Metadiscourse in and on social media (ESSE2026 seminar)

Session

S12 (1/2) Metadiscourse in and on social media

Sep 2, 2026, 9:00 AM

11. Metadiscourse in and on social media: Introduction to the session

Anna Piata (National & Kapodistrian University of Athens), Lieven Vandelanotte (Universite de Namur)

9/2/26, 9:00 AM

In this introduction to the seminar, we explore our overall theme: the use of English, often alongside images and emoji, in examples of various types of metadiscourse ‘in’ social media – self-reflexive forms of the discourse itself – but also ‘on’ or ‘about’ social media – i.e. discussions that emerge in society on social media usage. We offer discussion and sample analyses of both dimensions....

5. ‘I Have One Daughter’: Meta-Pragmatic Play in TikTok Sound Memes

Kate Scott (Kingston University)

9/2/26, 9:30 AM

TikTok’s affordance for reusing the audio track of an existing post enables a distinctive form of multimodal meta discourse where users communicate not only through what they say, but through how they re contextualise another creator’s discourse. This paper analyses the “I Have One Daughter” TikTok sound meme as a form of meta meme in which creators perform patterns of conversational...

2. Textual Metadiscourse and Humorous Framing in TikTok’s POV Genre

Audrey Willoughby (University of Milan)

9/2/26, 10:00 AM

This paper examines how textual-layer features in TikTok’s POV genre, specifically textual overlays and captions incorporating emojis and hashtags, function as metadiscursive cues that guide humorous interpretation. Following Hyland’s (2005) account of metadiscourse as discourse that frames interpretation and signals stance, these textual elements are treated as resources that organise how...

1. Ventriloquizing on the Internet: Using Dogs to Manage Delicate Conversations On TikTok

Miriah Ralston (Teachers College, Columbia University)

9/2/26, 10:30 AM

This paper explores the phenomenon of ventriloquizing dogs on social media, specifically focusing on TikTok. Much of the work that has been done with ventriloquizing has been in face-to-face interaction (Tannen, 2004). My research brings an asynchronous, computer-mediated approach to studying how ventriloquizing is done and what it achieves.

Using a multimodal framework informed by...