Emerging Email Etiquette (EEE)
2010-2012
Emerging Email Etiquette was an empirical research project that aimed at identifying existing or emerging norms in email communication. We wanted to find out what communicative goals senders try to accomplish when writing emails - and how they do it, i.e. which linguistic strategies they employ.
The project focused on email communication in academia. The EEE corpus consists of emails sent to Professor Schneider since 2005 as well as emails by Australian students (N=100) which were generously provided by Dr Michael Haugh, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. The mails were classified according to their pragmalinguistic function, e.g. speech acts such as request or apology, and coded for structural features. Based on this naturally occurring data, we examined if linguistic patterns emerge when students apologize for missed classes, request extension for deadlines or provide information to their professors.
Furthermore, we employed methods such as JWTs (joint writing protocols) and TAPs (think-aloud protocols) to capture the intentions of email senders when writing emails.
Additionally, we conducted a large-scale perception study to find out how email receivers perceive emails when reading them. Informants were asked to rate the appropriateness of a selection of emails in relation to the receiver (a university lecturer) and to comment specifically on why they rated an email as more / less appropriate. We used this cognitive and perceptual data from informants in correlation with linguistic patterns to gain a better understanding of the parameters of (un)successful email communication.
PROJECT TEAM
Project director
Professor Dr. Klaus P. Schneider
Graduate assistants
Gregor Geiermann, M.A.
Pawel Sickinger, Dipl. Trans.
Susanne Strubel-Burgdorf, M.A.
Student assistants
Elisabeth Hampel
Maria Magee
Friederike Sell
Katharina Weber
Geiermann, G., Sell, F. & Weber, K. (2012). “How to greet a professor?” Identifying emerging email etiquette in professor - student communication. In S. Kersten, C. Ludwig, D. Meer & B. Rüschoff (Eds.), Language Learning and Language Use: Applied Linguistics Approaches (pp. 187–197). Duisburg: Universitätsverlag Rhein-Ruhr.
Schneider, K. P. (2013). Emerging e-mail etiquette: Lay perceptions of appropriateness in electronic discourse. In K. Röder & I. Wischer (Eds.), Anglistentag 2012 Potsdam: Proceedings (pp. 329–340). Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.
Geiermann, Gregor & Weber, Katharina: Forschungsprojekte bei BAEL: Methoden der empirischen Pragmatik, Teil 2: Emerging Email Etiquette (EEE). Dies Academicus, University of Bonn, 8 December 2010.
Geiermann, Gregor, Sell, Friederike & Weber, Katharina: “‘How to greet a professor?’ Identifying emerging email etiquette in professor-student communication.” Junior Research Meeting for Applied Linguistics, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen campus. 23–25 March 2011.
Weber, Katharina & Sickinger, Pawel: „Lieber Herr Professor“ oder doch besser „Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Dr.“? Einblicke in die Wahrnehmung studentischer E-Mails im akademischen Umfeld. Dies Academicus, University of Bonn, 7 December 2011.
Schneider, Klaus P.: “Emerging e-mail etiquette: Lay perceptions of appropriateness in electronic interaction.” Invited paper presented in the section "Electronic discourse", convened by Markus Bieswanger and Andrea Sand at the Anglistentag 2012, University of Potsdam, 19–21 September 2012.
Schneider, Klaus P.: “Studying e-mail communication: A multi-method approach.” Guest lecture, Bielefeld University, 14 November 2012.