Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 12:4 (2021) ► pp.537–566

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Compliments and compliment responses in Egyptian and Saudi Arabic

A variational pragmatic comparison

 | Prince Sultan University
Published online: 29 October 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18037.eld
Abstract
The current study reports on a variational pragmatic comparison of compliments and compliment responses between Egyptian and Saudi Arabic. Data were collected by using Discourse Completion Tasks from 443 Egyptian and 428 Saudi undergraduates, and were analyzed using adaptations of Yuan, Yi. 2002. “Compliments and compliment responses in Kunming Chinese.” Pragmatics 12(2):183–226. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and Herbert, Robert K. 1986. “Say “Thank you” or Something.” American Speech 61(1): 76–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar models. The results reveal significant differences in politeness management between Egyptian and Saudi youth, particularly with Egyptians producing more explicit compliment strategies and Saudis showing stronger preference for implicit compliment strategies and combination patterns. Less difference is noted in compliment responses with only Egyptians exhibiting higher use of additional strategies. The findings are interpreted in light of politeness theory and the interplay between cultural values and linguistic behavior.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Variational pragmatic studies
    • 2.2Compliment and compliment response studies in Arabic
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Instrument
    • 4.3Data collection
    • 4.4Data coding
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1How similar are compliment strategies in Egyptian and Saudi Arabic?
    • 5.2How similar are compliment response strategies in Egyptian and Saudi Arabic?
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Pedagogical implications and research directions
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (56)
References
Abdel Hady, Saleem. 2015. “The Pragmatic Functions of the Ostensible Communicative Act of Invitation in Jordanian Arabic.” SKY Journal of Linguistics 281: 7–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Abdul Sattar, Hiba Qusay, Slasiah Che Lah, and Raja Rozina Raja Suleiman. 2010. “A Study on Strategies Used in Iraqi Arabic to Refuse Suggestions.” The International Journal of Language, Society and Culture 301: 81–95.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Ageel, Hessah. 2016. Requesting Behavior of Saudi Arabian Women in Contemporary Arabic-speaking Situations. Doctoral thesis at RMIT University, Australia. Retrieved from: [URL]
Al-Gahtani, Saad, and Carsten Roever. 2015. “The Development of Requests by L2 Learners of Modern Standard Arabic: A Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Study.” Foreign Language Annals 48(4): 570–583. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Khatib, Mahmoud A. 2006. “The Pragmatics of Invitation Making and Acceptance in Jordanian Society.” Journal of Language and Linguistics 5(2): 272–294.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-rousan, Mohammad Yahya, Norsimah Mat Awal, and Khazriyati Binti Salehuddin. 2016. “Compliment Responses among Male and Female Jordanian University Students.” GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 16(1): 19–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Shorman and Ra’ed Abdelgadder. 2016. “Saudi and Jordanian Undergraduates’ Complaining Strategies: A Comparative Intralanguage Educational Linguistic Study.” Arab World English Journal 7(1): 203–228. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
AlTalhi and Hana Khalafallah. 2014. Speech Acts of Thanking and Thanking Responses by Hijazi Females. Master’s thesis at Ball State University, USA. Retrieved from: [URL]
Barron, Anne. 2006. Requesting in Irish English and English English: A Study of Intralingual Regional Pragmatic Variation. Unpublished LAUD paper No. 684. Retrieved from: [URL]
Beebe, Leslie M., and Martha Clark Cummins. 1996. “Natural Speech Data versus Written Questionnaire Data: How Data Collection Method Affects Speech Act Performance.” In Speech Acts across Cultures, ed. by Susan Gass and Joyce Neu, 56–86. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Demeter, Gusztav. 2000. A Pragmatic Study of Apology Strategies in Romanian. Master’s thesis at the Oklahoma State University, USA. Retrieved from: [URL]
