LATVIJAS UNIVERSITĀTE

BAKALAURA DARBS

RĪGA 2015

UNIVERSITY OF LATVIA

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH STUDIES

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION: ONLINE USER

MANUALS

SOCIĀLO MEDIJU TEHNISKĀS DOKUMENTĀCIJAS

DISKURSA ANALĪZE: LIETOTĀJU ROKASGRĀMATAS

TIEŠSAISTĒ

BACHELOR THESIS

Katrīna Dorošenoka

Matriculation card No. kd11033

Adviser: lect. Jana Kuzmina

RĪGA 2015

Declaration of Academic Integrity

I hereby declare that this study is my own and does not contain any unacknowledged material

from any source.

Date:

Signed:

ANOTĀCIJA

Šī darba mērķis bija veikt diskursa analīzi un izpētīt galvenās tiešsaistes sociālo mediju

tehniskās dokumentācijas lingvistiskās iezīmes. Lai sasniegtu šo mērķi, tika veikta situācijas

izpēte, analizējot oficiālās Facebook un Twitter lietotāju rokasgrāmatas tiešsaistē. Darba

teorētiskajā daļā autore prezentē pieejamās teorijas apskatu par tehnisko dokumentāciju un

diskursa analīzi. Darba praktiskā daļā ir aprakstīts situācijas izpētes process un veikta iegūto

datu interpretācija.

Pētījuma laikā tika pierādīta darba sākumā izvirzītā hipotēze, ka trīs galvenās tehniskās

dokumentācijas lingvistiskās iezīmes ir jautājumu uzdošana, nenoteiksmes formu un tagadnes

laika lietojums. Šī pētījuma rezultāti būs noderīgi gan lietotāju rokasgrāmatu lasītājiem, gan

tehnisko tekstu rakstītājiem, kas strādā ar sociālo mediju tiešsaistes rokasgrāmatām.

Atslēgvārdi: sociālie mediji, tehniskā dokumentācija, tiešsaistes rokasgrāmatas, Facebook,

Twitter.

ABSTRACT

The present research has been accomplished with the goal to conduct discourse analysis and

investigate the main linguistic features of social media technical documentation, in particular

online user manuals. To reach the goal, a case study of the official Facebook and Twitter

online user manuals was implemented. The theoretical part provides an overview of the

relevant theory on discourse analysis andtechnical documentation . The empirical part

comprises the description of the research process and presents the main findings.

During the research the hypothesis posed that three main linguistic features of the social

media technical documentation include questions about the subject matter, the use of

infinitives and the present tense was justified. The findings are applicable for end users as

well as technical writers who work with online social media user manuals.

Key words: social media, technical documentation, online user manuals, Facebook, Twitter.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 7

1. The Notions of Discourse and Discourse Analysis ........................................................... 10

1.1Perspectives on Discourse and Discourse Analysis .............................................. 10

1.1.1Discourse as Text ...................................................................................... 12

1.1.2Discourse as Genre ................................................................................... 14

1.1.3Discourse as Social Practice ..................................................................... 14

1.2Approaches to Discourse Analysis ........................................................................ 16

1.2.1Critical Discourse Analysis....................................................................... 16

1.2.2Descriptive Discourse Analysis ................................................................ 17

2. The Field of Technical Communication ............................................................................ 19

2.1The Genre of User Manuals .................................................................................. 19

2.2Linguistic Features of Technical Writing .............................................................. 21

2.2.1Infinitive Forms ........................................................................................ 23

2.2.2The Use of Future and Past and Present Tense Aspect Form ................... 24

2.2.3Types of Questions ................................................................................... 25

3. Discourse Analysis of Social Media Technical Documentation ....................................... 28

3.1Selected Corpus ..................................................................................................... 29

3.2The Process of Analysis ........................................................................................ 29

3.3Results and Discussion .......................................................................................... 31

3.3.1Use of tenses ............................................................................................. 32

3.3.2Use of Infinitive Verb Forms .................................................................... 39

3.3.3Use of Questions ....................................................................................... 41

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 45

References ................................................................................................................................ 48

Appendix 1 Facebook Online User Manual Examples ............................................................ 54

Appendix 2 Twitter Online User Manual Examples ................................................................ 59

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INTRODUCTION

The term technical documentation comprises various genres which provide technical

information regarding the usage, handling and functionality of a particular product. It exists in

both forms – written (e.g. user manuals, design specification, project or test plans) and spoken

(podcasts, videos, etc.). The beginning of the research of the technical documentation domain,

according to Luzon, dates back to the end of 20th

century, when authors such as Bartholomew

(1997), McKenna (1997), Seliman (1995), Klein (1997), Farkas (1998), Mulcahy (1988), and

others, began to investigate the organisational structure of technical reports, communicative

purpose and delivery, rhetorical construction as well as the strategies of coherent task

instructions (2005:287). However, the research of online user manuals is scarce.

Furthermore, the rapid development of technologies leads to the necessity to educate end

users about the latest technical advancements and functions of modern technologies, which is

why online user manuals are created in the first place. Due to the complexity of modern

technologies, it is important that the technical writer knows how to create clear and specific

user manuals that are reader-friendly.

Social media user manuals are useful tools for the target audience who look for

technical information on how to use some particular functions available on the particular

social network. The aim of online user manuals is to provide the most topical information

available on the subject matter in a comprehensible, well-organised and clear way. The

language used in user manuals should be precise and unambiguous for the reader to find a

solution of the problem that has caused his or her interest in the subject matter. This paper

examines the most common linguistic features of social media technical documentation. The

main target audience of it is end users as well as technical writers as their main task is to

consume the documentation to perform some activities or engage in writing and produce new

technical documentation. Due to the fact that this discourse is rather new (the authors have

spoken about the phenomenon of social media only since the 20th

century (Albarran, 2012)), it

may be challenging for a young professional to find guidelines and to learn about the

particular features of it.

All the abovementioned has created the rationale for the present research and

determined the goal of the paper, which is to conduct discourse analysis of social media

technical documentation, i.e. investigate and analyse the recurrent linguistic features of online

user manuals.

Prior to commencing research activities the following hypothesis was posed:

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Considering the communicative aims and the target audience of online user manuals, three

recurrent linguistic features of the social media technical documentation include questions

about the subject matter, the use of infinitives and the present tense aspect forms.

The abovementioned linguistic features have been investigated, as the communicative

aim of manuals is to inform the user and to provide steps how a certain action can be

accomplished or a goal – achieved. The topics are formed as questions, as users when looking

for an answer online often describe the situation or formulate the topic as question. If the

author of the user manual has predicted the probable question asked by the user, the

likelihood of finding a matching answer online is higher. The infinitives might enable the

user to perform certain operations, while present tense- aspect forms reflect the descriptions

of technical processes.

The enabling objectives to achieve the research goal are the following:

1) to study the theoretical frameworks regarding discourse analysis andtechnical

documentation ;

2) to conduct a case study of the official Facebook and Twitter user manuals available

online and to do their discourse analysis;

3) to do corpus manual mark-up, annotation and investigate the use of recurrent

linguistic features of technical documentation;

4) to draw relevant conclusions.

The theoretical framework of this study is based on the theories and works of Bhatia

(2004), Crystal (1987), Paltridge (2012), Yule (1996), Van Dijk (2007), Beaugrande (1991).

The empirical research methods used are a case study and discourse analysis aimed to

reveal recurrent linguistic features of social media online user manuals.

The corpus/text database for the analysis consists of 5,032 sentences, it contains 64,346

tokens and comprises information available in 2 user manuals of social media provided by the

official Facebook and Twitter websites. To ensure the reliability Oxford Wordsmith tool,

Adobe Reader, Microsoft Word count programmes were employed. The present paper

consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1 studies the concepts of discourse and discourse analysis. This analysis

includes a wide overview of the relevant theory by such authors as Crystal (1987), Paltridge

(2012), Yule (1996), Van Dijk (2007), and others.

Chapter 2 examines the field of written technical communication by looking at theories

by Markel (2008), Graves (2012), Alred (2003), Laplante (2012), and others.

Chapter 3 provides the main findings of the empirical part of the paper, which have

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been defined after the analysis of chosen textual database - social media online user manuals

available on the official Facebook and Twitter Help Desk. In the present paper the author has

investigated three linguistic features – types of questions, the use of infinitives and the use of

tenses. These features have been chosen for the study due to the fact that manuals describe

actions to be performed by users. The author‘s prior research activities were aimed at

investigating social media documentation as well. In her term paper she conducted genre

analysis of online user manuals, namely, performing move and step analysis which has

equipped her with the preliminary background knowledge of the genre in question.

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1. THE NOTIONS OF DISCOURSE AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the relevant theories on discourse and

discourse analysis by authors such as Schiffrin (2003), Paltridge (2012), Bhatia (2004), Jones

(2012), Gee (2005).The notion of discourse analysis is fundamental for this Bachelor Thesis

and the theoretical background will be helpful in analysing the linguistic features of social

media online user manuals.

1.1 Perspectives on Discourse and Discourse Analysis

The term discourse appeared in humanities and social sciences only in mid-1960s after it was

introduced by Harris in 1952 (Paltridge, 2006: 2) who defined it as ‗a way of analysing

connected speech and writing‘. One of the Harris‘ (1952) most important observations

pointed out by Paltridge (2006) is that ‗connected discourse occurs within a particular

situation – whether of a person speaking, or of a conversation, or of someone sitting down

occasionally over the period of months to write a particular kind of book in a particular

literary or scientific tradition‘ (Harris, 1952: 3). Therefore, it may be considered that scholars

speak about both written and spoken discourse or may concentrate on only one mode of

communication. In the present BA thesis the author focuses on written discourse, as the goal

is to investigate linguistic features that appear in written documents.

Since Harris (ibid.) many definitions have been devised, one of them by Van Dijk

(1988) who has attributed discourse to ‗a form of language use, public speeches or more

generally to spoken language or ways of speaking‘ (1998:1). Moreover, he was the one of the

first authors claiming that ‗after investigating several concepts of discourses, it can be

concluded that there are three main dimensions: language use, the communication of beliefs

(cognition), and interaction in social situations‘ (ibid: 2).

Bhatia provides a deeper look on the concept , stating that the study of discourse can

bring numerous benefits, such as providing ‗insights into the structuring of communicative

behaviour and its role in conduct of social life‘ and provide ‗an understanding of how literary

writers achieve aesthetic value in their creative writing by describing, interpreting and

analysing literary style‘ (1998:3). This is one of the statements which lead to discourse

nowadays seen as an established discipline and there are thousands of publications about this

subject matter. Bhatia not only offers a definition of discourse and discourse analysis, but

also defines the three main perspectives how discourse can be seen – as text, as social

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practice, and as genre (1988:4-6), which will be later developed in subsequent chapters. From

the previously mentioned scholars‘ opinions it can be concluded that Harris (1952) provided a

more general view on discourse and dicourse analysis that started the discussion about how

these terms can be seen, while Van Dijk (1988) speaks about the notion in two parts – the

spoken discourse and discourse as the language use, taking into consideration cognition and

context as two integral parts of these notions.

