis of compliment responses for future studies. 2. Method Fieldnotes were used to collect 1[2_TD$IF]200 compliment exchanges (compliments and responses) from participants. In keeping with a recall protocol, participants were asked to recall compliments they gave or received recently, and the responses given, including the exact wording of the compliments and responses. I also noted compliments that were exchanged in offices, places of worship, social gatherings, lecture halls, on the bus, etc., during the data collection period. Aside from the compliment exchanges, I also obtained other information about the participants e.g. gender, social status, dyads relationship/degree of intimacy. The ten fieldworkers who participated in data collection were mainly higher institution students from the University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, and Lagos State College of Health Technology, Yaba (both are situated in Lagos). They were trained by the researcher on how to identify compliments and record them. They recorded the compliment and the response using fieldnotes. Because of the need to record, as accurately as possible the exact wordings of the compliments and the responses, and the difficulty in recording the entire speech event on paper without tape recording (a limitation of our method of data collection), I restricted myself to recording only the compliment and response. Also, because we recorded the exact wordings of the compliments, it is not surprising that the data contain mixed codes (code-mixing of English with Nigerian Pidgin or a local language (Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or the others). Code mixing is a common feature of bilinguals’ interactions, especially in less formal situations. An average educated Nigerian commands two or three languages – the English language, his/her local language and Nigerian Pidgin. These are separate languages not varieties of the same language. For example, Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin are not the same language although they both serve the function of linqua franca within the multi-ethnic/linguistic community. Because of my interest in the patterns of frequent response types, I thought it necessary to include data that, when uttered, contained two or more languages. However, here these are presented translated into Nigerian English. In addition, it is noted that the same social norms (rules of conversation in phatic communion) apply whenever the speakers use any of these three popular languages or mixed codes. This understanding informed my inclusion of compliments expressed in Nigerian Pidgin and in local languages, including those that were expressed in mixed codes. However, a large part of our data contain utterances wholly in Nigerian English (e.g., I like your new look (haircut)/Oh, thank you); others in Nigerian Pidgin (Boy, you dey kampe in this attire) [Boy, you look great in that attire] and others in a mixture of Nigerian English and Pidgin/ local languages (e.g., O ma jo babe.(You look like a babe)/Before nko, (=before) what did I look like? In terms of coding their data according to response types, previous researchers showed preference for one or two schemes for certain reasons, either because of the peculiarity of their works and frameworks or because of their objectives. For example, Pomerantz’s (1978) found two schemes – acceptances, rejections, and in between responses that are based on her interesting analysis that recipients of compliments are under the influence of two conflicting constraints – agreeing with their complimenters, and avoiding self-praise. In her study of American English compliment responses, Pomerantz (1978) found these two constraints within the framework of conversation analysis. Holmes’s (1986) study of New Zealand English compliment responses adds a third dimension to the functions of compliments using a systematic scheme. She observes that it might be necessary to distinguish respondents’ (dis)agreement with the positive evaluation or content of the complimenter’s assertion from their acceptance or rejection of the credit, which is implicitly attributed to compliment receivers. In other words, evaluative and attributive actions should be kept separate in order to satisfactorily account for what respondents are doing in their ‘‘second pairs’’. This is illustrated in the example below: (The recipient, just coming out from a barbing saloon is complimented by a friend) A:

I like your new look (haircut)

B:

Oh, thank you. (Appreciates the offer) Are you really sure it fits me? (Seeks confirmation).

He appreciates the compliment in the first part of the response (oh, thank you) and seeks confirmation of the assessment component in the latter part of the utterance (Are you really sure it fits me?). Thus, Holmes (1986) addresses supportive actions and credit attributive actions of the compliments that she found in her respondents’ compliment responses that she further divided into three broad categories: (a) accept, (b) reject and (c) deflect/ evade (see her schemata in Holmes, 1986:492) and included some sub-categories. Pomerantz’s scheme and that of Holmes are similar on some points. For example, both schemes seem to agree on strategies that signify rejection. Also, it appears that Pomerantz’s ‘self-praise avoidance mechanism’ and Holmes’s deflect/ evade main categories are similar because their examples are not very different from each other (see their schemes for examples). Lastly, the schemes that emerged from their studies (their description of how their data work) reveal that

