Orð og tunga - 01.06.2014, Page 85

Vnnessn Isenmnnn: Computer-mediated communication
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Semiotics of compensation includes aspects that compensate for non-
verbal strategies of communication, such as facial or prosodic fea-
tures. Prominent elements of this theme are emoticons and verbalized
laughter. Furthermore, linguistic economy refers to strategies to short-
en a message in order to comply with space, time or other limitations,
as for example acronyms and abbreviations. Finally, graphostylistics
describe alternatives of writing, based on the phonetic representation
of a word or a word combination. A distinct realization for this is
the replacement of lexemes and words by homophonic graphemes or
grapheme combinations (see you —» cu).
2.2 Facebook discourse as a test case
Representing the communication trends on the Internet on a micro
level, Facebook has developed various ways of (self-) expression and
communication. There are synchronous and asynchronous as well as
interactive and non-interactive options to communicate. They range
from written private messages to posts shared with a broader audi-
ence and a video-call application.
This paper however focuses on the group utility, which enables its
members to engage with others, share items and discuss specific top-
ics. Facebook groups refer to a wide spectrum of purposes as for ex-
ample work and project related themes or topics of individual inter-
ests (sports, music). They are created by an individual and maintained
by the group members, who post, update or upload files, comment on
updates, poll the group or chat with everyone at once. Furthermore,
members are able to remove their updates and comments again.
Facebook groups may be public, private or secret. Whereas any
Facebook user may find and join a public group, see the members and
their posts, private groups are visible albeit not accessible to the pub-
lic. In other words, one must be added to the group by another mem-
ber to be able to participate in the communicative interaction. Finally,
secret groups are invisible to the public. Participants are selected and
added by other group members and only they may see and edit posts.
As updates are published and commented on at any time, or not
at all, communication in groups is asynchronous at large. The tone is
prevalently informal and the communicative direction may be both
monological and dialogical.
Because the group utility allows a rather easy collection of data,
and considering that the language can hardly be described as dif-