恭维话的代价.docVIP

恭维话的代价 　　Despite the current strident culture of positive reinforcement―compliment often！―people can have a natural skepticism towards those who offer praise too freely.1 They might be searching for some linguistic way to oil the wheels of social interaction， but remain wary of those who overdo it. 　　It’s easy to see why. Streams of compliments can betray either insincerity or ulterior motives.2 Reactions to praise can be telling， too. Mark Twain， in a chapter epigraph from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar （1894） observes that “a dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment”.3 The use of “morganatic”， or lopsided4， here is interesting―while usually used to talk about marriages between a member of a high-born family and someone of an inferior rank， Twain draws attention to a sense of social inequality and anxiety that seems wrapped up in accepting a compliment. 　　Those who find themselves on the receiving end5 of compliments can be particularly bad at accepting them. There are a few well-practised strategies for deflecting6 positive feedback. Perhaps the most odious7 is the counter-compliment： when “Nice jacket！” immediately gives rise to “I like your dress！” This can then be closely followed by the ever-modest： “This old thing？ It looks like I picked it out of a trash can！” 　　But why do people struggle so much when receiving compliments？ 　　One simple explanation might be that they are left at an impasse8： to take a compliment is to violate the norm of modesty， yet to deflect or disagree with the compliment is to undermine its social function. 　　All this is perhaps partially true but it doesn’t explain why the person complimented chooses not to respond with a neutral “thank you”. In fact， to say thank you and thus， to accept the compliment， is essentially to go into debt. As any student of market exchange can explain， you can’t simply take a compliment without offering something in return. 　　Most of the time， people are well awar