| Acknowledgements | 第1-5页 |
| Abstracts(in Chinese) | 第5-7页 |
| Abstracts(in English) | 第7-8页 |
| Contents | 第8-11页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第11-16页 |
| ·Preliminaries | 第11页 |
| ·Rationale of the Study | 第11-13页 |
| ·Methodology | 第13-15页 |
| ·Organization of the Thesis | 第15-16页 |
| Chapter Two Overview of Compliments From the Perspective of Theory | 第16-30页 |
| ·Communicative Competence | 第16-20页 |
| ·Sociolinguistic Competence | 第20-22页 |
| ·Cooperative Principle | 第22-26页 |
| ·The Principle of Politeness | 第26-30页 |
| ·Politeness | 第27页 |
| ·Rationale of Politeness | 第27-30页 |
| Chapter Three A General Study on Compliments | 第30-48页 |
| ·The Definition of Compliment | 第30-32页 |
| ·The Different Linguistic Forms of English and Chinese Compliments | 第32-40页 |
| ·The Different Semantic Patterns of English and Chinese Compliments | 第33-35页 |
| ·The Different Syntactic Patterns of English and Chinese Compliments | 第35-40页 |
| ·The Different Topics of English and Chinese Compliments | 第40-43页 |
| ·Topics of Compliments | 第40-43页 |
| ·Personal Appearance | 第41页 |
| ·Results of Skills and Efforts | 第41-42页 |
| ·Personality | 第42-43页 |
| ·The social Functions of English and Chinese Compliments | 第43-48页 |
| Chapter Four The Responses to Compliments | 第48-79页 |
| ·The Primary Strategies on Responses to English Compliments | 第53-66页 |
| ·Herbert's Taxonomy of American English Compliment Responses | 第54-66页 |
| ·The Primary Strategies on Responses to Chinese Compliments | 第66-70页 |
| ·Chen's Taxonomy of Chinese Compliment Responses | 第68-70页 |
| ·Comparison of American English and Chinese Compliment Responses | 第70-72页 |
| ·The Factors Influencing the Reality of Complimenting Behavior | 第72-79页 |
| ·Sex | 第73-74页 |
| ·Position and Status | 第74-75页 |
| ·Closeness | 第75-76页 |
| ·Culture | 第76-79页 |
| Chapter Five The Cross-Cultural Comparison of English and Chinese Compliments | 第79-85页 |
| ·Cultural Differences in Semantic and Syntactic Formulas | 第79-81页 |
| ·Cultural Differences in Compliment Topics | 第81-83页 |
| ·Cultural Differences in Response Formulas | 第83-85页 |
| Chapter Six The Applications of the Comparative Study of English and Chinese Compliments | 第85-90页 |
| ·The Applications to Cultural Exchanges between China and Western Countries | 第85-88页 |
| ·The Applications to English Teaching | 第88-90页 |
| Chapter Seven Conclusion | 第90-93页 |
| References | 第93-96页 |
