Contents

1. Introduction  (1)

1.1 The definition of the speech act of complaints (1)

1.2 The importance of the study of the speech act of complaints  (1)

2. Theoretical foundations (2)

2.1 The speech act of complaints theory (2)

  2.1.1 Olshtain & Weinbach’s theory on the speech act of complaints (2)

  2.1.2 Marty Laforest’s theory on the speech act of complaints (2)

2.2 Face and Politeness Principles in English culture  (3)

 2.2.1 Brown & Levinson’s Face and Politeness Principle (3)

   2.2.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle (4)

2.3 Gu’s study on the politeness in Chinese culture  (4)

3. Chinese and American students’ complaint strategies in different situations (5)

3.1 Related theories and data analysis (5)

3.2 Complaints to a person of superior status (6)

3.3 Complaints to a person of inferior status (6)

3.4 Complaints to a person of equal status (7)

3.5 Summary (7)

4. The causes of different complaints  (7)

4.1 Cultural background  (8)

4.2 Social background (8)

5. Implications from the study  (9)

5.1 Improvement in communication skills (9)

 5.2 Implications for learning foreign languages (9)

6. Conclusion  (9)

Bibliography  (11)

Acknowledgement  (12) 

   

A Comparative Study of the Speech Act of Complaints

Between Chinese and American Students

1. Introduction

The study of the speech act of complaints is considered as a significant subject of pragmatics. Complaints are a common phenomenon in daily commmunication, which takes place when a speaker is offensed or annoyed by another person with unfavourite words. This act is also called face-threating act (FTA) and it is influenced by different social background and cultural background. Chinese people pay much attention to this kind of “face” because they would not like to lose face before other people, however, western face values have different meaning. Therefore, a study on different speech act of complaints between Chinese and American students must be deserved.

1.1 The definition of the speech act of complaints

Before studying the speech act of complaints, we ought to learn the term “speech act”. The term “speech act” has been defined as the basic or minimal unit of linguistic communication or a basic and function of communication (Searle, 1969:16). Speaker employs a variety of communicative acts, or speech acts, to achieve their communicative goals, which includes Searle’s seminal broad categories - declarations, directives, expressive, and representatives- as well as more specific speech acts such as apologies, requests, compliments, refusals, etc. ( Kasper & Rose, 2002)

Olshtain and Weinbach (1993: 108) first gave a complete definition of the speech act of complaints that “the speaker (S) expresses displeasure or annoyance- censure- as a reaction to a past or on-going action, the consequence of which are perceived by S as affecting her unfavorably.”   

1.2 The importance of the study of the speech act of complaints

Nowadays, as rapid economic development, more and more opportunities to cooperate with foreigners are offered to companies, to be exactly, to countries. In order to achieve success, negotiators ought to make enough preparations including negotiation opponents’ background, negotiation objectives. During the negotiation, negotiators should keep his eyes on some small aspects, such as facial expressions, body language , tone of voice or even a complaint, which are all key factors to win because it can help speakers to catch partners’ slight feeling changes. Consequently, studying on the complaints is necessary.

What’s more, facing current trend of times, English learners need to absorb knowledge fully. They should not limit study content to books. Trying to find diversity study materials, which are close to daily life, can broaden students’ views. From this aspect, as a kind of communicative sentences, complaints are a part of study content as well. This paper will state the speech act of complaints in detail, after the theory analysis, several communication skills and cultural differences between Chinese and western countries are going to be provided.    

2. Theoretical foundations 

Since How to do things with words written by Austin was published, linguistics has opened a new chapter. In recent years, the development and perfection of the speech act of complaints is undergoing by many domestic and foreign linguists. In the following statement, the speech act of complaints and a series of related theories will be introduced.

2.1 The speech act of complaints theory

    Complaints are a sort of speech acts in daily communication. Searle referred that illocutionary was made up of five parts, one of which is expressives. Expressives possess a function that it can express certain feelings including cheerfulness, indignation, agitation, distress, complaints, etc. Complaints are marked by two branches (Zhao Yingling, 2003:20) direct complaints (hearer should be responsible for the offence) and indirect complaints (hearer need not pay responsibility for the offence). It plays a significant role in pragmatics. Hence, this theory is worth spending more time researching.

