Forms and functions of intertextuality in academic tweets composed by research groups

Abstract

This paper explores the forms and functions of intertextuality in academic tweets composed by research groups. Academic tweets are dialogic and intertextual texts, usually composed by incorporating other voices and taking up text-visual elements from other contexts. Based on the analysis of 300 tweets taken from the Twitter accounts of four research groups in two different disciplines (Chemistry and Medicine), this study investigates the ways in which intertextual practices contribute to the communicative purposes of the genre. The analysis shows that the affordances of Twitter (e.g. hyperlinking, modularity, multimodality) and the purpose of academic tweets shape the forms and functions of intertextuality in these tweets. When composing these tweets academics both reconfigure well-established forms of intertextuality and display novel forms which help them to promote their research, negotiate their relationships with their readers, and share content with diverse audiences.