Dr Caroline Tagg

Professional biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics with an interest in how social media constrains and enables different forms of communication. I began my current post at the Open University in October 2015. Prior to that, I was a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where I had previously gained my PhD with a thesis titled 'A corpus analysis of SMS text messaging'. I have an MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from Leicester University, and before that worked as a TESOL teacher in Spain, and then in Vietnam with the British voluntary organisation, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).

I am currently Associate Head of Research and Scholarship in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) at The Open University. 

I am Chair of the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) (2024-2027) and former Editor in Chief of the international journal Discourse, Context & Media (2021-2024). I co-edit the Routledge Focus on Language and Social Media monograph series, with Professor Sirpa Leppänen. I am on the editorial boards of Lingua, Talk & Text, and Internet Pragmatics. 

Research interests

My latest funded project, Mobile Conversations in Context (MoCo), was funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship. Through MoCo, I aim to develop new understandings of the way in which people move between online and offline interactions in their daily lives.  

My research into language and digital technologies rests on the understanding that digital communication practices are deeply embedded into individuals’ wider social, economic and political lives. I have expertise in a range of research methods from corpus linguistics to linguistic ethnography, and in various analytical concepts including Appraisal theory, audience design, everyday creativity, heteroglossia and translanguaging. My contribution to understanding the impact of digital communication is fourfold.

• Firstly, I have shown how linguistic analysis can challenge popular assumptions regarding the detrimental effect of digital communication on language and literacy, suggesting instead that non-standard spelling practices be seen as acts of performativity (The Discourse of Text Messaging, Continuum 2012).
• Secondly, with Philip Seargeant and Amy Aisha Brown, I have explored how miscommunication on social media sites like Facebook can be understood as processes of context design, whereby users draw on their awareness of complex contextual factors in styling utterances for unseen audiences (Taking Offence on Social Media, Palgrave 2017). 
• Thirdly, with Mel Evans, I am developing a distinctive transhistorical approach to the study of so-called new media which challenges claims to novelty by exploring continuities with earlier technology uses (Message and Medium, Mouton de Gruyter, 2020).
• Finally, drawing on my work as Co-I on the AHRC-funded research project ‘Translation and Translanguaging’ (2014-2018), I am addressing the complexities involved in understanding contemporary communicative practices with an approach to digital communication I call post-digital ethnography which combines online and offline data to explore how people use digital technology as a tool in their social and working lives (see Mobile Messaging and Resourcefulness, Routledge 2022).

My research throws up new imperatives and challenges for applied social research in the field of language and social media, and has implications for pedagogic interventions aimed at equipping children and adults with critical digital literacies for social interaction in the twenty-first century.

Research students interested in working in any area related to language and digital technology are encouraged to get in touch. I currently supervise two PhD students:

• Kat Goodacre: An exploration of psychologically informed environments (PIEs) for adult literacy learners with experience of homelessness or compound trauma
• Leanne Fitton: An exploration of the ways in which academics who teach on higher education courses engage and interact with a chatbot designed to augment professional development opportunities

I was convenor of the BAAL Special Interest Group in Language and New Media (2017-2021)

Teaching interests

My teaching interests span a wide range of applied linguistics topics and areas of expertise. Most recently, I chaired presentation of the Stage 3 Dissertation module (EE819) on our MA in Education (Applied Linguistics) programme, and was part of the module team producing the new Stage 2 module. I also chaired production of a new Level 2 undergraduate module, L201 English in the World, and was alo involved in developing a Level 1 undergraduate module (L101 Introducing English Language Studies) which introduces students to contemporary issues related to language, and the concepts needed to address them. I am currently part of the module teams for the new MA module, L804 Core Concepts in Linguistics, and L101.

Impact and engagement

As a member of the Translation and Translanguaging team, I have written a number of working papers freely available on the project website.

• Tagg, C. (2015) Language, business and superdiversity: a report on social media across case studies. TLANG Working Paper 6.
• Tagg, C., Lyons, A., Hu, R., & Rock, F. (2016). The Ethics of Digital Ethnography in a Team Project. Working Paper 12.
• Tagg, C., R. Hu, A. Lyons and J. Simpson (2016) Heritage and social media in superdiverse cities: personalised, networked and multimodal. TLANG Working Paper 17.
• Tagg, C. and R. Hu (2017) Sharing as a conversational turn in digital interaction. TLANG Working Paper 29.

The filter bubble isn’t just Facebook’s fault – it’s yours (The Conversation, 5th Dec 2016)

Fake news: the solution is education, not technology (THE, 29th Dec 2016)

The real reason you can’t quit Facebook? Maybe it’s because you can judge your friends (12th July 2017)

Facebook and a fractured society: how online communication is changing friendship and politics (The Magazine for Advanced Level English, Issue 79, February 2018)

Matt Hancock leaks: why WhatsApp is a terrible place to conduct important political conversations (The Conversation, 21st March 2023)

I have given various public talks, including one at the Library of Birmingham held as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences November 2014, and another as part of the Church Inn's Music and a Lecture series, Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham.