Introduction

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Have you ever heard the false contention that your stomach acid could kill the coronavirus if you drink plenty of water and keep your mouth and throat constantly moist? Did you ever swallow such rumors whole regarding the seemingly unfathomable virus at the outset of the pandemic? Well, if so, you’re not unintelligent or something. You’re just too inundated and befuddled by a myriad of misinformation, hoaxes and rumors from the Internet. Here’s an article in BuzzFeed News that has listed quite a few prevailing hoaxes about the coronavirus.

“Before passing on any online rumor, take the time to verify it. This can be done by checking how recently an account has been created, keeping a close eye on information from your local authorities, or searching keywords to find another source.” the news reporter, Jane Lytvynenko, accentuated.

In the contemporary world, confronted with the daunting COVID-19 global pandemic, most of us were inescapably exposed to spurious online information about it. In India, a father of three was reported to have commited suicide upon learning that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19 (Wallen J, 2020). For epidemiologists and other public health professionals, it doesn’t translate into a sensible decision to allow these rumors to reign on social media platforms. Some epidemiologists have begun to create new avenues for the public to acquire more professional and scientific information, namely through their social media accounts such as Twitter.

An interesting research about Twitter 

Tardy (2023) describes a study of ten well-known epidemiologists’ tweets from a small-scale corpus of high and low-impact tweets during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. In her study, she described the way that public health specialists who have a significant following on social media sites used Twitter during the pandemic to expand science knowledge to multiple audiences.

In this article, she rated all of the scientists’ tweets from October 2020 by engagement rate and then determined the 10 tweets with the highest and lowest rates for each specialist.

  • What are HETS and LETS ？

High-engagement tweets (HETs) are tweets with an engagement rate of more than 0.15%. Similarly, any tweets with an engagement rate of less than 0.05% were designated as low-engagement tweets (LETs).

  • How to select data?

To keep a fairly balanced distribution among the users, she only included the top 10 HETs from each scientist, even if they had more than 10 HETs during the month and vice versa. 52 LETs and 91 HETs were produced as a result of this approach, totaling 143 tweets that were used for analysis.

  • Findings

HETs were more likely to be a little bit longer, contain images, concentrate on COVID-19 or politics, respond to recent or ongoing political events, and be written for a large, non-specialist readership. In contrast, LETs frequently had a shorter word count and a stronger professional content emphasis and were prepared with in-group professional readers in mind. News of the writers’ future media appearances was frequently announced in LETs.

What’s more, Tardy examined how the authors of these tweets enact a variety of identities and take on different personas, examining the identity characteristics of their tweets with high and low interaction. The identities in HETs tended to be those that were most relatable to a wide audience, like teachers, sports fans, Spanish speakers, and birders. Here we will illustrate the emerging genres of Twitter for ESP teaching and explain its implication of the approach to English learning.

Here we will illustrate the emerging genres of Twitter and explain its implication of the approach to ESP instruction.

Evaluation of Digital Genres and Identities

How to write in different genres to engage the public

The characteristics of HETs and LETs indicate that we should not regard tweets as a single genre but as multiple emerging digital genres. Twitter provides a platform for writers to communicate with different readers, then they can acquire followers and public attention, which gives birth to emerging genres like informational tweetorials, reactions to current events and sharing of personal anecdotes.

How to perform various identities with different genres

Tardy (2023) demonstrates that the various genres enable writers on Twitter to perform different identities. In some posts, the writer is a scientist or a teacher, while in other posts, the writer can be a sports fan or a storyteller by writing in various genres. The multiple genres will convince readers more in a social communication platform. For example, a scientist who posts scientific knowledge, family anecdotes, and humorous stories may be more trustworthy to readers because we get to view them as multidimensional beings (Tardy, 2023). If you just use one single genre, your tweet will be boring for the audience. So, the readers tend to follow those who can demonstrate their polyhedral identities by drawing on various genres.

  • What about you: what kind of identities do you express when you are using Twitter or similar tools?