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respondents have three main options. However, they differ at some points. For example, they do not address the same action (s): while Pomerantz’s analysis reveals the functions of compliments as supportive and positive assessments, Holmes focuses on attributions of credit. This explains the differences in their categorization of compliment responses. Holmes’s study adds another dimension – nonverbal responses that are absent in Pomerantz’s. For example, respondents’ smiles in Holmes’s schema are classified as acceptance. In sum, Holmes (1986) recognizes two types of actions[3_TD$IF] [4_TD$IF]– evaluative and attributive. She further distinguishes the object of her study as attributions of credit, thereby excluding evaluative and supportive actions. However, it must be noted that while Pomerantz’s study is pitched within the framework of conversation analysis, Holmes’s is not. In fact, the methods of data collection and analysis are different. Perhaps the differences between the studies may be accounted for in the differences in their data, methods of data collection, analysis and focus, while the common grounds suggest areas where Holmes (1986) might have adapted from Pomerantz (1978), in a manner that future studies may emulate. Interestingly, their schemes have been adapted by other studies. For example, Herbert (1986) adapts Pomerantz’s framework for his American data and identifies three main categories: agreement, nonagreement and other interpretations (see scheme in Herbert (1986)). Another influential scheme is that of Kerbrat-Orecchioni, which recognizes distinctive (main) categories without sub-categories or other strategies. This, to us, is a typical exclusive scheme. Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1987) uses her French compliment corpus to develop ten broad response categories. However, she believes that part of the difficulty speakers face in responding to compliments may derive from the dual semantico-pragmatic components of compliments which are (a) assertions of positive valuation by the speakers, and (b) ‘verbal gifts’ offered to the addressee insofar as the content is positive valuation of an object, appearance, achievement, or similar, more or less directly tied to the addressee (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1987:15). Like Pomerantz (1978), Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1987) identifies two elements although the contents of the elements differ in the two studies. Pomerantz (1978) argues that a response token could perform one or more actions at a time, and this view is reflected in the categorization/analysis of her data. Kebrat-Orecchioni disagrees with this, although it appears to us that her schema shows that a compliment may perform two actions; it may offer a verbal gift and assert a positive evaluation. However, her categorization of responses suggests that respondents account for either of the actions and not both in a response at a time (in an utterance). In her view (if our interpretation of her scheme is accurate) a response token will only take into account one of the dual semantico-pragmatic components of compliments at a time (either assertion of positive evaluation or verbal gifts) and may not combine two or more in one utterance. Thus in her (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1987) analysis and categorization process, one response token is given a single semantic interpretation. Other studies with exclusive category scheme include those of Knapp et al. (1984), Miles (1994), Wieland (1995), Yuan (1996), and others. Knapp et al. (1984) concentrated on verbal and non-verbal responses of their American data and developed nine exclusive categories without sub-categories. Their categories are ritualistic acceptance, pleased acceptance, embarrassed, tempered acceptance, return compliment, magnified acceptance, not acknowledged, reject/denial, and soliciting confirmation (Knapp et al., 1984). Miles (1994) divided her Santa Cruz compliment responses into eight categories: acceptance, agreement, disagreement, self-praise avoidance, return compliment, comment history, non-verbal response and no response. Adopting Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s scheme, Wieland (1995) found that not all of the response categories are represented in her French/ American data. One common tie in these schemes (exclusive categories) is that each response (an utterance) is assigned one interpretation and classified under an exclusive category. This suggests that a response token takes care of one of the actions in the compliments. However, Yuan’s (1996) study suggests that this might not always be the case. Using Chinese and American data, Yuan (1996) develops a scheme of six main categories that departs from the previous tradition in one significant way. She argues that in almost all the previous studies on compliment responses, each response token is assigned one semantic formula (interpretation) even though a response may consist of two or more parts. She gives an example in Herbert (1989:80): Female 1:

Nice scarf!

Female 2:

Isn’t it funky? Kevin gave it to me.

where a coding of reassignment only captures a fraction of the intention of the response. It is noted here that Pomerantz’s scheme proceeded similarly to Yuan without the coding that Yuan used. Yuan’s schema has the following categories: appreciation tokens, comment acceptances (with strategies of comment acceptance and praise upgrade), explanations (including history, explanation/comment history), suggestion and request interpretation, disagreementsdisagreement, qualification, questions, and others, return compliment, reassignment, greeting interpretation, interjections, direct address and opt out). According to her, because the exclusive method of the previous studies leaves out a lot of important information, she uses what she calls a common coding system where informants’ responses are divided into (semantic) units and each semantic unit is assigned a separate strategy. For example, the response in Those shoes look really sharp/Thanks (AT). I just bought them (CH) they were on sale at X (Yuan, 1996:863) is analyzed as AT-CH-CH (AT-acceptance token CH-comment history). Yuan’s (1996) coding system moves towards accommodating as much information as possible. The coding system also seems to take note of respondents’ ways of accounting for distinct, essential components of the compliment. In her analysis, for the verbal gift and/or offer of solidarity, thanks accepts the gift/offer; for the explicit positive evaluation I just

