Understanding spam: A macro-textual analysis

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

Unsolicited promotional emails, commonly termed ‘spam’, are more than familiar to the average email user. However, to date, spam mail has largely been ignored by the linguistic community. The present paper addresses this research gap by presenting a genre analysis of 121 medical spam mails. The analysis concentrates on the macro-textual level, and reveals that unsolicited promotional emails undoubtedly belong to the promotional genre. However, a contrast of previous research on offline promotional letters shows differences between the conventional patterns underlying such letters and those underlying spam emails. These differences are explained with reference to the particular contexts of use, spammers being, namely, forced to deal with a high level of competition from other spam mails, a bad reputation, an extremely fast pace of communication, the risk of being filtered out by spam mail filters and also legal restrictions.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
ZeitschriftJournal of Pragmatics
Jahrgang38
Ausgabenummer6
Seiten (von - bis)880-904
Anzahl der Seiten25
ISSN0378-2166
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.06.2006
Extern publiziertJa

    Fachgebiete

  • Englisch - Spam, Promotional letters, Move structure analysis, Genre, Advertising

Zugehörige Projekte

  • Promotional genres: Variation across genre and culture

    Projekt: Forschung

DOI

Zuletzt angesehen

Publikationen

  1. Critical evaluation of commonly used methods to determine the concordance between sonography and magnetic resonance imaging: A comparative study
  2. Biodiversity buffers pollination from changes in environmental conditions
  3. The efficiency of different online learning media - An empirical study
  4. Introduction to Music and the Politics of Memory
  5. Knowledge sharing for shared success in the decade on ecosystem restoration
  6. Motivation and emotion as mediators in multimedia learning
  7. Social Exclusion and Housing
  8. „Conversation is simply something to begin with“
  9. Die Schreibwerkstatt Mehrsprachigkeit
  10. Not Feeling Good in STEM
  11. Support for major hypotheses in invasion biology is uneven and declining
  12. Advanced oxidation processes in the treatment of trifluraline effluent
  13. Zur ‚Privatisierung‘ von gewaltsamem Protest
  14. Fragmente zu einer "Generativen Resonanzästhetik".
  15. Microstructure and corrosion behavior of Mg-Sn-Ca alloys after extrusion
  16. Polychlorinated Biphenyls in a Temperate Alpine Glacier
  17. Comparing the fatigue performance of Ti-4Al-0.005B titanium alloy T-joints, welded via different friction stir welding sequences
  18. The positive facet of self-compassion predicts self-reported use of and attitudes toward desirable difficulties in learning
  19. Wie gehe ich mit schwierigen Schülern um?
  20. Sufficiency and Subsistence – On two important concepts for Sustainable Development
  21. Fast supercritical fluid extraction and high-resolution gas chromatography with electron-capture and flame photometric detection for multiresidue screening of organochlorine and organophosphorus pesticides in Brazil's medicinal plants
  22. Großgruppenmethoden
  23. Dimensionierung von Sicherheitsbeständen
  24. Silence, remembering, and forgetting in Wittgenstein, Cage, and Derrida
  25. LiteraturGesellschaft DDR
  26. Comparing Regulatory Designs for the Transmission of Offshore Wind Energy
  27. Does Internet-based guided self-help for depression cause harm?
  28. The justice dimension of sustainability
  29. Sustainable Green Technologies
  30. Psychophysiological Correlates of Flow-Experience
  31. Through the eye of a butterfly
  32. Different bodies
  33. Unexpected Expansion Behavior of Mg-Al Alloys During Isothermal Ageing
  34. "Wer sieht was?" und "Wer berührt wen?"
  35. Mixed Methods and Mixed Theories –
  36. Use of force
  37. Dynamics in a butterfly-plant-ant system
  38. Multiple plant diversity components drive consumer communities across ecosystems
  39. Ungleich mächtig
  40. Evidence for the age and timing of environmental change associated with a Lower Palaeolithic site within the Middle Pleistocene Reinsdorf sequence of the Schöningen coal mine, Germany
  41. α- and β-diversity in moth communities in salt marshes is driven by grazing management
  42. Sources of Individual Differences in L2 Narrative Production
  43. From the open road to the high seas?
  44. Informationsversorgung eines erweiterten Umweltcontrollings