English and French Online Comments

John Marcus Sommer studied English Language and Literature and Romance Studies at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. He worked as a doctoral researcher at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Linguistics. His research interests lie in texts, conversations, literature arts, films, and games.

• 1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 111.1 Knowledge Transfer via the World Wide Web ......................................... 111.2 Cultural Turn in Linguistics ....................................................................... 121.3 Research Question ....................................................................................... 122. From Text to Text Linguistics .................................................................. 173. Genre .................................................................................................................. 213.1 Genres as Analytical Categories ................................................................. 213.2 The Multiple Layers of Genre ..................................................................... 243.3 Contrastive Textology ................................................................................. 243.4 Genre Change ............................................................................................... 333.5 Intertextuality ............................................................................................... 373.6 Genre and Culture ....................................................................................... 394. Previous Research ......................................................................................... 434.1 Letters to the Editor ..................................................................................... 434.2 Readers’ Comments ..................................................................................... 454.3 Facebook Comments ................................................................................... 494.4 Tweets ............................................................................................................ 524.5 Disqus & Livefyre ........................................................................................ 555. Conversation Analysis ................................................................................ 595.1 Comparing Conversational Patterns ......................................................... 615.2 Topic Changes .............................................................................................. 645.3 Topic Continuation .................................................................................. 665.4 Conflictual vs. Non-Conflictual Conversations ................................... 676. Corpus ............................................................................................................ 717. Diachronic Development of Letters to the Editor ...................... 777.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 777.2 Discover ..................................................................................................... 807.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................... 877.4 GEO ........................................................................................................... 938. Diachronic Development of Online Comments ......................... 998.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 998.2 Discover ................................................................................................... 1078.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................. 1128.4 GEO ......................................................................................................... 1219. Multiple Commenters ........................................................................... 1279.1 Commenters in Multiple Threads ........................................................ 1279.2 Commenters on More Than One Platform ........................................ 1319.3 Long-Term Commenters ...................................................................... 13410. Layout Comparison ............................................................................... 13911. Situation ...................................................................................................... 14912. Topic Management ................................................................................. 15512.1 Examples of Topic Maintenance ........................................................ 15512.2 Examples of Topic Change ................................................................. 16212.3 Topic Changes within Conversations ................................................. 16712.4 Interim Summary: Topic Maintenance and Topic Changes ............ 17612.5 Quantitative Analysis of Topical Actions ........................................... 17713. Qualitative Analysis ................................................................................ 18113.1 Conflict Conversations ......................................................................... 18113.2 Complete Support Conversations ....................................................... 19813.3 Sharing with Friends ............................................................................. 20813.4 The Use of Links .................................................................................... 21013.5 The Use of Emoticons ........................................................................... 21713.6 Hashtags ................................................................................................. 22413.7 Quote Article ......................................................................................... 22614. Quantitative Analysis ............................................................................. 23314.1 Language Comparison .......................................................................... 23314.2 Platform Comparison ........................................................................... 23514.3 Comparison of Overall Magazine Websites ...................................... 23914.4 Discussion of Results ............................................................................ 24315. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 247Appendix .............................................................................................................. 251List of Figures .................................................................................................... 257List of Tables ....................................................................................................... 259References ............................................................................................................ 261Corpus ................................................................................................................... 279