Acronyms in an Asynchronous Environment

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School of Language and Literature G3, Bachelor’s Course

English Linguistics Course Code: 2EN50E

Supervisor: Mikko Laitinen Credits: 15

Examiner: Ibolya Maricic Date: 4 June 2013

Acronyms in an Asynchronous Environment

A Corpus Study of Acronym Frequency in Online Discussion Forums

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Abstract

This study is a research of the frequency of acronyms in an online forum and the meaning of the most frequent ones in their context. In the study, definitions are given for language forms used online so that one is able to compare a set of similarities and differences between these online varieties and the Standard English. The method consists of identifying and searching for a set of CMD-typical acronyms. These acronyms are taken from prior studies as well as from Crystal’s (2006:91f) list of known CMD-acronyms. The material is retrieved from an online forum of asynchronous communication, and the results show the frequency of the acronyms as well as discuss their meanings in context. The results indicate that acronyms are highly

infrequent in asynchronous environments, and their use decreases from 2010 to 2013. The conclusion of this study is that the infrequency of acronyms in asynchronous

environments may be due to the nature of asynchronous online communication, in which users have time to write their replies. When comparing this study’s corpora with studies on

frequencies in synchronous environments, the acronym frequency in this study was lower than the frequency shown in the synchronous studies.

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1. Introduction

In today's technologically dependent world interaction has become easier. People from different parts of the world are nowadays able to communicate with each other simply by logging on to the Internet. Freiermuth (2011:128) describes Computer Mediated

Communication (CMC) as the term for interaction online. The language used in CMC has been given many names such as Netspeak and Chatspeak (Squires, 2009) for example. As explained by Herring (2004:1), Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD) is the term used when describing the language used in online discussions. All varieties of languages used online will henceforth be referred to as CMD.

According to Herring (2004:2f), there are two varieties of synchronicity in which computer users can interact with other users. These two varieties are synchronous and asynchronous CMD. Synchronous CMD is described as real time conversations, such as conversations taking place in online chats and Instant Messaging (IM) (Herring, 2004:2f). In synchronous CMD, the participants need to be present when the conversation takes place. The asynchronous variety is conversations that do not take place in real time and users do not need to be logged on to receive their messages. Therefore, asynchronous CMD allows users to reflect and formulate their messages using more time. One particular form of asynchronous CMD is forum discussions. The data in this essay is collected from the Internet forum Two Plus Two, which is a forum for poker players.

Regarding the activity on Internet forums, the site rankings-big-boards.com ([www]) lists the most used forums available by the number of messages contributed as well as visitors for each forum. The rankings show that there is millions of messages contributed to online forums daily, and also that hundreds of thousands of people visit forums online. As stated by Crystal (2011:58), new technology influences languages greatly where new words and expressions are invented for equipment and functions associated with the new technology.

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total (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008:12; Squires, 2009:483).

Most studies of abbreviation frequencies online have been based on instant messaging (IM), which is a real-time chat in a synchronous environment. The abbreviations that are mostly used in online discussions are acronyms and initialisms. The definition of an acronym is that it is shortened from two or more words to form a unit (Yule, 1996:68). An example of an acronym is NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). An initialism is an abbreviation that cannot be pronounced as one word, for example [afk] and [brb]

(Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008:8).

This study aims to research the frequency of CMD-distinctive acronyms and initialisms in asynchronous discussions, namely on online discussion boards. These discussion boards are also known as forums. Two corpora are used as data, and the corpora are collected from two different time periods in order to compare if the acronym usage has decreased or

increased over time on this particular forum. The next chapter explains the aim and presents the research questions.

1.1 Aim and research questions

The aim of this study is to research the most frequent acronyms and initialisms on the online poker discussion forum Two plus Two. By collecting two corpora from the same forum and discussion topic, but from different time periods, the frequencies are compared to determine if there has been an increase or a decrease in usage of acronyms and initialisms. The corpora consist of 500 posts from 2010 and 500 posts from 2013. The frequency of this study is also compared to frequencies from other studies (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires, 2009) in order to determine if there are any differences or similarities regarding frequency of acronyms and initialisms in asynchronous and synchronous CMD. This leads to the following research questions:

• Has the usage of acronyms decreased or increased over time in this particular forum? • What are the most frequent acronyms in the corpora and how are they used?

