Lecture: Register and Style Variation in Instant Messaging: An Audience Design Approach

Computer-mediated communication (CMC), and particularly synchronous electronic registers such as instant messaging (IM), feature distinctive conversational strategies (hereafter IM strategies) that result from the emulation of face-to-face spoken conversation. While these strategies are common and pervasive in IM, it remains unclear to what extent their use is determined by personal preferences (style) or situational factors (register).
In order to shed light on this issue, a series of interviews are conducted using the IM application WhatsApp. 6 informants (3 men and 3 women) participate in two consecutive interviews conducted by two assumed different interviewers (in fact, the researcher under two different false identities). While the first interviewer makes no use of IM strategies, the second one use them extensively. The situational characteristics are kept constant between interviews. This deliberate contrast aims to elicit a style shift in the informant. In addition, after the completion of the interviews, and the subsequent disclosure of the interviewers' identity, a short informal conversation takes place between the informant and the researcher. The contrast between the interview and the conversation situation enables to analyse register variation in the informants' speech.
Drawing on a literature review, a typology of IM strategies is established for the analysis. The results suggest that the use of IM strategies is largely dependent on situational factors, indicating a positive association with conditions of colloquiality; however, each type of strategy shows varying degrees of responsiveness to different factors. In contrast, no significant style variation is found among the participants, which, interpreted from an audience design approach, translates into divergence from the audience. In terms of gender, women showed a significantly higher degree of both style and register variation, as well as greater convergence towards both the audience and the communicative situation.

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Day: 2023-05-27
Start time: 15:00
Duration: 00:30
Room: SH 3.103
Track: Sociolinguistics

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