LINGUISTIC POLITENESS ACROSS CONGRATULATING EXPRESSIONS: A FOCUS ON GENDER ANALYSIS

Abstract

It has been acknowledged while conducting this research that social media is an important source of linguistic data due to the large number of users around the world. This paper examines the production and perception of congratulating on Social media walls. In particular, the strategies and perception of congratulating are investigated across gender: Congratulating produced by males directed to males and from females to females. The results revealed eight strategies of congratulating: typical expressions, religious expressions, proud, invocation, repetition compliment, wishing and emoticons. It has been found that congratulating serves three main functions. The first is congratulating is useful in constituting face act to both the congratulated and the congratulator. Secondly, congratulating is a motivational act that encourages people to do the best progress in different domains. The third function of congratulating serves to establish solidarity and intimacy between the members of a society. Finally, we suggested that congratulating can be examined across culturally for example a comparative study between Iraqi Arabic native speakers and British English native speakers can be valuable