Spelling and simulated shibboleths in Nigerian computer-mediated communication

Abstract

Since its coinage by Hiltz and Turoff (1978) the term computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been adapted and broadly conceptualised asinteractive communicationby and amonghuman beingsvianetworkedcomputers and mobile devices. Several definitions of CMC have been offered in the literature but Herring's (2007) definition of CMC as ‘predominantly text-based human–human interaction mediated by networked computers or mobile telephony’ is adopted in this article because it stresses the textual aspect of the communicative interaction and accommodates all forms of textual language use mediated by the Internet, the World Wide Web and mobile technologies. This approach to CMC focuses on the production, transmission and exchange of naturally-occurring text-based human language and highlights the fact that human beings (as opposed to automated or artificial systems) are both the agents or initiators and recipients of the communication under investigation. Although communication is not unique to humans, the ability to use human language for meaningful social interactions is the exclusive preserve of the human species. Thus the perspective human beings bring to virtual interactions is accounted for in CMC. Internet interlocutors (also known as online interactants,netizensortextizensin the case of regular SMS texts composers/senders) employ textual data to convey and exchange their thoughts, opinions, observations, feelings as well as messages from other people or sources (Ifukor, 2011). These interactive possibilities make CMC a technology, medium, and engine of social relations (Jones, 1995:11) and language use is at the core.