Speech acts in computer-mediated communication

Abstract

This research is on speech acts in computer-mediated communication (CMC), particularly Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC is classified as a synchronous communication which has its own set of rules that sometimes differ from that of both written and spoken communication. The researcher has based her study on a Malaysian based chat room, chat.mystar.com. Forty pages of chat sessions were printed for data, and these were analyzed word for word to seek types of speech acts used by chatters. The research sought the answers to two questions. The first one is pertaining to what the range of use of speech acts in CMC is. It was discovered that the range of speech acts is quite limited, though topics of conversation did play a big role in the use of speech acts by the chatters. The second question is whether there are any particular types of speech acts that are predominant. The researcher found out that speech acts of expressives and directives had predominance over other speech acts, but, again, this was based on the topics discussed by the chatters. These findings show that speech acts do exist in CMC, but the use of the speech acts are very topic based.