Thesis headquarters Last updated Friday, 3 August 2001

RESEARCH QUESTIONS_ as a starting point toward analysing a culture of electronic-talk:

1) How is turn taking negotiated within Chatrooms?

2) With the taking away of many identifying cues of participants (gender, nationality, age etc.) are issues of sexism and political correctness as prevalent as in face-to-face talk?

3) How is electronic chat reflective of current social discourse?

4) Is meaning contractible within Chatrooms?

5) Will chatrooms (as part of an online discourse) create a universal language?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS ~ as a starting point toward analysing a culture of electronic-talk:

1) How is turn-taking negotiated within chatrooms? What does turn - taking reveal? Whereas in face-to-face conversation people can speak at the same time (talk over one another) in chatrooms only one voice is ‘heard’ (seen) at a time because of the scrolling effect of the computer screen. In a chatroom where there are more that two ‘voices’ there are two primary functions in turn-taking that need addressing. First, participants need to know when it is appropriate to ‘speak’ if he or she wishes to be heard and responded to. This is further broken down into two more functions of turn-taking. The ‘speaker’ is either addressing one particular participant in the chatroom or the ‘speaker’ is addressing the group. For example, by referring to something someone said in particular ie. ‘how’s 3 +3 = 11’ or ‘speaking’ to the group, ie. ‘whats Mets/Bull score’ the ‘speaker’ is identifying where he or she is placing ‘talk’. Second, whereas in casual conversation between people ‘there has to be a way of determining who the next speaker is to be’ Eggins & Slade p. 25) in chatrooms there is no protocol who the next speaker is. The next speaker is whomever hits their return key next. Turn-taking will be analysed and discussed throughout this work.

2) With the taking away of many identifying cues of participants (gender, nationality, social and economical standing, age etc) are issues of gender, nationality, social and economical standing, age as prevalent as in face-to-face talk? Does the chatroom milieu provide a pure communication space? Where only words have meaning and the author’s significance is only the words produced.

3) How is electronic chat reflective of current social discourse? I will examine whether eChat and in-person conversation are breaking down barriers between people of gender, nationality, social and economical standing, and age. Some studies have shown that barriers still exist and are created by the author themselves. For example it was found in one particular study that, as the female users who wrote themselves into this virtual community, they did so in an imagined social space very much defined by their experiences in a patriarchal culture. As a result their discourse patterns were ‘gendered’, meaning that the female users were less participatory than their male counter parts, and often silent. (Dietrich, 1997: p. 181)

4) Is meaning constructible within chatrooms? In this study I will examine whether eChat is a vehicle to assimilate and exchange information or are the words on the screen too random to produce a decipherable message?

5) Will chatrooms (as part of an online discourse) create a universal language?

This is a work in process by Terrell Neuage for a Ph.D at the University of South Australia