In recent 60 years the meaning of the terms discourse and discourse analysis has

changed and evolved and scholars offer a wide variety of new and updated definitions of

these terms, while the core meaning of these terms has remained. The author of the present

BA thesis has provided an overview of more recent definitions offered by Bhatia (2004),

Schiffrin (2001), Renkema (2009), Paltridge (2012), and Jones (2012) in order to look at this

phenomenon from more than one point of view, however, the definitions do not differ

considerably.

Schiffrin claims that discourse can either mean anything beyond sentence, language use,

or broader range of social practice (2001: 1) and her categorisation is similar to the one by

Bhatia provided above.

Meanwhile, in a more recent publication by Bhatia the author refers to discourse as

‗language use in institutional, professional or more general social contexts‘ (2004: 3)

attributing discourse as a social action and presupposing genre analysis

Similarly, Renkama (2009:15) provides us with explanation that

discourse meaning has both a pragmatic and a semantic dimension. Pragmatically, a text

or speech represents a complex action – or, more precisely, an articulated proposal of a

joint action to be realized with the participation of the addressee-; semantically, a text

establishes a developing representation of states of affairs, which hold true in some

possible world.

Highlighting textual perspective, Paltridge states that ‗discourse analysis examines

patterns of language across texts and considers relationship between language and the social

and cultural context in which it is used‘ (2012: 7).

Meanwhile, bridging the social and the textual perspectives Jones defines discourse as

‗the study of the ways sentences and utterences are put together to make texts and interactions

and how those texts and interactions fit into our social world‘ (2012:2). Moreover, he

continues by adding that discourse should not be seen just as ‗the study of language‘ (ibid.)

and explains it is as the way of ‗looking at language that focuses on how people use it in real

life to do things such as joke and argue and persuade and flirt, and to show that they are

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certain kinds of people or belong to certain groups‘ (ibid.). Additionally, as ‗discourse is tied

up with our social identities and our social relationships, discourse analysis can help us to

understand how the societies in which we live are put together and how they are maintained

through our day-to-day activities or speaking, writing and making use of other modes of

communication‘ (ibid.:4), discourse analysis is a useful way how to make researchers

understand how the reality is viewed by people and why it is so.

The difference of the abovementioned definitions shows the variety of possible

perspectives on these terms. If Schiffrin, Renkama (2009), and Bhatia (1998) both speak

mostly about discourse in relation with context and social or institutional practices, Paltridge

(2012) and Jones (2012) point out the linguistic aspect as well and claim that the language

used can be investigated without analysing the particular social setting . The difference of

opinions may be explained with the fact that each author looks at these notions of discourse

and discourse analysis on the ground of their experience, branch of linguistics and the

peculiarities of discourse chosen for study.

Moreover, due to the date of origin, discourse analysis or the study of discourse as well

as semiotics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistis, pragmatics, can be seen as a rather new

interdisciplines (Van Dijk, 2007: 1) so the definition canno be linear. According to Schiffrin,

the significant number of definitions for the term discourse is why ‗many linguistic books on

the subject now open with a survey of definitions‘ (2003:1).

From all mentioned above it can be concluded that scholars have presented numerous

definitions and perspectives of how discourse can be seen. It is the researcher‘s task to choose

the categorisation or classification of these perspectives that appear to be the most appropriate

for the particular research and study corpus. Three major directions are seen in discourse

analysis, i.e. discourse as text, discourse as genre and discourse as social practice, which was

best summarised by Bhatia (1998). The author of the present paper intends to implement

Bhatia‘s categorisation as the leading one and aims to describe it in more detail in the

upcoming subchapters and grounds why only the perspectives of discourse as text is chosen

for the present BA thesis.

1.1.1 Discourse as Text

According to Bhatia, at the lowest level of discourse analysis discourse can be seen as text.

This concept refers to (2004: 19)

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the analysis of language use that is confined to the surface-level properties of discourse,

which include formal as well as functional aspects of discourse, that is phonological,

lexico-grammatical, semantic, organizational (including intersentential cohesion) and

other aspects of text structure (such as ‗give‘ and ‗new‘, ‗theme‘ and ‗rheme‘ or

information structures (such as ‗general-particular‘, problem-solution, etc.) not

necessarily having interaction with context in a broad sense but merely taking into

account what is known as co-text.

This perspective concentrates on discourse only within the textual space and often excludes

the engagement with context and the emphasis in this case is on the textual product not on the

interpretation or social practice (ibid.: 20). Meanwhile Jones claims that when we speak about

discourse as language in use, we speak about discourse analysis where the ‗focus is on how

people actually use language to get things done in specific contexts‘ (Jones, 2012:37).

As the author of the research is investigating the linguistic features of the particular

discourse, the perspective offered by Bhatia is chosen as basic because in this perspective ‗the

emphasis at this level of analysis is essentially on the properties associated with the

construction of the textual product‘ as well as ‗on the interpretation or use of a product‘

(2004:20), which coincides with the goal of the present research. The perspective by Jones

(2012) is not chosen, as he connects his perspective with the social context, which is not the

primary focus for this research. However, the social perspective can not be disregarded

completely since manuals are created for the use by discourse community members in a

certain social setting.

Other scholars speaking about discourse as text are Brown and Yule, who choose to

describe discourse as transactional, when speaking about situation when language serves as a

tool to express the content, and interactional, when social relations and personal attitudes are

involved (1983:1). In situations when discourse is transactional, the language is message-

oriented and the author concentrates on putting words in sentences in a way that provides

clear information and transfers the message to the reader (ibid.2).

In the case of the present research we speak of transactional discourse as it conveys

descriptions and instruction how to behave in a certain target situation. The interactional

features are seen only at the performative level, when the end user id induced to action.

Nunan has also looked at discourse analysis as a study of language in use and reminds

that the terms ‗text‘ and ‗discourse‘ are often used interchangeable, which should not be the

case When conducting the analysis of language in use, the researcher can explore different

regularities and patterns of language that can help in understanding the meanings that these

regularities and patterns bring through the text (1993:7).In the present paper the author

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distinguishes between the text and discourse attributing the former to the static product and

the latter to the dynamic process. Considering the communicative aims of technical

documentation, transactional perspective on discourse is actualised.

1.1.2 Discourse as Genre

While the perspective of discourse as text concentrates more on properties associated with the

construction of the textual product rather than on the interpretation or use of such a product

(Bhatia, 2004:20), the perspective of discourse as genre does the opposite – it

extends the analysis beyond the textual product to incorporate context in a broader sense

to account for not only the way text is constructed, but also for the way it is often

interpreted, used and exploited in specific institutional or more narrowly professional

contexts to achieve specific disciplinary goals.

Consequently, this kind of analysis of the textual output is one of the main characteristics of

any framework within genre-based theory (ibid.). It is often followed when the researcher is

willing to concentrate on the professional practice. However, it does not mean that the textual

features are ignored, in fact, this perspective includes paying attention to the relevant features

of textual form (ibid.:22), which is why the previously conducted research by the author of

this BA thesis is seen as beneficial in understanding and analysing this discourse.

The results after performing move and step analysis in the prior research equipped her

with the preliminary background knowledge of the genre in question and it was concluded

that the common characteristics of the social media technical documentation genre include

defining the term or subject matter and offering related topics for further investigation of the

reader, as well as posing a question (Dorosenoka, 2013). Moreover, as in each of the

paragraphs there was information about the subject matter delivered to the reader, the author

concluded that the communicative purpose of the social media technical documentation is to

inform the reader about different technical phenomena, instances of use of application and

how to deal with problems (ibid.). These conclusions motivated and were taken into account

during the preparation of the present BA thesis.

1.1.3 Discourse as Social Practice

When discourse is seen as social practice, Bhatia (2004:20) highlights interacting with the

particular context in the direction of broader social context, meaning that ‗discourse as a

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social practice functions within a much broader social space, where may essentially need

social and pragmatic knowledge in order to operate effectively‘ (ibid.).

Similar explanation of this perspective is offered by Brown and Yules, who, as

mentioned in the previous subchapter, have stated that language if used in some social setting

can also be interactional if the social relations and personal attitudes are involved (1983:1).

According to Miller, when language and context are not seen separately, but as a whole,

we look at discourse by analyzing the speech constructed and interpreted, and the language

forms that have been used to attain the goal of conversation. She stresses the importantce of

this perspective on discourse by mentioning the works of Goodwin (1992), Shea (1994),

(Hall, 1993), Kramsch (1986), and others, who have ‗argued that language and context are

mutually contitutive‘.

The abovementioned claim coincides with the statement by Bazerman (2008) that

‗language is crafted, deployed, and interpreted by individuals in the course of social

participation, even when individuals use language in a personally reflective mode,

considering one‘s own identity, commitments, and actions using received language‘.

Moreover, he adds that

language users (with particular neurophysiological capacities and individual histories of

language experience) in the course of interaction call upon the resources of language that are

socially and culturally available and that have been typified through histories of social

circulation; nonetheless, individuals construct meanings and consequentiality from their

perception of particular novel situations and their participant action in those situations

Another author who sees discourse not only as language in use, but also as language in

context or social setting, is Jones, who claims that discourse analysis is ‗the study of the ways

sentences and utterances are put together to make texts and interactions and how those texts

and interactions fit into our social world‘ (2012:2).

All the previously mentioned statements prove the relation of discourse and context, as

well as the importance of social setting. While Bhatia (2004) and Brown and Yules (1983) put

the stress on the skills and personal experience that influences the discourse in a particular

social setting, Bazerman emphasizes the way how the author of the discourse can use the

language to attain a certain goal.

However, due to the fact that the author of the present paper has chosen to perform

discourse analysis concentrating only on the linguistic features of social media technical

documentation, in particular online user manuals of Facebook and Twitter, which does not

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include genre analysis and the analysis of the context since it was previously conducted, the

perspective of discourse as text has been chosen as basis for the empirical part of the paper.

1.2 Approaches to Discourse Analysis

The definitions above investigated the concept of discourse as a theory, highlighting its

textual, generic and social perspective. The following subchapters describe the possible

approaches implemented when discourse analysis is used as a research method. It reveals the

principles and describes instances when the particular approach may be chosen.

The previously described perspectives of discourse analysis have determined the

emergence of two terms widely used by linguists - descriptive and critical discourse analysis.

