Titit Paynal

MSU-GSC ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
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Chapter I
THE PROBLEM
This chapter consists of five parts mainly: 1. Introduction which presents the
purpose and rationale of the study; 2. Statement of the Problem state the general and the
specific problems of the study; 3. Scope and Delimitation which specifies the coverage
and the limitation of the study; 4. Significance of the Study which discusses the benefits
that may be derived from the result of the study and enumerates the person that may
benefit from it, and lastly, 5. Definition of Terms which provides conceptual and
operational meaning of the important terms that will be used in the study.
INTRODUCTION
The internet has always been there since then, it has served people in many ways
one can imagine, may it be giving information, making communication, and bringing
entertainment, though what it really did to people, is that it became an outlet for letting out
their feelings about things they like or do not like. Specifically, the social media paved a
way wherein people from all ages tend to post what they’re feeling about their day, and
most of the posts are rants which all sums up to something called “callout culture”.
Social media can be a wonderful place to browse when waiting for the time, though
it can be very intriguing as to why many use it. Callout culture, according to Wikipedia, it
is a social phenomenon of publicly pointing out oppressive or prejudiced speech or
language, denouncing perceived racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry
may have poked the user’s attention.
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Many say that it is a pernicious influence in both academic and business worlds,
and others say that it harms progressive politics by attacking people perceived to have
exhibited prejudiced behavior, rather than using dialogue with such people to change
such behavior (Paresky, 2017).
Callout culture started merely only as something that protected Black femmes, for
they were being violently harassed every single day, rape threats, death threats, and ban
evasion. They used the idea of calling out those people who were doing it, for it was the
only way to them from abusing them daily, letting everyone in the internet see what they
are doing and people were learning through these call-outs. There’s no better learning
experience than watch it (Riley, 2017).
When looked at clearly, call outs became the strength of those who were bullied
for it was scaleable and easily shared, building a critical mass to affect change in a very
short period of time and slowly, over time, others may begin adopting call outs in response
to their abuse as well (Burns, 2017).
Through this, Burns (2017) added that call outs have been made as a tool for
maintaining a social order, fighting off oppressive behavior – especially in Twitter – and
starts a good, deep discussion and purposeful conflict. Then in this dynamic conflict and
learning, it builds better communities, where call outs can be the integral part of that
building process.
Furthermore, the basic functionality of a call out is to let out those emotions through
calling out someone in social media protecting those who are being abused and bullied.
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Studies about call out culture are still young. Many are still confused what call out
culture really is, how it works, why is it there. Though, it has been one of the top consumer
trends that was found in the 2018 research of Euromonitor, however no one still has the
vaguest idea about it.
Thus, the researcher was pushed further to find out this specific topic and identify
how call out culture works in people’s minds, how language structure is made, and how
do this generate the anger and sympathy of those who wrote and read this call outs.
Statement of the Problem
This study is aimed to identify Callout Culture present in Twitter and its impact to
the social world. Also, this study will explore how callout culture works in the internet.
Specifically, it sought to answer:
1. What are the contextual constraints of user-to-user communication found in the
Call-out Twitter accounts, in terms of
a. Familiarity with topics
b. Jargons
c. Expected background
d. User’s personal constraints
2. What are linguistic features used by the Twitter accounts?
a. Text deformation
b. Use of emoticons/emoji
3. How do Call-outs generate positive and negative vibes from the social world?
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Scope and Delimitation
This study delimits only to analyze the callout culture made by famous Filipino
accounts in Twitter and partially focused on their contextual constraints and linguistic
features according to Layer 1 of Xie and Yus (2017). The call outs will be retrieved from
the popular social media site, Twitter, where many call outs can be found. The researcher
chose only the call out of those who are the Top 10 most followed Filipinos in Twitter
(Socialbakers, 2018), with whose posts are from December to January 2018.
Also, this study would determine what are the great impacts of callout culture to
the world of the internet.
Significance of the Study
This study, The Callout Culture of Filipinos in Twitter, would be of value to the
following:
To the society, for this study helps them clarify about the call outs made in Twitter,
understanding the effects made by it in their daily social media ventures and that its
functions will not be toxic, but could build communities in the social world.
To the teachers and the English Department , for this study may be introduced
to their students and further discuss the Language structures used in this research. This
may also be a good lesson as to how students can understand the call out using the
language structure.
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To the students, this study about callout culture can be a start for more exploration
of the topic.
To the people in Twitter, for this study helps them understand what callout culture
really is, that it does not only abuse people, but also can be a way of helping those who
are bullied in the social medias.
And to the researcher, for this study helps widen her knowledge about current
generation she is in and understanding the culture of how different people communicate
to let out their thoughts and emotions through the internet.
Definition of Terms
For clearer and better understanding of the study, the following terms are defined:
Callout is an instance of being summoned, especially in order to deal with an
emergency or to do repairs (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999). In this study,
this refers to the way they call out to people to announce it in social media the problem.
Social media is the website and the application the enables users to create and
share content or to participate in social networking (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate
dictionary, 1999). Operationally, this is where the people post about the daily lives in the
internet.
Emoticons is a representation of a facial expression such as:-) (representing a
smile), formed by various combinations of keyboard characters and used in electronic
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communications to convey the writer's feelings or intended tone (Merriam-Webster’s
collegiate dictionary, 1999).
Emoji is a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc., in
electronic communication (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999).
Jargons are special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession
or group and are difficult for others to understand. A form of language regarded as
barbarous, debased, or hybrid (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999).
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
This section presents gathered concepts and various materials found to be
relevant in this present study. It includes review of related studies which the research us
derived and the conceptual framework.
Related Literature
Call-out Culture
The idea of call-outs started from people on social media who were being violently
harassed every single day. According to Riley H (2017) it developed around 2011-2012
on Tumblr, where black women who also likes black women (lesbian black women) are
being harassed each day in public. Rape threats. Death threats. Ban envasion. Tumblr,
on the other hand had no real means to block or prevent them from harassing someone
in any way they saw fit. This is where the call-outs took place, those who were harassed
realized that people were learning when they did those call-outs.
“Their hypervisibility allowed multiple people to watch, in detail, from beginning to
end, how something that seemed okay to white sensibilities quickly devolved into racism.
People actually began to learn about why Black femmes appear to “jump the gun”, that is,
call something racist before they themselves can see the racism, because they could view
the progression through the process of a call-out.”
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However, call-outs have always been there, people just were not really aware
about it at the time, because as people look out for different hot topics, issues, and
gossips that run the internet, and give their criticisms about it, they actually are calling out
those who are in the issue at hand.
Au (2018), to really understand call-out culture, said that as an act of publicly
naming instances of oppressive behaviour, it is not a new behaviour exclusive to the
rise of the internet. For as long as humans could speak, there have been differing
opinions, and with differing opinions comes instances of oppression, prejudice, and
the creation of the “other” complex. However, with the rise of conflict, there are often
times a desire to “call out” or make one accountable for their actions and opinions.
And thus, call out culture was born.
Ahmad (2017) also shared that call-out culture refers to the tendency among
progressives, radicals, activists, and community organizers to publicly name instances or
patterns of oppressive behaviour and language use by others. People can be called out
for statements and actions that are sexist, racist, ableist, and the list goes on. Because
call-outs tend to be public, they can enable a particularly armchair and academic brand
of activism: one in which the act of calling out is seen as an end in itself. It’s a public
performance where people can demonstrate their wit or how pure their politics are.
In addition, Kirk (2018), says that call-out culture justifies itself by claiming to
dissuade individuals from engaging in behaviours that many people (progressives,
especially) deem unacceptable. Though it may have once served a constructive purpose,
call-out culture has since morphed into the online equivalent of road rage. It encourages
dangerous overreactions to perceived offenses, many of which are too innocuous to
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warrant a reaction at all. Also, that call-out culture is a manifestation of the herd mentality.
One of the features of this mentality — and the one that may be the most responsible for
call-out culture’s expansion — is perhaps best characterized as a “diffusion of
responsibility.”
“We don’t believe we can be individually held responsible for the behavior of a
group. Combine this mentality with virtue signaling on steroids, and you have the perfect
conditions for the worst aspects of contemporary internet culture.”
However, if there is such as a call-out, there is also the call-in. According to, Ahmad
(2017) said, “calling in” has been proposed as an alternative to calling out: calling
in means speaking privately with an individual who has done some wrong, in order to
address the behaviour without making a spectacle of the address itself.
Likewise, Zaeh (2018) said it is when you talk with someone privately about their
behavior (or, you wait to talk in person), and is considered a less reactionary route to work
through conflict. Though the idea of calling people in, rather than calling them out, has
been around for a while, according to BDG Press (2018) there's been a resurgence of
this conversation in activist communities — particularly because many people have
deemed call-out culture to be counteractive to social justice, and "performative" in nature.
Furthermore, Grieve (2016) said “calling someone in can still be awkward but I
think most people would rather be taught a better way to say something than to just be
told they suck when they say the wrong thing. He strongly argues that, you don’t want to
make the person feel like they’re lesser than you and you are pushing them out, exposed
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and alone in front of everyone. One way to change this is to talk to the person one on
one. If you’re with a group of people you can ask to go speak to them in another area, or
talk to them later when it’s just the two of you. That way it feels less like a lecture in front
of all your friends and more of a conversation between two human beings.”
Another thing is that calling in isn’t insulting the person. Calling someone in makes
it more of a realization about what they’re saying. The conversation allows you to hear
the person out instead of immediately telling them that they are wrong. It gives them a
chance to acknowledge their language and reflect (Grieve, 2016). Nonetheless, calling-
in is not enough for those who can’t keep their calm. As today’s generation tend to be
more aggressive, where emotions are let out however they want, mostly saying it in public,
posting it in social medias. They just want attention, they want someone to side with their
