An Analysis of the Intertextuality of Social Media Discourse of Chuka University Students on WhatsApp Platforms

Abisaki Oloo Aono,Nancy Kisala,Miriti Gervasio

doi:10.32996/ijllt.2021.4.7.22x

Abstract

The earliest forms of the internet were developed in the 1960s whereas the first recognizable social media site was created in 1997. Since then, Social media has greatly influenced the way people communicate with one another and continues to gain popularity owing to the technological milestones made in the world of communication. As people communicate via social media interaction platforms, language naturally and inevitably experiences some changes. Therefore, there was a need to undertake a linguistic study to account for such changes and developments in language use. The main concern of this study was to analyze the university students’ social media discourse. The discourse analyzed sprung from the WhatsApp interaction platform. The WhatsApp groups utilized were those formed by Chuka University students in Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya. Particularly, the following objective guided the study: to demonstrate the intertextuality nature of social media discourse. The study employed a multimodal semiotic approach as the analytic tool. A descriptive research design and the qualitative technique were employed to analyze data. Both Snowball and purposive sampling procedures were used. Snowballing was used to establish the WhatsApp groups that were used by the students, while the purposive sampling procedure was used to selectively collect texts from WhatsApp groups. The texts that were purposively selected were those that demonstrated the intertextuality nature of social media discourse. The rationale for choosing WhatsApp was the fact that there was a paucity of linguistic studies based on this interaction platform despite its popularity. The study findings revealed that social media discourse exhibits intertextuality in which language is dexterously and creatively used. This study sheds light on language usage and its dynamics. It is hoped that it will enrich knowledge on Multimodality and Semiotic Theory.

Highlights

1 Students’ texts display aspects of intertextuality owing to the fact that despite students sharing a lot in common, they are part and parcel of the wider society and some features that point to the social, political, and religious life, that happen in the wider society are reflected in their texts
The study findings revealed that social media discourse exhibits intertextuality in which language is dexterously and creatively used
0 Conclusion The objective of this paper was to analyze the intertextuality of social media discourse by Chuka University students

Summary

Introduction

A text spoken or written in one variety of language (one social language) may accomplish some sort of switching by incorporating words from another text written or spoken in the same or a different variety of language. This whole process is what is referred to as intertextuality (Gee, 1999). The writer gives a strange solution to anyone who finds himself in the scenario that Kinuthia found himself in Through this text, this study attempted to explore the possibility of a text to exhibit a myriad of linguistic aspects that are unique to university students. It explores the current issues lightly affecting the nation as discussed below

Methods

Results

Conclusion