Sociolinguistics and CMC

[joshua raclaw]

i'm also after the notion of the online speech community, or at the very least
the online community of practice, and i'm hoping to base them in traditional
sociolinguistic methodology.  i'm convinced that you can do variationist
studies in cmc - namely in representations of aave or other marked dialects and
sociolects, but also in tracking a group's use of particular discourse markers.
there's also a whole lot to be done on the notion of style, especially in
regards to unique variables like punctuation and smilies and textual
performatives (or whatever the technical term is for :::kim grabs errol:::) and
how their usage changes contextually among speakers.  there's a time and a place
for grabbing errol, and i don't think that's really been addressed yet.

right now i'm working on an eventual ethnographic study of a large blogging
community with international membership, one that frequently holds FTF meets
(bbqs, munches) across america and canada for members in a particular region.
the identity constructed online is the one used in person, and i'm
hypothesizing that this will result in language practices which overlap between
the online and the offline.  once i've established whether that idea holds
water, i'd like to see the role that traditional socioling variables, like
ethnicity, gender, and sexuality play in the community.  outside of these areas
are a number of cultural sub-identities within the larger group identity that
speakers are known to represent discursively, and with these representations
come a nice set of language ideologies.  there's also a really interesting
presence of the labovian concept of the lame in this group, and it's things
like these that make me think that CMC isn't so completely different from FTF
and telephone interactions that you can't use similar methods for the bunch.

how are you using the online role-playing in your study?  i've seen a few pieces
on muds and other rpgs, but the only real sociolinguistic approaches to gaming
were on FTF interactions (the mary bucholtz piece on larps, and ken lacey's
work on identity work in d&d).  the blogging project sounds interesting, with
total potential for ethnic and class and other identity work, but i can see how
the overall approach isn't going to turn out so linguistic.  that seems to be
the ongoing trend here - i looked all through the journal of cmc for something
closer to home, but all i found were goffmanian approaches to analyzing message
boards and notes on rhetoric and pedagogical uses of cmc.  i was forwarded a job
opening today at UMass for a sociolinguist or linguistic anthropologist who
focused on online communities and new technology, so there has to be some sort
of established framework to build off of.  not that i'm completely opposed to
writing it myself, but who has the time?

so who all at texas are you working with for this kind of approach?  i've been
studying with kira hall in linguistics here at colorado, but she hasn't done
any work on CMC for the past decade, so it's kind of an independent study.  and
that UMass job opening aside, are you worried about shooting yourself in the
foot, career-wise, by making this a point of study?  i'm slightly terrified.

joshua



* nice to hear from you. i think you're right that there isn't much work on CMC
* from a linguistic standpont. most of my theorietical background comes from
* com,discourse analysis, sociology, and anthro. there's a bit of a call here
* at UT in the anthro department to look seriously at online communites. in
* this vein, i've seen a couple ethnographies of online communites, but nothing
* really of note.
*
* my interests are in online identity, but i don't think that cyber-socioling
* is anywhere near developed enough methodologically for me to actually do any
* work on identity. there's a rich history of socioling methodology, but i've
* yet to find anyone who has attempted to adapt socioling method to online
* communites. for instance, watered down, socio looks at the relationship
* between dmographic data (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.) and language (how they
* use it, what they
* think about it, judgments, etc.). both points of comparison are different
* online. so we can't just extend current socio methodlogy to online
* communites. i'm interested in figuring out the correlates for age, gender,
* ethnicity, etc in the online world.
*
* keeping this in mind, my current project is looking at language ideology
* online. basically, i'm manipulating a bunch of lingusitic variables
* (spelling, capitalization, smilie use, punctuation, presence of marked face
* to face (FTF) dialect use) and seeing how people describe their interlocutor
* (intelligent, happy, friendly, etc.) I'm coupling this with observations and
* interviews inside an online role playing game. i'm hoping to show that, like
* in face to
* face communities, there are stigmatized ways of "speaking" online. i'm also
* hoping to add to (or begin) the discussion of online speech communities and
* how they can be defined. in most cases, FTF speech communities are, in part,
* defined by some common kinda of language. i'm hoping that the study i'm doing
* will show that there are indeed different kinds of languages with different
* language ideologies online. Since the beginning of most socio studies lies in
* identification of some speech community, with this study, i'm hoping to begin
* to figure out how to adapt the socio methods to online communites.
*
* as a kind of different project (but related), i'm working with a group from
* different departments to help two austin communies develop community blogs.
* one group is a network of foster kids who are taking classes on public
* speaking so that they can get their stories out. we're going to show them how
* make blogs in order to give them an online outlet for their stories. the
* other group is a pretty typical digital devide casuality. a hispanic/black
* neighboorhood association approached us and asked if we could help them
* publicise their cause
* (better schools, roads, less crime, etc.). We're helping them develop blogs
* as well. so the study that will come of these will look at how marginalized
* groups represent themselves online. this project is bring run by UTs Science,
* Technology, and Society Center, which is composed of a bunch of people from a
* lot of different disciplines. but it's still very much anthro/socio/social
* work/activism oriented (as i mentioned above.)
*
* ok. i'll shut up now. i have to save something for future emails.
*
* let me know more specifically what your interests are.
*
*
*
*
*
* _______________________________________________
* Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
* The most personalized portal on the Web!
*