MODE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF INTERACTIVITY IN AN EMAIL LIST
1. Introduction
1.1 Mode of interaction and the
degree of interactivity in a written speech community: general
background to
the study
Electronic
mailing lists became
popular in the 1990s, the mode of interaction allowing many subscribers
to the computer-mediated 'list' to conduct long written 'conversations'
on topics to which these lists were devoted. Long-time list-members
developed ways of interacting using the minimal amount of verbal
material afforded by the medium - ASCII text, and asynchronous
interaction. This paper discusses the context of situation of
mailing list interaction,
focussing on one
aspect of registerial variation—Mode—as a point of reference.
The interaction can be characterised as 'the events
comprising a written speech community',
and this label highlights an area of multi-modal overlap in these
contexts: features of
both speech and writing are identifiable in the messages produced.
My
first aim here is to describe the extent to which the community's
situational context—given its mode of transmission as graphic channel,
written medium communication—can be said to combine features of spoken
'multilogue' (Shank 1993) or conversation. A systemic functional
perspective is
used as a framework for describing the context of situation focussing
on mode
as 'relative interactivity'. This context
of
interaction differs from many other
modes of interaction described by the two dimensions channel and
medium, by its
incorporation of elements or features usually exclusive to either speech or writing.
It is
the technological mediation of the Context of Situation, especially
when
the focus is Mode, and the continuum writtenness/spokenness,
which forms the locus of the discussion which follows. Registerial Mode
refers to
the degree to which process-sharing
(Halliday & Hasan 1985) and relative
interactivity (Martin 1992) can be said to be evident in the
texts. Hasan observes that both process-sharing and relative interactivity
are more evident and indeed possible in real-time,
and/or face-to-face (synchronous) interaction, than in written modes of
interaction. Therefore I
argue below that the context of situation of an email list can be
described
in terms
of an overall dimension of 'relative interactivity' and rather than restrict the description to
degree of spokenness or writtenness, refer to three dimensions
which are
also part of what in systemic functional linguistics is termed Mode.
This paper presents the main methodological and
theoretical
approaches which inform the research conducted in proposing a
framework for anlaysing this type of email-mediated interaction (Don
2007). The framework is intended to
provide a way of describing and collating typical contributions to the
mailing list discussion, and against which conventions of interaction
may also be described.
While
there is a
large body of research devoted to the differences between the spoken
and
written modes of meaning-making, a review of this research is beyond
the scope
of this paper. However, Chafe and Tannen's comprehensive review (1987)
of the
literature shows that investigation into this area of register
variation was
quite extensive, even at that time. Biber (1988) reported research into
variation across speech and writing using factor analysis and a range
of what
he called 'genres', and determined that, as far as his analysis and
methods
could demonstrate, a boundary between speech and writing was not
justified. In
contrast to these studies, the emphasis here is on how linguistic
analysis of
meaning-making strategies within and between whole
texts--rather
than as a function of the features of a
predetermined category--can contribute to the characterisation of the
nature of
electronic mailing list interaction. Thus, it can already be observed
that email contributions are potentially quite long in comparison to
those common in spoken interaction, and may involve quite complex
argumentation, but, at the same time, the interactive potential of the
medium encourages an 'orientation to response' which in turn results in
strategies reflecting the awareness of the interactive context. For the
purposes of this study, I have used one specific mailing list as a type
of 'case study'. In this way, an investigation into 'register
variation', or
more precisely perhaps "genre agnation", takes particular text-types
as products of a 'written speech community' as the common variable or
entry
point.
Below I
indicate that the two dimensions of process-sharing, channel
and medium,
proposed by Hasan (Halliday & Hasan 1985) as means of
describing mode, need
to be augmented by further dimensions similar to those outlined by
Martin
(1992), and referred to here as relative
interactivity. I also introduce and discuss the term involvement, (derived from Gumperz 1982,
Tannen 1989, and Biber 1988) as a means of referring to the relative
styles and
orientation to (the degree of relative) interactivity possible in email
list
participation. The continuum CONSTITUTIVE versus ANCILLARY
(Halliday & Hasan 1985: 57) will not be considered since the
mode of
interaction in an email list makes the written verbal interaction
entirely
constitutive
of its process, and its shared context of situation. However, this
aspect of the mode of interaction results in some textual peculiarities
suggestive of a context of situation which users conceive of as an
actual
place, indicated by features which might normally point to language
used as
ancillary to the interaction--such as references to here, addressing
interlocutors as you,
and referring to saying,
rather than writing. These types of features relate to what I am
calling mode bleeding, and will be
discussed in more detail during the course of the paper.
1.1.1 The nature of mode of interaction
Analysis
of the use of institutionalised and technologically-constrained
orthographic features of a typical post in this mode contributes to the
means for identifying the rhetorical phases or units which act to
characterise
one aspect of a list's norms of interaction. This can be combined with
an analysis of elements of the texts such
as the grammar of Participant and
Process (experiential meanings) and contribute to an analysis of both
poster
identity (interpersonal meanings) and textual organisation (textual
meanings). In turn, patterns of this nature may be used to
further characterise written
community
norms. Below, I offer a description of mode as both
constraining and enabling the types of meaning-making which are made in
this
context of situation. This description necessarily takes into account
writers' use of the resources of the
interpersonal, experiential, and textual metafunctions. In systemics, a
description of the register or context of situation of a text, will
usually focus on textual
metafunctional meanings as construing and realising the mode of
interaction,
while interpersonal meanings construe tenor, and experiential meanings
construe
field. Here, it is proposed that mode constrains the experiential and
interpersonal meanings which are made in this context of interaction,
and influences the overall register and registerial features of texts
produced in this community.
The
first part of the paper which follows therefore introduces in detail
the problem of characterising the mode of email list
interaction which
has increasingly been described as employing
features of both
spoken and written interaction (see for example Baym 1996, Collot
& Belmore
1996, Condon & Claude 1996, Ferrara 1991, Maynor 1996, Murray 1984, Wallace 2000,
Walther 1994, Wilkins 1991, Yates 1996). My purpose here is to show
that the nature of email list interaction seen from the perspective of
its
technological mediation, or mode, can be regarded as both enabling and
constraining the textual, interpersonal, and experiential meanings that
can be
made in this context of interaction. As will be discussed in more
detail below,
meanings are constrained by the fact that list interaction is limited
to an
asynchronous written channel, but at the same time, certain meanings
not
available in synchronous modes of interaction such as speech, and
internet chat modes, are enabled in
this form of
written communication with its extra editability and freedom from
interruption.
2. Process-sharing
and the notion
of 'involvement'
2.1 Describing the context of
situation: 2 orders of register
In
systemics, the
context of situation is described by reference to notions of Field,
Tenor, and
Mode. These aspects of the context are realised by features of the
lexicogrammar
called metafunctions, and so the texts in this study are discussed, at
one
level, in terms of these lexicogrammatical indicators as to context of
situation, what I am referring to as 2nd order
register. 2nd
order register (see Martin 1992: 571) is concerned with those
indicators which
appear as part of the content of the text itself, rather than as a
product of
its actual technological mediation as material context of situation.
The
context of situation can also refer to the material context of
situation (Halliday
& Hasan 1985: 99), what I refer to as 1st
order register
(Martin op cit). The concept of a 1st order, or
'higher level'
register also takes into account the nature of the types of roles and
relationships of participants common to a
situation as a function of previous encounters—what Hasan
(Halliday
& Hasan 1985) refers to as a CC,
or "contextual configuration"—as well as the nature of space
and time operating on the
interaction.
Within
the immediate
configuration of material objects and processes encompassed by any
context of
situation, a subset concerns whether such a context allows synchronous
phonic
signals to be made and responded to, or whether space-time signals such
as
gestures, lighting, proximity and so on, are part of the shared context
of
meaning-making. This therefore differs from the specific and
extra-textual
individual material contexts in which each contributor participates
through
reading and typing at a desk and monitor--yet each member of an email
list is
nevertheless dependent for their participation on the use of a computer
as
cultural artefact. This common material 'context of situation' enables
the
development of group practices which are at once largely unpredictable,
yet at
the same time, describable by reference to some of the emergent
patterns of
interaction so produced:
The
full
implications of this fundamental interdependence of cultural practices
and
material processes cannot be fully appreciated without seeing both as
aspects
of a unitary ecosocial system. Such systems are hierarchically
organized at
many different scales through complex couplings of processes which feed
back to
one another to produce entirely surprising, emergent phenomena (self
organization). (Lemke 1995: 107)
The
notion of 1st
and 2nd order register, therefore, describes one
of the 'complex
couplings which feed back into one another', and in this sense we can
describe
a text's relative spokenness or writtenness as an aspect of 2nd
order register which is realised by features of the discourse itself,
while 1st
order register can be described by reference to features which are
reflected in
the text as data, but which were originally dependent on and a function
of the
material situation in which the text was produced. For example, in the
matter
of lexical density, the texts used for this study (see Appendix B) were
found
overall to have a lexical density closer (on a written-spoken
continuum) to
spoken dialogue than is usually found in written texts (discussed in
more
detail below: 3.4).
Mode,
however, is
closely tied to what Hasan (Halliday & Hasan 1985) calls
'process-sharing',
and therefore, one of the aspects of the text which causes it to appear
dialogic in nature, i.e. as having been co-created through sharing the
process,
can be traced to its mode of production in the material mediation of
CMC (i.e.
1st order register). This type of mediation
allows the texts to
appear co-produced, and occasionally to incorporate the contributions
of
several writers in the one text. Therefore, this type of text needs to
be seen,
not as either more spoken or more written, but as more or less interactive (at 1st
order
register) or involved (at 2nd
order register). Part of the purpose of the overall study of which this
paper is a part is to demonstrate that the
very nature of the material context of situation, i.e. its
technological
mediation, allows and constrains the meanings which can be made, and
the
textual features of these texts, in an array of specific and
identifiable
patterns. Although many of these patterns can be directly attributed to
the use
of the graphic channel—in
terms of use of spelling, orthography and
formatting—it is not always so easy to draw the line between on the one
hand, meanings
produced soley by these graphical features, and on the other hand an
array of other features
which might be more specific to the textuality, or to a medium which
incorporates elements of written
versus spoken mediums.
This issue is exemplified in section 2.2 below.
2.1.1 Pr
Hasan
(1985)
distinguishes between channel and medium by saying that while the channel
may be phonic or graphic, the medium is located on a continuum between
spoken
and written modalities. She makes the point that process-sharing is
closely
linked with the channel, as it relates to the degree to which
participants can
be said to share in the creation of the text. Hasan relates the channel
of
communication to the concept of process-sharing in the following way:
The
physical
presence of the addressee impinges on the textual processes in a way
that the
writer's own awareness of the needs of the addressee can hardly ever
do: for
one thing, in the phonic channel both the speaker and the addressee
hear (and
often see) the same thing at the same time. This is obviously not
possible when
the channel is graphic. (op cit:58)
The
medium therefore
refers to the degree to which texts are originally produced in either
the
written or the spoken mode. Because the matter of graphic/phonic
representation has been taken care of in locating
the channel, medium can be used as a purely textual construct, and
therefore
can be described by reference to the patterning of the formal features
of the
text itself, i.e. the use of the lexicogrammatical options in the
service of
creating meaning within the constraints of this 'material context'.[1]
A high
degree of
process-sharing would be evident in the phonic channel, and this
positively
correlates with the spoken medium. Telephone conversations, for
example, are
conducted in the phonic channel and the spoken medium, but without any
face-to-face (f2f) cues. Nevertheless, in the case of telephone
interaction,
because of the synchronous nature of the interaction—its immediacy in time—the degree of process-sharing
is quite high. This means that textual indicators, even within a
written
transcript of a short monologue excerpt of telephone conversation,
would
indicate to an analyst (as distinct from co-participant) its original
medium
and channel of interaction.
The
case of sign
language as another modality provides a contrastive example. Signed
conversation is necessarily conducted face to face in interactive
contexts, and
so space-time elements are significant in such contexts, rather than
the graphic
versus phonic dimension. There may be discussion lists in future where
mpegs—messages
recording videos of hand gestures—could be sent to distribution servers
and downloaded and viewed by sign language-using members, to be
responded to
asynchronously, as in the written mailing list interaction under
investigation
here. A framework such as the one developed here for written
interaction would need to account for the
stylistic preferences and interpersonal gestures used to compensate for
meaning-making which signers are able to make in real-time interaction.
Concurrent problems with identity (how much of our material
circumstances do we
show, do we also record our faces, etc) and negotiation over norms
would also
be related to such a mode of interaction, even if the channel and
medium were
not describable in terms of phonic/graphic or spoken/written dimensions.
