| Since 1970s, linguists have attached great importance to the study of speech act of complimenting. Research shows that this speech act is heavily influenced by certain social and individual variables such as age, gender, level of education, social status and social distance. A considerable amount of research on compliment (C) and compliment responses (CRs) has been carried out in different varieties of English, but studies in Chinese context are relatively few and far from satisfactory. And studies that focus on gender differences in compliments and compliment responses are quite few. The present study, based on sociolinguistic theories and methodology, makes another attempt to investigate the relation between gender and complimenting, via investigating gender differences reflected in Chinese college students' compliment behavior.The present study will explain the results of the research from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. 150 non-English majors in an independent college took part in the investigation by finishing a DCT questionnaire adapted from Lorenzo-Dus' study (Lorenzo-Dus, 2001). With the help of two colleagues, the author got some natural observation data. After the data were collected, processed and analyzed, the following findings were obtained:Firstly, the compliment strategies of males and females varied slightly in intra-sex interactions, however, in inter-sex interactions, the high proportion of Explicit Compliment of females and No Response of males are quite distinctive. Females applied more Explicit Compliment than males did, whereas males used more Implicit Compliment and No Response than females. Damn, shit and some other insulting and vulgar words are used by males to express positive meaning. Female complimenters are never found to use such vulgar word in complimenting. Males and females showed slight difference in compliment formulas. As Wolfson (1984) have found out, the present study also proves that "nice", "good", "beautiful", "pretty", "great" are frequently used adjectives, but frequency order differs slightly from the former findings. Secondly, males and females showed significant differences in the use of compliment response strategies, especially in inter-sex interactions. Females applied more Acceptance and Combinations than males, whereas more males chose Implicit Acceptance and Direct Rejection. As for topics, more females employed Acceptance to compliments on appearance and performance while more males chose Rejection on both topics.Finally, it is suggested by this thesis that the gender differences of complimenting among Chinese college students may partly reflect the different roles men and women play in China as well as the different perceptions of the function of compliment behavior. In most cases, females might regard compliment as a positively affective social speech act that displays solidarity and positive politeness, while men might see them as face-threatening acts. The causes of the gender differences are analyzed from traditional, cultural and social perspectives. It further attempted to apply the findings in second language teaching and learning with a sample lesson.This thesis is a tentative study in the field of speech acts. It is written to draw more attention from scholars to this aspect. The author wishes it might be helpful to those who are interested in this topic. The present study is not insignificant despite the limitations in several respects. Both in theory and in practice, it has made a meager contribution to the previous research on gendered language in general and on Chinese Cs and CRs in particular. It is recommended that similar studies in future build themselves more upon natural conversations and broaden their domain of study by taking into consideration more variables and a larger and diversified sampling population.
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