S641: Computer-Mediated Discourse
Analysis
Semester: |
Spring
2014 |
Instructors: |
Susan
Herring and Guo Zhang |
Time: |
Monday
5:45-8:30 p.m. |
Office: |
Wells Library
037 |
Place: |
LI
030 |
Phone: |
(812)
856-4919 |
Section: |
30438 |
Email: |
herring
@ indiana.edu; guozhang @ umail.iu.edu |
Instructors' Office Hours: Herring - M & Th 4:15-5:15 p.m.; Zhang - M 10-11 a.m. or by appointment |
|||
Facebook group (for class members only): Z641: CMDA |
Required
Reading:
The required readings for each week are listed in the Course Schedule at the end of this syllabus. Articles not accessible on the public web will be made available electronically on Oncourse.
1.
Course Description
Computer-mediated discourse (CMD) is
human-to-human communication carried out over computer networks or
wireless technologies; it is
produced by typing, speaking, or other means. It is the discourse that takes place via
computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies such as chat, text
messaging, email, mailing lists, web boards, blogs, microblogs, wikis, virtual
worlds, social network sites, and other digital media. Computer-Mediated
Discourse Analysis (CMDA) is a set of methods grounded in
linguistic discourse analysis for
mining CMD for patterns of structure and meaning.
CMDA methods can also be used to extract indirect evidence of
socio-cognitive phenomena related to networked communication, such as collaboration, disinhibition, engagement, identity,
power dynamics, and trust.
This is a methodology course. It provides practical training and hands-on experience
in applying computer-mediated discourse analysis methods (no previous knowledge required), in designing
research that make
use of such methods, and in interpreting their results. The focus of
the course is on
micro-analytic, quantitative methods. Systems for visualizing and
automating the analysis of computer-mediated discourse are also
presented.
2.
Course Objectives
The primary goal of this course is to
provide
training in applying a set of empirical analytical methods to
computer-mediated
discourse. A broader goal is to instill an understanding of the CMDA
process
that will enable you to design and carry out your own CMDA research,
and to modify
the methods or devise new methods as needed to address questions and
data of interest to you.
Specifically, as a result of completing
this course, you should
be able to:
• descriptively
classify a variety of CMC types
• apply
discourse analysis methods to analyze participation, structure,
meaning,
interaction, and social behavior in CMD
• design
and carry out an original CMDA research project that captures the nitty-gritty of language use, but also relates it to some broader phenomenon (e.g., social forces, community factors, cognitive/behavioral effects)
3. Student
Requirements
The assigned readings are to be completed before class each
week. You will
not be tested on the readings or be asked to keep notes on them, but
you will
be expected to apply concepts and techniques from them, so it is
important that
you read and understand them fully.
There will be four oral and written
reports during the
semester in which you will apply methods
of discourse analysis from the readings and the class lectures to a
sample of computer-mediated data of your choice and report on your
findings. The oral
reports will be brief, about 5 minutes in length, and will require you
to be selective in your presentation of findings. The written reports,
which are due one week after the oral reports, should be 3-4 typed
pages long, excluding appendices. The written reports will follow the same
guidelines as
the oral reports, only your presentations of findings should be more
complete. Specific guidelines
for each report will be posted at least one week before
the oral reports are scheduled to be presented.
The
best kind of data to analyze
for the reports is one continuous log of interactive, text-based CMD. It is normally expected that you will use
the same sample for all fouorts. An appropriate sample size for
asynchronous (email-type) CMD is 40-100 messages, depending on the
length of the messages. For synchronous (chat-type) CMD, an appropriate
sample size is about half an hour of chat or 200 messages, whichever is
longer. You should collect and store more data from your source than you will need for the purposes of the reports, as a
backup. We will
discuss possible sources of data in more detail during the first class
meeting.
The major
requirement for the course is a research paper, due at the end of the semester,
analyzing in
depth some feature or features of computer-mediated discourse in data
of your
choice. The data may or may not be of the same type as you analyzed for
the reports throughout the semester. They may include the sample you
already analyzed, plus additional data as determined by the nature of
your research question(s), or you may analyze a new sample. The written
paper should be in the range of 4000-7000 words long, not counting
references and appendices, and should follow the conventions for a
publishable-quality research article, including footnotes and citations
of
scholarly work in APA (American Psychological Association) style. For
examples of APA conventions, see articles in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
(http://jcmc.indiana.edu/).
The last two weeks of the course will be
devoted to
conference-style oral presentations
(15-20 minutes, depending on the number of students enrolled) of your
term
paper research to the rest of the class. You will be expected to
prepare PowerPoint slides for all oral presentations.
