1887
Volume 73, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0169-7420
  • E-ISSN: 2213-4883
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

The development of the Internet has set up a brand new text form, the so-called digital conversations. With computer programmes like MSN Messenger, it is possible to communicate electronically with friends and relatives. These chat conversations contain both oral and literate characteristics; in this sense, the digital texts represent a kind of hybrid language form. To determine the position of the digital texts amongst their oral and written counterparts, it is necessary to create an overview of the stylistic relations between these three contemporary genres. Within the current study, I have compared the usage of the Dutch language within MSN-conversations, e-mails, and transcribed telephone conversations on the basis of several linguistic-stylistic dimensions. It turned out that there were eight of these components on which significant stylistic differences exist between the three modes. An important finding is that e-mails have an informational structure, in contrast to the telephone conversations, that are characterized by a highly involved style; within the digital conversations these two styles are mixed. On two other dimensions, the MSN-conversations distinguish themselves from both the written and oral modes by an increased use of popular or minimising expressions and time references.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ttwia.73.03eve
2005-01-01
2025-02-10
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/ttwia.73.03eve
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error