Sapto Kuncoro . 2010. The Analysis of Compliment Expression in The Film
Entitled White Chicks. Thesis: English Department of Non-Regular program.
Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts. Sebelas Maret University.
This research focuses on the compliments used by the characters in the
film entitled white chicks. This research was conducted to describe the types of
topics of compliment employed by the characters in the film entitled white chicks,
the functions of each type of topics of compliment, and also the compliment
responses expressed by the addressees in the film.
This research is a descriptive qualitative research. This research uses a
socio-pragmatics approach. The technique of sampling used is total sampling. All
conversations containing compliments and compliment responses were taken as
data.
Based on the data analysis, the researcher draws conclusions as follows:
There are four types of topics of compliment employed by the characters in
the film entitled white chicks, namely, personal appearance, possession, general
ability, and specific-act ability.
Following Wolfson’s classification of compliment functions, there are six
functions of compliment proposed by Wolfson found in this research, namely to
affirm solidarity, to create or maintain rapport, to express admiration or approval,
to encourage, to express positive evaluation, to strengthen or to replace other
speech act formulas.
Most of the addressees in the film entitled white chicks respond to the
compliments by employing appreciation token. The appreciation token includes
verbal and nonverbal acceptance. In verbal acceptance, the addressees deliver the
word thanks to respond to the speaker’s compliment. Meanwhile, the addressees
respond to the compliment by smiling in the non-verbal acceptance. Other
compliment responses used by the addressees are comment acceptance, praise
upgrade, down grade, reassignment, question and no acknowledgement. In the
comment acceptance, the addressees accept the compliment and offer a relevant
comment on the compliment. In the Praise upgrade, the addressee accepts and
asserts insufficiently of the compliment’s force. Meanwhile, in down grade, the
addressee disagrees to the speaker’s compliment because the object of
compliment is not worth. In response of question, the addressee questions the
sincerity or the appropriateness of the speaker’s compliment. Finally, in No
acknowledgement, the addressees give no indication of having heard the
compliment, shift the topic, and even give no response.
Based on the conclusions above, the researcher hopes that this research gives
a contribution to the students in studying the speech act of compliments. There are
still many cases on the study of compliments. It is suggested to other researchers
who are interested in Socio-Pragmatics study to conduct a further research on
compliments structure and its vocabulary