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Russian - Armenian ( Slavonic ) University

Institute of Humanities

Department of Theory of Language and Cross-

Cultural Communication

Term paper

Title: The language of the Internet

Student: Siranush Hovsepyan

Supervisor: Nune Tovmasyan

Yerevan 2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3

The impact of the Internet on the language ........................................................................ 4

Different Approaches

Analysis .................................................................................................................................. 6

E-mail language

Social network Language

Acronyms ............................................................................................................................. 22

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 24

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 26

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Introduction

The he Internet has caused many changes in the language. The changes mainly have

lexical, grammatical and graphic character.

The present graduation paper is devoted to the analysis of the main features of the language

of the Internet.

The objective of this research is to point out the main differences between the

language used in Web and in everyday life in written form.

We have applied descriptive, comparative and structural methods in the term paper while

analyzing our examples taken from different social networks and personal e-mail boxes of

certain volunteers.

The topic of the research is of great importance nowadays due to the increasing role

of the Internet as a means of communication. As far as the Internet is spread all over the

world and every single inhabitant of the Earth is able to add something new to the language

the control over the standard and rules of the language is becoming weaker.

Our graduation paper consists of 3 parts.

In the first chapter we speak about the Internet and its impact on the language. We

highlighted the two main approaches to the problem of the Web language.

In the second chapter we talk about e-mail and social network languages and find out

their main features. We analyze several examples from grammatical, lexical and graphic

point of view. In this way we show the differences of the language of the Internet from the

one used in our everyday life.

In the third chapter we list the most common acronyms that are used in the social

networks and have even penetrated into our spoken language.

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Chapter 1

The impact of the Internet on the language

Different Approaches

Whenever new technology comes along people always get worried about it, as far as

language is concerned. It’s not just with the Internet. When telephones arrived in the 19th

century, people panicked because they thought it was going to destroy language. Then

broadcasting comes along in the 1920s and people panicked because they think everybody’s

going to be brainwashed. The same happened with the Internet. People panicked because

they thought the Internet was going to do devastating things to language.

One of the approaches to the problem of the Internet language is the approach of

«the traditionalist». Language has a meaning and purpose that goes far beyond the

importance of its syntactic structure, there has to be a level of compromise at a certain

point. Language – and particularly grammar as defined by accepted parameters – it is not

infinitely pliable. Syntax cannot be twisted beyond recognition to suit the needs of the

communicator, as this defeats the crucial notion that language is an expression of ideas; of

emotions; of opinions. If these elements are conveyed in a manner that is not going to be

understood by the reader/listener, then they will inevitably be lost in translation –

underlining the need for some semblance of grammatical understanding between both

parties. The accuracy of this grammatical agreement need not be high, merely high enough

to be understood fully by both. The changes in grammer lead to misunderstanding,

misspelling, misreading, mispronouncing and eventually destroy the system of the

language.

In each particular case, what we see is an expansion of the expressive richness of

language. In other words, new ways of talking and communicating come along. Refering to

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this last statement linguists argue if the Internet language has a positive or negative impact

on the language itselfrvey it as a new tool of cummunication.

A world-renowned linguist David Crystal sees the Internet language as new means of

communication. The Internet has given 10 or 15 new styles of communication. Long

messages like blogging, and then short messages like texting and tweeting. Crystal sees it

all as part of an expanding array of linguistic possibilities.

The new internet terminology/ terms, i.e. «chat rooms», «e-mail conversations», from the

linguistic point of view shows the new features of the language. They express through

writing certain emotions and certain message. One of the ways of doing it is the usage of

abbreviations and acronyms in the chats. In the average text message only about 10 percent

of the words are abbreviated, that most of the abbreviations in texting are old — things like

LOL, laughing out loud, that’s new — but something like “C” for “see” and “U” for “you”

and all of those, they go back hundreds of years in English. Queen Victoria used to play

rebus games with her kids, and Lewis Carroll used to play games like this, where the player

had to put up a little puzzle where all the words were shortened in that way.

The fantastic thing is that nowadays the chat-words are penetrating into everyday

speach of especially young people. This is not a very common phenomenon. On the

contrary, just the opposite case has always been dominante in the interrelation of written

and spoken languages.

