Abstract
In this exploration of online interaction and (in)appropriateness, Jenny Arendholz begins by rightfully arguing that politeness is not unilateral across all online communication but must instead be evaluated according to the distinct norms of different media. After stating her intention to explore the medium of online message boards, she clearly articulates four research questions intended to illuminate the ways in which interpersonal relations are formally expressed and negotiated in this particular online setting.
She follows this in Chapter 2 with a discussion of online fora and message boards and asserts that there has been little linguistic research that focuses specifically on either of these modes of computer-mediated interaction. The chapter continues with a discussion of early concerns about communication via electronic means, especially the belief that communication via computer at its best could not be socially productive and at its worst would lead to uninhibited (possibly malicious) behavior sparked by the lack of social cues and the anonymity provided by the electronic environment. The chapter concludes with an overview of strategies through which users convey social cues and technical components of computer-mediated communication (CMC) which reduce anonymity, including templates through which users construct identities by providing demographic information, group affiliations, nationality, and so on.
Chapter 3 brings an examination of the distinction between groups and communities and asks how the people who communicate on message boards should be classified. This chapter hinges on the problem of perceptions of community and the participation structures that were proposed by Goffman (1981). There is a discussion along with data samples that examine the use of the term ‘community’ as it seems to be understood by message board users themselves, and an argument that a Community of Practice (CofP) (Lave and Wenger, 1991) approach is the most appropriate one for examining message boards since it allows for the shifting nature of online groups. There is also a discussion of participant roles and the ways in which these play into the formation of communities that, while focused on one message board in particular (The Student Room (TSR)), is also extendable to other similarly constructed message boards. A brief overview of Netiquette (Shea, 1994) is also included as a background for discussion of how appropriate behavior is understood and enacted within this particular message board.
Chapter 4 provides a theoretical overview of politeness theories that have developed since the work of Goffman and explicates how these various approaches have evolved throughout the subsequent decades as a focus of investigation across multiple disciplines. Arendholz argues that the quest for a clear definition of politeness (and impoliteness and rudeness) has evolved into ‘one of the marshiest fields within pragmatics’ (p. 54), and the chapter therefore sets out to disentangle the previous theories and approaches. The author divides these previous approaches into ‘Classic Views’ (which include a Social Norms perspective and a Conversational Maxim perspective), the ‘Face Saving View’ based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) model, Goffman’s approach as a predecessor to Brown and Levinson, and a contrastive examination which explores Goffman’s theory and its application in Brown and Levinson’s framework. She follows by proposing a combined framework that integrates Brown and Levinson’s speaker-centered concept of face with Goffman’s more dynamic notion of facework as an interactional strategy.
After reviewing ‘classic’ approaches to politeness in Chapter 4, Chapter 5 focuses on outlining postmodern approaches. The author provides an overview of Locher and Watt’s (2005) theory of Relational Work before beginning an in-depth discussion of impoliteness. After providing an overview of the extensive research that notes that politeness and impoliteness are not simply opposite sides of the same coin, she goes on to explore the possible differentiation between impoliteness and rudeness, including the role of intent in making these assessments. She further notes the difficulties with particular types of impoliteness, such as banter and mock-impoliteness – talk that, while impolite on the surface, functions as relation-enhancing. She then proposes a modified model of Relational Work that adds to Locher and Watt’s model by adding a category: appropriate mock-impoliteness/banter that is positively marked. Finally, the author shifts the discussion to CMC impoliteness, or flaming, but notes that this category does not deserve a place on her expanded Relational Work framework because it is not clearly distinguishable from impoliteness.
Chapter 6 expounds upon multiple facets of the notion of context in online behavior. As a part of context, Arendholz includes the constructs of identity and face and explores the distinction between the two. She asserts that, particularly within the domain of CMC, users do not reconstruct their identities with every interaction, but instead they constitute their online faces. The essential components of face, she argues, are the need for association/dissociation, and she explores how users manipulate the predetermined structure of message board templates to constitute their faces. She follows with a discussion of how these presentations of face might or might not be accurate, including a brief discussion of trolling and deception. She notes that in all cases, both the interlocutor and the message author must co-construct their interpersonal relations within the message board context through their understandings of social distance, power relations, shared social norms, motives, participation structure, and previous exchanges.
Chapter 7 introduces the data set for the study, which comprises 50 message board threads chosen randomly from TSR. The author begins with an explanation of her analytical technique, in which she evaluates the data as a participant observer and focuses on how users respond to individual messages as a way to categorize postings as implicit/explicit and appropriate/inappropriate/neutral. After a brief discussion of the ethical concerns of using CMC data, the chapter provides statistical information about each of the thread beginnings, including the header, the number of posts, the number of different contributors who authored those posts, the timespan of each thread, and the average posts to that thread per day. Arendholz argues that the headers that name the topic of each thread are critical in that they set the stage for all contextual factors that follow. She then divides the 50 thread headers into six different categories based on their communicative purpose. She follows with an in-depth examination of individual contributors – how they are rated by other users, how they are rated by the moderators, and how active they are as message board participants. After setting the stage with this examination of technical features, she then shifts to a focus on first entries of the threads and the interactional strategies contributors employ to establish their faces within this context, including metapragmatic acknowledgment of the board norms and expectations, direct greetings, and abrupt unprompted narration. She discusses both the openings and closings of these first messages and notes the strategic use of smilies, computer acronyms, and references to the board rules/guidelines as ways to establish face.
