Form and Language Use: Facebook - Essay Example

Form and Language Use: Facebook Abstract Through direct sociolinguistic analysis and comparative research, this essay examines the form and use of language on Facebook. Over a course of a week I monitored and recorded newsfeed and wall-postings from my Facebook account. A series of five participants were also interviewed regarding their habits, intentions, and impressions of Facebook. Further elements of the networking site were analyzed on an individual basis and qualitative analyses were conducted and compared with contemporary research on the issues of language, identity and social capital. While such an approach allows for a level of sample bias, it does allow for a micro-level sociolinguistic analysis where past studies have opted for macro discussions. The nature of Facebook also allows a uniquely convenient means for sociological analyses that in non-electronic subcultures requires extensive means and human organization. Further research was conducted in the realm of morphology to determine the extent to which linguistic shifts have occurred as a result of the recent emergence of Facebook as a major means of social communication. Ultimately, the study revealed positive correlations between users’ use of Facebook and its efficacy as a form of social capital in their lives. The nature of the platform as computer and keyboard based, also seemed to facilitate morphological shifts in language use that relied more heavily on instances of clipping, compounding, and acronyms. Finally, clearly identifiable instances where the profiles of users and individual conversations on walls functioned as a means of identity formation were also observed. Introduction Unlike any generation before, college bound freshman have been raised in an environment predominated by the world-wide web and the social networking sites it has engendered. The implications for this is manifold: from the types of people these students meet to the very language they speak is now shaped and influenced by the increasing use of social networking sites such as Facebook. Current research demonstrates that Facebook is the most frequently used site on college campuses and the fifth most used site on the internet, with over 85% of all college students utilizing its social networking capabilities. In a recent study it was determined that the average number of time students use Facebook is near 6 hours per week, with most people logging on nearly 6.3 times per day (Arrington, 2005). With the influx of usage a number of pertinent questions have been raised concerning its all consuming popularity and influence within current generations. It is within this overwhelming trend of social networking sites as a major force communication that this study is situated. It asserts that the large-scale nature and cultural embrace of language use within Facebook must be understood on a myriad of levels, through a a series of competing explanations. Purposes of Facebook Parents and teachers across the nation are decrying the addictive and consuming nature that their children and student’s have demonstrated in devotion to Facebook. The site has even been banned in a large amount of workplaces and schools across the nation. While there is conflicting research that supports both sides of the argument, it seems that the negative effects of the site have been largely exaggerated. A large amount of this research on focuses on the positive and negative influences on the individual’s social capital. In discussing ‘social capital’ researchers, “have defined the construct in terms of social networks, trust, civic engagement, life satisfaction.” (Valenzuela, p.2, 2009). In Is there social capital in a social networking site? Valenzuela (2009) defines the term as the resources available to people through their social interactions and uses statistical research to discuss the effects of Facebook use. She finds that the impression of high intensity Facebook users as isolated in ‘real life’ is inaccurate and the opposite is actually true. However, the question of whether Facebook defines social capital shows no positive correlation, Valenzuela notes that “it would be quite troubling if a sole technological platform such as Facebook determines young adults’ stock of social capital.” Research from the Stanford University Human Interaction Laboratory has noted that habits and forms of social relations developed within the internet-based networking site are oftentimes carried over and exhibited in daily, face-to-face existence. In reviewing the posts from the previous week a consistent trend was noticed of participants posting problems they had encountered in their daily life. There are twenty-five postings on a newsfeed page. In reviewing the last twenty-five postings, there were four posts that can be categorized as ‘problems users encountered’. One woman writes about getting wine spilled on her at a restaurant and being asked to pay for it; a man ‘hates with a passion micro-micromanagement by administrators’; another man complains, ‘Punk kids throw a rock at my window. The third occurence in the span of a month. I hate my neighborhood!’; and finally, a woman complains about the unwanted advances of a guy in her office. What’s notable in all these posts is that they all include comments from friends supporting the poster. It seems that this is directly related to the social capital of Facebook, in that the users are able to gain direct social support at any time or place and carry on a dialogue to alleviate their stress. This anytime, anyplace level of support marks a unique and seemingly positive