The co-construction of humor in computer-mediated teacher-student communication

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-97
Author(s):  
Asma Moalla ◽  
Wafa Ben Amor

This paper investigates the way online humorous exchanges are jointly constructed and recognized by a teacher and her students. It focuses on the role humor studies play in understanding issues related to Computer-mediated Communication (CMC). The data consist of synchronous discussions of 11 Tunisian learners of English and their teacher via instant messaging on Skype. The analysis uses the notion of script oppositions (SOs) in the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) and offers an account for the internal structure of exchanges; how the exchange begins with a serious mode, how it gradually develops into a humorous play frame, and how inferences are drawn. The study reveals that humor is created by activating binary SOs and shows that the teacher/student dynamics can make joking online more difficult to interpret than joking among peers. With reference to the analysis of the specific context of the CMC discussions, a serious set up of a humorous sequence created by a teacher can leave students uncertain toward the playfulness of the sequence. A playful set up, on the other hand, makes participants engage in a joint fantasy and build new layers of meaning as the conversation develops.

2002 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley G. Hathorn ◽  
Albert L. Ingram

This study operationally defined and measured collaboration and compared the products and structure of collaborative groups that used computer-mediated communication. Key characteristics of collaboration selected from the literature were interdependence, synthesis, and independence, and a model for evaluating these characteristics was developed. All communication in this study occurred via asynchronous computer-mediated communication, using a threaded Web discussion. Participants in the study were graduate students, studying the same course with the same instructor at two venues. The students were divided into small groups from one or both venues, and four of these groups were studied. All students were given a problem to solve involving the cost-benefit trade-offs of distance education. The groups received different instructions. Two of them were told to collaborate on a solution, and the other two were told to select a role and discuss the problem from that point of view. Groups that were instructed to collaborate were more collaborative, but they produced a solution of a lower quality than the other groups. No conclusions could be drawn from the results on the structure of the groups. The role of collaboration in problem solving is discussed along with methods for creating more effective collaboration.


2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Habib ◽  
Dennis Kurzon

This study investigates a new writing system based on the Roman script that has been used by Israeli Arabs in Israel for about ten years. This system is associated with instant messaging (IM); people usually use it when sending SMSs or when utilizing any of the computer-mediated communication forms, such as Messenger. The paper focuses on the systematization and the typology of this writing system based on data collected from about 40 participants studying in the same school. The results show that most of the participants have used this system systematically, and that this system can be classified as a developing alphabet.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-198
Author(s):  
Xiaofei Tang

Abstract Recent research on Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) showed the efficacy of using computer-mediated communication (CMC) to promote second language (L2) learning (Ziegler, 2016). However, few studies compared the interactional sequences during task-based interaction across different modalities (e.g., oral and written chat). It is thus not clear how different task modalities mediate task-based interaction and L2 learning opportunities. To fill this gap, this study compared CMC written chat and face-to-face (FTF) oral chat for interactional sequences during decision-making tasks. Participants were 20 learners of Chinese (high-elementary to intermediate level) in a U.S. university. Ten participants completed the tasks in CMC, while the other 10 completed the same tasks in FTF. The interaction data were analyzed for frequency and patterns of interactional strategies. Three types of interactional sequences emerged in both groups: orientating to tasks, suggesting actions and evaluating suggestions. CMC participants suggested actions more frequently than FTF participants. While both groups predominantly agreed with proposed suggestions, CMC dyads expressed disagreement three times more than FTF dyads. CMC dyads also used more utterances to manage task progress. Findings are discussed in terms of the interactional organizations and their potential influence on task-based language use in different modalities.


Author(s):  
Sarah Rofofsky Marcus

This chapter introduces synchronous, one-on-one, computer mediated communication. A discussion then is presented on the growth of typewritten, synchronous communication, beginning with the Tele- Typewriter/Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TTY/TDD), and how instant messaging (IM) can benefit those who are deaf, and also others who wish to communicate rapidly without the use of a telephone or face-to-face (f2f) communication. Besides discussing benefits of synchronous, text-based, one-on-one communication, this chapter will also address the downfall to the written communication caused by the overuse of abbreviations and emoticons that is coming into regular use outside of the IM environment. After the author examines the pros and cons of CMC via IM, implications of the growth of CMC via IM are considered.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 525-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Muir ◽  
Adam Joinson ◽  
Rachel Cotterill ◽  
Nigel Dewdney

