RT Journal Article
T1 A syntactic and pragmatic study of nominal vocatives in the Twitter exchanges of rappers’ fans
A1 Palacios Martínez, Ignacio Miguel
K1 Twitter
K1 Nominal vocatives
K1 Address terms
K1 Computer-mediated communication
K1 Digital genres
AB This study aims to examine nominal vocatives in Twitter through the analysis of 1500 posts extracted from the accounts of five well-known female and male rappers. From this total, a sample of 550 vocatives were analysed. Attention is paid to their frequency, class, position, type of clause and the polarity in which they occur, and the pragmatic functions they express. The factor of gender is also investigated. The analysis reveals that those posting to these Twitter accounts make use of a very large and varied repertoire of nominal vocatives. The group of familiarisers clearly prevails over other categories of vocatives and this high frequency of familiarisers contrasts to the situation in spontaneous conversations where first names tend to be the most common. Vocatives in final position clearly prevail over initial and medial position. Besides, Twitter posts containing nominal vocatives in final position tend to be short while those in initial position are far longer. Polarity does not seem to have a strong influence. Some differences, however, are also observed according to the use of nominal vocatives with respect to gender. As in spontaneous conversation, vocatives in Twitter generally serve to strengthen social relationships (creating solidarity, complimenting, expressing appreciation, reinforcing the group identity) while discourse-oriented functions relating to topic and turn management are not so common
PB Elsevier
SN 0378-2166
YR 2023
FD 2023
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30327
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/30327
LA eng
NO Journal of Pragmatics  207 (202). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2023.02.004
NO For generous financial support, I am grateful to the Spanish Ministry of Education, Innovation and Universities (grants PG2018-093622-B-100, PID2021-122267NB-I00), the European Regional Development Fund, the University of Santiago and the Regional Government of Galicia (grant ED431B 2021/02)
DS Minerva
RD 23 abr 2026