“This is NOT a #humblebrag, this is just a #brag”: The pragmatics of self-praise, hashtags and politeness in Instagram posts

Discourse, Context and Media

Volumn 22, Issue , 2018, Pages 30-38

  Matley, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

Face work; Hashtags; Impoliteness; Instagram; Positive self presentation; Self praise

Indexed keywords

EID: 85028027990     PISSN: 22116958     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2017.07.007     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Alford, H., If I Do Humblebrag So Myself. Retrieved from The New York Times, 2012 .
2. Angouri, J., Tseliga, T., “You Have No Idea What You are Talking About!” From e-disagreement to e-impoliteness in two online fora. J. Politeness Res. 6:1 (2010), 57–82, 10.1515/jplr.2010.004.
3. Arkin, R., Self-presentation styles. Tedeschi, J., (eds.) Impression Management Theory and Social Psychology Research, 1981, Academic Press, New York, 311–333.
4. BAAL, Recommendations on Good Practice in Applied Linguistics. Retrieved from, 3rd ed., 2016 .
5. Barton, D., Lee, C., Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. 2013, Routledge, London.
6. Bousfield, D., Impoliteness in the struggle for power. Bousfield, D., Locher, M., (eds.) Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, 2008, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 127–153.
7. Brown, P., Levinson, S., Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. 1987, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
8. Burgers, C., van Mulken, M., Schellens, P.J., Verbal irony: differences in usage across genres. J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 31:3 (2012), 290–310, 10.1177/0261927X12446596.
9. Burkeman, O., I'd never boast about it, but i am a master of the new art of underbragging. Retrieved from The Guardian, 2012 .
10. Chen, F.F., Jing, Y., The impact of individualistic and collectivistic orientation on the judgment of self-presentation. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 42 (2012), 470–481, 10.1002/ejsp.1872.
11. Chou, H.-T.G., Edge, N., “They are happier and having better lives than I am”: the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others’ lives. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Network. 15:2 (2012), 117–121, 10.1089/cyber.2011.0324.
12. Colston, H., Contrast and assimilation in verbal irony. J. Pragm. 34 (2002), 111–142, 10.1002/ijop.12003.
13. Culpeper, J., Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link. J. Politeness Res. 1 (2005), 35–72, 10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.35.
14. Dayter, D., Self-praise in microblogging. J. Pragm. 61 (2014), 91–102, 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.11.021.
15. Dean, W., Nobody likes a show off: the excruciating rise of the ‘Humblebrag’. Retrieved from The Independent, 2011 .
16. Dynel, M., The landscape of impoliteness research. J. Politeness Res. 11:2 (2015), 329–354, 10.1515/pr-2015-0013.
17. e-Marketer, Instagram continues double-digit growth. [Website]. Retrieved from E-Marketer, 2016 .
18. Ferdman, R., 2015, June 16. The Rise of Humblebragging, the Best Way to Make People Not Like You. The Washington Post. Retrieved from .
19. Geurin-Eagleman, A., Burch, L., Communicating via photographs: a gendered analysis of Olympic athletes’ visual self-presentation on instagram. Sport Manage. Rev. 19:2 (2016), 133–145, 10.1016/j.smr.2015.03.002.
20. Goffman, A., Forms of Talk. 1981, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
21. Helfrich, U., Face work and flaming in social media. Bedijs, K., Held, G., Maaß C., (eds.) Face Work and Social Media, 2014, LIT-Verlag, Münster, 297–321.
22. Herbert, R.K., Straight, H.S., Compliment-rejection versus compliment-avoidance: listener-based versus speaker-based pragmatic strategies. Lang. Commun. 9:1 (1989), 35–47, 10.1016/0271-5309(89)90005-0.
23. Holmberg, C., Chaplin, J., Hillman, T., Berg, C., Adolescents’ presentation of food in social media. Appetite 99 (2016), 121–129, 10.1016/j.appet.2016.01.009.
24. Holmes, J., Politeness strategies as linguistic variables. Mey, J., (eds.) The Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics, 2nd ed., 2009, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 711–723.
25. Hutcheon, L., Irony's Edge. 1995, Routledge, London.
26. Ivanko, S.L., Pexman, P.M., Context incongruity and irony processing. Discourse Process. 35:3 (2003), 241–279, 10.1207/S15326950DP3503_2.
27. Leary, M., Allen, A.B., Personality and persona: personality processes in self-presentation. J. Pers. 79:6 (2011), 1191–1218, 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00704.x.
28. Leech, G., Principles of Pragmatics. 1983, Longman, London.
29. Lee-Won, R.J., Shim, M., Joo, Y.K., Park, S.G., Who puts the best “Face” forward on facebook?: positive self-presentation in online social networking and the role of self-consciousness, actual-to-total friends ratio, and culture. Comput. Hum. Behav. 39 (2014), 413–423, 10.1016/j.chb.2014.08.007.
