Since November 1995 I have been a participant observer in what seems to be a type of evolving community whose norms of interaction have been on the negotiation table since its inception and are still being tested. I believe that we have been developing a set of 'frames of coherence' within this community: a particular email discussion group and the activities that have been undertaken within that group. This dissertation can be conceived of as a case study of some of the norms of interaction which have become apparent during the course of the list's history, and which 'realise' its context. Data on which I base my tentative findings consist of files of almost every post dating from October 1995 up until the present day, and totals about 10 megabytes.
I would like to attempt to define the context of the interaction by an examination of a selection of the products -texts- of these activities, in what is necessarily a synoptic approach, based on my own active participation in the group, and show how they may be 'recontextualised', through reference to some features of the text within the field, mode and tenor of the discourse.
My own perspective in this study draws heavily on the work of Halliday and Hasan (1973,1985, 1994, 1996) who set out five cycles concerning the interrelationship between text and context (1985: 48) which I will outline in the first part of the paper by making brief reference to their relevance to the dynamics of the activities of the mailing list from which texts for this study have been taken.
An account of the field of discourse, the content or topic of discussions, the perspective of the experiences that each participant brings with them, and the struggles to have their experiences and their relevance to the ongoing discourse recognised, is made in the first chapter, and makes reference to the notion of intertextuality.
While a more delicate analysis of the experiential metafunction in terms of transitivity processes evident in the texts used would yield further insights into the nature of the discourse, within the confines of this paper it will not be possible to go beyond an outline of the 2nd order register by reference to the various topics and threads that have formed 'grist for the mill' during the history of the list. These topics, however, show a strong 'orientational' dimension, and highlight the most important facet of the interrelationship between the interpersonal, the textual and the experiential metafunctions: that of the social viewpoint of the participants and the ideological functions that their discourse bring to the discussion. This type of social orientation or 'voice' which participants use and from which position they evaluate the contributions of others has been outlined by Lemke (1995) and is relevant to what participants see as valued texts and as relevant to the discussion.
Aspects of the Mode of the discourse will also be discussed in this chapter, and later the term 'frames of coherence' will be introduced to suggest the ways we set up our interactions, and cue others as to what to expect from how we perform, and derives in part from the work of Richard Bauman (1975. 1990), Labov and Fanshel (in Coulthard 1985), Levinson (1983),and Brown and Levinson (1986) all of whom make reference to how analysts are restricted to observing perlocutionary force, uptake, or response moves in determining what might realise the socially accepted norms of linguistic behaviour in any 'speech community'. Actual written responses are necessary in this medium in order to gauge what other members have made of our performances, whether they have 'made sense' within this context, and how further interactions may be conducted.
For this purpose, certain patterns have been observed and reported on by participants who bring their own perspectives to the negotiation 'table'. In Bateson's (1972 in Bauman 1975: 295) terms, participants, in attempting to define a 'metacommunicative frame' in which they can act, attempt to bring these devices to the surface through discussing their own conventions and patterns of communication.
This study is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive. Terms and labels for elements and structures of discourse are introduced from a number of different perspectives, and suggest ways that work done previously in areas of conversational analysis, discourse analysis - both spoken and written, and cultural anthropology might be applied in order to link the text to the context in which it is embedded. Realisations of the mode of discourse are related very strongly to the context of the interaction as I hope to show, and are necessary in this channel/medium due to the very nature of the constraints placed upon it. Specifically, that participants seem to use a register that is textually similar to that of written communication, but which attempts to maintain some of the features of face to face conversation..
There have already been many studies on the emergent nature of the email or computer mediated communication (CMC) 'genre', which posit that the discourse shows features of both the conversational and the written mode of communication (Shank 1993; Heim 1987; Baym 1996; Ferrara et al 1991; Murray 1988; Keisler et al 1984; Wilkins 1991; Walther et al 1994; Collot and Belmore 1996; Yates 1996, Herring 1996) and it is hoped that this dissertation will point to other avenues of research which will help to define the interaction more completely.
The final part of the paper will look at indicators of the tenor of discourse, and its relationship to how messages are structured in order to alert readers to a participant's stance. Because of the lack of visual, prosodic and other cues useful in what is known as F2F (face to face) communication, and even in telephone conversations where 'real-time' is an important ingredient missing from the email stew, the interpersonal dimension becomes salient in this medium. Apart from these matters becoming part of the field of interaction, they first become salient in the actual mechanisms of posting and response. Each participant needs to orient him/herself to the audience in some way, and whatever formal choices s/he makes from the semantic option network and encodes into the lexicogrammatical surface features of his/her post are taken up and responded to by the other participants. This 'interpersonal' dimension cannot be separated in any useful way from either the ideational content or the textual component of the discourse, because the roles taken and perceived by others in the audience is dependent on the one hand on the stance taken by the writer in relation to both his/ experience and the information s/he brings to the discussion, and on the other hand by his/her use of the textual encoding options in the language. However, to a large extent, it can be posited that role perceptions by other participants are based not on what is said, but on how language is used which reveals what Discourses and social positions the writer has come into contact with or identifies with - with what is sometimes referred to as the writer's 'style'.
What aspects of Tenor - distance and solidarity - can be observed in the ongoing interaction? How are they realised in text? Furthermore, when positing a description of exchange structure, it has been acknowledged (Coulthard 1985) that while formal features cannot be said to realise a one-to-one relationship with illocutionary force or intent, it is obvious that members of a code using community will see certain lexicogrammatical choices as realising certain functions or purposes of communication. It is for this reason that some formal features of the interpersonal metafunction will be discussed to determine whether it is possible to make any predictions about such exchange structure by reference to such formal features.
Also, because of the lack of 'real time' face-to-face cues, resulting in
a mode of interaction of 'low process sharing' (Hasan 1985), the notion of
'transitional relevance' becomes important: each post, or message, must be
recontextualised in some way, because the mode of interaction is also dependent
on a technology which allows several 'conversations' to go on at the same
time. Therefore, within a broad consideration of the concept of 'frames of
coherence' within and across texts, the specific area 'framing', or
contextualising each new post will be discussed by examining sections of
posts showing framing or reframing 'moves' and the patterns that may be observed
within both opening and closing sequences.
"I am going to talk about context first, for the reason that, in real life, contexts precede texts. The situation is prior to the discourse that relates to it."Halliday (1985: 5)
While social activities continue to be defined by the discourses through which they are constituted, the discourses themselves and their resultant 'texts' can only be understood by reference to the social activities in which they are embedded, and whose functions and goals they are shaped to achieve.
Through experience in various contexts we come to be able to predict in some measure what our interlocutors are going to say and how 'meanings' can be made. The almost infinite options available in the semantic network demand that some form of framework be available for speakers/hearers to quickly make sense of what is being said, and the notion of the context of situation helps to secure such predictions and explain how people interact. Meanings are made in the context of the social situation, they are made by members of social groups in the ongoing activities in which they take part. It is this view of context of situation that I want to focus on, and the features of the context of mailing list group culture formation that I wish to describe and interpret from the viewpoint of my own reading position, that of member of this community. Sinclair and Coulthard (1992: 13) note that a consideration of situation is essential for analysts hoping to classify items based on the non-linguistic environment, or the context of culture and situation (see below). In the case of the interaction in this email list, it is felt that participant status is an important contributing factor in deciding what types of 'moves' might be discernible in this context.
Halliday (1985: 44-49) outlines five periods or levels in the text-context continuum. The first is a view of the text itself as a metafunctional construct, that is, the lexicogrammatical realisations of the Field, Tenor and Mode of discourse in operation. These metafunctions are generally known as the experiential, interpersonal and textual, and features of these metafunctions can be discerned across and through texts. They are co-dependent and theoretically inseparable, but for purposes of analysis, formal indicators of these metafunctions may be teased out from any section of text.
The second level that Halliday outlines is the context of situation in which these metafunctions are played out. By examining features of this area it is possible to come close to defining what Hasan (1985) calls a 'contextual configuration'. It is in some ways akin to the 'material' context; the situation in which the discourse occurs, contributing the basic 'glue' for coherence in any text.
With regard to this particular situation, where a community seems to have evolved divorced, as it were, from each participant's 'real life' material context, the ongoing interaction amongst members and its traces in the 'archives', the context of situation takes on a particular significance. New members or 'newbies', are a continual source of discussion fodder, as they often make 'mistakes', introduce topics that have been disposed of already, misinterpret other participants' stance based on limited knowledge of that member's list 'identity' and/or role, or complain that the list is 'exclusive' and unwelcoming to new members even though overt and explicit moves are made on the part of older participants to include them in the 'conversation'.
With this mailing list's discussion in mind, and perhaps other mailing lists as well, what Hasan (op cit) calls the 'material situation' is dramatically split, causing an interesting tension. What is written 'onlist' has its own material context: the context of the ongoing discussion that the participants largely unknown to each other have been having for over a year.
The participants themselves -largely unknown to each other- have their own personal contexts, from which standpoint they read and respond to the others. These become extremely salient to some members who feel the need to know such details about their interlocutors in order to 'place' them and relate to them as more than 'part-objects' (to use a term that has gained currency onlist due to the influence of the psychological orientations/reading positions of several influential list members). I venture to suggest that this tension was a contributing factor in the earlier 'Sig File Wars' (discussions of a heated nature regarding the necessity or repugnance associated with signing each post with a formalised 'signature file', setting out academic credentials and other personal details) we experienced in October 95 at the beginning of list history. This was brought up briefly again in January 96 (from which time and thread I take some of the data I will later discuss in terms of the interpersonal metafunction of the text, and as an example of units in a tentative rank scale of 'exchange structure' pertinent to email discussion list behaviour). This tension has also contributed to the occasional outbursts of what have become known as 'AFFinity' posts (as contrasted with purely CONtent-based or topic/work-centred material), and the matter of pseudoanonymity in posting.
Other factors contributing to the context of situation that pertain especially to mailing list interaction is the previously mentioned absence of F2F cues, a feature of the technological constraints under which discussion is conducted. Another even more 'material' consideration associated with this is of course the deferred nature of the communication. The technology associated with a mailing list allows a person to be 'subscribed' to a list in a variety of ways, one of which is 'digest' form where the day's posts are sent to the subscriber in one bundle, once a day. This means that real time interaction for those subscribers is almost impossible, unless they wish to communicate 'backchannel' or one-to-one. Other participants who happen to be logged on at the same time have sometimes reported strange feelings of exhilaration when they first experienced sending a post and receiving a response from one of the participants within minutes. So the lack of contact with other members is heightened in this medium and sometimes leads to misunderstandings and the phenomenon of 'projection' (which again is part of list lexicon due to influence of psychological perspectives which will be touched upon in the following section). Interaction is 'deferred' in time and space.
