Twenglish: A New Variety of English? A quantitative analysis of a Twitter based corpus

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ABSTRACT 
During the last decades, several studies have been carried out in order to 
investigate the effect new media have on language. These studies have brought to the 
conception of a new form of communication: the so-called ‘Computer-Mediated 
Communication’ (CMC). Scholars focusing on the relationship between language and 
CMC have also acknowledged the existence of a new variety of English, which has been 
called ‘Internet English’ (IE). This language variety, which has its own word-formation 
processes, grammar, and syntax, is employed in the context of CMC only.  
Nonetheless, few researches have been carried out in order to investigate from a 
sociolinguistic perspective one of the new media involving CMC: the social networking 
platforms. Therefore, our essay will point out the main sociolinguistic features of one of 
these social media, namely Twitter. Similarly to the users of previous CMC technologies 
who have developed IE, have the users of Twitter developed a particular ‘Twenglish’ 
variety, strictly related to Twitter and possibly deriving from IE? Who are its speakers, 
and what is the habitat in which they act? Can this habitat be analysed using traditional 
ways of describing World Englishes like, for example, Kachru’s ‘Three Circles’ model?  
 These issues will be investigated by carrying out a quantitative analysis of a 
corpus which was built on 3,000 tweets (140-character messages). These messages were 
collected among all the English-speaking users, and they were later organized and 
classified according to different social variables. In addition, the creation of sub-corpora 
reflecting macro-areas based on the variety of English the users are ‘supposed’ to speak 
was helpful in order to understand whether similarities between the different varieties 
could be identified. 
Apart from few distinctive features of non-native varieties of English, the research 
would suggest that there is not a relevant differentiation among speakers. Nevertheless, a 
‘Twenglish’ variety, i.e. a variety of English strictly related to this particular social 
network, was not identified. What can be found, though, is a way of adapting the language 
to the medium through the development of contractions, specialized vocabulary, and 
symbols, which are the same as the ones of IE. Our conclusion is therefore that the 
language of Twitter is Internet English.
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1. INTRODUCTION 
1.1. Overview 
The revolution that the Internet would have brought in our lives could be foreseen 
since the very first years of the 1980s, when this computer network was starting to become 
widely spread around the world. However, the Internet did not only change the way of 
collecting and sharing information around the world. It has also changed the way we get 
in contact with other people and, more importantly, the way we communicate with them. 
The Internet, in fact, offers a wide range of services which are specifically designed to 
connect people around the globe, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, and 
even in real-time. Services such as Instant Messaging and World-Wide-Web-based 
websites such as chat rooms, virtual worlds, blogs and forums are actually the main 
responsible for the creation and the development of a new variety of the language. This 
variety, which is strictly related to the habitat of online communication and, more 
generally, of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), has been referred to by several 
scholars as ‘Internet English’ (Sun 2010:99; Crystal 2011:2). We will give further details 
about this new language variety in Chapter 1.2; however, it is important to observe that 
the source language from which this variety derives is English. This is not a surprising 
fact, since the first network of computers, as well as the Internet, were created and 
developed in the United States of America. Hints of the existence of Internet English can 
be found since the opening of the Internet to the public in 1979; however, the 1990s are 
the most prolific years, as far as the development of this new language variety is 
concerned (Crystal 2011).  
 During the last three decades, several studies have been carried out in order to 
further investigate the linguistic phenomena concerning the use of the language on the 
Internet, which has been referred to in the most diverse ways: Netspeak, Netlish, 
Webspeak, Weblish, and many other ‘-speaks’, which are a clear reference to George 
Orwell’s fictional Newspeak language. This is the field of studies of Internet Linguistics, 
Computational Linguistics, Human Language Technology, and IT-based learning and 
teaching, which all have the purpose to focus on the relationship between ICT 
(Information Communication Technology) and human language (Bodomo 2009). In other 
words, the main subject of their study is the so-called Computer-Mediated 
Communication.
