Journal of Research and Innovation in Language

ISSN (Online): 2685-3906, ISSN (Print): 2685-0818

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31849/reila.v4i2.9909
Vol. 4, No. 2, August 2022, pp.158-169

Comparison of How Arabic and English Foreign Language Learners

Compliment and Respond to Praises
Kamsinah Kamsinah 1, Yuliyanah Sain 2, Nurazizah Aliah 3, Nurasia Natsir 4*
1 Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar, Indonesia
2 UniversitasMuhammadiyah Kendari, Kendari, Indonesia
3Universitas Terbuka, Makassar, Indonesia
4 Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Administrasi Yappi Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia

nurasianatsir@stiayappimakassar.ac.id

ARTICLE HISTORY ABSTRACT

Received : 2022-04-19 Researching the speech acts performed between Arabic and English speakers is
Revised : 2022-07-14 one of the popular trends in pragmatic research. However, the majority of
Accepted : 2022-07-16 previous studies have only obtained data from native Arabic and English
speakers, or Arabic natives who are learning English as a foreign language. This
KEYWORDS study intends to fill the research gap of comparing the speech acts of giving
Foreign language learners
praise and responding to praise made by students who are studying both English
Pragmatics failure
and Arabic as their foreign languages. This descriptive study used two
English students
instruments, namely a discourse completion task questionnaire consisting of
Arabic students
twelve scenarios and an interview, involving 70 English learners and 70 Arabic
Speech acts
learners from UIN Alauddin Makassar which is the only university in Indonesia
that offers the unique Foreign Language Intensification Development (PIBA)
program. Results have determined that the dominant praise strategies of Arabic
learners are awe and congratulating, while English learners tend to use surprise
and congratulating strategies. Both language learners dominantly use the
strategies of giving appreciation and reassigning praises as their praise response
strategies. This study concluded that Arabic foreign language learners tend to
have a small repertoire of praise and praise response strategies, while English
foreign language learners’ arsenal of strategies is much more diverse.

