Internet English is an emerging language system whose rapid development and complexity has implications for the evolution of grammar
By Calley Pierce
Course: Morphology and Syntax (Ling 4420)
Advisor: Jared Desjardins
LURA 2019
The Oxford comma. “Ask” instead of “aks.” There, their, and they’re. The legitimacy of “ain’t” and “y’all.” These are familiar, if sometimes contentious, issues in the usage of the English language. Users decide what is correct and tend to impose it upon others, and the same principle has understandably been applied to Internet English. Many of us look at Internet English through the lens of conventional written English and familiar forms of spoken English: we may be hard pressed to see the following as "real English" as it is so different:
Early in life, I had begun to suspect there was something very special happening with language on social media. I had heard many people dismiss language on the Internet as degraded and lacking intelligent meaning, but I struggled to believe this was the case. I wondered what the nature and significance of Internet English was, and how it may impact our understanding of the evolution of language.Ěý
I began my research by looking at literature on the evolutionary emergence of grammar. When we know how something began, that can inform how fast it will change. While the expression of grammar differs widely from language to language, the purpose of grammar is ubiquitous. Grammar is what makes language constructible and communicable; we need to produce language and have it be understood. Grammar is a finite system for conveying infinite meanings—all languages can (and must) be able to express absolutely anything. So since new meanings are constantly being generated on the Internet, grammar adapts in order to express those meanings as fast and as well as it can. Internet users can reference, in a variety of forms, a meme, a quote, a story, a world event, and so on. Accordingly, grammar, punctuation, and the general appearance of text are rapidly being restructured to accommodate this expansion.
Example (1)
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The text in (1) includes emojis and repurposes punctuation both to imitate speech and for comedic effect. It captures meaning that would not be conveyed by its traditionally written counterpart, which may go something like: “How do people put on false eyelashes? I try putting on one and I’m so bad at it, it’s laughable.”
Example (2)
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The text in (2) is an example of one of the key innovations in Internet English, the keyboard smash. It is usually used to capture a strong emotion, such as laughter or fear. This meaning has no counterpart in standard written form, nor can it be said aloud.
I would suggest that Internet English is best understood as a language that is “seen” rather than “read.” While Internet English is basically a form of written language, it pulls strongly in the direction of spoken language. Consider how prosody, or the sound of a voice going up and down, is imitated by altering the look and shape of text in (3):
Example (3)
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Punctuation can also be used to the same voice-like end, as in (4):
Example (4)
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Along with focusing on qualities of the text, emojis increasingly play a very real and sophisticated grammatical function in Internet English. While sometimes emojis are simply contextual “decoration,” as in:
they can also function as individual, meaningful units as in (5):
Example (5)
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The emoji used here functions like a word due to its placement and interpretation in the sentence.
Another word-like, grammar-like quality of emojis is how they can function as an abbreviation. For example, someone may tweet a link to an article and caption it with
and anyone conversant in Internet English would know what this meansĚý(see translation here)Ěý Ěýis shorthand for a meme of Kermit the Frog drinking tea, usually captioned “but that’s none of my business.” It can be interpreted as saying, tongue-in-cheek, “not that I was paying attention or being petty or anything…”
My goal was to investigate just how linguistically innovative Internet language is and how its development may inform our understanding of the evolution of language. Internet English is, despite its young age, used and understood by millions of people, and users know that there is social capital in properly or creatively using emojis, as well as omitting punctuation or reinventing its purpose. Internet English is not poorly written English; it is a new way to produce language.
Opening photo credit:
Calley Pierce
Calley Pierce graduated in December 2018 with a degree in Chinese and linguistics, and she now works at Rocky Mountain PBS. She loves to dance and cook, but not at the same time. She is a prolific writer and tries to go on long walks every day.