Cover not available
Part of
Corpus Approaches to Social Media
Edited by Sofia Rüdiger and Daria Dayter
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 98] 2020
► pp. 89–110

Chapter 4
Patterns of intra-individual variation in a Swiss WhatsApp corpus

Analysing real-time change and long-term accommodation

| Universität Leipzig
Analysing written data from a large WhatsApp corpus, which was collected in Switzerland in 2014, this study examines how individuals may change their linguistic behaviour over time and how such changes are connected to the language use of the interlocutor. Therefore, this is one of the very first studies analysing intra-individual real-time change and long-term accommodation processes in written digital data. Focussing on WhatsApp chats that are primarily written in Swiss German, evidence for the possibility of rapid changes within the language use of individuals on several linguistic levels is presented: dialectal variation, phoneme-grapheme correspondence, punctuation, lexis, and use of emojis/emoticons. Furthermore, based on multiple examples from the corpus, several different types of long-term accommodation processes in two-person chats are distinguished.
Keywords: accommodation, intra-individual variation, real-time change, WhatsApp, written Swiss German
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background: Aspects of intra-individual variation
  • 3.Properties of WhatsApp text messaging with a focus on Swiss German
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Change over time: Examples on different linguistic levels
  • 6.Types of long-term accommodation in two-person chats
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.98.04fel
References
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2007 Neue Medien – neue Schriftlichkeit? Mitteilungen des deutschen Germanistenverbandes 54(1): 72–97.Google Scholar
2011 From variation to heteroglossia in the study of computer-mediated discourse. In Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, Crispin Thurlow & Kristine Mroczek (eds), 277–298. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Mediatization and sociolinguistic change: Key concepts, research traditions, open issues. In Mediatization and Sociolinguistic Change [Linguae & Litterae 36], Jannis Androutsopoulos (ed.), 3–48. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bowie, David
2015 Phonological variation in real time: Patterns of adult linguistic stability and change. In Language Development: The Lifespan Perspective [Impact: Studies in Language and Society 37], Annette Gerstenberg & Anja Voeste (eds), 39–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Britain, David
2012 Koineization and cake baking: Reflections on methods in dialect contact research. In Methods in Contemporary Linguistics [Trends in Linguistics 247], Andrea Ender, Adrian Leemann & Bernhard Wälchli (eds), 219–237. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brook, Marisa, Jankowski, Bridget L., Konnelly, Lex & Tagliamonte, Sali A.
2018 ‘I don’t come off as timid anymore’: Real-time change in early adulthood against the backdrop of the community. Journal of Sociolinguistics 22(4): 351–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle, Krause, Anne, Auer, Anja & Otte, Stefanie
2017 Levelling across the life-span? Tracing the face vowel in panel data from the North East of England. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(1): 3–33. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas
2007 Style – Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dragojevic, Marko, Gasiorek, Jessica & Giles, Howard
2016 Accommodative strategies as core of the theory. In Communication Accommodation Theory – Negotiating Personal Relationships and Social Identities across Contexts, Howard Giles (ed.), 36–59. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Felder, Samuel
2020 Individuelle Verschriftungsmuster in schweizerdeutschen WhatsApp-Chats. Stilistische Variation und Akkommodation als Einflussfaktoren auf die Graphemwahl. In Register des Graphischen. Variation, Interaktion und Reflexion in der digitalen Schriftlichkeit, Jannis Androutsopoulos & Florian Busch (eds), 93–131. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
In preparation. Individuelle sprachliche Variation in WhatsApp-Chats. Stil, Akkommodation und Real-Time-Change. PhD dissertation, Universität Leipzig.
Frick, Karina
2017 Elliptische Strukturen in SMS. Eine korpusbasierte Untersuchung des Schweizerdeutschen [Empirische Linguistik 7]. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard
(ed) 2016 Communication Accommodation Theory. Negotiating Personal Relationships and Social Identities across Contexts. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hotzenköcherle, Rudolf & Baumgartner, Heinrich
(eds) 1969 Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz Vol. 4. Bern: Francke.Google Scholar
Imo, Wolfgang
2019 Das Medium ist die Massage. Interaktion und ihre situativen und technischen Rahmenbedingungen. In Interaktion und Medien. Interaktionsanalytische Zugänge zu medienvermittelter Kommunikation [OraLingua 17], Konstanze Marx & Axel Schmidt (eds), 35–58. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
König, Katharina
2019a Narratives 2.0: A multi-dimensional approach to semi-public storytelling in WhatsApp voice messages. Journal for Media Linguistics 2(2): 30–59.Google Scholar
2019b Sequential patterns in SMS and WhatsApp dialogues: Practices for coordinating actions and managing topics. Discourse & Communication 13(6): 612–629. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019c Stance taking with ‘laugh’ particles and emojis: Sequential and functional patterns of ‘laughter’ in a corpus of German WhatsApp chats. Journal of Pragmatics 142: 156–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Katharina & Hector, Tim Moritz
2019 Neue Medien – neue Mündlichkeit? Zur Dialogizität von WhatsApp-Sprachnachrichten. In Interaktion und Medien. Interaktionsanalytische Zugänge zu medienvermittelter Kommunikation [OraLingua 17], Konstanze Marx & Axel Schmidt (eds), 59–84. Heidelberg: Winter.Google Scholar
Lötscher, Andreas
1989 Probleme und Problemlösungen bei der Mundartschreibung des Schweizerdeutschen. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 56(3): 273–297.Google Scholar
Rowe, Charley
2011  Whatchanade? Rapid language change in a private email sibling code. Language@Internet 8: Article 6. [URL] (11 April 2020).
Sankoff, Gillian
2018 Language change across the lifespan. Annual Review of Linguistics 4: 297–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sebba, Mark
2012 Orthography as social action: Scripts, spelling, identity and power. In Orthography as Social Action. Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power [Language and Social Processes 3], Alexandra Jaffe, Jannis Androutsopoulos, Mark Sebba & Sally Johnson (eds), 1–19. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siebenhaar, Beat
2006 Code choice and code-switching in Swiss-German internet relay chat rooms. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(4): 481–506. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagg, Caroline
2016 Heteroglossia in text-messaging: Performing identity and negotiating relationships in a digital space. Journal of Sociolinguistics 20(1): 59–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin & Poff, Michele
2013 Text messaging. In Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication [Handbooks of Pragmatics 9], Susan C. Herring, Dieter Stein & Tuija Virtanen (eds), 163–189. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ueberwasser, Simone & Stark, Elisabeth
2017 What’s Up, Switzerland? A corpus-based research project in a multilingual country. Linguistik Online 84(5): 105–126.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Sampietro, Agnese, Samuel Felder & Beat Siebenhaar
2022. Do you kiss when you text? Cross-cultural differences in the use of the kissing emojis in three WhatsApp corpora. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 october 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.