30.339, Review: Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Zappavigna (2018)

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Subject: 30.339, Review: Applied Linguistics; Discourse Analysis; Text/Corpus Linguistics: Zappavigna (2018)

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Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 10:06:53
From: Andrew Jocuns [jocunsa at gmail.com]
Subject: Searchable Talk

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-2159.html

AUTHOR: Michele  Zappavigna
TITLE: Searchable Talk
SUBTITLE: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Andrew Jocuns

The rise of digital literacies have afforded us with an array of new semiotic
technologies many of which offer us new ways of entextualizing our
interactions with the world. One such way is the hashtag which is the focus of
Michele Zappavigna’s book Searchable Talk. The book contains 10 chapters in
addition to a cast of characters and a glossary of hashtags. The book uses the
Appraisal Framework (Martin & White 2007) to analyze hashtags about Donald
Trump and the various ways that hashtags are a form of social media
metadiscourse.

SUMMARY

Chapter 1 Introduces the reader to the hashtag, a form of searchable talk
which acts as metadata. As Zappavigna argues, this metadata function of the
hashtag enables users to place values upon language such that hash-tagging is
a form of folk taxonomy. After a discussion on the origins of the hashtag and
its prefaced “#”, or pound symbol there is a discussion on research on
hashtags in linguistics as well as methods and sampling. Another body of
research mentioned here focuses upon hashtags and their role in conversation.
For example the hashtag #orangecheeto is used in reference to Donald Trump,
where it places a value upon the post in reference to Donald Trump, and is
also folk taxonomic political discourse..

The role of the hashtag as a form of semiotic technology is the focus of
Chapter 2. Semiotic technologies are technology that is created for the
purpose of meaning-making and has meaning-making potential designed into is
use through the manipulation of a variety of semiotic modes. Because the
hashtag is often identified as a form of metadata, a discussion of the prefix
“meta” and the word “metadata” are included here, followed by a definition of
the Twitter hashtag and the history of the # symbol. The author then discusses
two important affordances of the hashtag: discovery and navigation. The
discover affordance is closely related to the hashtag’s role in performing
searches of media that have used the tag; this searchability goes beyond
specific platforms. The navigation affordance is how hashtags are linked to
other posts that have used the tag. One of the primary functions of hashtags
is their textual function which in the SFL framework relates to the hashtag’s
presence in a communicative event. To that end Zappavigna notes that hashtags
work at the level of metadiscourse in that at the level of search, the #
symbol relates to other discourse about a topic that use the tag as metadata.
The chapter also discusses how hashtags are a form of metadiscourse and
importantly how the term is used differently here. With hashtags we are not
just talking about discourse about discourse, or the range of discourse
resources available during interaction; here hashtags work at the level of
second order meanings, in part because of how they use the # linked to other
tags as well as their presence with other hashtags. As an example if one uses
the hashtag #AmericanDisaster the second order meanings concern the fact that
discourse and metadiscourse that the user has entered may include different
meanings than what the user has intended. When you do a search of hashtags you
get all of the uses of it in a given timescale; as such you are observing
metadiscourse of meanings which may not be related. This offers an interesting
perspective on hashtags as a form of metadiscourse that has a lot of potential
for research, discussion and analysis within discourse and social media. The
chapter concludes with a discussion of ambient attention.

Chapter 3 draws the reader’s attention to Halliday’s concepts of linguistic
metafunction and we learn that hashtags operate within both the interpersonal
and ideational functions. Zappavigna argues that previous work on hashtags
linguistically has tended to focus upon their categorizing function as
participants, processes and circumstances. This categorization function has
also been noted in relation to images. The analysis engages the notion of
evaluation through the interpersonal metafunction. Interestingly hashtags have
a social life outside of the internet. While certainly not a ubiquitous
presence, graffiti, stickers, and advertisements  beg of us to pick up our
phones and discover the meaning of such tags. This interpersonal function of
hashtags offline illustrates the complexity of this semiotic technology. Its
possible to talk about hashtags during social interaction as spoken hashtags.