1. Introduction understanding of cross-cultural communication, this

study focuses on the particulars of speech acts the acts
The diversity of the world’s languages, cultures, of getting things done by using words of
religions, beliefs and traditions manifests the most in complimenting between Arabic and English language
the languages. Cross-cultural communication is a learners.
currently thriving field as globalisation, instant
communication and easy travel access make people Researchers have been studying Arabic and
from different parts of the world more connected than English together in a comparative light for decades, in
they have ever been in the past centuries (Bakhov et large part due to the stark differences between the two
al., 2021; Luo & Zhang, 2021; Shadiev et al., 2021). languages. On top of the unrelated orthography and
Alongside the significant, positive interest people language family origins, the two languages have
generally have when it comes to learning and different vowel sounds, consonants, sentence
interacting with people from different cultures, this structuring, etc. Coupled with the fact that both
diversity is also a causal factor in cross-cultural English and Arabic learners are two of the most
misunderstandings when communicating (Herdi & dominantly used language and are also two languages
Handayani, 2020; Sahadevan & Sumangala, 2021). with the highest number of speakers around the globe,
One of the most common features of everyday there is little doubt why the study of Arabic and
discourses, whether in one or multiple languages, is English remains so strong through decades (Ameur et
complimenting. In a world where politeness is key to al., 2020).
upholding civility among humanity (Sembiring & Existing literature on Arabic and English
Sianturi, 2019), compliments are present in almost all languages in a comparative light is certainly not
kinds of conversations due to their great number limited to the speech act of compliments. 30 EFL
offered and received,” (Shaheeb & Jibreen, 2008). learners from Jordan were given a discourse
Thus, for the larger goal of facilitating a thorough
158
completion test to collect not just their speech acts of compliments using the strategies of acceptance,
compliments, but also how they express condolences, comment history, praise upgrade, return, no
giving congratulations and asking for permission by acknowledgement, offer, promise and wish.
Almahameed and Al-Ajalein (2019). The study was
What stands out to the researcher from this
focused on testing whether the learners could produce
literature review is the dominant trend of collecting
the appropriate utterances, and found few evidences
data from native speakers. The majority, if not all of
of pragmatic failure, citing the participants’ good
the existing studies are set in the context of native
competence in communication. Their reasoning is
Arabic speakers who would provide data in Arabic as
supported by Alrefaee and Al-Ghamdi (2019) study
their first language and/or data in English as their
on 40 Yemeni EFL leaners and 40 American English
foreign language. Then, the Arabic datasets of speech
native speakers, in which the data given by low
acts are almost always compared with the English
proficient learners tend to reveal negative first
datasets supplied by native English speakers, usually
language (L1) pragmatic transfer. Al-Kayed and Al-
from the United States of America. As far as the
Ghoweri (2019) covered speech acts of criticism
researcher knows, there seems to be no study
among Jordanian Arabic speakers, and Chikhi and
comparing English and Arabic speech acts of
Chebli (2021) conducted a similar investigation but
complimenting made by both foreign language
with Algerian Arabic speakers. Other kinds of speech
learners of the two languages. Current knowledge has
acts between Arabic and English have also been
fully represented how English natives and Arabic
explored by many researchers within the past five
natives perform, but there is a research gap on how
years; Almegren (2018) focused on Saudi EFL
foreign language learners whose native languages are
students’ speech acts of apologising, Al-Ghamdi and
neither English nor Arabic would perform. Moreover,
Alrefaee (2020) compared Yemeni EFL speakers with
the majority of existing studies often emphasizes the
American English native speakers’ speech acts of
L1 negative transfer to L2, but the current school of
refusal, Hosni (2020) analysed the Egyptian Arabic
thought that language researchers ought to follow is
native speakers and American English native
how L1 actually scaffolds the students’ additional
speakers’ speech acts of advising, and Alghazo et al.
language acquisition and mastery (Rasman, 2018).
(2021) addressed Jordanian Arabic natives’ speech
Therefore, to address this gap, this study will carry out
acts of congratulating.
a two-fold investigation on how English and Arabic
Many researchers have been particularly foreign language learners produce the speech acts of
productive in publishing papers exploring the speech praise and how they would respond to praises.
acts of praising in Arabic and English languages.
The originality of this study lies in the nature of
Comparing the Arabic and English compliments made
the research participants, specifically the type of
by 100 Iraqi EFL learners, Ebadi and Salan (2015)
students that this study chose to be the participants.
observed that learners have a high tendency to accept
This study is set in the English and Arabic
compliments in English more than Arabic
Departments of the Faculty of Adab and Humanities
compliments. Another study compared the
at State Islamic University (UIN) Alauddin Makassar,
compliment speech acts made by 104 American native
Indonesia. The Departments were chosen because the
speakers and 71 Saudi learners of English using a
students have gone through a program known as the
discourse completion task of four hypothetical
Foreign Language Intensification Development
scenarios (Alsalem, 2015). The previous study found
(PIBA) program, which is a program that emphasises
that the Saudi EFL students greatly assimilated the
character building and formation to reflect the values
native English speech acts, attributing it to the Saudi
of being active, innovative, creative, effective, and fun
learners’ experience in the United States. Almansoob
in the learning of both English and Arabic. The
et al. (2019) compared how Yemeni Arabic native
program has a vision of supporting the realisation of
speakers and American English native speakers
English and Arabic as international languages, thus
compliment people. By involving 30 participants of
the English and Arabic Department students in this
each speaker groups, the study collected data using a
university are always taught not just to master the
discourse completion test consisting of six
linguistic skills of their target languages, but also to
hypothetical compliment scenarios. Frequency counts
master the pragmatic skills so that they can apply their
revealed admiration as a universal strategy between
knowledge appropriately when interacting in real life.
the Arabic and English data provided by the natives,
With this program, the Indonesian students have
and that exaggeration, gratitude to God and metaphor
access to a supportive Arabic-language environment
seem to be culturally specific to the Arabic language
alongside a supportive English-language environment.
speakers. The researchers of this previous paper also
Currently, only UIN Alauddin Makassar offers this
continued to investigate how the Yemeni students’
program in eastern Indonesia (Israwati, 2017).
Arabic native language (L1) negatively influences
Additionally, this university also gives its students
their compliment speech acts in English (L2) (Al-
other innovative Arabic learning programs, such as
Ghamdi, 2019). They found 50% of the L2 production
the Enlightenment of Faith and Life Skills Program
were the result of pragmatic failures, specifically
(PIKIH), the Character-Building Program (CBP) and
when it comes to Yemeni EFL learners producing
159
training for the Test of Arabic as a Foreign Language This study is designed as a descriptive research,
(TOAFL) (Rusydi & Musgamy, 2021). Therefore, the which is a statistical method that is used to search and
students in this study have a higher-than-average summarise historical data in order to identify patterns
competence in English and Arabic compared to many or meaning. This study took place in October 2020
other English students and Arabic students. The (one month) at the Faculty of Adab and Humanities at
results of this study will be comparable with the State Islamic University (UIN) Alauddin Makassar,
existing, dominant linguistic data from native which is the only university in eastern Indonesia that
speakers, because the researcher assumes that the offers a Foreign Language Intensification
students’ who study the two languages as foreign Development (PIBA) program for the English and
learners will mainly provide pragmatically appropriate Arabic Departments. This study purposely selected 70
responses that rarely contain grammatical errors. The English students and 70 Arabic students who
research questions formulated in this study: completed the language intensification program (140
participants in total). The students gave their consent
1) How do Indonesian Arabic and English foreign
as participants through a brief survey that contains a
language learners give praises?
brief explanation of the purpose of the research and
2) How do Indonesian Arabic and English foreign
requests their demographic details such as gender,
language learners respond to praises?
mother tongue background, and known foreign
This research is very important because the language mastery.
findings will be very useful in assisting lecturers or
The researcher used two instruments to collect the
teachers of English and Arabic in improving their
data for this study, namely online questionnaires and
lessons, lecture, and learning materials in the process
one-on-one interviews. Both instruments were
of teaching foreign languages in the classroom. It is
designed as a Discourse Completion Task (DCT).
hoped that with the findings in this study, both
This instrument is a data elicitation method that
English and Arabic teachers will obtain authentic and
generates large amounts of contextually varied and
comprehensive input to improve their teaching and
comparable cross-linguistic speech act data and is
learning process more efficiently while balancing
used predominantly in cross-cultural and
linguistic competence and pragmatic competence in
interlanguage pragmatics research (Ogiermann, 2018).
teaching.
A DCT is a questionnaire that consists of brief
3. Method descriptions and short dialog, accompanied with
empty slots for the participants to provide data of
speech acts (Blum-Kulka, 1982; Al-Khateeb, 2009).

