Spelling and simulated shibboleths in Nigerian computer-mediated communication

An overview of recent developments in Nigerian electronic messaging

Bibliographic Data

ID20356199
AuthorsPresley Ifukor (corresponding author), Presley A Ifukor
Year2011
Volume27
Issue3
Pages35-42
Publication date2011-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnglish Today (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-0784 • E-ISSN: 1474-0567
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0266078411000368
OpenAlexW2315354696
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited19

Since its coinage by Hiltz and Turoff (1978) the term computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been adapted and broadly conceptualised as interactive communication by and among human beings via networked computers and mobile devices. Several definitions of CMC have been offered in the literature but Herring's (2007) definition of CMC as ‘predominantly text-based human–human interaction mediated by networked computers or mobile telephony’ is adopted in this article because it stresses the textual aspect of the communicative interaction and accommodates all forms of textual language use mediated by the Internet, the World Wide Web and mobile technologies. This approach to CMC focuses on the production, transmission and exchange of naturally-occurring text-based human language and highlights the fact that human beings (as opposed to automated or artificial systems) are both the agents or initiators and recipients of the communication under investigation. Although communication is not unique to humans, the ability to use human language for meaningful social interactions is the exclusive preserve of the human species. Thus the perspective human beings bring to virtual interactions is accounted for in CMC. Internet interlocutors (also known as online interactants, netizens or textizens in the case of regular SMS texts composers/senders) employ textual data to convey and exchange their thoughts, opinions, observations, feelings as well as messages from other people or sources (Ifukor, 2011). These interactive possibilities make CMC a technology, medium, and engine of social relations (Jones, 1995:11) and language use is at the core

Computer-mediated communication · Feeling · Human communication · Human–computer interaction · Internet privacy · Linguistics · Sociology · Spelling · The Internet · World Wide Web · Communication · Computer Science · Digital Communication and Language · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Media, Communication, and Education · Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub