The English compliment: communicative strategies and tactics

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National University «Odessa Law Academy»

Lecturer of the Foreign Languages Department

The English compliment: communicative strategies and tactics

Ievgenija U. Abramova, Ph. D. in Philological Sciences

Summary

This study is aimed at investigation of the compliment as a specific speech tactics in the conversation used for optimization the dialogical process. The main objective of this work consists in defining the functional role of the compliment as a specific speech tactics in the process of communication and establishing regularity in its relative frequency of use in the aspect of psychological and speech impact on the listener. This work also studies correlations in the relative use frequency of the compliment as a speech tactics as it is realized in different communicative strategies. The author determines the status of the communicative strategies differentiating them in accordance with norms of the speech etiquette and principles of politeness. In the process of work a new original definition of the compliment is given as an instrument of possible mental and speech impact on the interlocutor and the role of the compliment is studied in the communicative strategies singled out. The whole corpus of the actual material counts 6500 speech samples selected consequently from the literary dialogue of the original English novel. The author argues that compliments employed as a universal speech tactics in the process of dialogical interaction serve to optimize the communication process in general, and contribute to realization the speaker's communicative goal.

Key words: the compliment, speech tactics, communicative strategies, dialogue, speech impact.

Анотація

У фокусі запропонованого дослідження знаходиться вивчення компліменту як особливої мовленнєвої тактики в розмові, що вживається з метою оптимізації процесу діалогізації. Головна мета роботи полягає у визначенні функціональної ролі компліменту як особливої мовленнєвої тактики у процесі комунікації та встановленні закономірностей відносної частотності вживання компліментів в аспекті психологічного та мовленнєвого впливу на слухача. Предметом вивчення є кореляції відносної частотності вживання компліменту як мовленнєвої тактики в межах різних комунікативних стратегій. Результатом дослідження є визначення статусу комунікативних стратегій, їх диференціація відповідно до норм мовленнєвого етикету і принципів ввічливості. У статті подано нову оригінальну дефініцію компліменту як інструменту можливого ментального й мовленнєвого впливу на співрозмовника, визначено роль компліменту у виокремлених мовленнєвих стратегіях. Корпус обробленого фактичного матеріалу складає 6500 мовленнєвих зразків, відібраних унаслідок проведення суцільної вибірки з художнього діалогу оригінального англійського роману. Висновок: комплімент як універсальна тактика спілкування у процесі діалогізації служить оптимізації комунікації загалом і сприяє реалізації комунікативної мети мовця.

compliment communication etiquette politeness

The presented work is dedicated to the urgent problem of organizing dialogical speech communication and different ways and means of ensuring its efficiency. Compliments are universally believed to have a special power of influencing people and harmonizing the process of social interaction.

This work grounds upon the theoretical finds of scientific studies in the field of the speech etiquette undertaken by F. Batsevitch, M. Varij, T. van Dijk, E. Goffman, G. Grice, D. Hymes, I. Klochko, G. Lakoff, V. Troyanov. Giving tribute to the research carried out in the sphere of harmonizing and optimizing the speech communication, we must point out that the problem of using a compliment as an individual speech tactics has not received sufficient attention in linguistics.

The urgency of the investigation undertaken follows from the general orientation of modern linguistics at the speech structures and studying their role in organizing the process of verbal interaction. Besides, studying compliment in literary dialogues gives a clue of penetrating into the deep psychological mechanisms of the human mind, reflecting them in the dialogue and tracing their role in harmonizing the general process of communication.

The object of this research -- are statements pragmatically implicated as compliments in the original English literary dialogue. The subject of the research are peculiarities and functional characteristics of the compliment as a speech tactics in the process of verbal communication. The actual material of our work covers 6500 speech samples gathered by consecutive selection. The work is based upon the original English literary dialogue taken from novels of the XIX- XXI centuries. The validity of the actual material is verified by the regularities of mathematical linguistics as it given by R.G. Piotrovskij and A.A. Bektaev [14, p. 353].

The main objective of our investigation is to determine the functional role of the compliment as a specific speech tactics in the communicative strategies and to establish regularity in the frequency patterns of use of the compliment from the view point of psycho and speech impact on the interlocutor.