argument, or maybe they just want that someone to read it without them telling in person.
Ahmad (2017) said, it has since been mobilized frequently to argue that calling
people out is always harmful, and that people should keep all their grievances in the
private sphere.
But sometimes the only way we can address harmful behaviours is by publicly
naming them, in particular when there is a power imbalance between the people involved
and speaking privately cannot rectify the situation. Since power exists on multiple planes,
it is not always easy to tell who has more power than you, but class, race, gender, and
ability all play a part (Ahmad, 2017).
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Scott (2018) also says that many critics call “call-out culture” is actually a past-due moral
balance being called in. With interest added. Had our pain been spoken more consistently
over a longer period of time, perhaps our anger would be a manageable trickle, and not
an avalanche. But we never asked for the condition that required us to remain silent in
the first place. Oppressed groups once lived with the destruction of keeping quiet. We’ve
decided that the collateral damage of speaking up—and calling out—is more than worth
it (Scott, 2018). Though as negative as it what they say, a call-out isn’t as bad as it seems.
Many say that calling out is not toxic, and that the people are. In the people’s defense,
they say that calling out is just for protecting those who are bullied in the internet. Others,
just letting their emotions out by mentioning that someone who made him/her to call out.
Zaeh (2018) also adds that public call-outs can be toxic, and typically — especially
with your friends or peers — call-ins can be a much more effective way to create positive
change and make sure your feedback is actually heard. However, this is not to say that
public call-outs should never be utilized; they are still a tool in some situations activists
face. As Hari Ziyad (2018) writing for AfroPunk notes, calling people out can sometimes
be necessary, especially if the person in question is not responsive to concerns raised
during a call-in — or, if the person doing the calling-in is perpetuating problematic
behaviour themselves. Any kind of constructive feedback is uncomfortable, but that
doesn't give someone the go-ahead to tone police someone by dismissing their call-out
as toxic.
Ahmad (2017) stated that there are ways of calling people out that are
compassionate and creative, and that recognize the whole individual instead of viewing
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them simply as representations of the systems from which they benefit. Paying attention
to these other contexts will mean refusing to unleash all of our very real trauma onto the
psyches of those we imagine to only represent the systems that oppress us. Given the
nature of online social networks, call-outs are not going away any time soon. But
reminding ourselves of what a call-out is meant to accomplish will go a long way toward
creating the kinds of substantial, material changes in people’s behaviour – and in
community dynamics – that we envision and need.
In addition, Burns (2017) says that are a legitimately effective tool for fighting
oppressive behavior — especially in social media spaces — and can trigger wonderful,
deep discussion and purposeful conflict.
“We build better communities through this dynamic of conflict and learning, and
call outs can be an integral part of that building process. But, in order to ensure that as
many people as possible feel welcome in our communities, we should all believe
in treating each other with respect.”
Uses of Call-outs
According to Venegas (2016), here are the uses of Call-Outs:
Integrative Call-outs: Education and Discipline
In this form of integrative accountability, actors employ constructive
strategies to “educate” errants and to re-integrate them into the scene once they
have become aware of their wrong. Respondents who advocate for this type of
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accountability do not necessarily mobilize public pressure, but when they do, they
give the accused an “out”- a way out of public pressure and reintegration into the
group. Based on respondent data, a key distinctive feature of this type of
consciousness shaping practice is that it is usually reserved to neophytes, close
friends, and people within activist circles.
Off-scene Coaching
In off-scene coaching, actors pep talk one another and give each other
advice to prevent them from repeating “problematic” behavior in their space,
particularly after the fact. This happens both outside the spaces that comprise
the scene, and in the midst of these spaces. The coaching occurs one on one as
someone with more experience takes an errant aside from the scene to inform
them of their act. In this form of private correction, the call-out seeks to address
a problem with speech-whether it is using an offensive term, or mannerisms that
reflect privilege such as “man-spreading”- a term to denote how men take up
physical space in everyday life via their bodies.
Processual Call-outs
In this form of public accountability, members of the queer activists not only
expose problematic acts, but also articulate the larger process at hand that they
find problematic. A key difference between this type of public correction and the
smaller consciousness-shaping moments is depth. That is, the accuser does not
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merely point out the problem but offers a course of action to address the larger
problem, process, or practice in the situation. Whereas with consciousness
shaping call outs, where errants are corrected for their conduct, in processual call-
outs, it is not a particular act of a particular individual, but a larger practice such
as corruption or organizational processes like funding and staff. In Processual
Call-outs, participants have the power to disrupt and stop the action until the
problematic dynamic is fixed.
Intrusive call-out
In intrusive call-outs, accusers seek out aspects of a person’s life, whether
a past action, or present, to call out in public and bring them to shame and thus
discredit them. These call outs exhibit an accused as “problematic” or “fucked up”
for others to see. Intrusive call-outs seek to not only place actors as problematic,
but exposes personal details of their private lives as a way to moralize the call-out
and invite condemnation from audiences. It focuses on past actions and seek to
dismiss the person or group as problematic and a failure for reinscribing
oppression.
Calling Out Exclusion: Inclusion Litmus Tests
In this form of call out, those who take a Foucauldian Ostrich position to social
justice mobilize inclusion as a perfect standard to discredit and dismiss people or
events for not living up to including every identity in the book.
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Identity Call-Outs: “You’re cis straight white, who are you have an opinion?”
Foucauldian Ostriches, in their search for a truly inclusive space that is free
from any and all forms of domination, dismiss any perspective that comes from any
privileged identity as inherently problematic and as not having an opinion. dismissing
someone by identity and not transforming the social relationships that underpin these
identities is one factor that makes call-outs like these toxic and unsettling. This type
of call-out conceptualizes identity as static and a stigma, as if whiteness and
Latinidades are ahistorical and not grounded in shifting transformations of the state
and of capitalism. This ahistorical treatment of identity is symptomatic of postmodern
intellectual influences, since this intellectual project seeks the rejection of history,
meta-narratives, and conceives identity in the ephemeral and present form. In a
context of flexible accumulation (Harvey 1991, p. 147), postmodernism shifts the
terrain of struggle to cultural production and allows capitalism to further commodify
culture and identity, thus treating identity as static and stripping it of any history. Under
these conditions, identity becomes a site for call-outs that register identity as markers
of authenticity and police identity for any sort of consumption out of line with its
notions. Further, by conceiving of privileged identity as problematic, and conversely,
by conceiving oppressed identities as pinnacles of truth, these call outs reinforce
essentialisms that one, are not mutable, and two, relegate identities to be the sole
voice of authority on their own experience without possibility for error or growth (Patai
1992)
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Twitter
The internet has been an outlet where people post what they want, may it be
what they’re doing, where they’re going, and even just what they’re eating. It can also
be what they call “blogging”. Blogs, a site that people set up as a basic website and
post long and informative write-ups (Gil, 2018). Now, Twitter is somewhat the same,
however, there are only limited number of characters or letters that can be posted.
According to Crook (2008), Twitter is a new form of communication – a Web
2.0 micro-blogging tool. It is a treasure trove of information. It consists of little blogs
about people’s everyday lives. They may post their thoughts, feelings, and/or
opinions on almost every aspect of life (Chew and Eysenbach, 2010). Online
interaction, therefore is now a regular part of daily life for a demographically diverse
population of billions of people worldwide (Golder and Macy, 2014).
Twitter was described by Purohit et al (2013) as a microblogging (Tomer,
Avishay, & Bruria, 2015) platform that acts as a medium for the flow of information
where users can post updates and subscribe to other users, known as ‘following’, in
order to receive updates or microblogs from other users.
Though, it isn’t only solely for people’s thoughts. Twitter also used for the pre-
incident activity, near real-time notification of an incident occurring, first hand reports
of the impact of an incident occurring and gauging the community responses to
emergency warnings (Merchant, Elmer, and Laurie, 2011). It has become a data
source which can be utilized by emergency services during disasters (Tomer,
Avishay, and Buria, 2015). Twitter data, in comparison with other social media
platforms such as Facebook, are more openly accessible and, for a proportion of
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tweets, can contain valuable metadata, including geospatial data, such as the precise
latitude and longitude co-ordinates from which a Tweet was posted (Ahmed, Bath,
and Demartini, 2017).
Twitter reports having 316 million monthly active users, there being 500 million
tweets posted per day, and 80% of active Twitter users use a mobile device (About
Twitter, n.d.). Tweets contain a wealth of data, and mining this data can provide
insight into public opinion and (Bakardjieva, 2005) (Bechmann & Lomborg, 2015)
behaviour responses in particular situations (Chew and Eysenbach, 2010).
It is important to understand the features of Twitter fully, for these features may
have ethical implications that should be considered. For example, people may not be
fully aware that their Tweets are publicly viewable, some researchers (Townsend &
Wallace, 2016) argue that if a tweet contains a hashtag, then the user tweeting this
has intended for their tweet to be visible to a broader audience, and therefore
informed consent is not necessary when reproducing the tweet in an academic article.
Purohit et al (2013) described the key features of Twitter:
 A tweet is a short message also known as a post, status or microblog from a
user on Twitter and which consists of a <140 characters, these tweets may
contain updates about user activities, or share useful information.
 Tweets can also contain links to web-pages, blogs etc., and, to avoid lengthy
URLs, Twitter users will use condensed versions of URLs which are shortened
by external services such as “http://bit.ly/“
 A hashtag, is denoted by a word preceding with the ‘#’ symbol, (e.g.,
#Christmas2018). The hashtag is a platform convention for user-defines
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topics, and which was intended to identify a topic of communication, e.g.,
#MSUIntramurals2018
 The reply feature is platform provided to communicate with the author of a
tweet by clicking in Twitter’s ‘reply’ button in response to a tweet.
 The retweet function forwards a tweet from a user to their followers and this is
similar to forwarding an email to one’s email contacts for example. The
‘mention’ feature acknowledges a user with the symbolic ‘@’, but this does not
use the reply platform feature e.g., “Thanks @userhandle”.
 A new feature implemented after the paper by Purohit et al (2013) was
published is that Twitter allows users to retweet with a comment. Users can
now quote a tweet and attach a comment to it e.g., users tweet ‘[Original
tweet]’ as @userhandle I agree [@userhandle1 today is a good day]
 A trend also known as ‘trending’ on Twitter refers to when a topic (a keyword
or hashtag) a keyword or hashtag) is popular at a specific time. Twitter
provides a list of topics that are currently trending for users, based on the
frequency of particular hashtag.
Internet Pragmatics
The wind of the internet has spread to almost every corner of the globe. Now
the internet is here and there (Bakardjieva 2005; Bechmann & Lomborg 2015),
impacting dramatically almost every aspect of human life, from politics to ecology,
from language to economy. The internet is becoming more and more
indispensable to the social and communicative life of human beings, and digital
living or internet-mediated living is becoming something normal for most social

