Older and younger Facebook users: Do they differ in using hedges while making online conversations?

The present study attempts to investigate the differences between age groups in type of hedges they use while making conversation in a social network such as Facebook. To this end, Facebook comments of 20 Persian speakers who were divided in 4 groups according to their age, were collected. Using Verttala’s (2001) categorization, the researcher analyzed the data based on hedging devices they used while making online conversations. The result of the study suggests that four groups of participants are roughly similar in using hedges in order to avoid face threatening situations, whereas the difference was found in using hedging devices preceding sophisticated vocabulary and jargons.

Keywords:

Conversation Analysis , Hedges , Face-saving acts , Facebook