New technology texts



Websites

The websites differ mostly from other traditional written texts in that the material is presented in a screen rather than on a page, carrying with this other type of differences between texts:

                                                            Characteristics  
 
                                                           


Ex: Facebook

E-mail

An e-mail is very similar to a letter, but there are some distinctive linguistic characteristics compared with a letter. Also the informality, the interaction and the way it gets close to the spoken language.













Text messages

The main characteristics for text messages are keeping the message the short and concise as possible. The space for writing is very tiny and the small keypad encourages compression and short messages.

In text messages:

• Words are shortened
  
• Phonetic spelling
  
• Letter homophones
  
• Grammatical compression
  

Text C

This chat room presents different characteristics that are particular to the new technology texts. Some of the characteristics that are present on this text are prosodic features, colloquialisms, grammatical expressions and non-standard spelling. The prosodic feature of using upper case letters in the text is presented in the word BOOK, where Geoff is demonstrating his excitement with the acquirement of a new book. The use of colloquialisms is also present in the text in words like lounging and expressions like hang out, that are examples that get closer the text with a spoken discourse. The shortened words for the days of the week are a clear example of grammatical compression, trying to make the text shorter because of the space and the use of a keypad for writing and also the use of excessive punctuation marks in the exclamation of Geoff. Finally, the non-standard spelling is presented with the ellipsis of words in some construction without subject in the speech on JillyB, "how have the holydays been treating everyone?" and "lots of lounging about I trust, this kind of expression is used because the sentence have a sense if it is read in a context despite the missing of the subject and also is more concise than writing the whole sentence. In conclusion, this texts contains a lot of grammatical techniques that characterizes it as a new technology text, in every context.


 New Technology Texts