Short Messaging Service

The boom of telephone-mediated communication (TMC) marked decisively the 20 th century. Interpersonal communication has experienced an unprecedented evolution, if not a mutation, through telephony. The notion of computer-mediated communication emerged at the beginning of the 1980s in the academic world to qualify the new forms of communication, a part of which is TMC. This environment viewed the computer as a simple vehicle or " medium " and did not distinguish the different types of CMC 3. Since then, it has become rather absurd to omit the singularity of each of these types and to ignore the influence of the medium on the nature of communication itself (Ko 1996; Panckhurst 1999). The studies tend to converge in one conclusion: the continuous evolution of information processing entails changes in the genres of speech and writing. By providing a communication tool in every household, TMC enabled long distance communication between individuals. It subsequently evolved into a mobile tool: while the pre-existing mediated distant exchange typical of telephony was kept intact, the reachability of individuals increased. TMC was restricted to oral communication until it offered a new written service in the form of text messaging. From that moment on, the mediated distant exchange became asynchronous. This chapter exposes the features of two main telephone functions: (mobile) calls and texting. We will first highlight the properties of phone conversations from a linguistic point of view, taking into account the evolution of the object " telephone ". This article also considers the main questions of research and studies carried out on phone conversations. We will then present the short message service (SMS) as one form of CMC, detailing its special characteristics. We will then look into the question of orality and scripturality which remains a highly controversial issue, mainly regarding CMC. We will propose to overcome the traditional dichotomy by applying the models of Koch and Oesterreicher (2001) and Herring (2001). Finally, we will present the results of our own research and the perspectives in this field.