In the case of most literature and written traces of communicative efforts, the text is preserved in amber, so to speak - writers and readers are at one remove, although writers will probably have some conception of who their audience will be. This is unlike mailing list interaction in that messages are going to be read by all those who are subscribed to the list, and also in that one hopes that one's contribution will elicit some form of response. Traditionally, letters have been generally penned for one-to-one consumption, and both writer and reader have a fair knowledge of their interlocutor's 'material situation' beyond the letter-writing arena, whereas this is not necessarily the case with mailing lists; messages of 'affinity' are the exception rather than the norm on some of the more academic lists, or those whose field of interaction is more closely associated with 'information exchange' rather than group dynamics, which the list in the study has as its focus.
For each individual poster, of course, the context of situation is more objectively described as that of sitting in front of a monitor and typing one's thoughts onto the screen via a keyboard, then connecting through a telephone and a modem to a distant computer.
Halliday's third level of context is that of the 'context of culture'. Describing the context of culture as it applies to this mailing list is again problematic. One way of viewing it is to make a type of lowest common denominator description of the typical listmember, who is usually a native speaker of English (although amongst participants there have been at least two active members who were not), has undergone some form of tertiary education, is white, middle class, and obviously computer literate. Most of the active participants are American, so the flavour of the discussion and mores often manifest assumptions based on membership of American culture, and this has indeed contributed to some misinterpretations of interpersonal behaviour. Discussion is to some degree male dominated, although the women participants sometimes create threads based on gender and solidarity issues.
Another view of the culture of situation is to see the list culture as a construct of its own, based on the history and discussions which have taken place, and through which norms of interaction have been 'decided' or negotiated. It is obvious that both these aspects contribute to overall list culture, and that the misunderstandings and problems associated with newcomers touched on above, stem directly from a lack of knowledge of this culture.
The notion of intertextuality is the third level in this cycle, and is closely linked to both context of situation and context of culture. The topics of the discussions, what has gone down in list history as kept in the archives, the cycles of thread topics, the valued Discourses which have figured in these discussions and which reflect to a great degree those social identities which participants bring to the list as information and opinion that should be valued, all figure here.
This aspect of the context is most closely associated with the field of the interaction, the ideational and experiential metafunction, and for that reason, a discussion of the list's valued texts and Discourses follows.
Besides the raw archival material that is sometimes referred to, there are a number of list specific texts which figure in defining list context. The most significant one may be the 'welcome message' that arrives in every new subscriber's mailbox, and which is sometimes jokingly referred to as 'the mission statement'. This is kept permanently on the web page dedicated to the list <http://www.iquest.net/~rwinkler/netdynam.htm> and is maintained by one of the members. It is reposted once a month under the title 'Netdynam Masthead', as a way of reminding members and newcomers of what may be read as the list 'constitution'. It occasionally becomes fodder for debate and reflects the fact that the list was started by a psychologist whose interests lay in group dynamics and the way these could be played out 'online' (Appendix 1: valued texts: 1.). The original welcome message referred specifically to the Tavistock model of group dynamics whose chief exponent is Wilfred Bion. Consequently, many of the discussions have used terms and concepts specifically related to this Discourse. (cf; Appendix 2: Ba states: excerpts from Bion's 'Experiences in Groups')
Because the list initially attracted many practicing psychologists and psychiatrists, knowledge of the works of such writers as Freud, Jung and Klein is necessary to follow some of the threads that have appeared. Another recurring debate has centred on the way the medium operates and how interaction can be conceived and manipulated. One of the list specific texts that is often referred to is what has come to be known as 'The Big Six', a set of six strategies that participants should employ in order to get the needed response to a message (Appendix 1: 2.). This was devised by one of the listmembers. Jargon, in-jokes and list specific use of metaphor are also apparent in discussions and there is a partial listing of these under the title 'The Grumpy Glossary' (Appendix 1: 3) also maintained at the web page cited above. As part of a conference presentation on the dynamics of this list, a typology of characters was compiled by one of the members (Appendix 1: 5: 'Netdynam cast of characters').
One other paradigm that has always figured in list negotiations over 'norms' is that of what constitutes appropriate material (on topic/ off topic) for posting. Early in list history this negotiation was carried on under the dichotomy CONtent versus AFFinity. Some participants felt that message content be restricted to material relevant to the discussion of an ideational nature, in effect, to an exchange of 'information' about list dynamics. Another camp felt that messages that revealed an 'affect' component was also relevant to list discussion as the nature of each poster's personal opinion, background, identity, social orientation and the 'feelings' raised by interaction onlist was a necessary factor in the dynamics of group formation. For some time, it was agreed that subject lines should be preceded by the tags AFF or CON to alert members as to the likely content of the message. These terms have now entered list lexicon, and occasionally still appear on new messages.
One of the participants devised a set of topics or material that he deemed the list was willing to see posted (cf Appendix 4: exchanges: 'ND self study and boundaries'). Posting material of a personal nature (the so-called AFFinity posts) has raised issues of privacy and identity onlist, and caused at least two rather significant upheavals during list history in which litigation was either threatened or involved. Indeed, one of the subtitles originally considered for this paper was 'Mailing List As Soap Opera', and in many respects, membership of this list allows one to participate in, or observe as a 'lurker' the unfolding drama of the characters which one may 'project' into the roles assumed and responded to in a wholly graphic and ascii-bound medium.
The final area of context outlined by Halliday (op cit) is that of Coherence, and this refers to the actual relations obtaining between parts of the text(s) themselves at the level of discourse. This is the level of the lexicogrammatical relations between the words in any 'utterance'. Utterances/sentences are constructed (usually) according to these 'logical' relations. If they aren't, they are foregrounded for some purpose, and become rather more obvious elements of 'style', rather than another example of an acceptable utterance in context. The term 'frames of coherence' that I wish to introduce, relates to this level of the context of interaction.
This brings the text back to the dimension metafunctional construct, as each text represents a configuration of these metafunctions in achieving some purpose or goal in context.
The selection of lexicogrammatical features from the semantic network in order to achieve this purpose must be done with the context in mind, the writer obviously hoping that his/her intent will be retrievable (or sometimes not). While this is ultimately not possible, readers do make interpretations based on their own experiences of participants and processes within the community in which the text appears.
Because this particular type of community is reliant on words and messages
in order to come to an understanding of the community in which they are
participating, the formal features of the lexicogrammar become salient for
determining what is acceptable, or what is 'truth' and 'reality' as Hodge
and Kress (1988) might have it.
It is proposed that participants attempt to 'frame' their contributions in order to signal in what way the post is meant to be read, and how others are to understand their orientation to the subject or topic under discussion, as well as to the other participants. In order to look at some features of text which may act as signals to readers, individual messages from a particular thread, as well as sections from several other messages have been selected. A number different perspectives are mentioned as relevant for an understanding of the functions realised by certain posited structural categories identified within messages: a tentative rank scale model of exchange structure, its relationship to Bauman's notion of 'performance', and Brown and Levinson's model of politeness strategies; the textual cohesion of the text across the body of the post by using the notion of 'projection' and 'lexical cohesion' as outlined by Hoey (1994); and the interpersonal metafunctional aspects of the text, that is, the mood and modality features which are apparent and which serve to mark the role and reader positions of the writer. Using these descriptive tools, it should be possible to account for the means by which a reader might interpret what is being said in what situation with what purpose to whom.
However, while Halliday (1985: 38) maintains that 'given the text, we construct the situation from it', I posit that unless we have had actual experience of a similar context, and in some cases the specific context or 'material situation' in which the text has arisen, then we will have quite a measure of difficulty reconstructing the context to any degree of delicacy. The reader will need to have had access to both the material and the cultural context of situation, as well as to the code of the language itself.
Because of the very Mode of communication involved here, a vast array of 'misinterpretations' and misunderstandings are possible, and indeed, actually seem to be projected onto the other participants, which tends to result in the use of overt signals in order to alert the audience to the writer's stance, and hence the interpersonal aspect of all contributions to the discussion. In effect, writers tend to try compensate for the lack of normal F2F cues and knowledge of their own and the audience's actual 'material situation'. In some cases, writers are known to exploit these avenues for misinterpretation, using discourse styles that at the surface level seem to flout certain unstated norms of politeness such as outlined by Grice (cf Levinson 1983: 101-112). The reason for this seems to be related to the requirement, stated earlier in this paper, and reflected in the taxonomy (The Big Six) posited by one of the participants (cf Appendix 1), that for the interaction to continue at all, responses need to be made. It is not much use for the ongoing discussion if nobody makes a response, although in other types of mailing lists, informative 'monologues' are the norm and no response is sought or expected. Unfortunately, one of the 'norms' that is frequently posited within the domain of CMC, is a disdain for what has come to be known as 'me too' messages, where another's post is quoted, sometimes at length, with the only addition a simple 'I agree'. In other words, if there is no 'hook' in one's message, or post, one is unlikely to get a response, and so one's point, and hence, one's self, one's voice is seemingly ignored. Kress (1985: 32) sums up this need for difference in positioning; this 'conflict' in order to create drama; "Texts are constructed in and by [this] difference. Where there is no difference there is silence." Indeed, reference to 'The Big Six' will show that one of the methods of obtaining a response is to be contentious; to disagree with what has been posted, or to break some norm or taboo.
It is obvious that the Mode of the interaction is significant for this context. To help define it more delicately, I make reference to Hasan (1985: 58) who describes the relationship between the channel and the medium of interaction. It has already been pointed out that with respect to email list discussion the channel is entirely located at the graphic end of the continuum. Hasan relates the channel of communication to the concept of process-sharing:
"..the physical presence of the addressee impinges on the textual processes in a way that the writer's own awareness of the needs of the addressee can hardly ever do: for one thing, in the phonic channel both the speaker and the addressee hear (and often see) the same thing at the same time. This is obviously not possible when the channel is graphic."
This means that mailing list discussion does not seem to favour conditions where active process-sharing can be undertaken, and because this is the case, participants, in the struggle to reproduce a multilogue comparable to that of real time F2F discussion engage in various means through which aspects of the spoken medium can be used, most significantly through quoting parts of another's message to which they wish to make a response. In terms of conversational exchange structure, or the turn-taking mechanism, this quoting helps to set up a 'transitional relevance' for the responses made to another's post, sometimes long after, in temporal terms, the post was originally sent.
The 'medium' refers to the degree to which the discussion is undertaken in either the written or the spoken mode. Because the matter of 'phonic' representation has been taken care of in locating the channel, medium can be used as a purely textual construct, and therefore retrieved from a consideration of the patterning of the formal features of the text itself - the use of the lexicogrammatical options in the service of creating meaning within the constraints of this 'material context'.
