digitalcultureproject

[digitalcultureproject]

Entire Bibliography

Barton, David, et Diane Potts. «��Language Learning Online as a Social Practice ». TESOL Quarterly 47, no 4 (2013): 815‑20. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43267931.

Bender, Emily M., Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, et Shmargaret Shmitchell. « On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜 ». In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 610‑23. Virtual Event Canada: ACM, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922.

Labov, Teresa. « Social and Language Boundaries among Adolescents ». American Speech 67, no 4 (1992): 339. https://doi.org/10.2307/455845.

Liu, Jiayi, Xinying Zhang, et Haixu Li. « Analysis of Language Phenomena in Internet Slang: A Case Study of Internet Dirty Language ». OALib 10, no 08 (2023): 1‑12. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1110484.

Squires, Lauren. « Enregistering internet language ». Language in Society 39, no 4 (2010): 457‑92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40925792.

Whyte, Christopher, A. Trevor Thrall, et Brian M. Mazanec, éd. Information warfare in the age of cyber conflict. Routledge studies in conflict, security and technology. London ; New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.

[digitalcultureproject]

Our Conclusion

We asked many acquisitions about language acquisition, less so about slang usage, and came up with a few conclusions.

As explained, social media can tear down preexisting physical barriers, such as the geographical one. We have seen such a phenomenon concerning social movements: the spread of social media and how people communicate between each other as led to worldwide movements, such as #MeToo. A similar phenomenon can be observed it when it comes to language: words and manner of speech spread more easily, leading to the standardization of online language — and then offline as well.

This standardization of language is reinforced by the growing use of language learning models, or IA platforms such as ChatGPT, which use the content and syntaxes available online to provide results. These same syntaxes which are influenced by the peculiar structure of social media.

Online slang is particularly unique because of its versatility: anyone can come up with something, and who knows what will be the next top slang? Slang can also be analyzed as a product of trends, and considering the acceleration of trends because of social media platforms, the way we speak is ever-changing, both online and offline. Probably much faster than before.

Answers to the question "Do you believe that slang is a natural evolution of the language? (Would we use it as well without social media?)"

Almost 90% of the people who answered believe that this is a natural phenomenon. Yet, as we have seen, this process might be much accelerated by online platforms — without us necessarily noticing.

[digitalcultureproject]

Breaking down geographical barriers of language

Language, and slang used to be acquired very regionally, social media now has erased the barrier between geographies. Online (aside from spelling differences) the English you speak (for instance) is the same in California as in the UK.

[digitalcultureproject]

Review of the Literature

Review of three academic papers:

two about language learning on the Internet;

one about slang acquisition.

One text posits that language learning online is a social practice, as they are involved in groups, messaging others, and writing articles or posts. Those who are more involved with social media, in stronger affinity groups, it finds, are more likely to use social media as a means to benefit themselves by creating new links of groups, and expanding their social capital as well. These new groups can also involve language groups, and immersion helps with learning language. 

With that aside, when it comes to slang particularly, it has to be noted that people treat slang, especially of the online variety, entirely differently. They generally prefer it to be separated from everyday language. People would prefer, for instance, not to say omw to say on my way.

Learning language online is helpful as it can be revisited and annotated while still being as, or near to being as helpful as interacting with the language itself. Part of this is due to the fact that slang online is reserved primarily to text mediums and is widely geographically spread, compared to in reality where slang usage varies from geography and is carried over speech. It's worth noting that at the time of writing of this article, this online ‘slang’ was called netspeak, and the paper goes out of its way to display the opposition to it as a means to show that people have a boundary between online slang and language.

Finally, when looking at the development in slang, a lot of research focused on slang in a geographic and class context, as in where slang originated from, how it spread (like US east coast to west coast) or what groups of people that slang originated from. Interestingly, this research targeted youth a lot of the time, particularly for phrases around drugs and alcohol, as the research could be used to help authorities curb substance use in minors (or under 21s).

[digitalcultureproject]

Enregistering Internet Language

SQUIRES, LAUREN. “Enregistering Internet Language.” Language in Society 39, no. 4 (2010): 457–92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40925792.

Themes:

Enregistrement of an Internet-specific language and its particular features;

The surprising applications of this 'new language' and how to explain them through sociological theories.

