Abstract：This paper begins with an introduction to mobile-based short massage, or SM for short. Although the arrival of SM brings convenience and happiness to people’s life, the characteristics of SM language result in its vulnerability to misunderstanding. From a linguistic perspective, factors responsible for the misunderstanding of SM are analyzed. Firstly, SM language violates the co-operative principle. People adopt a cooperative principle when they communicate with each other: they try to get along with each other by following certain conversational “maxims”. The violation of these maxims makes the functions of SM indefinite and SM users have to interpret SM based on thEir own experience. Secondly, in contrast with face-to-face conversations and telephone calls, SM lacks body language, facial expressions, proper stress and intonation. Thirdly, SM language is more casual than written language. In conclusion, this paper suggests some solutions to the related problem.
Key words: short massage or SM, misunderstanding, cooperative principle, body language, facial expression, intonation, stress, written language
摘要：本文的开头对移动电话的短消息（又称短信）作了简要的介绍。尽管短消息的出现给人们带来了方便，短消息自身语言的特点导致了它容易被人们误解。从语言学的角度，本文 分析 了导致短信被误解的几个因素。第一，短消息语言违背了合作原则。人们在交际过程中，常常会采用一种准则。为了很好的交流，人们回遵守“会话准则”。而短信语言对准则的违背，导致了短信的作用不明确。并且，人们在解释短信 内容 时，往往只根据自己的经验。第二，与面对面的谈话和电话通讯相比，短信缺少肢体语言、表情、适当的重音和语调。第三，短信语言与书面语言相比，具有随意性。文章的结尾对相关的 问题 提出了解决的办法。
关键词：短消息或短信、误解、合作原则、肢体语言、表情、重音、语调、书面语言
An Analysis of Short Message Language and Behaviors with a Linguistic Approach
Thesis statement: Short message is vulnerable to misunderstanding, which can be explained by the violation of the cooperative principle, and in contrast with traditional conversation and written language, the deficiency of short message is analyzed.
Outline
I Introduction
II The vulnerability of SM to misunderstanding from the perspective of the cooperative principle
A. Introduction of cooperative and the violation of maxims
B. Three kinds of misunderstanding
⑴ The indefinite nature of the sender’s message
⑵ A number of factors affecting the interpretation of SM
⑶ The query concerning the end of SM conversation
III The deficiency of SM in contrast with face-to-face conversation and TEL call
A. The lack of body language and expression
B. The lack of stress and intonation
IV The casualness of SM in contrast with written language
A. SM processed at random
B. The differences between SM language and written language
V Conclusion
I Introduction However , the characteristics of SM language also bring negative effects to people’s life. People find that SM is not so powerful and pleasant, and it can be easily misunderstood. With the help of linguistic approaches, factors that are responsible for the misunderstanding of SM are analyzed:
1). the violation of the cooperative principle.
2) SM can not take the place of face-to-face conversation.
3) SM is more casual than written language.
II The vulnerability of SM to misunderstanding from the perspective of the cooperative principle
The process of sending SM is so easy and informal that people treat it as they do conversation. SM is a bit like a conversation at the water cooler that can be instantly forwarded to 50 people. For a conversation to be successful, in most social contexts, the participants need to feel they are contributing something to it and are getting something out of it. For this to happen, certain conditions must apply. Everyone must have an opportunity to speak: no one should be monopolizing or constantly interrupting. The participants need to make thEIr roles clear; they need to have a sense of when to speak or stay silent; when to proffer information or hold it back; when to stay aloof or become involved.
The success of a conversation depends not only on what speakers say but on their whole approach to the interaction. “Our talk exchanges do not normally consist of a succession of disconnected remarks, and would not be rational if they did. They are characteristically, to some degree at least, cooperative efforts; and each participant recognizes in them, to some extent, a common purpose or set of purposes, or at least a mutually accepted direction” (Grice 1975:
4
5). People adopt a “cooperative principle” when they communicate with each other: they try to get along with each other by following certain conversational “maxims” that underlie the efficient use of language. Four basic maxims have been proposed.
