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Introduction and Literacy Review

Introduction

In the times we live in today we are so reliable on our cell phone as a means of connection to the outside world. Especially when it comes to text messaging, whether it is our family or friends, we always seem to be glued to our phones. With this being said I am going to explore the effects texting has on relationships, this involving family and friends, and even personal relationships.  I will discuss the negative and positive aspects of text messaging and also include other research that I have found important in regards to my subject matter. I hope to engage my subject to entertain my questions to the fullest extent that can be made, in hopes of revealing the information I need to gather to answer my questions. With the research I am conducting I hope to find what is lost in translation through texting.

Literature Review

In “Generation Txt? The sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging” ( Thurlow & Brown revised), one of my sources for this research project, they discuss something that I found to be quite interesting.  “Initially intended for purely commercial purposes, text-messaging is in fact yet another example of how the human need for social intercourse- a kind of ‘communication imperative’ – bends and ultimately co-opts technology to suit its own ends”. This going to show the need for text message to be used as a connection to the human race from one person to another, text messaging is a somewhat easy way to talk to someone in a quick and shorten matter, or to even avoid any type of interaction or confrontation.

  
    

“Language is always multifunctional and always dependent on context for its meaning. As such, it was not always possible to be certain of the meaning of some participants’ messages and even less so the communicative intent with which they were sent” ( Thurlow & Brown). Going along with this idea, text messaging certainly loses its meaning in translation, while you can be sending a particular text with a certain point in mind, the person on the other end may take this message in a completely different way. This is a large part of my research and what I hope to gain more knowledge of through the subject I am interviewing.

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Interview Protocol
Research Question: How can texting afffect relationships?



Basic Questions:

What is your name?
Age?
Where did you grow up?
How many years have you had a cell phone?
What kind of cell phones have you had/have?

   Interview Questions:
* Who is affected by your texting the most?
* How long have you been texting with your friends/family?
* Have you ever had your words twisted or taken the wrong way  in a text message?
* Do you feel texting verses face to face conversation has affected any of your relationships?
* What do you like better about texting verses face to face talk?
* positives and negatives
* Can you think of any situations that have came about due to texting?
* Anyone in particular you text the most?
* Anyone in particular you DO NOT text?
* Have any of your personal relationships been affected by a particular text, explain?
* Do you feel you word things in a particular way when you text certain people?
* Do you feel texting affects your family, who may be older, and not text?
* What types of text messages lose their meaning in translation the most?

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I chose to analyze the first set of Shaggy Dog stories (first set) for my short analysis, posing the question, how do they make the reader laugh?
 
 In The Shaggy Dog stories we are forced to look for the “meaning” of them, it seems as thought we cannot just accept that they are simply for our enjoyment perhaps. The readers/audience always seems to be looking for more at first, before they get to the actual punch line of the story. The play on words plays a large part in these stories, without that feature the stories would be difficult to understand and a lot less entertaining. In some instances, you much know the particular “quote” in order to completely understand the story. With the Panda story being an example of confusion to me and having no connection to this particular story/ joke I did not find this one to make me laugh.  In other cases of the Shaggy Dog stories we see transliteration, when the first letter of the actual punch line may be switched with another word to complete the joke, I.e. from the Snake called Nate story we see the punch line at the end, :”it was better Nate than lever”. Punch lines like these are what make the reader laugh, especially if they have a connection to the quote.

    I had someone read this set of Shaggy Dog stories I was analyzing to gather some feedback on what made him or her laugh while reading these. They stated that in the beginning of each of the stories they were confused and thought it was boring until they got to the punch line or until they came to a line they had some connection to. In a few cases, especially the “Friar” and “Panda” story, they had to re-read them before they could get the complete gist of it. Some of the stories start out as if you are reading something serious or a real life story, then all of a sudden you are hit with the punch line and/or play on words, which is a great approach for the reader to truly enjoy the story, everyone always enjoy a happy or fun ending to a story.

    Some of the codes and categories that I found to be resourceful and noticeable throughout these stories was the play on words, jokes, must know particular quotes, punch lines. I’ve found that if the reader is not familiar with the particular punch line, they will not be completely entertained by these stories, for example if you never heard the song “chestnuts roasting on an open fire“,  you would not find the last Shaggy Dog story to be funny.  Being that these stories are short, there is certainly enough time to analyze each line and pick what is truly funny or not funny at all to you.

