Compliment Responses on Twitter Among Male And Female Celebrities
Institut Profesional Baitulmal
ABSTRACT
This study illustrates how compliment responses strategies differ across gender among celebrities in Malaysia. The objective of the study is to identify the patterns and strategies of compliment responses across gender among celebrities on twitter. Forty celebrities consist of 20 males and 20 females were selected and the data was collected from their twitter accounts. A total of 220 compliments and compliment responses were extracted from the celebrities’ tweets as to form the corpus for investigation. The results indicate several differences on how compliment responses are used by men and women. Female addressees adhere to the first principle that governed the act of politeness, that is, to accept the compliment in order to give face to the complimenter. However, male addressees tend to use comment acceptance when receiving compliments. The study provides evidence for significant differences in the use of compliment responses across gender. In addition, cross-cultural differences are also discussed briefly.
KEYWORDS
compliment responses, celebrities, twitter