LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET

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LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET

The next slide contains a short video of David Crystal discussing the ways in which language and communication are being influenced by the rise and ubiquity of the internet.

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A NEW ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE?

Internet linguistics – the synchronic analysis of language in all areas of internet activity

Email, chatrooms, games interaction, instant messaging, web pages, mobile texting, CMC

An emerging diachronic study? Can we begin to study language change on the internet over the twenty years since its introduction? Vocabulary, spelling, grammar, pronunciation

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WHAT SHOULD INTERNET LINGUISTICS STUDY?

The formal character of the internet as medium A new medium of communication has emerged

which is different from conversational speech and from writing

Speech: CMC lacks simultaneous feedback; lacks nonsegmental phonology (do emoticons replace tone of voice?); can deal with ‘group talk’ (in chat rooms)

Writing: CMC is dynamic (animation); frames messages (cc: threaded emails); is hypertextual

These characteristics are more important that the surface changes we witness in grammar, vocabulary and spelling

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SURFACE FEATURES

The influence of folk linguistics See John Humphrey’s ‘I h8 txt mesgs: How

texting is wrecking our language (http://tinyurl.com/yh56p5a)

The internet dictionary http://www.netlingo.com/ Is there a systematic survey that evidences

the changes that have taken place? What impact has such language had on the English lexicon as a whole?

Read Crystal’s counter-arguments to John Humphreys at http://www.davidcrystal.com/DC_articles/Internet16.pdf

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NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND PROPHETS OF DOOM

Are the prophets of doom right or is history full of people who, when new technologies are introduce, announce the death of civilisation?

The next slide contains an extract from the BBC’s It’s Only a Theory broadcast in October 2009. In it David Crystal defends the proposition that texting is good for the English language.

Before you watch the extract, what arguments do you think he might use?

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EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

If we are developing new linguistic styles, what implications does this have for standard English?

Are there issues of appropriateness that you think should be addressed by, for example, teachers and educational institutions more widely?

Are there issues of effectiveness that might influence our understanding of ‘literacy’ in the age of the internet?

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STYLISTIC CREATIVITY

What linguistics creativity can you see emerging with the increasing use of mobile devices?

What creativity can you see, for example, in the development of blogging as a cultural/communication channel? And twitter?

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GUARDIAN HAIKU COMPETITION 2001

txtin iz messin, mi headn'me englis, try2rite essays, they all come out txtis. gran not plsed w/letters shes getn, swears i wrote better b4 comin2uni. &she's african

Hetty Hughes

Sheffield Sun on maisonette windows sends speed-camera flashes tinting through tram cables startling drivers dragging rain-waterfalls in their wheels I drive on

Steve Kilgallon

First Second

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2001/may/03/internet.poetry

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-:):-

On the next slide is a ‘Three minute story of mixed emoticons’ by Rives. In what ways does this performance add to the language? In what ways do you think it detracts?

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GUARDIAN TWITTER COMPETITION

Haiku Poems

Privatise the trainsThe fat cats make

moneyCommuters suffer.By Tantalise

Opera plots

If a cigarette doesn't kill you,the girl who made it will…

I dropped the atomic bomb and itwent off. Wait, I feel guilty. Toolate. Might as well singpretentious poetry.

he cut off a bollock, but that stillwasn't enough for them. Now, hewants revenge. Only the pure willsurvive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/18/poetry-twitter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/apr/01/classicalmusicandopera

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BEST BLOGS IN MANCHESTER

http://www.manchesterblogawards.com/

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INNOVATIONS

Multi-modality Coveritlive (http://www.coveritlive.com/) Ustream (http://www.ustream.tv/)

Digital story-telling The Virtual Revolution in 3D (

http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/)

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FOR GOOD OR BAD?

Clearly, the internet offers ample evidence to support the claims of political utopians and dystopians. It offers similar evidence for emerging communicative capabilities. These are the capabilities we need to study

Positive communicative capabilities: A first hand encounter with multilingualism (see

http://hemosoido.com) including support for endangered languages through their documentation and revitalisation

Digital surveys such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/ give access to enormous data banks. See more of these projects at http://www.intute.ac.uk/cgi-bin/browse.pl?id=200480

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FOR GOOD OR BAD?

Negative communicative capabilities Issues of security and protection loom large in

discussions of the negative impact of the internet. Here (socio) linguists could use their expertise in exploring the power of semantic filtering, in understanding the ways in which power is used in online abusive behaviour

An example: RIHSC Seminar by Jemma Tosh of the Discourse Unit: ‘This session will explore practical and ethical issues of studying computer-mediated communication. I will discuss/use examples from my research on social constructions of rape on Internet discussion forums’.