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Second language pragmatic development in study abroad contexts
Edited by Ariadna Sánchez-Hernández
[Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 7:1] 2022
► pp. 88–115

Spanish and English compliment responses in discourse

An investigation of cross-cultural and L2 pragmatic norms

| Purdue University
| Purdue University

This investigation of second language (L2) pragmatic development over a six-week, short-term study abroad program examines compliment responses among English-speaking, L2 learners of Spanish, and compares the L2 group to native speakers of Spanish and English. Data were collected by offering a compliment during interviews, thus eliciting naturalistic compliment responses in a uniform context. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of this corpus offered a discourse-level analysis of compliment responses as a (co)constructed and multimodal speech act. Results revealed cross-cultural differences in the use of appreciation tokens (e.g., “thanks”), nodding, and compliment-compliment response discourse structures (i.e., English: pragmatic routine with appreciation; Spanish: co-constructed agreement). L2 learners’ compliment responses before and after study abroad aligned with English speaker norms. Thus, compliment responses in the L2 may not be salient for L2 learners. Results highlighted cross-cultural differences in the speech acts used to respond to a compliment and the complex issue of interlanguage pragmatics.

Keywords: compliment response, speech acts, L2 pragmatics, Spanish, English, second language, discourse, multimodal
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Compliment responses in American English
    • 2.2Compliment responses in Peninsular Spanish
    • 2.3Challenges faced by language learners
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Participants and program
    • 3.2Instrument and data
    • 3.3Analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Use of appreciation tokens in compliment responses
    • 4.2Compliment responses in Spanish and English discourse
    • 4.3Compliment responses in L2 Spanish discourse
    • 4.4Summary of findings
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1English and Spanish compliment responses
    • 5.2Compliment responses of L2 speakers of Spanish over short-term study abroad
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.21004.cze
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