SOCIOPRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF COMPLIMENTS AND COMPLIMENTS RESPONSE: THE CASE OF AMERICAN AND INDONESIAN IDOL

by

Didi Sukyadi

Fiftinova

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Background

Cultures and gender are suspected to influence the nature of compliments presented.

American and Indonesian Idols are entertainment programs in which compliments to distant relationship frequently happen.

Different from traditional format, in Indonesian and American Idol format, judgment is explicitly given.

Compliments

are influenced by social status from someone higher in position goes in the

form of encouragement From someone lower in position tends to be

in the form of appearance

Gender differences

Women are frequent recipient possession of compliments regardless of their status.

Holmes (1988) states that women give and receive significantly more compliments to each other than they do to men or men do to each other

Compliments are used:

for establishing solidarity, replacing greetings or apologies, opening and sustaining conversation, or reinforcing desired behavior.

to soften face-threatening acts such as apologies, requests and especially criticism (Brown & Levinson 1978).

Responding to compliments

can be verbal and nonverbal behavior (facial expression, gesture, or body language) such as smiles (Holmes, 1987).

In Indonesian culture smile shows pleasure, acceptance, friendliness and situation-shooting. In American culture it shows friendliness.

Verbal compliment responses may include acceptance, rejection, mitigation, no response, and request interpretation

Methodology Population: American Idol season 7 and Indonesian

Idol season 5 both the commentators and the contestants.

Participants: 3 commentators of each program (American and Indonesian Idols) and the top 8 contestants (4 males and 4 females)

Length of observation: two weeks of performance. Data: all utterances of the commentators and the

competitors. Data: from the recorded video which was

downloaded from www.i-tune.com and from watching and audio taping the show every Friday on 8 p.m. in RCTI.

Non-verbal behavior such as smile, body language and gestures that support the compliments and responses were observed and noted.

Findings American tends to give more compliments

and more expressive than their Indonesian counterparts.

Country N Ration

American

Indonesian

170

81

2

1

Expressiveness

American Commentators Indonesian Commentators

All right. You know this is great, man. This is a good moment for you and me, you know why? (Why) I think this is the best I’ve heard you sing including when your audition. I think that is the best you sounded to us. I think it was stellar, I think it was unbelievable, I’m shock! I’m loving it. Yes…yes…you got another competitor in the competition.

Suaranya industri banget.

Suaranya kalo direkam asyik.

Types of Compliments

Most of commentators gave compliments to the contestant’s ability such as “Great performance”, “You’re fantastic” or “That was the best performance I’ve ever heard”.

The emergence of two other topic compliments (appearance and personality) was not so often used by the speakers because Idols program is merely a singing competition.

This reality is different from daily life context in which the topic of appearance will come first.

No difference in compliment topic

Types of Compliments

American Indonesian

Appearance 7

(4.1%)

6

(7.4%)

Skills 161

(94.7%)

72

(88.9%)

Personality 2

(1.2%)

3

(3.7%)

TOTAL 170 81

Topics of Compliments

American Indonesian

The way of choosing song

Quality of performance

Singing technique

Voice quality

Star potential

Emotion

Performance quality

Stage act

Progress

Reflection

Star potentials

Appearance

Female American commentators offer more compliments on appearance

Male American commentators seldom give comments of one’s appearance but on contestant’s ability.

Female American commentator compliments not only woman’s appearance (“You look beautiful”) but also man’s appearance (“I like your hair cut”).

Compliment response:Indonesian Indonesian people have a tendency to accept

compliments. “Thank You” (Appreciation Token) “Okay, okay” (Comment Acceptance); “Saya akan berusaha keras lagi (Comment

Acceptance); “Ini yang saya nanti-nanti” (Comment Acceptance). ”Gara-gara Mas Andy Riyanto, keren banget

aransemennya” (Comment History). smile and gestures when responding to

compliments.

Compliment responses: Indonesian (Mostly acceptance)

(Appreciation Token) to each compliment they got. Also, saying thanks like this is a part of Indonesian culture in which politeness becomes the priority in establishing relationship. However, this acceptance can be in the form of other utterances like “Okay, okay” (Comment Acceptance); “Saya akan berusaha keras lagi (Comment Acceptance); “Ini yang saya nanti-nanti” (Comment Acceptance). The contestants would also mitigate the compliments by stating, ”Gara-gara Mas Andy Riyanto, keren banget aransemennya” (Comment History). In addition, they also show smile and gestures when responding to compliments.

Compliment responses: American

They did not choose acceptance only (“Thank You”).

reject (“I thought no, that’s not good”), give return (“Your hair looks great Paula”) give no response. Similar to Indonesian, more expressive

nonverbal gestures found in American Idol are smiling, jumping, punching hands, or other kinds of body language.

Gender Differences The commentators do not show any gender

differences on the types of topic chosen when complimenting.

They offer compliments to woman in the same way they do to man (the capability of each contestants).

women are the ones who usually give compliment to one’s appearance. Male commentators seldom do this both American and Indonesian Idols.

Both female and male American Idol contestants give the same number of compliment responses to female or male commentators.

Indonesian Idol contestants do not consider any sex differences of commentators when responding to compliments.