Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear: Modal Hybridity and the Co-constructed Blog

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which written language in blogs adopts the affordances of speech, as encountered in a study of blogs authored by primary school-aged children.The affordances of different modes of representation are bound to the materiality of each mode such that, for example,speech and writing are materially different, resulting in different affordances. However, writing in an online space,such as a blog,is materially different to writing on paper,and understanding language as a modally- dependent meaning making resource becomes problematic. I explicate the role of NEGOTIATION of the blog, Baseball Kid, to establish the speech-like moves apparent between post author and readers as commenters. Then, I share the dynamic APPRAISAL analysis of one post, Teddy Bear, to illustrate the distinctive techno-semiotic nature of genre instantiated in blogs. Here, a recount is construed as a writ ten text in the post, but co-constructed through the dialogic interactions of the blog author and his reader-commenters. Finally, I propose the notion of 'modal hybridity' to account for the impact of commenting on the roles played by language in blogs.