Reveals the depth and complexity of the language used in SMS text communication, and how it exploits various linguistic resources to create identities.

Understanding the discourse of text messaging has profound implications for society. SMS text messaging has impacted considerably on how we communicate with others. Negative, sometimes alarmist media coverage continues to fuel debate surrounding its 'damaging' effects on language and literacy, yet these portrayals tend to be based on extreme or fictionalised accounts of text messaging. What kind of language do people really use when they text? Drawing on a range of academic sources from various fields, this book describes the language used in a corpus of over 11,000 text messages, as yet the largest collection in the UK. In particular, the book shows how the discourse of text messaging is shaped by users' often creative responses to the functions and constraints of the medium. This is an essential book for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates studying discourse analysis, as well as educators wanting to understand this important new form of discourse.

A compendium of over 50 scholarly works on discourse behavior in digital communication.

It is clear that a printed text provides the reader with more information than the words alone. This includes punctuation marks, capitalisation, paragraphs, headings and sub-headings, all of which help the reader to understand how the words are organised into sentences, and sentences are organised into a coherent text. In a spoken text, this typographical information is necessarily absent. So how do readers and speakers provide equivalent information to the listener? Intonation in Text and Discourse describes the way in which speech melody, or intonation, is used to signal the structure of spoken texts. It examines the role of intonation in clarifying the relationship between successive utterances, from close cohesive ties ('middles') to major breaks for a new topic ('ends' and 'beginnings'). The book is concerned chiefly with the intonational structuring of read or prepared monologue, but also devotes a chapter to current developments in the analysis of intonation in conversation. It describes not only how intonation is used to organise systematic turn-taking but also how it can signal greater or lesser degrees of co-operativeness. It addresses finally the complex issue of attitudinal intonation - the elusive 'tone of voice'. The first book on discourse intonation to deal with such a wide variety of naturally-occurring spoken data, Intonation in Text and Discourse will be of great interest to students, lecturers and researchers of intonation and all aspects of spoken discourse.

Information and communication technology is transforming our notion of literacy. In the study of second language learning, there is an acute need to understand how learners collaborate in mediating discourse online. This edited volume offers essays and research studies that lead us to question the borders between speech and writing, to redefine narrative, to speculate on the consequences of many-to-many communication, and to ponder the ethics of researching online interaction. Using diverse technologies (bulletin boards, course management systems, chats, instant messaging, online gaming) and situated in different cultural environments, the studies explore intercultural notions of identity, voice, and collaboration. Although the studies come from varying theoretical perspectives, they point, as a whole, to insights to be gained from an ecological approach to studying how people make discourse online. The volume will especially benefit researchers in the digital arena and instructors who must consider how online interaction affects language learning and use.

This book provides a comprehensive linguistic exploration of textism use by bilingual young adults, illustrating the function of alternative and creative linguistic features and their role in conveying tone through text. Drawing on a corpus of nearly 45,000 text messages donated by bilingual young adults in New York City, this volume explores the ways in which the use of texting features such as ‘lol,’ emojis, abbreviations, and acronyms is systematic and essential. In part, toward the aim of exposing the tensions bilinguals face navigating a platform that preferences monolingual language practices, the book highlights creativity as a means of both constructing meaning and performing identity for bilingual youths. These findings are extended to explore the role texting plays in communication and identity construction in contemporary society more generally. This volume extends the boundaries of emerging research on language and digital communication, and will be of particular interest to graduate students and scholars in computer-mediated communication, pragmatics, and new media.

′This volume is the most comprehensive overview to date of sociologically orientated approaches to text and discourse analysis and is worth reading even for those who are interested only in purely linguistiv approaches to text and discourse. Its main merit, I think, is that it intorduces approaches which up to now have hardley been admitted into the universe of scientific discourse′ - Discourse Studies Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis provides the most comprehensive overview currently available of linguistic and sociological approaches to text and discourse analysis. Among the 10 linguistic and sociological models surveyed in this book some of the more important are Grounded Theory, Content Analysis, Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis. The book presents each approach according to a standardised format, which allows for direct systematic comparisons. The fully annotated lists of sources provide readers with an additional means of evaluation of the competing analytical methods. Interdisciplinary and international in its aims, Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis suggests the benefits both linguists and sociologists will derive from a more intimate knowledge of each others′ methods and procedures.