[Air-l] key terms/concepts for understanding the web

Denise Carter denisecarter at denisecarter.net
Thu Jan 30 10:47:17 PST 2003


> To me, cyberslang is the language that comes out of written electronic
> communication. It started with lol, or IMHO, as abbreviations. Other
> examples are ppl (for people), or txt msg (for text message), or cul8r
> (for see you later). This last one in particular I consider a prime
> example of cyberslang. These are written examples. But there are also
> words that are created through or about electronic communication, such
> as IMing (sending an instant message) that are then used both in written
> interaction, and in spoken interaction.

this brought back a memory - at the time when i was spending about 12-18hrs
a day online 'performing' my ethnography in a cybercommunity - i had great
difficulty moving between the two 'modes of interaction', and i often used
to say lol out loud in my 'other' everyday life!
family and colleagues often asked me what i meant - and it was difficult to
explain, because i was finding that lol was the exact expression that i
wanted to use, and nothing else would suffice.
denise


Denise Maia Carter,
School of Comparative and Applied Social Science,
University of Hull, UK
http://www.denisecarter.net
denisecarter at denisecarter.net










More information about the Air-L mailing list