The impact of the Internet and the digital age on English vocabulary

Abstract

[eng] The emergence of new technologies during the last decades has had a significant effect on the way people communicate with each other, and this impact is reflected in the English language. Although previous studies have focused on the morphosyntactic and pragmatic changes that have occurred as a result of this influence, there are few studies which deal with the lexicon derived from the field of new techonologies and the use of Internet. Therefore, this study aims to fills this gap through the analysis of the process of adaptation or emergence of some terms in the digital age. To achieve this goal, I have selected a number of words that have become part of the Internet vocabulary (hangry, bromance, vlogger, influencer, youtuber, selfie, spam, meme, screenshot and hashtag) and I have analysed their origin and usage in both L1 and L2 varieties of English. This is an important aspect of the study as it shows how the linguistic impact of new technologies has spread beyond the boundaries of countries where English is a native language and reached L2 contexts. In order to do that, I resorted to different linguistic corpora. Both the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and the Online Etymology Dictionary have been valuable tools to contextualise the meanings and origin of each word. This allows for a more comprehensive analysis of each term and its significance in the context of the Internet lexicon. After the analysis of all the words, this study confirms the ongoing transformation and adaptation of the English language to the current world, in particular the new technologies throughout the time, as well as its spread to L2 varieties, an important aspect of language evolution in the digital age.