Dialogue in and between Different Cultures - International ...

120 Gabriel Dorta
the actual interaction. Rather, !nickshicks!’s message represents an activity of
special treatment and therefore a salient communicative behaviour in the
following sense: the omission of this activity could not be seen as inappropriate or
impolite within the non-committal frame of chats; a simple ratification of
Zarte30’s request could have been expected and considered as characteristic of
the ritual order in chat communication. Her last contribution in the episode (l.954)
also evaluates !nickshicks!’s intention of continuing the interaction positively.
Through these activities of special treatment, the instability and noncommittal
character of their social relationships is partially cancelled. The polite
exchange between both participants has a certain influence on the further
communicative exchange, since they continue interacting in public for longer than
sixteen minutes. The polite character of their former contributions thus creates a
partial commitment and closeness in their relationships.
This type of salient communicative behaviour related with the activities of
special treatment can also be found in shorter episodes:
(4) Example 4 (recording 1_15.09.01 episode 4)
560 jan-eike:
561 anatra: diesen link hast du schon vier mal in den chat gestellt, irgend
eine wesentliche änderung? [20:37:22]
“anatra: you have already sent the link four times into the chat, any
essential changes?”
[...]
601 jan-eike:
602 anatra: was dagegen, wenn ich den text in den chat stelle? [20:38:11]
“anatra: anything against my placing it into the chat?”
[...]
693 Anatra:
694 jan eike lol danke aber der chat ist voll ich weiss nicht ob das jemand so
lesen kann [20:39:47]
“jan eike lol thank you but the chat is crowded I don’t know if anybody
will read it”
[...]
Without any contextual information, jan-eike’s first contribution (l.561) can be
seen as a criticism towards Anatra and as a negative evaluation of her behaviour
for having sent a link in the chat-room several times. Nevertheless, jan-eike asks
in the following message (l.602) for permission to publish the content of that link
in the chat-room. With this response, the chatter tries not to infringe Anatra’s own
territory of action and shows certain deference towards her. The publication of the
text, approximately one minute later, was the reason for the complaints described
in example 1. Meanwhile Anatra interacts in other constellations. In spite of that,
one and a half minutes later, she evaluates jan-eike’s communicative behaviour
positively by means of an activity of special treatment (“jan eike lol thank you”,
l.694). The omission of this response could have been interpreted as part of the