These terms refer to approaches of discourse analysis, which may be used as research

methods (Jorgensen, Phillips, 2012:3-4)

1.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis

According to Van Dijk (1995) the term critical discourse analysis (CDA) stands for ‗a special

approach to the study of text and talk, emerging from critical linguistics, critical semiotics and

in general from a socio-politically conscious and oppositional way of investigating language,

discourse and communication‘ (1995:1). Some of the characteristics for this approach include

the following criteria (ibid.):

● It is problem- or issue-oriented, rather than paradigm-oriented. Any theoretical

and methodological approach is appropriate as long as it is able to effectively study

relevant social problems, such as those of sexism, racism, colonialism, and other

forms of social inequeality.[...]

● In order to study social problems or issues adequately, CDA work is typically

inter- or multidisciplinary, and especially focuses on the relations between discourse

and society (including social cognition, politics and culture) [...]

● CDA-studies (may) pay attention to all levels and dimensions of discourse [...]

is the attempt to uncover, reveal or disclose what is implicit, hidden or otherwise not

immediately obvious in relations of discursively enacted dominance or their

underlying ideologies. [...]

However, the author continues by explaining, that not all CDA works always reflect these

features mentioned in his works.

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As stated by Baker and Ellege, critical discourse analysis is ‗an approach to the analysis

of discourse which views language as a social practice and is interested in ways that

ideologies and power relations are expressed through language‘ (2011:26). Further on, the

claim that ‗critical discourse analysts are particularly interested in issues of inequality,

sometimes keeping in mind the question ‗who benefits?‘ when carrying out analysis‘ (ibid.).

Baker and Ellege mention also other approaches to critical discourse analysis that have been

offered by authors such as the discourse-historical approach (Reisgl an Woodak, 2001), socio-

cognitive approach (Van Dijk), relevance theory (Hart and Luke, 2007), and corpus-assisted

discourse studies (Partington and Baker, 2006).

The author of the present BA thesis is not using the CDA approach, as the goal of the

paper is to investigate the linguistic features of social media technical documentation and the

social relations and aspects, context and social practices are not analysed or examined.

1.2.2 Descriptive Discourse Analysis

Descriptive discourse analysis (DDA), according to Van Dijk (ed.) is a more theoretical

approach (1997: 24), and it concentrates more on the structure of the written language

(Crystal, 1987: 116;Yule, 1996: 92). Meanwhile, Fairclough states that while critical

discourse analysis can be characterised by ‗global‘ explanatory goals, the goals of descriptive

discourse analysis are ‗either non-explanatory, or explanatory within ‗local‘ limits (2010: 45).

However, descriptive work in discourse analysis may include also other characteristics, for

instance, ‗a reliance upon the concept of ‗background knowledge‘, adoption of ‗goal-driven‘

local explanatory model, and neglect of power in discourse‘ (ibid.). From the characteristics

mentioned previously, it can be concluded that general descriptive discourse analysis

concentrates more on the use of the language, and not so much on the language being

connected with a particular social context.

As the author of the present paper has decided to perform discourse analysis of written

technical communication with the goal to investigate and describe the linguistic features of

the genre of user manuals without taking into consideration the social context, the descriptive

discourse analysis approach has been chosen to be applied in the empirical part of the paper.

To summarise, there are numerous definitions of discourse and discourse analysis

offered by different scholars, while the core meaning of the concept does not change. Bhatia

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is one of the first scholars in applied linguistics, who classified different perspectives of how

discourse can be seen, namely as text, as genre and as social action, which are often non-

exclusive, rather mutually complimentary. This classification has been used as a basis for

many new theories and has been referred widely in the works of other scholars. When the

researcher has chosen the perspective from which to see the particular discourse, it is

important to specify also which approaches of discourse analysis is used for the current

analysis – either it is critical discourse analysis (CDA) which is a rather social context-

oriented approach or descriptive discourse analysis (DDA), which relies more on the

background knowledge and the local context of the discourse.

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2. THE FIELD OF TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION

The current chapter presents the common characteristics and linguistic features of

technical communication, in particular, technical writing, as in the empirical part of this BA

thesis, the author has analysed and worked only with written technical documentation. For the

end user or technical writer it is important tobe aware of and consider the characteristics of

technical writing, the genre of user manuals in particular, which is why the relevant theories

are investigated and the main findings are presented.

While, according to Graves, technical communication ‗refers to the activity of preparing

and publishing specialised information in a way that allows non-specialists to understand and

use the information to accomplish the task‘ (2012: 29), Markel states that it is possible to

‗look at technical communication in two ways: as the process of making and sharing

information and ideas with others in the workplace, and as a set of applications – the

documents you write‘ (2008:4). As in every kind of communication, we can speak about

spoken and written technical communication. Due to the fact that the author has undertaken to

research online user manuals, which is a set of written documents, the author has chosen to

view social media technical documentation as Markel suggests it(ibid.).

In the upcoming subchapter the author of the present paper concentrates on the genre of

user manuals as such and on the linguistic features of written technical communication.

2.1 The Genre of User Manuals

As the modern technologies continue evolving and nowadays are developing very fast, for the

end user it sometimes might be challenging to understand all the technical features and

handling of the product, which is why producers are obliged to provide guidance on how to

use the particular product.

Even though user manuals have been prepared, printed, presented and delivered to the

end users for a relatively long period of time, social media online user manuals is a relevantly

new subgenre as the social media is a rather new phenomenon dating back to the end of the

20th

century. Technical writers nowadays have to be able to produce technical documentation

also for social media and it is important to be informed about the particularities and

characteristics of this subgenre in order to create materials for the end users that are explicit,

clear and relevant.

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The importance of following certain conventions of a genre has been underlined also by

John Swales (1990) who has defined genre as

a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s)

identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community

in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized with

constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional

value (cited in Deng, 2014).

This definition reaffirms that the author should follow the conventions of the genre in order to

reach the communicative aim of a certain genre. Consequently, when creating manuals it is

crucial to bear in mind the main communicative purpose and audience, as for reaching

different communicative purposes the methods and tools used may vary.

When speaking about the genre of manuals Alred et.al. (2003) points out six kinds of

printed or electronic manuals written by professional technical writers.

1. User manuals that ‗are aimed at skilled or unskilled users of equipment and provide

instructions for the setup, operation, and maintenance of a product‘. (ibid.:332)

2. Tutorials that are ‗self-study guides for users of a product or system‘. (ibid.:333)

3. Training manuals that are ‗used to train individuals in some procedure or skill, such

as operating equipment, flying an airplane, or processing an insurance claim‘.

(ibid.333)

4. Operators‘ manuals that ‗are written for skilled operators of construction,

manufacturing, computer, or military equipment, operators‘ manuals contain

essential instructions and safety warnings‘(ibid.:333)

5. Service manuals which ‗help trained technicians repair equipment or systems,

usually at the customer‘s location.(ibid.:333)

6. Special-purpose manuals that are ‗a number of manual types, including

programmer reference manuals, overhaul manuals, handling and setup manuals,

and safety manuals, have very specialized and limited uses (ibid.:333)

From previously mentioned classification the definition of user manuals can be applied

and, as the author for the empirical part of the present paper has chosen to analyse social

media user manuals available online, this definition is considered to be very precise and

explicit for the further use in this BA thesis and corresponds to the communicative aim of

online manuals of social media.

21

2.2 Linguistic Features of Technical Writing

Even though technical writing shares some features and characteristics with other kinds

of written discourse, it is also significantly different in a way. While, according to

Worthington and Efferson, academic writing is the ‗expository and persuasive writing done in

academic circles‘ (2010: 15) and, as well as technical writing, it must be unified, coherent and

well organized (ibid.), technical writing differs from the academic writing with the

presentation, audience, and approach. The common knowledge shows that technical writing is

written for a specific audience (the end user, the techninical or managerial personnel) and the

language and information it contains is generally technical, business-related, or scientifically

oriented (ibid.). The fact that faulty writing and guidance in technical documentation may

result in the device, software or other product not functioning propoerly or even at all, it is the

task of the technical writer to be as precise and explicit as possible (Laplante, 2012:2).

Additionally, Markel (2010) stresses the importance of clear and precise technical

writing and careful selection of linguistic means by stating that the writer should be able ‗to

analyse an audience and a purpose, to create and find the best information on a subject, to

arrange the information skilfully to meet the audience‘s needs and preferences, and to deliver

the information effectively using the most appropriate application‘ (2010:4). He points out

that there are 6 general characteristic of technical document:

● It ‗addresses particular readers‘ (ibid.);

● It ‗helps readers solve problems‘ (ibid.);

● It ‗reflects an organization‘s goals and culture‘ (ibid.);

● It ‗is produced collaboratively‘ (ibid.);

● It ‗uses design to increase readability‘ (ibid.);

● It ‗consists of words or graphics or both‘ (ibid.).

In the present paper the readers of the documentation have been identified as end users

or technical writers with different levels of experience and knowledge. The manuals are

aimed at helping users to solve the problems while using social media applications and their

plug-ins. The present research is not intended to investigate organisational goals and culture

through the documentation and the use of design and graphics for improved readability. It

solely focuses on the use of the selective linguistic means mentioned in the introduction.

In order to produce a technical document that is clear and understandable to the end

user, the writer, according to Alred et al. (2003) should go through 5 stages of writing –

preparation, research, organization, writing, and revision (2003:11). More precisely, before

22

writing the author of the user manual should identify the target audience, which defines the

use of vocabulary and illustrations, as well as text organization, and other features (ibid.:334).

In order to help readers to perceive the information faster and better, the technical writer

should also provide an overview, including ‗the overall purpose of the procedure, how the

procedure can be useful to the reader, and any cautions or warnings the reader should know

before starting‘ (ibid.:334). Additional cohesion tool that can be used to provide clarity for the

reader, is the creation of major sections, meaning that the text is organized in subparagraphs

or subchapters, which reduces the time needed to find an answer to the particular question a

reader could have. Similarly, Markel suggests that by the use of different cohesion tools the

writer can help reader to navigate the document and it will ‗help the readers see where they

are and get where they want to be‘ (2010: 8).

For the present research, overview of the issue in question is not provided. However, the

information is ordered in sections in a question/answer format.

Alred et.al. (2003) continues by suggesting that it may be beneficial to indicate the

goals of actions or, in other words, to ‗explain why readers must follow each step or each

related set of steps‘ (ibid.: 334). For doing this the infinitive form of a verb or the gerund form

of a verb is used, and the use of the particular verbs chosen should be consistent (ibid.).

For actions the authors suggest the use of imperative verb form, as ‗the conventional

way to indicate an action is by using the imperative form of verbs‘ (ibid.:334), while they

suggest avoiding jargon and terms that are known only to the experts of the particular field

and to replace them with simple and direct verbs, for instance to replace the verb attemptwith

try. Additionally, also Kelley (2006) stresses the importance for avoiding jargon, as well as

emphasizes the importance of putting abbreviations in parenthesis so that for the reader, when

he/she reads further, the abbreviation is known and it does not create any misunderstandings.

