experiences in hotels, and on the other, hotel brands seek to preserve or improve their reputation by reacting to reviewers’ comments. Furthermore, the difference in stylistic features shows very different degrees of writing skills and perception of the linguistic norm, according to the models that social actors have in mind. However, it is an initial study on a specific product (reviews of medium and high-quality hotels), which should be compared with other products or other types of accommodation. Therefore, the results of the analysis were not predictable; on the contrary, previous studies showed that digital interactions, also in the company-client sphere, prefer informal and familiar styles. In this sense, this work unveils new results, which will need further research, to discover if these are characteristics of the selected product, of the language-culture or are due to other factors.

The notion of language standard in technology-mediated communication must be applied to the analysis of styles and registers that are associated with specific discursive practices. In them, we can see to what extent the principle of adaptability (Virtannen 2017) creates linguistic habits that are consolidated in communication and that other users recognise to the point of becoming discursive conventions. However, these new habits continue to transmit / be indices of sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic information, with users projecting an image of themselves through these styles. For all the above, the communicative style of Internet users is particularly significant and relevant in the configuration of what can be considered ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ in digital writing, and perhaps one day will become part of a standard encoded for technology-mediated communication. In the words of Méndez García de Paredes, ‘custom becomes a precept when it is codified, and once it is made a norm, it is adopted as an element of judgement and establishes the model of what should be, that is, it functions as an exemplary norm’ (Méndez García from Paredes 1999: 111).

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