Linguistic Characteristics of Chinese and English Compliments and Responses: A Contrastive StudyAbstract: As a general rule, everyone in the world is in sympathy with compliment, which is like the lubricant in daily life. The Chinese culture, and English culture alike, has its own ways of expressing compliments. From the contrastive point of view, their forms, content, and responses are greatly influenced by their own communicative cultures, understandings of politeness and other factors. China and Britain have begun to contact with each other for a long time. It is no doubt that the accommodation of compliments has become deeper and deeper. Further research on this topic is still certainly needed in future. The language and culture are changing, so, further contrastive study about the changes of compliments may have significant researching value. Keywords: compliment; response; linguistic characteristics; contrastive study; cross-cultural communication英汉称赞语与回应的语言特征研究摘要：一般说来，每个人都对称赞语充满好感，它就像是日常生活中的润滑剂。对于称赞语，中英文化都有属于自己的表达方式。从对比分析的角度来看，受交际文化，对礼貌的理解的差异等其它因素的影响，中英称赞语的形式，内容和应答都有各自的一些规律，当然也不乏共同点。中英两国人民的交往由来已久，他们对彼此之间的称赞语也表现出越来越强的适应性。文化是不断发展、进步的，而语言作为文化的载体也一直在吸收新的元素，因此，对中英称赞语的研究有很高的使用价值和学术意义。关键词：称赞语；回应；语言特征；对比研究；跨文化交际Contents1. Introduction.12. Compliments.22.1 The denotative and connotative meaning of compliment.22.2 Classifications of compliment.2 2.3 Communicative functions of compliment.33. Contrastive Study of Compliments.4 3.1 Commons.43.1.1 In form.43.1.2 In content.6 3.2 Differences.73.2.1 In form.73.2.2 In content.74. Contrastive Study of Responses84.1 Chinese compliment responses.84.2 English compliment responses.105. Current Developments of Compliments and Responses.115.1 Cultural background being understood deeper.115.2 Conceptualization of compliments refreshed.126. Analysis of Factors Leading to the Differences in Compliments136.1 Communicative culture.136.2 Politeness.136.3 Interlocutors relationship.147. Conclusion.14References.16Acknowledgements.17iii1. IntroductionA compliment is a frequent speech act or an act sequence (Wolfson, 1989:1), and it is “a polite speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the person addressed, for some good (possession, characteristics, skill, etc.) which is positively valued by the speaker and hearer” Holmess (1988:446). It follows naturally that compliment is important speech act that plays a vital role in peoples daily interaction. Influenced by cultural background and other factors, however, the Chinese and the English have their own understanding of and attitudes towards compliments and compliment responses.In order to use Chinese and English compliments appropriately, we should pay attention to the relationship between culture and language. Without exaggeration, language is the basic tool for peoples communication, on one hand, we learn about other people through the content they express and the way that they say; on the other hand, we learn about ourselves through the reaction given by our listeners. Culture is “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tyler, 1871:1), or “the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar and Porter, 2000: 12). Language is a miniature of culture, and to some extent culture constrains languages development (Sapir, 1949). In conclusion, culture and language are keenly related to each other. Such being the case, if the Chinese and the English want to communicate with each other without obstacles, they should have some knowledge of cultural connotations hidden behind the Chinese and English languages, especially their compliments customs and linguistic characteristics. This thesis is thus motivatedly a contrastive study of Chinese and English compliments from cultural distinctions.2. Co