According to David Crystal changes in the language gained under different

conditions and in various societies have always had their positive impact on the language.

The latter develops and enriches with each change.

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Chapter 2

The main and the most outstanding peculiarity of the Internet language is that it is a mix of

written and spoken languages. We speak while we write.

Below we make an attempt to analyze different Internet situations in order to reveal

grammatical, linguistic and stylistic features typical to the Internet language.

Analysis

E-mail language

In the e-mails the formal structure of the message is kept. However, this structure can

sometimes be broken if the e-mail contains some advertising tone (EXAMPLE TWO). This

means that we can find some structural or lexical forms that are typical to chats, for instant

smileys, colloquial acronyms and other components of the informal style.

EXAMPLE ONE

Thank you for registering on Typotheque.com. Please save this message for future

reference.

---------------------------------

USER NAME: nobody@gmail.com

---------------------------------

The information in your account will be used to send you our printed type specimens (if you

requested them), and for online orders (if you place them). We will never share your

information with anyone.

You can change your personal information at any time by visiting My Account at

Typotheque.com.

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http://www.typotheque.com/my_account

Best regards,

the Typotheque team

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

T Y P O T H E Q U E

Zwaardstraat 16, 2584 TX The Hague,

Netherlands

T: +31 70 322 6119 F: +31 84 8316741.

This is an acknowledging and informing e-mail sent automatically to all the users

who have just registered in this site. Automatically sent e-mails are well-developed models

which are stylistically and lexically neutral, or contain some parts of formal speech. They

have no specific words (offensive words, special terms, exact dates and names etc.) that can

offend the addressee, be difficult for him to understand or have any emotional impact on

him. When writing formal informing or acknowledging letters we generally use some

standardized headings, opening word, closing expressions etc. E-mails have mostly adopted

this tricks from letters. However, Internet language allows to make some changes in it such

as avoid some parts, paraphrase or add some extra structures. Here is the rewritten variant

of the e-mail above:

Dear Nobody,

Thank you for registering on Typotheque.com. We are writing to inform that the

information in your account will be used to send you our printed type models (if you asked

for them), and for online orders (if you place them). We will never share your information

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with anyone.

You can change your personal information at any time by visiting My Account at

Typotheque.com http://www.typotheque.com/my_account

Please save this message for future reference.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best regards,

the Typotheque team

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Differences:

1. The e-mail starts with the acknowledgment part, it is not considered impolite to

do so in the Internet language, especially if the message an automatically sent

model

2. E-mail does not use Dear… as an opening expression, while generally this

structure is a must when writing any kind of official letters. However we must

note that in the e-mail this part is not missing, it is changed into USERNAME:

The thing is that when the server gets the new registration commend it fixes in

its data base only the e-mail address of the user and not his or her name, as

they are registered. So using USERNAME: nobody@gmail.com it rests

neutral, does not personalize or add any emotive charge to the message.

3. When 2 people write to each other they add some expressions to be polite, and

thus they add some emotive charge to their massage, however it is important to

stay neutral even if you are adding some expressions with certain lenient tone.

Addressee gets it and it makes him feel that they the addresser is a human

being and not the computer server sending standard e-mails. This part “We

write you to inform that…” make you feel the differences between the

addressers at once.

4. We must pay attention to the arrangement of sentences, their visual

appearances. In the e-mail nearly each sentence is written in a new paragraph,

this makes it easier to read and to perceive the message. Such kind of tricks are

very much used in copywriting and graphic design, e.g. if the designer wants to

make an environment, page layout, book etc, in high tech style he/she uses a

lot of paragraphs in typography parts.

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While in ordinary letters we use new paragraphs only when the topic of the

message is changing.

5. The appearance of many hyperlinks is also another feature of an e-mail.

EXAMPLE TWO

Nobody, welcome to Coursera!

Hi Nobody,

Welcome to Coursera -- we’re so happy to have you onboard! You

have just joined a community of over 5 million students from every

country in the world. Together, we are striving toward a mission to

connect people to a great education and enable every human being on

earth to learn without limits.

Here are 3 things you can do now:

1. Sign Up For Courses Today - Check out our course list and sign-up

today -- there's no limit to the number of classes you can take! You can

enroll in a course even if the start date hasn't been announced yet.

