Hi, Nancy wrote:

Susan Herring has a piece on discourse analysis of online interaction in the Handbook of Discourse Analysis (edited I think by Debra Schifrin, which I have just mis-spelled) that is a must-read overview. There's probably other good sociolinguistics overviews that aren't about online interaction in there too.

<snip>

Lynn Cherny's book _Conversation and Community_

and, immodestly, my own book _Tune In, Log On_, is not without relevance. Both Lynn and I rely on the concept of "speech community" and its associated methodologies. Lynn's is more explicitly 'linguistics.'

For some non-internet deep background on sociolinguistics, Dell Hymes and John Gumperz have one classic anthology, and Richard Baumann and Joel Sherzer co-edited the other. Their titles escape me.

and Ulla wrote:

The correct cite is (I know because I just read it myself):

Herring, S. C. (2001). Computer-mediated discourse. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, & H. E. Hamilton (Eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 612-634). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Thanks to both of you, and to the people who replied directly. This looks like exactly what I need. Debbie -- -- Urban Theology Unit, Sheffield http://cybertheology.org.uk Views expressed in this email are my own and are not necessarily those of the University of Sheffield or UTU.