Metadiscourse in Social Media: A Reflexive Framework

Abstract

Because existing metadiscourse theory is largely based on professional writing, this chapter presents a framework for studying reflexive metadiscourse in informal writing on social media. Based on analysis of English-language text posts on three social media platforms-Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr-the criteria of reflexivity are reviewed in light of dialogical social media settings, where writers manage discourses that involve multiple messages and participants. The analysis also considers the impact of platform layout and affordances on the structure and context of the ongoing discourses. A frequency analysis of personal and impersonal metadiscourse shows that reflexive metadiscourse is most frequent on Reddit and least frequent on Twitter, but the frequency varies depending on the topic of conversation and communicative goals present.