This presentation focuses on the use of metonymic and reduced language in textchat as a marker of sociolinguistic stance. The data come from academic seminars conducted through Skype textchat from a Masters-level course in English Linguistics. Stance has been described in DuBois’ classic (2007) work as involving an evaluation of an object, a positioning by a speaker with respect to that object, and an alignment between speakers. I demonstrate that there is explicit alignment in the form of the metonymic use of seminar group names and inclusive pronominals like we to refer to the members of seminar groups. The example of implicit alignment is the use of reduced language, and I focus on the reduced form, when users reduce the orthographic form of an item (such as writing mess instead of message), or reduced the formality (such as writing yeah instead of yes). By using reduced forms or not, I propose that users position themselves as users of so-called netspeak (Crystal, 2001; Squires, 2010; Vandergriff, 2013, 2016), and align in this respect with other users in the group. There are leaders of different discussion groups, and they tend to lead this process, although other students who are seen as authorities by being more frequent users of the Internet can also be norm-setters. Crucially, the native speaker teachers are not authorities, and so cannot be part of this community. The non-use of reduced forms within the community is not an example of dis-alignment, however, I propose; rather, it is a demonstration of individuality in the community.
References
Crystal, D. (2001). Language and the Internet. New York: Cambridge University Press.
DuBois, J. (2007). The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (Ed.). Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction (pp.139-182). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Squires, L. (2010). Enregistering Internet language. Language in Society 39, 457-492.
Vandergriff, I. (2013). “My major is English, belive it or not:)” – Participant orientations in nonnative/native text chat. CALICO Journal 30(3), 393-409.
Vandergriff, I. (2016). Second-language discourse in the digital world: Linguistic and social practices in and beyond the networked classroom. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
