The speech act of compliment in student-teacher interaction: A case study of Emirati university students’ attitudes

For effective communication, interlocutors must be cognizant of lingua-cultural aspects in context-dependent situations. Among others, they include culturally and linguistically diverse university settings where students are tempted to complain about grades teachers request grade changes. To reduce the negative impact these speech acts, may resort compliments whose utilization varies from culture culture. This study investigated attitudes 146 undergraduate Emirati towards complimenting an instructor a different background before negotiating at United Arab Emirates that uses English as medium instruction. Data were collected using survey discourse completion task. Results show 49% respondents thought it would appropriate use compliment prior complaint or for regrading. Students primarily complimented their teacher’s teaching skills effort teaching. The syntactic structures mainly included You+V+NP (You+Verb+Noun Phrase). highlight significance considering interlocutors’ backgrounds potential impacts ulterior motive behind deciding whether not produce one. If is used, topics (i.e., what upon) chosen delicately, cross-cultural nature context social status interlocutors.