Congratulation! A Case Study of Social Media Users in Jordan

Abstract

The current study aims at investigating congratulation methods by Jordanian users of social media. The study also investigates the influence of culture on speech acts of congratulation. The researchers compiled a corpus consisting of (400) messages and comments from two major social media, Facebook and WhatsApp. The data were obtained from friends' and relatives' comments regarding four occasions: religious events, graduation from (school/ university), having a baby, and getting married. They were decoded and analyzed according to Elwood’s (2004) proposed taxonomy of congratulation strategies. The quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed in analyzing the data. The results of the study showed that the most frequently used strategies of congratulation were illocutionary force indicating device (IFID), the offer of good wishes, and expression of happiness combined with using the word “Allah” (God) and prayer for the benefit of the addressee due to cultural and religious background. Culture played a significant role in the results where the religious factor was evident in the majority of employed IFID.