HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/term/netspeak.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 11KB | 253 lines

Netspeak:An analysis of Internet jargon
Approximately 30 million people world-wide use the Internet and online
services daily. The Net
is growing exponentially in all areas, and a rapidly increasing number
of people are finding
themselves working and playing on the Internet. The people on the Net
are not all rocket scientists
and computer programmers; they're graphic designers, teachers, students,
artists, musicians,
feminists, Rush Limbaugh-fans, and your next door neighbors. What these
diverse groups of people
have in common is their language. The Net community exists and thrives
because of effective written
communication, as on the net all you have available to express yourself
are typewritten words. If you
cannot express yourself well in written language, you either learn more
effective ways of
communicating, or get lost in the shuffle.

"Netspeak" is evolving on a national and international level. The
technological vocabulary once used
only by computer programmers and elite computer manipulators called
"Hackers," has spread to all
users of computer networks. The language is currently spoken by people
on the Internet, and is
rapidly spilling over into advertising and business. The words "online,"
"network," and "surf the net"
are occuring more and more frequently in our newspapers and on
television. If you're like most
Americans, you're feeling bombarded by Netspeak. Television advertisers,
newspapers, and
international businesses have jumped on the "Information Superhighway"
bandwagon, making the
Net more accessible to large numbers of
not-entirely-technically-oriented people. As a result,
technological vocabulary is entering into non-technological
communication. For example, even the
archaic UNIX command "grep," (an acronym meaning Get REpeated Pattern)
is becoming more
widely accepted as a synonym of "search" in everyday communication.

The argument rages as to whether Netspeak is merely slang, or a jargon
in and of itself. The
language is emerging based loosely upon telecommunications vocabulary
and computer jargons, with
new derivations and compounds of existing words, and shifts creating
different usages; all of which
depending quite heavily upon clippings. Because of these reasons, the
majority of Net-using linguists
classify Netspeak as a dynamic jargon in and of itself, rather than as a
collection of slang.

Linguistically, the most interesting feature of Netspeak is its
morphology. Acronyms and
abbreviations make up a large part of Net jargon. FAQ (Frequently Asked
Question), MUD
(Multi-User-Dungeon), and URL (Uniform Resource Locator) are some of the
most frequently seen
TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) on the Internet. General abbreviations
abound as well, in more
friendly and conversationally conducive forms, such as TIA (Thanks In
Advance), BRB (Be Right
Back), BTW (By The Way), and IMHO (In My Humble Opinion.) These
abbreviations can be
baffling to new users, and speaking in abbreviations takes some getting
used to. Once users are used
to them, though, such abbreviations are a nice and easy way of
expediting communication.

Derivation is another method by which many words are formed. The word
Internet itself is the word
"net" with the prefix "inter-" added to it. Another interesting example
is the word "hypertext," used to
describe the format of one area of the Internet, the WWW (World Wide
Web). The WWW is
made up of millions of pages of text with "hotlinks" that allow the user
to jump to another page with
different information on it. "Hypertext," derived by adding the prefix
"hyper-" to the word "text,"
produces the definition "a method of storing data through a computer
program that allows a user to
create and link fields of information at will and to retrieve the data
nonsequentially," according to
Webster's College Dictionary.

Proper names also make a large impact on the vocabulary of Net users.
Archie, Jughead, and
Veronica are all different protocols for searching different areas of
the Internet for specific
information. Another new use of proper names is for descriptive
purposes. For example, the
proper-name turned descriptive noun/verb/adjective "Gabriel" has come to
be understood as a
stalling tactic, or a form of filibustering; "He's pulling a Gabriel,"
or "He's in Gabriel mode." Most
frequently, this type of name-borrowing happens due to highly and widely
visible actions by an
individual on the Internet.

Onomatopoeias are also widely found in net jargon, as it's often
necessary to get across an action
such as a sigh or moan, without having sound capabilities to send the
sound itself. Very frequently
net users will use asterisks to denote such sounds as *sigh* or *moan.*

Semantically, net jargon is also quite interesting. Many, many words
used in net jargon are taken
from regular English and applied to new ideas or protocols. For example,
a gopher is not a furry
rodent on the Internet; a gopher is a software program designed to
gopher through the vast amount
of information so that the user can find what she's looking for. A
server is not a waitress or waiter; a
server is another computer that tells your machine what it needs to know
to communicate on the net.
A handle is not a part of a coffee cup; a handle is a nickname. A shell
isn't the thing a clam lives in;
it's the command system that allows you to enter commands to communicate
with the machine on the
other end.

