Claiming In-Group Membership in Online Communities

The aim of the present article is to show how the members of several Internet communities communicate online in discussion board threads focused on the so-called women’s topics, e.g. dieting or mothering, claim in-group membership via the following positive politeness strategies: 1. in-group markers, such as topic-related nicknames, diminutives and personalized address forms, terminology, special jargon related to the context of the forum with a special emphasis on acronyms, generic names and inclusive we, 2. stressing/ presupposing common ground and 3. joking. All of these strategies serve to enhance the community spirit and function as a powerful solidarity-building device, and thus serve as what Brown and Levinson refer to “social accelerators”