E-mails, Chat and Online Communication - Towards a New English?

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2, University of Marburg (Fremdsprachliche Philologien), course: Varieties of English, language: English, abstract: But what consequences will the impact of the Internet on language have? Some people admit that the progress in technology can be very advantageous, but they worry about the quality of language and argue that its development brings about bad effects.

This paper will focus on the linguistic development of the English language, and try to find out whether the effect of the Internet plays a role. If so, what changes can we consider and how do they emerge?

First, an overview of the reasons for the development of languages will introduce the topic. The term registers will be defined in order to explain the different varieties of English.

We will then consider the different situations of language use in online communication. This paper will present the different technologies for online communication such as e-mail and chat and illustrate the use of language within them. Several examples will illustrate the main differences between traditional written language and language used on the Internet.