Table 3.1. The 12 Scenarios of Discourse Completion Task

Type Scenario Topic

Praising 1 Praising your friends/uncles/aunts/teachers' appearance, in particular their famous branded
someone jackets.
2 Praising someone you know who has won a competition.
3 Praising someone at a party who is known for being charming and can impress everyone.
4 Praising someone's new and magnificent house when you visited them.
5 Praising someone's achievements and performance during their promotion celebration.
6 Praising the appearance of someone you know when you met in a shopping centre/mall
Responding 7 A male colleague on campus praising your expensive new bag
to praise
8 A car driving instructor praising your performance and skills during training
9 A female colleague praising the new clothes you just purchased at a shopping centre.
10 Uncles/aunts praising your victory in a competition.
11 Uncles/aunts praising your party dress/attire during your visit to her house.
12 Parents and teachers praising you for having a good GPA.

140 participants were given the DCT praises they would receive in the hypothetical
questionnaire which consisted of twelve scenarios, of scenarios given in the topics. The researcher then
which six are topics which prompts them to give discussed the students’ questionnaire responses
praise based on the social context of the topics, while through online interview sessions.
the other six prompts the students to respond to the
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 Table 3.2. Types of Praise and Praise Response Strategies
Praise Strategies (Enssaif, 2005)
No Strategies Coding Definitions Examples
1 Admiration adm Explicitly using verbs as: like/love or inserting It is nice; I like it.
positive adjectives such: pretty, great, nice …etc.

2 Encouragement enc Stimulating the complimentee to persuade more Go ahead!

achievements.
3 Approval apv Positively evaluating what has been achieved. Well done!
4 Wish wsh Making a wish for the complimentee. I wish you a happy life!
5 Surprise srp Expressing a surprise on the part of the complimentee. I can't believe it!

6 Exclamation exc Implicitly making an admiration via an exclamatory What a beautiful hairstyle!
utterance.
7 Congratulations cgr Explicitly congratulating the addressee for some Congratulations!
achievement or traits.
8 Noticed change ntc Explicitly expressing the change on the part of the You look different!
addressee.
9 Metaphor met Praising the complimentee via an unordinary You are a real star!
description.
10 Invocation inv Wishing the complimentee by the name of God. Allah bless you!
11 Comparison cpr Explicitly comparing some relevant affairs. Yours is better!
12 Exaggeration exg Admiring the complimentee's affairs via exaggeration. She has a magic hand!

