Gratitude Speech Act in Instagram: The Emergence of a Particular Genre of Language?

The present study investigated the speech act of gratitude in the context of Instagram as one of the most popular social networks. It sought to consider English and Persian users’ utilization of gratitude strategies in terms of employment of politeness strategies, intensifiers, interjections, and gender difference. To this end, 200 English Instagram posts along with 200 Persian Instagram posts were investigated. Contrary to previous findings that indicated different performances by English and Persian language speakers in real-life situations, the results of this study, after performing chi-square tests, suggested no significant difference between English and Persian users in terms of their utilization of politeness strategies, intensifiers, and interjections. Regarding gender difference, which addressed the use of both gratitude and politeness strategies for each language, for both nationalities, no significant difference was observed between female and male users within the context of Instagram. The finding may signify the emergence of a new genre of language belonging to social networks in general and Instagram in particular.