Abstract
The study investigates the employment of compliment strategies of medical and non-medical university students using the linguistic frameworks of Holmes and Yu. Three hundred fifty respondents took part in the study. These students-respondents came from four medical colleges/schools and three non-medical colleges/schools in a university located in Manila. They were asked to complete the Discourse Completion Test (DCT). DCT was developed and modified by the researchers. The said DCT was distributed via google sheet thru Facebook messenger. From the data collected, results revealed that both medical and nonmedical students opted to follow the Accept, Combination, Reject, and Evade pattern. Both groups preferred Accept the most and Evade the least. Appreciation Token and Combination were preponderantly exhibited by both groups in their CRs. There is no significant difference realized between and among the students- respondents regarding the use of CRs by medical and nonmedical. Implications of the study were offered and research directions were provided.
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Published in
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International Journal of Secondary Education (Volume 13, Issue 3)
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DOI
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10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
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Page(s)
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63-72 |
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Creative Commons
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Science Publishing Group
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Keywords
Compliment, Compliment Strategies, Complimentee, Complimenter, Sociolinguistics
1. Introduction
The study of compliment and compliment responses (CRs) has received a considerable attention among linguists for its fluidity, thus differs from culture to another culture. Complimenting as a one of the important speech acts serves not only “sociological implications but also psychological contributions” as well
| [17] | Mojica, L. A. (2002). Compliment-Giving among filipino college students: An exploratory study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 115-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03024925 |
[17]
. This in fact a truism that there is no universal model for compliment and compliment responses applicable to all speech communities as seemingly claimed by
.
Humans, as they communicate and interact, give and receive compliments although in varying degree to build and enforce desired outcomes so as to observe rapport and harmony among and between interactants and interlocutors.
Janet Holmes
| [12] | Holmes, J. (1993). New Zealand women are good to talk to: An analysis of politeness strategies in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(2), 91-116. |
[12]
defines compliment as a speech act which may be explicit or implicit rendered upon by the speaker to someone for some ‘good’ such as possession, characteristics, skills, etc. Which in turn both valued by the addresser, the complimenter, and the addressed, the complimentee. According to Wolfson
| [27] | Wolfson, N. (1983). An Empirically based analysis of complimenting in American English.In N. Wolfson and E. Judd (Eds.). Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition (pp. 82-95). Rowley, MA: Newbury House. |
[27]
compliment can be categorized into two categories namely; appearance and/or possession, and ability or accomplishment. In conjunction with this assumption on compliment [response strategies], Holmes
| [11] | Holmes, J. (1998). Complimenting: A positive politeness strategy. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and gender: A reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 71-88). Oxford, England: Blackwell. |
| [12] | Holmes, J. (1993). New Zealand women are good to talk to: An analysis of politeness strategies in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(2), 91-116. |
[11, 12]
cited in Morales
three acts in the form of macro levels and each act in the macro level is subdivided into micro levels as shown in the
Table 1 to wit;
Table 1.
Holmes’ | [11] | Holmes, J. (1998). Complimenting: A positive politeness strategy. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and gender: A reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 71-88). Oxford, England: Blackwell. |
| [12] | Holmes, J. (1993). New Zealand women are good to talk to: An analysis of politeness strategies in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(2), 91-116. |
| [29] | Yu, M. (2003). On the universality of face: evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1679-1710. |
Macro level | Micro level | CRs Strategies |
Accept | Appreciation Token | “Thanks”; “Thank you”; “cheers” “Yes”; “Good” |
Agreeing Utterance | “I know”; “I am glad you think so”; “I did realize I did that well”; “yeah, I really like it.” |
Agreeing Qualifying Utterance | “It’s nothing.”; “It was no problem.”;”I hope it was ok”; “I still only use it to call people.”; “It’s not bad.” |
Return Compliment | “You are not too bad yourself.”; Your child was an angel.”; “I’m sure you’ll be great.” |
Reject | Disagreeing Utterance | “Nah, I don’t think so.”; “I thought I did badly.”; Nah, it’s nothing special.”; “It’s not.”; “don’t say so.” |
Question Accuracy | “Why?”; “it’s right.” |
Challenging Sincerity | “Stop lying”; “Don’t lie.”; “Don’t joke about it.’;”You must be kidding.”; “Don’t, come on.” |
Evade/Deflect | Shift Credit | “That’s what friends are for.”; You are polite”; “No worries”; “My pleasure.” |
Informative Comment | “It was not hard.”; “You can get it from (stire name)”; “It’s really cheap.” |
Request Reassurance | “it was not hard”; “It’s really cheap.” |
Combination | | |
As can be seen from the
Table 1, it provides the macro levels which include the following: Accept, which states that the remark is recognized as a compliment; Reject, which states that the complimentee tries to amend compliment’s complimentary force; Deflect/Evade, which states that the given compliment is being avoided and redirected by a complimentee; and, Combination as provided by Yu
| [29] | Yu, M. (2003). On the universality of face: evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1679-1710. |
[29]
which states that the given compliment has mixed elements or substance that falls under two or more macrolevels.