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members. We are now “always online” (Baron 2008) and online interaction is
simply something ordinary.
According to Xie and Yus (2018), pragmatics can be said to be centered upon
the role of context in human communication. Besides, for pragmatics (especially
for cognitive pragmatics), what is coded in communication (words, gestures, etc.)
highly underdetermines the speaker’s or writer’s intended interpretation, which
emphasizes the importance of context in the analysis of human interaction.
When applying pragmatics to internet-mediated communication, the analyst is
faced, among other things, with two apparently contradictory statements. On the
one hand, internet makes no difference, in the sense that net users also build up
interpretations with the aid of context, much in the same way as they do in face-
to-face communication. However, on the other hand, internet makes all the
difference, since virtual communication often takes place in a cues-filtered
environment, typically text-based, and with fewer options and resources for
contextualization (e.g. lack of nonverbal communication). At the same time, the
internet shatters traditional dividing lines among offline genres, mixes qualities of
several genres, creates new ones and defies deterministic positions regarding its
limitations compared to highly contextualized situations of physical co-presence.
(Xie and Yus, 2018)
A possibility when analyzing the application of pragmatics to the internet-
mediated communication, is to set up a number of layers and study the
contributions that traditional pragmatic school can make to this new research area
(Yus, 2018).
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Moreover, Xie and Yus said the possible layers include the following:
 Layer 1. User and contextual constraints. A crucial aspect of internet-
mediated communication is that it is invariably constrained by a number of
factors that influence the eventual (un)successful outcome of the act of
communication. They frame, as it were, communication and have an
impact not only on the quality of interpretation, but also on the willingness
to engage in sustained virtual interactions through a specific interface.
These constraints may be divided into those related to the use of an
interface (user-to-system communication) and those related to the
exchange of information among users (user-to-user communication).
Among the former, we can list the “affordances” of the sites for virtual
interactions, the interface usability (good arrangement of text and image,
good structure of links, which allows for accessing content without
unnecessary effort), and presence/ absence of effort-increasing elements
on the interface (e.g. pop-up advertisements), among others.
Concerning user-to-user communication, contextual constraints include
the degree of mutual knowledge existing between interlocutors, familiarity
with topics, jargons, expected background, the reason for the act of
communication (a casual chat, and getting information on a topic entail
different expectations in the interaction, for instance), and the users’
personal traits such as personality.
 Layer 2. User to user by means of discourse. Pragmatics conceptualises
utterances as open to multiple possible interpretations in a specific context.

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There should be little difference in how internet users engage in interpretive
strategies compared to listeners in physical contexts; and disciplines such
as computer-mediated discourse analysis or digital discourse analysis
cover similar areas to the ones addressed by offline pragmatic research.
An essential term at this layer is genre, whose purpose is not an individual’s
private motive for communicating, but a socially constructed one and
recognized by the relevant organizational community and invoked in typical
situations. Internet discourses exhibit similar patterns both in the way they
are processed and in the way genres are stabilized and enacted in
interactions.
However, several qualities of virtual communication and online discourse
should be taken into account. Firstly, the degree of genre (dis)similarity
between online and offline genres depends on how inherent to the Net the
genre in question is. Secondly, the prototypical act of communication,
namely “a single addresser, who intends a single interpretation (and
interpretive path) with a single piece of discourse directed at a single
addressee” is altered or blurred, leading to a reconsideration of its
elements, and posing a challenge for traditional pragmatic analysis. Finally,
at this second layer it is necessary to comment on the quality of many
online discourses in their hybridisation of oral and written properties, and
how users resort to different techniques of oralisation including text
deformation (repetition of letters, creative use of punctuation marks, etc.)
and the use of emoticons/emoji in order to connote their typed texts not
only with an additional layer of orality, but also, and crucially, with a more
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realistic version of the feelings, emotions and underlying attitudes that
would not be conveyed without the aid of these “enriching” techniques. This
opens up nice areas of pragmatic analysis that move beyond the rigidity of
text.
 Layer 3. User to user in interaction. On the internet, users engage in
conversations, among them synchronous oral dialogues (internet-enabled
mobile messaging calls, video-conferencing, Skype), multi-party typed chat
conversations (on web servers), one-to-one and one-to-many typed
dialogues (WhatsApp, Messenger), audio-file conversations, and typed
asynchronous interactions (email, mailing lists, internet fora, dialogues on
a user’s entry on a social networking site, etc.). In theory, pragmatic
disciplines such as conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics or
ethnomethodology should be capable of accounting for how online
conversations are structured. And the last two include a social connotation
in their analyses.
A. Conversation analysis (CA), typically dissects conversations, analyses
the role of turn transitions, pauses, silences, overlappings and
interruptions, together with interactional combinations such as adjacency
pairs and latched turns. Problems for a direct applicability of CA to
conversations on the Net stem from their textual and interactional
properties. Concerning the former, specifically in the case of text-based
chat interactions within a central, general-purpose screen, conversations
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show alterations and disruptions that pose challenges for a prototypical CA
study. Regarding interactional constraints, online conversations often
move beyond the prototypical dyadic structure and into a multi-party
configuration.
B. Interactional sociolinguistics aims at explaining how interlocutors signal
and interpret meaning in social interaction. Unlike CA, more interested in
the structure of conversation, interactional sociolinguistics focuses on how
interpretations are achieved. Besides, it shows an interest in how
sociological (and cultural) knowledge and communication influence each
other in making sense of the speaker’s intentions. These foundations are
clearly applicable to internet-mediated communication, but it is Goffman’s
(1990) work that has been more intensely applied to virtual interactions,
especial his proposal of the term stage, referred to the distinction between
the roles that users play in society at the front stage of interactions and the
personal reality that lies at the backstage of their identities, the part that
hides behind this social playground (cf. Xie and Yus 2017).
C. Finally, for ethnomethodology conversations are a unique source of
information on social and cultural knowledge. In other words, everyday
instances of communication may be regarded as social realities, and this
allows us to trace the social aspects of the individuals by the way they
speak in specific communicative scenarios. Although conversations on the
Net are not situated on many occasions, in the sense that interlocutors
share a common scenario and elicit similar social meanings through their
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interactions, this pragmatic perspective may also be applied to virtual
interactions.
 Layer 4. User to audience. A pragmatics of internet-mediated
communication should include the analysis of online narratives, aimed at
an audience that shares with the author some portions of mutual
knowledge regarding posts and previous chunks of the narrative. For
example, faithful readers of a blog may be able to extract from new posts
all the implications and presuppositions that are only accessible by sharing
a store of information with the author’s previous posts, whereas occasional
readers may find it difficult to fill in the informational blanks that the author
does not code and whose mutuality is taken for granted. An interesting
aspect to bear in mind regarding online narratives is that there is a clear
difference – in pragmatic terms – between narratives that demand a purely
linear processing of the successive chunks of text, and those which offer
the user partial or total freedom to choose which sub-plot of the narrative
to follow, which link to click on, which tab in a parallel frame to select, etc.,
with the user turning into “the maker” of his/her own narrative plot, and the
author’s role being left as the mere provider of narrative threads without a
favoured processing path. Although all narratives are processed in a similar
cumulative way that takes the chunks of text that have just been processed
as preliminary contexts upon which subsequent chunks are inferred,
different types of narrative will demand different lines of processing and
parallel amounts of processing effort depending on aspects such as
usability, reader involvement or demands for mutuality. Elements that may
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also alter inferential strategies for new narratives include the
(un)predictability of links to click on, and the role of pictures and their
processing in the eventual overall interpretation (these pictures may work
as ‘anchorages’ of the accompanying text and vice versa). Besides, certain
narratives play a part in social identity shaping and community bonding,
especially those which are multi-authored or demand from readers the aid
and advice from a community of users to move effectively through the
unpredictable narrative threads.
 Layer 5. User in a group of users. Several pragmatic disciplines have
addressed social aspects of communication and the effects that
communication produces on feelings of group membership, stabilization of
social rules and norms, etc. Among them, the ethnographic approach
should be emphasized, but the application of this socially-connoted
approach to virtual settings entails are conceptualization of its objectives,
methodology and even the way data are gathered from sample dialogues
and interactions. The analyst cannot live among the users to conclude what
social aspects are assumed and reinforced through online interactions.
Instead, partial logging onto the social sites is expected. Besides, identity
play and anonymity are frequent on the Net and the ethnographer may well
be deceived in his/ her research. In the case of pragmatics, our intuition is
that in general people’s awareness of social aspects leaks, as it were, from
instances of communication, generating a store not only of general social
qualities of the person’s environment, but also qualities regarding the
position of the individual within the group. Internet users would generate
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and manage social qualities through interactions in a similar way to offline
communication. For example, certain types of online discourse (or some
form of online code of behaviour, interface use, etc.) and discourses
exhibited therein are only comprehensible to those who belong to a specific
social group within some delimited space of the Net, thus generating
feelings of community membership.
 Layer 6. User and non-intended no-propositional effects. Pragmatics has
traditionally analyzed the communication of propositions which match, to a
greater or lesser extent, the propositional information that the speaker
intends to communicate (i.e. thoughts). Propositions are typically explicit or
implicated, and come in degrees (strongly or weakly communicated). In a
way, it is sensible to base a pragmatic theory on the analysis of
propositions. They are account-able in truth-conditional terms and possess
content that allows us to trace the speaker’s intended meanings. The
problem is that on many occasions the key to successful acts of
communication does not lie in propositional content but in certain non-
propositional effects (feelings, emotions, impressions), and this is
particularly pervasive on the inter-net, where users spend hours
exchanging utterly useless (propositional) content which, nevertheless,
provides them with alternative sources of satisfaction through non-
propositional effects, some of which may not even be intended by the user
(as part of communicated content), but are generated from the act of
communication making up for the low informational quality of the
discourses transferred to other users.
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Recent research has focused on the communicative value of non-
propositional effects for the shaping and management of online identity.
These aspects entail the incorporation of other disciplines (sociology,
anthropology…) into the pragmatic analysis in order to assess the
effectiveness of the online act of communication as a whole. Indeed, online
interactions are excellent sources of non-propositional effects regarding
personal and social identity shaping, especially in a time in which many
interactions take place in situations that lack physical co-presence and
therefore language is important for foregrounding aspects of the user’s
identity that would otherwise be taken for granted in a face-to-face
situation.
Pragmatics, it is believed, has clear and straightforward applications to
communication on the internet. The same communicative strategies,
inferential steps and management of interactions that are at work in offline,
face-to-face exchanges, are also performed in online scenarios. However,
the application of pragmatic theories to internet-mediated communication
often entails an adjustment of the hypotheses, methodologies, and
conclusions that are at work in the analysis of offline communication.
Research on internet pragmatics, it is believed, can, should and will extend
and expand the scope of pragmatics.
Internet pragmatics should, on one hand, look into those new phenomena,
issues and puzzles that emerge in the process of internet-mediated
interactions, techno lingual, techno cultural, social, multimodal, cognitive,
moral, and so forth. On the other hand, internet pragmatics and pragmatics
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in general, should notice what has gone unnoticed as a result of taken-for-
grantedness in both online and offline interactions. Our life-world is multi-
dimensional, so is our language use as practice and presence. No matter
how multi-dimensional language use is, however, it is ultimately oriented
to human presence and existence. Modulated by the wind of the internet,
the wing of pragmatics will, hopefully, contribute to helping us see our
discourse, soul, self and other. Internet pragmatics seeks to explore and
expound, from the perspective of pragmatics as broadly conceived, ways
of living, ways of doing, ways of seeing, and ways of (re)discovering (Xie
and Yus, 2018)
Related Studies
Huffman (2016), in his study, “Call-out Culture: How Online Shaming Affects
Social Media”, hypothesized that young social media users are concerned that the
information the post online could cascade out of control leading to a verbal attack by
an anonymous crowd. As a result, users reduce the frequency of posting content to
social media after witnessing or experiencing acts of online shaming. Academic
attention has not focused on social media participation, or the lack thereof, as a
behavioral trait akin to organizational silence.
Spencer (2009), in his study, “Twitter’s Relevance and Use as a
Communication Tool”, analyzed how social medias, specifically, ‘Twitter’, a new form
of communication that still continues to evolve. He states that not only is Twitter for
entertainment but is also used for business and organizations of different areas
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around the world are using it for commerce. Also, not only that, but also even those
health care organizations are using it, and even in education.
Moreover, Twitter is the most used social media among others, and is the most
progressive one. By understanding the ways social networking allows individuals to
be connected with one another, it lays the groundwork for discovering how Twitter
connects people to one another.
Šķilters, Kreile, Bojārs, Brikše, Pencis and Uzule (2011), in their study, “The
Pragmatics of Political Messages in Twitter Communication”, aims to formulate a
conception of pragmatic patterns characterizing the construction of individual and
collective identities in virtual communities (in their case: the Twitter community).
They explored several theoretical approaches and frameworks and relevant
empirical data to show that the agents building virtual communities are ‘extended
selves’ grounded in highly dynamic and compressed, linguistically mediated virtual
network structure. Their empirical evidence consists of a study of discourse related
to the Latvian parliamentary elections of 2010. They used a Twitter corpus (in
Latvian) harvested and statistically evaluated using the Pointwise Mutual Information
(PMI) algorithm and complemented with qualitative and quantitative content
analysis.
Aarts, Maanen, Ouboter and Schraagen (2012), in their study, “Online Social
Behaviour in Twitter”, examines the state of the art research in the field of online
social networks. Their goal is to identify the current challenges within the area of
research, given the questions raised in society. They payed attention to three aspects
of social networks: actor, message, and network characteristics. They further limited
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their work to research based on Twitter data, because the online social network is the
most widely used by researchers in the field.
Gabriel Barbulet (2012), in his paper, “Social Media – A Pragmatic Approach:
Contexts and Implicatures”, aims at approaching Social Media from a Pragmatic point
of view. Implicatures and contexts in social media are also taken into account as
linguistic tools that may facilitate such an approach. Communication — the sharing
of information, ideas, and thoughts — is a vital part of life for all of us. The different
methods that allow us to communicate are called media. A postcard to a friend, a
telephone call, and a computer disk holding homework are all types of media. Some
of these have developed beyond simple methods of communication to become
sophisticated tools, capable of persuading and influencing large numbers of people.
It seems that nowadays the techniques for building a Social Media presence have
acquired an outmost importance. Our analysis will centre on Social Media sites with
a special focus on British newspaper blogs.
Jonathan Bright, Helen Margetts, Scott Hale, Taha Yasseri (2014), in their
study, “The Use of Social Media for Research and Analysis: A Feasibility Study, to
explore the ways in which data generated by social media platforms can be used to
support social research and analysis at the Department for Work and Pensions
[DWP]. The report combines a general review of all the possibilities generated by
social media data with an empirical exploration assessing the feasibility of some
solutions, focusing in particular on the examples of Universal Credit and Personal
Independence Payment. The report argues that social media data can be useful for
social research purposes in two key respects. Firstly, these media can provide
indications of information seeking behaviour (which may indicate public awareness

