Discourse
Analysis in Chatroom and Discussion Group Environments
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Introduction: On-line
environments - from print to talk - a hybrid medium
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Current modes of
On-line communication:
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Chatrooms
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Discussion groups
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Instant Messenger
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Discourse linguistics
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Project
Design
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Methodology
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Current research
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Notes
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Bibliography
Introduction
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It is natural to
conceive of text first and foremost as conversation: as the spontaneous
interchange of meaning in ordinary everyday interaction. It is in such
contexts that reality is constructed in the microsemiotic encounters of daily
life. (Halliday
1978:40) |
I am interested
in the on-line interactive environment, its departure from the culture of a
print milieu and its changes for both the reader and the writer. As on-line
chatroom and discussion groups grow in popularity and importance and as these
applications increase, so too will the analysing of these environments, in both
depth and range.
Internet
conversation; whether in chatrooms, America Online's Instant messenger (IM),
discussion groups, or even in role playing games such as MUDs and MOOS involve
two new paradigm shifts. Electronic interactive conversational analysis is a
cross between print and conversation. Firstly, there is the shift from print to
computerization. Print relies on hierarchy and linearity. Computer
interactivity can have several voices going at once, eg. chatrooms, MUDs and Discussion
groups. A prime example is chatrooms where there can be multiple conversations
involving multiple subjects happening at the same time. Discussion groups
operate around the concept of threads, where a topic takes on a life of its
own, and even within the topic chosen there can be offshoots to that. Instant
Messenger has two voices at one time, but not necessarily following one
another. People still "talk" at the same time. One does not always
wait for a response. If two people are typing rapidly back and forth, they can
return and respond to something which was said whilst the other was typing.
(See examples four and five.) While print media works on a flow of conversation
or writing directed to an organised progression, on-line conversations fragment
into multi-directionality.
Chatrooms and IM
especially are reader/writer driven at the same time. Often there is the
feeling that one is writing and reading at the same time. In chatrooms this can
become chaotic. What differentiates "speakers" within chatrooms is
their logon names. If there are several voices, none following any particular
protocol, all "talking" at once, the question becomes, "what is
being said?" and at the same time "what is being heard?"
A second
paradigm shift is taking place around the notion of "discourse",
parallel to the shift from print to the Internet (see Landow 1992, pp. 1-11).
Within the Internet interactive environment there are further developments
taking place. Recently there has been a shift from e-maiI and discussion groups
to chatrooms and "Instant messenger" ("IM"). "IM"
is a service, which the service provider America On-line provides for free on
the Internet. It is similar to a chatroom in its immediacy, with the difference
being that only two people can communicate at a time whereas in a chatroom any
number of people can be on-line at the same time. E-mail and discussion groups
are more or less a one-way road. For example, one usually waits for a return
e-mail, which often is a complete response with several paragraphs: a
considered and edited "textual" piece. Conversely. chatrooms and
"IM" are composed of one or two lines of text from one person then a
response of one or two lines from another person. Chatroom and "IM"
are thus spontaneous casual conversation while discussion groups are e-mailed
"texted" responses, which are usually thought out and spell and
grammar checked before they are sent to the discussion group. Discussion groups
I hypothesize are more controlled and planned: more "textual" (see
EXAMPLE II). In other words, the Internet has already produced its own set of
"text-talk" genres and practices. Its universe of discourse is
rapidly diversifying.
Analysing
chatroom and discussion group interaction currently involves a continuation of
discourse textual analysis (Bakhtin, Kristeva), casual conversation analysis
(Eggins & Slade, Sacks), and semiotics and linguistic analysis (Chandler,
Barthes, Halliday, Saussure, Eco). Chatrooms in particular are coming close to
combining 'spoken' and 'written' language. What is missing at this time (early
1999) are the visual cues, which are provided by the people involved.
Computer-mediated-communication is narrow-bandwidth. Much of the information we
obtain in face to face interaction is from body language, sound (phonetics and
phonology), and other physical codes. In narrow-bandwidth communications, such
as on the Internet, this information is not transmitted, causing frequent
misinterpretation. When camrecorders are mounted on the top of computers
and combined with chatroom 'written' language, and participants can see one
another and write at the same time, then we will have another tool to analyse
how language between people is exchanged. In the meantime, it is important to
assess existing techniques for observation and analysis of the emergent new
"talk" of this interactive communicative format.
