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INTRODUCTION
Research on language use on the internet is by now an industry complete with themes, factions, and fields of study (e.g. Androutsopolous 2014). Virtually all of this research, however, is based on what is publically available on the internet. What remains hidden is how people are interacting within each other inside the internet where one-on-one discourses are transpiring in a worldwide beehive of communication. What type of language do people use when they communicate with each other using device-based mediation, a phenomena referred to as CMC (computer-mediated communication) (Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire 1984)? This is a question that seems simple enough, but when it comes to finding out, it soon becomes apparent that neither scientists, nor journalists, nor teachers are actually privy to the day-to-day interactions between people, as they tap away at their computers and phones. What type of language do they use? Perhaps most compelling, what type of language do the digital natives use, contemporary youth? Consider the examples in (1) and (2), which come from one-to-one communications of instant messaging (IM) (via computer) and texting on phones (SMS) circa 2010.
(1). a. can u sav it if u can? cuz i havnt left home yet (SMS)
b. well at ur standards u said i would be content but still striving 4 better (IM)
(2). a. N hope to c u tmr haha if u make it.. Class is so boring (SMS)
b.yeee wuts ur gf sayin is she gonna mind u goin to clubs haha(IM)
It is not difficult to see why this type of communication has incurred the wrath of teachers, writers, and others. Punctuation, spelling, short forms, informal features, and other aberrant phenomena seem to abound; at least that is often the proclamation in reports in the media, which typically comprise headlines with several anomalous (supposedly typical) forms typical of internet 'lingo', for example, 'Nvm about the lolls' (Girard 2006). The question is, whose language are they talking about, what community, and which individuals? Language use on the internet has increased exponentially in the last few decades; however, users born in the late 1980s are key to the study of CMC because they are essentially 'native' speakers of internet language, the first generation of individuals born and raised...