13 Questioning que Making an interrogative utterance as a compliment. What have you done to remain so
young?
14 Gratitude to God grg Expressing gratitude to God for the complimentee's Thank God.
achievement.
15 Appreciation apc Expressing a direct gratitude to the complimentee for I am grateful for you!
an achievement.
16 Pride prd Explicitly expressing pride of the addressee. I am proud of you
17 Happiness hpp Explicitly expressing happiness of the addressee's Happy for that!
affairs.
18 Expectation exp Showing expectation of what has been achieved by I expect you would get it!
the complimentee.
19 Advice adv Giving a piece of advice for the complimentee. You should be very happy about
that!
20 Silence sln Leaving the scenarios blank without giving a (Silence)
compliment.
Praise Response (Herbert, 1986)
No Strategies Coding Definitions Examples
1 Appreciation Token apc A verbal or non verbal acceptance of the compliment Thanks; thank you.

2 Comment acc Addressee accepts the compliment and offers a Thanks, it's my favorite too.
Acceptance relevant comment on the appreciated topic.
3 Praise Upgrade pup Addressee accepts the compliment and contributes to Really brings out the blue in my
the force of the compliment. eyes, doesn't it?
4 Comment History cmh Addressee offers a comment on the object of the I bought it from the trip to Coney
compliment, usually some information about how s/he Island.
has acquired it.
5 Reassignment rsg Addressee agrees with the compliment, but the My brother gave it to me.
complimentary force is transferred to some third
person.
6 Return rtn The praise is shifted or returned to the addresser. So is yours.
7 Scale down scd Addressee disagrees with the complimentary force, It's really quite old.
pointing to some flaw in the object or claiming that
the praise is overstated.
8 Questioning que Addressee questions the sincerity or the Do you really think so?
appropriateness of the compliment.
9 Disagreement dsg Addressee asserts that the object of the compliment is I hate it.
not praiseworthy
10 Qualification qlf Addressee merely qualifies the original assertion, It's alright, but hers is nicer.
usually with though, but, well etc.
11 No noa Addressee gives no indication of having heard the (Silence)
Acknowledgement compliment. The addressee either responds with an
irrelevant comment or gives no response.
12 Request req Addressee interprets the utterance as a request rather You wanna borrow this one too?
than a simple compliment.

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 The coding process is based on the semantic strategies and Herbert’s (1986) 12 praise response
formula taxonomy done by Enssaif’s (2005) 20 praise strategies.

Table 3.3. Deductive Coding Scheme

Excerpt (order of data)_Language Learner/Type of Speech

Coding Scheme
Act-Scenario/Strategy
Example: Excerpt 1/AL/PS-1/aw
Codes Meaning
AL Arabic Learner
EL English Learner
PS Praise
RP Responding to Praise

The data analysis used descriptive statistics, in To find out the forms of praise strategies and
which the researcher coded and presented the praise response strategies used by English and Arabic
summary of the results through tables and charts. By sixth-semester students at the Adab and Humanities
referring to these theories as the predefined set of Faculty of UIN Alauddin Makassar, this study asked
codes, the coding process is done deductively (Table 70 English learners and 70 Arabic learners to provide
3). The data coding is then re-checked and validated praises and responses to a praise based on twelve
by a research assistant, who is qualified as a data unique scenarios (Table 1). The responses from each
enumerator. group of students are categorised based on Enssaif’s
(2005) classification of praise and praise response
4. Results strategies.

