The document provides an overview of the evolution of computer-mediated communication over the past 20 years. It discusses how home computers have become vastly more powerful and how most people now engage in computer-mediated communication daily. It also outlines some key properties of electronic texts, such as plasticity, links, tagging, searches, templates, and footprints. The document examines different types of computer-mediated communication that have emerged, such as emails, web pages, online discussions, and provides questions to analyze how these examples make use of the identified electronic text properties.

1. Language Variation
The Web of Words:
Language and Technology
A brief overview of computer mediated
communication
It is very hard to imagine now, but fewer than 20 years ago most forms of computer
mediated communication that we now take for granted either did not exist or were
only available in very specialist situations. Home computers were a developing
product, but had nothing like the power, sophistication or range of software and
hardware that are now available. To give an example, the home computer had to be
plugged into a TV screen to be used, and data or programs saved to cassette tape.
Since then, however, there has been an incredible growth in the use and ubiquity of
computers in all areas of our lives and most of us cannot imagine life without
computer mediated communication. Although the forms and conventions are still
evolving, there are some identifiable features of electronic texts which can make them
quite different to other texts.
In his useful book, Language and ICT, Tim Shortis identifies the properties of
electronic texts as follows:
• plasticity: opposite of fixity; screen text is not permanent but subject to
alteration, remodelling or combination.
• links: texts can be combined with every other type of ICT text and image;
allows the creation of infinitely malleable systems of information with
multimedia animated combinations of visual, auditory, graphical and verbal
information.
• tagging: texts can be tagged so that particular sequences of information are
associated with other types of information e.g. a word in a computer language
corpus can be tagged with its part of speech. This is the organisational basis
of web pages and allows complex searches of linked information.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 1 of 7

2. Language Variation
• searches: computers can be programmed to match up patterns of code,
allowing very rapid searches of complex info e.g. on CD-ROMs or web
browsers. Different responses can be triggered e.g. unrecognised word in
spellchecker brings up a dialog box.
• templates: many IT texts simulate human interaction by using a template
simulating the norms of human-human interaction e.g. word processing
Wizard.
• footprints: many IT texts make electronic ‘footprints’ which can be traced
and used later e.g. ISP logs of customer use patterns.
• virtuality: IT texts can create a parallel world simulating the real one
without being tied to geography e.g. IRC.
Either individually or in groups, collect two or three examples of the electronic text
and discourse types listed below, which have developed during the last twenty years
as a result of technological development in computer mediated communication.
1. word-processed letter
2. e-mail communication between known correspondents
3. spam
4. web pages
5. internet chat between friends
6. chatroom dialogue
7. helpline on a computer program
8. a post from a blog
9. online discussion forum
10. one other type of your choice, which differs from the above, eg e-newsletter,
live online game playing discussion, etc
Consider each of your choices carefully and evaluate its application of the features
identified above. How important is that feature to that text or discourse type? Present
your findings in an appropriate format of your choice.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 2 of 7

3. Language Variation
Contextual factors shaping the
language use
Consider the key contextual factors which influence the use of specific types of
register and patterns of discourse in the two types of text you could be asked to
consider in the exam. Record your ideas in the table below.
Web pages Email
Settings
Remember to
consider the extent
communication is
place-bound and
time-bound
Participants
Remember to
consider the number
and their
relationship, and
both interpersonal
and mass
communication
Activities
Consider the
possible social
functions of this
type of
communication
The range of variations you identify here should be the basis of your own wider
reading and investigation during the course of our work on this topic. Aim to collect
examples of as many different types of email and web page as you can find.
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 3 of 7

