‘Me encanta este tipo de ideas. Grandes, niñas’: Formas de tratamiento y estrategias de cortesía usadas por jóvenes universitarios al interactuar en Instagram

The massive use of virtual social networks and the dominance of the Internet have led to a new type of socialization (van Dijk, 2016). Interaction has gone from being predominantly face-to-face to being increasingly mediated by a technological device. In this context, it is worth asking if the interactions between individuals continue to present similar logic to face-to-face communication. In other words, how is today the nature of this interaction in the users of digital platforms, if in that system predominates the social distance, and even, “a null degree of the social” (Han, 2017:12)? The aim of the study is to describe how politeness and address forms work within Instagram accounts used by chilean university students for academic purposes. To achieve this, a qualitative methodology with a descriptive scope was chosen. In the case of politeness strategies, the approaches of Haverkate (1994, 2004), Calsamiglia and Tusón, (1999), Alcoba (2002) and Kerbrat-Orecchioni, (2004) were followed, and a combination of proposals by Rigatuso (2009), Rivadeneira (2009), and others, was used to analyze the address forms. After the analysis it was observed that the compliment widely predominates as politeness strategies, but it is a condescending courtesy (Han, 2017), followed by appreciation. The preferred address forms are the appellative hyperlink (Cautín-Epifani, 2015) and, then, the verbal forms of 2nd plural person, since both senders and receivers conceive that in this space of interaction there are collectives and not only individuals