COMPLIMENTING COMMUNICATIVE SPEECH ACT OF APPROVAL IN UKRAINIAN AND ENGLISH CULTURES

Abstract

The article has revealed the study in the field of pragmatic. It analyzes the speech acts of approval in Ukrainian and American cultures. This is especially important in linguistic interaction between people. Approval as speech acts has the reflection and expression of cultural values. Many of the values reflected through acts of approval are personal appearance, new acquisitions, possessions, talents and skills. The objective of these expressions is to establish or to reinforce solidarity. The article presents the results of a cross-cultural study of the speech act of complimenting / approval, comparing many aspects of Ukrainian and American English approvals to find similarities and differences in: approval form, role relationship of the participants, gender of the giver and receiver of the approval, compliment/approval frequency and attributes praised. This study describes syntactic patterns or formulas that could be used to define the structure of the compliments/approvals. It shows particular characteristic that could distinguish some approvals from others, explain and understand some factors of meaning toward the approvals. National specifics are manifested in the following forms: 1) in the difference of types of linguistic acts of compliment and praise in various communicative cultures; 2) in different frequency of the use of certain types of compliment and praise; 3) in existence of nonequivalent types of linguistic acts of compliment and praise; 4) in the difference of reactions to compliment and praise in various communicative cultures. Speech acts of compliment and approval have a substantial national specificity that reflects the mental and socio-cultural features of the lingua-cultural community. The communicative thinking of Ukrainians and English differ significantly. Ukrainians in language acts of approval mainly evaluate the external signs of a person. For the English, however, the characteristic of internal qualities of a person is more important. Ukrainians approve individuality of the person, and English – kindness and responsibility. Ukrainian communication is dominated by emotional compliments and praise, English – rational. The results in this study yield important implications to use compliments across the Ukrainian and American cultures. The information provided informs cultural patterns that will help avoid pragmatic failure and has implications for teaching English to Ukrainians and for teaching Russian and Ukrainian to speakers of English. Knowing how to use speech acts, allows the speaker to have communicative and pragmatic competences.