Linguistic characteristics of Dutch computer-mediated communication. CMC and school writing compared
Year: 2016
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Computer-mediated communication has become essential in many youths' lives.Because language in CMC frequently deviates from standard language norms, it is feared to harm youngsters' traditional literacy skills.To determine if and, if so, how social media affect their writing skills, we first need to establish how CMC actually differs from the standard language.This paper presents findings of a study comparing CMC texts and school essays by youths from the Netherlands.Linguistic analyses were done with T-Scan, software specifically designed for Dutch texts.A range of lexical measures (lexical diversity, 'special' words, lexical density, ellipses) and syntactic measures (dependency lengths, subordinate clauses, sentence length, D-level) were studied.Results reveal that in comparison to their school writings, Dutch youths' computer-mediated communication is syntactically less complex, contains more omissions, and is lexically more diverse, different, and dense.These youths thus employ different registers in the writing contexts of CMC and school.
Author: Lieke Verheijen
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2548361589