The maxim of quality states that speakers’ contributions to a conversation ought to be true. They should not say what they believe to be false, nor should they say anything for which they lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of quantity states that contributions should be as informative as is required for the purposes of the conversation. One should say neither too little nor too much.
The maxim of relevance states that conversations should clearly relate to the purpose of the exchange.
The maxim of manner states that the contribution should be perspicuous, in particular, that it should be orderly and brief, avoiding obstructing ambiguity.
In short, these maxims specify what participants have to do in order to converse in a maximally efficient, rational, co-operative way: they should speak sincerely, relevantly and clearly, while providing sufficient information. But the use of terms principle and maxim does not mean that the cooperative principle and its maxims will be followed by everybody all the time. If people violate these maxims deliberately, listeners may draw inference from what speakers have said and work out the implicature of the utterance. But for SM users, violation of maxims is done passively.
Then let us take a look at the following short messages recorded in the author’s mobile phone.
No.1. A: “Still busy?”---9:40 pm
(Conversation started, but A’s purpose is confusing)
No.2. B: “Not too busy, what’s up?”---9:41 pm
(Actually B was very busy in his essay, may be writing, but B inferred that A must have something important to tell.)
No.3. A: “When you worked in the Computer Association, have you ever failed to negotiate with sponsors?”---9:46 pm
(It takes A 5 minutes to respond. He attempts to make his words appropriate. B has to suspend his work and wait for a direct answer. But this answer seems so irrelevant.)
No.4. B: “No”---9:47 pm
(B tries to concentrate on his work, so he responds briefly. A is quite frustrated by the failed negotiation and needs someone to comfort him. The single word “No” makes him think that if B is not busy, how B could be so cold.)
No.5. A: “Sorry, I thought you did, then, good night.”---9:49 pm
(Conversation has to be ended up unpleasantly)
No.6. B: “Good night.”---9:50 pm
(B is still unaware of A’s intention. He can do nothing but end conversation.)
The two participants of this short conversation violate the four maxims violations of maxims.
No.1 violates M of quantity. He says too little. He should state his purpose clearly.
No.2 violates M of quality. He says something that is false, but he has to.
No.3 Here A’s contribution in its literal meaning, fails to answer B’s question, and thus seems to violate at least the maxims of quantity and relevance. We might therefore expect A’s utterance to be interpreted as a non-co-operative response. Yet it is clear that despite this apparent failure of co-operation, we try to interpret A’s utterance as cooperative at some deeper level. We can assure that there could be some possible connection between No.2 and No.3. However, since it is a SM conversation, A and B could not see each other. B is actually in a hurry and he wants to go to the topic directly, but A wants a euphemistic way. Here SM is not powerful enough to connect the states of mind of the two persons.
No.4 also violates M of quantity. B is supposed to be considerate.
No.5 violates M of manner. Two sentences seem not orderly.
However, in our daily conversation, the implicatures of words are easily deduced. So why does the violation of co-operative principle in SM fail to enable people to work out the exact implicatures? There must be some other factors contributing to the understanding of words. We shall further discuss this point in the third section. Although the two participants of this short conversation do not violate maxims deliberately and purposefully, their words are misconstrued. And the misconstructions of SM can be sorted into three.
Firstly, the purpose of SM language is not definite, i.e., the functions of SM language are not clear. Linguists talk about the functions of language in an abstract sense, that is, not in terms of using language to chat, to think, to buy and sell, to read and write, to greet people, etc. To communicate our ideas is the usual answer to the question “why do we use language?” Indeed, this must surely be the most widely recognized function of language. Whenever we tell people about our circumstances or ourselves or ask for information about other selves, we are using language in order to exchange fact sand opinions. The use of language is often called “ideational or referential”. But it would be problematic to think of it as the only way we use language. Linguists summarize these practical functions of language like following: informative, interpersonal, performative, emotive, phatic, recreational and metalingual (Hu 2001:
10). Halliday proposes a theory of metafunctions of language that is language has IDEATIONAL, INTERPERSONAL, and Textual functions. Ideational function constructs a model of experience and constructs logical relations, interpersonal function enacts social relationships and textual function creates relevance to context (Halliday 1985: VIII).