2.1.1 Olshtain & Weinbach’s theory on the speech act of complaints

What do complaints mean? In the first part, Olshtain & Weinbach’s theory on complaints has been given. They also put forward the preconditions should be fulfilled in order to use this speech act. Their essay Interlanguage Features of the Speech Act of complaining (1993:108) stated it from four aspects:

1. Hearer performs a socially unacceptable act, which violates the common social behavioral standard.

2. Speaker thinks this socially unacceptable act has caused adverse effect on him/her or on the public.

3. Speaker perceives socially unacceptable act has freed him/her (at least partially) from the social cooperative relationship with hearers; therefore, speaker chooses to express his/her depression and trouble.

4. This socially unacceptable act gives speaker legitimate rights to make up for his/her benefit or for the society’s benefit.

Adopting the speech act of complaints is aimed at changing the unacceptable behaviors and making sure hearers will take actions (for instance, promise, responsibility and correct the mistakes) to ease the conflicts. The preconditions of complaints can help people to master others’ emotional trend easily and reduce communication barriers so as to maintain the harmonious relationship in society.

2.1.2 Marty Laforest’s theory on the speech act of complaints

Although Olshtain and Weinbach developed the speech act theory a lot, there are still many limitations. The scope of the scene was limited to people and they did not mention objects; they ignored speakers’ nonverbal expressions, for example, body language, facial language, eye contact, etc.

Laforest (2002:1596) defined the speech act of complaints as “A is dissatisfied with the behavior of B, thus manifests dissatisfaction for B”. B was considered as the reason of dissatisfaction. In other words, B should take responsibility for unacceptable behavior. However, this definition also exists two limitations like above. Later, Laforest explained further “in the context of the speech act theory and the discourse analysis theory, complaint behavior is neither easy to define nor to discuss.” Because complaint behavior was often crossed with criticism, indignity and threatening speech act. Actually, his definition excludes some complaint ways such as disapproval, accusation, warning and threats.

Based on the forgoing theory, this paper summarizes an integrated definition of the speech act of complaints. It means speaker is annoyed by occurent or past incidents that bring bad impact on him/her. He/She shows dissatisfaction, annoyance and blame always with nonverbal expressions. This speech act of complaints can be understood from following three layers:

A. Complaint targets: people or objects.

a. Why are you so lazy?

b. Today is too cold.

c. Tom told me that there was so much homework that he couldn’t finish it.

The complaint target in sentence “a” is “you”, that is the hearer. The complaint target in sentence “b” is the weather. The complaint target in sentence “c” is the teacher.  

B. Hearers and complainers. Sentence “a” indicates the hearer is the complaint target, complainer is the speaker. Sentence “b” indicates the hearer is the third person, complainer is the speaker. Sentence “c” indicates the hearer is “me”, complainer is Tom.

C. This paper tells the way of complaining is verbal expressions (curse, abuse, criticism, warning, etc.) and nonverbal expressions (facial expressions, eye contact, body language, etc.).

2.2 Face and Politeness Principles in English culture

Complaints are a kind of face-threatening acts to hearers. When speakers carry out this act, he/she will threaten hearers’ face. Therefore, speakers should consider politeness factor or several dialogue strategies to calm down this embarrassing situation. Three famous persons Brown, Levinson and Leech will solve this question by their own theory on Face and Politeness Principles in this part.

2.2.1 Brown &Levinson’s Face and Politeness Principle

Politeness exists in all languages and cultures, which restricts people’s speech act and regulates communicative activities. Since 1970s, linguists turned their eyes on politeness. In 1987, Brown and Levinson released a book Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage based on socialist Goffman’s theory.