Chart 4.1. Arabic Learners' Strategies to Praise Someone

This study found that Arabic learners unanimously invocation (mostly known as praying), showing
(N=70) tend to give praise by showing their happiness, and being grateful to God when they intend
admiration. More than 50 participants out of the total to give praises. The following excerpts are some
number of Arabic learners selected in this study also examples of their responses.
use the praise strategies of congratulating, making an
162
 ‫ما اجمل سترتك يا صديقتي‬ Excerpt 4_AL/PS-1/exg
Maa ajmala sutrataki yaa shadiiqatii. ‫كنت جماال ماشاء هللا‬
Your clothing is so beautiful. Kunta jamaalan maa syaa Allahu.
Excerpt 1_AL/PS-1/adm You are strong, maa syaa Allah.
‫ماشاء هللا يا أستاذي انت تستحق بذلك‬ Excerpt 5_AL/PS-6/adm
Maa syaa Allaahu, yaaa ustadzii anta ‫يبدو انك مختلفة اليوم‬
tastahiuqqun bidzalika.
Yabduu annaki mukhtalifatul yauma.
Masya Allah, duhai my ustadz you deserve it.
You are truly different today.
Excerpt 2_AL/PS-2/grg
Excerpt 6_AL/PS-6/ntc
‫ انا فخورة بإنجازتك‬،‫بارك هللا فيك‬
The excerpts above showed Arabic learners’
Baarakallaahu fiika, anaa fakhuuratun praising using the various strategies, some in very
bi’injaazika. short sentences and some in longer ones. An
interesting observation in Chart 4.1 is the distinct
Allah bless you, I am proud of your
preference of using certain kinds of strategies with
achievement.
>40 responses and avoidance of others. This means
Excerpt 3_AL/PS-5/prd that out of the 20 kinds of praise strategies, Arabic
learners tend to use only eight of them (admiration,
‫ السترة جدا ألن سترتك وحدة من سترتي المفضلة‬، ‫واو‬ congratulations, invocation, happiness, grateful to
‫التي ترتدي ها جيدة‬ God, expectation, exclamation, and questioning),
Waw, assutratul latii tartadiihaa jayyidatun rarely use six of them (exaggeration, pride, noticed
jidda lianna sutrataki waahdatan min sutratiil change, hope, agreement, metaphor) and do not use
mufadhdhalah. the other six kinds of strategies (giving advice,
appreciation, comparison, surprise, encouragement
Wow, the clothing you wear is very great. and being silent).
Because your clothes are better than my best
clothes.

Chart 4.2. English Learners' Strategies to Praise Someone

On the other hand, this study found that English two more strategies that English learners tend to use
learners have a more widespread option of praise to compliment someone, approval (N = 45) and
strategies. Two of the most dominant strategies that exclamation (N = 44). The following excerpts are
they tend to use are being surprised (N = 66) and some examples of their responses.
giving congratulations (N = 61). This is followed by
163
 I hope you can be comfortable with your new You look more beautiful, now. It's unusual
job. thing you wear this stuff. But I appreciate your
changing.
Excerpt 7_EL/PS-5/hpp
Excerpt 12_EL/PS-3/ntc
Congrats. You are so amazing there. I am
really proud of you. A comparison of Chart 4.1 and Chart 4.2 reveals
the difference between the repertoire of strategies to
Excerpt 8_EL/PS-2/prd
praise used by Arabic and English learners. Out of the
Wow you look great tonight uncle, let’s get database of 20 kinds of praise strategies, only 2
some drink. strategies were not used by any of the 70 English
foreign language learners when presented with the
Excerpt 9_EL/PS-3/sur scenarios in the discourse completion task. It is
Wow is that your home? I didn’t even know. interesting to note that the 2 praising strategies that
were excluded are being grateful to God and saying an
Excerpt 10_EL/PS-4/sur invocation, which are some of the most dominant
That is so cool. Can you also buy me one? strategies used by Arabic learners to compliment
someone.
Excerpt 11_EL/PS-1/exp

Chart 4.3. Arabic Learners' Strategies to Respond to Praises

When it comes to responding to praises, this study ‫شكرا لك هذا ايضا بسبب دعاء من العم‬
found that Arabic learners use 8 strategies out of the
Syukran laki hadza aidhan bisababid du’aai
total 12 kinds of praise response strategies. All 70
minal ummi.
participants who learned Arabic as their foreign
language always reassigned the praise or give their Thanks to you as well, this is also because of
appreciation for the praise. Aside from the twelve the prayer of a mother.
praise response strategies made by Herbert (1986),
this study found that UIN Alauddin Arabic foreign Excerpt 14_AL/RP-10/scd
language learners also employ two praise strategies as ‫شكرا لكم هذه هدية من هللا بسبب تأيدكم‬
praise response strategies as well. Arabic learners tend
to convey their gratefulness to God (N = 68) and Syukran lakum, haadzihi hadiyyatun minalaahi
invocation (N = 18). This pattern mirrors the data in bisababi ta’diikum.
Chart 4.1. Thank you, this is all a gift from Allah due to
‫شكرا على كل مدحك‬ your support.

Syukran ‘alaa kulli madhika. Excerpt 15_AL/RP-12/grg

Thank you for all of your compliments.

