Compliments and compliment responses in Israeli Hebrew: Hebrew university in Jerusalem students in interaction

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ScienceDirect Journal of Pragmatics 124 (2018) 73--87 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Compliments and compliment responses in Israeli Hebrew: Hebrew university in Jerusalem students in interaction Roni Danziger Department of Communication and Journalism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel Received 8 March 2017; received in revised form 5 December 2017; accepted 10 December 2017 Available online

Abstract By examining how Hebrew speakers respond to compliments, this study suggests a taxonomy of compliment responses, adds to the scarce knowledge about pragmatic patterns in Hebrew, and reveals parts of the ‘‘cultural script’’/habitus of the Israeli speech community. A new variation of the classic Discourse Completion Test was devised and applied to compliment responses of Hebrew-speaking students. The findings suggest that Hebrew speakers tend to accept compliments more than any other politeness strategy choice, and their responses to compliments tend to be more diversified than in other cultures. A compliment’s object had the most influence on strategy choice when responding to it, with an apparent differentiation between ‘‘external compliments’’ (appearance, performances, and possession) and ‘‘internal compliments’’ (physical appearance, talent, and personality), where the former is welcomed and the latter is not. A discussion about the specific socio-cultural history of Israel showed that the linguistic choices are part of a larger cultural performance of firgun, a relatively new socio-pragmatic practice that indicates a shift in Israeli politeness habitus. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hebrew; Compliment; Compliment responses; Politeness; Habitus; Culture

1. Introduction Focusing on compliments and compliment responses as a micro-level speech act that serves as a ‘‘cultural mirror’’ (Manes, 1983:96) has yielded fascinating insight into many speech communities (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001; Nelson et al., 1996; Sifianou, 2001). Nevertheless, while linguistic literature on compliments and compliment response is vast (see for example Golato, 2002; Holmes, 1986; Maíz-Arévalo, 2012b), pragmatic research on Hebrew is scarce and most has been carried out on speech acts such as requests and apologies (Blum-Kulka et al., 1985; Blum-Kulka, 1992[2005]). This study will examine how Hebrew speakers respond to compliments by examining Hebrew-speaking students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) as a sub-group of Hebrew speakers. To my knowledge, this is the first research on compliments and compliment responses in Hebrew. The study aims to add to the scarce knowledge of Hebrew pragmatic patterns, and through it, discover some part of the habitus (Bourdieu, 1980[2005]) of the Israeli speech community.

E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.12.004 0378-2166/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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The first part of this paper is a theoretical background of politeness research within a socio-pragmatic framework and a discussion of the specific socio-cultural history of Israel, which, I argue, is relevant to the understanding of the pragmatic choices made by Hebrew speakers, as in other cultures. In Section 2, a devised form of the classic Discourse Completion Test methodology is presented, which aims to address the physical part of language as well as to lessen the imaginary character of the method. Section 3 will discuss the study results and offer conclusions regarding the subtle yet significant change in the Israeli Hebrew politeness habitus, as reflected by Hebrew speakers’ choices for compliment response. 1.1. Theoretical framework 1.1.1. Politeness Politeness is habitus (Locher and Watts, 2005); it is a schematic system of social interaction guidelines acquired by a speech community. A certain speech act will assume different forms in each speech community, according to its specific habitus. For example, a speaker's knowledge of the frequency of thanking as a speech act; its linguistic form; and the appropriate time, place, and social context in which it should be said is acquired during a child's language acquisition process according to the norms and conventions of his/her speech community. These guidelines become second nature and do not require deliberate thought. As habitus, the schematic system of politeness enables speakers to assess a specific social context and act accordingly. Although not explicitly declared, Blum-Kulka sees politeness as habitus. For Blum-Kulka (1992[2005]), a specific culture will determine the values of these parameters and conventionalize them to a ‘‘cultural script,’’1 which in turn will determine the felicity conditions of a specific linguistic strategy in a specific context. This approach to politeness is based on the understanding that politeness is culture specific and, therefore, its components are not predetermined. Locher and Watts (2005:11) explicitly used Bourdieu's concept of habitus to describe the social norms and expectations that guide interactants in verbal and non-verbal instances of relational work. In their criticism of Brown and Levinson (1978[1987]) they reverted to Goffman's (1967[1972]) original definition of face, arguing that it does not reside inherently in an individual, but rather is constructed discursively. They added that no utterance or speech act is inherently more or less polite, because contexts are spontaneous and speakers rely on their habitus. For Locher and Watts (2005:12, 16), the best way to understand discourse and social interaction is by considering what is politic and non-politic, or un-marked and marked, in a specific politeness habitus performed in actual context. This approach requires consideration of socio-pragmatic patterns in a culture-specific context and therefore calls for observation of politeness among Hebrew speakers. 1.1.2. Politeness in Israel Blum-Kulka is essentially the only linguist to research habitus in Israeli Hebrew. Scholars like Katriel (1986, 2001) and Almog (1997, 2004) studied the cultural values of Israeli society as reflected in Hebrew usage, but from a sociological-anthropological point of view. And so, the linguistic literature on the subject is very scarce. In a meta-pragmatic paper, Blum-Kulka (1992[2005]:258--259) addressed habitus and universality. In order to discover culture's role in habitus, she interviewed Hebrew-speaking Israelis about politeness. As expected, meta-pragmatic questions made interviewees aware of their actions and words and they tended to provide social-cultural expectations in an attempt to present their best selves. When asked to define politeness, Hebrew speakers gave two main connotative definitions: a positive one that included patience and tolerance, restraint, courtesy, respect, and kindness; and a negative one, which perceived politeness as ‘‘external’’, ‘‘dishonest’’, and ‘‘unnatural’’. Their definition resonates with the Western folk tradition of decorum, but came with a cultural warning that politeness is an external packaging of communication that serves as means to avoid harming interlocutors. Blum-Kulka concluded that Israelis are highly aware of the components of speech events (context, speakers, and specific speech act), which is why they demonstrated a large variety of politeness strategies in navigating interactions. In addition, she noted a clear differentiation between the public and the private spheres in the Israelis’ perception of social life. While the politeness code in the private sphere is more or less stable, the code of the public sphere is still being formed. As Lakoff (2000:49) explained, known social frames do not require deliberate thought and are therefore unmarked, while frames that are not yet set still do and are therefore marked, as would be the case with Israelis’ perception of the private and public spheres, respectively. For the Israeli interviewees, among family and friends (the private sphere) there was no need for politeness, it was only required outside of their inner circle (public sphere). Blum-Kulka's main conclusion stated that the Israeli politeness code was still unstable, due to the relative newness of Israeli society.

