Email this article Pragmatics and ethnolinguistics of compliment. Compliment responses in Novara and Grottaglie
Abstract
Abstract – This study analyzes differences and apparent similarities between two corpora of compliments elicited in two different Italian towns, Novara and Grottaglie. After a short introduction on the speech act of complimenting, the two corpora are presented. They consist in a total of 104 spontaneous compliment responses (CRs), collected by the author of this work by recording spontaneous conversations. The CRs have been categorized using the typology proposed in Castagneto and Ravetto (in press). Unlike other works in the literature on compliments, the goal of this analysis is not only to compare CRs in two different varieties of a language, but also to point out how a complex speech act like complimenting cannot be understood or interpreted without considering its role and function within the specific culture. In fact, a purely linguistic comparison of the data would not have highlighted important differences between the two groups which, on the other hand, come to the surface when we look at the data with an ethnolinguistic approach. Indeed, in Grottaglie, complimenting is a dangerous act that can cast an evil-eye on the complimentee.
Keywords: pragamatics, ethnolinguistics, compliment responses, Italian.References
Aina A. 2013, “Mi scusi…sa che ha degli occhi bellissimi?” La pragmatica del complimento rivolto ad estranei, tesi di laurea, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli.
Alfonzetti G. 2009, I complimenti nella conversazione, Editori Riuniti, Roma.
Bloomfield L. 1933, Language, Holt, Rinehart & Wiston, New York; trad. it. Antinucci F. e Cardona G. 1974, Il linguaggio, il Saggiatore, Milano.
Brown P. and Levinson S.C. 1987, Politeness. Some universals in language usage, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Castagneto M. and Ravetto M. (in press), The variability of compliment in and out a country: compliment responses in Italian and German native speakers, in Gesuato S. and Bianchi F. (eds.), Teaching, learning and investigating about pragmatics: principles, method and practices, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge.
Chen R. 1993, Responding to compliments. A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers, in “Journal of Pragmatics” 20, pp. 49-75.
De Mauro T. 1963, Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita, Laterza, Bari.
Di Francesco L. 2010, Stessi complimenti, reazioni diverse. Stili comunicativi a confronto nel Piemonte Orientale ed in Campania, tesi di laurea, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Vercelli.
Dittmar N. 1989, Variatio delectat. Le basi della sociolinguistica, Congedo, Galatina.
Fishman J. 1971, The Sociology of Language, Newbury House, Rowley.
Frescura M. 1996, The conflictual behavior of Italian speaker in responding to compliments, in “Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata” 28, pp. 89-110.
Golato A. 2002, German compliment responses, in “Journal of Pragmatics” 34, pp. 547-571.
Golato A. 2003, Studying compliment responses: a comparison of DCT and recordings of naturally occurring talk, in “Applied Linguistics” 24, pp. 90-121.
Golato A. 2005, Compliments and Compliment responses: grammatical structure and sequential organization, Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Gumperz J. 1968, The Speech Community, in Sills D.L. and Merton R.K.(eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Macmillan, London, pp. 381-6.
Herbert R. K. 1990, Sex-based differences in compliment behaviour, in “Language in Society” 19, pp. 201-224.
Hockett C.F. 1958, A course in Modern Linguistics, Macmillan, New York.
Holmes J. 1986, Compliment and Compliment Responses in New Zealand English, in “Anthropological Linguistics” 28 [4], pp. 485-508.
Holmes J. 1988, Paying Compliments: A Sex-Preferential Politeness Strategy, in “Journal of Pragmatics” 12, pp. 445-465.
Hymes D. 1974, Foundations in Sociolinguistis. An Ethnographic Approach, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Hymes D. 1979, La competenza comunicativa, in Ravazzoli F. (a cura di), Universali linguistici, Feltrinelli, Milano, pp. 212-43.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni C. 1987, La description des échanges en analyse conversationelle: l’example du compliment, in “DRLAV-Revue de Linguistique” 36/37, pp. 1-53.
Kloss H. 1977, Über einige Terminologie-Probleme der interlingualen Soziolinguistik in “Deutshe sprache” 3, pp. 224-37.
Knapp M., Hopper R. and Bell R. 1984, Compliments: A Descriptive Taxonomy, in “Journal of Communication” 34, pp. 19-31.
Leech G. 1983, Principles of Pragmatics, Longman, London.
Leng L.C. 2009, Compliments and responses during Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore, in “Pragmatics”, pp. 519-541.
Levinson S.C. 1983, Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lyons J. (ed.) 1970, New Horizons in Linguistic, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Manes J. and Wolfson N. 1981, The Compliment Formula, in Coulmas F. (ed.), Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, pp. 116-132.
Mursy A.A. and Wilson J. 2001, Towards a definition of Egyptian complimenting, in “Multilingua” 20, pp. 133-154.
Nelson G.L., El Bakary W. and Al Batal M. 1996, Egyptian and American compliments: Focus on second language learners, in Gass S.M. and Neu J. (eds.), Speech across cultures. Challenges to communication in a second language, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, pp. 109-128.
Occhibianco C. 2010, Ccussì parlàvunu li nanni nuesci. Dizionario del dialetto grottagliese, Congedo, Galatina.
Pomerantz A. 1978, Compliment responses. Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints, in Schenkein J. (ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction, Academic Press, New York, pp. 79-112..
Ravetto M. 2012, Le risposte al complimento in italiano e in tedesco. Analisi di corpora di parlato, in “SILTA 1/nuova serie”, pp. 85-122.
Schegloff E.A. and Sacks H. 1973, Opening up closings, in “Semiotica” 8, pp. 289–327.
Searle J.S. 1976, A classification of illocutionary acts, in “Language in Society” 5, pp. 1-23.
Tran G.Q. 2007, Compliment Response Continuum Hypothesis, in “The International Journal of Language Society and Culture” 21, http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/issues/2007/21-1.pdf
Valdés G. and Pino C. 1981, Muy a tus òrdenes: Compliment Responses among Mexican-American Bilinguals, in “Language in Society” 10, pp. 53-72.
Yuan Y. 2002, Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese, in “Pragmatics” 12 [2], pp. 183-226.
Wolfson N. 1983, An empirical based analysis of compliments in American English, in Wolfson N and Judd E. (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language acquisition, Newbury House, Rowley (MA), pp. 82-95.
Wolfson N. and Manes J. 1980, The compliment as a social strategy, in “Papers in Linguistics” 13, pp. 391-410.
Full Text: pdf
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
