Abstract:

With the gradual realization of globalization, English is becoming a language used by people around the world. What’s more, English has become one of the compulsory courses of students in elementary and secondary schools in China. However, English and Chinese cultures are different, so there are similarities and differences between English and Chinese speech acts. Being the study target of this thesis, compliment is a speech act which is frequently applied in social communications. Studies of compliments have shown that actually this speech act involves in many facets of social culture. This study focuses on different contrastive aspects of English and Chinese compliments, which include the compliment forms, topic distributions, compliment application and responses of compliments. The purpose of this study is to explore the similarities and differences between English and Chinese compliments and analyze the cultural implication of compliments in both English and Chinese. The findings of this study are expected to be helpful for language learners to better understand the Sino-British cultural differences so that they can use compliments properly.

Keywords: compliment; social culture; contrastive analysis

摘  要：

随着全球化的逐步实现，英语渐渐成为一门全球通用的语言，英语如今也成为中国中小学生的必修课之一。然而，由于英汉文化存在一定的差异，因此英语与汉语的交际用语存在着相似与相异之处。本文研究的对象，赞美语，是一种运用频率较高的积极的语言交际用语。许多研究都表明，这一语言行为实际上涉及社会文化的许多方面。本文从中英赞美语的形式、话题、应用及应答方面进行了对比分析。本文旨在研究中英赞美语的相似点及不同点，并分析中英赞美语所隐含的文化意义，以期达到帮助语言学习者了解中英文化差异，从而得体地运用赞美语的目的。

关键词：赞美语；社会文化；对比分析