A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Compliment-Responding Behavior: A Study of American and Hong Kong Chinese Speakers of English in an ESL Setting

This study investigated the compliment-responding behavior of American and Hong Kong Chinese speakers of English. In order to answer the research questions. a total of eighty university students (40 American and 40 Hong Kong Chinese speakers of English) were given both multiple-choice and open-ended questionnaires to elicit compliment responses. Results of this study found significant differences in the use of compliment-responding behavior between American and Hong Kong Chinese speakers of English in an ESL setting. Results also indicated that the independent variables of nationality, status, and familiarity for compliment-responding significantly affected the compliment responses. but gender did not. Also, the interaction between status and familiarity significantly affected compliment responses. In addition. results showed that there were significant differences in results obtained by different data collection techniques (open-ended and multiple-choice) for compliment responses of different cultural groups. This study found six additional response types which were different from findings of previous research.

Thesis Author: Chan, Wai Fong Anita

Year Completed: 1996

Committee Members: Lynn Henrichsen, Cheryl Brown Mitchell

Thesis Chair: Mark Tanner