Virtual performatives as face-work practices on Twitter: Relying on self-reference and humour

Abstract

Self-referential third-person predications functioning as stand-alone virtual performatives, such as ∗shrugs∗, abound across modes of computer-mediated communication and interactive multimodal platforms. Their continued use, commonly involving manual addition of typographic elements, testifies to non-trivial communicative needs not satisfied by easy access to graphical icons, like the shrug emoji. This study investigates their contributions to the construction of face in mass messaging. Focusing on face-work practices on Twitter, the aim is to account for ways in which users employ virtual performatives in that noisy, opaque, and socially complex environment. Virtual performatives are examined in a sample of publicly visible tweets which are not retweets or replies to other users and do not contain names of people. Manifesting minimal addressivity, the constructions are shown to rely on self-reference for face-work, inviting imagined audiences of the like-minded to treat the action or emotion thus enacted virtually by an externalized self as something they can relate to. Virtual performatives are inherently playful, and the humour conveyed in the tweets including them is predominantly benevolent and tolerant. A central finding is the conspicuous presence of benign self-deprecating humour: as users seek social acceptance at their own expense, they seem not to take themselves too seriously.