On-line friendships

The purpose of the study was to investigate the prevalence and quality of on-line friendships, to find which individual characteristics differentiate people who look for and form on-line friendship(s) from those who don't, and to discover factors which are of importance for the development of on-line friendship(s). 574 Internet users completed an on-line questionnaire. The results showed that: (1) almost 50% of respondents had on-line friendship(s); (2) off-line friendships were better developed than on-line friendships. However, there was only a minor difference between the quality of the best off-line and best on-line friendships; (3) the Internet was a safe place for building personal relationships, especially for shy individuals; (4) people who felt lonely were more likely to turn to the Internet to find friends; (5) Internet usage and attitudes to the Internet were significant factors that differentiated those who looked for and formed friendship(s) on-line from those who didn't.PsychologyM.A. (Psychology

Features of English in CMC and their implications for language learning

The similarities and differences between written and spoken forms of language have\ud been a focus of interest of many scholars. There is agreement that instead of being a\ud dichotomy or one single continuum, the differences between spoken and written forms\ud can be measured along several dimensions. The coming into existence of computermediated\ud communication (CMC) has made the line of distinction even less obvious. It is\ud technically a writing (key-pressing) behaviour but may be used to carry out spontaneous\ud communication.\ud This study is intended to investigate the special linguistic features of CMC versus\ud non-CMC texts. The study adopts a corpus linguistic approach to analyse a host of 67\ud linguistic features in synchronous and asynchronous CMC genres and finds interesting\ud differences in the use of these features when used in different temporalities of CMC\ud contexts. A comparison of these features in CMC genres with those in non-CMC texts\ud also reveals some special characteristics of language developed through the use of CMC.\ud The study suggests that, within the general development of CMC, there are\ud emerging genres reflecting particular contexts. As CMC may soon become a major\ud means of communication, and corpus linguistics is an innovative linguistic approach,\ud awareness of CMC is likely to be of increasing importance for language learning. Some\ud pedagogical suggestions are proposed from the experience and findings that have been\ud gained