netspeak
Netspeak is the set of linguistic practices that arise in online and computer‑mediated communication, including text messaging, chat rooms, forums, and social media. It encompasses abbreviations and acronyms, nonstandard spellings, phonetic renderings, emoticons and emojis, hashtags, and conventions for sharing links and multimedia. Netspeak often reflects the constraints and affordances of digital platforms, such as character limits, rapid exchange, and asynchronous flow of conversation.
Historically, netspeak evolved from early online communities in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Usenet, IRC, and
Linguistic features of netspeak include lexical innovation, phonetic or reduced spellings, initialisms, and recurrent syntactic simplifications.
Scholars debate its impact on literacy and style, viewing netspeak as either a temporary trend or a