Article
new media & society
Ambient affiliation:
13(5) 788–806
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
A linguistic perspective sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1461444810385097
on Twitter nms.sagepub.com
Michele Zappavigna
University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract
This article explores how language is used to build community with the microblogging
service, Twitter (www.twitter.com). Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL), a theory of
language use in its social context, is employed to analyse the structure and meaning of
‘tweets’ (posts to Twitter) in a corpus of 45,000 tweets collected in the 24 hours after
the announcement of Barak Obama’s victory in the 2008 US presidential elections.
This analysis examines the evaluative language used to affiliate in tweets. The article
shows how a typographic convention, the hashtag, has extended its meaning potential
to operate as a linguistic marker referencing the target of evaluation in a tweet (e.g.
#Obama). This both renders the language searchable and is used to upscale the call to
affiliate with values expressed in the tweet. We are currently witnessing a cultural shift
in electronic discourse from online conversation to such ‘searchable talk’.
Keywords
discourse analysis, social networking sites, systemic functional linguistics, Twitter
Orientation: language and social networking sites
(SNS) such as Twitter
Electronic conversation lends itself to search in a way that face-to-face conversation,
currently, does not. Search engine usage has become a ubiquitous process for locating
information. It is, however, only as we have begun to leave more traces of social
Corresponding author:
Michele Zappavigna, Department of Linguistics, F12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Email:
,Zappavigna 789
interaction online, via microblogging services such as Twitter, that a cultural shift
toward a more interpersonal function for search has emerged. This is a shift from
searching purely for content, to searching what other people are saying online and
forming communities of shared value. In popular terms, it is becoming increasingly
useful to search the ‘hive mind’: the stream of online conversation occurring across
semiotic modes (e.g. blogs, online chat and social networking sites). For example, the
kind of discourse-search that Twitter affords has been described as a rival to Google,
with commentators claiming that searching Twitter may soon be one of the most effec-
tive ways to gather useful information, since returns capture what users are saying
online in real-time (Rocketboom, 2009).
This cultural shift to interpersonal search has resulted in the emergence of searchable
talk, that is, online discourse where the primary function appears to be affiliation via
‘findability’. This kind of talk expands linguistic meaning potential by using punctuation
to incorporate metadata into language so that online talk can be found. Taking a corpus
of posts to Twitter as a case study, this article aims to suggest how search is beginning to
function as a community-building linguistic activity. It will demonstrate how what are
known as ‘hashtags’ function as linguistic markers enacting the following social relation:
‘Search for me and affiliate with my value!’.
By enabling users to affiliate online, social networking sites (SNS),1 accessed by mil-
lions worldwide, afford a new form of sociality in which language maintains a pivotal
role. While studies of online discourse from a linguistic perspective are relatively estab-
lished (Baron, 2008; Crystal, 2006; Herring, 1996), whether analysis of linguistic func-
tion and structure can serve as evidence for defining communities is an emergent area of
inquiry. This is not to say that there has been little work on language in online communi-
ties, but rather that there is yet to be an accumulation of research providing linguistic
models of online, and indeed offline, affiliation. The notion of online community was
popularized in Rheingold’s (1993) work on ‘virtual community’: ‘virtual communities
are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those
public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal
relationships in cyberspace’ (Rheingold, 1993: 5).
Since the emergence of this definition, often criticized for its vagueness, there has
been a debate surrounding the criteria for establishing the bounds of online communities,
the structure of community and how communities are built or emerge (see for example
Hagel and Armstrong, 1997; Jones, 1997; Burnett, 2000; Wellman, 2001; Herring, 2004,
2008). No stable definition of community has prevailed. However, a linguistic perspec-
tive on virtual community might aim to explicitly describe how people use language to
construe social bonds and how they rally around, defer or reject different values con-
strued in language (Knight, 2008). This type of work is emerging as linguists begin to
expand their territory into different modes of communication, such as image, gesture and
music, viewing these modes either as forms of semiosis that are ‘parasitic’ on language
(Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999) or as themselves having a grammar that can be anal-
ysed (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006).
This article begins by introducing Twitter and a corpus of tweets (messages posted
to Twitter) containing the keyword ‘Obama’ collected in the 24 hours after the announce-
ment that Barak Obama had won the 2008 US presidential election. It then introduces
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the theory of language used in the study. SFL is
, 790 new media & society 13(5)
a social semiotic theory that investigates discourse in context. The Appraisal frame-
work (Martin and White, 2005), a model of evaluative language using the SFL approach,
is then detailed. The aim of the appraisal analysis undertaken in this article is to show
the kinds of interpersonal meanings made in the corpus of tweets and their role in ambi-
ent affiliation.
