Sproglige generationsforskelle på sociale medier

This study addresses the theme of generational differences in social media communication. With a multi-sited online and offline ethnographic approach (Androutsopoulos & Stæhr 2018) I address the following questions: (1) Which norms for digitally mediated language use are voiced in the participants’ metalinguistic reflections in interviews and in their interactional practices on Messenger and text message? (2) Which generational differences in language use do the participants voice and how do these contribute to their social positioning of each other? (3) How do the young and the older participants adjust their language when communicating with each other on social media? The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out over a period of 7 months. The participants in this study are a group of approx. 60 first-year high school students in the age of 15-18 years and secondly 14 of the students’ families. The parent generation from the families is between 36 and 55 years old. My data for this study consists of interviews and Media Go-along conversations with participants from both generations and interactional data from their private interactions on text message and Messenger. By examining the interactional practices of the two generations on text message and Messenger and by analyzing their metalinguistic statements about norms of language use, I study how they orient towards different norms of language use in such private interactions. Furthermore, I investigate how these norms are negotiated in interaction and how they contribute to the participants’ accommodative strategies when they interact across different ages and contexts. In my analysis I illustrate that the generations express different norms of language use. In chapter 4 I show that my participants recognize different language features to belong to different generations, and that, when evaluating these norms, they position themselves in opposition to each other. In chapter 5 I examine how the norms are negotiated in interaction and how the participants seem to reproduce public discourses about youth and adult language as two separable styles. Finally, in chapter 6 I illustrate that the participants despite their different norms are accommodating to each other and to different contexts when communicating.