"lol, wanna pm, bby ;-) ?" "omg, no, thx & gd n8!"

Language features in English speaking chat rooms

Florence Chazarenc

University of Basel

Department of English

Introduction to the History of English ST 2007

15. August 2007

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction - 4 -

2. Framing the Topic - 5 -

2.1 Synchronous and asynchronous groups - 5 -

2.2 Difference of Speech and Writing - 5 -

2.3 What does a Chat Conversation look like? - 6 -

2.4 Features of a Chat Room - 6 -

3. Theoretical Framework: Style Elements in Chat Conversation - 7 -

3.1 Orthography - 7 -

3.2 Morphology - 8 -

3.3 Pragmatics - 8 -

4. Collecting the Data - 9 -

5. Analysis of Chat Language - 9 -

5.1 Embedding Chat Language in the Concepts of Writing vs. Speech - 9 -

5.2 Style Elements - 11 -

5.3 Electronic Identity and System Communication - 15 -

5.4 Discussion of Analysis - 17 -

6. Conclusion - 18 -

7. Bibliography - 19 -

7.1 Books - 19 -

7.2 Webpages - 19 -

8. Appendix - 20 -

Appendix 1 - 20 -

Appendix 2 - 21 -

Appendix 3 - 24 -

Appendix 4 - 26 -

Appendix 5 - 27 -

Appendix 6 - 28 -

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Abstract

: Chat rooms are very popular passé-temps today, since the

internet has been available in most parts of the world. Due to this

development in communication technology, a new linguistic field

emerged and through the new circumstances, linguistic innovations

occur. This paper will focus on the language features in chat rooms.

Important linguistic terms will first be introduced and later applied on

the retrieved data. A relevant point is the dichotomy of written and

spoken language and the position of chat language in this frame. In the

analysis, the core elements of style are components from orthography

(colloquial language, punctuation and majuscules), morphology

(shortenings) and finally pragmatics (interjections, iterations and

emoticons) and how the chat users handle with the technological

restrictions. Finally, nicknames represent the chatters′ identity; their

function and usage are discussed.

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1. Introduction

In 2007 we are in the centre of a very exciting development, where multimedia becomes more

and more important in all parts of our lives. According to the marketing research institute

Gartner, the increase of sold computers on the world market is still growing; in the second

quarter of 2007 it rose from 11.7 percent to a level of 61.1 million sold pc′s. (Gartner: Online)

The progress of communication technologies, which also called the "

communication

revolution

" (Schramm, 1988: 345) is enormously quick, compared to other processes in

human′s history.

As the foundation of script systems one can take the pictographic writing of the Ancient

Egypt (around 3500 b. C.), later on syllabic languages grew (such as Phoenician, Hebraic and

Aramaic) and finally phonetic alphabetic scripts (one phoneme correspond to a sign) have

been used until today (Thaler, 2003: 5). The improvement of nonverbal communication

facilitated the transmission of a message independent from time and distance. As an important

step, the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg has to be mentioned, which had as a

consequence that the written medium was then available in large amounts. It had an immense

impact on the written culture, such as new message intentions, new circles of addressees and

an economic dimension with the huge commercialisation of printed media (Thaler, 2003: 6).

Since the Industrial Revolution, other means of communication have come into being.

Telegraphs, photography (and postcards) and later telephones (and fax) were breaking

innovations; in the 20th century the television was constructed. The electronic age is followed

by the digital age with fabrication of microchips and satellites. With the invention of

computers, notes can now be sent by electronic means.

Thus, the improvement of equipment has an impact on communication and language.

Language and user adapt to the new circumstances; new conventions and rules take shape.

Through new communication channels, many linguistic fields emerge and are worth a closer

look. Different channels developed since the first use of a network, such as emails, multi user

domains and chats. Chat dialogue gives as first medium in media history the possibility to

communicate over a spatial distance, but at the same time to have a direct and interactive

discussion. Due to reasons of limited size of this paper, the focus will be on the language in

chat rooms.

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2. Framing the Topic

2.1 Synchronous and asynchronous groups

After a general overview of the process of human communication, the specific terms need an

explanation. First of all, two expressions should be distinguished: asynchronous and

synchronous groups. The first one is the phenomenon of communication with a shift in time.

The widely used form of asynchronous communication is email; other forms are mailing lists

and discussion platforms (e.g. "Moodle"). The second type, synchronous communication, are

electronic interactions taking place in real time without a moderator, only a surveillant is

involved to control the comments and to help . All involved users have the possibility to react

in time and an input can come in at the same time as an output. These overlapping situations

are characteristic for synchronous chat groups (Crystal, 2001: 151ff). Examples are chat

rooms and instant messaging.

2.2 Difference of Speech and Writing

The concepts of written and spoken language, being relevant for the analysis of chat language,

will be discussed now. In his book "Language and the Internet" Crystal made a clear and

elaborated distinction between the two terms, of which a little summary is necessary for the

further development of the paper.