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bought them agrees with the evaluation; while they were on sale at X indicates the respondent’s reaction to the credit attributed to her/him. All this is within one response to a compliment. These components are not itemized in Yuan’s (1996) study, though. However, Yuan’s scheme underlines and incorporates the fact that each response may not automatically be assigned only one semantic formula since a response may consist of two or more parts. In other words, her coding suggests that in their responses, respondents may take into account more than one action of the compliment. It appears that her coding system satisfies the principle of accountability to the data and recommends itself as an adaptable schema for other studies. The above overview (of previous schemes) shows how researchers have contended with accounting for what compliment respondents do in their responses. Three issues appear to be paramount in our overview. One of the issues asks whether it is possible for a response to perform more than one action. As an answer, Pomerantz (1978), Holmes (1986) and Yuan (1996) acknowledge that this is not impossible. And I subscribe to that position, considering the multifunctional nature of the compliment that we discussed in section 1. The second issue is how to account adequately for the response data in our analysis. To that I argue that a preliminary identification of the three primary functions of the compliment, the surface linguistic form of the response, and its pragmatic function might be very important in interpreting compliment responses or accounting for compliment responses. The third issue is that raised by Holmes (1986), i.e., that the actions under investigation should be specified in the analysis of compliment responses. For me, three separate actions might be very important, among others: supportive, evaluative and the attributive actions. This proposal is based on the argument that a compliment may perform a dual ‘‘semantico-pragmatic’’ function. Consequently, respondents’ responses (considering their surface linguistic form and pragmatic function) might also contain more than one action and may be interpreted to take into account those components of the compliment. Based on these assumptions, I propose three actions of the compliment and three separate taxonomies. The use of the three separate taxonomies is particularly useful for this study for three major reasons. One, it enables me to compare our findings with nearly all the previous works listed in this paper (whereas the use of one or two would have made this near impossible). Two, the three taxonomies appear to account more for what I have in my corpus and perhaps may be applicable to other studies with similar framework. Finally, it perhaps, makes my analysis systematic and my findings easier to interpret. It is noted that my classification and identification of three actions was not only informed by what I found in my data but was motivated by an overview of previous studies’ schemes, from which I got most of the terms used in my schemes. First, Pomerantz’s (1978) terms, discussed earlier in section 2, namely, agreement, disagreement, upgrade, downgrade, etc., together with her principle which recognizes conversational constraints of agreement and avoidance of self-praise, are all incorporated for the coding and analysis of assessment actions in our data. Second, Holmes’s (1986) schema and analysis, which focus on attribution of credit actions, are adopted in our third scheme. Three, Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s (1987) recognition of the dual semantico-pragmatic components of compliments spurred our method of analysis. In sum, my response data are interpreted following (i) the semantic import of the compliment – evaluative actions (EvalAs), (ii) the pragmatic component – supportive actions, and (iii) (SupAs) (indicating solidarity) and attributive actions (AttrAs). I believe that these three actions may be deduced from the recipients’ response. Of course, it may not always be the case that responses explicitly take all of them into account, but they can be inferred from the response and the speech act analysis of compliments (Jacob et al., 1993). For example, some participants’ responses (e.g., Oh thank you, Are you really sure it suits me?) may be interpreted to indicate reactions to two of the three actions (acceptance of offer and question sincerity of the evaluation) from the surface linguistic form. However, it might be difficult to conclude that the response to the third action is absent. This is where an analysis of both the form (surface meaning) and the pragmatic function comes into play (see our forthcoming paper on what compliments are). In what follows, the above three social actions are described and illustrated in separate schemes. This is illustrated in the example below: A:

You look so young and beautiful, grandma.

B:

Do you meant it? (first part) All thanks to my God. (second part) (Smiles) Thank you, my child (third part).

The first part of the response is directed to the content of the compliment (evaluation), the second part transfers the attributed credit to God (God is to be thanked indirectly, meaning it’s God’s doing), and the last part (thank you, my child) appreciates the gift or accepts the offer of solidarity (supportive). Thus, in my analysis, I look out for those parts of the recipient’s response that explicitly or implicitly account for the supportive, evaluative and credit attribution actions with due consideration for the surrounding interactions in the exchange. In other words, I analyze respondents’ use of explicit and implicit linguistic strategies in the context of the surrounding interactions to show: (i) acceptance, rejection or evasion of the verbal gift (that the compliment offers), just as we do when we are offered physical gifts; (ii) agreement or disagreement with the evaluative content of the compliment; and (iii) acceptance or rejection of the attributed credit that the compliment conveys.

[()TD$FIG]

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Response type

Example

I. Acceptances Appreciation Positive Non verbal response Return compliment (RC)

Seeking confirmation (SC) Shift praise (SP)

Reduce praise (RP) Comment history (CH)

Accept praise (AP) Upgrade praise (U)) II. Ignore/Evade No response (NR)

(5) A: You’re handsome B: Thank you (6) A: You look fine in this uniform B: (Smiles) (7) A: Mr. Tolu, you look corporate this morning B: Thanks, you too look corporate (8) A: Sincerely, I like this your wrist watch. B: Is that so? Thank you (smiles) (9) A: I like your shoes B: Thank you… God has removed my shame (10) A:You look fine, o. B: I am fine? You’ve not seen a fine person. (11) A: I like your dress. B: Thanks, it was bought in London. (12) A: Mum, your house is a good atmosphere for learning B: Thanks,I think they need it. (13) A: You look sweet, this morning. B: Thanks, I feel great, too.

(14) A: I like the jeans you’re putting on B: (No response) (15)A: Thanks for the other day. I like your dressing. B: Don’t mention. (16) A: The child of his mother B: You are on your own

Evasion (ER)

Opt out (OU) III. Decline Negative non-verbal response

Denial/refusal

(17) A: O ma jo babe )Yoruba) (You look like a babe) B: Before nko, (=what about before) what did I look like? (Hisses to show off). (18) A: You’re hard to offend B: You’ve not seen the other side of me.

Scheme 1. Recipients’ responses to supportive actions.

3. Analysis 3.1. Nigerian English compliment responses to supportive actions Downes’s (1998) definition of the compliment that I quoted earlier in this paper sees the act as a supportive action. He further suggests that there are two main choices for respondents of compliments (as verbal gifts or offers); accept and reject. I add a third choice – ignore/evade which serves as a means of maintaining middle ground (neither accepting nor rejecting) in my analysis. Although the number of ignore/evade responses in my corpus is minimal, a separate category for it became necessary in order to account fully for my recipients’ responses. Thus my Scheme 1 has three main categories: Acceptance, Ignore/Evade and Decline. Recipients indicate their acceptance of compliments as supportive actions using verbal and/or nonverbal acts. One conventional verbal way that recipients use to index acceptance is the use of an appreciation token: thank you, thank you very much, thanks. Acceptance of the offer may be heightened as in Example (19) or attenuated as in Example (20) or by saying thank you in a falling intonation1 (as reported by my fieldworkers). Thus I classified thank you very much, thank you, darling as pleased acceptance or heightened acceptance. Thank you, thanks are categorized as unadorned acceptance while anyway thanks, thanks anyway, said with falling intonation, are analyzed as attenuated acceptance. All responses containing any of these expressions are classified as acceptance. This is illustrated in Example (19) and Example (20). (19)

Two classmates met in the lecture hall and exchanged greetings A:

Hi Titi (name) I really love your pants this morning

B:

Oh! Thank you very much

1 Subjects were asked why they used falling tone and disdainful manner e.g., partial closing of the eyes in their responses. Their response was that they used them to indicate that the compliment was not accepted.