30. Locher, M., Bousfield, D., Introduction: impoliteness and power in language. Bousfield, D., Locher, M., (eds.) Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, 2008, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 1–13.
31. Miller, L.C., Cooke, L., Tsang, J., Morgan, F., Should I Brag? Nature and impact of positive and boastful disclosures for women and men. Hum. Commun. Res. 18:3 (1992), 364–399, 10.1111/j.1468-2958.1992.tb00557.x.
32. Moon, J.H., Lee, E., Lee, J.-H., Choi, T.R., Sung, Y., The role of narcissism in self-promotion on instagram. Person. Individ. Differ. 101 (2016), 22–25, 10.1016/j.paid.2016.05.042.
33. Page, R., Barton, D., Unger, J., Zappavigna, M., Researching Language and Social Media. 2014, Routledge, London.
34. Papacharissi, Z., Conclusion: a networked self. Papacharissi, Z., (eds.) A Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites, 2011, Routledge, New York, 304–318.
35. Pinker, S., The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts. Intercult. Pragmatics 4:4 (2007), 437–461, 10.1515/IP.2007.023.
36. Pomerantz, A., Compliment responses: notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. Schenkein, J., (eds.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, 1978, Academic Press, London, 79–112.
37. Qiu, L., Lin, H., Leung, A.K.-Y., Tov, W., Putting their best foot forward: emotional disclosure on facebook. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Network. 15:10 (2012), 569–572, 10.1089/cyber.2012.0200.
38. Reinecke, L., Trepte, S., Authenticity and well-being on social network sites: a two-wave longitudinal study on the effects of online authenticity and the positivity bias in SNS communication. Comput. Hum. Behav. 30 (2014), 95–102, 10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.030.
39. Rhodewalt, F., Madrian, J.C., Cheny, S., Narcissism, self-knowledge organization, and emotional reactivity: the effect of daily experiences on self-esteem and affect. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 24 (1998), 75–87, 10.1177/0146167298241006.
40. Rui, J., Stefanone, M.A., Strategic self-presentation online: a cross-cultural study. Comput. Hum. Behav. 29 (2013), 110–118, 10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.022.
41. Schlenker, B., Leary, M., Audiences’ reactions to self-enhancing, self-denigrating, and accurate self presentations. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 18:1 (1982), 89–104, 10.1016/0022-1031(82)90083-X.
42. Schütz, A., Audience perceptions of politicians’ self-presentational behaviors concerning their own abilities. J. Soc. Psychol. 138:2 (1998), 173–188, 10.1080/00224549809600369.
43. Scott, K., The pragmatics of hashtags: inference and conversational style on twitter. J. Pragm. 18 (2015), 8–20, 10.1016/j.pragma.2015.03.015.
44. Scott, K., “Hashtags work everywhere”: the pragmatic functions of spoken hashtags. Discourse, Context Media 22 (2018), 57–64.
45. Searle, J.R., Vanderveken, D., Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. 1985, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
46. Sedikides, C., Gregg, A.P., Hart, C.M., The importance of being modest. Sedikides, C., Spencer, S., (eds.) The Self: Frontiers in Social Psychology, 2007, Psychology Press, New York, NY, 163–184.
47. Senft, T., Microcelebrity and the branded self. Hartley, J., Burgess, J., Bruns, A., (eds.) A Companion to New Media Dynamics, 2013, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, 346–354.
48. Sezer, O., Gino, F., Norton, M., 2015. Humblebragging: A Distinct – And Ineffective – Self-Presentation Strategy. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Working Paper No. 15-080. .
49. Speer, S., The interactional organization of self-praise: epistemics, preference organization, and implications for identity research. Soc. Psychol. Quart. 75:1 (2012), 52–79, 10.1177/0190272511432939.
50. Statista, 2017. Number of monthly active Instagram users from January 2013 to April 2017. Statista [Website]. Retrieved from .
51. Suler, J., The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychol. Behav. 7:3 (2004), 321–326, 10.1089/1094931041291295.
52. Van Damme, C., Hoorens, V., Sedikides, C., Why self-enhancement provokes dislike: the hubris hypothesis and the aversiveness of explicit self-superiority claims. Self Identity 15:2 (2016), 173–190, 10.1080/15298868.2015.1095232.
53. Wittels, H., 2011, June 27. Humblebrag Hall of Fame [Website]. Retrieved from .
54. Wittels, H., Humblebrag: The Art of False Modesty. 2012, Grand Central Publishing, New York.
55. Zappavigna, M., Discourse of Twitter and Social Media. 2012, Continuum, London.
56. Zappavigna, M., Searchable talk: the linguistic functions of hashtags. Social Semiotics 25:3 (2015), 274–291, 10.1080/10350330.2014.996948.