The Putative Email Style and Its Explanations: Evidence From Two Effect Studies of Dutch Direct Mail Letters and Direct Marketing Emails

Many emails display stylistic features of casual talk more than of formal writing. Two main explanations have been put forward for this phenomenon: It could either be the result of a hybrid of speaking and writing (the hybrid hypothesis), or the consequence of carelessness regarding the norms for the written language (the normative filter hypothesis). This study addresses the question of to what extent these explanations are plausible from the receiver’s perspective. Two experiments were conducted with a 2x2-design: messages presented in both classical letter format on paper and email format o... Mehr ...