I keep in touch with a friend Scott at the University of Michigan over AIM routinely. We’re both pretty knowledgeable about computers in general, so we tend to talk about computer science related stuff a lot. This weekend, one such conversation began with:
Scott: dude if you search for comics on delicious.com i2ft is #1 result
Scott: yessss
Will: lol
This exchange relied on existing common ground we had developed from past conversations. Even though I had never actually seen the abbreviation “i2ft” before, I could infer from the context that Scott was referring to the web site he built for rating webcomics, www.isitfunnytoday.com. He also assumes that I realize that delicious.com is a popular social bookmarking site, which makes his statement quite impressive. My acknowledgment at the end of this exchange indicates that we do indeed share the required grounding in order for me to comprehend the significance of his message.
Later in the conversation we started talking about a new project he has decided to work on.
Scott: so did i tell you about getting roped into [zack’s] crazy idea
Will: which is?
Scott: to sell ads to display on the wallpapers of college computer lab
Will: lol
This time around, I hadn’t previously heard of the project. Therefore, Scott fills me in on it after confirming that we didn’t already share the common ground necessary for understanding (first two utterances). After explaining it, we were able to proceed with the conversation. He went on to discuss some technical issues that arose as he was thinking about how to design the software, and I was able to provide some helpful input.
Incidentally, the above conversation snippet demonstrates the idea of embedded contributions that are discussed in Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition by Resnick, Levine, and Teasley. The outer contribution consists of the presentation phase:
Scott: so did i tell you about getting roped into [zack’s] crazy idea
and the acceptance phase:
Will: which is?
Scott: to sell ads to display on the wallpapers of college computer lab
Will: lol
But my “which is?” utterance is in turn the presentation phase of an embedded contribution. The acceptance phase of this inner contribution consists of the last two lines, where I finally acknowledge my full understanding of his initial contribution.
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The fact you understood the abbreviation i2ft without ever having seen it is interesting to me. This is because, in this situation where common ground already existed, it seems that it thus easier to build new and better representations of this common ground ( or more efficient or entertaining , etc. )
ReplyDeleteThis might prove especially useful in the context of viral internet phenomena. Could it be possible that abbreviations become popular more quickly than full titles?
I liked that you cited one of the readings and talked about the acceptance phase. Seeing how people use these concepts in everyday conversation is pretty interesting and I have never really thought about it before. And I agree with Alan, it crazy that you picked up on that abbreviation, I was clueless after reading it until you explained it.
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