On Sex-based Differences In Compliment Behaviour

Gender differences associated with language have become a hot topic under discussion by most linguists since 1970s. However they focused mainly on gender differences existing in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and these kinds of internal features of languages. Only a few linguists showed little interest in gender differences in communications and few of them made researches with regard to compliment behaviour. In addition, most of the studies on sex-based differences in compliment behaviour reflected the information of English-speaking people, and other people around the world were neglected. Therefore, I believe that it is necessary to investigate the phenomenon in other countries.In my thesis, I adopt interview paper to collect real data from students at a university, for they apply more standard language and their usage reflect the tendency in future. The purpose of my thesis is to answer whether there are any differences between women and men both in compliments and compliment responses from three aspects: first, I shall establish that there are gender differences in compliment behaviour showing in the pioneers' works; second, I shall show how it differs by the data from my collection; lastly, I shall attempt to answer why it differs, from cultural and power aspects.Being different from most pioneers' works which mainly reflected the information of English-speaking people, my thesis will focus on gender differences in compliment behaviour existing in cross-culture. Moreover, gender differences in compliment behaviour which result from different status of women and men wereavoided in most former researches, so I shall consider them in my thesis. In addition, as my thesis was confined by my capability and condition of research, there are some inevitable limitations. However, I simply hope that my thesis will act as propulsion for the future votarists.