Complimentary Language And Gender
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." 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.
Read more about Complimentary Language And Gender: Same-gender Compliments, Opposite-gender Compliments, Compliment Responses, Cross-cultural Overview of Compliments
Famous quotes containing the words language and/or gender:
“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)