To
facilitate observation and analysis of the different Internet "talk"
modes, I propose to set up an on-line journal. Chatrooms and discussion groups
will exist within the journal, linked to textual pieces submitted by
participants. The on-line journal will operate as a medium across which on-line
"talk" - both considered, highly "textualized" talk, which
we have traditionally called "writing", and the new rapid-exchange
"chat" - is constructed and exchanged. My own work, beyond setting up
and monitoring the on-line journal, will be to record and analyse each sort of
text environment; its similarities and differences in relation to conventional
texts, and its developing uses - particularly in a tertiary education
environment.
CURRENT MODES OF
ON-LINE COMMUNICATION: Chatrooms, Discussion groups, Instant Messenger
CHATROOMS
The primary data
corpus for my research will come from chatrooms and discussion groups in the
on-line journal southernexpressway. Chatrooms exist for almost any subject imaginable.
According to Eastgate Hypertextual author Stuart Moulthrop (1997), Internet
Relay Chat ("IRC") is a computerised version of citizen's band radio.
It is also similar to talk back radio, community forums and is similar to every
form of meeting since recorded history. The only difference is that the
physical cues available in sight of the "speaker" are missing.
How IRC is
"organised as "talk-text": "MULTILOGUE"
Chatrooms with
many interactants are multilogue (see Eggins and Slade, p. 24) environments.
Separating these voices as conversation will be a focus of this study (and
something of a methodological challenge, involving the creation of new
transcription protocols - see below.) IRC (Internet Relay Chat) provides a way
of communicating in real time with people from all over the world. It consists
of various separate networks (or "nets") of IRC servers, machines that
allow users to connect to IRC. The largest nets are EFnet (the original IRC
net, often having more than 32,000 people at once). Once connected to an IRC
server on an IRC network, one is able to join one or more "channels"
and converse with others there. On EFnet, there are more than 12,000 channels,
each devoted to a different topic. Conversations may be public (where everyone
in a channel can see what you type) or private (messages between only two
people, who may or may not be on the same channel). Conversations rarely follow
a sequential pattern - "speakers" following one after the other.
There are often jumps to an earlier speaker, or someone beginning their own
thread. This is the first departure point from 'casual conversation'. When
there are many "voices" at once, conversation becomes chaotic. The
only way to follow who is "talking" is through the log-on names, such
as in Example I: Janis, dammit, steven, 1love. To
analyse conversation between two "speakers" I need to cut and past
the "speakers" I wish to analyse. Even then it is not always clear
who is speaking to whom unless the "speaker" names the addressee in
their message. The speech is then, seemingly inevitably, a
"multilogue" or multi-directional system, rather than the more
conversationally organised "dialogue" we find in print text.
In developing a
transcription system to accommodate and "capture" IRC multilogue, I
will use symbols to indicate: interaction between participants, change of
topic, and introduction. Interaction between participants will indicate
retrograde speech referencing, as "speakers" can only refer to what
has already been said. For example, in the multilogue below, the text in 1 is
not answered until 4. Indicating this interaction will be coded 4Ù 1. For a new topic/thread the # symbol will indicate
the change. For example 'speaker' in text 5 jumps into an already existing
conversation and may be changing the topic - it will depend on what follows
whether '1love's' change will begin a new thread or will be ignored. To
indicate this change it will be coded #5. This will be demonstrated more in
example III and IV. To indicate a speaker not speaking to a known participant,
such as 5 'speaking' to 'curtis' who is not in the immediate conversation, I
will write 5-?. Greetings to a new participant will be represented by *. The
codes will be in brackets following the text. [ #]. Note that the numbers
represent the line of text, not the speaker.
EXAMPLE I.
1. Janis>
Through now I know we are part of the universal plan to exist on the third dimension,
but why was there such a plan for us to exist in the first place. [#]
2.
dammit>(Singapore) hi janis [*]
3. steven>
hi janis, dammit! [*] Just wanted to dropped in home-- after splatter painting
my consciousness throughout the multi-verse for eons, it is nice to be here! [
3Ù
1]
4. steven>
Janis, I see this no thing, some thing is like a pendulum/fulcrum swing. Tell
me more about lexigrams--sounds fascinating! [4Ù 1]
5. 1love>
curtis, thanks for your photo, [*] this mustard seed looks all golden to me! My
photo is on its way, just got the pics back today. [#]
The above would
be coded thus: #1, 3Ù 1, 4Ù 1, #5.
