Conflicting norms and values? : a comparison of the politeness strategies in responding to compliments in L1 and L2 by Chinese ESL learners

Abstract

This study concerns Chinese ESL learners’ interlanguage pragmatic performance in responding to spontaneous compliments governed by potentially conflicting sociopragmatic norms and cultural values in the L1 and L2. The methodology comprises two parts. First, experiments consisting of two one-on-one interviews each with a native speaker in Chinese and in English were created to elicit the participants’ spontaneous compliment responses. Second, an online survey was distributed to native English speakers for obtaining an update on their attitudes of responding to compliments in the modern generation of the English-speaking community, the results of which served as a baseline reference for comparison to the data collected from the Chinese ESL learners. The findings are that although the modern Chinese ESL learners have become more open to accepting compliments in the L1, they displayed different patterns of compliment responses when speaking in the L1 and L2. However, even though the Chinese ESL learners patterned alike the native English speakers in the English mode, they retained some features of their L1 compliment response strategies. The findings suggest that in general the Chinese ESL learners are sensitive to the different sociopragmatic norms and cultural values in the L1 and L2, and would adjust their attitudes and strategies in their speech act behaviours to accommodate to the respective sociopragmatics. These findings on how a bilingual handles conflicting sociopragmatic norms and cultural values in the L1 and L2 might be useful for researchers in interlanguage pragmatics and L2 curriculum designers and teachers.