A01 cohe4573 01 se fm. Qxd

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G R O U N D I N G I N T H E T E A C H I N G A N D L E A R N I N G O F L 2 P R A G M A T I C S
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soften face-threatening acts such as apologies, requests and criticism;
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■
open and sustain conversation (conversation strategy);
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and
■
reinforce desired behavior.
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Topics of compliments
The major referents of compliments include attributes of the conversational
partner, such as:
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appearance/possessions (e.g., You look absolutely beautiful!)
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performance/skills/abilities (e.g., Your presentation was excellent.)
■
personality traits (e.g., You are so sweet.)
Grammatical structures and word choice for compliments
In the 1980s, researchers found that 97% of compliments use one of the
structures listed below.
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More recent studies investigating compliments
appearing in the current US media also found roughly comparable distribu-
tion of these grammatical structures.
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1
Your blouse is/looks (really) beautiful. (NP is/looks (really) ADJ).
2
I (really) like/love your car. (I (really) like/love NP).
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That’s a (really) nice wall hanging. (PRO is (really) a ADJ NP).
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You did a (really) good job. (You V a (really) ADV NP).
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You really handled that situation well. (You V (NP) (really) ADV).
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You have such beautiful hair! (You have (a) ADJ NP!).
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What a lovely baby you have! (What (a) ADJ NP!) (See Figure 4.1 below).
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Nice game! (ADJ NP!).
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Isn’t your ring beautiful! (Isn’t NP ADJ!).
The most commonly used adjectives in compliments were nice, good, pretty,
great, and beautiful,
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although the list undoubtedly varies for other varieties
of English. It could be a student activity to collect the expressions that are 
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Brown and Levinson (1987); Wolfson (1983).
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Billmyer (1990); Dunham (1992); Wolfson (1983).
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Manes (1983).
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Manes and Wolfson (1981).
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Rose (2001); Tatsuki and Nishizawa (2005).
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Manes and Wolfson (1981).

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