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Complimenting Behavior and (Self-)Praise across Social Media: New contexts and new insights
Edited by María Elena Placencia and Zohreh R. Eslami
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 313] 2020
► pp. 237–262

Chapter 10
“I want your brain”

Complimenting behavior in online Over by Over cricket commentary

| Università degli Studi di Milano

This chapter examines complimenting behavior in Over by Over cricket commentary (OBO), a hybrid online genre with a conspicuous level of audience participation. The genre is defined and described and its social media credentials are assessed. The resulting picture is of an asymmetrical and time-bound virtual grouping in which simulated interactions between journalists and readers are increasingly to the fore.

A significant presence of compliments was noted in preliminary readings. For insights into their forms and function, a corpus of commentary on two days’ play in separate international cricket matches was analyzed for complimenting content. Contrary to findings in previous studies for other social media, although direct explicit compliments comprised the majority, most occurred in non-formulaic patterns. A number of explanations for this are proposed.

Keywords: sports discourse, Over by Over commentary, social media, webpage assemblies, non-formulaic compliments, male talk, infotainment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sports discourse pre-web 2.0
  • 3.Over by Over cricket commentary
    • 3.1The social credentials of OBO
    • 3.2OBO as virtual congregation
    • 3.3Social relations in OBO
  • 4.Relevant literature
  • 5.Data selection and coding issues
    • 5.1Data selection issues
    • 5.2Data coding issues
  • 6.Complimenting behavior in OBOs: Results
    • 6.1Compliment givers and receivers
    • 6.2Compliment types
      • 6.2.1Direct and indirect vs. explicit and implicit compliments
      • 6.2.2Direct explicit and implicit compliments
        • 6.2.2.1Direct explicit compliment patterns
        • 6.2.2.2Direct implicit compliment patterns
      • 6.2.3Indirect explicit compliments
      • 6.2.4Indirect implicit compliments
      • 6.2.5Distribution of routine and non-routine compliments
    • 6.3Topics of compliments
    • 6.4The function of compliments in OBO
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.313.10hea
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