Excerpt 13_AL/RP-7/acc
164
 ‫ و هذه حقيبة رخيصة‬،‫شكرا على كل مدحك‬ Thank you and this is from the guidance and
encouragement that you have taught to me.
Syukran ‘alaa kulli madhika, wa haadzihi
haqiibatun rakhiishatun. Excerpt 18_AL/RP-8/rtn
Thank you for your compliment, and this bag is There are one more strategy of praise response that
a cheap bag. Arabic learners frequently use in this study, namely
returning the praise (N = 58). Rather unexpectedly,
Excerpt 16_AL/RP-7/scd
under 20 participants used the strategies of prayer and
‫شكرا يا مديري‬ scaling down (also known as being humble) to
respond to praises. Praise upgrade strategy is only
Syukran yaa mudiiri. done by 2 participants. Meanwhile, none of the Arabic
Thank you, my leader. learners responded to the praises given in the
scenarios with the strategies of comment acceptance,
Excerpt 17_AL/RP-8/acc request, no acknowledgement, disagreement,
‫شكرا لك و هذا أيضا بفضل التشجيع والحماس الذي علمتني يا‬ qualification, questioning or comment history.
‫معلمي‬ Observing Chart 4.1 and Chart 4.3, Arabic learners
seem to have a definite preference for certain kinds of
Syukran laki wa haadza aidhan bifadhlit tasyji’ strategies in the speech act of praising.
wal hammaasil ladzii ‘allamtanii yaa
mu’allimatii.

Chart 4.4. English Learners' Strategies to Respond to Praises

In the same vein, English language learners have a Excerpt 19_EL/RP-12/rtn
wider range of strategies to respond to praise much
Thank You. I am working really hard on this.
like how they also use many different kinds of
strategies to give praise. However, Chart 4 shows that Excerpt 20_EL/RP-8/qlf
at least one strategy dominated other kinds of
strategies, namely using appreciation tokens (N = 68). Oh, thank you. You too look beautiful.
The second most used strategy to respond to praises is Excerpt 21_EL/RP-9/rtn
reassigning them to a third person (N = 34).
Ohahaha thanks babe, I have saved my money
Thank you so much. It’s the result of you all. to have this.
And for all of things you have done for me.
165
 Excerpt 22_EL/RP-7/qlf praises, which include disagreeing, upgrading praise,
scaling down, returning the praise, questioning,
I feel glad that you like it.
accepting, giving a qualification, commenting history,
Excerpt 23_EL/RP-9/hpp being grateful to God and not giving any
acknowledgement. Based on the data obtained from
Thank You very much. You too, look so the discourse completion task, only two praise
beautiful with that dress. response strategies are not used by any of the 70
Excerpt 24_EL/RP-11/rtn English learners, namely comment acceptance and
invocation.
Aside from appreciation and deflection, English
learners wield twelve other strategies to respond to

Table 4.1. Comparison of the Most Dominant Strategies Employed by Both Group of Learners
Most Dominant Praise Strategy Arabic English
Learners Learners