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of and attention to specific policies, as well as providing an idea of the sources where
they get information from). Secondly, they can provide indications of public opinion
of specific policies, or reaction to specific media events
Christian Rainer Hoffman and Wolfram Bublitz (2017), in their book, “The
Pragmatics of Social Media”, which provides a comprehensive overview of the
pragmatics of social media, i.e. of digitally mediated and Internet-based platforms
which are interactively used to share and edit self- and other-generated textual and
audio-visual messages. Its five parts offer state-of-the-art reviews and critical
evaluations in the light of on-going developments: Part I The Nature of Social Media
sets up the conceptual groundwork as it explores key concept such as social media,
participation, privacy/publicness. Part II Social Media Platforms focuses on the
pragmatics of single platforms such as YouTube, Facebook. Part III Social Media and
Discourse covers the micro-and macro-level organization of social media discourse,
while Part IV Social Media and Identity reveals the multifarious ways in which users
collectively (re-)construct aspects of their identities. Part V Social Media and
Functions/Speech Acts surveys pragmatic studies on speech act functions such as
disagreeing, complimenting, requesting. Each contribution provides a state-of-the-art
review together with a critical evaluation of the existing research.
May Antonette Montallana Palacio and Leah Espada Gustilo (2016) their study, “A
Pragmatic Analysis of Discourse Particles in Filipino Computer Mediated
Communication”, is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon and further delve into the
discourse-pragmatic functions of discourse particles (DPs) in digital genres, particularly
on Facebook, since DPs are commonly used by Filipino youths when posting and
commenting online, since the English language continues to evolve through time, many
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of its structures and functions changed, which made it even realizable that the smallest
unit in a discourse can play a crucial role in communication. Thirty tertiary-level students
from different universities in Metro Manila, Philippines, were selected to participate in the
present study. Using both qualitative and quasi-quantitative methods, results revealed a
surprising number and interesting types of combined English and Filipino Relational DPs
having several micro functions. Generally, they serve as a device that can let the
interlocutors convey their emotions, relationships, and attitudes towards the receiver of
their message. Discourse particles have crucial and prominent implications in the way
Filipinos, particularly the youth, express their message, gain understanding of the
received message, and establish speaker-receiver relationships and attitude on
Facebook.
Nobanita Sen (2016), in her study, “The Discourse Analysis of Facebook and Its
Impact on Language Learning: A Study, which attempts to find out the role of Facebook
on language learning. Therefore it includes analyzing the discourse of different apps that
are popular in use on Facebook. Different components of discourse analysis have been
used to identify and explore the impairment, and how they affect one’s language practice.
For the empirical data, a survey was conducted with the use of quantitative method. This
paper concluded with some recommendations on what steps should be taken to
overcome the limitations which were found during the research.
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Conceptual Framework
According to Ahmad (2015), call-out culture refers to that tendency among
progressives, radicals, activists, and (Ziyad, 2018) community organizers to publicly
name instances or patterns of oppressive behavior and language use by others.
Most call-outs posted in the internet are in social medias, particularly, Twitter.
Purohit et al (2013) described Twitter as a microblogging platform that acts as a
medium for the flow of information where users can post updates and subscribe to
other users, known as ‘following’, in order to receive updates or microblogs from other
users.
According to Xie and Yus (2018), pragmatics can be said to be centered upon
the role of context in human communication. Besides, for pragmatics (especially for
cognitive pragmatics), what is coded in communication (words, gestures, etc.) highly
underdetermines the speaker’s or writer’s intended interpretation, which emphasizes
the importance of context in the analysis of human interaction.
The current study further explores the call-out culture in Twitter and examines
their pragmatic features and how it affects the society.
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a. Familiarity with Topics a. Text Deformation

