Language use in computer mediated communication (CMC)

What is specific in Swiss use language in CMC messages?

1.    While spelling and lexical choice in CMC data often deviate heavily from the norm, underlying linguistic structures (i.e. the grammar) remain stable.

2.    Informants adjust their language use to the respective topic and, more importantly, to their communication partner(s).

3.    Code-Switching, i.e. the use of more than one language or dialect within a message, is more frequent in multilingual Switzerland than in other countries.

Under the direction of Prof. Elisabeth Stark (Institute for Romance Studies), Swiss text messages (SMS, since 2009) and WhatsApp messages (since 2014) have been analyzed as to their most important features and the public discourse on them. The empirical basis for these studies, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, are two large databases of authentic messages sent in by the Swiss population following an according appeal in the Swiss media. In the first project, SMS communication in Switzerland: Facets of linguistic variation in a multilingual country (SNSF: CRSII1_136230; data collection: 2009; duration: 2011-2014; tokens in the corpus: 0.5 Mio), traditional text messages were investigated. The most important research topics were code-switching (between languages and dialects) and grammatical phenomena such as ellipsis (omissions) in French and German, the variation in interrogative structures in French as well as the use of the dialect in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland (Tessin). 

In the first project, SMS communication in Switzerland: Facets of linguistic variation in a multilingual country (SNSF: CRSII1_136230; data collection: 2009; duration: 2011-2014; tokens in the corpus: 0.5 Mio), traditional text messages were investigated. The most important research topics were code-switching (between languages and dialects) and grammatical phenomena such as ellipsis (omissions) in French and German, the variation in interrogative structures in French as well as the use of the dialect in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland (Tessin). 

Our data collections rely on the explicit will of the Swiss population to make their authentic messages available. Only with the availability of big data of this type can we make valid statements about language use in electronic mobile communication in Switzerland. In these projects under the lead of UZH, three other universities (Berne, Neuchâtel and Leipzig) participate. Research is concerned (and published) with all four national languages and their varieties: German (dialectal and non-dialectal), French, Italian and Romansh. In both projects, protecting the informants’ privacy is one of our foremost interests. Accordingly, we only use date for which we have the explicit consent and that are fully anonymized.

Project participants:

• Lead: Elisabeth Stark, UZH; Coordination: Simone Ueberwasser, UZH
• WhatsApp: (Post-Docs: Samuel Felder (Leipzig), Vanessa Jaroski (Bern), Rossella Maraffino (Bern), Etienne Morel (Neuchâtel), Christina Margrit Siever (UZH), Franziska Stuntebeck (UZH). Ko-Leitung: Federica Diémoz (Neuchâtel), Christa Dürscheid (UZH), Silvia Natale (Bern), Beat Siebenhaar (Leipzig), Crispin Thurlow (Bern). Computerlinguistik: Anne Göhring (UZH)
• SMS: Claudia Bucher (Leipzig), Claudia Cathomas (Bern), Nicola Ferretti (Bern), Karina Frick (UZH), Alex Guryev (Neuchâtel), Etienne Morel (Neuchâtel), Aurélia Robert-Tissot (UZH); Ko-Leitung: Marie-José Béguelin (Neuchâtel), Christa Dürscheid (UZH), Bruno Moretti (Bern), Beat Siebenhaar (Leipzig). Computer linguistics: Beni Ruef (UZH)

Graphic designers:

Lisa Senn and Michael Koller