In Chapter 4 #whinylittlebitch: evaluative metacommentary, Zappavigna
introduces the Appraisal Framework as a way to analyze the evaluative use of
hashtags. The Appraisal Framework offers us three ways in which discourse
appraises: affect, judgement and appreciation. Appraisal distinguishes between
three systems of implied evaluation: provoke, flag and afford. A good example
of this type of evaluation can be found in the use of sarcasm. “A hashtag may
also disrupt the attitude presented, typically to invoke humor or sarcasm”
(page 68).  The chapter concludes with discussion of evaluative
metacommentary.

Chapter 5 relates Bahktin’s concept of voice with intersubjectivity in hashtag
use. Hashtags by their nature are polyvocal, a hashtag or hashtags applied to
a post index a myriad of voices who are in some way related to it, which the
author relates to the notion of context collapse to the degree the relations
between a use of a hashtag may not be discernable from just one usage. As such
when one uses a hashtag one may not know if the hashtag will be used in a
similar manner in the future or has been so used in the past. The author then
discusses how one might construct a system network of quoted voice and the
various network relations that can be discerned (see page 80, Figure 5.2). A
hashtag use is then “anchored” to the degree that a particular app or service
makes certain communicative resources available to its users. This leads to a
discussion of functions of different forms of reported speech and then a
discussion of intersubjectivity. Projection is the resource that is most often
initiated in intersubjectivity and includes three dimensions: level, mode and
speech function. Hashtags are embedded with intersubjective experience to the
degree that they include multiple individual perspectives or stances. These
perspectives are shared between the user(s) and the social media network to
which they are a part.

Chapter 6 focuses upon the notion of coupling which involves the construction
of meaning across a range of semiotic devices. Coupling is a relationship of
meaning that includes “with” where a variable a comes with variable b (page
105). Coupling works along a cline of instantiation where instantiation refers
to all of the possible meanings that can be activated in a text. Drawing on
work on logocentric relations, three types of time-based relationships are
discussed: sequencing (relation to other features in a text), coupling (the
implementation of a with relationship), and non-linear coupling (where
couplings are clustered and reconfigured). The #MAGA (make America great
again) hashtag is analyzed in terms of its coupling features, and yin-yang
diagrams are used to represent different coupling arrangements. For example, a
feature of #MAGA is that it is considered a bonding icon which unites people
who have a particular political identity. Recoupling is introduced to draw
attention to how hashtags can be transformed within texts for example the
#realnews and #fakenews hashtags are shown to have such reconfigured meanings.
For example, Twitter users responding to @realDonaldTrump emphasizing what is
#realnews and that @realDonaldTrump refers to #fakenews. These responses
recouple how @realDonaldTrump used the hashtags #realnews and #fakenews.
Hashtags as forms of discourse are shown to be surrounded by coupling
practices and such couplings are shared as well as rejected.

Chapter 7 focuses upon ambient affiliation which refers to the alignments that
social media users share even though they have not interacted directly
on-line. Noting how many studies of hashtags have tended to focus on community
in terms of an ideational core, the author argues that the social semiotic
approach taken here, “offers a way of understanding affiliation in terms of
the values that are at stake rather than simply the field of experience” (p.
122). Ideation-attitude couplings warrant some sort of response: couplings are
just couplings; the users of social media do things with them. Such hashtag
couplings can be rejected or supported at the most simplistic level, but can
also be finessed, promoted or convoked at a more refined level. Dialogic
affiliation refers to how affiliation emerges during dialogue, i.e.
conversation or actual social interaction, whereby communing, laughing or
condemning are the affiliation strategies employed. These strategies are shown
to be relevant in terms of hashtags. One of the more interesting sections in
this chapter has to do with convoking couplings in hashtags that bring
together whole communities. Hashtags such as #maga and #trumptrain are
analyzed to show the power of how couplings can raise community support. The
latter part of the chapter examines how hashtag couplings can be used in three
processes: convoking (mustering community support around a hashtag,
#TrumpTrain), finessing (positioning a coupling in relation to other potential
couplings #NotMyPresident), and promoting (emphasizing a coupling #EVIL).

