Topic- and mode-sensitive interaction strategies: functions of ellipsis in oral communication

• Authors: Jonathan White
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In this article, we discuss ellipsis as an interactive strategy by analysing the author’s textchat corpus and the VOICE corpus of English as a Lingua Franca. It is found that there were fewer repetitions in the textchat data, and this is explained as a consequence of the textchat mode. Textchat contributions are preserved as long as the chat is active or has been saved, and therefore users can scroll through and review the discussion, compared to the more fleeting nature of oral conversation. As a result, repetition is less necessary. The frequency of other functions identified could be attributed to the topic of discourse. Discussions involve much ellipsis used to develop discourse, although some were self-presentations with repetition used to confirm details. Back-channel support and comments were often low because speakers instead used forms like yeah as supportive utterances.

Keywords

EN

ellipsis; interaction; oral discourse; textchat; discourse topic; mode of communication

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Research in Language
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 334-350

Dates

published

2015-09-30

Contributors

author

Jonathan White

• Dalarna University

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/rela-2015-0027