Topic shift markers in asynchronous and synchronous computer mediated communication (CMC) [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Michaela Zitzen

Zitzen

Informations

• Publié par: heinrich-heine-universitat_dusseldorf
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 55
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Topic Shift Markers in asynchronous and synchronous
Computer-mediated Communication (CMC)







Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades
der Philosophischen Fakultät
der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf








vorgelegt von
Michaela Zitzen
aus: Erkelenz
















D61
Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dieter Stein
Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Tania Kouteva
Tag der Disputation: 19.01.2004 CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS AND CITATION FORM 5
LIST OF TABLES 6
LIST OF FIGURES 7

1. INTRODUCTION 8
2. THE CMC CORPUS 14
2.1 BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIVIDUAL ASY AND SY CMC TEXT TYPES 15
2.1.1 ASY emails, newsgroups, mailinglists and guestbooks 15
2.1.2 SY chats and MOOs 17
2.2 TEXT SAMPLES 19
2.3 TOPIC FIXATION 20
2.4 SY CMC SCENARIOS AND THEIR SOCIO-TECHNOLOGICAL SETTINGS 22
2.4.1 Type 1 chat scenario: special-guest-interview 24
2.4.2 Type 2 chat scenario: round table discussion 28
2.4.3 Type 3 chat scenario: discussion with invited speaker(s) 30
2.4.4 Type 4 chat scenario: supplementary chats 32
2.4.5 Type 5 chat scenario: panel discussion with moderator/host as expert
33
2.4.6 Type 6 chat scenario: IRC discussion 34
2.4.7 Type 7 chat scenario: others 35
2.5 SUMMARY
36
3. ACTIVITIES AND COMMUNICATIVE CONDITIONS INVOLVED IN ASY
AND SY CMC 37
3.1 SUBSTANCE AND MATERIALISATION OF CMC-BASED LANGUAGE 38
3.2 EVANESCENCE AND PERMANENCE AND TRANSPORTABILITY 39
3.2.1 The fluid character of ASY CMC 40
3.2.2 Message permanence in SY CMC 44
3.3 SPONTANEITY AND DELIBERATE WORKING OVER 49
3.4 SITUATEDNESS AND DESITUATEDNESS: CO-PRESENCE CONDITIONS AND
INTERACTIVITY 50
3.4.1 Displaced co-presence scenarios in ASY CMC 51
3.4.2 Discontinuous co-presence in terms of screen visibility in SY CMC 52
3.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STATUS OF ASY AND SY CMC RELATIVE TO SPOKEN AND
WRITTEN LANGUAGE 54
4. TOPIC AND TOPIC ORGANISATION WITHIN A CONVERSATION-
ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK 59
4.1 TOPIC CHANGE AND SPEAKER CHANGE 60
4.2 TOPIC CONTINUITY AND CONTINUOUS TALK 62
4.3 STRIVING TOWARDS MUTUAL AGREEMENT IN HANDLING TOPICS 64
2 4.4 FORMAL STRUCTURES OF TOPIC DEVELOPMENT 65
4.4.1 Topical development in conversations with pre-fixed topics 67
4.4.1.1 On defining topics and topical procedures in SY CMC 68
4.4.1.2 On defining topics and topical procedures in ASY CMC 72
4.4.1.3 Summary 74
4.5 TOPICS AND ATTACHED TOPICAL ACTIONS 76
4.5.1 Establishing joint topical foci of attention 78
4.5.1.1 Metadiscursive Topic Shift Marker (TOM) as manifestation of
orientation procedures 81
4.5.1.2 Typology of metadiscursive TOMs 84
5. PRIMARY TOPIC SHIFT MARKER (TOM) 86
5.1 TOPICALIZER 87
5.1.1 Functional distribution of Topicalizer across ASY and SY CMC 89
5.2 TOPIC SHIFT FORMULATIONS 95
5.2.1 Reference to Discourse Activity 96
5.2.2 Reference to Cognitive Activity/State 97
5.2.3 Reference to Utterance Type 99
5.2.4 Reference to Text Type 100
5.2.5 Functional distribution of Topic Shift Formulations across ASY and
SY CMC 102
5.3 TOPIC ELICITORS 105
5.3.1 Functional distribution of Topic Elicitors across ASY and SY CMC 107
5.4 MACRO-STRUCTURAL TOPIC SHIFT MARKER (TOM) 107
5.4.1 On-Topic hood 108
5.4.1.1 On-topic discussions in ASY newsgroups and mailinglists 108
5.4.1.2 Negotiations of main topics in SY chats 110
5.4.1.3 Formulating what the topic is/was in ASY mailinglists and
newsgroups 111
5.4.1.4 Explicit mentioning of what the topic is/was in SY chats 112
5.5 DISTRIBUTIONAL DIFFERENCES OF MACROSTRUCTURAL TOMS ACROSS ASY AND
SY CMC 115
6. SECONDARY TOPIC SHIFT MARKER (TOM) 117
6.1 PRE-REQUESTS 118
6.1.1 Functional distribution of Pre-requests across ASY and SY CMC 121
6.2 TOPIC SHIFTS REALISED BY MORE COMPLEX ACTION PATTERNS 124
6.2.1 Functional usage frequencies of Secondary TOMs prefiguring more
complex action patterns 125
6.3 SECONDARY TOMS OPERATING AT THE DIALOGIC DIMENSION: PRE-STARTERS,
POST-COMPLETERS AND SWITCHERS 128
6.3.1 Functional distribution of Secondary TOMs operating on the dialogic
dimension across ASY and SY CMC 131
6.4 SECONDARY TOMS REFERRING TO PRIOR SPEECH ACTS 133
6.4.1 Distributional differences of Secondary TOMs referring to prior
speech acts across ASY and SY CMC 137
6.5 CLEFT SENTENCES AS SYNTACTIC TOMS 138
6.5.1 Demonstrative cleft sentences 138
3 6.5.2 Fronted WH-cleft 141
6.5.3 Functional distribution of demonstrative clefts and fronted WH-clefts
across ASY and SY CMC 142
6.6 TOPIC INITIAL ELICITORS 143
6.6.1 Distribution of Topic Initial Elicitors across ASY and SY CMC 144
7. TERTIARY TOPIC SHIFT MARKER (TOM) 145
7.1 LOCAL DM AND GLOBAL DM 146
7.2 (GLOBAL) DM AS A CHARACTERISTIC OF ORALITY (?) 148
7.3 FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF TERTIARY TOMS ACROSS ASY AND SY CMC 149
8. OVERALL DISTRIBUTIONAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF TOMS IN
THE CMC CORPUS 156
8.1 A COMPARISON OF THE QUANTITATIVE DISTRIBUTION OF PRIMARY TOMS,
SECONDARY TOMS AND TERTIARY TOMS IN ASY AND SY CMC 156
8.2 A COMPARISON OF THE FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF METADISCURSIVE TOMS IN
ASY AND SY CMC 157
8.3 MARKED COHERENT TOPIC TRANSITIONS VERSUS MARKED INCOHERENT TOPIC
TRANSITIONS IN SY AND SY CMC 161
8.4 LINGUISTIC REALISATION OF MARKED COHERENT AND INCOHERENT TOPIC
TRANSITIONS IN THE CMC CORPUS 164
8.5 METADISCURSIVE TOMS IN SY CMC BROKEN DOWN BY CHAT SCENARIOS 166
8.6 SUMMARY: THE IMPACT OF ASYNCHRONICITY AND SYNCHRONICITY ON TOPIC
ORGANISATION 170
9. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 174