In their new book, Brown and Levinson (1987) pointed out that politeness is a common feature applied to communication and each person has his own way to express politeness. They gave an exact definition on politeness that is people’s basic wants. It includes two parts: positive face and negative face. Positive face (Brown and Levinson, 1987:62) means speaker’s wants and self-image are approved or appreciated; negative face hopes that speaker’s action is not disturbed by others. Some actions are regarded as impoliteness, for example refusing invitation or suggestions, which have already threatened both sides’ face. In consequence, we call this phenomenon face-threatening act (FTA).

In accordance with Brown and Levinson, most speech acts all threaten others’ face, hence, if a speaker wants to attain communicative purpose, he/she will have to take others’ face into account and add politeness into speech. At this point, Brown and Levinson came up with two strategies: positive and negative politeness strategies, which require speakers or hearers to save the others’ positive face and negative face with respectful attitude.  

2.2.2 Leech’s Politeness Principle

Politeness Principle does not originate from Leech. Before him, many linguists and socialists have found that there are many polite expressions in people’s social language, for instance, in public occasions when a speaker introduces a senior person, he/she usually uses “respected” or “sincerely” in front of the senior person’s name. Moreover, Goffman, Brown and Levinson have put forward a series of theories on face which can be known from above part. Since so many studies have been published, why does Leech raise Politeness Principle? That is because some performances can not be explained by Grice’s Cooperative Principle, such as indirect expressions which have gone against Cooperative Principle. For this reason Leech gave a more detailed theory on politeness so as to be a bridge between Cooperative Principle and Reckless Behavior.

His principle covers the following criterions (1983:131):

1. Tact Maxim

Minimize others’ damage; maximum others’ benefit.

2. Generosity Maxim

Minimize benefit to self; maximum damage to self.

3. Approbation Maxim

Minimize slander to others; maximum others’ compliment.

4. Modesty Maxim

    Minimize compliment to self; maximum slander to self.

5. Agreement Maxim

Minimize divergence with others; maximum agreement with others.

6. Sympathy Maxim

Minimize boredom to others; maximum sympathy to others.

    In a word, he believes that politeness is to offer the most benefit to others, but to bring the least benefit for self. In this regard, if a speaker chooses different complaining patterns, the severity of complaints will make difference.

Although Leech has enriched the definition of politeness, there are many limitations as well. In his principles, it is clear to see words “minimize” and “maximum”, which put politeness into an absolute definition, and furthermore, Politeness Principles overlapped with each other, for example, modesty maxim and approbation maxim, generosity maxim and tact maxim. As a consequence, Politeness Principle needs more socialists to explore and make more contributions to pragmatic in the future.

2.3 Gu’s study on the politeness in Chinese culture

    Foreign linguists and socialists contributed to pragmatics greatly, but the theories are all constructed in western social context and culture, which can not be totally used in Chinese context. Utilizing these achievements to study Chinese is a major subject for Chinese scholars. In 1900, Chinese Professor Gu Yueguo published an article on politeness, which has worked out this problem and made a profound impact on the linguistic world.

He approached Chinese politeness initially originated from historical 礼(Li ). After a thorough comparison between traditional Li and modern politeness, he made a conclusion that China experienced lots of changes in social system, values, etc. while traditional culture like politeness is nearly intact. He defined the politeness as “respectfulness (show respect to others), modesty (show self-denigration), attitudinal warmth (show kindness to others) and refinement (conform to certain standards)” (2001:239). In his accordance, politeness attached importance to speech acts, in other words, politeness helps people maintain harmony and promote cooperation with other people. This communication skill will help readers moderate conflicts that caused by complaints and play a significant role in linguistic development as well.  

3. Chinese and American students’ complaint strategies in different situations

Chinese and American students are the reserve force and successors for the development of their societies and hope of their nations. They live in two distinct countries. Different regional cultures make them form their own values, customs and conversation modes. As an English learner, comparing the two different conversation modes is also benefit for learning foreign languages, for we can have a general idea of their cultural background. Facing various people, what reactions will they make? As a core part of this paper, Chinese and American students’ complaint strategies will be analyzed by means of contrast. In addition, more data will be presented in the next sections.

