Assignment 4 Rachel Schoenau

A CONVERSATION DEPENDANT ON GROUNDING
Me: Hiii, how did rush turn out??
Nicole: Ehh it was so stressful, exhausting but pretty worth it. I like a lot of our new pledges, they’re awesome.
Me: That’s amazing. Do you have your little yet?
Nicole: Nooo. We dont do that for like another month. I’m kinda pissed tho, my favorite pledge went to alpha phi because they trash talked our house so much and made her believe we are all very into drugs.
Me: Ugh, that sucks. Our house had a no badmouthing policy and I’m sure you guys did too. Its much classier. But we still had a lot of girls from the lax team who chose kappa over us because there is only one dg on the lax team and like 5 kappas and they trash talked our house.
Me: And their captain told them that dg was the biggest party house, which is completely false. And the freshman laxers ended up joining kappa instead of dg.
Nicole: oghhhh Really?? That should be illegal. A captain must have so much influence on their decision.
Me: Yea I know. And the irony is that kappa goes out much more than we do. And theyre sloppy too.
Nicole: Haha heyyy woow watch it that’s my house.
Me: Yeah but you know they are so different here than they are at cuse.
Me: Anyway, im glad it went well!
Nicole: Yea me too. Im so sorry I missed your sister’s bat tho! I am still upset about it.
Me: Its okay you were there in spirit, especially when your fam got the candle. Your mom was crying and your brother looked adorable. Our friends kept acknowledging how weird it was that you weren’t there. So sad.
Nicole: Aw I know Im sorry! I gotta run I miss you im gonna get in the shower

According to Clark and Brennan, grounding is essential for communication. They mention a few constraints that can affect grounding and the costs of grounding which can cause an alternative grounding technique. In my IM conversation with my best friend from high school, we relied a lot on a shared, common ground in our references. Because we grew up within ten minutes of each other, go to large universities in upstate New York, talk at least once every two weeks, and have been best friends since second grade, we understand each other quite well. When we were inseparable as friends in 8th grade we used to finish each others sentences. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that we communicate very easily via CMC these days.

Part of the reason our communication happened with such ease was that we had very little constraints on our grounding. In our conversation via IM, we did not have constraints on four of the eight aspects that Clark and Brennan mention. We had cotemporality, with which our utterances were received immediately. This influenced our grounding in a positive way because Nicole was able to reassure me that she understood my message immediately, by continuing the conversation with something related. We also had simultaneity, with which Nicole and I could both send or receive utterances, which positively influenced our grounding because Nicole and I could express ideas at the same time without having to wait and possibly forget them. In addition, our IM conversation had no constraint on reviewability, which positively influenced our grounding because Nicole or I could look at a previous utterance documented above if we had trouble reading it the first time. Finally revisability aided in our grouding as well; Nicole or I could edit our utterances for any mistakes before sending them to ensure understanding.

Similarly, there were very few costs associated with this IM conversation; small formulation costs, as it is easier to have long utterances face-to-face. This influenced our grounding negatively because I remember having a lot to tell Nicole about my sister’s bat-mitzvah, but I did not say it because it would take too long to formulate, or type, my ideas. Because formulation was more difficult via typing, Nicole and I abbreviated words, which reduced the cost of formulation at the expense of mutual understanding. There also was a cost of delay, which negatively influenced our grounding as well because when Nicole did not respond I thought she may have misunderstood or been confused, when really she was just busy with something else. There was very little or no cost associated with production of our messages, start-up, speaker change, display, understanding and reception.

Because Nicole and I know each other quite well, we had very few media constraints on grounding, and we had very little costs associated with the conversation, our conversation developed quickly and relied on a lot of existing common ground. For example, there were many abbreviated words in our conversation, for which we knew their real meaning; lax meant lacrosse, bat meant bat mitzvah, and fam meant family. On the contrary, there was not grounding in regards to events that occurred at our different regions. This is because we are unaware about what goes on outside our region and need to be informed in clear terms. For example, there was no grounding when Nicole explained the outcome of her sororities rush or when I discussed my sister’s bat mitzvah. Thus there was more communication and more words to describe those events.