Constrained meaning-making on Twitter
Twitter, developed in 2006, is an example of a microblogging service. These services
allow users to post character-constrained messages via a range of technologies such as
mobile phone, instant messaging clients and the web. Tweets, messages posted to Twitter,
are messages presented to a virtual audience who ‘follow’ by subscribing to another
user’s feed and, as the service has evolved, who search. Tweets unfold in time as a ‘twit-
ter stream’ that is presented in reverse chronological order on a user’s Twitter page and
also, unless privacy selections are adjusted by the user, as part of the public feed. A tweet,
in reference to its original conception as an SMS-based message, is constrained to no
more than 140 characters in length and may incorporate links to micromedia, small-scale
multimedia, and shortened aliases of longer hyperlinks (Tiny URLs). As such, they are
interesting cases in making meaning within constrained environments.
In contrast to other forms of communication, there is no communal expectation that
anyone respond to a tweet, as the metaphor of ‘twittering’ continuously like a bird
implies. There is, however, a social need among users to engage with other voices in pub-
lic and private feeds. Hence we see creative use of punctuation to reference other users
and tag common topics. These expansions in typographic meaning potential are part of a
community-driven movement toward Twitter becoming a form of ‘public conversation’. It
is conversation, however, that is multiparty, temporarily fluid and highly intertextual.
As Twitter has evolved, so have the resources for attributing and addressing other
users. Linguistic markers have begun to populate tweets to facilitate heteroglossia
(Bakhtin, 1981), in other words, to bring other voices into tweets by addressing other
users, republishing other tweets, and flagging topics that may be adopted by multiple
users. The first of these conventions is the @ character, used as a deictic marker as in
the following example:
‘@username I didn’t vote Obama. But I wasn’t exactly for McCain either. I hate both, to be frank.’
The @ character indicates that the username which follows it is addressed in the
tweet and the structure functions like a vocative, that is, as a form of address. The @
character does not have to operate in this initial position in a clause but can also
occupy a medial or final position. In these instances it is more likely to mark a user,
flagging that they are being referred to, but not explicitly inscribing an address. For
example, in the following tweet, the user is not directly addressing ‘username1’
although the use of the @ character means that this user, and users who follow him,
are likely to see the message in their feed:
‘I’m joining @username1 in his four commitments to Pres.-elect Obama. Will you? http://
tinyurl.com/579akg.’
new media & society
Ambient affiliation:
13(5) 788–806
© The Author(s) 2011
Reprints and permission:
A linguistic perspective sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1461444810385097
on Twitter nms.sagepub.com
Michele Zappavigna
University of Sydney, Australia
Abstract
This article explores how language is used to build community with the microblogging
service, Twitter (www.twitter.com). Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL), a theory of
language use in its social context, is employed to analyse the structure and meaning of
‘tweets’ (posts to Twitter) in a corpus of 45,000 tweets collected in the 24 hours after
the announcement of Barak Obama’s victory in the 2008 US presidential elections.
This analysis examines the evaluative language used to affiliate in tweets. The article
shows how a typographic convention, the hashtag, has extended its meaning potential
to operate as a linguistic marker referencing the target of evaluation in a tweet (e.g.
#Obama). This both renders the language searchable and is used to upscale the call to
affiliate with values expressed in the tweet. We are currently witnessing a cultural shift
in electronic discourse from online conversation to such ‘searchable talk’.
Keywords
discourse analysis, social networking sites, systemic functional linguistics, Twitter
Orientation: language and social networking sites
(SNS) such as Twitter
Electronic conversation lends itself to search in a way that face-to-face conversation,
currently, does not. Search engine usage has become a ubiquitous process for locating
information. It is, however, only as we have begun to leave more traces of social
Corresponding author:
Michele Zappavigna, Department of Linguistics, F12, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Email:
,Zappavigna 789
interaction online, via microblogging services such as Twitter, that a cultural shift
toward a more interpersonal function for search has emerged. This is a shift from
searching purely for content, to searching what other people are saying online and
forming communities of shared value. In popular terms, it is becoming increasingly
useful to search the ‘hive mind’: the stream of online conversation occurring across
semiotic modes (e.g. blogs, online chat and social networking sites). For example, the
kind of discourse-search that Twitter affords has been described as a rival to Google,
with commentators claiming that searching Twitter may soon be one of the most effec-
tive ways to gather useful information, since returns capture what users are saying
online in real-time (Rocketboom, 2009).
This cultural shift to interpersonal search has resulted in the emergence of searchable
talk, that is, online discourse where the primary function appears to be affiliation via
‘findability’. This kind of talk expands linguistic meaning potential by using punctuation
to incorporate metadata into language so that online talk can be found. Taking a corpus
of posts to Twitter as a case study, this article aims to suggest how search is beginning to
function as a community-building linguistic activity. It will demonstrate how what are
known as ‘hashtags’ function as linguistic markers enacting the following social relation:
‘Search for me and affiliate with my value!’.