development in contemporary social relations. The group support aspect of Facebook language use has not been lost on participants, as recent times have observed a surge in the number of Facebook groups for almost every conceivable imagination. It seems that the function of the groups is less one of attempting to meet others who share similar interests, but rather to achieve social solidarity when faced with confusing circumstances, or an attempt to achieve a humorous effect. The following example is from a Facebook group for people who pretend to text in awkward situations. While the title surely contains a strong amount of irony and humor, the exact ramifications of the group can be situated within the expanding forms of social communication within the new formed internet, or electronic, culture. Through participation in this group, the members are gaining a democratic consensus that others also text when placed in awkward situations and their instinct to do so doesn’t need to be construed as a neurotic impulse. In this way, social networking aids in confirming group identity. It’s also worth noting that, like Facebook, the use of text messaging is an equally new form of technological communication and its acceptance within a Facebook group is a means of technology coming full-circle and actually embracing itself. Advertisers have become savvy to Facebook as a form of solidarity and have began incorporating advertisements and promotions into groups. There is no a group for Walt Disney World discounts and an application where participants can play Uno with the only requirement being to allow the company to post an advertisement through the users newsfeed. Linguistic Changes Linguists categorize words as the small units of syntax within a given language, and morphology is the study of the structure of words. Major morphological word formation processes include compounding, derivation, acronyms, blending and clipping. Acronyms are words that use the original parts of a word (initials) to form an abbreviation: IMHO for In My Humble Opinion, or in French OTAN for Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). Blending is when a word is formed from the shortening and combination of two words: motel (hotel + motor), or in French portmanteau (an overcoat) comes from porter, to carry + manteau, a coat. Clipping refers to the abbreviations of longer words may become words, for instance, demo for demonstration, or in French, labo for laboratoire (laboratory). While brought together under the common ties of the English language, a number of hybrid or perhaps dialectical forms of grammar can be exhibited within the Facebook community. It’s been noted that many grammatical shifts have occurred through gamer and internet messaging sites. The spread of terms such as ‘lol’ for laugh out loud, or ‘brb’ for be right back has become common usage among internet fluent populations and text messagers. Even more interesting is the use of terms such ‘pwned’ in gamer communities to signify defeating an opponent, as this term has come to be acknowledge by mainstream spoken culture such as MTV. Below is a sample from the discourse community that demonstrates hybrid forms of grammar: Here we see the alteration in written text: the writer alters the capitalization in ‘FridAy’, changes the spacing between the letters in ‘P A R T Y’, and implements the BYOB acronym to indicate bring your own beer. While the differentiation in capitalization and spacing of terms is limited to written elements of the language, it’s easy to imagine how their continued usage could contribute to the emergence of hybrid and dialectical forms of English. In discussing linguistic changes within society Milroy (1992) notes: Linguistic innovators are likely to be individuals who are in a position to contract many weak ties. Since such weak ties link close-knit groups to each other and to the larger regional or national speech community, they are likely to figure prominently in a socially accountable theory of linguistic diffusion and change. P. 563 Clearly the ‘weak ties’ that Facebook engenders make the perfect incubator for such linguistic shifts. This topic is of great interest as it offers insight into the nature of human language use, incorporating ideas of forward thinking theorists such as William Labov and Noam Chomsky, and allows for contemporary research into linguistic shifts in electronic culture. Research into word formation attests to the lexeme based categorizations of new linguistics units. (Haspelmath 2002). This states that words are formed through paradigmatic methods of substitution rather than syntagmatic units, or inflection processes. Research into co-compounds reveals interesting features of language formation. Even while lexical units combine to form compound words, their individual meanings don’t have to coordinate semantically. (Wälchli 2006). That is: Even if the semantic component cannot be underestimated in the study of compounds, it is not possible to define compounds in a classical definition solely by means of a semantic feature. But it is certainly true that a characteristic property of many types of compounds (as part of their prototypical definitions) is that they form conceptual units semantically. (p. 4) This is a basic feature of language formation that must be noted when considering future shifts in morphological syntax. The Multilingual Internet (2005) examines the various ways that Facebook has embodied morphological language change. While English has been the majority language of the internet, and as such has contained most linguistic variation, recent developments in web address accessibility will ensure the increasing accessibility and relevancy to foreign languages. As such the research themes ‘…include playfulness and creativity in CMC; romanization of languages ordinarily written in other scripts; and comparison of CMC-specific features in various languages.’ (Danet, p. 5). The underlining thesis is that word formations in computer-mediated communication generally follow Booij refers to in The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology as rule-governed creativity where ‘…our new linguistic expressions must comply with the rules of the language’ (p. 3). Further research notes the word formation process of abbreviations and logograms. Logograms are a sort of linguistic hieroglyph where a symbol stands in place for a word: ‘@’ for at. Examples of abbreviations include: ‘lol’ for laughing out loud, ‘brb’ for be right back, or even ‘f’ for female are included in these investigations; in French we experience ‘6ne’ for ciné (movie), ‘A +’ for ‘à plus’ (see you), and ‘mdr’ for ‘mort de rire’ (dead from laughing). It’s been. In Computer-Mediated Communication for Linguistics and Literacy: Technology and Natural Language Education Adams Bodomo discusses morphology as it relates to Facebook. He identifies the ways that traditional means of morphology is both retained and given in these new forms of communication. Differing from non-CMC related word formation, Bodomo proposes that a principal of economy of expression over expressivity overarches all such communication. A main morphological feature he discusses in is that of shortening. In The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-formation Hans Marchand (1969) discusses shortening, also called clippings. He holds that clippings are not coined as words belonging to the standard vocabulary of a language and they begin as terms of a special group like schools, army, police, and the medical profession. However, Bodomo’s analysis of Facebook proposes means of shortening, or cutting that have originated because of the electronic mediated influence. His research identifies instances such as: ‘r u 3 2nite? i/it possible 2 hv dinner 2getda?’ (‘Are you free tonight? Is it possible to have dinner together?’) or in French, “on se voi ou pa a 13h pr prendre 1 café? for ‘on se voit ou pas à 13h pour prendre un café?’ (‘are we or aren’t we going to meet at 1 pm to have coffee?’). This demonstrates a means of shortening in communication that doesn’t rely on socially established schools of word categorization to develop; instead the grammatical variations occur because of the mediation of new technology in daily social life. While previous researcher has examined the identity forming and collective aspects of this discourse community, in these instances it’s evident the linguistic shifts can have a dividing effect. As members of the discourse community are exposed to the linguistic alterations and adapt their grammar to fit them, those excluded will increasingly become divided from the culture. Ultimately, the social networking capabilities that are bringer together a generation of computer users at rapid speed is also excluding members – often older, computer illiterate generations – from active participation in the new culture. Setting the Stage A sociolinguistic analysis of linguistic utterances Facebook uses Actor-Agency approach fore-grounded by theorists such as Del Hymes and Kenneth Burke. As Burke spoke of human interaction as "a symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by nature respond to symbols (pg. 10)." What follows is a micro-level analysis that implements Burke’s pentad to determine elements of purpose and identity construction in a Facebook conversation. The setting for the particular scenario is the Facebook newsfeed section. The situation occurred on the ‘wall’ of a participant who had posted a status update. The status update read, “ok if you had a choice: fl/ga game or halloween party?” Time of day is also a contingent factor in determining setting, as certain times of day create intrinsically different settings as the people the message is exposed to differ. The participants of the situation are limited to those who have been approved ‘friends’ by the individual, creating a situation unique to social networking sites. Furthermore, the participants have a picture attached to their name that may be different from their physical representation. The image is reflective of their view of themselves, so that it ultimately is closer in social significance to clothing than to individual physicality. Occurring as a status update, the writer of the message understood the conventions of the setting and structured the message to elicit a series of responses. There also seems to be a performative aspect to status-updates, as the speaker is literally indicating their social status by demonstrating they have the opportunity to attend either a football game or a party, and the responses the message receives will often reflect the participants’ position in relation to this status. The responses to the message indicate a desire to keep in social contact with the individual posting the status update, but within this impulse deeper impulses are reflected. In this instance, the majority of participants responded with resounding support for attending the Florida vs. Georgia football game. This seems to be more a means of identifying with the collective spirit of the University of Florida and the socio-economic status this entails, than actually valuing the football game over the abstract ‘party’. One marginal opinion was voiced that the party would be better than the football