Language and the Internet, 2nd ed.
D. Crystal
Cambridge
Cambridge University Press
2006
Pp. xi + 304
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-86859-4 (hbk).
ISBN-10: 0-521-86859-9 (pbk).

Reviewed by Lamont Antieau, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

In the last decade, the Internet has come to have an influence on many aspects of our lives, from the way we work to the way we socialize, to the way we shop and bank. Unlike other technological breakthroughs, many aspects of Internet technology have had a direct impact on language use. In the second edition of Language and the Internet, Crystal discusses the linguistic repercussions of the Internet, both in its effect on the language of today as well as on the influence that it might bear on the language of tomorrow. In so doing, Crystal adds to our general knowledge of language structure and use, particularly in terms of variation and change, and also addresses social issues related to language use on the Internet as it becomes an integral part of our lives.

In the first chapter, "A linguistic perspective", Crystal states that one of his motivations for writing the book was the concern he had heard voiced in many circles that language use on the Internet would result in the weakening of language standards and the loss of particular languages. Crystal compares this reaction to other examples throughout history in which people have reacted fearfully to technological advancement, and he instead adopts the view that the new varieties of linguistic discourse enabled by Internet technology will create their own standards and that the Internet will actually introduce languages to a new audience that would not gain exposure otherwise. Guided by these beliefs, Crystal states that the aim of the current volume is to "explore the ways in which the nature of the electronic medium as such, along with the Internet’s global scale and intensity of use, is having an effect on language in general, and on individual languages in particular" (5). Toward this end, Crystal divides the language use of the Internet into seven different language situations – e-mail, chatgroups (asynchronous and synchronous), virtual worlds, the World Wide Web, instant messaging, and blogging – and describes the linguistic properties these situations hold in common in Chapters 2 and 3, while describing the specific properties of each of these situations in Chapters 4 through 8.

The topic of Chapter 2 is the issue of Netspeak, and, as Crystal points out, one of the most the interesting aspects of Netspeak is that it uses characteristics that have traditionally been unique to either speech or writing to form a single variety. But more than that, Netspeak also has its own unique characteristics, e.g. emoticons, and while it adheres to some of the same linguistic conventions that hold in other arenas of language use, it often modifies those conventions to meet its own goals or creates its own conventions for the new medium.

In Chapter 3, Crystal examines the language of the Internet as an emerging linguistic variety, and he describes the differences between the prescriptive and descriptive approaches when dealing with this new variety. As he points out, prescriptive approaches to Internet language use are readily found in numerous guidebooks on the market, as well as on the Web pages that presents rules on how linguistic business should be conducted on the Internet. These approaches are not only at odds with the descriptive approach of linguists, but they also create a unique context that other linguistic varieties were not typically subject to early in their formation, a context that is almost certain to bear an influence on the new variety’s development. As Crystal also points out, language use on the Internet was at first a code largely restricted to hackers and computer scientists, but as laypersons have become more involved with the Internet, new patterns have emerged in this code. Although there are a number of characteristics that make Internet language its own variety of language, there are also rapid changes in the patterns of their use, such that "it is difficult to be definitive about the variety’s characteristics" (98) or to speculate on the success or failure of characteristics in the years to come.

Despite these challenges, in order to describe the current variety as thoroughly as possible within the space limitations of the current volume, Crystal discusses the language of email, chatgroups, virtual worlds, the Web, and blogging in Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, respectively. With respect to the language of email, Crystal observes that it is easy to discuss one linguistic facet of email – the functional elements that serve as the formatting of emails and with which most Internet users are now familiar – but it is difficult to describe the language used in the body of emails, as the purposes to which emails are put to use and the social dynamics of the people who write them are extremely broad. Nevertheless, some characteristics of email have emerged, but Crystal reminds us that "The evolution of email is in its infancy, and perhaps the only thing we can say for certain is that it will soon no longer be as it currently is" (132). On the other hand, Crystal sees language use in chatgroups as highly distinctive and is struck by the primitive state of the language used in such situations and the linguistic creativity used to create it. The language of virtual worlds is marked, in Crystal’s view, by its highly idiosyncratic nature, which might change as virtual worlds become less textual in nature and more graphic. In "The language of the Web", Crystal discusses some of the issues of the expansive World Wide Web but also uses the chapter to highlight some of the many languages that are represented on the Web. In the chapter entitled "New horizons", Crystal mainly focuses on describing language use in blogging and instant messaging, but he also devotes some space to discussing more recent innovations, such as the transmission and reception of speech signals over the Internet.

In Chapter 9, Crystals speculates on "The linguistic future of the Internet." While pointing out that language use on the Internet is still largely text based, Crystal speculates that it will not be long until sound also becomes an integral part of Internet communication and will lead to an even greater number of linguistic situations than those described here. In this respect, Crystal compares the Internet to the field of radio broadcasting, which introduced a new variety of language that rapidly became several subvarieties as radio evolved. As the Internet spawns these varieties, it is Crystal’s belief that linguistic expression will become richer, and opportunities for language users and language researchers alike will continue to grow.

Language and the Internet is a recommended guide for anyone interested in a linguistic approach to describing the effect the Internet is having on language and vice versa as it touches on many of the linguistic facets of Internet use of interest to scholars of language structure and use as well as laypeople. In providing this volume, Crystal accomplishes many things, among them a few of particular importance that I will point out here. First, he provides an explanation of the descriptive approach using phenomena from the Internet to illustrate basic principles of linguistics. Second, he describes the language encountered in each of the Internet language situations that he proposes in thorough detail, with examples from a variety of sources. Third, he uses concepts from different subfields of linguistics to explain various facets of language on the Internet; for instance, he uses sociolinguistic concepts to explain how people use language to forge one or more identities on the Internet, and he uses concepts from historical linguistics to explain how language on the Internet has developed over time. Fourth, he offers some ideas on the directions in which Internet language might evolve.

Of course, a volume on a topic of such a rapidly changing nature as the Internet is bound to fall behind in covering developments even before it sees publication, as Crystal reminds us throughout the book. Among recent developments that are not covered are networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, which have provided a new linguistic situation to be reckoned with and have even made small contributions to the lexicon, for example, the new variants and meanings of "friend." Such innovations as Craig’s List and the introduction of a variety of Google products in the last few years, and some of the issues raised by these innovations, are not addressed here either. Rather than being a real weakness of the book, however, these developments show how quickly the Internet is changing, thus supporting one of Crystal’s main contentions, and point to the need for subsequent editions of the book, as well as the need for future research by scholars interested in the particulars of everyday language use on the Internet. Such scholars would do well to make Language on the Internet a point of entry as they embark on such research.