Words on the Web

Recent developments in technology have made this a crucial moment for those people studying language behaviour. This book places the reader at the heart of the investigations into what happens when people use language to communicate via computers.

New communication technologies - video conferencing, email and the World Wide Web - have provided a whole new range of ways to interact with others, and students can now observe the emergence and rapid development of linguistic and social conventions for using these media.

The studies in this volume consider what people say when interacting with others via new technologies, and the ways in which we mould and combine the written, the spoken and the non-verbal in order to express ourselves effectively within the confines of the new media available to us. The breadth of activities covered here is extensive, including:

• informal activities such as email and chat-room use
• educational uses of CMC, for collaborative learning and language practice
• integration of CMC into formal work practice - for instance, in an ambulance dispatch centre.

The scope of the book ranges from Conversation Analysis to Genre Theory and from Social Psychology to Politeness Theory. There is much to contemplate for both designers of new communication as well as those commissioning and buying these technologies for our homes, schools and workplaces.

The collection of work here has been edited to recognise the range of disciplines looking to this field and is of direct interest to any linguist, psychologist or other social scientist working in the study of human communication.