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Change in E-mail Style: A Multi-Dimensional Approach
John C. Paolillo
SCAN Research Group Meeting
October 4, 2002
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Electronic Mail
• As written communication– Typed via keyboard – Composed/edited like other writing
• As spoken communication– Rapid turn-around (interactive)– Typos are common– Informality is favored
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E-mail: Where does it fit?
• A new register– Crystal (2001) Netspeak– Ferarra, Brunner and Whitmore (1991)
• Intermediate in most characteristics – Collot and Belmore (1996)– Yates (1996)
• A (new) force in language change– Baron (1984, 2001)
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Medium and Language Change
• Written media:– Standardization/homogenization– Complexity and formality
• Spoken media:– Simplification– Diversification
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Investigating Change in E-mail
• Sufficient time depth now exists – First e-mail discussion lists in 1970’s
• Archives are widely available– E-mail discussion lists– Usenet newsgroups, etc.
• Tracking individual usage is possible
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The Present Study
• 11-year corpus of MsgGroup– Arpanet discussion group from 1975-1986– 2580 messages (872 in sub-sample)– Many important Internet developers
participated
• Track individuals and group usage– Formal and informal language features– Compare individuals’ trends with overall trends
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Our Previous Work
• Herring, Labarre and Paolillo (2001)– Nine features: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person pronouns,
demonstratives, syntactic subordination, contractions, contraction sites, latinate nouns in -ion and -ment
– Overall, all features decreased over time (!)– Large individual variance– Some individuals appear to buck main trends
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The Multi-Dimensional Model
• More Features: Biber (1988, 1995)
• Comprehensive classification of English genres/registers
• Historical trends observed (Biber and Finegan 1989)– English writing becomes more spoken-like over
time
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Adverbial Features
Amplifiers
Emphatics
Hedges
Because
Time Adverbials
Discourse Particles
Prepositions
Pied Piping
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Verb Features
Private VerbsPublic VerbsSuasive VerbsDoBeNecessity ModalsPredictive ModalsInfinitivesThe Perfect
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Other Features
Analytic Negation
Synthetic Negation
Indefinite Pronouns
IT
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Factor Comparison
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 1It, Be, DoBecausePrepositions (-)Indefinite PronounsDiscourse ParticlesAnalytic NegationPrivate Verbs(hedges)
Demonstratives
AmplifiersEmphatics1st and 2nd Person
Factor 2Public Verbs
(perfect)
3rd Person(Synthetic Neg)
Factor 3Time Adv.
(Pied Pipe)
N-ion,(N-ment)
Factor 4InfinitivePred. Mod.Necess. M.Suasive
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Biber’s Factors
• Information vs. involved production
• Narrative vs. non-narrative concerns
• Explicit vs. situation-dependent reference
• Overt expression of persuasion
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Interpretation
• Factor 1: – Elaborated vs. unelaborated
• Factor 2: – Syntactic and conceptual complexity
• Factor 3: – Person-reference and certainty
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Response and Fi tted Values vs numdate
numdate
Response&Fitted Values
-1.00e+3 0.00e+0 1.00e+3 2.00e+3 3.00e+3 4.00e+3 5.00e+3-4.00
-2.00
0.00
2.00
4.00
Factor 1 by date
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Response and Fi tted Values vs numdate
numdate
Response&Fitted Values
-1.00e+3 0.00e+0 1.00e+3 2.00e+3 3.00e+3 4.00e+3 5.00e+3-4.00
-2.00
0.00
2.00
4.00
Factor 2 by date
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Response and Fi tted Values vs numdate
numdate
Response&Fitted Values
-1.00e+3 0.00e+0 1.00e+3 2.00e+3 3.00e+3 4.00e+3 5.00e+3-3.00
-2.00
-1.00
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
Factor 3 by date
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Changes over time
• Factor 2, syntactic/conceptual complexity – Shows slight overall increase over time
– Decreases with the number of messages and length of time one has been on the list
• Factors 1 (elaborated) and 3 (person ref/certainty) – Decrease with increasing number of messages on the
the list
– Increase slightly with one’s length of time on the list
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Conclusions
• The factors of co-varying features identified do not seem to match Biber’s factors well
• There do appear to be correlations between the factors and time (date and experience)– Complexity/formality plays an important role
• It is still unclear if any of these changes are related to the medium
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