Language and Identity Construction on Facebook and Nairaland in Nigeria
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Date
2023-12
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Lead City University
Abstract
The representation or performance of identity has become a notorious feature of domestic online interactions. Previous linguistic studies have focused more on the linguistic and stylistic features of online communication, with little attention paid to the meta representations of identities. Therefore, this study examined identity portrayal in Facebook and Nairaland interactions, with a view to analysing the factors that underly identity representations and the performative (illocutions) acts. Performativity theory by Judith Butler, supported by Herbert Blumer’s model of symbolic interactionism and M.A.K Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics served as the framework. The qualitative design was employed. Purposive sampling was used to select 100 post and comments, 50 from Facebook, and 50 from Nairaland, due to their vast followership. Data was subjected to pragmatic analysis. Five common factors conditioned identity representations in Facebook and Nairaland, namely, age, national, ethnicity/religion, gender and group aggression. Condescender, progressor, regressor, and leveler were identified as age-based identities. Gender conditioned chauvinist, welfarist, seducer, dependent/independent, and patronizer identities. Ethnicity and religion produced chauvinist, opportunist, and entitlement identities. Group aggression produced the solidarist, activist, revolutionist, compromiser, and encourager/circularist identities. The identity representations were projected by performatives acts, namely, performative verbs, descriptive adjectival with performative actions, nominal performatives, and modal – conditional performatives. Pragmatic markers, namely, reference, inference, metaphor, and metapragmatic acts played key roles in the performance or representation of the identities in Facebook and Nairaland interactions. The performative and pragmatic approach clarifies the intricacies of identity in interactions in digital spaces that is growingly polarised by contemporary political influence and tactics.
Keywords: Symbolic interactionism, Performative acts, Identity construction, Mediated discourse
Word Count: 250
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Keywords
Symbolic interactionism, Performative acts, Identity construction, Mediated discourse
Citation
Kate Turabian