Compliment

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Compliment
Author(s):	Elina Weiste (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Finland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6879-6004)
To cite:	Weiste, Elina. (2023). Compliment. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/BU5SE

Compliments are social actions that explicitly or implicitly attribute credit to a recipient (Holmes 1988). Most commonly, they are positive assessments that evaluate the appearance, personal qualities or actions of a co-present participant (Keisanen & Kärkkäinen 2014) but they may also take other forms, such as a question or correction (Shaw & Kitzinger 2012). The design of a compliment turn may involve a complex interplay of multimodal resources, including prosody, gesture, facial expression, and gaze (Keisanen & Kärkkäinen 2014), but it typically involves a reference to the assessable (i.e., the character, behavior, ability etc. the compliment is about) and an expression of positiveness (e.g., “you’re nice” or “this is excellent”) (Golato 2005). Sometimes, they may also be plain appreciatory sounds (e.g., “mmmmhh”) (Wiggins 2002) or adjectives (e.g., “goo:::d”) (Golato 2005).

Responses to compliments are influenced by two potentially competing preference systems (Pomerantz 1978): preference to agree with the compliment, and to avoid a self-praise (Golato 2005; Keisanen & Kärkkäinen 2014). These conflicting preferences are dealt with, for instance, by making reference shifts (Pomerantz 1978) and providing explanations (Etelämäki, et al. 2012) while still agreeing with the compliment. The extract below shows an example taken from a Finnish conversation (Weiste, et al. 2021), in which a compliment recipient first responds with “thank you” orientating to the prior turn as a compliment, and then inserts a praise-downgrade to avoid self-praise (referring to his complimented writing as a “chicken scratch”).

(Weiste, et al. 2021)

01  Sue:    sehän oli hienosti kirjoitettu
            that was written very well

02          hyvä Teo.
            good job Teo

03  Teo:    kiitos.
            thank you

04          mä yritin raapustaa jotain
            I tried to write down something

05          omista harakanvarpaistani
            based on my chicken scratch

The cultural specificity of complimenting needs to be considered as there are found to be differences in compliment reception. For instance, in English and German-speaking countries a strong agreement with a compliment may not be considered self-praise (Chen 1993; Golato 2005). Also in Finnish, compliments are typically responded to with agreement, but self-praise is avoided by providing explanations right after the agreement (Etelämäki, et al. 2013). In Chinese, compliments are typically rejected to avoid a self-praise (Chen 1993).

Participants in interaction may use compliments above and beyond praising and commending (Hudak, et al. 2010). They can be deployed to accomplish alternative activities in talk with somewhat strategic essence, such as criticizing the recipient (Golato 2005), exerting pressure for recipient to comply with the speaker’s wish (Gill 2005; Hudak, et al. 2010), and prepare a recipient for a negative decision and generate exclusion (Weiste, et al. 2021).

In certain contexts, compliments have been characterized as “accountability-immune actions” (Weiste, et al. 2021). Due to their seemingly positive nature, it is difficult for a compliment-recipient to complain about being complimented, and thus resist their intended strategic aims.

Additional Related Entries:

• Assessment
• Object-side assessment
• Preference
• Subject-side assessment

Cited References:

Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: a contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 49-75.

Etelämäki, M., Haakana, M., & Halonen, M. (2013). Keskustelukumppanin kehuminen suomalaisessa keskustelussa [Complimenting a co-participant in a Finnish conversation]. Virittäjä, 117 (4), 460-493.

Gill, V. T. (2005). Patient “demand” for medical interventions: exerting pressure for an offer in a primary care clinic visit. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38, 451-479.

Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and Compliment Responses. Amsterdam.

Holmes, J. (1988). Compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand English. Anthropological Linguistics, 28, 485-508.

Hudak, P., Gill, V. T., Aguinaldo, J., Clark, S., Frankel, R. (2010). “I’ve heard wonderful things about you”: how patients compliment surgeons. Sociology of Health and Illness, 32, 777-797.

Keisanen, T., & Kärkkäinen, E. (2014). A multimodal analysis of compliment sequences in everyday English interactions. Pragmatics, 24 (3), 649-672.

Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 79-112). Academic Press.

Shaw, R., & Kitzinger, C. (2012). Compliments on a home birth helpline. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(3), 213-244.

Weiste, E., Lindholm, C., Valkeapää, T., & Stevanovic, M. (2021). Interactional use of compliments in mental health rehabilitation. Journal of Pragmatics, 177, 224–236.

Wiggins, S. (2002). Talking with your mouth full: Gustatory mmms and the embodiment of pleasure. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35(3), 311-336.

Additional References: