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The French Language: identity, diversity and changing environments

The French Language: identity, diversity and changing environments. Lecture 5 Language and the Internet: A linguistic perspective. Bibliography. Crystal, D. (2006) Language and the Internet . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

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The French Language: identity, diversity and changing environments

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  1. The French Language: identity, diversity and changing environments Lecture 5 Language and the Internet: A linguistic perspective

  2. Bibliography • Crystal, D. (2006) Language and the Internet. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. • Crystal, D. (2011) Internet Linguistics: a student guide. London and New York, Routledge. • Crystal, D. (2009) Txtng: the gr8 db8. Oxford, Oxford University Press. • Danet, B., and Herring, C. (eds.) (2007) The Multilingual Internet. Oxford, Oxford University Press. • Journal of Computer-Medicated Communication

  3. Inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, comments that: • ‘The Web is more a social creation than a technical one’ • ‘the dream of people-to-people communication through shared knowledge must be possible for groups of all sizes, interacting electronically with as much ease as they do now in person’

  4. So, what is the role of language in the Internet, and what is the effect of internet on language?

  5. A linguistic perspective • (1) Will the English-dominated Internet spell the end of other tongues? • (2) Quite e-vil; the mobile phone whisperers. • (3) A major risk to humanity

  6. Concerns: Relaxed standards of e-mails • A new era of technobabble? • Loss of linguistic creativity and flexibility as globalisation imposes sameness?

  7. Aim of studying language and the Internet is to explore the ways in which the nature of the electronic medium as such, along with the Internet’s global scale and intensity of use, is having an effect on language in general and on individual languages in particular.

  8. What are the linguistic consequences of evolving a medium in which the whole world participates? • What happens, linguistically, when the members of the human race use a technology enabling them to be routinely in contact with anyone else?

  9. A ‘global village’? • This concept raises all kinds of linguistic questions. • A village is a close-knit community, traditionally identified by a local dialect or language which distinguishes its members from those elsewhere. • If these is a genuine ‘global village’, we need to ask ‘what is its dialect’? • What are the shared features of language which give the world community of users their sense of identity?

  10. A homogenous linguistic medium? • Is the Internet emerging as a homogeneous linguistic medium? • Is it a collection of distinct dialects? • Is it an aggregation of trends and idiosyncratic usages which as yet defy classification?

  11. Internet situations • The concept of a language variety is helpful. • It is a system of linguistic expression whose use is governed by situational factors. • Varieties are, in principle, systematic and predictable.

  12. Sometimes the features of a variety are highly constrained by the situation. • ‘anything goes’ is never an option.

  13. Linguistic perspectives - terminology • Computer-mediated communication • Electronically-mediated communication • Digitally-mediated communication • Cyberspeak • Netspeak • Netlish • Weblish • David Crystal: ‘Internet linguistics’ ‘study of language on the Internet’

  14. Internet linguistics: the research challenges • (1) amount of data it contains. • (2) diversity of language encountered on the Internet. • (3) the speed of change

  15. Speed of change: an example • Difficult to keep pace within a single output: • e.g. • e-mail • Twitter

  16. Inaccessibility also a problem when it comes to email, chat and text messages. • Anonymity also a problem: linguists are normally at great pains to establish the situational factors which motivate or condition a use of language. • Also, ethical considerations.

  17. In spite of this, there are many opportunities. • First thing we have to do in Internet linguistics is to establish the properties of the medium which condition the language experience and behaviour of its users.

  18. Inrternet language: speech vs writing • Consider the following: • Having an email ‘conversation’ • entering a ‘chat’ room • ‘tweeting’ • ‘writing’ emails • ‘reading’ web ‘pages’ • sending ‘texts’

  19. What are the differences between speech and writing?

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