Academic Scientific Journals‘Self‑praise avoidance’ strategies in compliment responses of male and female students. A Polish‑German comparison
Keywords:
compliment, compliment responses, strategies, self-praise avoidance, faceAbstract
In the former classifications of compliment responses next to acceptance and rejection of a compliment there appears a special group of responses, also known as the self-praise avoidance mechanism (Pomerantz 1978), deflect/evade (Holmes 1988), deflating, deflecting, rejecting (Herbert/Straight 1989) or amendment strategies (Yu 2003). The last one of the above-mentioned groups combines the elements of acceptance and rejection and serves to restore the balance in a conversation and to save the face of the complimenter and of the complimented person. The analysis focuses on the last-mentioned group of responses. The main aim of this article is to show some chosen examples of the strategies used by Polish and German male and female students. The differences related to the culture and sex of the surveyed students will be discussed.
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