The implication for ESP instruction

Tardy (2023) clarifies that for scientists and researchers, learning to communicate specialized content in new genres becomes important. They should not only focus on academic blogs but also on social media genres. Meanwhile, they should also pay attention to identity performance. As for ESP instruction, the implication is to combine academic genres and new genres to recontextualize the content for a broader range of audiences. So ESP instruction can be exploited through Twitter, which is beneficial for specialists to integrate academic writing with emerging digital genres. This provides a new approach to implementing ESP instruction. If you want to teach scientists specialist English for academic writing, you may consider integrating with different digital genres like Twitter.

Conclusion


The case where scientists use Twitter as a medium to convey professional knowledge to the public audience is the successful cooperation of social media and popularization of scientific information to the public. We are now living in the epoch of digital media, so the application of ESP instruction can be more technological. Therefore, it also provides implications for language teachers that digital media, such as Twitter, can serve as an assistant tool to facilitate language teaching. The figure shows us the overview of the potential uses of Twitter as a language learning tool (Rosell- Aguilar, 2017). It can emerge in ESP classrooms by providing linguistic and cultural input, promoting interaction among people in the community on Twitter, and stimulating output from students, such as writing tweets or creating and sharing audio and video. Twitter, which is closely related to students’ daily life, arouses students’ interest to learn, gives them opportunities to practice without the time and space limit, and provides instant and appropriate feedback.

  • What do you think of these ideas? Let us know in the comments how you think digital genres can be used in language teaching.

19 thoughts on “How to Perform Identities Using Different Genres on Twitter”

  1. 1. I agree that the same person on the same social media plays different roles in different areas. In my case, when I am looking at some tweets related to teaching English, I will participate in the discussion as a pre-service teacher. In this process, I will use my expertise and share my professional opinions with others. When I am watching some political news, I will participate in the discussion as a citizen and give an opinion to the government. When I read some popular science articles, I will participate in the discussion as an educatee and learn scientific knowledge. People’s identities on social software are diverse.
    2. I think it’s feasible to use social media as a teaching tool. But we need to consider how to attract students to target materials and assist them to learn target language items. We all know that the information in social media is abundant. Students are easily distracted.

    • I cannot agree more! Everyone plays a different role on social media. As you said, being a private citizen, student, teacher, etc., will have different ways. Our identity determines how we should and how we will participate in social activities.
      Likewise, we should treat the role of social media in teaching activities from a dialectical perspective. We might have to learn how to play its positive role and try to avoid the negative influence.

    • I totally agree with you! I think your experience can best demonstrate the use of different identities on social media; in that case, you can achieve other purposes and convey the type of information you would like to tell the public. You can receive different information and knowledge on Twitter with your diverse identities.
      I totally understand your concern about using social media as a teaching tool. Information on the Internet is abundant, but as teachers, we should be an assistant to help them concentrate on valuable things.

    • I agree. Social media can play an important role in teaching activities in a variety of ways. For example, it can be used to facilitate collaboration between students and teachers, provide a platform for students to engage with course material, support peer-to-peer learning, and allow for the sharing of resources and ideas. Additionally, social media can also be used to facilitate communication between teachers and students, providing timely feedback and discussion on course material. Finally, social media can be used to create a more engaging learning atmosphere, as well as to provide a platform for students to connect with each other and share ideas. However, the main disadvantage of using social media in teaching activities is that it can be distracting for both students and teachers. Social media can create a lack of focus in the classroom, as students may be more tempted to check their social media accounts as opposed to focusing on their studies. It can be difficult to monitor and control student behavior on social media, making it a potential source of cyberbullying or other inappropriate behavior. Sometimes social media can lead to a lack of privacy in the classroom, as students may be tempted to share sensitive information about themselves or others.

    • I cannot agree more. And I think some blogs or posts with eye-catching titles and false information would distract students, even adults. We can think about how to guide students to filter the information and learn something really useful.

  2. Here are some ways I think digital genres can be used in language teaching:

    Analyzing and discussing digital genres: Students can analyze and discuss digital genres in the target language, focusing on their structure, language use, and cultural references. This can help them understand how language is used in real-world contexts.

    Creating digital genres: Students can create their own digital genres, such as social media posts or blogs, using the target language. This can help them develop their writing and communication skills and express their ideas and opinions in a creative way.

    Collaborative digital projects: Students can collaborate on digital projects, such as creating a website or a social media campaign, using the target language. This can help them develop their teamwork and communication skills while also practicing their language skills.

