A Study Of Gender Differences In Compliments And Compliment Responses In American English Context

Gender-related differences in language do exist in the communication, and the research on the differences in language use becomes an important branch in sociolinguistics in recent years. This thesis is focused on the difference of two groups-females and males from positive speech acts-compliment and compliment response.Compliments are the speech acts which notice and attend the addressee's interests, wants, needs and goods.The present study examines sociolinguistic features of a particular speech act, paying compliments, by comparing and contrasting male and female speakers' performance.This paper aims at illuminating to the hypothesis that there are significant differences between women and men in their realization patterns of compliments and compliment responses, and exploring to the reasons of the existing gender differences in language using. The reason why men and women differ in language use is that they are under the influence of the social role, and different compliment could fulfill different psychological satisfaction. The data for this study were excerpted from two American television series dramas Desperate Housewives and Gossip Girl. The studies on gender differences were conducted from four aspects, which are the frequency, the formulas, and the topic of compliment and compliment response strategy.The statistical result shows that, there do exist differences between males and females when they compliment and respond to compliment. First of all, the amount of compliments which females offer and receive is more than that of men. Secondly, men and women also show difference in applying compliment formulas. Women tend to use more personal focus, whereas men tend to apply more impersonal focus.Thirdly, they have different topic to use for complimenting each others. At last, they prefer different ways to respond the compliment.Through this study, it may make the second language learners to realize that they should pay attention to rules of use in addition to grammatical rules. It helps the second language learners to express themselves appropriately, to improve the communicative competence and to prevent misunderstanding.