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Cultural Fault Lines Determine How New Words Spread On Twitter
KentuckyFC writes The global popularity of Twitter allows new words and usages to spread rapidly around the world. And that has raised an interesting question for linguists: is language converging into a global "netspeak" that everyone will end up speaking? Now a new study of linguistic patterns on Twitter gives a definitive answer. By looking at neologisms in geo-located tweets, computational linguists have been able to study exactly how new words spread in time and space. It turns out that some neologisms spread like wildfire while others are used only in areas limited by geography and demography, just like ordinary dialects. For example, the word "ard", a shortened version of "alright" cropped up in Philadelphia several years ago but even now is rarely used elsewhere. The difference in the way new words spread is the result of the geographic and demographic characteristics of the communities in which the words are used. The work shows that the evolution of language on Twitter is governed by the same cultural fault lines as ordinary communication. So we're safe from a global "netspeak" for now.
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This sounds a lot like people assuming something will be completely different because it's "on the Internet". Twitter language is not like typical written language because its nature is really that of a transcribed form of spoken language, with spoken language style and vocabulary. It's not a totally new form of communication.
Still, I applaud the linguists for going out and measuring it, because people's intuition about language can often be wrong,
This has me wondering now.
They wouldn't be necessary if everyone wasn't trying to be overly sensitive/politically correct. Instead a bunch of judgmental assholes plague the internet in the name of social justice when their agenda is "think our way or don't, but you're not allowed to think for yourself."
Scientists look for human behavioral patterns. Yup, there are some. This is sociological navel-gazing research. Get back to working on cancers.
What exactly is a "neoligism" ? Is it the illiterate new way of spelling "neologism"...?
i never sucked twitters dick and i never will. for reference, if you're a twitter user you're sucking their dick. captcha - buildups
omg I was so worried. lol.
Did they look at 'lol'?
You don't undo centuries and millenniums of cultural and linguistic separation in a day, that a few expressions buck the trend and never go beyond a small region doesn't change the overall trend that the world is trending towards speaking the same languages and towards more and more global cultural impressions. We've observed this both on a micro level (build a bridge to an island, the dialect normalizes) and macro level with marginal languages dying (or preserved like in a museum) and while there's still parts of the world struggling to get fluent in their first language there's a massive alignment of secondary language primarily towards English.
Besides, why should we think everybody wants to talk and write exactly the same? Ever since we got newspapers, radio, telegraph and telephone we could have worked to merge US and UK English back together again, but my impression is neither wants to give up their pronunciation, spelling and idioms and the Internet isn't going to change that. And I think it would be rather boring if we had one pan-global culture anyway, it's watering down how exotic it is if they eat McDonalds and listen to Justin Bieber too. It's nice to be able to be understood though, it's not that fun not knowing how to ask where the nearest toilet is.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
insert dollarabbreviation here.
O'rly?
Ho ho ho. Ho? Ho ho. Ho ho ho?
Fuck computational linguists!
I know it's seems to work a treat for wannabe B grade celebs and their groupies, but does anyone with a brain actually use Twitter?
In my country two years ago, a national television network decided all its screen-writers will use the words 'cookies' and 'mom', not 'bikkies' and 'mum'. Soon after, a contestant on a weight-loss reality show used the word 'cookie' 5 times in one sentence.
Cultural imperialism has been progressing for 30 years. Now, the Tv. networks don't hide it.
Sorry, people, but just like "ard" is not a word, "alright" is NOT a word either.
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is language converging into a global "netspeak" that everyone will end up speaking?
No that is "News Speak" Welcome to 1984 it was running a little late.