A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Gender Difference in Compliments

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Gender Difference in Compliments

By Huang Rong

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English Language

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May 10, 2016

Acknowledgements

I really want to express my great gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Zhang Jinwei, who helped and offered me many valuable suggestions in detail during the writing of this study. During the preparation of the thesis, he provided me with inspiring advice and spared no effort to read through each part. I would not complete this thesis without his patient instruction and expert guidance.

Second，I am grateful to all my dear classmates and friends. They supported me wholeheartedly in finishing this paper and offered me great help when I encountered difficulties. I appreciate their advice and accompany during my four years’ study in this university.

Last, I am appreciative of my family who supported me all the time and respected my choice and dream. They never gave me up and encouraged me every time I felt hopeless. It was them who made me believe in myself.

Contents

1. Introduction 2

1.1 Significance and Purpose of the study 2

1.2 Overall Structure of this paper 2

2. Literature Review 2

2.1 Overview of Speech Act Theories 3

2.2 Overview of Politeness Theories 3

2.3 Studies on Compliment Behavior 3

2.3.1 Definition of Compliment 3

2.3.2 Studies on Functions of Compliment Behavior 4

2.3.3 Studies on Compliment Strategy 4

2.3.4 Studies on Compliment Response Strategy 5

2.4 Limitations of the Previous Study 5

3. Methodology 5

3.1 Research Questions 5

3.2 The Subject 6

3.3 Data Analysis and Result 6

4. Findings and Discussion 6

4.1 On Frequency of Compliment 6

4.2 On Different Compliment Formulas 7

4.3 On Topic Selection 8

4.3.1 Appearance 8

4.3.2 Ability 9

4.3.3 Possessions 9

4.4 On Compliment Respond Strategy 9

4.5 On Social Function 10

4.6 Strategies to Overcome Gender Difference in Verbal Communication 11

5. Conclusion 11

References 13

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Gender Difference in Compliments

Huang Rong

English Department

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract：Gender-based differences do exist in social communication, while gender difference in language use has become a major study. This study will focus on compliment and compliment response in order to study gender difference. Compliment is a positive speech act that could satisfy receivers’ demand. The aim of the study is to confirm gender difference of compliment under American context exist and to explain its root of all. This paper will study frequency, form, topic and compliment response of compliments to prove the fact that gender difference of compliment is under the effect of their role in society and different compliments also satisfy different genders. Firstly, males prefer to use none person form; secondly, males and females differ in different topic; at last, in compliment response, females prefer to receive while males probably refuse. The purpose of the study is to help English learners to increase their communication ability so as to express their thoughts more proper and avoid misunderstanding.

Key Words: Compliment; Compliment Response; Gender Difference; Speech Act

摘要：性别语言差异普遍存在于社会交际中,而如今语言使用的性别差异也成为一个社会语言学领域重点研究的方向。本文重点放在语言行为，即恭维语及其应答这个角度以此研究性别差异。恭维语是一种能够满足听者需求的积极的言语行为，本文通过不同角度来审视不同性别的恭维语。本文的目的是希望通过研究证明美语语境下恭维语的性别差异是真实存在的，并会解释这种差异存在的根源。本文旨在通过对恭维语频率，形式，话题和应答策略这四个部分的相关数据进行分析，以此来证明恭维语的性别差异绝大程度上是由于性别的社会角色所影响。此外，不同的恭维语也可以满足不同性别的心理需要。首先,男性大多用无人称形式；其次,性别差异还表现在男性和女性双方在沟通时侧重不同的话题；最后，在恭维语的应答策略方面,女性一般会接受恭维,而男性通常会拒绝。本文旨在帮助学习者运用社会语用学知识更适当地表达自己的思想，提高交际能力，避免引起误解。

关键词:恭维语;恭维语应答;性别差异;语言行为

1. Introduction

In the recent 30 years，western scholars have done a lot of researches in the field of gender difference of compliments. With the development of sociolinguistics, the relationship between language and gender difference has been a hot subject that linguists always discuss. As a kind of speech act, compliment can not only express the subjective feelings of the speaker, but also show a friendly attitude and help to build social relationship with listeners. However, there must exist some kind of gender differences because the users vary in social class, values, ways of thinking, standard of conduct, language atmosphere, physical and mental characteristics, so it is hard to define whether women are more polite than men.

1.1 Significance and Purpose of the study

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