I’M NOT ANGRY…: PERCEPTIONS OF PUNCTUATION MARKS IN ONLINE TEXT MESSAGE BY SERBIAN STUDENTS OF ENGLISH
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2025.17.3Keywords:
computer-mediated communication, online communication, online text message, punctuation, punctuation markAbstract
The aim of this study was to examine the differences in confidence or interest of an online interlocutor perceived by Serbian students of English based on the punctuation mark used in online text messages. A survey with different sets of exchanges in which the exclamation mark, the period, the ellipsis, and no punctuation mark were used was conducted. The task of the participants was to rate the confidence or satisfaction of the interlocutors on a 7-point Likert scale. The average values for each punctuation mark were measured and the statistical significance of the results was determined using a one-way ANOVA test. The results of the study revealed significant differences between the scores for each individual mark and stood closer to native speaker average scores than to L2 speaker scores.
Downloads
References
Androutsopoulos, J. and Busch, F. (2020). Digital punctuation as an interactional resource: the message-final period among German adolescents. Linguistics and Education, 62(3), 1-9.
Dean, B. (2021). Social Network Usage & Growth Statistics: How Many People Use Social Media in 2021? Retrieved from Backlinko: https://backlinko.com/social-media-users
Đukić Mirzajanc, M. (2018). Osobenosti komunikacije posredovane računarom u nastavi stranog jezika. Philologia Mediana, 10(10), 643-655.
Gunraj, D. et al. (2015). Texting insincerely: the role of the period in text messaging. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 1067-1075.
Heath, M. (2021). NO NEED TO YELL: A Prosodic Analysis of Writing in All Caps. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 27(1), 65-76.
Herring, S. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
Houghton, K. et al. (2017). Punctuation in text messages may convey abruptness. Period. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 112-121.
iPhoneFakeText.com (2017). Fake iPhone Text Messages.
Kalman, Y. and Gergle, D. (2014). Letter repetition in computer-mediated communication: A unique link between spoken and online language. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 187-193.
Kruger, J. et al. (2005). Egocentrism over e-mail: Can we communicate as well as we think? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(6), 925-936.
Noelle, D. et al. (2021). Understanding How Social Media Is Influencing the Way People Communicate: Verbally and Written. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 13(2), 1-11.
Pleij, B. (2019). Perceptions. Of... Punctuation! A study into the interpretation of punctuation by native and non-native speakers of English in WhatsApp. Master’s thesis, University of Leiden.
Reynolds, K. et al. (2017). Using punctuation as a marker of sincerity and affective convergence during texting. 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2986-2991.
Sidi, Y., Glikson, E. and Cheshin, A. (2021). Do You Get What I Mean?!? The Undesirable Outcomes of (Ab)Using Paralinguistic Cues in Computer-Mediated Communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-10.
Sullivan, R. S. (2019). Comparing the Interpretation of Text Message Punctuation by Native and Non-native English Speakers. Master’s thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Tagg, C. (2009). A corpus linguistic study of SMS text messaging. Doctoral dissertation, University of Birmingham.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Miloš Milisavljević
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors are confirming that they are the authors of the submitting article, which will be published (print and online) in Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies by the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade (Faculty of Philology, Studentski trg 3, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia). Author’s name will be evident in the printed article in the journal. All decisions regarding layout and distribution of the work are in hands of the publisher.
- Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
