Chapter 2. The control and censorship of linguistic resources in an online Community of Practice
-
Lisa Donlan
Abstract
This research utilises a corpus of one million posts retrieved from Popheads, an online Reddit-based Community of Practice (CoP), to analyse the power dynamics associated with language censorship in online CoPs. In 2018, the moderators of the community banned the community-salient word wig (‘surprised’ or ‘impressed’). Ostensibly, this was a top-down performance of linguistic control where the officially-appointed moderators put a stop to the diffusion of a seemingly beloved part of the community’s shared linguistic repertoire. However, through a mixed-methods analysis of the events surrounding the banning of wig, this research shows that moderators have not unilaterally enforced linguistic censorship. Instead, moderators have seemingly responded to a call, led primarily by members with markers of unofficial power, to restrict usage.
Abstract
This research utilises a corpus of one million posts retrieved from Popheads, an online Reddit-based Community of Practice (CoP), to analyse the power dynamics associated with language censorship in online CoPs. In 2018, the moderators of the community banned the community-salient word wig (‘surprised’ or ‘impressed’). Ostensibly, this was a top-down performance of linguistic control where the officially-appointed moderators put a stop to the diffusion of a seemingly beloved part of the community’s shared linguistic repertoire. However, through a mixed-methods analysis of the events surrounding the banning of wig, this research shows that moderators have not unilaterally enforced linguistic censorship. Instead, moderators have seemingly responded to a call, led primarily by members with markers of unofficial power, to restrict usage.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. The expanding landscape of corpus-based studies of social media language 1
-
Part 1. Using corpus methods to investigate communities on social media
- Chapter 1. Towards a digital sociolinguistics 15
- Chapter 2. The control and censorship of linguistic resources in an online Community of Practice 41
- Chapter 3. Talking about women 63
-
Part II. Linguistic variation in short social media texts
- Chapter 4. Patterns of intra-individual variation in a Swiss WhatsApp corpus 89
- Chapter 5. Using lengthwise scaling to compare feature frequencies across text lengths on Reddit 111
- Chapter 6. Double trouble 131
-
Part III. The role of images
- Chapter 7. Constructing corpora from images and text 149
- Chapter 8. Working with images and emoji in the 🦆 Dukki Facebook Corpus 175
-
Part IV. Discussion
- Chapter 9. New developments in corpus approaches to social media 199
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. The expanding landscape of corpus-based studies of social media language 1
-
Part 1. Using corpus methods to investigate communities on social media
- Chapter 1. Towards a digital sociolinguistics 15
- Chapter 2. The control and censorship of linguistic resources in an online Community of Practice 41
- Chapter 3. Talking about women 63
-
Part II. Linguistic variation in short social media texts
- Chapter 4. Patterns of intra-individual variation in a Swiss WhatsApp corpus 89
- Chapter 5. Using lengthwise scaling to compare feature frequencies across text lengths on Reddit 111
- Chapter 6. Double trouble 131
-
Part III. The role of images
- Chapter 7. Constructing corpora from images and text 149
- Chapter 8. Working with images and emoji in the 🦆 Dukki Facebook Corpus 175
-
Part IV. Discussion
- Chapter 9. New developments in corpus approaches to social media 199
- Index 209