1 ‘‘Cultural scripts’’ refers to Blum-Kulka's (1992[2005]) use of the term for cultural conventions that motivate linguistic and behavioral choices in a speech community. This use of the term should not be confused with the ethnopragmatic technique used by Goddard and Wierzbicka (2004), although both refer to cultural norms, values, and practices.

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Even though Israeli Hebrew speakers claimed they have no need for politeness in intimate relationships, Blum-Kulka's previous research showed a tendency toward directness in requests, mitigated by frequent use of nicknames (BlumKulka, 1990, 1992[2005]; Blum-Kulka and Katriel, 1991). This observation can be seen as part of the Israeli ‘‘dugri’’ code speech from the first settlers (known as tsabarim2), who valued directness, honesty, assertiveness, naturalness, solidarity, communitas, and ‘‘anti-style’’ (actions speak louder than words) (Katriel, 1986). The dugri code was a combination of socialistic values that originated in the eastern European background of the first settlers and the concept of the New Jew (Katriel, 1986:17). According to Almog (2004:23), Zionist ideals shaped the Israeli state and the Israeli elite at their beginnings and as a consequence, shaped the Israeli consciousness in all its parts: cultural, economic, social, and political. As a result, the dugri code led to a presumably straightforward Israeli speech: direct, un-embellished, honest, and economic. The profound yet rapid change in Israeli society is almost unique. In addition to economic, political, and geographical changes, Israel has had a shift in values, which did not go unnoticed by scholars.3 Israel was never strictly socialist. Even during the glory days of the kibbutzim, they comprised only 3% of the population. The economic-political patterns of the state were mainly capitalistic, but the society publicly valued volunteering and condemned consumerism and extravagance. In the 1970s, Israel experienced a number of political earthquakes: the 1973 War, which created a crisis of trust in government, and the 1977 elections, which signified a deeper social change toward a more diverse social tapestry. The original tsabar elite began to lose its power and influence. Throughout its existence, Israel has accepted large waves of immigration from all over the world (mainly Eastern Europe and several Muslim countries, but not exclusively). An even greater change came during the 1980s, the Ultra-Capitalist Era of Israel. With a privatization process and other economic changes, Israel's economy became global and capitalist. The capitalistic culture eroded the Zionistic culture, since the latter is based in communal solidarity, while capitalism encourages competition and globalization (Almog, 2004:19, 26-27). First and Avraham (2009:30) claimed that capitalism is synonymous with Americanization, as North America influences Israeli politics, culture, and economy more than any other Western entity. The American influence is especially apparent in the massive importation of American movies and TV shows; in the frequent decision by businesses to use English when naming restaurants, bars, brands, and products; in slogans, store signs, and commercials; and lastly, in scientific and technical texts and the high-tech industry, where English is the predominant language. Capitalistic North American culture is based on democracy and individualism, which values individuality and self-fulfillment over solidarity and egalitarianism. At the end of a tumultuous era in the brief history of Israel, a subtle but meaningful shift from collectivism to individualism and from asceticism to hedonism was observed (Haas and Katz, 2001:321). As habitus is based on shared social and cultural values, one can expect changes in politeness norms among Hebrew speakers. The conceptual shift from a ‘‘gibush’’ mentality to a ‘‘firgun’’ mentality may serve as a good example of this delicate yet significant shift in Israeli politeness habitus. Both gibush and firgun are culturally charged (and untranslatable) concepts in Israeli society. Gibush (denoting a process of crystallization, but still differing from the Hebrew term for the natural process, hitgabshut) is a metaphor for the structure and quality of Israeli society and general social relations. It is based on the structure of a crystal (gavish), which is strong and solid, thanks to the solidification of its parts. In Israeli culture, gibush is part of a nostalgic togetherness of the tsabar era of the first settlers. It is a signifier of group solidarity, equality, and clear notions of who is part of the group and who is not. These social tsabar values are based on socialist-Zionist values that were a significant part of the socialization process in the Israeli education system. However, Katriel (1991:148--154) claimed that the crystallization ideal has been replaced by the ‘‘avira mefargenet’’’ ideal (literally, a supportive environment), which is based on the concept of firgun. According to Israeli Hebrew speakers, firgun means to give others a chance, not to judge them harshly, not to envy their success, and to support them both verbally and non-verbally. Originating from the Yiddish [TD$INLE] [farginen], ‘‘not to begrudge’’,4 the use of firgun began in the late 1960s and caught on in the 1980s, but its cultural importance really solidified in the 1990s. The most common example Israelis give for firgun is to openly and genuinely support a co-worker when he or she is promoted at work. Katriel (2001:32--35) claimed Israelis perceive firgun and politeness as mutually exclusive because politeness is seen as obligatory or a social convention, as opposed to the genuine, sincere, and volitional action of firgun. Katriel (2001) saw a clear connection between the concept of firgun and the dugri code: they both ‘‘imply an openly and sincerely expressed evaluative stance’’ (40) or more simply, they are both derived from the values of directness and sincerity. Dugri expresses a negative evaluation of another, while firgun expresses a positive one, but they are both used

2 Literally ‘‘prickly-pears’’, a nickname originating from the 1930s, given to the first settlers who were said to be ‘‘prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside’’ (Almog, 2004). 3 See Almog (2004), Rosenblum and Triger (2007), Yoran (2001), First and Avraham (2009), Haas and Katz (2001), and Katriel (2001). 4 [TD$INLE] (accessed 09/05/2017).