The definition of the compliment in this work is based on the critical analysis of the special literature and the results of our own studies. In this paper a compliment is treated as a positive statement containing comments relating to any events, features, acquisitions, achievements that are associated with the addressee and are regarded by the transmitter of the message and its recipient positively.

Modern linguistic approach to conversation looks at the ways of optimizing the speech communication not only by means of syntactic links between the word units and actual information conveyed by the utterances, but mostly focuses its interest on the different humanitary techniques used by the interlocutors for realizing their communicative goals.

The notions of strategy and tactics are borrowed from the warfare and give priority to the «victory», i. e. resulting effect produced on the listener in the way desired by the speaker. They are based on the active role of the listener, on his/her active recognition and interpretation of the «global» or «local» intentions of the initiator of the dialogue.

The first person who gave a profound scientific analysis of the strategies used by the speakers was E. Goffman, who argued that any verbal interaction is strategic [2, p. 55]. P. Brown and S. Levinson investigated the category of «politeness», pointing out that it is also a strategy, as it reflects desires and goals of the language personality [1, p. 12]. The researchers devoted their work to the speech etiquette as one of the most important strategies of verbal communication [1, p. 7]. Interlocutors' being sincere and insincere, can also be interpreted as a kind of discoursive strategy in a conversation [15, p. 49].

Taking into account general orientation of modern linguistics at communicative, or speech strategies, we should dwell upon this concept in detail. This term is usually treated as «rules of the language use or rules of speaking» by D. Hymes [4, p. 55], «maximes» by G.P. Grice [3, p. 42], «stylistic strategies» by G. Lakoff [5, p. 46].

Traditionally, a communicative strategy is understood as the speaker's creative implementation of the plan of organization of his/her verbal behavior in order to achieve his/her general (global) communication objective in a particular speech interaction. It is a flexible mechanism that is exposed to constant adjusting of the intercourse in the process of communication and suffers changes in the search for optimal solutions.

Thus, agreeing with T. A. van Dijk, one can conclude that any speech strategy in general terms is a scheme of cognitive conversation plan that provides the tasks under vision with optimal solutions in a versatile and locally controlled manner. Strategies are directly related to the communicant's «choice» allowing him to solve the tasks set in the best way possible [7, p. 11]. Employing a situationally «good» strategy ensures the speaker's realization his communicative intention in the conversation.

The essential features of any strategy, as pointed out by V. Trojanov, are its flexibility, variability, and the ambivalent nature. They allow «considering discourse as a finite object of study, on the one hand, and, on the other -- focusing on its procedure aspect, on the mechanisms of its generation and comprehension» [18, p. 20]. T. van Dijk [7], O.S. Issers [12] and others stick to the same opinion about the functional characteristics of speech strategies.

As is generally known, a general strategy is realized in immediate communicative tactics, which are defined as verbal techniques which provide attain the speaker's aim in a particular situation [9, p. 4]. Realization and interpretation of certain discoursive strategies and tactics cannot be carried out without considering various personal and socio-cultural aspects of the dialogue. The speaker's strategy determines the answer to the question «what for» and his tactics -- the question «how».

The relationship between the concepts «a speech strategy» and «a speech tactics» is much dwelled upon in a lot of works of the Ukrainian and foreign linguists (M. Bakhtin, L. Vigotskij, L. Yakubinskij). Thus, L.L. Fyodorova distinguishes the given terms by means of employing the speech interaction model suggested by her. The latter describes both an elementary dialogue and more complicated cases of verbal communication [19, p. 47]. The author remarks that the main purpose of the dialogue initiator is set by his/her strategy, while specific influencing interlocutor's objectives in each act of the speech interaction outline the dialogue tactics. The similar idea is expressed by O.S. Issers, who points out that «planning a speech behavior is not just constructing speech utterances, but a part of the interactive process where the listener is not a passive perceiver of the text message transmitted by the speaker and an active interpreter of his speech actions but a realizer of his own strategic line of the verbal behavior» [12, p. 96].

I.P. Tarasova points out the nature of strategy when it globally covers the whole field of speech communication and states that it «includes planning of the verbal interaction, depending on the specific conditions of communication and the identity of communicants, as well as the implementation of the plan, outlined in the conversation» [17, p. 107]. The strategy of verbal communication is presented as the whole complex of speech acts aimed at achieving certain communicative goals.