2.2 Distinguishing between
channel
and medium in this mode
Textual
features
which relate to channel, and those that relate to medium, are sometimes
difficult to distinguish in absolute terms in asynchronous modes of
interaction. In the following example, formatting in the form of a line
of
space or carriage return between addresser-identified 'speech acts', acts as a boundary marker or framing
device in the place of what might be realised as pauses in speech. The
final
speech act (marked ˆ) in the
excerpt below, however, is a little more difficult to accord either a
medium
(more written versus more spoken) or a channel (graphic versus phonic)
origin:
Example 2.1
Date: Tue, 6
May 1997 22:31:04
-0400
From:
hoon@EMAIL
Subject: Re:
Leaders and
Leadership
[snipped...]
But leading
is different than
leadership, and even if we've all led that doesn't mean we've done so
differently, or better. Or, that to do so differently or better isn't a
possibility.
It may be.
ˆ er, imo.
Here, 'er ', which usually signals hesitancy in
speech, in this case is part of the retrospective evaluation of the
writer's
own previously written words. It is also a framing device, prospective
of
commentary to come: 'imo ' ('in my
opinion'). This acronym (or 'initialism') is another more obvious
indicator of
the graphic channel, and may relate also to the somewhat spontaneous or
time-constrained nature of some email contributions.
In
speech, however,
signals of hesitancy such as er,
may
contribute to textual meanings rather than having an interpersonal
function,
and are made in order to punctuate the flow of speech and keep the
floor while
thinking how to express the next 'move'—rather than to expressly
indicate
a lack of certainty, or even what in appraisal terms might be called a
degree
of heteroglossic ENGAGEMENT (see Attitude and email interaction: an
introduction). This indicates that texts in this
mode also need to be analysed from a dynamic
perspective
(see for example Ravelli 1995, Lemke 1995, and below) which
takes
into account the unfolding of the
discourse, especially the orientation of Addressers toward future
responses. In
terms of the Sinclair (1993) model of written text structure, every
text
realises both the interactive and the autonomous planes at the same
time. Briefly, this means that writers will make discursive
signals to make reading easier, by either pointing forward or backward
in obvious ways (interactive plane), and that the text's meanings are
cumulative or logogenetically developed, so that how the text is
ordered sequentially provides for the meanings that can be made at each
juncture of the text (autonomous plane).
Signals
of
hesitancy are not usually a feature of the textuality of the written
medium,
since by its very nature, writing is less 'online' and more open to
editing—and hence more 'reflective', and so less interactive.
There is usually no need to signal hesitancy in
writing in this way, nor is there any need to signal a pause in the
flow of
text in order to allow composition time and prevent the turn from being
taken.
What such features signal is an awareness of the possibility of
response, and
of the relatively higher degree of process-sharing available. They also
indicates the somewhat unedited 'spontaneous' quality of composition
which is
usually a feature of spoken text—what Martin (1992: 514) refers to as
the
degree of self consciousness in writing.
He relates this dimension to the notion of 'relative reflectivity' (c.f. 3.2 below), and the
opposition between inert modes such
as handwriting, and dynamic modes
such as word-processing.
Therefore,
features
of these texts which signal hesitancy may at the same time act to
signal
'spontaneity', and a less reflective
mode of production more akin to speech. Features such as these may
operate to
locate the text at the less self-conscious,
more dynamic end of Martin's cline.
Shortened forms, such as 'imo' also serve to indicate a relatively
hastier
approach to writing than has been appropriate or "norm-al" in the
past. These features of spoken medium/phonic channel interaction which
are
compensated for in this mode through graphic means, I have termed 'mode
bleeding' (see below 2.3). Whether these types of features are the
result of a
less reflective, spontaneous mode of production, or a result of
the writer consciously
(and hence more reflectively) employing these features in order to
supply the
text with a 'spontaneous' feel, they do
represent a strategy which signals
a type of
'involvement', or an awareness of the interpersonal context in which
these
texts operate.
The
less-edited
'online' nature of hasty typing which results in occasional
typographical
errors related to 'slips of the tongue' in speech is another occasional
indicator of this relative interactivity or overall 'involvement' in
this mode
of interaction. This also points to time
as a factor in the texture. Hence, signals of 'involvement' of the
contributions made in this mode may be influenced by the hasty or
immediate
need for typing a response. The influence of time-taken-to-respond is
referred
to again below (3.2).
2.2.1 Other dimensions for
describing
context of situation
Martin
(1992)
outlines several other systems of context of situation which are also
useful
for describing the nature of the interactive context of mailing list
interaction with greater delicacy. One of these outlines the degree of
turn-taking available, and because turn-taking can become one of
strategies
used in the process of text
creation
in CMC, or at least in such asynchronous
conversation such as presented here, then selection for turn-taking, as
[turn
free: chat: median] would characterise such interaction as more
'spoken' or at
least as having a higher degree of interactivity, and as located at the
'more
turn-taking' end of this cline (op cit: 512). In the related system
'degree of
reply expectation in writing', the cline which the system describes is
between
'reply likely' and 'reply unlikely'. In the case of email list
interaction, the
likelihood of reply is possibly one of the most important
characteristics of
this context of situation allowed by the mode of interaction, and which
results
in the use of textual strategies indicating an awareness of audience.
Because
a "reply is likely", or at least made possible in this mode, the need
to obtain responses in order to have one's identity or presence
recognised
and/or ratified in some way, tends to become important for many
posters. This
also results in texts which are 'involved' with the projected audience
of
addressees and potential respondants to a greater degree than is usual
in
written texts, and is reflected in the degree to which the text orients
to
future responses, either through values of Engagement (c.f. below
3.5 ) or by the use of various forms of reference, or
'addressivity'. While all texts are dialogic
in the sense outlined by Bakhtin (Holquist 1990), the technological
mediation
of email list interaction appears to promote this prospective
orientation to future responses, perhaps to a higher
degree than in other texts constructed in the written medium.[2]
This
has
consequences for the nature of the rhetorical
organisation potential in this mode, because the dynamic
unfolding of both the
post itself, and the thread in which it appears, can be analysed from
the
perspective of such indicators of prospection
in the texts, i.e. the amount, type, and place in the texts where such
signals
of 'high involvement' appear. In attempting to characterise the context
of
situation of this mode of interaction in general, and this email group
in
particular in Don (2007) I propose a rhetorical
structure potential based on
the posts analysed from this email group.
2.3 Mode bleeding:
characteristics
of, or strategies with which posters signal high involvement and
relative
degree of interactivity
Email
list
interaction manifests other features of what I have previously called
'mode
bleeding'. This essentially refers to the fact that features of spoken
medium,
phonic channel interaction are noted to appear in what is fundamentally
a
written medium, graphic channel mode. For example, the use of gross
formatting
features, such as those mentioned above (lines of white space, overt
quotations
of sections of other contributions which can then be 'interrupted' at
the
appropriate transitional relevance place) in order to simulate
turn-taking in
conversation; but also such graphic compensators exemplified in Ex 2.1 above, such as: the ellipsis of
parts of clauses such as subjects, long run-on sentences joined by dots
evocative of the 'fluidity' which Halliday (1985) maintains is a
feature of the
various types of spoken medium, the written equivalents of
conversational
noises signalling indecision or 'dispreferred seconds' (such as hmmm, er,
um, uh,
heh,
etc), the appearance of trailing dots, and so on. HŒrd af Segerstad
(2002)
noted a similar set of features in her study of a variety of CMC
written
contexts.
Montgomery
(1986:
pp.108-111) outlines a number of features of spontaneous speech which
are also
relevant here, and which relate to the previous discussion. The first
of these
is pauses, especially within the turn - for example, the
significance of pauses
in the relationship between speech functions, such as offers and
invitations,
and rejections or refusals which are marked by pauses and various kinds
of
structural complexity. As hinted at in section 2.2 above, these signals
are
sometimes said to indicate 'dispreferred seconds' in conversation (see
for e.g.
Levinson. 1983: 307), and are reminiscent of the same features of Ex 2.1 discussed above. In these cases,
it seems as if the writer is 'expropriating the dialogic other'
(Goffman 1981:
45, note 28) by imagining a possible dispreferred second to come.
Another
indication of hesitancy or vagueness signalling the pause is perhaps
the
inclusion of 'trailing off' indicators (...) at the end of, or in the
middle of
sentences. In general in these texts, however, there are few 'ah's,
'erm's or 'um's, although text example 2.1
above, does show this feature.
2.3.1 The material context of
situation: more delicate description and the interface
While
the medium of
text creation in most CMC contexts must ultimately be recognised as
written,
each specific mode, or interface, also makes use of its technological
mediation
in construing a context of interaction that is more interactive than
normally
expectable in written texts. Even though computer technology now allows
messages
to be dictated, i.e. created in the spoken medium, the actual means of
production and transmission in CMC public modes are influenced by the
material
context of creation itself, or in the case of email, the fact that
immediate
feedback or reply (synchronicity) is not expected. This means that even
dictated messages are editable and would be transmitted as
if written. In the case of the corpus of texts used for this
study, and the group which is its focus, all the messages are known to
have
been created using a keyboard for their production[3].
In the
concluding
remarks of a study conducted by HŒrd af Segerstad (op cit), which
examined
features of four different modes of CMC, the following observations
were made:
The
present study
has shown that means of expression is the more important variable
because,
however we twist and turn, text-based CMC has to be written in order to
be
transmitted. The production conditions for text entry vary between the
modes
that have been investigated, and so does the level of synchronicity.
The more
synchronous the mode, the more time pressure is exercised on the speed
of
typing and transmission.
On the
other hand,
activity is the more important variable because of the situations in
which the
messages are sent: relationships between communicators, and goals of
interaction. It does matter whether communicators know each other, and
what the
nature of their relationship is. It also matters what they communicate
about,
whether it is to say hello or to complain.
This
means that mode or "means of expression"
is the fundamental constraint on the
nature of the interaction in any CMC interface, and that in turn,
'means of
expression' is variable depending on its relative synchronicity, or the
degree
of reflectivity/editability available. At the same time the
interpersonal
dimension ("activity") is
also said to be "the more important variable", and the awareness of
audience—the nature of contact/familiarity and power/status
relationships
either constructed or imagined between writer and reader(s)—influences
both the how
and the what of the contributions.
In
other words, the norms of the context of interaction.
2.3.1.1 Mode and BBS interaction
To
demonstrate that
mode needs to be even more delicately characterised in CMC in terms of
the
types of interaction that the interface, or the specific technological
mediation of the interaction affords, what follows are two
conversations
taken firstly, from a bulletin board service (BBS), and secondly, from
an
internet relay chat (IRC) channel. In the specific mode represented by
the
first example (2.2) below, the
actual
contributions are short, and do not quote the contributions of previous
participants, mainly because the interface is a message 'board' and
this means
that all the previous messages in the topic folder are permanently on
display
(server memory allowing). The interface also provides a means of
telling at a
glance how many responses to each contribution have been made, and to
which
specific contribution each message has been made. In this way the
interaction
as a synoptic text resembles synchronous 'chat' in some ways, although
posts
are separate files and have their own headers like email[4].
However, although participants may be online at the same time, and
contribute
in a highly involved manner with
respect to time taken to respond
(c.f. 3.2 below), this is not a requirement of this mode, and it is
essentially
an asynchronous means of
interacting.
In the case of the excerpt below, the contributions were actually made
over a
period of three days.
Example 2.2
(excerpt
from the "Love and Relationships" folder, Bamboo Net BBS, Fukuoka,
Japan, November 4-7, 1995)
S1:
1) What has love got to do with relationships?
S2:
2) Isn't love just one of the many relationships we
are
seeking by being here in Japan?
S1:
3) Gracious - how the man does boast....
S3:
4) It's getting nasty in here.... The very person
--S2--
has to show up here to smooth it
out!
S1:
5) Mmm yummy - being smoothed by --S2-- - what a
treat
-
5a) Can I be smoothed with
Maple Syrup?
S3:
6) Maple Syrup could be too sticky, though.
S1:
7) Nonsense! You just have to lick hard.....
S3:
8) Maple Syrup tastes always good with pancakes,
not
only itself....
8a) That's what --S2-- is looking for out there,
right,
--S2--?
S4:
9) You've discovered one of Canada's greatest
secret
uses of maple syrup. Bon Apetit!
9a) (and lick liberally!)
S5:
10) I'm going to Canada next month.
10a) How many people in
here would love to get
Canadian Maple Syrup and try out the secret?
S1:
11) Count me in...
S5:
12) Of course I will, Mr. Newly Wed.
12a) I hope Canadian Maple
Syrup will add some more
sweetness in your marriage
life.
Even
though this
conversation might seem at first glance to maintain some surface
resemblance to
the transcription of a spoken multilogue[5],
other features which Montgomery (1986) isolates as more typical of
spoken
interaction, do not seem to be represented in Ex
2.2
above. For example, there are no 'incomplete' sentences
(although there are grammatically ellipted elements), no actual
interruptions
or overlapping comments from other participants, few interjections or
'expressions of attention', such as 'mmmm', 'yeah' or 'that's right',
and only
one of what Montgomery (following Bernstein, op cit: 110) calls
'markers of
sympathetic circularity', where the speaker seeks the continued
attention of
the interlocutor by appealing to shared understanding, and which are
realized
by expressions such as 'you know', 'sort of' and 'and that' (8a). This would indicate, without other
markers, that this text was created in the written medium. However, the
very
inclusion of some of these features would tend to indicate a higher
value of involvement in these types
of texts, as
I am suggesting, and that furthermore, the high value of expectation
of reply that these interfaces allow, promotes the use
of such features.