Meanwhile, Markel offers providing a list of abbreviations used (2010: 707).

Markel also mentions that the writer should bear in mind that the ‗two verb tenses are

commonly used in technical communication: the present tense and the past perfect tense‘

(2010: 690). He continues by explaining that the present tense is used to speak about recurring

events and to describe scientific principles, while past perfect tense is used to describe the

earlier of two events that occurred in the past (ibid.). However, the preliminary screening did

not reveal a lot of Past Perfect Tense Aspect forms and this theoretical consideration is not to

be considered in the empirical part.

The author‘s previously conducted research for the term paper as well as the statements

by Alred et.al (2003) mentioned in the previous paragraphs about the use of infinitive and

23

imperative verb forms for actions and the use of direct verbs and gerund have determined the

authors choice for the empirical part, where she describes the main linguistic features of the

social media technical documentation including questions, the use of infinitive verb forms and

the use of tenses, and has conducted a practical research of social media technical

documentation, where a case study of Facebook and Twitter user manuals is carried out. In

order to obtain a more detailed overview of the abovementioned linguistic features chosen for

the study, in the following subchapters the author provides a breaf overview about the use and

types of questions, present tenses, and the use and types of the infinitive verb form.

2.2.1 Infinitive Forms

As one of three linguistic features analysed in social media online user manuals is the use of

infinitive verb forms, it is important to point out the significance and use of this verb form to

provide the theoretical background for the empirical research process. The common

knowledge shows that there are four forms of verbs – the infinitive, finite, present participle

and past participle and ‗verbs are a part of speech that describes an action‘ (Faulkner, 2013:

23). As stated by Radford, ‗the infinitive (or infinitival) form of a verb is the (uninflected)

form which is used (interalia) when the verb is the complement of a modal auxiliary like

―can‖, or of the infinitive particle ―to‖‘ (2009: 389). In simpler words, according to Good, the

infinitive verb is ‗the raw, base-verb state‘ and ‗ordinarily, we think of the infinitive as the

base verb preceded by the preposition ―to‖, as in ―to win‖ the game or ―to run‖ around the

bases‘ (2002: 47).

Additionally, there are 6 kinds of infinitives in the English grammar (Online 1) –

According to Chalker and Weiner (1994), bare infinitive is ‗the infinitive of a verb

without a preceding to particle‘ and this form of infinitive is used after modal verbs, such as

must, can, should, may, neeedn‘t, and others, as well as after the verb ‗do‘ in questions and

negatives, verbs of perception, verbs ‗make‘ and ‗let‘ and a few fixed expressions ‗e.g. make

do, make believe, let go‘ (Chalker et al.,1994: 44).

Other kinds of infinitives include continuous infinitive, perfect infinitive, passive and

perfect continuous infinitive, which have been introduced due to the fact that the infinitive

itself does not have a tense and it does not indicate the time of the action that it refers to

(Simon, 2013). While the simple infinitive ‗refers to the same time as that of the preceding

verb‘ (ibid.), for example, ‗I am happy to see you‘, the perfect infintive ‗refers to a time

before that of the preceding verb‘ (ibid.), for instance, ‗I am happy to have met you‘.

24

Similarly, while the continuous infinitive refers to ‗the same time as that of the preceding verb

and expresses an action in progress or happening over a period of time‘ (ibid.), for example,

‗I‘m glad to be living with you‘ the perfect continuous infinitive refers ‗to a time before that

of the preceding verb and expresses an action in progress or happening over a period of time‘

(ibid.), for instance, ‗I‘m glad to have been living with you‘. Lastly, the passive form of

infinitive is a construction in which ‗the agent either appears in a prepositional phrase

following the verb or is not identified at all‘ and it is made of ‗the marker to + be + a past

participle (also known as the -en form)‘ (Online 2), for example ‗The work is to be done by

Jack‘.

This overview of grammarians‘ opinions provides author with information about why

the verb form is used, as well as the way how to recognise it and its kinds, which is crucial in

the empirical part not to confuse it with other verb forms, for instance, the base form of the

verb.

2.2.2 The Use of Future and Past and Present Tense Aspect Form

Another linguistic feature analysed in the empirical part of the paper is the types of tenses

used in the corpus. According to the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English

(1999) ‗from the structural point of view, English verbs are inflected for only two tenses:

present and past‘ (1999: 453). Moreover, according to Declerk et al. (2006: 23) each tense has

the non-progressive and progressive form, for instance, ‗I live here‘ and ‗I am living here‘.

The progressive form can be distinguished due to the use of –ing at the end of the verb and it

is used to ‗describe activities or events that are in progress at a particular time, usually for a

limited duration‘ (Biber et al., 199: 471). Additionally, here it should be mentioned that the –

ing form used to speak about activties in progress and the –ing form used in gerund are

different and should not be mixed up. The most important characteristic of gerund is that it

‗always functions as a noun‘ and progressive form is always formed with the present or past

tense of the verb be + the –ing particple (Chalker et al., 1994: 314).

As mentioned previously, one of the two tenses in English is the present tense. It

‗describes an action or state of being that‘s occuring right now, or that‘s generally true, or that

happens all the time, like a habit, but may not be taking place at this very second‘ (Woods,

2010: 44). Even though the present progressive form ‗is similar to the simple present in that it

talks about things happening now‘ (ibid.), it ‗often implies a process‘ (ibid.). Additionally, in

some grammar books the progressive form or the ‗-ing form of the verb is traditionally called

25

the present participle‘ (ibid.). Nevertheless, it is important to mention that for each tense in

English there is the perfect form or aspect. The biggest difference between the present simple

and present perfect is that while the present simple tense is ‗used for general or ‗eternal‘ or

‗timeless‘ truths‘ (Chalker et al., 1994: 313) the perfect aspect ‗describes a situation that

continues to exist up to the present time‘ (Woods, 2010: 467).

Morphologically the present tense is unmarked, ‗except for the suffix (e)s on the third

person singular‘ (Biber et al., 1999: 453), while the progressive tense can be easily

distinguished as it is formed with ‗the present tense of be + the –ing particple‘ (Chalker et al,

1994: 314), while present perfect form is formed with ‗have or has + past particple‘ (ibid.:

313).

The term past tense refers to a grammatical category associated with verbs and ‗the

usual definition found in grammar books and disctionaries says simply that the past tense

expresses or indicates a time that is in the past‘ (Anderson et al, 2010: 6). Another definition

offered by Biber et al. (1999) is that ‗past tense most commonly refers to past time via some

past point of referance, especially in fictional narrative and decription, where the use of the

past tense to describe imaginary part happenings is a well-established concention‘ (Biber et

al., 1999: 454), which provides a more detailed and explanatory view on this term. This tense

is often called the ‗preterite‘ (Huddleston et al., 2002: 83) and morphologically the past tense

‗for regular verbs is marked with the ending –ed‘ (ibid.: 453). Similarly to the present tense,

also the past tense has the perfect aspect that ‗describes a situation that no longer exists or an

event that took place at a particular time in the past‘ (ibid.: 467). While the past continuous

tense can be distinguished by the presence of the participle –ing, as it is formed with

‗was/were + present participle (verb-ing)‘ (Simon, 2013), the perfect aspect is formed with

‗had + past participle‘ (ibid.).

As noted in Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), in English ‗there

is no formal future tense‘ (ibid.: 454). In order to show that the action is happening, will

happen or is about to happen in near or further future, ‗future time is typically marked in the

verb phrase by modal or semi-modal verbs such as will, shall, be going to‘ (ibid.).

2.2.3 Types of Questions

The third linguistic feature analysed in the Chapter 3 is types of questions and their use in the

discourse of manuals, which is why it is important to point out the theoretical background of

this linguistic feature. Despite the fact that ‗the communicative function of questioning is

26

typically associated with a particular syntactic form – the interrogative – it is a well-

documented fact that there are other kinds of syntactic forms that routinely ‗do questionning‘‘

(Freed, Ehrlich, 2010: 4). However, due to volume and time constraints the author of the

following research is not analyzing and looking for other kinds of syntactic forms except for

the interrogative.

According to Huddleston and Pullum, for interrogative clauses there exist two

subclauses – the open interrogative and closed interrogative (2005:161). Typically, the

characteristics mentioned by the author of the book Oxford Modern English Grammar by

Aart (2011) of open interrogative clauses include:

● ‗Open interogative clauses are typically used to ask questions which can have an

open-ended list of answers‘ (ibid.: 169);

● They ‗contain a wh-phrase headed by a wh-word which is normally in clause-initial

position, and is associated with a position later in the clause (except when the wh-

phrase is a Subject)‘ (ibid.);

● They ‗display Subject-auxiliary inversion when the wh-phrase precedes the Subject

in main clauses‘ (ibid.).

Meanwhile, according to the same scholar (Aart, 2011) the characteristics of closed

interrogative are as follows:

● ‗Closed interrogative clauses are typically used to ask questions which solicit the

answers ‗yes‘ or ‗no‘‘ (ibid.: 170);

● They ‗display Subject-auxiliary inversion‘ (ibid.).

Additionally, in author‘s opinion, for technical writers, who strive to form sentences as

questions, the suggestions by Worthington and Jefferson (2010) may be found useful. They

suggest writers to:

● Make the purpose of the question clear (ibid.: 66);

● Logically order questions beginning with the easiest of questions (ibid.);

● Write clear and non-leading questions (ibid.);

● Stick to one topic per question (ibid.: 67).

Additionally, Roberts (2001) suggests that wording in questions should be straightforward

and not vague and questions about a certain topic should be grouped together.

In conclusion, the genre of social user manuals is a rather new phenomenon and has

been researched more in depth only in the more recent years. There are six kinds of technical

manuals offered by Alred (2003) and they are aimed at both skilled and unskilled end users,

27

who are concerned with the setup, operation, and maintenance of a product, in this particular

case a social media portal, its applications and plug-ins. According to Alred, some of the main

linguistic features of technical documentation include the use of infinitive and imperative verb

forms for actions as well as the use of direct verbs, gerund and participle forms, which is

closely linked with its communicative aims.

In the upcoming chapter the author investigates the linguistic features of Facebook and

Twitter user manuals with the goal to disclose if the previously mentioned features relate also

to the social media technical discourse, and if the three main linguistic features of the social

media technical documentation include questions about the subject matter, the use of

infinitives and the present tense, as mentioned in the research hypothesis posed. Additonally,

after performing genre analysis of social media technical documentation for the previous term

paper (Dorošenoka, 2014) and additional preliminary scanning of the discourse, the author

due to volume and time constraints decided to investigate the occurence of the two types of

questions (closed and wh-questions), the occurance of 3 kinds of present tense aspect forms

(present simple, present continuous, and present perfect), and 2 types of infinitives (simple

infinitives with particle to and bare infinitives). Even though the author presents frequency

data also for other tenses and aspects, use of future, progressive infinitive, perfect progressive

infinitive and perfect infinitive, this data is not analyzed in detail, as it is obtained with the

goal to be used only in comparison with the data relavant to the present BA thesis.

