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Article published In:
Internet Pragmatics
Vol. 3:1 (2020) ► pp.1–33

A pragmatics of intimacy

| The Open University
| University of Surrey
This study examines the ways in which multiple modern communication technologies facilitate, across time and space, the maintenance of a close interpersonal relationship between two best friends. The analysis, which focuses mainly on the openings and closings of the different types of communications, reveals a tendency for the friends to shorten openings and extend closings. However, this is possible only if the friends are fully aware of, and care about, the practical, social and emotional details of each other’s lives during periods of absence. The concomitant linguistic behaviours in their interpersonal interactions could be described as a kind of pragmatics of intimacy which cannot be achieved without the explicit and practical demonstration of that mutual care and concern.
Keywords: intimacy, technologies of mediation, interactional presence, interactional absence, openings, closeness, pragmatics, emotion, interpersonal relationship
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Related work
  • 3.Background and methods
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Openings
      • 4.1.1Asynchronous communications: E-mail and SMS
      • 4.1.2Synchronous communications: Landline calls
      • 4.1.3Synchronous communications: ‘Mobile’ calls
      • 4.1.4Synchronous communications: Instant messaging
    • 4.2Closings
      • 4.2.1Asynchronous communications: Email and SMS
      • 4.2.2Synchronous communications: Telephone calls
      • 4.2.3Synchronous communications: Instant messaging
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Openings and closeness across media
    • 5.2Closings and closeness across media
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 27 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00044.mar
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