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Spoken, Written and Computer-Mediated Forms Of Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Tereza Indrová Spoken, Written and Computer-Mediated Communication: The Language of Online Discussion Forums Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. 2011 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank to Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. for his patience and positive approach. Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 2 Spoken and Written Communication ................................................................. 4 2. 1 Searching for the Definitions .............................................................................. 4 2.2 Comparing Speech and Writing ........................................................................... 5 2.2.1 Spoken Communication ............................................................................ 5 2.2.2 Written Communication ............................................................................ 7 3 Computer-Mediated Communication .............................................................. 10 3.1 Definition ........................................................................................................... 10 3.2 CMC in Comparison With Speech and Writing ................................................ 10 4 Online Discussion Forums .................................................................................. 15 4.1 Definition ........................................................................................................... 15 4.2 Types of Online Discussion Forums .................................................................. 15 4.2.1 Non-Threaded Online Discussion Forum ................................................ 16 4.2.2 Semi-Threaded Online Discussion Forum .............................................. 16 4.2.3 Fully Threaded Online Discussion Forum .............................................. 16 4.3 Rules of Online Conversation - Netiquette ........................................................ 17 4.4 Violating the Maxims ........................................................................................ 18 4.4.1 Trolling .................................................................................................... 18 4.4.2 Flaming .................................................................................................... 19 4.4.3 Spamming ................................................................................................ 19 4.4.4 Lurking .................................................................................................... 20 4.4.5 Post Count Increasing .............................................................................. 20 4.4.6 Sock Puppets ........................................................................................... 20 5 Language of Online Discussion Forum and Its Specific Features .................. 22 5.1 Word-Formation on the Internet – Geek-Speak ................................................ 24 5.1.1 Acronyms and Initialisms ........................................................................ 24 5.1.2 Replacement ............................................................................................ 26 5.2 Paralinguistic Features ....................................................................................... 27 5.2.1 Emoticons ................................................................................................ 27 5.2.2 Graphical Emphasis ................................................................................. 31 5.2.2.1 Metaphorical Shouting ................................................................ 31 5.2.2.2 Making a Pause ........................................................................... 32 5.2.2.3 Laying Emphasis ......................................................................... 32 5.3 Language Featuring Incorrect Grammar ............................................................ 34 5.3.1 Misspellings ..................................................................................... 34 5.3.1.1 Unintentional Misspellings ................................................................... 34 5.3.1.2 Deliberate Misspellings ........................................................................ 35 5.3.2 Capitalization ................................................................................... 36 5.3.2 Punctuation ...................................................................................... 37 6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 38 References ............................................................................................................... 39 Abstract ................................................................................................................... 44 Resumé .................................................................................................................... 45 1 Introduction The present thesis aims at the communication via online discussion forums as a kind of text-based computer-mediated communication, standing on the borderline between spoken and written communication. To be able to characterize its typical features, I dedicate a part of the present thesis to the definition of spoken, written and computer-mediated communication. In the first part of the thesis, I will deal with the classification of written and spoken communication from the linguistic point of view. I will continue by drawing a comparison between them, contrasting the differences in function, structure, relation to space and time, spontaneity, the possibilities of visual contact with the participants of communication and the richness of graphics and prosody of each of them, based on a comparison by Crystal (2001). Further, I will apply the criteria used to compare spoken and written communication to computer-mediated communication in order to find out what linguistic features it shares with the spoken norm and what with the written norm of language. In the fourth chapter, I will try to define the medium of online discussion forum from the point of view of its structure. Then, I will deal with the maxims of online communication, and subsequently with phenomena that violate these maxims. In the final part of the present thesis I will concentrate on the language of online discussion forums, its specific features and departures from either spoken or written norm as defined in the first part of the thesis. For this section, I provided examples to facilitate understanding of the phenomena. To obtain the examples, I used quotations from two discussion boards: The Student Room and Kindle Forum. Since I reproduced 1 the quoted messages without changes, they may be grammatically incorrect (and often are as it is the reason for quoting them in one section of the fifth chapter). Similarly, the users‟ nicknames are spelled authentically, which in some cases means lowercase letter at the beginning. To make it easier to trace up the messages quoted in the present thesis, I decided to identify them by their numbers rather than by the date of posting. That is to mean, every message posted to a thread on The Student Room, where most of the citations come from, is provided with a number according to the order of appearance. I decided to take this step for the reason that it is considerably easier to orientate in a thread with the help of message seriation. To prevent the reader from being confounded, I have to note that while identifying some of the most common phenomena in the language of Internet-based computer-mediated communication, I could not avoid listing a few examples which contain coarse language. Before continuing to the thesis itself, I would like to introduce the online discussion forums I will be quoting, and characterize them roughly. The Student Room is the largest student website in the United Kingdom and “the world's largest and fastest growing student community” (“FAQ”, 2010). As the title implies, it is dedicated to students and it covers practically all discussion topics that any user would like to choose. Quite in contrast with The Student Room, Kindle Forum is a minor fully threaded online discussion forum. It does not contain any informational features such as the FAQ (frequently asked questions) page or data about the number of members. The discussion topic is restricted to issues connected to Kindle (which is a portable e-book reader) and partially to self-published authors. 2 Having introduced the sources of my examples, I will proceed to the linguistic definition of spoken and written communication, which will be dealt in the subsequent chapter. 3 2 Spoken and Written Communication 2.1 Searching for the Definitions It is evident that spoken and written communication work on different principles; yet the relationship between them has been discussed by many linguists with various results. De Saussure (1916) came to the conclusion that language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the latter existing for the sole purpose of representing the former. By stating this, he deliberately claimed the superiority of spoken form of language over the written form. However, many other
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