28

3. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNICAL

DOCUMENTATION

In the present chapter the author of the BA thesis describes the process and results from the

discourse analysis that has been performed with the goal to investigate the main linguistic

features of the particular discourse chosen for the study – social media user manuals available

online.

The investigation of this particular topic began in 2014, when the author performed

genre analysis of social media technical documentation by applying moves and steps

approach introduced by Swales (1990). After genre analysis the author concluded that certain

recurrent moves for the social media technical documentation genre can be observed, e.g.

posing a question, explaining or defining the term or subject matter and offering related topics

for further investigation by the reader (Dorosenoka, 2013). Moreover, after the research for

the term paper, the author concluded that the main communicative goal of social media

technical documentation is to inform about the technical processes, application behaviour

technical problems and troubleshooting (ibid.), which is why it was decided to continue to

investigate the social media manuals at a textual level considering the previously mentioned

linguistic features of this particular discourse - Facebook and Twitter Help Desk official

online user manuals. The analysis of these features will provide an overview and possible

hints for technical writers of how to attain the communicative aim by the use of questions,

infinitives and present tense and the conclusions made after the analysis may be used by other

authors in further research or by linguists working with technical documentation or

specialising in digital media discourse.

During the analysis the author did a manual mark-up where three linguistic features –

questions, infinitives and tenses aspect forms – were marked. The author decided to

investigate only three linguistic features due to time and volume constraints. Moreover, after

consulting the theories by scholars such as Alred (2003), Markel (2010), Bhatia (2004),

Crystal (1987), Paltridge (2012), Yule (1996), Van Dijk (2007), Beaugrande (1991) and

performing genre analysis of social media user manuals for the previous term paper at the

University of Latvia (2014), the author made a decision that the previously mentioned three

linguistic features are the most noticeable and constitutive, as the main goal of social media

online user manuals is to inform end users and to describe action to be performed by readers.

The case study comprises user manuals offered by two of the most popular social

networks – Facebook and Twitter (Online 3). Not many researchers have investigated the

29

discourse of this type of technical documentation, which gives a lot of opportunities for new

researches and valuable findings that may be beneficial for future analysis.

3.1 Selected Corpus

In order to ensure credible and valuable results and make conclusions, the author collected the

corpus for the study consisting of 5032 sentences (see Table 3), and the corpus deals with

setting up the account in the particular social network, safety issues and with FAQ (frequently

asked questions) about how to start using Facebook or Twitter (see Appendix 1). The corpus

was downloaded from the official homepages of Facebook (Online 4) and Twitter (Online 5).

Table 3.1 The Size of Corpus Source Number of Words Number of Sentences

Facebook 27, 872 2, 502

Twitter 36, 474 2, 530

Total 64,346 5,032

To analyse the particular discourse, the author has chosen to perform a manual mark-

up with annotation of three linguistic features mentioned previously – questions, infinitives

and the present tense. The number of sentences for both user manuals has been chosen similar

on purpose with the goal of obtaining frequency data that could afterwards be compared.

The process of the analysis is described in more detail in the following subchapter.

3.2 The Process of Analysis

As the main goal of the analysis was to reveal the main linguistic features of social

media online user manuals, the methods used during the process of analysis are a case study

and descriptive discourse analysis.

The quantitative analysis was performed in order to investigate the frequency of the

abovementioned linguistic features. As stated by Halliday, frequency ―in the text is the

instantiation of probability in the system. A linguistic system is probabilistic in nature. […] to

interpret language in probabilistic terms, the grammar […] has to represent a language as a

choice, since probability is the probability of ‗choosing‘‘(Halliday in Kalnberzina and

Rutenberga, 2012: 57). Consequently, ‗having the frequency information from a corpus, we

30

can ‗establish the probability profile of any grammatical system‘ (ibid.: 2012:57). The

authors continue by explaining that there exists a division of 3 kinds of frequency:

1. ‗Raw frequency‘ is just a count of instances of some linguistic phenomenon that occur

in the certain corpus or text;

2. ‗Normalized frequency‘ or ‗relative frequency‘ stands for frequency in ‗a standard

yardstick‘ (for instance, ‗tokens per million words‘);

3. ‗Ordinal frequency‘ includes a comparison of frequency Y to a frequency Z, and

similar (Leech in Kalnberzina and Rutenberga, 2012: 57).

The corpus amounts 5,032 simple sentences comprising 64,346 words (counted by

Microsoft Word Count). As when the corpus was collected the author copied each sentence

separately in a new row, the number of sentences could be obtained by appyling numberring.

At the beginning, the frequency of the abovementioned linguistic features was counted

manually during the markup and annotation process. The author counted not only the number

of sentences in which there is a question, present tense or imperative used, but also did

additional counting of types of questions, kinds of present tense aspect forms (including

present simple, present continuous, and present perfect), as well as the most often used forms

of imperatives.For instance, in the corpus of Twitter (2530 sentences), there were 690

sentences with the simple infinitive form of verb used, 12 sentences with passive infinitve,

and 870 sentences with bare infinitive present.

Therefore, the author did mathematical calculations to present and to interpret the

relative frequency data that would be beneficial in making conclusions valuable for the rest of

the research.

To calculate normalized frequency the formula (ƒi) was used in order to obtain precise

and normalised data about the abovementioned linguistic features. According to the formula

the number of raw requency of present tense, infinitive verb forms and questions was divided

by the corresponding number of sentences in each online user manual and multiplied by 100.

As a result, the density of the chosen linguistic features can be investigated and conclusion

can be made about the occurence. For example, using the previously mentioned data about the

presence of infinitive verb forms, it can be calculated that the normalized frequency for

simple infinitive in the corpus of Twitter is 690 divided by 2530 and multiplied by 100, which

results in a relation of 27,2 sentences per 100 sentences. From this kind of data the author

made further conclusions and used this data to compare the two chosen sources of social

media technical documentation – Facebook and Twitter Help Desk.

31

Finally, the author used ordinal frequency method to compare the linguistic features of

the corpus of Facebook and the corpus of Twitter and to make additional conclusions about

the frequency and use of questions, present tense and infinitive verb forms. By comparing the

data for the corpus of Facebook and Twitter, the author made conclusions if the feature can be

seen as a characteristic of such a discourse or the author of the user manual has written the

manual from his/her own point of view without bearing in mind the practices of other authors

of user manuals.

In order to count the number of sentences in which the particular feature is present, the

author did manual markup by adding comments in Microsoft Word. The corpus for Facebook

was in a separate file from the corpus of Twitter in order to have cleared view on the

discourse. Moreover, a separate file for each linguistic feature and tense was created so that

after the markup, the total amount of e.g. questions could be seen in the comments section, as

Microsoft Word automatically adds numbers to each of the comments. This way step by step

the author of the present research could obtain precise data . As each sentence was put in a

new line, it was easier to manually analyze each of them. Afterwards, the numbers of features

were written down in a separate MicrosoftWord file and counted together. All this procedure

was done twice in order to erradicate possible mistakes, which is why the author can ensure

that the data present in the upcoming subchapters is valid and trustworthy for conclusion

making and frequency analysis.

In summary, this study process provided insights on the most significant linguistic

features of this genre that co-occur in the social media technical documentation discourse –

online user manuals. In the following subchapter the author describes the main findings,

conclusions and provides data interpretation. Examples (see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2)

have been cited without any changes.

3.3 Results and Discussion

In this subchapter the author of this BA thesis presents the main findings and conclusions of

the empirical research – discourse analysis of social media online user manuals. The

previously described methods and procedure provided the author with numerical data that can

be used for comparing Facebook and Twitter user manuals and to make conclusions about the

linguistic features of the particular discourse.

32

3.3.1 Use of tenses

In the discourse of Facebook the author marked 1503 sentences containing present simple

tense, while other present tenses were used less – present perfect tense was marked in 95

sentences out of 2502, and present continuous was marked in 140 sentences (see Figure 3.2).

In the discourse of Twitter the author marked 2035 sentences containing the present

simple tense, while other present tenses were used as follows – present perfect in 135

sentences and present continuous in 117 sentences (see Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2 Use of Present Tenses

There was only one case of the present perfect continuous in Facebook corpus and

zero in Twitter,as the user manuals does not describe actions that have begun in past and and

are still developing, but describes the general truth about what must be done as well as actions

that are done on regular basis or have caused a problem. As this linguistic feature can be seen

as irrelavant to the discourse, the author of the study compares and interprets the data about

only three of the present tenses – present simple, present continuous, and present perfect.

According to the theory presented in Chapter 2, the present simple tense can be used

for general truths, as well as in situations when the time of event is irrelevant or is not

important, which is the reason why this tense has been used the most in the corpus, as the

information and situations described are general and there is no exact time mentioned, as

manuals are created for long-time use and the process described does not change on regular

basis. For instance, in the corpus of Facebook it is said that ‗Facebook is a free site and will

never require that you pay to continue using the site‘ (see Appendix 1) and ‗To be eligible to

1503

140 951

2035

117 1350

Present Simple Present Continuous Present Perfect Present Perfect

Continuous

Use of Present Tenses

Facebook Twitter

33

sign up for Facebook, you must be at least 13 years old‘ (see Appendix 1), which again is an

example of generally known information that is one of the ground rules of Facebook.

Similarly, most often used tense is present simple also in the corpus of Twitter, for example in

sentence number 6, it says ‗Twitter is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to

communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages‘ (see

Appendix 2), which presents the general idea behind the creation of the social network.

Moreover, the present tense is often used in time clauses (When you sign up for a

Facebook account or add a new email address to your existing account, Facebook will send

an you an email) (see Appendix 1) and conditional clause is to describe temporal or

conditional circumstance of an action. (What will happen to my account if I don't confirm my

email address or phone number?) (See Appendix 1).

Other present tenses often reoccuring in the corpus of Facebook include the present

continuous, which can be explained with the fact that user manuals describe certain processes

on social networks, and, as mentioned in the theoretical chapter of the present BA thesis,

present progressive (also called the present continuous) can be used for describing actions in

progress at the time of speaking, or of limited duration at the present time (Chalker et al.,

1994: 314). As in the manual of Facebook the description of proccesses is described, this

tense is used. For instance there is a sentence saying ‗You received this email because a

Facebook member is inviting you to join Facebook‘ (see Appendix 1), which clearly describes

a process done by a Facebook member. Nevertheless, this tense is used similarly throughout

the corpus of Twitter (See a list of people you're following by clicking on the following link on

your profile page or on your home page's sidebar) (see Appendix 2) to describe the process

that has to be done in order to reach the desirable result or state.

