Can hashtags be considered pragmatic markers in written language? This paper will firstly provide a theoretical overview on pragmatic markers and hashtags with the most important features. Secondly, it will explain the methodology and collected data of a self-made survey. Then, the analysis will draw a line between theory and survey and will answer the guiding question. Finally, the conclusion will summarize the most important results and give a short outlook on a possible evolution of hashtags in the future.
Communication happens in many ways. It happens verbally, through intonation, gestures or facial expressions. It happens everywhere. It happens between friends, it happens in cafes, it happens in books and it even happens online. And communication happens all the time. Even when we do not think about it, we sometimes communicate without knowing and other times, we do it on purpose. Pragmatic markers, such as well, actually or fair enough most often occur in spoken language and are often intentionally used to convey meaning beyond the actual content of a conversation. By using pragmatic markers, a speaker can, for example, show empathy, change the topic of a conversation or criticize what a different speaker said. All this happens within the actual discourse and can provide essential metainformation.
Hashtags, however, most often occur in written language, especially on social media platforms, and are a combination of the # (hash) and a word or phrase following a certain purpose. By means of the following paper, these two ways of communicating are to be explored in detail.
Content
1 Introduction
2 What are pragmatic markers?
3 What is a #hashtag?
4 Survey
4.1 Methodology and Data
4.1.1 Personal Data
4.1.2 Social Media Behavior
4.1.3 #hashtags
4.2 Analysis
5 Conclusion
6 Sources
1. Introduction
Communication happens in many ways. It happens verbally, through intonation, gestures or facial expressions. It happens everywhere. It happens between friends, it happens in cafes, it happens in books and it even happens online. And communication happens all the time. Paul Watzlawick once said “one cannot not communicate” (Griffin et. al. 2015, 166). Even when we do not think about it, we sometimes communicate without knowing and other times, we do it on purpose.
Pragmatic markers, such as well, actually or fair enough most often occur in spoken language and are often intentionally used to convey meaning beyond the actual content of a conversation. By using pragmatic markers, a speaker can, for example, show empathy, change the topic of a conversation or criticize what a different speaker said. All this happens within the actual discourse and can provide essential metainformation. Hashtags, however, most often occur in written language, especially on social media platforms, and are a combination of the # (hash) and a word or phrase following a certain purpose. By means of the following paper, these two ways of communicating are to be explored in detail with the aim to answer the question ‘can hashtags be considered pragmatic markers in written language’?
Therefore, this paper will firstly provide a theoretical overview on pragmatic markers and hashtags with the most important features. Secondly, it will explain the methodology and collected data of a self-made survey. Then, the analysis will draw a line between theory and survey and will answer the guiding question. Finally, the conclusion will summarize the most important results and give a short outlook on a possible evolution of hashtags in the future.
2. What are pragmatic markers?
The term ‘pragmatic marker’ has emerged in the last 20 to 25 years to describe items such as well, you know, like and I mean. Besides the concept pragmatic marker, different researchers have used diverse notions in their studies. For instance, Aijmer and Simon-Vanbergen (2006, 2; quoted in Beeching 2016, 4f) explain that discourse markers describe a particular marker that signals coherence relations whereas pragmatic markers are associated with discourse and textual functions. Moreover, Fraser (1996; quoted in Beeching 2016, 5) regards discourse markers as a subtype of pragmatic markers and therefore uses the latter term in his studies. Additionally, Brinton (1996, 29) states that discourse marker was the most common name suggested for the seemingly empty expressions in oral discourse. Furthermore, she also lists other notions like interjection, filler or pragmatic particle, however, highlights that she uses the term pragmatic marker in her works (ibid) claiming that this term better captures the wide range of functions that pragmatic markers can have (1996, 31; quoted in Laukkanen 2016, 16). Since this term paper intends to provide an overview and for the sake of clarity, I will also use the generic term pragmatic marker.
Many scholars state that the central function of pragmatic markers is to express the relation or relevance of an utterance to the preceding utterance or to the context (Brinton 1996, 30). McCarthy (2006, 208) and Schiffrin (1987; quoted in Beeching 2016, 4) understand pragmatic markers as words or phrases which function to link segments of the discourse to one another and to give instructions about how the next piece of information fits with the previous one. Schourup (1999; quoted in Browning 2017, 12) lists some of the characters of pragmatic markers as being connectivity, optionality, orality, and multicategoriality. Moreover, Ziv and Jucker explain that pragmatic markers “have been analyzed as text-structuring devices, (...) modality attitudinal indicators, as markers of speaker-hearer intentions and relationships, and on instructions on how given utterances are to be processed” (1998, 4; quoted in Laukkanen 2016, 17f). Consequently, pragmatic markers do not occur arbitrarily within a speech situation but they follow a certain purpose depending on what the speaker intends to communicate.
