A Brief Analysis of Internet Language From the Perspective of Sociolinguistics

李红娟

【Abstract】：With the rapid development of science and technology， Internet becomes more and more popular. A novel language which is Internet language comes into being in the youth， which draws the attention of linguists and other researchers. This paper mainly analyzes the Internet language from the sociolinguistic perspectives. The author firstly examines the originality of socilingistics and the definition of Internet language. Furthermore， the author introduces that Internet language is a kind of language variety and the characteristics of Internet language.

【Key words】：analysis； sociolinguistics； the network language； language variety

1.Introduction

People have more chances to approach the Internet on account of the popularization of computer. Consequently， the net citizens coin a kind of new language which is familiar with the youth in the process of surfing the Internet. It is well-known that this new language is known as Internet language. That is to say， Internet language is a kind of language variant which is considered as a communicative tool by netizens. Simultaneously， it is a great revolution of modern language due to the fast advent of the Internet language which affects greatly in all works of life and all aspects of peoples life. Therefore， some researchers and experts who interest in this language come to keep a watchful eye on it. To some extent the exert of Internet language on the computer also attracts the attention of the ministry of education. Thus it can be seen that Internet language is a hotspot problem in the academic field. Some seasoned experts have ever studies the Internet language， yet the research is halfway. So the following investigators need to have a future specialization in order to broaden its scope and depth. This paper mainly delineates the narrow Internet language which is often used by net citizens when they communicate with each other.

2.Sociolinguistics and Internet Language

Sociolinguistics which is a kind of edge discipline rises up in America in the 1960s. It mainly explores the relation between the language and the society by exerting the approaches and methods of linguistics and sociology. As a part of linguistics， it is composed of the language， the varieties of language， language community and language transformation. The experts segment the sociolinguistics into two parts which can be described as macrolinguistics and microlinguistics. They have separation of concerns. The former focuses on the whole issues and the latter concentrates on the varieties of language in various contexts. The Internet language belongs to an ingredient of microlinguistics in that it is a type of the varieties of language.

3.Internet Language is a Kind of Language Variety

Language variety is a basic unit adopted by the linguists analyzing the social language phenomenon. The famous linguist Hudson considers the definition of language variety as an array of language items possessing the same social distribution. In order to adapt to the special condition， Internet language is changed accordingly. The variety embodies in the following ways：

From the perspective of lexicon， net citizens often use the initial letter of words to expression their meaning. They consider it a convenient way. This way is called acronym. For instance， GF stands for girl friend. Similarly， boy friend is short for BF. This is one way of acronym. The other way is the abbreviation of pingyin， such as MM is short for Meimei. We can clearly know that this kind of expression can save much time and decrease the difficulty of input. In addition， numbers and partial tone are also be used. 521 is usually considered by the young as “I love you.” The Chinese word “稀饭” stands for “喜欢”， “美眉” stands for “妹妹”， etc. As we all know， that the designer of QQ also create some expression animation.

From the perspective of syntax， the net citizens often borrow some new syntax and sentences from classical films. This paper makes Westward Journey as an example.The habitual usage and some dialogues in this film are cited. We are all familiar with “tangsheng” whose characteristics is verbose and chatty. Except for the above condition， “the interrogative sentences and exclamatory sentences have a higher proportion in Internet communication. Short sentences and simple sentences can be seen everywhere in the Internet language， for the topic transfers very quickly and the topic also is not deep. So there is no need of the long sentences to express the complex relation.

From the perspective of discourse， interactive conversation is obviously different from the face-to-face conversation， such as many topics in one dialogue， the intersecting between pairs of language and torpid answer， etc. However， the communicators hardly have any difficulty to understand these discourses. So we can ascertain Internet language discourse has special cohesive devices and the features of coherence.

4.Conclusion

In a word， with the extensive usage of computer， the utilization of Internet language has become more and more fashion and vogue. And we will encounter it inevitably when we use the Internet to communicate with the other. As the appearance of Internet language is double-edged sword， so the argumentation of Internet language is never ceased and stopped. Therefore， we should treat Internet language correctly and tolerantly which brings us the innovation and variety of our Chinese language. At the same time， we should also pay much attention to Internet language and to some extent guide Internet language actively and and positively.

Bibliography：

[1]Hudson， R.A. Sociolinguistics [M]. Beijing： Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press， 2000.

[2]陳原. 社会语言学[M]. 北京： 商务印书馆，2000.

[3]于根元. 网络语言概述[M]. 北京：中国经济出版社，2001.