Full Description
Around twenty years ago, with the digitisation of almost every facet of life, most businesses started including their own review system, so that their products could be rated and reviewed. This was the first wave of online reviews, called online consumer reviews (OCRs). The emergence of the smartphone and the proliferation of social media in the 2010s, however, resulted in a new ecosystem in which peers could share their assets, review other peers and be reviewed. This is the second wave of online reviews, or the emergence of online peer reviews (OPRs). This book explores the three differentiating discursive practices found in BlaBlaCar in Spanish and in English (emotive, relational and metacommunicative) as representative of this new wave. It demonstrates that OPRs have characteristics of their own, and proposes a new definition that captures the latest developments in online reviews in the context of peer collaboration.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction
1 The Evolution of Online Reviews
1 Business-to-person platforms and the rise of online reviews
2 Peer-to-peer platforms and online peer reviews
3 Business-to-peer vs peer-to-peer platforms: an overview
2 The Cultural Component in Offline and Online Communication
1 Introduction
2 Spanish and English communicative differences
3 The intersection between culture and digital spaces
4 Online reviews from a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspective
3 Changing Discursive Practices
1 The emotionalisation of digital discourse
2 The expressive function of language: emotive and relational language
3 Metacommunication and metapragmatics off-/online
4 Data and Methodology
1 Data
2 Analytical method
3 Ethical considerations
5 Emotive Practices
1 Introduction
2 Emotive discursive practices in BlaBlaCar
3 Discussion
6 Relational Practices
1 Introduction
2 Multiple addressees
3 Relational speech acts
4 Hints
5 Discussion
7 Metacommunicative Practices
1 Introduction
2 Metacommunication and BlaBlaCar: evaluation and stance
3 Chapter discussion
8 Discussion and Conclusion
1 Overview of the findings
2 Rapport management considerations
3 Limitations and future paths of research
5 Changing trends in the online review genre: definition of OPR s and concluding remarks
References
Index