In line with this, Herbert
| [10] | Herbert, Robert K. (1986). “’Say Thank You’ or Something” in American Speech. |
[10]
provides a definition for compliment responses as those ‘appreciations of the other’s endeavors to praise one’s actions or behavior. In other words, CRs are responses produced by the addressed to the compliment given by the speaker. They nonetheless depend on the type of compliment and social relations present between the speech parties
Another elucidation as regards compliment response is given by Yuan
| [28] | Yuan, Y. (2002). Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese. International Pragmatics Association, 12(2), 183-226. |
[28]
. She said that a compliment response is anything that follows a compliment be it verbal or non-verbal. This, therefore, provides us a summation that compliment and CRs are two indispensable elements---an adjency, that coexist together in understanding sociolinguistic and pragmalinguistic interactions between interlocutors engaged in a discourse.
It has been held in many studies (Mojica,
| [17] | Mojica, L. A. (2002). Compliment-Giving among filipino college students: An exploratory study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 115-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03024925 |
[17]
; Morales
; Manarin, et. al.,
| [16] | Manarin, J. et.al. (2022). Giving and Responding: An Analysis of Compliment and Compliment Responses among Selected Students of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cavite State University-Main Campus. |
[16]
; Stepykin
, old and contemporary alike, that cultural backgrounds play a critical role in the production of compliment expressions and compliment responses. Herbert
| [10] | Herbert, Robert K. (1986). “’Say Thank You’ or Something” in American Speech. |
[10]
cited in Nurhijannah
| [19] | Nurhijannah, A. S. (2021). An Analysis on Compliment Responses in English among Javanese People. Journal of English Language Teaching Linguistics and Literature Studies, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.30984/jeltis.v1i1.1506 |
[19]
underscored that compliments provide interesting information about sociocultural values and structures of the speech community concerned.
Generally, under the umbrella of sociocultural aspects there are other contributory constructs that influence the compliments and compliment responses. Those are gender (Morales,
) and social power (Al Shboul et. al.,
| [3] | Al-Shboul, Y., Huwari, I. F., Al-Dala’ien, O. A., & Al-Daher, Z. (2022). An analysis of compliment response strategies by Jordanian adolescent Students: The Influence of Gender and Social Power. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(7), 1252-1261. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1207.02 |
[3]
), status (Ibrahim & Riyanto
| [13] | Ibrahim, J., & Riyanto, T. J. (2004). A sociolinguistic study of compliment responses among americans and indonesians and its implications for teaching english. KaTa, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.2.1.21-30 |
[13]
) age and social realities and dynamics (Hamzah,
), and interpersonal relations and cognition (Manarin et. al.
| [16] | Manarin, J. et.al. (2022). Giving and Responding: An Analysis of Compliment and Compliment Responses among Selected Students of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cavite State University-Main Campus. |
[16]
).
Hence, people with different cultural backgrounds have different value systems e.g. linguistic norms, structures, etc. (Agoncillo,
| [1] | Agoncillo, T. A. (1990). History of the Filipino People. Garotech Publishing, Quezon City. |
[1]
cited in Torres,
).
Additionally, Pomerantz
| [21] | Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses. In J. Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the organization of conversation interaction. New York Academic Press, pp. 79-112. |
[21]
asserted that cultures differ to which people accept or reject compliment. For instance, Herbert
| [9] | Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19, 201-224. |
[9]
found that Americans tend to accept less compliments and give more toward someone whom they see to be worthy or qualified of such. In contradistinction, African English speakers tend to accept more compliments and thus less in giving the same (Herbert,
| [9] | Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19, 201-224. |
[9]
). This leads to a conclusion that “American compliments are vehicles for the negotiation of solidarity…”
| [9] | Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19, 201-224. |
[9]
. History can provide information how whites i.e. Americans, structured their relations with the colored people in the past. As such this phenomenon between Americans and Africans may be said to be a means for the former to build more harmonious social relations with the latter. Compliments in effect function as ‘social lubricants’ (Holmes,
| [11] | Holmes, J. (1998). Complimenting: A positive politeness strategy. In J. Coates & P. Pichler (Eds.), Language and gender: A reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 71-88). Oxford, England: Blackwell. |
[11]
) which in turn increase the level of conversationality between and among complimenters and complimentees.
