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Genres, media, and recontextualization practices

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Abstract

The main argument put forward in this paper is that traditional linguistic genre theories neglect the importance of media and their modal affordances in the formation of new genres. It argues that media cannot be viewed as (passive) configurations of technical, semiotic, and cultural features which are chosen by actors/ rhetors in order to serve their communicative needs, but rather as mediators whose modal affordances actively influence communicators’ meaning making choices. In order to support this argument, it will be shown how forms of discourse representation gradually developed from a stylistic device in oral communication to a genre constitutive practice (e.g., in printed academic communication), and eventually became a genre of its own (as the practice of “sharing” content) in social media communication. In the analyses, the focus is on the interplay between modal affordances of the different media in which discourse representation formats are used, their formal properties, and pragmatic factors (like audience expectations in different communicative genres and situations). It is shown how innovative aspects of a medium influence formal features of discourse representation which in turn serve different communicative purposes in different genres.

Keywords: discourse representation; genre formation; genre theory; new media communication; recontextualization; social media communication; textual voice

Document Type: Research Article

Publication date: 20 May 2019

More about this publication?
  • A huge amount of communication is nowadays carried out on the internet, as is reflected in online social networking sites, instant messaging interactions and the emergence of norms of production and interpretation in online communities as regards the discursive construction of digital selves, digital communicative action and digital codes of interaction, among other interfaces for virtual interaction. Internet Pragmatics is a response to the emerging challenges of applying pragmatic perspectives to internet or technologically mediated interaction. The journal provides a unique, fully peer-reviewed forum dedicated to cutting-edge research into internet pragmatics, examining how people use the internet and social media to fulfill their communicative needs, and how those virtual interactions entail pragmatic implications on human relationships, identities and social or professional collectivities. It also seeks to explore and expound how online communication is both similar to and different from offline interaction, how the online world and the offline world are both distinct and inseparable but also intertwined in a number of ways, and how online or digital identities impact on people's language use in offline interaction and vise versa. Internet Pragmatics promotes interdisciplinary dialogue and interface studies between pragmatics and other fields including but not limited to sociology, media studies, digital communication, discourse analysis, cognitive science, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and even neuroscience. The journal intends to contribute to a better and deeper understanding of language use and interaction in cyberspace and of human beings in and across mediated contexts.
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