THE HYPERBOLIZATION OF 'ME'. A LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO SELF-PORTRAYAL IN THE VIRTUAL SPACE
Keywords:
self-portrayal, online, narcissism, communication, social media,Abstract
With the advent of social media, a recurrent theme in literature and psychology
has turned into a major concern for psychologists and social scientists due to its
blatant mismatch between a person’s real way of being and the one served as real
in the social media. ‘Grandiose narcissism’, because this is the topic taken into
consideration, has been defined as ‘a means of online self-promotion’ or ‘a way
to showcase ourselves in our best light’ (McCain & Campbell, 2016) and it has
been researched upon in complex studies carried out by researchers in
universities (e.g. ‘Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and Anti-social
Behavior,’ Carpenter, 2012). The efforts of psychologists and social scientists
can be sustained by investigations in other connected fields that might help better
understand the phenomenon and maybe find explanations for it. That is why this
paper aim at analyzing the linguistic aspects which help build the grandiose
portrayal to be composed in the social media. Vocabulary choices, preferred
grammatical structures, pragmatic aspects related to media interaction, facesaving
or face-threatening acts, etc.
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