In a study undertaken by Yates (1996) for example, it was found that within the selected data, a comparison between CMC, 'written', and 'spoken' corpora revealed that along the dimensions type/token ratio, lexical density, and modality, CMC-mediated data was found to be comparable to that of speech, rather than writing. In the case of the use of modal auxiliaries, it was found that in CMC, the frequency was higher than in speech or writing (op cit: 44). While it would be enticing to draw conclusions regarding the reasons for these findings, it must be said that such conclusions would be based on intuitive and experiential knowledge only. That being said, however, from my experience it seems that posters find it necessary to make their strategies for being polite, and their need to express solidarity /power distance attitudes much more explicit in such a medium than they would need to do in normal conversational settings.
Furthermore, I believe that, as stated above, a prospective member of the community of any email list will not only have to have had experience of the signals for textual 'frames of coherence' that may have evolved in order to compensate for lack of process-sharing, but must have had some background knowledge of the field and tenor of the discussion, or 'list culture' before they can usefully join the discussion without drawing responses of veiled exasperation from the older participants.
The following post was selected in as arbitrary way as possible while still retaining a relevance to the need to tease out some of the features of this medium, and the specific context of this list. In July 1996, two days' digests were selected from January 96. These were amended so that all names were removed from the text. This was in response to a suggestion that a textual analysis of a sequence of posts from some period of list history sufficiently removed from present concerns as to render the context of situation at the time non retrievable through the office of normal memory, would reveal patterns of interaction that might be correlated with similar patterns derived from other Discourse orientations prevalent in list discussions of group behaviour (to wit, those of Tavistockian group dynamics and the work of the psychologist Wilfred Bion, and that of Jungian personality types as revealed by such methods as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (cf Appendix 1: 4: A summary of Jungian personality typing). These were sent to three volunteers from among list participants.(ratings are included in Appendix 2: sig files thread, and related comments in Appendix 3: Ba states)
For the purposes of this study, I selected the thread with the most posts, then took one from the middle of the thread (post number 7 in a sequence of 15) which happened to show features of signalling that attempt to position the audience/writer.
Try this quick quiz: assume you are a 'newbie' and that this is the first message that arrives in your mailbox after you have subscribed. How would you attempt to recontextualise the post?
What features of the text would allow you to determine what gave rise to this message, and what role the writer takes in relation to previous participants' contributions? How does the writer position himself in relation to these other readers <offstage> and the participants to whom he addresses his comments directly? What response to the post would you assume occurs as a follow up to this post? What are the likely content and writer positions of other posts in the thread?
--------------------------------- 1. Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 16:31:20 -0600 From: Barry Subject: Re: SIGnifiers
2. Stephen wrote: 2.1 (snip) >Toyota Tercel, '89, 78,000miles >Net Dynamics control group 3. LOL! control group...that's a good one! 4. Steve R-----, MD wrote: 4.1 >I'm sorry if you feel my sig is pissant >and obnoxious. I don't(so far), but will dispense with it the >instant I feel its liabilities outweigh its benefits. 4.2 I did not write that I felt *your* sig is pissant and obnoxious. I wrote, in response to your question: 4.3 >>To turn the sig question on its head, >>I've wondered from time to time why some PhDs on this list _don't_ >> include that in their sigs. Anyone care to comment? 4.4 >I don't largely because I feel it's obnoxious. >In graduate school, I once worked for a consultant who consistently >had his name on all the firm's materials as: "Dr. Pissant >Schlmiel, Ph.D." (Name changed to protect me if he's still >alive and somehow on the Net.) He *was* a pissant, and this over-usage >was typical. 5. I made this name up partially because his real name is Steven XXXX, and I did not want to have anyone thinking I was referring 5.1 to you. Didn't work anyway. 6. Hey Netdynamo shrinks: what did Steve do here? 6.1 Countercountertransference? projection? Jung/Freudian slip? 7. Barry 7.1 Volvo, 79, 210,000 miles ------------------------------
If this post is considered as an 'utterance', marked, at the first rank by its own boundaries, these may be easily identified by the forms inherent in the technology, or the interface itself. These forms have almost come to be recognised as conventions, and realise part of the textual metafunction. Other conventions on the borderline between the textual and the interpersonal can also be distinguished by typological forms.
A message is always preceded by a 'header' which identifies the list name and address (deleted in the examples), the time the message was sent, the name of the person, or at least, the email address of the person who sent it, and importantly, the subject of the message. If the message is part of a thread, then the convention, again, partly to do with the technology, is that the same subject heading under which preceding messages appeared is used, prefaced by 'Re:' Listmembers know before opening the message what it is about, and who is making the post. New topics or those addressing a new topic are easily distinguished (these may be considered as broadly 'initiating' type posts).
Closing the message is usually done with a 'signature', the person signals that they have completed the message by writing their name or handle in a certain way that becomes typical for that person. (7). Occasionally a 'sig file' is appended, and this usually shows the person's email address and web site address or some affiliation. Occasionally it incorporates some quotation.(7.1) This appears, again due to the technology inherent in the mailer, after the signature. It serves to identify the poster.
Posts themselves, may be broadly considered as realising Initiation and/or Response -type contributions, or utterances. While each message is separate, the actual exchanges may typically be carried out within the message itself. This means that one post cannot be seen as one part of an exchange, and it may be more useful to consider it as a contribution to a 'transaction' within the boundaries of the 'thread' (or 'conversation' in more conventional terms).
Within the 'body' of the message, several exchanges may usually be identified. The first is usually a type of boundary exchange, or opening sequence, which sets up the 'frame' or transitional relevance for the post. Because of the 'multilogue' character of the interaction, some type of opening or reframing move seems to be necessary: even if messages in a thread may be identified by the use of the subject line in the header, each participant responds to different parts of a variety of previous posts within threads, so that readers need to be given information about what is being responded to, in whose previous post.
Within posts there may be several 'exchanges'. The boundaries between such 'exchanges' are normally marked by typological features, most obviously by a line of white space. Another feature of the medium is the use of the chevron '>' to indicate that a quotation is being used. In the case of a double chevron '>>' we are to understand that the piece quoted has been quoted itself at one remove in the main quotation (see 4.3 above).
As well as typological features, the structure of a message seems to be marked by certain linguistic realisations. The opening sequence (which cannot be usefully seen as an exchange as it typically involves a contribution by the poster only) seems to be realised by one or more of four types of 'act': Greeting, where the poster makes some sort of salutation; Nominating, in which reference to a previous poster whose words are to be quoted and commented upon is made in a short sentence, sometimes of subject and finite only (for example, 'Steve sez:'); Quoting, where the relevant parts of another post is quoted; and Setting, in which a new post is 'framed' for the readers in some other way, especially if the post initiates a new topic (as distinct from response to a previous message). Setting might be alternatively labelled 'focus'. Some of these opening sequences do not explicitly make a greeting or name a person they intend to quote. Therefore, it is probably better to see greeting, naming, quoting as realising types of act within the framing/opening sequence, and 'setting' as a distinct 'move' type If the opening sequence involves a setting move, however, it is possible that it performs several different functions (see below: Setting) In the example above, the framing sequence is realised by nomination (2), followed by quoted material (2.1). In this example, the quoted material is followed by a comment (3). Comments are usually made as the beginning of the next exchange, realising a long move, but in this case, the function of the comment at (3) is to complete the framing/opening sequence, and reframe. The stage is set for what is to come.
The opening sequence, or 'boundary frame' as I will now call it, can now be seen to have this basic structure: (greet)//(nominate)/(quote)//(setting).//(comment)
It can be seen that all of these are semantic labels, that all are optional, and that there is no definite sequence (double slashes '//' indicating that items are not sequential), although nomination usually precedes quoting. Therefore it may be better to conceive of such a sequence as having a two-part structure, with greet, nominate, and quote, types of acts within an optional marker unit, and setting as another optional move realised by several possible acts (outlined below). Conventionally, however, one of these moves usually occurs to realise a boundary frame. A post without one of these moves at the beginning would be seen as 'marked'.
Within posts, phase shifts of the type outlined by Berry (1981) can be discerned. Readers tend to use 'intuitive' clues in order to interpret 'what is going on' in a post, or in a series of posts....but where do these clues originate?
Conversational moves by speakers can be seen as reflecting positions of a 'primary Knower' (K1) and 'secondary Knower' (K2), OR 'primary Actor' (A1) and 'secondary Actor' (A2).
This separation of moves into possible action-encoding or information/knowledge-encoding moves seem to be related to the dichotomy: proposal/ proposition maintained by Halliday (1994: 70), who notes that while proposals involve an exchange of goods and services, propositions refer to information which has no real existence except in the form of language. Propositions encode viewpoints which can then be argued about, affirmed, denied, accepted, qualified, negotiated. It seems likely that in email list interaction, most of the moves will be of the propositional type, and will involve statements that are contentious in some way so that responses will be forthcoming (cf above p. 13).
In reading transcriptions, analysts apparently have tended to look for linguistic cues in order to define conversational acts as falling into one of the aforementioned 4 categories: the person who had the knowledge to impart, or who was in the position of being able to transfer information, for example, would be labelled K1. An asker, or receiver of information, K2. Someone telling someone to DO something, A1. These acts are encoded in the lexicogrammar via selection of mood, modality, transitivity processes and other indicators. Within mailing list discussion of the type found on Netdynam, those features of the interpersonal metafunction as reflected in indicators of modality and markers of affinity seem to have become the most salient. (See Appendix 5: Analysis of some opening and closing sequences, for examples).
There seems to be some shifting towards looking at reader processes in all this as the only true indicator of 'uptake'; readers respond to posts according to their own experiences of a set of Discourses. If the matrix between writer and reader discourse experiences does not fit, then misunderstandings are likely to occur.1
Active participants, that is, those who regularly write and respond to messages, have only other participants' responses to their posts by which to determine whether they have made their point or not. On the other hand, as has been mentioned previously, a non response, (or 'Ignore' see below) while undesirable, may actually indicate compliance, acquiescence or agreement. The reason for this seems to be that other participants are unlikely to break prevalent list norms by posting 'me too' messages of support, unless they can also add to the discussion in some way. Occasionally, very contentious or 'flaming' posts are actively ignored, in order to prevent 'flame wars'. Occasionally, such efforts to 'freeze out' 'flames' or overly contentious posts/posters, are engineered backchannel, and so it has to be said that non responses or 'Ignores' are genuine responses, but that for the purposes of this study, there is no trace of them in the public discussion, and so they cannot be taken into account for the present time. However, occasionally, when a response is overtly solicited to which no one replies, the original poster makes mention of it in another post. In such a case, the non response becomes something which is actually responded to, and becomes part of the data. The mechanisms behind such posting behaviour will need to be taken up in another study.
. In the example above, the first 'exchange' actually begins at(4), where a nominating 'act' realises the first 'move' This could be considered a 'reframe'. The writer in fact quotes himself at (4.2.2), and it can be seen that in this way the writer is making a clarifying comment of his own previous post.
