On Some Aspects of Internet Slang: Liana Barseghyan
On Some Aspects of Internet Slang: Liana Barseghyan
Having spent some time in virtual space during the last few years,
reading messages, emails as well as commentary and statements made by
different social site users, I have observed many changes and irregular-
rities in verbal and non-verbal means of communication. As a philologist
I was especially interested in different types of abbreviations, punctuation
marks, spelling changes, grammatical and spelling mistakes, various
icons that are mostly used by teenagers and students on the worldwide
web. That was the reason I started to carry out a research on the subject.
The fact that the Internet has radically changed global communi-
cation is beyond controversy. With instant access to messaging and
email, the ability to circulate commentary and opinion has significantly
changed the way people communicate nowadays. This has had an impact
on the spoken and written language. The Internet is now an integral part
of contemporary life, and linguists are increasingly studying its influence
on language. However, people still debate on the scope of these changes,
and whether or not they are for the better.
The given paper is devoted to the study of some aspects of Internet
slang, its peculiarities and manifestations. We know that keeping up with
current internet trends can be tough, especially for parents and elderly
people who do not get online much. That is why we feel need for some
helpful resources to help people further understand internet slang, online
acronyms, net trends, and overall internet etiquette.
Professor David Crystal is a British linguist, leading language autho-
rity and author of over hundred books. Crystal says the dynamic nature of
the Internet makes it difficult for comprehensive analysis of its effects to
stay up-to-date. But Crystal believes that the impact of the worldwide
web on language remains minimal. In his book “Internet linguistics”
David Crystal presents the area as a new field. Crystal addresses the
online linguistic issues that affect us on a daily basis, incorporating real-
life examples drawn from his own studies and personal involvement with
Internet companies. He provides new linguistic analyses of Twitter,
19
Internet security, and online advertising, explores the evolving multilin-
gual character of the Internet, and offers observations about a wide range
of online behaviour, from spam to exclamation marks. Including many
activities and suggestions for further research, this is the essential
introduction to a critical new field for students of all levels of the English
language, linguistics and new media /Crystal, 2011/.
Erin Jansen, founder of Netlingo, an online dictionary of Internet and
text messaging terms, also says the new technology has not fundamen-
tally changed the existing language but added immensely to the vocabu-
lary. Jansen has worked in the Internet industry since 1994 and agrees
with Crystal that what we are seeing is more ways to use language to
communicate. "The main effect of the Internet on language has been to
increase the expressive richness of language, providing the language with
a new set of communicative dimensions that have not existed in the past.
Basically it is a freedom of expression "she said. (www.netlingo.com)
Adams B.Bomodo in his book “Computer-Mediated Communication
for Linguistics and Literacy: Technology and Natural Language
Education” details the many issues of CMC and Human Language
Technology, and guides the reader through the way language is used in
various media of technology and the implications this has for learning to
speak, read, and write languages" /Bomodo, 2009/.
With the existence of greater computer/Internet mediated
communication systems, coupled with the readiness with which people
adapt to meet the new demands of a more technologically sophisticated
world, it is expected that users will continue to remain under pressure to
alter their language use to suit the new dimensions of communication. As
the number of Internet users increases rapidly around the world, the
cultural background, linguistic habits and language differences among
users are brought into the Web at a much faster pace. These individual
differences among the Internet users will significantly impact the future
of Internet linguistics, notably in the aspect of the multilingual web.
The emergence of a new branch of an academic discipline does not
take place very often, but the arrival of the Internet has had such an
impact on language that the time is right to recognise and explore the
scope of putative Internet linguistics. The latter may be observed as the
synchronic analysis of language in all areas of Internet activity including
20
email, the various kinds of chatroom and games interaction, instant
messaging, SMS messaging (texting), Web pages and other associated
areas of computer-mediated communication (CMC).The speed of change
in the past two decades has been such that it is possible to see a diachro-
nic dimension to this subject as well. The internet allows us to follow
language change in vocabulary, grammar, spelling and pronunciation.
The Internet is on its way to becoming a more diverse multilingual
Web, with a wider variety of languages being used. In the last decade
Internet penetration has experienced its greatest growth in non-English
speaking countries such as China, Russia, Ukraine, India and so on,
resulting in more languages apart from English penetrating the Web. The
interaction between English and other languages will be another impor-
tant area of study. As global users interact with each other, possible refe-
rences to different languages may continue to increase, resulting in the
formation of new Internet stylistics that spans across languages. Thus, it
is possible to see the rapid evolution of a comparative Internet linguistics
as the medium becomes increasingly multilingual.
Today many linguists attribute the growing misuse of the language to
the explosion of electronic communication. In fact, text messaging has
made students believe that it is far more acceptable than it actually is to
just make seriousspelling and grammatical errors. Students over the past
several years, have increasingly used a more informal English vocabulary
in formal assignments. University-level research papers are now being
filled with casual phrases andinformal usages that were absent in the past.
