Filipino Language Learners’ Micro-macro Level Responses to Compliments

This study sought to investigate various implications of compliments to responses among Filipino students of Negros Oriental State University, Dumaguete City. Particularly, this study examined compliment responses of NORSU college learners of English as a second language using the critical lens of Holmes (1986) model of compliment responses (CR). The research instrument used in this study is the adapted Discourse Completion Task (DCT) based on the three macro and micro-levels of accept, reject, and evade of designed by Tang and Zhang’s (2009). The DCT is composed of four situational topics to elicit compliments: appearance, character, ability, and possession. Descriptive statistics was performed in this study in analyzing the data elicited from the DCT questionnaire. Using a quantitative content analysis to investigate compliment-response discourses, data analysis showed that majority of the compliment responses of accept rather than reject or evade were predominantly recorded. More interestingly, the study further revealed that there was a large number of combination/modification occurred in the data, and therefore, was added as a new category in the current study. This multitude of data about the students accepting compliments and then underplaying its effect shows a strong indication of the Filipino students’ idiosyncratic way of responding to compliments