language and technology Flashcards
Hiltz and Turoff 1978
CMC (computer mediated communication) - originally just about computers, but now refers to any computer-based communication: e-mail, social media, messaging etc.
Schegloff 1986
Identified patterns in opening sentences in telephone conversations…
1. Summons/answer e.g. “hello”
2. Identification/recognition e.g. “It’s me”
3. Greeting sequence e.g. “Oh hi”
4. “How are you” sequence, strengthening shared space
When was the first text message sent and what did it say?
1992 - “Merry Christmas”
David Crystal 2004- two terms
Textspeak- stated it was ‘characterised by its distinctive graphology’
Netspeak- language we use of the internet in e-mails, chat messages etc.
What did David Crystal state the most common feature of Textspeak was? And what 5 things is it represented by?
Abbreviations
1. Vowel omission- leaving out vowel sounds e.g. “pls”
2. Homophonic representation- single letters or numbers to represent words based on similarity in sound e.g. “m8”
3. Phonetic spelling- reflects the sound of a word e.g. “cos”
4. Acronyms- first letters of words pronounced as a word e.g. “gif”
5. Initialism- first letters of words pronounced as those letter e.g. “USA”
What did Crystal argue about why and how abbreviations began? - 3 ideas
Early text messages were sent at a cost per message and a limited number of characters (160), thus language adapted to meet this constraint
Vowels were usually dropped as opposed to consonants as this left word meaning more obvious e.g. “msg”
Punctuation is left unused, double exclamation marks and asterisks emerged as a new form of paralinguistic features
Celia Klin 2015
Messages not ending in a full stop were seen as less sincere
Then found messages with an exclamation mark is interpreted as more sincere
Argues it is the lack of social cues in messaging that leads us having to mine them for more meaning e.g. the full stop being perceived negatively
What did Crystal say the 4 Netspeak-specific features were?
- All capitals to convey a louder tone
- Letter spacing to make a word clearer
- Asterisks to emphasise a word or phrase
- Emoticons
Eric Partridge 1942
Adapting language is not a recent phenomenon, because in 1942, Partridge published his Dictionary of Abbreviations to reflect the need to use such language in wartime
What abbreviations were written by Bombaugh in a poem in 1867?
“I wrote 2 U B 4”
“He says he loves U 2 X S”
Thurlow 2003 (sociolinguistic maxims)
Identified 3 sociolinguistic maxims of texting:
1. Brevity and speed- quick and efficient and in constraints
2. Paralinguistic restitution- attempting to demonstrate non-verbal features over text
3. Phonological approximation- aiming to be able to ‘hear’ their voice
Thurlow 2003
Messages are dialogic (facilitate a conversation through sending and receiving)
Messages can be low intimacy, high transactional orientation e.g. practical arrangements, or high intimacy, high relational orientation e.g. sexual or friendship
Shortis 2000
Similarities to face-to-face conversation linking both past and future interactions
However, the interaction is not in real time, turns are longer, leaving participants to construct a more considered response
A positive she argues is that disinhibition in texts frees participants from negative non-verbal communications
McWhorter 2013
Writing is now more like speech, as opposed to the formal oration
Calls texting “fingered speech” and argues it has its own distinct rules and structures
Cites pragmatic particles, which are markers of empathy or accommodation etc.
Eisenstein 1983
Advocate for benefits of technology
on language
Printing press changed our language for the better, as it meant scholars could get a copy of more texts of their own
Argued ‘it paved the way for more deliberate purification and codification of all major European languages’.
Jarvis 2023
Work of the author now becomes more collaborative thanks to tools such as TikTok
Alphabetic text is augmented by new symbology of emoji and memes Communities too long not represented make homes online where they connect, converse, share daily joys and sorrows, and launch movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo
Herring 1999
While some claim CMC is interactionally incoherent because turn taking and topic CMC and CMDA management are subject to disruption and breakdown, users are actually more likely to engage in productive interactions and end up enjoying them
Herring 2018
Went on to discuss CMDA (computer-mediated discourse analysis)
Concludes that CMC’s structural properties allow for conversational exchanges which include signified meanings and reflect real life discourse
Werry 1996
Analysed early IRC (internet relay chat) which is real time internet-based discourse
Werry noted:
1. Participants would put the addressee’s name at the start of an utterance
2. Turns are generally very short
3. Abbreviations used extensively
4. Reduplicated letters used to represent expressive intonation
5. Full stops and hyphens create pauses and indicate tempo
Notes the idea of ‘netiquette’ and cites rules for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour which are policed by moderators or chat monitors
Condon and Cech 2010
Explored different modes of discourse relating to CMC – face to face communication; synchronous communication (where participants talk to one another in real time); and asynchronous communication (e-mail)
While spoken language features were prevalent in the former two categories, written language features were far more prominent in asynchronous
E-mail participants will likely mirror one another’s structure, and reply to questions in the order which they were asked
Roig-Marin 2016
Observed cyber-blends (words or particles merged to form a neologism)
Remarks on the creativity required to form and understand these blends
Remarks on blends relating to blogs, such as ‘vlog’ (video+blog), or even those relating to people, such as ‘narcisstick’ (narcissistic + selfie stick)
Pace of linguistic change is reflected in these blends
Seargeant 2019
Emoji can both be ‘colourful, uncomplicated little symbols’ and ‘the advance guard for the way that technology technology companies are taking an ever-greater control over the ways in which we relate to each other today.’
Emoji are a substitute for the paralinguistic features which we struggle to express in CMC – tone of voice, gesture, glance, etc. They also contribute to social bonding
Emoji are ‘a fad and an entirely ordinary mutation in the evolution of human communication.’
Zappavigna and Logi 2024
Emoji coordinate with linguistic meanings in social media posts and play a role in how social bonds are negotiated
In contrast to Seargeant, they conclude that emoji are ‘powerful resources for meaning-making, and herald an era of digital discourse where written language is only one among many modes converging to give texts meaning.’
Dannah Boyd 2004
Refers to teenagers as ‘digital natives’ because they grew up with the internet, as opposed to older people as ‘digital immigrants’, as they have to learn and adapt to the new technology
Discusses ‘media literacy’, which she argues that young people do not always possess
Digital divide emerges between those who have access to new technology, and those who do not, meaning even young people can be ‘digital immigrants’
McCulloch 2022
Internet language is so much more spontaneous and unedited than other written language forms. However, posts and messages are becoming more complex over time.
‘Writing has become a vital, conversational part of our ordinary lives…We write all the time now, and most of what we’re writing is informal’
Notes the use of abbreviations and shortenings, but links these to how we now reject the rules of writing as prescribed to use by language professionals
We often converse with people we don’t really know, which leads to more frequent linguistic change
Full Internet People: grew up with the internet
Semi Internet People: favour offline relationships to online ones
Old Internet People: have a high level of technical literacy because they used early internet programming
‘lol’ originally indicated laughter, however the meaning has broadened to incorporate appreciation for a joke, to defuse a difficult situation or to indicate irony
Links the internet to the idea of a ‘third place’: social spaces which are outside home or work
Prevalence of logging where you are on social media means the internet becomes a third place, because you can find out everything that a person has been doing socially by looking at their social media
In addition, third place platforms such as Facebook and Reddit allow people to communicate socially with people whom they do not know in real life
Memes are created easily and distributed through social media channels and
require insider knowledge and can reinforce a sense of belonging within a particular community
Concludes that the internet allows us to write so much more extensively and freely, as there is no one hovering over us with a red pen for correction. The internet reinforces and cultivates belonging and support and can be a positive influence on society.
