Speaker
Description
Waseda University Graduate Student Showcase. This presentation reports a discourse analysis of reader comments on the presenter's own Threads post, examining how othering unfolds through language and multimodal resources — emoji, images, code-mixing — in an autoethnographic online discourse event. Drawing on Fairclough's CDA, Riggins' othering framework, and Canagarajah's translingual practice theory, the study identifies recurring discursive strategies across English, Japanese, and Malay/Indonesian comments, and shows how conflict-oriented threads structurally dominate audience engagement relative to supportive ones.
Abstract section 5: References
Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.
Riggins, S. H. (1997). The rhetoric of othering. In S. H. Riggins (Ed.), The language and politics of exclusion: Others in discourse (pp. 1–30). Sage Publications.
Abstract section 2: Contribution/research questions
This study asks: (1) What othering strategies recur in reader comments on a Muslim foreign worker's career-milestone post, and how are they realized across languages and multimodal resources? (2) How do commenters use translingual and multimodal resources (code-mixing, emoji, images, GIFs) to perform solidarity, distance, or contestation? (3) How does the researcher's dual position as author and discourse-subject shape analysis of hostile, multilingual online discourse?
Abstract section 4: Outcomes/results
Comments spanned several languages, with English, Japanese, and Malay/Indonesian each appearing substantially, alongside a smaller presence of Chinese; translingual practice operated both across commenters and within single utterances, including English evaluative terms embedded in otherwise Malay sentences, supporting Canagarajah's repertoire-based account even in adversarial discourse. Othering was structurally concentrated: a single thread dominated the dataset disproportionately, and the largest threads were consistently conflict-oriented despite supportive comments appearing throughout. Laughing emoji clearly outnumbered disgust and hostility emoji, indicating mockery, rather than overt hostility, was the dominant affective register through which othering was accomplished.
Abstract section 1: Relevance
This study applies Fairclough's (1992) CDA model, Riggins' (1997) account of othering, and Canagarajah's (2013) translingual practice theory to a single, densely multilingual and multimodal Threads comment thread. Each framework was developed for a different context — CDA for institutional and media texts, othering for formal political discourse, translingual practice for cooperative multilingual settings. This study tests how these frameworks perform together in an adversarial, autoethnographic case: a large body of comments spanning several languages, in which the researcher is also the discourse's subject.
Abstract section 3: Content/method
A dataset of 1,254 Threads comments (550 top-level, 704 replies; maximum depth 14) was collected via the Threads API under the post author's own account over a seven-day window. Comments were coded for stance, theme, language, and multimodal register (emoji, image, GIF attachments), then analyzed using Fairclough's three-dimensional CDA model alongside quantitative frequency analysis of language distribution and thread-level structure.
| Title | Language, Multimodality, and Othering in Threads Comments |
|---|---|
| Teaching Context | General |