Language and the Internet (Relié)

David Crystal investigates the nature of the impact which the Internet is making on language. There is already a widespread popular mythology that the Internet is going to be bad for the future of language - that technospeak will ride, standards be lost, and creativity diminished as globalisation imposes sameness. The argument of this book is the reverse: that the Internet is enabling a dramatic expansion to take place in the range and variety of language, and is providing unprecedented opportunities for personal creativity. At the same time, in order to grow and be maintained as a linguistic medium, the Internet must evolve its own principles and standards - which will be very different from those found in other mediums. The technological achievements of the Internet are increasingly being seen in asocial perspective, with the role of language emerging as central. Notwithstanding the visual panache of screen presentation, what is immediately obvious when engaging in any of the Internet's functions is its linguistic character. So if the Internet is a revolution; is it a linguistic revolution? The Internet has now been around long enough for us to 'take a view' about the way in which it is being shaped by and is shaping language and languages, and there is no-one better placed than David Crystal to take that view. His book is written to be accessible to anyone who has used the Internet and to all who are interested in what must be one of the most vital cultural issues associated with global technology.