TY - JOUR

T1 - Storytelling in instant messenger communication

T2 - Sequencing a story without turn-taking

AU - Meiler, Matthias

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier Ltd

PY - 2021/10

Y1 - 2021/10

N2 - Everyday storytelling in private instant messenger communication is surprisingly understudied although it is to be considered a linguistic activity of high importance for the everyday life of the interlocutors in these days. This paper undertakes exploratory analyses of stories typed under the media conditions of instant messaging and outlines the spectrum of adaptation strategies that accompany the transposition from face-to-face to instant messengers. The analyses here focus especially on the interactional techniques of sequencing a story. This focus is due to specific media differences between face-to-face and instant messenger communication which have as one result that the latter lacks the temporal dynamics of turn-taking. The study's corpus comprises 40 instances of storytelling. The findings show a broad spectrum of possible techniques of telling a story under the specific media conditions of messenger communication: On the one end of the spectrum, one can find techniques clearly borrowed from face-to-face conversation and, on the other end, techniques that exploit the affordances of instant messaging paying special regard to its advantages.

AB - Everyday storytelling in private instant messenger communication is surprisingly understudied although it is to be considered a linguistic activity of high importance for the everyday life of the interlocutors in these days. This paper undertakes exploratory analyses of stories typed under the media conditions of instant messaging and outlines the spectrum of adaptation strategies that accompany the transposition from face-to-face to instant messengers. The analyses here focus especially on the interactional techniques of sequencing a story. This focus is due to specific media differences between face-to-face and instant messenger communication which have as one result that the latter lacks the temporal dynamics of turn-taking. The study's corpus comprises 40 instances of storytelling. The findings show a broad spectrum of possible techniques of telling a story under the specific media conditions of messenger communication: On the one end of the spectrum, one can find techniques clearly borrowed from face-to-face conversation and, on the other end, techniques that exploit the affordances of instant messaging paying special regard to its advantages.

KW - Computer-mediated communication (CMC)

KW - Facebook Messenger

KW - Instant messenger

KW - Media linguistics

KW - Sequenciality

KW - Storytelling

KW - Turn-taking

KW - WhatsApp

KW - Language Studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109169642&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100515

DO - 10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100515

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85109169642

VL - 43

JO - Discourse, Context and Media

JF - Discourse, Context and Media

SN - 2211-6958

M1 - 100515

ER -