Microblogging in Denmark and Poland — a contrastive analysis. Part I.

Abstract

The anthology Microblogs global is an international study of Twitter. Fifteen researchers examined tweets in Chinese, German, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish regarding the following linguistic phenomena: orthography, spoken language, vocabulary, reduction, syntax, graphostylistics, interaction and the functional aspects. The book was an inspiration for the analysis of tweets in Danish and Polish because the two languages were not included in the original study. Furthermore, a contrastive analysis of the Polish and Danish tweets is included to highlight the differences in the language of the tweets. The following article is the first part of this study. It deals with the social network and microblogging tool Twitter, including the more technical side of microblogging. The many types of tweets and the extensive terminology involved are thoroughly and conscientiously explained. The contrasts regarding orthography and spoken language are analyzed whereas the discrepancies in vocabulary, reduction, syntax, graphostylistics, interaction and the functional aspects will be described in the second part of the study. The basis for the description is a compilation of 640 tweets — 320 Polish and 320 Danish — from an inhomogeneous community that posts mainly in Polish / Danish. Profiles were chosen completely by chance and they belong to various politicians, journalists and individuals. The study covers the period from March 30 to April 6, 2019.