Abstract
This study explored compliment responses (CR) produced by Chinese ESL and EFL speakers as well as by the native speakers of American English in oral communicative contexts through a naturalistic role-play task. The ESL speakers’ rationales for adopting the CR strategies were further examined through retrospective interviews. The role-play results showed both L2 groups differed from native speakers in multiple ways in their impromptu responses to the compliments carefully embedded in the role play task. While almost all L2 speakers knew how to say “thank you/thanks” to others’ compliments, a number of them, especially the EFL speakers, had difficulties in utilizing a variety of response strategies, such as credit-shifting (e.g. My pleasure/Thanks for having me over). Results from the retrospective interview indicated the two major factors that influenced ESL participants’ CRs, which were their L1 culture and limited L2 linguistic forms.
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