This was interesting...

*Spontaneous, Unedited, Naked*

/Review by ANNE EISENBERG/

A Linguist Looks at Discourse on the Internet

_ <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521802121/scientificameric>_
<<...OLE_Obj...>> LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521802121/scientificameric> by
David Crystal Cambridge University Press, 2001
Never mind those anxieties about the Internet's impact on privacy,
intellectual property and the recreational habits of 12-year-olds. What
is it doing to the future of the English language? Will it really lead
to the end of literacy as we know it--not to mention spelling?

Not according to David Crystal, a linguist who says in this witty,
thoughtful book that, on the contrary, the discourse of the
Internet--with its new, informal, even bizarre forms of
language--neither threatens nor replaces existing varieties of English
but instead enriches them, extending our range of expression and showing
us "homo loquens at its best."

Crystal, the Welsh author of the/ Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English
Language/ who is known to many in the U.S. through his comments on
National Public Radio, analyzes the discourse of Web pages, e-mail,
chatgroups and virtual-reality games. At first glance, much of this text
certainly looks like a primer on linguistic irresponsibility: the
shedding of capital letters; the minimalist punctuation; the perverse
spellings and goofy abbreviations like RUOK ("are you okay?"); the
smileys, such as :-), representing humor; the coining of terms at a rate
that has no parallel in contemporary language.

For Crystal, though, these phenomena are not portents of linguistic doom
but examples of a set of language tactics developed for a new medium he
calls computer-mediated communication. The innovative, sometimes
screwball varieties of English expressed in computer-mediated channels,
he says, have evolved as users have adapted their language creatively to
meet changing circumstances.

*A Guide to Netspeak*
Both uppercase and lowercase forms are used.
afaik as far as I know
awhfy are we having fun yet?
b4 before
bg big grin
cm call me
dur? do you remember?
fwiw for what it's worth
gal get a life
gmta great minds think alike
ianal I'm not a lawyer, but. . .
icwum I see what you mean
imo in my opinion
mtfbwu may the force be with you
obtw oh, by the way
rotf rolling on the floor
rtfm read the f---ing manual
smtoe sets my teeth on edge
t+ think positive
tttt to tell the truth
tx thanks
wb welcome back
X! typical woman
Y! typical man
2bctnd to be continued
2g4u too good for you
4yeo for your eyes only
Smileys, for instance, appeared early in the language of e-mail as
people struggled to replace many characteristics of speech, like pitch
and tone, with symbols, using ;-) for winking or :-( for sadness. Most
other forms of written language suffer under the same burden as e-mail,
of course--they are not face-to-face and are therefore always ambiguous
in their omission of cues such as intonation. So why are there no
smileys in other forms of writing? Crystal argues that the answer lies
in the immediacy of computer-mediated communication. Traditional writing
entails time to revise, to make personal attitudes clear, to tinker with
phrases. Smileys and other, related devices stand in for this extra work
in the more spontaneous, fluid world of the new medium, which combines
properties not only of speaking and writing but of rapid electronic
exchange.

Crystal is unbothered by typical usage issues--for instance, whether the
form "email," "e-mail" or "E-mail" will prevail. He's willing to leave
such matters to a future editorial consensus. And he does not worry
about whether using "Dear Bob" instead of "Bob" at the beginning of an
e-mail will make him a fuddy-duddy, as one handbook on e-mail usage
advises. In fact, Crystal laughs at this prescriptive approach, arguing
that to condemn one style as bad is to deny English users the stylistic
option of switching, thereby reducing the versatility and richness of
language. No single recommendation, he says, can suit the expectations
of the range of audiences the Internet is reaching.

His interest, instead, is in the readiness with which people are
adapting spelling, grammar and semantics to meet the needs of
Internet-based situations. The chapters on specific adaptations are
studded with linguistic delights to satisfy anyone who has ever wondered
what TTFN means ("ta ta for now") or tia ("thanks in advance") or gal
("get a life"). (Many more of these abbreviations are explained in
highly entertaining tables, as are the varieties of smileys.) He tackles
etymologies, too, and the derivations shed light on much that may
otherwise have been mysterious: cc, for example, has a new gloss as
"complimentary copy," now that carbon copies are a distant memory. He
examines the plural ending "-en" that is popular on the Internet--as in
"vaxen" for VAX computers--saying that such suffixes are a development
that "will cause delight to all Anglo-Saxonists."

Crystal devotes a chapter to the discourse of chatgroups--"gossip
groups" is a more accurate description for most of what goes on within
them, he says--which he characterizes as a "perpetual linguistic party,
where you bring your language, not a bottle." He is fascinated by
chatgroup language in part because it provides a domain in which to see
written language in its most primitive state--banal, repetitive and
untouched (as most writing is) by editing. "Chatgroups are the nearest
we are likely to get to seeing writing in its spontaneous, unedited,
naked state."

He also reports on the scholarly literature of computer-mediated
communication, including such gems as the finding that, in contrast to
females, males on academic newslists sent longer messages, made stronger
assertions and engaged in more self-promotion, while making fewer
apologies and asking fewer questions.

Crystal is definitely upbeat, discovering the still evolving discourse
of the Internet an area of huge potential enrichment. He uses the
analogy of a gift he received--a new informal shirt. This shirt didn't
destroy his sense of the value of formal and informal--it just made his
previously satisfactory, informal shirts look somewhat staid. He sees
the language of the Internet, too, as similarly extending the range of
communication options. RUOK with this?

**

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Received on Tue Oct 7 12:33:42 2003