A Study On Cyber Language

The Internet is one of the most remarkable things ever created by human beings in the 20th century. It has exerted great impact on various aspects of our lives. The Internet brings people not only an unprecedented technological revolution, but also a cultural and linguistic revolution. Under such circumstances, cyber language-a new linguistic medium, has drawn attention from all circles, especially those in linguistics. The emergence of cyber language which based on the communication in writing has enlarged the reserching space of linguistics. Stimulated by the interest and curiosity, the author gives a tentative study of cyber language from the perspective of social linguistics. Integrating related research achievements, this paper reviews advent, development, status and essential features of cyber language. On this basis, a new definition of cyber language as one of language media variants is put forward with the help of zone-by-zone analysis of this language. With the communicative function of the cyber language as a standard of classification, a distinctive type analysis of this kind of language is carried out so as to construct a brand new type system of cyber language. As a newly-born language style, cyber language has unique characteristics. The formation of some cyber words follows the traditional methods such as compounding, affixation, and abbreviation, while some give old words new meanings, the others just change in the vioce. Meanwhile, based on a brief analysis of its general features, this paper emphatically analyzes the distinctive ones with the media features of the cyber language.