Pragmatic markers are lexical rather than a grammatical category, however, their classification in terms of conventional word classes is problematic since they stand outside of clause structures (McCarthy 2006, 209). Like it has been mentioned by Schourup previously, the usage of pragmatic markers is optional (1999; quoted in Browning 2017, 12). That means that they can be omitted in a sentence and are not obligatory (Browning 2017, 14f). Moreover, only with some exceptions, they can appear initially, medially and finally in a sentence and are therefore sometimes referred to as ‘afterthoughts’ (Aijmer 1999; quoted in Browning 2017, 12).
Mentioned above by Schourup, pragmatic markers are most frequent in spoken language and characterized as being part of oral fluency (Beeching 2016, 4). Pragmatic markers in spontaneous conversations allow speakers to hesitate, back-track, repair, and repeat (Beeching 2016, 4). They serve multiple functions like gap filling in conversations and thus help the speakers to make their speech seem more fluent. Hence, used appropriately, pragmatic markers fulfill certain functions in a conversation and are therefore said to represent naturality and to be very addressee-oriented (Beeching 2016, 4). They are reflexive, meaning they ‘mirror’ the speaker’s mental process commenting on what goes on in the speaker’s mind (Redeker 2006; quoted in Aijmer 2013, 4) and thus imply the relation between meaning and context (Aijmer 2013, 4). Accordingly, pragmatic markers are highly communicative means which aim at facilitating the conversation between speakers and thus give information about a speaker’s communicative purposes and intentions.
Pragmatic markers fulfill several purposes and are therefore multicategorial, which was already mentioned by Schourup previously. Vincent (2005, 189; quoted in Beeching 2016, 4) points out their two main functions enumerating the connective and modal feature of pragmatic markers. Firstly, regarding them as connectors, pragmatic markers function as conjunctions and adverbs of liaison. Secondly, serving as modal elements, they introduce a point of view on the discourse and take the form of adverbial expressions, thus adding more valuable information to an utterance. Blakemore (1987a, 125; quoted in Brinton 1996, 30) states that pragmatic markers indicate how the relevance of one discourse segment is dependent on another and thus helps the interlocutor to draw logical connections within the discourse. That means, that pragmatic markers function as marking devices which display the speaker’s understanding of the contribution’s relationship or relevance to the information of the immediately preceding contribution (Goldberg 1980, 141; ibid). The connective function of pragmatic markers includes markers used for backwards reference to resume after an interruption, for example, as I was saying, talking about X (McCarthy 206, 210) as well as for the interlocutor to recognize a topic change like incidentally (ibid, 212). Opening and closing conversations are also very important features of pragmatic markers since they manage the discourse (McCarthy 2006, 214) with expressions like so, (all) right, and anyway (ibid). Not only do pragmatic markers connect and structure the discourse, they also give metainformation on how an utterance is to be understood besides its actual content by means of modal elements. McCarthy explains the feature of emphasis, which can be laid on a certain part of the discourse with words such as listen or look (2006, 218). By means of pragmatic markers such as alright, I see or good, the interlocutor can show his involvement with what is being said (ibid, 221). Additionally, speaker and interlocutor can give their own opinion and personal preference with stance markers such as actually, basically or frankly (ibid, 222). Hedges help speakers to sound less assertive which can be obtained by the markers like apparently, I think, kind of and like (ibid, 223). Lastly, McCarthy (2006, 224) brings up interjections which are like exclamative utterances consisting of single words such as hooray, jeez, damn or oops (2006, 224) . All these items express positive or negative emotional reactions to what is being or has just been said. Interjections and pragmatic markers in general, like it has already been highlighted by Schourup (1999; quoted in Browning 2017, 12), are mostly common in spoken language except in written representations of speech (McCarthy 2006, 224).
As has been stated, pragmatic markers possess a variety of functions in communication. They serve to organize a talk, change topics and put emphasis on an utterance. Therefore, they are very important in conversations to give metainformation beneath the actual content. This can help speaker and interlocutor to get the most communicative gain out of a talk and to react to one another in appropriate ways. Yet, pragmatic markers are no longer restricted to oral speech, like it has just been pointed out by McCarthy (2006, 224), but they have also become very popular in written speech that aims at representing natural oral language. The following chapter will therefore deal with hashtags as possible means to get the features of pragmatic markers written down.
3. What is a #hashtag ?
For a long time, hashtags as such were no more than a combination of the # (hash) symbol and a series of words or characters (Small 2011; quoted in Browning 2017, 1). However, they have become an essential part of the social media world. Hashtags were introduced on Twitter in 2007 by social designer Chris Messina (Caleffi 2015, 46) as a way to classify messages (tweets) according to topic, thus allowing users to easily search content and receive information related to it (ibid). As a result, hashtags have become tools to find messages and take part in conversations (Laniado 2010; quoted in Laukkanen 2016, 1) meaning that they have developed into a “community building linguistic activity” (Zappavigna 2011, 2; quoted in Caleffi 2015, 46).