4. Student
Evaluation
Your final grade in the course will be calculated as
follows:
Attendance
and participation |
20% |
Written
reports (4 x 6%) |
24% |
Oral
presentation of term paper |
10% |
Term
paper |
30% |
Total: |
100% |
Grading Policy
• A
late written report will be accepted once
during the semester, no questions asked, provided it is turned in two
days before the next class meeting, to allow me time to grade it. I
reserve the right to subtract one-third of a letter grade (from A to
A-, A- to B+, etc.) for each
day a report is late beyond the due date or this one-time extension.
This penalty also applies to the final paper.
• Class
participation means speaking in class in an informed way
about the topics under discussion. A good rule of thumb is to try to
speak at least twice in each class session. In order to be able to
speak intelligently about a topic, you will
need to have done the readings for that topic before class. You will
also need
to be physically present and attentive (e.g., NOT surfing the Web or
reading email). Participation cannot be made up if you miss
a class.
• Oral
reports will be graded with a check mark to indicate a satisfactory
presentation. A satisfactory presentation is one that makes a good
faith effort
to address all the questions in the guidelines given in advance for
each
report, even if the report contains some errors. This method of grading
is intended to encourage you to try to apply the methods, even if you feel
somewhat uncertain
how to do so.
• Written
reports, the oral presentation of your term paper research, and the
written
term paper will be assigned letter grades (A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C,
etc.). A
composite grade such as A-/B+ means that the grade is between an A- and a B+ (i.e., 89.5%). Grades
in the 'A'
range indicate outstanding work. Grades in the 'B' range indicate very
good to
good work. Grades in the 'C' range indicate average work, and a grade
of 'D' or
below is poor work. Graduate
students are expected to perform at a 'B' level or above.
• Written
reports should be concise (3-4 typed pages) and written in continuous
prose
(NOT outline style). Elaborate introductory and concluding paragraphs
are unnecessary, but each report should begin with a statement of the
topic
that the report will address and should be sure to answer explicitly all questions asked in
the
guidelines for the report. DO
include
examples from your data and/or summary tables and graphs of your
analytical
results in your report, to support your claims. If including these
supporting
materials in the report would disrupt its flow, they may be appended to
the
report as an appendix. An 'A' quality written report is written clearly
and
concisely, answers all the questions asked, applies the methods
correctly, and
interprets the results plausibly and convincingly.
• The
oral presentation of your term paper research will be graded primarily
on form:
how well it is organized, how informative it is, and how clearly and
professionally it communicates to your audience (i.e., the rest of the
class).
An 'A' quality oral report conveys an appropriate amount of information
given
the time allotted for the presentation, is presented in a clear and
concise
manner, and is logically organized (usually following the schema:
identification and motivation of your research question, brief
background, data sample and methods of analysis, your findings, and
some interpretation of the
findings).
• The
written term paper will be evaluated on content, including the quality
of the
project design—originality of the research question, appropriateness of
the data and methods used to investigate the question, plausibility of
your interpretations—and
form—organization (similar to that for oral presentations), clarity and
quality of written expression, and appropriate use of scholarly
conventions
such as citations and footnotes. An 'A' quality term paper addresses an
interesting
research question, makes use of an appropriate empirical method to
address the research question(s), applies the method(s) systematically,
and interprets the findings thoughtfully, in addition to being
well-organized and clearly and professionally written.
Academic honesty: Most of your activity in this course
will involve producing original research. However, in writing about
your
research, and especially in your final paper, it may be necessary to
reference
previous work. As a rule of
thumb, when in doubt, cite the source! In accordance with the policies of Indiana
University,
plagiarism, copyright infringement, and other types of academic
dishonesty will
not be tolerated. To help you
recognize
plagiarism, the IU Writing Center has prepared a short guide: Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It (http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ewts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml).
5. Tentative Course Schedule
(Under construction! Check back regularly for updates.)
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Week 1 (1/13): |
Introduction to the course. Nature and classification of
computer-mediated discourse. Selecting data for analysis. Getting approval from the Human Subjects
Committee (HSC) to conduct your research.
|
Read: |
1. Herring, S. C. (2001). Computer-mediated discourse. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, & H. Hamilton (Eds.), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp. 612-634). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/cmd.pdf 2. Herring, S. C. (2007). A faceted classification scheme for computer-mediated discourse. Language@Internet, 4, article 1. http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2007/761/index_html |
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Week 2 (1/20): |
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DAY -- CLASS WILL NOT MEET.