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in the others’ best interest. In the spirit of firgun, avira mefargenet (to support, not to begrudge; a supportive environment, respectively), is a social climate, aimed at reducing competitive tension by encouraging support and positive feelings. This enables competition without competitiveness, which ideally preserves solidarity between equals. This new conceptualization of social relations allows Israeli society to keep its dugri values of sincerity and solidarity by stretching them to cover new capitalistic values of competition and individualism. Like Blum-Kulka (1992[2005]), who noted the connection between politeness and the demonstration of appreciation and love among Hebrew speakers, Katriel (1991:261) noted that Israelis demonstrate ambivalence toward politeness: On the one hand they are aware that politeness expresses consideration and maintains harmony, but on the other, they may see it as an exterior or diplomatic way to get something, due to the tsabars’ perception of politeness as artificial. Thus, it can be concluded that the ambivalence in referring to politeness comes from the specific cultural history of Israel. This ambivalence and the rise of firgun over gibush represent a shift in Israeli politeness habitus. As firgun is a positive politeness concept that includes compliments, it would be necessary to be familiar with the specific cultural history of Israel when observing sociopragmatic patterns of compliments and compliment responses among Hebrew speakers. 1.1.3. Compliments and compliment responses Holmes (1986) defined compliments as follows: A compliment is a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some ‘‘good’’ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer. (485) Following Holmes’ definition, compliments can be considered expressive speech acts (Searle, 1969:15) since their goal is to create a positive feeling for the hearer and strengthen his/her positive self-image. Accordingly, Holmes saw compliments as positively affective speech acts directed at the addressee, whose function is to increase or consolidate the solidarity between the speaker and the addressee (Holmes, 1986:486). Compliments and compliment responses are an ‘‘asymmetric adjacency pair’’, speech acts comprised of two adjacent, sequential, and non-interchangeable parts produced by different speakers (Levinson, 1983:332--364): every compliment is expected to be followed by a compliment response, whether it be verbal or non-verbal (Yuan, 2002:196). Pomerantz (1978) was the first to note the dilemma speakers face when receiving a compliment. She claimed two universal conversational principles clash when speakers are to respond to a compliment: (1) avoid self-praise, and (2) agree with others. Speakers can accept the compliment and comply with principle (2), but in so doing violate principle (1). Speakers can disagree with a compliment or refuse to accept it, which will avoid self-praise but risk non-agreement with their interlocutor. Thus, the compliment addressees’ mission becomes finding the most effective way to solve this dilemma, within their culture-specific script (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001:110; Maíz-Arévalo, 2012b:158). The speaker's dilemma becomes yet more complex when considering the large number of elements that determine the context, such as compliment object (Rees-Miller, 2011), gender of the complimenter and the receiver of the compliment (Holmes, 1988), the receiver's self-image (Chen and Yang, 2010), social distance (Wolfson, 1988) and social power (Holmes, 1986). For these reasons, focusing on compliment responses can lead us to the cultural script of a specific speech community. Due to their clear connection with cultural norms, compliment responses have caught the attention of many scholars, who have extracted interesting insights into cultural behavior (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001; Maíz-Arévalo, 2010, 2012a, 2012b; Mustapha, 2011; Sifianou, 2001). Chinese compliment responses, for example, have received a lot of attention: Chen executed a quasi-longitudinal study of Xi’an Chinese and found speakers favor self-praise avoidance over agreement, in line with Chinese cultural expectations at the time (Chen, 1993). In a more recent study (Chen and Yang, 2010), a noticeble change was observed when speakers of Xi’an Chinese accepted compliments as much as speakers of Western languages such as English and German, indicating a shift in habitus. 2. Methodology In an attempt to control the social variables of this study, a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was used. This laboratory method is very common in comparative intercultural studies (Blum Kulka et al., 1989) because it elicits utterances from speakers in a given context. It relies on the cooperation of informants who are asked to imagine communication situations and how they would behave in them. DCTs have been criticized for not always corresponding to natural occurring data, not capturing elements of turn-taking and spontaneous discourse, and providing mainly meta-pragmatic data due to informants’ awareness or intuition (for a detailed overview of the advantages and disadvantages of DCTs see Golato, 2004; Jucker, 2009). However, in addition to being a fast and lab-controlled method, DCTs produce stereotypical responses that reveal cross-cultural differences in sharp contrast (Jucker, 2009:1618), which can be beneficial for

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discovering specific cultural scripts and values. Therefore, DCTs are suited to studies whose main focus is ‘‘people's beliefs and values with respect to culture’’ (Golato, 2004:14--15). Since providing participants with visual aids can lessen the imaginary character of the DCTs and make them more tangible, a DCT in comic form was devised (see Appendix A) -- a comic strip (printed in full color) showing two speakers, one complimenting the other, was presented to informants. At the top of the page, the context for the speech event was set, for example: You are walking down the street when suddenly you see a friend of yours. You greet each other and she/he says: ‘‘You cut your hair! It looks good on you.’’ The background setting of each comic strip matched the context; for instance, in this compliment, speakers were presented with a street in the background. In all of them, the recipient's speech bubble was empty and the participants were instructed to fill it in according to how they would presumably behave within the given context. A visual representation of speakers requires they have facial expressions, which play an important role in ‘‘reading’’ the social and interactional situation. This was another interesting variable to explore, since body language (in this context mainly kinesics) is an integral component of speech behavior. When administering a preliminary version of a classical DCT, I had noticed all compliment responses were either happy, mad, or embarrassed; as a consequence, participants in the present study were presented with three comic strips for the same compliment event, identical in all aspects (size, speakers, compliment, context, background, and color) except for the facial expression of the recipient. Participants were asked to choose the one comic strip that had the facial expression that presumably best matched their own, but were not told the emotion each expression represented. Lastly, participants were requested to provide information about their age, faculty, and other native languages they speak. All participants understood and completed the task easily, except for one, who filled in all the comic strip speech bubbles with different answers and was therefore excluded from analysis. As Israel has a very diverse population, I abandoned forming a representative sample and chose to apply my research on students, in this case from HUJI, as many studies in the field have done for comparison and reasons of convenience (see for example Lorenzo-Dus, 2001; Nelson et al., 1993). Students were approached in the halls, classes, and libraries of the university's Mount Scopus campus. The only requirement for participation was being a native Hebrew speaker. Participating in this study were 80 students, 46 women and 34 men, who generated 393 compliment responses (N = 393). Of the partcipants, 48% were aged 18--25, 47% were 26--35, and the remaining 5% were 36--45. The findings of this research do not represent an average or typical ‘‘Hebrew speaker’’, but cultural expectations. Conclusions from this study cannot be essentialized, as they should not be: Hebrew-speaking students at HUJI are a subgroup of Hebrew speakers and, like all speakers, their linguistic choices are motivated by their complex of identities. Communities of practice are not hermetically sealed, since their members belong to many different linguistic communities and sub-groups. As a result, linguistic behavior ‘‘spills’’ from one community to the other (Mills, 2003:4). 2.1. Compliment objects The compliments had seven different objects: (1) appearance -- haircut, (2) physical appearance -- body, (3) talent -playing piano, (4) performance -- job promotion, (5) performance -- student lecture, (6) possession -- car, and (7) personality/trait -- courage (see Appendix B). The objects were chosen based on common compliment objects noted in previous research (Herbert, 1990; Holmes, 1986, 1995; Knapp et al., 1984). The difference between appearance and physical appearance is important -- appearance refers to outward appearance that is a result of deliberate thought and effort, such as a haircut, clothes, and makeup, while physical appearance refers to natural appearance, which, generally speaking, cannot be changed, such as eye color and body shape (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001:112). Each participant was assigned a random DCT with five compliments. The gender of the complimenter was also random, but the recipient was of the same gender as the participant's declared gender. The ‘‘possession’’ compliment (6) presented two social status variations: equal/unequal. The decision to examine social status was based on common statements in compliment literature indicating that the relationship between the complimenter and the recipient is crucial to accurately interpreting the potential functions of the compliment, or in other words, the difference between compliments and flattery (Holmes, 1995:118). In addition, taking the Israeli habitus of dugri talk and its implications into consideration, it seemed interesting to examine if and how social status influences the linguistic choices of Hebrew speakers. 2.2. Social distance Social distance determines the degree of comfort between interlocutors, thus influencing politeness choices in interaction. According to Wolfson (1988), compliments occur most frequently between friends and acquaintances, and