game and the participant went to great length to describe the reasons why. It seems the ends of this individual’s intentions was to compensate for his outsider status in relation to the football game and to prove his social worth by demonstrating that he is able to compete with the main group dynamic. In this situation, the act sequence is unique to social networking sites in that the responses are logged onto the wall of the original poster, so that all future participants in the conversation are privy to all that has been said before and will develop responses in relation to the entire conversation. Also unique is the method the participants respond: whereas live conversations involve organic means of communication with participants directly speaking when the thought occurs to them; on Facebook walls, the speakers must type out their responses, oftentimes editing them. The responses are also necessarily read in sequential order. The key in Facebook conversations generally remains playful. The genre of this exchange seems to be merely rapport building among the participants, with no direct generic elements limiting it to a specific function of socio-linguistic interaction. In this instance, as the topic of interest is which entertainment event is better to attend, the conversation is particularly geared towards fun and levity, as the participants attempt to demonstrate their points in interesting ways so that the individual poster and the audience group will agree with their assertions and confirm their social status. Identity Construction In the Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge Jean-Francois Lyotard discusses how the future narrative of the self will be determined by the electronic culture. He postulated that social connections, already “a language game” and a “game of inquiry” would increasingly become more dependent on the linguistic utterance in developing self-identity (p. 15). It seems that in a way Facebook has come to embody this fractured post-modern identity, where personality and image are rapidly changed with the click of a mouse and keyboard. Identity construction has been a major concern of sociolinguistic investigations into social networking sites. Valenzuela (2009) argues that Facebook functions to establish personal identity, “by enabling multiple channels for interpersonal feedback and peer acceptance (p. 7)” More directly, in None of This is Real (2007) Danah Boyd uses the Burning Man and Suicide Girls subcultures to discuss the question of identity construction through the now largely defunct Friendster networking site. It seems that Boyd revels in the artificiality of social networking user identities – the title of her research essay is even None of this is Real – and points to the controversy of fake profile, ‘fakesters’ to develop her point. During a period of Friendster’s existence fake profile of celebrities and historical figures were taken down to solidify the actual and legitimacy of the site’s users. She argues that the nature of social networking is such that this fake profiles are just as real as the supposedly legitimate profiles in that they are both constituted through artificial means and don’t constitute ‘true identity.’ While Boyd raises an interesting question about the constitution of identity in these spaces, a contrary analysis of the sample newsfeed posts in this study speaks to the ability of social networking sites to more thoroughly embody identity and individual self-expression. Taking on a humanistic approach to identity construction the ability of the individual to post news and links enhances and ads to the construction of the identity. The newsfeed offers a ready means for linguistic self expression. Even a person’s picture changing to a specific angle or even something completely new represents a form of linguistic utterance towards the individual impulse towards creative personality construction. To borrow a term from the Situationist movement, new pictures and elaborate posts have a detournement effect where previous users are shaken from their past perceptions to realize the identity change of the individual. Other elements of language, such as the frequent hyperlink of Youtube videos of music – currently there five such posts from users in the sample group – or discussions of movies serve, in some regard, to express the individual feelings and emotions of the poster. In these instances the access to electronic means of expression actually goes beyond what is possible in daily life. Lakoff (2001) discusses the way humans construct identity by structuring their experiences in narrative form. The newsfeed offers a perfect representation of this, as current users will often post messages discussing how they are going to sleep, or how they are now ending their day. Notably, these posts receive limited comments, and it seems their purpose is to offer a concluding narrative to their daily activities and cathartically release the individual to sleep. Identity Construction: Direct Observation In reviewing the individual profiles and discussing usage with a handful of members of the Facebook network a number of consistent observations were noted that compared positively to research indicating Facebook’s use in identity construction, improving social networking, and shaping social space. While the participants realize that some amount of artifice goes into profile construction, it seems generally assumed that a level of authenticity is assumed when interacting and networking with members of their Facebook discourse network. The participants greatly trusted that the information they had listed was safe and