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Discussion published In: Internet Pragmatics
Vol. 2:1 (2019) ► pp.1–33

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Discussion

An outline of some future research issues for internet pragmatics

 | University of Alicante
Published online: 20 May 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00018.yus
Abstract
Internet communication has evolved a lot since it first became popular in the early nineties of the last century. Pragmatics has also evolved and has tried to come to terms with the non-stop changes that internet is constantly producing in our lives and especially in how we communicate and interact. We are probably now at a stage of internet development in which we can make some sound predictions regarding certain challenges that a pragmatics of internet communication will have to face in the next few years to deal with the radical changes that are taking place in today’s internet use. This article will be devoted to listing some of these research issues and to discussing what pragmatics can do to address them accurately, ranging from those issues centred upon the interpretation of online discourses to those involving interfaces and their options for contextualisation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What is said versus what is meant (and interpreted)
  • 3.Application of pragmatic research to multimodal discourses
  • 4.Typed messages with visual support
  • 5.Voice-based communication (but not necessarily synchronous and oral)
  • 6.Increasing importance of the physical in supposed-to-be virtual communication
  • 7.Varying sources of mutuality in the physical-virtual interface
  • 8.Decreasing importance of substantive content in exchange for phatic interactions
  • 9.Elements that frame virtual communication (contextual constraints)
  • 10.Increasing importance of non-propositional effects (feelings, emotions)
  • 11.Big data and their impact on users’ interactions
  • 12.Pragmatics of virtual agents
  • 13.Social networking sites and identity-shaping
  • 14.Online polylogues
  • 15.Media convergence and multiple simultaneous areas of interaction
  • 16.Blurring of traditional elements in communication (author, discourse, audience)
  • 17.Interactions in scenarios where a virtual layer of information is superimposed on the physical
  • 18.Need of ethnographic approaches and analyses of data, for example on Facebook
  • 19.Cross-cultural issues
  • 20.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
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