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less so between intimates or strangers. In her Bulge Theory, she describes a continuum of social distance, where minimum is strangers and maximum is intimates, with other social distances falling somewhere in between. She explains that the two extreme ends present similar linguistic patterns, while the middle of the continuum presents more differentiation in politeness strategies, since these types of relationships are less sharply defined. Based on this theory and Blum-Kulka's (1992[2005]) observation that Israelis politeness norms are clearer at the extremes of social distance, none of the compliments in this study were given by intimates or strangers, but by colleagues, acquaintances, roommates, and varying degrees of friends. The actual wording of the compliments was based on my knowledge as a native Hebrew speaker.5 All compliments went through a focus group of native speakers of mixed gender in order to determine their ‘‘naturalness’’. The compliments were phrased as to allow the same compliments to be used across genders and social status, in order to control its influence. 2.3. Compliment response taxonomy The compliment responses were classified based on actual findings and previous literature (Herbert and Straight, 1989; Knapp et al., 1984; Maíz-Arévalo, 2012b; Pomerantz, 1978). The following explains and exemplifies the taxonomy used in this study, which was divided into categories and sub-categories: The categories represent strategy choices, according to the receivers’ dilemma as explained by Pomerantz (1978), and the sub-categories represent actualizations of those strategies. Dividing the responses into categories and sub-categories proved to be important, as overall strategy choices showed no overall differences between the genders, but sub-category choices revealed interesting differences, as will be explained in Section 3. The strategy taxonomy used was as follows: 1. Acceptance -- In choosing this strategy, speakers chose to accept the compliment and to agree with the complimenter. This strategy appeared in three forms: a. Ritualistic acceptance -- The recipient made some acknowledgment, usually in the form of a ‘‘thank you’’ token or a smile, with no elaboration, e.g. /todá/!6 (‘‘Thank you!’’). b. Pleased acceptance -- The recipient accepted the compliment by expressing his or her pleasure with the object of the compliment or the compliment's judgment e.g. /wow todá ‘eize neh ̣mád lisˇ mo’a/ (‘‘Wow thank you it's so nice to hear [that]’’). c. Embarrassed -- the recipient blushed, stammered or expressed embarrassment in some other way, e.g. /'e. . . todá. . ./ (‘‘Umm. . . thanks. . .). 2. Acceptance with amendment -- In choosing this strategy, speakers solved the receiver's dilemma by accepting the compliment but offering a certain amendment to diminish ‘‘self-praise’’. This strategy appeared in four forms: a. Tempered acceptance -- The recipient acknowledged the compliment with a disclaimer or ‘‘minimizing phrase’’, e.g. /kulám nir’im tov bateurá hazo´t/ (‘‘Everybody looks good in this lighting’’). b. Return compliment -- The recipient responded with a compliment, presumably to ‘‘realign’’ the relationship of the speakers, e.g. /todá h ̣amudá sˇ elí! at h ̣atiḵá/ (‘‘Thank you my sweetie! You look good’’). c. Enhancement -- The recipient deliberately violated the norm of self-praise avoidance, probably in an effort to avoid responding directly to the compliment. Presumably, this strategy solved the recipient's dilemma by accepting the compliment, but the acceptance was ironic and therefore not self-praise, e.g. /táh ̣les ‘ani méga géver/ (‘‘Yes, I’m a mega-man’’). This category includes non-humoristic responses as well, like /ken, naḵo´n?? ‘ani máze smeh ̣á!/ (‘‘I know, right?? I’m so happy!’’). d. Soliciting confirmation -- The recipient requested further confirmation. Again, this strategy shows acceptance of the compliment while avoiding self-praise by signaling the recipient's self-doubt, e.g. /walla? be’emét? Lo hergásˇ ti betuh ̣á/ (‘‘Yeah? Really? I wasn’t sure’’). 3. Evade -- The sub-categories represent attempts to avoid the recipients’ dilemma by not acknowledging the compliment's illocutionary force and emphasizing its ability to organize and control the discourse. This strategy appeared in three forms: a. Ignore -- The recipient continued the conversation without acknowledging the compliment or intentionally ignored it in order to display his or her displeasure.

5 Ideally, the compliments would have been based on previous data of linguistic patterns deployed by Hebrew speakers when giving a compliment, but since none exists I had to rely on my knowledge as a native speaker. 6 All data in this research was written and therefore the transcript presented follows the transliteration rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, recently updated on March 2015 [TD$INLE] (accessed on 13/10/15).

