Stancetaking and the projection of ethnic identity in YouTube comments on two videos about African American Vernacular English

Abstract

It is well known that the new media play an important role in people’s lives nowadays. What seems remarkable is the fact that traditional communication practices are being redefined and new ones have emerged as a consequence of the uses people make of these new media. For instance, online environments allow people the possibility of being part of virtual social spaces where they can gather around a topic without the necessity of making up a community. According to Warner (2002: 72, cited in Granato and Parini 2015) these networked or mediated publics “do not exist apart from the discourse that addresses them”.