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(20)

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Another classmate in the class compliments Titi A:

You’re looking exceptionally cute in your dress and look.

B:

Are you serious? (Rising tone) If I didn’t know you better, I would think you’re not joking, but thanks anyway (falling intonation).

Positive nonverbal, paralinguistic responses to proffered compliments, such as nodding, smiling, laughing, and ‘mm’ chuckling are classified as non-verbal acceptance of the verbal gift as in Example (21). Participants reported that ‘smiles’ ‘laughter’ and ‘exclamation’ were employed as positive nonverbal responses to signal acceptance. This is illustrated in Example (21), where a mother admires her son in a new outfit. (21)

A:

Fine boy!

B:

Really? (Smiles)

In addition, responses that contain comments and praise upgrade are classified as acceptances, including those that confirm compliments, shift praise (You’re looking good/It’s God’s grace), scale down (It tastes great/Thanks, this junk), or answer questions (That looks great on you, how much is it?/Thanks, it’s very expensive). Thus acceptance may be indexed explicitly, implicitly, or both, and verbally or nonverbally. Instances in which the respondent chooses to use his/her turn to evade/ ignore a compliment might be difficult to classify as acceptance or rejection of the compliment. Therefore, my evade/ignore category is an intermediate category between accept and decline. I classified responses that indicate dislike for the proffered compliment as a result of sour relationships between dyads, unacceptability of the proffered friendship, or perceived inappropriateness of the compliment as evade/ignore responses. For example, in Example (22) the respondent reported that he ignored the compliment because he was teaching the complimenter when the compliment was given, and did not want his teaching interrupted. However, compliments like greetings and other positive expressions, sequentially elicit one form of response or the other. In other words, they are ‘‘adjacency pairs’’ (Schegloff, 1984): the first pair part builds up the expectation of a second pair part response type that conforms to the first part. The second pair part may not be forthcoming since adjacency pairs are not prescriptive rules that speakers need to follow although being civil requires that the person complimented should respond. (22)

The recipient was teaching the complimenter in a class of over 20 students A:

Sir, I like your wrist watch

B:

(No response)

A:

(in annoyance) I was appreciating your wrist watch and you said nothing

B:

(No response)

B’s silence in Example (22) does not commit him to acceptance or rejection. However, the exchange in Example (23) also took place in the classroom while the lecturer was teaching. The lecturer accepts the compliment by shifting praise. (23)

Context: The lecturer recites a long quotation in the classroom. A:

Lai wo we (Yoruba) (Without looking at the text) I wish I could do that.

B:

Well, to God be the glory (smiles).

The absence of a response to a proffered compliment may indicate rejection, as in Example (24), where the recipient’s silence shows that the complimenter’s interest in her did not go down well with her. (24)

A young man meets a young woman after making (weaving) her hair. A:

I like your hair. What’s it called? I wish you’re my girlfriend. . .

B:

(No response)

To ignore/evade a response to a compliment may indicate an unwillingness to continue/start conversation with the complimenter as we have in Example (24). But this cannot necessarily be interpreted to mean rejection of an offer of friendship. In Example (25), the recipient urges the complimenter to suspend such pleasantries because of the other pressing issues – preparation for tests and exams they have to address. (25)

A:

You’re really looking bam (beautiful)

B:

I beg forget that one for now, (Pidgin) (Let’s forget about that for now)

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Legitimate ignore/evade responses might be necessitated in the exchange for the recipient to respond by the lack of space. In other words, the giver provides an outlet for the recipient to ignore the compliment. Sometimes, other issues or topics of conversation in the speech event may overtake the need to respond to the compliment. In Example (25) it appears that the absence of an acceptance to the compliment in B’s utterance occurs because of the need to respond to the latter part of A’s utterance. However, analyzing responses where both participants have equal opportunity to participate may mean that recipients who ignore/evade responding to the compliment in their turns do so with certain intent perhaps to remain neutral. Nevertheless, it is difficult to conclude that the ignore/evade response is legitimate. Evasion and no response are similar because there is no response to the compliment. However, there is a difference in that evasion seeks other means as a way out of responding to the compliment (e.g., by responding to the other part of the giver’s utterance or other pressing issues). In no response, there is neither verbal nor nonverbal response either to the compliment or the other part of the utterance. In sum, my evade/ignore category consists of those responses that ignore the compliment, those that give no response (no utterance or paralinguistic features), and others that legitimately evade responses. Recipients reject compliments directly and otherwise. Explicit or direct rejection of the verbal gifts or offers of solidarity may be expressed verbally. This is illustrated in the example below: A:

What a lovely name you gave to her.

B:

Keep your compliment to yourself.

