Draft:Text-based teasing

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Text-based teasing (also referred to as flirty texting or teasing over text) is playful, sometimes romantic banter conducted via SMS and online messaging. Researchers describe it as a pragmatic, computer-mediated practice that relies on paralinguistic proxies such as emoji/emoticons, typography, and timing to indicate a non-serious "play frame" and to manage constructive ambiguity in the absence of face-to-face cues.[1][2] The practice overlaps with online flirting, theorized as a form of play that may blur fantasy and reality while reconstructing "the body" through textual and graphic resources.[3] Platform affordances (asynchrony, persistence, searchability) and multimodality influence how teasing is produced and interpreted, facilitating social bonding and low-risk courtship but also introducing risks of miscommunication, context collapse, and shifting boundaries with harassment across cultures and venues.[4][5][6]

Terminology and scope

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Text-based teasing (near-synonyms: flirty texting, teasing over text; often subsumed under cyber-flirting) refers to playful, sometimes romantic exchanges via SMS or online messaging. Scholars treat it as a pragmatic form of CMC that relies on ambiguity and paralinguistic proxies rather than face-to-face cues.[1][2] Teasing here is non-serious, playfully targeted talk directed at a present interlocutor; it differs from joking (not necessarily targeted) and from bullying/harassment (lacking a mutually understood play frame).[7][6] In digital contexts, teasing overlaps with online flirting, which is theorized as a form of play that may blur fantasy and reality and reconstruct "the body" through textual and graphic cues.[3] Digital discourse is multimodal and shaped by persistence and searchability, factors that facilitate playful banter but increase the potential for misinterpretation if the play frame is not shared.[4][5] In scholarly usage, text-based teasing denotes playful, targeted, intentionally ambiguous exchanges conducted via texting and direct messaging. It excludes explicit sexual content typically discussed under Sexting and differentiates playful teasing from abusive or coercive messages using (im)politeness and face frameworks.[6][2]

Historical emergence

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Early SMS studies documented romantic uses of texting. A 2000 Ipsos MORI survey found that 24% of UK texters used SMS to flirt and 37% had texted "I love you."[8] With smartphones and dating apps, digitally mediated courtship became more common and increasingly normalized. One study reported that approximately one-third of U.S. marriages began online in the late 2000s and early 2010s.[9] Digital media sociology surveys note declining stigma and widespread uptake of app-based dating, particularly among younger cohorts.[10] By the mid-2010s, social media and messaging became routine spaces for flirtation and courtship among teenagers. A Pew study documented friending, interaction with crushes, and the sending of flirtatious messages.[11]

Communication features (CMC)

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CMC changes affordances and interactional organisation. Asynchrony and persistence, along with searchable or forwardable content, enable playful exchanges but increase risks if the play frame is not shared.[4][5] Fast-paced chat loosens adjacency and removes overlaps. Participants compensate with metapragmatic cues and language play, including repetition, elongation, typography, and graphic devices.[1] From a pragmatic perspective, interlocutors rely on context and intention to recover implicatures. The same line may be affiliative or face-threatening depending on norms and relationships.[2][5]

Paralinguistic cues in text

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Users mobilize paralinguistic proxies to replace facial expression, gesture, and prosody. Emoji/emoticons, punctuation/typography, and message timing/placement signal stance, soften face-threats, and frame non-serious play.[1][2][7] Conversation-analytic work on dating-app chat finds wink-set emoji prevalent in flirt moves and interactionally ambiguous—shaped by local context and sequential placement (start vs end; standalone vs with text).[12] Because these cues are conventional yet under-specified, they enable constructive ambiguity useful for flirtation but are prone to divergent interpretations when norms are not shared.[2][7]

Social and relational functions

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Teasing functions as "jocular mockery" that can display liking, manage solidarity, and negotiate status when the play frame is shared.[7] Online flirting has been framed as play that lets interlocutors explore interest, test boundaries, and manage face with ambiguity.[3] In romantic settings, messaging supports initiation and maintenance: playful exchanges and compliments signal attention and gauge reciprocity; habitual texting sustains "ambient" co-presence.[13]

