Publication Date
June 2011
Abstract
Over the past decade, the use of the Internet has become an indispensable part of life in the new millennium. One of the most popular activities in the era of the Internet is online communication. Net-Lingo, which is a product of online communication, is a new language variety that differs from both writing and speech as traditionally understood (Crystal, 2001). Given that Net-Lingo is considered a language variety, I describe the salient linguistic characteristics of Korean Net-Lingo (KNL) and investigate the specific mechanisms that govern the observable linguistic characteristics. The globalization of the Internet is prompting different languages to come into contact in online situations, especially with English as the globally leading language. I also capitalize on how KNL adopts English online from a linguistic perspective. I predict that the interaction between English and Korean will be unavoidable and robust. Thus, research on a new type of language contact will be beneficial for gaining greater insight on how different languages interact and influence one another, which ultimately contributes to the evolution of the Korean language.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Communication Technology and New Media Commons, International and Intercultural Communication Commons, Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons
