Self-praise by Chinese and American celebrities on TV talk shows

Abstract

Self-praise, a social practice that threatens the positive face of the addressee, is a relatively under-explored topic in politeness research. This article examines self-praise strategies used by Chinese and American celebrities. Based on an existing taxonomy of self-praise strategies, namely, explicit self-praise without modification, explicit self-praise with modification, and implicit self-praise, we collected data from two Chinese TV shows (Yang Lan Interview One on One and Jin Xing Show) and two American TV shows (The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Charlie Rose Show). Through a detailed analysis of interactions between host and celebrity within Leech’s (2014) General Strategy of Politeness, it is found that there are four modification devices and three implicit frames in their self-praise. Additionally, American celebrities tend to praise themselves explicitly while Chinese counterparts always mitigate it. Cultural differences exhibited in the form of face-preserving needs and attitudes to the audience may account for preferences for different self-praise strategies in the two linguistic communities. The findings not only open a cross-cultural window to self-praise research but also offer insights into third-person politeness theorising.