Therefore,
it is
obvious that the interaction in Ex 2.2
was not carried out in the phonic channel, or that visual, immediate
contact
was not available, due to the absence of some obvious features of
'process
sharing', most particularly those pertaining to interruptions,
overlappings, or
incomplete or grammatically complex sentences mentioned above.
However,
in a 'real'
context of situation, of course, the headers and the computer interface
associated with these messages would form a significant area of
contextual
configuration at 1st order register, and thus the mode would need to be
described ultimately by reference to its technological mediation which
forms a
message's most significant area of semiotic meaning. If 2nd order
register,
however, is realised only by the metafunctional features of a text—as
an
indication of whether the text was originally produced (or 'created for
transmission') in a spoken or written medium—features of the
lexicogrammar such as thematic development, collocation, and lexical
cohesion
which realise textual meanings as a function of mode, should also be
available
for retrieval from a text from which such headers and other
technological
flagging have been removed. Thus, features of the lexicogrammar should
indicate
the nature of the original mode of text production, if
mode is viewed as entirely realised by textual meanings.
2.3.1.2 Mode and synchronous chat
In the
following
excerpt (Ex 2.3) of an IRC
conversation, the only editing performed on the original transcript was
analytic, i.e. the addition of labelling, which differs from that of Ex 2.2 above. For Ex
2.2, the headers were deleted from the original transcripts,
and
the contributions were cut and pasted onto the same page. In contrast
to both
email list and BBS forum interaction, IRC interaction is termed
'synchronous'
which indicates that contributors must be online at the same time in
order to
participate. However, as HŒrd af Segerstad (op cit) points out, "[IRC]
can never be fully synchronous as spoken face-to-face interaction,
because of
the time it takes to type contributions and that the receivers have no
means of
being aware that a contribution is being created before it is displayed
in its
entirety in the chat window." This observation is given adventitious
support in the excerpt which follows, since the topic of the
conversation ('lag'
between sending and receiving) relates to this same aspect of its mode.
Each
contribution in the excerpt below has been numbered for ease of
reference, and
the development of the exchanges has been labelled both by lettering in
bold, and by labelling in [square]
brackets after each contribution.
Example 2.3
1
nocares: Okay okay...so you have to
be on tomorrow at 9am? a-ii
[inq - eliciting] [loop to previous chat]
2
eldon > you are lagging bad
stephen b-vi/c-i [informing -
post-h comment to prev? - same
exchange complex]
3
extrared: not that early a-iii
[informing - R to prev chat - qualify]
4
extrared:
I was up until
5:30am here a-iv
[post-h of prev -
comment]
5
nocares: believe me I REALLY don't
care [starter] but I'm just
trying to keep the cognitive
dissonance to a bare minimum. a-v [acknowledging - F
to prev - ref]
6
extrared: and I will see a friend
soon who is coming on
shortly [post-head of previous
-
comment]
7
nocares: lag is good c-ii [acknowledging -
R to 2 - protest]
8
<extrared> to
<eldon>: PING 845164993 c-ii/d-I
[directing/behaving?]
9
nocares: yes, seems I am slow here b-vii/c-ii-I
[acknowledging
- F to 2 - ref]
10
eldon > got pinged by
extrared d-ii [informing
]
11
extrared: no pings back on either
of you d-iii
[informing]
12
nocares: Wow. Up early to bed
late...positively post-modern.a-v
[acknowledging
- F to 4 -
ref]
13
eldon > we dont exist! d-iv
[acknowledging
- F to 11 -ref]
14
extrared: nocares 62 secs d-v [informing]
15
extrared: eldon in laglag land d-v-i
[post-h of 14 -
comment]
16
nocares: What does that meane xtra?
d-vi
[eliciting - R/I to
14? - ret]
17
extrared: what ping
d-ii-i
[eliciting
- R/I to 10 - ret]
18
eldon > cant you read this?
d-ii-ii
[eliciting - R/I to 17 -
ret/mpr]
19
nocares: the pings are still
hunting through the internet? d-vii
[post-h of 16 - prompt?]
20
nocares: That's about how long I
take. <g> d-v-I
[acknowledging - F to 14]
21
extrared: a ping is the time it
takes for you to see someone's
typing to you d-vi-i
[informing - R to 16]
22
extrared: lol
d-v-ii
[acknowledging - F to 20 - endorse]
23
extrared: yes of course I can
d-ii-iii [informing - R
to 18 -
conf]
24
eldon > don't seem im
lagging too long then d-ii-iv
[acknowledging - F to 15 -
prot]
25
nocares: I can flippin' read!
d-ii-iii [informing - R
to 18
-
rej]
26
extrared: but it is the time it
takes to see what is typed d-ii-v
[acknowledging - F to 24 -
ref]
27
eldon > wakaranai d-ii-vi
[acknowledging - F to 26 -
prot]
28
nocares: We can test lag easily by
just typing periods in reply
to each other...
d-vii-ii [opening-
pre-head - starter]
[NB: same exchange complex: lag is still topic, even thought this might
be
classed as a structuring exchange]
29
nocares: READY?
d-vii-iii [opening- metas]
30
eldon > OK
d-vii-iv
[answering - acq ]
31
nocares: PERIOD ABOUT TO HIT d-vii-iv/e-i
[informing]
32
nocares: .
e-ii
[post-h of 31 - comment/command]
33
eldon > .
e-iii
[ R/I/F? to 32 - behave/receive?]
34
extrared: .
e-iv
35
extrared: .
e-v
36
eldon > .
e-vi
37
extrared: .
e-vii
38
eldon > .
e-viii
39
nocares: yeah the lag is bad! LOL
e-ix
[informing - obs]
40
extrared: .
e-x
41
nocares: .
e-xi
42
nocares: .
e-xii
43
nocares: .
e-xiii
44
extrared: lol see
e-xiv
[informing -obs]
45
eldon > whatniceverstaion e-xv [informing
- obs]
46
extrared: .
e-xvi
47
nocares: !
e-xvii [informing -
new behave, not R -
realised by new characters,
but same exchange complex]
48
nocares: )
e-xviii [acknowledging
- ref]
49
eldon > ..
e-xix
[acknowledging - ref]
50
nocares: #
e-xx
[acknowledging - ref]
51
nocares: ROFL
e-xxi [informing - obs]
52
extrared: ¨
e-xxii
53
extrared: ¢
e-xxiii
54
nocares: free associated
punctuation...neat...
e-xxiv
[informing - obs]
55
eldon > .
e-xxv
56
extrared: `
e-xxvi [informing -
new
behave]
57
eldon > & e-xxvii
[acknowledging - ref]
58
extrared: +
e-xxviii [acknowledging
-
ref]
59
eldon > at least is fast e-xxix [informing
- obs]
60
extrared: not too bad e-xxx [informing
- R to 59 - react]
61
eldon > ==
e-xxxi
[informing - new behave]
62
extrared: ====~~~~
e-xxxii
[acknowledging - R to 61 -
ref?]
63
eldon > you devil e-xxxiii
[acknowledging - F to 62 -
endorse]
In this
text, there
are three participants typing to each other at the same time. However,
as is
obvious from the content, the time taken for typed comments to actually
appear
on the screen after being sent sometimes 'lags', resulting in a
fragmented
exchange, with informing/eliciting and acknowledging/answering moves
appearing
out of sequence. The mode and its actual lack of synchronicity in this
instance, has also prompted the participants at one stage, to pare down
their
contributions to the basic minimum, and to use only non-verbal signs as
'actions' in order to signal that the channel is still open between
them.
One
feature of this
excerpt, is that despite its length, the topic is maintained
throughout,
leading to the analysis of the series of exchanges as an exchange
complex
such as that proposed by Hoey (1993). The notion of a sequence of
'exchange complexes' is also useful as a means of characterising the
organisation of the body of an email
post as a site of interaction between Addresser and projected audience.
The
nature of the field, and topic maintenance in general is also an
important feature for construing the
roles and relationships enacted in these contexts. A response move
which 'breaks frame' (Goffman) or 'changes planes' (Sinclair) for
example, is significant as
a strategy for maintaining power/distance and/or affiliation in email
list
practices in general and the specific community of practice under
investigation
in particular. By changing topic, propositions or positions are
effectively
silenced, or 'taken off the discussion table'. So-called out-of-frame
moves act to contribute to the formation of norms of
interaction over time, through valorising certain ideological positions
and
therefore linguistic behaviours, or by increasing the length of time
such topics
are entertained and discussed/responded to by other listmembers.
It is
obvious that
1st order register mode and the specific CMC interface used to
participate in
these communities of written interaction influences the nature of the how and what
of these types of contexts. The issue is to determine what
indicators there are in these types of text which show in what manner
the text
was actually created or produced as what now becomes an object of study
- as
data. What are the lexicogrammatic features of these texts and how do
they
specifically construe and realise their context of situation in the
matter of
registerial mode? In contexts such as IRC exemplified above, a variety
of
features is relatively easy to identify: the fragmentary or marked
sequencing
of Initiations and Responses; the short choppy contributions;
typographical
slips such as "What does that meane xtra?" (Ex
2.3:27), and "don't seem im lagging too long then" (Ex 2.3:35) which also shows elision of
subject; and the use of what HŒrd af Segerstad (op cit) terms logotypes such as J and abbreviations such as "ROFL" (Ex
2.3:62).
Asynchronous
modes
such as email in which texts may be edited, and which are therefore
longer and more
'involved' in this respect—and especially those where an Addressee or
respondant is
not the only one to read one's message—may rely more on interpersonal
elements of discourse to effect interactivity and indicate relative
involvement.
The question can be framed as 'What elements of usual spoken dialogue
have
'bled' into this specific mode of interaction in what ways and for what
purposes?' In order to characterise the mode, then, not only
textual meanings need to be taken into account, but also elements which
normally realise interpersonal and experiential meanings as well.
These aspects of the texture of these interactions will be addressed
again elsewhere.
2.3.2 Some limitations of medium
and
channel: the nature of audience
Since
interaction in
written asynchronous CMC modes is carried out wholly via text sent
through the
interfaces of a personal computer and software to a distant mail
server--where
the messages can be seen, read and responded to by anyone else having
access to
the same service--this means that, while participants may respond to
only one
other participant at a time, in practice, each person's message is
addressed to
a large unseen audience of readers. This is also a factor for defining
more delicately the mode of interaction--as a case of
many-to-many, rather than what might sometimes appear in text as
one-to-one.
Every text is therefore 'marked' to the extent that its production and
reception do not follow previously expectable correlations between
features of
the textual metafunction and that of the context of situation as a
whole. Because of this, contributions to such multilogues are not
necessarily sequential with respect to what 'initiates'
response(s). In the case of the headers in an email list, what
initiates a response is normally made
clear by
the subject line, read 'Re: <name-of-thread>' (whereas,
in the
altered
text 2.2,
such indicators no longer
exist as a textual feature). However, individual respondants may
subvert these means for tracing the history of response by changing
subject lines to suit their own topic content. These aspects of
email-list mode sometimes
become salient when investigation focusses on the means by which
participants indicate affiliation
and/or distance in these interactive contexts, where for example, one
may lose
'face' in front of an audience of unseen, and even unknown, others in
most
cases.
2.3.2.1 Who
writes
The writer of the
post, the 'real' material person who writes and sends messages, for
each text (as
distinct from the actual post
in context), I have sometimes labelled the Addresser. This label
functions to distinguish the interpellation of the writer
into
any text, and to serve as a reminder that these self-references are
textual orientations and are functions of each text as an analystic
concept.The label
poster identity, on the other hand, has been used in order
to distinguish these textual
personae from
the 'real' writers. While textual
persona, writer,
and poster identity
(posterID) are often used interchangeably in this study, the term
poster identity is meant to refer to the recognised and ratified list
identity who has interacted with other group members for some time with
the same email handle. This means that the "real" writer might in
theory participate as several different or separate poster identities.
The Addresser is thus responsible for the positioning in each
text--except in cases where words are attributed
to another 'voice': when the Addresser extra-vocalises in order to
distance
him/herself from the positions represented, or when for example, s/he
takes up
the role of intradiegetic
narrator
(Genette 1980). For these strategies of positioning, the Engagement
framework (part of Appraisal)
provides a means for investigating and identifying indicators of the
Addresser's
awareness of the possibility of overt response. Such indicators are
both functions of the textual and of the interpersonal. It is the
interplay of textual and interpersonal elements of these contexts in
constructing an interactive space and creating virtual relationships of
affiliation and status that is the primary focus of this study.