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b. Topic introduction -- In order to avoid accepting the compliment, the recipient chose to see it as an attempt to introduce a topic of conversation. This category included ‘‘history’’ comments from recipients such as /’aba kaná li/ (‘‘My dad bought it for me’’). c. Topic shift -- Since the compliments had verbal performance, they were usually not entirely ignored. The recipients quickly acknowledged the compliment and continued the conversation in order to downplay it, e.g. /ken, todá, gam ‘atá menagén?/ (‘‘Yes, thanks, do you play too?’’). 4. Rejection -- The recipient explicitly contradicted the compliment, thus avoiding self-praise and sacrificing agreement with interlocutors, e.g. /‘‘lenagén’’ stam mekasˇ késˇ et ks ̣at al hapsantr/ (‘‘’Playing’’’, I’m just fiddling around on the piano’’). 5. Reinterpretation -- Reinterpreting is an entirely different paradigm of linguistic choices in which there was no intention to solve the recipients’ dilemma, since the recipients considered the compliment non-politic (Locher and Watts, 2005), face threatening, or an act of impoliteness, as was apparent from their angry responses: /’até res ̣iní? láma ‘amárta et ze?/ (‘‘Are you serious? Why did you say that?’’). Speakers reinterpreted the function of the compliment, usually as selfserving, e.g. /’ani lo h ̣osˇ évet sˇ ezé holém lehagéd davár kazé lebano´t/ (‘‘I think it's inappropriate to say something like that to girls’’). Both Golato (2002) and Maíz-Arévalo (2012b) used taxonomies developed by scholars studying English (Pomerantz, 1978; Holmes, 1995, respectively) and found that while those taxonomies covered most of the responses they found in German and Spanish (respectively), some frequent response strategies were not evinced. Both added to and revised their taxonomies after reviewing the data they collected. In this Hebrew study, the same process was applied. After reviewing both previous literature and actual findings, the taxonomy was devised bottom-up. This can be exemplified by category (5) ‘‘reinterpretation’’, which is a strategy mentioned by Golato (2002) and Herbert and Straight (1989) explicitly, and implicitly by Sifianou (2001). They all address compliments being reinterpreted as requests for the object complimented. This specific strategy was not observed in this study, but compliments were reinterpreted as selfserving or acts of impoliteness. 3. Results and discussion All 80 students received 5 random compliments from the compliment bank, as described in Section 2. For ethical reasons, participants were given the opportunity to refrain from completing any part of the task. As a result, the research generated 393 responses (and not 400), which were classified according to the compliment response taxonomy outlined in Section 2.3. Some scholars (such as Maíz-Arévalo, 2012b:160) have discussed compliment responses displaying multiple strategies, especially in multi-conversation turns, but this study classified each response according to its main function or ‘‘nucleus’’ (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984:200). Although compliment responses can display more than one strategy, I see such instances as a hiererchy, similar to ‘‘head act’’ and ‘‘adjunct’’, where a head act is the nucleus of a speech act, realizing it idependently to other elements and defining its main discursive function (Blum-Kulka and Olshtain, 1984:200). For example, in ‘‘Thank you very much, do you also work on this subject?’’ (/todá rabá. ‘At gam ‘oséket banosé?/), a response to a performance compliment (student lecture), the nucleus is ‘‘do you also work on the subject?’’ while ‘‘thank you very much’’ is the adjunct, since the main function of this response is to make further conversation, shifting the focus to the complimenter, and therefore making it a ‘‘topic shift’’. Since this study does not examine the linguistic choices of individual speakers, but rather Hebrew-speaking students as a sub-group, the consistency of choice in individual speakers was irrelevant. The data were examined per response, which was the variable, taking all constants (gender, compliment object, etc.) into consideration. Therefore, the data were comprised of N = 393 responses and not N = 80 students, which would not have provided the most relevant results. All variables and constants were subjected to a chi-squared statistical test to examine significant dependency between each of them. A dependency was considered significant when p < 0.05. See strategy choice results in Table 1 and displays of emotion in Table 2.

3.1. Gender The presentation of results according to gender should be read in the spirit of Mills (2003), who perceives gender as one of many components that construct the interaction of discourse. As social components are active at all times, a speaker is always more than just ‘‘man’’ or ‘‘woman’’ and one component is never the sole decider of linguistic behavior. As shown in Fig. 1, overall results show no significant difference in strategy choice between the genders ( p = 0.867). This was a surprising result as many previous studies have found differences between genders in this respect (e.g. MaízArévalo, 2010). However, as shown in Fig. 2, the subtle and interesting differences surface when the relationship between gender and sub-category choices are explored ( p = 0.02). For example, ‘‘acceptance,’’ showed no overall major differences, but zooming in on the sub-categories revealed a different distribution: 23.9% of women's but only 11.1% of

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Table 1 Results by categories and sub-categories.

Acceptance Ritualistic acceptance Pleased acceptance Embarrassed Acceptance with amendment

Number of responses

Overall percentage

190 90 72 29

48.3% 22.9% 18.3% 7.4%

86

21.9%

48 9 10

12.2% 2.3% 2.5%

Example

‘‘Thanks!’’ ‘‘Wow thank you. It's so nice to hear [that]’’ ‘‘Umm. . .thanks. . .’’

Soliciting confirmation

17

4.3%

‘‘Everybody looks good in this lighting’’ ‘‘Thank you my sweetie! You look good’’ 1. ‘‘Yes I’m a mega-man’’ 2. ‘‘I know, right?? I’m so happy!’’ ‘‘Yeah? Really? I wasn’t sure’’

Ignore Topic introduction Topic shift

80 25 44 13

20.6% 6.4% 11.2% 3.3%

‘‘My dad bought it for me’’ ‘‘Yes, thanks, do you play too?’’

Rejection

20

5.1%

‘‘Playing’’, I’m just fiddling around on the piano’’

Reinterpretation

16

4.1%

1. ‘‘I think it's inappropriate to say a thing like that to girls’’ 2. ‘‘Seriously? Why did you say that?’’

Tempered acceptance Return compliment Enhancement

Evasion

Table 2 Expression of emotion when responding, by gender of participants. Emotion

Gender Total

Men Women

Total

Mad

Embarrassed

Happy

11.2% 4.5%

32.4% 48.9%

56.5% 46.6%

171 222

7.4%

41.7%

50.9%

393

men's responses fell under ‘‘pleased acceptance’’. Similarly, 9% of the women's but only 5.3% of the men's responses fell under ‘‘embarrassed acceptance’’. The overall similarity affect is due to the higher ‘‘ritualistic acceptance’’ among men, with 30.4% of responses, as opposed to only 17.1% of the women's responses. When examining the strategy patterns in a dualistic framework7 (men--men, women--women, men--women, women-men) some salient strategy choices were noted ( p = 0.042; see Fig. 3): ‘‘Pleased acceptance’’ was a more likely choice when the compliment was from women (24.7% and 22.9%) compared to from men (10.3% and 11.9%). ‘‘Rejection’’ was less likely in inter-gender compliments (3.5% men--women; 2.6% women--men; compared to 6.9% men--men and 7.3% women--women). Not one woman to man compliment was reciprocated (‘‘return compliment’’ strategy) and no woman to woman compliment received an ‘‘enhancement’’. Most notably, however, ‘‘acceptance’’ rates were similar in all cases except for men to men, where it was significantly lower (41.3%) compared to men to women (52.3%), women to men (49.5%), and women to women (49.5%). As previously mentioned, Rees-Miller (2011:2673) observed that men and women in her research used compliments as an additional way to perform gender identities. This means, culturally speaking, that Israeli men may be less expected to accept compliments when they are from other men. When examining the results according to the gender of the complimenter, we see almost all differences were gone, except for the ‘‘reinterpretation’’ category, where compliments given by men were more likely to be reinterpreted than those given by women.

