Renie's whole essay(draft)

Nowadays, people on the internet tend to use the Netspeak instead of proper words to communicate with each other, some people think it will cause bad influence on people and our language, while other disagree, what's your opinion?

Title: Netspeak is the product of internet

If you’re an internet computer user, you are likely familiar with this internet slang -lol, which means laughing out loud. Internet slang along with internet related terminologies are known as Netspeak. Netspeak is the special language, abbreviations, acronyms, keyboard symbols and shortened words and expressions used by people when communicating on the Internet (Macmillan Dictionary), and it makes language more diverse. With the proliferation of internet, most the netizens are young people aged from 18 to 35 who tend to be creative, efficient, and rebellious, the language they used to communicate in the cyber space features as a vivid, interesting, simple, and become a symbol of representing their personality. During past 20years, Netspeak made its way became a widespread practice outside the virtue world, and has been exerting an influence upon the application of language, and some people have negative opinion on this issue, In this essay, firstly, I will analysis its advantage and drawbacks of netspeak, then discuss the possible problems it may have on people and our language, in my view, netspeak as a new and interesting linguistic form, it can revitalise our language that used in our daily life.

Some linguists who study netspeak suggested that netspeak is another language carrier not a clumsy language. Linguist David crystal said “netspeak is non-standard, playful, highly deviant in bending the usual rules of language, tolerant of typographic and spelling errors, and full of new word” (David crystal, 2001) in his book , but he is attracted by its creative style of expression special way of communication. He also suggested that netspeak will change our impression towards language, and it provides people a creative way to talk faster. In 2003, a survey conducted by linguist Naomi Baron, she studied 23 instant message conversations of which 2185 transmissions in total, the result was surprising, people tested were using abbreviations, acronyms and emoticons, the spelling was mainly correct and not ambiguous, the study showed that netspeak change the way people communicate but not the ability of using proper language to communicate.

The main function for a language is to communicate, netspeak as a new linguistic form, although it has some spelling and grammatical mistakes, people still can understand each other for they can accept it quickly, we living a fast paced society where people tend to be efficient, netspeak is created just for such a purpose, it emerges as the times require, and enriches our language with new words and phrase, so it’s another language carrier indeed. Furthermore, netspeak can also give people the inspiration to create new means of expression, people change some words and phrases to make the language simple and convenient, and use it on internet or in daily life from their point of view which is fashionable, it can make people feel at ease and happy to communicate with each other regardless the mistakes, and to practice more which definitively won’t cause declining the ability of using language. On the contrary, using proper language in our daily life where people will pay more attention to wording and talk in a correct way will confine people’s ability to communicate.


However, as the netspeak become increasingly popular, a great number of drawbacks were concluded by studies, one of which shows that it has noticeable impact on the young people, the article reveals that young people have difficulty to distinguish netspeak writing and academic writing. Professor Sheila Contreras found that the way college students communicate with her changed for they use informal language in e-mails. Another drawback is being the abbreviation of netspeak may lead to misunderstanding and delivery incomplete information. Linguist Nacy Morgan said that if you shorten your communication into words and use emoticon to show your emotions, it will cause problems for they’re poor substitute for showing your feelings.
Linguistics professor Naomi Baron also worried that netspeak would influence the way society communicates as a whole, because the more people rely on internet communication, the more likely they tend to be less serious, ill-thought in communication of which the society will be affected.

To find the evident information regarding whether netspeak has impact on young people’s academic study, a survey conducted by Stanford Students in 2003 the result shows 20 out of 24 people regularly used the Internet for up to two hours per day. In spite of this frequent usage of netspeak, only four students said that Netspeak had a noticeable impact on their writing abilities. This survey indicates that, no matter how often the student use the netspeak, majority of student have no problems in use proper English instead of Netspeak and academic writing. As for the second drawback, I’m not totally agree with these, netspeak as an environmental language, it’s mainly used on the internet, as new words come out, it will became convention and received by people, and use abbreviation, acronyms and emoticons is a humorous and vivid way to show your feelings.Wertheimer, an expert of internet said “on the web, the only constant is change” Netspeak as the product of the internet will also change(Wertheimer),it’s in accordance with the rules of self-development and society development for it changes according to people's needs, so it’s not surprising that the communication of the whole society will be changed.

In conclusion, from historic aspect, every big event happened along with the introduction of new words, such as immigration wave, globalization, and it enriches our language and makes it more dynamic or it affects people’s communication and our language in a positive way, just as Jean Atchison said "Language, then, like everything else, gradually transforms itself over the centuries. There is nothing surprising in this. In a world where humans grow old, tadpoles change into frogs, and milk turns into cheese, it would be strange if language alone remained unaltered."(Jean Atchison). The internet gives birth to the emergence of netspeak; it’s the product of internet as well as the society, and it changes as two things develop.

Reference: Notions of Netspeak: Case Study of Online Slang among Stanford Students by Jennifer Chien and Thomas Grano, Stanford University instructor: Professor Richard Holeton, Stanford University, Spring 2003
Lisa Shaw, How Netspeak Affects English and the Way We Communicate
David crystal, the language and internet, second edition, Cambridge University Press 2001
Laccetti, the Lost Art of Writing
John Brandon, FWIW -- The origins of 'Net shorthand