The above dialogue was take off of the 'Time Traveller' web page: http://time-travelers.org/chatt.htm
Here the
"out of step" narrative of the multilogue is clear. An attempt for
instance to schematise the interconnections of the 4 speakers would include
retrograde as well as forward directions - and include some references not in
the current "dialogue box" (or "multilogue" box). To show
how contributors and readers manoeuvre within such a system of exchanges I will
need to develop a protocol model similar to CA to diagnose speech and to find
how readers and writers understand, interact and continue. There are several
models to build upon but I will use the pluri-semantic model of Kress and van
Leeuwen and O'Toole (cf. Kress and van Leeuwen 1990, 1996, O'Toole 1994) in
Eggins and Slade's work (1997, p.49). The pluri-semantic model is outlined below,
giving three main approaches to analysing casual conversation: ideational,
interpersonal, textual.
|
Types of meaning |
Gloss/definition |
Examples: above Ex. I |
|
Ideational |
Meanings about the world, representation of reality (eg. topics, subject matter) |
Conversation, expressions; the universal plan - #1 |
|
Interpersonal |
Meanings about roles and relationships (eg. status, intimacy, contact, sharedness between interactants) |
4Ù 1 share meanings 5-? Relationships undefined 2Ù 1 greetings/contact 3Ù 1,2 contact/greetings 3Ù 1 shared meanings through
metaphysical 'talk'
|
|
Textual |
Meanings about the message (eg. foregrounding/salience; types of cohesion) |
1 positioning the conversation ideologically 3 continues metaphysical meaning of 1 5 breaks own conversation into two (re. Photos) by inserting text about mustard seed. |
(Schema modified from Eggins and Slade 1997, p.49)
One of the areas
I am interested in researching is how, within chatrooms the original discourse
changes. I aim to isolate and analyse the 'departure points' from original
topics. Does the person come into the chatroom with an alternative motive? Is
the topic becoming boring and in need of shift? And who are the people who are
speaking? Some people have a link to their 'homepage' which may contain more
information about the person, but as Daniel Chandler says in his "Personal
Home Pages and the Construction of Identities on the Web" (http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/webident.html) .
..the
created 'textual self' is how the author wishes others to see them. "The
medium of web pages offers possibilities both for the 'presentation' and
shaping of self which are shared either by text on paper or face-to-face
interaction.
This suggests
that the 'textual self' can present itself as a less constructed
"reality" in the constructed exchange of On-line presentation. But
whether 'textual selves' operate the same in chatrooms and IM as they do in
one's homepage needs to be researched before a conclusion can be known. I
hypothesize that people create a different 'textual self' for each environment
they are in, and that we should not continue to regard all electronic textual
practices as equal.
Like other areas
of the Internet, chatrooms too have etiquette, and rules of cybersense are
continuously evolving. Jill and Wayne Freeze point out in their book Introducing
WebTV,
..that
what is written is not always what is meant. A fair amount of meaning relies on
inflection and body language. It is best to clarify a person's intentions
before jumping to conclusions or getting defensive. (p. 135).
"Rules"
are however already established in IRC - for instance, the convention that
capitals imply shouting. Other, more subtle conventions also are developing, as
well as abbreviated "talk" (see notes on 'abbreviations in chatrooms'
10).
MUDs
Internet Relay
Chat (IRC) is an out growth of MUDs ("Multiple-User Dimension" or
"multi-user dungeons") and many other constructs on the Internet,
such as MOOs (MUD-Object-Oriented), MUSE (Multiple-User Dimension), and MUSH
(the "H" stands for Hallucination). These programs matured in the
early 1990s as role playing games. MUDers were mostly middle-class college
students who used MUDs as places to play and escape; though some used MUDs to
address personal difficulties. (Turkle, 1996, p. 54). They are currently used
extensively in education. I will not directly research MUDs, except to note the
intensity of their early "interactivity" sites, which may still have
something to say of IRC relations. (A Research-Oriented Links of MUD Resource
Collection is at:
http://www.godlike.com/muds/mres/research.html) (see notes: 9).
The origins of
IRC in fantasy play, both in identity projection, competition and sub-cultural
cohesiveness, may have consequences for the discourses of IRC culture.
