Contrastive analyses of compliments in Contemporary English and Bulgarian

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Contrastive analyses of compliments in Contemporary English and Bulgarian

compliment speaker bulgarian english

In Discourse Pragmatics compliments are expressions of positive evaluation that commonly occur in everyday conversational encounters among interlocutors of equal or higher status. A compliment may be used to open a conversation or to smooth conversational interaction by reinforcing the links of solidarity between the interlocutors. People often compliment qualities related to personal appearance (e.g., clothes, hair), possessions, skill, or accomplishments.

The aim of the current research is the compliment in modern English and Bulgarian.

In Bulgarian dictionaries the word compliment is explained as:

• Искрена или неискрена похвала, изказана към някого с цел да го поласкаем или да му доставим удоволствие.

• Синоними на думата са: похвала, любезност, ласкавост, ласкателство

Sincere or insincere praise, uttered to someone in order to delight him or please him.

Synonyms of the word are: praise, kindness, flattery.

In English the word compliment has a broader meaning:

1. an expression of praise, commendation, or admiration: A sincere compliment boosts one's morale.

2. a formal act or expression of civility, respect, or regard: The mayor paid him the compliment of escorting him.

3. compliments, a courteous greeting; good wishes; regards: He sends you his compliments

Included in the social strategy, the function of the compliment is to establish and maintain solidarity between the speaker and addressee (Wolfson, Manes 1980). According to Brown and Levinson (Brown, Levinson 1987) this function is an expression of positive politeness, which consists of a search of a common ground with the addressee, a part of a group of people who share specific goals and values. They are used to make the hearer feel good about himself, his interests or possessions, and are most usually used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well.

The function of compliment to establish and maintain solidarity between communicators is implemented according to social factors such as gender, age, social status, etc. Exactly the principle of solidarity provides a basis for making socio-and ethnolinguistic comparisons and underlies the summaries of the type: Americans more often use compliments than English-speaking South Africans; distribution of compliments in American English is «completely free» as opposed to British English (Herbert 1989).

In varieties of English such as American (Wolfson, 1988; Manes & Wolfson, 1981, 1983) research has shown that compliments are formulaic in terms of both their meaning and forms used to compliment other people. For example, with regard to their meaning, compliments are mainly realized by means of adjectives and verbs. In American English, the majority (approximately two thirds) are compliments realized by means of five adjectives: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, and great. And the majority are realized through the combination of two verbs (approximately 90%) such as like and love.

With respect to their form, almost 80% of the compliments are realized in three patterns given and received by middle-class speakers of American English; of these, the first one seems to be the most common structure chosen by U.S. Americans:

Your hair looks nice -> Noun Phrase + is/looks/ (really) Adjective

I like your car -> I (really) like/love + Noun Phrase

That's a nice tie -> (PRO (really) (a) Adjective + Noun Phrase

With regard to gender differences, females tend to give and receive more compliments to and from other females and males, while males tend to give more compliments to women (overall appearance) and, to a lesser degree, to other males.

Compliments in Bulgarian are also mainly realized from formulas made with a limited choice of adjectives and verbs. Compliments of Bulgarian are often associated with appearance, skills, as well as personality traits. The most frequently used adjectives are: хубав, прекрасен, страхотен, красив (pretty, wonderful, awesome, beautiful).

Concerning their form most common compliments in Bulgarian have an exclamation character:

Колко си хубава тази сутрин! Adverb + Verb + Adjective + Noun

Страхотна кола! Adjective + Noun

Роклята ти стои прекрасно! Noun + personal pronoun + Verb + Adjective

Compared to gender differences, women tend to do more compliments to other women than men.

The true nature of the compliment is more than an occasional remark and is realized in a dialogue sequence. Compliments take the first position in the local organization of the dialogue. Designed for a recipient, it requires compliment response in the second position - verbal or nonverbal, non-preferred or preferred [Levinson 1983].

Compliment is closely linked with praise: in semantic plan both speech acts contain positive assessments of the quality, characteristics, condition, activity or object relevant to the addressee. But while praise may be depersonalized, compliment requires to be accepted by the person we praise and to be correlated to him/her, whether he is directly addressed or a «third party» in the dialogue.

Compliments are a special 'luxury' in verbal communication and can not be used at any time. They are found more often in the beginning of the verbal interaction and sometimes are even included in the strategies to initiate conversation. Since by definition compliment comments something new and unexpected, in case it remains unnoticed by one interlocutor, the other can turn his attention and direct it towards making a compliment. That's why in both languages we can find similar phrases like: fishing for compliments» and «прося си комплимент».

