by Charis Nandor
Charis is a student at Bryn Mawr College, where she is completing her major in Linguistics. You can watch her video here.
Charis is a student at Bryn Mawr College, where she is completing her major in Linguistics. You can watch her video here.
Because Internet.
Internet Linguistics, while not actually being its own field of linguistics (yet) is starting to be a popular thing to study. People use words differently on the Internet. Punctuation is important in a way that’s more obvious than in spoken language. Even syntax (word order) can be different on the Internet.
For example, in spoken language, up to a few years ago, it would be entirely ungrammatical for someone to say “*I want this because reasons.” They would have to say, “I want this because of reasons.” However, this structure became acceptable on the Internet, and now it’s actually spread into spoken language (albeit mostly among frequent Internet-users).
For example, in spoken language, up to a few years ago, it would be entirely ungrammatical for someone to say “*I want this because reasons.” They would have to say, “I want this because of reasons.” However, this structure became acceptable on the Internet, and now it’s actually spread into spoken language (albeit mostly among frequent Internet-users).
“Blefadula” is Not a Word.
Of course, because language contains so many parts, I couldn’t focus on all aspects of language. I decided to specifically focus on one of the simplest things for a broad audience to understand—words. Everyone knows what a word is. “Happy” is a word. “Blefadula” is not a word. And then, it gets more complicated than that. For some people, yinz is a word. Other people might have no idea what that means, and say it definitely isn’t a word. (For reference, “yinz” is a Pittsburgh term meaning “you guys” or “y’all”.)
The same thing happens with Internet words. While I, an avid Tumblr user, feel perfectly comfortable with doggo or snek, my parents would have no idea what these mean. One of the interesting things to me about Internet words is that they’re often very similar to “regular” English words. In this case, “doggo” is a large, cute dog and “snek” is a cute snake.
The same thing happens with Internet words. While I, an avid Tumblr user, feel perfectly comfortable with doggo or snek, my parents would have no idea what these mean. One of the interesting things to me about Internet words is that they’re often very similar to “regular” English words. In this case, “doggo” is a large, cute dog and “snek” is a cute snake.
"My Friend is a Smol."
For my project, I chose three terms that I am very familiar with, since this would allow me to ask the right questions. I asked about smol, cinnamon roll, and v. None of these words are very new, which meant they had time to infiltrate the vocabulary of Internet-users. I personally having been using “smol” and “cinnamon roll” for about two years and “v for about three or four years. All these words are also different parts of speech. Traditionally, “smol” is an adjective, “cinnamon roll” is a noun, and “v” is an adverb. (Were I able to work with a larger project scope, I would have used more terms, some of which I wasn’t as familiar with. In fact, I did ask all three of my participants if they could think of any more examples, but since they were put on the spot it was hard for them to come up with things off the top of their heads.)
Of course, English is a language that allows us to change parts of speech pretty easily. We can use nouns as adjectives (water bottle) or as verbs (to Google). This happens even more often on the Internet, in casual “speech.” Someone might say “I’m computering right now” to mean that they’re using their computer at that time. Although “smol” is usually used as an adjective, it can also be used as a noun. I could say either “My friend is smol” or “My friend is a smol.”
Of course, English is a language that allows us to change parts of speech pretty easily. We can use nouns as adjectives (water bottle) or as verbs (to Google). This happens even more often on the Internet, in casual “speech.” Someone might say “I’m computering right now” to mean that they’re using their computer at that time. Although “smol” is usually used as an adjective, it can also be used as a noun. I could say either “My friend is smol” or “My friend is a smol.”
Real Life.
All the people that I interviewed are native English speakers, and they all use the Internet fairly regularly in English. However, I have noticed non-native English speakers also using these words and expressions.
Another interesting thing, which you’ll see if you watch my video, is that these words spread from the Internet to real life speech. Some Internet things, like punctuation, can’t be captured through spoken language so people don’t bother trying, but when it comes to lexical items, some people (myself included) use them quite frequently out loud. Of course, it does depend on the environment. I would never use these words when talking to my grandparents, simply because they wouldn’t know what they mean.
Lastly, how does my video connect to the broader field of sociolinguistics? Well, while I didn’t use these terms in my interviews, a lot of my results are related to broader sociolinguistic concepts. I talked to people about their comfort with these words (communicative competence) and what these words reference (indexicality). So I hope that you can watch this video and get a sense for some basic ideas of sociolinguistics, and have fun doing it!
Another interesting thing, which you’ll see if you watch my video, is that these words spread from the Internet to real life speech. Some Internet things, like punctuation, can’t be captured through spoken language so people don’t bother trying, but when it comes to lexical items, some people (myself included) use them quite frequently out loud. Of course, it does depend on the environment. I would never use these words when talking to my grandparents, simply because they wouldn’t know what they mean.
Lastly, how does my video connect to the broader field of sociolinguistics? Well, while I didn’t use these terms in my interviews, a lot of my results are related to broader sociolinguistic concepts. I talked to people about their comfort with these words (communicative competence) and what these words reference (indexicality). So I hope that you can watch this video and get a sense for some basic ideas of sociolinguistics, and have fun doing it!
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