Sažetak | The Internet, the network of networks, today represents one of the most commonly used means of communication, helping people of various cultures and continents connect only in a matter of seconds. Since its commercialization in the early 1990’s, the Internet became a very important part in the process of globalization and the widespread of the English language. It also helps preserve the slowly dying languages and dialects of the world in smaller communities. Having developed so many new types of communication, such as e-mailing, chat, blogging and many others, it was no surprise that through the use of the Internet a new language was created and formed as well as a new type of discourse along with it. This new type of discourse was appropriately named computer-mediated discourse. Today Netspeak or the Internet language represents the mostly text-based language comprised out of different registers of different Internet situations. Although the Internet language seems to be a newly formed universal language it still requires the basic knowledge of the English language in order to help you communicate. This is due to the fact that both the Internet and the Internet language are English–based. This type of language is basically no different than any other spoken or written language. It includes words, numbers and numerous graphical tools, such as emoticons and pictures, as well as abbreviations and initialisms. To make the understanding of this even easier, the Internet today provides you with a variety of Internet dictionaries which contain lists of abbreviations, initialisms and their explanations, as well as appropriate ways of their use. The influence of the Internet and its language on other languages surpasses the borders of the virtual world in which it is used. The frequent and daily use of the Internet has affected the daily face–to-face interactions, as its abbreviations and acronyms have infiltrated even the spoken language. To help study all the styles and forms that have arisen under the influence of the Internet a new sub-domain of linguistics was formed, called Internet linguistics. In addition, it has to be noted, that the relation between the Internet and language goes both ways as they simultaneously affected one another in various ways. |