Kieli verkossa. Näkökulmia digitaaliseen vuorovaikutukseen. (Language on the internet: Perspectives on digital interaction) Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen (eds) (2014) Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura ISBN 978-9

Abstract

Kieli verkossa. Nakokulmia digitaaliseen vuorovaikutukseen. (Language on the internet: Perspectives on digital interaction) Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen (eds) (2014) Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura ISBN 978-952-222-585-6 ISSN 0355-1768As the editors of the book point out (p. 7), this is the first book in Finnish (an English abstract is available, p. 211) to address digital discourse from a linguistic perspective. Since we are living in a digital society where our languages are used every day in different digitalised environments, the topic is both important and current.The book begins with an introduction to digital interaction and is followed by six articles investigating digital discourse in different materials: text messages, discussion forums, podcasts, corporate websites, blogs and online news. Digital interactions are studied in three languages: English, Finnish and French. The approaches range from interactional linguistics to pragmatics and from dialogue studies to rhetoric studies. Finally, the terminology of digital interaction is discussed and a glossary of key terms in Finnish is proposed.The introduction to digital interaction is written by the editors Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson and Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen. First, they discuss different terms used in linguistic research. The authors find computer-mediated communication too narrow, and prefer Digital Discourse. Although the term has been criticised for being too broad, the authors claim that the aim of research in Digital Discourse is not to exclude any form of language use on the Web. The article also discusses different waves of research in Digital Discourse and the genres of the latter, the multilingual character of the Web and questions concerning research materials, methodology and ethics.Marja-Liisa Helasvuo's article studies participants in text message interactions in Finnish, a material that has been used fairly little, particularly in this language, because of the obvious difficulty posed by its private character. Helasvuo's article is an important contribution to our knowledge of this kind of communication, although the author emphasises that text message conversations do not form a homogenous genre. Helasvuo studies the references to the writer of the text message and its recipient. One of her main finding is that subject pronouns (facultative in Finnish: Mina naen 'I see' vs. Naen 'see') are not generally used in text messages, which corresponds to the norms of standard (written) language and differs from the norms of the spoken language.Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen's contrastive study focuses on metapragmatic comments on discussion forums by Finnish- and English-speaking students. First, she analyses comments according to their location, direction and target. Second, she studies what feature of the message is commented on and what its function is. Finally, she investigates the communality of the groups by referring to their sociability, expression of support and identity. Tanskanen's study shows both similarities and differences between the two languages. In both languages, the writer's own or another student's messages is being critically evaluated, and support is shown towards other writers. The most significant difference, according to Tanskanen, concerns the target and the function of the comment: in the Finnish material, critical comments are more targeted towards another writer's comments than in English.Fred Dervin and Tanja Riikonen focus on the identities of intercultural podcasts. They argue that self is no more seen as a solid entity. Instead, it is considered protean, multiple, narrated and liquid. The authors apply a theory on dialogical self, according to which self can be studied through a change of positions. Another important notion is multivoiceness: with new technologies, not only have the positions of self but also the number of voices multiplied. …