nice shirt. When seen from the syntactic structure both men and women were generally consistent with the patterns:
NP is / looks (really) ADJ (eg, That shirt is so nice)
I (really) like / love NP (eg, I love your hair)
PRO is (really) (a) ADJ NP (eg, This was really a great meal)
The adjectives nice, good, pretty, beautiful, and great are more often used. Verbs such as like and love are also more prominent. However, women rely more heavily than men on the I like NP pattern which indicates a personal focus, while men use ADJ NP pattern more often. Herbert mentioned that there is a general belief that women prefer personalized to impersonalized forms, parallel with the characterization of women s style as social, affiliative, other-oriented, socioemotional, and supportive. He also states that compliments from females are longer than compliments from males.What is more interesting in the study of compliments is to see how compliments are responded by the addressees. Herbert [1990], based on his study done in 1986 and 1989 distinguished 12 types of compliment responses:
Appreciation token. A verbal or non verbal acceptance of the compliment. (E.g. Thanks, Thank you, [nod])
Comment acceptance. Addressee accepts the complimentary force and offers a relevant comment on the appreciated topic (eg, Yeah, it s my favorite too).
Praise Upgrade. Addressee accepts the compliment and asserts that the compliment force is insufficient (eg, Really brings out the blue in my eyes, doesn t it?).
Comment history. Addressee offers a comment (s) on the object complimented. (E.g., I bought it for the trip to Arizona).
Reassignment. Addressee agrees with the compliment assertion, but the complimentary force is transferred to a third person (eg, My brother gave it to me) or to the object itself (eg, It really knitted itself).
Return. As with number 5 except that the praise is shifted (or returned) to the first speaker (eg, So s yours).
Scale down. Addressee disagrees with the complimentary force, pointing to some flaw in the object or claiming that the praise is overstated (eg, It s really quite old).
Question. Addressee questions the sincerity or the appropriateness of the compliment (eg, Do you really think so?).
Disagreement. Addressee asserts that the object complimented is not worthy of praise (eg, I hate it).
Qualification. Weaker than number 9: addressee merely qualifies the original assertion, usually with though, but, well, etc. (E.g., It s alright, but Len s is nicer).
No acknowledgment. Addressee gives no indication of having heard the compliment: The addressee wither (a) responds with an irrelevant comment (ie topic shift) or (b) gives no response.
Request interpretation. Addressee, consciously or not, interpretes the compliments as a request rather than a simple compliment. Such responses are not compliment responses per se as the addressee does not perceive the previous speech act as a compliment (eg, You wanna borrow this one too?)
For women, she argued, compliments are positively affective speech acts, serving to increase or consolidate the solidarity between speaker and addressee. Across cultures, one s perception on compliments also varies. In Indonesia, for instance,...
