Features of youth communication and the usage of discourse markers

Fig. 1. Internet Users Distribution in the World - 2020 [7]

discursive marker true intention youth communication

Highlighting such opportunities of the Internet has led to a great interest in linguistics in the study of discourse features of online communication, for example: E. Galichkin, E. Vishnyakova, L. Kovalskaya, N. Akhrenova, O. Dedova, S. Titova, T Kolokoltseva, V. Kostomarov and many others.

In modern linguistic research, there is no fixed term relating to this type of human communication and there is no unity with regard to the interpretation of the terms proposed. Thus, the following terms can be found in the literature: virtual discourse (O. Lutovinov), computer-mediated communication (K. Shchypitsyn, І. Rosina), electronic communication (E. Galichkin), Internet communication (T. Kolokoltsev) and more.

Obviously, such a diversity of terms in relation to the field of human interaction that are explored due to its novelty and the desire of researchers to introduce something new, different from others in the development of this topic.

As a part of our work, we explore communication, which is defined by us as any interaction of individuals through information and communication resources.

It should be emphasized that we do not use the term “online discourse” when we refer to network communication in the broad sense (we use the term online communication). We use it to describe a specific example of discourse taken from Internet resources.

Social networks are one of the most popular types of online activity. Facebook is the most popular online network based on active use. As of Q2 2020, there are a total of approximately 1,5 billion monthly active Facebook users, accounting for nearly half of the Internet users worldwide. Connecting with family and friends, sharing ideas, finding entertainment and online shopping are some of the most popular reasons for using the Internet.

Examples of markers. That is why we have chosen online youth communication. This choice greatly facilitated the collection of material for us. We have used some open-ended, open-source communication with the third-party observer. As previously stated, in virtual reality it is quite difficult to determine the true age of the subjects, since a person unknown in reality may not be the one for whom he or she pretends to be in the virtual world. However, in order to establish that the real age of the communication participants does not go beyond the names they indicated, and that their mother tongue is English, we looked at their personal pages on social networks. In some cases, we made personal contact with users to conduct the experiment.

While researching youth communication, we were able to identify the following features: the confluence of verbal and written speech, a large number of speech cuts, and emotionality.

Youth communication traces the convergence of oral and written speech not only in terms of content. Written oral spontaneous spoken language is recorded on the Internet. The discourse we have explored in online youth communication most often captures on paper how native speakers of 16- to 19-year-old speak English.

Communication in a youth environment that combines the features of both written and oral communication. Signs of speech in youth communication include the very form of message realization, preservation of the main principles of sentence construction (presence of a predicative group built around the verb), presence of punctuation marks. It is worth noting that sometimes punctuation marks are used in online discourse for a different purpose: to express emotions, to replace words that are often misspelled and sometimes simply missing. However, youth online communication lacks the attributes of writing, such as an expanded system of connecting elements, and sometimes breaks the logical sequence of statements caused by the medium of communication.

The attributes of oral language, which are characteristic of youth communication, include the following: reduction of style, tolerance of grammatical and spelling mistakes, ellipticality, etc. As E. Vishnyakova notes: “<...> in the Internet, written discourse, the language that has always been considered to be the most correct in terms of the norm of the use of linguistic units, undergoes a number of changes that are directly related to the requirements that presents the network as a communicative medium to the design of information: brevity, expressiveness and orientation to the user - the mass addressee”. English-speaking youth do not aspire to perceive online communication as a sphere in which the Standard English, General American is used, especially in Internet resources, allowing synchronous communication [5].

Sometimes there are signs of a phonetic letter (a type of letter characterized by the fact that a graphic sign, as a rule, indicates a separate sound of a language or phoneme), in other words, often words are written as they are heard. The table “Examples of writing some words and cliches” presents the spelling of words and cliches and their spelling, which are found in online youth communication.

Table 2

Examples of writing some words and cliches used in English-language online communication

Obviously, this is an incomplete list of such words. However, their fixation brings the convergence of written and clear speech within the framework of youth online communication.

It is also important to note that time imposes some restrictions on online discourse in general. This helped us to highlight another feature of youth online communication - the economy.

The principle of economy in language was formulated by the French linguist A. Martin, who writes: “The term “economy” includes everything: elimination of unnecessary differences, appearance of new differences, and preservation of the existing state. Linguistic economy is a synthesis of acting forces” [2, p. 130]. At the same time the principle of economy appears at all levels of speech.

