Speech Acts and Regional Variations in French: the Case of Compliments on Skills in Cameroon and Canadian French

Abstract

The present study examines differences and similarities in the realization of compliments on skills in Cameroon and Canadian French. The data were collected by the means of a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) administered to 55 participants in Yaoundé (Cameroon) and 39 respondents in Montréal (Canada). The 278 compliments collected were analyzed according to the three super-strategies identified in the corpus, namely direct compliments, indirect compliments and compliments with external modification, i.e. supporting acts. The results show a strong preference for direct compliments in both sub-cultures. While the Cameroonian participants most frequently used double head acts, i.e. the combination of two direct compliments, the Canadian informants mostly favoured single head acts, i.e. single direct compliment. Differences in terms of situational distribution of the direct compliments were also identified. Moreover, the Cameroonian informants used six indirect compliments, while there was no occurrence of indirect compliments in the Canadian data. With regard to the use of supportive moves to modify the compliments, the results reveal that ‘gratitude’, ‘wish’, ‘apology’ and ‘comment’ were largely used in both data sets, while some external modifiers such as ‘greeting’ and ‘self-introductions’ only appeared in the Cameroonian  responses.

Cuvinte-cheie: politeţe, strategii de complimentare, limba franceză din Camerun, limba franceză canadiană, variaţii pragmatice regionale

REZUMAT

În articol, autorul analizează diferenţele şi asemănările în receptarea complimentelor  în limba franceză, în Camerun şi Canada. Faptele de limbă analizate în articol au fost obţinute în urma unei testări a 55 de persoane din Yaoundé (Camerun) şi a 39 de persoane din Montreal (Canada). Testul se baza pe completarea unui discurs cu unităţi eliptice, cu caracter de compliment. În urma testării, au fost înregistrate 278 de unităţi de acest fel. Acestea au fost analizate, ţinându-se cont de cele trei strategii majore care au permis identificarea unităţilor cu sens de compliment direct, indirect şi celor cu modificare externă, adică cu caracter de unităţi de justificare. Analiza efectuată atestă faptul că vorbitorii de limbă franceză din Camerun şi Canada preferă să întrebuinţeze unităţi cu sens de compliment direct. Persoanele supuse testării din Camerun au utilizat mai frecvent două unităţi cu sens de compliment direct, în timp ce canadienii au preferat să întrebuinţeze,  în bună parte, o singură unitate cu sens de compliment direct. Studiul în cauză a identificat şi diferenţele în ceea ce priveşte distribuirea unităţilor cu sens de compliment direct. Mai mult decât atât, participanţii la testare din Camerun au folosit şase unităţi cu sens de  compliment indirect, în timp ce canadienii nu au întrebuinţat nici una. În ceea ce priveşte folosirea unităţilor cu scopul de a modifica sensul unor complimente, rezultatele testării arată că „recunoştinţa”, „dorinţa”, „scuza” şi „comentariul” au fost, în mare măsură, întrebuinţate în discursurile propuse de ambele părţi, în timp ce unităţile cu sens de „salut” şi „auto-prezentare” au apărut numai în răspunsurile camerunenilor.

LANGUAGES OF PUBLICATION

English (main text and corpus) and French (some units of the main text and corpus) 

UDC: 811.133.1:808.56

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Received: August 2, 2011 | Reviewed: August 16, 2011 | Accepted for publication: August 27, 2011

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