Written conversation on the internet: Pragmalinguistic characterisation.
SUMMARY in English
The analysis shows that there is “no clear-cut distinction between oral and written discourse” and “that the lack of extra-linguistic information in written conversation is not an insurmountable obstacle, because of the ways to transmit non-verbal information effectively by language users”. There is evident influence of orality on writing.

López Cuero prefers the term “written conversation” to “written virtual conversation”, as it has all the properties of communication that happens in the oral form. Three levels of content are considered in this research:
1) The suprastructural level (pragmatic and communicative aspects)
2) The macrostructural level (aspects of organization and paratextual elements)
3) The microstructural level (phonetic, grammatical and lexical elements)

CMC is characterized by the following aspects:
-Scarce non-verbal contextual information
-Weakly synchronous or asynchronous character
-Turn taking

Paratextual elements
The author embraces Koch and Oesterreicher’s (1985) idea of different modalities being part of a continuum, the extremities of which are “immediacy” and “communicative distance”. Therefore, the differentiation between the oral and the written does not constitute a dichotomy but rather a gradual differentiation. López Cuero situates the written conversation in between the two extreme poles of the continuum and calls it a hybrid. Paratextual elements of chats include turn taking, opening and closing remarks, nicknames, rules of etiquette, and hypertext (links).

Intratextual elements
There are different degrees of orality, depending on the electronic genre (chat, SMS, e-mail). To make up for the lack of extralinguistic information, different contextual and expressive resources are used. Some of them compensate for the auditory and some for the visual aspects of conversation. Creative spelling (doubling of letters, use of capital letters, etc) are, according to the author, substitution for voice. They are conversation strategies, intensifiers, and account for the lack of prosody in written language. However, his analysis is not limited to understanding of creative spelling as mere imitation of voice. Some “intensifiers”, such as “altooooooo” (Eng. “taaaaaaall”) are considered to be expressing a modification of grade, meaning that “taaaaaaall” could stand for “very tall”, which is a new interpretation of creative spelling. The doubling of letters that are inarticulable are meant to attract attention and add to the expressivity of communication.

Textual strategies employed are:
-situational deixis (here, there), which makes up for the lack of physical context,
-emoticons, which make up for the lack of gestures and add theatricality to the conversation,
-diminutives, the use of which is an illocutionary act. Their use is even more abundant when the context has to do with something sexual, affective, or ironic;
-principle of comfort (“principio de comodidad”) – morphemes replaced with numbers, single letters, etc.

The research shows that there is no sharp opposition between the written and the spoken discourse. The author predicts that in the future there are going to be more manifestations of orality in the written language. According to him, Internet is changing the way we communicate and how we use language.

Written conversation on the internet: Pragmalinguistic characterisation.
SUMMARY in English
The analysis shows that there is “no clear-cut distinction between oral and written discourse” and “that the lack of extra-linguistic information in written conversation is not an insurmountable obstacle, because of the ways to transmit non-verbal information effectively by language users”. There is evident influence of orality on writing.

López Cuero prefers the term “written conversation” to “written virtual conversation”, as it has all the properties of communication that happens in the oral form. Three levels of content are considered in this research:
1) The suprastructural level (pragmatic and communicative aspects)
2) The macrostructural level (aspects of organization and paratextual elements)
3) The microstructural level (phonetic, grammatical and lexical elements)

CMC is characterized by the following aspects:
-Scarce non-verbal contextual information
-Weakly synchronous or asynchronous character
-Turn taking

Paratextual elements
The author embraces Koch and Oesterreicher’s (1985) idea of different modalities being part of a continuum, the extremities of which are “immediacy” and “communicative distance”. Therefore, the differentiation between the oral and the written does not constitute a dichotomy but rather a gradual differentiation. López Cuero situates the written conversation in between the two extreme poles of the continuum and calls it a hybrid. Paratextual elements of chats include turn taking, opening and closing remarks, nicknames, rules of etiquette, and hypertext (links).

Intratextual elements
There are different degrees of orality, depending on the electronic genre (chat, SMS, e-mail). To make up for the lack of extralinguistic information, different contextual and expressive resources are used. Some of them compensate for the auditory and some for the visual aspects of conversation. Creative spelling (doubling of letters, use of capital letters, etc) are, according to the author, substitution for voice. They are conversation strategies, intensifiers, and account for the lack of prosody in written language. However, his analysis is not limited to understanding of creative spelling as mere imitation of voice. Some “intensifiers”, such as “altooooooo” (Eng. “taaaaaaall”) are considered to be expressing a modification of grade, meaning that “taaaaaaall” could stand for “very tall”, which is a new interpretation of creative spelling. The doubling of letters that are inarticulable are meant to attract attention and add to the expressivity of communication.

Textual strategies employed are:
-situational deixis (here, there), which makes up for the lack of physical context,
-emoticons, which make up for the lack of gestures and add theatricality to the conversation,
-diminutives, the use of which is an illocutionary act. Their use is even more abundant when the context has to do with something sexual, affective, or ironic;
-principle of comfort (“principio de comodidad”) – morphemes replaced with numbers, single letters, etc.

The research shows that there is no sharp opposition between the written and the spoken discourse. The author predicts that in the future there are going to be more manifestations of orality in the written language. According to him, Internet is changing the way we communicate and how we use language.