2.3.2.2 Who
reads and responds
In Figure 2.1 below, the multi-party nature of audience, all members of whom are potential respondants—labelled respondees—is represented. As indicated earlier, 'audience' may be referred to as Addressee(s) and Overhearers (Goffman 1981). The audience is comprised of other list members who are implied or construed in the Addresser's text as the 'ideal readers'. There may be actual audience members who are not construed as potential Respondee-Addressers, (for example, 'eavesdroppers', 'lurkers', 'Read Only Members': the 'real reader') but for the purposes of this study, such audience members who are not "constructed" in the text as potential Overhearers, do not exist as Participant(s) if they also never respond or 'self select' as respondants. The listserv software allows subscribers to remain subscribed, but is not able to indicate whether these subscribers are reading their mail or not.
'Addressee'
refers specifically to
those participants named or referred to (nominated) as recipients in
any post
and are usually therefore, the ideal
respondant(s) to a message or utterance by an Addresser (here
'ideal' does
not necessarily imply positive affiliation or alignment with the
positions of
the Addresser). They are usually nominated or referred to in ways which
are
recognised by list participants. However, it is possible that an
Overhearer
will 'recognise' themselves in a post by interpreting relevance, and in this way 'self-select'
as an Addressee.
Figure
2.1: typology of audience members in an email list
It is
sometimes difficult to ascribe to the text a specifiable
audience of Addressees: there are inscribed Addressees, named or hailed
in the creation of a post (via direct address or 2nd person reference),
as well as referred-to 'ideal
readers' who are named or alluded to in some way, as well as implied
'ideal
readers' who are not named, but whose resistant or aligned readership
is
alluded to via various means (see Martin & White 2005, Ch 3).
In Ex 2.2,
for example, S3 in line 4), and then later in lines 8) and 8a), uses a
vocative, calling on another specific participant (S2) to ratify his or
her
observations. These observations seem to be directed at S1, and at S1's
use of
S2 as a foil. In line 12), another participant (S5) calls S1 by an
epithet,
alluding to his marital status, and in such a way calls on an assumed
solidarity—at the same time appearing to mark an equal power
relationship
via reciprocal impoliteness strategies: S1 has responded to most of the
previous contributions by 'topic shifting', i.e. by making out-of-frame moves and by the use of
evaluative lexis (7: Nonsense!),
imperatives (11: Count me in!), and
exclamatives which
evaluate another person's contribution (3: How
the man does boast!).
For
these texts, the medium is still
'written', and channel still 'graphic', yet the product is more
interactive in
appearance than other texts produced at the matrix of these two
dimensions. So-called process-sharing is more evident in the text's
production than would be
usual given these two locations in interactive space: it is not
therefore a case
of more spoken or more written, but more or less interactive—which in
turn is generated by a proliferation (or contraction) of involvement
strategies.
As
already
discussed, these involvement strategies are easy to identify in
asynchronous
modes through observing features of formatting such as the trailing
dots mentioned
above, the insertion of contributions in sequence which simulates
turn-taking
in phonic channel interaction, and occasionally the use of spacing and
new
lines for new clause complexes, in addition to the use of what has come
to be
known as 'emoticons' or 'logotypes'. Patterning of these features may
be analysed as part of the 'norms of interaction' of a mailing list or
other
technological mediated mode of interaction, by reference to
institutionalised
orthographic means (see section 3.1 below). As well, as noted above,
written
features in Ex 2.2 such as
exclamatives (e.g. Gracious!, Nonsense!, Wow!,
hey,
etc) vocatives
(hailing people as if to catch their attention), use of more
spoken-type lexis
or noises such as 'mmmm' and 'yummy', a more face-to-face interactive
'stance'
such as relatively greater use of the second person pronoun, etc, are
also indicators of such extra interactivity being
'textualised'.
These
strategies for simulating the turn taking of normal f2f and phonic
channel
conversation serve to indicate what I am calling a more involved text, along three basic
dimensions of relative interactivity (summarised below 3.6). This in
turn is
related to both overt markers of simulated interactivity at the level
of form
or expression, as well as features of Engagement and Attitude[6]
at
the level of function and the discourse semantic 'content' in these
texts.
In the
following
sections these observations are discussed in more detail, with
reference to
several texts from mailing list interactive sequences, analysed and
re-presented. The three
dimensions of interactivity will be summarised at the end of section
3.6,
below.
3. Indicators of
Interactivity
using medium and channel
3.1 Transitional relevance places
in
email interaction
Its
medium and
channel means that mailing list discussion does not
favour
conditions where active process-sharing can be undertaken, and because
this is
the case, participants, in what appears to be a struggle to reproduce a
multilogue
comparable to
that of real time face to face (f2f) discussion, engage in various
means
through which features of the spoken medium can be used--most
significantly
through quoting parts of another's message to which they wish to make a
response. In terms of conversational exchange structure, or the
turn-taking
mechanism, quoting
helps to set up a 'transitional relevance
place' (TRP)
for the responses made to another's post, sometimes long after, in
temporal
terms, the post was originally sent. Because of this lack of 'real
time'
face-to-face (or 'ear-to-ear') cueing in asynchronous interactive modes
such as
email lists, resulting in a mode of interaction of low process sharing
relative
to speech, the notion of transitional relevance becomes important: each
post,
or message, must be re-contextualised
in some way. The mode of
interaction is also dependent on a technology which allows several
'conversations' to go on at the same time, and interaction
is 'deferred' in time and space. In recent theory on the nature of
cyberspace,
such technological mediation and its attendant difficulties and/or
freedoms
have been discussed in terms of the notion of absent
body in cyber-interaction. As Hasan (1985) might put it, the
physical
presence of the Addressee cannot impinge on the text-creating process.
However,
this does not necessarily mean that the body and its processes do not
impinge
at all on the text-creating process--otherwise the necessity for and
use of
co-positioning strategies, designed to elicit a response or
to signal affiliation, would not be so prevalent in these texts.
Interaction
in this mode usually develops list-specific means of creating or
indicating TRP's—such as quoting sections of previous posts one wishes
to
comment on, maintaining the subject line, naming and addressing
specific
posters one wishes to direct comments to, appending the whole of
previous posts
to the end of one's message, or, in the most 'involved' cases, relying
on
inter-textual references being understood by actively participating
listmembers.
3.2
Interactivity, time, and the notion of involvement
Because of the technological, material-context constraints outlined above, the term involvement has been used here to refer to a variety of features (or strategies) which are use to describe mode of interaction as more or less interactive. One of the scales for looking at a degree of relative involvement includes the use of a sub-dimension time taken to respond to contributions in CMC interactive texts, as well as number of contributions (posts) per day[7]. Herring et al (1998) used statistics derived from such features as a standard for contrasting the 'involvement' of male versus female posters in their study of email list interaction. The factor of time is also relevant to the nature of asynchronous communication. This is a mode which can be described in terms of Martin's (1992: 513) dimension oriented to writing, as 'reply likely', but when description is considered as a function of both channel and medium (what Martin op cit : 511 refers to as aural versus visual contact), its features locate email list interaction at the extremes of a table cross-classifying context according to whether there is none, one-way or two-way contact.
Taking
the factor of time into
account is
proposed as one way of analysing the mode of context of situation by
reference
to objective criteria at the level of 1st order register, by noting the
period of time elapsed between the sending of the initiating email and
the sending of the response teamed with the number of message generated
on any particular thread(topic) or specific contribution over a 24 hour
period. This would
represent
a general standard of comparison only, however, and more textually
salient
features such as misspellings, other evidence of hurried composition,
or
exophoric and endophoric reference intimating a shared contextual space
needs
to be seen as perhaps more indicative of this type of relative
"involvement" at an interpersonal level (2nd order), rather than a
material level (1st order).
Related
to these "2nd order" indicators, Goffman (1981: 211)
comments on spontaneous features of typewritten as opposed to
hand-written
texts, and makes the relation to speech in the following way:
Interestingly,
typing exhibits kinds of faults that are more commonly found in speech
than in
handwritten texts, perhaps because of the speed of production.. One
finds lots
of misspacing (the equivalent of speech influences), and the sort of
spelling
error that corresponds precisely to phonological disturbance - slips
which seem
much less prevalent in handwriting.
This
makes observations similar to Martin's (1992) system of degree
of self consciousness in writing
mentioned earlier (2.2), and these elements can be observed in
several studies of CMC where posters are noted not to bother editing,
or to
purposely 'leave in' typographical slips—given that the typist makes
them
in the first place. The matter of purposely inserting abbreviations and
shortened spelling to give the impression of haste is related to high
involvement of another kind, where interactants use this as a strategy for
signalling the shared context.
In the
case of email
posts, information in the header shows at what time
each message was sent[8]and
when any post which appears on the
public list is responded
to within hours, rather than days, this will tend to indicate
a greater
degree of on-line processing on the part of the Addressee-respondant ˆ Addresser. The essential element of this
variable is the time taken to respond,
not the time taken to receive a message--and although this may
certainly be a factor, it cannot be measured. Posters report writing
and sending a contribution to the public list, but become
anxious when no one responds. (A related phenomenon is the continued
anxiety over
the status of lurkers or read only members[9]
who are known to be subscribed, but do not post, and whose identity
therefore,
remains mysterious).
Anxieties
over non-response appears
related to the fact that real-time conversation is not deferred in time
within
the usual contexts for conversation which exist in western cultures.
Goffman
(1981: 26) makes the point that a wait of up to several days is not
unusual in
some aboriginal communities for example, but most westerners would find
such
time delay an indicator of complete non-involvement to the extent of
ignorance
on the part of their interlocutors. In email list interaction, however,
a wait
of up to several days for a reply or response is not always
unusual—although
it is remarkable to the extent that
such delayed responses are more likely to be marked explicitly with
verbalised
TRPs. By this I mean that, whereas subject line repetition and framing
vocatives such as "Carol wrote:" might suffice in posts which are
responses made within 24 hours or so, longer time lapses will often be
accompanied by explanations, such as the following:
Example 3.1
Date:
Fri, 9 Apr 1999 08:10:33 +1000
From:
John McK- < userid@email.AU>
Subject:
Learning on Netdynam
Folks
I have
been trying to steel myself to leap on to the Netdynam merrygoround for
a
couple of weeks now. As usual I have been trying to catch up first so
that I
don't say something that has already been said, or otherwise make an
idiot of
myself.
The
volume has been high of late with quite a few long posts, and the
repetition of
large blocks of text, making for more to skim over. But it is amazing
how much
energy a newbie can bring. I thought that Mars' (G'day Mars) expression
of
frustration was wonderful, so comprehensive and all-embracing:
>But
what am I getting? Nothing but bullshit. When I've >tried to
talk about
"lists" and "dynamics" I've gotten >"zip" by
way of topical response. I've gotten >critiqued. And judged.
I've been
directed to go read >up so I can speak lingo-ese. I've been
inundated with
>nasty commentaries. And nit-picky hostility just
>"because."
I've been toyed-with for amusement. My >every word has been
fine-tooth-combed for hidden >meaning. And my obviously-stated
meanings have
been >twisted to suit other people's agendas.
>**And*
I've been buried up to my eyeballs in >psychobabble by the
shovels-full
every time I turn >around.
A cry of
emotion from deep inside which certaily stood out, and pleaded for some
help.
Chuck, as I remember (glad you decided to stay, Chuck), said at this
stage some
months back:
"What
the fuck is going on here?"
THAT
certainly stood out, too, and also earned some responses. Both seem to
express
a bewilderment at what is going on and whether they are getting/will
get
anything out of being here.
[..snip..]
Therefore
such
features of the actual textuality (2nd order register) of the posts can
be
considered realisations of the material 1st order register or mediation
of
interaction, and hence as contributing to a scale in which relative involvement can be viewed as a function
of mode. This is in slight contrast to the concept of 'involvement' as
an
indicator of contact/familiarity in the systemic functional linguistics
framework, although the two are related (see for example Poynton 1985,
and
section 3.6.II.ii below). My contention is that because mode both
constrains
and enables the various meanings that can be made in any text,
interpersonal
and experiential meanings are implicated in indicating relative
involvement.
Furthermore, because of the relatively higher degree of interactivity
that this
specific mode of interaction allows and encourages—despite and because
of
the lack of space-time synchronicity—strategies for realising
interpersonal meanings 'bleed' into the texts in ways that generally
are seen
to be indicators of contact: involvement. It is not suggested that the
technological mode is the cause of
the appearance of these features, since contributions in this mode may
display
none of these interactive features in the textuality of the posts, and
may even
be constructed of a combination of several other recognisable genres in
some
cases. What is suggested is that users of this mode attempt to simulate
features common to the spoken mode, for a number of interpersonal
reasons
already touched upon, and in doing so, tend to co-opt some of the means
of
constructing a higher level of involvement in these texts, as well as
constructing, via the graphic channel, and in ways not available in the
spoken
mode, means for indicating a degree of interactivity (cf below, 3.3.1
and 3.6).
