The metapragmatics of mode choice

In this article, we investigate the use of social media in contemporary family interaction from a linguistic ethnographic perspective. Inspired by Auer’s (1998) work on code-switching in conversation, we study how family members choose and sometimes alternate between digitally mediated and face-to-face modes of communication in various family settings. Based on ethnographic observations, the participants’ metapragmatic reflections, and their interactional orientations to mode choices, we show how such choices serve social and metapragmatic functions in the interaction between family members who are present in the same house or even in the same room. Accordingly, we argue in favor of situating peoples’ polymedia repertoires in a broader framework of communicative repertoires.