Using Compliment Responses in Arabic and English: Focusing on Male and Female EFL Learners in Iraq

Abstract

Paying complements is probably a universal phenomenon. However, differences arise when the interlocutors attempt to respond the complements in different cultures. This study extracted and categorized the types of Compliment Responses (CRs) that the Iraqi EFL learners produced both in English and Arabic. It also examined the effect of gender on the variation use of these strategies. To this end, a Discourse Completion Test (DTC) was adapted and designed to elicit the data from 100 undergraduate students (50 males and 50 females), majoring in general English from University of Babylon, Iraq. For eliciting the Arabic CRs, the DCT was translated into Arabic. The collected CRs were then categorized based on Herbert’s (1986) taxonomy. The results showed that the Iraqis accepted the compliment more in English than in Arabic. The results also evidenced the effect of gender on CRs. Given the English responses, females used more appreciation tokens than the males. They also transferred the Arabic formulaic expressions more than their male counterparts, hence showed a high interest of modesty. Females also preferred to questions the compliments frequently more than the males. This might be an indication of females’ interest to expect the reassurance or repetition of the compliments (Han, 1992). Given the Arabic responses, although there were not significant differences among the genders’ responses, males used more praise upgrade responses. The study recommended English language teachers to help learners enhance their knowledge or competence of appropriate use CRs in the target language. Based on the research limitations, some suggestions were also considered for further research.