The Specifics of Language and Text in Various Forms of Social Media

Paulius Ilevičius

The linguisitc peculiarities and challenges of internet times

• Computer mediated communication (CMC) is loosely defined as any natural language messaging that is transmitted and/or received via a computer connection.Generally speaking, the term CMC refers to a written natural language message sent via the Internet.

Naomi S. Baron

The concept of "netspeak"

• As the Internet is a medium almost entirely dependent on reactions to written messages, awareness of audience must hold a primary place in any discussion.The core feature of the Internet is its real or potential interactivity.

• NetWrite are inextricably linked not only to writing itself but also to the technologies that mothered them. Therefore, most IM language would be out of place in any other arena.

• A type of language displaying features that are unique to the Internet, and encountered in all the above situations, arising out of its character as a medium which is electronic, global, and interactive. David Crystal.

New linguistic forms

• Acronyms: POS, LOL, YHBT.• Abbreviations: 4u, iwnt2mtu. • l337 speak.• Extended vocabulary.• dot.com language - www.alk this way• I can haz cheezeburger.• Emoticons.• Graphics• Hyperlink

Speech or writing?

• Netspeak is identical to neither speech nor writing, but selectively and adaptively displays properties of both. Davis and Brewer see it thus, as an eclectic resource: ‘Writing in the electronic medium, people adopt conventions of oral and written discourse to their own, individual communicative needs’. David Crystal

• Changed type of conversation (non real time; nor written nor spoken), besides, the need of an addressee reinforces the dialogic nature of CMC as messages are connected to previous ones and are related to future writings. Carmen Perez-Sebater

• Crystal classification: spoken language vs. written language vs. sign language vs. computer-mediated language David Crystal

Controversies and issues

• Descriptive vs. prescriptive approach• Another reason for the difficulty in predicting Internet

language development is the existence of so many conlicting trends and pressures.

• Diversity of language of the internet• Speed of change• Increased anonymity • Language use for various purposes• Grice language maxims

Web 2.0

• Web 2.0 is social. Content is accessed through the lens of other users, who serve both as content providers and content curators/commentators.

• Web 2.0 supports diverse access paths. Instead of designers determining what metadata defines certain content or experiences, the metadatas developed collectively by users, both actively and passively.

• Web 2.0 is democratic. Content is developed, organized, and accessed via bottom-up rather than top-down design. Instead of being content provider, Web 2.0 is a platform provider.

Nina Simon

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

• Web 1.0 was about reading

• Web 1.0 was about home pages

• Web 1.0 was about lectures

• Web 1.0 was about advertising

• Web 1.0 was about companies

• Web 2.0 is about writing

• Web 2.0 is about blogs

• Web 2.0 is about conversation

• Web 2.0 is about word of mouth

• Web 2.0 is about communities

Web 1.0 Web 2.0

• Web 1.0 was about client-server

• Directories (taxonomies)

Susan C. Herring

• Web 2.0 is about peer to peer

• Tagging (folksonomies)

Visual multimedia as the new language

CMCMC (convergent media computer mediated

communication)• CMC itself has been undergoing a shift, from occurrence

in stand-alone clients such as emailers and instant messaging programs to juxtaposition with other content, often of an information or entertainment nature, in converged media platforms, where it is typically secondary, by design, to other information or entertainment-related activities.

Susan C. Herring

CMCMC features

• Prompting (eg.: Snow is "I've seen you in the shadow")• Quoting (eg.: @AndreaJarrell: Via @mStonerblog: RT

@zephoria: new blog post “Is Facebook for old people?” socioecon and race are most interesting here #Facebook http://bit.ly/v0aPS)

• Multimedia as the substitute for language• Media convergence• Sock puppets

Susan C. Herring

Social media definitions

• Social media consists of various user-driven (inbound marketing) channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube). These channels represent a stark difference from the advertiser-driven (outbound marketing) push model.Cheryl Burgess – Blue Focus Marketing

• Social media is today’s most transparent, engaging and interactive form of public relations. Lisa Buyer – The Buyer Group

• Social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content and ads. Bryan Eisenberg – Author of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark

• Social media is a reflection of conversations happening every day. Sarah Hofstetter.

• Social media is online text, pictures, videos and links, shared amongst people and organizations. Dave Kerpe.

• Social media is any of a number of individual web-based applications aggregating users who are able to conduct one-to-one and one-to-many two-way conversations. Trey Pennington.

Social media as the positive force for language

• We find that Twitter is markedly more standard and formal than SMS and online chat, closer to email and blogs, and less so than newspapers. In fact, we would argue that Twitter, as a new type of computermediated communication (CMC), is closer to traditional written language than it is to speech-like mediums such as SMS and online chat, although it shares their brevity and interactivity.

• However, the data also give the impression that language use on Twitter is not too extreme in its uniqueness, given the prevalent use of standard grammatical constructions and lexical items.

Yuheng Hu, Kartik Talamadupula, Subbarao Kambhampati.

• Older generations start to using social media/internet, thus generating more conventional use of language. David Crystal.

• Today, 72% of online adults use social networking sites. Those ages 65 and older have roughly tripled their presence on social networking sites in the last four years—from 13% in the spring of 2009 to 43% now. Pew Research.

• Collaborative text production of the sort that takes place on Wikipedia represents a new kind of online discourse. It is democratic and anarchic: There is no central organization,and anyone can contribute to any part of a text. It is massively multiauthored by internet users who usually do not know one another. Susan C. Herring.

• Emigh and Herring found that the degree of formality in Wikipedia and the traditional encyclopedia was statistically identical, whereas Everything2 and the talk pages were significantly less formal.

• There have never been a language corpus as large as this one. David Crystal

• Increased interactivity in writing and participation.• Order and #semantic grouping.• Transparence and less anonymity• Community building.

• Conversational exchanges on many Web 2.0 platforms tend to be prompt focused—that is, comments respond to an initial prompt, such as a news story, a photo, or a video, more often than to other users’ responses. Susan C. Herring

Outcomes

• Spoken vs. written?

• Major evolution from chat/IM language

• Dynamic, eclectic, diverse and rich form of media

Bibliography

1. Baron, Naomi S. n.d. Language of the Internet. [online] Available at: <http://www.american.edu/cas/lfs/faculty-docs/upload/N-Baron-Language-Internet.pdf> [Accessed 5 October 2013].

2. Crystal, D. 2004. Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3. Crystal, D. 2011. Internet Linguistics. New York: Routledge.

4. Perez-Sabater, C. n.d. The Linguistics of Social Networking: A Study of Writing Conventions on Facebook. Available at: <http://www.linguistik-online.de/56_12/perez-sabater.html> [Accessed 5 October 2013].

5. Simon, N., 2007. Discourse in the Blogosphere: What Museums Can Learn from Web 2.0. Museums and Social Issues. Available through: <http://www.museumtwo.com/publications/MSI_257-274_simon.pdf> [Accessed 10 October 2013].

6. Hu, Y., Talamadupula, K., Kambhampati S. Dude Srsly? The Surprising Formal Nature of Twitter's Language. Available through: <http://www.public.asu.edu/~yuhenghu/paper/icwsm13.pdf> [Accessed 10 October 2013].

7. Tannend, D. and Trester, A. M. (ed.), 2013. Discourse 2.0: Language and New Media. Washington: Georgetown University Press.