چکیده:
The ever-increasing application of computer and internet mandates a longerdomain for computer-mediated-communication (CMC). Internet chat as a principalfeature of CMC has attracted tremendous attention among the youths in recentyears. Thus, this study has focused on the written chats of 100 Iranian universitystudents majoring in different disciplines. We analyzed 400 chat samples(composed of 4000 moves) in terms of opening and continuing speech functionsbased on Eggins and Slade’s (1997) model of casual conversation. We alsoexamined humor and paralinguistic features based on taxonomies of Huffaker andCalvert (2005) and Nastri, Peñ a, and Hancock (2006). Among the various types ofspeech functions, nine opening speech functions, seven continuing speechfunctions and four humor and paralinguistic features were investigated. Theanalysis of the data shows that the salient opening speech function has been‘statement: opinion’ which provides attitudinal and evaluative information.Additionally, the outstanding types of continuing speech functions are ‘prolong:extend’, ‘prolong: enhance’, and ‘append: elaborate’. Therefore, it is in order forthe participants to offer additional or contrasting information to the previous moveor qualify it by giving details of time, place, condition, etc. Moreover, in case ofinterruption by the other chatter, the participants mostly tend to clarify, exemplifyor reiterate the previous move. Furthermore, the participants produced irony, as ahumorous element, in a great volume which is indicative of their tendency towardbeing indirect during conversation. The subjects also used many paralinguisticfeatures such as misspellings and repeated punctuations in order to express their
خلاصه ماشینی:
A Conversation Analysis of the Iranian Youths’ Written Chats of English 1 Hossein Shokouhi * Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran & Neda Hamidi MA in TEFL, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran Abstract The ever-increasing application of computer and internet mandates a longerdomain for computer-mediated-communication (CMC).
Also, Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the categories of humor (jokes, verbal wit, irony, and facetious remarks) and paralinguistic features (emoticons, repeated punctuation, intentional misspellings, and abbreviations) and their interdependency on one another.
The third kind of opening speech function which was used most by the participants was ‘attending’ which includes all the ways the interlocutor tries to attract his/her partner’s attention.
The third kind of continuing speech function which was used most by the participants was ‘append: extend’ by which an interlocutor offers additional or contrasting information to previous move after intervention by another speaker.
Figure 2 Distribution of different kinds of paralinguistic features 50 45 40 35 30 Percent 25 20 15 10 5 0 abbreviations intentional misspelling repeated punctuation text-based emoticons Paralinguistic Features Discussion Descriptive statistics from this study indicates that among the nine categories of opening speech function, the participants overall used ‘statement: opinion’ and ‘statement: fact’ much more than the other types.
This means that after ‘statement: opinion’ and ‘statement: fact’ as the main categories of opening speech function, the participants tended to ask for some information, demand services and things (e.
question: open: opinion Appendix B The chat extracts below are analyzed in terms of humor produced by the participants.
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