discourse, face, facework, expertise, online discussions, computer-mediated communication, genre, antagonism, impoliteness, discourse communities

This paper presents an analysis of supportive and antagonistic facework in online discussions on current medical topics taken from a British newspaper website. Drawing on recent approaches to face informed by social identity theory, the discourse analysis focuses not only on the individual dimension of face (as the speaker?s socially negotiated self-image), but also on its social dimension (as manifested in the formation of ad-hoc ?coalitions? or ?cliques? among the discussion participants). The paper first demonstrates that the notion of expertise is a crucially important factor in constituting participants? face when they are engaged in discussions on medical topics; discussions typically crystallize into conflicts between two opposing camps: experts vs. non-experts. The paper then moves on to outline the salient facework strategies employed by participants in the discussions, including the typical linguistic realizations of these strategies.