Speaker
Description
Users of dating apps are caught in an epistemic conflict when designing their linguistic self-presentation online (Tagg, Seargeant & Brown 2017) to create a favourable impression without appearing inauthentic and, thus, insincere. Deception is, indeed, very common in online dating(Markowitz & Hancock 2018); conversely, credible app profiles are decisive for drawing potential matches’ interest (Wotipka & High 2016).
This study explores conceptualizations of this epistemic conflict in metadiscourse on online dating, analyzing focus group interviews with Vienna-based university students of English and an open question survey among 30 British students. Applying tools from microlinguistically-oriented discourse pragmatics (Simon-Vandenbergen 2015) and conversation analysis (Heritage & Clayman 2010), the texts and transcripts are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to identify patterns of epistemic modification of functionally distinguishable co-texts. This provides empirical insights into notions of trust in reflexive representations of dating platforms (Byron, Albury & Pym 2021) and young people’s understanding of the relationships created online (Locher & Bolander 2017).
References:
Byron, Paul, Kath Albury & Tinonee Pym (2021). “Hooking up with friends: LGBTQ+ young people, dating apps, friendship and safety”. Media,
Culture & Society 43 (3). 497–514.
Heritage, John & Steven Clayman (2010). Talk-in-Action: Identities, Interaction and Institutions. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Locher, Miriam A. & Brook Bolander (2017). “Facework and identity”. Pragmatics of Social Media 11. 407–434.
Markowitz, David. M. & Jeffrey T. Hancock (2018). “Deception in mobile dating conversations”. Journal of Communication 68 (3). 547–569.
Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie (2015). “Systemic-functional approaches to discourse”. In: Schneider, Klaus P. & Anne Barron (Eds.).
Pragmatics of Discourse. Berlin/München/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. 125–164.
Tagg, Caroline, Philip Seargeant & Amy Aisha Brown (2017). Taking Offence on Social Media: Conviviality and Communication on Facebook. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wotipka, Crystal D. & Andrew C. High (2016). “An idealized self or the real me? Predicting attraction to online dating profiles using selective
self-presentation and warranting”. Communication Monographs 83 (3). 281–302.
