Antar Abdellah
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This chapter examines the impact of
communication technologies on the way we
creatively deploy language resources.
When a new communication technology first
appears, it often stirs up controversy as to
whether it will enrich or impoverish the
language.
Text messaging, for example, has received
considerable media attention, and Activity 1
highlights some of the issues involved. P. 209
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The extract below comes from a newspaper
article which highlights concerns about the
impact of text messaging technology on
society.
It seems the student crafted her homework
knowingly, perhaps to enliven a boring
assignment to wind up the teacher or even to
experiment creatively with a new style.
Over the centuries, humans have used various
technological developments to help them
communicate, ranging from clay tablets and quill pens
to telephones and typewriters. The major
development of recent years has been computermediated communication.
 (CMC), which can be defined as ‘communication
between human beings via the instrumentality of
computers’ (Herring, 1996, p. 1), using a variety of
different digital technologies, such as email,
newsgroups, online chat and instant messaging.
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CMC Mode relates to the means by which a
message is represented, using for example the
sounds of speech, the graphic system of writing
or the gestures of sign language.
 CMC Medium, on the other hand, relates to the
means by which a message is transmitted.
Speech, for example, could be transmitted
through face-to-face conversation, a videoconferencing link or a telephone connection.
Graphic symbols could be written in ink on
paper, carved on stone, spray-painted on a wall
or transmitted digitally via a computer.
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No computer user is truly isolated, since the
use of computer technology depends on the
resources and opportunities provided by
society.
The way that individuals make use of any
communication technology, whether ancient
or modern, is affected by general features of
the relationship between technology and
society.
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Previous chapters have focused more on
artfulness, but in common use the term
‘creativity’ is often associated with novelty.
By exploring the way that technology can
stimulate novel uses of language, this chapter
will also question whether novelty alone can
he regarded as creative.
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“Science and technology multiply around us.
To an increasing extent they dictate the
languages in which we speak and think.
Either we use those languages, or we remain
mute“.
(Ballard, 1974, Introduction to Crash) P. 211
One way of looking at the impact of new
technologies is to consider their affordances.
 This term refers to the possibilities that the
environment offers to an animal. Affordances
can be either negative or positive, and this will
depend on the individual involved. For a human,
water affords drinking and washing, but also
drowning;
 “the possibilities for action that an object
provides — however far-fetched some of those
affordances might seem”.
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Effectivities with human beings are ‘the dynamic
capabilities of that individual taken with reference to a
set of action-relevant properties of the environment’
(Zaff, 1995, p. 240). EXP. P.212
 The use of any object, whether natural or produced by
humans, depends not only on its affordances but also
on the way these are perceived and interpreted by
each individual.
 Technology is part of our environment, and the way
we use it is affected by both its affordances and our
own effectivities.
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In this extract, Naomi Baron examines how
contemporary email usage has developed in the
United States, and compares how the telegraph
influenced language use in the nineteenth century.
 Now read ‘Who sets e-mail style? Prescriptivism,
coping strategies, and democratizing communication
access’ by Naomi Baron. As you do, note examples of
features of the technology (affordances), and
characteristics of the users (effectivities), which may
affect the use of email or other communication
technologies.
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a tension between ‘the excitement of linguistic freedom’
and ‘academically constructed standards for writing.
 In some cases, it is possible to see a clear link between the
affordances of the technology and the way it is used. For
example, because computers typically have large display
screens and QWERTY keyboards, they afford typing (and
therefore longer messages) more easily than mobile
phones. Because internet access is relatively cheap and
there are no costs associated with distance or length of
message, one of the things it affords is spamming.
(negative).
 Communication technologies certainly make things
possible that used to be impossible or difficult.
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technological determinism: the view that technology is a
driving force behind far-fetched changes in society.
associated with a number of features, including:
• reductionism: the idea that complex issues can be
simplified to a few basic factors;
 • mechanism: the idea that social phenomena can be
explained by regular
rules of cause and effect;
• technological autonomy; the idea that technology exists
independently of society.
 The quotation from J.G. Ballard p. 211 represents a
deterministic viewpoint
 However, the impact of technology on society is clearly
neither simple nor predictable.
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Other language scholars also tend to favour a sociocultural approach to new technologies. As Susan
Herring argues; not all properties of [computermediated discourse] follow necessarily and directly
from the properties of computer technology.
 Rather, social and cultural factors — carried over from
communication in other media as well as internally
generated in computer-mediated environments —
contribute importantly to the properties that
characterizes computer- mediated discourse.
(Herring, 2001, p. 625)
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Our use of technology is affected also by constraints
which limit these possibilities (Norman, 1999).
 Some constraints are physical; for example, your ability
to carry a suitcase will depend on how heavy it is. Within
CMC, the computer keyboard presents a number of
physical constraints which have implications for equality
of access to computer technology.
 Countries such as China and Japan use basically the same
keyboards as in the west, but since their script cannot be
matched directly to the keys, typing requires special
software and more complicated input methods.
