Mitigation in online interactions on controversial topics: A methodological proposal

Abstract

This article puts forward a methodological proposal for the pragmatic analysis of mitigation in online written interactions, specifically in discursive genres such as the digital press forums and Twitter. Mitigation is a rhetorical and pragmatic strategy linked to the face needs and communicative goals of the participants in the communication (Albelda Marco & Briz Gómez 2020). For this reason, drawing on the existing literature concerning the selected discursive genres and on an analysis of some contributions about a controversial Spanish tradition, namely the Moors and Christians festivals, this article highlights both situational and linguistic features to be taken into account when analysing mitigation in these genres, and proposes adaptations to Albelda Marco et al.’s (2014) methodology for analysing mitigation in spoken interactions. In doing so, this study presents a methodological proposal directly suitable for analysing mitigation in online interactions in discursive genres such as digital press forums and Twitter.