• Compared with prior studies, how does the frequency of acronyms differ in synchronous and asynchronous environments?

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frequently used the acronyms are as well as how they are used in context. Chapter 5 discusses how the results can be interpreted, and, lastly, chapter 6 provides the author’s conclusions.

2. Background

This section will give definitions of all the terms used throughout this essay. Prior research on the subject will also be presented.

2.1 Definitions

The English language is one of the major languages of the world today. According to Crystal (2002:1), there are over 400 million people who use English as their mother tongue, and combined with second- and third-language speakers the total of English speakers in the world is in the region of a billion. There have been many influences throughout history that have made English the global language it is today. Examples of these influences are religion, globalization and not least technology (Crystal 2002:3).

To be able to compare varieties in a language, a standard definition of a language must be made. Crystal (2005:6) defines Standard English as a standard that includes defined grammar, phonology and orthography. These are the three units of a language that can be easily controlled and verified, because it is possible to set defined standards and rules that apply to them. Pronunciation, dialects and vocabulary on the other hand, are areas that differ and change continuously, and are therefore impossible to put into a standard. Therefore, Standard English is defined purely on its linguistic properties. Crystal (2005:6) argues that Standard English is the language taught for educational purposes, and is used excessively where formal English is expected. CMD on the other hand is used for other purposes.

CMD is, according to Herring (2004:1), most often used through text-based

communication. Herring (2004:1) argues that the linguistic properties vary based on many different factors, such as language variety, social and cultural factors, and messaging systems used. Crystal (2011:32) describes the language of the Internet as a new language variety. Language varieties are, according to Crystal (2002:203ff), explained through local dialects, accents, as well as social and cultural backgrounds. Herring (2004:6) explains that CMD is a language variety that, although text based, consists of elements of spoken language.

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discussion topics started on the forum by the users. The users on forums are called posters, and they start a thread either to ask a question or to start a discussion. When an answer is made, it is called a post. Herring (2002:1) also explains that the posters are anonymous, but still have to register and create nicknames to be able to contribute to the forum.

CMD has influenced the English language, as some typical CMD acronyms and initialisms have become part of it. The best-known acronym, [lol] (Laughing Out Loud) and the best-known initialism, [omg] (Oh My God), have been included as words in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The OED ([www], 2011) defines [lol] as “Etymology: Initialism < the initial letters of laughing out loud; sometimes also pronounced as an acronym.” and dates the first known use of the acronym back to 1989 when it was used in an electronic text at a message board called FidoNews. As described by OED, [lol] can be regarded as an acronym or initialism. [lol] and [omg] are considered colloquial by OED, but now included in the dictionary. CMD is the source of hundreds of acronyms and abbreviations like these, some used more frequently than others. Crystal (2006:91f) lists examples of typical acronyms used online, such as shown in column (a).

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1) afk– Away From Keyboard 2) brb – Be Right Back 3) cu – See You 4) imo – In My Opinion 5) j4f – Just For Fun 6) m8 - Mate

These are just a few examples of the many acronyms that have originated from text

messaging or CMD. Acronyms can be written using either capital or lower case letters; there are clear acronyms such as [afk] and more word play-like items that are built up by single letters, such as [cu] or rebus-like items consisting of both letters and numbers, such as [j4f] and [m8] (Crystal, 2006:90). Usage of both letters and numbers is also a common variety of acronyms. Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) study on frequencies of abbreviations in instant messaging online describes distinctions between the different varieties of abbreviations, and these distinctions are as follows:

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Denis (2008) also describe words that are specific for Instant Messaging (IM), namely words for expressions such as [haha], [hehe] and [hmm].

There are also other expression forms that are typical for CMD. Examples of these, using Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) definitions, are emoticons, symbols and expressions. Symbols are characters that replace words, either just as one character or more characters put together to express feelings. When typed, they sometimes transform into emoticons. For example, a colon and a bracket put together is a symbol depicting a happy face, [: )], and becomes the emoticon [J] if the software used for typing the symbol (such as Microsoft Word) has an interface that allows symbols to transform into emoticons. One example of a symbol is [@], which expresses anger. The final term, described by Tagliamonte and Denis (2008), is expressions, which are onomatopoeic words such as [haha] and [aargh]. These words are also written to express emotions, but with the difference that they describe the sound of the expression. The results presented in the research question will only discuss the frequency of acronyms and expressions.

