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ERIC Number: EJ1223083
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Jul
Pages: 26
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0167-8507
EISSN: N/A
"You Might Want to Look up the Definition of 'Continental Breakfast'": Other-Initiated Repair and Community-Building in Health and Weight Loss Blogs
Gordon, Cynthia
Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, v38 n4 p401-426 Jul 2019
This study examines other-initiated repair as what has been termed a "light practice," demonstrating how it facilitates interactivity and moments of community creation online. Specifically, I analyze user comments on expert-written blogs that appear on an English-language weight loss website, showing how posters collaboratively initiate, accomplish, and show appreciation for repair activities. These activities, which are, as in face-to-face conversation, typically mitigated through various linguistic strategies, are aimed at aspects of blog text (including vocabulary and amount of information provided), as well as the choice of accompanying images. I show how various people -- commenters, a person profiled in a blog, and bloggers -- all may play roles in collaboratively accomplishing repair and thereby engage in the community. In addition, I suggest that repair not only facilitates participation, but also simultaneously serves as a means of highlighting shared expectations, or what have been called "cultural discourses," about expert-written blogs. In other words, in engaging in repair activities, participants create routine forms of interaction that also (re)affirm shared expectations among members of this community.
De Gruyter Mouton. Available from: Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 121 High Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02110. Tel: 857-284-7073; Fax: 857-284-7358; e-mail: service@degruyter.com; Web site: http://www.degruyter.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A