3.2.1 Implications of
technological
mediation, and the material context of situation
With
most written language,
writers and readers are
not in immediate contact, although writers will probably have some
conception
of who their audience will be. This is unlike mailing list interaction
in that
messages are potentially going to be read by all those subscribed to
the list,
many of whom one has never met and is unlikely to meet—or even, in some
cases, ever know anything about. In this respect, sending messages to a
public
list is akin to publishing a newsletter, apart from the 'reply likely'
aspect
of this mode. This usually means that one hopes that one's contribution
will
elicit some form of overt response, preferably supportive.
Traditionally,
letter-writers will have some idea of recipients' background and their
'material situation' beyond the material artefact that the
letter represents. Moreover, personal letters are generally penned for
one-to-one consumption, whereas this is not necessarily the case with
mailing
lists--messages of 'affinity' are the exception rather than the norm on
some of
the more academic lists, or those whose field of interaction is more
closely
associated with 'information exchange' (rather than for example, group
dynamics, which the
list Netdynam has as its focus). In the case of the typical email list,
the
interaction is better described as a case of one-to-many, or
many-to-many
('multilogue'), which in itself distinguishes this form of writing from
previous graphic channel/written medium 'interaction'.
Although
all CMC
(computer mediated communication) such as the email lists described
here, BBS servers, online chat
rooms and the like, may be objectively described as that of sitting in
front
of a monitor and (usually) typing one's thoughts onto the screen via a
keyboard, the user's interface[10]
and system set up means that sending of messages may either have been
done 'online', or (in the 1990's especially) after having connected
through a telephone line and
a modem of whatever kind to a distant computer (a server which
distributes the
messages using software specific to the specific mode). Nowadays it is
common to be connected permanently via local area networks (LAN),
cable, or broadband wireless. In any
case, interaction occurs in front of a screen, whether it is SMS
text-messaging, webchat, or email being written.
Given
that the mode of interaction is allowed by technological
mediation—part of the material context of situation—then features
of this materiality need to be referenced in order to more delicately
characterise the context of situation. In some email lists, for
example,
attachments and html are allowed, whereas in others, the list
administrator may
prevent this, preferring to aim (for a variety of reasons) for the
lowest common
denominator, or widest method of distribution, and the interaction will
therefore be wholly text-based.
In the list which forms the basis for this study, as well as many others from the same era, html and attachments were not transmitted. My reasons for concentrating on such lists are both historical and linguistic: these lists began and continue to negotiate their 'norms of interaction' using ASCII only, and this then results in a corpus of texts in which many variables of meaning-making are no longer redundant. In other words, there are fewer avenues where meanings redound on each by being replicated in a variety of modes, such as colour, font type, font size, tabulation, diagrams and other graphic means usually available in other written modes, and certainly the meanings made via phonic prosody and spatial gesture are unavailable in asynchronous ASCII. Actual interactivity is conducted in written discourse—thus providing an avenue for examining interaction, with its positioning strategies, identity maintenance, and ideological value systems, in a written form halfway between the monologic and dialogic, and pared down to its bare essentials. It also allows an investigation of the actual dynamics of 'projecting into dialogue' outlined in Hoey 2001, as well as checking the nature of the actual responses to (quoted sections of) contributions in this mode.
3.2.2 Simulating interactivity
One of the most obvious ways in which the dialogic "interactive" mode can be simulated in email, takes the form of formatting in which the response to a previous post(s) is constructed as a series of turns in which Addresser-respondees insert their responses between stretches of previous texts, thus evoking a relatively interactive context intended to simulate conversation—and in this manner a more 'dialogic' or 'interactive' text overall (e.g. TEXT 1, reproduced in part as Ex 3.4 below). At the other end of the spectrum, the only vestige of the 'initiating' or responded-to post, may be the subject line. Another common way to 'recontextualise' the contribution is the rather formal method of appending the entire previous post (or thread) to the end of the responding message. Participants adopting this style of interaction signal an attitude of uninvolvement: it entails an assumption that audience members may not be 'reading along', and that they may need the whole history of the thread in order to retrieve the context of the response itself.
In
the example of this "post-appended" style reproduced below, the very
lack of formatting which might introduce or 'frame' the new material of
the contribution I argue may act to indicate high involvement. This
seems to be a response that has been made without any 'reflection' -
that is, without any editing or additon of re-contextualising clues -
it opens without any preamble, responding to a previous email almost in
the
assumption that it requires no recontextualisation - although the
responded-to post is appended at the bottom as framing element. In the
body of this post, only one lexical element (aggression),
and one interpersonal
element (it's not funny)
from
the appended post, is picked up in the response:
Example 3.2
Date:
Sun, 3 Feb 2002 04:19:09 -0800
From:
harry <
harry@email >
Subject:
Re: Excuse me but I couldn't resist!
Aggression?
poll after poll show tit for tat, more than that, response is what the
public
hankers for, thinks is right & just. Aggression is key.
Aggression is cool.
Bomb *them* and let god sort em out.
You're
right, sandra, it's not funny.
And yet
using the innocence of small children as a rouge is a stock device of
humor.
Violence is a stock device. Surprise, too.
It seems
to work at about stage one-two of Kohlberg's morality stages or
whatever, e.g.
pre-adolescent socializing!
Since
everyone went through those stages incorporating "other" into their
worldview, we've mostly experienced it and can respond from it very
easily,
which, as I say, the American public seems to want to do.
That's
not funny.
Little
kids w/ eyes to blow something to smithereens -- that's normal!
sandra < sandra@email
> wrote:
>Dan,
unsurprisingly, I don't find this at all funny.
>
>Starting
from here:
on
2/2/02 9:14 PM, D- M H- at < userid@email > wrote:
>
>>
>>d."
>>
>>You
see, I don't think the problem is that the >>individual
called Osama bin
Laden doesn't know how to >>love people.
>>d
>I
detect a considerable amount of aggression, you could >call it
hate, in that
punchline. I don't think bin >Laden's the only one with an
emotional
problem.
>Sandra
(appendix
A: TEXT 3 "the post-appended" style)
Whatever
the
intention of writer-respondants in formatting their posts by appending
the whole previous contribution—perhaps signaling their high
involvement in
the conversation to the extent that they forget, or do not bother to
delete
extraneous text before sending, or that they do not want to 'interrupt'
the
previous post—the resultant text appears
less interactive, more monologic, and therefore less involved:
moreover, most 'involved'
readers would not generally re-read an appended text, having already
read it previously and recently.
Those posts which can be said to display the least amount of overt interactivity in this sense, instead rely on the intertextual knowledge of interlocutors and the presuppositions known to be shared in the social practices of the group so addressed. Posts displaying these styles of formatting may also act to signal higher values of construed 'involvement', in the sense I am using the term here. Such involvement might be demonstrated through concurrent evidence of certain Engagement values (e.g. monogloss, such as directives), use of mode bleeding (e.g. vocatives, exclamations), and other means of signalling [contact: familiarity] (e.g. in-group jargon or abbreviations, minor clauses) for example. Those posts which do not even append the initiating message to the end of the post, and hence do not use overt framing at all, have been labelled "non-indicative" style (or: "I don't need to indicate relevance, you find it") style.
This
style of post, illustrated below, can still be identified as
overtly
responding to another contribution(s). In this example, the evidence
for its response status is the use of (presuming) reference to
the hate in the
opening
statement. At the same time, the contribution to which it
responds is nowhere overtly
referenced, either by naming,
referring to an Addressee, or by any quoting of the post(s)
to which it responds. Its coherence as a contribution to the
conversaton depends entirely on an assumption regarding the involvement of the
readers in that conversation, as there are no overt framing elements
used:
Example 3.3
Date:
Mon, 4 Feb 2002 09:14:19 +1100
From:
Rob W- < rob@email >
Subject:
Why the joke isn't funny
It ain't
the hate.
If jokes
weren't largely about aggression,
why call
it a "punchline"? It's the lack of wit - where wit is partly in the
structure of the joke, partly in the parting of the veil at the end of
the joke
to reveal, or better, imply, the true nature of the hate.
I don't
think the joke's about hating Osama. It doesn't argue his hatefulness
or even
assert it - it's just assumed from the beginning of the joke. Try
substituting
Hitler, Arafat or Farrakhan for Osama and see how much the joke is
changed.
[snipped]
(appendix
A: excerpt from TEXT 4: "I don't need to indicate relevance" style).
In contrast, posts which display the 3rd type of low involvement mentioned earlier, in which a part or the whole of the post is appended at the end of the response (represented by TEXT 3, appendix A, Ex 3.2 above), are more generally found in lists where conversational interaction is not part of the list 'aura' or norms. Academic lists are more likely to function in this way, where a post eliciting a response functions genuinely as an Initiating-type post, in that it does not link to, or overtly refer to any previous posts onlist. Responses are generated mostly by these Initiating posts, rather than the responses to response-posts themselves. What this means is that a diagram of low involvement interaction (relying fundamentally on indicators of formatting) for such a list overall would resemble a shuttlecock, with a central node having many responses. In contrast, a relatively more dialogic, involved interaction would resemble a chain, or tree in form (c.f. Ekeblad, 1998, 1999). Figure 3.1 below shows diagrammatically the contrast between these types of dynamic.
Whereas
academic or information lists rarely change topic or fail to
incorporate the whole content of previous messages in the thread
initiated by a
'new' post, (represented here by arrows pointing back to messages which
are
included in each post), social /discussion lists tend to respond to
each
selected post in turn, sometimes responding to, or referring to several
posts
at once, by means of short quotations or reference to the writer(s),
and the
topic tends to branch in a variety of directions. This is a
characteristic of
the list such as the one investigated here, one which seems to engender
a
'written speech community'. In the case of academic or
information-based lists,
once the topic has been exhausted, the list may fall silent for some
time. In
the case of discussion lists, however, and certainly on Netdynam,
'silence'
onlist has often resulted in subsequent reference to this lack of
posts. (The
next section (3.3) will discuss these features with reference to the
example
texts in appendix A)
Figure 3.1: Diagrammatic representation
of interaction on 2 types of lists: academic and social
3.2.3
Relevance, framing, and posts as 'response' or 'reply'
As was
pointed out
above, contributors may choose to simulate the turn-taking of phonic
channel
interaction by means of inserting stretches of text from (a) prior
contribution(s) into the post they write. In this manner, such overt 'extra-vocalising' quotations serve as reframing moves, indicating to the
audience what it is they are responding to. In this sense, they set up
ongoing
Transitional Relevance Places (TRPs) in the body of the post. If a
Response is
to be classed as a Reply (Goffman
1981), and hence as addressing
itself to the propositional content or positioning in a previous post,
some
type of relevance needs to be indicated, and this is one of the means
of
indicating relevance which email listmembers generally employ. Appendix
C reproduces
example posts representing these senses of Response and Reply[11].
In
deciding for
analytic purposes whether a post responding to another contribution is
also a
Reply in this sense, the nature of the "rhetorical exchange
structure" of the text is taken into account. This is determined mainly
through
an analysis of the positioning[12]
in the original responded-to text, and whether this positioning is
taken up in the response as
arguable,
or not. A Challenge is thus an indicator of a Response in the broad
sense, but not necessarily a Reply: it breaks the exchange and forms an
exchange boundary,
even though the ostensible topic of the thread or transaction may be
maintained. In this case, the whole post may be comprised of an exchange complex (Hoey 1993) in its own
right, yet not expand the argument.
A
refutation or rejection, however, because it takes up the positioning
and
argues with it, is classed as a Reply. This means that, if the body of
a post
can be conceived of as an exchange
complex, this in turn can be comprised of a series of rhetorical units each of which may be
classed as turns or move
complexes dependent on the internal development of positions,
and the identification of re-framing signals and phase boundary
conditions.
[These
points are argued again and set out in detail elsewhere: see Don 2007
and Don 2006]
3.3 Styles of response: Simulated
or
'overt' interactivity
The
"overtly interactive" style of post is characterised in Appendix A:
TEXT1 introduced above, and excerpted in Ex
3.4 below. The means by which the Addresser overtly simulates
the interactivity
of dialogue is demonstrated by the way in which the Addressee's earlier
contribution is 'interrupted', or selected for turn and TRPs (each such
'turn'
in the text has been numbered so that later reference to some of its
features
may be made). In this sense, the exchanges themselves go on within
the boundaries of the post, with the Addresser-respondee in this case,
selecting for turns. However, in a more general sense, the
contributions, as
posts, are indeed turn-free
in most email lists—posts may be quite long,
and while being composed, have no threat of interruption.
One
of
the features of the interface used to read these messages on my
computer and
mailing client (interface) involves the automatic addition of carats (
'>' )
in front of lines or sections of quoted material from previous posts,
and this
feature appears in appendix A: TEXT 1 (c.f. also Ex
3.2 above). In some email clients, these may be rendered as
large colons, or initials, to signify its origin in a previous post. In
other
mailers which don't have this feature, contextual clues may be all that
is
available (see for example Appendix C: text8).
