David Crystal
Language and the Internet
CUP, $39.95hb, 272pp, 0 521 80212 1

DO YOU 'SCROLL UP' when someone asks you what you just said? When a colleague expects you to help out with a time-consuming project, do you say that you simply don't have the 'bandwidth'? Have you ever been 'flamed' in an online debate? Do you 'bookmark' someone you meet at a conference who's perfect for a job you're about to advertise? If you recognise these new forms of language, chances are you're familiar with the emerging lexicon of the Internet, the focus of David Crystal's latest book. The Welsh linguist and author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language wrote it to answer questions people were asking him about the effects of the Internet on language: Is Internet language simply written speech? Will the Internet make formal writing and correct spelling obsolete? Is the Internet revolutionising language? To find out, he examined e-mail messages, immersed himself in virtual worlds and chatgroups, and studied the language patterns of websites.

After describing the linguistic features at work in these Internet environments, Crystal argues that what he calls 'Netspeak' is neither spoken language nor written but a new kind of interaction — a 'third medium' that is evolving new rules to suit new circumstances. 'Netspeak' — a term perhaps too evocative of the sinister changes in language central to Orwell's 1984 and too closely identified with speech to serve his argument — is a hybrid of spoken and written language that has to make linguistic adaptations to the new Internet situations: for example, the use of very brief sentences and abbreviations to keep up [Where RU?], the dropping of words [I great], and the use of smileys to indicate intonation and gesture [ :-) :-( ].

Unlike those who consider the Internet bad for the future of language, in that standards will be lost and creativity diminished as globalisation imposes sameness, Crystal believes Netspeak creates opportunities for the expansion and enrichment of language. To Crystal, much of Netspeak is non-standard, playful, irreverent of language rules, tolerant of typographic and spelling errors and full of neologisms. He is fascinated by its diversity and innovation, arguing that the Internet is enabling a dramatic expansion of the range and variety of language, and providing opportunities for personal creativity.

In his quest to determine whether the way we use language on the Internet is so different from previous linguistic behaviour that it might be described as 'revolutionary', Crystal concludes that the Internet represents not just a technological revolution but also a social one, and that language is central. But he also portrays the Internet world as fluid — permanently in transition, lacking precedent, struggling for standards and searching for direction. The only thing that is clear, says Crystal, is that people are unclear about what is going to happen in the future. Here, Crystal embraces the trope of 'uncertainty': the belief that speed, flexibility, mobility and constant change are the norm in a world that is both shaped and mediated by the new technologies. This world is essentially uncontrollable and hence either exhilarating or frightening, depending on your perspective. But the notion of 'uncertainty' should be recognised for what it is: a fashionable cultural construct that is used not only to explain the changes to language associated with the Internet, but also many other cultural phenomena. Ours is not the first era in history to be characterised as governed by uncertainty; nor will it be the last.

Crystal says that he wrote this book because he's intrigued by the effect of the Internet on language: his purpose is to describe emerging patterns of linguistic behaviour determined by the Internet. His formulation of cause and effects, however, has a hint of what's widely known as 'technological determinism', the assumption that qualities inherent in the technology itself are responsible for changes in social and cultural practices such as language. The perception of technology — in this instance the Internet — as an autonomous agent of change is not new. Indeed, assigning technology this role pervades popular versions of modern history: the automobile created suburbia; the Pill produced a sexual revolution; and, in the present case, the Internet has revolutionised language. In each instance, a complex event or set of circumstances is made to seem the outcome of a technological innovation.

We need to be wary of such extravagant claims about the influence and power of any technology. The Internet, like other complex technologies, links in multifaceted ways with a range of existing cultural forces; cause and effect explanations of language practices that are at best fluid and for the most part chaotic are, in essence, simplistic. However, despite this questionable starting point for the investigation and his linguist's need to find structure, Crystal, to his credit, decides that the Internet does not appear to be emerging as a homogeneous linguistic entity; rather, it's an aggregation of trends and idiosyncratic usages that as yet defy easy classification and explication.

For readers wanting an intelligent, informed and entertaining study of the special nature of language on the Internet, this is an excellent book. However, as Crystal acknowledges, there are other ways of looking at this phenomenon that are also rewarding. It would be interesting to examine how the changes to language practices associated with the Internet not only reflect society but also shape its character. Exploration of the dense webs of interrelationships that comprise the Internet and the language changes associated with them might be more culturally illuminating than the search for impacts and classifications.

But it is when Crystal gets to webpages that the limitations of his linguist's toolbox are revealed. As far as text-based e-mail, chatgroups and virtual worlds are concerned, the value of descriptive analyses that concentrate on the written word is apparent. Webpages, however, are not only text-based: increasingly, they constitute a range of media, including pictures, audio, video, film, animation and graphics, that combine in unprecedented hybrid formations requiring different types of analysis. An emphasis on written language in the context of webpages may actually become a block to thinking about the complex ways in which meanings are made with multimedia. The result can endorse restricted notions of communication and representation. To understand the ways in which language is changing in the context of the Internet, we need approaches that draw on models and insights not only from linguistics but also from semiotics, film theory and media studies. The challenge for those writing about communication and the Internet is to take account of the new kinds of relationships between visual, verbal and written language.