As this exchange seems to be the 'head' of the post, it might be fair to name the whole post 'Follow-up: Clarify', which seems to be a typical response type. However, because most posts do not necessarily realise only one conversational function, and indeed may realise moves or exchanges resembling conversational initiations, responses and follow-up all within the same post, it is difficult to assign any definite form-function correlation to whole posts. Determining the 'head' exchange might be feasible, in which case, whole posts could be named after the function of the 'head', which could be determined by looking at the function of the first 'Comment' after the opening sequence or Boundary Frame, as is suggested with reference to the main text example above. Within the confines of this study it will not be possible to do more than suggest that this is the case, and instead concentrate on some of the features which are relevant to an understanding of what goes on within posts through looking at a number lexicogrammatical signals.
In other words, the categories of 'exchange', 'move' and 'act' that will be introduced below are meant to form a convenient framework within which intra-message coherence may be discussed, and which may then be used in making 'predictions' about how readers interpret such possible signals. As such, these structural categories make no claim to delicacy at this point .
Criteria used by Coulthard and Brazil (1992: 71) in defining elements of exchange structure use the notion of 'predicting' and 'predicted'. They propose a type of move structurally identified by I/R which is both predicting and predicted; in other words, it fulfils two functions at once. Posts as utterances must be considered as such, although as stated previously, within the body of the post, that is, between the opening and closing sequences (or 'boundary exchanges'), several exchanges are set up by the writer through reframing moves which are typically realised by quoting the part of a previous post to which the participant wants to respond - and wants to be responded to.
Referring once again to the main text example above, at (5) the writer comments on his comment in a clarifying move, followed by an evaluation of what he did at (5.1) This is followed by a closing sequence which is realised by a type of 'hook' act (6), calling on other members of the discussion and naming them as 'Netdynamo shrinks', a somewhat derogatory means of referring to the participants who are psychologists. He then addresses several moodless questions to them. The post is closed with his signature, in this case his first name, and then a somewhat joking identifier, referring to the original opening sequence where he quotes another participant's sig file 'identifier'.
Before going back to analyse this text in more detail, it is useful here to ask by what means I determined that the closing sequence was begun at (6). In other words, how might it be determined that a 'phase shift' has occurred? Up until that stage, the writer had been operating as 'primary knower' (K1) giving the audience information as to his 'knowledge', beliefs, or experience. At (6) however, he shifts to an A1/K2 (primary action seeker) position, marked by his calling on the audience, and then asking them to provide the answer to his request.
In terms of lexicogrammar, the call was a type of summons, what Halliday calls a vocative, and the modality is evidenced by the attribute he gives those members of the audience in referring to them in a less than polite manner, thus he may be expressing his disdain for them. However, a person who was not new to this discussion would be able to retrieve something else from their mental 'identity kit' construct which they may have to hand, and understand that this is a feature of this person's 'style' of interaction, and that furthermore he is not new to psychology himself, and may actually be expressing solidarity with the members so addressed by making such comments which reflect a lack of social distance (cf Brown and Levinson 1987). The questions themselves are realised by moodless interrogatives, and this again marks a change in position from the earlier part of his post.
At this stage, under this rubric, it might be fair to posit a tentative general description of units in a rank scale down to the level 'act', which can be usefully applied to the exchanges of discussion evidenced over a one year period in this mailing list's interactions. Although tentative categories of act are named, I am not willing to make any positive identification of categories beyond the 'move' at this stage, especially since my main interest lies in the means by which participants come to understand, conceptualize, or interpret cues for structure in email list discussion, and therefore my aim in positing these ranks is rather as a framework within which further discussion can be made regarding the context of the interaction. In other words, what might constitute a typical 'speech event' in this 'speech community'?
As pointed out earlier, the 'material situation' of the speech community is conveniently defined by the Mode itself: it is the List, the automatic server which dispenses its messages to all subscribed, holds the archives and dispenses these records of list history to anyone who subscribes. It sends the welcome message, and a list of commands that the server will carry out on behalf of the subscriber. It names the 'leader', the so-called listowner, a person, who is able to unsubscribe offenders at will, and who is charged with keeping either strict order or benign commentary, as list participants decide. In the case of the list under study, they did decide, by public 'show of hands' when the job was up for grabs. The speech community past this level, consists of the messages that these subscribers care to send to each other.
It is probably fair to say that backchannel communication plays a big part of the actual speech community, but for the purposes of this study, it is the public discussion which must necessarily form the only reliable data.
Beyond the list itself, the cultural background, and the actual material situations, identities, and life trajectories of the participants must also have a bearing on the dimension 'speech community', and in fact it is this very tension of not knowing 'who' is speaking nor who one is speaking to which makes the negotiations over norms so fraught with possibilities for offence. It is therefore no wonder that aspects of interpersonal communication, role and orientation figure so obviously in discussion on this list, and that it leaks into the experiential dimension with topics of discussion centring on identity, personal 'boundaries', and group roles continually resurfacing.
How then might the 'speech event' be characterised within such a community?
It has to be said that the list history itself forms a backdrop for every message posted, but at a more practical level, the highest rank for purposes of discussion is probably 'the thread' which generally sets out the subject or topic of the discussion. There are generally several threads going at once, and means of naming threads, and changing names of threads should the topic bifurcate, are norms that are often referred to. Shank (1993) has characterised this context of multiple parallel threads as 'abductive multiloguing', which indicates the nature of the interaction. Interaction is deferred in both time and space, unlike, for example, IRC (internet relay chat) communication which is more or less conducted real time, although without benefit of the phonic channel. Therefore, messages may be composed much like a letter, but because there may be many messages addressing the same and different topics appearing at the same time, again, the notion of transitional relevance, and the means by which each post is contextualised, or 'framed' becomes an important element in message structure.
Within the thread is the 'message' or 'post'; the two terms seem interchangeable. I believe that messages themselves are of only two easily discernible types; Initiation and Response; although further analysis of the data may provide a basis upon which to make a more delicate categorization. Initiations, in the sense that the term is used here, introduce new topics but are sometimes made in response to another post. Certainly most posts hope to elicit other responses even when they are responding to some other post(s) In this way, it could be said that most messages are of a R/I type. Of course, within messages are follow-up and evaluative type comments, as well as what could be seen as eliciting moves and responses to requests. However, within the data that this particular mailing list has generated, explicit requests are not the norm; rather, participants put forward points of view, and in this way they hope to elicit responses or follow-up evaluative comments.
Sinclair's (1992) notions of prospection and encapsulation are useful here, but at this point it should be stated that the terms 'initiation' and 'response' as applied to whole posts or messages are generalisations only, and must be distinguished from initiation, response and follow-up moves as elements of the structure of the exchange, which must be viewed as taking place within and not between messages.
Sinclair (opcit: 85) goes on to point out that while third moves, or follow-up type comments are felt to be obligatory in some situations, this will depend to some degree on participant status in the group: where social distance is greater, the third move seems to become more necessary. This is almost certainly the case in classroom interaction. In the case of Netdynam, matters of social distance and solidarity are matters of both content and process, or observable on both the autonomous and interactive plane. Further study of these perspectives and their interrelationship should yield useful results.
Typically, transitional relevance is set up through the use of quotation within messages, so the concept of 'turn' and 'interruption' by another listmember is not part of this relevance due to the mode of communication. In other words, one's message may, in theory, be as long as one likes (although unwritten, yet oft-stated norms require that messages be kept shorter than around 8K), however, it may be that no one except the hardy will bother to read it. In any case, when responding to any other post, a frame will need to be made in order to (re)contextualise the post's message, and the most conversational and easiest method is to quote those parts of others' messages that one wishes to respond to. Response-type moves may be categorised into several classes, and while the following list is probably not exhaustive, it covers all of the response types I have come across to date. Within these types, there may be finer shades of delicacy at the rank 'act' than I have noted, but I do not want to argue for them at this stage. Once again, it should be noted that several of these types of 'responses' may be evident in any one post.
The main types of response are:
While 'Ignore' cannot be a response move when there has been no explicit elicitation, participants notice and talk about non response as an option. This is because most posts expect or hope for a response or follow-up of some sort, even though such expectation is not always linguistically encoded. Most posts are of the type R/I as stated above. In effect, most posts make some forward -looking or 'prospecting' informatives. The participants look for follow-up comments or acknowledgements to whatever they have written. When such prospections are made explicit, it is usually in the preclosing sequence, a few examples of which will be examined below. For now, all responses to others' posts are subsumed under the label 'Response', although it can be seen above that moves such as Evaluation and Disagree for example, might be more precisely defined as Follow-up moves, or given a broad descriptive title such as 'encapsulation' as outlined by Sinclair (opcit: 86).
Initiation-type messages are similar except that, if they are introducing a new topic, in contrast to merely responding to something in another message and signalling a change of perspective with a new subject line, some of the categories listed above change slightly (for example, there is no Comment: clarify in a totally new topic). However, as most new topic initiations also make reference to what has gone before, it would be better to look at initiating moves within posts, than to label whole posts as initiations. On the other hand, there are some posts which introduce completely new topics, or matters unrelated to the ongoing discussion. Occasionally, these posts are self-contained informatives and require no overt linguistic response, for example, announcements. Other posts seek to introduce new contentious issues, or create heated discussion, and as such may be considered 'elicitations' even though they pretend to ask nothing at all. The so-called 'troll' is a good example of this type of post. Occasionally, such posts will evoke 'responses' of "Off topic!" or arguments about the truth value of the 'information' or position of the poster, who will not respond (make a follow-up comment) at all. This again, I feel, relates to power/distance and solidarity issues. The troll is a means to subvert discussion, and by not providing follow-up the poster shows his/her distance from the group. Within this group, norms seem to have evolved which 'mark' such behaviour, although space does not allow a more complete discussion of how these norms have been discussed.
Another class of move which realises an initiation, is obviously the request, either for information or opinion, as well as offers of same. These types of move are found both within posts introducing a new topic, or which are ostensibly responding to another post.
Most messages, although they strive to keep within the topic area outlined in the subject line, actually perform several functions at once, and indeed are sometimes comprised of several 'exchanges' using quoting, and what Halliday (1994) calls 'projecting' clauses (paratactic: locution). These are marked by the formatting conventions noted above (ie, a chevron '>' at the beginning of each line of quoted material is the most usual, and is a function of the mailer each poster uses). As stated earlier, it might be fair to determine what the 'head' part of the message is and name the function of the whole post after that, but I do not think this serves any useful purpose within the bounds of this study. Therefore, from this point on, the 'types' outlined above will be used to refer to exchanges, or moves within messages. The relationship of these intra-message structures to that of the message or post as a whole, and whether such generalised descriptive categories may be linked to inter-message factors, remains to be seen and is relevant for further study.
The 'header' also forms a significant rank within message, as it gives readers a setting that, if absent would mean that the message could not be seen as such. As stated above, it sets out the list address, the listserver address, the time the message was sent, by whom, and the subject of the message. Also, it forms part of the transitional relevance by indicating the topic of the message in the subject line, important if one is interested in following a particular thread.