    Overall, I feel that the stories are funny, and they are meant for just that, as readers we are continuously looking for something more or some type of purpose to what we are reading. These are the types of stories that have no real purpose, but to make the reader laugh and to entertain without making them work hard to get the meaning. As not only readers, but as students we are always taught to look deeper into things, but for once with these types of short stories we can sit back and enjoy them, while also finding the particular punch and play on words as we go along, which capture our attention and thus make us laugh.
   

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Gee

Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 were very informative for me, I was able to learn a few new terms while familiarizing myself with terms and definitions I have already learned about in other courses.

I found a few things interesting and feel that I can connect these terms and ideas to my research paper, the "tool" social language is something that interests me, studying the different languages, and identities in settings is something that interests me.

Another "tool" that caught my eye was Intertextuality, is something also that may relate to my research paper, "when we speak or write, our words often allude to or relate to, in some fashion other texts , where other people have said or written". This is something that I found to be interesting and was not quite familiar with until I read Gee's chapter.

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Research Question:
I chose to analyze the first set of Shaggy Dog stories (first set) for my short analysis, posing the question, how do they make the reader laugh?
  
Analysis/Features:
 In The Shaggy Dog stories we are forced to look for the “meaning” of them, it seems as though we cannot just accept that they are simply for our enjoyment perhaps. The readers/audience always seems to be looking for more at first, before they get to the actual punch line of the story. The play on words plays a large part in these stories, without that feature the stories would be difficult to understand and a lot less entertaining. In some instances, you much know the particular “quote” in order to completely understand the story. With the Panda story being an example of confusion to me and having no connection to this particular story/ joke I did not find this one to make me laugh.  In other cases of the Shaggy Dog stories we see transliteration, when the first letter of the actual punch line may be switched with another word to complete the joke, I.e. from the Snake called Nate story we see the punch line at the end, :”it was better Nate than lever”. Punch lines like these are what make the reader laugh, especially if they have a connection to the quote.

    I had someone read this set of Shaggy Dog stories I was analyzing to gather some feedback on what made him or her laugh while reading these. They stated that in the beginning of each of the stories they were confused and thought it was boring until they got to the punch line or until they came to a line they had some connection to. In a few cases, especially the “Friar” and “Panda” story, they had to re-read them before they could get the complete gist of it. Some of the stories start out as if you are reading something serious or a real life story, then all of a sudden you are hit with the punch line and/or play on words, which is a great approach for the reader to truly enjoy the story, everyone always enjoy a happy or fun ending to a story. I have discovered that in most cases without some type of connection to the joke/ punch line, one will not be able to fully enjoy these stories. When a quote the audience knows is being used, you will find a stronger connection and understanding then just referencing something the audience may not know.



Codes/Categories
    Some of the codes and categories that I found to be resourceful and noticeable throughout these stories was the play on words, jokes, must know particular quotes, punch lines. I’ve found that if the reader is not familiar with the particular punch line, they will not be completely entertained by these stories, for example if you never heard the song “chestnuts roasting on an open fire“,  you would not find the last Shaggy Dog story to be funny.  Being that these stories are short, there is certainly enough time to analyze each line and pick what is truly funny or not funny at all to you.  Each one, however, tells a type of story, which may either involve animals, a plot that may involve violence, and usually a conflict which is most of the time ridiculous and not a reality.  Having these types of ridiculous features is what makes us laugh, and eventually leads us the the play on words, punchlines and connections to words we may already know.

 Transliteration                                                                                                 Punch line-At the end

Better Nate than lever	Chess nuts boasting by an open foyer	"Giant Panda lives in Chine, eats shoots and leaves"
Play on words  Only Hugh can prevent florist friars	Thank Friday! It’s God	"It's chess nuts boasting by an open fire"

Conclusion:

Overall, I feel that the stories are funny, and they are meant for just that, as readers we are continuously looking for something more or some type of purpose to what we are reading. These are the types of stories that have no real purpose, but to make the reader laugh and to entertain without making them work hard to get the meaning. As not only readers, but as students we are always taught to look deeper into things, but for once with these types of short stories we can sit back and enjoy them, while also finding the particular punch and play on words as we go along, which capture our attention and thus make us laugh.  In a sense these short stories "reinvent" the world, and take a us as readers to a place we are not use to. They make us take a step out of "reality" and give readers a chance to enjoy something without thinking too hard. The change of mood in some of these stories from a serious feeling to a ridiculous type of mood is something that also makes the reader laugh, and in a sense keeps them intrigued to continue reading on.

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Topic:
For my research project the topic I am researching is the effects on relationships due to texting verses face to face discussions, and also show the changes in writing/grammar due to texting.

