The analysis of compliment responses in a number of languages has attracted a growing research interest and information is already available on how native speakers of English and Arabic respond. This allows for the prediction of certain cross-linguistic pragmatic differences that might characterise compliment responses in the case of Arabic-speaking EFL students. Rather than engage in speculation on the matter, the present study investigates this empirically by examining English compliments paid by Kuwaiti undergraduates to their peers and the responses these elicited. The corpus comprised 632 compliment responses, almost two thirds of which were in English, the remainder being nonverbal, Arabic or bilingual. Analysis was carried out to establish frequencies of simple (a single illocution) and complex (two or more illocutions) responses, the types and frequencies of different illocutions, and the influence of native language norms of expression. Results showed the latter to be very strong, detracting from the authentic nature of English responses. Discussion explores the cultural and linguistic bases underlying such responses. It is pointed out that such an analysis provides useful information for cross-linguistic pragmatics and foreign language pedagogy.