The argumentative genre in social media - a comparison of Wikipedia discussion pages between cultures and between topics

• The argumentative genre in social media – a comparison of Wikipedia discussion pages between cultures and between topics.Johansson, Sverker & Lindberg, YlvaThe crowdsourced encyclopediaWikipedia is the 6th most visited of all websites. Wikipedia articles are written in a social process with heated arguments on dedicated discussion pages, one for each Wikipedia article. As Myers (2010) observes, English-language Wikipedians employ traditional means to support their arguments, but also Wikipedia-specific argumentative criteria, such as Neutral Point of View, No Original Research and Verifiability; cf. Androutsopoulos (2006).The structure, openness and global scope of Wikipedia makes it feasible to extract large parallel  corpora of argumentative writing from many different cultures, debating many different topics. In the first stage of our project, we have done a quantitative study of Wikipedia arguments, comparing the volume of debate surrounding the same 1,000 articles on 25 different language versions of Wikipedia. With this data, we compare argumentation, both on the same topic between languages, and between topics in the same language. Preliminary results show that cultural differences in sheer discussion volume are small, but that some interesting patterns are present.In a second stage, we proceed with qualitative analysis of argumentative Wikipedia texts in selected languages. In the qualitative analysis we will present the intersection between standard and Wikipedia-specific argumentation, as well as the cultural transfer of Wikipedia argumentation between language versions.The results will contribute to our knowledge about how digital literacy is related to traditional literacy and how teachers can meet new demands on writing practices, by integrating social media (Baron 2010. Sofkova Hashemi 2008, Erixon 2012).References:Androutsopoulos, J. (2006). Introduction: Sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10 /4, 419-438.Erixon, P.-O. (2012). Svenskämnet i ett nytt medieekologiskt sammanhang. In Skar, G. & Tengberg, M. (red.). Svenskämnet i går, i dag, i morgon. Stockholm: Svensklärarföreningen/Natur & Kultur, 178-193.Myers, G. (2010). The Discourse of Blogs and Wikis. London:Continuum.Sofkova Hashemi, S. (2008). Kommunikationsteknik och skrivande hos svenska barn. In Domeij, R. (red.). Tekniken bakom språket. Stockholm: Norstedts, 121-142.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Studier av enskilda språk (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Languages (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

argumentation

cultures

Wikipedia

didactics

social media

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)