{"446191":{"#nid":"446191","#data":{"type":"news","title":"How Hashtags and @ Symbols Affect Language on Twitter","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDespite all the shortened words and slang seen on Twitter, it turns out that people follow many of the same communication etiquette rules on social media as they do in speech. Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that when tweeters use hashtags -- a practice that can enable messages to reach more people -- they tend to be more formal and drop the use of abbreviations and emoticons. But when they use the @symbol to address smaller audiences, they\u2019re more likely to use non-standard words such as \u201cnah,\u201d \u201ccuz\u201d and \u201csmh.\u201d The study also found when people write to someone from the same city, they are even more likely to use non-standard language \u2013 often lingo that is specific to that geographical area.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJacob Eisenstein, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, led the research. His team sifted through three years of tweets \u0026shy;\u2013 a pool that included 114 million geotagged messages from 2.77 million users. He says the study helps explain a puzzle about language in social media.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSince social media facilitates conversations between people all over the world, we were curious why we still see such a remarkable degree of geographical differentiation in online language,\u201d said Eisenstein. \u201cOur research shows that the most geographically differentiated language is more likely to be used in messages that will reach only a local audience, and therefore, will be less likely to spread to other locations.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor example, while the emoticon :) is used everywhere, the alternative ;o is significantly more popular in Los Angeles. Similarly, \u201cmayne,\u201d a drawn out way of pronouncing \u201cman,\u201d is more likely to be found in Houston than anywhere else.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPeople want to show their regional identity or their tech savviness, using Twitter-specific terms, to their close social network ties,\u201d said Umashanthi Pavalanathan, a Georgia Tech graduate research scientist who worked on the study.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEisenstein has looked at popular Twitter word trends and their origins for the last seven years. The more he studies, the more he realizes that Twitter users are smarter than most people give them credit for.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis research shows that for many people on Twitter, non-standard English is not a question of ability, but of reserving standard English for the right social situations,\u201d said Eisenstein. \u201cIn this sense, heavy social media users have an especially nuanced understanding of language, since they maintain multiple linguistic systems. They know to use each system when it\u2019s socially appropriate.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe paper, \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~jeisenst\/papers\/pavalanathan-audience-am-speech-2015-preprint.pdf\u0022\u003EAudience-Modulated Variation in Online Social Media\u003C\/a\u003E,\u201d is published in the journal American Speech.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"When audience size changes, so do the words"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen tweeters use hashtags -- a practice that can enable messages to reach more people -- they tend to be more formal and drop the use of abbreviations and emoticons. But when they use the @symbol to address smaller audiences, they\u2019re more likely to use non-standard words such as \u201cnah,\u201d \u201ccuz\u201d and \u201csmh.\u201d The study also found when people write to someone from the same city, they are even more likely to use non-standard language \u2013 often lingo that is specific to that geographical area.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The size of Twitter audiences affects the words people tweet."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2015-09-10 05:47:41","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:29","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-09-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-09-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"446351":{"id":"446351","type":"image","title":"Jacob Eisenstein","body":null,"created":"1449256217","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:10:17","changed":"1475895187","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:07","alt":"Jacob Eisenstein","file":{"fid":"203208","name":"jacob_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jacob_0_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jacob_0_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":182165,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/jacob_0_0.jpg?itok=y1XugfpP"}}},"media_ids":["446351"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~jeisenst\/papers\/pavalanathan-audience-am-speech-2015-preprint.pdf","title":"Read the study"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"111921","name":"Jacob Eisenstein"},{"id":"171477","name":"School of Interative Computing"},{"id":"171478","name":"Slang"},{"id":"171479","name":"Sociel Media"},{"id":"314","name":"twitter"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003ENational Media Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}