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    "Your kids are stinking cute": complimenting behaviour on Facebook

    Placencia, Maria Elena and Lower, A. (2012) "Your kids are stinking cute": complimenting behaviour on Facebook. (Submitted)

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    Abstract

    This paper examines complimenting behavior among members of one Facebook network of family and friends in the US. It proposes a way of selecting a corpus for analysis within the online environment under scrutiny and offers a preliminary characterization of Facebook compliments in American English in relation to the form compliments take, common objects of complimenting and the key function(s) that they perform. As part of a multimodal system of communication, compliments on Facebook are described as a kind of second-pair part of photo-initiated communication online that can be employed to reaffirm the relationship and strengthen the bonds between the interactants. The paper also explores the extent to which complimenting behavior on Facebook resembles usage that has been described for American English in face-to-face interaction. It shows that complimenting behavior on Facebook is the same in some ways but also different. The differences identified appear to be mainly related to the medium of interaction and the affordances (and restrictions) of the technology that can give rise to variations of talk or perhaps even new social practices.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): compliments, Facebook, American English, phatic communication, the Like function, social networking
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Depositing User: Maria Elena Placencia
    Date Deposited: 09 Jul 2012 09:37
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:31
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4701

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