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21 - Social Media and Computer-Mediated Communication

from Part V - Advances in Multimodal and Technological Context-Based Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2023

By
Francisco Yus
Edited by
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Jesús Romero-Trillo
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
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Summary

Within a cyberpragmatic framework rooted in cognitive pragmatics (Yus 2011), context is basically information that is brought to bear in turning the schematic coded input (e.g., spoken, written, or typed words) into interpretations. Although it is undeniable that contextual information may stem from different sources, eventually what is at stake in contextualization is to mentally assess and select the appropriate quality and quantity of information that allows us to reach meaningful interpretations. Regarding the specificity of social media and internet communication overall, several challenges for pragmatic analysis arise, some of which will be addressed in this chapter. Specifically, what interests most in an analysis of context online are: (a) the role of the interfaces in favoring/limiting the contextualization of utterances; (b) the role of the physical-virtual interface in today’s internet-mediated communication; and specially (c) the differentiation of the user’s personal, interactive, and social contexts managed in everyday virtual communication.

Keywords

contextsocial mediainterface affordancescontextual constraintspersonal contextinteractive contextsocial context
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language in Context , pp. 455 - 476
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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