| Summary: | 碩士 === 靜宜大學 === 英國語文學系研究所 === 95 === The purpose of the present study was to explore the gender language variations on compliment response behavior by Taiwan college students to explore whether different genders have their own language styles. Studies to date have concentrated on complimenting in Chinese, but little research has been done on Chinese compliment response in relation to gender difference. Therefore, the motivation of the present study was to fill the gap in previous studies on Chinese compliment behavior in relation to gender difference. Moreover, it investigated how different genders responded to various topics.
The data of the present study were based on Discourse Completion Test (DCT) questionnaires, distributed to 200 students (100 males and 100 females) at Lan-Yang Institute of Technology in Yilan. The present study employed frequency and percentage to examine whether there was a significant difference between the males’ and the females’ compliment response strategy selections.
The results show that the college students had greater tendency to accept compliments than reject them. The study indicates that the Agreement Maxim proposed by Leech (1983) has dominated their compliment response behaviors. Moreover, the males were more likely to agree with the semantic content of the compliments than the females did. When reacting to compliments on ability, the most frequently used strategy by the females was SCALE DOWN, whereas the most frequently employed strategy by the males was APPRECIATION TOKEN. Additionally, when responding to compliments on appearance, the most frequently used strategy by the females was QUESTION, whereas the most frequently employed by the males was PRAISE UPGRADE.
As a whole, the results of the present study show that acceptance, which is governed by Leech’s (1983) Agreement Maxim, has surpassed traditional rejection and has become new representative in Taiwan. However, the females and the males seem to follow different Maxims proposed by Leech (1983): the females follow the Modesty Maxim whereas the males follow the Agreement Maxim. Moreover, the females used more self-avoidance mechanisms when they responded to compliments, which also reveals that the females were more constrained to Chinese norm－modesty. Finally, the present study supports Tannen’s (1990) view that males and females have their different language styles in communication: the females’language styles are more indirect, but the males’are more assertive.
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