21st century english

• • semantic field
  • informal lexis
  • opinionated/emotive language
  • attitudes
  • ability to respond to previous posts
  • connections between username and online persona
  • short posts
  • anonymity allows people to convey strong opinions
• Shortis and Crystal


  Believe that texting is positive for the English language
• Woods investigation


  Revealed that there is no correlation between texting language and using standard English correctly
• Shortis


  Believes that texting displays the creativity of the producer
• Crystal


  Believes that texting is a sign of language evolution
• McWhorter


  Says that texting allows us to write the way we think and that it is a linguistic miracle
• Humphrys


  Believes that texting is "pillaging our punctuation and raping our vocabulary"
• Cingle and Sundar


  Found that there was a strong negative correlation between frequent texting and explicit understanding of grammar
• Lee


  Found that those who were intense in their use of texting had a much smaller vocabulary
• Tagg


  Investigated text messages and found that spelling mistakes were more common than text language
• Informalisation (Goodman)


  Colleagues referred to by their first names
• Colloquialisation (Leech)


  Interactions have become more informal - how would you greet a friend in the street today vs. 100 years ago
• Lexical change (Algeo)


  Almost singularly lexical change - grammar and syntax takes many many years to develop
• Acronym


  An abbreviation formed from initial letters e.g. NASA
• Blend


  A word formed by combining 2 words into 1 e.g. brunch
• Borrowing


  Introduction of a loan word from another language e.g. shampoo
• Clipping


  Creation of a new word by dropping one syllable e.g. Thurs, spec, flu
• Code switching


  Switching between one variety or language in a situation
• Coinage


  Addition of new words to the lexicon
• Collocation


  A group of words that commonly go together e.g. fish & chips
• Colloquialism


  Informal word, phrase or pronunciation e.g. y'alright
• Deixis


  Such, that, these, now, then etc. that point to a specific time or place
• Derivation


  Addition of suffixes in order to create a new word e.g. slow+ness
• Double negatives


  Two negatives in a phrase e.g. didn't you never find out
• Ellipsis


  Omission of part of a phrase, but can still be understood by the receiver e.g. 'I want to go but I can't'
• Exclamative


  Used to express extreme feelings e.g. 'I hate football!
• Filler


  Part of speech with no semantic value but is used in order to allow thinking time
• Initialism


  Word formed from initial letters and spoken letter by letter e.g. BBC
• Logogram


  Graphic unit associated with actions or words e.g. emojis
• Neologism


  Creation of a word from existing lexical terms e.g. laptop
• Non standard


  Does not converge to the linguistic norm
• Obsolete words


  Words that are no longer in common use
• Analyse the texts using appropriate terminology in order to evaluate features of 21st century English. Keep focus on the question throughout by linking points to the question throughout and cover context thoroughly.
• Select data that effectively supports your answer to the question and use terminology to further this. Group data effectively by accounting for context and purpose.
• Anonymity


  Allows people to convey strong opinions without facing social repercussions
• Proper noun 'HIPPO HEAD'


  • Capitalised for emphasis and to represent intense emotions
• Anonymity allows the text producer to use insults without facing social repercussions that might be seen in a spoken setting
• Informalisation


  Use of non-standard contractions like 'innit' suggests the person is part of a certain social group that uses 'ghetto grammar'
• Slang is used to separate different social groups from one another, and those that use it have, to some, power
• The fact that it has been produced in the written mode suggests the influence of spoken language on 21st century internet language