Dissecting Discourse on Discord: A Linguistic Ethnography of a Discord Server

To deepen the understanding of communication in the evolving landscape of digital social spaces, this study conducts an ethnographic analysis of a private Discord server. Data collection methods include participant observation, field notes, interviews, and surveys, which are analyzed for patterns in notable discourse features within a Discord server containing multiple text and voice channels. Prior digital linguistic ethnography research, such as Lauren Collister’s work on World of Warcraft, has examined multimodal communication and mode-switching in live, in-game interactions. Unlike Collister’s study, which focused on real-time speech and text with immediate responses, this research explores asynchronous text-based discourse extending over minutes, hours, or even days, as well as voice interactions that frequently reference past conversations. The persistent nature of text chats allows participants to revisit and reflect on previous discussions, fostering a unique phenomenon of self and group retrospection not as easily achieved in real-time spoken communication. Additionally, the absence of strict temporal constraints enables retrospective commentary on completed conversations, resulting in complex meta-interactions that reveal shifting social dynamics and communication patterns over time. These insights contribute to the understanding of online discourse, digital ethnography, and virtual community dynamics, with implications for social media research, human-computer interaction, and discourse analysis.