VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ ÁNH NGỌC

GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCES IN COMPLIMENTS
AND COMPLIMENT RESPONSES IN THE AMERICAN
COMEDY TV-SERIES “UGLY BETTY”
Sự khác biệt trong cách thức khen và tiếp nhận lời khen
giữa các giới trong tiếng Anh qua bộ phim truyền hình Mỹ
“Ugly Betty”

M.A. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS

Major:
English Linguistics
Major code:
60 22 15

Hanoi - 2011
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ ÁNH NGỌC

List of figures ix
INTRODUCTION 1
1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Scope of the study 2
5. Methodology 3
6. Significance of the study 3
7. Organization of the study 4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. SPEECH ACT THEORY 5
1.1.1. Austin’s speech act theory 5
1.1.2. Searle’s speech act theory 6
1.2. POLITENESS AND FACE THEORY 8
1.2.1. Notion of politeness and face 8
1.2.2. Conversational-maxim view on politeness 8
1.2.2.1. Grice’s cooperative principle 8
1.2.2.2. Leech’s politeness principle 9
1.2.3. Face-management view on politeness 11
1.2.3.1. Negative and positive face 11
1.2.3.2. Positive and negative politeness 12
1.3. COMPLIMENTS 13
1.3.1. The definition of compliments 13
1.3.2. The topics of compliments 13
1.3.3. The functions of compliments 14
v

1.4. COMPLIMENT RESPONSES 14
1.5. GENDER AND LANGUAGE 17
1.5.1. Gender and sex 17


2.3.2. Discussion of the findings on the differences in compliment response between
males and females 58
CONCLUSION 61
1. Summary of the findings 61
2. Implications 62
2.1. Intercultural communication 62
2.2. Pedagogical implications 63
3. Limitations of the study 65
4. Suggestions for further research 65
REFERENCES 67
APPENDIX
Compliments and compliment responses in the American comedy TV-series “Ugly Betty”
(Episodes 1-10, Season 1) I
1

compliments and responses in English.
Complimenting is inevitably affected by social factors including gender.
According to Tannen (1990), gender differences are parallel to cross-cultural
differences. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study the interactions between men
and women, men and men, or women and women exchanging compliments and
responses.
All those reasons stimulate the researcher to conduct a study on gender-based
differences in compliments and compliment responses in English conversations
through the American Comedy TV-series “Ugly Betty”. The people in the TV
series are not real people, but the actors are chosen to match the real ones in
2

daily life. What can be assumed is that the data would bare resemblance to real
life language. Hopefully, the study will make a contribution to the field which it
is envisioned and fill the gaps in previous research.
1.2. Aims of the study
First of all, the study sets out to investigate the gender-based differences in
compliment behavior including the frequency of compliments, compliment
topics and the functions of compliments. Secondly, the differences between
males and females in compliments response strategies are explored. The
findings will pave the way for several pedagogical implications and
intercultural communication.
1.3. Research questions
The research seeks the answers to the following research questions:
Research question 1: What are the differences in compliment behavior
between males and females?
Research question 2: What are the differences in compliment responses
between males and females?
1.4. Scope of the study
There are four seasons in this TV-series with the total of 85 episodes. However,

square results is below 0.05, i.e. they are statistically worth noting, are selected
and taken into further consideration.
2. RESULTS
2.1. The differences in compliment behavior between males and females
2.1.1. Frequency of compliments
According to Holmes (1988b), “a compliment is a speech act which explicitly
or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the
person addressed, for some „good‟ (possession, characteristic, skill, etc.) which
is positively valued by the speaker and the hearer” (p. 446).
In this study, 167 valid compliments are classified in two groups: compliments
to somebody who is present and compliments to somebody who is absent.
The results revealed that both females and males tended to compliment the ones
who were present, because the purpose of compliments is to express respect for
the hearer and the speaker also wants to get a response, whereas people who are
not present cannot give responses.
In comparison with males, females seemed to compliment ones who were
absent more than males (p = 0.005). Females complimented this type of
addressees in 30.68% and males did it in 12.66%. Because males are more
powerful than females, they usually use the voice of commands and directives
to express their feelings (Coates, 2004), which make them require more
responses. For females, they usually compliment with personalized forms
(Herbert, 1998) and just express their feelings, so they will not necessarily
receive any responses.
 Frequency of compliments from the four level perspectives: 4

Table 1: The number of compliments in the overall episodes


a
χ2 = 0.9701
,
p = 0.325
b
χ2 = 20.1317
,
p = 0.000
The data in Table 1 and 2 show that females gave more compliments than
males. However, the difference is slight (χ2 = 0.9701, p > 0.05), 52.69% in
comparison with 47.31%. It is also clear that compliments between males and
males were the fewest, only 13.17%.
The results also revealed that there was a significant difference in compliments
by gender of addressee (χ2 = 20.1317
,
p < 0.001). Females received far more
compliments than males (62.28% as opposed to 37.72%). Besides, it should be
noted that men complimented women far more often than they complimented
other men (χ2 = 20.3103, p < 0.001).
2.1.2. Topics of compliments
Regarding the topics of compliments, the present study classified them into
four types based on Herbert (1998)‟s research: appearance, possession,
performance or skill or ability, and personality.
For those ones which do not belong to the above four categories or maybe have
mixed topics, the study classified them into “Others”.
(8.77)
16
9.58%
Performance/
ability/ skill
22
(46.81)
24
(58.54)
16
(72.73)
31
(54.39)
93
55.69%
Personality
4
(8.51)
3 (7.32)
0
5
(8.77)
12
7.19%
Others
5
(10.64)
11
(26.83)
1

18/79
(22.78%)
b. By gender of addressee
24/104
(23.08%)
4/63
(6.35%)
a
χ2 = 3.8911, p = 0.049
b
p = 0.005
6

It is interesting to note that men gave more compliments on appearance than
women (χ2 = 3.8911, p < 0.05). Male – female interactions complimenting on
appearance took the first place (26.32%), female – female 19.15%, male – male
13.64%, female – male 2.44%. This is different from Holmes‟ (1988a) result:
female – female interactions complimenting on appearance accounted for the
highest percentage, 61% of the time, male - female 47%, female - male 40%
and male - male, 36% (p. 455).
In respect of the topics of Possession and Personality, the difference in the
frequency of occurrence was not statistically significant (p > 0.05).
2.1.3. Functions of compliments
Every utterance has an intention, so does a compliment. The functions of
compliments analyzed in this study were classified into eight groups (1-8)
based on the previous research and one added group (9).
(1) To express admiration or approval of someone‟s work/appearance/taste
(Herbert, 1998).
(2) To establish friendship that creates ties of solidarity (Wolfson, 1989).
(3) To replace greetings, gratitude, congratulations, thanks, or apologies

F-m
M-m
M-f
Agreement

Acceptance

APPRECIATION TOKEN
3
3
5
20
COMMENT ACCEPTANCE
3
1
1
3
PRAISE UPGRADE 2
1
Non-acceptance


2

5
QUALIFICATION 1

QUESTION
2 4
NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT
18
21
9
13
Combination
1
1

1
Total
31
30
19
50
As it can be seen from Table 5, AGREEMENT responses accounted for
35.38%, only slightly over one-third of the data. This is different from


F
M
a. By gender of complimenter
6/61
(9.84%)
25/69 (36.23%)
b. By gender of addressee
23/81 (28.4%)
8/49 (16.33%)
a
χ2 = 12.4221, p = 0.000
In respect of APPRECIATION TOKEN responses, the paradigm case of
compliment acceptance (Herbert, 1989), Table 7 reveals that the predictor of
this response type was the male gender of the complimenter, with 36.23% of
male compliments receiving this “textbook” response in comparison with only
9.84% of compliments by females (p < 0.001). Female complimentees offered
this response 28.4% as often as male complimentees (16.33%). It can be
generalized that male compliments were accepted, one way or another,
particularly by female recipients.
Table 8: AGREEMENT (ACCEPTANCE and NON-ACCEPTANCE)
responses

F-f
F-m
M-m
M-f
a. By gender of
interactants
7/31

b
χ2 = 9.9553, p = 0.002;
c
χ2 = 0.7834, p = 0.376

9

Considering simultaneously the two broad subcategories of AGREEMENT
(i.e., Acceptance and Non-acceptance), in Table 8, we can see that the
interaction type in which there was the greatest likelihood of AGREEMENT is
male – female (48%) interactions, which as noted earlier, is the preferred
interaction type for ACCEPTANCE responses. Male compliments were
generally more likely to meet with AGREEMENT responses (See Table 8(b)).
Agreements occurred in slightly more than one-third (35.38%) of the
compliment exchanges. The remaining two-thirds were comprised of the large
category of NON-AGREEMENT (62.31%), in which the compliment recipient
avoided agreeing with the content of the compliment, and the smaller category
of COMBINATION (2.31%).
Table 9: NON-AGREEMENT responses

F-f
F-m
M-m
M-f
By gender of
interactants
a
23/31
(74.19%)
23/30

F-f
F-m
M-m
M-f
a. By gender of
interactants
18/31
(58.06%)
21/30
(70%)
9/19
(47.37%)
13/50
(26%) F

M
b. By gender of
complimenter

39/61
(63.93%)

