The history of internet slang and its use

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The history of internet slang and its use

Denіsova Yevgenіya Іgorіvna

Internet slang (Internet shorthand, Cyber-slang, netspeak, chatspeak, or translexical phonological abbreviation) refers to a variety of slang languages used by different communities on the Internet. Communication on the Internet occupies a lot of time especially for young people and teenagers. That's why this theme is very actual and important nowadays. The purpose of my work is to reveal historical sources of Internet slang emergence and create the dictionary of the most usable slengizm on the Internet.

One heard the first rudiments of network slang a long time before emergence of the world wide web. This mysterious vocabulary was introduced to the world by Raphael Finkel in 1975 in "Jargon File" - in this collection the author united the hacker slang of a commercial crop used in MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and other similar societies.

Since then the quantity the Internet of slengizm has increased a lot. Communication easiness is the primary motivation to use slang peculiar for the Internet. However, whereas Internet slang shortcuts saves time for the writer, it takes the reader twice as much time to understand. On the other hand, slang on the Internet is often a way of indicating group membership which makes it similar to the use of slang in traditional face-to-face speech or written language.

The modern network slang is wide and various. The abbreviations, created by Internet users, include not only reductions known for all - LOL (laughing out loud, laugh out loud), IMHO (in my humble opinion), JK (just kidding), OMG (Oh my god) and so on, but others, more difficult. If you want to express the hostility to the interlocutor and cut the conversation short quickly, you can tell KTHXBAI (OK, thanx, bye) or, on the contrary, to emphasize the good attitude to him, you can use LYLAB (Love you like a brother) or LYLAS (Love you like a sister).

Internet slang does not constitute a homogeneous language variety. Rather, it differs according to the user and type of Internet situation. However, within the language of Internet slang, there is still an element of prescriptivism, as seen in style guides, for example Wired Style, which are specifically aimed at usage on the Internet. Even so, few users consciously heed these prescriptive recommendations on SMS, but rather adapt their styles based on what they encounter online. Although it is difficult to produce a clear definition of Internet slang, the following types of slang may be observed. This list is not exhaustive.

Letter homophones. This group consists of abbreviations and acronyms. An abbreviation is a shortening of a word, for example "CU" or "CYA" for "see you (see ya)". An acronym, on the other hand, is a subset of abbreviations and are formed from the initial components of a word. Examples of common acronyms include "LOL" for "laugh out loud" or "lots of love" and "BTW" for "by the way". There are also combinations of both, like "CUL8R" for "see you later", "rofl" for "Rolling on the floor laughing".

Punctuation, capitalizations and other symbols 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 simplified on the Internet. "E-mail" may 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 used to indicate stress.

Onomatopoeic spellings have also become popularized on the Internet. One well-known example is "hahaha" to indicate laughter. Onomatopoeic spellings is also rather specific. For instance, in Spanish, laughter will be spelt as "jajaja" instead. Deliberate misspellings, such as "sauce" for "source", are also used.

Emoticons are generally found in web forums, instant messengers and online games. They are culturally specific and certain emoticons are only found in some languages but not in others. 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, =). More recently than face emoticons, other emoticon symbols such as <3 (which is a sideways heart) have emerged. Compared to emoticons used in Western cultures such as the United States, kaomoji plays a very distinctive social role in online discourse.

Internet slang has influenced on the standard language use in non-computer-mediated communications.

Scientists tend to believe that the Internet has a negative influence on the future of language, and that it would lead to a degradation of standard. Some would even attribute any declination of standard formal English to the increase in usage of electronic communication. It has also been suggested that the linguistic differences between Standard English and CMC can have implications for literacy education. This is illustrated by the widely reported example of a school essay submitted by a Scottish teenager, which contained many abbreviations and acronyms likened to SMS language. There was great condemnation of this style by the mass media as well as educationists, who expressed that it showed diminishing literacy or linguistic abilities. internet slang onomatopoeic

On the other hand, scientists have counter-argued that the Internet allows to express oneself better with a language. Rather than established linguistic conventions, linguistic choices sometimes reflect personal taste.

Internet slang is now prevalent in telephony, mainly through short messages (SMS) communication. Abbreviations and interjections, especially, have been popularized in this medium, perhaps due to the limited character space for writing messages on mobile phones. Another possible reason for this spread is the convenience of transferring the existing mappings between expression and meaning into a similar space of interaction.

At the same time, Internet slang has also replced everyday offline language, among those who have digital access. The nature and content of online conversation is brought forward to direct offline communication through the telephone and direct talking, as well as through written language, such as in writing notes or letters. The meaning of numerically based and abbreviated slang differs between written variant and speech implementation. It is spoken with non-slang words in a “stage direction” like fashion, where the actual action is not carried out but substituted with a verbal signal. The notions of flaming and trolling have also extended outside the computer, and are used in the same circumstances of deliberate or unintentional implicatures.

In conclusion, I want to say that it is necessary to monitor the development of this phenomenon within the period of time as the study of the Internet slang is fairly important for more accurate understanding of modern speech.

Литература

1. Ричард A. Спиерс. Словарь американского сленга. - М.: Рус. Яз.,1991.

2. Michael McCarthy. English Vocabulary in Use/Michael Mc Carthy. - Cambridge University Press, 2003. - 316 p.

3. Жлуктенко, Ю.А. Английские неологизмы /Ю.А. Жлуктенко. - Киев.: Наукова думка, 2003. - 154 с.

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