Abstract <p>This article is devoted to the speech act of compliment, which is treated herein as expressing the speaker’s attention and partiality to the interlocutor. The similarities and differences between speech acts of compliment and praise are analyzed, with the characteristics of compliment linked to the gender and age of the interlocutor. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of speech act and speech genre and the applicability of these concepts in analyzing the speech act of compliment. When considering compliment as an independent act, the concepts of <i>speech ac</i>t and <i>speech genre</i> serve as synonyms. When a compliment is part of a complex utterance consisting of several different speech acts, <i>speech act</i> and <i>speech genre</i> refer to disparate concepts. This article examines cases of compliment usage as an independent act (speech genre) and within other speech genres, such as requests, gratitude expressions, consolations, and condemnations, where a compliment amplifies or mitigates the speaker’s intention.</p>