Article published in:
Emotions across Languages and Cultures
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou and Ad Foolen
[International Journal of Language and Culture 4:1] 2017
► pp. 47–71

Identity, emotions and cultural differences in English and Polish online comments

| State University of Applied Sciences in Konin
The focus of the present paper is to examine the extent to which the language used in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and online discourse emotional behavior are good predictors of individual and group cultural types and their identities. It is argued that the identity marking CMC interactants develop has to be stronger, more salient, and, possibly less ambiguous than that used in direct conversation and that the emotionality markers the users apply in their discussion, particularly those engaging negative emotions and reflecting negative judgments, are argued to be used by online discussants for the purpose of increasing the CMC commentators’ conversational visibility. The questions of cultural and linguistic divergence between English and Polish emotional communication patterns are the main points discussed. Three sets of corpus materials are used and the research methodology involves both the qualitative analysis of the emotion types as well as a quantitative (frequency) approach, particularly with respect to culture-specific corpus-generated collocation patterns.
Keywords: CMC, conversational visibility, cultural dimensions, cultural divergence, emotionality (markers), identity (parameters/markers), language corpora, loose-balloon communication, ping-pong communication, projected identity, scale of abuse, snow ball communication
Article outline
  • 1.Focus of the study
  • 2.Parameters of identity and identity marking
  • 3.Communication typology and emotion patterns
  • 4.CORPUS 2: Sports posts
    • 4.1Communication emotionality patterns in Polish CORPUS 2
    • 4.2Communication emotionality patterns in English CORPUS 2
      • Two-directional interpretation with loose-balloon elements
      • Digressive and complementary information
  • 5.CORPUS 3: Pre-election English and Polish comments
    • 5.1Characteristic discourse patterns in Eng CORPUS 3
    • 5.2Characteristic discourse patterns in Pol CORPUS 3
  • 6.Discussion: Cultural dimensions and emotionality
  • 7.Identities, emotions, and cultures
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 October 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.4.1.04lew
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