Adaptation and Variation in Digital Communication: Discursive Markers on Social Media

Abstract

In this paper on the linguistic adaptation strategies adopted by users on social media, we present the results of a comparative quantitative-qualitative analysis of the presence and functions of Peninsular Spanish discourse markers on Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube. The objective of this study, focused on a corpus of comments and replies to multimodal content, is to identify the main markers used on the four platforms and to determine to what extent their use responds to users’ adaptation to the communicative situation (diaphasic variation). To do so, we take into account the multimodal and technical affordances of these platforms and the socio-situational parameters that characterise interaction in these environments. The analysis suggests that, on the social networks considered, speakers frequently use a small number of polyfunctional markers, such as pero, pues and claro, which are mostly used in the informal register. These allow speakers to react immediately to the news published on the platforms, modulate the illocutionary force of the utterance, express agreement or disagreement with what was previously said, and negotiate interaction in semiotically complex spaces where controversy predominates.