Speaking directly to another person using expressions is, according to Crystal

(2006:28), a distinctive feature for a spoken language. However, when writing in CMC, one uses those features as well. Therefore, it is needed to clarify whether CMC is a spoken or a written language.

2.2 The characteristics of CMC

Freiermuth (2011) argues that CMC differs from spoken discussions, and that online chatting is the closest possible comparison between these two types of interaction. He claims,

however, that the major difference is the interaction where people in spoken discussions find it much easier to understand each other. Crystal (2002:133) concludes that CMC is not spoken language, nor written language. Instead, he claims, that CMC is unique, because of its

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The spontaneity used in spoken conversations is also lost in CMC, because even if the interaction is synchronous users interacting online often reflect longer before giving an answer, than in face-to-face conversations (Crystal, 2006:12).

As pointed out in the introduction, there have been concerns that CMD is influencing Standard English in a negative way. A study by Squires (2009) discusses the negative

reception CMD has received in media as well as on the Internet. This study lists examples of criticism from the media and shows that the criticism tends to claim that CMD is making its users seem ignorant as well as threatening Standard English. Squires (2009) also gives examples of where the usage of CMD is interpreted to be inappropriate, including

schoolwork, at job interviews and in “real life”, but also in typical CMC-based interactions such as email conversations. However, arguments in the study describe that CMC should be regarded as slang, rather than a destructive force destroying the English language. The voices that are raised against CMD are mainly from the media, but also from teachers and linguists. Therefore, Squires’ (2009) study researches the frequency of typical CMD-features such as abbreviations, acronyms and uncapitalized letters (e.g. [i] instead of [I]) in order to find out if the criticism from the media regarding the negative effect CMD has on Standard English is relevant or not. The results from the study will be presented in the next chapter, together with a similar study made by Tagliamonte and Denis (2008).

2.3 Previous Research

Squires’ (2009) study uses the term enregisterment to describe how specific terms of CMD (or Internet Language as she calls it) become distinctive features of a language. She argues that a language becomes enregistered through sociocultural and historical features.

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much as depicted in the media. Furthermore, the study shows that the participants of the study knew the difference between the language used in CMC and Standard English, and when to use them in the right context. Squires’ (2009) research also shows that although the best-known features regarding CMC are not frequent in the corpus, there is one feature standing out. The non-capitalization of the personal pronoun [I], where the lower case pronoun is used 466 times compared to the 70 uses of the upper case pronoun, proves that CMC-users tend not to care about capitalization. Lastly, the study concludes that the enregisterment of the

language is based on codified rules of Standard English as well as on the technological aspects.

In their study, Tagliamonte and Denis (2008) investigate a corpus of 1.5 million words from teenagers’ instant messaging (IM). IM is a form of synchronous CMC, where the interactions most often take place between two people chatting directly to one another. This corpus is compared with a corpus consisting of speech from the same participants of the research. The two corpora are compared in order to determine if there are any similarities between spoken language and CMD. The study shows that teenagers tend to use CMD distinctive features less frequently the older they get. Tagliamonte and Denis (2008) also argue that although there are numerous instances of misspellings, grammatical errors,

abbreviations and shortenings, these instances are not typical for IM. The research shows that only 2.4% of the total words are typical IM-forms, with [haha] as the most used expression and [lol] and [omg] as the most frequent acronyms. The reason for researching frequency is to determine whether the common perception in the media that CMD-typical varieties are

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3 Materials and Methods

This section describes the material and method used in this study. Problems and limitations of the study are also discussed.

3.1 Material

The study is a quantitative study that explores the frequency of CMD-typical acronyms in two corpora. The two corpora are collected from two different time periods, 2010 and 2013. Both corpora consist of 500 posts, with 14,607 words in the 2010 corpus, and 19,651 words in the 2013 corpus. The study is conducted using the most frequently used acronyms in Tagliamonte and Denis' (2008) corpus, as well as the acronyms described in Crystal's (2006:91f) table of abbreviations used in CMD (shown in Appendix 1). By searching through the two corpora several acronyms were excluded from the table since they did not occur on any instances. Appendix 1 shows the acronyms searched for in this research. There was only one acronym, [itt], found in this study’s corpora that were not presented in any of the prior studies (Crystal, 2006; Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires: 2009).