b. Jargons b. Use of Emoticons/emoji
c. Excpected background
d. User’s personal constraints
FIGURE 1. Schematic Diagram of Conceptual Framework
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CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
This methodology presents the general procedure of data gathering and the
techniques of analysis, which the study shall follow. This includes the research design,
Subject of the study, Data Gathering Procedure and Data Analysis.
Research Design
This study is a descriptive and will use the content analysis approach. Content
analysis according to Duriau, Reger and Pfarrer (2007) it is a research technique used to
make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting and coding textual materials. It
determined patterns of pragmatics in the call-outs showed in the posts from Twitter.
Subject of the Study
The data that will be used in the present research are from the Top Ten Most
Followed Filipinos in Twitter. The accounts that will be utilized are from 1. Jose Marie
Viceral (@vicegandako), 2. Anne Curtis-Smith (@annecurtissmith), 3. Angel Locsin
(@143redangel), 4. Kathryn Bernardo (@bernardokath), 5. Daniel Padilla
(@imdanielpadilla), 6. Yeng Constantino (@YengPLUGGEDin), 7. Bianca Gonzalez
(iamsuperbianca), 8. Relationships (@ohteenquotes), 9. MYX Philippines
(@MYXphilippines), 10. Vhong Navarro (@VhongX44).
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Data Gathering
Since this study is fairly recent, the researcher opted to use the social media,
Twitter, where the posts of the Top Ten Most Followed Filipino accounts are used as the
material for this research. Also, the researcher maximized the use of internet in gathering
the data about call-outs in Twitter and internet pragmatics which found to have bearing in
the study.
The call-outs to be used in this research are from the posts of The Top Ten Most
Followed Filipino of 2018 from the website SocialBakers. A total of ten call-out posts, one
each Filipino Twitter user, will be used in the study. Since there are many comments and
threads under each post, the data collection went through random sampling to avoid
biases.
Data Analysis
After the data has been gathered needed for the study, the researcher will analyse
them qualitatively. In answering the question number one (1) the researcher applied Xie
and Yus’ (2017) Introduction To Internet Pragmatics to analyse the contextual constraints
of call-outs found in Twitter accounts. Then, the researcher will categorize the call-outs
found according to the possible factors in Layer 1 by Xie and Yus (2018).
In answering question number two (2) the researcher will focus on the linguistic
features used in each post of each Twitter account using also by Xie and Yus’ (2017)
Introduction to Pragmatics.
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Lastly, in identifying the data of success of chosen call-out posts, the researcher
will get the records and statistics of each from the same website she used in getting the
samples. Then analyse how the call-outs generate positive and negative vibes from the
social world by looking at the types of Call-outs by Venegas’ (2016) study, and focused
on how it affects the audience. Then, determine the factors that affect the call-outs and
how it will work in order to be non-toxic and could help people.
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CHAPTER IV
PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
This chapter contains the presentation and analysis of the call-outs made by the
Most Followed Filipino artists in Twitter. This consists of three parts: Contextual
Constraints Of User-To-User Found in Call-outs, Linguistic Features Used, Positive and
Negative vibes Generated from Call-outs.
Contextual Constraints of User-to-User Found in Call-outs
The data for the present study were gathered from the website SocialBakers which
includes accounts of 1. Jose Marie Viceral (@vicegandako), 2. Anne Curtis-Smith
(@annecurtissmith), 3. Angel Locsin (@143redangel), 4. Kathryn Bernardo
(@bernardokath), 5. Daniel Padilla (@imdanielpadilla), 6. Yeng Constantino
(@YengPLUGGEDin), 7. Bianca Gonzalez (iamsuperbianca), 8. Relationships
(@ohteenquotes), 9. MYX Philippines (@MYXphilippines), 10. Vhong Navarro
(@VhongX44).
Xie and Yus’ (2018) internet pragmatics when applying pragmatics has possibility
of setting up a number of layers, and one of those layers are user and contextual
constraints which is defined as “aspects that underlie or frame communication and
interaction (i.e. they exist prior to the interpretive activity) and constrain its eventual
(un)successful outcome” (Yus forthcoming) which has a set of four (4) to engage in
sustained virtual interactions through a specific interface: familiarity with topics, jargons,
expected background, user’s personal constraints. The familiarity with topics is defined
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as to how the user-to-user have well-known knowledge about a specific subject. Jargons
are the special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group
and are difficult for others to understand. The expected background can be described as
the reason for the act of communication. And finally, the user’s personal constraints are
the user’s personal traits.
Nowadays, a huge amount of Internet-mediated exchanges whose interest does
not lie in the content communicated, but in what the act of communication as a whole
generates in users, producing an offset of non-propositional effects that compensate for
the lack of relevance that the content objectively possesses. The researcher expanded
Xie and Yu’s internet pragmatics that show analysis of the contextual constraints of user-
to-user found in call-outs. The set, is then, analyzed for each call-out.
The first sample of call-out analyzed is the one made by “Vice Ganda”, about how
one of the hosts in Miss Universe wore her outfit. During the Miss Universe, there were
three hosts, one of them was Ashley Graham, an American model who is a proponent of
the body positivity and the Health at Every Size movements.
Figure 2.0
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Figure 2.1
Figure 2.2
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The figures above show that Vice Ganda made a comment calling-out one of the
hosts. Vice Ganda used pragmatics concerning user-to-user communication’s familiarity
of the topic.
As what can be observed in those figures, both of the users were aware of the
subject that is being talked about. As shown in Figure 2.0, Vice Ganda tweeted about
how the dress of the host was not suitable for her, for it showed her big curves and Figure
2.1 showed that some of the comments in Vice’s tweet were defending him and some
were criticizing.
The call-out made garnered many comments, retweets and was shared a lot of
times for the reason of the act of communication was at everyone’s attention. The whole
Philippines was watching Miss Universe at that time and the watchers had some comment
on the hosts, however, no tweet had really impacted peoples, not until Vice Ganda paid
attention to it and tweeted it. As for user’s personal traits, many have had always known
that Vice Ganda has this kind of personality, where he is thinking out loud, telling that
someone what his/her flaws are, may it be on national television or the internet. The
second sample of call-out analyzed is Anne Curtis-Smith’s retweet where she shares her
thoughts about the law where children can be sent to jail and sentenced as an adult,
Juvenile Justice & Welfare Act (RA 9344).
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Figure 3.0
Figure 3.1
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Figure 3.2
As what the figures above show, Anne Curtis-Smith tweeted about her feeling
towards the law, a call-out which is a subtle way to protest. Anne is an advocate for
UNICEF Philippines that is why she is upset about this. Her familiarity with the topic at
hand makes her feel involved in the matter. This would show that a non-intended
propositional effect, which refers to feelings, emotions, and impressions etc., was her
personal trait and could be her reason for communication, for she wanted to be heard.
She was fond of kids and now she’s defending them. As for the comments, this would
show their expected background, they knew what Anne was tweeting about, and so they
either agree or disagree with her thoughts. The jargons found in the tweets mostly political
jargons. The words used were: jail, justice, sentence, and juvenile court, all of which are
not familiar to those who are not politically inclined, but is known to those who are.
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The third sample call-out that was made is from Angel Locsin, where she made a
positive call-out to her friend.
Figure 4.0
Figure 4.1
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Angel Locsin’s call-out is different than the first two, she was calling-out to her
friend, greeting her a happy birthday and saying things that are positive to the one she’s
calling-out. However, as what is shown in Figure 4.1, the ones who commented do not
really know who Angel is greeting, they are not familiar with the topic, or in this case, the
person, so their comments are directed only to Angel, appreciating and adoring her. As
for the reason of the communication, Angel wanted to greet her friend through tweeting
because a lot of people would be seeing it and would greet her also. Also, Angel is a
celebrity and many follow her, so her personal and social qualities influence eventual
quantity and quality of use of Internet-enabled interactions.
The fourth sample of call-out is from Kathryn Bernardo.
Figure 5.0
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Figure 5.1
The figure 5.0 shown is not a call-out, but as seen in figure 5.1, one of the
comments is the call-out. Kathryn Bernardo is not one who really tweets about her
thoughts in the social media, just some photos, a few retweets of her endorsements, and
some quotes. However, fans are unstoppable when it comes to commenting to their idols.
Just like the one in figure 5.1, she is calling out to all the plain looking ones, where she
compared herself from Kathryn’s photo, which is a pragmatic that means Kathryn is very
beautiful and no can go beyond her beauty. As an expected background, everyone knows
that Kathryn is beautiful, because since her childhood she is in the industry, and so she
is well-taken care of. As for the reason of communication, the one who commented
wanted to be noticed by Kathryn, and that is why her comment went like that.
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The fifth sample of a call-out made is from Daniel Padilla, a tweet calling-out to
everyone. His tweet was connected to another social media, Instagram, where a picture
is accompanied.
Figure 6.0
Figure 6.1
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Figure 6.2
Daniel Padilla’s tweet is a call-out that is for every person who reads it. He is aware
of what is happening around, familiar with topics about who makes mistakes, blaming this
or that, that is why in his tweet he is calling out to everybody, which is also his reason for
communication. He wants everyone to look at themselves before blaming someone else.
The expected background that could be because of how it is in today’s society. Also, as
seen in figure 6.1, Daniel is a deep person and a very serious one, as it is his personal
trait.
The sixth sample who made a call-out is Yeng Constantino. Her tweet contains a
sentence which could mean a lot of things.
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Figure 7.0
Figure 7.1
With regard to Yeng Constantino’s tweet as shown in the figures above, the people
who read it has no familiarity with what Yeng is pertaining to. Her probable reason for the
act of communicating might be that someone had angered her, and she vented it in
Twitter, or that maybe she was making a joke through posting it, for it had an emoji. Her
tweet highly undetermined her intended interpretation. As for her personal trait, she is the
kind to goof around, which would slightly explain her tweet.
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The seventh sample of a call-out is from Bianca Gonzales, where she called out
about the traffic, which is unusual for her, for it is always traffic in that place.
Figure 8.0
Figure 8.1
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Bianca Gonzales, in her tweet, she is shocked of the zero traffic. In their place,
traffic has always been there, now that there was none, she tweeted about it. Everyone
who commented in her post is familiar with the situation she is in; they knew that traffic is
really there, and they also know that she is one of the hosts who are coming back to Pinoy
Big Brother, for it is an expected background. She was a host of PBB until she got
pregnant. The reason for the act of the communication is that Bianca wanted to share
that she is going back to PBB but not really announcing it. A subtle way to surprise her
fans and the viewers. As her personality is an enthusiastic person, she never wants a
boring time, and the point that PBB wanted also to surprise the fans.
The eighth sample of call-out is from Relationships, where the post intends to tell
someone what to do if he/she did something wrong.
Figure 9.0
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Figure 9.1
The figures 9.0 and 9.1 has a great deal of being familiar with the topic at hand.
The call-out is made to those people who ignore the ones they are mad at. This account
is full of tweets that are relatable to teens of today’s generation as it is its expected
background. This particular tweet is just one of those call-out it has made. The reason for
the act of communication of this tweet is for those people who have high self-esteem.
Looking at this and its other tweets, the personal trait of this kind of account is a very wise
person, he knows how to give advice and life lessons to others through twitter.
The ninth sample of a call-out is from MYX Philippines. They don’t usually post
anything, but just keeps on retweeting from other celebrity singers, dance groups, and
boy groups. However, the call-out can be found in the comments.
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Figure 10.0
Figure 10.1
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Figure 10.2
The MYX Philippines account retweeted a post that said Kai of EXO was seen at
Cebu, this made the fans furious, and so call-outs were made. The expected background
of it was that Kai was having a vacation at Cebu and MYX Ph having it posted in Twitter
would ruin his vacation, for fans would swamp his hotel. The reason for the act of
communication was that the fans wanted the post to be taken down, however, MYX Ph
did not take any action. Through this, the personal trait of the account be seen as
pompous, as what can be seen through the comments made by those users of Twitter.
The last sample of a call-out is from Vhong Navarro. His tweet was a call-out to
Catriona Gray when she won the Miss Universe.
