A New Way of Speaking: Language use in the age of the internet
As the internet, texting, and social media have become more and more prevalent over the last twenty or so years, so have arguments that language is “deteriorating”, or that kids today simply don’t know how to write “properly” anymore. That’s not the first time this has happened, nor will it likely be the last. But fear not, prescriptivists: language isn’t dead, it’s evolving — the internet is a global hotbed of cross-cultural exchange, ripe for linguistic innovation and new ways of communicating.
Internet language is not impairing our ability to write. In fact, texting and internet speech may not be writing at all — the way people text and type online arguably has much more in common with verbal speech than, say, a formal academic paper. Like verbal speech, it’s fluid and more stream-of-consciousness. Unlike with formal writing, texting allows us to write like we speak, and in the absence of intonation and other non-verbal cues, internet users have had to find innovative ways to convey features like tone, sarcasm, and volume, which linguist Gretchen McCulloch calls “typographical tone of voice”. This refers to practices such as using all caps for EMPHASIS or to SHOW STRONG FEELINGS, like English “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” or Swedish “DU SKOJAR!?” (you’re joking?!); capitalizing words that aren’t proper nouns in order to denote an Important Point; using a period when you want to sound mad, e.g. “ok” versus “ok.”; or using innovative pragmatic particles that convey emotions, like Korean “헐!” (pronounced “heol”, similar to English “huh!” or “what?!”) or English “lol”. Even emoji and images can be used to convey emotion or tone, in lieu of intonation, facial expressions, and body language. The lack of a physical component has forced internet users to innovate new ways of speaking in order to meet their ever-changing communicative needs.
Like all forms of language, internet speech has evolved over time; for example, it has not always been the case that “lol” functions as a pragmatic particle. Whereas it once functioned solely as an acronym meaning “laughing out loud”, among younger generations it is rarely used that way today. Instead, “lol” is used to denote empathy, accommodation, or a less serious tone. It can also be passive aggressive or sarcastic, notes Gretchen McCulloch in her book Because Internet. Similar changes have happened to “lmao”, which has shifted from an acronym to something like its own word, even being lengthened (e.g. “lmaoooo”). Both of these are used to punctuate thoughts or ideas — over time, their meaning has shifted from a semantic one to a pragmatic one. But who are the people creating these changes? Who is privy to the language of the internet, and what does it mean to be an Internet Person?
Are you Online?
Similar to spoken language, there is a clear generational gap when it comes to online language use. The social cues we take from typography and word usage depend heavily on our age. For older generations, a text full of ellipses signifies uncertainty or an unfinished statement, whereas for younger generations, an ellipsis seems angry or annoyed, as does ending a sentence with a period. Because punctuation is typically left off in messages, deliberately including it seems to signify some social meaning. The same goes for capitalization: capitalizing words and phrases for Irony Or Emphasis works amongst speakers for whom skipping formal capitalization conventions is the norm.
Age, of course, is not the only factor in determining how Online a person is, or how on top of changes to the conventions of internet language they may be. As Gretchen McCulloch explains in Because Internet:
“The population of the internet is larger than any one country, and its denizens aren’t just technology users; they’re a kind of community. Let’s call the members of this community Internet People. Sure, a few Non Internet People still conduct their entire social lives via bodily interaction and letters and landline phone calls. Some stay offline voluntarily, like older folks … or people who’ve decided to live off the grid or avoid social media. Others are offline involuntarily: people in remote areas, who don’t speak a language with a major internet presence, or who can’t afford a device and a connection. And technically speaking, only about half the world’s population has access to the internet. But a whole lot of people — four billion in the latest count — are online.”
Who an Internet Person is has changed over time, as well. Long gone are the days of Usenet, dial-up, and AOL. With the internet growing more and more user-friendly, especially with the integration of smartphones and tablets into everyday life for much of the world, it no longer takes technical skill or programming knowledge to be an Internet Person. Anyone with a working device and WiFi connection can make a Twitter account or join a Facebook group and connect with people around the world. With the rise of the social internet at the turn of the century, young people coming of age during this time began to acquire and spread new norms of communication through interactions amongst their peers online, the same way cultural information gets transmitted face-to-face through the halls of a school.
McCulloch’s version of events is specific, of course, to an industrialized English-speaking Western world. English is, of course, not the only language used on the internet, though it is the most prevalent. According to Internet World Stats, as of April 2019 the top five languages used on the internet are English, Chinese (presumably Mandarin), Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese, which is a very rough reflection of the more commonly spoken languages in the world. Consequently, the evolution of internet speech is not unique to English.
Internet slang in languages around the world
Laughter is shared across cultures and languages around the world, but every language has its own way of expressing laughter through text. One of the more common methods is typing or writing it out phonetically: English has “hahaha”, Spanish “jajaja”, Mandarin 哈哈 (haha) or 嘻嘻 (xixi), Korean “kkkkk”, Thai “55555” (5 is pronounced “ha”), or Icelandic “híhíhí”. Phonetic transliteration is not the only form of expressing laughter, however. Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese will type “rsrsrsrs”, from ‘riso’, or ‘laughter’. Similarly, Japanese speakers use “www” as a shorthand for ‘warai’, the pronunciation of the Japanese word for ‘laughter’. French speakers have “mdr”, short for ‘mort de rire’, or ‘dying of laughter’.
The early 2000s saw the rise of Web 2.0, or the Social Web, which is predicated on the belief that the internet should be a participatory, collaborative experience. This sparked the creation of sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia, which allow users to interact with one another and create user-generated content, individually and collectively. Today, the internet is more or less a global network, with users now having the ability to communicate and collaborate with other users in different parts of the world. This has led to an unprecedented widespread cultural exchange we likely would not have seen otherwise, and as a result, internet slang gets borrowed and exchanged between languages. “To troll” and “to spam” become Italian “trollare” and “spammare”, for example.
For the most part, the evolution of internet speech is uncharted territory. What it will look like 20 years from now is anyone’s guess. One thing is for certain: whatever it looks like, we’ll probably all still be able to have a good laugh.
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