Compliments constitute a vital aspect of humans’ everyday communication, and are therefore an important social phenomenon in every society and culture. In simple terms, a compliment refers to a speech act which either implicitly or explicitly attributes credit to the person addressed for some good, such as a possession, characteristic or skill that is positively viewed by the speaker (Holmes 1988, 445–465). The primary function of compliments remains both establishing and maintaining solidarity between interlocutors (J. Chen and Boonkongsaen 2012; Herbert 1990, 201; Manes and Wolfson 1981, 116–132). The giving and receiving of compliments is, however, affected by sociocultural factors such as age, gender, status, etc. (Herbert 1990, 224). In addition, all languages are characterised by a unique set of patterned and routine expressions used by speakers to perform different types of speech act, such as compliments (Ziaei 2013, 23). As is visible from the various types of compliment responses (CRs) explored by a number of theorists and researchers, both compliments and the responses they receive, determine the success of communication between two or more interlocutors; compliments and their responses therefore play a vital role in communication. A number of studies have explored the use of compliments and compliment responses in terms of their linguistic format, compliment topic, and the factors that play a role in producing and receiving compliments. Specifically, over the last three decades, a large and growing body of research (Al Falasi 2007, 28–42; Al-Khateeb 2009, 23–45; Al-Rousan and Awal 2016, 16; Donaldson 1938, 563; He 2012, 29–51; Othman 2011, 86–103; Salameh 2001, 88–112; Yousefvand 2010, 91–112) has focused on compliments and compliment responses and their pragmatic significance in intra-cultural settings.

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