The Effect Of Compliment Topics And Gender On The Participants' Responses To The Compliment Made By Jordanian English Foreign Language Learners (JEFL), Jordanian Arabic Speakers (JAL1) And English Native Speakers (ENSS)

This study aimed at determining investigating how the compliment topics and gender affect the participants’ response to compliment made by Jordanian English foreign language learners (JEFL), Jordanian Arabic speakers (JAL1) and English native speakers (ENSs). A descriptive research design was adopted for this study based on a sample comprised 30 participants distributed as follow: 10 (JEFL), 10 (JAL1) and 10 (ENSs). The instrument of this study adopted a discourse completion test (DCT) based on ten different situations. The responses of DCT were analyzed quantitatively - using percentages and frequencies –and qualitatively – using content analysis. The findings proved that there was a slight difference between males and females in their responses towards the social situations. JEFL males practiced agreement compliment responses more than females as (82%) of compliment responses were given by males whereas (76%) were given by females. In addition, JAL1 males practiced agreement compliment responses more than females as (84%) and (79%) consecutively. Furthermore, ENSs males (81%) practiced agreement compliment responses more than females (78%). In the three groups, “praise” was the most compliment topic agreed by the majority of participants. They study suggested doing further research on the effects of gender and social distance on Arabic Speakers’ compliment responses in social situations