Document Type
Article
Source Publication Title
Language and Dialogue
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00174.stv
Abstract
To better represent online health communication modes, an English-language corpus of lay health discourse was expanded to include health-related memes. Using these forms of peer-to-peer lay communication, I propose ways to categorize the illocutionary force of memes when they function as speech acts of advice. The subcorpus contains 200 English-language health-related memes gathered during 2018-2023 through Google image searches. I found the affiliative and disaffiliative strategies that Placencia (2012) noted within Yahoo! Respuestas advice exchanges; with meme multimodality, however, additional versions of these strategies appeared: characters used as sympathetic or encouraging affiliative features, but also chastising or disapproving characters as disaffiliative features. Memes also used more humor as both affiliative and disaffiliative moves. In short, the advice directives allowed different alignments with the reader, both shaming and encouraging health behaviors, thus providing richer ways to recognize and document advisor positioning in vernacular online conversations. I highlight four strategies that meme posters use in advising: memes convey the speech act indirectly; they use characters and wordplay in humor; peer advisers, unlike medical providers or advice columnists, must specify how their authority is relevant to give advice, so memes must signal this authority; and advice was often deployed via medical myth busting.
Disciplines
Linguistics
Publication Date
6-11-2024
Language
English
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Stvan, Laurel Smith. (2024). “Viral Peer Advice: Health Memes Used as Speech Acts of Advising in English” Language and Dialogue 14(2): 332–370. https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00174.stv