Time-saving online abbreviations like LOL, OMG, and IMHO are
now part of the official English language. The Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) announced the addition of several acronyms to its dictionary,
adding some interesting trivia behind the origins of these Internet-
associated expressions. OED explained that although "initialisms" like
OMG (Oh My God), LOL (Laughing Out Loud) and IMHO (In My
Humble/Honest Opinion) are strongly associated with the language of
electronic communications, their origins are surprisingly predating the
Internet era /www.pcworld.com/.
For example, OED found a quotation for OMG in a personal letter
from 1917, and FYI (For Your Information) originated in the language of
memoranda in 1941. Also, apparently the LOL expression had a previous
21
life, starting in 1960, denoting an elderly woman (Little Old Lady). OED
notes that some expressions like OMG and LOL are used outside
electronic communication contexts as well, including print and spoken
use, in the form of more than a simple abbreviation /www.
acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/.
Slang is a phenomenon that has always existed in the language but it
has been ignored by linguists for a very long time. Internet slang (Internet
short-hand, Cyber-slang, SMS speak, netspeak or chatspeak) refers to a
variety of everyday languages used by different communities on the
Internet. Over the past few years, however, the interest towards this
particular layer of vocabulary has risen. Appreciated by some, despised
by others, they nevertheless are strong elements pertaining to the web
since their birth to these days. The primary motivation behind using
aslang unique to the Internet is to ease communication. Such terms often
originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes or to compensate for
small character limits. However, while Internet slang shortcuts save time
for the writer, they take two times as long for the reader to understand.
On the other hand, similar to the use of slang in traditional face-to-face
speech or written language, slang on the Internet is often a way of
indicating group membership. Slang creates, motivates and sustains
online communities.Internet slang provides a channel which facilitates
and constrains our ability to communicate in ways that are fundamentally
different from those found in other semiotic situations. The Internet itself
is ideal for new slang to emerge because of the richness of the medium
and the availability of information.
Such linguists as V.A. Khomiakov, I.V. Arnold, G. Antrushina, R.S.
Ginzburg, I.R. Galperin and many others have studied this phenomenon.
In the English-speaking countries slang has been studied mainly by
lexicographers. Many linguists such as B.K. Dumas, C. Eble, J.
Lighter,E. Mattielo, E. Partridge, P. Kegan and others have also studied
slang. One important peculiarity of slang is that it is a constantly
changing open system. Actually, those definitions of slang that are used
nowadays can be called contradictory. However, there are several
peculiarities of slang that all linguists agree upon. First of all, slang is
used by a restricted group of people, these can be either young people,
teenagers, or people who belong to a certain profession. Secondly, slang
22
words usually have either amusing or pejorative qualities. Thirdly, it
usually has a short life, while some of the slang words enter the literary
language, others simply disappear.
V.A. Khomiakov defined slang as a stable for a certain period,
widely used and stylistically marked lexical layer, common to colloquial
language and existing as a part of a literary language. Some other
definitions of slang identify it as a colloquial variant of a language
peculiar to certain professional or social groups and underline that when
slang words get into the literary language or are used by people outside
those professional or social groups they receive special emotional
connotation. In some cases slang is considered to be the same as jargon
/Хомяков, 1980/.
Such variety of attitudes towards the notion of slang resulted in the
fact that I.R. Galperin suggested that slang cannot be called a separate
linguistic category and the word ‘slang’ can only be used as a synonym to
‘jargon’ /Гальперин, 1956/.
We can see the similar picture in the English linguistics. In
Webster’s "Third New International Dictionary" we can find the
following definition of this term:
1. Language peculiar to a particular group as:
a) the special and often secret vocabulary used by a class (as thieves,
beggars) and usually felt to be vulgar or inferior;
b) the jargon used by or associated with a particular trade,
profession, or field of activity.
2. A non-standard vocabulary composed of words and senses cha-
racterized primary by connotations of extreme informality and usually a
currency not limited to a particular region and composed typically of
coinages or arbitrarily changed words, clipped or shortened forms, extra-
vagant, forced or facetious figures of speech, or verbal novelties usually
experiencing quick popularity and relatively rapid decline into disuse
/www.merriam-webster.com/.
In "Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary" slang is defined as:
a)very informal words and expressions that are more common in
spoken language, especially used by a particular group of people, for
example, children, criminals, soldiers;
23
b) the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or
disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type;
c) the cant or jargon of a certain class or period;
d) language of a highly colloquial type considered as below the level
of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of
current words employed in some special sense
/www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
Types of slang
Internet slang does not constitute a homogeneous language variety.
Rather, it differs according to the user and type of Internet situa-
tion.Coming straight from SMS language, this is a way of replacing entire
words or bits of words by their phonetic equivalent embodied into single
letters or figures.
Here are some examples:
2: too, or to 4: for
2moro: tomorrow 4u: for you gr8: great
2nite: tonight 10q: thank you da: the
u: you 10x: thanks y: why
24
"BTW" for "by the way". There are also combinations of both, like
"CUL8R" for "see you later".
