CMC Features in Lingua Franca E-mail Messages : A Pro Gradu Thesis

ISBN-13: 9783639025309 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 84 str.

Laura Laamanen

Opis

English is used globally as a lingua franca, i.e. acontact language between people who do not share acommon language. The present study attempts to lookat the European lingua franca context by examininge-mail messages as they are written in an academiccontext, i.e. in one of the environments whereEnglish has been most widely adopted as a linguafranca. The e-mail messages were analysed withrespect to features that are typically associatedwith computer-mediated communication (CMC). The dataconsisted of English language e-mail messagescollected from six Erasmus coordinators at theUniversity of Jyväskylä. The study aims at examiningthe features ascribed to CMC and their frequency inthe data. The study also considers whether therelationship and the role of the e-mail writers havean influence on the language and in particular thefrequency of the CMC features used in the messages.Further, the study examines the messages with respectto the lingua franca use of English in them.

O autorze

Laura Laamanen obtained her Master s degree at the University of
Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2005. She is currently working at the
University of Jyväskylä International Office, where she is in
charge of coordinating the services for incoming international
students.