The respondent (an abandoned wife) rejects the compliment proffered by the husband who had abandoned her for a long time. Sometimes recipients deny the object of praise. This is illustrated in the example below: A:

You are hard to offend.

B:

You’ve not seen the other side of me. (A compliment praising the recipient’s virtue of forbearance)

Recipients also reject compliments implicitly by using negative paralinguistic responses such as hissing and scornful laughter. Our fieldworkers’ experiences in the field show that recipients use falling tone and certain mannerisms to indicate rejection. These are classified as implied rejection type in our scheme. However, very few decline responses were reported – only 4 out of 1[5_TD$IF]200 responses. 3.2. Recipients’ responses to evaluative actions In addition to offers of solidarity, which compliments proffer to recipients, I argue that compliments also evaluate recipients’ attributes/qualities using what the society values as acceptable norms and practices. Thus I make a distinction between accepting compliments as offers of solidarity and agreeing with the referential meaning of the compliment, the latter being an evaluative action. Evaluative actions are the elements of the compliment (the literal form) which evaluate/ appraise desirable qualities in the recipient. And recipients’ responses do take into account this component of the compliment, which Pomerantz (1978) calls ‘‘assessment actions’’. In Example (26) where a student compliments his lecturer, the second part of the recipient’s utterance responds to the literal meaning of the compliment. (26)

A:

Excuse me, Sir, you’re looking smart, today.

B:

Thank you. (first part). Yes, I am looking smart. (Second part)

Respondents in my data agree or disagree with their complimenters’ assessment. Sometimes their responses reassess, evade or ignore the evaluation by using varied strategies. At other times, they indicate in-betweenness. Thus, I deliberately ignore using the terms accept and reject to categorize responses in this section, as those terms appear to us to be more appropriate for supportive actions than for evaluative actions. For this section I suggest that agree and disagree are better. My recipients indicate agreement verbally or nonverbally. In Example (27) a man admires a lady and in Example (28) a lecturer admires a student in school uniform. The recipients agree with the complimenters verbally and non-verbally, respectively. (27)

(28)

A:

Lady, you look gorgeous this morning

B:

Yes, I do

A:

E fine ninu uniform yin o (Yoruba and English) (You look fine in this uniform)

B:

(Smiles)

In Example (28), agreement is implied by smiling. Smiling, as opposed to frowning and hissing (between teeth) is interpreted here as an indirect positive response that indicates agreement with the assessment. Other responses that indicate agreement are modified agreement and referent shift. In the former, the recipient attenuates the content of the evaluation as in Example

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(29). In the latter, the respondents shift attention from themselves to another. Sometimes recipients return the compliment as in Example (34). Disagreements are indicated verbally or otherwise. In Example (29) a woman admires the dress of another woman, while the recipient implicitly disagrees with the complimenter by attenuating the force of the praise. (29)

A:

Aso yi de fine o (Yoruba + English) (This dress is fine o)

B:

(Hisses) Ehen, se aso toju ti e nti mi fun (Yoruba) (Eeen, I am ashamed of this dress)

Our fieldworkers noted the various non-verbal actions that recipients use. For example, I found that teeth-hissing and scornful laughter are often employed by recipients to signal disagreement. In Example (29), the recipient hisses and supports the gesture’s import with verbal response (reason for disagreement). Recipients may also maintain a middle ground – neither agreeing nor disagreeing. This is similar to going off-record in a communicative act. A communicative act is done off record if it is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act. In other words, the actor leaves himself/herself an ‘out’ by providing himself/ herself with a number of defensible interpretations; (so that) she/he cannot be held to have committed himself/herself to just one particular interpretation of his/her act (Brown & Levinson, 1987:211). My data show that compliment recipients accomplish this by not responding to the compliment (no response) and by evading making a response to the compliment. They sometimes go on to another topic of discussion (evasion or opt out of the act). Scheme 2 shows my second scheme, pertaining to recipients’ responses to evaluation actions. 3.3. Responses to attributive actions This section treats responses to the credit attribution component of the compliment in a way somewhat similar to that of Holmes (1986). Holmes (1986) believes that a compliment not only makes a positive assertion, but also attributes credit to the addressee in relation to that assertion. For example, compliments on the addressee’s appearance, implicitly give credit to

[()TD$FIG] Response types

Examples

I AGREE Upgrade assessment

(30) A: Mr. Lucky, I like your camera. B: Ma camera ogharakama (Igbo). (My camera is too costly) Explicit agreement (31) A: Koye (=name), you played well today. B: As always. Implicit agreement (32) A: E jo student Toronto (Yoruba + English). (You’re like Toronto student) (implies comfort) B: (Smiles) Aaah Modified assessment (33) A: You’re looking fine with this your bling-bling, navel chain B: It’s just an efisi (=extra) (Yoruba) Returned assessment (34) A: Your smell nice B: Thank you very much, so do you Referent shift (reassignment) (35) A: This cake tastes nice B: My daughter baked it II EVADE/IGNORE No response (36) A: Wao! This is a nice work… B: (No response) Evade (37) A: You’ve made Nigeria proud, B: (No response, but waits to answer question) Opt out (38) A: Obas, the child of his mother B: You’re on your own (You said it; count me out) III DISAGREE Implied disagreement (39) A: This girl, you’re looking fine. B: (Hisses) I beg…with all these my pimples. Explicit disagreement (40) A: You have sexy eyes, babe. B: Thanks, but I don’t think so. Scheme 2. Recipients’ responses to evaluative actions.

