Preliminary communication
Signals of Speech Communication in Writing on IRC and ICQ
Ivan Ivas
Lana Žaja
Abstract
New technologies may, and for the most part do, change human
communication and in the long run human society. Computer communication
is no exception in this respect. Persons communicating by computer try to
make the most of its advantages, trying at the same time to overcome its constraints
to the highest possible degree. One of the drawbacks of communicating
by computer is the physical absence of the interlocutor and the actual communication
setting, and thus of an enormous amount of both non-verbal and
co-verbal information signals. Communicators through the means available in
a writing medium, specifically, the signs on a keyboard, also signal the elements
of speech communication present in an actual physical setting which are
normally not used in writing. Some of those had been used before in some
other media (e.g., some prosodic speech characteristics as revealed in the
manner of writing in a cartoon), and some may be deemed an innovation
prompted by a new medium (like emoticons). Semiotic, semantic and stylistic
analyses have proved that communication innovations soon become part of the
new medium users’ jargon.
Keywords
computer mediated communication; written communication; Internet; emoticons; speech communication; non-verbal communication
Hrčak ID:
23326
URI
Publication date:
10.6.2003.
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