2. Chat and Get The Latest Insights - Join our Facebook, Twitter,

and Google+pages to learn about popular courses, participate in

contests, submit your photos, give shoutouts, and more. You can

always visit our blog and join or plan a meetup in your home city as

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well!

3. Get Prepared for Class- Fill out your profile so other students can

learn more about you, get study tips and advice from peers and get

ready to learn, connect, discuss and grow with Coursera.

We are thrilled that you have joined us! Congratulations, you are now a

Courserian.

Cheers,

Daphne, Andrew and your Coursera Team

You are receiving this email because nobody@gmail.com is registered on

Coursera.

Please do not reply directly to this email. If you have any questions or feedback,

please visit our support site.

Copyright (c) 2013 Coursera, Inc | 1975 W El Camino Real, Mountain

View, CA 94040 USA

It’s very difficult almost impossible to rewrite this e-mail without using Internet language

mainly because of the word-stock. The vocabulary used in this e-mail is so typical to

Internet language and is already so popular among people that is has entered to our every

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day speech. We use them without paying attention how much technified our word-stock has

become. Here are those words and expressions:

1. we’re so happy to have you onboard

board-

(1.a piece of wood sawed thin, and of considerable length and breadth compared with t

he thickness.

2.a flat slab of wood or other material for some specific purpose: a cutting board.

3.a sheet of wood, cardboard, paper, etc., with or without markings, for some special u

se, as acheckerboard or chessboard.) .

As you can see the word board has nothing to do with its dictionary meaning as it is

fixed in online Oxford dictionary1. It has gained another semantic meaning while used

here. So if paraphrase it would look like this “We are so happy to have you joined our

team”

2. Sign Up- This phrasal verb the synonym of register is widely used today, and no one

even pays attention that it gained such mass popularity, mass usage after the

appearance of forums, social networks and other sites where one must have a personal

account to be able to use that site.

3. Get latest insights

Insight

1.an instance of apprehending the true nature of a thing, especially through intuitive u

nderstading:

2.penetrating mental vision or discernment; faculty of seeing into inner character or u

nderlying truth.

3.Psychology . 1 http://dictionary.reference.com/

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a.an understanding of relationships that sheds light on or helps solve a problem.

b.(in psychotherapy) the recognition of sources of emotional difficulty.

c.an understanding of the motivational forces behind one's actions, thoughts, or behavi

or; self-knowledge.

Just like the first example, the word insight has lost its primary meaning. In this

context, in Internet language and in this contexts it means news, while academically its

synonyms are apprehension, intuition, understanding, grasp.

4. Courserian

It is fantastic: due to this site English word-stock has been enriched with a new word. The

grammar of English lets invent new word very easily, it’s very flexible. So anyone

registered in this site obtains a new virtual statue of Courserian. However this “nationality”

differs from, e.g. “Armenian”. Courserian refers only to virtual world and it can never be

used in the same row with Armenian. For example while opening a new gmail account, you

will never find the word Courserian in the tables of nationalities.

Among with the vocabulary this e-mail catches ones eye due to its great amount of

hyperlinks and its graphic appearance.

This e-mail differs from the first example, because it is an advertising e-mail. This means

its appearance must be more eye-friendly, more beautiful and more memorable. And here

are the traits that make it look like an advertising and not like and acknowledging e-mail:

1. The usage of the logo of the site

2. Putting a distinguishing colour in the header and the footer

3. Putting the text in a table

4. Using the copyright sign at the end (it makes the advertising more trustworthy)

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Social Network language

After a lot of research David Crystal came to the conclution that chat-languages are

groups of dialects, for example, facebook, twitter, google+ diolects. Each social network

has its pacularities of using the language. It’s very difficult to find even one or two criteria

in every Internet situation, and the reason is that the technology constrains language in

individual ways.

The following examples demonstrate the language of social networks generally and

illustrate the pacularites of different chat languages as different diolects.

EXAMPLE ONE (Facebook)

A: hru crist?

B: feeling GR8 :D n’ u?

A: normal

B: u play any instrument or just listen?

A: nope i don't play just enjoy listening and U?

