Discourse routines in answering machine communication in Australia

Abstract

Recent studies have indicated that variation between the conversational routines found in everyday conversation and technologically mediated conversation can be explained systematically by the constraints imposed by the nature of the medium. Answering machine talk represents a form of mediated conversation in which messages are recorded to facilitate communication between participants. The talk which occurs in such messages draws upon the pool of available resources for telephone‐based communication, but modifies these resources as the result of constraints imposed by the communicative environment.