Compliments are expressions of positive evaluation that commonly occur in everyday conversational encounters. This paper aims at raising second language cross-cultural pragmatic awareness through investigating the use of complimenting expressions in Palestinian Arabic which are related to certain social variables, namely, gender, age, education and the place of living. The results show that females use more variation in giving compliments than males and that age, place of residence, and level of education are key factors in expressing compliments; both education and age are inversely proportional with the most intimate expressions. However, the results necessitate a detailed explanation of the expressions of compliments that are used when performing the speech act in different contexts or situations. The findings provide essential pedagogical implications in second language teaching, avoiding miscommunication as much as possible so as to fulfil the purpose of communication.