Thinking about Communication in the web

5.0 out of 5 stars.

October 29, 2013.

By Edwin León.

Language and the Internet by David Crystal.

Internet is a medium that has made deep changes in human lives. Marketing processes, democratic decision making, education and audiovisual diffusion are some examples of this transformation. The way in which people interact with each other has also been transformed because of the possibilities that Internet gives, breaking the time and space limits worldwide. Language and the Internet (2001) by David Crystal, the first edition in Oxford University Press, is a book that explains extensively how World Wide Web and computers have changed communication between people.

David Crystal, who is an honorary Professor of Linguistics in Wales University, analyzes with scientific rigor the changes that users have lived in their chatting since the public availability of the Internet until the beginning of the twenty-first century. Crystal is a world foremost authority on Linguistic studies. In addition to English as a Global Language and Language Death, Language and the Internet completes the author’s perspectives about current changes in English language; however, his arguments could be applied to languages all around the world which are used in virtual platforms.

Crystal starts his book explaining how chatting has made individuals to create new resources to communicate with their peers, so that they can adapt and take advantage of the properties of the medium. He notices the emergence of a novel way of talking between users, neither spoken nor written, but a combination of both. This is what David Crystal names Netspeak. After describing it, he presents how the users have adopted this linguistic register to build a community and to identify themselves as part of it. The body of Crystal’s book is shaped with the analysis of four Internet situations where Netspeak is used: E-mail, chatgroups, virtual worlds and the web itself.

The author advocates for a non-prescriptive theory of Language shaping. He thinks about Language as a medium which necessarily needs to change throughout the time and space. This conversion is just part of natural and cultural human evolution. Internet has revolutionized a lot of routines and habits of human life and Language would not be the exception.

Crystal’s work is a pioneer study on the topic. It has been referred in subsequent works such as Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World (2008) by Naomi Baron, who is also a linguist interested in the technological influence in human communication. In fact, Baron and Crystal constantly refer each other in their researches. Language and the Internet has transcended the United Kingdom boundaries too. In Latin America, Guadalupe López and Clara Ciuffoli considered this book to write their own purposal entitled Facebook es el mensaje: oralidad, escritura y después (2012).

Language and the Internet is a book mainly addressed to scholars and researchers of Linguistics, Communication Studies and ICT’s Development Studies. Nevertheless, it could be useful for an everyday Internet user who wants to know more about the communication practices in which he/she is involved. Although Crystal uses a lot of technical terms related to Linguistics, his written style is not so complex to become confused at reading his reflections. He actually adds some humorous thoughts about his own findings along the text.

Language is an important quality of human beings which defines not only social interaction in a certain group, but also the symbolic values of a culture. David Crystal gives a deep approach to this issue in the digital age, explaining their causes, characteristics and consequences. There may be a lot of concepts and arguments that can be rejected. Personally, to talk about a Netspeak seems to be risky because he is establishing the medium as the dominant element in Language transformations above from users. Notwithstanding, Crystal's contribution is definetely valuable no matter the controversies that it can incite.

Crystal doesn´t analyze the instant messaging interaction although it was very popular in the 2000. He neither considers the social networks and its influence on Internet users' conversations because they become a boom until 2006. Notwithstanding, the author highlights that the four studied Internet situations are certainly not the only ones which will impact on human communication. In this sense, when David Crystal acknowledges Internet as an integrating medium, he foresees the emergence of websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Language and the Internet is an obligatory reading to understand current communication practices. Comprehending language and its uses is one way to know more about society itself and oneself.