bobr (01/06/83)
I had an interesting conversation recently about the differences between Canadian and American English. My friend claimed that Canadian spoken English was closer to written English than was American spoken English. (He said things like "Americans tend to speak in phrases, rather than sentences..... they drop endings .... " ). As a foreigner (I'm German) I should have been particularly sensitive to the difference between spoken and written language; I was not, although I am in the middle of writing a **thesis**. I keep wondering now just what type of language we use on the net? Are we leaning more toward spoken or written English ? Are we using a form of language that is not very conducive to the **form** of communication we are engaging ourselves in ? For example, I just could not **really** understand what a person was saying in a recent article in net.singles. That article seemed to have been transcribed from a monologue, and it made a little more sense when I was reading it out to myself. I suspect that I would have understood more had I been facing the person, thus having been able to use cues like the pitch of the voice, facial expressions etc. Does the availablity of easy to use full screen editors favor the use of one type of language ? For example, I cannot insert lines later on in the middle of a letter or a manuscript without having to rewrite it or mess it up. Also, things like emphases expressed by "**" (see above) and ":-)" hint that there is a strong component of spoken language use on the net. On a more personal level, will the quality of human interaction be significantly changed when one switches from talking to writing letters (apart from the obvious effects of geographical separation ) ? [If you suspect that my stay in Canada is coming to an end, you're right. I kinda feel :-) and :-( about it...] Christoph Bobrowski Dept. of Computer Science, Toronto
gary (01/07/83)
What do :-) and (-: mean?