Exploring English Utilizing Compliment Responses and Crosslinguistic Influence in Basic University Composition

This study aimed to advance a new angle of awareness of linguistic interference utilizing compliment responses. To achieve this goal, a written open-ended task was administered, and two inter-raters collaborated in scoring the results. Through data analysis, this study elicited a few interesting outcomes from overall macro perspectives: the disparities of the participants cross-linguistic influence on their CRs was wider, as the participants were complimented for their speaking and written abilities. In detail, both the two groups of participants had a slightly higher tendency of employing Reject strategies for replying to speaking ability compliments when complimented in class or before their peers, whereas more Accept and Evade strategies occurred in response to face-to-face(one on one) compliments on their writing ability. The phenomenon obviously presents socio-linguistic power sinks in their strategy selections. It also hints at the importance of external factors, such as the cultural milieu, language use, and face-related word selections, which play an active role in their choice of strategies. With regard to gender-specific disparities between the participants, another interesting outcomes was found: The female students positively accepted the compliments comparatively higher than their counterparts: socio-linguistically speaking, it hints the females have a lower degree of self-humility to compliments in public. Building upon the findings, this research puts forward to the necessity of a Basic English Composition course with an emphasis of cross-cultural skills, a milieu in which college freshmen can springboard their cross-cultural awareness in language use and help them become eloquent intellectuals in their target language.