    Authentic materials: Teachers can use authentic digital materials, such as news articles or podcasts, to expose students to real-world language use and help them develop their listening and reading skills.

    • I agree with you. Thanks for your kind comments. These ways help teach students to learn the language for practical use. The first three methods are more suitable for students above elementary school.

    • Can’t agree with you more! Indeed, there are a lot of digital genres in the world. Learning from those genres can make us know more knowledge about some specific areas. I sometimes will use YouTube to look for some abstract or theoretical concepts as creator will use plain language, dynamic video or other methods to better explaining them and make them accessible to more audience.

    • I agree with you. Digital genres now allow us to access content information that is different from traditional genres. For example, when we use social media such as Twitter to share and communicate with others, we use more novel textual expressions such as lol, bbf etc.

  3. 1. I think it’s common for people to have different identities on social media because we are all “multidimensional beings”. Digital identities are reflections of our real-life identities. Presenting various identities helps users to build up a more reliable image. When I use Weibo, a prevalent social platform in China, I label myself a K-pop lover, a game player, and a postgraduate student.

    2. I think it’s possible to use digital genres like Twitter to teach language because it provides authentic languages that people use in daily life, which are quite different from those standardized languages that are taught in school. Many language learners find that although they have studied the target language for several years, they still can not communicate with local people successfully. This is because of the disconnection between authentic language and school-based language. Introducing digital genres to the language classroom can help to narrow the gap. While using digital genres as teaching materials, teachers should pay attention not only to the languages but also to the content. Teachers should carefully examine the genre and texts to see if they are appropriate to use or discuss in the classroom.

    • I totally agree with you. We can see both sides of the coin. People have different identities on social media, and social media also impacts people’s identities, especially teenagers who have not formed their own values and identities. Actually, many youths have social media profiles. If a person does not have a profile on a social media site like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc., they appear to be perpetually cut off from the rest of the world. For these youths, they usually follow the popular trend. So teenagers feel pressured to conform to the “ideal image” they can create online, even when it is not who they really are. Behind a screen, people are free to be anyone they want. Having to keep up with these various personalities can be a tedious task.

    • I agree with you that there is a disconnect between the language we learn in school and the language we use in reality. This is a fact that cannot be ignored. This leads to a lack of motivation and a sense of achievement. As teachers, we need to think about rewilding classroom activities. Introduce social apps, games and even fan fictions that students are interested in into the classroom. Encourage student to participate. But as you said, we also have to carefully check these materials.

    • I really like your idea of using something like Twitter to highlight uses of authentic language, Kate. I can see how it would partly solve the problem of a disconnect between ‘real’ language and school-based language. It might also be possible to get students to see how there could be similarities between some kinds of language use in a digital context and language use in an academic context. For example, a movie review on YouTube could be similar to a literary analysis essay in some ways because they both involve analysis of a kind of text.

  4. The differences of identity in different genres reminds me of my different images in different social medias. Even in the similar platform like WeChat and QQ, I play different roles for there are different audiences in these two platforms. But it doesn’t mean my identity in one platform is false. They are both the real me and I just prepare suitable information for suitable audiences.

  5. I agree that people express different identities when they use social applications. when I use Instagram or weblog, I often share my campus life, humorous stories as a student, and some exciting games as a player. when I work, I may share helpful working experiences.

  6. Well, it is just hard to distinguish the validity of tons of information on the internet since we are living in such fast-pace modern society.

    The sentence “If you just use one single genre, your tweet will be boring for the audience” triggers my interest, cause on some social media platforms, like Red in mainland, if content-creators want to attract more followers, it is advisable for them to post things following the same theme, so that they can establish an identity like an expert in a certain field, which may be the opposite of what mentioned in this blog.

  7. I believe that it is necessary to verify the information before following the instructions that offered for the mass as somehow the information on the apps, i.e. Twitter, is not censored. The different genres of twitter posts can truly reveal the users’ identities through their language adopted and twitter itself is certainly a good source to be investigated.

  8. I agree ESP instructions can combine academic genres and new digital genres. However, there maybe a lack of concrete guidelines on how to do this, so it is suggested researchers develop a book about how to use different digital genres to teach Engish.

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