Examination of the effects of social media innovations on electronically mediated discourse, focusing on interaction.

Social media such as microblogging services and social networking sites are changing the way people interact online and search for information and opinions. This book investigates linguistic patterns in electronic discourse,looking at online evaluative language, Internet slang, memes and ambient affiliation using a large Twitter corpus (over 100 million tweets) alongside specialized case studies. The author argues that we are currently witnessing a cultural movement from online conversation to what can be termed 'searchable talk' - online talk where people affiliate by making their discourse findable (for example, via metadata such as Twitter hashtags) by others holding similar interests. This cutting edge text will be of interest to all scholars and students dealing with electronically mediated discourse.

"[This] is a useful book that contributes valuable concepts of “searchable talk” and “ambient affiliation” to the social media literature. Moreover, it not only exemplifies its claims by means of case studies on microblogging from an interdisciplinary point of view but also informs its readers about the issues to take into account while conducting similar research. In sum, it is a great resource for those interested in pursuing research in social media." - CALICO: Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium Journal

"The book is an interesting account of commonalities of online language. It clearly shows that users are adopting a language style that is specific to online use and that uses different signs in order to convey emotions to account for the lack of actually seeing or hearing the person that you are communicating with. The book is interesting and entertaining and some of the online inside jokes such as the "memes" are very amusing. Overall, the book is a great tool for a person interested in social networks, media and language." - Metapsychology Online Review

"All in all, Zappavigna has produced a rounded piece of work from all aspects. But she has not settled there. Acknowledging that social media are a ‘moving target’ for scholars (Hogan & Quan-Haase 2010: 309 as cited in p. 3), she has already delved deeper into searchable talk in her most recent book (Zappavigna 2018). For certain, she will continue her substantial contribution to the field." - Punctum-International Journal of Semiotics