The corpora were obtained from one of the largest forums available online, namely the forum Two plus Two ([www]). Picture 1 shows the first page of the forum.

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The forum consists of different topics, which all include sub-topics related to the specific topic. For example, under the topic ‘General Marketplace’ as shown in picture 1, forum users can sell or buy products or services. The last post made in the specific topic is shown, as well as the total threads and posts in the particular topic.

This particular forum was chosen because, although it is mainly a forum for poker strategies, it has a wide variety of different discussion topics and all posts are in English. It also provides printer friendly pages for non-members of the forum to download. As described by Lindquist (2009:203) there are no reliable automated methods to compile data from forums into a searchable corpus, and therefore the data must be downloaded manually. The corpora presented in this study have been edited to remove quoted posts. The reason for this post-editing is that if a post is quoted several times, it makes the frequency of certain acronyms higher. Many forums also convert typical CMD acronyms and expressions into emoticons; for example when [lol] or [haha] are written they are converted into ( :) ).

Two plus Two is an anonymous discussion board. However, the users have to register with their own alias in order to be able to contribute to the forum. All other forms of

identification, such as email addresses and names, are only visible to the forum

administrators. In this study, user aliases are coded and replaced with identifying numbers to ensure complete anonymity.

3.2 Method

The acronyms searched for in the corpora were taken from Crystal’s (2006:91f) list, which is presented in Appendix 1. I carried out searches for all the acronyms presented in the list. The frequency of the specific acronym searched for was divided by the total word count of the corpora and multiplied by 100 to provide the results in percentages. The acronyms found were then presented from the most frequently used one to the least. The meanings of the acronyms were determined from two aspects. First, Crystal's (2006:p91f) list was used to provide the original meaning of the specific acronym. Second, the meaning was derived out of context of the whole sentence in my two asynchronous CMC corpora. The rationale was to examine if the acronym was in context.

3.3 Problems and limitations

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regarded as fact. The examples of how the acronyms are used throughout the corpora provide examples of how their meaning could be interpreted.

In finding adequate material for this research, many forums were looked at before choosing the Two plus Two forum. A few forums required registration and waiting for a time period to be able to access the material. Others did not provide printer friendly material and converted certain acronyms into emoticons. Although the material collected is from a sub-forum called the student section, it is impossible to determine whether the posters are students or not.

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4. Results

In this section the results from the corpora are provided and analysed. As stated earlier in this essay, previous research has shown that acronyms are used sparingly in CMD. Previous research also shows that acronyms and expressions for laughter were the most commonly used items.

4.1 Acronym frequency and meanings from the 2010 corpus

The 2010 corpus consists of 500 posts and a total of 14,607 words. A search for the acronyms in Crystal’s (2006:p91f) list showed that a mere 0.84% of the total words were acronyms. In concordance with the IM studies, [lol] was the most frequently used acronym, with 42

instances. [imo] and [imho] ‘in my /humble/ opinion’ was used 22 times combined. The most notable difference between studies of IM-language, such as Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) study, and this study is that laughing expressions such as [haha] and [hehe] are almost non-existent in this asynchronous environment. The third most frequent acronym is not listed in Crystal's (2006:91f) list, namely [itt] ‘in this thread’. Table 1 shows the most frequent acronyms, as well as their respective frequencies.

Table 1: The frequency of acronyms in the 2010 corpus

Word: Frequency Percentage of total

Lol (laughing out loud) 42 0.29%

Imo (in my opinion) 22 0.15%

Itt (in this thread) 13 0.09%

Haha 9 0.06%

Fwiw (for what it’s worth) 7 0.05%

Idk (I don’t know) 7 0.05%

Wtf (what the fuck) 7 0.05%

Ty / thx (thank you, thanks) 6 0.05%

Btw (by the way) 4 0.04%

Total 123 0.84%

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count. The results show that the frequency on this particular forum is lower than prior studies on synchronous environments have shown. The examples given in this chapter describe how the acronyms used in their context are provided. Firstly, the most frequent acronym, [lol], is discussed.

