ch 8 Online Communities and Internet Linguistic Practices
Online Communities and Internet Linguistic Practices
Many communities are now formed, maintained, or challenged online through linguistic interactions via computers, cell phones, or tablets.
These technologies should be viewed within broader social, historical, and political contexts, termed "sociotechnical systems."
(Pfaffenberger 1992; Marx, L. 2010)
Online communities are embedded in complex webs of relationships and lived experiences that span across people and objects, as well as between "real life" and the cyber world.
Language use, values, and priorities are shaped by cultural norms and power dynamics within societies.
Technology is a product of social relations (Dunbar-Hester 2020:12; cf. Oldenziel 2006).
Technologically mediated linguistic interactions are intertwined with other forms of communication (Gershon 2010:14), whether in casual socializing, professional exchanges, or hashtag activism (Bonilla and Rosa 2015).
Literacy is central to many technologically mediated interactions.
Written texts often play a significant role in online communities, interwoven with orality.
Technologically mediated linguistic conventions can change rapidly (Jones and Schieffelin 2009).
Online Literacy Practices
Language is constantly changing, with linguistic practices differing between generations.
Linguistic shifts are often initiated by younger people and women (McCulloch 2019:34).
Conventions for written language are changing rapidly.
Changes in language use are accompanied by changes in social practices.
Changes in how people talk lead to language ideologies.
Capitalization, Punctuation, and Emojis
Conventions around capitalization, punctuation, and emojis in online writing have changed rapidly since the early 2000s.
These practices help to communicate a "typographical tone of voice" to convey nuances of mood or meaning (McCulloch 2019:109ff).
Using all capital letters can be interpreted as SHOUTING OR EXTREME EMPHASIS (Barton and Lee 2013:88), or a lack of familiarity with online conventions.
Many online writers use no capital letters at all.
This is not necessarily laziness; people often go to extra lengths to avoid capitalization due to default settings on devices (McCulloch 2019:141; cf. Scott 2019).
Capitalizing the first letters of only some words can indicate that they are Very Important, either genuinely or sarcastically.
RANDOM capitalization can represent a mocking or childish tone.
Capitalization can convey subtle meanings, index specific identities, or reference group membership.
Online punctuation use can differ from standards for formal writing.
Periods at the end of a phrase or sentence in texting can indicate annoyance, anger, or passive aggressiveness (Crair 2013).
Ellipses can convey different meanings online compared to offline, often interpreted differently by younger and older people.
Younger people tend to read ellipses as ominous (Devlin 2019).
Ellipses were common in postcards and Nepali love letters in the past (McCulloch 2019:96–8; Ahearn 2001a:125).
“Comma ellipsis” (the use of several commas in a row) might convey a more emotional or comedic tone (Devlin 2019).
Triple commas can indicate drama, annoyance, or emphasis.
Tildes (~) can indicate elongation of a word or sarcasm.
In English, tildes at first seemed to indicate elongation of a word (e.g., "sorrrryyy!")
More recently they convey sarcasm (McCulloch 2019:137).
In Southeast Asia, tildes elongate words to convey cuteness or playfulness.
Example (Japanese): yes ~~~, hai ~~~.
This usage is associated with bilingualism or being a fan of Japanese culture (McCulloch 2019:131).
Hashtags (#) can tag events or reference themes, opinions, inside jokes, or other meta-commentaries.
Emojis allow writers to convey tone more effectively by adding images to their text.
They are a kind of meta-commentary that enables online writing to express more of the communicative nuances that are present in face-to-face conversations.
Emojis are iconics or emblems because they resemble what they represent.
Online practices are multifunctional, context-dependent, and variable.
Language ideologies about online writing practices often relate to perceived statuses, identities, or community memberships.
Online Communities, Relationships, and Social Media
The concept of "speech community" needs to be revised to understand linguistic practices on the internet.
Writing is often central in building relationships and communities online, as are images, audio, and video.
Apply the concept of "affordances," defined as the likelihoods and limitations produced by an environment (Mena 2019; cf. Hutchby 2001:444).
Example: Twitter's 280-character limit.
Social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics influence how technology is used and interpreted.
Different social media platforms lend themselves to different types of linguistic practices because of their unique affordances.
"Media ideologies" refers to judgments and opinions about various types of social media and digital communication (Gershon 2010:3).
Media ideologies shape the way people use media.
Concerns exist that online linguistic practices might be having a deleterious effect on cognition.
Nicholas Carr (2011) argues that internet reading practices encourage skimming but discourage reflection.
New technologies are often accompanied by public consternation about their effects on language use, attention spans, authenticity of authorship, and social relations.
Example: Worry that typewriters would encourage anonymity (Manning and Gershon 2013:127).
Example: The telephone upended norms established through written word and face-to-face conversation (McCulloch 2019:198).
Over time, many of these effects will either disappear or come to be taken for granted.
Who’s Zoomin’ Who?
The coronavirus pandemic has had many effects on linguistic and social interactions.
The rapid switch to Zoom (or other videoconferencing platforms) in early 2020 led to articles about "Zoom fatigue."
Videoconferencing is nearly a replication of face-to-face interaction but not quite, and it depletes our energy (Blum 2020).
Reasons for Zoom fatigue:
Disrupted synchronizing of split-second turn-taking due to audio lags or video freezes.
Especially true for signers who may have to adjust their signing to compensate for visibility issues
Difficulty meeting the gaze of other participants.
