Exploring autistic discourses on Twitter

When members of a hashtag community tweet, they are participating in shared practices of aligning or de-aligning with particular stances and perspectives that are valued among other members of the community. A growing body of research has investigated how autistics communicate and build community online, highlighting the neurodivergent-suited nature of social media interaction and the convoking properties of hashtags. Building on these investigations, this study explores how autistics have forged a sociality around the #ActuallyAutistic hashtag, reclaiming the autism narrative as they advocate against harmful narratives of ableism and the organisation, Autism Speaks. While the #ActuallyAutistic hashtag has been variably examined, the present study is unique in that it applies a linguistic lens of analysis to explore how members of this online community share and contest feelings by examining the patterns of evaluation expressed in 100 #ActuallyAutistic tweets that specifically mention Autism Speaks. Our goal is to better understand how these evaluations function to align members of the wider ambient audience with the values the #ActuallyAutistic online community shares. The analysis draws upon the Appraisal and Communing Affiliation frameworks developed within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a social semiotic model of language concerned with linguistic choices as made within their social contexts. This talk will explore how SFL analyses enable a systematic mapping of the values members of the #ActuallyAutistic community share and bond around when communicating on social media.