Admiration 100% 41%

Surprise 0% 94%

Most Dominant Praise Response Arabic English

Strategy Learners Learners

Appreciation 100% 97%

Reassignment 100% 49%

Table 4.1 presents the strategies that are most languages. Where previous studies often compare the
dominantly used by each group, and the data shows compliment speech acts of these two languages from
that there is at least one stark difference in the speech native Arabic speakers and native English speakers or
acts between both language learners. When prompted EFL learners whose native language is Arabic, the
to give praises based on the given scenarios, it seems novelty of this study is the draw of data from students
that Arabic Learners unanimously employed the of the only university in eastern Indonesia that offers a
praise strategy of admiration, while only 41% of Foreign Language Intensification Development
English language learners employed this strategy. (PIBA) program for both English and Arabic
Instead, English learners dominantly give praise by Department students, making them a unique batch of
showing their surprise (94%), which is a strategy that participants.
is completely absent among the data of praises made
In summary, of the 70 Arabic learners were found
by Arabic language learners. In contrast, both Arabic
to unanimously use the praise strategy of admiration,
and English language learners dominantly use two of
followed by congratulating, praying, showing
the same strategies to respond to praises, namely
happiness, and being grateful to Allah. This group of
giving appreciation and reassigning praise.
learners showed a preference for a small number of
As can be seen across all four charts of the results strategies of the total 20 praise strategies. Their
and Table 4.1, this study found that Arabic and choices for praise response strategies are similarly few,
English learners sometimes share the same strategies with reassigning praise, appreciating, and being
or use entirely different strategies when they are grateful to God being the most dominant ones. On the
praising and responding to praises. other hand, data obtained from the 70 English learners
indicated that their strategies for both giving praise
5. Discussion and responding to praise are more diverse. Also, the
This research is set to answer the research students who learn English as their target language
questions of how Indonesian learners of Arabic and preferred strategies to give praise are very different
English language perform the speech acts of praise with Arabic learners. English learners dominantly use
and praise response. The focus on praise and the praise strategies of being surprise and
responses to praise in this study is because these congratulating, and only one of the participants used
speech acts reflect the cultural values embedded in the the praise strategies of saying gratefulness to God and
language, and scientific investigation of the linguistic none made an invocation, which are Arabic learners’
corpus of data can reveal the uniqueness of the frequent, though not the most dominant, praise
strategies. Despite this different, both English and
166
Arabic learners dominantly employ the same and the two-fold formula; the foreign language
strategies to respond to praises, namely appreciation learners of both groups did not provide praises or
and reassignment. responses to praises with four-fold semantic formulas.
A possible factor of the shorter responses may be
The results on the frequency of participants who
attributed to the students’ fluency, as they are still
used the praise strategies of praying and being
learning these languages in their university years and
grateful to God is quite unexpected, as they are the
do not grow up with them as their mother tongues.
third and fifth most used strategy instead of being the
However, the students may have also deliberately
most used by the 70 Indonesian learners of Arabic in
chose to use short compliments because simple
this study. This finding is very different from
sentences possess a stronger flattery impact, which
Almansoob et al. (2019), whose 30 Yemeni native
has been noted by Solodka & Perea (2018).
speakers of Arabic students dominantly use the praise
strategies of exaggeration, gratitude to God, followed Regarding the compliment lengths, the longer
by metaphor. In this study, only 19 out of 70 Arabic compliments prevalent in the database of Arabic
learners used the praise strategy of exaggeration, and compliments seem to indicate Yemenis perception
only 2 participants used metaphor to compliment that “longer expressions show more politeness”
someone in Arabic. Moreover, giving gratitude to God (Almansoob et al., 2019, p. 10). The correlation
and praying are also the third and fifth most between more words and more politeness has been
frequently used strategies to respond to compliments pointed out recently by McCulloch (2019), that as
by Arabic learners in this study. Considering how the people become more fluent in writing or typing, they
religion of Islam seems tightly intertwined with the increase the amount of words that they use, thereby
language of Arabic, it is surprising to note that the two increasing their facility to be politer. A study on
most religious strategies are actually not the most offensive language has mentioned that language
dominantly used by the participants. Al-Ghamdi teachers can take advantage of this phenomenon as a
(2019), who compared three datasets from Yemeni way to decrease the likelihood of students using witty,
EFL speakers, Yemeni Arabic native speakers and yet aggressive, one-liners (Hamuddin et al., 2020).
American English native speakers’ speech acts of
A previous study has analysed the speech acts of
compliments, also only obtained a small amount of
complimenting more than two languages. Solodka &
data on the praise strategy of giving gratitude to God;
Perea (2018) collected data from native speakers from
instead, all three groups of speakers dominantly
the United States, Russia and Ukrania and collected
respond to praises by using the strategy of
445 Russian, 231 Ukrainian and 245 English
appreciation token (e.g., “Thanks so much”).
compliments given by people from different
However, when all of the strategies that Arabic backgrounds, mostly middle class between ages 15-70
