Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers

Janet Holmes defines a compliment as “a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some „good‟ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (485). Compliments...

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Main Author:	Othman, Normala
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	International Islamic University Malaysia 2011
Subjects:	PL5101 Malay
Online Access:	http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/1/Normala_Othman-asiatic.pdf

id	iium-16659
recordtype	eprints
spelling	iium-166592013-07-02T08:25:24Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/ Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers Othman, Normala PL5101 Malay Janet Holmes defines a compliment as “a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some „good‟ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (485). Compliments vary from one culture to another. As suggested by Holmes (1986), compliments are generally paid and appreciated in the Western culture. However, in the Eastern culture, when compliments are paid, they are either rejected or denied (Gu, 1990; Chen, 1993). Malaysia is a multicultural society with a colonial history. English is spoken widely in the country, side by side with several vernacular languages. The study investigates the pragmatics of Malay compliments using Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) “face” framework and Searle‟s (1969) speech act framework among Malay speakers in Malaysia. The results show that compliments when given are more appreciated than denied or rejected by Malay speakers now than before, indicating a shift in the culture of compliments and compliment response in Malaysia. Results also show that compliment responses differ according to the subject of compliment and its relative “distance” to the compliment receiver; closeness causes more compliment rejections, while distance results in compliment acceptance. International Islamic University Malaysia 2011-06-01 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/1/Normala_Othman-asiatic.pdf Othman, Normala (2011) Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers. Asiatic, 5 (1). pp. 86-103. ISSN 1985-3106 http://asiatic.iium.edu.my/article/Asiatic%205.1%20pdf%20files/Normala_Othman.pdf
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Local University
institution	International Islamic University Malaysia
building	IIUM Repository
collection	Online Access
language	English
topic	PL5101 Malay
spellingShingle	PL5101 Malay Othman, Normala Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
description	Janet Holmes defines a compliment as “a speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some „good‟ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (485). Compliments vary from one culture to another. As suggested by Holmes (1986), compliments are generally paid and appreciated in the Western culture. However, in the Eastern culture, when compliments are paid, they are either rejected or denied (Gu, 1990; Chen, 1993). Malaysia is a multicultural society with a colonial history. English is spoken widely in the country, side by side with several vernacular languages. The study investigates the pragmatics of Malay compliments using Brown and Levinson‟s (1987) “face” framework and Searle‟s (1969) speech act framework among Malay speakers in Malaysia. The results show that compliments when given are more appreciated than denied or rejected by Malay speakers now than before, indicating a shift in the culture of compliments and compliment response in Malaysia. Results also show that compliment responses differ according to the subject of compliment and its relative “distance” to the compliment receiver; closeness causes more compliment rejections, while distance results in compliment acceptance.
format	Article
author	Othman, Normala
author_facet	Othman, Normala
author_sort	Othman, Normala
title	Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
title_short	Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
title_full	Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
title_fullStr	Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
title_full_unstemmed	Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers
title_sort	pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among malaysian-malay speakers
publisher	International Islamic University Malaysia
publishDate	2011
url	http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/16659/1/Normala_Othman-asiatic.pdf
first_indexed	2023-09-18T20:25:25Z
last_indexed	2023-09-18T20:25:25Z
_version_	1777408384188809216

Pragmatic and cultural considerations of compliment responses among Malaysian-Malay speakers

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