The Nature of Language as Shown by Tumblr

According to our reading literature can be divided into five categories or natures:

Literature as the ‘foregrounding’ of language
Literature as the integration of language
Literature as fiction
Literature as aesthetic object
Literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct

The author argues that any sort of writing can be considered literature, even to the most mundane instructions, so this statement should mean that these natures are found online in social media.  What about the truly crazy posts?  Are those literature?  Would our author really consider Tumblr posts literature?

I present to you Tumblr's examples of the five natures of literature.

Literature as the 'foregrounding' of language

According to the author, "When a text is framed as literature, we are disposed to attend to sound patterning or other sorts of linguistic organization we generally ignore."  According to Tumblr, when we read a text as someone intends us to, we are disposed to attend to sound patterning or other sorts of linguistic organization we generally are programed to ignore.  Tumblr would argue that with all literary posts you must read them as they are intended to be read in order to make sense of what is being said.

Literature as the integration of language

In literature we are more likely to take language and find harmony in it and to focus more on the language than what is being said.  On Tumblr sometimes we need to focus on the language to understand what is being said in the first place.

Literature as fiction

Fiction is about events and/or characters that are not real and is open for interpretation.  Tumblr fiction is about anything and no one knows what is going on.

Literature as aesthetic object

Literature is said to be beautiful without a purpose.  Tumblr shows that sometimes literature can be without a purpose and not really beautiful either.

Literature as intertextual or self-reflexive construct

Literature reflects other works of art and can renew the piece that way.  Tumblr takes works of art, including literature, and then renews and combines them in interesting ways.

Does social media even know what literature is anymore?  I think that if our author saw what Tumblr has created today, he might think twice about his definition of literature.  Honestly, he might even think that literature doesn't even really have a nature anymore, because who really knows what anything on Tumblr is really about.