Jordanian-Australians’ Perceptions and Practices of Compliments

This study investigated perceptions and practices of compliments among twenty male Jordanian-Australians. It focused on how compliments are given and received in social, educational and professional settings. The study also investigates how languages, cultures, and associated meta-discourse practices, which exist in intercultural individuals, influenced their perceptions and practices of compliments. Furthermore, the study explored Jordanian-Australians’ choice and use of compliment topics, syntactic structures, and positive semantic carriers in compliments, as well as their choice of compliment response strategies in order to understand their intercultural attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness.