Compliments and responses used by the main characters of The Ugly Truth movie

This research was conducted to find out the types of compliment applied by the main characters of The Ugly Truth Movie, and also to describe the responses expressed by the addressees of the movie. This research is a descriptive qualitative study and uses pragmatic approach. The data of this study come from conversations containing compliments, verbal and non verbal acts of responses. The verbal acts are taken from the conversations which are expressed by the main characters of The Ugly Truth Movie. While the non verbal acts are the body language, facial expression, and smile expressed by the main characters in that movie. Based on Wolfson’ theory of compliment, the researcher draws conclusions as follows: there are four types of compliment applied by the characters of The Ugly Truth Movie. They are compliment of personal appearance, possession, compliment of general ability and compliment of specific-act ability. In responses, based on Herbert’s classification, most of the addressees accept the compliment including verbal and non-verbal acceptance called appreciation token type. In verbal acceptance, the addressees deliver the word ‘thank you” or “ thanks” to respond the compliment of the addressers. Moreover, the addressees respond to the compliment by smiling and nodding head to show acceptance in the form of non-verbal language. In the comment acceptance type, the addressee accepts the compliment and adds a relevant comment on the compliment. Meanwhile, in return type, the addressee returned the compliment to the addresser. The researcher also found the other type of responses namely question. In this type the addressee gives responds of compliment by question to the addresseer. Finally, there are two ways to show no acknowledment responses they are verbal and non-verbal. The verbal response is expressed by shifting topic of the conversation when the addressee recieves the compliment, while the non-verbal response can be shown by keeping silent in responding the compliment