Discourse 2.0—Language and New Media

Our everyday lives are increasingly being lived through electronic media, which are changing our interactions and our communications in ways that we are only beginning to understand. In "Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media," editors Deborah Tannen and Anna Marie Trester team up with top scholars in the field to shed light on the ways language is being used in, and shaped by, these new media contexts.

Topics explored include: how Web 2.0 can be conceptualized and theorized; the role of English on the worldwide web; how use of social media such as Facebook and texting shape communication with family and friends; electronic discourse and assessment in educational and other settings; multimodality and the "participatory spectacle" in Web 2.0; asynchronicity and turn-taking; ways that we engage with technology including reading on-screen and on paper; and how all of these processes interplay with meaning-making.

Students, professionals, and individuals will discover that "Discourse 2.0" offers a rich source of insight into these new forms of discourse that are pervasive in our lives.

Deborah Tannen is university professor and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and author of many books on discourse analysis.

Anna Marie Trester is a professorial lecturer and director of the master's program in language and communication in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University.