As compliments vary across cultures, responses to them likewise vary. In the study conducted by Sartini
it was revealed that Balinese women did not explicitly say their gratitude once compliments had been given. They tend to evade the compliments since their cultural dictum dictates and considers self-glorification and high-confidence to be obnoxious; thus, unacceptable.
For Indonesians the canonical response such as ‘thank you’ is regarded to be an appropriate response when accepting compliments. In their culture, self-avoidance is said to be the proper behavior so as not to elevate one’s self which is considered ‘wrong.’ Modesty is given more significance and reverence in Indonesia (Ibrahim & Riyanto,
| [13] | Ibrahim, J., & Riyanto, T. J. (2004). A sociolinguistic study of compliment responses among americans and indonesians and its implications for teaching english. KaTa, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.2.1.21-30 |
[13]
). As such most of the time they might say “Oh no” to a compliment instead of ‘thank you.”
Another studies by Chen
, Weiland
| [26] | Wieland, M. (1995). Complimenting Behavior in French/ American Cross-Cultural Dinner Conversations. The French Review, 5 (68), 796-812. |
[26]
, and Daikuhara
| [6] | Daikuhara, M. (1986). A Study of Compliments from a Cross- Cultural Perspective: Japanese vs. American English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistic, 2 (2), 103-134. |
[6]
cited in Yuan
| [28] | Yuan, Y. (2002). Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese. International Pragmatics Association, 12(2), 183-226. |
[28]
provided that Japanese, Chinese, and French more often seem inclined to reject compliments given to them. Phoocharoensil
| [20] | Phoocharoensil, S. (2012). L2 English Compliment Responses: An Investigation of Pragmatic transfer. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 1(6), 276-287. https://doi.org/10.7575/ijalel.v.1n.6p.276 |
[20]
, on the other hand, disclosed that Americans tend to say “thank you” more often as compare to Asians who frequently reject or disagree with the compliments given to them. This is to say that Asians do not like to be considered as boastful, egotistic, and self-indulged individuals.
With these differences in CRs employed by different socio-cultural speech communities, it is compelling to mention what Leech
| [15] | Leech, G. (1983). Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman. |
[15]
propounded. He said that in every culture there are norms to be observed. The level of modesty differs from one culture to another. The maxim of modesty, therefore refers to ‘minimization of self-praise and maximization of self-depraise’. This phenomenon demonstrates strategies with regard to the observance of ‘polite attitude.’
To illustrate this Suh
| [24] | Suh, K. (2010). A contrastive study of compliment responses of Korean, Chinese, and English speakers. KCI. G704-SER000014742.2010.22..002. |
[24]
concluded that Korean and Chinese use more deflect, evade, and less accept in responding to compliments as compared to their counterpart; that is, Australians. Insofar as gender is concerned Mojica
| [17] | Mojica, L. A. (2002). Compliment-Giving among filipino college students: An exploratory study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 115-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03024925 |
[17]
posited that female Filipino college students tend to reject and deflect the compliments given to them while male Filipino college students did otherwise. On the one hand, the preceding study employed Filipino language instead of English; hence, in compliment and CRs, L1 and L2 significantly impact how interlocutors compliment others. On the other hand, Morales
investigated the aspect of gender as to whether it influences how Filipino secondary students give and receive compliments. The study revealed that gender does not significantly affect how the subjects extend their compliment expressionsand compliment responses (Morales
cited in Manarin et. al.
| [16] | Manarin, J. et.al. (2022). Giving and Responding: An Analysis of Compliment and Compliment Responses among Selected Students of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cavite State University-Main Campus. |
[16]
).
Hamzah
said that there is no significant difference between males and females in giving compliments and responding to them. This was supported by Khan and Rustam
| [14] | Khan, M., & Rustam, R. (2017). Analysis of compliments and compliment responses used by male and female Pashto language speakers. Asian Research Journal of Arts & Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.9734/arjass/2017/34999 |
[14]
study that Pakistan males and females exuded no statistical difference in responding to compliments except on appearance. Those findings of the said studies can be said to be more fluid, thus gender does not provide and posit or create significant hindrance in compliment and compliment responses.
Although considerable research has been devoted to determine the role of gender and cultures embedded on compliments given and received by the complimentee and complimenter respectively, rather less attention has been paid to determine how different complimentees from different institutional contexts give and receive compliments and how they employ compliment strategies as they respond to the compliments they receive. Therefore, the current investigation would focus on determining the employment of compliment strategies of medical and non-medical students from a university.
Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions:
1) What specific compliment responses (CRs) strategies at macro and micro levels are revealed from the responses to the given Discourse Completion Test by the respondents?
2) How do the medical and non-medical students differ from employing CR strategies at macro and micro levels?
3) Is there a universal pattern that can be gleaned from the use of CRS by different complimentees from different institutional contexts under study?
