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Online discussion forums offer open asynchronous communication that is accessible to everyone and since their users normally do not know each other but nonetheless manage to create a close-knit community, the choice of language use is comparable to oral communication. They also apply their own rules for language use and their language differs from oral or writen language used in real world. Threrfore such discussions are interesting for observing how its users apply politness strategies and how much they take others into consideration since they do not actualy know each other.

From the book

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The book by Urška Knehtl explores this important topic by focusing on the ways in which we express politness to relative strangers. Her research presented in this book examines the nature of politness in online conversations by posing several important questions about the nature of informal language use in absence of face-to-face communication: what are the new rules of online communication, how can we exchange ideas freely and honestly while being conscious of our interlocutors' sensibilities, what rules of politness do we follow when we do not have to show our real identity, how important are cultural influences on conversation strategies typical of different linguistic communities reflected in the internet environment?

doc.dr.Katja Plemenitaš

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The research the author has undertaken is extremely valuable both practically and theoretically: her findings have both identified avenues of further research and can most certainly be used to develop awareness of online cross-cultural communication skills, something which all members of the online global community must possess.

lekt. Kirsten Margaret Hempkin

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URŠKA KNEHTL has a Master's degree in German as a Foreign Language, Teaching English and International Business. She was born in 1992 in Maribor, Slovenia, where she attended Bojan Ilich Elementary School and Prva gimnazija Maribor Secondary School. She was always interested in the unknown, that is, why she enjoys traveling, discovering the world, different cultures and learning foreign languages. Because of that she decided to study English and German at University of Maribor. She was never really focused in only one direction and was always interested in various fields, therefore she decided to study International Buisness. She spend part of her studies in Jena, Germany and Graz, Austria. Her greatest interest is sociolinguistics, since she enjoys connecting the use of language with society and culture.



Kulturni center Maribor, Zbirka Znanstvena monografija 020, število strani 141, leto izida 2021