Who/where/when – Armchair – Interview
A researcher can ask informants about when and where and to whom they pay compliments or from whom they receive compliments. It is difficult to assess the reliability of the answers. They are certainly not empirical in the sense that they would answer these questions in any straightforward way. But the answers may nevertheless be interesting because they tell us something about native speaker perceptions of compliments. If a large number of informants is interviewed a pattern may emerge of popular believes about this topic. As long as the popular believes are not mistaken for the empirical facts of who actually uses compliments for whom and on what situations, they may be interesting and worthy of investigation.