3.3.1 The overtly interactive style
This
style of
response is one in which overt interactivity is signalled by the actual
formatting
used. In this sense, the text-producer has used a text-based rhetorical
device
to enhance the appearance of interactivity, while in actual fact, the
level of
interactivity allowed by the
technology is no
different from any other posts sent to the list, and in
which
such formatting has not
been used. This type of posts excerpts and quotes stretches of a
previous post and inserts new commentary after each excerpt, thus
intimating a dialogic environment. Such strategies then,
should
be seen as
contributing to the tenor of the text, rather than classed as a
function of the
mode per se.
[The construction of
tenor in email interaction, and especially the ways in which Addressers
indicate their orientation to, and construal of their projected
audience, has been investigated using application of the Appraisal
framework,
and takes into account the resources of Engagement (Don 2007) in order
to assess the occurrence of implied or invoked
Attitude.] Meanwhile, the technology allows quick responses to be made
and
stretches of text to be inserted into other contributions and
automatically
signalled. This means that the use or manipulation of such features in
order to
construe a more or less 'involved' style needs to be traced to the mode
of
interaction which constrains and allows meanings to be made at the
level of
tenor.
3.3.2 The four fundamental styles
of
simulated interactivity
Appendix A shows
examples of the 4 fundamental styles of (non)simulated interactivity
along
Dimension II: more dialogic §ˆ more
monologic, which is
summarised
here, and described in more detail in section 3.6 below:
¬ The
"simulated
turn-taking" style: more 'involved', via overt interactivity
¬ The
"relevance-in"
style
¬ The
"post-appended" (post that motivated me) style.
¬ The
"non-indicated" (I don't need to indicate relevance - you find it) style
3.4 Lexical density and the
degree of
writtenness - spokenness
One of
the main
indicators of 'relative spokenness' in the literature is that of
lexical
density: the ratio of 'content', or lexically 'full' words (as distinct
from
'function' words) to all lexical items in a text. This feature of texts
is
generally linked to the mode, that is, the channel and medium of a
text's
original production. Lexical density is found to vary according to
medium in a
probability relationship, and according to Ure's (1971) work, Halliday
(1985),
and Stubbs (1996, 2001), a (relatively) lower lexical density is a
feature of
spoken text. A calculation of lexical density in the case of these
texts
reveals a mean percentage of 38 for the texts overall, and a mean of
3.5 per
clause, and this locates these texts in the middle of a typical
continuum of
densities calculated for samples of speech and writing in work cited
above.
Therefore, while it may be easy to determine that these texts do not
realise a
spoken context of situation in the matter of medium, it does point to
text-type
which is weighted toward that of spoken multilogue.
In a
study
undertaken by Yates (1996) for example, it was found that, within his
selected
data, a comparison between three modes of interaction: i. CMC, ii.
'written', and iii. 'spoken' corpora;
revealed that along the dimensions type/token ratio, lexical density,
and modality,
his CMC data was comparable or closer to speech than to writing. In the
case of
the use of modal auxiliaries, for example, he found that in CMC, the
frequency
was higher than in speech or
writing
(op cit: 44).
While
it would be
enticing to draw conclusions regarding the reasons for all these
findings, such conclusions would be based on intuitive and experiential
knowledge only. That being said, however, from my experience it seems
that
people who communicate in a computer-mediated environment find it
necessary to
make their strategies for being 'polite', and their need to express
affiliation, power or distance attitudes much more explicit in such a
medium
than they would need to do in normal conversational settings—unless
they
are deliberately aiming to create conflict for strategic interactive
purposes,
as discussed in section 4 below. This could be due in part to the
perception
that bare assertions appear 'abrupt' in contexts where other gestural
cues are
unavailable for helping to dis-ambiguate meanings. On the other hand,
ambiguity and vagueness of reference in evaluative
statements and ideologically contested arguments may act both to mark
phase
boundaries in textual organisation, and to introduce evaluative
positionings
which are thereby difficult to reject or resist.
In the
next section,
some implications of these interpersonal aspects are briefly addressed,
and in
Section 4 below, the nature of contact-affiliation, power-distance, and
affective involvement, are discussed from a perspective which draws on
a
Gricean notion of co-operativity. The nature of positioning strategies
is again
addressed in another
text from the perspective of Appraisal.
3.5 Affiliation, status, norms
and
politeness
One of
the main
contentions is that the technological mediation, or the 1st order
register mode of interaction in these types of written speech
community,
constrains and is realised by texts—at the level of 2nd order
register—that depend a great deal on what the Appraisal framework
theorises
under Engagement (c.f. section 2.2, and Martin & White 2005, Ch
3). These texts tend to
be structured by more overt signals functioning as 'framing moves'
indicating
to the audience how the text is to be read, or perhaps mis-read, and
these
are realised by both textual (interactive plane: as prospection and
encapsulation, e.g. Sinclair 1993) and interpersonal metafunctional
resources (see
for example Francis 1994 on discourse labelling). Furthermore, in many
cases, framing moves realise some of the norms, or boundaries, of
the speech community in action, by referring to assumed knowledge and
by sometimes
implicating role relationships within the group.
Without
the physical presence of
even the voice of interlocutors and
interactants in such interaction—of such cues as intonation, gaze and
other visual signs—this type of interaction is likely to be fraught
with
misunderstandings which in turn may engender a need to check whether
contributions have been acceptable to readers. Furthermore, the
rhetorical
structuring of the text in this context has as much to do with the
construal of
interpersonal positioning as with coherence and the construction of
relevance.
The interrelationship of these aspects of text construction is the
focus of the rest of the work in this study.
3.5.1 Conventional Disagreement:
Framing Positions
In TEXT1 of
appendix A, an excerpt of which appears below (Ex.3.4),
the contentious tenor of the conversation is in part
a function of the relative lack of modality evidenced in the replies
made, as
well as the proliferation of first and second person pronouns which
tend to
underline the interactive nature of the texture, while at the same time
add to
its air of conflict. However, each turn by the Addresser, Stan (labelled [S#] in the example
below), does orient towards a
specific position or implied elicitation in the previous (constructed)
turn. In
this way, the post does appear to engage with all of the points raised
by the
interlocutor Terry, even if it is
to
refute the argument or resist the positioning:
Example 3.4
[tvs72.11]
Date:
Mon, 10 May 1999 19:18:55 -0700
From:
spr@email
Subject: Re: friction, bs
meter
[i]Terry,
[S1]
Your post pretty much confirms what I've been saying. The subject
heading is
"friction, bs meter" yet you say nothing about "bs meter"
-- it just hangs there in the title like a forgotten angry appendage.
Moreover,
you somehow manage to post a palpably angry response to me and still
deny you
have any feelings about me or what I've written. Amazing.
[T2]
>You took issue, Stan, with my occasional practice, early in the
list's
history, of expressing my ideas in free verse, instead of prose. As
though I
were violating some discourse rule.
[S3] The
"rule" I had in mind was, and is, a personal value judgment: that
discussants should strive for clarity, not obscurity. With your verse,
and
later often with your prose, you seem to opt for the latter. I find
this habit
of yours frustrating and seemingly easy to remedy if you only chose to
do so,
thus I comment on it from time to time. If you'd like to argue that my
values
are off-base my expression of them pisses you off you do strive for
clarity but
regretfully miss the mark you *were* clear, and my reading is faulty etc
[S3a]
well, I'm all ears.
[T4]
>We were in mild contention over the con/aff issue. (I didn't
feel very
involved in that; I thought it was somebody else's issue, mostly.)
Again, it
seemed to me that you were attempting to enforce a particular model of
"how
communication should be" on the list.
[S5]
Guilty as charged. I wanted NetDynam to discuss net dynamics, not
force-fit a
breezy notion of "community" by promoting gossipy
"affinity" posts. Both camps "attempted to enforce" a
particular model of how communication should be on the list. Again, the
difference is, I cop to it and you don't.
[snipped]
(appendix
A: excerpt from TEXT1: the "simulated interactive" style)
Many of
these turns (as Replies) begin with a
minor clause followed by a fullstop, for example, [S5] Guilty
as charged; [S7] Yes,
exactly; and [S9] As you like;
which function as short orienting responses to the previous 'turn',
which, in
these examples, realise 'acknowledgement' moves. After these orienting
acknowledging moves,
the Addresser-respondant develops his point in the rest fo the
paragraph, or turn. Most turns by the Addresser come
to a conclusion with a clause complex which refers to his interlocutor:
either with the second person pronoun and a comment on his behaviour,
or via an
imperative or an interrogative. The final clause complex,
Maybe this'll spice it up? (SE31-
see Ex 3.5 below), in the
last
turn [S13], although grammatically a declarative, functions as a
rhetorical
question directed at the interlocutor, Terry, as well as the audience
in
general by having referred to our baF tendencies
in the previous clause complex (30)—a
reference to traits of the group:
Example 3.5
29. If it
interests the
group to pursue it, I'm curious how others
have perceived our
exchanges. 30. I
note that since ND
has no gators to fight, our
baF tendencies
lie dormant and no one
has had much to say
lately.
31. Maybe this'll
spice it up? (tvs72.11:29-31) [13]
In this
example, our
baF tendencies is distinct from the our exchanges
of the previous clause complex (SE29)—which
refers
to the Addresser-Addressee interaction. At the same time, sentence 29 also functions as a type of
elicitation regarding the perceptions of others: I'm
curious how others have perceived our exchanges. Turn [S13]
thus relies on the intertextual knowledge of the audience in the
context of a
final turn which is also oriented to these Overhearers as ratifiers and
potential affiliates. This is underlined by its relatively higher
number of
references to generic social actors whose referents are listmembers,
together
with such in-group terms as 'gators',
and 'baF'. These
features are indicators of simulated interactivity, or rather,
'involvement',
in part because they are strategies designed to make use of shared
assumptions
and knowledge as a way of calling on audience affiliation.
Thus,
the formatting
of the whole post in the simulated
interactive
style, allows such a series of positioning strategies to be
accomplished. In the other three styles outlined previously, such a
dialogic
addressing of each point in a previous post would need to be
re-contextualised
by explanation. Note therefore, that the four styles of formatting, by
themselves, do not categorise any post as 'involved' or not, but they
allow or constrain various styles of interaction. Similarly, any
feature or strategy indicating 'involvement', by itself does not label
a whole
post or the list interaction as a whole. It is rather that a variety of
features evident in mailing list interaction, which I am labelling
'involvement
strategies' for convenience, serve as indicators of the nature of the
rhetorical context of situation. In this sense, one strategy does not
cancel
out the other, but it can be seen for example that the strategy of
formatting
a response in this overtly dialogic style does therefore allow a
relatively
greater degree of simulated dialogue in the text itself.
3.6 The three dimensions of
relative
interactivity: a summary
Up
till this point, discussion has centred on the notion of registerial
mode in Computer Mediated Communication with particular reference to
the
concept of 'written speech community' or a 'community of practice'
(Eckert
& McConnell-Ginet 1998) formed in the interaction
technologically mediated
by email list subscription and participation. In the course of this
discussion,
I have made reference to a number of different features and functions
of this
mode of interaction which operate to both enable and constrain the
meanings
which can be made by interactants. What follows is a summary of three
fundamental dimensions of relative interactivity which I propose as a
means for
more delicately characterising the nature of this interaction in any
transaction (or set of exchanges/exchange complexes) in any email list
interaction:
DIMENSION I:
Responses x Time
This
dimension is a function of
the time taken for a response to any previous message to be sent to the
list. Under this
dimension, a high degree of interactivity allowed by technological
mediation at
the level of 1st order register, may be realised in features of the
texture of a text,
and this is regarded as influenced by time taken to respond, speed, or
spontaneity of
composition, what has also been termed degree of "online processing".
This in turn, may indicate relative 'involvement' in the on-going
discussion. For example, constraints and allowances of the mode (1st
order
register) would be directly construed by a relative lack of so-called
'reflectivity' which is usually cited as a feature of the written
medium (2nd
order register). In this sense, posts displaying features of haste in this
mode of interaction might not show evidence of the same 'lack of
reflectivity'
in other written/graphic modes.
Gross
indicators (see below), would be useful for correlative purposes when
analysing list
interaction as a whole—for example, one list's posts over a period of
time, compared with that of another list, or compared with another
thread—or in comparing the relative 'involvement' of specific posters
as
a function of other dimensions listed below. This means, for example,
that
features listed under ii. below as 'evidence of haste' would need to be
considered as a function of what is 'usual' or 'normal' for a
particular poster viewed
against the background of what is usual/normal for the list interaction
(norms) over a
certain period.
DIMENSION I features may be summarised as follows:
i.
Gross indicators of
higher relative 'involvement' in the
interaction:
¬ Absolute
time taken to respond to the original message, as a function of the
time and
date on each of the post-response headers.
¬ Length of
the response in number of words.
¬ Number of
responses to the original post/to the thread or topic, in any 24 hour
period,
by any one contributor, and in comparison to all contributions during
that
period.
ii.
