Annotation-Conversations

In Kotter and Jepson’s articles they were discussing about pros and cons of the text and voice rooms. Their main idea was to compare the text rooms and voice rooms. Although the two were both communicative ways to connect with people around the world, there were some differences between them. But I prefer focus on the text rooms’ discourse.

The typed messages are used to interact in real-time text chats. It was a hybrid discourse in which combines many kinds of topics to chat. In text rooms we often used short words to present what we want to say because it is more efficient and convenient. According to this article, some participants use Internet chat rooms to play out their fantasy selves. They could do anything they could not in reality life because in Internet they were anonymous. And that made their topics more open than in reality because they feel less shy and anxious in Internet. Participants don’t have to adhere to turn adjacency conversations that face-to-face speakers follow.

Then it mentioned that in chat rooms participants sometimes would made mistakes. Therefore, modification seemed important in the discourse. “Negotiation of meaning increases the comprehensibility of language input and result in modified interaction.” When one couldn’t convey his messages to others correctly they would begin to negotiate until the meaning was clarified, that was called “repair”.

I like text chat rooms more than voice rooms; however, I don’t agree Kotter and Jepson said in their articles at all. I have something opinions to them. For one, I agree that in Internet users feel more free and unrestrained. They could say anything and do anything they would like to in it. However, Internet is not a place for everyone to free themselves; it still has its own law needed to follow. Internet crimes are often heard in nowadays, I think it is just because Internet is over promoted as a free place.

On the other hand, as repair as concerned, I agree repair is two-way. Though repair improves users’ English ability, in my opinion, the repair from others helps participants more. People often couldn’t see their blind spot and need others point out to them. If they could get repairs from chat rooms, they would correct the mistakes unconsciously. It is a good way to them to learn English.