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In:Complimenting Behavior and (Self-)Praise across Social Media: New contexts and new insights
Edited by María Elena Placencia and Zohreh R. Eslami
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 313] 2020
► pp. 121–142

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Chapter 5
Compliment response behavior among Japanese-English bilinguals on Facebook

 | University of Barcelona
 | University of Barcelona
 | University of Barcelona
Published online: 17 December 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.313.05rui
Abstract
This study examines compliment responses on Facebook produced by Japanese-English bilingual women who post photos of their manicures and pedicures – the objects of praise. It is based on a total of 178 responses directed towards Japanese monolinguals, (American) English monolinguals, and Japanese-English bilingual audiences. The responses were coded according to Holmes (1986) and Placencia, Lower, and Powell’s (2016) taxonomies of compliment response strategies. Results indicated that acceptance of compliments was the most common strategy used by the Japanese-English bilingual women in the study, followed by evasion, rejection, and no acknowledgement. The study also highlights the importance of further examining the online practices of bilinguals who interact with multilingual audiences in compliment response research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies
    • 2.1Seminal works on face-to-face compliment responses
    • 2.2Previous studies of compliments and CRs in Japanese contexts
    • 2.3Compliment responses in online settings
  • 3.Data and method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Corpus and analytical approach employed
    • 3.4Participation roles
    • 3.5Taxonomy of CRs
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Activity profiles and frequency of compliment responses (CRs)
    • 4.2Acknowledged and unacknowledged CRs
    • 4.3Style and frequency of response amongst participants
    • 4.4Patterns of acceptance, rejection, and evasion
  • 5.Summary and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (32)
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