Abstract
The authors of this research study try to explore the real literacy among young people of today resulting from the influence of the language of new media (especially Facebook and the mobile phone). The impetus for this study comes from frequent complaints that the language of young people has deteriorated due to the negative impact of the language that young people are using in the new media. The authors have done this through an analysis of the way students write in their school assignments and in writings done in their spare time in the new media with regard to (non) existence of the language of new media (such as abbreviations, emoticons and other iconic signs, capitals, dialecticisms, anglicisms, vulgarisms, etc.). In their analysis, the researchers used a computer programme WordSmith Tools 6.0 (Scott 2006). The authors aimed to find out whether or not students in their private language texts use the language of new media (written language with many elements of spoken language and with many abbreviations) and whether or not the students in their school assignments consistently use the standard language without the elements that they normally use in their own language in the new media. The results have shown that secondary school students do consistently write in the standard language in their school assignments, whereas in their leisure activities they use all the elements of the language of new media.
Highlights
Today’s young people spend a lot of time on the Internet ( Facebook or smartphone) surfing and looking for different information or by writing their own texts or messages
In order to examine the real literacy among young people of today, we examined their modes of writing in their school assignments as well as their writing that they do in their free time in new media with regard to the existence or non-existence of the elements of the language of new media
The results obtained in this study using WordSmith 6.0 software do not differ in any element that we further investigated by means of the same programme by more than 1.8%
Summary
Today’s young people spend a lot of time on the Internet ( Facebook or smartphone) surfing and looking for different information or by writing their own texts or messages. Sobo⸻/⸻Linguistics Beyond and Within 2 (2016), 77-96 largely produced by young people Such spontaneous written language helps to explain the framework presented by Koch and Österreicher (1994). For Crystal netspeak is a kind of linguistic articulation in the above mentioned Internet services or ‘a type of language displaying features that are unique to the Internet, and encountered in all of the above situations, arising out of its character as medium which is electronic, global and interactive’ (Chrystal 2006: 19f) All these features speak in favour of a new variety of language that is worth of being explored in detail. This research study presented in this article will be going in that direction
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