7 The choice to view the results came from previous research (such as Holmes, 1988 and Rees-Miller, 2011) that did the same and showed linguistic choices are additionally determined by these gender contexts. However, it should be noted that this dualistic framework is criticized for confusing gender andsex; sex is dualistic while gender is scalar. For further discussion, see Bing and Bergvall (1996[2006]).

[(Fig._1)TD$IG]

Fig. 1. This figure compares response strategies by gender of participants.

[(Fig._2)TD$IG]

Fig. 2. This figure compares specific sub-strategy choices by gender of participants.

[(Fig._3)TD$IG]

Fig. 3. This figure shows response choices of participants in a dualistic gender pattern.

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In terms of ‘‘emotion’’ choice, examining results in dualistic patterns ( p = 0.005) showed that between women, only one compliment response was marked under ‘‘mad’’ (0.9%), while in the three other cases ‘‘mad’’ was chosen between 7.8% and 12.6% of the time. ‘‘Embarrassed’’ emotion choice was more likely when a compliment was given by women (47.3% and 50.4%) than by men (31% and 33%), while ‘‘happy’’ was more likely when the compliment was given by men (55% and 57%), than by women (44.7% and 48.6%). The ‘‘emotion’’ choice demonstrated that men were more likely to show a happy expression when accepting a compliment (56.5%) than women (46.6%), who tended to show a more embarrassed emotion (48.9% as opposed to 32.4% for men). Both genders were less likely to present a ‘‘mad’’ expression, but men presented it more often than women (11.2% as opposed to 4.5%). When we examine the correlation between the genders of the complimenter, the differences in emotion again almost completely vanish, especially in ‘‘embarrassed’’ emotion. This means that the gender of the receiver had more influence over the ‘‘emotion’’ expression than the gender of the complimenter. These results lead to the conclusion that when participants responded to compliments, their gender had more impact on their linguistic choice than the gender of their interlocutor. In addition, Herbert's (1990:217--218) claims that women tend to accept compliments more than men and that compliments from men tend to be more accepted is not supported in this specific Israeli context. Holmes (1988), who studied compliments and compliment responses among English-speaking New Zealanders, claimed women see compliments as tools to establish and maintain solidarity, while men tend to see compliments as Face Threatening Acts (FTA) (Brown and Levinson (1978[1987]). This claim is also not supported by the results of the Israeli responses: very few men and women reinterpreted compliments, and the difference in number was insignificant (5.3% of men's responses and 3.1% of women's). Finally, a literary claim that proved to be relevant to the Israeli context was one by Rees-Miller (2011), who examined English-speaking North Americans, according to which contextual activity has a larger impact on the compliment speech event than other factors. The results of the present study showed larger differences in response choices when examined according to compliment object than according to gender. 3.2. Object Not only was the object of the compliment the most influential factor for response choice ( p < 0.005), but it also highlighted a perceived divide between two types of compliments for the Israeli students: internal and external compliments (See Tables 3 and 4). When examining the most chosen strategy by participants (see Fig. 4), ‘‘acceptance’’ Table 3 Response strategy choices by compliment object. Strategy choice

Appearance -- haircut Performance -- student lecture Performance -- job promotion Possession -- new car Physical appearance -- looking good Talent -- play piano Personality -- courage

Acceptance

Acceptance with amendment

Evasion

Rejection

Reinterpretation

Total

64% 53% 74% 54% 46% 31% 37%

33% 30% 23% 20% 14% 21% 19%

0% 13% 3% 20% 13% 40% 32%

3% 2% 0% 5% 7% 7% 7%

0% 2% 0% 0% 20% 0% 5%

N = 33 N = 47 N = 35 N = 79 N = 56 N = 70 N = 73

Table 4 Expression of emotion when responding, by compliment object. Emotion

Object

Total

Appearance Physical appearance Talent Performance 1 (student lecture) Performance 2 (job promotion) Possession Personality

Total

Mad

Embarrassed

Happy

6% 14.2% 4.2% 0% 0% 6.2% 15.2%

30.3% 50% 58.6% 29.8% 57.1% 30% 37.5%

63.6% 35.7% 37.1% 70.2% 42.8% 63.7% 47.2%

N = 33 N = 56 N = 70 N = 47 N = 35 N = 79 N = 73

7.4%

41.7%

50.9%

N = 393

[(Fig._4)TD$IG]

R. Danziger / Journal of Pragmatics 124 (2018) 73--87

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Fig. 4. This figure shows responses strategy choices by compliment object.

