Language and the Internet

130 LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET

withmessage-exchangesoftenanonymous,continuingindefinitely,
anddealingwithawideandunpredictablerangeofissues.Although
there are several points of linguistic similarity between the two situ-
ations, the linguistic features and strategies taken up by chatgroup
participants are very different from those typically employed by
e-mail users.
In a synchronous setting, a user enters a chat ‘room’ and joins
an ongoing conversation in real time.^3 Named contributions are
sent to a central computer address and are inserted into a perma-
nently refreshing screen along with the contributions from other
participants. The online members of the group see their contribu-
tions appear on screen soon after they make them (all being well:
see below), and hope for a prompt response. In an asynchronous
setting, the interactions also go to a central address, but they are
then stored in some format, and made available to members of
the group only upon demand, so that people can catch up with
the discussion, or add to it, at any time – even after an appreciable
period has passed. It is not important for members to see their
contributions arrive, and prompt reactions are welcomed but not
assumed. Of the two situations, it is the synchronous interactions
which cause most radical linguistic innovation, as we shall see, af-
fecting several basic conventions of traditional spoken and written
communication. It is therefore better to begin this chapter with the
asynchronous type, where many of the interactions are much more
like those familiar in e-mail and in traditional written genres such
as the letter or essay.

Asynchronous groups

Discussion groups proliferated so remarkably in the 1990s that
it is difficult to make statements of any generality. The WELL
(=Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link), founded in 1985, had over

(^3) How this is done (the various procedures and types of participation – by subscription,
permission, open access, etc.) is not the concern of this book, except insofar as the list-
owner or moderator exercises linguistic influence: see below.