22/69
(31.88%)
c. By gender of
addressee


1995). Wolfson (1984) also took this view:
women because of their role in the social order, are seen as appropriate
recipients of all manner of social judgments in the form of compliments…
the way a woman is spoken to is, no matter what her status, a subtle and
powerful way of perpetuating her subordinate role in society. (p. 243).
In other words, she suggested that compliments addressed to women have the
same function as praise given to children, that is they serve as encouragement
11

to continue with the approved behavior. They could be regarded as patronizing,
socialization devices (Holmes, 1995).
Herbert (1989) claimed that compliments from males occurred less frequently
than compliments from females and that the “easiest” type of compliment to
collect was female – female. However, in the present study, the highest
frequency of compliment behavior was interactions between males and
females. As Mills (2003, p. 221) put it, the two genders “do not always operate
in globally different ways but that there may be patterns to the way that the
genders behave according to context and the gender of the interactants.”
With regard to the topic of compliments, Holmes (1988b) concluded that
women complimented each other on appearance more than on any other topics
and compliments on possessions were used significantly more often between
males. In contrast, the present data revealed that men gave more compliments
on appearance than women did. In addition, for both genders, the performance
or ability or skill was the most preferred topic to compliment. “The tendency
for men to compliment women on this topic may reflect women‟s subordinate
social status in the society as a whole” (Holmes, 1988b, p. 456).
In the initial discussion of the function of compliment exchanges, it was
suggested that compliments serve a number of functions in interactions. “As
positively affective speech acts, the most obvious function they serve is to oil
the social wheels, paying attention to positive face wants and thus increasing or

Husband: Gee, Hon, you look nice in that dress.
Wife: ….It’s just a rag my sister gave me.
(Pomerantz, 1978, p. 87)
Abby, Perflexed‟s friend, explains that the wife negates compliments just
because she lacks self-confidence. Pomerantz, however, proposed that her
behavior deviated from the common standards of accepting compliments.
In order to explain the high frequency of non-agreement responses, the
researcher proposed a hypothesis that it might be due to the original culture of
the analyzed characters because America is called “the country of immigrants”.
However, after examining the background of the participants, the hypothesis
was rejected since there are only two characters emigrating to the U.S.:
Christina from Scotland, the U.K; and Ignacio from Mexico.
Non-agreement responses occurred more than agreement responses may be due
to the high frequency (46.92%) of NO ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses in
the present data. It can be explained that, for most of the compliments receiving
no response, right after the compliment, the complimenter changed the topic.
Complimenting is a type of speech act that needs immediate responses, so in
those cases, when a new topic arose, the recipient did not respond to the
compliment but responded to the new topic instead. For instance:
(127): Justin: I made the frame out of chenille sticks.
Daniel: Cool! Where’s you find those?
Compliment New topic
Justin: Fabric store.
Response to the new topic
There is an important difference in the likelihood of compliment
ACCEPTANCE that depended most directly on the gender of the person giving
13

the compliment. Compliments from females would most likely not be accepted,
while compliments from males would, especially by male recipients. The

addressees, females received much more compliments than males.
Thirdly, both genders complimented others‟ performance or ability or skill
most to compliment. This result is different from the former views. Some
previous studies found that females tended to compliment others‟ appearance,
while males focused on possessions (Wolfson, 1983; Manes, 1983 and Holmes,
1988a). Besides, in this research, there was no significant statistic difference in
the choice of the two topics: Possession, Performance/ability/skill and
14

Personality between females and males, except for the topic of Appearance.
Holmes (1988a) reported that there was the highest likelihood of compliments
on appearance occurring in female – female interactions. Differently, from the
present data, it is interesting to find that male – female interactions
complimenting on appearance accounted for the highest frequency.
Fourthly, similar to Herbert‟s finding (1989), females used compliments most
often to establish, confirm or maintain solidarity while male compliments more
often offered admiration.
Fifthly, in terms of compliment responses, different from most of the findings
in previous studies, there was more likelihood of non-agreement than
agreement in this research. It may be due to the high frequency of NO
ACKNOWLEDGMENT responses.
In particular, the interactions between males and females accounted for the
highest percentage of AGREEMENT. With a view to ACCEPTANCE
responses, compliments offered by males were more likely to be accepted than
compliments offered by females. Considering Appreciation Token responses,
the predictor of this type was the male gender of the complimenter. The results
also revealed that the least likely scenario for NON-AGREEMENT occurred in
the male – female interaction type while female compliments, especially those
addressed to males were more likely to meet with this sort of NON-
AGREEMENT.

