Internet discourse

[Zouhair Maalej]

Hi Jeff,

I have become interested also in this type of nascent discourse. I don't
have directly relevant references for your paper, but there are a couple
of papers that you might be interested in looking at (if you haven't
done it already, I mean):

Gains, Jonathan (1999). "Electronic Mail - A New Style of Communication
or Just a New Medium? An Investigation into the Text Features of
E-mail." English for Specific Purposes, 18: 1, 81-101.

Kiesel, S., J. Siegel & T.W. McGuire (1984). "Social Psychological
Aspects of Computer-mediated Communication." American Psychologist, 39:
10, 1123-1134.

Mabrito, M. (1991). "Electronic Mail as a Vehicle for Peer Response:
Conversations of High- and Low-apprehensive Writers." Written
Communication, 8: 4, 509-532.

Wilkins, H. (1991). "Computer Talk: Long-distance Conversations by
Computer." Written Communication, 8: 1, 56-78.

Hope this could help.
Zouhair
Jeff Santarlasci wrote:
>
> I am currently looking for research that deals with internet chat room
> discourse for an analysis piece I am working on. What follows is the opening
> of my paper. Can anyone suggest studies that might have a bearing on the
> angle I'm taking? Thank you for your time and assistance.
>
> Face Among the Faceless: Politeness in Chat Room Discourse
>
>     The Internet gateway site, Yahoo!, has 47 million registered users, a
> population about equal in size to Spain and Portugal combined. Each day,
> sites in the Yahoo! network are accessed by approximately 235 million
> people, a group of visitors just slightly smaller than the population of the
> United States of America. One of the most popular sites offered by Yahoo! is
> their Yahoo! Chat, a collection of cyber meeting rooms visited by an average
> of XXX million users (still searching for the correct figure) everyday.
> While certainly large enough to merit attention on their own merits, these
> Yahoo! numbers represent only a portion of the chat room discourse (CRD)
> that occurs daily (estimated at 50 million users NYT) at a wide range of
> sites on the Internet. Given the number of participants, and the increasing
> acceptance of CRD as a "mainstream" mode of communication, an inquiry into
> the unique nature of Internet chat seems a timely, if not somewhat overdue,
> undertaking.
>     That CRD is a unique mode of discourse is, of course, an arguable claim,
> but not an unsupportable one. It is fundamentally a discourse of paradox.
> CRD is oral in its immediacy, and yet is simultaneously mediated by the act
> of writing. Participants simultaneously experience proximity (that is, they
> inhabit a "room" together) and distance (their bodies my be on different
> sides of the globe). The term itself, "chat," indicates that CRD would
> likely characterize itself as more oral, possessing more in common with
> face-to-face discourse than with text based discourse, and yet it is
> precisely the face that is missing.
>     In this paper, I will explore the implications of this paradoxical
> nature of CRD in relation to issues of politeness as formulated by Brown and
> Levinson. Given the unique nature of CRD, will participants interact with
> one another in a manner predictable by the framework of politeness
> strategies as outlined by Brown and Levinson? Is there something unique
> about the oral/textual nature of CRD that would predispose participants to
> choose strategies fundamentally different from those typically chosen in
> more conventional conversational interactions? In short, how are we to
> characterize face among the faceless?
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeff Santarlasci
> University of Idaho
> Brink Hall 106
> (208) 885-6156
> sant2535 at uidaho.edu
> Jeff Santarlasci
> University of Idaho
> Brink Hall 106
> (208) 885-6156
> sant2535 at uidaho.edu
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