Disagreement, confusion, disapproval, turn elicitation and floor holding: Actions as accomplished by ellipsis marks-only turns and blank turns in quasisynchronous chats

This study evidences turn actions done by ellipsis marks-only turns and blank turns as employed in quasisynchronous chats that are not discussed in prior literature. A brief introduction to the research background of ellipsis marks in online chats is followed by a description of the data collected b...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDiscourse studies Vol. 13; no. 2; pp. 211 - 234
Main Author Ong, Kenneth Keng Wee
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.04.2011
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Action
Chat
Chat rooms
Computer mediated communications
Confusion
Conversation
Conversation analysis
Data collection
Discourse analysis
Elicitation
Ellipsis
Ellipsis marks
English language
Ethnomethodology
Internet
Language
Linguistics
Microanalysis
Non-verbal communication
Online chat
Paralanguage
Pornography
Preferences
Punctuation
Reasoning
Research trends
Restitution
Second language
Semiotics
Signalling
Singapore
Social interaction
Students
Tertiary education
Singlish
Singapore
computer-mediated communication
conversation analysis
preference
ethnomethodology
silence
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Summary:This study evidences turn actions done by ellipsis marks-only turns and blank turns as employed in quasisynchronous chats that are not discussed in prior literature. A brief introduction to the research background of ellipsis marks in online chats is followed by a description of the data collected before delving into the actions done by ellipsis marks-only turns and blank turns. Data were culled from multi-party chats among tertiary students during a critical reasoning class. A Conversation Analysis-informed approach is applied in this article to analyze the preference organization of elliptical turns that illustrate several turn actions which include responses signaling disagreement, confusion and disapproval besides initial actions of eliciting responses and holding the floor. More than punctuation marks or paralinguistic restitution of silences, their interpersonal meaningfulness in sequential context and differentness/similarity vis-a-vis temporal silences are demonstratively shown in microscopic and interpretive description of chat excerpts.
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ISSN:1461-4456
1461-7080
DOI:10.1177/1461445610392138