Abstract

Based in the field of variational pragmatics, the present study investigates the effect of one of the macro-social factors, regional factor, on the use of compliment strategies. More specifically, the present study would like to find out whether in the same situation, the compliment strategies used by Chinese female EFL speakers and German female EFL speakers differ. A questionnaire was designed in order to collect the date, which employs two Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT). A corpus of 20 dialogues were collected, consisting of 10 from Chinese informants and 10 from German informants. In the present study, all social factors, except the regional one, are controlled, which means the informants were asked to complete two dialogues which happen in two given situations, between two friends in the same age group and of the same gender (sex). Furthermore, the gender (sex) and age of the informants are homogenized, which ultimately makes the regional factor the only prominent and researched macro-social factor. After analyzing the date, the results of each of the two given situations are respectively achieved. First, by comparing the frequencies of the two main types of compliments, explicit compliments and implicit compliments, used by Chinese female EFL speakers and German female EFL speakers. Second, by comparing the frequencies of varieties of sub-categories of the two main types of compliments. Moreover, the frequencies of two types of modifiers used in the compliments are objects of analysis. Finally, the results of a previous study on American English compliment strategies is included in the comparison, to show whether the English compliment strategies used by EFL speakers and English native speakers differ.

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