The communicative tactics in their turn describe «a set of techniques of carrying out the talk at a certain stage in the limits of a separate dialogue» [17, p. 108]. They are aimed at achieving the desired effect or prevent the speaker from the unwanted results of the conversation. In our research we believe the compliment to be a specific speech tactics in the conversation used for optimization the dialogical process as a whole.

The generally accepted term the «speech tactics» is traditionally understood as flexible and dynamic use of verbal skills demonstrated by the speaker in the conversation, his/her communication move according to the chosen line of the speech intercourse. In order to obtain the response desired by the listener as well as his/her reaction to his speech move the speaker varies his/her tactics within a certain communicative strategy [11, p. 89]. It's worth pointing out that if a strategy is based on the premises, knowledge of postulates and norms of speech etiquette, the speech tactics depends on the prevailing conditions of communication, on the communication situation, on the socio and psychological factors (the communicants' status, their age, sex, their interests, background, etc.).

It is clear that in situations of everyday speech interaction, in personal discourse, there is one set of certain tactics and techniques, and in the institutional discourse there will be another set of tactics. However, this assertion does not exclude blending of the two types of speech tactics. 0. Ya. Goikhman and T. M. Nadeina write that the choice of tactics in a given communicative situation should be prompted by the addresser's logic, psychology and experience received in other speech situations his lifetime [9, p. 134].

It is speech tactics that give flexibility to the strategy, rapid response to the situation, dynamic nature of the verbal communication. For the first time tactics of speech as linguistic phenomena were put in the focus of attention in the works of Ye.M. Vereshchagin (1992) and V.G. Kostomarov (I960). The suggested term proved good because, like any other speech practice, it is a part of the overall strategy and provides a solution of the most complicated tasks [8, p. 86-87].

A number of works distinguish the following tactics; conscious and unconscious (impulsive), basic and supporting, there are also singled out «tactics of self-presentation» and «emotionally- tuning». There are also the so-called tactics of the game of «a bulling» and «a bear» and others. In her work 0. S. Issers even suggets thinking up an artificial semantic «label» to mark such tactics. She also considers it useful to give special terms to the tactics basing upon one of the surface cliche remark («It's a cinch for you to do it») or deep structure («You're very capable») [12, p. 203].

In this work we believe it reasonable from the practical point of view to divide verbal strategies as it was done by I.B. Morozova into the communicative strategies of conformism and argumentation [13]. These strategies of verbal communication are based on G.P. Grice's «principles and maxims of communication», while the principle of cooperation being the key to them [3, p. 122]. Thus, a strategy of conformism realizes the principle of cooperation.

Argumentation, in its turn, is divided into the soft and the hard argumentation.

The notion of «the hard communicative strategy» implies the speaker's conscious violating principles, norms and conventions of politeness for achieving his/her goals in the shortest time possible. Taking a soft argumentation as his/her main course in the dialogue, the speaker usually keeps to the norms and principles of politeness in every situation. Besides, depending on a kind of the situation, the interlocutor can accept or reject the position of his opponent and sustain his own point of view, without violating the principles of politeness and speech etiquette norms of communication.

A strategy of the soft argumentation is intermediate between the hard and the soft lines of verbal behavior. The parties do not resort to open confrontation, meet each other halfway and in general follow the rules of the accustomed speech behaviour.

In the process of hard argumentation there is observed a verbal and psychological pressure and a mutual interlocutors' confrontation. The latter manifests itself in the sharp disagreement, hard counter-argumenting, transforming into the open violation of the norms of politeness and, finally, leading to the conflict.

In this paper we share I. Sternin's position about the reflexive development of the communication process [16, p. 147], in which the parties consciously or subconsciously mimic the style of each other's conversation.

The study of our actual material has shown that depending on the speaker's choice of strategies he/she uses appropriate tactics in his/her verbal behavior.

The tactics of persuading, convincing, requesting alongside with the approval, appreciation and compliments are preferred within the strategy of conformism.

E. g.:

— Fine. -- I glared at him and shook my head. Stubborn idiot.

— But at least try to look a, little more raider-isb, okay? We don't want to attract attention. -- Zeke's snort sounded suspiciously like laughter.