The process of standardising reduced forms in English, such as clippings and informal forms, used in academic chat discourse is the focus of this article. Textchat data from an introductory MA linguistics course run by a university in Sweden involving non-native English-speaking students and their native English-speaking teachers is analysed to identify if any forms are standardised. Topic-specific forms are seen to be standardised as much as are high frequency forms, although few have been standardised. It is the students above (...) all who lead the process, and the teachers do not have much influence even if they use a different reduction. (shrink)

Data from academic seminars conducted through Skype textchat is analysed in this chapter, and the focus is on examples of how users mark community membership. Membership is marked explicitly by using pronominals and the metonymic use of the seminar group name. It is also marked implicitly by using reduced forms, which are stereotypical examples of a textchat speech style. I argue that these are markers of stance-taking, where community membership is recovered pragmatically as a weak implicature. Dis-alignment with the community (...) is also seen, as individuals can also implicate their independence as setters of linguistic norms. (shrink)