B: yup i play the guitar B| U heard the guy playing yesterday, OMG he was awesome O-O

I wanna play like him

A: ull, believe me ;)

Here is a small abstract of a chat-conversation of two friends. When the interlocutors

are friends, the language of chat is generally much far from what we call the standard

English. Moreover, the opposite process also takes place here: we can guess the age,

gender and relationship between the addressee and the addresser from the language they

use. E.g. an employee will hardly ever talk to his employer using this kind of language

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unless they are close friends. So if paraphrase, this conversation will look like the

following:

A: How are you, Crist?

B: I’m feeling great! And you?

A: Normal

B: Do you play any instrument or just listen?

A: No, I don't play. I just enjoy listening and you?

B: Yes, I play the guitar. Did you hear the guy playing yesterday, o my God, he was

awesome, I want to play like him.

A: You will, believe me.

The differences are a lot. The first thing that catches the eye is, for sure, the huge emotive

charge of the first example. All these shortcuts, smileys make the conversation more

realistic, like the addressee and the addresser are talking face to face, with all these

gestures, emotions etc. When chatting the writer does not lose his/her idiolect, they write

as they speak. This statement makes the chat language be different from other ways of

written communication.

Grammatical changes:

1. The omission of capital letters, even in the proper names (Crist). The usage of

capital letters in the Internet language can mean anger, excitement, enthusiasm and

so on (any emotion in its highest position). So this word have the same meaning but

different emotive charge depending on the context Crist, CRIST, crist, criiiiiist,

CrIsT etc.

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2. The great amount of eclipses. Eclipses are not the special feature of the Internet

language, many writers use this technic, one can find them in textbooks as well,

however while chatting people use them in every single sentence.

Lexical changes:

1. Abbreviations and acronyms. There is a great amount of abbreviations and

acronyms used in the language of web. They developed to make the speed of writing

faster and make conversations sound more natural. Nowadays their usage and

amount is so huge, that the opposite process is taking place: people are talking as

they are writing, e.g. while taking one can use lol in a funny tone instead of just

laughing, or say OMG [o em dʒɪ] instead of [ɔ: maɪ gʌd].

hru how are you

GR8 Great

N And

U You

yup Yes

nope No

OMG o my God

wanna want to

Ull you will

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Graphic changes:

1. Smileys. Smiles were created to make the conversation seem more realistic, to add

emotions. Everyone likes them. They are so popular and so natural, that you don’t

even think which was the shortcut for this or that smiley, you press the buttons of

the keyboard automatically , , :/, :*, ;), 8-) etc. Smileys have now become the

inseparable part of any forum, social network etc. They are commercial product:

people like or dislike this or that chat, if they like or dislike its smileys, people make

fun when they see new, different and interesting smileys, e.g. the smiley of SKYPE

are different from the ones of FACEBOOK.

Emoticons typically represent a facial expression and are used chiefly to mark the

tone of the preceding sentence or to indicate the writer's feelings. The following are

some of the more commonly seen:

: ) Happy

: ( Sad

:D Laughing

: | Angry

;) winking; just kidding

:* Kissing

|O Yawning

O-o surprised

:P sticking one's tongue out

:/ Skeptical

-_- Indifferent

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B| feeling like a boss

<3 I love you

(y) thumb up

EXAMPLE TWO (Twitter)

I am truly disappointed in @Coca Cola for the offensive

#SpeakAmerican commercial last night. Speak English!—

Janice Rounsaville (@janicehr55) February 03, 2014

Here is another example of a social network specific language. This is a twitter status (a

twitte) referring to the latest Coca Cola Super Bowl ad “Beauty America”. We are not

interested in the content. What attracts us is mainly its graphic appearance.

Before starting analyzing it let us pay attention to the word “twitter”. The original meanings

of this word according to the online Oxford dictionary are:

1. to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird.

2. to talk lightly and rapidly, especially of trivial matters; chatter.

3. to titter; giggle.

4. to tremble with excitement or the like; be in a flutter.

5. a twittering sound.

6. a state of tremulous excitement.

However, with the appearance of “Twitter” it started to refer to the social network at first,

and only after that to all the meanings listed at the top. Furthermore, the verb “tweet”

obtained a new meaning of “writing a limited statue in the Twitter”, or “a twitter status”.