Textual indicators of a
more reflective § ˆ
more dynamic compositional approach:
¬
Lexical
density - higher §
ˆ
lower
¬ Evidence
of haste—typographical errors, spelling errors, long run-on sentences
(grammatical complexity), moodless clauses, abbreviations, etc
DIMENSION II: dialogic § ˆ monologic
Under
this
dimension, indicators of overt textual strategies to simulate
turn-taking, or
the nature of face-to-face and other immediate feedback interaction are
noted.
Such strategies are not limited by the mode of interaction—any of these
features are possible in any graphic channel, written medium text: it
is
proposed that the prevalence of these features is an indication of
interactants' need to compensate for lack of the immediate feedback and
correction provided by normal spoken interaction in the construction of
tenor.
i.
Overall formatting of response-posts:
a)
The
Simulated turn-taking style: appears more 'interactive' via
overt dialogic formatting. Related to the idea of
interruption in
speech, this style selects for TRPs through another's previous
contribution,
simulating turn-taking in order to suggest relative interactivity, and
'involvement' in the ongoing conversation.
b)
The
"Relevance-In" style: a piece of a previous contribution is
quoted, after which a response is appended. This
response may be short,
or a long monologue:
- the
contribution quotes that part of a
previous contribution
which the respondee selects as encapsulating the original
Addresser's message/point
- the
quote references the point which
the respondee wishes to
address/comment on/ answer/ refute, etc (oriented to the
original poster)
- the
quote references the part which the
respondee needs to
make sense of for the
audience, to clarify, explain, etc
(oriented to the
Overhearers)
c)
The
"post-that-motivated-me" style: the response is written at
the beginning of the body of the post, after which
a section of the
post, or more usually, the whole original post is appended. Appears to
signal
that the poster does not feel 'involved' to the extent that s/he needs
to
simulate or attempt to interact with the previous words. Does feel the
need to
include the previous post for reference purposes. The result is a less
'interactive' texture.
d)
The
"non-indicated" (I-don't-need-to-indicate-relevance) style: in this
case, no
quotation of responded-to message is made. The
relevance is signalled by the subject line, and/or the content itself.
In this
case, there is less simulated
dialogic interactivity, but relative involvement (signalled by factors
along
other dimensions) may be higher.
ii. Strategies
of Mode-bleeding:
These
are again
related to the constraints placed on interactants in this mode, in
constructing
or indicating tenor relationships—such as power-distance-status, value
system
(solidarity-affiliation), contact-familiarity, affectual involvement,
and
positioning in general. This results in features such as the following
(loosely
grouped according to form, function or a combination of both)—features
which do not normally appear in written text due to its more
'reflective' more
edited qualities. Their actual contextual function
in interaction, crosses the categories listed below proposed for this
dimension. These are grouped here for convenience, according to a
variety of
features:
-
Signals of
hesitancy or pausing: er, um, hmm,
carriage returns
(lines of white space), trailing dots..., etc.
-
Signals of
'non-verbal surges', usually of Affect: huh?,
hnnh!,
heheh, tsk!,
and capitalisation to suggest YELLING, etc.
-
Signals
appended to moves as reading instructions, e.g. joking,
irony, jibing, sadness (+ expectation of
mis-reading): L,
J,
^_^,
<g>, <grin>,
etc, called logotypes by HŒrd af
Segerstad (op cit).
-
Use of
'textual-jargon' and 'cyberslang', abbreviations,
acronyms or 'initialisms', etc: wrt,
btw, otoh,
imho, LOL, rtfm,
gimme, lemme,
spose, etc
-
'traditional
involvement': use of group slang, in-group
references; prevalence of direct addressing of
interlocutors and use of
vocatives to 'hail' members of the audience (degree of Addressivity);
use of here and now referential terms such as here,
this, you,
my-; prevalence of interrogatives
and
rhetorical questions, directives (cf also Dimension III below), answers
to
polarity questions yeah, No, etc; and use of metaphors of phonic
channel interaction - hear, voice, say,
audience, etc.
DIMENSION III:
dialogistic §-ˆ monologistic
This is
indicated by
a (non) proliferation of Engagement values and the construction of a
more
heteroglossic/monoglossic 'space'. This differs from the previous two
Dimensions I and II, in that this dimension is centred on the discourse
semantic (or 'content plane'), whereas the previous dimensions were
concerned
with strategies for simulating a more interactive texture by using
features of
spoken texts not normally found in the written form ('expression
plane').
Examples of features which could be used in both spoken or written text
in
order to construct a more/less open, audience-aware interpersonal space:
-
re-framing
devices to indicate relevance of matter to come, prospection and
projection,
eg: projecting clauses such as Kaylene
wrote, Stan sez;
reference loops
such as Stan mentioned his bike the other
day, which introduce related commentary; direct quotations of
other
contributors (extra-vocalisation, related to Dimension II, i/ above);
-
use of
in/direct attribution, quoting of outside 'extra-textual' matter, etc;
references to 'understood' actors and events through the use of slang,
in-group
language, unexplained pronouns, and so on.
-
use of
interpersonal metaphors (I think, it seems to me), modals, foregrounding
of self as opinion-giver, answering own questions, rhetorical
questions,
indicators of pre-suppositions, (negatives,
counter-expectation, disjuncts) related to Engagement (see
Module 2, Part
II, section 3), and use of discourse particles such as well,
alright, and other
'more spoken' conjunctions.
==============================
4. The Need for
response in this
mode
4.1 Projecting the audience
Because of the mode of communication, misinterpretations and misunderstandings become likely due to a variety of factors. Some of these are: the lack of the same redundancy of meaning-making resources available in more multi-modal channels, the lack of constraint that accompanies this inability to see/hear one's interlocutor, and the concurrent accessibility of quick-fire responses. In some cases, the mode can promote projection of meanings/intentions onto the other participants, which in turn may lead to use of overt signals in order to alert the audience to the writer's stance. Thus the interpersonal aspect of all contributions to the discussion is highlighted.
As
already argued above, overt written
and posted responses are necessary in this mode so that interlocutors
can gauge what other members have understood by one's
contributions, whether they have 'made sense',
and how further interactions may be conducted. This parallels Francis
& Hunston's (1992: 147) observation that a response is
"obligatory
whatever the exchange type", and this is especially so when
contributions have
specifically addressed certain listmembers or made overt elicitation in
the
body of their posts. In effect, writers tend to try to compensate for
the lack
of normal f2f cues, as well as the lack of knowledge of their own and
the
audience's actual 'material situation'. In some cases, writers appear
to
exploit these avenues for misinterpretation, using discourse styles
that at the
surface level seem to flout certain unstated norms of politeness, or
'maxims'
such as outlined by Grice (cf Levinson 1983: 101-112), and discussed in
more
detail below (section 4.2).
The
reason for this
seems to be related to the requirement—and reflected in the taxonomy
(The
Big Six) posited by one of the participants (c.f. Appendix F)—that
for the interaction to continue at all, overt responses need to
be made. The ongoing discussion does not exist if no responses are
made, although some types of mailing lists consist of
informative monologues and no response is sought or expected.
However, one of the 'norms'
that is frequently heard in CMC contexts is a disdain
for what came to be known as "me too" messages, where another's post is
quoted,
sometimes at length, with the only addition a simple "I agree" or other
one line acknowledgement. This means that if there is no 'hook' in a
message or
post, one is unlikely to get a response. The point the writer is making
is rendered insignificant, and hence one's identity or voice appears to
be ignored. In terms of exchange structure,
'silence' needs to be classed as a response--although not, obviously, a
reply--and
represents a 'challenge' or boundary (frame-breaking) move. It can also
engender a response of its own for this reason.
Kress
(1985) sums up
the need for difference in positioning or 'conflict' in order to
create drama when he observes: "texts are constructed in and
by [this] difference. Where
there is no difference there is silence" (p. 32). Reference to 'The Big
Six' mentioned above, will show that one of the methods of
obtaining a response
is to be contentious: to disagree with what has been posted, or to
break some
norm or taboo. Eggins and Slade (1997: 12 inter alia) see the impetus
for
conversation as the 'exploration of difference' (c.f. below section
4.3.1).
This is not necessarily a function of competing camps within the group
conversing (although it can do—and in this list, the notion of subgroups
often arose in the past), but "exploration of difference" is a way of
defining the group's characteristic features. In order for
'us' to be defined, there need to be non-members, those who are
positioned as
not-us, different, and as Other.
In
terms of the
discourse semantic features of the interaction, this results in
ambiguity of
referents, especially in determining who we
are. One obvious area where this becomes problematic, is in determining
the
referent of exclusive we. For
example, does it: refer to the Addresser plus Addressee and one or two
others
in the group; refer to the group as distinct from anyone outside the
group; or
refer to the Addresser plus those outside the group s/he also
affiliates with
in the material world? All these may, in some cases, also be construed
as inclusive we's, if the named
Addressee(s) are included in the scope of the pronoun or referent
used—for example if a practicing psychologist on the list refers to
members of his profession and knows that there are other practicing
psychologists
in the audience or in fact addresses this person specifically, the inclusive-we may refer to those on and
off list. This issue of
reference as constructing the audience and as marking
dis/affiliation—matters of contact and solidarity, has been addressed
in Don
2007.
In
order to understand what is going on in these
types of interactive contexts, it is not sufficient to have access to
the
written history of the interaction—in order to 'know' a language and
the
culture of a language-using community, one must have participated in
that
community and must have been recognised as a participant by other
community
members. Thus, a key aspect of membership and understanding of a
culture (or Community of Practice) is the
necessity of two-way communication between members, and an analogous
ontogenetic development--from the description of social practices in
terms of 3rd
persons and their practices, to descriptions in terms of our
practices. This ethnographic perspective is also argued by
Ruesch & Bateson who observe:
"The
condition
for the existence of a determinative group in this sense seems to be
that each
participant be aware of the perceptions of the other. If I know that
the other
person perceives me and he knows that I perceive him, this mutual
awareness
becomes a part determinant of all our action and interaction.. (p.209)
"The
group in
action possesses the information, not the individual." (Ruesch and
Bateson. 1951: 284)
In
contexts where
communication is deferred in time and space, such as mailing list
activity, the
need for signs that there is mutual awareness between members may be
exacerbated, and thus mode appears to be the fundamental variable, or
boundary
condition governing the wider context of interaction in the production
and
reception of the texts in this study.
4.2 Co-operation as dependent on
discussion of difference: another look at Grice and the co-operative
principle
in this context
Computer-mediated
interaction may sometimes promote deliberate 'flouting' of
Grice's (1975) maxims of conversation in order to position other
participants
in a way that ensures responses. This is related to what he (op cit:
45) refers
to as a "common set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted
direction" for any conversation. Because of the deferred nature of the
interaction in public email lists—a mode which nevertheless provides
the
means of negotiated meanings through process-sharing—participants may
be
encouraged to use irony, implicature, and 'teasing' for the purposes of
claiming
solidarity with addressees, or in order to test the boundaries of group
norms.
Texts produced in this mode may therefore show some features similar to
texts
produced in conversations in other face to face multilogues, where
contentious
word play is sometimes part of the tenor of these texts for similar
reasons:
the claiming and negotiating of solidarity, status, and familiarity. In
other
words, for negotiating identity.
I
regard
Grice's notion of co-operativity as having a very broad application—it
does
not suggest that interlocutors only communicate with the expectation of
'co-operation', but that interaction is bound up with process-sharing:
even an
argument based on completely differing viewpoints will require
co-operativity
in this sense, and it is this underlying feature of the need to engage
in
communicative interaction that informs the notion of co-operativity as
used here. Grice (op
cit) notes that participants in a conversation will use means for
indicating that they have 'opted out', which leaves immediate
negotiation as a
matter in which common purposes are assumed. To summarise Grice, this
means
that if an interlocutor is assumed to be communicating with others,
then some
goal of communication will also be assumed, even if this goal is
adversarial.
Perhaps the goals of communication on the part of one interlocutor do
not match
those of the other(s), and their contributions will show evidence of
resistant
readings. In this case, if an interlocutor is felt to have flouted some
maxim
of conversation, the relevance for this flouting will be sought by many
interlocutors in such an assumed adversarial goal.
Interactional
strategies involved in 'flouting' norms or expected conversational
maxims in
this context must be verbally encoded, rather than, for example,
signalled by
such things as rhythm (including pausing), intonation, and gesture, and
that
therefore these verbal/textual elements may be likely means for
discovering how
the discourse is perceived as structurally coherent—as relevant to the
ongoing
interaction. These types of frames of
coherence would need to be overtly encoded to make up for
such functional
goals as irony, 'politeness' (deference, apology) and so on. Other
graphic signals
also come into play here, interrelated with verbal strategies for
eliciting a
response or making one's position (less) clear. For example, use of
such
features as listed under Dimensions II & III above means that
misreadings
and negative reactions to the contributions of others could be traced
to
expectations on the part of readers which do not match those of the
writer:
what is intended to signal affiliation for an Addresser, could be
interpreted
in this medium as an affront, or a breaking of one of these maxims.
While
analysis of texts can account for meaning-making strategies and their
range of
potential interpretations, the actual
interpretation of any text must remain a matter of conjecture.
