English in Online Discussions Forums: Novel Trends in Language Use

Abstract

Modern communication technologies are rapidly gaining in popularity and online discussion forums are one of them. There are several linguistic features typical for online discussion forums. For example: abbreviations, emoticons or omission of capital letters, punctuation or apostrophes. These linguistic features are described in the theoretical part and then analysed in the practical part. The aim of this thesis is to prove that age of the participants in online discussion forums must be taken into account when evaluating changes in the English language appearing in online discussion forums. The conclusion is: the age of participants plays a significant role and is relevant when evaluating the changes in the English language appearing in online discussion forums.