Opinion and mitigation in the Spanish digital press

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to expand the analysis of mitigation on comments published by readers in the Spanish digital press. In particular, the paper discusses the results of a quantitative and qualitative study of the main forms of mitigation used in assertive acts within a corpus of political comments published in El País. The analysis tries to identify the main linguistic forms of mitigation adopted in this genre of digital discourse and their functions, taking into account the possible effects of their use on speakers’ faces. The results show that in this context there is a predominant use of mitigators, which allow for avoiding or reducing the speaker’s commitment to what she says, as a self-protection strategy.