Discourse and Culture in Computer-mediated Communication

Discourse and Culture in Computer-mediated Communication

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a cornerstone of global communication in contemporary society has become intercultural and interpersonal in its features. This study explores contextual properties (semiosis) of CMC discourse from a cross-culturalI perspective. These properties, which are culturally conventional, are analyzed, focusing particularly on visual images and linguistic features in the text. Semioses in CMC reveal peculiar features both visually and linguistically; visual images are embedded at the textual as well as sentence levels playing a vital role in the text. On the sentence level, they appear with language in forms of icons and emoticons borrowed from programming languages and perform various syntactic roles. On the textual level, they create a text with and without language in their own grammar. Linguistic aspects of semiotic shifting in CMC feature the following: an extensive special vocabulary, reduced spellings, and non-standard spelling reflective of vemacular pronunciation. These semiotic changes present a universal pattern across cultures and at the same time, show the influence of specific cultural forms.