Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 50
Posts 21 - 30

Jetzt kommt die Sticker-Schwemme

(Now comes the sticker flood)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 15.11.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | abbreviations, emojis, marketing, texting
Summary | People use emojis to express non-verbal emotions in their text messages. Stickers are more elaborate emojis - larger and there is more of a selection. One can even buy thematic sticker sets. This has become a very profitable industry in Japan.
Image Description | A series of images of that represent the commodification of emojis; also Facebook stickers and Kaomojis (Shruggie with punctuation marks).
Image Tags | emojis

«What’s Up, Switzerland? »: Spenden Sie Nachrichten für die Forschung

(“What’s Up, Switzerland?”: Donate messages for research)

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Newspaper | Aargauer Zeitung
Date | 1.6.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | research/study, texting, What's up Switzerland, WhatsApp
Summary | Language researchers from various Swiss universities (Neuchâtel/ Zürich/ Bern) are asking the public to submit their WhatsApp messages for research purposes. German, French, Italian, and Romansh submissions will be accepted and the WhatsApp data will be compared to SMS data collected between 2009-2011. The researchers are further interested in whether there are communicative differences in WhatsApp messaging between speakers of different languages or regional dialects.
Image Description | Screenshot of three icons: WhatsApp, Skype, and Dropbox.
Image Tags | Dropbox, logo, Skype, WhatsApp

Hilfe @ mein Gott

(Help @ my God)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 27.7.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | email, texting, youth
Summary | More and more people are leaving their church. Both the protestant and Catholic clergy have come together and built an online platform for people to receive spiritual guidance via e-mail or text-message. The service has been quite popular since 2012 when its increased traffic due to the ending of the Maya calendar received a lot of media attention, particularly amongst people aged 14 to 30.
Image Description | N/A

Per SMS-Alarm ans Obligatorische

(Text message alarm to remind of compulsory (shooting practice))

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Newspaper | Tagblatt (Thurgau)
Date | 21.5.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | texting
Summary | Frauenfeld’s shooting club president, Damian Schlatter, has launched a text message alarm service to remind military recruits of their obligatory shooting practice. Because fines for missed shooting practices are very high, this text message alarm is very popular. This is also a good way to better the shooting club’s image as being for old people only and transporting it into the 21st century.
Image Description | Photograph in black and white of Damian Schlatter.
Image Tags | male(s)

Das eigene Verhalten überdenken

(Reflect one’s own behavior)

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Newspaper | St. Galler Tagblatt
Date | 17.2.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | school, technology-free, texting, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | A Sunday school teacher reports that more and more younger people give up part of their multi-media consumption for lent instead of food. Many will for instance give up their use of WhatsApp, text messaging, or video games rather than food. This shows that youths think very critically about their consumption habits.
Image Description | N/A

Das Ende der Telefonbuchse naht

(The end of the telephone socket is approaching)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 7.2.2014
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | texting, WhatsApp
Summary | Swisscom is changing the technology behind landline phone calls to the new VoIP (Voice over IP/Internet) technique, and because Swisscom has lost a lot of business to internet based instant messaging app WhatsApp, they are launching a messaging service called iO, which enables Swisscom clients to text other Swisscom clients for free and unlimited.
Image Description | Photograph in black and white of a woman using a rotary dial phone.
Image Tags | female(s)

Studenten können nicht mehr richtig schreiben

(Students cannot write properly anymore)

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Newspaper | 20 Minuten
Date | 21.1.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | language threat, school, spelling, texting, youth
Summary | Students' writing skills are poorer than in previous years. It may be due to the fact that elementary schools no longer correct every spelling mistake in first and second grade but rather value content over form. Another reason that can explain students' lower writing skills is new media use. Most of young people's writing and reading is done through new media nowadays, and informal writing is prevalent in those digital spheres. The increasing informalization of language on social media is seen as a threat to our language.
Image Description | Photograph taken from behind of an elementary classroom with children.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), school

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

Les jeunes parlent romand

(Young people speak Romand (Swiss French))

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 18.5.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, research/study, texting, What's up Switzerland, WhatsApp
Summary | Interview with Federica Diémoz at the University of Neuchâtel. She talks about a study related to the different expressions used in the Swiss French part of Switzerland. People also use their local expressions in text messages. The "What's up Switzerland" project is going to analyze WhatsApp messages. From what researchers have observed so far, people sometimes use regional expressions and don't always write the same way. They also add emoticons and images that replace words.
Image Description | Photograph of the interviewee, Federica Diémoz.
Image Tags | female(s)

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