Ebadi, Saman, and Ahmed Rawdhan Salman. 2015. “Using Compliment Responses in Arabic and English: Focusing on Male and Female EFL Learners in Iraq.” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research 2(7): 157–178.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam. 2017. “The Compliment Response Strategies of Egyptian Arabic-English Bilinguals.” Language and Dialogue 7(3): 387–412. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam, Jawaher Nasser AlHaqbani, Manal Althaqafi, and Shrouq Alfouzan. 2019. How do Saudis complain? A dialogue-analytic analysis of the Najdi dialect. Language and Dialogue 9(2): 264–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam, Maruf Rahman, Musinah Muhammad, and Fouzia Amroun. 2019. The Saudi EFL learners’ complaint behavior: A study on interlanguage pragmatics. The Asian EFL Journal 24 (4): 295–324.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enssaif, Zahraa Abdelkareem. 2005. Compliment Behavor: Strategies and Realizations in English and Arabic: A Case Study of Female Students of the English Department at King Saud University. Master’s thesis at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Retrieved from: [URL]
Farenkia, Bernard Mulo. 2011. “Speech Acts and Regional Variations in French: The Case of Compliments on Skills in Cameroon and Canadian French.” Speech and Context 2(3): 1–19.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Responding to Compliments in Cameroon French and Canadian French.” US-China Foreign Language 10(5): 1135–1153.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “All thanks goes to the Almighty” – A variational and postcolonial pragmatic perspective on responses to thanks.” Sino-US English Teaching, 10(9): 707–724.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grainger, Karen, Zainab Kerkam, Fathia Mansor, and Sara Mills. 2015. “Offering and Hospitality in Arabic and English.” Journal of Politeness Research 11(1): 41–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Herbert, Robert K. 1986. “Say “Thank you” or Something.” American Speech 61(1): 76–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1989. “The Ethnography of English Compliments and Compliment Responses: A Contrastive Sketch.” In Contrastive Pragmatics, ed. by Wieslaw Oleksy, 3–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet. 1988. “Compliments and Compliment Responses in New Zealand.” Anthropological Linguistics 28(4): 485–508.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hussein, Riyad F., and Mamoun T. Hammouri. 1998. “Strategies of apology in Jordanian Arabic and American English.” Grazer Linguistische Studien 491: 37–50.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kachru, Yamuna. 1998. “Culture and Speech Acts: Evidence from Indian and Singaporean English.” Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 28(1): 79–98.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kirdasi, Malak Ismail. 2013. “Hello” or “Salaam?” Greetings by Arabs and Americans. Master’s Thesis at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Retrieved from: [URL]
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Song, and Liu Lida. 2002. Apologies in Chinese and English – A Research Report. Intercultural Communication Studies 5(3): 131–144.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majeed, Aamir, and Fauzia Janjua. 2014. “Apology Strategies and Gender: A Pragmatic Study of Apology Speech Acts in Urdu Language.” Merit Research Journal of Education and Review 2(3): 054–061.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Masoumzadeh, Ali, and Seyyed Ali Ghanadi. 2016. “Contrastive Analysis of Compliments Given by Facebook Commentators in the Pages of Iranian and England Foreign Ministers.” International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning 5(3): 83–90.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Melin, Susanna. 2014. “Thanks! You Look Rather Dashing Yourself.” A Contrastive Pragmatics Investigation of Singaporean and American Compliment Responses. Master’s Degree project at Stockholms University. Retrieved from: [URL]
Morkus, Nader. 2009. The Realization of the Speech Act of Refusal in Egyptian Arabic by American Learners of Arabic as a Foreign Language. Doctoral thesis at the University of South Florida, USA. Retrieved from: [URL]
. 2014. “Refusals in Egyptian Arabic and American English.” Journal of Pragmatics 701: 86–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mostafa, Mariam. 2015. A Study of Compliment Responses among Male and Female Egyptian Undergraduate Students. Master’s thesis at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. Retrieved from: [URL]