 Notice though that these influences involved not only the
physical constraints of the technology, but also the
cultural constraints of the script. P.216
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While physical constraints can be seen as the converse of
affordances, cultural constraints derive from shared cultural
conventions; unlike physical constraints, they can, in theory, be
violated.
 For example, English is written from left to right, but there is
nothing to stop me from picking up my pen and writing in the
other direction, as Arabic is written. The direction of handwriting
is a cultural constraint. But cultural conventions may be built into
the technology: my word-processing software, for example, forces
me to type from left to right, even if I want to type in Arabic. In
such cases, cultural constraints become materialised as physical
constraints.
 The increasing global standardisation of electronic environments
can be problematic for languages which are less dominant in these
environments.
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However, the constraints could themselves be seen as
conducive to creativity, eliciting the skills needed to
exploit the medium effectively.
 Constraints and affordances together mark out the
scope for creativity.
 In other words, constraint is a source of strength.
McCullough’s argument suggests that creativity
involves working with the medium, as a carpenter
works with the grain of the wood. Working with a new
medium may require adapting existing practices in
order to exploit its affordances and constraints.
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Hetty Hughes won first prize in a text
message poetry competition run by the
British newspaper The Guardian. P.217
a process in which a new discourse emerges to meet
particular sociocultural goals and purposes; resulting in
a new hybrid discourse.
 The concept of intertextuality, relates to ‘the productivity
of texts, to how texts can transform prior texts and
restructure existing conventions (genres, discourses) to
generate new ones’.
 Interdiscursivity is an aspect of intertextuality to
indicate the combination of discourse conventions that
are drawn on in a text; he gave the example of a bank
leaflet which mixes the discourses of advertising and
financial regulation.
 An example from literature is the mixture of novel and
recipe genres in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate.
P. 219
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1 - A stretch of language longer than a single sentence or
utterance, such as a written paragraph or a spoken
dialogue.
 2- A type of language used in a particular context, for
example the language used by teachers and students in
classrooms (classroom discourse) or the written language
of medicine or law (medical or legal discourse).
 3- In a more critical or abstract sense, a way of
representing, understanding and being in the world.
Discourse here refers not only to particular uses of
language in context, as in (2) above, but also to the world
views and ideologies ... which are implicit or explicit in
such uses.
 Interdiscursivity involves relationships between
discourses in senses (2) and (3).
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 Several researchers have commented on the way that
computer-mediated communication has blurred the
distinction between speech and writing.
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Ferrara et al. (1991) ‘interactive written discourse’
 Collot and Belmore (1996) ‘electronic language’
 David Crystal (2001, p. 239) ‘netspeak’, describing it
as ‘a new medium of linguistic communication’.
 Email, bulletin boards, text messaging, online chat and
so on, each have their own affordances and
constraints, leading to differences in the way that
users compose their messages.
 Variations in message styles. Transforming norms from
familiar genres to new unfamiliar genres. ‘Style
leakage’ as a type of coping strategy.
 The next reading considers how writers have adapted
to the medium of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). IRC is one
of several text-based technologies that allow users to
join chat rooms . P. 240-241
Please read ‘Online discourse in a teen
chatroom: new codes and new modes of
coherence in a visual medium’ by Patricia
Greenfleld and Kaveri Subrahmanyam.
 The authors argue that the language of chat is
developing into a new register (a language
variety that occurs in particular contexts). Based
on the analysis of a sample of online chat, they
examine the way that participants adapt to the
demands of the medium by drawing on the
resources of both oral and written English.
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Send
Emote
Emoticon
Lol
Coooooool
CWOT
NE1
B4

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Similarly, Hutchby argues that:
when people interact through, around and with
technologies, it is necessary for them to find ways of
managing the constraints on their possibilities for
action that emerge from the affordances of given
technological forms. This can be more or less
problematic, depending on the characteristics of the
technology and our level of familiarity with it.
Sometimes, quite novel ways of accomplishing
communicative actions arise at the interface of the
actor’s aims and the technology’s affordances.
(Hutchby, 2001, p. 30)
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In discussing email, Naomi Baron (1998, p.
162) talks of ‘a communicative modality in
flux’, and as long as norms are fluid, CMC in
general will continue to show a high degree
of variability, and therefore opportunities for
linguistic creativity.
However, as particular technologies become
more familiar and routine, CMC may be
expected to settle down in more predictable
patterns.
Over time, some of these innovations are used more
regularly, gradually becoming conventions of the newly
emerging register. As CMC grows increasingly
commonplace, it is likely to involve less linguistic
innovation.
 Yet novelty is not necessarily creative, and it is possible
to use language artfully without necessarily inventing new
linguistic forms.
 While CMC encourages certain ways of adapting language
forms creatively, it has also been associated with functions
that may be seen to underlie other aspects of verbal art —
in particular those associated with the presentation of
identity.