Hashtagging has turned out to be a very flexible means to find information on similar topics online (Caleffi 2015, 48). Twitter experts claim that the best hashtags are those made of a maximum of six characters and three hashtags in a tweet should be the highest number of occurrences for an excessive usage could cause confusion (ibid). Another reason is, that Twitter was initially used like a messenger to send SMS, and a tweet is therefore still restricted to a number of 140 characters (Laukkanen 2016, 4). This emphasizes the communicative aspect of hashtags and represents the aim to communicate with as little effort as possible. Furthermore, this behavior resembles that of natural language, where people’s linguistic choices within a communication are largely dependent on choices made by other people and longer words tend to be avoided, presumably because they are uneconomic (ibid).
Hashtags very often serve as a contextual aside to comment on, give more depth to, or somehow emphasize what has been said (Caleffi 2015, 49). Dickinson highlights the fact that, besides having a practical facilitative purpose, hashtags follow affiliation with the related values and communities, making it possible for Twitter users “to interact with others on terms that other modes of communication cannot provide” (2013, 25; quoted in Caleffi 2015, 47). Further, Laukkanen argues that face-to-face strategies cannot be implemented as such in an online environment (2016, 2). That is, the technological possibilities and realities bring with them a need for new kinds of linguistic and paralinguistic means of communication (ibid). Therefore, hashtags are now frequently used to express feelings and add more communicative layers to messages (Laukkanen 2016, 2).
In fact, hashtags are no longer simply used as a method to categorize, but they are individually produced by online users for various reasons. That means, they serve to comment on (#well- Idontthinkso), to praise or criticize ideas (#gofordemogracy) or people (#theroyalfamily), to promote brands (Coca Cola #AmericaIsBeautiful) or events (#Wimbledon) or to spread and provide updates on breaking news (#hearthquake) (Caleffi 2015, 46). In addition, hashtagged utterances seem more effective when performing speech acts like greeting (#happybirth- daytoyou), informing (#brazilwins), warning (#payattention), complaining (#Ihate), expressing solidarity (#weareinthistogether) and thus represent a new means through which language functions (Laukkanen 2016, 2). They also serve as disclaimers (#kidding), an accidental remark or naming (#oops), to share personal feelings and emotions (#angry), to support movements (#prayforboston), are used for self-mockery (guess what I got in Maths again - a five! #callme- genius) as well as for chat or conference participation (#ESSEconverence) (Caleffi 2015, 49). In Addition, hashtags can be used to protect the own face and allow users to brag in less arrogant ways (e.g. Hello new Lambo #luxurylife) (Laukuca 2018, 61). Moreover, Caleffi (2015, 68) emphasizes the communicational features of hashtags by illustrating it with the example of # and arguing that it does not provide a logical hyperlink to any themes or topics of conversation, but is used instead to provide metadata about the tone of the tweet and metacommentary about the utterance itself (Laukkanen 2016, 2). In this case the and aims to highlight the significance of both utterances made: the one before and the one after and, and thus the # replaces the intonation that can normally only be provided in oral discourse.
Consequently, it seems that the hashtag has started to function as a guide to the reader’s interpretations and that it can also “play a stylistic role, allowing users to maintain a personal (...) style in a mediated, largely text-based, public discourse context” (Scott 2015, 8; quoted in Laukkanen 2016, 1) making “online communication (.) as real as offline interaction” (Locher 2010, 1; quoted in Laukkanen 2016, 5). Therefore, they can be looked from the point of view of pragmatics.
4. Survey
Recent studies show that there has been a change in hashtag usage in the past years (Laukkanen 2016, 3). In addition to the basic function of searchability and hyperlink connection as a topical marker (Laukkanen 2016, 17), hashtags now seem to be used to convey underlying tones and maintain social relations (Laukkanen 2016, 2). Indeed, they are used in a number of ways and for various purposes today. It could therefore be assumed that hashtags have become a new means to illustrate natural language in written texts. The following analysis will therefore explain why hashtags and pragmatic markers share a potentially high relation.
4.1. Methodology and Data
The study is based on a survey that I have planned and carried out myself. It has been created in English and German to reach a broader range of participants. Both surveys consist of identical open/close and obligatory/facultative questions, a distinctive discussion of the results is therefore not necessary and both surveys can be analyzed as one. The poll has been internally divided into three separate parts: personal data, social media behavior, and #hashtags.
4.1.1 Personal Data
Altogether, 100 volunteers aged from 14 to 89 have taken part in the survey. 79 of them said to be female, 19 of them were male, and 2 described themselves as diverse. I have also asked for professional status, which I, however, will not discuss here because, due to the anonymous character of the survey, I could not draw relations between profession and social media behavior.
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