REALIZATION OF PRAISE- AND CURSE-EXPRESSING UNITS IN DIGITAL DISCOURSE: A PRAGMATIC AND DISCOURSE-ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE

The rapid expansion of social networking platforms has fundamentally transformed the ways in which evaluation, emotion, interpersonal relations, and social identity are communicated. Within digital discourse, praise and curse expressions constitute particularly significant pragmatic resources because they enable users not only to express positive or negative evaluations but also to construct identities, negotiate interpersonal relationships, establish solidarity, challenge social norms, and influence audiences. This article examines the realization of linguistic units expressing praise and curses in digital discourse from pragmatic and discourse-analytical perspectives. The analysis indicates that the interpretation of both categories is strongly dependent on context, interpersonal relationship, platform affordances, communicative intention, and audience design. A central finding of the study is that praise and curses should not be treated as simple opposites of positive and negative vocabulary. In digital environments, the same linguistic form may perform different pragmatic functions depending on interactional context. The article proposes a functional taxonomy of praise- and curse-expressing units and demonstrates how their realization is shaped by the technological environment of contemporary digital communication. The findings contribute to digital pragmatics, discourse studies, computer-mediated communication, and the study of evaluative language.