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Discussion Groups / British English / February 2006e-mails
Hi everyone:-) im new here and a bit embarassed to start with asking for help at the very beginning.... but any help is really needed...J im studying english philology at the jagiellonian university in cracov, poland - im right in the middle of writing my m.a. thesis. im looking at the language of e-mail in informal contexts: trying to investigate if there are any differences between the way young men and women (aged 18-40) who come from Great Britain, write e-mails. im collecting data at the moment, and would really appreciate it if anyone could forward me some informal e-mails from friends, which they have received (of course only if the senders agree to that). If you want to delete e-mail addresses, please feel free, but i would also need to know the senders' sex and education (secondary/degree/higher degree, etc)... The e-mails don't have to strike you as linguistically significant as im after a fair sample of data. Anything but junk mail would be really useful. The e-mail account for my data is paulinag81@wp.pl Thx in advance for your help! paulina > Hi everyone:-) im new here and a bit embarassed to start with asking > for help at the very beginning.... but any help is really needed...J > im studying english philology at the jagiellonian university in > cracov, poland - im right in the middle of writing my m.a. thesis. im > looking at the language of e-mail in informal contexts: Please Paulina... email or Usenet doesn't absolve you from writing to make it easy to read. Capitalisation and paragraphs, and at least informally correct sentences please. Paul Burke | and at least |informally correct sentences please. Now what does informally correct mean? Sounds like management gobbledygook to me.  SignatureDave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> Freedom of Speech, Expression, Religion, and Democracy are the keys to Civilization, together with legal acceptance of Fundamental Human rights. You're right... sorry - it does look too messy, now I can see it. But .. I'm also not sure what you meant by "not informally correct sentences".. I know i SHOULD know that, I'm studying English after all:-), but.. could you explain what you meant, please? > You're right... sorry - it does look too messy, now I can see it. But > .. I'm also not sure what you meant by "not informally correct > sentences".. I know i SHOULD know that, I'm studying English after > all:-), but.. could you explain what you meant, please? I meant sentences that don't stand up as formal English, but would pass in conversation. I'm sure all languages have the type- what you might say to friends, but wouldn't put in a report or assignment. Paul Burke | Hi everyone:-) im new here and a bit embarassed to start with asking |for help at the very beginning.... but any help is really needed...J [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] |Thx in advance for your help! |paulina There are many petaBytes, 10 to the power 15 Bytes, of archives of usenet posts on Google Groups. SignatureDave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> Freedom of Speech, Expression, Religion, and Democracy are the keys to Civilization, together with legal acceptance of Fundamental Human rights. [Snip request for *e-mails*] <--\ | > There are many petaBytes, | > 10 to the power 15 Bytes, | > of archives of usenet | > posts on Google Groups. | | Erm, Dave, ----------------------/ (And if you're not using a monospaced font, God will cast you into the pit of eternal damnation.) SignatureDavid - toro-danyo atcost uku fullstop co fullstop uk http://www.toro-danyo.uku.co.uk/ |[Snip request for *e-mails*] <--\ | | [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] | | |Erm, Dave, ----------------------/ In case you are not a linguist, there are many similarities between the language used in emails and the language used on usenet. OP stated that "im new here" and so might well not be aware of the Google Archives, and the possible uses. Collecting data for theses is *very* difficult, and at her stage in the process, a change of thesis direction to usenet may well be possible and indeed advantageous. SignatureDave Fawthrop <dave hyphenologist co uk> Freedom of Speech, Expression, Religion, and Democracy are the keys to Civilization, together with legal acceptance of Fundamental Human rights. Thanks for your advice, Dave... I do know that there are many similarities, but it's the language of informal e-mails that I really want to focus on. Besides, I need to know something more about the senders (their sex, age, education) and I wouldn't find that information on usenet. And I have too little time to change anything now. But thank you anyway:-) Dear Paulina: It's not as easy as it seems. I made a survey to be used in my thesis and asked as many Britons as I could possibly find on the web as well as personally to complete it. Many people here were very helpful, but I eventually had to give up with answers from ten people (I thought I would find thirty or so). E-mails can be very personal and not many people would like their style or spelling mistakes to be described by someone, which makes it all the more difficult. You can look at e-mails sent to agony aunts of online magazines or comments posted somewhere. Best of British luck. Greetings from Anglistyka at Gdansk University. (I could send you an e-mail pretending I'm John Smith from Milton Keynes or Mary Brown from Norwich :) In message <1140887680.220982.282110@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>, at 09:14:40 on Sat, 25 Feb 2006, Young Sociolinguist <spooky.fm@interia.pl> wibbled >Dear Paulina: It's not as easy as it seems. I made a survey to be used >in my thesis and asked as many Britons as I could possibly find on the >web as well as personally to complete it. Many people here were very >helpful, but I eventually had to give up with answers from ten people >(I thought I would find thirty or so). You would have got 11 Maciek if my completed .doc file sent as an attachment had not been bounced. Perhaps some others have also had a similar problem and, like me, are not going to jump through hoops to send a reply, however worthy the research is. SignaturePedt uk.announce ~ moderated group to announce news / events of specific interest to a wider uk.* readership than the group(s) which their subjects would naturally place them. See charter at <http://www.usenet.org.uk/uk.announce.html> Dear Pedt, Sorry for the ambiguity in my previous post. Let me repeat that I am really grateful that ten people helped me. My biggest problem consisted in my "Great Expectations", as opposed to reality, but I'm definitely not disappointed. As for your scores, you can copy your answers and post them here or in a separate thread or send them in the text of an e-mail instead of sending back the .doc file. Since you've completed the questionnaire, it would be great if your effort weren't wasted. Thank you in advance. In message <1140975176.332014.207130@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, at 09:32:56 on Sun, 26 Feb 2006, Young Sociolinguist <spooky.fm@interia.pl> wibbled >Dear Pedt, > Sorry for the ambiguity in my previous post. Let me repeat that I am >really grateful that ten people helped me. My biggest problem consisted >in my "Great Expectations", as opposed to reality, but I'm definitely >not disappointed. Sorry, it was me that was being ambiguous. I should have worded it better than others may have had a similar problem. >As for your scores, you can copy your answers and >post them here or in a separate thread or send them in the text of an >e-mail instead of sending back the .doc file. Since you've completed >the questionnaire, it would be great if your effort weren't wasted. Will do when I've restored the data on the disk drive that failed a few days ago. SignaturePedt uk.announce ~ moderated group to announce news / events of specific interest to a wider uk.* readership than the group(s) which their subjects would naturally place them. See charter at <http://www.usenet.org.uk/uk.announce.html> Hi:-) Indeed, I thought that collecting those e-mails would be much easier.. now I understand how naive I was. But still - I'm not as naive as to expect that people will send me e-mails that are very personal and revealing! Nowadays there are many people who communicate via electronic mail quite havily (I'm one of them), send and get messages from different people, and obviously not all of them (messages, not people:-)) contain our innermost feelings... This is why I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of response to my request. (But here, once again, I'd like to say I'm very grateful to Mr Paul Burke for his messages). I wish I could help you with your own research, but I guess that also would not bring any results.. but if you want, I can ask some people if you are still writing it. And thanks for your proposal - who knows, maybe I'll ask you a favour when I get more desperate..:-) Thanks. I did not want to scare you, but you know what it's like with personal messages. I don't write regularly to anyone British, but I think I'll soon be in touch with the English relatives of my uncle's (they're not my family and I've never met them, so it may take some time for us to make friends). I may ask them to do it, but I don't know when they will decide to e-mail me. Thank you.. that would be great:-) take care paulina |
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