Language mechanisms of English-language Twitter: trends in the anti-language usage

Abstract

The article is devoted to the linguistic mechanisms of Twitter, in particular, the active usage of so-called anti-language in English-language Twitter. The conceptual approaches to the study of the functioning of anti-language are considered. The author analyzes the sociocultural processes associated with the formation and perception of anti-language in English-language Twitter messages, describes the results of a study aimed at analyzing and systematizing the usage of anti-language by various social groups in English-language Twitter. The functional, thematic and lexical features of language units in the messages of the participants of the microblog Twitter are identified, the main trends in the use of anti-language both on individual and collective levels are described. It is hypothesized that a negative attitude towards anti-language leads directly to hanging social labels on its users, namely, to consolidate any negative quality with an individual or a multitude of people using anti-language. This article is an attempt to revise the one-dimensional attitude to the anti-language of Internet communication and increase its social significance. The author proposes to consider anti-language used in the Twitter microblog not only as a social variety, dialect or a kind of secret register, but as a definite speech behavior of members of the Internet community, where abbreviations, acronyms, slangisms, relaxicalism and blends are common information items

Keywords

• anti-language
• twitter
• english-language alternative speech behavior
• internet communication
• abbreviations
• acronyms
• slangisms
• relaxicalisms
• blends