2. Methodology
Three-hundred and fifty respondents took part in this study. In particular, these composed of 150 non-medical students and 200 medical students. The medical student-respondents culled from four medical-related colleges i.e. Optometry, Pharmacy, Medical Technology, and Science and Technology, they are considered four-year medical related courses; conversely, the non-medical student-respondents culled from three colleges namely: Education, Social Work, and Accountancy; these are four-year non-medical courses in the same university. They were asked to answer the modified Discourse Completion Test (DCT) extracted from Morales’
study. It was acknowledged insofar as this study was concerned that DCT contained some limitations such as but not limited to; (1) It does not record participants’ spontaneity; (2) Participants’ tend modify or alter their responses; (3) Authenticity is restricted. But time and again, DCT was thus submitted to be appropriate in this study since a large number of participants are involved. In line with this, the said DCT comprised of four items namely:
appearance, behavior, ability, and
possession. Each item was translated into a situation from which the respondents were asked to honestly respond to the said situations. This study also employed Yu’s
| [29] | Yu, M. (2003). On the universality of face: evidence from Chinese compliment response behavior. Journal of Pragmatics, 35, 1679-1710. |
[29]
additional macro level for compliment; that is, Combination of CRs strategies for it is necessary since the respondents provided two or more compliment responses. Thus, by stringently categorizing the responses based solely on Holme’s categories of CRs would render the data skewed and bereft of realization of the true communicative intent of the interlocutors in the hypothetical situations provided for by the DCT.
More specifically, the given situations are as follows:
1) Situation 1 Appearance, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his Situation 1 Appearance, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/her appearance
2) Situation 2 Character, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/ Situation 2 Character, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/her attitude her attitude
3) Situation 3 Ability, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/ Situation 3 Ability, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/her competence
4) Situation 4 Possession, in which the complimentee is being complimented through his/her, owned s/her, owned things” (Morales,
)
Students-respondents could either use L1 (Filipino) or L2 (English) in answering the DCT. The DCT was in a google form for easy access of gathering data and for the respondents not to use a hard copy of the said questionnaire. There would no time limit in answering the DCT. Holmes’ (1998; 1993) and Yu (2003) Strategies Categories will be employed in analyzing the compliment responses of the non-medical and medical students-respondents. Two doctorate students from reputable universities were requested to validate the responses of the participants. Ninety percent of inter-agreement was agreed upon between the validators and the researchers. They reached 100% agreement after having deliberated between Holme’s and Yu’s complimented studies.
3. Results and Discussion
Figure 1. Distribution of total number of students based on sex per program.
Figure 1 summarizes the total number of participants for each program based on gender. For Non-medical programs i.e. Education, Social Work, and Accountancy, the number of male participants is 68 whereas female participants, 82 with a total of 150 students. On the other hand, the Medical programs are composed of the following: Science and Technology, Pharmacy, Optometry, and Medical Technology. The number of male medical participants is 84 whereas the females, 116 with a total of 250 students. In combining the non-medical and medical students there are 350 tertiary students who took part in the study.
Figure 2 reveals the general macro patterns of the participants in the present study. The graph provides that both non-medical and medical students-respondents employed ‘Accept’ compliment responses (CRs) when they receive compliments from their interactants. Slight variation in CRs can be seen from the data but this does not posit significant difference between non-medical and medical students. In particular, 67% from non-medical programs exhibited acceptance in their responses while 73% from medical programs. Conversely, 6% or 36 students from non-medical programs utilized ‘Reject’ responses in the DCT compare to 3% or 23 students-respondents from medical programs answered in a reject manner. For instance, a student from Education uttered “
Wala yan, stop fooling me!” [It’s nothing, stop fooling me] when given a compliment as regards her appearance. Such a response falls under Reject in macro level and ‘Challenging Sincerity’ in micro level. Additionally, a student from Optometry replied, “You are fooling me, buddy” when given a compliment pertaining to his ability. This example qualifies under macro level Reject and micro level ‘Disagreeing Utterance’. As can be seen from
Figure 2, Evade constitutes 11% and 10 % for non-medical and medical programs respectively. With regard to Combination, 15% or 92 nonmedical students-respondents and 14% or 111 students uttered combination of two or more compliment responses. For instance, a female Accountancy student-respoindent was given a compliment about her mathematical ability and she replied, “Wow! Thank you
naman! Totoo ba? Chamba lang yon noh
!” [Wow! Thank you very much! Is it real? Its just luck, you know!].