Communication accommodation theory predicts that social power plays an important role in influencing communicative behaviors. Previous research suggests these effects extend to linguistic style, thought to be a nonconscious aspect of communication. Here, we explore if these effects hold when individuals converse using a medium limited in personal cues, computer-mediated communication. We manipulated social power in instant messaging conversations and measured subsequent interpersonal impressions. Low power induced greater likelihood of linguistic style accommodation, across between- (Study 1) and within-subjects (Study 2) experiments. Accommodation by those in a low-power role had no impact on impressions formed by their partner. In contrast, linguistic style accommodation by individuals in a high-power role was associated with negative interpersonal impressions formed by their lower power partner. The results show robust effects of power in shaping language use across computer-mediated communication. Furthermore, the interpersonal effects of linguistic accommodation depend on the conversational norms of the social context.


2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Squires

AbstractThis article investigates the enregisterment of an internet-specific language variety and its features. The enregisterment of internet language is explored through several sites of metadiscourse: academic scholarship about computer-mediated communication, uses of the metalinguistic termsnetspeakandchatspeakin print media, and online comment threads about language and the internet. This metadiscourse provides evidence of a shared concept of internet language as comprising distinctive written features, primarily acronyms, abbreviations, and respellings. Internet language's enregisterment emerges from standard language ideology and deterministic views of technology, where the construal of these features as both nonstandard and internet-specific articulates the perceived distinctiveness of internet interactions. Yet empirical evidence shows that these features are relatively rare in instant messaging conversations, one form of interaction to which internet language is attributed; this discrepancy has implications for the application of indexical order to enregisterment. (Enregisterment, language ideology, computer-mediated communication, internet, metadiscourse, indexical order, Standard English, technological determinism, mass media)*


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 101-105
Author(s):  
Rrahman Paçarizi

Abstract Instant messaging, texting, or even Computer Mediated Communication are the terms used to refer to communication in social networks. These terms are not the most appropriate ones because the technology and platforms of this way of communication have evolved rapidly. Since this communication is widespread, there is a need to have a much more standardized communication in terms of the language variety used for it. Having in mind various principles of socio cognitive approach in terminology, the study aimed to build a new appropriate term in this regard. Having in mind all the circumstances and the scale of standardization of this way of communication, I think that the best term that fits it is “Netlect”. This is done in order to include, using the same word, the name of the platform where this communication is being developed (net) and the paradigm for linguistic variety (lect), as in socio+lect, dia+lect etc. The case of Albanian and other languages goes in favour of this term because we are talking about “a language variety that never existed before”, as Ferrara, Brunner, and Whittemore stated earlier in 1991.


2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christa Dürscheid ◽  
Sarah Brommer

This article focuses on every day communication in New Media with special regards to private writing on Instant Messaging. After brief introductory thoughts about writings beyond the linguistic norm in New Media we compare the specific circumstances of "new" writing via internet and mobile phone with "traditional" offline writing that can be realized by the use of a computer, a type writer or by hand. How this new writing is judged by the public, whether it is considered to be "good" or "bad" and how experts position themselves in this discussion, is shown in section 3. Section 4 takes a look at which linguistic theories might apply to the analysis of typed dialogues in computer mediated communication. The main focus here is on the theory of Interactional Linguistics which formerly had been applied only to the analysis of oral communication. Finally, language critical and linguistic aspects of writing in the New Media are discussed in a brief synopsis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-583
Author(s):  
Bernie Chun Nam Mak

Abstract This paper describes how bilingual colleagues living in Hong Kong make small talk in instant messaging to achieve various business-oriented goals and construct multiple identities in the discursive process. Guided by James Paul Gee’s revised framework of discourse analysis, the analyses evidenced that, overall, colleagues use small talk in instant messages to maintain minimal ties with distant partners, fill in silence during computer work, affect informal decision-making at work, and to diffuse useful surrounding information into business talk. These instances interplay with different affordances provided by the gadgets in the instant messenger interfaces. Such creative usage, together with the perceived nature of online interaction and instant messaging, results in multiple and turbulent identities circulating in the broader context of workplace discourse. The article concludes by arguing that computer-mediated communication has offered participants an emerging modus of interacting socially, beyond the physical and psychological constraints of time and space.


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