Discourse of Twitter and Social Media - How We Use Language to Create Affiliation on the Web

Social media such as microblogging services and social networking sites are changing the way people interact online and search for information and opinions. This book investigates linguistic patterns in electronic discourse, looking at online evaluative language, Internet slang, memes and ambient affiliation using a large Twitter corpus (over 100 million tweets) alongside specialized case studies. The author argues that we are currently witnessing a cultural movement from online conversation to what can be termed searchable talk - online talk where people affiliate by making their discourse findable (for example, via metadata such as Twitter hashtags) by others holding similar interests. This cutting edge text will be of interest to all scholars and students dealing with electronically mediated discourse.Table of ContentPreface (by Professor Jim Martin); 1. Introduction: Social Media and the Cultural Movement Toward 'Searchable Talk'; 2. Social Media as Corpora; 3. Evaluative Language Online; 4. Internet Slang; 5. Internet Memes; 6. Internet Humour and Fail: "The world is full of No. fail tonight"; 7. Online Political Discourse; 8. Ambient Affiliation; 9. Conclusion: Social Media and Internet Linguistics; References; Appendices; Index.Review Quote[This] is a useful book that contributes valuable concepts of “searchable talk” and “ambient affiliation” to the social media literature. Moreover, it not only exemplifies its claims by means of case studies on microblogging from an interdisciplinary point of view but also informs its readers about the issues to take into account while conducting similar research. In sum, it is a great resource for those interested in pursuing research in social media.Review QuoteThe book is an interesting account of commonalities of online language. It clearly shows that users are adopting a language style that is specific to online use and that uses different signs in order to convey emotions to account for the lack of actually seeing or hearing the person that you are communicating with. The book is interesting and entertaining and some of the online inside jokes such as the "memes" are very amusing. Overall, the book is a great tool for a person interested in social networks, media and language.Review QuoteThe Discourse of Twitter and Social Media is the first, large-scale linguistic analysis of the popular micro-blogging site, Twitter. Written in a lively and accessible style, this landmark study brings together cutting edge methods from corpus linguistics with the latest work in Systemic Functional Linguistics to bring to light the ways in which our talk is being reworked in Twitter. New concepts of 'searchable talk' and 'ambient affiliation' are important for understanding not only Twitter discourse, but are also relevant to the communicative practices found in social media more widely. Exploring a wide range of topics from internet memes to online humour, The Discourse of Twitter and Social Media is useful for linguists and scholars interested in new media texts.Review QuoteAll in all, Zappavigna has produced a rounded piece of work from all aspects. But she has not settled there. Acknowledging that social media are a ‘moving target’ for scholars (Hogan & Quan-Haase 2010: 309 as cited in p. 3), she has already delved deeper into searchable talk in her most recent book (Zappavigna 2018). For certain, she will continue her substantial contribution to the field.Biographical NoteMichele Zappavigna is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia.Examination of the effects of social media innovations on electronically mediated discourse, focusing on interaction.Discourse is one of the most significant concepts of contemporary thinking in the humanities and social sciences as it concerns the ways language mediates and shapes our interactions with each other and with the social, political and cultural formations of our society. The Bloomsbury Discourse series aims to capture the fast-developing interest in discourse to provide students, new and experienced teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, ELT and English language with an essential bookshelf. Each book deals with a core topic in discourse studies to give an in-depth, structured and readable introduction to an aspect of the way language is used in real life.Guides readers on how to use in-built tools to analyze Twitter, including constructing corpora.Explains the concept of how people use online discourse to create affiliation.Offers the first corpus-based study of the discourse generated by and around social media.