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Figure 11.0
Figure 11.1
As Figure 11.0 shows, Vhong Navarro was congratulating Catriona Gray, through
Twitter for it would show that he was supporting her. In Figure 11.1, it can be seen that
fans are commenting about Catriona Gray too, showing their support. These show that
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both interlocutors are familiar with the topic. With Vhong tweeting about Catriona and the
fans commenting also to her, even though it was Vhong who tweeted it and not Catriona
herself. The researcher, could now say that the expected background was that both are
sending their appreciation and support to someone. It also shows that they have the same
personal trait, for they both showed their support to their country.
After analyzing each selected tweet of every artist in the Top 10 list, it can be
determined that call-out culture in each tweet has contextual constraints, which makes
the artist’s tweet more influential to their fans for they have the same reason for the act
of the communication, which could also explain the expected background and the
personal traits of each artist’s tweet.
Through these tweets, the researcher could see, as what Xie and Yus (2018)
say, “Pragmatics has traditionally analyzed the communication of propositions which
match to a greater or lesser extent, the propositional information that the speaker
intends to communicate (i.e. thoughts)”. Propositions are typically explicit or
implicated, and come in degrees (strongly or weakly communicated). In a way, it is
sensible to base a pragmatic theory on the analysis of propositions. They are
account-able in truth-conditional terms and possess content that allows us to trace
the speaker’s intended meanings. The problem is that on many occasions the key to
successful acts of communication does not lie in propositional content but in certain
non-propositional effects (feelings, emotions, impressions), and this is particularly
pervasive on the inter-net, where users spend hours exchanging utterly useless
(propositional) content which, nevertheless, provides them with alternative sources
of satisfaction through non-propositional effects, some of which may not even be
intended by the user (as part of communicated content), but are generated from the
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act of communication making up for the low informational quality of the discourses
transferred to other users.
Each of the account who made a call-out were mainly expressing their
thoughts, with the one in mind that they have no intended meanings, but just feelings
they wanted to let out.
Linguistic Features Used
It is necessary to comment on the quality of many online discourses in their
hybridisation of oral and written properties (oralised written text, as it was called in Yus
2011a), and how users resort to different techniques of oralisation including text
deformation (repetition of letters, creative use of punctuation marks, etc.) and the use of
emoticons/emoji in order to connote their typed texts not only with an additional layer of
orality, but also -and crucially- with a more realistic version of the feelings, emotions and
underlying intentions beyond textual explicitness (e.g. in ironical communication) that
would not be conveyed without the aid of these enriching techniques (see Yus 2005). This
opens up nice areas of pragmatic analysis that move beyond the rigidity of typed text and
into more dynamic combinations of text and image, and into hybrid oral and written
features of discourse. In this sense, although it is undeniable that very often the origin of
these creative techniques lies in the user’s awareness that typed text is not rich enough
to convey feelings, emotions or attitudes, on many occasions users resort to them with
other purposes, including humour, the creation of a more vivid or colourful text, or an
enhancement of areas of mutuality with other users, among others.
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The researcher analyzed the call-outs through the use of Linguistic Features the
can be seen in the tweets. Specifically, the text deformation, which are the repetition
of letters, creative use of punctuation marks, usage of all caps, etc and the use of
emoticons/emojis, in order to connote their typed texts not only with an additional layer
of orality, but also -and crucially- with a more realistic version of the feelings, emotions
and underlying intentions beyond textual explicitness (e.g. in ironical communication) that
would not be conveyed without the aid of these enriching techniques (see Yus 2005), with
proposed functions which are: (a) to signal the propositional attitude that underlies the
utterance and which would be difficult to identify without the aid of the emoticon, (b) to
communicate a higher intensity of a propositional attitude which has already been coded
verbally, (c) to strengthen/mitigate the illocutionary force of a speech act, (d) to contradict
the explicit content of the utterance (joking), (e) to contradict the explicit content of the
utterance (irony), (f) to add a feeling or emotion towards the propositional content of the
utterance (affective attitude towards the utterance), (g) to add a feeling or emotion
towards the communicative act (feeling or emotion in parallel to the communicative act),
and (h) to communicate the intensity of a feeling or emotion that has been coded verbally.
Text Deformation
This is to understand why people use text deformation who are willing to produce
a string of text rich enough to direct the recipient not only towards (supposedly) the
intended interpretation of their messages, but also towards a certain measurement of the
underlying propositional attitudes, affective attitudes and emotions attached to the
message when it is typed on the computer keyboard. At the same time, textual
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deformation shows the kind of creative manipulation of discourse that chat users typically
display as part of their social identities. As normally happens with most jargons, textual
deformation in comments is continuously contrasted with well established and normalized
forms of written communication against which the users of chat rooms rebel. (Yus, 2001a:
148-151, 2002a, 2003a) In Kataoka’s (2003: 125) words,
“graphemic features may serve as a means of the writer’s affiliation with particular groups,
community, contexts, and cultures. Affective signs, exploited by young writers with a certain
emotional drive, can index facets of the encoder’s self through the ways s/he reveals and
responds to affective events. We could take affective signs and punctuation to serve as a means
of connecting emotion and youth identities... Youth identities are closely tied to the community-
sanctioned ways of representing emotions that are shared between senders and addressees and
appropriate to the epistolary context.”
Figure 2.1
From this figure, one of the comments are written all in capital letters by user
@maywardxander, which is under the deformation of the text. This comment was meant
to defend what Vice Ganda tweeted, where called out one of the host in Miss Universe
2018 about what she was wearing. It conveyed that he/she wanted to be noticed by those
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who are criticizing Vice Ganda, as it was written in capital letters, it made the words look
louder, and so it could somehow speak to those bashers.
According to Robb (2014), typing messages all capital letters commonly became
closely identified with ‘shouting’ and may be considered rude. Its equivalence to shouting
traces back to at least 1984 and before the Internet, back to printed typography usage of
all capitals to mean shouting. Also, all caps can be used as an alternative to rich-text
"bolding" for a single word or phrase, to express emphasis, repeated use of all caps can
be considered "shouting" or irritating.
Figure 3.2
Another example of a call-out that has text deformation, as seen in Figure 3.2, from
user @joriedv (the first comment), where she is uses all capital letters in some words.
This shows how she really wanted to emphasize her point to the tweet Anne Curtis made.
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Figure 4.1
Another type of a text deformation is the repetition of words, just like in Figure 4.1.
A comment from user @iamlaivie to Angel Locsin’s tweet. In her message, she repeated
the word ‘good’ to express her feelings, where she really wanted Angel Locsin to have a
good day.
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Figure 5.1
Here is another sample of a call-out that has text deformation, in Figure 5.1,
@chandriuuugh’s tweet are all comments trying to get Kathryn Bernardo’s attention, the
last one though was what really the comment that could catch anyone’s attention. With
the use of capital letters, everyone who read the comments would easily notice her
message and would read it, resulting to achieving her goal in getting Kathryn’s attention.
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Figure 7.1
In Figure 7.1, @nhinyah’s comment is another form of text deformation, where in
her comment she added letters to the word ‘you’, making it more expressive. According
to studies, people may duplicate letters in an effort to compensate for the lack of vocal
cues when they’re writing as opposed to speaking. When people talk, they use intonation
in a number of varied and subtle ways. There’s a lot of emotional nuance that can be
conveyed that you can’t do in writing. Extra letters can serve multiple purposes, including
making you sound friendlier or making it easier to get what you want without coming off
as demanding.
As what can be determined in the figure above, the word ‘you’ in the comment was
elongated to make it sound friendlier and more expressive.
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Figure 8.1
Another sample of text deformation is seen in the comment of @kimberlyjoiceee
in Figure 8.1, where she used capital letters and elongation of words. It shows that she
really is excited for Bianca Gonzales to be back. She expressed her feelings through the
words she commented. These tactics suggest that the process linguists call
“accommodation”—the way speaking styles converge when humans talk to one another,
facilitating both conversation and a sense of common identity—is not limited to spoken
communication (Decot, 2014).
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Figure 10.2
The Figure 10.2 is also another sample of call-outs that has text deformations,
which is the usage of capital letters to express one’s thoughts and feelings. In the
comments of @zkdlin_ni and @kenchubebi, they were furious because of what
@MYXphilippines tweeted, and so they wrote it in bold letters. According to Luna (2013),
using caps convey “grandeur,” “pomposity,” or “aesthetic seriousness” for thousands of
years—at least since Roman emperors had monuments inscribed, in all caps, with their
own heroic accomplishments. Writers have used capital letters to convey anger in print,
too. Luna (2013) added,
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“All-capitals provide visibility—maximum size within a given area.” And that works online,
too. “All-caps in an email looks like shouting because when someone is shouting, you’re aware of
the shout, and not the nuance,” Luna told me over email. “ALL-CAPS FILL THE SPACE, so there’s
an element of feeling that the message is crowding out everything else.”
These creative spellings and punctuations constitute important discursive markers
of identity (SMS texts sent through mobile phones work in much the same way), since
they create linguistic barriers of intra-group specificity (Yus 2002b), with jargons which
are only comprehensible to those in the same social group (e.g. the peers).
As an explanation of textual deformation at a social level of analysis, there is also
an explanation at the level of communicative interaction: when chat users type their
messages they lack the ability to communicate the full range of attitudes and emotions
which a richer context such as face-to-face communication facilitates (writers in general
share this feeling to a greater or lesser extent) and they resort to textual deformations in
order to compensate for this loss. This tendency is particularly explainable in a medium,
Internet, in which feelings and emotions typically spread without much control (e.g. spam).
Kesseler & Bergs (2003: 80) comment on how the cues-filtered quality of written text on
Internet facilitates the expression of feelings and emotions, the extroversion of otherwise
introverted people and the full display of affect. Although Internet communication allows
users to speak more openly about feelings, desires and conflicts, it does not, at least in
the case of chat rooms, provide them with an effective means to communicate them.
In general, the messages which are made in twitter undergo a double process of
informative loss. On the one hand, messages in chat communication, like virtually any
text or utterance, underdetermine (i.e. literally code less information than) the thought(s)
that the speaker intends to communicate with them. Within relevance theory (Sperber &
Wilson 1986/ 95), human comprehension is pictured as an inferential task geared towards
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filling up all the informative blanks that the semantic representations (i.e. logical forms) of
utterances or texts possess when they reach the receiver’s mind. For instance, hearers
or readers are expected to fix the time span of tenses, as in (1a), to find referents for
indexicals (1b), to disambiguate (1c), to engage in enriching (1d) and loosening (1e), to
find the elliptical propositional material of sub-propositional utterances (1f), etc., among
other inferential procedures performed by the addressees in their search for a relevant
interpretation of the utterance.
Emoticons/Emojis
Emoticons (the graphic signs, such as the smiley face, that often accompany digital
written communication) are an integral part of digital culture since its beginnings: they
have followed its development over the last decades, evolving alongside with the rapid
spread of new written communication environments, such as social media or text
messaging systems. They play an important role in digital written communication: they
can serve as markers either of emotions or familiarity, and they can intensify or
downgrade the pragmatic force of a text (Spina, 2017).
Moreover, Spina (2017) added, as people use writing more and more instead of
face to face interactions or phone calls, the need for overcoming limitations in
communicating emotional tone arises. The widespread use of emoticons allows to convey
nonlinguistic information that in face-to-face communication is expressed through facial
expression and other bodily indicators. Emoticons, therefore, are primarily “emotion
icons”: additional opportunities to convey emotions through the use of graphic symbols,
directly mapped onto facial expressions.

