Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 3
Posts 1 - 3

The rise and rise of international diplomacy by WhatsApp

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 4.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | politics, privacy, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | WhatsApp diplomacy is a thing: when leaders gather to talk in the same room, they can exchange emojis and other documents to other people without the whole room knowing. WhatsApp is more secure than other government information systems and has been used at the UN and EU headquarters.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of diplomats looking at their phone, screenshot of a WhatsApp chat, photograph of a man holding a phone and a woman standing next to him (both are looking at the phone)
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, text, WhatsApp

Der Punkt stirbt aus – wegen Messengern

(The period is dying out – because of messenger)

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Newspaper | 20 Minuten
Date | 12.6.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, texting
Summary | Most people do not put a period at the end of their messages. It is pretty self-evident where sentences end in text messages, argues linguist David Crystal. When a user does add a period at the end of a message, it is a way to give the message more weight, to convey irony or discontent. An opposing trend can also be observed, namely over-punctualization by adding several exclamation or question marks. Teachers are being advised to be very cautious when correcting their students in cases like these.
Image Description | Series of two photographs: WhatsApp conversation and picture of Linguist David Crystal.
Image Tags | male(s), WhatsApp

Wir wollen zeigen, dass wir gut Englisch können

(We want to show that we are good at English)

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Newspaper | 20 Minuten
Date | 29.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | anglicisms, code-switching, emojis, texting, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Young people increasingly communicate in English with each other (especially digitally). This has become a way to imitate their idols, who are largely English-speakers, and to exclude adults from their communicative code. Linguists are delighted by young people's creativity; they use different languages and emojis available to them even though their competence may not be perfect.
Image Description | Series of four screenshots of WhatsAspp conversations showing English/Swiss-German code-switching.
Image Tags | WhatsApp

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