The (extremely dense) Chapter 8 sets out to expand the notions introduced in the previous chapter by moving from initial posts to an expanded look at the complete threads that emerged from them. The threads are categorized according to the six communicative purposes proposed in the previous chapter: (1) getting to know others, (2) looking for like-minded others, (3) asking for advice, (4) asking for opinions, (5) blowing off steam, and (6) offering advice/information. In shifting focus from the initial posts to the interactional work in the full threads, the author here sets out to investigate the ways that users (1) establish their individual faces and (2) in doing so negotiate their relationships with one another (i.e. perform relational work). Taking each of the six categories one-by-one and examining threads that represent each, she first takes a qualitative approach, employing her measures of association and disassociation (facework) outlined in Chapter 6, then follows with a quantitative analysis in which she gauges the frequency of both implicit and explicit strategies that are positively marked, negatively marked, and neutral (as markers of relational work). The chapter ends with extensive lists of tactics that users employ to satisfy their needs for association and disassociation, as well as a quantitative breakdown of patterns of appropriate and inappropriate language that exist across the entire corpus.
The volume concludes by revisiting the research questions outlined at the beginning of the book and noting how the mixed methods exploration of (in)appropriate/neutral interactional strategies in this data set (1) illuminates the strategies that users employ on message boards (as distinct from other types of CMC), (2) examines which contextual factors on message boards contribute to users’ online behavior, (3) investigates the ways that interpersonal relationships are expressed and negotiated by both new and seasoned message board members, and (4) challenges the notion proposed in Chapter 2 that CMC is stereotyped as a setting that promotes hostile, uninhibited, and rude interaction.
This book begins with a reasonable justification for the study of behavior on message boards, in part by asserting that (im)politeness is not uniform across all mediated communication and that message boards have received little attention. The author provides a solid overview of early CMC/computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) research as it related to the social potential of computer communication, and provides clear examples that illustrate the various ways in which the medium may shape the message. The examination of thread beginnings as contextual ‘stage-setters’, for example, is certainly worthy of exploration since templates and message starters are among the features that set message boards apart from other modes of CMC. The author makes a valid point that, despite the recent rise in research on computer-mediated (im)politeness (especially from a post-modernist perspective), additional research is still justified.
The wealth of data is impressive and the author does a good job of dissecting the wide array of contextual elements in message boards that can influence interactional strategies. In addition, the proposal to include mock-impoliteness and banter as markers of appropriate behavior is a worthwhile addition to Watts and Locher’s framework for Relational Work, and it adds an important element to the message board analysis (as well as being extendable to other interactions).
There are several instances, however, where the relevance of specific information is unclear. The discussions, for example, of the distinction among the Internet versus the www and online fora versus message boards are not clearly linked to the stated goals of the book. If there were a discussion of how the technical structure of message boards versus online fora results in different interpretations of messages or employment of different communicative strategies, this discussion would make more sense; however, while these facts are interesting, it is not clear how they relate to the overall objectives of the book. In another case, the author states that one of her goals is to discredit early speculation that CMC/CMDA were unsuited for interpersonal interaction, but it is unclear why this argument needs to be made given the prominence and variety of social media in current society. The rationale for including this is therefore confusing and seems a bit dated. While these may seem like relatively minor concerns, similar cases of unclear relevance occur throughout the volume and have the potential to confuse the reader and detract from the strength of the project.
The structure of the book is also problematic at times. The bulk of the analysis comes in Chapters 7 and 8, with Chapter 8 weighing in at almost 100 pages. While the organization of these two analytical chapters is easy enough to follow, the sheer volume of the discussion is somewhat overpowering. Strikingly, even with this much data/discussion, there are still places where the analytical conclusions are uncertain because they are either (1) not clearly linked to the data or (2) are based on data that, perhaps for space reasons, have been omitted from the representative examples. Arendholz provides an in-depth discussion of all of the threads that represent some of the six categories, resulting in so much data that it is easy for the reader to get lost. The analysis would be stronger and more convincing if there were fewer but more complete examples that were explained in greater detail.
The book’s greatest contributions, in my opinion, are the richness of the data set (particularly with the discussion of the multi-faceted components of message boards as platforms for interaction) and the quantitative evidence regarding the frequency of appropriate behavior versus inappropriate behavior. Overall, despite the aforementioned concerns, this book provides some interesting insights that illuminate the ways that (in)appropriateness is conceived and enacted in an online message board, with reasonable theoretical foundations and lively empirical data.