Language, Creativity and Humour Online

Language, Creativity and Humour Online offers new insights into the creative linguistic practices found in diverse digital contexts, such as social media platforms. It introduces new digital genres and contexts, expanding existing research on computer mediated communication (CMC) and covering key concepts in research on linguistic creativity. The book presents original linguistic analyses of a variety of digital genres, including:• Novelty Twitter accounts and political humour• Tumblr Chats• Amazon review parodies. This timely book uncovers the linguistic and interactional mechanisms underlying various types of creative, playful, and humorous texts online. It is essential reading for students and researchers working in the areas of language and media, and language and communication.

"Not only does this book address an important aspect of digital communication, but it is also one of the clearest and most comprehensive accounts of linguistic creativity from a discourse analytical point of view I have ever read. Suitable for both students and seasoned scholars, it will be an indispensable addition to the bookshelf of anyone who studies the internet."Rodney Jones, University of Reading, UK"Camilla Vásquez’s recent monograph is a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of research on users’ creative humour construction on the internet, specifically on social media. (...) Rather than addressing the well-entrenched forms of humour, such as memes, on which much ink has been spilt from various perspectives, she focuses on phenomena that have not been widely acknowledged or investigated yet (...) Vásquez grabs readers by the hand, leading them through her discussions of previous literature and the research she has conducted (...) Human creativity is unbounded, which is something that scholars can and should capitalise on, using Vásquez’s monograph as a fertile source of inspiration."Marta Dynel, Language in Society, 2019Overall, this monograph vividly depicts, with reference to such internet genres as Twitter accounts, Tumblr Chats and Amazon parody reviews, how research on language can be extended and expanded with the everyday use of internet and social media platforms. By focusing on humor and linguistic creativity, this book makes a timely contribution to the ever-increasing interest in digital dicourse studies, showcasing how digital interactions have provided both chances and challenges for discourse studies. By adopting a close, qualitative and interpretive approach, Vásquez demonstrates convincingly that small-scale online data rather than the so-called “big data” can lead to thought-provoking findings and insights. In fact, it is not always the case that “big data” will necessarily lead to big conclusions.Li Zhuo, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Camilla Vásquez is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of South Florida (USF), USA.