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 Nevertheless, since the late 2000s, another Internet service has become popular, 
possibly forcing the variety of English of online communication to further develop. It is 
the rise of the social networking websites, which are specifically created and designed in 
order to enhance social interactions on the Web. Definitely, these new media also have 
an effect in a sociolinguistic perspective, since it is now possible for people to get in 
contact with other cultures and other languages in a way that is unprecedented; and, of 
course, language contact usually brings to language change and variation as well. 
 In our essay we would like to contribute to the previous studies concerning the 
relationship between social networking websites and language change and variation by 
analysing from a quantitative perspective the phenomena affecting the sociolinguistics of 
the social media. To do so, we will consider one of the most popular online social 
networks, namely Twitter, and we will try to understand whether we can identify hints of 
a ‘Twenglish’ language, i.e. a hypothetical variety of English which would be typical of 
this social platform. The core instrument for this study will be a corpus of messages which 
will be analysed according to different social variables such as age, gender, and place of 
residence of the users. 
 Our study is organised as follows: Chapter 1 offers a literature review concerning 
the previous studies on CMC and on the main issues regarding this new field of studies, 
as well as a detailed description of the social networking website we are going to analyse; 
finally, we will question the appropriateness of traditional World English models in the 
context of online communication. 
 On the other hand, Chapter 2 highlights the three main questions of this research, 
regarding the identity of the users of Twitter, the language they write in, and how they 
can be classified with respect to their own language. 
 Chapter 3, instead, gives further details on the methodology with which our study 
will be brought on, focusing on possible methodological constrains which may influence 
its outcomes. 
 Chapter 4 goes into details as far as the identity of the users is concerned. In fact, 
an analysis of the three main social variables will be offered, giving an idea of who the 
hypothetical writers of ‘Twenglish’ are. 
 With Chapter 5, a further analysis concerning the relationship between the users 
of Twitter and their language is offered; furthermore, we will finally establish whether a 
‘Twenglish’ variety deriving from English actually exists and, if not, what is the language 
which is used in the corpus, and how their speakers should be classified.
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 Finally, we will sum up the results of our research in Chapter 6, which can possibly 
be a starting point for further studies as far as the sociolinguistics of Twitter is concerned.
  
1.2. Computer-Mediated Communication and Internet English 
The recent interest of Computer Science towards the development of 
communication electronic devices has brought to a change, even as far as the name of this 
branch of studies is concerned. In fact, Computer Science is nowadays also referred to as 
ICT, namely Information Communication Technology, pointing out the awareness of the 
importance of new ways of communicating which can be strictly related to computers and 
new media. It is not a surprise therefore the emergence of new fields of research 
concerning the relationship between ICT and language. The central subject of these 
studies is Computer-Mediated Communication (or CMC), a term which refers to any 
communicative interaction which is mediated by the use of two or more electronic 
devices.  
 One of the main definitions of CMC was provided by December (1996:24): 
Internet-based, computer-mediated communication involves information exchange that takes 
place on the global, cooperative collection of networks. 
As can be observed, this is a broad definition, which, however, grasps the 
fundamental essence of CMC: in fact, it points out the global dimension of this kind of 
communication. However, this definition does not take in account the number of different 
ways in which this kind of communication can take place. 
 A more recent definition is offered by Bodomo (2009:6), who points out that: 
CMC is defined as the coding and decoding of linguistic and other symbolic systems between 
sender and receiver for information processing in multiple formats through the medium of the 
computer and allied technologies such as PDAs, mobile phones, and blackberries; and through 
media like the internet, email, chat systems, text messaging, YouTube, Skype, and many more to 
be invented. 
This more updated definition actually takes in account both December’s main issues; 
however, Bodomo points out that this kind of communication can happen both through 
mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablets, and through personal computers. 
Therefore, she also considers as vehicles of CMC not only the Internet and its facilities, 
but also portable devices and their services, such as the Short Message Service (SMS).