Netlinguistics in the service of Netlish

Abstract

Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD/ Netlish) is the language resulting from the use of Computer Mediated Communication which is generally text-based language. This language came as the result of people‘s attempt to adapt their language to cope with the linguistic constraints and opportunities provided by the new technology.The general assumption is that CMC and the internet have a bad influence on language. CMD is becoming less formal, less polite and highly abbreviated. Therefore people are anxious about the quality of the people‘s written production because of the breach of the standards and norms of the traditional written language. Nelinguistics studies the effects of the Internet and other new media such as Short Message Service (SMS) and text messaging on the language in terms of the new language forms and styles. Applied Netlinguistics has different applications ; one of them is the pedagogical application which is interested in integrating the Internet into EAP to help developing new literacies and language learning skills. In fact, we have to accept the new change brought to language because space and time constraints brought about technology are responsible for this change. This change is not necessarily negative. Here came the importance of pedagogy in instructing students to use CMC properly without feeling the fear from the new technology. Students must be instructed both the well constructed texts used in academic settings as well as the specific texts used for personal interactions.