Language and the Internet

by David Crystal

David Crystal investigates the nature of the impact which the Internet is making on language. There is already a widespread popular mythology that the Internet is going to be bad for the future of language - that technospeak will rule, standards be lost, and creativity diminished as globalization imposes sameness. The argument of this book is the reverse: that the Internet is in fact enabling a dramatic expansion to take place in the range and variety of language, and is providing unprecedented opportunities for personal creativity. The Internet has now been around long enough for us to 'take a view' about the way in which it is being shaped by and is shaping language and languages, and there is no-one better placed than David Crystal to take that view. His book is written to be accessible to anyone who has used the Internet and who has an interest in language issues.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction, Contemporary, Internet, Sociology, School

304 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

David Crystal works from his home in Holyhead, North Wales, as a writer, editor, lecturer, and broadcaster. Born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1941, he spent his early years in Holyhead. His family moved to Liverpool in 1951, and he received his secondary schooling at St Mary's College. He read English at University College London (1959-62), specialised in English language studies, did some research there at the Survey of English Usage under Randolph Quirk (1962-3), then joined academic life as a lecturer in linguistics, first at Bangor, then at Reading. He published the first of his 100 or so books in 1964, and became known chiefly for his research work in English language studies, in such fields as intonation and stylistics, and in the application of linguistics to religious, educational and clinical contexts, notably in the development of a range of linguistic profiling techniques for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He held a chair at the University of Reading for 10 years, and is now Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. These days he divides his time between work on language and work on internet applications.

source: http://www.davidcrystal.com/

Reviews

[Ottavia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Again, why do I have to read stuff that has nothing to do with what I'm studying? University is so stupid, sometimes..

[Evie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charmingly/painfully dated (and with a particularly ugly cover), yet still quite interesting :)

[Akbar Madan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I often listen to the conversation that takes place between the two sons of Israphil and my other son, Elia, as they talk about things related to the computer and its contents, especially games. It consists between the modern generation and the world of the Internet, there is a language that is born from the womb of this world, modern linguistic structures that have arisen with modern applications of human communication in the Internet world, broad abbreviations of modern terms, enormous encodings.

[Alexander Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard, today, to read this book without giggling. This book is a piece of history of Internet language, not an analysis of what is happening 'now' or will be happening. Certainly this was very descriptive of its time and very explanatory for those who were not "born digital".

That said, this book is useful as a reference for knowing how people once thought, the humble beginnings of Internet communication and language, and what has traversed time online... but also what hasn't. In some ways you might learn more from what has NOT lasted rather than what has.

There are certainly some spaces where this book is essential to your research or interests, but in most cases, there are much more relevant, up-to-date resources which will explain these things to you in a more detailed fashion. That said, this book helps frame the areas of interest which you wish to know in detail. If you are interested in ANY kind of Internet style communication, this book is a good way to place what kind of area of communication or language you're interested in even if the information here is beyond dated.

[Ivan Zullo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting picture of a very fluid and rapidly evolving matter. In this book, David Crystal offers a linguistic perspective on the use of the language at the beginning of the 20th century (I read the 2006 updated edition).

[Mark A.]

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[Lucy Trojanovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated but that means it's still entirely useful for my A level 😆🥲
Also he's so real for citing himself in his reference I love it

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

In comparison to all of the media we have available to us as means of communication, the internet is still incredibly young. As such, any kind of analysis of the linguistic style(s) of the internet is greatly limited by the (comparatively) minimal amount of available data. Crystal's attempt is mostly descriptive, and he admits that there is no way of knowing what kind of impact on language the various areas of the internet he explores will have. He does this well, and quite humorously, coming to the final conclusion that whatever effects the medium has on language, they will be interesting and ultimately good.

This is the second edition, printed 2006, of a book originally published in 2001. Because of the relatively limited nature of the information he is using, I would be interested to see another revised edition of this work in another five years, when the author can perhaps reach some more satisfying, or, at the very least, grounded, conclusions.

[Lilí Lanz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This might be interesting for people that've never used the internet, maybe. But right now, in this moment of time this book seems unnecessary and very obvious. It brings nothing new to the table, in my opinion.

[C1113726 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative but only a brief overview. Crystal uses a very narrow view of context as determined by the properties of the medium and focuses heavily on medium-specific features of language use, ignoring the socially situated discourse in which these features occur.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read especially because it's written in a "layman's" language so uncharacteristic for many linguists. However, the author repeats his ideas quite often.