Now let’s go analyzing the tweet above in details.

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Grammatical changes:

1. In this example there is an omission of the word “broadcast” before “last night”.

Ellipsis is a grammatical phenomenon used very much in both written and spoken

languages. However in this particular example the word-omission is a mistake if we

discuss it as an example of a written language. However, from the point of spoken

language this is quite permissible. Such ellipsis is feature of a spoken language.

Lexical and graphic changes:

1. @Coca Cola

This sign (@) originated as a scribe's quick way of writing the Latin word ad,

especially in lists of prices of commodities. It is usually known as “the at sign” or

“the at symbol”, which is good enough for most people. It is sometimes called

'commercial a', and occasionally by the French name arrobe or arroba. It has acquired

various nicknames in other languages, but none has so far caught on in English.

In the web language it is used in e-mail addressed, e.g. user@gmail.com . In the

social networks, chatgroups and forums the meaning of this sign doesn’t change: it

denotes an address.

2. #SpeakAmerican

This sign (#) has several names, some confusing. The most common is probably

'hash'. In the US it is sometimes called the 'pound sign' and used as a symbol for

pounds weight, but this confuses the British for whom a pound sign is £. In music, of

course, it is a 'sharp'. The picturesque name 'octothorpe' has also been introduced: it is

said to have been invented by an employee of Bell Laboratories in the 1960s, in

honour to the American athlete Jim Thorpe. In the large form in which it appears on

modern telephones where it is sometimes called 'square'.

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In the Web language this sign is used to make a hyperlink out of any word the user

writes. This function is the invention of Twitter. Nowadays it is spreading in other

social networks as Facebook, G+ etc. we should pay attention that after a hashtag the

following words are written together, otherwise, it will not turn into a link. It is also

underlined. Actually this is one of the features of any hyperlink. Here are several

examples of how # is used in social networks: #feelingproud, #getoutofmyplace,

#Ilearnthowtocook

These are the two main traits of twitter. If we go on listing we can also add the names

of the users that are always used after any tweet, the date etc. However, we shall not go

deep in this part because it can’t be considered a feature of the language of the Internet.

These are things that happen every day in our real life, e.g. when we fill blank pages, get

registered in a gym or buy a discount card in a store.

It must be noted that the language of chats is highly informal. Even if this is a part of

the Web languages some sites, forums still ban the usage of several things that can refer to

very close relations between the speakers, and can make the site look less formal. For

instant, the users of online coursera courses must be aware of its writing etiquette.2 Two of

the 12 points of careful writing cover emotional parts of the text. Here they are:

1. “Social networking and text messaging has spawned a body of linguistic shortcuts

that are not part of the academic dialogue. Please refrain from :-) faces and c u l8r’s”

2. “No YELLING! Step carefully. Beware the electronic footprint you leave

behind. Using bold upper-case letters is bad form, like stomping around and yelling

at somebody (NOT TO MENTION BEING HARD ON THE EYE).”

2 http://teaching.colostate.edu/tips/tip.cfm?tipid=128

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The reason why they create such limiting points is that they want to keep the formal

style of their activities, as is believed, moreover, proved, that the more formal-the more

serious. What refers to universities, factories, companies and so on the serious outlook is a

question of prestige. This is why they tend to avoid informality. However, they still can

allow it is special sectors made for student chats, forums etc. and not in the whole page.

EXAMPLE THREE

The third analysis is about the names of the social networks. Let us take some of

them and go deep.

Pinterest, Linkedin, Instagram

The process of naming is generally examined from the point of marketing and

linguistics. We are currently interested in it's linguistic aspect.

All these names of world-used social networks are aimed to be easy to remember and carry

some notion that tells about their main function.

Pinterest= pin+interest

Linkedin= linked+in

Instagram= Instra (old cameras that were called “instant”)+gram(write)

These words has penetrated into the life. People use them in their everyday speech

not only to refer to this or that particular network as a service but also to define actions

which these services offer. For example:

“I’ll instagram this photo and and you can see it published”

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The word “to Instagram” stands for “change photo with the filters offered by

Instagram”. Or:

“Heart and pin it in Pinterset”

This sentence can be paraphrased into “Like and attach it in Pinterest”

The words “to heart” and “to pin” are the “dialectical” words of Pinterest. The user

will never use the word “to pin” when talking about Instagram or Linkedin. For Linkedin

they will use “to get connection”. The later is the specific word-combination of Linkedin.

