English and French Online Comments: A Text Linguistic Comparison of Popular Science Magazines

ISBN-13: 9783631801475 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 320 str.

John Marcus Sommer

Opis

In recent years, text and media linguistics have focused on genres in the new media. This is almost always accompanied by the question of the establishment and development of such content. Due to the diversity of genres and their dynamic development one can speak of an almost inexhaustible field of research. The book is located in this field of research. Its goal is to examine the origin and nature of readers' comments by readers of French and English popular science magazines. Media content is dissected by using text linguistic tools. Transmedial cultures are explored across time, platforms, languages, and editing houses.

Spis treści

1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 11

1.1 Knowledge Transfer via the World Wide Web ......................................... 11

1.2 Cultural Turn in Linguistics ....................................................................... 12

1.3 Research Question ....................................................................................... 12

2. From Text to Text Linguistics .................................................................. 17

3. Genre .................................................................................................................. 21

3.1 Genres as Analytical Categories ................................................................. 21

3.2 The Multiple Layers of Genre ..................................................................... 24

3.3 Contrastive Textology ................................................................................. 24

3.4 Genre Change ............................................................................................... 33

3.5 Intertextuality ............................................................................................... 37

3.6 Genre and Culture ....................................................................................... 39

4. Previous Research ......................................................................................... 43

4.1 Letters to the Editor ..................................................................................... 43

4.2 Readers' Comments ..................................................................................... 45

4.3 Facebook Comments ................................................................................... 49

4.4 Tweets ............................................................................................................ 52

4.5 Disqus & Livefyre ........................................................................................ 55

5. Conversation Analysis ................................................................................ 59

5.1 Comparing Conversational Patterns ......................................................... 61

5.2 Topic Changes .............................................................................................. 64
5.3 Topic Continuation .................................................................................. 66

5.4 Conflictual vs. Non-Conflictual Conversations ................................... 67

6. Corpus ............................................................................................................ 71

7. Diachronic Development of Letters to the Editor ...................... 77

7.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 77

7.2 Discover ..................................................................................................... 80

7.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................... 87

7.4 GEO ........................................................................................................... 93

8. Diachronic Development of Online Comments ......................... 99

8.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 99

8.2 Discover ................................................................................................... 107

8.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................. 112

8.4 GEO ......................................................................................................... 121

9. Multiple Commenters ........................................................................... 127

9.1 Commenters in Multiple Threads ........................................................ 127

9.2 Commenters on More Than One Platform ........................................ 131

9.3 Long-Term Commenters ...................................................................... 134

10. Layout Comparison ............................................................................... 139

11. Situation ...................................................................................................... 149

12. Topic Management ................................................................................. 155

12.1 Examples of Topic Maintenance ........................................................ 155

12.2 Examples of Topic Change ................................................................. 162
12.3 Topic Changes within Conversations ................................................. 167

12.4 Interim Summary: Topic Maintenance and Topic Changes ............ 176

12.5 Quantitative Analysis of Topical Actions ........................................... 177

13. Qualitative Analysis ................................................................................ 181

13.1 Conflict Conversations ......................................................................... 181

13.2 Complete Support Conversations ....................................................... 198

13.3 Sharing with Friends ............................................................................. 208

13.4 The Use of Links .................................................................................... 210

13.5 The Use of Emoticons ........................................................................... 217

13.6 Hashtags ................................................................................................. 224

13.7 Quote Article ......................................................................................... 226

14. Quantitative Analysis ............................................................................. 233

14.1 Language Comparison .......................................................................... 233

14.2 Platform Comparison ........................................................................... 235

14.3 Comparison of Overall Magazine Websites ...................................... 239

14.4 Discussion of Results ............................................................................ 243

15. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 247

Appendix .............................................................................................................. 251

List of Figures .................................................................................................... 257

List of Tables ....................................................................................................... 259

References ............................................................................................................ 261

Corpus ................................................................................................................... 279

O autorze

John Marcus Sommer studied English Language and Literature and Romance Studies at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. He worked as a doctoral researcher at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Linguistics. His research interests lie in texts, conversations, literature arts, films, and games.