Power, Innovation, and Language Creativity in an Online Community of Practice
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Power, Innovation, and Language Creativity in an Online Community of Practice A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2020 Lisa Donlan School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Contents List of figures ............................................................................................................................ 6 List of tables.............................................................................................................................. 9 Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 10 Declaration.............................................................................................................................. 11 Copyright statement .............................................................................................................. 12 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 13 1 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................. 14 Rationale for research................................................................................................ 14 Research questions .................................................................................................... 15 Contributions ............................................................................................................. 17 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................ 18 2 Chapter 2: The Community of Practice framework ................................................... 20 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 20 The Community of Practice framework .................................................................... 20 Online Communities of Practice ............................................................................... 22 Communities of Practice in linguistics...................................................................... 23 Communities of Practice and language creativity ..................................................... 26 Communities of Practice and power ......................................................................... 29 Issues with linguistic definitions of power in the Community of Practice framework .......................................................................................................................................... 29 The Community of Practice framework and the handling of power. ...................... 30 The Community of Practice framework, power, and the weak-tie theory of language change ............................................................................................................... 31 The Community of Practice framework, power, status, and hierarchy ................... 34 The Community of Practice framework, power, and content moderation. ............. 39 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 42 3 Chapter 3: Methodology ................................................................................................ 45 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 45 Data selection ............................................................................................................ 45 Data collection........................................................................................................... 46 Data analysis ............................................................................................................. 47 Linguistic forms for analysis ................................................................................... 47 Defining power, status, and hierarchy ..................................................................... 49 Measuring status ...................................................................................................... 50 2 Ethnography............................................................................................................. 56 The weak-tie theory of language change: innovators .............................................. 57 The weak-tie theory of language change: early adopters ........................................ 58 Power, control, and linguistic content moderation .................................................. 62 Limitations ................................................................................................................ 62 Ethics ......................................................................................................................... 64 Data presentation ....................................................................................................... 65 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 65 4 Chapter 4: The Popheads Community of Practice ...................................................... 66 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 66 Reddit ........................................................................................................................ 66 Overview of Popheads .............................................................................................. 69 Size of the Popheads community .............................................................................. 70 Demographic overview ............................................................................................. 72 The moderators .......................................................................................................... 79 Language creativity ................................................................................................... 81 Popheads as a Community of Practice ...................................................................... 83 5 Chapter 5: Case study 1 – delete it fat ........................................................................... 89 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 89 Community usage ...................................................................................................... 89 The weak-tie theory of language change................................................................... 94 The innovator ........................................................................................................... 94 The early adopters ................................................................................................... 98 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 110 Status, hierarchy, power, and the delete it fat LCM policy ..................................... 111 Advocation for the LCM policy ............................................................................ 111 Implementation of the LCM policy ....................................................................... 118 Effectiveness of the LCM policy ........................................................................... 123 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 135 6 Chapter 6: Case study 2 – buy x on iTunes................................................................. 137 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 137 Community usage .................................................................................................... 137 The weak-tie theory of language change................................................................. 143 The innovator ......................................................................................................... 143 The early adopters ................................................................................................. 145 3 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 155 Status, hierarchy, power, and the buy x on iTunes LCM policy ............................. 156 Advocation for the LCM policy ............................................................................ 156 Implementation of the LCM policy ....................................................................... 158 Effectiveness of the LCM policy ........................................................................... 160 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 168 7 Chapter 7: Case study 3 – wig ..................................................................................... 170 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 170 Community usage .................................................................................................... 170 The weak-tie theory of language change................................................................