The article analyzes how French is used by French-speaking Cameroonians in language acts. We propose a typology of strategies employed by French-speaking Cameroonians to respond to compliments and maintain social relationships. The article shows that unlike European and Asian cultural spaces characterized by stereotypical reactions, underlying respect for the dual constraint (modesty, for example), responses in the Cameroonian context are marked by an expressive volubility, which generates a wide variety of hybrid discursive strategies from the point of view of the form that are ambiguous from a pragmatic perspective.

Material keywords:

language, act, culture, compliment, French, strategy

Material references:

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Material pages:

63-78

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Material type:

Research paper

Material fields:

Semiotics, Linguistics

Material topic:

Types of Speech and Interactional Mechanisms in Communication

Material UDC:

811.133.1(6)`271.2

Material DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62413/lc.2009(1).08

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