This example falls under Accept on the one hand and Reject on the other hand. The person accepts the compliment but nonetheless injected expressions that reverse the compliment response. Thus, this particular example is considered Combination. Another example of Combination response is culled from Social Work program. A male student-respondent was given a compliment about his looks and he responded, “So are you! It’s simple. I just got my haircut yesterday.” This example pertains to both Accept particularly Return Compliment (“So are you!”) and the other one falls under Deflect/Evade particularly Informative Comment (“It’s simple. I just got my haircut yesterday.”).
Figure 2. General Macro Patterns of CRs of Non-Medical and Medical Students.
It is vital to note that both non-medical and medical students-respondents employed Combination compliment responses, this may be because the students would like to further elucidate their answers and since their relations to the complimenters are proximate (as classmates or friends). As such, more liberty for them to utilize replies is expressed. These findings support Torres et. al.
and Morales
that students tend to employ Accept compliment response whenever they receive compliments from their peers or someone that has relations with them. Since the subjects of the study are all tertiary level students, it is concluded that they are compelled to reply positively and accept the compliments since the social context provides for such an attitude. In addition, this also supports Al-Shboul et. al.
| [3] | Al-Shboul, Y., Huwari, I. F., Al-Dala’ien, O. A., & Al-Daher, Z. (2022). An analysis of compliment response strategies by Jordanian adolescent Students: The Influence of Gender and Social Power. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(7), 1252-1261. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1207.02 |
[3]
which revealed that adolescents preferred accepting compliments and the most commonly used strategies among males and females are Accept and Combination. However, the current findings posit a contrary position to Mojica
| [17] | Mojica, L. A. (2002). Compliment-Giving among filipino college students: An exploratory study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 115-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03024925 |
[17]
’s study which stated that Filipino college students used more non-acceptance and non-agreement strategies in order for them not to appear boastful, egoistic, and self-serving students. These are said to be the products of modesty maxim embedded in the socio-cultural contexts in the Philippines. According to Zhang
| [30] | Zhang, J. (2013). Compliments and Compliments Responses in Philippine English. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies. |
[30]
this maybe because in Mojica
| [17] | Mojica, L. A. (2002). Compliment-Giving among filipino college students: An exploratory study. Asia Pacific Education Review, 3(1), 115-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03024925 |
[17]
the employment of Filipino compliments were utilized which therefore provided disparities in the compliment responses.
In line with the current findings, it is worth-noting that mother tongue may have something to do with the compliments given by the complimentees and complimenters. The students employed Taglish (Tagalog language followed by English language), Englog (English followed by Tagalog), pure English, and colloquialism in responding to the English compliments given to them. They utilized code-switching to fully express themselves in as wider range as possible. This phenomenon reflected the factual circumstance that students were motivated to utilize Foreign language and Native language to create a hybrid and peculiar communication among and between their peers which in turn, a manifestation of their social and communicative competence.
Table 2. Provides examples of students’ CRs in which P stands for participants, S for situation, A for accept, R for reject, E for evade, and C for combination. Furthermore, the numbers along with these abbreviations refer to the codes assigned to participants or situations and the types of strategies in the micro level respectively.
Non-Medical Students (Education, Social Work, and Accountancy) | Examples of CRs |
P15;S1 | “Wow! Thanks, mah friend” (A1) |
P2; S3 | “Just a piece of cake. Nagbasa lang ako nung gabi before the exam. Okay naman.” (C) |
P45; S1 | “Correct! Thanks” (A1) |
P34; S4 | “Nope. Second hand” (R1) |
P20; S2 | “Thanks also. Wala yan. That’s what friends are for. You may call me anytime. Kung kailangan moko, tawag ka lang sa CP. “ (C) |
P3; S1 | “Thanks.” (A1) |
Medical Students (Optometry, Pharmacy, Medical Technology, and Science and Technology) | Examples of CRs |
P25; S1 | “Gotch! Thanks!” (A1) |
P17; S3 | “Thank you very much.” (A1) |
P50; S4 | “My sibling just gave this to me.” (E2) |
P29; S1 | “Hala, anteh. Kahiya naman ako bigla. Shytype me. Thank you very much!” (C) |
P35; S2 | “Of course. Who would help you but me! Ikaw pa ba?! Thanks also for entertainment. Maliit na bagay.” (C) |
P9; S4 | “Salamat!” (A1) |
Figure 3. Micro-pattern of CRs to Appearance Compliment.
Figure 3 summarizes the micro-pattern of CRs on appearance compliment. As shown in the figure students from both programs opted to express CRs strategies of Appreciation Token. Specifically, non-medical students-respondents employed appreciation token more frequently compared to their counterparts. The percentage obtained by the former is 53% while the latter is 45%. The difference is more than 5%. However, this finding does not provide significant difference since students from both programs responded acceptance when they are complimented with regard to their appearance.
