Transcript Change in E-mail Style: A Multi

Change in E-mail Style:
A Multi-Dimensional Approach
John C. Paolillo
SCAN Research Group Meeting
October 4, 2002
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
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)
Medium and Language Change
• Written media:
– Standardization/homogenization
– Complexity and formality
• Spoken media:
– Simplification
– Diversification
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
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
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
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
Adverbial Features
Amplifiers
Emphatics
Hedges
Because
Time Adverbials
Discourse Particles
Prepositions
Pied Piping
Verb Features
Private Verbs
Public Verbs
Suasive Verbs
Do
Be
Necessity Modals
Predictive Modals
Infinitives
The Perfect
Other Features
Analytic Negation
Synthetic Negation
Indefinite Pronouns
IT
Factor Comparison
Factor 1
Factor 1
It, Be, Do
Because
Prepositions (-)
Indefinite Pronouns
Discourse Particles
Analytic Negation
Private Verbs
(hedges)
Factor 2
Demonstratives
Factor 3
Amplifiers
Emphatics
1st and 2nd Person
Factor 2
Public Verbs
Factor 3
Time Adv.
(perfect)
(Pied Pipe)
N-ion,
(N-ment)
3rd Person
(Synthetic Neg)
Factor 4
Infinitive
Pred. Mod.
Necess. M.
Suasive
Biber’s Factors
•
•
•
•
Information vs. involved production
Narrative vs. non-narrative concerns
Explicit vs. situation-dependent reference
Overt expression of persuasion
Interpretation
• Factor 1:
– Elaborated vs. unelaborated
• Factor 2:
– Syntactic and conceptual complexity
• Factor 3:
– Person-reference and certainty
Factor 1 by date
Response
and Fi t t ed Val ues
v s num dat e
Response&Fitted Values
4.00
2.00
0.00
-2.00
-4.00
-1.00e+3
0.00e+0
1.00e+3
2.00e+3
numdate
3.00e+3
4.00e+3
5.00e+3
Factor 2 by date
Response
and Fi t t ed Val ues
v s num dat e
Response&Fitted Values
4.00
2.00
0.00
-2.00
-4.00
-1.00e+3
0.00e+0
1.00e+3
2.00e+3
numdate
3.00e+3
4.00e+3
5.00e+3
Factor 3 by date
Response
and Fi t t ed Val ues
v s num dat e
3.00
Response&Fitted Values
2.00
1.00
0.00
-1.00
-2.00
-3.00
-1.00e+3
0.00e+0
1.00e+3
2.00e+3
numdate
3.00e+3
4.00e+3
5.00e+3
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
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