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Complimentary language is a speech act that caters to positive face needs. Positive face, according to Brown and Levinson, is "the positive consistent self-image or 'personality' (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of)claimed by interactions."〔Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usages. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.〕 Many studies examine complimentary language in relation to gender because of the noticeable differences in compliment topic, explicitness, and response depending on gender of the speaker as well as the gender of the addressee. Analysts use these studies to demonstrate their theories about inherent differences between the genders and the societal impact of gender roles. ==Same-gender compliments== Compliment patterns appear to be quite different when the complimenter and complimentee are the same gender from when they are different genders, and differences between males and females still arise even within same-gender interactions. In data from New Zealand,〔Holmes, Janet. 1996. The role of compliments in female-male interaction. Using English: From conversation to canon. ed. by Janet Maybin and Neil Mercer. London: Open University. ISBN 0-415-13119-7〕 it was noted that women tended to compliment each other considerably more often than men complimented each other. This statistic is reflected in further data that showed that women gave two-thirds of the recorded compliments and received three-quarters of them. Compliments between men comprised a mere 9 percent of the data.〔Holmes, Janet. 2003. Complimenting: A positive politeness strategy. Sociolinguistics: The essential readings. ed. by Christina Bratt Paulston and G. Richard Tucker. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-22717-2〕 Similar patterns have been noted in studies of English speakers from other regions as well. In written discourse, too, such patterns arose, as women tended to compliment other women more often than they complimented men, and more often than men complimented either each other or women. In one study,〔Johnson, Donna and Duane Roen. 1992. Complimenting and involvement in peer reviews: Gender variation. Language in Society 21. 27-57.〕 compliments between women numbered almost 250, while compliments between men did not even reach 50. Janet Holmes〔 suggests that the discrepancies in male-male and female-female complimentary language may be due to differences in perception concerning the purpose of compliments. The hypothesis is that women use compliments to build affiliations, while men use compliments to make evaluative judgments. Deborah Tannen〔Tannen, Deborah. 1990. You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-07822-2〕 attributes female linguistic behavior to the purpose of rapport-building, so, assuming compliments are being used as such a means, the data of complimentary language between women seems to suggest this tendency to create and strengthen affiliations is strongest between women. Compliments are usually classified into one of four categories, depending on what they refer to: appearance, ability and performance, possessions, or personality. In New Zealand data,〔 it is shown that women tend to compliment each other based on appearance most often. While 61 percent of the compliments between women were found to be appearance-based, only 36 percent of the compliments between men were found to compliment each other based on appearance. Additionally, only 22 percent of the compliments based on appearance that were received by men were also given by men. Men were found to compliment each other based on possessions more often than they compliment women based on possessions. Men rarely complimented each other based on appearance in both the New Zealand and American data, but in the American data it seemed compliments based on appearance were less commonly received by men from women than in the New Zealand data.〔Wolfson, Nessa. 1983. An empirically based analysis of complimenting in American English. ed. by Nessa Wolfson and Elliot Judd. Sociolinguistics and language acquisition. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House. ISBN 0-88377-269-8〕 Also in New Zealand data,〔 apparent variation between the genders was noted among English-speakers. While women are found to use the compliment pattern, "What (phrase )!" (as in, "What a nice shirt!") more often than men, men are found to use a more minimal pattern of, "() (phrase )" (as in, "Nice car."). Thus, it is not surprising that compliments between men very rarely are found to adhere to the "What (phrase )!" pattern. In data of American English,〔Herbert, Robert. 1990. Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society 19.2. 201-224.〕 only women were found to use the emphasized form, "I love…" rather than, "I like…" and this pattern was most prevalent when women were complimenting other women. Women also used intensifiers such as "really" and "very" in their compliments more than men, and women primarily used these intensifiers when addressing other women. A study of Mandarin-speakers in Kunming, China〔Yuan, Yi. (1998). Sociolinguistic dimensions of the compliment event in the Southwestern Mandarin spoken in Kunming, China. Abstract retrieved from http://www.linguistlist.org/pubs/diss/browse-diss-action.cfm?DissID=866〕 indicated that men tend to use implicit compliments more often than women, and women tend to provide explanations and justifications for their compliments. Another study of Chinese-speakers〔Sun, Zhihui. (2002). A study of gender differences in compliments and compliment responses in Chinese context. Retrieved from http://www.modlinguistics.com/PAPERS/2002/Sunzhihui/compliments%20and%20compliment%20responses.doc〕 found similar results. At 80.5 percent, women opted for explicit compliments with other women, while 57.2 percent of the compliments paid by males to other males were explicit. Conversely, men used implicit compliments for other men, at 9.5 percent, while women used implicit compliments for other women only 2.3 percent of the time. Men also chose no response, rather than accepting or declining a compliment, 28.5 percent of the time, while women chose no response only 12.8 percent of the time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Complimentary language and gender」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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