Fragments and Free Chat – The Death of the Sentence
The sentence is one of the most basic concepts in English grammar. It is one of the staple building blocks of language, both written and spoken. However, in one arena of communication, the sentence is very little used and, oftentimes when used it is misused. In an internet chat room writing is a unique subset of language usage, often a complex hybrid of: text vernacular (hru = how are you), conversational speech (good, you = “I am good. How are you?”), exclamations, sentence fragments, and the occasional properly written English sentence. Rarely are properly constructed sentences seen in the studied internet chat room.
Is the sentence dying in the chat room? Before declaring it dead, the sentence needs to be understood. Just what is a sentence? This is more of a conundrum than many belief. Mary H. Clark notes that students of English in all levels struggle with exactly what a sentence is (133). The students’ consternation is easily explained when a sentence can be as simple as a few words or as complex as a full page of text. Defined as:
A word or group of words based on one or more subject-predicate, or clause, patterns, The written sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with terminal punctuation – a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point (Kolln, 269).
The sentence is an essential part of the structure of English language. It is a building block of and how we communicate, especially in the written form.
Over the period of six weeks (October 6, 2015 through November 7, 2015) a survey of proper sentence use was conducted of an open internet chat room (www.community.oranum.com). The survey tracked how often in a one-hour period visitors to the chat room used a complete sentence beyond simple greetings. To qualify the sentence had to conform to Kolln’s definition and consist of at least five or more words and not be a question or imperative. In order to keep the sample manageable, the survey was conducted over a one-hour period daily. The compilation tally sheet is attached as Appendix A.
To create a comparison sentence fragments were counted for a period of three days, indicating that the sentence fragments occur on an average ratio of 35.6:1 to complete sentences. The Purdue Owl describes a sentence fragment in detail:
Fragments are incomplete sentences. Usually, fragments are pieces of sentences that have become disconnected from the main clause. One of the easiest ways to correct them is to remove the period between the fragment and the main clause. Other kinds of punctuation may be needed for the newly combined sentence (Purdue OWL: Sentence Fragments).
When individuals joined into an actual conversation the utilization of complete sentences went up dramatically. On all six occasions that the number of sentences in an hour exceeded fifteen, the posters were engaging in a conversation on a specific subject. In two of those conversations, the posters even included full punctuation, normally not a chat room standard. There were an average of nine and one-third complete sentence postings per hour over the course of the survey. The highest number, twenty-two sentences, was during a conversation late night on 23 October with member imyoyo regarding her boyfriend’s military training.
The numbers alone could argue that the sentence is losing its position as a stanchion of the English language. In the chat room communication format, complex, and with a lingo nearly all its own, there was a wide variance in the individuals and their language capacity. These factors range from the level of language maturity (an individual’s command and familiarity with the English language), to education, socio-economic background, country of origin and widely divergent cultural influences. As visitors are accepted in the chat room without any pre-screening, there is no way to control these factors. It is noted that these factors are sometimes difficult to discern just from the internet writing of the individual. For example, Client X. In FREE CHAT she is a heavy “text speak” user. She uses very little punctuation, words are shortened, very rarely does she include vowels. A typical posting from Client X in the chat room is: gm hru wu (meaning “Good morning. How are you? What’s up?”) Yet, when she sends in an e-mail request, her explanation is in proper English. Rather than the colloquial greeting given in the chat room, she will say: “I hope you are having a good day today.”
In the informal chat room situation people tend to be more relaxed in their communications. Very rarely are punctuation marks used, capitalization is rare and normally for affect rather than grammar, spelling is optional, and visitors tend to be more relaxed in their word usage as well. In the open chat room, visitors will commit an entire litany of grammar crimes. These crimes create a homogenized language of its own combining both texting short hand indicators such as LOL, ROFLMAO, x 100, etc., and bulleted target statements. Most of the posts in the chat room are sentence fragments, many of them simply one or two words (i.e. “fine, you?”).
While there may seem to be a natural connection between the vernacular an individual uses for their free chat “voice” and their education level; that does not appear to play out. An individual who is just learning English from, say, a Mandarin Chinese background does not necessarily communicate in any more or less formal way than a server from Brooklyn. Nor does the chemist with a doctorate degree from Duke necessarily speak with a formal “voice” in the chat room. What the research shows to be more a determiner of full sentences is the depth of the communication at the time of the party as opposed to the education level. Additionally, the important of the subject to the individual posting seems to be a factor in the use of complete sentences.
Somewhat difficult to conceptualize and define, the simple subject/predicate; complete thought sentence is not much utilized in chat room vernacular. However, when it is, it is often to emphasize the feeling of the poster, or may be indicative of the importance of the subject to the individual posting. For now, it seems that the sentence will continue to hold a place of importance and uphold its place in the importance of grammar in internet chat, especially as a way to add additional emphasis to the individual’s posting.
Works Cited
Clark, Mary. The Structure of English for Readers, Writers, and Teachers. Glenn Allen: College Publishing. 2003.
Kolln, Martha J., and Loretta S. Gray. Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. 7th ed. United States: Pearson, 12 Sep. 2012.
Purdue OWL: Sentence fragments. 21 Feb. 2013. 7 Nov. 2015.
APPENDIX A
RESEARCH COMPILATION SHEET
Number of Full Sentences Used in 1 hour in Free Chat (has to conform to Kolln’s definition and consist of at least five or more words)
October
6 1 – We saw an eagle on our drive today.
FRAGS 282+
7 0
FRAGS 149+
8 17 (discussion with Gevalia re: her PhD program)
FRAGS 228
9 4
10 1 – Stephan has been silent since last Friday.
11 3
12 9
13 7
14 6
15 2 – It must be an amazing thing to have your gifts.
16 9
17 12
18 10
19 13
20 1 – David broke up with me last night and I do not know what to do.
21 15
22 12
23 22 (Discussion with imyoyo re: military training)
24 6
25 8
26 14
27 21 (Discussion with TheArcher09 re: why “God” lets bad things happen)
28 16 (Discussion with mebucko re: job hunting)
29 9
30 8
31 4
November
1 17 (Discussion with amylee12 re: job hunting)
2 15
3 3
4 0
5 21 (Discussion with Desirae12 re: Disney Academy)
6 14
7 8
Total number of sentences: 308
Total number of hours surveyed: 33