While the second most often used tense in Facebook was the present continuous, the

second most often used tense in the corpus ofTwitter was the present perfect. This difference

can be explained by two factors – the authors‘ perspective on how to present the information

(from which point of view in time) and the limited amount of sentences analysed. For

instance, in the corpus of Twitter many present perfect cases are there due to the if-clause

used to describe completed action from the point of view of the future (If you've hit a follow

limit, please see this Follow Limit Troubleshooting page for more information) (see Appendix

2) .

According to the theory the present perfect tense is used to refer to some state (or event)

that have already been achieved upon the moment of speaking (Chalker et al., 1994: 313), so

the use of this tense should not be seen as faulty but as a distinctive feature of the discourse.

34

As already mentioned in the prior subchapter, the author calculated not only the raw

frequency of the linguistic features chosen for the study, but also normalised frequency in

order to look at the occurence of the linguistic features from another point of view. This

calculation of normalized frequency of Present Tenses (see Figure 3.3) may be seen as

another confirmation of the fact that the present tense is used in the most part of the corpus

chosen for the study, as in Facebook it results in 70 instances per 100 sentences of the whole

textual material, while in the corpus of Twitter it is present in 90 cases per 100 sentences of

corpus chosen.

Figure 3.3.Normalized Frequency of Present Tenses

These numbers can be later on broken into 4 parts showing more detailed normalized

frequency of types of present tenses (see Figure 3.4) so confirming once more that the tense

used most often is the present simple tense, as the communicative goal of the genre is to

inform and the user manuals are created to describe actions to be performed by users.

35

Figure 3.4 Normalized Frequency of Present Tenses

The next groups tense-aspect forms under consideration are past forms. Out of 2502

sentences in the corpus of Facebook, past simple was used in 525 sentences, while the past

perfect and past continuous tenses were not used at all (see Figure 3.3). Meanwhile, in the

corpus of Twitter, the past tense was used very little –only 37 sentences with past simple, 2

with past perfect and 0 with past continous (see Figure 3.3). In both corpora the past simple

tense was used for describing finished actions in past, for instance in Facebook ‗You received

this email because a Facebook member is inviting you to join Facebook‘ (see Appendix 1)

and in Twitter ‗Retweets look like normal Tweets with the author's name and username next

to it, but are distinguished by the Retweet icon and the name of the user who retweeted the

Tweet‘ (see Appendix 2). For more examples, please see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2.

Figure 3.5 Use of Past Tense

60

6 40

80

5 50

Present Simple Present Continuous Present Perfect Present Perfect

Continuous

Normalized Frequency of Present Tenses

Facebook Twitter

525

0 037

0 2

Past Simple Past Continous Past Perfect

Use of Past tense

Facebook Twitter

36

As it may be concluded from the graph, the use of past tenses is not a characteristic of the

discourse chosen for the study. The number of sentences with past simple used in Facebook is

so high due to the fact that after each topic discussed in the manual, there is one sentence

providing how far ago the information was last updated (Last edited about 2 months ago) (see

Appendix 1), which is why this number is attributed to supporting notes and could be seen as

misleading. If these repetitive sentences are substracted, the number of sentences with past

simple used falls down to 280.

A similar conclusion about the past tense not being a characteristic of the discourse

can be made after calculating normalized frequency, where it can be seen that past tenses have

been present in – 21 instances per 1000 sentences, while in the corpus of Twitter the

normalized frequency of past tense constructions is only 2.

Figure 3.6 Normalized Frequency of Past Tenses

This goes hand in hand with the conclusions and data interpretation described after the

analysis of present tenses.

Even though, according to the theoretical background, in the English grammar there

can be distinguished only two tenses – past and present (reference), during the process of

markup and manual counting, the author concluded that the future aspect is present in many

sentences. For example, there were marked 10 instances of the use of ‗won‘t‘, which is the

negative of future form ‗will‘, as well as 49 sentences containing the short form ‗‘ll‘ and 47

containing the full form ‗will‘. Consequently, the total amount of future sentences is 106 (see

Table 3.4). Moreover, it is important to mention that 29 of these sentences were formed as 1st

conditional, which is another feature that may be investigated in future research of the

discourse.

37

In the corpus of Twitter the future aspect was present a lot more often, as 298 sentences

with ‗will‘ used to express future actions, 19 sentences with short form of ‗will‘ - ‗‘ll‘, and 6

sentences with the negative future form ‗won‘t‘ (see Table 3.4) used to describe actions not

happening in the nearest future were counted. The future aspect was used only to describe

activities that would happen soon as a prediction or a result of some preceding action, while

for making predictions and demonstrating uncertainty the authors have used mostly modal

verbs in combination with the infinitive verb forms.

Table 3.7 The Use of Future forms

Number of Sentences in

Facebook

Number of Sentences in

Twitter

‗will‘ 47 298

‗'ll‘ 49 19

‗won't‘ 10 6

Total 106 323

The usage of the short form of ‗will‘ can be explained by the fact that the language used in the

user manuals is very informal and many contracted forms are present, for instance, in this

sentence ‗Keep in mind that you'll only see these options if you set them up‘ where the

language is very friendly and conversational. Contracted forms are used also for other verbs

contructions, for example, ‗do not‘ is often written as ‗don‘t‘, while ‗you have‘ is often

presented as ‗you‘ve‘ (see Appendix 1), which is one of the signals of informal written

communication.

After calculating the normalized frequency of future forms (see Figure 3.8), it can be

concluded that the presence of future aspect in the corpus of Twitter (13 instances per 100

sentences) is higher than the presence of past tenses (2 instances per 100 sentences), while in

the corpus of Facebook the past tense (21 instances per 100 sentences) is used more often than

the future forms (4 instances per 100 sentences). This may be explained with the fact that in

Facebook corpus after each subject matter the informative sentence about when the topic was

last updated is present, which enlargens the total number of instances of past tenses.

38

Figure 3.8 Normalized Frequency of Future Forms

Even though the language used is very informal and conversational, the authors of both

manuals still have used mostly full forms of ‗will‘, which can be concluded after the results of

normalized frequency of future forms figure (see Figure 3.9).

Figure 3.9 Normalized Frequency of Future Forms

In summary, as it may be concluded from the data presented in this subchapter, the tense used

most often is the present simple tense in both manuals (see Figure 3.10).

2 2

0

12

1 0

will' 'll' won't'

Normalized Frequency of Future Forms

Facebook Twitter

39

Figure 3.10. Normalized Frequency of Present, Past Tenses and the Future Aspect

This statement has been grounded by numerous calculations of the occurence of the present

simple, past simple and future aspect, as well as after calculating the normalized frequency

data.

3.3.2 Use of Infinitive Verb Forms

According to the theory mentioned in the theoretical part of the paper, there exist 6 types of

the infinitive – simple infinitive, bare infinitive, progressive infinitive, perfect infinitive,

passive infinitive, and perfect progressive infinitive. In Table 3.5 the total number of each

kind of infinitives in the user manual of Facebook and Twitter is presented, providing an

overall overview of the number of each form that was counted during the mark-up.

Table 3.11Use of Infinitive Verb Forms

Facebook Twitter

Simple Infinitive (to) 954 690

Bare Infinitive 619 870

Progressive Infinitive 0 0

Perfect Infinitive 0 0

Passive Infinitive 1 12

Perfect progressive Infinitive 0 0

Total Number of Infinitives 1574 1572

70

21

4

90

213

Present Past Future

The Use of Present, Past Tenses and the

Future Aspect

Facebook Twitter

40

As it may be observed in the Figure 3.11, most often used types of infinitive are simple and

bare infinitives, which can be explained by the fact that user manuals describe actions to be

performed by users.

In case of the bare infinitive (simple infinitive without the particle ‗to‘), it is very often

paired with the modal verbs to describe possible solutions and suggestions (Here are some

things you can do to help make sure you never get locked out of your account ) , while in

other cases the usage creates uncertainty (Overusing features could make other people feel

uncomfortable or unsafe).

Figure 3.12 Normalized Frequency of Infinitives

As it may be concluded from the Figure 3.12, the normalized frequency of infinitives is rather

high, which is why the author assumes it to be a particular characteristic of the discourse

under study.

41

Figure 3.13 Normalized Frequency of Types of Infinitives

The data is grounded once more in the Figure 3.13, where it is can be seen that while in the

corpus of Facebook the most popular kind of infinitive is simple infinitive with to, in the

corpus of Twitter the most popular kind of infinitive is bare infinitive. This difference signals

that the author of the user manual can choose wheter he/she should use more of the simple

infinitive or bare infitive (and as follows, special constructions and modals verbs), as both

user manuals, even though they have this difference, are still available for users online and

appearantly are understandable and functional, otherwise the use would be consistent and

equal.

3.3.3 Use of Questions

After the manual mark-up and annotation, it was concluded that 24% of the the corpus of

Facebook (609 out of 2502 sentences) constitute questions. Meanwhile, in the corpus of

Twitter this linguistic feature was not present as often as in the corpus of Facebook, as there

were only 277 question sentences out of 2530, which equals 11% of the total corpus chosen

for the study. A more detailed overview of the amount of questions is presented in Table 3.14,

including additional data about the types of questions.

Table 3.14 Number of Questions

Facebook Twitter

Closed Questions 338 120

Wh-Questions 103 157

Total Number of Questions 609 277

38

25

0 0 0 0

27

34

0 0 0 0

Simple Infinitive Bare Infinitive Progressive

Infinitive

Perfect Infinitive Passive Infinitive Perfect

progressive

Infinitive

Normalized Frequency of Types of Infinitives

Facebook Twitter

42

After collecting this data it may be concluded that there is a significant difference between the

discourse of Facebook and Twitter – if in the sentences of Facebook more often there are

closed type of questions then in the sentences of Twitter more often there are wh-questions

(see Figure 3.15). However, it is important to mention that even though in Facebook most of

the questions are formed as closed questions, the author of the manual still provides additional

information about the subject matter and does not stop with a simple yes or no answer. For

example after the question ‗Can I create a joint Facebook account or share a Facebook

account with someone else?‘ the answer might be ‗yes‘ or ‗no‘, while the actual answer in the

manual is ‗We don't allow joint accounts. Additionally, you can only sign up for one

Facebook account per email address. Since each account belongs to one person, we require

everyone to use their authentic name on their account […]‘. This can be explained by the fact

that the goal of the user manual is to provide precise and specific information so that the end

user finds all the information about the subject matter in one place and solves the problem as

soon as possible and a lot more easier. For more examples of such questions, please see

Appendix 1.

