Youth networking interactions: Performing identity online through stance and humour

Abstract

This thesis examines the discursive construction of youth identities on Facebook., an online social networking site widely utilised by youths in Singapore. Combining basic corpus linguistic methodology with sociolinguistic stance analysis, the analysis shows how youths use humour and stance as identity performance strategies to create individual linguistic identities and styles. The study is based on Facebook interaction data from 22 youths aged nineteen, with particular focus on 3 youths who perform highly individualised identities online. The broad sociocultural context underlying these identity performances is elucidated through surveys, interviews and focus group discussions. The analysis proposes a new theoretical construct to explicate how frequently-used orthographised laughter, emoticons, verbs, nouns and individual humour styles help youths position themselves to align with particular groups of friends. Through this process, they perform particular character traits and identities, and consequently perform fun and complex, multi-faceted identities online.