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Figure 2.2
As what is seen in Figure 2.2, @pastor_lovelie used emojis, smileys like a rolling
on the floor emoji and a face with tears of joy and hand gesture that shows a peace sign,
where it could be explained that she was making a comment as light as possible, because
she might be judged for siding with Vice Ganda’s tweet. For emoticons are multifunctional
and highly context-sensitive resources, whose different functions most often tend to
overlap and to occur simultaneously within the use of a single emoticon (Spina, 2017).
Both the smileys are a marker as an expression to indicate she is starting a light
conversation and to lift up the mood of the ongoing messages.
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Figure 3.0
In Figure 3.0, another kind of emoji (💔) was used by Anne Curtis-Smith. According
to Emojipedia (2015), in texts and on social media, the emoji is used to express grief after
a breakup, loss, or other setbacks. While often sincere, its tone can also be more playful,
over-exaggerating a frustration or fawning over a crush. She used a broken heart emoji
which only suggests that she is saddened by a tweet from UNICEF Philippines, by putting
an emoji she clearly expresses a feeling not only through words but also through graphic
symbols.
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Figure 4.1
In Figure 4.1, a comment from @mygel_teamangel, shows that she only
commented emojis with no words or texts. This could only be explained that she didn’t
need words to express her thoughts and that emojis are enough to express her feelings.
Also, a comment from @iamlaivie used happy faces emoji, which expresses that she is
very happy to greet Angel Locsin. Another comment from @GLonghas, used four same
emojis which could be explained just like the way letters are repeated. It sends a strong
emotion that would let the reader feel the genuinely.
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Figure 5.1
Figure 5.1 shows several emojis were used in different ways. The crying face emoji
used by @chandriuuugh in the first comment was to show that she is begging Kathryn to
like her comment. In her next comment, she used sad face that also screams for begging
attention. Lastly, she used a crying face and a smiling face with heart eyes, this only
proves that she really wanted to get Kathryn attention, hence emojis were her way of
calling out to Kathryn.
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Figure 7.0
In Figure 7.0, an emoji of winking face with tongue is used by Yeng Constanino
which could define that her tweet was just for fun or merely a joke. She wanted to let her
fans or to those who read it know that its not a serious thing, for if she didn’t use an emoji,
people would think that she has an enemy and rumors would run around. In reading this
tweet, one could say that she is avoiding controversy by using an emoji.
Figure 8.0
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Figure 8.0 shows a tweet from Bianca Gonzales where she used the shocked face
that really expresses her feelings. She was surprised by the event that there was no traffic
that Saturday evening, where it is usually traffic. Using the emoji was an indication that it
is really a surprising thing to have no traffic.
Figure 9.1
A comment from @gresivio1 in Figure 9.1 shows that he used a crying face three
times, which shows that he is hurt by the meaning of the words he commented. He is
showing his emotions through the use of emojis. Another comment form @Rajan_Cool_
used the emoji, curious face, which shows that he does not fully understand what the
saying mean, or that he is confused of what it truly meant.
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Figure 11.1
As seen in Figure 11.0, Vhong Navarro used the emoji clapping hands, a heart,
and the Philippine Flag, which shows his admiration. Through the used emojis, Vhong
was able to show his reaction and feelings, he was clapping because the Philippines got
the crown again.
The role of emoticon in digital written communication, however, is much more
nuanced and not limited to the expression of emotions. Following Dresner & Herring
(2010), Vandergriff (2014), and Spina (2016), they are developing at least two other
important pragmatic functions that are not necessarily mapped onto facial expressions,
or aimed at the expression of emotions:
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 The function of social markers of familiarity and empathy. In this sense, they are
relational icons, that promote rapport and play a social and affiliative role;
 The function of markers of the pragmatic force of a text, aimed at intensifying or
downgrading its meaning. In this function, they are contextualization cues
(Gumperz, 1982; Auer, 1992) that provide information on how to interpret the
verbal message.
As a consequence, emoticons are multifunctional and highly context-sensitive
resources, whose different functions most often tend to overlap and to occur
simultaneously within the use of a single emoticon.
Emoticons, therefore, are not just a ludic and extralinguistic supplement to
language, with the exclusive role of expressing emotions, but rather linguistic resources
that play other important pragmatic functions in digital written communication, such as
conveying the intentions of the writer (Tagg, 2012), supporting social relationships among
participants, and providing new opportunities for creative expressions.
Positive and Negative Vibes from the Social World
In recent years, there has been a trend on the rise in social media of pointing or
calling out the “problematic” behavior of anyone from celebrities to internet personalities
to just regular people like you and me. Any time anyone says or does something that
could even be construed as disparaging or degrading towards a social minority of some
kind (ie. people of color, sexual and gender minorities, etc.), they are ruthlessly picked
apart by the people on social media who only yesterday may have professed to be their
biggest fans. This intense form of call-out culture had led to things like a whole blog on a
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website being created and dedicated to compiling instances of when and how celebrities
have screwed up, and people have been driven off social media for any and every
perceived infraction.
The call-out itself as a tool can, in the right situation, be an effective means of
furthering one’s cause, especially in social justice situations. It can serve to highlight
someone’s bad behavior in a very public way, and probably springs initially from some
perceived truth that may be valid. But the mass audience people have at their disposal
on social media is more often than not likely to take the call-out and proceed to blow it
way out of proportion. In more extreme cases, like the John Green incident, the call-out
may also be a life ruining accusation that the accuser has no evidence for and cannot
prove. If this is the case, it can end up causing serious problems for the accused if taken
and run through the insane online rumor mill. Call-out culture has become so vehement
and violent in recent years, that it has lost sight of its original intention, and only serves
now as a means to completely belittle and humiliate people to make oneself feel better,
or like the morally superior party in the situation.
Venegas (2016) believes that call-out is not as destructive as what others think,
for that he shared in his paper the different types of call-out in both positive and negative
ways of doing it.
At this point, the researcher gets the data of each sample call-outs in tweets from
each user account in Twitter to determine how each generated positivity or negativity in
the social world. According to Venegas (2016) there are call-outs that are productive, that
when it is used effectively could and there are those that could reform consciousness,
develop more a coherent political good sense, and integrate budding interlocutors into
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their scenes, and there are call-outs that are problematic, that accusers expose
problematic processes and seek to change the situation in order for the event to live up
to the goals of inclusion and continue its vigilance against oppression from within the
scenes.
The tweet Vice Ganda posted (Figure 2.0) is a call-out which generated negative
vibes in the social world. It was posted in December 17, 2018 and immediately got 5,320
retweets and 44,366 likes which shows that many were agreeing with Vice Ganda,
however it also created fury with those who disagreed with Vice’s tweet. According to
Venegas (2016), this type of call-out in way could be an Identity Call-out, where it
conceptualizes identity as static and a stigma. Identity becomes a site for call-outs that
register identity as markers of authenticity and police identity for any sort of consumption
out of line with its notions. Further, by conceiving of privileged identity as problematic,
and conversely, by conceiving oppressed identities as pinnacles of truth, these call outs
reinforce essentialisms that one, are not mutable, and two, relegate identities to be the
sole voice of authority on their own experience without possibility for error or growth (Patai
1992).
Vice Ganda’s comment on how one of the host in Miss Universe dressed showed
that he somehow stereotyped the host, even though his post wasn’t as blunt as how the
fans took it, it still has the pragmatics that the host was too fat to be a host in a pageant
like Miss Universe. It was a subtle but was very obvious for those who have their
pragmatic sense of understanding. Anything that does not live up to such image is to be
dismissed as problematic and not worthy of attention.
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As seen in Figures 2.1 and 2.2, many were siding with Vice Ganda, but there were
also who criticized him for saying such thing. Therefore, the researcher could say that this
garnered negativity throughout Twitter.
In the next tweet, Figure 3.0, the type of call-out Anne Curtis-Smith made is a
Processual Call-out which generates positive vibe, although by doing this, comments
had the opposite reaction. This type has the power to disrupt and stop the action until the
problematic dynamic is fixed. The uses of this call-out does not only inform but shape the
discipline of actors within these scenes to develop their politics, their conceptions of the
world, and grow into members of the intellectual groups that comprise these scenes.
However, as seen in the comments (Figure 3.1 and 3.2), it was not the desired
reaction that showed. People were somehow against what Anne was trying to say in her
tweet, which caused the arguments in the comment section. This is another type of a call-
out which is called Intrusive Call-out, where accusers seek out aspects of a person’s
life, whether a past action, or present, to call out in public and bring them to shame and
thus discredit them. Intrusive call-outs seek to not only place actors as problematic, but
exposes personal details of their private lives as a way to moralize the call-out and invite
condemnation from audiences. Just like what the comments said, they used Anne’s past,
where they contradicted Anne’s statement.
A tweet from Daniel Padilla, in Figure 6.0, is an example of an Integrative Call-
out. Actors employ constructive strategies to “educate” errant and to re-integrate them
into the scene once they have become aware of their wrong. Those who advocate for this
type of accountability do not necessarily mobilize public pressure, but when they do, they
give the accused an “out”- a way out of public pressure and reintegration into the group.
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In Daniel’s tweet, he was trying to tell everybody, though in a subtle way, somehow also
educating that people shouldn’t blame others for things, but first look at their selves first.
He was saying that the problem lies within but not someone’s mistake, a way to also show
his seriousness.
It describes the gentle and inclusionary range of correcting transgressors and their
process of reintegration into the space. This set of practices range from the correcting
someone privately to the public exposure of wrongs and subsequent action to remedy the
wrong.
Another type of call-out was made by MYXPhilippines, in Figure 10.0 it was seen
that they posted as picture saying that a KPOP idol is having his vacation in Cebu. This
garnered negative vibe for those who are fans of the idol. As seen in Figure 10.1 and
10.2, they were angry as to why they posted about a private vacation and that it could
ruin the idol’s trip. This type is called Calling Out Exclusion, where the people calling
out the situation used inclusiveness of voices and participation as the fuel to paint the
event as problematic, and thus calling for boycott. According to Venegas (2016), it
revealed a static conception of inclusion that Foucauldian Ostriches use as a litmus test
to dismiss and disrupt events and organizing. In this image of inclusion, an event must be
inclusive to every single identity in the book in a way that does not tokenize. While rooted
in legitimate and historical concerns, the use of inclusion as a litmus test, with no solutions
offered to improve on inclusion, becomes an enabling mechanism to mobilize destructive
call-outs. MYXPhilippines was out of line when they announced the trip made by the
KPOP Idol, they were not supposed to post anything and that made the fans furious
saying that they should put down the tweet.
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The last type of call-out is seen at the tweet by Relationships in Figure 9.0. It is
called Off-Scene Coaching, where interlocutors pep talk one another and give each
other advice to prevent them from repeating “problematic” behavior in their space,
particularly after the fact. This happens both outside the spaces that comprise the scene,
and in the midst of these spaces. The coaching occurs one on one as someone with more
experience takes an errant aside from the scene to inform them of their act. In this form
of private correction, the call-out seeks to address a problem with speech-whether it is
using an offensive term, or mannerisms that reflect privilege such as “man-spreading”- a
term to denote how men take up physical space in everyday life via their bodies.
As seen in the tweet, it was giving the advice of not ignoring someone when angry,
and many in the comments (Figure 9.1) were somehow agreeing to this statement.
These forms of call-outs take place primarily among three forms of publicity.
Drawing from Erving Goffman’s notion of stages where social actors present themselves
to public life (Goffman 1959), the first is the private/backstage space, such as one on one
conversations, and private messaging away from any publics and members of the scene.
The second form of publicity is the scene public, a localized public consisting of members
of the scene who are present. For instance, this type of space includes present members
in an activist meeting, or audience members at a rally, or queer festival or performance.
The third publicity level is the virtual public, a wider public space where not only scene
members are witness but also members from scene networks not confined to real space.
This type of space includes social media such as Facebook groups both open and closed,
event pages with comment sections, and newsfeeds for scene members (Venegas 2016).
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In general, the call-outs generate positive and negative vibe in the social world
through people themselves. The problem starts because people often place too much
emphasis on highlighting the fucked-up things people say or do, and demand that blood
and sanctions be exacted upon the person who fucked up. This behavior has yielded
plenty of thinkpieces coming from across the political spectrum indicting the modern “call-
out culture”, which leaves people afraid to make mistakes publicly or say the wrong thing
for fear of being pounced on by the people they thought of as allies.
Thing is, the problem is not actually the call-out itself, however, it is a powerful tool
in identifying each person’s problematic behaviors and becoming better people. The
problem isn’t calling people’s behavior out as much as the lack of intellectual humility that
can be seen in the execution of the public call-out
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CHAPTER V
SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter consists of four parts namely: (1) Summary, which summarizes the
purpose of the study and the research methodology; (2) Findings, which lays out the
findings of the study; (3) Conclusions, which presents the conclusions made after
completing the study; and (4) Recommendations, which offers recommendations in view
of the results drawn.
Summary
This study analyzed how call-outs from Twitter users work in the internet, and
identified what are its impact to the social world. Specifically, it answered the following
questions: What are the contextual constraints of user-to-user communication found in
the Call-out Twitter accounts, in terms of a. Familiarity with topics, b. Jargons, c.
Expected background, d. User’s personal constraints, what are linguistic features used
by the Twitter accounts? a. Text deformation, b. Use of emoticons/emoji and how do
Call-outs generate positive and negative vibes from the social world?
The researcher applied Xie and Yus’ (2017) Introduction to Internet Pragmatics to analyze
the contextual constraints of call-outs found in Twitter accounts. The call-out were taken
from Twitter accounts of the Top Ten Most Followed Filipino Twitter user. Moreover, the
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researcher categorized the call-outs found according to the possible factors in Layer 1 by
Xie and Yus (2018).
Next, the researcher focused on the linguistic features used in each post of each
Twitter account using also by Xie and Yus’ (2017) Introduction to Pragmatics. Each post
was carefully reviewed in the analysis to further understand what each feature contributed
to be determined as a call-out.
Lastly, the researcher analyzed how the call-outs generate positive and negative vibes
from the social world by looking at the types of Call-outs by Venegas’ (2016) study, and
focused on how it affects the audience. Then, she determined the factors that affected
the call-outs and how it worked in order to be non-toxic and could help people.
Findings
After the analysis and interpretation of data, this study generated the following
results:
Each call-out are mainly expressions of one’s thought, with the one in mind that
they have no intended meanings, but just feelings they wanted to let out. All call-outs
have the aspects that underlie or frame communication and interaction (i.e. they exist
prior to the interpretative activity) and constrain its eventual (un)successful outcome. In
other words, a huge amount of internet-mediated exchanges whose interest does not lie
in the content communicated, but in what the act of communication as a whole generates
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in users, producing an offset of non-propositional effects the compensate for the lack of
relevance that the content objectively possesses.
The linguistic features used in each call-out show that it gives more emotion to the
followers. Users resort to different techniques of oralization in order to connote their typed
texts not only with an additional layer of orality, but also with a more realistic version of
the feelings, emotions and underlying intentions beyond textual explicitness that would
not be conveyed without the aid of these enriching features.
The vibes generated from each call-out depends on the message it conveys and
how the readers react to it. There are call-outs that are productive and call-outs that are
problematic, it all relies to the people how they interpret it.
Conclusions
Based on the findings, the following conclusions were made:
Call-outs each have contextual constraints that each have different interpretations
in every person. The content of each call-out have underlying explanation that one
Each call-out are added with different linguistic features so that when followers
read the message they get the realistic feeling like they are really talking face to face with
the person.
It is unavoidable for call-outs to not produce negativity because it depends on
those readers what it would create. Call-outs are just mere statements or expressions but
84
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when given the explication that could make negative vibe only then it would be
problematic. However, when it is given a positive outlook, it could change the whole
communication.
Recommendations
Based on the findings, the following recommendations were made:
1. Call-outs of International Celebrities in Twitter
2. An Analysis of Call-outs in Facebook
3. Linguistic Features in Posts in Instagram
4. Understanding Internet Pragmatics
5. An Analysis of Emoji’s Used in Messenger
85
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References
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MSU-GSC ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