Figure 3.15 Types of Questions

Additionally, regarding the use of interrogative pronouns, the author observed that in the

manual of Facebook the authors have used only the pronoun ‗what‘ to pose questions about

things (What does the "Custom" privacy setting mean?)and ‗who‘ to pose questions about

people (Who can see a story in their News Feed about something I share?). Meanwhile, the

338

103120

157

Closed Questions Wh-Questions

Types of Questions

Facebook Twitter

43

pronouns ‗which‘ and ‗whom‘ are not used when posing questions nor in the corpus

Facebook, nor in the corpus Twitter.

As mentioned previously, due to volume and time constraints the author did not look at

alternative questions and tag questions, but analysed only the traditional 2 types of questions

formed in order to obtain general data about the usage of questions and to validate that posing

a question is a particular feature of the discourse under study.

The fact that both in Twitter and Facebook user manuals none of the closed questions is

answered with just ‗yes‘ or ‗no‘, or another typical closed question answer, brings the author

to a conclusion that if analyzed in more detail, the data and numbers may shift and point out

additional conclusions and information for futher linguistic research. However, as according

to the goal of the present BA thesis, the task of the author was to find out whether question

posing is a particular feature of the discourse under study, the answers to questions have not

been investigated any further, and the author continues by studying only the occurance of

questions not the reasoning behind or aims of the author of the user manual.

Figure 3.16 Normalized Frequency of Questions

As follows, after the calculation of the normalized frequency of questions (see Figure 3.16),

the author concluded that question posing is present only in 24 instances per 100 sentences in

the corpus Facebook and in 11 instances per 100 of sentences in Twitter. Sometimes users in

the Google search window may enter the problem formed as question, and the authors of the

manuals, understanding how Google search engines connect the information searched with

information presented, decide to form the information as question so that user gets a match

faster.

44

After the empirical part of the research it may be concluded that the use of infinitives,

present tense aspect forms and questions about the subject matter can be seen as recurrent

linguistic features of the social media technical documentation. As preassumed before the

research, the authors of the manuals of Twitter and Facebookuse mostly present tense aspect

forms. Even though the use of questions is not as often as predicted beforehand, this research

has proven that the information of the user manual can be presented in question-answer

format.

However, the topic is opened for further researches, where the use and functions of modal

verbs, use of gerund, as well as alternative questions may be investigated in more detail.

Further research of the discourse may reveal numerous additional conclusions and findings

that may be useful for the authors working with technical documentation, in particular, the

social media online user manuals.

45

CONCLUSION

The goal of the bachelor thesis was to investigate and analyse the main linguistic features of

social media technical documentation, in particular online user manuals.

At the beginning the hypothesis that considering the communicative aims and the

target audience of online user manuals, three recurrent linguistic features of the social media

technical documentation include questions about the subject matter, the use of infinitives and

the present tense aspect forms. The most significant conclusions are presented in the

following paragraph.

From the theoretical part of the paper it can be observed that there is a wide variety of

definitions of the concept of discourse and discourse analysis available. The most common

categorisation of discourse as a theory is the analysis of discourse as a text, a genre and a

social action and is observed throughout all definitions. Moreover, there are two main

approaches of discourse analysis as a method – critical and descriptive discourse analysis. In

order to choose the best approach, the researcher ought to learn more about all the approaches

and make the decision which to choose for a perticular research setting.

Speaking about social media user manuals, it can be seen as a rather new sub-genre,

which should be investigated more thoroughly and this conclusion opens space for further

researches of this type of discourse. Social media technical documentation, user manuals in

particular, can be included in the classification of Alred (2003), who has named 5 main types

of technical manuals. However, the differences between print media and online media are

seen, for instance in the use of graphs. As social media user manuals fall under the category

of written technical documentation, the author of the present BA thesis has provided an

overview of the main linguistic characteristics of technical documentation in order to have the

theoretical background for the empirical part of the paper, which was verified through the

discourse analysis.

From the empirical part of the paper it can be concluded that three linguistic features

under study - use of present tense aspect forms, use of infinitive verb forms, and question

posing – can be seen as characterising features of the discourse of social media technical

documentation.

Having compared the data for Facebook and Twitter, it can be concluded that Present

Simple is used most frequently to describe general technical processes, repeated operations,

states, troubleshooting process as well as in time clauses and conditional clauses in both

manuals, however there is no consistency in the use of Present Continuous and Present

46

Perfect. The former prevails in Facebook manuals to describe ongoing action, the latter in

Twitter for achieved or failed results and in conditional clauses to avoid using will.

The dataon the use of other tense aspect forms allowed the author to conclude that the

use of past and future tense tense aspect forms is case specific. They occur relatively rarely.

The results demonstrate that to infinitive in the simple form is used more often to

increase the density of actions. In case of the bare infinitive (simple infinitive without the

particle ‗to‘), it is very often paired with the modal verbs to describe possible solutions and

suggestions or to express uncertainty (epistemic and deontic modality). The cases of perfect

and perfect continuous infinitive forms are relatively rare.

It has been concluded that questions may be posed in order to begin speaking about a

particular subject matter. Closed questions may be followed by an open answer, creating the

effect of a conversation. It may be suggested that questions are used in order to diversify the

text, to make the text more appealing and personal to the reader. Moreover, posing questions

may optimise digital search and may help find more relevant results.

As the hypothesis posed at the beginning that the three main linguistic features of the

social media technical documentation include questions about the subject matter, the use of

infinitives and the present tense was justified.

This research provides only the initial insight into linguistic features pertinent to social

media discourse and might be further investigated considering manual rhetorical organisation,

use of modality, imperative mood, passive voice descriptively or in comparison with printed

manuals.

47

THESIS

● The opinions on the concept of discourse and discourse analysis presented by scholars

differ. For the analysis of social media technical documentation discourse the one

referring to discourse as language in use is applicable.

● Technical documentation is created with the goal to explain and help with the usage,

handling, and maintenance of a product.

● Technical documentation can be classified into 6 groups – user manuals, tutorials,

training manuals, operators‘ manuals, service manual and special-purpose manuals

(Alred, 2003).

● Most of the social media user manuals are available online, as it opens the opportunity

to edit and to update the information that is changing constantly. It is very costly and

time consuming to update the existing information if the guidance on how to use social

networks is in print.

● The main linguistic features of the social media user manuals subgenre mentioned by

Alred (2003) include the use of infinitive and gerund, the use of imperative verb forms

for actions, as well as the use of simple and direct verbs in order to make the

instructions more appealing and understandable for the end user.

● In the empirical part of the present BA thesis the author challenged the use of infinitive

and confirmed that this linguistic feature is used in the discourse under study with both

notional verbs to increase the density of information and modal verbs expressing

deontic and epistemic modality.

● Present Simple is used most frequently to describe general technical processes, repeated

operations, states, troubleshooting process as well as in time clauses and conditional

clauses in both manuals, however there is no consistency in the use of Present

Continuous and Present Perfect. The former prevails in Facebook manuals to describe

ongoing action, the latter in Twitter for achieved or failed results and in conditional

clauses to avoid using will.

● The data on the use of other tense aspect forms allowed the author to conclude that the

use of past and future tense tense aspect forms is case specific. They occur relatively

rarely.

● Two types of questions (closed and wh-questions) are used in the discourse of social

media technical documentation to introduce a new subject.

48

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orm&hl=lv&sa=X&ei=SwIxVf_vEcWhyAOf9oCoDA&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw#v=one

page&q&f=false

52

39. Renkama, J. (ed.) (2009) Discourse, of Course. An Overview of Research in Discourse

Studies.USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company

40. Roberts, L.S. (2001) Technical Writing for Dummies. NY: Hungry Minds. Available

from

https://books.google.lv/books?id=odKzuH3BOsMC&pg=PT213&dq=questions+in+te

chnical+writing&hl=lv&sa=X&ei=zuE0VYTsKsGxygOXrIHAAg&redir_esc=y#v=o

nepage&q&f=false [Accessed on April, 20]

41. Sanborn, D.H. (1848) Analytical Grammar of the English Language, Embracing the

Indicative and Productive Methods of Teaching. US: G.Parker Lyon. Available from

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urce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed on April 19,

2015]

42. Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., Heidi, E. (2003) (ed.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis.

UK: Wiley-Blackwell

43. Sullivan, N., Woods, G. (2010) English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, 2nd

ed.

Canada: Whiley Publishing, Inc. Available from

https://books.google.lv/books?id=309UKtDU1ugC&pg=PT222&dq=imperative+moo

d&hl=lv&sa=X&ei=sgoxVamIGoHOyQOa_YGQCw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBzgK#v=o

nepage&q&f=false [Accessed on April 17, 2015]

44. Van Dijk, A., T. (ed.) (1988; 1997) Discourse as Structure and Process. London:

SAGE Publications.

45. Van Dijk, A., T. (2007) Discourse as Social Interaction. London: SAGE Publications.

46. Van Dijk, A.T. (Ed.) (2007) Discourse Studies. Editor’s Introduction: The Study of

Discourse: An Introduction. The Emergence of a New Cross-Discipline. London:

Sage. Available from

http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/The%20study%20of%20discourse.pdf

[Accessed on March 3, 2015]

47. Worthington,S., Jefferson (2008) Technical Writing for Success. USA: South-

Western, Cengage Learning. Available from

https://books.google.lv/books?id=jaOQSZ5-

v7gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=technical+writing&hl=lv&sa=X&ei=043xVIbCB8_c

aoiSgrgO&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=technical%20writing&f=false

[Accessed on March 3,2015]

48. Woods, G. (2010) English Grammar for Dummies. Indiana: Whiley Publishing, Inc.

53

Available from http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470546646/ref=rdr_ext_tmb [Accessed

April 23, 2015 ]

49. Yules, G. (1996) The Study of Language, 2nd

ed. UK: Cambridge University Press

Internet resources:

Available from http://www.grammaring.com/the-forms-of-the-infinitive[Accessed April 29,

2015]

1. Available fromhttp://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/Passive-Infinitive.htm[Accessed

April 29, 2015]

2. Available from http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-

websites[Accessed March 10, 2015]

3. Available from https://www.facebook.com/help/[Accessed March 1, 2015]

4. Available from https://support.twitter.com[Accessed March 1, 2015]

5. Available from http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/imperative_mood.htm

[Accessed May 1, 2015]

APPENDIX 1

FACEBOOK ONLINE USER MANUAL EXAMPLES

Present Tense Aspect:

Present Simple

1. ‗Facebook is a free site and will never require that you pay to continue using the site‘

2. ‗To be eligible to sign up for Facebook, you must be at least 13 years old‘

3. What else can I do?

4. We're sorry for any inconvenience.

5. If one of your friends ever gets locked out of their account, they may call you for help.

Present Simple Time Clause

6. When you sign up for a Facebook account or add a new email address to your existing

account, Facebook will send an you an email

7. When you request a password reset, you'll see a list of the email addresses and mobile

numbers confirmed on your account.