“Thank you very much!”, Thanks a lot”, “Salamat!”, “Yup, haha”, “Correct” and “Gotcha! My friend” are frequently employed compliment response strategies by the complimentees when they receive compliments from their interactants. This may be said that college students are habituated to receiving compliments since they are grown-ups and are competent enough to make themselves appealable and presentable in the eyes of the people around them. In terms of other compliment strategies, it appears from the data that non-medical students-respondents embedded agreeing utterances in their CRs compare to their counterparts with a 10% difference. On the other hand, medical students-respondents employed Return Compliments while non-medical students did not. This can be argued that non-medical and medical students have asymmetrical relations that made medical students more inclined to return compliments to the complimenters. Social status, linguistic norms, self-perception, and cultural background can be said to have played in this instance. With regard to Combination CRs, non-medical garnered 13% while medical students-respondents, 9%. Gender, on the contrary, does not really play an important role as regards CRs in this study.
The findings above support Pomerantz (as cited in Herbert,
| [9] | Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19, 201-224. |
[9]
) that appreciation token are frequently employed when the persons concerned received compliments. “
Thank you” seems to be a canonical response in every situation when complimented by another. This could be attributed to the fact that tertiary students know the norms when engaged in this kind of discourse and are habituated to reply positively; thus, acceptance sets in. Since the language employed in giving a compliment is English, therefore it is safe to presume that students-respondents reply customarily in English because it has been inculcated in them to do so as part of their formal training in L2. Insofar as return compliments and gender are concerned, Morales (
cited in Nurhijannah,
| [19] | Nurhijannah, A. S. (2021). An Analysis on Compliment Responses in English among Javanese People. Journal of English Language Teaching Linguistics and Literature Studies, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.30984/jeltis.v1i1.1506 |
[19]
) corroborates the present study which stated that gender is not a determining criterion in CRs and return compliments are often employed.
Figure 4 encapsulates the micro-pattern of CRs to character compliment. As illustrated from the figure, participants from the non-medical programs exhibited preponderantly Appreciation Token with 13% difference as compare to medical students. This may be due to the fact that non-medical students perceive themselves to be worthy of their character while the medical students probably exhibit a bit reluctance or less confidence in accepting compliments as regards to their character. This finding seems contrary to Heidari’s et. al.
| [8] | Heidari, M. A., Rezazadeh, M., & Rasekh, A. E. (2009). A contrastive study of compliment responses among male and female Iranian teenage EFL learners. The International Journal of Language Society and Culture. 29 (18-31) Retrieved May 29, 2010, from http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/ |
[8]
finding. It asserted that participants both male and female tended to employ ‘self-praise avoidance strategy’.
Figure 4. Micro-pattern of CRs to Character Compliment.
The figure also reveals that medical students employed agreeing utterance (17%), return compliment (10%), shift credit (12%), and combination (16%). While non-medical students utilized CRs; hence, combination (13%), shift credit (4%), and return compliment and agreeing utterance (0%). These findings can be said to be a product of their personalized self-perceptions to the compliments they receive. But the common denominator with the two programs is that both are inclined to accept compliments more often when they receive compliments although difference between the two is evident.
Figure 5. Micro-pattern of CRs to Ability Compliment.
Figure 5 sums up the micro-pattern on ability compliment. As can be seen from the figure, both non-medical and medical students employed almost the same percentage of appreciation token with only 3% difference. Non-medical at 40% while medical at 37%. An interesting result can be seen from the fact that medical students employed more return compliments (28%) compare to non-medical students (13%). The huge gap between the two may be said to be relevant to their current status and the degree of difficulty of their respective courses as they subjectively perceive them. As such, the production of compliments also becomes parallel to the same. Additionally, both participants from medical and non-medical programs exhibited evade CRs. One thing that can be significantly checked is that all students utilized request reassurance at 2% and combination at 13% and 12% from non-medical and medical students, respectively. These findings support Morales
study saying that students tend to employ appreciation token once they receive compliments as regards their ability. The present findings also support Alqarni’s
study which provides that in the topic where personal ability is concerned, agreement response still dominates. This is due to the fact that tertiary non-medical and medical students try to exhibit their competence for them to build their personality in their respective field. Thus, rejecting the compliments or avoiding them seems to produce negative impact on their image. The employment of combination CRs seems rooted to the cultural norms of the students that need to elucidate their position to become reliable and worthy of praise (Bibi & Sartini,
| [4] | Bibi, F., & Sartini, N. W. (2023). “Gender and social power dynamics in compliment responses: A cross-cultural pragmatic study of university students in Indonesia and Pakistan.” Cogent Arts and Humanities, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2023.2262076 |
[4]
).
Figure 6. Micro-pattern of CRs to Possession Compliment.
