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This paper examines multilingual hashtags as discourse of emotions about social movements, with a focus on the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. With the Chinese search word #雨傘運動 (“Umbrella Movement”), over 9000 hashtags were collected from 700 posts on Instagram. These hashtags were coded by language choice and their broad discourse functions of fact, opinion, and emotion. Our analysis suggests that while stating facts and expressing opinions, a significant proportion of Instagram hashtags about the Umbrella Movement are also affective in function (e.g. #ilovehongkong, #hate). These hashtags convey emotions associated mainly with political demands, solidarity, unity, hatred, frustration, and dissatisfaction. We also conducted online interviews with selected Instagram users to understand better their multilingual hashtagging practices and language attitudes. Overall, the present study suggests that affect was expressed and experienced through a common set of linguistic resources - Cantonese, mixed code, and traditional Chinese characters - which then became codes of unity and solidarity in difficult times. Interviewees also produced discourses of pride in Cantonese which further suggest the use of Cantonese in asserting their unique Hongkonger identities. Drawing on Ahmed's (2004) notion of ‘affective economies’, this article concludes by unravelling the relationship between language, emotion, digital technologies, and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study of a Facebook group created for a linguistics course at a university in Hong Kong. It examines the discursive resources and practices identified in the group, as well as discusses how identities are constructed through hybrid discourse. Informed largely by discourse-centered online ethnography, we observed the group and its discourse systematically, and contacted the group members. Specifically, we collected screen data with a view to identifying the discourse functions and analyzing the linguistic resources deployed by the members. Semi-structured interviews, incorporating the elements of techno-biography and stimulated recall, were conducted to delve into the practices and identity construction. The study argues that the group is not merely an academic group, but a “social network-educational space” in that both academically-related and socially-related discourse functions could be observed. The members were found to deploy a wide range of resources such as emoticons for meaning making. This article then presents a case of a participant which illustrates how various identities could be constructed with the discursive resources and practices. It concludes by advancing our understanding of concepts such as the community of practice and considering the implications for future computer-mediated discourse research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]