[()TD$FIG]

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Response types I. Accept Enhanced ccceptance

Explicit acceptance Implied acceptance Reduced Credit

Examples (42) A: Chioma (name) Your soup is very delicious B: Chinyere (name), have you forgotten that I’m the best in cooking? (43) A: You’re looking cute and charming these days B: Thanks, bless you (44) A: Babe, you’re looking sweet B: (Smiles) (45) A: Anti, this your shoe is too fine. Is it up to N5,000? B: Sister, thanks. This is not up to that…

II. Deflect/ Evade Shift Credit Evade No response Opt out III. Reject Implied Reject Explicit reject

(46) A: You’re looking good, this morning B: Thank you. It is the handiwork of my wife (47) A: I like this your dress. Is it that tailor that sewed it? B: (Silence) Not that one (48) A: Your hair is very fine B: (No response) (49) A: You should wear short dresses…for your lovely legs B: You want me to enter trouble with those your lecturers/ (50) A: This girl, you are looking fine o. B: (Hisses) I beg … with all these my pimples (51) A: Princess! What a nice name you gave her B: Keep your compliment to yourself Scheme 3. Recipients’ responses to attributive actions.

the addressee for achieving a good appearance. Holmes (1986:491, 492) adds that in analyzing and categorizing compliment responses, it is important to distinguish responders’ agreement or disagreement with the positive evaluation or content of the complimenter’s assertion, from their acceptance or rejection of the credit which is implicitly attributed to them as recipients of the compliment. For example, in Example (41) a soloist (singer) who was complimented by a listener attributes the credit proffered by the complimenter to God. (41)

A:

You have a nice voice.

B:

Thank you very much. It’s God-given.

Also respondents may accept or, reject the credit to themselves or use other strategies for maintaining in-betweenness – neither rejecting nor accepting. These assumptions form the basis of my analysis of credit attribution in this section. I found that recipients indicate acceptance of credit to self in many ways. Acceptance of credit may be enhanced, as in Example (42), where the recipient exaggerates her performance. Some respondents accept explicitly, as in Example (43) or implicitly, as in Example (44), while others reduce the credit, as in Example (45). Recipients sometimes avoid accepting and rejecting credit to themselves. They do this by shifting the credit, as in Example (46), or by evading response to the compliment either by addressing the other parts of the complimenter’s utterance, as in Example (47), or by not responding at all, as in (48). Sometimes the topic of discussion is changed. Opting out as in Example (49) is another strategy recipients use to evade credit. I interpret responses that reject the compliment as a way of declining the credit to self. Recipients do this explicitly as in Example (51) or implicitly as in Example (50). Responses that reject the content of the compliment (assessment) are interpreted as reject credit. Scheme 3 contains our category of recipients’ responses to the credit attribution. 4. Results and discussion Nigerian English speakers’ responses to compliments’ supportive actions are characterized by a high degree of acceptance (94%). This preponderance of accept responses is akin to what many others have found (Knapp et al., 1984; Herbert, 1989; Miles, 1994) although Pomerantz (1978) reported that her American data contained a large proportion of responses that deviate from the model response of acceptance. Herbert’s (1989) finding of low frequency of acceptances (32%) in his American compliment response corpus agrees with Pomerantz’s (1978). Golato (2002:557) shows that German native speakers do accept compliments; in fact, she says: ‘‘they actually overwhelmingly accept compliments . . . however, the second pair part (i.e. their compliment responses) differs considerably from responses displayed by native speakers of American English’’. Golato (2002:557) says: ‘‘one German way of expressing an appreciation of a compliment is by providing as assessment. That is, they give an assessment of the compliment (not of the compliment assertion!)’’. Since acceptable ways of responding to compliments are culture-specific, it appears to me (I might be wrong) that Germans are more concerned with the assessment actions rather than the supportive actions of the compliment.

