  Both face-to-face communication and communication in online environments
convey information beyond the actual verbal message. In a traditional
face-to-face conversation, paralanguage, or the ancillary meaning- and
emotion-laden aspects of speech that are not actual verbal prose, gives
contextual information that allows interactors to more appropriately understand
the message being conveyed. In this paper, we conceptualize textual
paralanguage (TPL), which we define as written manifestations of nonverbal
audible, tactile, and visual elements that supplement or replace written
language and that can be expressed through words, symbols, images, punctuation,
demarcations, or any combination of these elements. We develop a typology of
textual paralanguage using data from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We
present a conceptual framework of antecedents and consequences of brands' use
of textual paralanguage. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