As stated above, the message itself, the 'body', in email metalanguage, usually starts with some type of 'opening' which I call a boundary frame. It consists of at least one act. At present I see these as:
These same moves can be found within the main body of the message as well, and as such, represent 'reFrames', and reorient to a new situation or problem that the poster intends to address. The most common is obviously reFrame: Nominate and Quote.
Comments in opening sequences seem to take on a double function: that of responding to the 'quoted' material, and providing a reframe for the body of the message and what ideational content the poster specifically wishes to address. As such it must follow another framing act; if a Comment is made without a preceding framing act, then it becomes part of the Setting: metacomment. Otherwise, Comments are not part of the opening sequence, but may be better viewed as perhaps the 'head' comment in the main body of the message
Within frames there is the 'loop' whose function is to refer back to another point in the 'conversation'. These also do not necessarily appear at the beginning of a post, but may also appear at the beginning of an exchange that needs 'reframing'.
The difference between Nominate and Greet, when names are used in a greeting, is determined by the following move, or text: If what follows is meant for everyone, and is using the named person as a contextualiser, or as someone who is then quoted, then, it is a Nominating move. If what follows is actually a comment addressed to the people named, determined by mood, personal pronouns etc, then it is a Greeting.
Setting moves may involve a number of 'acts'; those noted above are the ones observed to be the most prevalent.
What follows are a number of opening sequences showing the typical pattern outlined above, that is, showing one or more of the three framing moves outlined:
------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 23:44:49 -0500 From: simon Subject: Email Exegesis
Folks:
[Greet]
We seem to have a bit of break in the list weather
lately, or maybe it's the eye of the storm.
[Setting: loc/ feel]
..................
7.13.2 Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 10:14:00 EST
From: Matt
Subject: Re: I'll have my cake with a little irony, please
Whoah, [Greet]
I'll set Bunny and Toto on you, you keep that up... :-)
[Setting: loc/ ref ]
The land of the people of the south wind, where the grain elevators
are cathedrals and the sunflowers are heliotropes and the TV
satellite dishes aren't.
[reFrame: id/loc]
..........................
7.13.3 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 00:20:33 -0800
From: Jerry
Subject: Re: 2nd of 3 -- Re: net transference;
At 6:32 PM 12/21/95, Hugh Stilley wrote: [Nom] I want to know
what "shared" fantasy means in the net context.
[Quote] [A1/K2: Request for information]
Shared phantasies? [reframe:S:loop]Let me speculate where they
might come from, and why we can re-cognize them. Either it's
genetic, or it's cultural, or it's something else-maybe
even more general than either genes or culture.
[Comment/ Explain/ Opinion]
...........................
7.13.4 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 14:55:40 -0700
From: Fred
Subject: Purpose behind Behavior
On Fri, 22 Dec 1995, Roy W----- wrote:
[Nom: NB: this is a function of the mailer itself]
>It seems to me that there is a pronounced tendency for
>folks to assign motive to observed behaviors of others.
>Somehow, we seem to imagine that
[Quote]
......................
7.13.5 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 18:47:02 -0800
From: Steve
Subject: Re: transference stuff
Ian wrote: [Nom]
>I'll give you a small example-transference is a word briming
>with meaning for many members of this group-to me it just
>means something like ascribing to others what you in some
>measure really think/feel.
[Comment: Opinion/ Clarify: identity] [Quote]
That's "projection", although the concepts are related. An easy
way to think of transference: it's the *assumptions* we make about
the emotions of people we don't know well.
[Comment: Clarify/ Explain: add]
.....................
7.13.6 Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 12:54:25 -0500
From: Simon
Subject: soliloquy
Folks:
[Greet]
Ian's recent comments prompted me to an emotional check-in.
I do not know whether it is process or content.
[Setting:loop/feeling/reason] [Nom]
Steve made mention of the "psych-types" and the fact that no
matter what road we end up following, they would always be around to
look at the things that interest them. [Setting: loop]
I do not consider myself one of the "psych-types" and during
the first few weeks here found them to be rather annoying.
[Comment: Clarify/ Opinion: identity]
............
7.13.7 Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 03:30:10 EDT
From: Frank
Subject: Earburn
Tick tock, tick tock, tick, talk, talk talk Someone murmur
the words of power? [Summons: (marked opening) Setting: refer to
in-joke/loc]
Who summons me? [answer to summons]
Anyone feel the net convulse?
Howaboutatremoralathespider'sweb?
See a pretty wave of dominoes going down? [Setting:(marked by
rhetorical interrogative and run on words) location/ in joke:
ref to shared culture: the net ] A law can be tryannical but
is not its application the true test? Many a benign statute
has rendered justice impotent through determined application
while draconian rule does so with a feather touch. You want net
dynamics it's all around. People without traditional boundaries
align in groups led by ideas not geography. Based on words
not on gender or age or race. Speed is a hallmark, so is
bandwidth. Anarchy, not quite. Formal rules of engagement
do apply.
[Comment: Explain/ Opinion/Muse]
--------------
In order to determine to what extent participants actually employed such framing moves in opening sequences, the two days of digests (from which the main text example was extracted), were analysed, and the number of such moves were counted, then looked at as a percentage of total posts made. As a matter of interest, and to discover whether the use of such moves may have changed at all during the course of a year, two days of posts from the same date in the following year were also analysed. The results are shown in Table B which can be found in Appendix 7 together with a brief commentary. At this point it is enough to note that both sets of analysis revealed that the most common type of boundary frames were Nominate (77%) and Quoting (76%). The type of move least employed was Greeting (9%). Experience suggests that the reason for this may be due to the fact that a participant feels no need to greet other participants if they are making several posts on different topics on the same day, or on a regular basis. Furthermore, that if a participant names and quotes another person's post as an opening, any greeting may be redundant, so that they are only used when the poster has not made a message for some time, or when the post begins a totally new thread or topic, realising what has been termed for this study an Initiation type post. (Appendix 5 shows an analysis of the opening sequences or framing moves from January 20-22, 1997)
Posts are sometimes closed with a short preclosing comment, the usual signoff of the poster, followed by an optional identifier as mentioned previously. In the example text quoted above, the preclosing comment, which is optional, is realised by (6), (6.1), the signoff by (7) and the identifier by (7.1) Preclosing moves (if they occur) are usually one or two of the following, and usually represent a phase shift as signalled by a change in orientation (mood) or topic change:
Appendix 8 gives an analysis of the closing sections of a number of posts.
Another perspective on the notion of 'framing' as a signalling device for (re)contextualising a message or part thereof, can be derived from Bauman (1975: 292) who makes reference to what he calls 'an interpretive frame' which cues an audience about what to expect from a verbal 'performance' which is to follow. This appears to relate to the concept of 'framing move' as outlined above. He gives some examples of contextualising frames, which, if compared with those types of exchange 'moves' already outlined above, will reveal some correlations:
At the same time, however, the two uses of the term 'frame' must be distinguished. From a Discourse Analysis perspective, 'frame' is an element of structure at the rank 'exchange', and realises a framing move within the 'boundary exchange'. Bauman's term 'interpretive frame' is realised at the grammatical level by any number of semantic categories, and may indeed open sequences of verbal performance events or transactions, but he makes no claim for their place in any structural analysis of discourse. What I would like to point out here is that such notions of 'interpretive frame' have relevance in defining the context of interaction, and that such types of frame sometimes appear in, or can be conflated with what I see are elements of the structure of the email post, the framing or reframing move, which typically seem to occur at the beginning of posts or at the beginning of exchanges within posts. Bauman's notion of interpretive frames which he specifically relates to verbal art as 'performance' derives from Gregory Bateson: a frame is metacommunicative. Any message which either explicitly or implicitly defines a frame, ipso facto gives the receiver instructions or aids in his attempt to understand the messages included within the frame" (Bateson 1972[1955]:188). Bauman goes on to suggest a number of ways in which such metacommunicative frames may be signalled:
Within the context of this mailing list's interaction, these types of metacommunicative signals can be identified, and relate to the poster's need to cue the audience that while their comments may be seen as perhaps face-threatening (see Appendix 6: Brown & Levinson ), they should be read as comments on the perceived context of interaction and not taken 'literally'. In effect, because most of the discussion must centre on contentious issues or points of disagreement as mentioned above (see p. 12), then if discussion is not to devolve into 'flame war', certain linguistic signalling devices must be brought into play in order to mitigate the possibility of someone taking offence at what might be said. Tone of voice, facial expression and other paralinguistic signals are obviously not available, and the only formatting conventions in use, (and not so popularly as they are to some extent agreed to be signals of linguistic incompetence) are the 'smiley' or emoticon ( :-), :-7. ;^] ) and its variations, plus the convention of capitalizing to represent YELLING. Evidence of linguistic framing signals can readily be identified in the examples already quoted above. For example, in the main example, at (2.1) the word 'snip' usually encased in brackets, signals that part of the quoted message has been deleted. This is seen as a strategy to mitigate a Face Threatening Act (cf section 8.5) by acknowledging that an important and perhaps significant part of another's message has been summarily cut out. At (3), the writer says 'LOL' which is shorthand for 'laughing out loud', and as such realises a positive politeness strategy (1. 4 in Brown and Levinson op cit. cf Appendix 6). As such, such moves can be seen as another form of 'modality' in the way Hodge and Kress (1988: 122-123) have defined it: a way of signalling the writer's stance or position in relation to the audience; a means of expressing their 'affinity' or lack of affinity, in relation to considerations of dimensions of power-distance and solidarity between members: Modality expresses affinity - or lack of it - of speaker with hearer via an affirmation of their affinity about the status of the mimetic system. Affinity is therefore an indicator of relations of solidarity or of power, that is, relations oriented towards the expression of solidarity or the expression of power (difference). A high degree of affinity indicates the expression of solidarity between participants. A low degree of affinity indicates that power difference is at issue. Either...may be expressed via a modality of high affinity with the mimetic system. An important point that I wish to make is that unless participants have access to the norms of interaction that have formed during the process of negotiation over list culture, and the relative validity or truth value of what Hodge and Kress call the 'mimetic system', they will be unable to decode such signals of modality successfully. They will, to use another term prevalent onlist, 'get their buttons pushed'.