3.1 Related theories and data analysis

Complaints are a kind of rebuked speech acts, which are confined by social status and social distance. In western researchers, Anna Trosborg is a more influential person because his theory on complaints contributed greatly to the development of modern linguistic.

Trosborg (1994) put forward three criterions to judge degree of complaint severity: firstly, whether complaints reflect in words directly; secondly, complaint targets are expressed directly or indirectly; thirdly, whether the person who suffered from complaints is mentioned directly. Afterwards, he concluded complaint types as follows:

Table1, complaint types and strategies

Type	Strategies
No Explicit Reproach	1. Hints
Expressions of Annoyance or Disapproval	2. Annoyance 3. Consequence
Accusation	4. Indirect Denounce 5. Direct Denounce
Blame	6. Modified Blame 7. Explicit Condemnation of the Accused as Action 8. Explicit Condemnation of the Accused as A person

(Trosborg (1994:319), forms are changed slightly)

Zhu Xiaoshu once came out an essay on the speech act of complaints. She made a survey on complaint strategies between Chinese and American students and divided the students into three parts: Chinese English major students (CEM), non-English major students (NEM) and American native students (ANS). There are six situations on the questionnaire: 1. little sister/brother draws pictures on the thesis; 2. neighborhoods hold a party when you prepare for your exam; 3. your friends are 20 minutes late for café; 4. there is a girl snacking near you while you are watching films at the cinema; 5. your father throws your bottles away without care; 6. professor mistakes your exam mark with others. Survey results are as below:

Table2, strategy numbers that three groups of students used

	ANS	CEM	NEM
Total Number of Used Strategies	96	57	92
Average Number of Used Strategies in Every Sentence	16	9.5	15.33

Table3, complaint situations and complaint strategies

	Complaint Strategies (1-8)
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
ANS Category a Category b Category c Category d		c>b				a>b c>b c>a c>d
CEM Category a Category b Category c Category d		c>b	c>b				a>b	d>c
NEM Category a Category b Category c Category d	a>b	c>b	c>b	c>a c>d	d>c		c>a

Category: -a: power persons; -b: stranger; -c: friends; -d: younger brother/sister

(Translate from Zhu Xiaoshu (2008:51-53))

According to Table 2, it is easy to find that Chinese English major students use less complaint strategies than the other two groups, especially in strategy 1, strategy 5 and strategy 8. On the surface, they can not complain in time when it is necessary, however, in fact this group of students are lack of verbal means.

3.2 Complaints to a person of superior status

When students talk with a senior person, he/she usually begins his/her conversation with gentle tones. What do they worry about? The answer is very simple--self-benefit. When they determine to complain, they have to think about hearers’ face and the effect that the complaints will bring for them. From Table3, it is clear to analyze that this situation not only exists in Chinese students but also in American students. Both of them would like to adopt soft complaints, for instance, situation5, “Oh, my God, why did you throw those bottles away? They are my masterpieces.”(Zhu Xiaoshu (2008:54)) Stratety1 is used in this sentence. Here speaker did not complain directly, for he is afraid that father will blame him in turn, so speaker in favor of no explicit complaints to avoid conflicts.

3.3 Complaints to a person of inferior status

Confronting a lower social position person, many people will show an arrogant attitude towards them. Table3 tells us Chinese students and American students prefer to choose more explicit way to complain, but as a result of Confucianism, Chinese students are used to considering others’ face, for example in situation1, American students respond “That’s annoying.” then they would point to the other. In this sentence, a hard edge crept into the speaker’s voice but Chinese students who love a nice way to explain rather than criticize them in a strict tone (Zhu Xiaoshu (2008:54)). What leads to this obvious result? Their respective cultural background affects their communication skills a lot. In western country, governments advocate people rights, no matter who you are, individual performance and personal goals are more important, so they use less strategies. On the opposite, Chinese people are influenced by collectivism, every person needs respect, thus when complaining they like a euphemistic discourse.