and English learners use are considered instead of just years old. Instead of collecting the data of
the one or two strategies that they most frequently compliments by presenting scenarios, the researchers
employ, the results do point out that Arabic learners of this previous study interviewed the participants to
tend to use strategies that serve as a form of prayer. In request for the last compliment they gave to someone
contrast, English learners’ praises tend to have the and ask about the circumstances in detail, such as the
function of encouraging people or the recipient of the compliment, the relationship between
interlocutor/conversation partner. the two speakers, the kind of tone was used when the
compliment given, so the data of this study relied on
This study did not observe significantly large
the participants’ recollection. One of their findings is
differences in regards to the length of the
the recurrent pattern of adjectives that American
compliments. The data collected from this study’s
speakers tend to use when complimenting (e.g., “the
discourse completion task primarily yielded short,
best,” “great,” and “nice”), which is juxtaposed by
one- or two-sentence compliments from both Arabic
Ukranian and Russian speakers’ tendency to both
and English foreign language learners from the
praise people primarily with the adjectives “pretty”
Indonesian university. Meanwhile, other studies who
and “smart.” This observation of English native
analysed speech acts of complimenting have noted
speakers’ tendency in the speech acts of
comparisons between simple and complex
complimenting is echoed in the results of this present
compliments. For instance, Almansoob et al. (2019)
study. The data of praises given by the Indonesian
study on Arabic native speakers from Yemen and
English learners also often feature the adjectives
English native speakers from America found that
“great” and “nice.” This finding shows light on a
compliment in Arabic tend to be longer, using two-
pattern that may be unique to English speakers of this
fold (e.g. “‫شكلك اعجبني‬. ‫[ ا مختلف تبدو انك‬translation] I
time, whether they are natives or foreign language
like your style! You look completely different!”),
learners.
three-fold to four-fold semantic formulas, while
American compliments tended to be shorter with two- Overall, this study contributes in revealing the
fold order being the longest they usually use. The data nuance differences of the kinds of praise and praise
in this present study, in contrast, are mostly mono- response strategies used by Arabic and English
strategic utterances of the one-fold semantic formula foreign language learners from Indonesia, and showed
167
how these data compare with previous studies which Language, Linguistics, Literature, 25(4). 1-14
are more focused on Arabic and English native http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2019-2504-14
speakers’ speech acts of praising. Compliments are an
Alghazo, S., Zemmour, S., Al Salem, M. N., &
interesting subject to study because it is one, if not the
Alrashdan, I. (2021). A cross-cultural analysis of
most, effective way to ensure smooth communication.
the speech act of congratulating in Kabyle and
As stated by McGee (2019, p. 78), “traditionally,
Jordanian Arabic. Ampersand, 8, 100075.
students and teachers tend to focus on grammatical
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2021.100075
awareness, and this means that general awareness of
pragmatic violations (another word for pragmatic Al-Khateeb, S. M. I. (2009). The speech act of
failures) is not very high.” This study responded to thanking as a compliment response as used by
this problem by showing how the students of UIN the Arab speakers of English a comparative
Alauddin Makassar produce their speech acts as intercultural study. [Unpublished MA Thesis],
students who went through an innovative language An Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.
intensification program that is designed to emphasise
students’ awareness of being pragmatically Almahameed, Y. S. & Al-Ajalein, M. M. (2019).
Pragmatic Failure Committed by Jordanian
appropriate.
Undergraduate EFL Learners. International
6. Conclusions Journal, 7(1), 54-60.
https://doi.org/10.15640/ijll.v7n1a7
The base results of this study are the identification
of the preferred praise strategies used by Arabic Almansoob, N., Patil, K. S., & Alrefaee, Y. (2019). A
foreign language learners (e.g., awe, congratulations, Cross-cultural study of the speech act of
prayer, happiness, grateful to God, expectation) and compliments in American English and Yemeni
English foreign language learners (e.g., excited, Arabic. LANGKAWI Journal, 5(1), 1-12.
agreement, congratulations, surprise), as well as the http://dx.doi.org/10.31332/lkw.v5i1.1271
preferred praise response strategies of the Arabic Almegren, R. (2018). The speech act of apology for
learners (e.g., reassigning praise, appreciation, Saudi EFL students. International Journal of
grateful to God, acceptance, returning praise) and Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 7(4),
English learners (e.g., reassigning praise, 144-157.
appreciation). In contrast to the researcher’s https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.7n.4p.144
expectation, the strategies of grateful to God and
prayer are not the most dominant kinds of strategies Alrefaee, Y. Alghamdi, N. (2019). Refusals among
employed by Arabic learners, and it is also interesting Yemeni EFL Learners: A Study of Negative
that these two strategies are completely absent from Pragmatic Transfer and Its Relation to
the data of praises performed by English learners. Proficiency. Asian EFL Journal, 25(5), 191-214.
Some of the patterns of this study are echoed in other Alsalem, N. K. (2015). Compliment responses: A
studies of complimenting speech acts made by native comparison of Saudi English learners and native
speakers, and some findings are new observations that speakers of American English in an academic
seems to have not been noted in previous studies. This environment. [Master’s Thesis, Southern Illinois
study contributes in exploring this area of pragmatic University at Carbondale]. ProQuest
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