Cyber Language Use among Chinese Internet Chatters

Abstract

In the information era, the internet plays a crucial role in people’s lives. The communication through the internet brings about “Cyber language or the internet language”, a specific kind of language used among those who chat on the internet. This type of language is characterized by the following qualities: cheerfulness, creativity, and uniqueness. Moreover, it contains some words, numbers, and a variety of emoticons to express the internet chatters’ ideas and feelings. The purpose of this study is to investigate the distinctive features of this particular language through the view of sociolinguistics, and explain how the phenomenon of this language impacts on the Chinese society.