Text transmitted electronically through computer-mediated communication networks is an increasingly available yet little documented form of written communication. This article examines the syntactic and stylistic features of an emergent phenomenon called Interactive Written Discourse (IWD) and finds that the concept of “register,” a language variety according to use, helps account for the syntactic reductions and omissions that characterize this historical juxtaposition of text format with real-time and interactive pressures. Similarities with another written register showing surface brevity, the note taking register, are explored. The study is an empirical examination of written communication from a single discourse community, on a single topic, with a single recipient, involving 23 experienced computer users making travel plans with the same travel advisor by exchanging messages through linked computers. The study shows rates of omissions of subject pronouns, copulas, and articles and suggests that IWD is a hybrid, showing features of both spoken and written language. In tracing variable use of conventions such as sentence initial lower case and parentheses, the study shows that norms are gradually emerging. This form of written communication demands study because, as capabilities expand, norms associated with this medium of communication may come to influence or even replace those of more traditional writing styles.

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Greg W h i t t e m o r e K a t h l e e n F e r r a r a Electronic D a t a S y s t e m s Corp. AbstractThis empirical study attempts to find answers to the question of how a natural language (henceforth NL) system could resolve attachment of prepositional phrases (henceforth PPs) by examining naturally occurring PP attachments in typed dialogue. Examination includes testing predictive powers of existing attachment theories against the data. The result of this effort will be an algorithm for interpreting PP attachment.

Investigations of spoken language comprehension often employ subsidiary task paradigms, such as word-and phoneme-monitoring procedures. In the present experiment we investigated what kinds of effects such secondary tasks might have on the course of simultaneous comprehension processing. Subjects listened to texts either without any secondary task demands (i.e., unconstrained comprehension), under word-monitoring instructions, or under phonememonitoring instructions. Comprehension was evaluated immediately after the presentation of each text with verification statements probing both the representation of surface structure and, also, the representation of high-level propositions, low-level propositions, and macropropositions from the text's meaning structure. Relative to unconstrained comprehension, we found an overall facilitation of comprehension due to word monitoring, and no effects as a result of phoneme monitoring. Moreover, the pattern of results across propositional levels was consistent with predictions derived from W. Kintsch and T. A. van Dijk's (Psychological Review, 1978, 85, 363-394) theory of text comprehension. This facilitation of simultaneous comprehension processing is inconsistent with the notion of a "fixed-capacity decision mechanism," to which differences in monitoring effects are typically attributed. We argue that subsidiary task paradigms can be used for investigations of spoken text comprehension, but only when accompanied with probes for the well-established characteristics of text representation.

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