The Impact of Computer Technology on Language Choice and CMC Practice
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The impact of computer technology on language choice and CMC practice: A study of Instant Messaging in Hong Kong LIN Pik Yan MSc in Applied Linguistics The University of Edinburgh 2008 Declaration I have read and understood The University of Edinburgh guidelines on Plagiarism and declare that this dissertation is all my own work except where I indicate otherwise by proper use of quotes and references. Abstract Research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) has moved from the linguistic aspect to the sociolinguistic dimension in order to understand how human linguistic behaviour is influenced by the availability of new technology. Given that technological development has enabled the representation of many more non-Romance languages on the internet, computer users of these languages can communicate in a greater range of language choice. The current study examines the influence of computer technology on orthographic code and language choice in Instant Messaging (IM) among fluent bilinguals in Hong Kong, drawing on data from a corpus of IM dialogues as well as comments from telephone interviews and email discussions with IM users. Code-switching models including the Matrix Language Frame Model (Myers-Scotton, 1993a, 2002; Myers-Scotton & Jake, 1995) and Gafaranga and Torras’ (2001) proposal for the notion of medium are applied to analyze bilingual discourse in online interaction. It is found that the diversity of Cantonese orthographic codes is chiefly explained by technological availability but is also affected by other linguistic and functional factors. A changing practice of CMC is also observed through the study of code-switching patterns which not only includes the emergence of a composite Matrix Frame but also changes from a dominant use of English to the adoption of a bilingual medium involving both Cantonese and English. Future research based on the new set of bilingual data contributed by technological improvement will be valuable to the understanding of many linguistic and sociolinguistic phenomena such as language change and language contact. Acknowledgement The author would like to thank Dr Joseph Gafaranga for his supervision and guidance and all the participants who kindly offered their records of Instant Messaging, without which this thesis could not have been written . Table of Contents Acknowledgement List of Tables 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 2. Literature Review ....................................................................................................4 2.1 Computer technology and language.................................................................4 2.2 Theoretical models of code-switching .............................................................9 2.3 Previous studies of CMC in Hong Kong .......................................................13 3. Data and Methodology ..........................................................................................17 3.1 Sociolinguistic context...................................................................................17 3.2 Research questions.........................................................................................19 3.3 Data collection and Participants.....................................................................19 3.4 Instant Messaging ..........................................................................................20 3.5 Methods of Analysis ......................................................................................21 4. Results .....................................................................................................................25 4.1 Empirical evidence of technological influence on the change in CMC data.25 4.2 Orthographic codes and language varieties in CMC in the context of Hong Kong...............................................................................................................26 4.2.1 Motivations for different orthographic codes and formation of different language patterns ...................................................................................26 4.2.1.1 The myth of pure code, pure language.............................................27 4.2.1.2 Pure orthographic code, mixed language.........................................27 4.2.1.3 Mixed orthographic code, mixed language......................................32 4.2.2 Orthographic code switching and language alternation as orderly practices in CMC ...................................................................................35 4.2.2.1 Theoretical explanation - Grammatical approach............................35 4.2.2.2 Theoretical explanation - Medium perspective................................40 5. Discussion ................................................................................................................49 6. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................54 7. References ...............................................................................................................56 8. Appendix .................................................................................................................60 List of Tables Table 1 Summary of linguistic codes in the chats through ‘Windows Live Messenger’ ........................................................................................................................22 Table 2 Changing distribution of linguistic code in IM data .......................................25 Table 3 The composition of orthographic code(s) and language(s) in IM chats in the context of Hong Kong....................................................................................27 1. Introduction The growing popularity of computer-mediated communication (hereafter known as CMC) in contemporary society as a result of technological advancement has influenced language structure and language use in many different aspects. Linguistic investigation of CMC can be conducted at structural or discourse level. Crystal (2001) coins the term ‘Netspeak’ for the language variety of the Internet which has its unique linguistic features. It is a text-based medium with some degree of variance in different situational status (Crystal, 2001; Herring, 2001). In other words, Netspeak of emails is expected to be different from Netspeak of chatrooms or Netspeak of the web. The computer-mediated discourse is often compared and contrasted with written or spoken discourses (e.g. Yates, 1996; Baron, 1998; Crystal, 2001). The influence of computer technology on language can also be examined from the sociolinguistic perspective (see Androutsopoulos, 2006; Cook, 2004 for a review of studies). CMC was dominated in Romance languages in the past but further development of computer encoding system has enabled the adoption and information retrieval in many other languages. Bi-/multilingual computer users whose first language is not English or other Romance languages may now have an alternative to express themselves in their own linguistic codes. This development widens the scope of research topics due to an increase in the variety of linguistic data. Dante and Herring (2007) review a series of studies concerning multilingualism in Internet and call for more systematic cross-linguistic studies on the representation of different languages on the web from a qualitative perspective (28) as some pioneering studies which explore language choice in CMC are based on interviews and self-reported questionnaires (e.g. Warschauer et al., 2002; Peel, 2004), which may diverge from actual usage (Trudgill 1972, cited in Gumperz, 1982). 1 In the context of Hong Kong, there are several studies on CMC which have slightly different orientation but are similarly based on English data that are occasionally interspersed with Chinese terms and Cantonese discourse particles (Lee, 2002; Cheng, 2002; Carter & Fung, 2007a, 2007b). Carter & Fung (2007a, 2007b) focus on the emergence of a hybrid variety of English that is characterized by Cantonese formulaic expressions and relexicalized words. Lee (2002) consider the use of Cantonese feature such as the subject omission in sentences by native Chinese as English grammatical ‘errors’ and part of the new literacy practice. Dante and Herring (2007:5) best describe this line of analysis: ‘Most researchers … have generalized about the language of computer-mediated communication , whereas in fact they were describing computer-mediated English, sometimes in a single CMC mode.’ With the invention of different Chinese input methods, English is no longer the only option among bilingual Internet users and instant messaging dialogues which are composed predominantly of Chinese characters can be observed. This implies a new set of computer-mediated discourse data as the availability of new technology provides computer users an alternative language choice that can give rise to different language patterns in the context of CMC. Meanwhile, although the occurrence of code-switching is commonplace in CMC, previous study has limited itself to functional perspective (Ho, 2006) or focused exclusively on inserted elements (Carter & Fung, 2007a). As far as I am aware, no studies have addressed the potential diversity of language choice as a sociolinguistic impact of the new computing technology in CMC in Hong Kong and it is speculated that through the study of code-switching at different levels, we can observe