3.4 Complaints to a person of equal status

In this situation, students’ choices wander in strategy2, strategy3, strategy4 and strategy6 which are all indirect ways. Two countries’ students are afraid that complaints will evolve into quarrels and break the relationship with their friends or intimates. In order to maintain relationship with them, they must apply several minor complaints. In situation3 non-English major students respond in a kind method “Caught in a traffic jam? OK, but don’t be late next time”. American students “Hey! I am glad you made it! What happened? Oh, well you’re here” (Zhu Xiaoshu (2008:54)).Two speakers understand hearers’ embarrassing situation and are willing to accept apologies. On the one hand, these strategies can help speakers to release feelings; on the other hand, friendship and kinship can be protected. Compared with other strategies, minor complaints are the best choice.

3.5 Summary

    In a word, complaint strategies contain three parts in this paper: no explicit complaint, minor complaint and explicit complaint. More details are as follow:

Type	Strategies
No Explicit Reproach	1. Opting Out 2. Hints
Minor Complaint	3. Annoyance or Disapproval
Explicit Complaint	4. On-record Strategy 5. Warning and Threat

 

 

Partitioning this table is based on the degree of complaint severity and complaint features. Trosborg’s expressions of annoyance and disapproval are narrow sense which should fall into minor complaint. Accusation and blame used in above situations all belong to explicit complaint. Five strategies on the right side offer more concise communication skills. Some readers were confused that why this paper did not refer to gender factor. Chinese famous linguists Li Ping, Zheng Shutang and Yang Xiaohu published an essay on the degree of complaint severity in which they listed a series of data and concluded gender factor influenced complaint result slightly. As college students of new age, good relations will be the key factor to achieve success. Utilize these strategies flexibly to break language barriers.  

4. The causes of different complaints

Complaints are influenced by many factors, for instance social factor and cultural factor. Different countries teach students diverse humanistic knowledge that affects students’ values, interpersonal skills, thoughts, etc. Exploring the origin of complaints and finding language rules are linguists’ old dreams. Following parts are concentrated on this subject.

4.1 Cultural background

Culture is a complex topic and it is difficult to give a complete definition because of multi-culture. However, on the way of exploration many scholars lighten the hopes. In 1952, Koreber and Kluckhon put forward 164 different definitions of culture that they found in the anthropology literature and since then all kinds of opinions on culture appeared in anthropology.

Samovar and Porter (2002:36) regarded culture as the deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. We can conclude that culture is a soul fortune that influences people’s actions and beliefs.

Culture and language have close relations with each other. Wolfson (1989:110) referred that “speech act or act sequence has important cultural information embedded in it”. Language and culture supplement each other. Language is a tool to understand culture and knowledge of the culture helps understand the language. The relations between culture and language will be expounded from three parts:

First of all, language seems to be a major competence of the culture. From the content of culture, language consists of material wealth and spiritual wealth. After the baptism of time, culture has been a part in spiritual wealth which influences people’s social behavior and values. Secondly, language is a bridge to connect different countries. As a communication tool, language helps people to get to know more manners and customs in foreign countries. Last but not least, language is the mirror of culture and by which culture can be transferred from one generation to the other. It is the symbolic representations of people. Human history is usually written down by words because language can record the fact more accurately. In short，language is constrained by culture and they can not leave each other.

When people try to communicate with others, they perform different social behaviors that depend on mainstream culture. Complaint is a sort of speech acts and also a form of language. People from different countries possess their special language styles. Facing different linguistic context their responses are variety. House and Kasper (1981) held the view that direct complaints appear to be culturally determined. In other words, if a speaker complains directly or sharply, he/she should not be criticized impoliteness because different culture systems result in diversification of language style.

Chinese culture mainly originates from Confucianism which emphasis collectivism greatly. Collectivism consists of many communication skills, such as indirect speech, saving face, cooperating with others, etc. This culture would like to sacrifice self to benefit others. When a speaker tends to complain, he/she frequently takes a friendly way in order to maintain harmonious relationships. Hints are the best choice for them. Conversely, American culture prefers individualism. In their country, everyone stresses self value, therefore cooperation is not highlighted. Once offended, speakers are more inclined to complain directly and criticize others strictly. Less complaint strategies are utilized in their speech.

