Disrupted Turn Adjacency and Coherence Maintenance in Instant Messaging Conversations

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Published: Dec 31, 2009
Keywords:
instant messaging, turn-taking, coherence, design
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Therese Örnberg Berglund

Abstract

This article reports on a study of coherence in text-based log files from 120 two-party Instant Messaging (IM) conversations among a group of international students at a design school. The goals of the study were to investigate whether disrupted turn adjacency was an obstacle to coherence and to identify the linguistic strategies employed to maintain coherence. Additional signs of problematic coherence creation were also investigated, focusing on explicit signs of miscommunication. In this particular context, disrupted turn adjacency was not found to be a problem. Whereas devices for textual cohesion can be important, links between utterances can also be identified based on timing and distinctions between different types of feedback, as well as sequencing. The additional signs of miscommunication were all related to different aspects of problematic grounding. The article concludes with suggestions for design improvements to the IM tool.

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How to Cite
Berglund, T. Örnberg. (2009). Disrupted Turn Adjacency and Coherence Maintenance in Instant Messaging Conversations. Language@Internet, 6. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/li/article/view/37578
Author Biography

Therese Örnberg Berglund

Therese Örnberg Berglund is a Ph.D. candidate at Umeå University in northern Sweden, affiliated with the Department of Language Studies and HUMlab. Her research interests concern contextual influences on strategies of coherence maintenance in online and mixed-mode contexts. She currently also works at Linköping University, coordinating activities to encourage exploration of digital technologies in teaching and research.

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