APPENDICES 184
APPENDIX 2.1: CORPUS TEXTS 184
APENDIX 2.2: TEXTUAL DESCRIPTION OF DIVERSITY UNIVERSITY (DU) CAMPUS 186
APPENDIX 2.3: TEXTUALLY INSCRIBED SINGLE ROOM AT LINGUA MOO 187
A7.1: DMS AND STUDIES INCLUDED IN THE PRESENT ANALYSIS OF TERTIARY
TOMS 188
APPENDIX 9.1: DISPLAY OF MESSAGES IN A WEB-BASED ASY DISCUSSION BOARD
HOSTED BY THE GERMAN WEEKLY "DIE ZEIT" (BASED ON WANNER
(2003)) 190

REFERENCES 191
NOTES 202

4 Abbreviations and citation form

ASY asynchronous
CA Conversation Analysis
CC coherence coefficient
CC coherence coefficient on the metadiscursive level meta
CMC computer-mediated communication
DA Discourse Analysis
DM Discourse Marker (=Tertiary TOM)
IC In Character
IM Instant Message
IRC Internet Relay Chat
LD Left Dislocation
MOO Multi-user Object Oriented
MUD Multi-user Dimension/Dungeon
MUSH Multi-user Hallucination
NF normed frequency (per 10.000 words)
NP Noun Phrase
OOC Out Of Character
PP Prepositional Phrase
RPG Role Playing Game
SY synchronous
TOB topic boundary device to mark the closing of a topic
TOC topic changing device
TOC + TOB topic change procedure which overtly marks the closing of the prior
topic and the (re-)introduction of the next topic
TOC the current topic is temporally changed and later returned to or at digression
least expected to be returned to afterwards
TOC topic renewal = re-introduction of a lapsed topic by another or by re
the same speaker
TOC topic shift = introduction of a new thematic aspect shift
TOM Topic Shift Marker



Citation form

The text samples are enumerated on a chapter-by-chapter basis. For instance, (ex. 5-1)
indicates that the text sample is the first one in chapter 5, while (ex. 8-6) is the sixth in
chapter 8. Under each quoted text sample the source of the respective occurrence is
given. This includes the name of the source (see also Appendix 2.1) and the number of
posting and/or number of line. Any sort of "misspellings" within the original texts have
been maintained. Reference to individual participants in chats are given in <handles>.

5
List of Tables

Table 2.1 Overall composition of the CMC corpus 14
Table 2.2 Breakdown of ASY and SY CMC by superordinate topic categories 21
Table 2.3 Overview of chat scenarios and their main characteristics 24
Table 2.4 Moderating styles in individual chats designed as special-guest-interviews 25
Table 2.5 Online-moderating styles in individual chats designed as round table 30
discussions with fixed turn regulations
Table 2.6 Moderators' and invited speakers' message contributions (in percent) 31
in individual discussions organised as type 3 chat scenario
Table 2.7 Moderator's messaging activities (in percent) in individual chats organised as 32
type 4 chat scenario
Table 2.8 Moderator's messaging activities (in percent) in individual chats organised as 34
type 5 chat scenario
Table 2.9 Chanop's messaging activities (in percent) in individual IRC discussions 35
Table 4.1 Survey of topic procedures defined on a unit type by unit type basis 66
Table 5.1 Topic Shift work marked by Topicalizers across ASY and SY CMC 90
Table 5.2 Topic Shift Formulations in ASY and SY CMC sorted by type of semantic- 96
actional reference
Table 5.3 Functional Distributi