Internet linguistics


Internet linguistics is a domain of linguistics advocated by the English linguist David Crystal. It studies new language styles and forms that have arisen under the influence of the Internet and of other new media, such as Short Message Service text messaging. Since the beginning of human–computer interaction leading to computer-mediated communication and Internet-mediated communication, experts, such as Gretchen McCulloch have acknowledged that linguistics has a contributing role in it, in terms of web interface and usability. Studying the emerging language on the Internet can help improve conceptual organization, translation and web usability. Such study aims to benefit both linguists and web users combined.
The study of internet linguistics can take place through four main perspectives: [|sociolinguistics], [|education], stylistics and [|applied] linguistics. Further dimensions have developed as a result of further technological advances, which include the development of the Web as corpus and the spread and influence of the stylistic variations brought forth by the spread of the Internet, through the mass media and through literary works. In view of the increasing number of users connected to the Internet, the linguistics future of the Internet remains to be determined, as new computer-mediated technologies continue to emerge and people adapt their languages to suit these new media. The Internet continues to play a significant role both in encouraging people and in diverting attention away from the usage of languages.

Main perspectives

David Crystal has identified four main perspectives for further investigation: the sociolinguistic perspective, the educational perspective, the stylistic perspective and the applied perspective. The four perspectives are effectively interlinked and affect one another.

Sociolinguistic perspective

This perspective deals with how society views the impact of Internet development on languages. The advent of the Internet has revolutionized communication in many ways; it changed the way people communicate and created new platforms with far-reaching social impact. Significant avenues include but are not limited to SMS text messaging, e-mails, chatgroups, virtual worlds and the Web.
The evolution of these new mediums of communications has raised much concern with regards to the way language is being used. According to Crystal, these concerns are neither without grounds nor unseen in history it surfaces almost always when a new technology breakthrough influences languages; as seen in the 15th century when printing was introduced, the 19th century when the telephone was invented and the 20th century when broadcasting began to penetrate our society.
At a personal level, CMC such as SMS text messaging and mobile e-mailing has greatly enhanced instantaneous communication. Some examples include the iPhone and the BlackBerry.
In schools, it is not uncommon for educators and students to be given personalized school e-mail accounts for communication and interaction purposes. Classroom discussions are increasingly being brought onto the Internet in the form of discussion forums. For instance, at Nanyang Technological University, students engage in collaborative learning at the university's portal edveNTUre, where they participate in discussions on forums and online quizzes and view streaming podcasts prepared by their course instructors among others. iTunes U in 2008 began to collaborate with universities as they converted the Apple music service into a store that makes available academic lectures and scholastic materials for free they have partnered more than 600 institutions in 18 countries, including Oxford, Cambridge and Yale Universities.
These forms of academic social networking and media are slated to rise as educators from all over the world continue to seek new ways to better engage students. It is commonplace for students in New York University to interact with "guest speakers weighing in via Skype, library staffs providing support via instant messaging, and students accessing library resources from off campus". This will affect the way language is used as students and teachers begin to use more of these CMC platforms.
At a professional level, it is a common sight for companies to have their computers and laptops hooked up onto the Internet, and for employees to have individual e-mail accounts. This greatly facilitates internal and external communication. Mobile communications such as smart phones are increasingly making their way into the corporate world. For instance, in 2008, Apple announced their intention to actively step up their efforts to help companies incorporate the iPhone into their enterprise environment, facilitated by technological developments in streamlining integrated features using ActiveSync.
In general, these new CMCs that are made possible by the Internet have altered the way people use language there is heightened informality and consequently a growing fear of its deterioration. However, as David Crystal puts it, these should be seen positively as it reflects the power of the creativity of a language.

