Naomi S. Baron

SEE YOU ONLINE Gender Issues in College Student Use of Instant Messaging

Instant Messaging (IM) is becoming a mainstay for online one-to-one communication. Although IM is popularly described as a written version of informal speech, little empirical investigation of the linguistic nature of IM exists. Moreover, although gender issues are being addressed for one-to-many forms of computer-mediated communication, we have no comparable studies of IM. This article offers a linguistic profile of American college student IM conversations. In addition to analyzing conversational scaffolding and lexical issues, the article identifies gender divergences in IM usage. Some differences reflect commonly reported functional gender distinctions in face-to-face spoken conversation; other differences indicate gender-based attitudes toward the importance of language standards in speech and writing.

Text Messaging and IM Linguistic Comparison of American College Data

While instant messaging (IM) via computers is well entrenched in the United States, text messaging on mobile phones is a more recent technology in America. To investigate the emergence of American texting, this study compared text messages and IMs produced by American college students with respect to transmission length, emoticons and lexical shortenings, and sentential punctuation. We examine our findings in light of other statistical studies of texting and IM, and with respect to personal computer use in the United States that predates text messaging.

Tethered or Mobile? Use of Away Messages in Instant Messaging by American College Students

Since the appearance of the telegraph and the telephone, interlocutors have had options about how to communicate with one another at a distance. Typically, there is a settling-in period for new language technologies, as people gradually work out what medium is most appropriate to use with which interlocutor, and how messages should be formulated (Baron 2002). The kinds of usage patterns that emerge with new technologies are rarely monochromatic. Differences may reflect economic considerations, age, gender, education level, and cultural habits. For example, telephone usage was far more pervasive in the United States than in many other countries until well after World War II (Baron 2000). Email was largely restricted to the university community until the 1990s, and teenage use of mobile phones to send short text messages dwarfs SMS usage by older cohorts (Ling 2004).

Cross-cultural patterns in mobile-phone use: public space and reachability in Sweden, the USA and Japan

Contemporary mobile-phone technology is becoming increasingly similar around the world. However, cultural differences between countries may also shape mobile-phone practices. This study examines a group of variables connected to mobile-phone use among university students in Sweden, the USA and Japan. Key cultural issues addressed are attitudes towards quiet in public space, personal use of public space and tolerance of self-expression. Measures include the appropriateness of using mobiles in various social contexts and judgments of what respondents like most and like least about having a mobile phone. Analysis revealed a number of culturally associated differences, as well as a shared conflicting attitude towards the advantages and disadvantages of reachability by mobile phone.

Who sets E-mail style? Prescriptivism, coping strategies, and democratizing communication access

Stylistic practices in e-mail reflect an amalgam of social presuppositions about usage conventions and individual strategies for handling a new language medium. To understand how contemporary e-mail patterns have been forged and where they might be heading, this study examines the ways in which newly enfranchised language users in the past have balanced externally generated prescriptions for linguistic style with user-generated coping strategies in constructing spoken and written messages. Popular letter writing, the early telegraph, and early telephone behavior offer useful precedents for thinking about both e-mail messages themselves and the potential effects of language technology on broader language change.

Instant messaging and the future of language

The writing style commonly used in IMing, texting, and other forms of computer-mediated communication need not spell the end of normative language.

Commas and Canaries: The Role of Punctuation in Speech and Writing.

Just as spoken and written language change over time, so does the relationship between these two forms of linguistic representation. In the case of English, this relationship has undergone two major shifts. Before the 17th century, writing was predominantly a means of recording formal transactions or enabling readers to re-present speech at a future time. By the 18th and 19th centuries, writing achieved greater independence from the spoken word. However, in the second half of the 20th century, writing was increasingly redefined as a mirror of informal discourse. This paper argues that the history of punctuation in the English-speaking world offers tangible evidence for the evolving interplay between speech and writing.

A reanalysis of english grammatical gender

Abstract Traditional grammars suggest that English gender gradually evolved from a grammatical gender to a natural gender system. By reinterpreting the data, we find that Modern English gender actually developed through a series of discrete stages. The present analysis not only discusses the usefulness of recent models of linguistic change, but also illustrates the necessity of making theories of linguistic transition compatible with the phenomenon of child language acquisition.

The structure of english causatives

Abstract Despite the centrality of causation to recent work in theoretical linguistics, few detailed analyzes have been made of the causal system of English. The present study attempts to bridge this hiatus. A definition of causation is proposed and the question is raised as to what underlying notions causative expressions should be used to represent. After summarizing surface and underlying modes of representing causation in English, a set of syntactic/semantic parameters is constructed in terms of which the relation between elements in causative constructions may be defined.

Do mobile technologies reshape speaking, writing, or reading?

With the growth of mobile communication technologies, we increasingly use portable devices to produce and read text that previously existed in hardcopy or on stationary screens. Voice recognition software now enables us to speak rather than write, potentially shifting the current dominance of texting over voice calls on mobile phones. This article describes contemporary studies of language use on mobile technologies and poses research questions for new investigations.