Chatting Nicely or Chatting Crap

Yet another „norm‟ that the participants discuss is the difference between chatting nicely and chatting crap. There are different ideas amongst my participants as to what can be considered as chatting crap and chatting nicely. Chatting crap is a notion used by the participants which is associated with a person who does not keep a conversation interesting and flowing, it is when you receive one word responses from the person you are chatting to. Chatting nicely is where the participants chat in such a manner that they are able to keep the conversation flowing and the responsibility for the conversation‟s continuation is not left to one of the participants alone. Different individuals have different perceptions of what norms of chatting

104 are considered correct and what are not. From the data I found that most of the participants do not like the trivial conversations where there are no significant conversations occurring. For instance, Mahmood dislikes the “what can you tell me”, “WUU2” (what you up to), “what‟s new” conversations. He feels that those types of conversations are awkward and as if you have nothing that you really want to talk about and that it takes more effort to keep the conversation going. People from the same group of friends can chat differently with each person. For example, Mahmood, Tasneem and Brandon are all friends, however Tasneem feels that Mahmood “chats crap” and he feels she ”chats crap” but she is able to hold a conversation with Brandon. Mahmood and Brandon are able to have intellectual conversations with each other. Be this as it may, Tasneem admitted to the fact that she “chats crap” because she usually replies with a “LOL” or “OK”. However, they do agree that the type of conversations that one has does depend on who it is you are chatting to. This is the same for how one chats as well. Below is the extract from the text (turns 649 - 720).

Extract 5. 12

649. M: I like chatting though [3] seriously 650. N: Really?

651. M: Yes

652. N: One would never say

653. T: Er he chat crap hey [T and N laugh]

654. N: [laughs] One would never say. You send Mahmood a mes sage and then he replies like-

655. T: He never replies …

706. T: I chat like crap 707. M: You chat like crap

708. T: But like I just think she‟s very shy and she couldn‟t 709. B: Naai, Tasneem - naai, Tasneem chat lekker to me

710. M: Naai, she chat crap – seriously. If I must chat to her then she will be like – „LOL‟, „OK‟ two dots

From the above, the participants illustrate what they feel the terms chatting crap and chatting nicely mean. However, this manner does depend on the relationship between the participants,

105 the conversation, the personality of the person one is chatting to as well as whether the participants are actually occupied with something else.

The above analysis illustrates the many norms which shape texting practices of a typical UWC student. The focus group gave insight into one user group‟s practices and views. The analysis shows how the shift in texting norms came about with the shift to smartphones as well as the range of features which is used for IM chatting. The analysis also illustrated the norms which are considered appropriate or necessary within the instant messaging sphere.

5.5 Conclusion

The above analysis shows how deeply embedded social media are in the social and everyday lives of UWC students. Social media are used for a variety of reasons, including sharing academic information as well as planning and confirming social activities. As was previously mentioned, there are many norms and conventions which shape texting practices. These norms and conventions have evolved as a result of the evolution of technology as well as the changing identities and language ideologies of the participants.

The analysis of the questionnaire shows how the participants prefer to chat on newer instant messaging applications rather than stick to the older applications. The analyses both (questionnaire and interview) illustrate the norms and conventions which these students (participants) have developed and begun utilizing as a result of the advancement of technology and the vast range of features that have become available through newer IM applications. Thus, in the data, the participants indicated many different habits including the shift to recent IM applications, where they usually are when chatting as well as the manner in which they prefer chatting, which is mostly to have multiple individual chats rather than group chats.

Furthermore, the interview analysis illustrated some of the conventions which shape texting practices, such as predictive texting. It explored the norms relating to genre and register in terms of greeting and closing, what their opinions are with regards to the use of abbreviated textese style or chatting in a grammatical manner, who should initiate the conversations as well as what it means to „chat nicely‟ or „chat crap‟. The analysis showed that with regards to greetings and closing, some feel that the relationship between the people chatting impacts

106 whether they would greet and close or not. However, Brandon feels that one should greet despite the relationship that may exist between the participants or whether you have already seen or spoken to the person before.

The participants have indicated through their responses that, as a result of the change in technologies and the range of features that the newer IM applications allow, they have shifted away from many of the previous norms of chatting and have adapted to the new affordances of these smartphones. These affordances are: more advanced predictive texting which results in more grammatically appropriate chatting, different key-pads such are the „QWERTY‟ key- pads as opposed to the „multi-tap‟ key-pad as well as the different instant messaging applications and the affordances provided by these applications. Furthermore, the attitudes and ideologies of these students have also changed in terms of them outgrowing their abbreviated style of chatting.

107 CHAPTER SIX

6 CONCLUSION

6.1 Introduction

The main aim of this thesis was to explore the emerging discourse conventions and the generic structures in chat conversations on social networking applications such as MXit, BBM and WhatsApp, among UWC students. Another focus of this project was that of the medium, which these students use to communicate, the shift to newer technology and how this shift has affected their style of chatting or communicating. Lastly, the use of affective personal language of instant messaging chatting used to strengthen interpersonal relationships as well as offer social support was also explored.

Through qualitative and quantitative research methods (discourse analysis, genre and register analysis, quantitative analysis) the objectives of this project were accomplished. The objectives were as follows:

(1) To identify the typical topics which recur throughout the data and the extent to which they relate to issues of health, broadly defined as psychosocial and emotional well-being; (2) To analyse the generic structure of these conversations and to explore the extent to

whichthese conversations are conventionalised and dynamic

(3) To analyse the personal intimate register used to strengthen interpersonal relationships: What are the linguistic features which characterise this register?

(4) To explore the extent to which these discourse features pattern across conversations between different gender and relationship configurations

(5) To explore the ways in which participants use these chats to elicit and give social support; and

(6) To investigate the ways in which the shift in technology impacts the norms of chatting. How has the evolution of technology contributed to the change in the style of chatting, as well as the norms of IM chatting as a genre?

108 This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section will discuss the objectives of this study in relation to the findings and the second section will conclude by referring back to the main aim.