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One of the features of online chat is its apparent anonymity.
Chatters normally use nicknames, remain invisible. The issue of
identity is therefore particularly salient in CMC.
 However anonymous chatters feel, they may in fact reveal
information about their identity through the language they use.
In an English-medium chatroom, for example, particular
vocabulary, grammar or spellings may indicate a variety of
English which makes it possible to guess the participant’s
nationality.
 Goffman notes the way we may unintentionally ‘give off clues
to our identity through various aspects of our behaviour such
as our clothes, bearing, gestures and language. On the other
hand, we also dramatize ourselves,
 Online chat also seems to present opportunities for a more selfconscious dramatic performance in which participants use
language to play out their chosen roles.
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P. 224
In this extract, both participants draw on
existing cultural resources in performing their
roles, using but at the same time parodying
the language of courtship.
‘Dr-pepper’ himself refers to the cliché of
‘love at first sight’, playfully amending the
phrase to ‘love at first chat’ to suit the online
environment.
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On the internet, participants typically have
available a restricted range of resources for
identity construction. In most forms of CMC,
they can neither see nor hear each other, but
communicate only by means of typewritten
characters.
The absence of extra linguistic clues seems to
encourage greater linguistic creativity. Carter
(2004, p. 200) suggests that it may lead to
heightened self-dramatism, with ‘linguistic
marking which is often creatively realized in
schema-refreshing ways’.
The disguised identities, the sense of self-dramatism, and
the tendency to parody are reminiscent of the spirit of
carnival, seen by Bakhtin as:
 a pageant without footlights and without a division into
performers and spectators. In carnival everyone is an
active participant, everyone communes in the carnival
act ... All distance between people is suspended, and a
special carnival category goes into effect: free and
familiar contact among people.
 As in carnival, online chat often involves an element of
profanation, which can be seen in the unrestrained use of
taboo language, the frequent sexual references, and the
occurrence of flaming (online insult).
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A number of CMC researchers have drawn attention to the
inherently playful nature of the medium . Above all, she
suggests, ‘Relaxed norms of coherence can be liberating,
giving rise to increased opportunities for language play’.
 Word play is also facilitated by the fact that because text
remains visible on screen, participants can reflect on it more
than is possible during face-to-face conversation. All these
factors contribute to the way that cyberspace provides what
has been called a ‘playground of identity’.
 Online humour occurs not only in online chat, but also in
educational applications of CMC. P. 227
 Students can, half-seriously, half-playfully, try out a variety
of roles that may challenge prescribed norms. For example, in
the extract from a discussion on the role of technology, ‘Mr.
Mac’ and ‘Eric Loomis’ can be seen ‘ganging up’ on ‘Jim
Davison’, who surrenders the argument with a reference to
walking the plank.
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This aspect of the use of humour within CMC can be related to
ideas about intertextuality. So, for example, the flirting dialogue
between ‘Nagin’ and ‘Dr-pepper’ is constructed and interpreted
against the background of many other written and spoken texts
that involve flirting, while the ganging up against ‘Jim’ draws on
other familiar scenes of verbal or even physical bullying.
 Intertextuality is evident also in the use of specific linguistic
expressions. For example, the mention of Superman in the teen
chatroom data (in Reading B, Figure 1, line 88) references the film
and comic-book hero while the phrase ‘love at first chat’ in the
#india data alludes to the many instances of ‘love at first sight’ in a
variety of romantic texts.
 Although we cannot be sure how far writers and readers are
conscious of specific references, our understanding of any text is
shaped by our previous experiences of a multitude of other texts.
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This article discusses a research with students on
an online course where the chatroom was open
only to course participants. Three areas Angela
Goddard identifies examples of the creative use of
intertextuality:
 1) using the language of physical location to locate
themselves within the online environment;
 2) building on the visual aspects of the emerging
text;
 3) creating a heightened sense of audience for the
performance of identity
 P. 253, 257, 258
 IWD (interactive Written Discourse”
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she focuses on the importance of common
cultural references in building individual and
group identity, and the way that intertextuality
lays out known material and disrupts
expectations by renegotiating it’.
Once you start looking for intertextual
references, they seem to be everywhere, but it is
hard to determine how far the producers and
receivers of the text would have been conscious
of them.
CMC: the physical connections that afford computermediated communication, the social connections
which participants create though interacting via
computer technology, and the textual connections
which seem to feature so prominently in online chat.
 Many of the characteristic features of CMC can be
seen as creative adaptations to the medium, allowing
users to manage interaction online, without a shared
physical context.
 As time goes on, however, such innovation may
decline, as what was once novel gradually becomes
routine.
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Novel is not always creative
Humour is evident even when CMC is
employed for serious purposes, and functions
to build both individual and group identity.
It draws in particular on intertextuality. These
allusions both contribute to group solidarity
and also allow for elements to be recombined
in ways that can be surprising and
revitalizing.