(48.3% of all responses), we see higher rates in ‘‘performance’’ compliments (74.2% for ‘‘job promotion’’; 53.1% for ‘‘student presentation’’), ‘‘appearance’’ compliments (63%), and ‘‘possession’’ compliments (54.4%). These acceptance rates indicate these compliment objects are the most welcomed and most conventionalized. Acceptance rates were lower for ‘‘physical appearance’’ (46.4%), ‘‘talent’’ (31.4%), and ‘‘personality trait’’ (36.9%). In order to understand the apparent distinction, this section discusses each object individually. 3.2.1. Appearance -- ‘‘new haircut’’ between friends, N = 33 In response to the ‘‘appearance’’ compliment, no one chose an ‘‘evasion’’ response or ‘‘reinterpretation’’, and only one ‘‘appearance’’ compliment was rejected. This means that the acceptance rate for this compliment object was very high, with 63.6% of the compliments accepted and 33.3% accepted with amendment. Moreover, 63.6% of the responses were under the ‘‘happy’’ emotion. The results show that ‘‘appearance’’ compliments were not met with objection and were welcomed by the Israeli students. In addition, the fact that no one evaded its illocutionary force may suggest it is highly conventionalized and recognized as a compliment. This result might be indicative of change in Israeli habitus, since attention to appearance was considered vanity for the first settlers (Almog, 1997). 3.2.2. Physical appearance -- ‘‘good looking’’, between roommates, N = 56 The rate of a ‘‘reinterpretation’’ response was much higher for the ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliment (11 out of the overall 16 ‘‘reinterpretation’’ responses) than for the others. Of all ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliments, 19.6% were reinterpreted either as self-serving or inappropriate. Examining informants’ responses to ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliments, it can be concluded that they carry a sexual undertone in Israeli culture. For example, when men gave ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliments to women, they responded ‘‘Are you serious? Why did you say that??’’ (/’até res ̣iní? láma ‘amárta et ze?/) or ‘‘I don’t think it's appropriate to say that to girls’’ (/’ani lo h ̣osˇ évet sˇ ezé holém lehagéd davér kazé lebano´t/). The same undertone is noticeable in compliments from men to men. One very blunt response was ‘‘Thanks wanna have sex?’’ (/todá ros ̣é lisˇ káv?/) which explicitly says ‘‘what's on everybody's mind’’, so to speak.8 Two responses were interestingly identical: /lo, ‘at/ (‘‘no, you’’) -- a stereotypically known phrase that girls allegedly say to one another when complimenting each other. This ironic response may suggest that some men see a ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliment as a feminine custom, and this is their way of expressing their displeasure at participating in it, or their way to perform a masculine identity. The ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliment was not reinterpreted between women, but was rejected only between women. This may suggest a relation to identity performance. This sexual undertone may be face-threatening between Israeli men, whose ‘‘male’’ identity, similar to the American men in Rees-Millers’ study (2011), includes strong heterosexuality. Physical appearance compliments may threaten this identity, which will lead Israeli men to respond in the

8

This could also be interpreted as jocular mockery (Haugh, 2010). I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.

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described negative manner. In addition, Israeli hegemonic culture has a strong heteronormative sexual identity, thus a physical appearance compliment could be easily interpreted as self-serving when it is between men and women. Physical appearance compliments may not be as face-threatening when they are between women, perhaps because female gender identity is culturally performed otherwise, and its heterosexuality is not threatened as easily as in the ‘‘male’’ case. Maíz-Arévalo (2012b:167) found Spanish women often rejected compliments from other women to avoid competitiveness and maintain solidarity. It is possible that Israeli women do the same, when the FTA is gone and they are free to participate in the culturally expected act of firgun, which is defined just as such. Some of the ‘‘acceptance’’ responses were accompanied by comments made by the participants, which suggests they used this specific strategy for a specific reason, implying it is the most appropriate or the easiest way to avoid an uncomfortable situation, and not because they enjoyed the compliment. For example, a woman responded with a ritualistic ‘‘thank you’’ to a ‘‘physical appearance’’ compliment from a man but commented: ‘‘A smile and redness in the face, looking down and changing the subject quickly’’. And a man who responded with a ritualistic ‘‘thank you’’ commented: ‘‘I might suspect his sexual orientation, but not necessarily. It depends. I have some friends who would say that as a joke’’. 3.2.3. Talent -- ‘‘playing piano well’’, acquaintances, N = 70 Of the responses to ‘‘talent’’ compliment, 40% evaded it -- mostly through ‘‘topic introduction’’ (31.4%). None were reinterpreted. This compliment produced higher rates of embarrassment (58.5%). The surprising overall negative reaction to this compliment object suggests that ‘‘talent’’ compliments are less welcome in these social distances in Israeli culture, as it may be considered too intimate or, like physical appearance and personality compliments, which proved to be similarly unwelcome, an inner and unchangeable part of who we are, which makes social judgment on this topic less pleasant. A relevant example of a comment made by a woman after receiving the ‘‘talent’’ compliment from another woman can support the claim that they can be seen as too personal. This woman evaded the compliment, responding with a ‘‘topic introduction’’: ‘‘Yes, I studied [piano] for years, thanks’’ (/ken, lamádti bemásˇ eḵ sˇ aním, todá/), but in the comment section she wrote: ‘‘I will smile and blush and look down, I don’t know how to handle this kind of personal compliments well’’. No major gender differences were noted. The context of a house party and the linguistic form of the compliment (/lo yad’áti sˇ e’at.a menagen.et, ‘eize yo´fi!/9 -- ‘‘I didn’t know you played [piano], how wonderful!’’) allowed speakers to focus on the discursive function of the compliment, thus allowing them to avoid the receiver's dilemma. Many responses included ‘‘history’’ comments, on how long they were playing, for example: ‘‘Yes, since second grade’’ (/ken, mekitá bet/). 3.2.4. Performance -- ‘‘job promotion’’, co-workers, N = 35 ‘‘Acceptance’’ rates were very high: 74.2% ‘‘acceptance’’, 22.8% ‘‘acceptance with amendment’’, the other 2.8% evaded the compliment. None responded with rejection or reinterpretation. In addition, no one chose the ‘‘mad’’ emotion when responding, but ‘‘embarrassed’’ was chosen more frequently than ‘‘happy’’ (57.1%; 42.8%). It received a very high percentage of ‘‘pleased acceptance’’ -- 31.4% compared to the 18.3% general percentage. Evidently, Israeli students welcomed this performance compliment. As previously mentioned, a demonstration of support toward a co-workers’ promotion is a textbook example requiring firgun. Since these compliment responses represent cultural expectations, this motivation can explain the relatively high positive attitude toward this compliment. The higher rates of ‘‘embarrassed’’ emotion choices over the ‘‘happy’’ emotion may be explained by the concept of firgun, which is used to maintain harmony in situations where individuals are obviously not equals due to capitalistic competition. As previously noted in Section 1.1.2, equality is a deeply rooted value in Israeli culture, due to its past dugri code habitus. Therefore, it may be appropriate that Hebrew speakers could be embarrassed in this situation, but still see this compliment as appropriate and welcomed. 3.2.5. Performance -- ‘‘university presentation gone well’’, classmates, N = 47 Acceptance rates were high (53.1% ‘‘acceptance’’; 29.7% ‘‘acceptance with amendment’’); interestingly, no one chose the ‘‘mad’’ emotion when responding, but a whopping 70.2% chose the ‘‘happy’’ emotion. Just as in the object ‘‘job performance’’ (Section 3.2.4), Israeli students welcomed a performance compliment due to the culture of firgun, which prescribes they be supportive of an equal in a competitive environment.10

9 The dot (.) marks the border between a masculine morpheme and a feminine morpheme, which alternated according to the gender of the receiver of the compliment. 10 It should be noted that these high ‘‘acceptance’’ rates might be due to the bias of the respondents, who were all students who may welcome this kind of compliment more than average. For this reason, it may benefit this research to compare results with the other performance compliment, on job promotion.