Among them, the first two functions are often mixed up in SM language. For most people, the informative function is predominantly the major role of language. Language is the instrument of thought and people often feel the need to speak their thoughts aloud as when they are working on a math problem.
And the most important sociological use of language is the interpersonal function, by which people establish and maintain a comfortable relation in a society. SM is a medium whose function is rather confusing. People use it to convey information, keep in touch with each other, share jokes, express emotions or even pass anger. But the recipient cannot tell which from which, he might deal with his short messages with an attitude that is unexpected by its sender. Let’s see the following example.
A: “I played football this afternoon, how tired I am.”
B: “Oh, really? You’re energetic!”
The conversation ends here. A feels tired after playing football, and sends a SM to one of his friends B to express his excitement. But this confuses B as to how to respond appropriately, or he may simply brood about it for quite a long time.
Secondly, the recipients of SM make thEir own interpretations based on situational effects and schemata. The first and the second sort of misunderstandings can be somewhat overlapping. Because function of SM language is not clear, people began to interpret messages with thEIr own experience. Besides, the quantity of information conveyed is often inadequate, SM leaves a lot of blank spaces in what people say, which the recipient tends to fill with the most negative interpretations.
Thirdly, how to end SM conversation and when is the right time to end it also bother SM users a lot. No matter how people enjoy SM, writing it is very time consuming. If one wants to end it and the other does not, at least one will be unpleasant. It is unlikely that both of them are ready for SM conversation at the same time, because two people are in two environments.
III The deficiency of SM in contrast with face-to-face conversation and Tel call
People can hide themselves behind the tiny screens, and therefore, they are braver and they can tell whatever they like. So many people are now abusing it. But is it superior to face-to-face conversations and telephone calls? The answer might be no.
Firstly, SM lacks body language and facial expressions. The communicative use of the visual and tactile modes is often referred to as “nonverbal communication”, especially in academic discussion. In everyday terms, it is the area of “body language” (Crystal 1997: 40
3). Most people may not be aware of the importance of it when they message each other, because they do it subconsciously. The field of non-verbal visual communication, kinesics, can be broken down into several components: facial expression, eye contact, gesture, and body posture. Each component performs a variety of functions. Movements of the face and body can give clues to a person’s personality and emotional state. The face, in particular, signals a wide range of emotions, such as fear, happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, interest, and disgust. Many of the expressions vary in meaning from culture to culture. In addition, the face and body send signals about the way a social interaction is proceeding. Patterns of eye contact show who is talking to whom; facial expression provides feed-back to the speaker, expressing such meanings as puzzlement or disbelief; and a body posture conveys a person’s attitude towards the interaction (e.g. relaxation, interest, boredom).
Several kinds of social context are associated with specific facial or body behaviors (e.g. waving while taking leave.) Ritual or official occasions are often primarily marked by such factors as kneeling, or blessing. While SM only provides its recipient scores of characters (one short massage contains no more than 70 Chinese characters), the sender’s facial expression or even his attitude towards what he said only depends on the recipient’s personal imagination. The real meaning of SM and intention thus are often misunderstood.
Besides, compared with traditional conversation, SM lacks proper stress and intonation. Stress refers to the degree of force used in producing a syllable. In transcription, a raised vertical like [ ′] is used just before the syllable it relates to. A basic distinction is made between stressed and unstressed syllables, the former being more prominent than the latter usually due to an increase in loudness, length or pitch. This means that stress is a relative notion. (Hu 2001:
7
1) At the word level, it only applies to words with at least two syllables. Stress pattern in Chinese is easier, because we can just focus on sentence level, where a monosyllabic word may be said to be stressed relative to other words in the sentence. Sentence stress is often used to express emphasis, surprise, etc, so that in principle stress may fall on any word or any syllable. For example, a SM conversation begins with a sentence like this, “I went shopping around Jiefangbei the whole day. I bought nothing.”