Themes

The sociolinguistics of the Internet may also be examined through five interconnected themes.
  1. Multilingualism – It looks at the prevalence and status of various languages on the Internet.
  2. Language change – From a sociolinguistic perspective, language change is influenced by the physical constraints of technology and the shifting social-economic priorities such as globalization. It explores the linguistic changes over time, with emphasis on Internet lingo.
  3. Conversation discourse – It explores the changes in patterns of social interaction and communicative practice on the Internet.
  4. Stylistic diffusion – It involves the study of the spread of Internet jargons and related linguistic forms into common usage. As language changes, conversation discourse and stylistic diffusion overlap with the aspect of language stylistics.
  5. : See below: [|Stylistic perspective].
  6. Metalanguage and folk linguistics – It involves looking at the way these linguistic forms and changes on the Internet are labelled and discussed

    Educational perspective

The educational perspective of internet linguistics examines the Internet's impact on formal language use, specifically on Standard English, which in turn affects language education. The rise and rapid spread of Internet use has brought about new linguistic features specific only to the Internet platform. These include, but are not limited to, an increase in the use of informal written language, inconsistency in written styles and stylistics and the use of new abbreviations in Internet chats and SMS text messaging, where constraints of technology on word count contributed to the rise of new abbreviations. Such acronyms exist primarily for practical reasons to reduce the time and effort required to communicate through these mediums apart from technological limitations. Examples of common acronyms include lol, omg and gtg.
The educational perspective has been considerably established in the research on the Internet's impact on language education. It is an important and crucial aspect, as it affects and involves the education of current and future student generations in the appropriate and timely use of informal language that arises from Internet usage. There are concerns for the growing infiltration of informal language use and incorrect word use into academic or formal situations, such as the usage of casual words like "guy" or the choice of the word "preclude" in place of "precede" in academic papers by students. There are also issues with spellings and grammar occurring at a higher frequency among students' academic works as noted by educators, with the use of abbreviations such as "u" for "you" and "2" for "to" being the most common.
Linguists and professors like Eleanor Johnson suspect that widespread mistakes in writing are strongly connected to Internet usage, where educators have similarly reported new kinds of spelling and grammar mistakes in student works. There is, however, no scientific evidence to confirm the proposed connection. Naomi S. Baron argues in Always On that student writings suffer little impact from the use of Internet-mediated communication such as internet chat, SMS text messaging and e-mail. A study in 2009 published by the British Journal of Developmental Psychology found that students who regularly texted displayed a wider range of vocabulary, and this may lead to a positive impact on their reading development.
Though the use of the Internet resulted in stylistics that are not deemed appropriate in academic and formal language use, Internet use may not hinder language education but instead aid it. The Internet has proven in different ways that it can provide potential benefits in enhancing language learning, especially in second or foreign-language learning. Language education through the Internet in relation to Internet linguistics is, most significantly, applied through the communication aspect.
IMC allows greater interaction between language learners and native speakers of the language, providing for greater error corrections and better learning opportunities of standard language, in the process allowing the picking up of specific skills such as negotiation and persuasion.

Stylistic perspective

This perspective examines how the Internet and its related technologies have encouraged new and different forms of creativity in language, especially in literature. It looks at the Internet as a medium through which new language phenomena have arisen. This new mode of language is interesting to study because it is an amalgam of both spoken and written languages. For example, traditional writing is static compared to the dynamic nature of the new language on the Internet, where words can appear in different colors and font sizes on the computer screen. Yet, this new mode of language also contains other elements not found in natural languages. One example is the concept of framing found in e-mails and discussion forums. In replying to e-mails, people generally use the sender's e-mail message as a frame to write their own messages. They can choose to respond to certain parts of an e-mail message while leaving other bits out. In discussion forums, one can start a new thread, and anyone regardless of their physical location can respond to the idea or thought that was set down through the Internet. This is something that is usually not found in written language.
Future research also includes new varieties of expressions that the Internet and its various technologies are constantly producing and their effects not only on written languages but also their spoken forms. The communicative style of Internet language is best observed in the CMC channels below, as there are often attempts to overcome technological restraints such as transmission time lags and to re-establish social cues that are often vague in written text.