Metapragmatic discourses in differentiating genres in online media

Abstract

One of the possible ways to explore contextualization is through external discourses referencing the pragmatics of the discourse in question. These are known as metapragmatic discourse. The purpose of this article is to theoretically integrate the concept of metapragmatics into genre analysis and apply metapragmatic tools to the analysis of specific genres. Five YouTube videos together with their accompanying comments exhibiting metapragmatic properties were analyzed. Methodologically, the analysis relies on the textually oriented content analysis. The results indicate that placing discourses nominally relying on one and the same generic form into a certain genre may be predicated on contextual variables that may have nothing to do with said form per se. These variables, however, may be verbalized by the original author and by their audience in the form of metapragmatic markers. This may mean that for the final addressee, the “effect” of the original discourse will depend on the attribution of this discourse, based on the metapragmatic markers, to one of the “competing” genre variations emerging, as it were, in an ongoing exchange between the author and his audience. A case in point are sponsored and “honest” review genres. A second observation resides in the realm of hybrid genres. An example here is integrating sponsored content into one of the “legitimate” lifestyle-genres (“hot tips”, vlog, etc.). A fraction of the discourse community seems to view this as delegitimizing the discourse and the genre in question, while others see it as an “unfortunate insert”, which does not, however, change the genre’s overall value. This leaves the question open whether such genres should be considered new and full-fledged genres, with sponsored content being one of their integral features.