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Self‐presentation and interactional alliances in e‐mail discourse: the style‐ and code‐switches of Greek messages
Author(s) -
Georgakopoulou Alexandra
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/j.1473-4192.1997.tb00112.x
Subject(s) - presentation (obstetrics) , style (visual arts) , linguistics , code switching , code (set theory) , psychology , computer science , programming language , art , literature , philosophy , medicine , radiology , set (abstract data type)
The recent proliferation of linguistic studies of computer‐mediated communication is marked by an emphasis on communication between virtual acquaintances as well as by a limited cross‐fertilization with current advances in sociolinguistically oriented discourse analysis. The point of departure for this paper is the need for a more inclusive strategy in relevant research, in particular in the form of contextualized approaches to computer‐mediated discourse which will shed light on the diversity and multiplicity of the text‐context relationships in the ever‐growing electronic medium. In addition, the study wishes to redress the balance in relation to the data sources in the volume of research by focusing on e(lectronic)‐mail which is (1) exchanged between people who are well‐acquainted and (2) written in Greek. The paper sets out to explore self‐presentation and alliances in e‐mail discourse, and its framework is informed by interactional sociolinguistics and ethnography of communication. The results of the data analysis bring to the fore certain discourse features which are proposed as forming the conventionalized style of e‐mail and providing the frame for the major contextualization cues in the data. These are realized by certain patterns of recurrent code‐centered choices (code‐switches and style‐shifts) which prove to (re‐)frame footings of symmetrical alignments and intimacy between e‐mail participants.