The primary motivation for using a slang unique to the Internet is to ease communication. However, while Internet slang shortcuts save time for the writer, they take two times as long for the reader to understand, according to a study by the University of Tasmania.[4] On the other hand, similar to the use of slang in traditional face-to-face speech or written language, slang on the Internet is often a way of indicating group membership.[5]
Internet slang provides a channel which facilitates and constrains our ability to communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from those found in other semiotic situations. Many of the expectations and practices which we associate with spoken and written language are no longer applicable. The Internet itself is ideal for new slang to emerge because of the richness of the medium and the availability of information.[6] Slang is also thus motivated for the “creation and sustenance of online communities”.[6] These communities in turn play a role in solidarity or identification[1][7] or an exclusive or common cause.[8]
Crystal distinguishes among five Internet situations: The Web, email, asynchronous chat (for example, mailing lists), synchronous chat (for example, Internet Relay Chat), andvirtual worlds.[9] The electronic character of the channel has a fundamental influence on the language of the medium. The options of communication for the user are constrained by the nature of the hardware needed in order to gain Internet access. Thus, productive linguistic capacity (the type of information that can be sent) is determined by the preassigned characters on a keyboard, and receptive linguistic capacity (the type of information that can be seen) is determined by the size and configuration of the screen. Additionally, both sender and receiver are constrained linguistically by the properties of the internet software, computer hardware, and networking hardware linking them. Electronic discourse refers to writing that is "very often reads as if it were being spoken – that is, as if the sender were writing talking"
Patrick Abboud
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