1) [001] Pretty sure Puma is indicative of lacking kick game. Nike >>>> all if you have kick game. [002] Lol. Pretty sure it's retarded to only wear one brand. And wtf is kick game? Who needs it? Once you are down with college, you realize sneakers are not stylish.

[003] LOL @ sneakers. Leather all day every day baby.

2) [004] I'm not surprised that your style =/= my style, but I don't ever see myself rockin boat shoes. I dress somewhat preppy, but those shoes only go with khaki shorts + no socks. If that's the case, I would rather wear the polo flip flops i posted earlier on this page.

[005] lol ty. and those are the closest things i could find to compare to my shorts 3 [006] Still not worth 160$...or whatever absurd amount you paid for it

[007] lol poor people ITT

[lol] is used twice as many times as the second most frequent acronym, [imo], is used. Example 1 shows three posters discussing the best shoe brand. As seen by the responses by both poster [002] and [003], [lol] could be interpreted as ‘laughing out loud’. However, the acronym is sometimes used to emphasize, as by poster [007] in example 3, a disrespectful laughter towards other posters. [lol] is also often followed by another acronym or expression. The posters [003] and [005] show examples of this and also give the interpretation that [lol] is not used to describe someone who is ‘laughing out loud’; [lol] is rather used as a synonym to an expression for laughter, such as [haha]. As shown in example b by poster [005], if the sentence were to be read out aloud; it would probably be read as ‘haha thank you’ rather than ‘laughing out loud thank you’.

The second most frequent acronym in the corpus, [imo], is on every instance found used in concordance with its full meaning. Examples of how [imo] are used in the corpus follow.

4) [008] Out of curiosity why is Brown shoes >Black?

[009] they aren't imo. cons for black: when i wear black shoes i feel like my feet completely disappear 5) [010] Well I got called out for over dressing at a party/kickback last night

fwiw I knew a most there one being my cousin.

[011] There's absolutely nothing wrong with overdressing IMO. People that hate on others for looking decent are just pissed they suck at dressing.

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and 5. Another notable acronym is [itt], which is the only acronym in this corpora that is not found in Crystal’s (2006:91f) list. It is, in my opinion, an acronym that is specific for asynchronous

communication. Examples 5 and 6 show how [itt] is used.

5) [012]: 6'3". Maybe more of your height is in your legs? I typically wear ~34" pants. [013]: me too!

[014]: short legs ITT. I'm like 5'10 and wear 32''. [013]: I believe that your the one with long legs.

6) [015]: T-shirts and jeans are a pain in the ass to shop for. You should take at least a day to look around and try on as many pieces as possible and see which fit you the best.

[016]: lol at some of the people itt

[itt] is used to describe persons, occurrences or situations that take place in the particular thread. As shown in example 5, poster [014] makes the remark ‘short legs ITT’ regarding how posters [012] and [013] have, according to him, short legs. The interpretation that his remark means that the people posting in the thread have short legs is made because of the answer made by poster [013], claiming that [014] on the other hand has long legs.

With the exception of the two most frequently occurring acronyms in this corpus, [lol] and [imo], no other acronym shows a frequency higher than 0.1%. Many of the known acronyms are found throughout the corpus, but cannot be discussed thoroughly because of their infrequency. Compared to prior studies on acronym frequency (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires, 2009), the results show that the frequency in this asynchronous corpus is lower than the IM corpora. However, CMC-typical laughing acronyms and expressions are the most frequent in both types of

communication. The other acronyms typical for IM, as described by Tagliamonte and Denis (2008), such as [brb], [omg] and [ttyl] are almost non-existent in the corpus of this study. The results indicate that acronyms are an insignificant part of the language used in this asynchronous discussion topic. The next section presents the result from the corpus of CMC in 2013.

4.2 Acronym frequency and meanings from the 2013 corpus

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acronym. The most notable differences between the corpora were that [imo] was only used eight times in the 2013 corpus compared to the 22 instances in 2010, as well as the non-existent use of the expression [haha] in 2013. Also, the forum-specific acronym [itt] was only found on three instances. Table 4.2 presents the frequency of each acronym in the data, as well as the total frequency of acronyms in the corpus.

