Logicality and Relationship between Updates and Comments on Facebook

By

Obododimma Oha

By logicality, I simply mean the relatedness or link in a text. I want to discuss how and why comments should be linked to updates on Facebook. I have a visible presence on Facebook and do interact with friends there regularly, learning a lot in the process.

I asked for permission to use particular updates and comments. But since there are widespread discomforts, I have dropped the idea of an empirical analysis, settling for just a theoretical discussion for now. The features could easily be picked.

But what many people seem to running away from is the mention of the illogicality of their comments and updates or the tricks that they have played. This article amounts to a negative comment that they want to avoid.

Let us first consider the various ways through which this logicality is created. 

(1) Repetition of some expressions or words used in the update.

(2) Dwelling on the same issue or content.

(3) Related weblinks

One does not need to over-stress it. The logicality helps readers. We need to know what the comments are responding to. This reminds one about the IRF model of conversation provided by Sinclair and Coulthard. Spelt out, IRF means Initiation, Response, and Follow-up.

In this regard, the conversation could be between updaters and readers, or between reader and reader.

We are helping readers to make appropriate connections between updates and comments. But there is a presupposition here: that the writer of the comment has read the update it points to before and has understood it.

If the writer of the comment has not first read the update, we should expect a weak connection or a pronounced lack of connection. What writers of comments do to escape the demand of logicality include:

(1) Greeting the updater

(2) Diverting the discussion to something else

(3) Writing generally about the update or updater.

Let us now examine the specific means of creating logicality in the discourse.

In the repetition of some expressions or words used in the update, we have a linguistic linkage. The idea is that meaning is held together by reminding the reader about linkages and that one of such important linkages is in the words or expression used.

It is like the commenter is pointing at language, at medium. Some updates or comments may be poetic, calling special attention to language.

It very important to point out that the language of updates and comments on Facebook is changing. It is no longer language as we know it. Visuals and audio are now incorporated. So, logicality may even be treated as a thing of sound and vision.

What is particularly expected is that the comment should dwell on the same issue as the update. But sometimes this is not the case. Commenters may sometimes not be able to make the necessary logical connections to show that they are reasoning well. Things that may work against them include:

(1) Excitement with the update

(2) Previous knowledge of the updater

(3) Poor skill of the handling of logic in discourse

(4) Distractions from other updates

Naturally, readers of postings on Facebook should take logicality as a serious demand. Facebook is not just a place to show a smiling face or nice clothes. It is much more. And logic in the discourse guides judgement.

Some updates may deliberately be slippery and make logicality difficult for commenters. If commenters are not careful, they won't notice an avoidance of reference and the trap laid. If commenters choose to become specific, that is their own headache.

Weblinks connect discourses and discourses. So, the weblinks that are used in updates and comments create greater global logicality. They extend cohesion of the update or comment.

Weblinking points to the necessity of making the web text properly linked up, internally and externally. Weblinking is web logicality.

The Cow and the Road

By

Obododimma Oha

Various Igbo highlife musicians have said it in their songs, but it is the special rendition by Sir Warrior that engages the attention of this article: the cow and the road:

E libe ụzọ,

Libe ehi,

Mụ ewere ụzọ,

Hapụ ehi.

E ribe ehi

E richaa ya.

Ụzọ ụzọ echi echi....

(If the road is put on a leash

The cow put on a leash

For me to choose out of the two,

I would choose the road

And leave the cow.

The cow could be eaten up completely

But the road, never!)

Indeed, both the cow and the road could come to an end. But the cow ends quicker. A road could be temporarily closed or permanently, but a replacement constructed. Not so with the cow. So, both are not exhaustible in the same way.

Sir Warrior in "Elu uwa" sings about his bewilderment in life. Those who think that life is like cowmeat are mistaken. It's inexhaustible like the road. This world seems to have no head and no tail. Life is a mystery.

Sir Warrior would like us to stop treating earthly life as we treat cowmeat. We cannot completely finish life. It's an unending road.

This life is strange. It cannot be compared to a cow. Even the path the cow makes may become a road eventually. That's one reason for us to be very careful in life.

This configuration of life as a road is very profound, indeed. The day of birth is not the beginning of the journey and death is not the end. The road stretches on. The end of the road is not in sight.

But there are roads, not just one. he road to Venus and the road to Plutoa The road to Putin is not the road to Zelensky. There are even roads in roads. 

Sir Warrior would pick the road and leave the cow. But he knows that the road may diverge. So that various voices would talk about the cow and the road differently.