secure, perhaps in part due to Facebook’s privacy restrictions that allow the user to determine who has access to their profile. While participants trusted the authenticity of the profiles and the people in their approved networks, many spoke about the high frequency in which they checked on their friends or acquaintances profiles to attempt to gain a better understanding of their identity. An interesting feature of language use in profile development relates to the exact ramifications it holds for identity construction. When speaking with the participants, it became clear that they consistently viewed identity as fluid and profile construction as an ever-changing means of development. Whether this is a recent feature of electronic-culture or merely the manifestation of shifting identities within the new hybrid forms of technology is not understood. If the linguistic utterance is extended into the visual realm, the larger ramification of Facebook identity construction can be observed. In observing the sample discourse network it’s clear that the use of pictures is used to create and maintain an image within the community. One member consistently posted pictures with an artistic theme, while others posted pictures that equally functioned to categorize themselves: a student involved in gymnastics consistently posted pictures of herself in gymnastics tournaments or in athletic situations such as running or swimming; another student regularly posted pictures of herself in care-free situations – at football games, with her friends at a carnival, and at a watermelon eating contest. Whereas in the past it had only been relegated to celebrities and politicians, it seems that this new form of social interaction has required a generation of computer-users to become their own publicists and public-relations experts. On a recent episode of CNN’s Nancy Grace, when discussing the demeanor of a reported murderer host Grace discusses -- as if it were primary evidence -- the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the perpetrator. While the reliability of cable news is debatable, it’s worth noting that Grace worked as a Judge and has an extensive legal background. Ultimately, it’s indicative of the major cultural shifts society has undertaken in embracing the effectiveness of language use within social networking sites to determine an individual’s authentic identity. Conclusion In conclusion, the function of Facebook as a means of developing social capital among its participants is evident. While past researchers have pointed to the ill effects of Facebook use, its positive function of bringing groups of people together must be noted. The function of Facebook groups to confirm and, subsequently determine, social identity -- as seen in groups for people who text in awkward situations -- is evident. Facebook also is seen to function by influencing the morphological structure of words, as the computer-mediated nature of Facebook communication engenders itself to the syntactical forms of clippings, compounding, and acronyms. Finally, the language use within profile construction is shown to be indicative of a fractured post-modern identity, where the self is understood as much more fluid and undetermined than previous modern conceptions. The exact function of Facebook as a discourse community clearly exceeds one critical approach and the increasing popularity of the platform is a testament to its ability to satisfy a number of human interests. It seems that the increasing popularity of the platform needs not to be feared but understood, as its prevalence in the twenty-first century electronic culture is inevitable. The research into the form and use of language on Facebook point out the intricacies of the platform as it aids in establishing social status, motivating linguistic shifts, and determining identity construction. The global ramifications of the findings can’t be ignored. Facebook, Twitter, and sites like them are not only bringing the world together at rates rapidly faster than any time in history, but through democratic methods of consensus are shaping the identity of its very participants. References Arrington, Steven (2005). A theoretical analysis of social interactions in computer-based learning environments: Evidence for reciprocal understandings. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 21(3), 363-388. Bodomo, Adams (2009). Computer-Mediated Communication for Linguistics and Literacy: Technology and Natural Language Education. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. Boyd, Danah (2007). None of this is Real: Identity and Participation in Friendster. In Joe Karaganis (Ed.) Structures of Participation in Digital Culture. (pp. 132-157) New York: Social Science Research Council. Burke, Kenneth (1969). Grammar of Motives. California: University of California Press. Lakoff, Robin (2003) Narrative in the construction of social and political identity. In Deborah Tannen & James E. Alatis (Eds), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics: Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond. Baltimore, MD: Georgetown University Press. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Milroy, L (1992). Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model. Language in Society, 21(1), 563. Marchand, Hans (1969). The Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-formation. München: C.H.Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Valenzuela, Sebastian (2009). Is there social capital in a social networking site? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 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