"Speech is time-bound, dynamic, transient. It is part of an interaction in which both

participants are usually present, and the speaker has a particular addressee in mind" (Crystal,

2001: 26). Between production and perception there is no time delay, due to the spontaneous

and quick nature of speech. Another peculiarity is the face-to-face contact, which allows the

participants to "rely on extralinguistic cues as facial expression and gesture to aid meaning

(feedback)" (Crystal, 2001: 26). The forth characteristic is the loose structure of speech, e.g.

the variable length of sentences, contracted forms or slang words. Also important are the

social functions of speech, people start, maintain and finish relationship through speaking to

each other. Personal feelings, positions and views can be expressed. The sixth element in

Crystal′s listing is the opportunity to revise or rethink a statement, whereas mistakes cannot

be taken back. As a last point, the unique feature of prosody is mentioned. "The many

nuances of intonation, as well as contrasts of loudness, tempo, rhythm, pause, and other tones

of voice cannot be written down with much efficiency" (Crystal, 2001: 28).

Compared to the characteristics of speech, elements of written language are the space-

dependence, permanence and inflexibility. There is always a time gap between production and

reception and therefore writing enables several readings and close study and needs a

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developed structure for the reader to identify the purpose of the text. This is important due to

the lack of feedback possibilities. Texts have complex structures and "words and

constructions are characteristic of writing, such as multiple instances of subordination in the

same sentence, elaborately balanced syntactic patterns, and the long sentences found in some

legal documents. Certain items of vocabulary are never spoken, such as the longer names of

chemical compounds" (Crystal, 2001: 27). The more, writing is dependent on facts and these

can be demonstrated in tables, notes and lists. In addition, errors can be eliminated during the

revision of a text. As a last point, the "unique features of writing include pages, lines,

capitalization, spatial organisation, and [...] punctuation. Only a few graphic conventions

relate to prosody, such as question marks and italics [...]. Several written genres [...] cannot

be read aloud efficiently, but have to be assimilated visually" (Crystal, 2001: 28). The

embedding of chat language in this concept will be discussed in section 5.1.

2.3 What does a Chat Conversation look like?

In a synchronous setting, an actual online chat conversation looks as follows: User A and user

B connect to the Internet, log in to the chat homepage and start to write. The display of each

user is divided into two parts: the lower half is used to type in and with "enter" the text is sent

into the upper part, where the other user/s can read and react to it. Every new comment is

coming from below and the old one disappears at the top; the refreshing screen looks like

credits in movies. The lineation is nick-initiated and the lines have particular colours or

symbols in order to recognise the person more easily and correspond correctly (Thaler,

2003:13) (E.g. text of user X in red and user Y in blue). Users have the option to chat it the

virtual "main room", choose a room with a specific feature (hobbies, home country, age,

intentions etc) or to open a new channel (with a specific combination or left click on the

nickname) and to invite someone specific to have a "private" conversation. The behaviour and

conversation topics are ruled by a so called "Netiquette", a word formation of "network" and

"etiquette" (Werry, 1996: 50), forum rules or terms of service (See Appendix 1 and 2). The

term "turn" (used by Thaler, 2003: 13) describes the set of two sentences, a question and the

answering phrase (

Sprecherwechsel

).

2.4 Features of a Chat Room

For a better understanding the conditions of chatting are now deconstructed. These conditions

are crucial for online conversations to come about. Thaler describes them precisely in her

book "Chat-Kommunikation im Spannungsfeld Oralität und Literalität", she refers to Peter

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Koch and Wulf Oesterreicher who developed a characterisation of closeness/distance in

communication and its condition.

Since a chat conversation is enabled through the internet and computers, the interacting

persons consequently are separated spatially, which implies the absence of nonverbal signals.

This interchange is the first one in the history of media, in which two persons communicate

simultaneously, but are writing. In most of the cases, the participants do not know each other

and therefore the communication is very anonymous (often, a reduction of the own inhibition

is the consequence) (Thaler, 2003:20); also a distinction has to be made between the identity

of the real person and the identity presented by the chatter. Another important aspect is the

rapidity of the conversations, which demand a high cognitive capacity. To participate

adequately, the users often read and type at the same time, which is even made more difficult

through the spontaneous and unpredictable quality of the talk. Since the "speaker" does not

know his partner, he does not know his situation nor context. If a user wants to know more

about another partaker, he can ask for a "pm" (private messaging, see Appendix 6) or through

frequent "meetings" with the same user they get to know each other. The general observation

is that the communication takes place for its own sake.

3. Theoretical Framework: Style Elements in Chat Conversation

The style in an online discussion is on the one hand dependent on the situational conditions

and on the other hand dependent on someone′s personal linguistic skills and experience

(Thaler, 2003: 47). The elements now presented have all in common not to be invented or

constructed every time, but repeatedly used by most of the members. The author considered

the following categories as important.

3.1 Orthography

As a first observation, the violation of grammar rules is striking. "Grammar is chiefly

characterized by highly colloquial constructions and non-standard usage, often following

patterns known in other dialects or genres" (Crystal, 2001: 165). The pressure of time leads

automatically to a conscious omission of "irrelevant" elements (copular verbs, auxiliaries etc)

on the one side and on the other side the consequences are spelling mistakes. The orientation

towards the phonetic representation is stronger than the standardised orthography.

Interesting is also the loss of punctuation. Most of the turns do not contain any punctuation

mark, because usually the phrases are not that complex and the end of a sentence is marked

through the end of the line.

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