8. Keep in mind that while you have Location Services turned off, you won‘t be able to

check-in, add location to your posts on Facebook or use some other Facebook features

that rely on location info from your device.

9. We don't do site maintenance on all accounts at the same time, so it's possible that

your friends will be able to access the site while your account is unavailable

10. When you turn it on, any time someone tags something you posted, that tag won't

appear until you approve it.

Conditionals

11. What will happen to my account if I don'tconfirm my email address or phone number?

12. Posting about pets: What do I do if I have a pet I can't keep?

13. What if I can't find the person I want to block?

14. If I block someone, will they be notified?

15. If I import my contacts, will the contact info I import be saved?

Present Perfect

16. If you're already registered for Facebook, your friend may have used an email address

of yours that isn't currently linked to your Facebook account.

17. If you've been blocked from creating apps, it may be because one or more of your

apps aren't following the Facebook Platform Policies.

18. To choose who can see posts you‘ve been tagged in after they appear on your

Timeline.

19. The audience selector also appears alongside things you've already shared, so it's clear

who can see each post.

20. How do I change the audience of a post I've shared on my Timeline?

Present Continuous

21. You received this email because a Facebook member is inviting you to join Facebook‘

22. Confirming your email address or phone number helps us know we're sending your

account info to the right place.

23. Please let us know if you're having trouble confirming your phone number or email

address.

24. If you think you're seeing this error message by mistake, please let us know.

25. We're sorry you're having trouble completing the signup process.

26. Present Perfect Continuous

27. I've been trying to promote my organization/business, but now I‘ve been warned for

spamming.

Past Tense Aspect

Past Simple

28. Last edited about 2 months ago

29. Get help if you didn't receive a mobile confirmation code or if you didn't receive your

confirmation email.

30. Confirm your email address by opening the link in the email we sent you when you

signed up

31. Why did I receive a confirmation email from Facebook?

32. Why was my name rejected during signup?

Contracted Forms

33. We also don't allow photos or videos that glorify violence or attack an individual or

group.

34. To prevent this from happening again, please remove any photos or videos that don't

follow the Facebook Community Standards from your account.

35. I've been trying to promote my organization/business, but now I‘ve been warned for

spamming.

36. You‘ll only see the Follow button next to the names of people who allow followers.

37. If you‘d like to make new friends, try connecting with Pages and groups that you‘re

interested in or signing up to play social games.

Modals

38. Here are some things you can do to help make sure you never get locked out of your

account.

39. You should make sure the current animal residents appear well-cared-for, that the

group screens potential adopters, and that the group offers post-adoption support

services.

40. Overusing features could make other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

41. This might be because the name you requested doesn't follow our name standards.

42. If we determine you've posted something that violates our terms, you may receive a

warning or become disabled, depending on how severe the violation is.

Questions

Opened Questions

43. Q: ‗Can I create a joint Facebook account or share a Facebook account with someone

else?‘

A: We don't allow joint accounts.

44. Q: Does it cost money to use Facebook? Is it true that Facebook is going to charge to

use the site?

A: Facebook is a free site and will never require that you pay to continue using the

site. You do, however, have the option of making purchases related to games, apps

and other items. In addition, if you choose to use Facebook from your mobile phone,

keep in mind that you‘ll be responsible for any fees associated with Iinternet usage

and/or text messaging as determined by your mobile carrier.

45. Q: Do you consult with any external groups to inform your policies?

A: Yes, we regularly consult with external groups on a range of issues including

content policy, safety, privacy and data security. Experts on domestic violence and

cyberstalking sit on our Safety Advisory Board, a group of five of the leading global

safety organizations. We are in regular conversation with this group and others about

our content policies, particularly as they relate to groups that have historically faced

violence and discrimination.

46. Q: Does Facebook remove everything that gets reported?

A: No, we remove content that violates our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

47. Q: Does the number of times something gets reported determine whether or not that

content is removed?

A: No. The number of times something is reported doesn't determine whether or not

it's removed from Facebook. We remove content that violates our Statement of Rights

and Responsibilities.

Wh-questions

48. Q: Why do I have to wait to change my name?

A: You can't change your name right now because you've changed it too recently.

After 60 days, you'll be able to change your name again.Facebook is a community

where people use their authentic identities. We limit how often people can change

their name, so you always know who you're connecting with. This helps keep our

community safe.If you'd like to list a second name on your account (ex: maiden name,

nickname, professional name), you can add another name to your profile.

49. Q: Why can't I change my name?

A: Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities. We require

people to provide the name they use in real life; that way, you always know who

you're connecting with. This helps keep our community safe.

50. Q: What is a language-specific name?

A: A language-specific name is the name you use on Facebook as it appears in another

language.

51. Q: Why am I blocked from sending messages?

A: If you‘ve been blocked from sending messages on Facebook, it may be because

you sent a lot of messages recently or people reported your messages as unwelcome.

Make sure to use your authentic name and picture to help the people you're messaging

recognize you.

52. Q: Why am I blocked from creating apps?

A: If you've been blocked from creating apps, it may be because one or more of your

apps aren't following the Facebook Platform Policies.

Infinitives

Simple infinitive

53. To confirm this, all you need to do is click on the link in the email.

54. After one day, you won't be able to use your account until you complete this step.

55. Click the confirmation link in that email to confirm your account.

56. If you're unable to receive text messages, try signing up for Facebook with your email

address instead.

57. Most likely, someone tried to sign up for a Facebook account using your email address

by mistake.

Bare infinitive

58. To be eligible to sign up for Facebook, you must be at least 13 years old

59. Confirming your email address or phone number helps us know we're sending your

account info to the right place.

60. You may be able to access Facebook for a small amount of time without confirming

your account, but you'll be locked out if you don't confirm it.

61. If you think your account was taken over by someone else, we can help you secure it.

62. This activity suggests your computer might be infected with malware.

APPENDIX 2

TWITTER ONLINE USER MANUAL EXAMPLES

Present Tense Aspect

Present Simple

1. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay

connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages

2. If your question isn't here, use the search box at the top of this page to search for

topics in our Help Center.

3. A Tweet is any message posted to Twitter which may contain photos, videos, links

and up to 140 characters of text.

4. When you create an account, you can search for people by name or @username,

import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email.

5. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear on

your Twitter home page.

Present Continuous

6. See a list of people you're following by clicking on the following link on your profile

page or on your home page's sidebar

7. The 'Followers' link on your profile page or home page's sidebar will also tell you who

is following you.

8. Please note that if your Tweets are protected, users who are not following you will not

see your replies or mentions.

9. We are working within key interest areas to verify accounts that are sought after by

other Twitter users.

10. How do I know who is following me?

Present Perfect

11. If you've hit a follow limit, please see this Follow Limit Troubleshooting page for

more information

12. To unblock a user you've blocked, visit that user's profile and click the block button on

the right-hand side.

13. Many apps have built in their own version of retweeting — those Tweets are not

treated as official Retweets on Twitter.

14. Your Tweets that others have retweeted:

15. In the Notifications section you will see all activity concerning your Tweets —

including which have recently been retweeted and by whom.

16. How can I undo or delete a Retweet that I've done?

Past Tense Aspect

Past Simple

17. Twitter ‗Retweets look like normal Tweets with the author's name and username next

to it, but are distinguished by the Retweet icon and the name of the user who

retweeted the Tweet‘.

18. If a message begins with @username, meaning it was directed to another user, it is

a reply.

19. Retweets look like normal Tweets with the author's name and username next to it, but

are distinguished by the Retweet icon and the name of the user who retweeted the

Tweet.

20. You can continue to use a URL shortener to shorten links, and tracking metrics (like

those from bit.ly) will continue to work as they did previously.

21. If you registered a debit card, be sure to select ―credit‖ and don‘t enter your PIN when

you make your purchase.

Past Perfect

22. If you previously had protected Tweets, any pending follower requests will not be

accepted automatically.

Questions

Closed Questions

23. Q: Do I need anything special to use it?

24. A: All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. Join us

here! Once you're in, begin finding and following accounts whose Tweets interest you.

We'll recommend great accounts once you're signed up.

25. Q: Can I put my Twitter updates on my blog?

26. A: Yes! Put a Twitter widget on your blog or website – anywhere that accepts

Javascript or HTML.

27. Q: Can I edit a Tweet once I've posted it?

28. A: No, you can‘t edit a Tweet once you have posted it, but you can delete it. Read

more here.

29. Q: Do verified accounts have access to extra features?

30. A: Yes, verified account holders have access to the following extra features:

31. Q: Can an account lose its verified status?

32. A: Changing certain profile information (such as the @ username or protecting

Tweets) will result in the removal of a verified badge. That account will automatically

be reviewed again to ensure it is eligible for verification.

Wh-Questions

33. Q: What is Twitter?

34. A: Twitter is a service for friends, family, and coworkers to communicate and stay

connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.

35. Q: Why 140 characters?

36. A: We like to keep it short and sweet! It also just so happens that 140 characters is the

perfect length for sending status updates via text message. The standard text message

length in most places is 160 characters per message. We reserve 20 characters for

people's names, and the other 140 are all yours!

37. Q: What are follow limits?

38. A: Twitter has follow and update limits for stability and abuse control. You can read

more about this here.

39. Q: What are Direct Messages?

40. A: Direct Messages are private messages sent from one Twitter user to other Twitter

users; they do not appear in public for anyone else to read. You can only send a Direct

Message to a person or a group of people who follows you. Read more here.

41. Q: Where can I find Trends?

42. A: When signed in to Twitter.com on a desktop or laptop computer, Trends are listed

in many places, including the Home, Notifications, Discover and profile pages (find

them in the column on the left side of the page).

43. Q: What does the # sign mean?

44. A: You may notice that some Trends have # sign before the word or phrase. This is

called a hashtag and is included specifically in Tweets to mark them as relating to a

topic, so that people can follow the conversation in search. Click here for more

information about hashtags.

Infinitives

Simple Infinitive

45. If your question isn't here, use the search box at the top of this page to search for

topics in our Help Center.

46. Do I need anything special to use it?

47. We like to keep it short and sweet!

48. Click the Reply button on another person's Tweet to reply to it.

49. We have a whole article about how to report spam on Twitter.

Bare Infinitive

50. People post Tweets, which may contain photos, videos, links and up to 140 characters

of text.

51. When you create an account, you can search for people by name or @username,

import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email.

52. When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear on

your Twitter home page.

53. You can read more about this here.

54. Your Tweets are public by default; if you're hesitant to have people you may not know

read your updates, protect your Tweets to approve followers and keep your updates

out of search.