Assignment #7

1. softball game today was fuuun!! :-) my tummy hurts... too much chocolate for today.

This quote contains several CMC conventions: the emoticon ":-)", the intentional misspelling "fuuun", the extra quotation marks "!!", and the use of "..." as an emotional indicator. I think that this away message could be characterized as both an expressive and assertive speech act. The CMC conventions used to convey emotion and the use of emotional words ("fuuun" and "hurts") suggests that the message is an expressive one. However, since this message also serves to relay current information to others, it could be an assertive speech act as well.

2. Let what we do in here fill the streets out there; let us dance for You

This away message requires common ground to completely understand it. It is not immediately clear that this message is a quote, since there are no quotation marks around the words. In addition, common ground is required to understand that when the word "you" is capitalized and written as "You", the interpretation should be that it refers to "God" rather than "another human". Although this away message is a quote, I think that it can accurately be interpreted as a directive, since this person probably did not put the quote up only because he identifies with it, but rather because he wants other people to be encouraged to take action based on those words.

3. around, gimme a call if u need me

This away message contains two speech acts. The first part of the message, "around", is assertive since it serves to inform others of a current state. The second part, "gimme a call if you need me", is directive, since it calls the reader to the action of giving this person a call.

4. The dawn is breaking A light shining through You're barely waking And I'm tangled up in you Yeah <3

This away message contains both a common ground based convention and a CMC based convention. First, it must be common ground that these phrases are quotes from a song rather than a literal statement of events happening to this person. Since this quote does not have quotation marks around it, however, people who do not share this common ground could take the statement literally, characterizing the away message as an assertive speech act. On the other hand, someone with access to the common ground knowledge of the song would characterize the away message as an expressive speech act. Rather than thinking that this person is literally tangled up in another person at the moment, the characterization of this away message as expressive means that this person chose this quote because they emotionally identify with the song. Another interesting feature about this away message is that it contains the CMC convention "<3". This emoticon of the sideways heart indicates that this quote was probably directed towards another individual.

5. I'm feeling kind of old right now... it's kind of sucky.

This message is clearly an expressive speech act, written in order to give others a glimpse of this person's emotional state. She writes that she is "feeling... old", and this is "kind of sucky", emotional words used to give a clear picture of her feelings.

In coding my friends' away messages, I found that some of the speech act categories were overly simplified. For instance, the phrase "it's been a long day" could be interpreted as both an expressive and an assertive speech act. I also found that commissive acts are not at all common in my friends' away messages; this is probably due to the fact that people believe when others read their messages, the future event has already occurred. For instance, assertive messages such as "at the mall" are more common than "going to the mall". It is unfortunate that Nastri et al do not analyze quotes in their article. In looking at my friends' away messages, I found that a significant number of people had quotes on their away messages. It would be interesting to analyze the ways in which these quotes can be interpreted. Regarding quotes in away messages, the following questions can be asked: Can away message quotes be seen as a direct representation of the person's own thoughts and feelings? On the other hand, should quotes not be taken literally, but rather be seen as only reflecting the person's fondness for a certain song or book? Which venues are most common for quotes (books, famous people, professors, friends, songs, religious texts), and what is the significance of this?