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3.2.6. Possession -- ‘‘new car’’, equals/non-equals variable (friends/boss-worker), N = 79 This compliment was presented with a social status variable, first with speakers who were equals -- friends, and second with non-equal speakers -- the complimenter was a worker and the recipient was his/her boss.11 Overall strategy choices showed no possession compliment was reinterpreted and all other strategy distributions were average, with a slightly elevated number of ‘‘ritualistic acceptances’’ and ‘‘topic introductions’’. Participants were more likely to choose the ‘‘happy’’ emotion over the ‘‘embarrassed’’ emotion. When examining the possession compliment responses based on the social status variable, ‘‘acceptance’’ rates and ‘‘rejection’’ rates were average and similar, while ‘‘acceptance with amendment’’ was higher when speakers were equals (26.6%), at the expense of ‘‘evasion’’ (13.3%). When speakers were non-equals, opposite results were noted: 24.4% ‘‘evasion’’ and 16.3% ‘‘acceptance with amendment’’. It can be speculated that a compliment from a lower status speaker to a higher status recipient is less welcome, as it makes the recipient uncomfortable, leading him/her to choose avoidance strategies. 3.2.7. Personality trait -- ‘‘courage’’, between casual friends, N = 73 This compliment presents lower than average ‘‘acceptance’’ rates (36.9%) and a very low ‘‘ritualistic acceptance’’ rate of 8.2% (compared to the general 22.9% ‘‘ritualistic acceptance’’ rate). Alternatively, participants chose to ‘‘ignore’’ this compliment 21.9% of the time, a much higher rate compared to the general 6.4% ‘‘ignore’’ responses and the general 31.5% ‘‘evasion’’ responses. ‘‘Personality trait’’, along with ‘‘physical appearance’’ and ‘‘talent’’, are apparently perceived as internal; an unchangeable part of the self. Therefore these compliments are perceived as intimate and less welcomed, while ‘‘appearance’’, ‘‘performance’’, and ‘‘possession’’ are perceived as external to the self. This distinction may be the reason why the external objects are accepted more often than internal ones; they are less face-threatening. This may be the background for a social convention that makes these ‘‘external’’ compliment-objects more frequent in some cultures, like the American (Herbert, 1990:202, Knapp et al., 1984:16), the New Zealand (Holmes, 1988:455), and the Iberian Spanish (Maíz-Arévalo, 2010). From a typological perspective, it is quite possible the Israeli culture shares this social convention. Another relevant issue for this distinction between internal and external compliments is the relevance of the Bulge Theory (Wolfson, 1988) to the Israeli responses. Internal compliments were seen as too personal for the social relationship presented to participants in the study. This supports Wolfson's theory and calls for further research, such as conducting a study with similar outlines but between intimates and between strangers. 3.3. Israeli politeness habitus: compliments as part of the Firgun practice What can be learned from these results concerning the Israeli habitus? The dugri value of sincerity came across through the participants’ comments; a section in this study allowed participants to make any relevant comment they may have had, and suggested they comment on their thoughts and physical reactions, and whether their responses matched them (about 50% of the responses were followed by comments). Comparing the participants’ comments with their compliment responses, it seems that the majority were sincere and therefore congruent with the dugri code. The word firgun was actually used several times by participants. When a man was complimented by a woman on his personality trait (courage), he responded: /’eíze mefargénet. . . be’emét ozér. . ./ (‘‘what a supportive person. . . this really helps’’), or when a woman received a compliment from a man on her job promotion, she answered /oy todá al hafirgún ze neh ̣mád/ (‘‘Oh thank you for being supportive, it's nice’’). This may suggest that in Israeli culture compliments are perceived as part of a larger firgun environment, just as Katriel described (1991, 2001). The compliment event of the ‘‘job promotion’’ is a textbook example of the practice of firgun (Katriel, 2001:32--34). The results showed this ‘‘performance’’ compliment was very well received by participants, even if it was accompanied by slight embarrassment. As previously described in Section 1.1.2 like the dugri code, firgun is based on the sincerity value, but is stretched to cover new capitalistic values of competition. If Hebrew speakers see compliments as part of a larger firgun culture, it further explains their cultural expectation for sincerity. In addition, a welcoming of compliments on objects like appearance and possessions may be evidence to the change from asceticism to hedonism mentioned in Section 1.1.2. Lastly, according to Rosenblum and Triger (2007:173--175), Israelis frequently complain of a lack of firgun and do not actually practice what they preach. Their claim implies that firgun is culturally expected and as a result, when not forthcoming is notable. Whether in positive or negative use, it is apparent that firgun has become the prism through which the chapter on compliments in the Israeli cultural script is written by Hebrew speakers.

11 Participants were given the role of the boss, a role they are less likely to possess in their real lives as students. See Golato (2002) on this DCT limitation.

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4. Conclusion This study examined the socio-linguistic cultural expectations of Hebrew speaking-students when responding to compliments. While the results from this study cannot be generalized to all Israeli students, let alone all Hebrew speakers, they nonetheless can provide a better understanding of Israeli cultural expectations for language behavior. The results showed a cultural expectation favoring agreement with interlocutor over self-praise avoidance, as shown by the acceptance and avoidance rates, as well as low rejection rates (Maíz-Arévalo, 2010:197). Although no major differences were noted in strategy choices according to gender, some subtle changes were noted, especially when examining the results in a dualistic paradigm. It seems the object of the compliment had the most influence on strategy choice among the students in this study, which correlates with Rees-Millers’ (2011) and Lin, Woodfield and Ren's (2012) findings. Some results of this study supported the hypothesis that Israeli habitus, although still anchored in the dugri code, may be starting to shift due to the changing values of Israeli society, which has become very capitalistic. This was especially apparent after reading the results with an understanding of the concept of firgun and its influence on the students’ expectations and performance in this study. As this is the first study conducted on Hebrew compliments and compliment responses, it raises more questions than it answers. So many aspects of Hebrew socio-pragmatics are yet unexplored. Hopefully this study will lead to a surge in pragmatic research of the Hebrew language and culture, so as to gain a better understanding of them. Acknowledgements I thank Tomer Nachushtan for beautifully drawing the comic strips for this study, Professor Zohar Kampf for his insight and advice, and Dr. Aldina Quintana-Rodriguez for her support, knowledge, and friendship. Appendix A. 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