Text A is an online article published about a blogger named ‘Carles’ and his blog ‘Hipster Runoff’.
This text features words and phrases that have been highlighted and underlined. A modern reader of
Present Day English(PDE) would recognise these as hyperlinks that would take the reader to a
different web page. This would seem strange to a reader of Early Modern English (EME)due to the
limited technology of printing press that would not have allowed for this colour and due to the
internet only arriving in the late 20th century.
Text A also has repeated words and phrases (anaphora) which may seem unconventional in printed
text that is not in poem form (especially to a EME reader) but it helps to achieve a down to earth
feel that is common in online spaces. This repetition mimics the way people speak which is added
onto by the use of ‘just’ in this context, (as an adverb)which is typical in spoken speech. Fairclough ‘s
theory of informalisation can be used to explain this. Under this, Fairclough argues that in an effort
to appeal to more audiences, companies are starting to use more informal patterns of speech. In this
context, the informal repeated phrases help to convey a more personal feel, which is also typical in
articles. Additionally, this informal feeling is emphasised by the writer’s use of dashes. In the 1500s
to 1800s, these were commonly used as substitutes for commas or for the colon. In this context, it
has been used to supplement information, as form of parentheses. This change in use may be due to
the prescriptivists like Lowth trying to reform English grammar. Their influence could be what led to
the change of the dash’s function.
Another graphological feature of text A is the short paragraphs. An example of this is the first one
sentence paragraph. This is a typical feature of an article; this makes the information feel less
overwhelming to the reader, especially in digital spaces where other social media platforms and
websites impose character limits and where digital users are used to brevity. The short paragraphs
may also be due to the personal style and preference of the writer. This style of structuring may feel
unconventional to a EME reader as texts were typically organised into long blocks in that period or
longer sentences.
PDE (specifically the 1900s) is characterised by emerging technology which has led to many words
being coined. An example of this in Text A is ‘algorithm’. This was coined in the 1920s due to
advancements in robotics. Another example of a coinage is the word ‘internet’. This was coined in
the 1970s when the internet started to emerge. Text C exemplifies this as the use of the word
internet in both forms (i.e., ‘internet and ‘Internet’ started to increase from 1970.
Other examples of lexical changes that have occurred in this period are semantic changes (which are
characteristic of the digital age). An example of this is the word ‘Influencer’. This has undergone a
semantic narrowing as it now commonly refers to someone who influences others through trends on
social networking platforms as opposed to the general context that was used in the 1700s. It is
possible that this change has occurred due to the popularisation of social media. This has made it so
that the people who have the most influence are social media users. Another semantic change that
has taken place is with the word ‘web’. This has taken on a new meaning and is used to refer to the
internet in digital spaces, which might confuse an EME user. This change could be due to the nature
of the word ‘web’ (an internal change) as the interconnected computers links together and connect
like the many strands of a spider web. This semantic change is shown in Text B with one of the top
ten synonyms of the word ‘web’ being a telescoped version of the word ‘internet’. This synonym
being one of the top words can be explained using the growing popularity of the internet at that
time as shown in text C (with the increase of the usage of ‘internet’ after 1990). ‘The word ‘web’
itself is also an example of telescoping as the word ‘web’ is shortened from of the phrase ‘world
wide web’.
Telescoping is also common in the digital age due to the need for brevity. An example of this is
initialisation ‘HRO’ in Text A. This showcases Halliday’s functional theory. This theory argues that as
the needs of an English language user change, language adapts to fulfil that need. In this context, the
need for brevity in digital spaces has led to a need to telescope words, leading to initialisation and
clipping. Another example of this is ‘bb’. This abbreviation is likely due to the character limits in
instant messaging.
As discussed above, Text B showcases the semantic change that has taken place with the word ‘net’
with one of the top ten synonyms for ‘web’ being a telescoped version of the word ‘internet’ (‘net’).
Interest peaked around the 2000s (launching of social networking platforms such as MySpace
Facebook, Twitter). Since this corpus was published up to 1993, possible that ‘net’ may be higher.
Text C shows the usage of words ‘internet’,’Internet’ and ‘online’ over time. The peak of the use of
the word ‘Internet’ in the 2000s can be attributed to the launch of several social media platforms
(e.g., MySpace, Facebook ,Six Degrees). This could have led to an increase in internet users
increasing the popularity and usage of the word ‘internet’. It’s possible that a synonym table
collected from this period may have shown ‘net’ on a higher place in the synonyms than is shown in
Text B as Text C highlights how the usage of the word ‘internet’ from 1980 to 1993 was not as high
as the 2000s. The difference in usage between ‘Internet’ and ‘internet’ could be due to the fact that
this data only focuses on printed text. It is more likely that the capitalised spelling would be used in
formal spaces compared to informal digital spaces.s