TY - JOUR

T1 - Cricket bats, #riotcleanup and rhubarb

T2 - everyday creativity in Twitter interactions around Test Match Special

AU - Gillen, J

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Language Sciences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Language Sciences, 65, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.007

PY - 2018/1

Y1 - 2018/1

N2 - Changes in society brought about by use of social media have reverberated in public sports discourse giving opportunities for performances of shared culture. I investigate everyday linguistic creativity in the communicative practices of Jonathan Agnew, a commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation and his networked audiences through Twitter and the radio programme, Test Match Special (TMS). I explore how Agnew and others demonstrated linguistic creativity in situated interactions, transversing physical/digital boundaries that were entwined with specific socio-economic and historical contexts. Through the analysis of two topic clusters, I show how collaboratively constructed shared cultural understandings of the setting and flows across two media channels invoke complex chronotopes. Twitter performances of layered simultaneity are shown to be valued elements of creativity. This study contributes to current sociolinguistic research in expanding understandings of (i) everyday linguistic creativity as strategic performance in specific, complex contexts; (ii) how space and time can be discursively reworked in social media, sometimes presumed to be concerned with the present moment; and (iii) how flexible approaches to ethnography can contribute to such research.

AB - Changes in society brought about by use of social media have reverberated in public sports discourse giving opportunities for performances of shared culture. I investigate everyday linguistic creativity in the communicative practices of Jonathan Agnew, a commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation and his networked audiences through Twitter and the radio programme, Test Match Special (TMS). I explore how Agnew and others demonstrated linguistic creativity in situated interactions, transversing physical/digital boundaries that were entwined with specific socio-economic and historical contexts. Through the analysis of two topic clusters, I show how collaboratively constructed shared cultural understandings of the setting and flows across two media channels invoke complex chronotopes. Twitter performances of layered simultaneity are shown to be valued elements of creativity. This study contributes to current sociolinguistic research in expanding understandings of (i) everyday linguistic creativity as strategic performance in specific, complex contexts; (ii) how space and time can be discursively reworked in social media, sometimes presumed to be concerned with the present moment; and (iii) how flexible approaches to ethnography can contribute to such research.

KW - cricket

KW - linguistic creativity

KW - social media

KW - sports discourse

KW - Twitter

U2 - 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.007

DO - 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.03.007

M3 - Journal article

VL - 65

SP - 37

EP - 47

JO - Language Sciences

JF - Language Sciences

SN - 0388-0001

ER -