Adaptation of fictional and online conversations to communication media

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different communication media influence conversational styles, showing that utterance length adapts over time to medium constraints, affecting language evolution.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that communication media shape conversational features and influence language adaptation over time.

Findings

Utterance length is gradually shortening over time.

Conversations adapt to medium constraints.

Communication media impact natural language evolution.

Abstract

Conversations allow the quick transfer of short bits of information and it is reasonable to expect that changes in communication medium affect how we converse. Using conversations in works of fiction and in an online social networking platform, we show that the utterance length of conversations is slowly shortening with time but adapts more strongly to the constraints of the communication medium. This indicates that the introduction of any new medium of communication can affect the way natural language evolves.