By enabling users to affiliate online, social networking sites (SNS),1 accessed by mil-
lions worldwide, afford a new form of sociality in which language maintains a pivotal
role. While studies of online discourse from a linguistic perspective are relatively estab-
lished (Baron, 2008; Crystal, 2006; Herring, 1996), whether analysis of linguistic func-
tion and structure can serve as evidence for defining communities is an emergent area of
inquiry. This is not to say that there has been little work on language in online communi-
ties, but rather that there is yet to be an accumulation of research providing linguistic
models of online, and indeed offline, affiliation. The notion of online community was
popularized in Rheingold’s (1993) work on ‘virtual community’: ‘virtual communities
are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those
public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal
relationships in cyberspace’ (Rheingold, 1993: 5).
Since the emergence of this definition, often criticized for its vagueness, there has
been a debate surrounding the criteria for establishing the bounds of online communities,
the structure of community and how communities are built or emerge (see for example
Hagel and Armstrong, 1997; Jones, 1997; Burnett, 2000; Wellman, 2001; Herring, 2004,
2008). No stable definition of community has prevailed. However, a linguistic perspec-
tive on virtual community might aim to explicitly describe how people use language to
construe social bonds and how they rally around, defer or reject different values con-
strued in language (Knight, 2008). This type of work is emerging as linguists begin to
expand their territory into different modes of communication, such as image, gesture and
music, viewing these modes either as forms of semiosis that are ‘parasitic’ on language
(Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999) or as themselves having a grammar that can be anal-
ysed (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006).
This article begins by introducing Twitter and a corpus of tweets (messages posted
to Twitter) containing the keyword ‘Obama’ collected in the 24 hours after the announce-
ment that Barak Obama had won the 2008 US presidential election. It then introduces
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the theory of language used in the study. SFL is
, 790 new media & society 13(5)
a social semiotic theory that investigates discourse in context. The Appraisal frame-
work (Martin and White, 2005), a model of evaluative language using the SFL approach,
is then detailed. The aim of the appraisal analysis undertaken in this article is to show
the kinds of interpersonal meanings made in the corpus of tweets and their role in ambi-
ent affiliation.
Constrained meaning-making on Twitter
Twitter, developed in 2006, is an example of a microblogging service. These services
allow users to post character-constrained messages via a range of technologies such as
mobile phone, instant messaging clients and the web. Tweets, messages posted to Twitter,
are messages presented to a virtual audience who ‘follow’ by subscribing to another
user’s feed and, as the service has evolved, who search. Tweets unfold in time as a ‘twit-
ter stream’ that is presented in reverse chronological order on a user’s Twitter page and
also, unless privacy selections are adjusted by the user, as part of the public feed. A tweet,
in reference to its original conception as an SMS-based message, is constrained to no
more than 140 characters in length and may incorporate links to micromedia, small-scale
multimedia, and shortened aliases of longer hyperlinks (Tiny URLs). As such, they are
interesting cases in making meaning within constrained environments.
In contrast to other forms of communication, there is no communal expectation that
anyone respond to a tweet, as the metaphor of ‘twittering’ continuously like a bird
implies. There is, however, a social need among users to engage with other voices in pub-
lic and private feeds. Hence we see creative use of punctuation to reference other users
and tag common topics. These expansions in typographic meaning potential are part of a
community-driven movement toward Twitter becoming a form of ‘public conversation’. It
is conversation, however, that is multiparty, temporarily fluid and highly intertextual.
As Twitter has evolved, so have the resources for attributing and addressing other
users. Linguistic markers have begun to populate tweets to facilitate heteroglossia
(Bakhtin, 1981), in other words, to bring other voices into tweets by addressing other
users, republishing other tweets, and flagging topics that may be adopted by multiple
users. The first of these conventions is the @ character, used as a deictic marker as in
the following example:
‘@username I didn’t vote Obama. But I wasn’t exactly for McCain either. I hate both, to be frank.’
The @ character indicates that the username which follows it is addressed in the
tweet and the structure functions like a vocative, that is, as a form of address. The @
character does not have to operate in this initial position in a clause but can also
occupy a medial or final position. In these instances it is more likely to mark a user,
flagging that they are being referred to, but not explicitly inscribing an address. For
example, in the following tweet, the user is not directly addressing ‘username1’
although the use of the @ character means that this user, and users who follow him,
are likely to see the message in their feed:
‘I’m joining @username1 in his four commitments to Pres.-elect Obama. Will you? http://
tinyurl.com/579akg.’
