Exploring Discourse and Creativity in Facebook Creative Writing by Non-Native Speakers

Abstract

Facebook and other social media sites have been used by young Arabs for many purposes such as exchanging ideas and information, reporting breaking news, posting special events, launching political campaigns, announcing family gatherings, and sending seasons' greetings. Another emerging type of timeline posts is creative writing in English. Some Arab Facebook users post lines of verse, short anecdotes or points of view, express emotions, personal experiences, and/or inspirational stories or sayings written in literary style. A sample of Facebook creative writing pages/clubs and creative timeline posts was collected and analyzed to find out the forms and themes of creative writing texts. A sample of Facebook Arab creative writers was also surveyed to find out the reasons for their creative writing activities in English. This chapter describes the data collection and analysis procedures and reports results quantitatively and qualitatively. Implications for developing creative writing skills in foreign/second language learners using Facebook and other social media are given.