Bendravimas internetu : kalbėjimas rašant

Abstract

The article deals with electronic discourse, a new variety of language that people use to communicate across the computerised telecommunications networks - the Internet. The study of electronic discourse (ED) in the Lithuanian language confirms the assumption that ED has many characteristics of both spoken and written language. As in writing, the discourse is text-based and permanent, and interlocutors neither see nor hear each other. Regardless of the fact that it is written, ED displays characteristics of traditional Lithuanian spoken genres: turn taking, inversion, emotive and informal style, ellipsis, redundancy, contractions, bywords, informal vocabulary and paralinguistic cues. Taking into account the above mentioned features of electronic discourse and the general characteristics of the Internet as an instant and unpretentious medium, where physical and social identity is no longer important, we can assume that further study of this variety of language will also disclose some features of the authentic spoken informal Lithuanian language.