To Quote or Not to Quote: Setting the Context for Computer-Mediated Dialogues

Abstract

Quoting (or contextual quotation) is a common element of interactive email discourse. By including a message or parts of it into the reply, the sender provides a discourse context for the message. However, there are also problems associated with this conversational strategy: It makes the message longer, more redundant, and sometimes even difficult to read. Moreover, verbatim repetition of an interlocutor’s utterance may be perceived as a violation of everyday norms of conversation. This article provides a pragmatic analysis of quoting as a conversational strategy. By means of descriptive analysis of data collected from two CMC settings, private email and Usenet newsgroups, the variability of quoting and its functions in dialogue are highlighted. In the concluding discussion, it is argued that technical properties of the email system and factors in the social context jointly affect the quoting strategies of CMC participants.