In their book, "Politeness. Some universals in language usage." 1987, Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson outline a typology of strategies for doing face threatening acts (FTAs). A face threatening act is anything that might be seen to impinge upon or take away honour, or status from an interlocutor. These strategies therefore should be realised by certain locutions within the interpersonal metafunction. It seems instructive to quote the list in its entirety, and the reader is referred to Appendix 6. It is obvious that some of these strategies refer directly to textual features in achieving their goals of reducing or mitigating the possibility of an aggressive reaction on the part of a perceived audience, and some of them correlate highly with the metacommunicative framing strategies outlined by Bauman above (8.1.2), especially those subsumed under the section 'Off Record'. It must be noted, of course, that these are not strategies posited as those which 'should' be consciously used, but those which have been observed by Brown and Levinson to be common in interaction. Those strategies which refer to lexicogrammar, for example 1. 4 (use in-group identity markers), 2. 13 (ask reasons ie, use mood:interrogative), 5.2 (question, hedge), 7. 7 (impersonalize through use of passive voice, personal pronouns, pov distancing etc), and 7. 9 (nominalize) are especially salient when considering how such strategies may be realised at the metafunctional level. Brown and Levinson derive a formula that can be applied in order to decide what strategies are likely to be used in any situation dependent on the likely perceived level of threat in making an FTA. They state: [...calculations that members actually seem to make] involves the following factors in many and perhaps all cultures: (i) the 'social distance' (D) of S and H (a symmetrical relation); (ii) the relative 'power' (P) of S and H (an asymmetrical relationship); (iii) the absolute ranking (R) of impositions in the particular culture (op cit: 74)
It is obvious that the 'social distance' referred to above at (i) is actually another way of expressing the notion 'solidarity', so that this typology correlates very highly with those notions of affinity and modality as expressions of power and solidarity outlined by Hodge and Kress. Also, I would venture to link the notion of 'R' at (iii) which social agreement regarding the status of the mimetic system (cf 8.3.1), and hence, the (cultural) context of interaction. Still another approach to the problem of discerning structure within messages may be provided by Hoey (in Coulthard (ed) 1994) who asks whether the typical problem-solution structure in discourse is actually signalled or reflected in language, or is only intuited by a reader. He suggests a representation of this structure as being realised in four moves; that which follows is the 'unmarked' or time sequenced arrangement: Situation - Problem - Response - Evaluation In this way, a reader can 'project' through clues in the text at the level of structure and the lexis of Vocabulary 1 and 2 ( words of textual cohesion such as conjunctions, relative pronouns),about what is likely to follow. Hoey refers to Winter's (1977) work on clause relations signalled by lexical means, making specific reference to Vocabulary 3 which is seen as a set of lexically full, or content type lexis: "The notion of vocabulary 3 is crucial to our understanding of how a discourse signals to its reader/listener what structure it has." (op cit: 34) Therefore it is perhaps not so difficult to identify certain lexicogrammatical 'items' in a text which might alert the reader in context to what is going on, or allow them to decide at an analytical level, what function each part of the text realises. Most, if not all of these lexical items, would probably be indicators of modality, or as Martin (1996) calls them, Appraisal words which help to 'construe value' in text. This again links most closely to what goes on at the interpersonal level. If the list of Response types above (7.5) is compared with this 4 step structure, it could be said that the Framing moves may be subsumed under Situation ( occasionally Problem); the Comments, Clarifys, Explains, Opinions, Tells and Requests are all versions of Response (occasionally doubling as Situation or Problem for the next move); while Evaluations, Flames and Ignores may all be read as Evaluative moves. Whether this could be seen as an over zealous application of Occam's razor is another matter. Up until this point, categories of moves have been tentatively identified, and strategies which could be used to mitigate possible 'face-threatening acts' have been cited. It has been noted that framing moves, wherever they occur in the message, but particularly at the beginning of a post, are significant in signalling to readers what orientation the writer has towards his/her audience in the material that is to follow. The actual linguistic realisation of such signalling is no doubt evident at all metafunctional levels, but for the purposes of this study, the interpersonal is deemed the most salient. Therefore in looking at further examples of text, a number of such signals should be isolated. The first is the mood of each clause. The selection of the subject of the clause and whether it is conflated with the theme of the sentence reveals whether the writer deems it significant. The verb tense and any modal verbs will signal the writer's degree of commitment towards what s/he is saying, whether something has occurred, is in progress, or is about to happen, and how likely that is. It will reveal whether the role of the writer is that of information giver, receiver or demander (K1 or K2). Following Hoey, Winter and Martin, appraisal words, or those expressing 'affinity' with either the context of interaction or the other participants should be noted, but because this would be too great an undertaking to do thoroughly within the confines of this study, these will only be noted in passing, especially if they are significant in predicting or labelling moves. Expressions of modality indicate speaker/writer's orientation towards the proposition being made, and should also be taken into account where evident. Markers of inclusion and exclusion, or solidarity and distance are also one of the most significant for understanding both the writer's stance and predicting how other readers will interpret such a stance. Therefore the use of personal pronouns, and forms of address in referring to other participants are posited as one of the most significant markers of orientation at the interpersonal level.
What follows are a number of closing sequences examined with both sets of categories in mind. The first categories to appear are those made under the more detailed proposals of move and act outlined at 7.5 - 7.12, and appear in square brackets [ ],while the pattern Situation-Problem-Response-Evaluation follows in braces { } Lexical items that were judged as signals on which the categories were decided are underlined. It should be obvious that some of the categories double up, ie, some moves fulfil two functions in the structure at the same time. Detailed commentary on the analyses can be found in Appendix 8: Closing sequences.
.....................................................
1 become an organization that fights for electronic access
at reasonable prices at all levels of government. TAP
(Taxpayers Asset Project) was originally
a Nader group. Of course, the ACLU is
better equipped to tackle constitutional law, but TAP has
done some great work keep a constant
eye on committee and regulatory action
that often goes unnoticed. [Comment: Evaluation]
ACLU volunteer. Great! [Comment:
{Evaluation}][Preclosing: Comment:
summing up]
simon [sig]
(alas, no sig file at all now)[identifier]
------------------------------
Lack of personal pronouns or mental process verbs, signals orientation of non personal involvement and certainty; subjects are organisations not related to self. At the same time appraisal lexis and modality is evident in expressions such as 'fights for' linked with 'reasonable'; thematicization of 'of course' expressing certainty towards the proposition that the ACLU is 'better' equipped to 'tackle'; plus use of term 'great', and the word 'volunteer', which is positively loaded.
-------------------------------------
2 Not to keep going on this *off-topic* thread
:-O!...[reF:S: ref/loop] but I have a copy of the bill
+ a few different versions of the amendments saved on
disk here... [reFrame: Setting:reason/apology] {Situation}
if anybody wants a copy, lemme know...[Request: K1/A1:
offer: imperative form]
An interesting thing to note though is the way that the
cyber-activist group came together.[reFrame:
Setting:opinion] {Situation} Talk
about a virtual work group...[Comment: Opinion] {Response}
interesting dynamics going on there.[Comment:
{Evaluation}]
James [sig]
==========================================================
James S----
<email address and web site url>
==========================================================
Any dead fish can float downstream. -Anon
"Ignis quidquid in nobis est-There is a certain fire within
us"
Ezra Pound -->[identifier]
------------------------------
...
3. >Once again Fred has opened another facet to the discussion.
>Communication is conflict.[reFrame: naming/loop]{Situation}
>And he immediately got a seconder{Response}. There are days
>when everyone here suddenly feels made up. {Problem}Is that
>simply that observation and analysis is unmasking the person
>behind the words over a period of time and picking up those
>little inconsistencies? [Comment:Rhetorical Question: K1/A1]
{Situation/Problem} ..[Quote]
well, frankie, masked superhero in our midst that you
are,[Naming/Setting: ref] I think that is a fair assumption,[Comment:
Opinion] {Response} but how does it relate to backchannel
chit chat?
[Comment: Rhetorical Question] There, I've unmasked a little
inconsistency. [Comment: {Evaluation}]
I shall return with blasts from the past.[Preclosing:
Comment: closure: threat/promise]
LD [sig]
-------------------------
.......
4. This would all be rather theoretical if it weren't for
the fact that I have a couple megs of archives coming
my way with an idea for a web page. [Comment: Clarify:
identity/muse] (Just downloaded a new HTML
cruncher.)[Comment: Clarify: reason] [reFrame:Setting: reason/time]
{Situation} I had in mind using comments, explanations
and examples from Netdynam in a light hearted exposition on
the nature of email lists. [Comment: Explain] {Situation} Then
the ethics questions came up. {Problem} Then the logistics of
solving the ethics problems. [reFrame: setting: time/ref]
{Problem} Then the idea that writing about something
else might be a whole lot safer.[Comment: {Evaluation}] And that|'s
as far as I got.[reFrame: setting:time] {Response/Situation} But
the archives are still sitting there.[Comment: Muse]
{Situation} As long as they are, it is not purely theoretical.
[Comment: Muse] {Response} [Preclosing: closure: loop:
veiled threat/promise. K1/A2?]
Simon [sig]
-----------------------------
5. My experience with Roy feels very fruitful, because it is
raising for both of us...and perhaps for some of you...larger
issues that may be worth exploring further.[Comment:
{Evaluation}]....So who wants to raft the whitewater
next? [Preclosing: closure: reference: rhet Q.]
Tracy K----@------ [sig]
-----------------------------
6. ....
If a person is struggling with the concepts then the level
of output can be scaled down to more basic explanations.[Offer
K1/A1] {Response to earlier Problem} As the title says,
[reFrame: Setting:loop] just some thoughts because I do not
have the time to do these issues justice.[Comment: Clarify:
reason] [Situation/Problem] The issues however are mislabelled at
the moment [Problem] and it would serve the discussion
better to split this up and deal with the discrete units on that
basis.[Comment: Opinion/ {Evaluation}] I still recommend David
Brin's "Earth" as an introduction to all of these concepts. The
storyline is skewed to the fanciful but the setting is well thought
out.[Preclosing: Comment: closure: reference] {Evaluation}
Frank [sig]
------------------------
7. ....
Earlier Pat had written:[reFrame: naming.Setting:loop/time]
All the world needs a villian and I have several favorites:
Laugh-In ...; MTV ... ; Rock music . ..[Comment: Identity].
[Quote] {Situation} This got me thinking about some of mine:[Reframe:
reason/opinion] Starbucks, Microbrews, Dulcimers, Shopping Malls,
Suburbs, Figure Skating, Denny's Restaurants, Volvos and little
footed "Darwin" fish on cars driven by people who have never read
Darwin.[Comment: Identity] {Response} Oh what is this civilization
coming to.:-) [Comment: Muse/rhet Q] {Evaluation} [Preclosing:
summing up]
Simon [sig]
--------------------------
These closing excerpts were chosen at random from different times in list history, and show closings that are not 'marked' either linguistically or normatively from my experience. Most of them close with some type of phase shift, signalled by a change in orientation from the main 'body' of the message. It can be seen that some type of evaluative comment is usually either included in the preclosing comment itself, or in the last part of the message which precedes any preclosure. Some preclosings turn to address the 'audience' with an offer or a suggestion, and in this manner they could be seen as a type of elicitation. They rarely, however, address specific list participants by name; it is understood that closings and their offers or requests are open for response or follow-up to all subscribed. Most orient toward the future, however, and in this way, all might be seen as eliciting, or forward-looking in orientation. A summary of these types of elicitations evident in the above examples follows:
. Several framing moves in both opening and closing sequences have now been examined by reference to textual data. Looking again at the main example, is it possible to identify the same types of structural moves in the main body of the text, and is it possible to make any predictions about reader position and response by reference to features of the lexicogrammar which might signal the functions of these moves and their position in the structure of the message? Firstly, what I have labelled the boundary frame is realised by the following:
--------------------------- 2. Stephen wrote: [N]
(snip) >Toyota Tercel, '89, 78,000miles >Net Dynamics control group [Q] 3. LOL! control group...that's a good one! [Com]
----------------------------
(2.1), although not strictly speaking a 'Problem', is definitely something that needs to be commented upon at (3), where the first part of the 'sentence' realises a Response (laughing out loud), the second part, '...that's a good one!' an Evaluation.
