An Exploratory Study of Compliment Response Strategies across Gender among Thai EFL Learners

Main Article Content

Rawisiree Suteerapongsit

Abstract

Compliment responses are one of the most frequent speech acts in everyday conversation which are claimed to reflect gender differences. Apart from the compliment response behavior of native speakers, it is interesting to explore whether the assumed gender-based differences are also found in EFL context. The current study aims at examining Thai EFL learners’ usage of compliment responses in English, in relation to the gender of the interlocutors and the topic of the compliment. The data was collected from a role-play task designed to elicit compliment responses on four different topics from six male and six female Thai EFL learners. The findings suggest that the gender of the interlocutors and the topics of the compliments, to some degree, influence the employment of compliment response strategies at the micro level. This relationship is possibly a reflection of and thus attributable to the function of gender-based social values.

Article Details

How to Cite
Suteerapongsit, R. (2020). An Exploratory Study of Compliment Response Strategies across Gender among Thai EFL Learners. Language and Linguistics, 38(1), 72–95. Retrieved from https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/joling/article/view/202654
Section
บทความวิจัย

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