TripAdvisor y actos de habla. Delimitaciones teóricas y propuestas metodológicas para el análisis de las estrategias de atenuación de los actos directivos

TripAdvisor is a relevant sample of Tourism 2.0. Due to the characteristics of this type of discourse, the “opinions” turn into directive speech macroacts, in which acts of a different nature converge. Hence the opinions published on TripAdvisor go beyond the limits of mere information to become directive acts, as the commentator is involved in the construction of a sort of guide to help other travellers. Consequently, the aims of this paper are, on the one hand, to categorize the different types of so-called “reviews” into: suggestions, advices, recommendations and warnings. On the other hand to analyze the mitigation strategies which are used when the speech acts are carried out. The results display a tendency that suggests the distinction between suggestions, recommendations, advices and warnings. This tendency is based on mitigation strategies, different factors such as power, the speaker’s will, the balance cost-benefit to the addressee, and the ratings that have established by TripAdvisor: “excellent”, “very good”, “average”, “poor” and “terrible”. The consideration of these variables has permitted us to observe the existence of a continuum of speech acts that correspond to different degrees of mitigation strategies and that also depend on TripAdvisor’s rates and the mechanisms that are used for producing the act.