Questions relating to my topic:

Have you ever had any issues with texting?
Has someone taking something you said in the wrong context?
What do you like better about texting/ or talking to someone  face to face?
Were any of your relationships affected by a text someone took the wrong way?
Have you noticed a difference in your grammar from texting? i.e abbreviations. etc.

In order to answer these questions I need to:

Find a connection between the positive and negative aspects of texting

Find some problems that have arrived due to texting someone rather then having a conversation face to face, where emotions can be seen rather then assumed.

Find instances of grammatical errors in email/professional areas that have been affected from "text" talk, as in abbreviations or language differences.

What I hope to discover:

By conducting two interviews I hope to gather the information I need to support my research question, I hope to gather data that is accurate and that portrays real life instances that we see everyday with texting and the effects it has not only on relationships but also on a professional level. Not being able to formulate well put together sentences instead of using short words or abbreviations can be an issue.  

I plan to conduct interviews for my study plus gather information from online sources:

http://faculty.washington.edu/thurlow/research/papers/Thurlow&Brown(2003).htm

 http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/253/1/Tagg09PhD.pdf


Wondering if this is a good idea?
* I was thinking of interviewing someone in my age range who is a huge "texter" and another interview with with someone from the older generation who is not much into texting, and would rather call or speak to someone face to face, and see what the differences are with each person. 

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Liana, Sara, Rachel


Question:

• how do comments asking question prompt the writer to develop and further ideas? (implied questions and open-ended questions)
• ALSO- does a complex subject call for complex questions/comments?

Codes:
#1

• Use of hedges: lexical hedges (maybe, please, might), syntactic (can you add an example here?), positive softeners (you've raised a good question but..)
• 0- generic comments
• 1- specific comments
• helpful questions/raise ideas

#2

• Includes Syntactic hedges: " I recommend bringing.."
• Positive Softner: "You've done a lot"
• Generic Comments- 0
• *The comments on this paper were very text specific*

#3
·         #1. Ask for information/ question.
·         #2. Make a request/question.
·         #3.Make a request/ statement .
·         #7. Make a positive comment, statement, or exclamation.


#4
·         #3. Make a request/ statement.
·         #6. Give information/ statement.
·         #4. Make a request imperative.


 #5

• 3- make request
• 5-give info
• 8- make grammar change

• 0-generic comments

• revisions:
• 1 effect negative
• 3 effect mixed

#6

• 4- make a request
• 7- positive comment
• 8- grammar mechanics

• no hedges
• 0 –generic comments
• specific comments

Comments:
#1

• he gives both specific and general comments
• *depending on what the subject/topic is, it will reflect in the comments (complex argument = more complex questions)
• gives positive feedback 
• gives enough detail to help but not too much to discourage or change
• 
  

    #2

• "You've definitely done a lot of research here!" ( Positive Comment)
• "This draft is overloaded with information" ( Statement)
• " I do feel, though, the amount makes it hard to tell what's important, particularly those ideas that challenge students' existing construct about plagiarism" ( Statement)
• " I recommend bringing out the unexpected stuff" ( Makes a request)
• "Give one or two of the latter, in enough specificity for reads to get the point" ( Request/imperative)
• "My margin notes point ou
• t some places you can make these kind of changes" ( Information/ statement)

#3

•        “You’re doing a nice job complicating the issue of plagiarism.  The idea aspect of it gets left out from many discussions” (Positive Comment)

• “This paragraph covers a lot of information, and it might be hard for readers to process.  I’d consider breaking it into smaller units” (Making a request)

• “I’m not sure I see how these sentences fit into this part of the project.  Maybe they would work better earlier?” (Making a request/question)

• “This is a really detailed list, and I can see it scaring students.  Can you think of ways to combine ideas, making the reasons seem less oppressive?” (Ask for information/ questions)

#4

• “Write a stronger introduction/ conclusion” (general comment)
• “Check the focus / organization of your discussions. Do you cover all related ideas in the same section? Is this the best order?” (make a request/ statement)

#5

• The lack of question comments may effect revision but contradicts our theory

      #6

• The lack of question comments may effect revision but contradicts our theory

• Overall, we thought that asking questions as comments was an effective way to develop more ideas.

 

• These are comments are the type that we would like to see on our own research papers, they are positive, yet give text-specific comments which help the writer in improving and adding to their paper. Without these types of comments/feedback the student will not know if they are heading in the right direction, this going along with our research question. As students' we look forward to these comments and when we do not receive any it may discourage us to try and improve our research papers.