Collect your initial data sample. |
Read: |
Herring, S. C. (2013). Discourse in Web 2.0: Familiar, reconfigured, and emergent. In D. Tannen & A. M. Tester (Eds.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2011: Discourse 2.0: Language and new media (pp. 1-25). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/GURT.2011.prepub.pdf Finish reading articles from Week 1 if you haven't already.
|
Do: |
Take the Human Subjects Protection test
at: http://researchadmin.iu.edu/EO/eo_citi.html |
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Week 3 (1/27): |
CMDA as
empirical social science. Data
sampling and management.
Submit request for HSC approval (if required to do so by the nature of your data). In class: Describe the type of interactive,
text-based CMC you will analyze in this course. Classify it in terms of
key medium and situation variables as presented in Herring (2007).
|
Read: |
1. Herring, S. C. (2004).
Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online
behavior. 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. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/cmda.pdf 2. Marcoccia, M., Atifi, H., & Gauducheau, N. (2008). Text-centered versus multimodal analysis of instant messaging conversation. Language@Internet, 5, article 7. http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2008/1621 3. Androutsopoulos, J. (2008). Potentials and limitations of discourse-centred online ethnography. Language@Internet, 5, article 8. http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2008/1610
|
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Week 4 (2/3): |
Analyzing
participation and word use.
|
Read: |
1. Herring, S. C., Johnson, D. A., & DiBenedetto, T. (1998).
Participation in electronic discourse in a 'feminist' field. In: J. Coates (Ed.), Language and Gender: A Reader (pp. 197-210). Oxford: Blackwell. [Oncourse]
2. Ko, K-K. (1996). Structural
characteristics of computer-mediated language: A comparative analysis
of InterChange discourse. Electronic Journal of Communication/Revue
électronique de communication, 6(3). [Oncourse] 3. Schwartz, H. A., Eichstaedt, J. C., Kern,
M. L., Dziurzynski, L., Ramones, S. M., Agrawal, M., Shah, A., Kosinski, M.,
Stillwell, D., Seligman, M. E. P., & Ungar L. H. (2013). Personality, gender,
and age in the language of social media: The open-vocabulary approach. PLOS ONE, September 25. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073791 |
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Week 5 (2/10): |
Analyzing linguistic structure.
1st Oral Report: Basic descriptive statistics about your data: Participation and word frequencies. |
Read: |
1. Herring, S. C. (2012). Grammar and electronic communication. In C. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/e-grammar.2011.pdf
2. Page, R. (2012). The linguistics of self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter: The role of hashtags. Discourse & Communication, 6(2), 181-201. [Oncourse] |
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Week 6 (2/17): |
Analyzing meaning: Speech acts.
1st Written Report due: Basic descriptive statistics about your
data: Participation and word frequencies. What do they reveal?
|
Read: |
1. Nastri, J.,
Peña, J., & Hancock, J. T. (2006), The construction of away messages: A speech act analysis. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11, 1025–1045.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00306.x/full 2. Herring, S. C., Das, A., & Penumarthy, S. (2005). CMC act taxonomy. http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/herring/cmc.acts.html [short]
3. Kapidzic, S., & Herring, S. C. (2011). Gender, communication, and self-presentation in teen chatrooms revisited: Have patterns changed? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(1), 39-59. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01561.x/full [focus on results of textual analysis] Practice coding speech acts in class. |
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Week 7 (2/24): |
Analyzing meaning: Functional moves and schemas.
2nd Oral Report: Acts in your data sample.
|
Read:
|
1. Herring, S. C. (1996). Two variants of an
electronic message schema. In S. Herring (ed.), Computer-mediated
communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 81-106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Oncourse] 2. Condon, S. L., & Cech, C. G. (1996). Functional comparisons of face-to-face and computer-mediated decision making interactions. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 65–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Oncourse]
Practice interrater reliability assessment in class. |
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Week 8 (3/3): |
Analyzing conversational interaction:
Topic development.
2nd Written Report due: Acts in your data sample. What kinds of communicative activities are the participants engaged in? |
Read:
|
1. Herring, S. C. (2003). Dynamic topic
analysis of synchronous chat. In: New
Research for New Media: Innovative Research Methodologies Symposium
Working Papers and Readings. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. [Oncourse] 2. Herring, S. C., & Kurtz, A. J.
(2006). Visualizing Dynamic Topic Analysis. Proceedings of CHI'06. ACM Press. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/chi06.pdf 3. Honeycutt, C., & Herring, S. C. (2009). Beyond microblogging: Conversation and collaboration via Twitter. Proceedings of the Forty-Second Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-42). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Press. http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/honeycutt.herring.2009.pdf |
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Week 9 (3/10): |
Interaction analysis (cont.): Turn-taking
and coherence.