Table 2: The frequency of acronyms in the 2013 corpus

Word Frequency Percentage of total

Lol 25 0.15% Imo 7 0.06% Ty / thx 6 0.04% Itt 3 0.03% Wtf 3 0.02% Fwiw 3 0.02% Btw 2 0.02% Total 49 0.34%

The results show that acronyms, albeit being used, are used sparingly in this corpus. [lol] is the only acronym occurring more than 10 times, and makes up for more than half of the total frequency. The frequency percentage for the 2013 corpus is low, not showing any form of increase of use over time. Examples of how the acronym [lol] is used follows.

6) [017]: In Canada this is really limited. Most of our cards you have a yearly cap that makes this a negligible benefit unless you want to get into having multiple cards which is just too much work. [018]: LOL Canada. Using cards is way better than cash for everyday purchases in the USA. 7) [019]: Just found a pair of black/silver club masters for 9.99 lol

8) [020]: polos look better than tshirts [021]: no, they make me look fat [020]: lol

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to express that he believe that 9.99 was a cheap prize for the particular item.

[imo] was the second most used acronym in 2013 as well as in 2010. Occurring on seven instances, it made up a mere total of 0.06% of the total words. The following examples present how [imo] is used.

9) [022]: I already have a brown pair like these wich I like a lot, but it's suede and I m also required towork for a few weeks in a place where last thing I need is to stand out (and also i need 2nd pair anyways for the dinner/drinking/cultural things~). Does this style of shoe fit both purposes even if it's black?

[023]: wingtips and captoes are fine for both formal and casual wear imo. i prefer the wingtips. 10) [024]: AE McAllisters on sale for $250 right now. More than worth the extra hundred and a much better looking shoe imo. Get the walnut.

[imo] is, as in the 2010 corpus, used to describe the poster’s own opinion. Examples 9 and 10 show how posters give other posters advice, based on their own opinion. The other acronyms found throughout the corpus were infrequently used, ranging between 0.04% and 0.02%. The third most used acronym, [ty], was only found on six instances. An example of how [ty] is used is presented below.

11) [025]: How do I take care of these beauties? Maybe just not wear them to such venues in the first place, but you get the same effect from walking in the rain and such, so would be good to know how to avoid letting them ruin.

[026]: Suede eraser + brush. If that doesn't work cover the spots in baking soda, leave overnight, remove baking soda the next day and scrub with a brush. There are some other things if it's an oil stain or something, but those two methods should remove most basic spots if you treat them ASAP.

[025]: ty, will go and purchase these things tomorrow

As shown in the example, poster [025] expresses his gratitude for getting the advice by poster [026], and responds by using [ty] instead of ‘thank you’.

In comparison with prior studies (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires, 2009) and the results presented from this corpus, it shows that [lol] is the most used acronym but that there are no other similarities. The main difference is that laughing expressions are more frequent in IM-conversations, and as the examples provided in this essay show, Crystal’s (2006:31) argument regarding that it is hard to know if [lol] really denotes ‘laughing out loud’ may be a correct assumption. The decrease in frequency shown between the two time periods of the corpora shows indications that the usage decreases in time on this asynchronous forum. The next chapter discusses possible reasons for this decrease more thoroughly.

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5. Discussion

As previous studies regarding acronym frequency in CMC show, the usage of CMD-typical acronyms is at a low rate. The material used in this study shows that their frequency in this particular asynchronous forum is only 0.52% of the total words when the two corpora are combined. When comparing the results from the two corpora, the corpus from 2010 has a 0.5% higher frequency than the corpus from 2013. Also, [lol] is the most frequent acronym in both corpora, and is the only acronym that is used to express meanings in the results. [lol] is used rather as a synonym to laughing expressions, such as [haha], than an acronym. The results are an indication that CMD-acronyms are a small part of the language used on forums. The tendencies shown in this research are that acronym frequency has decreased over a time span of three years in the Two plus Two forum, as well as [lol] still being the most used acronym.

In the previous studies (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires, 2009) that were discussed in this paper, the frequency of acronyms was about 2% higher. The major difference was that the use of laughing expressions, such as [haha] and [hehe] were much more frequent in the previous studies than they were used in this study. Moreover, acronyms such as [brb], [omg] and [ttyl] are almost non-existent in the corpora of this study, whereas these acronyms were among the most frequent ones in the other studies. On the other hand, acronyms prominent in the corpora of this study are not listed in Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) or Squires’ (2009) studies. Therefore, it is assumable that the language used in

asynchronous environments differs from the language in the synchronous variety. The results of this study, combined with theories and results from previous research give indications as to why the language may differ.

