A contrastive study of compliment responses among Persians and Australians: The effects of exposure to a new speech community

Abstract

In this paper, the authors investigate whether Persians who have been exposed to Australian <br />culture are still affected by their cultural norms—in particular by the politeness system taarof—in <br />responding to compliments in an intercultural interaction. Compliment responses were elicited—<br />through a Discourse Completion Task—from thirty participants (five males and five females in <br />each of three groups): Persians in Iran, Persians in Australia, and Anglo-Australians. These <br />responses were categorised according to Herbert's (1986) taxonomy and the results show that <br />although there are similarities in the choice of compliment response types by Australians and <br />Persians living in Australia, there are still some differences. This paper aims to contribute to <br />knowledge of potential areas for miscommunications in intercultural interactions, and also to find <br />ways to improve language teaching and learning.