Who Sets E-Mail Style? Prescriptivism, Coping Strategies, and Democratizing Communication Access
Year: 2002
Type: article
Abstract: Stylistic practices in e-mail reflect an amalgam of social presuppositions about usage conventions and individual strategies for handling a new language medium. To understand how contemporary e-mail patterns have been forged and where they might be heading, this study examines the ways in which newly enfranchised language users in the past have balanced externally generated prescriptions for linguistic style with user-generated coping strategies in constructing spoken and written messages. Popular letter writing, the early telegraph, and early telephone behavior offer useful precedents for thinking about both e-mail messages themselves and the potential effects of language technology on broader language change.
Source: The Information Society
Author: Naomi S. Baron
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2036816808