230140 Exploring Pragmatics on Social Media (S) (SoSe 2025)

The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life and has changed the way we communicate with other people. It has generated novel genres and has given rise to a variety of social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) on which people interact with one another “on the go” via smartphones and other (mobile) devices.
Building on the linguistic foundations from both lectures, this seminar explores the pragmatics of such social media discourses, or how people use language in diverse online contexts to achieve interpersonal goals. We will investigate the principles which govern communication by adopting an interpersonal pragmatics perspective. More specifically, we will discuss major theoretical approaches and concepts within the field of pragmatics (e.g. Gricean maxims, speech act theory, linguistic (im-)politeness, among others) and apply them to authentic language data found in online spaces.
We will engage in hands-on pragmatic research into social media contexts and the communication found within digital spaces. As part of a group research project, students will learn to describe, analyse and interpret examples of pragmatic phenomena in social media.
Further details will be made available in the first session.

Requirements for participation, required level

Having completed the other elements of the Basis3 module (i.e. "Introduction to English Linguistics" (Basis3.1) and "Introduction to Sociolinguistics" (Basis3.2)) before attending this seminar is highly recommended.