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Reviewing the tendencies in English speaking communities, Farghal and Al-Khatib (2001) summarize that compliment acceptances dominate: 66% for Americans, 88% for South Africans, and 61% for New Zealanders (Holmes, 1988). Most studies show that speakers favour the unadorned acceptance response type, thanks. For example, Herbert (1989:21) finds a pattern that predominantly favors dominance acceptance (76%) in the South African English compliment responses that he contrasts with American English responses. He notes: ‘‘the most outstanding feature of the South African data is the striking increased proportion of acceptances as CR (Compliment response) type. In my data, my respondents tend to heighten their acceptances–adorned acceptances (e.g. thank you very much, thank you, o). Nigerian English compliment responses to the evaluation actions (‘‘assessment of the compliment’’) favour agreement (93%) far more than disagreement (4%). Similarly, Holmes (1988) reports that disagreement is not common in the New Zealand data, and Herbert (1989) says studies on speech behavior show that there is an overwhelming preference for agreement, so that agreement responses outnumber disagreement. In my data, respondents indicate a far stronger preference for acceptance of credit attributed to self, although their responses show that implicit acceptance of credit to self is more preponderant in their responses (73%) than enhanced, explicit acceptance is in our data (11%). This is similar to what Holmes (1986) found among New Zealand English speakers, where 61% of their responses is accept and the next frequent response is to deflect the credit (29%). Holmes (1986:496) reports that it is relatively rare for New Zealanders to overtly reject compliments (10%). In sum, my analysis shows that Nigerian English speakers prefer covert (to overt) acceptance of the attributed credit to self.[6_TD$IF] 5. Further discussion In this section of the paper, I shall [7_TD$IF](i) discuss the implications of the pattern of NE speakers’ compliment responses in comparison with what has been reported among other speech communities[8_TD$IF], [9_TD$IF](ii) draw attention to the significance of my schemes and [10_TD$IF](iii) examine the significance of culture-specificity in compliment responses. The preponderance of acceptance responses to the supportive actions of the compliment that I found in my data suggests one sense of solidarity. Accepting compliments is said to be an index of reciprocating/confirming the assumed familiarity/friendship first offered by complimenters (Downes, 1998). It also signifies appreciation of the givers’ recognition of recipients’ positive face needs (want for approval). Because compliments establish solidarity with the receiver by praising some features relevant to that listener (Wolfson and Manes, 1980), and they also function as supportive actions which make them similar to offers, invitations, praises, etc. (Pomerantz, 1978:82), accepting compliments arguably confirms the assumed friendship, familiarity or solidarity. In other words, acceptance engenders good feelings between participants, which Pomerantz (1978) believes is the preferred next action. Thus the preference for acceptance in NE compliment responses might be indicating interest in fostering good relationships/feelings with conversational partners, a preference which tends to override any other consideration among participants. In other words, showing positive politeness or making the others feel good is stressed among interactants. Thus NE speakers prefer cooperative responses. It has been suggested that in communities where envy is very strong and where witchcraft exists as a sanction, compliments (as expressions of admiration for other people’s qualities/things) are often experienced as face threatening acts (Brown and Levinson, 1978:252). Although witchcraft and envy are not foreign to my subjects, it is surprising to find that their reported compliment response pattern prefers acceptance to rejection. Interestingly, my subjects accept compliments with additional linguistic strategies that tend to facilitate further interactions. It must be noted that communities that do not favour the acceptance pattern cannot be described as having predominantly non-cooperative conversational partners. What must be taken into consideration is that appropriate ways of responding to compliments differ cross-culturally (Holmes, 1986:504). For example, in some cultures (e.g. Malaysians – Azman (1986); Chinese – Chen (1993)) rejecting a compliment is preferred over accepting a compliment. Spencer-Oatey et al. (2000:99) report that the best response to compliments in Chinese is traditionally thought to be a rejection or denial. In Polynesian cultures, the norm is that compliments are to be accepted with humility (NganWao, 1985). Nigerian English speakers’ preference for agreement with the assessment actions of the compliment is very interesting considering that recipients are often confronted by at least – two conflicting constraints. The first constraint is the need to agree with the complimenter’s positive evaluation, which is desirable because it indicates being cooperative with one’s conversational partner. Agreement with one’s conversational partner also upholds what Leech (1983) calls the maxim of agreement although it also violates the maxim of modesty. The second constraint is to disagree with the positive assessment as a sign of being modest (refusing praise to self), but this also violates the maxim of agreement (cooperation). Pomerantz’s (1978) classic study of compliment responses first drew attention to this dilemma. Disagreement may threaten the face of the complimenter because his/her presupposition is received as false. On the other hand, agreement with the complimenter might be interpreted by listeners as being conceited, which makes the recipient lose face. Many studies (Pomerantz, 1978; Herbert, 1986; Downes, 1998) report that recipients do use linguistic repair strategies to avoid the two extremes and maintain in-betweenness because of the social norms and social pressure to be modest and avoid praise. On the one hand, this permits disagreement with a compliment so that the response might be judged polite. On the one hand, polite and supportive behavior also requires agreeing with others, confirming their opinions and assertions (Brown and Levinson, 1987:112). There seems to be an overwhelming preference for agreement, so that agreement responses outnumber disagreement in many studies, including my study.

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Table 1 Recipients’ responses to supportive actions. Response types Acceptance Explicit Implicit Pleased Tempered Total Evade/ignore No response/ignore Legitimate evasion Opt out Total Decline Rejection Implied rejection Total

Ranking

Frequency number

1

559 374 168 29 1130

47% 31% 14% 2% 94%

2

22 14 7 43

2% 1% 1% 4%

3

4 23 27

0.3% 2% 2%

1200

100%

Overall total

%

In this table, note that appreciation and accept praise are classified as explicit acceptance; positive nonverbal as implicit acceptance; upgrade praise as pleased acceptance; return compliment, seeking confirmation, shift praise, reduce praise, comment history as tempered acceptance in this table.

According to Golato (2002:564), the preferred pattern in a community will indicate where that community places more emphasis – on truthfulness or on the social function of the compliment. For example, Germans rated the truthfulness in their compliment higher than the social functions while for Americans, the social functions were more important than the truthfulness of their compliments. This is one of the features that Golato (2002) reports as characterizing German compliment responses. Golato (2002:557) says: ‘‘In my data, the most frequent response was an agreement with a compliment assertion in the form of a confirmation of the compliment assertion with the particle ja (yes) or some variant thereof’’. This also underlines the factor of differences in culture. Interestingly, my subjects’ response pattern favors both the truthfulness value (see evaluative Scheme 1 and Frequency Table 1) and the social function by their preference for agreement and acceptance (see supportive actions Scheme 2 and Frequency Table 2). It appears that the concerns about truthfulness do not in any way erode the social functions of their compliments. However, their preference for implicit agreement (see Table 2) suggests a move towards achieving an acceptable balance between the pressures to agree and to be modest. This suggests Nigerian English speakers’ means of resolving the conflicts – covert agreement which upholds both the maxim of agreement (cooperation) and the maxim of modesty (minimize selfpraise). This finding indicates a resemblance to what Pomerantz (1978) found for American English data. Nigerian English speakers’ choice of this pattern strongly suggest their awareness of the ‘‘inaccuracy or untruthfulness of the disagreement response’’ and of the fact that ‘‘excessive modesty (often shown by disagreement) is associated with falseness/insincerity and with conceit especially where the evaluation is true and undeniable’’ (Spencer-Oatey et al., 2000:109). It must be noted,