Punctuation, capitalizations and other symbols
Such features are commonly used for emphasis or stress. Periods or
exclamation marks may be used repeatedly for emphasis, such as "........"
or "!!!!!!!!!!". Grammatical punctuation rules are also relaxed on the
Internet. "E-mail" may simply be expressed as "email", and apostrophes
can be dropped so that "John's book" becomes "johns book". Examples of
capitalizations include "STOP IT", which can convey a stronger emotion
of annoyance as opposed to "stop it". Bold, underline and italics are also
widely used to indicate stress.
Onomatopoeic spellings
Onomatopoeic spellings have also become popularized on the Inter-
net. One well-known example is "hahaha" to indicate "laughter". Onoma-
topoeic spellings are very language specific. For instance, in Spanish,
laughter will be spelt as "jajaja" instead. Deliberate misspellings, such as
"sauce" for "source", are also used.
Keyboard-generated icons and smileys
Emoticon is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using
punctuation marks, numbers and letters, usually written to express a
person's feelings or mood. Emoticons are generally found in web forums,
instant messengers and online games. They are culture-specific and
certain emoticons are only found in some languages but not in others. The
Western use of emoticons is quite different from the Eastern usage, for
example the Japanese equivalent of emoticons, kaomoji (literally "face
marks"), focus on the eyes instead of the mouth as in Western emoticons.
They are also meant to be read right-side up, for example, ^_^ as opposed
to sideways, =) /www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon/.
Leet
Leetspeak, or 1337, is an alternative alphabet for the English
language which uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace
Latinate letters. For example, Wikipedia may be expressed as
"w1k1p3d14". It originated from computer hacking, but its use has been
extended to online gaming as well.
Flaming
Flaming, also known as bashing, is hostile and insulting interaction
25
between Internet users, often involving the use of profanity. Flaming
usually occurs in the social context of an Internet forum, Internet Relay
Chat (IRC), Usenet, by e-mail, game servers such as Xbox Live or
PlayStation Network, and on video-sharing websites. It is frequently the
result of the discussion of heated real-world issues such as politics,
religion, and philosophy, but can also be provoked by seemingly trivial
differences /www.wikipedia.org/.
As the above mentioned classification illustrates slang words are
mainly created according to the common morphological principles of the
English language. Thus, in the given paper we try to identify some of the
most widespread means of word-building in the Internet language. These
are derivation, compounding, shortening (abbreviation, clipping), blen-
ding, conversion, and sound imitation. And finally, we have analysed
some lexical items that we have selected from messaging and Internet
communication. Morphemes and words that are created with their help
are considered to be the objects of morphology. Some linguists limit
morphology to the study of morphemes solely, calling themthe basic
building blocks of meaning in language orthe smallest units of form that
bear meaning or have a grammatical function /Плунгян, 2000/.
As a branch of linguistics, morphology deals with the structure of
the words and how their parts are related to each other, as well as how
words are related to other words and how the structure of a word is
dependent on other branches of linguistics, such as grammar, phonology,
syntax or semantics /www.grammar.about.com/.
Shortening (acronyms and abbreviation) is the most productive
way of word-building in English. There are hundreds of chat abbrevia-
tions. The large group of lexical items created this way was coined in
order to save time during online chatting; these are whole phrases and
sentences. And, of course, there are abbreviations of special Internet
terms. According to Merriam Webster dictionary “an acronym is a word
formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or
major parts of a compound term(eg. NATO, radar, or snafu).These
components may be individual letters (as in CEO) or parts of words (as in
Benelux and Ameslan) /www.merriam-webster.com/.
In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically
had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th
26
century. Acronyms are a type of word formation process, and they are
viewed as a subtype of blending. Acronyms have always been an integral
part of computer culture, and they have since spawned a new language on
the Internet. Commonly thought of as a series of letters that make up a
'word' there is a distinction between acronyms and shorthand. The online
practice is to refer to shorthand, initialisms, or abbreviations as acronyms.
Online enthusiasts think that shorthand terms are in fact called
acronyms, but this is incorrect. The difference between acronyms and
shorthand is that with acronyms, you pronounce the letters as a new word
(for example, 'FUBAR' is pronounced 'foo-bar' and 'RADAR' is
pronounced 'ray-dar'). In contrast, shorthand pronunciations are like an
initialism (a set of initials) in which you say the letters one-by-one (for
example, 'ESP' is an initialism for 'extra sensory perception' whereas
'esp.’ is an abbreviation for especially). There are hundreds of acronyms,
and their research is a hard task because of multiple definition of one and
the same acronym or shordhand. In addition, the analysis may be
somehow subjective because of the constantly changing material and
endless field for research.
However, we would like to draw your attention to some of the most
widely used acronyms and shorthand terms, that we have identified from
our researched Twitter and Facebook chat samples:
REFERENCES
31