The corpus of this study is from an asynchronous chat group where the users are given more time to reflect on their contributions to the thread. As Squries (2009) argues, CMD-acronyms are mainly used for saving time, which is not needed in an asynchronous

environment. As stated by Herring (2004:6), users of asynchronous environments are given more time to reflect over their answers and do not need to hurry them. This may be an

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Another aspect discussed thoroughly in Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) study, is the age of the contributors. This study cannot specify the posters’ ages but it can be assumed that all posters are at least 18 years old, since one must be over 18 to be allowed to play poker online. Tagliamonte and Denis (2008) argue that the frequency of used acronyms decreases in

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6. Conclusion

The aim of this study was to determine if there were any increase or decrease of acronyms and initialisms on an asynchronous forum in a time period of three years. The data collected showed a decrease in acronym and initialism usage. Since the frequency only showed a total of approximately 0.5% and the fact that most users on forums do not know other users by name combined with the notion that they are users discussing their hobby, the frequency of acronyms might seem to be low. Nevertheless, when looking at distinctive features for acronym usage, such as using them as time savers (Squires, 2009) and the factors of age (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008) the low frequency is more explainable. It is an

indication that posters on this forum take time to formulate their answers, but the results provided cannot explain if the infrequency of acronyms correlate with the posters age.

Regarding the most frequent acronyms and initialisms, the results show that the most frequent items in the corpora are [lol] and [imo]. Laughter is not expressed often by the users of Two plus Two, but when they express laughter they use [lol] instead of expressions such as [haha] or [hehe]. The most frequent item, [lol], was the only acronym that could be interpreted in different ways depending on how it was used in its context. [lol] was used both as an

expression for laughter and as sarcasm. One could speculate that the reason for [lol] being the most used acronym in the majority of CMC corpus-based studies is because it has many different interpretations. Also, there were only one acronym found, [itt], that were not provided in Crystal’s (2006:91f) list or in Tagliamonte and Denis’ (2008) or Squires’ (2009) studies.

Typical CMD-acronyms are less frequent than the usage presented in studies regarding synchronous chats (Tagliamonte and Denis, 2008; Squires, 2009). However, since forum discussions online can be about any topic, it is impossible to draw definite conclusions about the general acronym frequency from a research of just one topic and one thread. However, the frequency of acronyms proved to be lower than expected in this study. Expressions for

laughter, such as [haha] and [hehe], are described as a distinctive feature in synchronous chats, but are not in this asynchronous study.

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suggested future study would be to follow frequent forum users for a period of time, in order to see clearer patterns in CMD-acronyms used in posting on forums.

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List of references

Biber, D, Conrad, S & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D (2011) Internet Linguistics, Abingdon: Routledge

Crystal, D. (2006) Language and the Internet, London: Penguin Group.

Crystal, D. (2002) The English Language – A guided tour of the language, London: Penguin Group.

Crystal, D. (2005) The stories of English, London: Penguin Group.

Freiermuth, M. (2011) Debating in an Online World: A Comparative Analysis of Speaking, Writing, and Online Chat. Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies (Te&Ta) 2011; 31 (2): 127-151.

Herring, S. C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behaviour. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning (pp: 338-376). New York: Cambridge University Press. Preprint: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/cmda.pdf

Lindquist, H. (2009) Corpus linguistics and the description of English, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Squires (2009), Enregistering Internet Language, Cambridge: Language in Society / Volume 39 / Issue 04 / September 2010, pp 457-492

Tagliamonte, S and Denis, D (2008). Linguistic Ruin? LOL! Instant messaging, Toronto: American Speech, Vol. 83, No. 1, Spring 2008.

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Online sources

Big Board Rankings (2013) http://rankings.big-boards.com/ Accessed 25 February

Oxford English Dictionary (2013). http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.lnu.se/ Accessed 5 April 2013.

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Acronyms in an Asynchronous Environment

Acronyms in an Asynchronous Environment

Abstract

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Background

3 Materials and Methods

4. Results

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

List of references

Online sources