Chapter 3

Acronyms

The development of technology has substantially enlarged the stock of acronyms and

abbreviations. Acronyms are a type of word formation process. They are viewed as a

subtype of blending. The stock of the digital acronyms have enlarged in a very

interesting way. They may include vulgarism phrases, offensive words and even

curses.. These type of acronyms are mostly used in chat-groups, social networks etc.

Their quantity is so great that linguists have started gathering them in dictionaries.

Moreover, these acronyms are sometimes written by using numbers, punctuation etc,

i.e. not only letters are used to make acronyms. Sometimes acronyms homographs

appear, for instant, BC. We are used to think that this refers to the word composition

“before Christ”, whereas, in the chat it can have totally another meaning “be cool”.

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Here is a table of commonly used acronyms that refer to informal even vulgar

language3

AAMOF as a matter of fact

ABFL a big fat lady

ABT about

ASAP as soon as possible

B4 before

B4N (BFN) bye for now

B/C because

BTW bye the way

CAD ctrl+alt+delete

CU (CU2, CUL8R) see you (see you too, see you later)

CM@TW catch me at the web

FAQ frequently asked questions

FOCL falling of chair laughting

GL good luck

GTFO get the fuck out

HOAS hold on a second

IC I see

IDC I don’t care

IMAO In my arrogant opinion

K kiss

LOL laughing out loud

W8 wait

3 http://www.techterms.com/category/acronyms

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WTH what the fuck

OMG oh my God

?4U question for you

*G* ginggle or grin

>U screw you!

U2 you too

Conclusion

It is obvious that every innovation has its impact on the language in every aspect

grammatical, lexical, phonetic and graphic. The Internet has effected the language greatly.

As far as the world is narrowing and the communication through the Internet is becoming

more and more common and even vital.

Having analyzed the fields of emails and social networks we can conclude that the

language of the Internet varies depending on the means of communication. Moreover, each

field has its own “dialect”, that is some unique features that has been created there. E-mails

require more formal language while in social networks informal language is more

acceptable. To go pinot by point we can say that the language of the Web is changed from

different aspects. They are lexical, grammatical and graphic.

From lexical point of view the Internet has enlarged the word-stock. New words has

appeared such as facebook, to pinterest, courserian and the existing ones gained new

meanings, for example, to tweet, twitter, board. Some expressions have become the

distinguishing features of this or that area. For instant, get new connections and make

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friends have the same meaning, however, the first one is used in Linkedin, while the second

one is more common and used in everyday life and in facebook.

The most common grammatical feature that appears in the Internet is eclipse. It is

widely spread in social networks. This is explained through the fact that eclipses are mostly

used in informal language and the latter is a feature of the social network language.

In terms of graphic appearance of the language a number of changes can be listed.

Firstly, it is the wide use of smileys which aim to give an emotive charge to the text.

Secondly, the use of acronyms. A new innovation can be considered the hashtag (#) and

“at” sign (@). They have enlarged the quantity of hyperlinks, thus making the navigation

easier.

I consider the language of the Web a totally new tool of communication that is a new

phenomenon of the 21 century. It has its categories depending where it is used. The

language of social networks is a mix of spoken and written languages where it is permitted

to avoid the standards of the language, moreover each network offers its specific language.

Connected with this statement we can say that each social network offers its own dialect.

What refers to e-mails the situation is different. Again we can classify them according to the

content, i.e. advertising, business, subscribing e-mails etc. In the e-mails, unlike the social

networks, the usage of formal or neutral styles of writing is a must. The user is not free to

break the rules of the language unless the e-mail is addressed to a close friend and is used as

a chat.

To sum up, the language of the Internet is the fastest developing means of

communication. It is a flexible system where every single inhabitant of the planet is free to

add something new and to make changes.

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Bibliography

“Language and the Internet” David Crystal

Dictionary.com Oxford online dictionary

http://teaching.colostate.edu/

http://www.techterms.com/