Re. Internet discourse

[Kate Hickerson]

Hi all--

Though usually a lurker, I would like to offer a few comments to Lise in
reference to her work.

>
> I would certainly say that personal email discourse is inherently
dialogic. I
> would go further to say that it naturally evolves into a recursive text.
>
> When I analyse an email text coming from a friend, it usually contains
> 'clips' from other messages that allow the flow of communication to continue
> uninterrupted, it also saves time.  I really don't know how to treat the
> utterances.  In a normal conversation between Bill and Sue, Bill speaks,
then
> Sue, then Bill, and so on.


I think this last point could stand some re-visiting. There is a body of
literature in interaction studies that discusses that this is actually NOT the
case in "normal conversation," unless turns are perceived more broadly (which
they are in interaction analysis) than you seem to treat them here.

There is a lot of conversational work that is accomplished by interactents in
which the information that is provided between speakers is of a different
nature than the information that you seem to be focusing on, but it is
information that is nevertheless essential to the co-creation of conversation.
Broadly termed "feedback," this information can consist of "change of state
tokens" such as "ohs," "continuers" such as "aha" and "um hm," etc.

In the example you mention about the baby crying, where your friend inserts
"that's too bad," between your comments, her response is actually TYPICAL of
what you would find in everyday conversation. Though in everyday conversations
her response might occur in "overlap," in which it is inserted quickly
during a
continuing turn by you, and thus might go unnoticed as a "full fledged" turn,
it would still be considered a turn in interaction studies, and a turn doing
important conversational work (or in your terms perhaps, transferring
important
information), displaying alliance with you and sympathy for your situation,
etc.

So I would say that such "embedding" or "recursiveness" actually makes
personal
email exchanges MORE like everyday conversations. And in light of this, I
would
choose the second option you outlined for the "treatment" of the phenomena, if
what you are trying to do is "capture the conversational quality" of the
exchange.

Kate


Kathryn Hickerson, MA
PhD program, Language and Culture
University of Texas, Austin

1016 Camino La Costa #1606
Austin, Tx 78752
512.452.7830
khh at mail.utexas.edu
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