The compliment as a speech act in the first position of the dialogue initiates «positive talk» which can be adopted in different ways by the addressee and creates opportunities for a wide variety of reactions. Even when expressed in speech act and in compliance with all conditions for successful use, the compliment can get either a preferred or a non-preferred response.

The analysis of the compliment as a positive talk raises the question that refers to all kinds of verbal and non-verbal interactions: to what extent it is linguistic and cultural specific. How is it possible to find 'Bulgarian element in the exchange of compliments?

The interlingual comparison that follows compares dialogue sequences Compliment - Response made by English interlocutors from three English-speaking communities (American, British and South African) and similar dialogues exchanged by Bulgarian students in a real-time situation. The data in English are taken from the publications of Pomerantz [Pomerantz1978] and Herbert [Herbert1989].

Function of the compliment in Bulgarian and English language

English Bulgarian

1. Expressing gratitude

A: That's beautiful! A: Страхотна кола имаш!

B: Thank you! Б: Благодаря!

2. Acceptance with a comment

А: I like your jacket. А: Прекрасно изглеждаш тази сутрин!

B: Yeah, it's cool. Б: Да, всичко по мен е марково.

3. Rejecting the compliment and degrading the praise

А: You are a very good rower! А: Чудесно ти стои тази рокля!

В: You should have seen me in my twenties. Б: Хм, голяма ми е.

4. Comment history

А: I love that outfit! A: Харесват ми обувките ти!

В: I got it for the trip to Arizona. Б: Купих ги преди две години от Испания. Старите ми се изтриха, взех ги на промоция.

5. Reassignment of the compliment

А: Тhat's a beautiful sweater!А: Ех, че яки маратонки!

В: Did you finish the assignment Б: Гледа ли мача вчера?

for today?

6. Accepting the compliment as a request

А: I like your shirt! А: Хубаво колело!

В: You can borrow it anytime. Б: Искаш ли едно кръгче?

7. Positive acceptance of the compliment

No examples in English А: Изглеждаш страхотно!

Б: О, ще те почерпя!

As a result of this comparison we can conclude that in both languages compliments have similar functions with some minor differences. The function «Reassignment of the compliment» is hardly found in the Bulgarian language, while in English is a polite reason to change the subject and to start another topic.

In case number 7 the function of the compliment is to show that the reply «I'll treat you! What will you have for a drink» in such responses is limited to a verbal gesture that marks the exaggerated praise of the evaluation expressed by the compliment. This is typical Bulgarian usage.

Interlingual and intercultural similarities and differences in dialogic coherence compliment - compliment response in Bulgarian and English can be viewed in conjunction with the term «communication style» in the sense that it gives Susan Ervin-Tripp [Ervin - Tripp1979]. She applies the distinction between positive and negative politeness, developed by Brown and Levinson, the so-called mutual engagement in the conversation. Ervin-Tripp emphasizes that cultures differ in their reactions to threats. On one side are the cultures that emphasize negative politeness. In these cases it is possible to talk without people listening to one another and say something unrelated to the compliment. This communicative style has proposed the term civil rights approach - At the other extreme are societies in which the foreground stands a positive politeness: positive affect, emotional support and empathy, which are expressed markers of relevance, appreciation, expressions of interest, agreement [Ervin - Tripp1979]. This style is associated with a high degree of mutual commitment and is typical of nations, imbued with the idea of ??egalitarianism, which include the Bulgarian ethnicity. This parameter indicates that the Bulgarian has greater similarity to American than to English and English-speaking South African.

In conclusion we can say that in both languages compliments have a similar function: to serve as a means of reinforcing the links of solidarity and affiliation between interlocutors and to be a way of smoothing conversation. Compliments in Contemporary English and Bulgarian language follow similar speech act formulas. The difference is in the parts of speech, constructing the compliment in both languages and in the frequency of their use. While in the English culture compliments are employed to «break the ice» in an initial encounter and are part of the negotiating strategy of the conversation, in the Bulgarian culture they are less common and can be uttered only by intimates or good acquaintances. They are rarely used between strangers.

In conclusion we can say that the structure and function of compliments in modern Bulgarian and English are similar, as well as speech formulas for gratitude expression [Tzoneva, Kopankova 2007]. Differences occur in the parts of speech used in lines constituting the compliment and their frequency. In general, we can conclude that the function of the compliment in English has a wider spectrum and in Bulgarian there are few examples of typical Bulgarian socio-cultural community.

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