This is from a research paper I wrote
for English 302 in the spring. It was for the linguistics unit of the
class, and I opted to write about John Searle's classification of
speech acts, and how they are used in online spaces. Passive
voice/transitive verbs will be bolded and in green,
abstract subjects will be bolded and in blue,
and linking verbs will be bolded and in red.
I've decided not to include the introduction in this excerpt, because
I feel that the actual “meat” of the paper (if you will) is more
overblown and lardy. (Also, even though it was not one of the
requirements, I will be highlighting prepositional phrases in
yellow.)
(Another side note: apologies for the formatting being a total mess,
I had to re-download this from Google because I lost the original,
and this is what I got.)
_____
The
main question that was to be answered
in this paper was
the question
of which speech acts
in
particular are used to respond to inflammatory posts or comments in
an online setting. My theory
uses
John Searle's classification of speech acts, wherein he states that
there are
five different
illocutionary
speech acts: assertives; directives; commissives; expressives; and
declarations (Searle
1975).
I theorized that assertives would be
used most often in
responding to
these kinds of posts or
comments,
with
the rationale being
that assertives are
used to “commit a speaker to the truth of an
expressed
proposition” (Searle 1975), and, in
niche settings, people are
eager to
identify with
the group
of
which the niche consists (?),
or the group that is challenging the niche group. In
feminist settings, and
particularly
in settings where “men's rights”
activists (hereafter referred to as “MRAs”) are
the majority
population,
gender is
obviously the biggest distinction between these two groups of people.
Age and
social
standing appear to be
of no consequence in
these arguments, possibly because this information is
not
readily available to
other parties, which
correlates with
the anonymity provided by
the internet.
Additionally,
previous research suggests that feminist forums are
particularly vulnerable, as
“they must
balance
inclusive ideals against the need for protection and safety, a
tension that can be exploited by
disruptive
elements to generate intragroup conflict” (Herring et al. 2011).
To
find my data, I exclusively observed online sources, as
they were
more than appropriate for
the
kind of
information I was
trying to glean. I had initially intended to
find my information through
blogs
that are
of a
feminist/womanist bent, but discovered that the vast majority of
well-
known,
“mainstream” feminist blogs have a policy of
deleting any trolling or off-topic arguments in
the
comments.
This made it relatively hard to
find data on
these sites, as
the majority of
the speech
examined
fell under
their description of
trolling, even if it may not have been
considered trolling in
other
forums. For this reason,
I then narrowed my horizons to
Reddit, where comments and posts in
the
“subreddits” are
stated to be
similarly moderated, but in
reality, are
not. I then further narrowed my
sample
area to
one post on
Reddit in
the “r/MensRights” group that
received over 1,500 comments
from
MRAs, feminists, anti-feminists, and many participants who
represented various other groups.
(Worth
noting is that the original poster identifies as atheist, so atheists
were significantly represented
in the
group, though this had no bearing on the arguments or speech acts
used.)
___
Rewrite:
In this paper, the main question I strove to answer was: Which speech
acts are found in responses to inflammatory online materials? To
answer this, I used John Searle's classification of speech acts,
which includes five illocutionary speech acts: assertives;
directives; commissives; expressives; and declarations (Searle 1975).
I figured that assertives would appear most often, as they "commit
a speaker to the truth of an expressed proposition” (Searle 1975).
In feminist settings, especially when "men's rights"
activists are significantly present, gender is obviously the main
distinction between the sparring parties. Age and social standing do
not appear to matter, possibly because this information is not
necessarily publicly shown. This correlates with the anonymity
provided by the internet. Also, research suggests the vulnerability
of feminist forums, who "must balance inclusive ideals against
the need for protection and safety, a tension that can be exploited
by disruptive elements to generate intragroup conflict” (Herring et
al. 2011).
For
this data, I only observed online sources. I had wanted to find the
data on feminist blogs, but the majority of "mainstream"
ones generally delete off-topic arguments or "trolling" in
the comments. Because of this, I could not find sufficient data on
these sites, and moved my sights to Reddit, where comments/posts on
"subreddits" are frequently unmoderated. Finally, I
narrowed my sample area to a post with over 1,500 comments from many
participants who represented many groups.
Original:
425 words
Rewrite:
232 words