Table 2 Recipients’ responses to evaluative actions. Response type

Ranking

Agreement Upgraded assessment Explicit agreement Implicit Modified assessment Referent shift Total

1

Evade/ignore No response Evasion Opt out Total

2

Disagree Explicit disagreement Implied disagreement Total

3

Grand total

Frequency of number

%

20 106 878 30 81 1115

2% 9% 73% 3% 7% 93%

22 14 7 43

2% 1% 1% 4%

14 28 42

1% 2% 3%

1200

100%

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Table 3 Recipients’ responses to attributive actions. Response types

Ranking

Accept Enhanced Explicit Implicit Reduced Total

1

Deflect/Evade Shift credit Evade No response Opt out Total

2

Reject Implied Explicit Total

3

Total

Frequency of number

%

20 106 878 30 1034

2% 9% 73% 3% 86%

81 14 22 7 124

7% 1% 2% 1% 10%

28 14 42

2% 1% 4%

1200

100%

however, that compliment responses are largely determined by the held norms of a given society, so that what counts as appropriate and as an excessive degree of modesty are clearly socially determined. For example, disagreement with a compliment’s positive evaluation characterizes Malaysian society (Azman, 1986), whereas in Mexican society this is not the case, except between intimates (Valdes and Pino, 1981). One might also interpret our subjects’ pattern of compliment response to the assessment action as being in keeping with Herbert’s (1989) broader interpretation of the Solidarity Principle (a term first used in this sense by Brown and Gilman (1960)). One confirms solidarity with the previous speaker by agreeing with the speaker’s assertion and by avoiding/negating selfdirected praise, which would attribute a higher status to the complimented (Herbert, 1989:23). In other words, agreement alone – without other strategies to reevaluate – raises the recipient higher than the complimenter. Herbert’s partial interpretation of his finding on American/South African responses is that the high occurrence of response types other than acceptances (58%) in American data may be linked to their valuation of the notions of democracy and human equality. This phenomenon, Herbert (1989:24) believes, contrasts with the relatively high proportion of acceptances in the South African samples (76%), a society that is much more elitist in this regard than American society. In the same vein, the high occurrence of agreement with the assessment actions in our Nigerian English speakers’ data suggests an elitist society (Table 3). Also, the preference for implicit acceptance responses to the attribution of credit to self in my subjects’ compliment responses might be indicate modesty because the pattern is averse to explicit acceptance which suggests being selfconceited. Perhaps the need to appear cooperative conversationalists informs my subjects’ preference for implicit acceptance in the speech act of complimenting. However, their pattern is at variance with what obtains among Malaysian and Chinese societies, where rejection is preferred to acceptance (Holmes, 1986; Yu, 2003). 6. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper reports Nigerian English speakers’ compliment response patterns, which favors enhanced/ adorned acceptance of the compliment’s supportive actions, agreement with the assessment that the compliment gives, and implicit acceptance of the credit that the compliment attributes to the recipient. It also compares this pattern with those that have been reported in other communities (South Africans, American English speakers, Chinese, Malaysians, and New Zealanders) consequently providing useful information needed for intercultural communication in the speech act of complimenting. This comparison has been made possible because of the three kinds of scheme that were developed and the three social actions of the compliment that were specified to account for my subjects’ data. This method of analysis is proposed for other comparative studies of compliment responses. Acknowledgements I thank Michelle Paul, for taking out time out of very tight schedule to proofread this paper. And many thanks to Professor Peter Patrick for his useful comments and corrections on the earlier version of this work. References Azman, A., 1986. Malaysian students’ compliment responses. Unpublished term paper. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington.

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May and tu ordenes: compliment responses among Mexican-American bilinguals. Language in Society 10, 53–72. Wieland, Molly, 1995. Complimenting behaviour in French/American: cross-cultural dinner conversations. The French Review 69 (5), 796–812. Wolfson, Nessa, 1983. An empirically based analysis of complimenting in American English. In: Wolfson, N., Judd, E. (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition. Newbury House Publishers, Rowley, MA, London, Tokyo, pp. 82–95. Wolfson, Nessa, Manes, Joan, 1980. The compliment as a social strategy. Papers in Linguistics 13, 391–410. Yu, M., 2003. On the universality of face: Evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics 35, 1679–1710. Yuan, Yi, 1996. Responding to compliments: a contractive study of English pragmatics of advanced Chinese speakers of English. Proceeding of the Annual Boston University Conference in Language Development 20 (2), 861–872. Abolaji Samuel Mustapha holds a doctoral degree in sociolinguistics from the University of Essex, Colchester. He teaches in the department of English, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos State Nigeria. His research interests are politeness in speech functions, gender and language, learning and use of English as a second language, language variation, multilingualism, language planning and policy, language and style among others. He has publications in local and foreign journals and chapters in books. He is the author of Gender in Language Use: A study of Nigerian English Compliments.