本研究主要在比較台灣與美國大學生對於英文讚美回應語的使用是否有所不同。此外，本文亦探究社會地位與讚美強度是否與英文讚美回應語的使用有顯著相關。本篇研究對象包含40位台灣大學生與40位美國大學生。研究工具是以口說引導式問卷 (oral discourse completion task)來收集語料。研究結果顯示，台灣大學生與美國大學生在回應讚美的行為上有顯著差異：台灣大學生最常見的方式為結合“接受”與 “解決型態”二個策略來回應讚美；而美國大學生最常見的回應方式則為“接受”策略。本研究亦發現對話者的社會地位及讚美強度皆與讚美回應語的使用有顯著相關。研究結果顯示，在所有社會地位及讚美強度的級別裡，類似的顯著差異亦依然存在。與過去研究相較，美國大學生的回應方式與過去研究結果類似。而台灣大學生則展現不同於過去中國人主要使用“解決型態”或“不同意”策略的情形，而以“接受”與“解決型態”策略並用的方式來回應讚美。這似乎表示台灣大學生可能以“解決型態”策略來緩和接受策略的使用。而這種回應讚美的方式有可能仍受中國文化中「謙虛」原則所影響。

The current study aims to investigate whether there are differences on English compliment response strategies between Taiwanese and American college students. Two social factors were also included to see whether they are significantly related to the students’ uses of English compliment response strategies. The participants of current study included 40 Taiwanese college students and 40 American college students. The ODCT (oral discourse completion task) was used to collect data. The results showed that there were significant differences between these two groups in their uses of English compliment responses. First, the major response type by Taiwanese college students was to combine both “acceptance” and “solution types” strategies to reply to English compliments, while for American college students the “acceptance” strategy was used most frequently. When the relations between their responses and social variables of status and imposition were analyzed, similar significant differences between these two groups were also found across different levels of social variables. The results for American college students are consistent with what was observed in previous studies. As for Taiwanese group, different from the previous results reporting that “solution types” or “non-agreement” was mainly adopted by Chinese native speakers, the findings in the current study showed that, the combined usage of both “agreement” and “solution types” was the most frequently used response. This result suggests that Taiwanese college students might try to use “solution types” to mitigate their use of “acceptance” strategy. Such English compliment response style could still be influenced by the principle of modesty in Chinese culture.

Chapter 1 Introduction...........................1
Background and Motivation.....................1
Research Question.............................8
Significance of the Study.....................8
Organization of the Study.....................9
Definition of Terms...........................9
Chapter 2 Literature Review......................11
Speech Act Theory.............................11
Politeness Theory.............................13
Chinese Politeness............................18
Compliment Speech Act.........................22
Compliment Response Speech Act................23
Empirical Studies on Compliment Response......24
Empirical studies of compliment response
by native speakers of English.................25
Empirical studies of compliment response
by native speakers of Chinese.................28
Chapter 3 Method.................................35
Participants..................................35
Instrument....................................35
Oral discourse completion tas.................36
Content of oral DCT...........................36
Data Collection Procedure.....................38
Data Analysis.................................39
Coding framework..............................39
Coding procedure..............................40
Coding reliability............................40
Statistic analysis............................41
Chapter 4 Results................................43
The General Comparison of English Compliment
Response Strategies...........................43
The Comparison of English Compliment Response
Strategies by Independent Factors.............47
Social status.................................47
Rank of imposition............................56
Summary of the results........................64
Chapter 5 Discussion and Conclusion..............67
The General Comparisons of English
Compliment Response Strategies................67
The Comparison of English Compliment
Response Strategies by Independent Factors....70
Social status.................................71
Rank of imposition............................73
Limitations...................................76
Pedagogical Implication.......................76
Suggestions for Further Research..............77
References.......................................79
Appendix A....................................83
Appendix B....................................85

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