Second Group Assignment

Here we are, freezing as usual. Not only is Fabriikki cold as ice but it is also -8° outside. You have probably heard this about million times before but Vaasa is the sunniest city in Finland. Unfortunately it is also the city where the wind will rip your hair off. You can not have it all, can you?

Alright, back to business. The reason why I started to write this post was because we got our second group assignment. We had to find one asynchronous online discussion forum that relates to the theme of our blog which happens to be lifestyle. We chose an article written by Hadley Freeman for The Guardian. An anonymous asked:

"I read that sportswear is now in fashion. Does this mean I can describe my old Man United shirt as vintage?" 

Freeman replied and wrote that even though people say that sportswear is in fashion right now they are actually referring to (sporty) clothes designed by fashion designers. The article seems to be aimed at young 'fashionistas'. The comment section is an actual asynchronous online discussion forum where anyone can join. However you need to sign in or register in order to leave a comment. There are 461 comments at the moment (3/2/2015). We decided to pick the 21 first comments that we started to analyze. 

You are able to edit your account and have a profile picture.

(Source)

The article and the comments can be found here.

We analyzed the linguistic characteristics of the comment section on three levels: lexical (1), syntactic (2) and textual (3).

1. Lexical level

There are not any emojis or emoticons which is quite surprising. Zero acronyms such as "LOL". Well this is getting interesting. There are a few 'clippings'. The first one is "me likey" as a shortened version of "I like it" written by wavypeasandgravy. "Cheapie" is the second one used by the nickname MrMixUp. "Cheapie" is an item that is less expensive than others of its kind. "Cheapie" is shortened from "A cheaper version". The same nickname used "DIY" which means "Do It Yourself".

The one and only swear word "fuck" is posted in the following comment:

"If you can manage the trauma of not having a Nike swoosh on your gear then get yourself down to Decathalon sports shop, they sell everything you need for fuck all. 99% of the time it is made of the same material and looks the same as said Nike stuff anyway!" -ExileCuChulainn (26/01/2015)

First-person pronouns are extremely common. 
"I must say that..."
"I managed..."
"I exercise..."
"I think..."
And the list goes on. First-person pronouns were found easily. First-person pronouns are pronouns that refer to the speaker/writer and they are usually used in informal pieces such as forum comments and stories.

2. Syntactic level

Almost every comment included capital letters at the beginning of all of the sentences. There was no lack of punctuation. All the comments are surprisingly well-written. A few short sentences can be found though:

"Comment of the day!" (referring to another comment.)

"Chest hair is great." (Also lacks explicit reasoning.)

"Me likey."

Some sentences lack explicit reasoning. That actually makes the arguments quite empty. Here we have one example:

"Not even the ensemble effect - 'yoga pants' are basically an excuse for people to show off their bottoms. Its that simple." -TyrannoSuarezRex (27/01/2015)

The person writing behind the nickname TyrannoSuarezRex did not explain why he claimed that yoga pants are just an excuse for some people to show off their bottoms. The comment claims that everyone wearing yoga pants is trying to get everyone to notice their bottoms. However the comment is written in pretty good language, no swear words, capital letter at the beginning, punctuation and so on.
And last but not least, the only verbless expression:
"Clearly a fan of hobo chick."

 Is this you TyrannoSuarezRex? (Source)

Sigh, the issues people have these days... (Source)

Now let's move on to the next one.

3. Textual level

Writing behind a nickname and anonymity are great opportunities to write whatever you want without any consequences. But it can be dangerous. Anonymous comments can be rude and hurt others' feelings. Usually online discussion forums have at least some kind of rules. One of the comments was removed by the moderators as it did not meet the rules. The deleted comment had the following text on it: "This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs."

This discussion forum was a great example of dialogue. The sender and the receiver of the message changed roles.

Strong irony can be seen. For example:

"Speaking as somebody who dons a tracksuit to wallow on the sofa to watch match of the day, I think it is important to wear something that looks cool and also soaks up lager spills." -MikeHarold (26/01/2015)

And as an answer to the previous comment:

"I find my boxers are casual enough; and I also allow my chest hair to grow wildly and this takes care of any lager, or salsa dip, spills." -Kier3216 (26/01/2015)

Humor was a quite common feature as well (an answer to the 1st comment):

"I don't really see the point of wearing any clothes, when wallowing on the sofa." -bunnyla (26/01/2015)

"I also prefer dry fit tops as they are generally kebab and lager resistant." -Patrician (26/01/2015)

It is truly interesting how they used humor but not many emotional words. The irony is strong in these comments and usually online comments mean different things to different people. Some might not understand the irony, some might get angry. Some on the other hand may act like they are angry when in reality they are not. And then again, some people might not understand that either.
There was no code-switching because all the messages were written in English. All the comments were surprisingly formal. They wrote about themselves "As a long distance runner..." and "Speaking as somebody who...".
They did not write those comments in this way: "I am a long distance runner and I..." It seems that this kind of writing ("formal") is not typical when writing comments on all kinds of discussion forums online. 

I'll just let this sink in... (Source)

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Our group's name reminds me of the new Disney's movie named Frozen. The theme song called "Let it go" starts to play in my head again. Pretty cool (pun intended). I'm done.

-KL