Miscommunication and risks

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Under-specified cues and asynchrony make teasing vulnerable to misalignment; loosened adjacency and out-of-sequence replies complicate establishing a shared play frame.[1][2] Recovery of intention depends on context and norms; misunderstandings can be referential or interpersonal. Teasing may shift from affiliative to aggravated talk if ratification fails.[2][6][7] Persistence, searchability, and context collapse allow playful messages to be recontextualized or exposed to unintended audiences, raising consent and reputational stakes.[4][5][10]

Cultural contexts

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Cross-cultural work highlights differing norms for face and (in)directness, shaping when ambiguity is read as banter versus aggravation.[2][6][5] Distinct emoticon traditions (e.g., Western sideways vs Japanese/Asian kaomoji) illustrate local conventions for coding affect.[1] Analyses of Chinese social media contrast more private, tie-strengthened venues (WeChat) with more public/anonymous ones (Weibo), where audience design and privacy settings manage teasing's visibility and potential loss of face.[10] Conversation-analytic work on dating-app chat notes that emoji meanings are vernacular and situational; users often leave meanings implicit, letting ambiguity function as a resource in flirting.[12]

Platforms and participation frameworks

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Platforms structure audiences, profiles, and sequences. On dating apps, openings target acquaintance-building amid sparse profiles; users deploy compliments, playful banter, and deniable teases.[10][12] Private DMs versus semi-public feeds create different participation frameworks: imagined audiences and persistence encourage pre-editing in public spaces; in private threads, sequential placement and timing carry greater weight for signalling a play frame.[4][10][7]

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Teasing spans affiliative play to aggravated talk; (im)politeness scholarship frames the boundary via facework, power, and local norms.[6][7] Constructive ambiguity can enable consent-seeking flirtation but also obscure intentions when expectations differ.[2] Platform affordances (persistence, searchability, context collapse) complicate consent by exposing playful messages to unintended audiences or future reinterpretation.[5][4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Herring, Susan; Stein, Dieter; Virtanen, Tuija, eds. (2013). Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication. De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 9783110238174.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Allan, Keith; Jaszczolt, Kasia M., eds. (2012). The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521192071.
  3. ^ a b c Whitty, Monica T. (2003). "Cyber-flirting: Playing at love on the Internet". Theory & Psychology. 13 (3): 339–357. doi:10.1177/0959354303013003003.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Georgakopoulou, Alexandra; Spilioti, Theodora, eds. (2016). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication. Routledge. ISBN 9780415642491.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g García, Ofelia; Flores, Nelson; Spotti, Massimiliano, eds. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190212896.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Culpeper, Jonathan; Haugh, Michael; Kádár, Dániel Z., eds. (2017). The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137375070.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Attardo, Salvatore, ed. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor. Routledge. ISBN 9781138843066.
  8. ^ Ipsos MORI (2000). "I Just Text To Say I Love You". Ipsos. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  9. ^ Cacioppo, John T.; Cacioppo, Stephanie; Gonzaga, Gian C.; Ogburn, Elizabeth L.; Veselka, Louise (2013). "Marital satisfaction and break-ups differ across on-line and off-line meeting venues". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (25): 10135–10140. Bibcode:2013PNAS..11010135C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1222447110. PMID 23732745.
  10. ^ a b c d e Rohlinger, Deana A.; Sobieraj, Sarah, eds. (2021). The Oxford Handbook of Digital Media Sociology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190084714.
  11. ^ Teens, Technology and Romantic Relationships (Report). Pew Research Center. 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  12. ^ a b c Gibson, Will (2024). "Flirting and winking in Tinder chats: Emoji, ambiguity, and sequential actions". Internet Pragmatics. doi:10.1075/ip.00107.gib.
  13. ^ Vangelisti, Anita L.; Perlman, Daniel, eds. (2017). The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships (2 ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107130265.