Current research

Earlier writers important to the evolution of hypertext study are Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Theodor Nelson, Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco, and Claude Levi-Strauss. Barthes and Foucault were early users of terms such as link (liaison), web (toile), network (reseau) and interwoven (s'y tissent), all of which contributed to understanding of hypertextuality. (Landow, 1992. p. 8). In general I am tracing the development of moves found in what is called "active" reading, and "intertextual" or culturally-embedded text, both of which are focused in the contemporary study of Discourse.

Out of the people named above, and many more who will be included as I progress, I will concentrate particular attention from the beginning of this research on the Conversational Analysis of Howard Sacks, the dialogist, David Bohm, two researchers into intertextuality; Bakhtin and Kristeva, and the hypertextual theorists George Landow and David Bolter. I will say more of these six people and how I will use their work to investigate chatrooms and discussion groups below. A further listing of authors, which I have drawn from in the past for my original proposal for a postgraduate study on the effects of the Internet upon literature, is at https://www.angelfire.com/on/hypertextual/bibliography.html.

For my MA at Deakin University I compiled an extensive bibliography on theorists, whom I will also draw upon. (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5289/THESIS2.html). Together these two bibliographies provide more than one hundred researched theorists, professors and writers who have contributed to the field of linguists and dialogue.

Methodology in cyberspace is different than in any other environment. Sherry Turkle writes, "Virtual reality poses a new methodological challenge for the researcher: what to make of on-line interviews and indeed, whether and how to use them." (Turkle, 1995, p.34), quoted by Hamman (1966). Researching within virtual communities one must embrace a multi-disciplinary approach. My own proposal however creates specific theoretical and methodological "focus points"within this multidisciplinary, and establishes a new direction for such study.

There have been few published studies of cyberspace. The ones that exist focus mainly on MUDs and hypertext. The

ones which looked at chatrooms and on-line interaction focused on cybersex and relationships. I have not found any one researching on-line communication from a linguistic field.

Analyzing patterns of words and grammar in chatrooms, Instant Messenger, and within discussion group environments will present challenges not faced in other forms of textual analysis. Linguistic researcher, Michael Stubbs begins his book, Text and Corpus Analysis (1996), with a question:

"How can an analysis of the patterns of words and grammar in a text contribute to an understanding of the meaning of the text?" (p.3)

Stubbs continues with an explanation of text, which will be the working definition of text I will use in my own research:

My exploration of the use of such "natural" language will extend to how it is constructed within chatrooms, Instant

Messenger, and within discussion groups environment. Eggins and Slade in Analysing Casual Conversation, write,

It will be in the analysing of text on-line that I hope to find and describe a new process of meaning making in participants' conversation. The main differences I hypothesize at the start of this study are that discussion groups are not as casual as IM or chatroom conversation. In discussion groups people usually take more time and care with what they write. They may use a spell/grammar check, and think before posting their text. There is a more textual format with discussion groups. Instant Messenger and chatrooms appear at first sight to be less disciplined and more varied. But CA analysis has already showed this is not the case in casual conversation. My research suggests that there are similar, contextual forms at work in on-line chat, and that any differences my analysis can establish will be more a matter of degree than of essence.

There are positive and negative aspects of doing analytical research in cyberspace. The most difficult aspect is the inability to do follow-up work with participants in chatrooms. Unless the person is identified and their e-mail address is noted so that they can be tracked within chatrooms they become lost to the researcher.

People in cyberspace often change their name for use in other chatrooms, and sometimes within the chatroom they will change their name. For example, in an academic chatroom where there is scholarly discussion about an issue a person may log in as 'laProf'. In a sex-chatroom, the same person may be 'lovelylegs'. In a political chatroom the person may choose to be 'senator'. One's character are only part of one's on-line repertoire. A person can be a feather, fire hydrant, cloud or a river bank. How the person's 'speaking' persona changes in different chatrooms is an area I intend to explore. In the meantime, my research will foreground some of the ways in which such changes might be described and identified. Summing this up, Robin B. Hamman in his MA Dissertation (1996) writes;

The indication is clear: on-line "cyborg identity" involves deliberative production of persona via performed interactive talk-text. It is this talk-text, already deployed by thousands, which I aim to analyze.

The most obvious positive in my proposal is the amount of material available. With millions of people on-line and thousands of chatrooms and discussion groups there is a wealth of material. At the same time, the size of the field indicates the growing cultural importance of on-line "talk-texting" activities, and the resultant need to establish means of analysis. As my study will be from an ethnographic linguistic position I will limit my study to those who are in the chatrooms and discussion groups within the zine, southernexpressway. I will also access some Instant Messenger (IM) transcripts.

Ethnography is defined as "the acts of both observing directly the behaviour of a social group and producing a written description thereof." (Marshall, 1994, 158). In this study I will observe, analyse and present the discourse of chatroom and discussion group cultures.