Figure 6 outlines the micro pattern of CRs to possession compliment. As can be seen, both non-medical and medical students preponderantly affirmed the compliment given to them by utilizing agreeing utterance such as “Yup! Gotcha!”; “Yes, I know”; “Oo naman hehe”. Non-medical students and medical students have a difference of only two percent in utilizing Accept in general and Agreeing utterance in particular; non-medical 53% and 55% for their counterpart. One important observation from the figure is the employment of reject and evade by students from different programs. On the other hand, medical students opted to employ combination in their compliment responses. These findings seem to concur with what Zhang
| [30] | Zhang, J. (2013). Compliments and Compliments Responses in Philippine English. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies. |
[30]
; Manarin et. al.
| [16] | Manarin, J. et.al. (2022). Giving and Responding: An Analysis of Compliment and Compliment Responses among Selected Students of the College of Arts and Sciences at Cavite State University-Main Campus. |
[16]
; Torres et. al.
which provide that in giving a compliment response, the complimentees might tend to employ reject and evade to ensure that modesty and firmness in communication are observed but nonetheless acceptance in compliments still prevail compare to any other CRs. In the Philippine contexts, people may tend to observe modesty in possessions since they do not like to be perceived as ‘
mayabang’ (boastful).
This finding insofar as compliment response in possession is concerned provides us the truism that in tertiary institutions, students-respondents from different programs tend to accept the compliments given to them since they become habituated to it and they know how to respond in an affirmative manner. Another assumption that can be drawn from this is that students regardless of programs where they belong are sociolinguistically acculturated to the cultures of the West as the byproduct of globalization due to intensive technological development and means of communication and acquisition of knowledge and the like.
4. Conclusion
The present study revealed the overwhelming preponderance of Acceptance in the utterances or compliments produced by medical and non-medical students-respondents alike. The pattern of compliment responses based on the frequency of usage was Accept, Combination, Evade, and Reject. Specifically, students-respondents from both fields; that is, medical and non-medical, employed appreciation token dominantly in the four categories of the DCT namely; Appearance, Character, Ability and Possession. The canonical response, “Thank you!”, still prevailed between and among the two groups of university students. Nonmedical students used more appreciation token insofar as appearance is concerned. On the other hand, medical students resorted to return compliment in giving responses to the compliments they have received. With regard to Character, both groups employed appreciation token followed by agreeing utterance, combination, shift credit, and return compliment. As to the Ability, accept and appreciation token were dominantly employed. But little disparities between the two groups were identified that medical students employed Return Compliments whereas the nonmedical did not. Additionally, as regards the maco, Evade i.e. Informative Comment, and another macro, Reject, i.e. Disagreeing Utterance were uttered by the nonmedical and medical students which could be attributed to the surrounding factors such as status and degree of difficulty of the field as they perceived the same. In Possession, acceptance was prevalent. Appreciation token got the superior position as compared to the other compliment response strategies. Also, macro, Combination, responses were resorted to by the students. In juxtaposition, both medical and nonmedical students embedded rejection and deflection in their utterances due to the fact that they wanted to observe ‘modesty’ and thus eliminated the notion of boastfulness as part of the student-respondents’ demeanors.
Moreover, there was no significant difference realized between and among the nonmedical and medical student-respondents regarding the use of CRs. The possible reason for this is that university students share the same socio-linguistic constructs, linguistic schema, and cultural norms. Likewise, it is submitted that both students from medical and non-medical fields belong to the same speech community regardless of their academic fields; thus, the social network among them seemed to suggest that it is parallel and relative. Ergo, given the expanded criteria of assessing the CRs it was found that Combination responses were utilized by the students to propound their ideas, position, feelings, etc.
Consequently, the findings of the present study may lead different professionals and students engaged, among others, in Political Science, Business, Law, and Education to play a vital position in shaping the sociolinguistic and communicative competence of one’s self, clients, and other persons.
For educators and teachers, the results of the study may be used to further their understanding in employing politeness theory which could lead them to create contextualized scenarios and activities in the classroom for enhancing and structuring the pragmalinguistic competence of their mentees or students.
For government employees and officials, they may provide social exercises and activities to enhance the competence of governmental forces to be more responsive and accountable to the people or public they serve.
Given the instantaneous changes in the environment or contexts, it is without argument that further research and studies regarding CRs shall be made. Since language is a dynamic phenomenon, a continuous inquiry about CRs is desired, thereby filling the gap in the body of knowledge. Specifically, future researcher may use the same framework of the current study and use different respondents, e.g. law students, government employees, or engineering students.
The findings of this study may not be considered conclusive and definite; thus, more studies should be investigated in the future employing the same research variables.
