Language Differences in English Cross-gender Communication from the Pragmatic Perspective: Based on Desperate Housewives

Gender difference is a universal social phenomenon in verbal communication. Through analyzing English cross-gender conversations from the pragmatic perspective, the author makes a comparison on the abidance and infringement of cooperative principle, politeness principle and face theory between males and females. The result shows that females tend to adopt a cooperative attitude, follow politeness principle and maintain others' face while males tend to violate cooperative principle and politeness principle and threaten others' face.