Comparisons of British English and American English in the past have concentrated on similarities and differences at the phonetic, semantic, and syntactic level, while overlooking variation at the socio-cultural level. This paper examines how cultural differences are reflected in five speech acts: requesting, thanking, apologizing, complimenting, and greeting. After a report of a preliminary study of interviews with eight Americans and four Britons regarding cross-cultural speech act differences, the paper analyzes compliment data collected in both Great Britain and the United States. Results show that despite sharing an essentially common linguistic system, the rules for complimenting differ significantly cross culturally. Given the current trend of teaching language and culture simultaneously and given that American and British dialects serve as models of language instruction throughout the world, it is argued that consideration be given to such differences by English-as-a-Second-Language textbook writers, teachers, and students. (Author/LB)