4.2 Social background

Interpersonal communication is not the same in different situations. There is an old saying in linguistic field “word is the man.” That is to say, language is restricted by social status, regional background, ages, etc. Halliday (1964) once put forward that language variety is influenced by two factors: speakers and discourse domain. Language will not exist if it separates from society.

Above data analysis manifests that social status and social distance can bring about different dialogue results. In situation1 and 5, social statuses are different from each other. Consequently, their performances are rather distinct. No matter Chinese or American students, when speaking to a superior status person like situation5, their attitudes will become gentle, for they worry that father will turn to be anger and punish them in return. However, facing the weak group, people’s tone will be rigorous. This contrast reflects the power of social status has huge impact on interpersonal communication.

5. Implications from the study

This paper mainly deals with language and cultural differences between Chinese and western countries, which makes great influence on future teaching and learning. Following parts will discuss the implications minutely.

5.1 Improvement in communication skills 

The final aim to learn a foreign language is to communicate, nevertheless, lacking foreign cultural knowledge leads to many conflicts, especially in business negotiation. In order to achieve success, here businessman ought to master some communication skills.

There are four main skills in negotiation: communication skills, compliment skills, indirectness skills and persuasion skills. Communication skills include speaking and listening. A successful negotiator is good at listening. He/She knows what they want clearly, so during the negation he/she asks probing questions and then shuts up. The other speaker will tell you everything that you need. What’s more, all negotiators are like detectives, because they have to observe some details in the conversation for instance, body language, facial expressions, tone etc. Even a slight complaint can reveal speaker’s heart.

In a word, if a speaker wants to attain goals, he/she needs to make enough preparations which contain personal background and cultural background. Westerners prefer more direct way in communication which is an indispensable condition to get win-win outcomes.

5.2 Implications for learning foreign languages

Through the comparative study, Chinese and American students have some knowledge of two countries’ culture and communication habits, which will inspire students’ learning enthusiasm and break learning disabilities.

Moreover, this study helps foreign language learners to establish a more specific learning aims. This paper indicates that language learning should not be limited to the textbook. Utilizing foreign words and expressions in real communication occasions is modern foreign language’s learning objectives. Students ought to be removable and flexible facing different situations. For example, if an American friend blames you strictly for your lateness, you should not be angry with him but to explain why you are late. In western country, individualism is highly valued. As a foreign language learner, learning foreign culture is necessary as well.

6. Conclusion

Complaint is a common phenomenon in linguistic field and it is affected by culture greatly. This paper compares Chinese and American students’ speech act of complaints in which FAT is involved. Chinese students care about face a lot, for they are afraid of losing face before others meanwhile they worry about damaging their images as well. However, American students would like to choose a more direct or explicit way to complain. Therefore, some people will get a conclusion that western students are less polite than Chinese students. Actually, this is mainly determined by different cultures. Chinese students mostly are influenced by collectivism while American students emphasize individualism. Hence, introducing two countries’ cultures after the comparative study is very necessary.

With the fast development of our society, many transnational corporations have been set up in China. Cross-culture communication happens more and more frequently. In order to make the conversation successful and effective, different countries’ cultural background needs to be prepared in time. This is modern foreign languages’ learning objectives.

All in all, this paper hopes to improve foreign language learners’ cross-cultural awareness through complaints. All people live in a diversified world. Mastering different cultural knowledge has been the key point to win. How to spur language learners’ study enthusiasm is another new subject not only for teachers but also for linguists.

 

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Acknowledgement

This paper would not been completed without much generous assistance, although the responsibility for its shortcomings rests with me alone.

My thanks go to many people who have assisted me in the period of the preparation of this paper. In particular, I owe much gratitude to my supervisor associate Professor Ma Jinling for her suggestions, comments and patience she showed during the long process of revision of my paper. Also I would thank all the teachers in the Foreign Languages College of Bei Hua University, who have greatly benefited my intellectual growth through their inspiring lectures.

I also wish to record my appreciation of Wei Yi and Liu Xilin, who read my paper critically and gave me a lot of valuable suggestions.