Before the 1990s
popularity of MUDs there was an earlier MUD format called Habitat which was
initially built to run on the cheaper and popular Commodore 64 personal
computers in the early 1980s. It was a game playing virtual town where owners
were allowed to have weapons to 'delete' others. Because of the violent nature
of the game an intense debate about electronic civil order ensued. One player,
a Greek Orthodox priest in real life (RL) founded the first Habitat church, the
"Order of the Holy Walnut," whose members pledged not to carry guns,
steal, or engage in virtual violence of any kind. In the end, the game's
designers divided the world into two parts. In town, violence was prohibited,
in the wilds outside of town, it was allowed. Out of this there developed
Habitat laws and government. This was the first creation of utopian communities
in cyberspace. (Turkle, 1996, p. 55). Again, the experience says much of the
pressures over behavioural regulation on the net, but also of the qualities in
early on-line interactive communities, which may still be evident in more
contemporary discourse relations on IRC.
Much earlier, as
far back as the early 1970's, programmer Mike Van Essen wrote a communication
program for the CYBER mainframes. This program, called $TALK, was a multi-port
"intercom" program. Talk on this system was largely between
programmers: an expert and closed sub-culture of professional exchange The technologies
to use "talk" electronically already have a twenty-year history. But
it is with chatroom and IM that it has become a common forum to dialogue
within, and therefore a rich field for analysis. (6)
In some ways the
related "cultures" of IRCs and America On-line's Instant Messenger
("IM") communities are not as developed as they were in the Habitat
and other MUDs of the earlier period. The cultures have broadened and
diversified. But one thing that there is in common between these Internet
programs which I will follow as the basis of my research, is the intrusiveness
and changeability of the dialogue within these on-line environments. There was
much written about intrusiveness in earlier MUDs. There was even virtual rape,
violence, theft and murder in these settings. A few lines of code written by an
intruder could destroy months of a character's development, or cause the
destruction of a whole environment. In chatrooms there is not the intense
construction of characters or environments but a seemingly neutral virtual
"room" in which people 'chat'. However, there is still the element of
intrusiveness and resultant changing of the subject matter, and chatrooms
themselves can change from their intended purposes, as people can enter and
interrupt at any time. This inherent quality of interruptability is a key
factor of this particular IRC format.
DISCUSSION
GROUPS (2)
The second area
of data collection will be through discussion groups. I have monitored three
discussion groups over the past two years: a psychological astrology group,
based in England, an America philosophical group, Neo-Tech (based loosely on the writings of Ayn Rand and the
Objectivists), and a Bohm Dialogue Discussion group based in Germany - but
written in English. These three discussion groups provide a wide
diversification in interest, contents and "talk", giving an
opportunity to contrast how different discussion groups 'behave'. The psychological
astrology group has almost nothing to do with psychological astrology, but
illustrates very effectively how seemingly "focused" interest groups
can actually operate as social "chat" communities. The next longest
is the philosophical group called 'neo-tech', which is based in the United
States of America. I have found this particular discussion group interesting in
that it rarely focuses on subjects or topics, but attracts a lot of angry
people more interested in telling each other what is wrong with their thinking
than in discussing the philosophy of Neo-Tech. The content of the discussion is
irrelevant to any analysis, which focuses on the interactivity. The third group
is the closest to my research and is a Bohm Dialogue Discussion group.
BOHM
DISCUSSION GROUP
David Bohm was a
physicist who did a major study on dialogue within groups. Bohm wrote
originally about face-to-face dialogue but in the discussion groups and
chatroom there is exploration of the possibility of carrying on dialogue
through the Internet. There is no moderator or entertainer to the Bohm list.
People are expected to just 'drop in' and speak. Topics are however diagnostic
and reflexive. A current discussion subject in the Bohm Dialogue forum (January
1999) is, for instance, "Can you really do dialogue via e-mail?" At
the end of the Bohm Dialogue e-mails there is the note, "To See Who is
Chatting about This Topic:
http://www.talkcity.com/chat.cgi?room=MindRec".
This group is
both focused and disciplined, a useful contrast to the others. A recent
"conversation" between two participants on the Bohm Discussion list
highlights the difficulty of dialogue in an interactive electronic environment.
EXAMPLE II
Reply To:
bohm_dialogue@cis.plym.ac.uk
Sent: Wednesday,
February 3, 1999 10:47 PM
To:
bohm_dialogue@rome.cis.plym.ac.uk
Subject: Re:
inconsistency
C---
PS Gawd I hate email sometimes. I find it so imprecise. I look at these messages and think, cant I say it better than that? I'd be here all night. Oh well.
Pat ---
Or perhaps for days, weeks. The difference
between reading the "hardcopies' in my memory of a certain class of my
e-mails to the list, and 'reading something that has gone through many drafts
to a point of satisfaction, is like the difference between walking through a
'minefield' of reflexes, and walking through a meadow of wild flowers. Much
'suspension' has occurred in the drafting process...
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