Assignment #7- Speech Acts

Here are the five away messages:
Message 1: work
This message is assertive because it states that the AIM user is working. An expression like this is often found in away messages.

Message 2: freshie girls sg 9:00 PM nanticoke 111
This message is also assertive, although to some people it may be seen as a directive (ie, go to this event). Some common ground is required to understand this message. Something has to be known about this person to understand that sg stands for "small group". Also it may take a college student to pick up on the fact that "nanticoke 111" refers to a building and room combination on a campus. Unlike the examples in the paper, these words are not slang (like "libe" but are merely places known only to those who have been to the campus.

Message 3: I am away from my computer right now.
This is an assertive message that is one of the default away messages on AIM. As such, it can be considered a CMC convention.

Message 4: watching requiem for a dream
This is another assertive message, and one of the few which give details on what the person is doing. Interestingly enough, it is ambiguous as to whether he is actually away from the computer- he may be watching the movie right on the computer.

Message 5: i need to buy someone a big ol' present for being the best
This is a commissive message since it states that the person needs to get something done. Common ground would be required to figure out who the "someone" is and whether the person who put up the away message is being humorous or sarcastic or is actually gone shopping at the moment, or something in between.

I found that the messages are fairly easy to code, although I had to keep certain principles in mind. For example, I think that sharing common ground with someone can interfere with looking at the message holistically, as the different levels of understanding can lead to questioning the intentions of the message owner.

Also, it seems that most messages don't have either common ground based conventions or CMC conventions. This may further support the evidence that experienced IM users use fewer CMC conventions than new users, but it also makes the convention categories not very useful. Maybe every message has to go into one of the two categories, but in that case I would be hard-pressed to choose one for any given message.