Mughazy, Mustafa A. 2000. “Pragmatics of the Evil Eye in Egyptian Arabic.” Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 30(2): 147–157.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nelson, Gaylel, Mahmoud Al-Batal, and Erin Echols. 1996. “Arabic and English compliment responses: Potential for pragmatic failure.” Applied Linguistics 17(4): 411–432. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Payne, Sophie. 2013. “Compliment responses of female German and Italian university students: A contrastive study.” Language Studies Working Papers at the University of Reading 51: 22–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1978. “Compliment Responses: Notes on the Co-operation of Multiple Constraints.” In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, ed. by Jim Schenkein, 79–112. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pour, Vahid Shahidi, and Gholam Reza Zarei. 2017. “Investigating the use of compliments and compliment responses in Persian: The effect of educational background.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 6(1): 227–239. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Qanbar, Nada. 2012. “Compliments in the Yemeni society: A sociolinguistic perspective.” GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies 12(3): 999–1017.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quran, Afnan Abd Allah. 2012. Compliment Expressions: A Contrastive Study of American English and Jordanian Arabic. Master’s thesis at Yarmouk University. Retrieved from [URL]
Salameh, Abdallah. 2001. Compliment Responses in American English, Saudi Arabic and the Egnlish of Saudi EFL Learners. Doctoral thesis at the University of Leicester, UK. Retrieved from: [URL]
Schneider, Klaus P., and Anne Barron. 2008. “Where Pragmatics and Dialectology Meet: Introducing Variational Pragmatics.” In Variational pragmatics. A focus on regional varieties in pluricentric languages. [Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 178], ed. by Klaus P. Schneider & Anne Barron. 1–32. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sidraschi, Diego. 2014. “Pragmatics and ethnolinguistics of compliment: Compliment responses in Novara and Grottaglie.” Lingue e Linguaggio 111: 225–239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorahi, Mohammad Amin, and Tahereh Beigom Nazemi. 2013. “A cross-cultural study of the use of compliment strategies among English and Persian speakers.” Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 16(9): 1292–1296.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Srichampa, Sophana. 2005. “Comparison of greetings in the Vietnamese dialects of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City.” The Mon-Khmer Studies Journal 351: 83–99.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stapleton, Laura Elizabeth. 2004. Variation in the Performance of Speech Acts in Peninsular Spanish: Apologies and Requests. Doctoral thesis at the Louisiana State University, USA. Retrieved from: [URL]
Sury-Yallah, Mohammad, and Fahd Mosaad Allahiby. 2014. “Shifting responsibility strategies: Apology in Saudi Arabia.” College of Arts and Languages Journal, Mohamed Khaider University, Algeria 14&151: 3–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tag-Eldin, Khalid. 2016. “Realization patterns of request in Sudanese Arabic and English.” Horizons in Humanities and Social Sciences 1(2): 65–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolfson, Nessa. 1983. “An Empirically Based Analysis of Complimenting Behavior in American English.” In Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition, ed. by Nessa Wolfson & Elliot Judd, 82–95. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Migdadi, Fathi, Muhammad A. Badarneh & Areej Qudaisat
2025. ‘Where have you been hiding this voice?’. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 35:3 ► pp. 395 ff. DOI logo
Almusallam, Inas I.
2023. Offers in Saudi EFL talks: A focus on the learners’ pragmatic competence in interactions. Journal of Pragmatics 214 ► pp. 164 ff. DOI logo
Salam El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel , Mervat M. Ahmed, Jawaher Nasser AlHaqbani & Afrah Alenezi
2023. How do Alexandrians and Najdis Apologize? A Variational Pragmatic Study of Arabic. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam & Nermine Galal Ibrahim
2022. Egyptian parents’ responses to children's complaints focusing on the influence of sex and age. Journal of Pragmatics 200 ► pp. 52 ff. DOI logo
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam & Nermine Galal Ibrahim
2023. The realization of the speech acts of complaint and responding to complaint in Vodafone Egypt versus Vodafone UK. Language and Dialogue 13:3 ► pp. 336 ff. DOI logo
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam & Mervat M. Ahmed
2021. “What I advise you to do is…”. Language and Dialogue 11:3 ► pp. 405 ff. DOI logo
El-Dakhs, Dina Abdel Salam & Mervat M. Ahmed
2021. A variational pragmatic analysis of the speech act of complaint focusing on Alexandrian and Najdi Arabic. Journal of Pragmatics 181 ► pp. 120 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue