Language and online identities:

Part A

P. Gruba
School of Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Arts

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 Key readings
• BLACK, R. (2006). Language, Culture,
and Identity in Online Fanfiction. E-
Learning, 3(2), 170-184

• MERCHANT, G. (2006) Identity, Social

Networks and Online Communication.
E-Learning, 3(2),235-244

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 Quote unquote
“If you grew up in the 1950s, you were
inclined to regard your identity as
something you were born with. If you
grew up in the 1970s, you were more
likely to regard your identity as
something you created.”
David Brooks, New York Times, 05 August 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/opinion/05brooks.html?em

What would you write about those born in the

1980s? 1990s?
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 Why do I talk to my cat?
Here’s Spooky ... a stray, pure-bred
Bombay ...

•Animal? Pet?
•Companion?
•Lifestyle accessory?
•Interlocutor?
Spooky the Cat

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 Cats ... the scientific angle
Although cats are often friendly and warm to people, they still
behave as though their independence were total. They are
mysteries to us and one of the qualities that adds to their
mystique is the meow. Scientists have long speculated on the
meanings of both the cats' meows and purrs. Meows are rarely
heard during cat-cat interactions and it is believed to be a
learned response, based on its effectiveness in getting human
attention. The purr, on the other hand, is something cats are
able to do from birth when they purr primarily while suckling.
Purring is used in a wide variety of circumstances, not just when
a cat is happy. For instance, veterinarians have noticed that
some cats purr continuously when they are chronically ill or
appear to be in severe pain. It is thought that they do so as a
way to solicit care from humans.

http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=11
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 And when I chat with Alice?
Human: Hello
ALICE: Hi there!
Human: How are you today?
ALICE: Ah. My logic and cognitive functions are normal.
Human: How's the weather in your part of the world?
ALICE: Rainy.
Human: You sure?
ALICE: I am as sure as I can be.
Human: I heard it was sunny there.
ALICE: Thanks for telling me that gossip. I will remember it.
Human: Think Obama will win?
ALICE: ALICE is always thinking.
Human: By the way, do you have a cat?
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1

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 And ... the academic angle
Three experiments were conducted to examine perceptions of
a natural language computer interface (conversation bot).
Participants in each study chatted with a conversation bot and
then indicated their perceptions of the bot on various
dimensions. Although participants were informed that they
were interacting with a computer program, participants clearly
viewed the program as having human-like qualities.
Participants agreed substantially in their perceptions of the
bot's personality on the traits from the five-factor model
(Experiment 1). In addition, factors that influence perceptions
of human personalities (e.g., whether one uses another's first
name and response latency) also affected perceptions of a
bot's personality (Experiments 2 and 3). Similar to interactions
with humans, the bot's perceived neuroticism was inversely
related to how long individuals chatted with it.
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Holtgraves, T. M., Ross, S. J., Weywadt, C. R., Han, T. L. (2007). Perceiving artificial social
 Identity: The Self
• An ideational object ­­ a social invention
• The sign of the person
• An  expression  that  actualises  the 
potentials of identity and subjectivity
• In continuous state of becoming in action
• Possible only in the web of interconnected 
lives
Anderson, 1996

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 Potentials of the Self
•Identity­­the persistences of the Self
Naturalised practices
Self interpretations
Durable relationships

•Subjectivity
Cultural marks­­ethnicity,race, gender,age
Subject positions­­paradigmatic,relational, 
practical
Action routines 9
 Merchant (2006)
• ‘Identity, Social Networks and Online
Communication’ -- what’s Merchant’s
main concern in this article?
• Is the Internet (for us, more
specifically, CMC) ‘creating a new
people or simply helping us to see
ourselves in new ways’?
• Is the work directed at uncovering
aspects of new communications and
literacy, or shedding light on new 10
Interest in online identity ...
• Growing interest in this area: Why?
– Relate to the affordances on the
technology
– Account of wider social conditions of
embedded new technologies
• New (Internet-based) tools provide a
context for new kinds of identity
performance
• Or ... new media fuels necessity and
desire to maintain new kinds of social
networks, thus new social identities 11
 Some dominant themes
• In an effort to explore the increased
interest in online identity, Merchant
makes a critical examination of the
literature
• One point: The ‘landscape’ of
communication has changed (and
thus, language use), and continues to
change, and there are lots of
possibilities for constructing and
performing social identity 12
 The discourse of identity
threat
• Resistance to change + mistrust of
technology gives rise to a ‘particular
kind of discourse’ that is ‘inflected by
moral panic’ (p. 236)
• Popular media may see the Internets
as a place inhabited by weird and
scary people, where weird and scary
things take place -- and this discourse
illustrate the importance we place on
identity 13
 Discourse of identity threat
...
• Virtual property threatened;
maliciously corrupted
• Personal details easy to locate, so
criminals easily use and steal your
identity (money, too)
• You are constantly under surveillance
• Personal safety at risk; children and
young ppl are particularly at risk by
sexual predators
• Don’t trust ppl; they are not as they 14
Underpinning identity threat
...
• CMC actually poses a threat to one’s
identity
• ‘Going online puts yourself on the line’
• Threat persists despite lack of physical
threat (crossing the road is more
dangerous)
• Additionally ... Internet-based
environments are unstable and that the
‘everyday’ trust of F2F is not longer a
reliable assumption
• Identity shift has long tradition -- as in 15
 One reason, then ...
• For our increased interest in online
identity ... Merchant explains that the
absence of physical co-presence -- in
the ‘lean’ CMC medium -- makes it
harder to get a sense who we are
communicating with, and thus we
have ‘to work harder to produce
ourselves in the new communication
medium’ (p. 237)
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 Further ... Performing
identity
• Are we the ‘same’ person in each of
our differing social contexts?
• Gee (2004) theory of identity in
videogaming:
– Virtual identity: certain attributes,
particular ways
– Real world identity: Offline self
– Projective identity: Interplay of first two
IDs
• Sorts of online identities vary by 17
Complexities of identity

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 Identity markers
• Social theorists have long argued
identity is contingent, multiple,
malleable
• The individual actively produces and
performs narrative of the self
• Identity performance involves sense of
audience: presenting a particular
narrative of self
• And though we accept different facets
of multiple identities in different 19
Transient / Anchored identity
• ID performance runs along a
continuum ...
• Transient: Made and remade,
influenced by changes in maturation,
peer group affiliations, changing
cultural conditions
• Anchored: Based in a long history of
socio-cultural practices (gender,
position in family, age, geo location,
social class) 20
Identity and social networks
• CMC users have strong sense of
audience as they refine varied
narrative acts and identity
performance; relates to actual social
networks
• Wellman:
– Traditional, collocated, close knit, F2F
communities
– Glocalized: local and global communities
– ‘Networked individualism’ -- person, not 21
 Blogging as case study
• A ‘space for authoring social
identities’ (p. 241)
• Semiotics of layout allow options to
display transient and anchored
identities

• Example:
http://tomroper.typepad.com/
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 Merchant’s conclusions ...
• Online environments: New
challenges, new possibilities
• New ppl or new way to see ourselves
open to debate
• Online writing helps sustain ‘narrative
of identity’
• Local to glocal to networked
individualism helps explain but ...

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 More research needed ...
• Catalogue the detail of how identities
are played out both on- and offline ...
• Deeper understanding of on- and
offline work to maintain specific social
networks
3.How do individuals perform identity
across social networks?
• How do specific networks support /
enhance and provide opportunities
for ID negotiation? 24
Related sources used in this
talk
• Anderson, J. (1996). Communication theory:
Epistemological foundations. New York: Guilford
Press.
• Gee, J. (2004). Situated language and learning: A
critique of traditional schooling. New York:
Routledge.
• Alicebot : http://alicebot.blogspot.com/
• Jabberwacky : http://www.jabberwacky.com/

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© Copyright The University of Melbourne 2008