Complimenting behavior in Spanish political discourse on Twitter

This study explores complimenting behavior in interactions between Spanish politicians and citizens on Twitter. It adopts a corpus-based methodology, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify the topics which give rise to compliments being paid, the linguistic strategies adopted by users in their complimentary replies to politicians, and the functions of such compliments. The results show that users frequently pay compliments on the basis of performance and ability, and combine explicit and implicit compliments with congratulatory messages, requests, and advice. Finally, in terms of social functions, compliments in this context appear to enhance both the affiliative and the autonomy face of the interactants.