Censure and ridicule of the quoted voice in hashtags are the focus of Chapter
8 which also specifically focuses upon the hashtag #AlternativeFacts which
emerged after Kelly Conway’s now famous phrase “our secretary gave alternative
facts to that.” The author then discusses the need for added censure and
ridicule to the Appraisal Framework’s affiliation network. Censure involves
critiquing a position whereas ridicule includes a sense of mockery of the
critique. Censure involves an inverted coupling where the attitude is reversed
or reframed and is more direct and explicit in its textual framing than
ridicule. Also there can be double inversion where the hashtag is inverted in
manner that creates a play frame in order to create humor. Bonding by censure
and bonding by ridicule are two topics that close out the chapter.

Chapter 9 analyzes intermodal coupling as well as hashtag memes. The chapter
begins with a review of recent literature on image tagging analyses which have
focused upon certain or specific hashtags that can act as a metacomment as
well as an apparent ironic marker. The chapter then goes on to discuss
intermodal coupling between images and text concerning a number of hashtags
relating to Trump including: #tinytrump, #iforonewelcome, #tinyhands to name a
few. Zappavigna also discusses internet memes, or folk classifications of
on-line texts or images that enable users on-line to share, mimic, modify and
perform social actions using these memes. I was interested to learn that the
term meme was coined in Dawkins’ book the Selfish Gene to refer to how
cultural units operate in a similar manner to genes. Memes then for Dawkins
move across human populations through mimicry. However, Zappavigna is quick to
point out that when introduce social semiotics into the mix and the process of
semiosis, it is difficult to reduce something as semiotically complex as a
meme to just mimicry. Hashtag memes then are memes which are broadly connected
to hashtags. The discussion here also examines phrasal memes and image macros,
both of which have degrees of intermodal coupling. Intermodal coupling is a
concept that has been used to explore how different semiotic modes are used to
design multimodal texts. Hashtags applied to images also afford interpersonal
functions and meanings. Such intermodal couplings also have an ideational
function in that they create a shared meaning space between seemingly logical
relations. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the intermodal couplings
that emerge in the #tinytrump meme.

Chapter 10 is a short summary of the findings of the text focusing how
hashtags are a form of searchable talk and how the Appraisal Framework can be
used to analyze the interpersonal and ideational functions of their use. 

EVALUATION

The audience for this book are graduate students and professional linguists
who are grounded in systemic functional linguistics (SFL) with an interest in
how SFL and the Appraisal Framework can be used to analyze social media. This
work fits in nicely with recent studies of language on-line, digital literacy,
language use in social media, and digital discourse. The book presents an
excellent case for using the Appraisal Framework to analyze interaction in
social media; however there are a few issues that should be mentioned. As
someone who is not familiar with the Appraisal Framework, I found the analysis
to be very jargon filled at times, and wished that the author would have
provided a glossary not just of hashtags used in the text, but also of
Appraisal Framework terminology. The analysis of intermodal coupling with
images could have used more analysis of the images themselves; the focus of
the majority of the analysis of hashtags focused upon text, and I would have
liked to have seen a stronger analysis of image text relations. Despite these
criticisms I see a lot of potential for future research analyzing hashtags
used on and off line, in fact reading this book has led me to conduct some of
my own research on hashtags. Zappavigna’s discussion of hashtags as a form of
meta-discourse that goes beyond known meanings of metadiscourse, I found
particularly inspiring. 

REFERENCES

Dawkins, R. (2016). The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary Edition (4 edition).
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Martin, J., & White, P. R. R. (2007). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in
English. New York: Springer.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Andrew Jocuns holds a PhD in sociolinguistics from Georgetown University and
presently holds a lecturer position in the Linguistics program at Thammasat
University in Thailand. His research interests include: Indonesia, multimodal
discourse analysis, music and discourse, Thai English, World Englishes, and
Tourism Discourse in Thailand.





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