A Contrastive Study of Compliment Responses of Korean, Chinese and English Speakers

In this study, the compliment response behavior of native Korean speakers and Mandarin Chinese speakers, who are basically regarded as having rules of speaking and social norms very different from those of Westerners, is compared with that of native Australian English speakers. The data were collected through the use of written discourse completion tasks(DCT), with four situational settings (appearance, character, ability, and possession). According to the findings, the Chinese and Korean groups demonstrate similar CR behavior, whereas the behavior of both these groups is markedly different from that shown by their Australian counterparts. Australian English participants are found to be more willing to accept credit offered by compliment. On the other hand, Chinese and Korean participants are more likely to evade or reject the credit. Such tendency appears to be accounted for by the norm of modesty. Compared with Brown and Levinson’s notion of face, that of the Australian English speakers can be deemed an individualistic, self-oriented one. In contrast, the notion of face as reflected by the Chinese and Koreans seems to be communally- and interpersonally- oriented (Zhang 1995, Yu 1997, 2003). The difference between the two concepts should be viewed as one of degree rather then of kind.