Compliments as Supportive Moves in Social Media Conflicts: L2 Learners’ Recognition of English Compliments.

This article investigates how Italian learners of English recognise and interpret compliments in English social-media discussion threads, focusing on conflict-laden contexts such as criticism directed at celebrities on Facebook. Using a survey-based design, we compare learners’ performance in English with their recognition of similar phenomena in Italian (L1) and with a control group of L1 English speakers. Participants judged whether comments contained compliments, localised them within threads, and interpreted their target and function. Results show that learners generally detect the presence of compliments even in conflictual exchanges, but that accurate localisation and interpretation are more challenging, especially at lower proficiency levels. Language proficiency limits recognition at lower levels, while pragmatic skills become more decisive at upper-intermediate and advanced levels. Across groups, the transparency of a comment’s evaluative orientation predicts recognition accuracy, while stance towards the public figure becomes relevant only at higher proficiency levels. Overall, the findings suggest that informal exposure to online discourse fosters rich but partial pragmatic knowledge, with limits in explicit interpretive control in complex digital genres.