is a social phenomenon of publicly pointing out oppressive or prejudiced speech or

may have poked the user’s attention.

such behavior (Paresky, 2017).

experience than watch it (Riley, 2017).

to their abuse as well (Burns, 2017).

vaguest idea about it.

Statement of the Problem

Specifically, it sought to answer:

1. What are the contextual constraints of user-to-user communication found in the

Call-out Twitter accounts, in terms of

a. Familiarity with topics

d. User’s personal constraints

2. What are linguistic features used by the Twitter accounts?

Scope and Delimitation

the world of the internet.

Significance of the Study

are bullied in the social medias.

to let out their thoughts and emotions through the internet.

Callout is an instance of being summoned, especially in order to deal with an

emergency or to do repairs (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999). In this study,

share content or to participate in social networking (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate

Emoticons is a representation of a facial expression such as:-) (representing a

smile), formed by various combinations of keyboard characters and used in electronic

communications to convey the writer's feelings or intended tone (Merriam-Webster’s

collegiate dictionary, 1999).

electronic communication (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999).

barbarous, debased, or hybrid (Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary, 1999).

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This section presents gathered concepts and various materials found to be

derived and the conceptual framework.

“Their hypervisibility allowed multiple people to watch, in detail, from beginning to

the progression through the process of a call-out.”

those who are in the issue at hand.

Au (2018), to really understand call-out culture, said that as an act of publicly

naming instances of oppressive behaviour, it is not a new behaviour exclusive to the

And thus, call out culture was born.

progressives, radicals, activists, and community organizers to publicly name instances or

dissuade individuals from engaging in behaviours that many people (progressives,

dangerous overreactions to perceived offenses, many of which are too innocuous to

call-out culture’s expansion — is perhaps best characterized as a “diffusion of

conditions for the worst aspects of contemporary internet culture.”

address the behaviour without making a spectacle of the address itself.

this conversation in activist communities — particularly because many people have

deemed call-out culture to be counteractive to social justice, and "performative" in nature.

ability all play a part (Ahmad, 2017).

be necessary, especially if the person in question is not responsive to concerns raised

behaviour themselves. Any kind of constructive feedback is uncomfortable, but that

creating the kinds of substantial, material changes in people’s behaviour – and in

community dynamics – that we envision and need.

deep discussion and purposeful conflict.

in treating each other with respect.”

According to Venegas (2016), here are the uses of Call-Outs:

Integrative Call-outs: Education and Discipline

In this form of integrative accountability, actors employ constructive

group. Based on respondent data, a key distinctive feature of this type of

consciousness shaping practice is that it is usually reserved to neophytes, close

friends, and people within activist circles.

advice to prevent them from repeating “problematic” behavior in their space,

a problem with speech-whether it is using an offensive term, or mannerisms that

reflect privilege such as “man-spreading”- a term to denote how men take up

physical space in everyday life via their bodies.

problem, process, or practice in the situation. Whereas with consciousness