Pragmatics Online examines the use and interpretation of language and communication in digitally mediated contexts. It provides insight into how meaning is communicated online, with a focus on how users negotiate and navigate the constraints and resources of social media sites and other online contexts.
The book introduces key concepts in the study of digital contexts and online communication, and discusses how these can be understood from the perspective of pragmatics. Each chapter examines a different topic and includes an overview of key research alongside original pragmatic analyses of data. Topics include sharing and liking, emoji and emotions, memes, and clickbait. Kate Scott focuses on how ideas and topics from pragmatics can be applied to mediated contexts, irrespective of the particular media.
The book is an essential guide to the pragmatics of online discourse and behaviour for students and researchers working in the areas of digital pragmatics, language and media, and English language, linguistics, and communication studies.
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introducing Pragmatics Online
2. Exploring Online Contexts
3. The Pragmatics of Sharing Online
4. The Pragmatics of Tagging
5. Non-verbal Communication Online
6. The Pragmatics of Memes
7. You Won’t Believe What’s in Chapter 7!
8. Researching Online Pragmatics
Index
Biography
Kate Scott is a senior lecturer at Kingston University, London (UK). Her research focuses on cognitive pragmatics, and she has published on the pragmatics of digitally mediated communication, exploring topics including hashtags, clickbait, and memes.
'This important, original, and entertaining book offers novel insights into the challenges of communication in the age of social media. Beautifully illustrated with a wealth of real-life examples (from hashtags to retweets, clickbait to trolling), it shows how our communicative abilities are evolving to take advantage of new opportunities. A vital resource for students and scholars.'
Deirdre Wilson, UCL, UK
We strongly believe that this informative book contains a diverse range of enlightening topics that delve into mediated contexts, with the potential to broaden our pragmatic understanding of digital discourse and its underlying cognitive dynamics. Therefore, we highly recommend this book to students and researchers interested in exploring digital discourse and practice in various fields such as multimodal discourse analysis, internet pragmatics, cognitive science, and discourse communication.
Xiaojiang Wang, School of Foreign Studies of Nanjing University, and Yansheng Mao, China Research Center for Language Strategies
This book is suitable for both undergraduate/postgraduate students and scholars who intend to do research on digitally mediated communication, and contains both theoretical and practical aspects.
Volker Eisenlauer, Springer Journals
