Republic of the Philippines

SULTAN KUDARAT STATE UNIVERSITY

Graduate School
ACCESS Campus, EJC Montilla, Tacurong City

1st Semester, Academic Year 2021-2022

A Discussion on
“How is the Internet Changing Language Today?”
Contemporary Issues on Language in Philippine Setting
(MTE 619)

PIA GELLE L. COJA – MAT- English Student

MARY JOY C. CARNAZO, MAT

Facilitator

Who is David Crystal?

David Crystal is a writer, an editor, and a linguist. He authored some works which
focus on language. These works include Views of Vocabulary as Told in the Pages of
Punch, Let's Talk: How English Conversation Works, Sounds Appealing: The Passionate
Story of English Pronunciation, and A Life Made of Words: the Poetry and Thought of John
Bradburne as his recent works. He is best known for his works on the two encyclopedias
under Cambridge University Press, entitled The Cambridge Encyclopedia of
Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.

How is the Internet Changing Language Today?

In the recorded interview of Crystal, he was asked the question, “How is the Internet
Changing Language Today?” He started by pointing out how technology always changes
a language.

He talked about how the emergence of printing in the 1400s changed language. In my
opinion, he was talking about how the language styles developed, even spellings and
punctuation systems. In his book, Language and the Internet, he explained how people are
afraid of the emergence of new communications technology. Printing for instance was feared
especially when the first Gutenberg Bible was published. Printing before then was widely
believed by the Church to be an invention of Satan which will lead to our eternal damnation.
This was why, after the first Bible was published, a state censorship office was established
by Frankfurt to suppress the printing of unorthodox biblical translations. This was followed
by Pope Alexander the VI and extended the censorship to secular books. (Crystal, Language
and the Internet, 2004)
 A similar instance happened when the telephone arrived. Concerns about censorship
were prevalent as people thought that the telephone will crime and destroy families. The
emergence of the telephone brought about some language changes. This included new
patterns of dialogue. This shows when talking to someone over the telephone as we start with
saying “Hello” which stuck as the first techno-etiquette.

When broadcasting first appeared, it was believed that it would be the voice of
propaganda. The arrival of broadcasting then made some changes in the language.
Development of different styles in broadcasting medium one. For instance, through
broadcasting, we now have commentaries on sports, even weather reports. These were made
possible by the development of broadcasting.

In each case, according to Crystal, there would always be a linguistic issue involved.
Printing allowed for hundreds of vernacular translations of the Bible, which added fire to the
idea that local languages are used in religious contexts, and which continues to be as issue
today. When broadcasting allowed millions of selected voices to be heard, there was
immediate debate as to what standards must be applied as the right pronunciation, how clarity
and intelligibility can be obtained and whether local accents and dialects should still be
allowed to remain as vibrant as they were in the 21st century. We can only imagine the
paranoia it brought to people.

Still, the changes brought by the Internet, are still some of the great mysteries in
language. No one ever thought how big of an impact the Internet can have to language. Some
of these changes include how we now have different lenses to look into as we use the
language in the internet. According to Crystal, we now have different language styles as we
have different platforms to use them – World Wide Web, E-mails, Virtual Worlds,
Chatrooms, Social Networking Sites, etc. The more the platforms we have to use the
language, the more kinds of English we produce, or rather style we produce.

However, even with these changes in styles, Language haven’t changed much. Even
with Internet, we did not have new grammar patters, our Vocabulary increased in number but
not much compared to how vast our vocabulary was before the Internet appeared in the
picture. Word pronunciations stayed the same as well. Although, there are noticeable changes
to punctuations. Not that we have new punctuations, but with how we use these punctuations.

In conclusion, there may be some changes that the Internet brought about but English
stayed the same, just that we are now looking at it and using it inside a screen. The Internet
did not mutilate language. Rather, it made language richer.
REFERENCES

Crystal, D. (2004). Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (n.d.). How is the Internet Changing Language Today?