The high degree of internet penetration and its social (and linguistic) effects evidently influence how people, and especially the highly susceptible younger generations, use language. The primary aim of the book is not only to identify the characteristic features of the digital language variety (this has already been done by several works) but to examine how digital communication affects the language of other mediums of communication: orality, handwritten texts, digitally created but not digitally perceived, that is printed texts, including in particular advertisements (which quickly respond to linguistic change). Naturally, the book presents the characteristics of the digital language variety (and coins the term digilect) but only to give a framework to the impact analysis. It is important to document changes in progress and thus direct attention to potential outcomes. The current linguistic change is different from previous ones primarily in its speed and form of spreading, and it not only brings innovative grammatical forms and writing/spelling solutions but may also have far-reaching cultural and educational consequences in the long run.

The first dedicated volume of its kind, Visualizing Digital Discourse brings together sociolinguists and discourse analysts examining the role of visual communication in digital media. The volume showcases work from leading, established and emerging scholars from across Europe, covering a diverse range of digital media platforms such as messaging, video-chat, gaming and wikis; visual modalities such as emojis, video and layout; methodologies like discourse analysis, ethnography and conversation analysis; as well as data from different languages. With an opening chapter by Rodney Jones, the volume is organized into three parts: Besides Words and Writing, The Social Life of Images, and Designing Multimodal Texts. From the perspective of these broad domains, chapters tackle some of the major ideological, interactional and institutional implications of visuality for digital discourse studies. The first part, beginning with a co-authored chapter by Crispin Thurlow, focuses on micro-level visual practices and their macro-level framing – all with particular regard for emojis. The second part, beginning with a chapter from Sirpa Leppänen, examines the ways visual resources are used for managing personal relations, and the wider cultural politics of visual representation in these practices. The third part, beginning with a chapter by Hartmut Stöckl, considers organizational contexts where users deploy visual resources for more transactional, often commercial ends.

Today, the Internet has become a prime venue for social interaction through online services where people share aspects of their daily lives, talk about their interests with other like-minded people, and express their opinions without formality or constraint. Against this background, this book investigates the aesthetics of informal text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as question-and-answer websites conceived of as a distinctive medium of communication based on cosmopolitan brand communities that share the same field of expertise and a common interest in a particular topic. By adopting sentiment analysis in order to recognize the positive or negative semantic orientation of texts and their emotional style, the book demonstrates that the aesthetics of such informal texts written using Digital English as a Lingua Franca (DELF) is influenced by how we associate emotions and opinions with certain linguistic aspects, such as specific words or syntactic patterns, and how we can classify linguistic expressions according to the type of opinion that they convey.

How do metaverse technologies change how we communicate with each other? This book explores how existing metaverse technologies affect our communication, both verbal and non-verbal, as well as the ramifications of these effects. Communication is central to the human experience, and how we currently communicate (and will communicate) can affect our sense of identity and relationships with others, which can have huge long term societal repercussions. Utilising methods of digital ethnography and linguistic landscape, this book takes an in-depth look at what exactly the metaverse is-or will be-and tracks the technological and societal trends that surround it. To do so, it questions what differentiates the metaverse from earlier connected virtual worlds like World of Warcraft or Second Life, and features extracts from interviews with the users and developers of current metaverses, such as Roblox, Minecraft, and Gather.town. It also investigates the impact of the pandemic in changing and accelerating how we communicate in virtual spaces.

This comprehensive volume highlights the paradigm shift, creative approaches, and theoretical and practical aspects of rhizomatic learning. The great French theorists Deleuze and Guattari introduced the concept of the rhizome to allow educators to explore the educative process with the rhizomatic lens. The chapters cover digital pedagogies, the conceptual framework of rhizome and nomadic pedagogy in 21st-century education. It creates rhizomatic learning environments and rhizome metaphors to illuminate learning and teacher professional development. It covers an extensive range of issues and challenges related to teaching and learning in the techno centric education systems. It presents an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of rhizomatic learning approaches in various disciplines. It examines the following key questions: What is the conception of rhizomatic learning and nomadic pedagogy? In which ways can rhizomatic learning transform teaching methods in the digital era? How can educators implement a rhizomatic learning approach in practice? What is the connection between the rhizomatic process and divergent thinking in socially mediated and technology-driven learning environments? Combining theory and practice, this book is essential reading for educational policymakers, teacher educators, university faculty, researchers, instructional designers, learning technologists, teachers, and undergraduate and graduate students worldwide.