Vol. 58 in the Linguistic Insights : Studies in Language and Communication series.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-289).

"Are email and SMS forms of writing or speech? This question cannot be answered easily because their registers are hybrid; they make use of both orality and literacy. This book offers an accurate placement of emails and text messages along the written/spoken continuum. Emails and text messages are also compared to letters and phone calls while a closer comparison of SMS and telegrams shows how far text messaging can be regarded as a renaissance of telegrams. Attention is further paid to multimedia messaging and questions concerning the proportion of image to text, picture categories as well as MMS dialogues are approached. The book finally comments on linguistic changes and deals with the German language community’s concern with regard to the increasing use of Anglicisms." (Book Cover)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

List of Abbreviations

1. Introduction
1.1 The Topic: A General Survey
1.2 Previous Research on Emails, Text Messages and Multimedia Messages
1.3 Methodology: Data Collection and Corpora
1.4 Aims and Research Questions
1.5 The Register of Emails and Text Messages
1.6 Emails and Text Messages along the Written/Spoken Continuum: A First Approximation

2. Email

2.1 Definition

2.2 Historical Background: Email as By-Product of the US Military Defence System

2.3 Structure: Header - Body - Signature

2.4 Rules and Conventions: Netiquette

2.5 Features of the Involved Written but Conceptually Oral Language 2.5.1 Salutation and Farewell
2.5.2 Spelling
2.5.2.1 Misspellings, Typos and Transfer Errors
2.5.2.2 Use of the Upper and Lower Cases
2.5.2.3 Non-Conventional Spelling 2.5.3 Punctuation
2.5.4 Grammatical Features
2.5.4.1 Syntactic Reductions
2.5.4.2 Verbs
2.5.5 Lexical Features
2.5.5.1 Prefatory Expressions 2.5.5.2 Spoken Vocabulary
2.5.6 Emoticons as Paralinguistic Modifiers

3. Text Messages

3.1 Definition

3.2 Historical Background: SMS as Side-Product of Other Mobile Communication Services

3.3 Structure

3.4 Rules and Conventions: Textiquette

3.5 Features of the Involved Written but Conceptually Oral Language
3.5.1 Salutation and Farewell
3.5.2 Spelling
3.5.2.1 Misspellings and Typos
3.5.2.2 Use of the Upper and Lower Cases
3.5.2.3 Non-Conventional Spelling
3.5.3 Punctuation
3.5.4 Grammatical Features
3.5.4.1 Syntactic Reductions
3.5.4.2 Verbs
3.5.5 Lexical Features
3.5.5.1 Prefatory Expressions
3.5.5.2 Spoken Vocabulary
3.5.6 Emoticons as Paralinguistic Modifiers

4. Single Text Messages versus Linked Text Messages

4.1 Definition and Hypothesis

4.2 Salutation and Farewell

4.3 Spelling
4.3.1 Use of the Upper and Lower Cases
4.3.2 Non-Conventional Spelling

4.4 Punctuation

4.5 Grammatical Features
4.5.1 Syntactic Reductions
4.5.2 Verbs

4.6 Lexical Features

4.7 Emoticons as Paralinguistic Modifiers

4.8 Summarising Remarks

5. Results
5.1 Major Syntactic and Lexical Features of Emails and Text Messages
5.2 Spelling Tendencies
5.3 Emoticons as Punctuation Marks

6. A Continuing Comparison between Emails and Text Messages
6.1 Email and Text Message Dialogues
6.2 The Hybrid Register of Emails and Text Messages
6.3 Koch and Oesterreicher's Model Adapted to the New Communicative Conditions
6.4 Emails and Text Messages Compared to Letter Mail and Telephone Conversation
6.5 Gratification and Media Richness Theory

7. Text Messages as the Renaissance of Telegrams

7.1 Definition

7.2 Historical Background

7.3 Linguistic Characteristics of Telegrams in Comparison with Text Messages
7.3.1 Length
7.3.2 Salutation and Farewell
7.3.3 Grammatical Features
7.3.4 Lexical Features

7.4 Telegrams in Koch and Oesterreicher's Extended Model

8. Multimedia Messages 8.1 Definition
8.2 Historical Background
8.3 Structure
8.4 Rules and Conventions
8.5 The Proportion of Image to Text
8.6 Image Categories
8.7 Multimedia Message Dialogues

9. Linguistic Change and Possible Implications of such a Change
9.1 Language Change or Language Deterioration?
9.2 New Trends - Old Features
9.3 Possible New and Generally Accepted Conventions
9.4 Does Text-Speak Foster a New Form of Illiteracy?
9.5 What Influences Language Change? 9.6 Anglicisms in German and Swiss-German Emails and Text Messages

10. Conclusion

References

List of Figures

List of Tables