Social deixis and communication on Facebook

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the grammatical category of person in Italian, taking into consideration social deixis in the communication that takes place through Facebook. Social deixis is understood here as various means by which information of social nature is coded and grammaticalizedin a language. Such information concerns the situational context of the communication, social roles of its  participants and their reciprocal relations (cfr. Levinson 1993: 83). The analysis focuses on phenomena that are related to social deixis such as personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and adjectives, verb forms, honorific titles, diminutives. Facebook has been chosen as a source of authentic material due to its expansion in Italian society, which allows a fairly detailed exam if heterogeneity of Facebook users is considered (in terms of age, sex, level of education, social group). Precisely, the paper takes into consideration 155 comments published to the profiles of three important Italian public figures: Sergio Mattarella, Matteo Renzi and Roberto Saviano.

Means of communication offered by Facebook facilitate production of everyday, colloquial language, which permits insight into natural and spontaneous realizations of social deixis.

Their decoding helps to highlight the changes that affect the rules of politeness in today’s communication. The phenomena of growing informality or infringement of good manners are caused, or at least reinforced, by the arrival of new means of communication such as Facebook, but they simply illustrate a certain tendency, already present in contemporary Italian.Their decodification helps to highlight the changes that affect the rules of politeness in today’s communication. The phenomena of growing informality or infringement of good manners are caused, or at least reinforced, by the arrival of new means of communication such as Facebook, but they simply illustrate a certain tendency, already present in contemporary Italian.