This textbook covers real world issues pertaining to digital communication, and explores how linguistic research addresses these challenges. Using the 'back-to-front' structure of the Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics series, the book is divided into three sections (Problems and Practices; Interventions; and Theory). The book also seeks to demystify any perceived divide between online and offline communication. Topics covered include text messaging, multiliteracies, and online writing communities. Additional features include tasks, along with a task commentary, a glossary and annotated further reading suggestions.

Exploring Digital Communication

Caroline Tagg

Introduction: why focus on language in exploring digital communication?

Section A: Problems and Practices

I. Digital language and literacy

1) Is digital communication detrimental to grammar and spelling?

2) Has the internet changed how we read?

3) Is the web devaluing what it means to be an author?

4) Does the internet further the global dominance of English?

II. Social issues and social media

5) From anonymity to self promotion: are we ever ourselves on social media?

6) What are the implications of social media for privacy?

7) Is social media making us less social?

8) What can be done about trolls and online bullying?

Section B: Interventions

I. Digital language and literacy

9) Why text messaging may be good for literacy

10) Exploring digital literacies

11) Using the web as a space for writing

12) Using more than one language online

II. Social issues and social media

13) Performing identity online

14) Audience design on social media

15) Constructing virtual communities

16) The linguistics of online aggression

Section C: Theory

I. Digital language and literacy

17) Multiliteracies

18) Translanguaging via a superdiverse internet

19) Heteroglossia

II. Social issues and social media

20) Identities in interaction

21) Sociolinguistic communities

Caroline Tagg is lecturer in the Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics, University of Birmingham. Her publications include The Language of Social Media: identity and community on the internet (edited with Philip Seargeant, 2014) and The Discourse of Text Messaging (2012).