Furthermore, a cross-culture study can be conducted to find out the differences
in compliment behavior and compliment responses between English native
speakers and non-English native speakers.
Last but not least, since the characters in a TV-series are fictional ones, it is
highly recommended that further research should collect materials from
naturally-occurring situations with the help of other methods such as
conversation analytic approach. The marvelous and systematic methods used in
conversation analysis (CA) are of great help in exploring the strategies
concerning organization and development of on-going talk, as well as the usage
of linguistic devices in certain structural organizations. According to Levinson
(1983), it is CA with its elaborate techniques for the analysis and explanation of
conversational mechanisms that can provide substantial insights into these
matters, simply because conversation is the very place where people „do things
with words‟ together, and „the prototypical kind of language use‟ (p. 284).
Seeing the sound reason for CA to be applied to the study of speech acts,
Levinson (1983) proposed:
Nearly all the pragmatic concepts … claimed to tie in closely with
conversation as the central or most basic kind of language usage … the
proper way to study conversational organization is through empirical
techniques, this suggests that the largely philosophical traditions that have
given rise to pragmatics may have to yield in the future to more empirical
kinds of investigation of language usage. (p. 285)
Therefore, the synthetic approach of CA could be adopted to investigate the
speech act of compliments within and across languages and cultures.
I

REFERENCES
Blum-Kulka, S., House, J., & Kasper, G. (1989). Cross-cultural pragmatics: Request and apologies. Norwood, NJ: Ablex
Publishing Company.
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University

II

Wolfson, N. (1984). Pretty is as pretty does: A speech act view of sex roles. Applied Linguistics, 5(3).
Wolfson, N. (1988). The bulge: A theory of speech behavior and social distance. In J. Fine (Ed.), Second language
discourse: A textbook of current research (pp. 21-38). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Wolfson, N. (1989). Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Wolfson, N., & Manes, J. (1980). The compliments as a social strategy. Interactional Journal of Human Communication,
13(3), 410-451.
Yule, G. (1996). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Betty: Thanks, Dad.
11
Daniel: I never saw that layout you made until tonight. I thought it was smart. And beautiful.
Betty: Thank you.
12
Ignacio: You look way too young to be anyone’s boss.
Daniel: I’ve gotten that before.
13
Bradford: Good work
Daniel: This idea was actually…
14
Daniel: Nice place.
Betty: We’re just in between interior designers.
15
Daniel (-Betty): She appears to be good. Capable. A go-getter.
16
Marc: Nice, you stole the good stuff.
Justin: Thanks.
17
Amanda: Hi! Love your highlights!
Kate: Me, too.
18
Betty (- Amanda): You’re being so thoughtful.
19
Wilhelmina: Good work, darling.
Marc: So did you leak the pictures?
20
Wilhelmina: Very good.
21
Kate: I like that bunny.

Betty: Daniel, your first issue was a big success.
Daniel: It wasn’t my issue, and you know it. I just signed my initials to lots of memos.
37-38
Betty: That cover shoot you did for "Rolling Stone" - wow, that was amazing.
Bianchi: Oh, thank you. You have excellent taste.
39
Wilhelmina: Daniel, I for one, think it’s wonderful you’ve taken such initiative at the magazine.
40
Betty (- Vincent Bianchi): Yeah, he’s really amazing.
41-42
Betty (- Vincent): This one right here this is my favorite. He’s amazing.
He’s shot everyone from, like, Madonna to the Dalai Lama.
43-46
Kenny: You’re a legend.
Betty: Me?
Kenny: You saved the Fabia layout in your first week.
Betty: Oh, no. No, no, no, no. It didn’t happen like that.
Kenny: What is your secret?
Betty: Um just, uh, doing my job.
Kenny: And she’s modest, too.
47
Justin: You’d be perfect for my school project.
Betty: Oh, yeah. If it’s okay with your mum.
48
Justin: You’re a celebrity. The Meade security guard knows your name!
Betty: Thanks!
49
Daniel: Good point.
Wilhelmina: Thank you.
50

Fabia: Good.
61
Nico (- Wilhelmina): How proud you must be.
62
Sofia Reyes (- Daniel): The only one in this room who was born into his job.
63
Betty: Sofia Reyes. She she’s a best - selling author.
64
Wilhelmina: Do you know Rodrigo in styles?
Betty: Sure. He has great taste. Impeccable,
65
Wilhelmina: It’s the greatest lesson the senator ever taught me.
66
Betty: You’re our rock, dad.
67
Bradford: Meade publishing launches a new weekly targeting the empowered modern woman.
The point is, that I wish to introduce the best-selling author and editorial brains behind our new magazine,
“M.Y.W.,” Sofia Reyes.
68
Daniel (- Sofia): She was ten steps ahead of me on every point.
69-71
Daniel (- Sofia) I mean, it’s gotta be smarter.
You know, skillful.
Something profound.
Jewelry!
72-73
Sofia: Betty, I’ve got something for you. This one’s nice and dry.
Betty: Wow, that's so nice. Thank you.
74
Sofia (- Betty) You’re my key demographic for “M.Y.W.”