Late 1980s-1990s

An Emerging Subfield

A Limited Medium

• Limited use
• Limited presence

... but a Clear Intersection

"Computer Mediated Communication as a force in language change"

• Visible Language
• Naomi Baron

"Why are online catalogues hard to use? Lessons learned from information-retrieval studies"

• Journal of the American Society for Information Science
• Christine Borgman

1984:

1986:

"Cyberspeak: the death of diversity"

• Asiaweek
• Jim Erickson

"When the medium determines turns: turn-taking in computer conversation"

• Working with language: a multidisciplinary consideration of language use in work contexts
• Denise Murray

1988:

1989:

1990s-2000s

A Growing Subfield

Internet linguistics grew due to:

• The National Infrastructure: Agenda for Action (1993)

• Increased accessibility in price and use

Emerging shape of the subfield

The Name

The Terms

The Studies

CMC vs. Netlinguistics vs. Internet linguistics?

Focused on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and technical effects on LG

Netlish vs. Netspeak vs. Cyberese?

MUDs, MOOS, & GUIs (oh my!)

Dr. Susan Herring

• PhD in LX, University of California, Berkeley
• American linguist specializing in discourse analysis and gender styles
• Widely known for scholarship on CMC and gender speech styles

Indiana University Bloomington profile

Selected Bibliography

• “ Politeness in computer culture: Why women thank and men flame,” 1994

• Computer-mediated communication: Linguistics, social and cross-cultural perspectives, 1996

• “Gender differences in CMC: Findings and implications,” 2000

• "Self-Filtering through Animoji: Performance, Perception, and Interaction," 2019

• More at http://info.ils.indiana.edu/~herring/

Dr. David Crystal

• Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor
• British linguist specializing in descriptive linguistics 
• Known advocate for "Internet linguistics"

Biography

Selected Bibliography

• ​“To surf or not to surf: that is the question,” 1996
• A Glossary of Textspeak and Netspeak, 2004
• “The scope of Internet linguistics,” 2005
• Language and the Internet, 2006
• Internet Linguistics: A Student Guide, 2011

• More at http://www.davidcrystal.com/books-and-articles/internet-language​

Nokia 9000 Communicator

• 1996: First cellphone with a web browser

Six Degrees

• 1997: First social media site

Other notable developments

2000s-2010s

Modern Internet Linguistics

Early 2000s: Social Media Surge

2002: Friendster

2003: MySpace

2003: LinkedIn

2004: Facebook

2005: YouTube

2006: Twitter

A Digital Population Boom

Defining & Refining "Internet Linguistics"

Crystal:

• Most convenient term/name
• "The scientific study of all manifestations of language in the electronic medium"
• Internet as its own, new medium

McCulloch:

• Examining social effects of communication mediated over digital media
• Examining language change as mediated over digital media within digital communities

• Sociolinguistics

• Pragmatics

• Discourse Analysis

Subfield Foci

Journals

Books

Other media

• Discourse 2.0 (2007), eds. Deborah Tannen & Anna Marie Trester
• Because Internet (2019), Gretchen McCulloch

• Language@Internet (2004)
• Internet Pragmatics (2018)
• Journal of Sociolinguistics (1997)

• Podcasts (Lingthusiasm)
• Blogs (All Things Linguistic, Linguistics Twitter)
• YouTube videos

• MA in LX, McGill University
• Linguist specializing in internet and "pop" linguistics
• Resident Linguist for Wired
• Co-Creator of "Lingthusiasm"
• Strong voice in academic social media spaces
• Recipient of the LSA Linguistics, Language, and the Public 2021 Award

gretchenmcculloch.com

@GretchenAMcC

All Things Linguistic

I'm a linguist and I live on the Internet

(Because Internet, 2019)

• "A Linguist Explains How We Write Sarcasm on the Internet," 2015
• "Voldemorting: birdsite, cheeto, and other ways of hiding words in plain sight," 2018
• "Children Are Using Emoji for Digital-Age Language Learning," 2019
• Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Grammar, 2019
• "Emoji as Digital Gesture," 2019
• More content: https://gretchenmcculloch.com/writing/

2020s & Beyond

The Future of Internet Linguistics

Applied Internet LX

• Pedagogical implications/applications
• Multilingual interactions in digital contexts
• LG learning/acquisition through digital media

LG Variation

• Evident stylistic differences across Internet spaces
• Studying LG changes w/in online speech communities
• Growth of online "face-to-face" interactions/platforms

Further Internet linguistic studies:

• Studies on "anonymous" communities, like 4chan
• Formation/Influence of power hierarchies within virtual communities (IG, Twitter)
• "Digital-Age Language Learning"
• New developments in spoken/verbal online communication (Animoji, VR chat)
• Algorithms and how we talk online may affect them

Questions

&

Answers

For

Next

Class

• Take the "how do u feel when i type like this 🤔" survey
• Read "Typographical Tone of Voice"