“I can’t believe #Ziggy #Stardust died”

Social networking sites (SNSs) have changed the way we mourn. Reactions on SNSs to celebrity death in particular have begun to attract the attention of both academic researchers and the broader media, yet so far linguistic studies thereof remain relatively rare. This study addresses this research gap by examining the pragmatics of Instagram posts labelled #bowie following the death of the musician David Bowie on 10 January 2016. It shows how...