Distracting or anxiety-producing self-image.
Videoconferencing became a mandatory way to connect, which is less satisfying than face-to-face.
Collapsed contexts: The same space is now a classroom, an office, a bar, or a friend’s apartment.
Other sources of stress and fatigue, such as health concerns, economic and childcare challenges, and social and political upheavals.
Videoconferencing has provided opportunities to connect, however imperfectly.
There will be opportunities to study these shifts in linguistic practice more systematically.
Online Avatars
Paul Manning and Ilana Gershon (2013) analyze how identities and actions are constructed online.
They analyze the creation and use of avatars in Ryzom, an online science fiction game.
Initially, the offline player encounters in an online character a nonhuman other that is obdurate and recalcitrant.
As they come to control it fluidly and skillfully, they come to identify with it, producing a composite hybrid agent known as a ‘player character’ (2013:119).
"Alts" (alternate characters) serve as silent servants of a main player character.
The process of embodying or controlling multiple player characters and alts sheds light on how online interactions can differ from offline interactions.
Animation: The bringing to life of an alt in a way that does not involve the player’s full-fledged identification with the alt.
An alt is something to be controlled, not an identity to be assumed or performed.
Performance: The way that a person will perform the identity of a player character.
Ryzom players use pronouns differently for main characters versus alts.
In another example, multiple people animate a single online persona; Nadone's friends co-author a breakup letter on MySpace.
The affordances of the Facebook platform lead users to assume that there is a single animator/author/principal.
Gershon’s research demonstrated that when breaking up, many of the people she studied involved others in the composition of the message and the decision of which modality to use for the breakup.
Affordances of Instagram differ from Facebook, but the same issues arise around presentations of self through multimodal practices that merge text and images.
Scott Ross (2019) describes implications in “Being Real on Fake Instagram: Likes, Images, and Media Ideologies of Value.”
“Each social media platform has a different purpose, audience, style, and animated self” (Ross 2019:371).
The young women in Ross’s study maintained an official ("rinsta") account and a fake ("finsta") account.
They posted images that they felt illustrated their authentic selves on their finstas (fake Instagrams) and more filtered or retouched images on their “real” Instagrams.
Ross reported that the women seemed very aware that social media shapes their identities.
Becoming occupied by a social network is to internalize its gaze (Alang 2016).
Research participants animate multiple Instagram personae in their two accounts.
Multiple people were sometimes animating a single Instagram persona as well.
Ross’s research participants had not just one media ideology for Instagram but two, and they were in dialogue with each other.
So Close and yet so Far
Farzad Karimzad and Lydia Catedral’s study of Uzbek and Iranian migration discourse analyzes benefits and drawbacks of new communication technologies.
Migrants can be in touch more often via Facebook or Telegram.
Keeping in touch may not entail feeling connected (2018:311).
Mohigul notes that some images and messages make her recognize how different her life and values are from her family’s.
Mohigul:
Yea: I mean just off if I’m on Facebook and the news feeds that I get from peo- from my generation of people who are in Uzbekistan raising their kids there, and (.) and then my friends who have moved to US and it’s it’s a stark difference.Before social media, these differences might have emerged through letters, phone calls, or visits.
Facebook facilitates a more immediate and ongoing sense of difference and disconnection from her homeland (Karimzad and Catedral 2018:298).
New technologies and their use are invoked not only as the means through which information about a changed home is available, but also as a big part of the change itself (Karimzad and Catedral 2018:304).
Linguistic anthropologists experience similarly complex feelings about new communication technologies.
Researchers can stay in touch with research participants in distant field locations, even after returning home.
Gabriela Modan (2016) notes that friending participants on Facebook can raise thorny ethical questions and reconfigure relationships.
Explanation and honoring promises of confidentiality given how notoriously lax social media can be when it comes to privacy are challenging.
Researchers should confront issues relating to social media connections with their research participants.
Conclusion
The study of online linguistic practices brings challenges and potential.
Linguistic anthropologists explain how language changes on the internet, how selfhood is constructed, how communities are formed, and how relationships are strengthened, weakened, or broken online.
Several scholars prefer Goffman’s concept of animation when it comes to multiple online personae rather than a more standard approach involving the performance of identities. In the next chapter, we turn to a deeper exploration of performance and performativity.
The author asserts that online linguistic practices are transforming the way we communicate, form communities, and express identities. This transformation is deeply intertwined with technological advancements and broader social, historical, and political contexts. The author argues that online language is not merely a reflection of offline communication but a dynamic and evolving phenomenon with its own unique conventions and implications.
To support this argument, the author outlines how traditional concepts like "speech community" need revision and highlights the central role of writing, images, audio, and video in building online relationships and communities. The author uses examples such as the changing conventions of capitalization, punctuation, and emojis to illustrate how online communication creates a "typographical tone of voice" that conveys nuanced meanings. The varying interpretations of periods and ellipses between generations further highlight the dynamic nature of online language.
Moreover, the author draws upon studies of online avatars and migration discourse to demonstrate how technology influences identity construction and social connections. The analysis of “rinsta” and “finsta” accounts on Instagram reveals how social media shapes perceptions of authenticity and self-presentation. The discussion of Uzbek and Iranian migrants illustrates the complex feelings of connection and disconnection facilitated by new communication technologies. Finally, the author underscores the ethical challenges and potential in studying online linguistic practices, emphasizing the need for researchers to address issues of confidentiality and evolving relationships with participants.