Hello/Introduction

[Matt Garley]

Hello!  My name's Matt Garley, and I was directed to this list by the list owner due to a recent Q posted to LINGUIST.  I'm glad to find a group of like-minded researchers.  I'm a second-year grad student and I'm looking to focus on the field of sociolinguistics.  I've been interested in the sociolinguistic aspects of online discourse (particularly synchronous) since I first became interested in linguistics several years ago.  I've got a B.A. in Government and German (supplemental major, Linguistics) from New Mexico State and I'm in currently in the long version of the doctoral program in the Linguistics department here.  I have nothing in the way of presentations or publications so far, but I'm working on it.

Anyhow, glad to be here.  I'd be glad to hear from any of you who have any information on sizable data sets of IM or chat which might be available for a project on identifying formulaic language.
|Matt Garley
|Graduate Student, Linguistics
|University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign
|http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mgarley2/www/