Chinese Compliments

Chinese Compliment Responses

• Rejecting
• Disagreeing and denigrating (No, I’m older and uglier.)
• Expressing embarrassment (Don’t say that. I’m embarrassed.)
• Explaining (No, I didn’t watch my diet and I’ve gained some weight.)
• Thanking and denigrating (Thank you, but the sweater is not that nice.)
• Accepting
• Thanking only
• Most responses to compliments in Chinese tend to be rejections, characterized by disagreement and self-denigration.


• The norm of Chinese society is to appear humble. Modesty is one of the most important constituents of self-image. As a result, Chinese speakers choose to lower themselves when responding to compliments, believing that appearing humble will help maintain and enhance their face and image.

Above passages from Chen (1993), p. 55 [©].

[ Research notes on the section above... ]

Reference

Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 49-75.