Language and Technology – Lesson Four Social Media Starter: feedback from homework. What did you notice about the way language is used on these websites? Explain with reference to: How public the forum is The topic of conversation The power/intimacy of participant relationships The purpose of talk

Shortis (2000) – features of electronic texts Enables storage and transmission of diverse information. – This is huge – imagine the sheer amount of information available on Google, in comparison to print texts! – Digital storage is not perhaps as durable as we think! Includes electronic typed text and/or digitised information. – Almost any source can be ‘digitised’ and then transmitted – Some argue that this ‘impoverishes’ social interaction: Moore (2005) refutes this by saying that a greater range of tools are placed at our disposal, and the end user can then use the ones that best fit their needs Allows instant communication across geographical space. – These communications are increasingly widely available – not the preserve of technology specialists or the wealthy/powerful

Shortis (2000) – features of electronic texts Can be linked to other electronic texts and processes. – We can now control central heating through our phones... Keeps a record of its "history" automatically. Echoes previous genres and technologies. Challenges notions of fixity and authority. Is conducive to new patterns of spelling and punctuation, and use of symbols. – Although we have ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ spellings due to dictionaries/printing processes and conventions, in digital texts, spelling/grammar seem to be less strictly controlled – users seem more interested in the ideas and attitudes expressed. – Emoticons/smileys are used as paralinguistic clues, but as Crystal notes below: "Very few of them are ever used. Surveys of and chatgroups suggest that only about 10 per cent of messages actually use them, and then usually just the two basic types - :) and :(. Yet they still exercise a fascination: as an art form, or for entertainment." Crystal, D (2004), A Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak. 119

Boyd (2014) – categorising of YouTube commenters Boyd, M. (2014) (New) participatory framework on YouTube? Commenter interaction in US political speeches Journal of Pragmatics. 72: 46—58.

Commenting is seen as crucial to the way YouTube operates However, the majority of YouTube users are simply ‘watchers’ and ‘readers’ There is a difference seen with unregistered users only able to like/dislike a video or comment, while logged in/registered users able to comment. Antagonistic comments are common and are often homophobic, xenophobic/racist, crude and flippant. Sometime this is accepted or even encouraged by some users who use this to increase the ‘watched’ rating or move the conversation higher on the ‘most discussed’ list. However, this might also discourage other users from participation on YouTube in different ways.

Discussion: in what ways is Boyd’s analysis of YouTube users similar/different to the social network you looked at?

Linguistic features of social media websites – Cutting’s (2011) analysis of Facebook Imperatives Synthetic personalisation Positive politeness strategies Register? Interrogatives (these begin an adjacency pair when we complete an action in response to the question) Graphology shaping discourse (how long ‘should’ statuses/comments be?) Can you identify these features on the extracts from Facebook on the worksheet? In what ways does the website you looked at share/differ form these characteristics?

READING Read the two articles by Dan Clayton about the language used online. – eMag 69, p. 47 ‘Analysing Online Texts’ – eMag 70 p. 29 ‘Computer Mediated Communication Part 2’ How do these articles help you understand some of the features you identified?

Homework Paper 2 Question 1 – discursive essay Discuss the idea that technology has altered the ways we can communicate. You should use your own supporting examples and the data in Texts A and B. AO1: Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated terminology and coherent written expression (10 marks) AO2: Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use (20 marks)

Boyd (2014) – categorising of YouTube commenters Boyd, M. (2014) (New) participatory framework on YouTube? Commenter interaction in US political speeches Journal of Pragmatics. 72: 46—58. ‘Logged in users often engage in dialogue with other users through text commenting, a practice that Chau (2011:67) sees as being ‘‘crucial to the way the community operates’’.’ (47) ‘text comments can also exhibit a high degree of antagonistic behaviour [...] many antagonistic comment practices include flippant, crude, sexist, racist and homophobic remarks, which may offend other users and ‘complicate’ interaction on YouTube (Lange, 2010) discouraging many users from certain types of participation on YouTube (Lange, 2007b). Furthermore, some users may even favour hateful comments they can still be used to generate higher counts so that the video can be included in the ‘most discussed’ category. ’ (48) ‘In the role of liker/disliker they can interact with the other commenters and the original video, while in that of commenter they can adapt different strategies in their commenting, which for the most part fall within two roles: constructive and disruptive commenter.’ (56) ‘We should not forget, however, that the overwhelming majority of YouTube participants remain watchers and readers.’ ‘while often ignored, antagonistic behaviour by commenters is accepted by some users and can often be seen as increasing participation among commenters.’