”Thanks for the Compliment”

Appreciative utterances and responses in Hungarian and Italian discourses (a possible cognitive stylistic analysis)

Abstract

Polite linguistic behaviour belongs to everyday interactions, to the utterances of social interactions, and typical manifestations of this behaviour include appreciative utterances, compliments, praises to our communication partner and related responses.

This paper will attempt to delineate a possible analysis of responses to appreciative utterances. It focuses on responses to compliments, but forthis it is necessary to consider appreciative utterances as well. The theoretical frame of the analysis is based on cognitive stylistics (Tolcsvai Nagy 2005) beyond pragmaticsthat gives a functional approach to language by directing attention to the connection between cognitive and socio-cultural conditions. Primarily this is a stylistic analysis, however; based on pragmatic research, it aims to show its stylistic adaptability. To interpret the utterances is important to know the context of the interaction which is part of the meaning. As language prompts for the construction of meaning in particular contexts with particular cultural models and cognitive resources (Fauconnier 2003, 2004), it is not independent of the context (on the notion of context, see Tátrai 2004, 2011: 51–67).