Style of language in the tweets

“The Righteous Anger of the Parkland Shooting’s Teen Survivors” includes seven tweets from teenagers, survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting which took place in February 2018. Unlike the style of language used by the writer (which is formal), most of the tweets included in the article are informal, typical of the social network Twitter. The character limitation imposed by the network also means that the statements are short and concise.

For example, the first tweet consists of a single sentence: “We are too young to be losing friends like this” (p. 2). The sentence is simple and expresses grief and regret, without mentioning the event explicitly.

The second tweet uses common chat abbreviations and hashtags citing a teen survivor: “OMG, teen from #MarjoryStonemanDouglas on @npr just now, "I'm not a Russian computer, so I can't vote" but will push elected officials on gun control” (p. 2). In this case, Mieke Eoyang, an American government official with a large Twitter following, is citing a teen who has spoken on television, demonstrating the cross-over between different forms of media.

Given the character limit, abbreviations are very common on Twitter. At the same time, hashtags help the message to reach people faster ...