Of Part 1;
While completing this part of assignment, we encountered a
challenge in finding the perfect article that can be linked to our research.
The topic that we chose was regarding CMC synchronous mode. At first we could
not find any journal written on the topic starting from 2010, however after
looking high and low, we finally found one. Written by Ekaterine Bakaradze, an
associate professor in Black Sea University, she wrote about the language of
the internet or better known as 'cyberspeak', how it is widely understood and
used globally despite the language barrier. The findings that Bakaradze came up
with were relatable to our own Malaysian culture, as we are exposed to the
so-called 'cyberspeak'.
After reviewing the article, we were then asked to comment on it
based on our research. To do so, we had to conduct our own research first, to
prove that the culture of our young generation does relate to Bakaradze's
target group (Georgian teenagers). It is interesting and humbling to know that
even though we transcend over space and time, differences can seem so much
simpler and less important in this high-tech world.
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=tumblr+PICTURE
Of Part 2;
For the second part of this assignment, we decided to combine
Bakaradze's article along with other articles that were written past 2010 for a
more convincing literature review. It is stated that cyberspeak has blurred the
lines between written and spoken words as it holds some features of both. These
studies also agree that time and emotional expressions are the conceding
factors in the wide usage of reduced words, abbreviations, smileys etc. We
began to compartmentalize reduction words that are mostly used in synchronous
mode of discourse and came up with four most common; Clipping, Blending,
Initialism and Acronyms. This can clearly be seen in our chosen CMC synchronous
mode, WhatsApp instant messenger. With these information in mind, we decided to
sample out a conversation from a group of teenage girls as our main source of
data. From there, we analyzed word-by-word, and categorized each of them
according to their functions based on the context. As WhatsApp is one of the
most informal and closest form to real-time personal conversation, the topics
on the conversation did not specify to only one, rather the participants
discussed from serious to informal insignificant topics. After obtaining 5
pages of corpus, we begin to decipher what each function means and the reasons
behind the usage of the reduction words.
From the analysis, we find that most of the reduction words used in
the WhatsApp conversation narrowed down to two major factors; emotional
expression and time saving. Apparently, while in real-time discourse people
only need 5 seconds to utter a short sentence, in online discourse they would
need at least 15 seconds to type out the same sentence. Therefore the
participants used globally-known shortened words to save time as to follow the
real-time pace of a conversation, or else the momentum of the conversation
would be lost or stuck. In relation to expression emotions, it is known that
emotions and feelings are absent or difficult to be portrayed through sentences
alone as in real-time conversation, thus the participants used smileys and
certain symbols to replace the face expressions and body gestures to indicate
their feelings.
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=tumblr+PICTURE
From this assignment, we discovered that there is so much more to
'cyberspeak' than just typed out
sentences and systematic writing. We found that humans can put something that seem
robotic and meaningless to its full (and most of the times BEYOND) potential.
It is amazing to discover that Allah has created the human brain and watch how
it helps build a better life and a better future. We hope that humankind will
continue use Allah's gifts and blessings (brain and others) to improve and
contribute more to the society, and be more blessed by Allah s.w.t.
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