“Manas, I need help”: analysis of multimodal requests for help from a Facebook group

Abstract

Based on the premises of Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis (HERRING, 2019), in conjunction with Speech Act Pragmatics (AUSTIN, 1962), Politeness Theory (BROWN; LEVINSON, 1987) and Social Semiotics (KRESS; LEEUWEN, 2006), this paper aims to analyze three multimodal requests for help, with verbo-pictorial matrices, instantiated in the Facebook group LDRV. Aiming at understanding the functioning of interaction and discursive practices in the group, we propose a basic decomposition scheme that guides the analysis and the comparison between texts, emphasizing the phenomenon of editions explicitly marked as such (”edits”). In terms of results, we concluded that the verbo-pictorial combinations play a relevant role in the requests for help, especially in terms of “pictorial politeness”; we proposed a possible generic structure for such speech acts in the group; and we elaborated hypotheses about the relations such instantiations may have with the online space in which they occur and its specific discursive practices.

Keywords:
Computer-mediated discourse; Social media; Multimodality; Speech act