Tuning Conclusion

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 149):

This chapter has introduced the role of tuning in the orchestration of interpersonal meaning. We have explored some of the key meanings made in a corpus of #momguilt tweets within which mothers vent their frustrations over contravening community expectations about the behaviour and temperament of 'good moms'. As we have seen, whether the vibe is convivial or conflictual, the meanings tendered in social media posts may be adjusted via the TUNING system by modifying their relation to other meanings already tendered in a previous post or with broader background values positioned by a particular community. This might involve adjusting the amount of risk or controversy they engender (STAKES), the breadth of the voices they include or assume (SCOPE), or their level of approachability or reproach they enact (SPIRIT). These distinctions in meaning are encapsulated as the TUNING system (Figure 5.1).

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In their conclusion, the authors present the TUNING system as orchestrating interpersonal meaning through stakes, scope, and spirit. They emphasise that social media posts can be “adjusted via the TUNING system by modifying their relation to other meanings already tendered…or with broader background values positioned by a particular community.” On the surface, this captures the relational dynamism of online interaction.

The problem lies in how the empirical coordination of resources is treated as if it constitutes the contextual systems of tenor. Throughout the chapter, we see emoji, appraisal, punctuation, vocatives, and hashtags appearing in complex combinations. These are co-deployed resources, empirically observable, and they do interact with stakes, scope, and spirit. But the authors present them as if each combination instantiates the tenor system itself — that is, as if context is being directly “written into” the posts rather than being construed through them.

This conflation collapses a critical stratification distinction. Tenor is a system of context, representing social roles, relations, and participant alignments. It exists independently of any particular token of language, emoji, or other semiotic resource. Treating empirical co-occurrences as direct instantiations of tenor blurs the line between what users do in interaction and the contextual plane of social relations.

In short, the chapter’s conclusion risks flattening the semiotic hierarchy: language, paralinguistic signs, and contextual strata are treated as equivalent, rather than recognising the nested, interacting nature of strata. The empirical evidence of co-deployment is fascinating and illuminates how tuning operates in practice — but it does not absolve the need for theoretical precision about what resides in context versus what resides in language or multimodal semiotic resources.