An investigation of the use of compliments by Saudi Arabian students

This study investigates, from a sociolinguistic comparative perspective, the use of compliments by a group of twenty Saudi English speakers, twenty Saudi Arabic speakers and twenty native English speakers. The aim of the research is to identify evidence of the discourse features that suggest that language transfer is occurring. Finally, the research attempts to determine how religiosity affects the form of compliments for Saudi English speakers. A discourse completion test was used comprising six situations to collect data from the participants. The comparative analysis of the compliments from the three groups identified that transfer was not occurring in respect to the use of unbound formulas as this is not a culturally specific semantic form. Transfer was identified as occurring for bound semantic formulas. Two further findings are worthy of mention. The first is that learning English appears to be increasing the assertiveness of Saudi Arabian women as evidenced by a decline in the use of implicit compliments. The second is that there is a decline in the frequency of religious inclusions in the compliments of Saudi English speakers