At (2), the simple past finite declarative says without fear of contestation that something happened, a certain locution, and furthermore it is going to be paratactically projected now (use of formatting features ':' and '>' significant here). At (2.1), 'snip' signals that a piece of 'what Stephen wrote' has been cut, and that what he needs to comment upon is the leftover piece, in other words, that this particular piece is the 'Problem'; a problem of definition. Stephen has defined himself as a member of a self-proclaimed group; a 'control' group. The writer's Response at (3) is to 'laugh out loud' at such a notion, which he then 'Evaluates' as 'a good one', ie, 'a good joke' (reference to western English code necessary to retrieve 'that's a good one' = that's a good joke/ that's funny). In terms of Brown & Levinson's notion of FTAs, the strategies employed by the writer for making this comment on Stephen's identity and his proclamation of membership of a control group which does not exist, might be seen to be employing several, notably, Strategies 1. 4 and 1. 8. (see 9.5.1). The net effect, however, is that the writer is asserting his position of power in relation to Stephen by in effect dismissing as a joke, his attempt to define the field of play in his own way. On the other hand, this joking could also be interpreted as a mark of approval, and the evaluation 'good one' entirely genuine. In some measure, then, this could be seen as employing 'Off record' mitigators, especially strategy 9.8 or all of 10. ( see Appendix 6) Section 4 which forms the main exchange of the message, involves an interplay between quoted material and rebuttal, or Comment: Clarify: explain/ Opinion/Tell.
--------------------------- 4. Steve R-----, MD wrote:
4.1 >I'm sorry if you feel my sig is pissant and >obnoxious. I don't(so far), but will dispense with it the >instant I feel its liabilities outweigh its benefits.
4.2 I did not write that I felt *your* sig is pissant and obnoxious. I wrote, in response to your question: 4.3 >>To turn the sig question on its head, I've >>wondered from time to time why some PhDs on this list >>_don't_ include that in their sigs. Anyone care to comment? 4.4 I don't largely because I feel it's obnoxious. In graduate school, I once worked for a consultant who consistently had his name on all the firm's materials as: "Dr. Pissant Schlmiel, Ph.D." (Name changed to protect me if he's still alive and somehow on the Net.) He *was* a pissant, and this over-usage was typical. --------------------------------
The opening move at (4) is another nominating 'act', again the declarative finite is used, but the significant feature here is that rather than naming Steve by his first name only, the writer enacts a distancing ploy by calling him by his whole name and appending the identifier 'MD'. This refers to the way Steve typically signs himself (or DID at that juncture in ND history). Quoted material by Steve then follows. Here again, the functional moves in terms of the problem-solution discourse structure are realised by Situation at (4); Problem, what Steve actually 'wrote' at (4.1); and Response to 'what Steve wrote' at (4.2). The writer denies the propositional content of Steve's contribution, changing it from his 'I am sorry if you felt' to 'I did not write that I felt'. A significant feature here is the use of the asterisk* to bound the word 'your', drawing even more nonverbal attention to it, and in this case intimating that Steve has misinterpreted the writer's original words, which he then goes on to quote with the preface 'I wrote' signalling a paratactic projection of what is to come: a Clarify: explain. He also defines this previously written text as a response to something Steve 'asked' earlier ('your question'), which he quotes first at (4.3). Here, the Response serves to form a Solution by recalibrating the Situation, saying that the Situation is actually what 'you' (Steve) wrote (4.3), and that within that Situation was a request for action ('Anyone care to comment?') which the writer responded to by making the contribution which appears as (4.4). In this way, he makes the same statement again: the Response is encoded as 'I don't', then the Evaluation of this Response follows, signalled by the conjunction 'because': In other words, 'I am about to tell you the reason for this Response'. The reason why Barry 'doesn't' (use a sig file with a PhD) is encoded in words of high modality, or evaluative lexis: 'obnoxious', 'pissant', and 'over-use' which is 'typical' of people of that type. In this way, the writer wants to distance himself from the Dr Pissant Schlmeils of this world. The final 'exchange' again presents a Response/ Solution to an earlier Problem, that of Steve's misinterpretation at (4.1) that Barry felt *his* sig file was 'pissant and obnoxious'. The writer in a Clarify: explain move says:
5. I made this name up partially because his real name is Steven XXXX, and I did not want to have anyone thinking 5.1 I was referring to you. Didn't work anyway.
He 'made up' the name: the declarative states the certainty that he did it in the past, for a reason: 'because' the person's real name 'is' present tense, relational process, declaring certainty, the same as the interlocutor, in this case, Steve. Furthermore, he 'did not want to have anyone thinking': negative polarity in the mood suggests the possibility of a positive polarity, and a rather long infinite predicate, begs the question 'thinking what?'. Up until this point, it seems as if the writer is addressing an audience who will judge his actions in the light of the evidence he has presented. The writer's use of subjects in this whole post is indicative of where his orientation lies: there are 13 third person singular subjects, and 9 first person subjects (see Table A for a list of subjects and finites). Even though Steve is ostensibly being addressed here, it is not done directly 'man to man' but played out for the benefit of others. The next move (6), the preclosing sequence where a phase shift can be seen, makes this orientation to audience explicit, and Steve is actually referred to in the third person, as the object of inquiry. However, at the end of (5) the writer makes the only overt address to a 'you', which we must assume is directly addressed to the 'culprit' himself. He then makes an Evaluation of his Response to the original Situation at (5.1) where he says that 'it' did not work, ie, that Steve still made this error of judgement. It is directly after this at (6) that the writer turns to address the audience, and request that they explain Steve's behaviour, using in-group language turned into a type of joking, conversational style, as evidenced by subject elision. In this way, it would seem that he attempts to distance himself from the likes of Steve, and attempts to assert solidarity with the other 'shrinks' onlist. Using Brown and Levinson's typology, (Appendix 6) he could be said to have used Strategies 1. 4, 1. 7 and 1. 8; 2. 12 and 2. 13; and 10. 15 to enlist this solidarity. Another view might be that the use of the modally 'marked' lexical item 'shrinks' as attribute would cue the audience to read the questions which follow as to be taken lightly, and hence as an apology for his impolite 'performance'. 6. Hey Netdynamo shrinks: what did Steve do here? 6.1 Countercountertransference? projection? Jung/Freudian slip? A final marker of parody at (7.1), which could be seen as a type of 'Flaming' move, calling the whole topic of sig files into question as valid, is to use as identifier the type of car he presumably drives, a direct reference to the sig file of Stephen which he quotes in the opening framing sequence, and which he has already characterised as a good joke.
The question now might be, in what context may the reader assume this post appears. How might the reader orient him/herself to the speech event? Firstly, it is obvious that this post has been preceded by at least three other posts in the thread, one by Stephen, one by Steve, and one by the writer himself. This can be seen through the use of quoting of parts of those messages in the text above.at (2.1), (4.1), (4.3) and (4.4). The field of the discussion obviously revolves around identity and the way it is portrayed on this list, specifically whether the use of 'identifiers' is necessary or appropriate, and more specifically, what amount of detail they should show. The post's 'fulcrum' seems to be the original eliciting move made in a previous post by Steve (4.3) where he asks why more holders of PhDs do not use this identifier in their sig files. The subject line also labels the thread 'SIGnifiers'. That this is intimately related to the tenor of the discussion needs no argument, as the topic itself is one of personal identity. At a more delicate level, however, this post shows that the writer assumes that he is talking to an audience comprised of psychologists and other carriers of academic qualifications, and that he feels no need to defer to them, except by alluding to in-jokes and jargon, calling on an assumed intertextuality. Apart from the tone which is conversational and direct, obvious use of the Discourse of psychology is evident in the preclosing sequence at (6) and (6.1) where he asks the 'audience' what Steve did, and uses such terms. We might also retrieve the fact that the piece snipped at move (2.1) is part of a much longer 'sig file' alluding to personal characteristics not related to academic qualifications. Reference to the relevant posts in this thread can be found in Appendix 2: sig files thread, and it can be seen that 'predictions' of this nature are borne out. What may be expected to follow this post? Predictions on the field and tenor might be possible: that the Steve mentioned in this post would need to defend his position in the group by responding to the appraisal of his behaviour, that perhaps the other 'shrinks' onlist might feel moved to make some sort of joking response acknowledging their solidarity in this matter, or conversely, distancing themselves from the tenor of the post by asserting some type of difference in orientation, or an affiliation with those who use sig files identifying their academic credentials. This, however, seems unlikely as Steve has already asked why more of the PhDs _don't_ use this identifier in their sigs (baseline dashes '_' around a word are conventions by which a word or phrase may be emphasised, and is roughly correlated with the use of italics in other written modes. Email does not have this facility). This may be another reason why Barry felt safe in casting Steve in an out-group role. That the writer has done this is, signalled by the lack of FTA- mitigating moves or language used in relation to his discussion of Steve, whereas his orientation to the 'onlookers' has been mitigated by the use of the 'politeness' strategies or metacommunicative frames mentioned above. In this way, the main exchange of the post, while realising a Response in the broadest terms, might also be labelled 'Flame' (cf 8.6), which is a type of post or comment that is seen or felt as an 'attack', usually of a personal nature, and certainly begs a response. The question of how to identify a 'flame' has been topical in list discussions occasionally, and an example of a post made in response to a Muse on the part of one of the participants about what constituted a flame was intended to demonstrate what such a post might 'feel' like, and appears in Appendix 4: exchanges: Flame War Thread excerpts. A look at the posts which precede this example and those which follow in the 'speech event' bounded by this thread, will show that some of the predictions made above are borne out (see Appendix 2 which is an abridged version of the two days of digests from which the thread was taken. Posts are numbered according to the sequence in which they originally appeared. The main example is number 18). The modality markers in these posts show that 'uptake' or 'perlocutionary force' does seem to have relationship to the actual locutions, if not the illocutionary force of the texts themselves. In other words, an observer may be able to 'predict' what has gone before and what might possibly be initiated by any post in a thread, although they may not be able to correctly retrieve the poster's intent, especially if they have little knowledge, or experience of the list culture and the general field or tenor of discussions. However, it seems that given a knowledge of the code of interaction, it may not be so difficult to reconstruct the actual context of the speech event. What follows is the 'response' (Appendix 2: number 34) to the main example post discussed above, looked at in terms of the exchange structure framework as outlined at 8.5-8.10, and with a brief comment on some of the more obvious markers of modality. **34.
----------------------------
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 01:47:09 -0800
From: Steve
Subject: Re: SIGnifiers
Barry:[Nominate]
True, you didn't come right out and call *my* sig pissant
and obnoxious. [Setting: reason/ FTA mit: 1.6, 1. 7]
Instead, you asked me inan apparently annoyed way to
drop my sig, and soon afterwards said it would be obnoxious
for *you* to use yours. [Comment: Clarify: identity] {Situation}
Seems there are two ways to interpret this: [signal:
Comment:Opinion] you and I are both obnoxious if we
use sigs, or your sig is obnoxious while mine isn't.[Comment:
Clarify: paraphrase]{Response/Solution to Situation}
If it's the latter, you have my apologies and
condolences.[Comment: {Evaluation}]
-------------------------
elision of subject 'it' at signal move allows conversational tone; thematicization of 'seems', distancing himself from the conclusions of the 'two ways to interpret'. last sentence is obviously sarcastic. This seems to be signalled by a nominalising of the apology, and skirting the process of apologizing itself, thematically underlined by 'if'. obvious markers of modality: 'you didn't' confrontational stance, negative polarity -> 'come right out' (and be confrontational yourself); 'you' in clause subject position used throughout signalling orientation of direct address, contrasts with Barry's stance in responded-to post; 'an apparently annoyed way': modalization: low probability, objective explicit; 'Seems' (there are...): modalization: high probability, objective implicit; repetition of lexical item 'obnoxious' in a variety of positions: Appreciation: reaction: negative (cf Martin 1996)
------------------------------
Likewise, since we started this thread with your displeasure toward my sig,[reFrame: Loop] {Situation} re-naming your old sig-using acquaintance "Pissant Schlmiel" felt hostile. [Comment: Clarify: personal reaction] {Response/Problem} I'll leave it for our savvy audience of onlookers to decide if it's my projection, your hostility, or something else. [Comment: {Evaluation}] ------------------------
'we started' orientation past, inclusive personal pronoun about nature of speech event and participants: 'your displeasure' started it. long nominalised clause as 'subject' allows speaker to distance himself from the feeling of hostility, which is also past;'felt'. indicates that he is aware of interlocutor's stance wrt audience by naming them 'our savvy audience of onlookers' in effect calling on solidarity with them; 'leave' them to 'decide' ie make judgement/evaluation. This is signalled by a change in mood orientation, where the writer 'will' do something, rather than addressing past actions which have affected present stance. The matter is disposed of by reorienting to the future and the judgement of 'onlookers' rather than the two of them and the present/past, which has been the orientation of the post up until that point. 'my projection, your hostility or something else' (FTA mit: 10. 12); attribute 'hostility' qualified by 'your': reorienting to interlocutor.
----------------------------
Speaking of hostility, Hi Robert. [reFrame: loop/reference]
[Naming/Greeting?]It's interesting to see folks I know from
other lists. reFrame: Setting: reason] Sylvia and I know each
other from psych lists where we talked at length about
psychiatric labeling of _people who_ hear voices, see visions,
and so forth. {Situation} Sylvia's value-free label "People Who"
remains something I keep around in my head. Though we represented
different camps-and our sigs showed it! -- I felt we reached
some common ground in those discussions. In contrast, I never
could tell where Robert was coming from, though he often seemed
angry. [Comment: Opinion] {Response} I suppose seeing the same
folks on different lists might help distinguish personality traits
from list-specific roles. The same is as much true for me, of
course, as for anyone I've mentioned.[Comment: {Evaluation}]
BTW, what does "baF" mean? And what's the deal with the chess
game? [PreClosing move: Request: hook]
Steve R---- MD
[sig] <long sig inc address and affiliation> [identifier]
----------------
The last exchange in this post needs to be reframed, because it addresses
another parallel thread that was going on at the same time. 'Speaking of
hostility', a moodless theme, is linked to another participant by name. Even
without the mood, the explicit reference to hostility in this way signals
the writer's attitude towards this person, who he appears to greet, but
thereafter ignores in favour of addressing the 'onlookers' about people
encountered on other lists, who he labels 'folks'. He then refers to Sylvia
who was an active participant on this list at the time, setting out in what
way he 'knows' her, and claiming 'common ground'. He goes on to distance
himself from Robert, about whom he 'could never tell'. The exchange is summed
up by a personal view signalled by the theme-subject 'I' teamed with a mental
process verb 'suppose', and that the degree of probability is tentative is
underlined by the use of the modal operator 'might' teamed with 'help
distinguish': it is not yet sure. The writer makes an evaluation of this
idea in the sentence which follows, by denying distance from others in his
stance: this time with a relational process verb in the present tense, and
emphasised by the modal adjunct 'of course'. Because both of these participants
are mentioned by name; one distanced, the other included, a prediction might
be for the two so named to respond accordingly. In fact the conversation
bifurcates just after this, but not so predictably: another participant picks
up the role aspect of list participation, and in what is actually a 'response'
post, initiates another thread called 'Mobile Roles', to which Steve responds.
This is responded to by Robert, who, predictably, takes the role of antagonist
assigned him. The closing sequence is realised by a typical change of orientation
where the writer asks the audience two questions related to other parallel
threads, marked by the theme 'BTW', shorthand for 'by the way', and a
conversational 'And what's the deal'. This could be seen as an attempt to
elicit responses from the group members, thus claiming back some of the
solidarity he may have lost due to his confrontation with Barry, at the same
time putting himself in the K2/A1 position. Reference to the so-called 'big
six' (Appendix 1:1) will show that in this post, Steve has used at least
three of the points listed as encouraging responses.
It is probably fair to say that Netdynam has it own set of registers, but that these are impossible to define on the basis of products or texts alone, even though these form the only ongoing interaction of the community as a whole. It might be useful to consider the interaction on this mailing list as typical of a genre of mailing list community defined by the type of list it is: Public, Open, Unmoderated, Free, Many to Many, and Process based (cf McElhearn 1996), and that within this 'genre' Netdynam has evolved its own very loose set of registers which can be observed through analysis of lexicogrammatical features, depending on the type of message or response being made within the narrow context of the thread of the discussion at the time, as well as possibly parallel threads. Therefore, although it may not be possible for a rank newcomer to contextualise one post from a thread with any reliabilIty or delicacy in the matter of field, tenor and mode as indicators of the list context in a wider sense, it should not take such an observer very many posts before s/he can contextualise the speech event in terms of metafunctions, especially that of the interpersonal. On the other hand, knowledge of that wider context does seem essential if a participant hopes to make valued contributions to the ongoing discussions, especially if the field of discussion is dependant on a knowledge of list specific history and valued texts; that is, the cycle of context 'intertextuality' has a significant bearing on all other aspects of how the discussion proceeds. In other words, much discussion depends on the experience of having actively participated for some time, and a knowledge of the social orientations that specific contributors have brought to the discussion in the past. Would be participants are more likely to understand what is going on, if they bring frames of 'identity kits' with them, which supply knowledge about each person's background and Discourse orientations as evidenced over a period of time. It seems more salient to discuss notions of personal or individual style or typical role orientations when discussing textual activity on this list. As was pointed out in the Glossary of Terms (Appendix 1: 1), knowledge of argot, for example, is not necessary for participation, but does help to alleviate some of the feelings of interpenetrability and exclusiveness that many newcomers report feeling when first joining this list. It might be that the context of the speech community might better be characterised in terms of Bakhtin's heteroglossia. (cf Lemke 1995). That being said, it is also obvious that certain norms of behaviour have evolved, and that patterns of initiation, response and follow-up type moves within exchanges may be discerned, and that within these, certain structures may be tentatively identified. Whether these are specific to the community Netdynam is another matter, and because the context of situation of all mailing lists is such that matters pertaining to the mode of interaction make process sharing difficult, many of the strategies employed are meant to effect communication approximating that of conversation. I have attempted to show some of these strategies, looked at from the perspective of lexicogrammatical cues in the texts, and related to the context of the immediate 'speech event' embedded within a 'speech community', which in turn forms the context within which such speech events need to be ultimately understood. I have attempted to characterise this speech community using the five cycles of context in a Hallidayan framework, and relate these to what appear to be the pertinent lexical signalling cues evident in text which results in reader response in what seems to be at least superficially predictable ways. These cues I believe are strongly modal in nature, due especially to the characteristics of the mode of interaction outlined above. Further analysis of this relationship between context, and the actual lexicogrammatical features evident in longer sequences of speech events would show whether such notions of predictability can be validated or not, and whether the notion of 'frames of coherence' can be usefully expanded and defined.
notes
1. Indeed this is exactly what happens, and as mentioned previously, it becomes a source of friction and further discussion under two discernible reader positions: 1) the friction at the brink of what is normative, acceptable and 'within bounds' and what is not, must be continually highlighted, tested and exploited in order to bring issues of power and control to the surface, and 2) whenever contentious or potentially face threatening acts are made in the interests of discussion, then it is unacceptable (childish, immature, adolescent, acting out, counter productive) to make these issues public without using mitigating language of deference and mutual respect. (see Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies cf 9.5.1)
End-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor, Malcolm Coulthard, who, even after an unpromising first meeting was willing to take me on at short notice, and continued to endure a volley of email, bearing various longwinded complaints and rantings. I am grateful for his responses of encouragement and good advice. I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement received from Terry Shortall during my candidature. I would especially like to thank the members of Netdynam who have, at various times, sent me crazy, made me laugh, caused me to rethink many of my fondly-held opinions, and diverted me from work I should have been doing. To those whose words appear here, I can only repeat that you had been warned. Special thanks go to those members who have encouraged me and assisted with requests to forward material and give advice. Some of these people have endured written tirades likely to send more timid souls for a kill file with my name on it. Names that need to be mentioned include Orrin (Simon) Onken, possibly the best and fairest Listowner in the universe, and loyal confidante; Roy Winkler whose calm perspectives and positive attitude have helped me recalibrate my views on more than several occasions - you'll get yours, Roy; Frank Rapport, the best critic I have ever had, said without reserve of any kind or implicature; Gerald Swatez master of the multidimensional, who first started me on this road; Stephen 'Hoon' Calhoun, whose map never was his territory, Hugh Stilley, still a 'precious object'; Steve Reidbord who always remains part-object, to which he may partly object; Diane Cano who was always willing to help in any way possible; Harriet Meek for her willingness to undertake many thankless tasks; and George Buckner for understanding. Mention must also be made of J Lake who helped me in too many ways to list here.
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