The sentence is quite clear, but which word does the sender emphasize? If this sentence is carried on a telephone or face-to-face conversation, it will not cause any puzzle.IV The casualness of SM in contrast with written language
However , we cannot simply say the written form of speech is less powerful in communication. One thing that differs SM language from letters, and E-mail is the casualness of SM. SM is often processed under a random condition. The user may do it while he is having lunch, taking a walk, reading books, talking to others, or watching TV, etc. He could not focus all his attention on writing what he wants to say. He has to do it with little thought. Besides, sometimes, one SM user may message three others or more at the same time. The overloaded user has to speed it up, and the quality of SM decreases. But when people write letters, they are much more considerate. Unlike SM, sending letters is demanding, since we cannot write letters wherever and whenever we like. Once a letter is sent, little chance left for the addresser to explain it.
Thus, SM is more like a record of spoken language, and the number of its characters is quite limited (no more than 70, including punctuations). In the following parts, we focus on difference between SM language and written language.The participants in written interaction cannot usually see each other, and they thus cannot rely on the context to help make clear what they mean, as they would when speaking. As a consequence, writing avoids words whose meaning rely on situation (such as this one, over there). Writers also have to anticipate the effects of time lag between production and reception. This is out of the question in SM. SM users assume that the other side is always ready for reception of SM (actually, it is quite normal that the recipient is very busy), and that the feedback would come immediately. But SM is not time-bound, and the situation in which both participants are present is rare.
Written language tends to be more formal than SM language and is more likely to provide the standard that society values. Different people have developed their own SM habit or style. Some people frequently use punctuations, such as “:-)”, “:-(”, “:-=”, “:-*” ; some use capitalized word for example “Oh, TMD”, “I’ll T you” to express special meanings. These words, on one hand, make SM language vivid, but on the other hand, language barrier is formed. Not every body could understand these fashionable words, and it is being updated. People, especially those who seldom message another, find themselves trapped by these personally coined words and expressions.
V Conclusion
Mobile-based SM is not bad itself. Like the emergence of television, SM is also strongly criticized for its disadvantage. If we use it appropriately, it makes our life better . Here, several solutions are suggested.
In the absence of immediate feedback, available in most speech interaction, care needs to be taken to minimize the effects of vagueness and ambiguity.
⑴Before messaging, thinking about the recipient’s situation is helpful, e.g., is the recipient still at his work? If time is not right, SM might bother the recipient.
⑵The language of SM must be well chosen. We can use fashion words or coined words when we message an intimate friends, because we share the same environment, and these words will work perfectly in communication. But if the recipient is not so familiar, we’d better use formal words. In other words, how we message should be based on the specific recipient.
⑶In terms of the contents of SM, it should not be used to discuss bad news. Never criticize somebody and never discuss if there’s any chance that what we say might be taken to a wrong way, we should pick up the phone or walk out to discuss it in person.
For the recipient, there are some other suggestions which might be helpful.
⑴If we are doing something very important, such as giving a lecture or having a conference, in which disturbance is not allowed, we had better shut off our mobile phones. Once a person tries to send us a short message, he or she may quickly find that the recipient is not available at that moment. Thus, waiting and further guessing can be avoided.
⑵However, it is inevitable to come across unpleasant words in SM, in terms of both language and content. We should bear this in mind that most people would send SM with little thoughts. If we do feel quite bothered, we should call the sender and make the matter clear as quickly as possible.
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Halliday. M.A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold, 1985.
Hu, Zhuanglin. Linguistics.A couse book. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2001.
