- Early on in her article, Squires introduces the idea that internet language is defined by and enregistered based on its opposition to “Standard English”. This is pretty comparable to the way we define most dialects and “deviations” of language, that is against a “standard”. In this way, can we ever be free of the idea of a “standard language”?
- By and large, it has often been remarked that our society has changed and experienced a technological shift much more rapidly in the last twenty years than it ever has before. Do you think internet speak reflects this rapid change? That is, are we seeing language trends/uses fall in and out of fad more rapidly than in the past? Squires states that markers typical of internet speak, “u 2” or “brb”, occur less frequently than would be expected, could this be a reason why? Have they simply come and gone at a pace we could not keep up with?
- Since the users of internet language and the receivers/audience of internet language vary so vastly, how well can we generalize and draw conclusions about internet language and its functions and indices? Is it acceptable to group all users of internet language under one umbrella even though the way someone engages with it on a fanpage or website may be different from someone on Facebook or Twitter?
Introduction to Sociolinguistics – Fall 2019
LING 76100: Introduction to Sociolinguistics, CUNY Graduate Center
