Abstract
AbstractThis study promotes replication research as a methodological approach that is needed in order to compare earlier and more recent analyses of digital discourse. When much of the existing research was conducted, the primary means of communication included the use of a computer keyboard, (presumably) less bandwidth, and fewer devices. However, with an increase of the range of device types, the study of diacritics deserves another look within the Digital Media landscape. The present study examines the variable use of diacritics in synchronous (i.e., real-time) French chat discourse. We have replicated a study with different data sets from the same chat corpus, which is composed of data from a European chat server. We have also compared the data from the 2008 half of the corpus to data from the same chat channels collected in 2016 (just over 60,000 words in each half of the corpus, which included a total of 7,569 tokens that were coded). Our analysis of the 2008 corpus showed that one main finding was not the same as ours (from a different part of the 2008 corpus). Moreover, a diachronic analysis (2008 vs. 2016) revealed reversed trends between the two age-based channels (i.e., 20s vs. 50s).
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics
Reference44 articles.
1. Reflexions sur la proposition de reforme de l’orthographe et sa polemique;Watts;The French Review,1991
2. Herring, S. C. (2007). A faceted classification scheme for computer-mediated discourse. Language@Internet, 4, 1–37. URL: http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2007/761, retrieved 2 January 2015.
3. The economics of linguistic exchanges
4. Académie française. (n.d.). Rectifications de l’orthographe. URL: http://www.academie-francaise.fr, retrieved 12 June 2020.