It is clear that the invention of the Internet is an immense
technological achievement, according to Crystal in his book, Language and the Internet. It has been a selection that I have enjoyed reading and his perspective as an enciteful linguistic analyst has has solidified some of the ideas that I have had in both the constructs that language has on the internet and vice versa. Early on in his book though, there are some issues that I thought were interesting and the curiosity of how they materialized kept me interested to read further. Crystal would probably agree with Spiderman/Peter Parker's famed Uncle
Ben when he said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Sometimes, we are not responsible and “the
dangers of the Internet…pornography, intellectual property rights, privacy,
security” (Crystal 1) are produced or jeopardized. But according to Crystal, the most primary
issue that critics are worried about is linguistic issues that the internet has on everyday language.
Crystal then goes into talking about how
Internet culture, with its “i” “e” and other prefixes have invaded common
language. With his description of Shawn
Wilbur’s day, I have come to the harsh realization that I am not a ‘netizen’
but someone who utilizes the internet for whatever task I have to do. Wilbur checks the internet when he wakes at
night, has it open when he does other work on the computer, and logs on once or
twice a day for extended periods of time for demanding real time
communication. A true addict, as Crystal
says, does some of this and more. An
addicted internet user is online for multiple days at a time, has the computer
close to their refrigerator, and even uses internet language in everyday
life! This almost seemed comedic to me,
especially when I heard the terms. Who says,
“Scroll up” when someone asks what you said, or tells someone that they live at
http://123.elm.street/house/bluetrim.html? That is ridiculous! To be honest, that doesn't even make sense. The only way that is even halfway intelligible
is that people live at an address and that is an internet address, that is
it! I think that while there is an
ability for some “Netspeak” to enter into our colloquial language, I do not
think that it would convolute the language that these people grew up saying,
unless they were in a vacuum of a completely computer based society where the
only people that they grew up with were other computer people. I mean, how would they “It’s my turn to
download” meaning I've heard your gossip, now hear mine. Really?
I’m not saying that people do not make up terms or say things that mean
something else, but if you ask a computer person the different meanings of the
word ‘download’, I’m sure they would probably not stray too far from its
commonly known meaning.
Something I do agree with Crystal is his thoughts on “@”
words infiltrating our lexicon. The
symbol, “now the universal link between recipient and address” was chosen by
computer engineer Ray Tomlinson, because it was already on the typewriter and
was not used in names (Crystal 21). So
while I will agree that it is being used in business, I posit that it is merely
just a function, a short hand of sorts and is something that more people are
familiar with. I believe that the notion
of the “@” works more toward an ideal of making something easy to understand
that some of the more ethereal and abstract constructs that were discussed
earlier that, in my opinion, are the vocabulary not of ‘netizens’ or ‘digital
natives’ but of people whose whole existence is consumed not by the internet
but computers in general.
The Medium of Netspeak
I thoroughly enjoyed Crystal's section on Netspeak and how he set up the differences in language used and the idea of the "written speech...'write the way people talk...electronic discourse is writing that often reads as if it were being spoken-that is, as if the sender were writing talking"(Crystal 25). I have often thought that reading different things on the internet was in fact easier than some literature and it appears that this is the case. It seems as if the constructs of common internet language would go so far as to combine the traditional sense of speaking and writing and ultimately be a hybridized form of that while creating some of its own properties. Crystal further states that, "First is a function of the technology-the lack of simultaneous feedback...it does not arrive on that person's screen a keystroke at a time-messages does not leave until we hit send"(Crystal 30). This expression that Crystal has shows the way that Netspeak, in its standardized form, is uncharacteristic in entirety of both speech and traditional writing as it takes on a third origin in the technology being used.
Another interesting issue that Crystal raises is the construct that Netspeak utilizes some of the vocal qualities of speech and incorporates that into text. Being as such, written text traditionally does not have the support of incorporating additional meaning that is present in facial expressions, gestures, and changes in voice. The conversational, writing as if we were talking ideals present in Netspeak have created different ways to show emotion through the use of capital letters, italics, underlined phrases, spacing, repetition of letters, and punctuation.
I think, if anything that Netspeak, while it sometimes does not follow the conventional form of writing, is substantially positive as an adaptable medium. Text on paper writing can change, but only slightly, while Netspeak has a way of changing to suit the user's needs and in a world where the best suited whatever wins, Netspeak is clearly becoming the medium of the majority of users, lauditorially speaking.
Crystal, David. Language and the Internet. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.
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