3rd
Oral Report: Topic
development in your sample.
|
Read:
|
1. Herring, S. C. (1999). Interactional coherence in CMC. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4 (4). http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1999.tb00106.x/full
|
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Week 10 (3/24): |
Analyzing social behavior: Politeness and
conflict.
3rd Written Report due: Topic development and coherence in your sample.
Come to class prepared to discuss term paper research ideas.
|
Read:
|
1. Brown,
G. & Levinson, S. (1987). Politeness:
Some Universals in Language Usage (pp. 59-84). Cambridge University Press. [Oncourse] 2. Herring, S. C. (1994). Politeness in computer culture: Why women thank and men flame. In M. Bucholtz, A. Liang, L. Sutton, & C. Hines (Eds.), Cultural Performances: Proceedings of the Third Berkeley Women and Language Conference (pp. 278-94). Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group. [Oncourse]
Practice politeness coding in class. |
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Week 11 (3/31): |
Voicing: Intertextuality, performativity, and heteroglossia.
Turn in
a 500-word proposal for term paper research, describing your topic,
research question, data, methods, preliminary observations, and
including at least five relevant references.
|
Read:
|
1. Hodsdon-Champeon, C. B. (2010). Conversations within conversations: Intertextuality in racially antagonistic online discourse. Language@Internet, 7, article 10. http://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2010/2820 2. Virtanen, T. (2013). Performativity in computer-mediated communication. In S. C. Herring, D. Stein, & T. Virtanen (Eds.), Handbook of the pragmatics of computer-mediated communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 3. Androutsopoulos, J. (2011). From variation to heteroglossia in the study of computer-mediated discourse. In C. Thurlow & K. Mroczek (Eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 277–298). New York: Oxford University Press. [Oncourse] |
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Week 12 (4/7):
|
Automating CMDA. 4th Oral Report: Politeness and conflict in your sample.
1. Bender, E. M., Morgan, J. T., Oxley, M., Zachry, M., et al. (2011). Annotating social acts: Authority claims and alignment moves in Wikipedia talk pages. Proceedings of the Workshop on Language in Social Media (LSM 2011) (pp. 48–57), Portland, Oregon, June 23. [Oncourse]
2. Xu, J-M., Jun, K-S., Zhu, X., & Bellmore, A. (2012). Learning from bullying traces in social media. 2012 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (pp. 656–666), Montreal, Canada, June 3-8. [Oncourse]
3. Raz, Y. (2012). Automatic humor classification on Twitter. Proceedings of the NAACL HLT Student Research Workshop (pp. 66-70), Montreal, Canada, June 3-8. [Oncourse]
|
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Week 13 (4/14):
|
Multimodal CMD. 4th Written Report due: Politeness and conflict in your sample.
1. Jucker, A. H. (2010). Audacious, brilliant!! What a strike! Live text commentaries on the Internet as real-time narratives. In C. R. Hoffmann (Ed.), Narrative revisited: Telling a story in the age of new media (pp. 57-77). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Oncourse]
2. Sindoni, M. G. (2011). “Mode-switching”: Speech and writing in videochats. Paper presented at the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, Washington, DC, March 11. [Oncourse]
3. Newon, L. (2011). Multimodal creativity and identities of expertise in the digital ecology of a World of Warcraft guild. In C. Thurlow & K. Mroczek (Eds.), Digital discourse: Language in the new media (pp. 203-231). NY: Oxford University Press. [Oncourse]
|
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Week 14 (4/21): |
CMD in other languages and other cultures. |
Read:
|
(Choose 3) 1. Bieswanger, M. (2007). 2 abbrevi8 or not 2 abbrevi8: A contrastive analysis of different shortening strategies in English and German text messages. Texas Linguistics Forum 50. http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/salsa/proceedings/2006/Bieswanger.pdf 2. Vaisman, C. (2013). Beautiful script, cute spelling and glamorous words: Doing girlhood through language playfulness on Israeli blogs. Language & Communication, 34, 69-80. [Oncourse] 3. Panyametheekul, S., & Herring, S. C. (2003). Gender and turn allocation in a Thai chat room. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 9(1). http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol9/issue1/panya_herring.html 4. Kaul, A., & Kulkarni, V. (2005). Coffee, tea, or . . . ? Gender and politeness in computer-mediated communication (CMC). Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Working Papers. http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/publications/data/2005-04-02ashakaul.pdf 5. Georgakopoulou, A. (1997). Self-presentation and interactional alliances in e-mail discourse: the style- and code-switches of Greek messages. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(2), 141-162. [Oncourse] |
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Week 15 (4/28): |
Oral presentations |
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Week 16 (5/5): |
Final papers due MONDAY, MAY 5 at 6:00 p.m. |
Last updated: 1/31/14