ELS 225 Computer-Mediated Communication| 03/30/2023

Linguistic and Interactional Features

of Internet Relay Chat
Christopher C. Werry
Carnegie Mellon University

Presenter:
Galupo, Maria Victoria S.
 Interactive written discourse
and IRC
Three main types of interactive
written discourse:
• Textual communication:
TALK
PHONE
• Text based virtual reality
(Hardy, 1993):
MUDs
• Chat systems:
IRC
Addressivity
 Abbreviation
• Subject pronouns are often deleted (or phonologically reduced)

• Acronyms: ROFL, IMHO, & “emoticons”

• Analogous forms of abbreviation
• Participants' nicknames are also frequently abbreviated

• Vowels of some words will commonly be left out

Paralinguistic & Prosodic cues
Actions and gestures
 Conclusion

• the formal properties and patterns o fcommunicative interaction identifiable emerge out of a complex set of
temporal, spatial, contextual and social constraints.
• participants have evolved a number of innovative linguistic strategies which function to both compensate for and
adapt to these constraints.
• communication on IRC is shaped at many different levels by the drive to reproduce or simulate the discursive
style of face-to-face spoken language.
• language on IRC is crucially inflected by the practice of naturalistic interpersonal exchange, and the tendency to
create forms of expression that enable or are appropriate to such exchange.