A RESEARCH STUDY OF THE IMPLICATURE OF DIGITAL COMMUNICATION: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF MEANING MAKING IN SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTION

Abstract

The paper will focus on the use of implicature in the realm of digital communication, and how the context in which something is asserted affects the meaning of that assertion in social media communication. The research focuses on how people communicate indirectness in the digital realm using text, emojis, punctuations, and the hashtags considering the theory of conversational implicature outlined by Grice and the recent discoveries of the digital pragmatics. A collection of social media posts on Facebook and WhatsApp is analyzed to ascertain trends of implicature and considerations to be used to interpret them. The results suggest that context is an important element in the meaning of implied message in digital communication. Platform norms, the around discourse, and the nonverbal cues, such as emojis, punctuation, and text styles, are important influencing factors to gain better understanding of a message. Where these contextual factors are either missing or vague or they are perceived differently by the users, misinterpretation is likely to occur and hence the need to be sensitive to both linguistic and nonlinguistic representations in order to achieve effective communication in the online world.It is stated in the paper that the nature of the pragmatic strategies used in online communication is changing and it is important to pay attention to both linguistic and non-linguistic information to be able to communicate successfully in an online setup