The Linguist

I have been working with children and young people for over 20 years, and I have recently observed a noticeable decline in their language skills, particularly in writing, making coherent statements and formulating responses. I wondered if this was linked to their social media use. These platforms offer numerous benefits, such as enabling research, connecting people and marketing, but this doesn't guarantee that the texts are well written, spelled correctly or grammatically accurate. Instead, they foster the development of online dialects in which the distinction between spoken and written language becomes increasingly blurred. Languages naturally evolve over time, but platforms like Instagram, X, Facebook and TikTok have significantly reshaped our lexicon, grammar and syntax in a way that isn't always positive. Modern society encourages fast- paced communication and social media reinforces this by promoting abbreviations and acronyms (e.g. 'lol', 'btw', 'brb'), slang, and visual communication such as emojis, gifs and memes. These elements are widely understood among users, who can then disregard grammar and syntactic rules. Emojis increasingly replace verbs (e.g. ' this' for 'I love this'), while gifs often substitute for entire sentences, expressing emotions such as happiness, irritation or sarcasm. The distinction between formal and informal tone barely exists in social media. Emojis and colloquial expressions regularly appear in texts that are intended to be formal. In languages such as German, which distinguish between formal (Sie) and informal (du) pronouns, younger generations increasingly choose the informal, regardless of social status or context. Punctuation has also taken on new functions. declined noticeably, resulting in simpler and less formal sentence structures. Comparisons of student papers written on the same topics ten years apart reveal that contemporary work is often significantly shorter, suggesting reduced depth of written expression. This raises an important question: what comes next? Will social media continue to drive the development of language shortcuts and is this process reversible? New linguistic developments should be approached critically. Encouraging research, verifying understanding and exploring the etymology of words can help to ensure languages retain their richness and depth. Notes 1 See, e.g, Di Marco, N et al (2024) 'The Evolution of Language in Social Media Comments'; https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.11450 32 The Linguist Vol/65 No/2 ciol.org.uk/thelinguist OPINION & COMMENT … social media use is driving down students' language skills JOANNA BIERNAT In my opinion… Double or even triple punctuation marks are frequently used for emphasis, as are capital letters: 'He could not do THIS!!!' We also see English vocabulary dominating interactions among users of other languages. Research on social media language use points to growing concerns about erosion, particularly in terms of grammar and syntax. 1 My own observations as a teacher support this concern. Many students demonstrate a limited vocabulary, especially when using adjectives and adverbs to describe people, situations or experiences. Repetition and over-reliance on a small selection of words seem to have become the norm, as if young people are gradually starting to lose their ability to use sophisticated vocabulary. Social media has become a new form of encyclopaedia and a fact-checking tool. Consequently, the language used strongly influences students' vocabulary choices, sentence structure and tone. Written and spoken communication appears shorter and more fragmented. Verbless constructions are increasingly common, as in: "Exhausted. Too much study!" The use of relative clauses has Dr Joanna Biernat-Sowka MCIL is a linguist, tutor and researcher who works for a multilingual tech company. TL © SHUTTERSTOCK/DRAZEN ZIGIC

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