Source: created by the author

As we can observe, the most frequent markers on the three social networks are the connectors, on one hand, and the con-versational markers, on the other, although, the connector pero, the structurer pues and the epistemic mode marker claro are clearly the most frequent. Also utilised are the additive connectors encima, además, incluso and sobre todo, while the conversational hombre, bueno, vamos and ¿eh?, though they do appear in the three sub corpus, are particularly used in comments on Facebook and YouTube. The specifier por ejemplo. figures more sporadically. Reformulators such as en fin (recapitulative), o sea (explicative) or la verdad (argumentative reinforcement), which are common in fora and comments in the press (Landone, 2012; Pano Alamán, 2015) have little more than an anecdotic presence in these social networks, not even reaching ten occurrences.

As regards frequency (# of occurrences) of use by type and network (Fig. 1), we can state that the usage of connectors and conversational markers is greater than that of the structurers, followed at a certain distance by the discourse operators. All four types are employed in comments on YouTube, while connectors are utilised more frequently on Twitter than other types. In the case of Facebook, users also frequently employ connectors, with a lesser presence of conversational markers and of the structurer pues.