Therefore, the
value of overt written responses is obvious here.
For the writer of Ex
3.4 above, the recurrent theme seems to be that his
interlocutor has
flouted the maxim of Manner (iv/ below) for his own selfish purposes.
I do
not regard
notions of conversational implicature, (see Levinson 1983) and the
so-called
Gricean maxims as prescriptive or as necessarily structural, but as
used
somewhat predictively from the point of view of participants,
especially
(self-selected) Addressees (see above, 2.3.2), who, in Goffman's (1981)
terms,
need to indicate the relevance they have found
in any previous contribution. This does not imply that participants
apply any
conscious rules to conversation, nor that there are any cognitive
constructions
in the 'mind' which account for conversational behaviour on the
semantic level,
but that participants generally assume that any conversation is a
goal-directed
activity, and that meanings are being made or negotiated within such
interactions. Participants are therefore likely to 'read' any response
or
contribution as 'co-operative', i.e. as having some social purpose at
some
level even if appearances may suggest otherwise, or even if this social
purpose
is read as 'disruptive' in intent.
Grice's
maxims may be
briefly summarised as:
i/
Quality, ie, one
should be sincere, as truthful as possible
ii/ Quantity, ie, one should say (only) as much
as what is required at that juncture
iii/
Relevance
iv/
Manner, ie, one
should avoid ambiguity and obscurity, try to speak clearly.
For
example, in Example 2.2 (reproduced
here for
convenience), S1 seems to be flouting all of the maxims in order to
engender a
response:
S1: 1)What has love
got
to do with relationships?
S2: 2) Isn't love
just
one of the many relationships
we
are seeking by being here in Japan?
S1: 3) Gracious -
how
the man does boast....
S3: 4) It's getting
nasty in here.... The very
person --S2-- has to show
up here to smooth it out!
At line
1) he
questions the very relevance of the topic, which represents a challenge move in the exchange here, and
it is answered by S2 as a way of re-instating
the topic. S1 at line 3) again rejects the relevance of the previous
comment,
again representing a challenge to the contribution, and making what
Goffman
calls an out of frame
move in which he directs his comment, not at the proposition
itself, but at the person's motives for making the contribution. The
next
contributor, S3, picks up on the nature of this flouting of relevance,
but sees
the relevance as oriented to 'nastiness'. At this juncture, however, S3
maintains the relevance of the earlier contribution by directing his
comment to
S2's motives, in effect, developing
the earlier contribution by S1.
4.3 Relevance is sought in all
communication: readers will try to interpret any contribution as
relevant at
some level
As
stated above,
these maxims could all be seen as means by which participants interpret
relevance, thus accounting for any conversational moves which can in
any sense
be seen to be related to any previous contribution in an interaction,
especially where notions of semantic discourse structure above the
level of the
sentence are invoked. The means by which relevance is perceived by
participants
is open to conjecture, but the means by which moves are made, or
relevance
implicated—and then perhaps inferred
by respondants (through reference and cohesive devices for example)—are
open to observation and description. As Goffman (1981: 33) observes: ".. the individual who had accepted replying
to the original statement will have been obliged to display that he has
discovered the meaningfulness and relevance of the statement and that a
relevant reaction is now provided" Here I would like to suggest that
Gricean maxims are a useful for describing how
perceptions of coherence and relevance are related to the linguistic
realisations of actual conversations, whether written or otherwise.
According
to Grice (op cit), deliberate flouting of conversational conventions,
or expectations,
for example, will account for the reading of irony or sarcasm, or some
interpersonal positioning move which may imply social distance, or a
power relationship
with respect to the interlocutor(s), as was demonstrated above with the
excerpt
from Example 2.2. Such moves may be
intended to claim solidarity, but
when
or if such moves are resisted in any follow-up move, the nature of
group
dynamics becomes open to observation. Exaggeration, overstatement of
opposition, repetition, making of obvious points are just some
strategies used
for the purpose (see for example Brown & Levinson 1987, Hodge
and Kress
1988, Clift 1999, Louw, 1993, Eggins and Slade 1998).
Seemingly
irrelevant-to-the-topic 'challenging moves' seem to subvert the
interaction sequence by in effect, changing the topic to focus on the
interpersonal or textual, as topic.
As exemplified above, one means for challenging or subverting the
propositional
content of a contribution, is to make reference to the discourse level
itself,
to comment on the way something is said or written. This is what
Goffman (op
cit: 42) refers to as being out of frame,
and Sinclair (1993) refers to as changing
planes. In some instances, as hinted at above, such moves may
be related to
a type of social interaction norm in which overt personal comments, or
frame-breaking manoeuvres, are generally an indication of lack
of
distance: that is, in eschewing normal western conventions of
politeness—of impoliteness in
fact—such acts of directness imply solidarity or familiarity. The overt
use of 'politeness' conventions is usually seen to be relevant between
participants who are not
familiar to each other—one makes 'polite
conversation' where distance is assumed, and this in turn, is reflected
in
avoidance of personal comment and the keeping to 'safe topics'. On the
other
hand, personal comments or frame-breaking of this nature, while
acceptable
between familiars or equals, convey different implications where social
distance is assumed. Where there is some social distance or lack of
familiarity between interlocutors, out of frame comments may be
construed as rudeness or as authoritarian. These views of interaction
and the purposes of the
conversation have significance in CMC contexts, where each participant
may
operate under differing assumptions as to the social distance
appropriate to
such 'public' settings. This therefore relates to the dimension
[contact:
familiarity] already discussed above (3.2), and where elements of mode bleeding may be used to downplay
perceptions of rudeness, etc. These signalling
strategies become significant in accounting for the unfolding of any
set of
moves, and so typical forms which realise such strategies are an
integral part of the
framework developed for describing the nature of the context of email
list interaction in general, and the list in the study in particular.
4.3.1 Silence may be relevant,
but
not 'co-operative'
Even
if, within some
interactional contexts, responses are angry or represent superficially
"uncooperative" contributions, these may be preferable to
the breaking off of interaction altogether: silence may be a phrase and
be read
as having some meaning in context, but as pointed out above, for
interaction to continue at all there
often needs to be some conflict, or at least some area of difference to
be
negotiated. Certainly in CMC, 'silence' will denote that there is no
interaction in progress, and so, in order to "co-operate" in this mode,
interactants may need to be a little contentious. In this sense, a
'dispreferred second' is preferable to a non-acknowledgement, and
certainly a
response which takes up the topic but disagrees with it, is
co-operative in
purpose, if the goal of conversation is to keep channels open and
functioning.
Related
observations
are made by Eggins and Slade (1997) where they class responses as
'supporting'
when they take up the propositional content of the previous
contribution, even
when the response is to disagree. Eggins and Slade contend that one of
the
goals of conversation amongst close friends is to 'explore difference'.
This
may be done by reaffirming relationships and ideas as to otherness via
'gossip'. As discussed earlier in section 3.2.3, the framework that I
am
adopting here, follows Goffman's (1981: 35) distinction between 'response' and 'reply'[14], in which such taking up of 'propositional
content', even when in disagreement with it, would be classed as a reply, while responses
may be inspired by the content, but do not overtly engage
with it when making any consequent contribution, and act to 'break
frame', or
engender what Sinclair (1992) terms the exchange boundary. In
Sinclair's model,
however, this appears explicitly concerned only with the autonomous
plane of
discourse (op cit: 88), whereas here, the sense of response,
and the notion of challenge
itself, includes an orientation to the interactive plane, and involves
textual
as well as interpersonal meanings.
The
point is that
the medium and channel of interaction in CMC promotes the deliberate
flouting
of such co-operative principles, or rather, the reading
of flouting as deliberate—and thus as purposeful and
relevant to both the interactive and autonomous planes. At the same
time, the
textuality of this context of situation may maintain a superficial
similarity
to conversational patterning, and mainly because the process-sharing,
while
necessarily part of the mode of text creation, IS deferred in time and
space.
Other more gestural means of eliciting a response being impossible,
(perceived,
or deliberate) flouting of such maxims, especially in expectations of
Manner,
actually promote misunderstandings, or multivalent interpretations, and
these
(occasionally deliberate) ambiguities, in turn promote further
responses in the
effort to clarify co-operative goals.
4.4 Need for overt Replies - as
distinct from Responses
For the
conversation
to continue in this medium therefore, responses need to be made overtly. In face to face communication
or telephone conversation, possibilities for immediate feedback are
available,
should the usual devices for meaning-making and reception such as
gesture and
intonation not be sufficient. As mentioned above (2.2), expectation
of reply, and degree
of self consciousness in composing, are factors of the
spontaneous,
co-created nature of chat or phonic channel (synchronous) interaction.
In the
case of CMC, 'silence as a response' can take on new meaning when any
contribution seems to prospect, for example, a non-verbal response (for
example
a call to do something rather than verbally respond). In these cases,
what
becomes the 'meaning' or 'implication' that each contribution really
might have
in the context of the interaction is sometimes difficult to account
for,
especially when what might appear on the surface to be a request for
information, may in the context of the situation imply that the speaker
is
demanding some form of behaviour, or expressing disapproval, or merely
making
an observation.
Silence
in response
to any direct
elicitation, however—as distinct from the types of
flouting, or contentious verbal behaviour described above—will, of
course, be significant in the dynamic unfolding of the norms of the
list, and
these 'overt non-responses' I suggest are notable for a framework
tracing the
development of group norms, especially as a function of personal
identity:
whose posts, topics, styles of interaction are favoured by being
developed,
i.e. extended, elaborated or enhanced? (One hypothesis I hope to test
using this
approach, is that posts are responded to on the basis of perceived
gender, for
example.)
Responses
themselves may act
to 're-classify' the preceding contribution: so that moves in posts may
need to
be classified in the light of the one following
it, in the constructed turns within posts—as evidence for uptake of
potential interpretation, or 'perlocutionary' effect. Hoey (1993:
128-129)
makes similar observations in his call for a notion of exchange
complex. In CMC, the added dimension of the
'multilogue', with messages responding out of sequence in many
instances, and
at other times, having many responses to the same initiating
proposition,
further complicates the analysis of exchange structure in this mode of
interaction, and so frameworks developed for analysing spoken
conversation,
such as the Sinclair/Coulthard model (Coulthard, Montgomery, &
Brazil 1981,
Sinclair 1992, Sinclair & Coulthard 1992, Coulthard &
Brazil 1992,
Francis & Hunston 1992), and the Eggins & Slade (1997)
model were found
to be unsuitable for this type of interaction. This was mainly due to
the
variable length of responses, and the fact that the mode is
asynchronous and
written. This means that each 'turn' is usually comprised of a series
of moves,
in effect, a string of move complexes
(Ventola 1988), which have more in common with the nature of edited,
more
lexically dense, written text organisation or perhaps spoken monologue,
than
with spoken interaction. The technological mediation, however, allows
for
relatively spontaneous responses to be made, and for these to be
integrated
with previous messages, and it is this facet of the mode of interaction
which
sometimes provides for conversation-like textual metafunctional aspects
of
these texts to become more evident.
I have
already
suggested that the phenomenon of mode-bleeding, for example, may be
encouraged
in this mode, but is actually a strategy for realising tenor. The
Appraisal
framework introduced in Part II is presented as capable of tracing the
evaluative positioning strategies of single texts in the context of the
dynamic
unfolding of the interaction, and as determining whether these texts
function
as relevant replies to earlier
contributions. The framework is also introduced as a method of
stylistic
analysis related to the experiential analysis of Module One, in which
the texts
are regarded as representations of textual identity.
5. Conclusion
The
medium of text creation in the context of email list interaction must
ultimately be recognised as written, but the mode enables users to make
use of its technological mediation in construing a context of
interaction that
is more interactive than normally expectable in written texts.
Part of
this
slightly higher relative degree of
interactivity is realised via an orientation to resources of
NEGOTIATION:
Involvement (Martin 1992: 7.2ff). I have
adopted the term involvement, used
by Biber (1988), Tannen (1989), and Gumperz
(1982) to refer to slightly different, although related notions of
relative
interactivity and its proposed indices in this context--all of which I
am
referring to as involvement in
order
to characterise and describe the general nature of the posts in any
electronic
mailing (email) list. Many of these features are not restricted to CMC
texts,
but in describing any text or set of texts, mode is a factor affecting
what
interpersonal and ideational meanings can be made.
In "Attitude and Email Interaction" I introduce the idea that textual identity may be traced via the preferred patterns of positioning effected between Addresser and projected members of the audience: Addressees and Overhearers. The Appraisal framework is outlined and presented as one of the means through which this can be done. It is also suggested that positioning moves or move complexes—as involvement strategies—must be seen in co-text, and arise as part of the logogenetic development of the discourse itself. Because of this, it is suggested that a tight relationship obtains between positioning strategies and textual development: between the interpersonal and the textual.
copyright A. Don
submitted in part fulfilment of PhD in Applied Linguistics to the University of Birmingham, 2003.
revised July 2009
A list of References can be found with the companion paper "Attitude and email interaction"