4. Language Variation
How the social context and the
technology shape the language use
Now look more closely at the language use in two types of email and two types of
webpage. Use the collection of texts you created in the first activity, and select pairs
of texts to work on which have interesting differences in their contexts. For example,
a webpage written to help UK students pass their AS/A2 English Language exams has
a different context to a webpage written to promote the sale of books and DVDs; an
email exchange between you and a cousin who lives overseas has a different context
to a spam email in which someone purporting to be a foreign prince invites you to
earn £50,000 just by looking after some of his money for a while. These differences
will have a big influence on the way that language works.
1. Carefully consider the nature of the context shaping each of these specific
examples: the settings, the participants, and the activities.
2. Analyse how specific features of language are shaped by both the social
context and the use of the technology.
3. Record both your observations and examples in a copy of the table below.
Note that not all frameworks will necessarily apply to each set of data.
Text 1 Text 2
Lexis
Grammar
Semantics
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 4 of 7

5. Language Variation
Pragmatics
Graphology
Phonology /
features of
spokenness
Discourse
patterns and
structures
What conclusions can you draw from this analysis?
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 5 of 7

6. Language Variation
Representations of computer mediated
communication
Below is a short extract from Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding. If you have
access to the internet, you can read a longer excerpt, including all of the entry for
Thursday 5 January, at
http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?book_number=326.
In this fictional diary entry, Bridget Jones takes part in a flirtatious email exchange
with her boss Daniel Cleaver. Read either the short version below, or the whole entry
for Thursday 5 January, and consider these questions:
• What issues does this fictional situation raise about language and
technology?
• What other issues does it raise about language use in society, such as
language and gender, language and power, and language in the workplace?
• How realistic is this situation? What evidence can you provide to
substantiate your answer?
11 a.m. Office. Oh my God. Daniel Cleaver just sent me a message. Was trying to
work on CV without Perpetua noticing (in preparation for improving career) when
Message Pending suddenly flashed up on top of screen. Delighted by, well, anything
- as always am if is not work - I quickly pressed RMS Execute and nearly jumped out
of my skin when I saw Cleave at the bottom of the message. I instantly thought he
had been able to tap into the computer and see that I was not getting on with my
work. But then I read the message:
Message Jones
You appear to have forgotten your skirt. As I think is made perfectly clear in your
contract of employment, staff are expected to be fully dressed at all times.
Cleave
Hah! Undeniably flirtatious. Thought for a little while whilst pretending to study
tedious-beyond-belief manuscript from lunatic. Have never messaged Daniel Cleaver
before but brilliant thing about messaging system is you can be really quite cheeky
and informal, even to your boss. Also can spend ages practising. This is what sent.
Message Cleave
Sir, am appalled by message. Whilst skirt could reasonably be described as a little on
the skimpy side (thrift being ever our watchword in editorial), consider it gross
misrepresentation to describe said skirt as absent, and considering contacting union.
Jones
Waited in frenzy of excitement for reply.
Bridget Jones’s Diary copyright © Helen Fielding / Picador
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 6 of 7

7. Language Variation
The debate about language and the
internet
Go to http://assets.cambridge.org/052180/2121/sample/0521802121ws.pdf and read
the chapter from David Crystal’s Language and the Internet. Summarise the key
points using these questions to guide you:
• What anxieties have been expressed in public discourse about language and
the internet?
• How does Crystal use the history of communication to counter these
anxieties?
• How has the internet developed?
• What is a “netizen” and how do they spend their days?
• What are the two key tasks Crystal says must be undertaken in order to gain an
understanding of language and the internet?
• What is a language variety?
• What are the distinguishing features of a language variety?
• What is the initial question he identifies for people interested in internet
linguistics?
• What are the five internet situations he identifies? Summarise the key features
of each one.
• What is the “learning situation” for users of the internet that Crystal describes?
• What problems are caused by this “learning situation”?
• What research has been conducted into internet communication?
• Ingenuity, idiosyncrasy and intelligibility. What connections does Crystal see
between these key concepts of internet communication?
• What is Netspeak? List all of the features identified and give examples.
Now use this information, and as much other evidence as you can find, to discuss this
question:
Crystal’s book, Language and the Internet, was published in
2001. To what extent would you agree that it is already out
of date?
© 2005 www.teachit.co.uk 4597.doc Page 7 of 7