Exploring Digital Communication Language in Action Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics Series

Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics is a series of introductory level textbooks covering the core topics in Applied Linguistics, primarily designed for those beginning postgraduate studies or taking an introductory MA course, as well as advanced undergraduates. Titles in the series are also ideal for language professionals returning to academic study.

The books take an innovative ?practice to theory? approach, with a ?back-to-front? structure. This leads the reader from real-world problems and issues, through a discussion of intervention and how to engage with these concerns, before finally relating these practical issues to theoretical foundations.

Exploring Digital Communication aims to discuss real-world issues pertaining to digital communication, and to explore how linguistic research addresses these challenges. The text is divided into three sections (Problems and practices; Interventions; and Theory), each of which is further divided into two subsections which reflect linguistic issues relating to digital communication.

The author seeks to demystify any perceived divide between online and offline communication, arguing that issues raised in relation to digital communication throw light on language use and practices in general, and thus linguistic interventions in this area have implications not only for users of digital communication but for linguists? general understanding of language and society.

Including relevant research examples, tasks and a glossary, this textbook is an invaluable resource for postgraduate and upper undergraduate students taking New Media or Communication Studies modules within Applied Linguistics and English Language courses.

Exploring Digital Communication

Caroline Tagg

Introduction: why focus on language in exploring digital communication?

Section A: Problems and Practices

I. Digital language and literacy

1) Is digital communication detrimental to grammar and spelling?

2) Has the internet changed how we read?

3) Is the web devaluing what it means to be an author?

4) Does the internet further the global dominance of English?

II. Social issues and social media

5) From anonymity to self promotion: are we ever ourselves on social media?

6) What are the implications of social media for privacy?

7) Is social media making us less social?

8) What can be done about trolls and online bullying?

Section B: Interventions

I. Digital language and literacy

9) Why text messaging may be good for literacy

10) Exploring digital literacies

11) Using the web as a space for writing

12) Using more than one language online

II. Social issues and social media

13) Performing identity online

14) Audience design on social media

15) Constructing virtual communities

16) The linguistics of online aggression

Section C: Theory

I. Digital language and literacy

17) Multiliteracies

18) Translanguaging via a superdiverse internet

19) Heteroglossia

II. Social issues and social media

20) Identities in interaction

21) Sociolinguistic communities

Caroline Tagg is lecturer in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham. Her publications include The Language of Social Media: identity and community on the internet (edited with Philip Seargeant, 2014) and The Discourse of Text Messaging (2012).