Language and the Internet PDF

52 l a n g u ag e a n d th e i n t e r n e t they transcend the traditional limitations on textual dissemina- tion; and they have permeable boundaries (because of the way one text may be integrated within others or display links to others). Several of these...

52 l a n g u ag e a n d th e i n t e r n e t they transcend the traditional limitations on textual dissemina- tion; and they have permeable boundaries (because of the way one text may be integrated within others or display links to others). Several of these properties have consequences for lan- guage, and these combine with those associated with speech and writing to make Netspeak a genuine ‘third medium’. Netspeak maxims How should we further characterize Netspeak, viewed as a novel medium combining spoken, written, and electronic properties? One method is to continue with the comparative approach used above. Several linguists and philosophers of language have investigated what counts as a ‘normal’ kind of conversation. The philosopher H. P. Grice is one, well known in pragmatics research for his four maxims of conversation that underlie the efficient co-operative use of language.34 They can be expressed as follows: The maxim of Quality Try to make your contribution one that is true, specifically: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. The maxim of Relevance Make your contributions relevant. The maxim of Quantity Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. The maxim of Manner Be perspicuous, and specifically: Avoid obscurity. 34 Grice (1975). For a general discussion, see Levinson (1983: ch. 3). The medium of Netspeak 53 Avoid ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly. The point of an analysis of this kind is not to suggest that we always behave exactly according to the principles; common experience shows that we do not. But we do seem to tacitly recognize their role as a perspective or orientation within which actual utterances can be judged. For example, people who tell lies or make false claims can be challenged; if they talk too much they can be told (in so many words) to shut up; if they say something irrelevant, they can be asked to stick to the point; and if they fail to make themselves clear, they can be requested to say it again. The fact that we do all of these things indicates that we are bearing these maxims in mind. Moreover, if someone makes a remark that seems to flout these maxims, we instinctively look for ways to make sense of what has been said. If Joe asks ‘Where’s Uncle Kevin?’ and Jill replies ‘I expect there’s a dilapidated blue bicycle outside The Swan’, we do not criticize her for breaking all four maxims at once. Rather, we take it for granted that she is co- operating in the conversation, and that (a) she has good grounds from past experience for knowing that a bicycle will be outside The Swan at this time; (b) she knows the mention of a bicycle is relevant, because Uncle Kevin rides one; (c) she knows its attributes include being dilapidated and blue, and feels that the mention of both makes for a more vivid or jocular sentence than one which uses just one adjective or no adjective at all; and (d) she knows that Joe knows all this, so that her answer will be perfectly clear. In such ways, and by making such assumptions, we are able to make sense of all kinds of superficially bizarre contributions to conversations. It is not so easy to work out what is going on in the Internet world. Part of the difficulty arises out of the anonymity inherent in the electronic medium. This is not the first medium to allow spoken interaction between individuals who wish to remain anonymous, of course, as we know from the history of telephone 54 l a n g u ag e a n d th e i n t e r n e t and amateur radio; but it is certainly unprecedented in the scale and range of situations in which people can hide their identity, especially in chatgroups and virtual worlds.35 These situations routinely contain individuals who are talking to each other under nicknames (nicks), which may be an assumed first name, a fan- tasy description (topdude, sexstar), or a mythical character or role (rockman, elfslayer) (see further, chapter 5). In e-mails, the per- sonal identity element (the part of the address found before the @) may be any of these, or simply a number or code, it then being up to the sender to decide what authentic signature the text of the e-mail will contain. The lexical structure and character of the names themselves is an important feature of Netspeak, of course; but there are other consequences for the type of language used. Operating behind a false persona seems to make people less inhibited: they may feel emboldened to talk more and in different ways from their real-world linguistic repertoire. They must also expect to receive messages from others who are likewise less inhibited, and be prepared for negative outcomes. There are obviously inherent risks in talking to someone we do not know, and instances of harassment, insulting or aggressive language, and subterfuge are legion. Questions about identity – of a kind which would be totally redundant in face-to-face settings – are also a feature of initial chatgroup encounters. Certain kinds of information are asked for and given, notably about location, age, and gender (not usually about race or socio-economic status). Gender is so sensitive an issue that it has