Orð og tunga - 01.06.2014, Qupperneq 99

Vanessn Isenmann: Computer-mediated communication
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developed through CMC, even if they are frequently used for eco-
nomic reasons. The neglect of standard spelling is encouraged by the
fact that apparently it does not lead to misunderstandings or rebukes.
Other time saving strategies such as acronyms and abbreviations
are hardly used. Space-saving techniques are not needed as space
limitations are hardly ever reached. As communication in Facebook
groups is asynchronous or near-synchronous at most, time pres-
sure is negligible. However, Facebook is increasingly used with
smart-phones which often do not provide the Icelandic keyboard.
Spelling inconsistency and the lack of diacritics may therefore stem
from technical limitations that arise as a result of the device used.
Nevertheless, as CMC in Facebook is informal it can be stated that
standard writing rules are obsolete in this Internet situation.
As spelling and grammar adaptations of foreign-based expres-
sions towards Icelandic rules were analyzed under the heading of
conceptual orality, graphostylistics are hardly represented in the cor-
pus. The only representation in this context is @myplace 'at my place':
(36) A: (...) smá reunion í kvöld @myplace (..,)38
5 Conclusion
Although the case study introduced in this paper is rather small, its
findings illustrate significant characteristics of Icelandic CMC. Some
of the features can be compared to previous research on modern Ice-
landic language use, which have discussed the recent influence of
globalization on Icelandic (e.g. Hilmarsson-Dunn & Ari Páll Kristins-
son 2010). For example, Leonard & Kristján Arnason (2011:96) state:
"From both the speaker's and the language planners' perspective, the
enthusiasm for insisting on the ideology of linguistic purism appears
to have begun to wane over the last 20 years."
English words and phrases are not a characteristic of CMC in par-
ticular as lexical borrowing is a general tendency in informal Icelan-
dic. Asta Svavardóttir for example argues that English borrowings are
more frequent in informal language than in formal language (cf. Asta
Svavardóttir 2004:175). The use of English expressions and of interjec-
tions in the corpus thus reflects informal language use in Icelandic
CMC.
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In (36), A proposes to meet at his/her place.