Functional shifts are also often frequently seen among vocabulary on the
net. For example, a flame
(noun) is an angry, hostile response sent to another person. To flame
(verb) is to send someone such
a response. You use a Gopher (noun) to gopher (verb) through
information. These finer distinctions
are learned with experience and time on the net. Context is everything
when all you have to
communicate with is your words and typewritten expressions.

One example of coinage, and creativity, within written Netspeech is the
addition of "emoticons" to
express emotions and intention. Emoticons, most frequently seen in the
form of sideways smiles ( 8^
) or ; ) for example, ) are found sprinkled throughout electronic
communication to donote feelings
such as happiniess, or to express sarcasm or humor. Most Net users
consider emoticons a part of
their vocabulary, even if they do not fall into traditional grammatical
rules. Emoticons are not used as
words, they are an attempt at expressing feelings without the luxury of
using one's voice. Using
all-caps is another way Net users have found to bring voice to their
written communication; in the
form of shouting. Net users use all-caps very sparingly, only to
emphasize very important words or
ideas, because most readers do not wish to be shouted at.

Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of Netspeak, however, is
pronunciation. Most frequently,
a user's first encounter with a new vocabulary word is by reading it,
rather than hearing it. This
presents interesting pronunciation differences among different people.
There is an interesting
controversy among the net community over the correct pronunciation of
the word "ethernet" in
normal speech. An ethernet is a network protocol with a fast data
transfer rate. Most of the
computers in offices at Western are connected by an ethernet. In the
past, Ethernet was the name of
a specific networking and communications protocol. At that time, the
word Ethernet was
pronounced with a long [E]. As the concept of Ethernet networking
spread, however, the word
gradually changed to ethernet, pronounced with a short [e], a
description of that specific type of
network. In spoken communication, the two different pronunciations
created a great argument
among computer users, as to which pronunciation was correct; an argument
that will continue for all
time when it comes to spoken communication, and that is absolutely
unimportant in written
communication.

The structure and development of the word ethernet is particularly
interesting as well. It is a
compound of "ether" and "net," increasingly being used to describe the
concept of the Internet itself.
As the Net is a global connection of millions of machines, it is
difficult for the user to understand
what's happening to get the information through those millions of
machines to their own. The basic
explanation of the structure of the Internet is evolving to use the word
"ethernet," meaning a network
that exists sort of like a gaseous cloud, with the imagery of a cloud of
networking information taking
up the ether; occupying the upper regions of space. While this is
absolutely incorrect and inaccurate,
it does help new users learn to not ask how the net works, and to just
accept that it does.

American English Net jargon is somewhat internationally prevalent. Many
terms used on the
multi-lingual yet English dominated Internet are borrowed from language
to language. The words
"Internet" and "cyberspace" are used around the world, as is evident
when one is cruising the Net
and encounters a piece of writing entirely written in Norwegian or
Russian. The only words an
English-speaker easily recognizes are those internationally understood
items of Netspeak. Another
example are the grammatical and vocabulary mutations that English Net
jargon inspires. According
to the Hacker Jargon File, Italian net users often use the nonexistent
verbs "scrollare" (to scroll) and
"deletare" (to delete) rather than native Italian "scorerre" and
"cancellare." The English verb "to hack"
has been seen conjugated in many European languages.

As the Internet and computer online services further invade life in the
United States and the world
over, more and more people will contribute to, change, and further
develop Net jargon as we know
it today. In addition, more people will find Net jargon spilling over
into their offline lives. Nothing in
our world today is changing more quickly than computer networks and
technology, and therefore,
no jargon is changing more quickly than Netspeak. As more and more
specialty words make their
way into our dictionaries, Net jargon will become increasingly prevalent
in our written and spoken
communication. Everyone, not just Net users will become familiar with
the new words and usages,
as is already evident in the increasing use of the terms "networking"
and "cyberspace." As business,
advertising, and entertainment move onto the networks, Netspeak will
continue to grow, change,
and become more a part of everyday communication. This dynamic language
reflects the very rapid
development of new concepts and the need to communicate about these
concepts. As linguists,
tracking this language development is one interesting way of documenting
the progression of the
"Information Age," just as the language changes of Early America allow
historical linguists to track
the movements of our early ancestors.
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