given rise to the terms 35 The electronic traceability of messages, through server records, backups, and other monitoring procedures, might be thought enough to make anonymity impossible. As several commentators have said: never write anything that you wouldn’t want to see read out in court (e.g. Durusau, 1996) – see further below, p. 132. But tracing can be made extremely difficult in various ways, such as through using ‘anonymizers’ – services that combine encryption, pseudonyms, and proxy servers to let you browse and send messages anonymously, ‘remailer’ services which disguise where a message comes from, or free e-mail services which do not check the user’s personal details. There is no real way of knowing if an e-mail has been interfered with. Although the system is sufficiently abused (e.g. false or insulting messages sent out under someone’s name) that some organizations impose e-mail controls, the general problem does not seem to have affected the vast majority of users, who operate unconcernedly with their online personae. The medium of Netspeak 55 Morf [‘male or female’], an online query addressed to someone who uses a gender-ambiguous name (e.g. Chris, Hilary, Jan) and Sorg [‘straight or gay’]. People seem to become particularly anxious if they do not know the sex and sexual preference of the person they are talking to. Multiple and often conflicting notions of truth therefore co-exist in Internet situations, ranging from outright lying through mutually aware pretence to playful trickery. As Patricia Wallace puts it, referring to the absence of prosodic and kinesic clues in Netspeak: ‘The fact that it is so easy to lie and get away with it – as long as we can live with our own deceptions and the harm they may cause others – is a significant feature of the Internet.’36 It is of course possible to live out a lie or fantasy logically and consistently, and it is on this principle that the games in virtual worlds operate and the nicknamed people in chatgroups interact. But it is by no means easy to maintain a consistent presence through language in a world where multiple interactions are taking place under pressure, where participants are often changing their names and identities, and where the co- operative principle can be arbitrarily jettisoned. Putting this another way, when you see an Internet utterance, you often do not know how to take it, because you do not know what set of conversational principles it is obeying. Here are two such cir- cumstances, both of which undermine the maxim of quality. A spoof is any message whose origin is suspect; the sending of such messages, spoofing, is commonplace in some Internet situations. Unattributed utterances may be introduced into a virtual-world conversation, for example. Normally, each con- versational turn is preceded by the name of the player, along the lines of Mole says, ‘I’m hungry.’ But it is possible for a player to interpolate an utterance with no name preceding, such as: An angry lion appears in the doorway. Spoof utterances may also be inserted by the software, and not by any of the participants. When a spoof is noticed, the players may condemn it, question it, 36 Wallace (1999: 51). 56 l a n g u ag e a n d th e i n t e r n e t or play about with it. The result can be a fresh element of fun injected into a game which is palling, with everybody knowing what is going on and willingly participating. Equally, because spoofing can confuse other players, and severely disrupt a game which is proceeding well, the various guides to manners in vir- tual worlds tend to be critical of it, and discourage it. Some groups insist on displaying the identity of the spoofer, such as by making the sender add his/her nick afterwards: 1,000 linguists have converged on Parliament – Doc.37 Because there is no way of knowing whether the content of a spoof is going to be true (with reference to the rest of the conversation) or false, such utterances introduce an element of anarchy into the co-operative ethos of conversation. A similar problem arises with trolling, the sending of a message (a troll) specifically intended to cause irritation to others, such as the members of a chatgroup. It is an innocent-sounding question or statement, delivered deadpan, and usually short, though some trolls are verbose in their apparent cluelessness. For example, somebody who wanted to troll a linguistics group might send the message I’ve heard that the Eskimo language has 1,000 words for snow – then sit back to enjoy the resulting explosions.38 The term derives from fishing (the trailing of a baited hook to see what bites), though it also captures the resonance of the trolls of Scandinavian mythology – the bridge-guarders who would let people pass only if they answered a question correctly. On the Internet, the bait is false information, deliberately introduced into a conversation to see who falls for it. People who respond, and correct the misinformation, show that they do not belong to the group, or are newcomers to it (newbies); old hands will simply ignore it, or – if they can be bothered – laconically send the response ‘nice troll’ to the originator, or YHBT [‘you have been trolled’] to the responder. Not all chatgroups troll; some insert clues to the existence of a troll into a message that only the 37 This is the procedure followed in Cherny’s group (Cherny 1999: 115). 38 For the reason, see Pullum and McCawley (1991).