Polish language on chats

Jakub Becela, Włodzimierz Gruszczyński

In the present article the authors characterize the form of the language specific for Internet, which is used by participants of virtual chatting. Communication in real time constitutes a special communicative situation having impact on emergence of new language elements. Characteristic features of a chat are, among others, big number of its participants and their anonymity, and also lack of responsibility for the content of messages.Interlocutors prefer rather the speed of communicating than language correctness, the consequence of which is a big number of various types of mistakes. Other distinguishing marks of this language type are: lack of using so-called Polish letters, inflexional and phonetic innovations and borrowings from foreign languages. In the opinion of the authors, the main factor shaping the content of messages is a wish to play with the language and to overcome language and moral barriers.

KEYWORDS

chat, Internet, Polish language, language form