The consequence of economy is the ellipticity of online communication, that is, the use of omissions in the speech or text of a particular linguistic unit, a structural “incompleteness” of syntactic construction.

In our communication study, we find examples of the use of an ellipse, which once again emphasizes our assertion about the convergence of oral and written language in online youth communication.

1. She asked them to help her, they said they wouldnt.

2. A. Want smth interesting?

B. Sure. What's that?

Example (1) does not contain information that is easy to understand from the context of the utterance, and example (2) does not contain the “do you” construction that is used to answer the English question, but we clearly understand that this is a punctuation mark at the end of the sentence.

Another feature of online youth communication is the large number of reductions that confirm the economy. Examples of abbreviations and acronyms are explained in the table below.

Table 3

Examples of acronyms and their explanations

The means of linguistic economy are described the help in differentiating users on the principle of “own” / “alien”. As part of youth online communication, where people often come together in groups and communities of interest, a friendly atmosphere is firstly created, and people of that age group develop their own style of communication with their own elements so as not to allow strangers into their circle of communication.

Another characteristic of youth communication is its emotionality. In this regard various and often very creative ways of expressing emotions have been developed on the Internet. Obviously, the most striking way to express emotions in online communication is with a smiley and an emoticon. From our point of view, the emoticon is able to convey a wider range of emotions, since it is a moving icon and a smile is just a schematic.

The next sign of emotional communication can be considered repetition of letters in emotionally- colored words. Here are some examples:

Reallyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Noooooooooo waaaay.

Such spelling also indicates the convergence of oral and written speech in online communication, helping the interlocutor to read the message, opened it in its original form and with the range of emotions of the speaker. Emotions are manifested in letters using punctuation: exclamation points, dots.

It should be noted that the use of exclamation marks for English culture means an extreme degree of emotionality, understood in context: wonder, dissatisfaction and the like.

Question marks can also be repeated if the message participant expresses an extreme degree of wonder sometimes with shades of indignation or exclamation.

1. WTF??

2. Really????

3. Seriously?????

The message in the form of only question marks most often indicates that the participant in the conversation is extremely surprised, shocked and did not understand his interlocutor and/or requires detail, explanation of the message.

A: We broke up.

В: ????????

В: Why? What happened?

A: Stop it.

B: ?????

B: Didn't get it.

A: Stop it.

B: ?????

B: Didn't get it.

It should be noted that the presence of a dot at the end of a sentence in the context of synchronous online communication is most often perceived as the interlocutor who has put it in a mood, is offended or does not want to communicate and tries to end the conversation.

1.1 feel it.

2. A: you totally screw it up lol.

B: thanks. I know.

Understanding and analysis of previously presented theoretical material leads educators to the need of creation some practical tasks. There are some various activities that can be done during English classes for better understanding and using markers in speech. We propose some:

- “Create a story” (teacher divides the class into mini-groups or pears and gives different genres to groups (horror, romantic, adventure, fairytale, comedy) using as many as possible discourse markers, and be ready to present it. The rest of the students should guess and comment on the meaning of the discourse markers that are used in the stories;

- “Roleplay a card” (student gets the strip of paper with the first line of situation, place and their characters or roles. They should keep it in secret. Roleplay it, the rest of the group guesses: situation, place and roles;

- “World around us” (video where discourse markers are presented in the speech. Teachers present the video and students name markers and analyse the meaning);

- “Find the one” (one student per lesson finds a song with the usage of new discource markers and present them. Part of students listen to it, after listening they need to present the meaning to the rest with the help of verbal and non-verbal means of communication;

- “On the stage” (students take a strip with the phrase and should present it with the help of nonverbal means of communication, the rest should guess);

- “Do not repeat!” (teacher divides class into two groups, they choose the topic and create the story. The task is not to repeat phrasals in the story of previous speaker);

- “Make a word” (students get several letters of the alphabet, teacher reads the meaning of markers. After it students create a word);

- “Just 20 seconds” (teacher gives board game with lifestyle situations (at the shop, in the cinema, in the hotel, dinner with a partner), students throw dice, get the situation and present markers that can be used in some situations);

- “Synonyms” (replace word or words with discourse markers);

- “Reaction” (the group is divided into two, they create and present 3-4 sentences of situation and other group present the reaction on it using markers).

- During educational process the authors of the article use such activity: at the beginning of the term students are proposed to create a kind of mind map with discourse markers that they will find out during classes. This project lasts for the whole year, at the end they present it.