In recent years, the users’ performance of face-work strategies online has emerged in literature as a challenging issue requiring more thorough investigation. Indeed, as we spend more of our time interacting via various technologies, there is growing interest in how interlocutors respond to potential face-tensions in CMC settings. Further, users are consuming and producing content originally written in a multiplicity of cultural contexts and languages: multilingualism has become a pervasive feature of the current digital environment.
Against this background, the main research objective of the project is to refine and extend the study of face-work practices online. The project will explore the peculiarities of this linguistic phenomenon broadening the existing knowledge in three ways: (1) Adopting a cross-linguistic perspective, in contrast to the predominantly monolingual Anglo-centric perspective and mirroring the current multilingual reality of the web 2.0; (2) Focusing on digital B2C and C2B contexts, as, to date, most studies concentrated on face-work practices in interpersonal social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter; (3) Adopting a cross-platform approach, comparing face-work practices on different platforms (TripAdvisor, Booking.com & Airbnb).
This project positions itself in an intersection between digital (business) communication, discourse analysis and comparative linguistics.