Author Contributions
Mark Ivan Mallare Gomez: Conceptualization, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Rodrigo Concepcion Morales: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Appendix
Instrument--- Modified Discourse Completion Test (DCT)
Description: Discourse Completion Test (DCT) is a tool employed in sociolingusitics to determine the nature and features of the discourse (both written and spoken) in a specific communicative event. It is used to elicit particular speech acts.
This test provides modified situations specifically made for 4th year college students at Centro Escolar University-Manila by which the participants are requested to supply the questions with their honest and candid replies/answers.
Directions: Write your honest response in each of the given situations.
Situation 1 (Appearance):
Your school has organized a graduation ball in a hotel. As you enter the lobby of the hotel, one of your friends says: “You look stunning in your attire! You look great!”
Your reply:
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Situation 2 (Character):
One of your friends asks you to help her/him arrange her personal belongings like book shelves, and some kitchen utensils in a boarding house near your university. It takes half day to fix almost all of his/ her personal belongings. As your friend bids goodbye, you said to him/ her, “Thank you so much for the help. I cannot do this without your help.”
Your reply:
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Situation 3 (Ability):
After having checked a very hard examination in Calculus and gotten the highest score in the class, your classmate says: ‘‘Wow, that’s brilliant, I hope I can do it the way you did. Well done!’’
Your reply:
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Situation 4 (Possession):
You have bought a new Iphone (Apple). When you receive a call, your friend notices that your phone is a different one. Having looked at it and tried some functions, s/he says: ‘‘Wow, how smart! My phone does not have such functions. It is really great!’’
Your reply:
________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Cite This Article
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APA Style
Morales, R. C., Gomez, M. I. M. (2025). “You Look Amazingly Fabulous”: Sociolinguistic Perspectives from Medical and Non-Medical University Students. International Journal of Secondary Education, 13(3), 63-72. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
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Morales, R. C.; Gomez, M. I. M. “You Look Amazingly Fabulous”: Sociolinguistic Perspectives from Medical and Non-Medical University Students. Int. J. Second. Educ. 2025, 13(3), 63-72. doi: 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
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Morales RC, Gomez MIM. “You Look Amazingly Fabulous”: Sociolinguistic Perspectives from Medical and Non-Medical University Students. Int J Second Educ. 2025;13(3):63-72. doi: 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
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@article{10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11,
author = {Rodrigo Concepcion Morales and Mark Ivan Mallare Gomez},
title = {“You Look Amazingly Fabulous”: Sociolinguistic Perspectives from Medical and Non-Medical University Students
},
journal = {International Journal of Secondary Education},
volume = {13},
number = {3},
pages = {63-72},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijsedu.20251303.11},
abstract = {The study investigates the employment of compliment strategies of medical and non-medical university students using the linguistic frameworks of Holmes and Yu. Three hundred fifty respondents took part in the study. These students-respondents came from four medical colleges/schools and three non-medical colleges/schools in a university located in Manila. They were asked to complete the Discourse Completion Test (DCT). DCT was developed and modified by the researchers. The said DCT was distributed via google sheet thru Facebook messenger. From the data collected, results revealed that both medical and nonmedical students opted to follow the Accept, Combination, Reject, and Evade pattern. Both groups preferred Accept the most and Evade the least. Appreciation Token and Combination were preponderantly exhibited by both groups in their CRs. There is no significant difference realized between and among the students- respondents regarding the use of CRs by medical and nonmedical. Implications of the study were offered and research directions were provided.},
year = {2025}
}
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TY - JOUR
T1 - “You Look Amazingly Fabulous”: Sociolinguistic Perspectives from Medical and Non-Medical University Students
AU - Rodrigo Concepcion Morales
AU - Mark Ivan Mallare Gomez
Y1 - 2025/08/04
PY - 2025
N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
DO - 10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
T2 - International Journal of Secondary Education
JF - International Journal of Secondary Education
JO - International Journal of Secondary Education
SP - 63
EP - 72
PB - Science Publishing Group
SN - 2376-7472
UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijsedu.20251303.11
AB - The study investigates the employment of compliment strategies of medical and non-medical university students using the linguistic frameworks of Holmes and Yu. Three hundred fifty respondents took part in the study. These students-respondents came from four medical colleges/schools and three non-medical colleges/schools in a university located in Manila. They were asked to complete the Discourse Completion Test (DCT). DCT was developed and modified by the researchers. The said DCT was distributed via google sheet thru Facebook messenger. From the data collected, results revealed that both medical and nonmedical students opted to follow the Accept, Combination, Reject, and Evade pattern. Both groups preferred Accept the most and Evade the least. Appreciation Token and Combination were preponderantly exhibited by both groups in their CRs. There is no significant difference realized between and among the students- respondents regarding the use of CRs by medical and nonmedical. Implications of the study were offered and research directions were provided.
VL - 13
IS - 3
ER -
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