As the Internet keeps its victorious march, gradually (or not so gradually) conquering the top position among communication media, instant messaging software has become widespread (the evident success of “Skype”, Google Talk, ICQ, MSN Messenger and other similar tools is only one proof) and is frequently used as a substitute for telephone to communicate with close friends, family members who are abroad and even on corporate level.
There may be various reasons for this apparent success, the most significant one being the cost-effectiveness of the method (however, depending on the communicative purposes and the social situations, in which the tools are used, other appealing features of instant messaging may come upon the stage: anonymity, absence of auditory and visual contact where such contact is unwelcome and some other aspects). The intriguing point here is that, although some language specialists consider chatting (hereinafter the word “chatting” will be used in the sense of computer-mediated chatting) to be closer to spoken rather than to written language
“Lai gan rakstiski pēc formas, šie varianti (e-pasta, mobilo telefonu īsziņu, čatu valoda) būtībā pakļaujas runas normām — tie ir spontāni, vienkāršoti, efemeri (vai čatus kāds jebkad izdrukā?), ne vien bez pareiza pieturzīmju lietojuma, bet bieži arī bez diakritiskajām zīmēm.”1
it is not as simple as may seem. The process of communication by means of instant messaging software, as many users recognize, is different from that carried out verbally during a face-to-face conversation with the same interlocutor (e.g. even when family members communicate by means of instant messaging software their conversation is reported to differ in tone (i.e. to be more playful, easy, flirtatious or vice versa) from usual face-to-face conversations); so is the image that one creates of oneself while communicating in that way (those who use instant messaging software regularly to communicate with people they are familiar with in real life frequently report that they distinguish between at least two different images of the respective person: the person in real life and the person they communicate with via instant messaging tools).
In other words, although chatting involves some features of spoken language, which will be discussed in a more detailed way further in the paper, it still retains certain characteristics of written language and also possesses features of its own.
Footnotes:
Veisbergs, A., “Kurp ej, latviešu valoda?”, “Kultūras Diena”, laikraksta “Diena” pielikums Nr.23 (58), 2006. gada 9. jūnijā, 16.-17. lpp.