[digitalcultureproject]

Social and Language Boundaries Among Adolescents

Labov, Teresa. “Social and Language Boundaries among Adolescents.” American Speech 67, no. 4 (1992): 339–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/455845.

Themes:

The integration within certain social groups through the use of slang;

The creation of youth subculture integrating slang in their vocabulary.

[digitalcultureproject]

Language Learning Online as a Social Practice

BARTON, DAVID, and DIANE POTTS. “Language Learning Online as a Social Practice.” TESOL Quarterly 47, no. 4 (2013): 815–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43267931.

Themes:

How young people are now learning languages online through different platforms;

How formal education struggles to keep up and adapt to these new ways of learning to communicate;

The impact of such learnings on language, literacy, and learning for young people.

[digitalcultureproject]

Slang Acquisition

The integration of online slang in everyday speech.

In your everyday vocabulary, have you integrated online slang?

Only 2 people affirm not using online slang at all, one of those also affirms that social media platforms have not helped them at all in improving their foreign language skills.

Most people that have answered "Yes, a lot" use social media platforms daily for long periods (either between 3 and 5 hours, or between 5 and 8).

People using social media less than an hour a day only have integrated a bit of slang, or not at all.

Noticing whether others have integrated online slang in their everyday language or not.

Do you notice an increase in the usage of slang with your peers?

No has picked the latest option which was "No, not at all"; however, "Not that much" still represents almost a third of the sample.

Most people that have answered "Not that much" spends less than 3 hours on social media daily (with one exception, who uses them between 5 and 8 hours).

[digitalcultureproject]

Our Reasearch

Social Media and How it Impacts the Way We Speak and Learn to Speak.

Large existing scientific literature on the topic. Thematic already tackled by everyday newspapers and officials, in a dramatic tone: "Social Media is a threat to the French language, says France's PM" (POLITICO, APril 12th, 2024).

Thesis Statement: Social media can be used as a tool to build familiarity with new languages. Yet, it might have certain consequences on the way one talks in that language.

We will study these particular consequences later on.

Literature review using scientific literature.

Survey answered by around 30 respondents, all from Sciences Po Le Havre, concerning their social media use and language learning/slang acquisition; accompanied by a few qualitative answers from individuals.

[digitalcultureproject]

Social Media Efficiency in Teaching Language

How efficient social media platforms have been in improving one's language skill.

76% believes that spending time on social media has been more helpful than traditional language courses in helping them improve their skills in a foreign language.

50% of people believing social media are less efficient in teaching a language have English as their mother tongue and see content in French (while they represent only a fourth of the entire sample).

Most people answering that it has been similarly or less efficient, are also the ones that spend the less time on social media (less than an hour, or between 1 and 3 hours).

[digitalcultureproject]

Improving a Language Through Social Media

Relationship between the quantify of content in a foreign language they see on social media (on a scale from 1 to 10), and how much they feel they have improved in that language thanks this content.

The y-axis numerizes the answers to the question "Has your level in [the foreign language you see the most on social media] improved thanks to these platforms?" (1 represents "no, it has not changed"; 2, "yes, a bit"; and 3, "yes, drastically").*

Relationship hardly observable, R-value of only 0.2. Need for larger sample to have a confident result.

We have asked individuals their opinion about whether or not they think they can get better in a language using social media platforms. We got various answers about how some might believe social media are a great tool in language learning:

Not necessarily improving but getting more comfortable in a language;

Getting used to more informal way of speaking and writing;

More natural and diverse content available.

[digitalcultureproject]

Mother Tongue and Foreign Content

Relationship between and individual's mother tongue and how much content they see in a foreign language on a social media (on a scale from 1 to 10).

The y-axis is the average of the quantity of foreign content per language.

People having English who have English has a mother tongue, view less content in another language than others.

The 2 people who had no foreign content at all have English as their mother tongue (one of them having French as a secondary native language).

Datas for Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Malayalam are not representative as they each represent a single individual.

Other languages were mentioned but not taken into account as they were categorized as the secondary native language (Swedish, Japanese, Iranian, etc.) and all had a single representative.

Languages of the foreign content they see on social media.

The y-axis is the number of people who have given this answer.

People who see content in French or Korean all have English as their mother tongue. People who see content in English are much more diversified.

Seeing content in French might be a result from currently studying in France.