Language and Technology

Language and Technology

1. Texting

   • Linguistic Compression
     • Vowel Deletion
     • Phonetic Spelling
     • Initialism
     • Letter/Number Homophones
     • texts used to be restricted to 160 characters with 10p charge
   • Expressive Punctuation
     • could now be replaced with emojis
   • Ellipsis
     • like spoken language
   • spontaneous
   • Predictive Text and Auto-Correct
   • tolerates non-standard but not random grammar, spelling etc

2. Emails

   • often like letters
   • conventional format
     • To/From
     • Subject Line
     • CC/BCC
       • can be addressed to more than one person, affecting register
     • Date/Time Sent
       • would not have in a letter
     • Salutation
     • Sign-Off
     • may not be followed for more informal situation
   • often no signature
   • Formal and Informal

3. Phone Calls and Voicemails

   • Canonical Openings
     • Summons/Answer
     • Identification/Recognition
       • now we have Caller ID
     • Greeting Sequence
     • "How-Are-You" Sequences
     • by Schegloff
   • Closing Sequences
     • Metatalk
       • e.g. "We've been nattering on like a pair of old women, haven't we?"
     • Phatic Speech Acts
       • e.g. "It's been lovely speaking to you."
     • Discourse Markers
     • Postive/Negative Politeness
     • Valedictions
       • e.g. "bye", "see you later"
   • Phone Calls - Dialogic Voicemails - Monologic
   • due to wide range of alternatives, voicemails are hardly ever left
   • with a mobile phone the foregrounding of location may be needed whilst landline assumes some privacy
   • Overlapping
     • enthusiastic or dominant?
   • spontaneous
     • from a company, may be 'scripted'
   • Turn-Taking

4. Theories

   • Fairclough
     • computers imitate human interaction
       • e.g. "Are you sure?"
     • computers do 'turn-taking'
   • Werry
     • in internet chat, people use more letters than necessary to imitate speech or semantic nuances
     • texts and emails are like spoken language because of turn-taking and informality
   • Accommodation Theory, Politeness & Conversational Maxims
     • See more on attached resource
     • Spoken Language Theories
   • Brown and Levinson
     • Synchronous Communication (instant, in 'real-time')
       • e.g. internet chat
     • Asynchronous Communication (delay between sending & receiving)
       • e.g. texts, emails